The Awakened City

by Victoria Strauss

  But this day had been different. Till then, he had simply passed through the world; this day, he had laid his hand upon the world in change. He had brought down a mountain. He had killed a king. And he had seized that act, which might have undone him, and turned it to his purpose. He had made anger part of the pilgrimage, and retribution—just as he had wished, just as he had planned. The punishment, the true punishment, had begun.

  He heard again the thunder of destruction, saw again the hills’ slow collapse. The memory filled him—even him—with a kind of wonder. The annihilation of Thuxra City, a shaping so great that he had not been able fully to conceive it except in the doing, was almost like a dream; it had seemed possible that it was a singular act, born of grief and desire, unrepeatable. He knew now that was not so. No force of this world could touch him. Even the poison drug manita he could turn aside.

  See how constant I am, rata. See how faithful.

  Had his enemy, Gyalo Amdo Samchen, been watching when the hills came down? If not, he would hear of it. He would hear of it, and know. It gave Râvar a fierce satisfaction to imagine it.

  There was a rustling in Axane’s corner of the tent, then a low cry. Râvar turned in time to see Axane bolt upright amid her bedding. For a moment she stared at the night—blindly, her mouth open as if in horror. Then she began to weep, great soundless sobs that shook her like invisible hands. She bowed her face, clutched at her hair.

  Parvâti, woken by her mother’s distress, began to wail. When Axane made no move to tend her, Râvar got up. With far more effort than he had needed earlier to entomb the Exile dead, he unmade their cage. Its walls, less than the thickness of a hair, produced only the smallest puff of sound and light as they disappeared. He lifted the screaming baby, the adeptness of habit compensating for the clumsiness of his hands, and positioned her against his shoulder in the way she liked. She howled and struggled for a moment, then hiccuped abruptly to silence.

  “Axane,” he said. “Axane!”

  She was rocking back and forth, her hands still wound into her hair. He hesitated, then reached to touch her shoulder. She jumped as if arrow-shot, and turned on him a face so contorted he barely recognized it.

  “Axane.” It shocked him. “What is it?”

  “I dreamed—I dreamed—” She gave a great gasp. “Of Refuge.”

  It was always Refuge when she woke weeping in the night, or so she claimed. Once, wincing with the memory of his own dreams, he had said harshly: Are you sure it’s not your soft life in Ninyâser that you dream of? She had looked away from him and said, with such sadness that he found, suddenly, that he did believe her: I wish it were that.

  “I’m sorry to wake you.” She hitched a breath.

  “Go back to sleep. I’ll take Parvâti.”

  She nodded. She had begun to shiver, long shudders that shook her from head to toe.

  He returned to his bed. Against his shoulder, Parvâti was already dozing again. Carefully he lowered her to the pallet. She grew heavier by the day—he would not be able to manage holding her for much longer. He lay down next to her, his back turned on Axane, propping his head on his outstretched arm. Gently he touched the soft skin of her neck, brushed the curling hair from her forehead. Her lashes made dark crescents on her cheeks. Her jade green light flared emerald-bright where it intersected his.

  My flesh, he thought, with the amazement that never seemed to dim. Mine.

  Parvâti stirred, made a small sound. He rested one hand gently on her little chest, feeling her pulse under his fingers. He brought his breathing into time with hers. Outside in the night, the beast breathed, too, a vast susurrus driven by the beating of two thousand hearts. But he was lost in the rhythm of just one, and did not hear it.

  20

  Sundit

  IT HAS BEEN more than four weeks since I last wrote in this journal. Since I recorded what I saw in the Dracâriya hills, I have lacked the heart. Of our journey to Baushpar there is little to tell, in any case; and though the days since our arrival have been eventful, I’ve found myself reluctant to relive them by committing them to paper.

