The Awakened City

by Victoria Strauss

  Ardashir had not been beguiled. His rigid prejudice would not allow it. “He is a blasphemer!” he spat, after the King’s emissaries had come and gone. “You cannot trust him. It’s a trick.” But he had said much the same about the Son Vivaniya. And if Vivaniya of the Brethren could acknowledge Râvar, why not the King of all Arsace? If it were true, it was too good a chance to miss. Râvar did not abandon caution—he had agreed that sentries should be posted along the length of the encampment. He had encased himself and his people in a box of stiffened air similar to the one in which he confined Axane. Still, when the attack came, for just an instant he had been surprised.

  You knew the forces of this world would be arrayed against you. You knew it.

  Judgment, Ardashir had said. Of course he, who hated the King for his desecration of the Burning Land, would see it so. But would Râvar’s faithful agree? Might this be the error, the act that would undo his followers’ belief? It had been a long time since Râvar had feared such a thing. Or even thought of it.

  He picked up the cup and took another cautious sip. This time the water tasted good, and he downed the rest. Then, carefully, he got to his feet. If he did not move too sharply, the pain was bearable. Dust shook from his clothes. He was not just weary, but drained; he could feel the hollow his great release of power had made in him, not the utter depletion that had crippled him after Thuxra, but deep enough that he knew it would require effort even to summon a garment of light. The Blood of rata, burning on his chest, would have to do.

  He stooped through the opening of the tent, past the two Twentymen on guard. The air was chilly, alive with breeze currents. Above the hills the sky still flamed with sunset, but beneath them it was already twilight. The radiance of grass and brush spread pale on either side of the black river of the road; to the south, both the lightless stone and the glimmering vegetation were obscured by the massed brightness of the Awakened City. Ardashir stood waiting, with two more Twentymen, and a dirty boy with tangled hair and his arm tied in a sling. They bowed low as Râvar appeared.

  “Beloved One,” Ardashir said. “This is Narser, who helped drive off the Exile soldiers.”

  “Beloved One,” Narser bowed again. Within his throbbing topaz aura, his face was pinched with exhaustion. “I praise rata for your safety.”

  “Tell me what happened, Narser,” Râvar said.

  Narser cleared his throat. “My fire mates and me have a camp near the end of the line. A bit past noon, we heard … a noise, a big booming, like thunder. The ground shook. We thought it was an earthquake, and got up out of our shelters. That’s when we heard the horses. Riders, coming up from the rear—thirty of ’em, more or less, armed and armored.”

  “The King’s men,” Râvar said. The fresh air was helping; the pounding in his head had eased.

  “Yes, Beloved One. They had Exile colors. We saw you’d been betrayed. We grabbed up our sticks to fight ’em off. Some of us had bows or knives, but some just used tent poles, iron pots, whatever they could find. We shouted your name as we fought, Beloved One. You’d’ve been proud.”

  “There were two other companies, Beloved One,” Ardashir said. “Also toward the rear. Part of a larger force, possibly, meant to come on us if the attack on you had succeeded. Perhaps those horsemen did not realize it failed.”

  “Don’t fear, Beloved One,” Narser said. “If any return, we’ll send ’em running.”

  “I’ve doubled the number of sentries, Beloved One,” Ardashir said. “We will not be surprised again.”

  “Treachery,” Râvar said softly.

  “Treachery,” Ardashir repeated, in firm tones.

  “Treachery.” Narser nodded.

  “You fought valiantly, Narser, you and your fellows. Come, I will give you blessing.”

  The boy approached and fell to his knees, turning his face up like a child. Râvar spoke a few words; then, gathering himself, he set a point of fight on Narser’s forehead. It was not as difficult as he had feared. He gave Narser his hands to kiss, then turned to Ardashir.

  “I’ll go among my faithful now.”