  The monastery was farther than I thought. We might not have found it but for a shepherd we met, who sent his son with us as a guide. We left Cas the secretary there, and rode for Baushpar, passing through Ninyâser only a few days after Santaxma’s funeral. Blasphemer some might have named him, but he was also much beloved; mourning cloths hung from nearly every house, and many of the streets were still strewn with flowers and prayer ribbons from the funeral cortege. According to the Palace, his body was too injured to lie openly in state. The corpse the people saw, wrapped in burial cloths, could not possibly have been his—no remains could have been recovered from beneath all that rock. It’s said that he was caught in an earthquake while passing through the Dracâriya hills—on his way to Darna to take stock of the unrest in the south, according to some (the official reason given for his journey), and according to others, riding to intercept the man claiming to be the Next Messenger. I suppose it’s not surprising that the whole truth is not known, given that any members of Santaxma’s retinue who survived the collapse were too far back to see what really happened. As far as I’m aware, the only eyewitnesses were Cas and my men and I.

  Of Râvar’s approach, the reports we heard were equally conflicting and confused, with opinion evenly divided between those who feared apostasy and those who dismissed those fears as rumor. When we paused at the ratist complex to reunite with Drolma and the Tapati, I told the administrator the truth and urged him to take his people out of the city. I hope he will obey.

  We reached Baushpar five days ago near nightfall. A driving rain was falling; the outlying streets were all but deserted. Beyond the walls, in the old city, the air smelled of wet and charcoal smoke and incense, and from all quarters came the sound of temple bells, ringing evening services—holy Baushpar, as I remember it from so many lifetimes, going about its business as if nothing in the world had changed. As if nothing in the world ever would.

  The keeper of the Sunfall Gate nearly fell from his watch post in shock when he saw me, and for the first time (stupidly, I suppose), it occurred to me that my spirit-siblings—to whom I have sent no word all this long time, not even of my desperate flight back to Baushpar, for no courier could have bettered the pace to which I forced my people—might think I had come to harm. Cold and weary as I was, I longed for my own chambers, for a hot bath and the linen of my bed. Instead, I dismissed my Tapati—all but Reanu, who refused to leave me—and hastened to Hysanet’s apartments. Her guards were as amazed as the gatekeeper, but better at concealing it. We waited in her anteroom while one of them went to fetch her. She came quickly; when she saw me she checked and clapped her hands over her mouth.

  “Do I really look so bad, Hysa?”

  She ran to throw her arms around me, even soaking wet as I was. “Oh, Sunni!” She pulled back. “Why didn’t you let us know you were coming?”

  “Hysa, right now you are the only one who knows I’m here. I need to talk with you.”

  “Of course.”

  She led me to one of her inner rooms and left me. After a little while she returned, with dry clothes and a pair of servants carrying a brazier and a tray of food and drink. She dismissed the servants, then drew up a cushion and waited as I stripped off my sodden garments and put on what she had brought me.

  “I’ve been so worried, Sunni,” she said as soon as I sat down. “All this time, not knowing for certain where you were or what you were doing—why didn’t you send word?”

  “Tell me,” I said, pulling the tray toward me, “what you know of the events at Dracâriya. Of Santaxma’s death.”

  A strange look came across her face. “You know Vivaniya has returned?”

  “I do. And I know what he has told you.”

  She nodded. “After he spoke to us, Dreamers were assigned to dream the … the claimant
. They were watching as he approached the hills. They saw the disaster, the hills’ collapse.”

  “Did they see the cause?”

  “There is … uncertainty.” She laced her fingers together on the low table between us. “The interpreters can’t agree on the meaning of the symbols. And there are many things we don’t understand. It has not officially been said that the King went to meet with the … claimant—oh, I don’t know what to call him—”

  “Call him a pretender. For that is what he is.”

  Her round, pretty face went still. “You don’t agree with Vivaniya, then.”

  “Did you think I did? Did Vivaniya tell you I did?”

  “Not … in so many words. He said you were invited to remain as a guest, and that you agreed. We took it—many of us took it to mean you had accepted him.”

  Ah, Vanyi, I thought.

  “We assumed you were traveling with him. Is that not true?”