  Night had fully fallen. The fires and the lifelights blazed against the darkness. The pilgrims flocked to him, sinking to their knees or falling on their faces, plucking at his clothes, entreating his attention. He dispensed blessings, bestowed sparks of light. The City was much larger than it had been; he knew that not only from his own observation but from the census Ardashir contrived to keep even amid the confusion of the journey, recording new arrivals, noting those who deserted or fell by the wayside. The new recruits believed as fiercely as the older ones, plunged as eagerly down the slope of their own damnation. Yet their devotion was not quite the same. Their fervor was bolder. They crowded closer, begged more brazenly for favor. Râvar was glad of the Twentymen, who used their staves to thrust away those who grew too persistent—something that had never been necessary in the caverns.

  Toward the encampment’s end, he began to come on pilgrims who had participated in the fighting. Many of the fire bands, the families and pseudo-families into which the faithful had gathered themselves in the caverns, had endured along the journey; each group built its own encampment at night, sharing food and blankets and such shelter as they had. Now each group tended its own fallen. There were arrow wounds and sword cuts and limbs crushed by the Exiles’ horses. Ardashir, with his usual extraordinary preparedness, knew where they all were, and guided Râvar from fire to fire. Every wound had a story; where the injured man or woman was unconscious, their fire mates told it for them. Râvar listened. He praised. He laid his crooked hands upon the hurts and entreated rata for healing. When they asked him why such a terrible thing had happened, he told them, sorrowful, that the edge of the world’s doubt had at last been turned upon them. It was the first of the trials he had warned them they would face.

  The dead were past the final fires, ranged in rows, as void of light as the inanimate stones on which they lay. Here Râvar paused. How long had he been walking? His limbs felt porous with fatigue. His headache pulsed behind his eyes.

  “This is a sore sight, Beloved One.” Ardashir laid a bandaged hand on Râvar’s arm. “You need not go farther.”

  But the First Disciple was wrong. At Râvar’s back the faithful massed. Many had risen from their fires and followed him through the camp. He could hear their muttering; he could feel their expectation. His progress would not be complete until he blessed the dead.

  He started forward. There was no moon. The radiance of the pilgrims and their fires was behind him, and the light shed by the living hills did not illuminate the road. Where the corpses lay it was so dark that he and the Twentymen burned like stars, and even Ardashir’s dim colors seemed bright. Someone, Ardashir no doubt, had caused the dead to be decorously arrayed, legs together, hands folded, eyes weighted closed with small stones. Many seemed almost to be sleeping. Others showed dreadful hurts. There was the stench of blood and bowel, and there were flies—not veils of them, as in Râvar’s nightmares, yet horrible enough.

  He walked among the bodies, murmuring blessings, stooping to bestow beads of light. Rising from the last slain pilgrim, he saw that there were more dead, lying just off the road, stripped and tossed together like sticks.

  “Beloved One,” Ardashir said. “Those are the dogs that attacked your people.”

  Râvar halted before the tangle of limbs. He was so far past exhaustion he could no longer feel it; it hardly seemed to be his own will that moved him. He raised his hands, realizing as he did that he was encased in light—illusion, though he could not remember summoning it. From somewhere, words came to him.

  “See now,” he called. “See what waits for those who harm my children.”

  He thrust the harsh fingers of his shaping into the soil, into the rock below. Pattern surrendered to his will. The earth groaned at its roots; blue-white lightning turned night to day. Then the light
was gone, and so were the Exile dead. A crevasse gaped where they had been, black as an inkblot at the side of the road. In the chill of the night, it exhaled a deeper cold.

  Judgment.

  Râvar turned, trailing brilliance, and strode back toward the waiting pilgrims. Instinct filled him, pure and certain, as it had the first time he had ever preached to the First Faithful. Before the Awakened City, the living City, he stopped. His attendants hurried up behind him.

  “People of the Promise.” The faithful were a scintillating wall across the road. Many were on their knees. Others reached toward him, or made the sign of rata. He felt the wind of their desire: Lift us. Transform us. Give us certainty. “I told you before this journey began that you would march not just in joy but in sorrow. Today that sorrow has come. Today you felt the scourge of the world’s ignorance. Today you grieve, and I grieve with you.”

  They murmured. They wiped their cheeks of tears.

  “Today, my children, my people, I, too, felt the harsh sting of betrayal.”

  They swayed in shock. They hissed in denial.

  “Not far from here the hills lie broken. And under them … under them lies Santaxma, who was the King of this great land. It was I who broke the hills. It was I who made his death.”

  Confusion now. Bewilderment. He felt the change, like a shifting of the wind. Still they waited on his words. Tell us this has meaning, their attention begged. Make us understand. He felt the edge on which he danced—on which he always danced, though he rarely tested his balance so severely.

  “Yesterday the King sent emissaries to our City, begging me to come to him and speak of rata’s rising. Now, this King was a blasphemer, for like those who came before him, those men and women who called themselves Caryaxists, he defiled the sacred ground of my father’s resting place, dug copper from its soft red skin, wrenched gold and jewels from its secret depths. Yet any sinner may repent and turn toward the light. How could I, the bearer of my father’s word, refuse even a blasphemer’s call?”

  They listened, wide-eyed, openmouthed, rapt.

  “So I went to this King, this Santaxma. In joy I went to him, with my father’s word upon my lips. In love I went to him, with my father’s mercy in my heart. But he did not give such treasures back to me. No, children—it was murder he intended. In his faithlessness, he desired to destroy this flesh I wear, to disperse the fire of my spirit and silence the truth that I have come to give the world.”

  Gasps. Cries of horror.

  “You see me before you, children! His betrayal could not touch me! It was he who felt the sting of it, his own foul act turned back against him. I stood amid the poison meant to overcome me, I stood before the arrows meant to pierce me, and I brought my father’s judgment down. Like a fist I brought it down! The hills split. The rock fell. The very air shattered with the thunder of it! You heard it, children. You heard the thunder. You felt the ground shake beneath your feet.”

  “Yes!” they cried. “Yes!”

  “Judgment is a fearful thing, children. I grieve for what I was forced to do this day, in answer to Santaxma’s treachery. But I am my father’s instrument. I am his word, and his word must prevail. This I say to you—whoever turns on me, whoever turns upon my faithful, shall reap that same judgment!”

  Such a shout they raised, as if to bring down the hills a second time. He flung wide his arms, sweeping light across the night.

  “You are the people of the Promise! You are the righteous, the faithful, the first of the new age! You came to me as pilgrims, but now you are summoned to be warriors. There will be more days like this one. You will be called again to defend the truth. That truth must be given as it will be understood—what the world turns on you, you must turn back on it, measure for measure. For kindness give kindness, for mercy offer mercy, but for betrayal, for cruelty, mete out the same! This is my word, children! This is my father’s will and mine!”

  They were falling to their knees, reaching toward the sky. He saw the ecstasy in their faces: they, who knew what the world did not and so were better than the world. Their adoration seized him, tossed him beyond himself, so that he seemed to see the gathering from on high, a river of light upon the glowing land, himself a white-hot star. But even as he achieved that transcendent vision he was falling, collapsing back into his own exhausted body. He sensed the emptiness that waited for him there; as often happened when he spoke with such power, the torrent of inspiration had dried up as suddenly as it had come.

  “Return to your fires, children. I will rest, too, then we will march on. In my father’s name I give you blessing. Go in light!”

  “Great is rata!” they thundered. “Great is his wakened Way!”

  “Ardashir,” he said softly to the First Disciple. “Help me.”

  Ardashir slipped a bandaged hand beneath Râvar’s elbow, gripping him in a way that disguised Râvar’s need for the support. If it were painful to his wounded palms, he did not complain. Slowly, too slowly, they made their way up the line. Not all the faithful had followed Râvar through the camp; there were many who had not heard him speak. But those who had would tell the rest. By morning, every pilgrim would know what he had said. It would become scripture, too, written by Ardashir’s scribes from Ardashir’s dictation.