  “No, Hysa. I was with the King.”

  “The King? But—”

  “Hysa, I promise I will tell you. Tomorrow I intend to call a meeting of the council, and relate everything I saw, everything I learned. But right now I need to prepare myself. I need you to tell me all that has happened since Vivaniya returned. From the beginning.”

  She sighed. “He got back little over two months ago. He did not wait an hour before calling us to council—he said everyone must come, even the spirit-wards, even Magabyras, who was ill and had to be brought on a litter. The moment I saw him, I knew what he would say—he looked … transported, like someone burning from the inside. He had with him several of the … claimant’s followers—”

  “What?” I had not known of this. “What followers?”

  “Five men with prison scars around their necks. You can imagine Kudrâcari’s reaction! They call themselves the First Faithful, and say they were there when the … claimant came out of the Burning Land. They stood at Vivaniya’s back while he swore that the man in the foothills of the Range of Clouds is the Next Messenger, the true Next Messenger, rata’s own. Oh, Sunni, there was such an uproar! Everyone was shouting. Kudrâcari and Okhsa cried blasphemy. Ariamnes declared that Vivaniya had gone mad.”

  “What did Taxmârata do?”

  “He let it go on for a time, as he always does. Then he commanded us to silence. Vivaniya continued …”

  He told them more or less what he had told me in the Awakened City; there is no need to write it out again. Hysanet did not look at me as she spoke, staring instead at the glossy tabletop, on which she traced small circles with her forefinger. I had already guessed she did not believe, but by her tone and actions I saw that neither had she stepped all the way into disbelief. She is an equivocator, my Hysanet; it is too easy for her to see all sides of a debate. In other incarnations it has set us at odds, but not in this one. I trust her above most of my spirit-siblings.

  “Vivaniya said he made an oath to this man. That he yielded his authority as guardian of the Way of rata. Is it so, Sunni?”

  “Yes.” At some point during her account I had lost my appetite. I pushed away my rice bowl.

  “He says it is a judgment.” She was still tracing circles. “He says we failed our duty when we refused to believe the apostate Gyalo Amdo Samchen, and now are no longer fit to rule.” She closed her hands into fists and looked up at me. “Sunni, it seems to me he had no right to make such an oath, even to the true Next Messenger. Our father gave us guardianship of the Way. Forever and for all our lives. It isn’t in our power to cede that trust.”

  “Nor would the true Messenger demand we do so. Hysa, who accepts Vivaniya’s claims?”

  “Baushtas and Artavâdhi for certain. They swore their faith at the beginning and have not wavered. Possibly Vimâta and Haminâser. They haven’t said so, but that is my feeling.”

  It was much as I had expected. “And the others?”

  “Kudrâcari, Ariamnes, Okhsa, and Martyas have been staunch from the start that Vivaniya allowed himself to be beguiled by an apostate Shaper, who may be either a deliberate blasphemer or a madman, but is certainly an imposter. Dâdar has been almost entirely silent—”

  “As well he might be, given the part he has played in this.”

  “But I have no doubt he stands with Kudrâcari. Taxmârata will not commit himself, nor will Magabyras. Vivaniya is angry—he seems to have expected us all simply to accept his word without debate. We have had council after council, Sunni. We have interrogated Vivaniya’s guards, and the men he brought back with him, the First Faithful. We have argued till we are all sick with it. But the lines were drawn at that first council, and have not shifted.”

  “And you, Hysa. What do you believe?”

  She was silent, staring again at her hands, which she had unlisted and laid flat upon the tabletop. “Vivaniya swore that the … claimant wears the true Blood.”

  “Yes. It’s so.”

  “But if that’s true, how can—how can—”

  “How can I swear he is false? And if he is false, how can he have the true Blood? There’s a reason. I promise you’ll know it.”