  At the tent Ardashir reached for the flaps, intending to assist Râvar inside. The Twentymen who guarded the tent were not permitted to enter; only Ardashir had ever seen its interior, where Axane and Chokyi waited in their prison—though of course he did not recognize their confinement, for it was not visible to ordinary eyes. But Râvar kept these incursions as infrequent as he could. Now he pulled away.

  “Thank you, Ardashir. I can manage.”

  “Beloved One, is there anything you need? Anything I may fetch for you?”

  “No. I just want to sleep.”

  Râvar stooped toward the entrance, but his unsteady legs betrayed him, and he stumbled. Ardashir sprang to grip his arm again.

  “Beloved One, let me sit by you this night, as I did in the desert. You need care.”

  “I have care.”

  “The woman?” Something that was not exactly anger came into Ardashir’s face. “When I carried you into your tent unconscious, Beloved One, she sat in the corner and did not stir to help me.”

  “She saw that you were with me. She did not wish to usurp your place.” Again Râvar freed himself, more gently this time. “Thank you, my faithful Disciple. Good night.”

  Inside the tent he fell to his knees. Axane and Parvâti lay in their corner, asleep. Tipping forward onto his crippled hands, he crawled to his bedding. He rumbled off the heavy necklace and pushed it beneath a fold of blanket. Lying down made his headache worse. Even as he was thinking it would be impossible to sleep, he slid into unconsciousness.

  He woke with a gasp. He had been dreaming, images that vanished in the instant of waking.

  He lay on his back, his bedding tangled around him. The pounding in his head had diminished. He felt voided, as if after a violent sickness, utterly hollowed out. It was fearful in a way to be so empty, yet at the same time strangely restful.

  Outside his tent, the Awakened City slept. He imagined he could sense its breathing—the gathered breath of all those souls, a heaving and subsidence that seemed to stir the earth itself. Often, when he lay awake at night—which he did with growing frequency, for since leaving the caverns he had been much afflicted by sleeplessness—he was aware of it this way: not as a dense throng of individuals, but as a single entity, a huge hunched beast. He had never suffered from such fancies in the caverns. But in the caverns, he had been separated from his faithful by great thicknesses of rock, and had been able to escape them whenever he chose. On the journey he was concealed by nothing but a stretch of fabric—or, in daylight, by the thin wooden walls of the coach. And he was never away from them, not for a single moment of a single day.

&nb
sp; On the morning the Awakened City marched out across the steppes, he had felt the most exalted, blazing certainty—the long months of waiting over, the great work begun at last. He was not a fool; he had not expected such euphoria to last. He had known the travel would be difficult and unpleasant; he had understood that to lead upon the road would not be like ruling in the caverns, where all was circumscribed and controlled. Still he had not expected to find it so tedious—the endless hours in the jolting coach, the nightly provision for the faithful, the monotony of the administrative and logistical details that Ardashir insisted on bringing to his attention. Nor had he thought to be so oppressed by the unfamiliar patterns of this world. It had been very difficult during the first days to bear the confinement of the coach, and in the towns they had entered, which were not like anything he had ever known or even imagined, it required all his self-control to hide his confusion and distress. Refuge, like any city, had been fabricated by human hands; but it had existed within the natural matrix of the sandstone cleft that contained it, and because of the nature of Shaper stoneworking, everything had been curved, arched, rounded, flowing. In this world, the habitations were all sharp edges and harsh angles, cramped spaces and incomprehensible structures—so painfully alien sometimes that they actually made him feel ill.

  It won’t be like this forever, he told himself. Every day we get a little closer. Closer to Baushpar. Closer to judgment. Closer to vengeance. Yet the progress was so slow, and the days so similar, that sometimes it was difficult to believe. Sometimes he felt he was simply drifting, without plan or purpose. Sometimes he imagined that the dead river of the road secretly and malignly rolled itself forward every night, so that every day he traveled the same stretch of it.