  “At Dracâriya … I told you that there’s disagreement among the interpreters as to what their Dreamers saw. Two of them read the symbols as a natural event. But the third swears his Dreamer saw … the claimant … bring a great shaping on the hills. Most of us have dismissed that interpretation. No one has ever heard of an apostate Shaper with such power, and the Next Messenger … why would the Next Messenger do such a thing? But Vivaniya … Vivaniya declares that it is punishment, rata’s punishment for Santaxma’s blasphemy in desecrating the Burning Land.”

  “Ah, the fool!”

  Her eyes rose to mine. I saw her doubt as clear as words.

  “Hysa, this man is an unbound Shaper, just as we first thought. He did bring down the hills. And it was Santaxma’s own arrogance that wrought his death, so perhaps in that sense it is punishment. But there’s no divine purpose in what happened. None. I swear this on my lives.”

  For a moment she watched me. Then she sighed and nodded. “I trust you, Sunni. If you tell me it is so, I will accept it.”

  “Where do the Dreamers place the pretender now?”

  “South of Ninyâser. There has been … unrest. In Abaxtra there seems to have been some sort of riot between his followers and the townsfolk.”

  I felt a chill pass through me. “Has any thought been given to emptying Baushpar?”

  She frowned. “Emptying Baushpar?”

  “Hysa, a vastly powerful unbound Shaper with a large train of followers approaches our city. Now that the King is dead, there is no one to oppose him. Whatever you believe about Dracâriya, surely those of you who haven’t accepted him must see the danger.”

  “But Sunni, this is the holy city! Even the Caryaxists honored that. Surely we have nothing to fear?”

  Would I, in her place, knowing as little as she knew, have reacted as she did? I don’t like to think so, but I cannot be certain. I let it be.

  We talked for a little longer. I asked about Utamnos, and decided to leave him with her for another night rather than disturb his sleep. She told me of the conflict in the Lords’ Assembly regarding the succession: Many want to crown Hathrida, but the queen is pressing for regency in the name of the little prince, and apparently she has considerable support. Taxmârata has issued a proclamation against the regency, an action I approve—Hathrida is not his brother’s equal, but he is the better choice. Arsace must have a strong ruler if it is to remain united. “It is one of the few things,” Hysa said, with very un-Hysa-like bitterness, “on which we’ve been able to agree these past two months.”

  We made our farewells at last, and I sought my chambers, Reanu like a shadow at my heels. I dreaded the possibility of meeting any of my spirit-siblings, but apart from servants we saw no one. The Evening City is so huge, and so few peo
ple inhabit it; even during its busiest hours, silence fills it up like water. That night, perhaps because I was so tired, I seemed less to walk through its great light-filled spaces than to swim.

  At my door, I turned to Reanu. “Go to your quarters. Get some rest. Send someone else to guard my rooms.”

  He stiffened. “Old One—”

  I shook my head. “We are home now. There’s no need for you to lie across my threshold. Go.”

  His face was fierce. For a moment I thought he would not obey. Many mortals, having saved the body-life of a Daughter of the Brethren, might pardonably grow proud, but with him it is the opposite. It is as if saving me has burdened him almost beyond bearing, and the only remedy is to watch me every moment.

  “Great is rata,” he said, angrily. “Great is his Way.”

  “Go in light.”

  He strode off, upright as a tree. I admit I felt a pang—it has become habit, having him close. More than habit, if I’m honest.

  I woke my servants, producing surprise and joy, and got my bath at last. I lay in it for a time, missing Ha-tsun, who would have rubbed the ache from my head and made tea the way I like it. I gave orders that no one be admitted, not even my spirit-siblings, and went to bed.

  In the morning I sat down at my writing desk to compose thirteen summonses, one for each of my Brothers and Sisters who sit in council. I sealed them with my seal, then went to my library where Drolma, clean and rested, her scalp freshly shaven, was waiting. I sent her off with the summonses, and she returned an hour later to report that the task was done, the summonses delivered not to aides or servants but directly into the hands of the recipients. Word travels quickly in the Evening City. None of my spirit-siblings expressed surprise to receive a communication from one who, less than a day earlier, they had imagined was half a land away.