The Awakened City

by Victoria Strauss

  Perhaps it really is that simple. An immense weariness swept over me. I bowed my head. I did not even know he had risen, cat-silent as he is, until I felt the air move, and looked up to see him sinking to his knees before me. From the inflexible mask of his tattoos his eyes looked into mine, vital and alive. Carefully he reached out and took my hands in his.

  “I serve you, Old One,” he said softly. “As long as my body has breath, I will be with you. I swear it, by the woken god.”

  His grip was light, as if I were very fragile. He has touched me before—to assist me, to protect me—but never like this. It is not his place, not the place of any mortal. Still, he reached out, a mortal man, reached past the immortal Daughter to the mortal woman that I also am. It caught me utterly off guard. For the second time this day tears rose in my eyes, spilled down my cheeks.

  We sat like that until I mastered myself again. Gently I freed my hands. I admit it: I did not want to let him go.

  “Thank you, Reanu.”

  He nodded, his arms once more folded beneath his stole: the perfect guard, the perfect servant.

  I returned to my bedchamber and finished this entry—even, for the sake of the full memory record that may mean nothing now, this last part of it, which perhaps would have been better left unwritten. It’s very late, and there will be much to do in the week ahead. I must try to sleep.

  All day there has been a tightness in my chest, the breathlessness of some feeling or perception I have not quite been able to identify. I think I recognize it now. It’s the pressure of dwindling time, the desire to catch back the moments as they slip away. Time, which was precious when I was mortal and grew cheap when I was transformed into what I am now, has become precious to me again.

  That is a strange, perhaps a wondrous, thing.

  21

  Râvar

  “HALT.”

  The four Twentymen who served as bearers lowered Râvar’s palanquin to the ground. The palanquin’s door slid back. Gray light rolled in, and raw air that smelled of smoke, as if somewhere nearby a fire burned. Ardashir, mantled in his shadowy aura, bowed.

  “Beloved One.”

  Ignoring the First Disciple’s extended hand, Râvar gathered up the skirts of his heavy robe—an offering from one of his wealthy followers, lavishly embroidered on the sleeves and hem with gold thread—and climbed from the palanquin without assistance.

  They were at the crest of a hill. Below, a long valley cupped a lake, its waters the same leaden color as the sky. On the near bank, amid a patchwork of brown fields, sat a huddle of dwellings—or what had been dwellings, for all were burned, some entirely consumed, others hollowed out, their blackened timbers jutting like snapped bones. The fires were long extinguished, the smoke long dispersed; even so, the odor of char was so thick that Râvar could taste it as well as smell it, acrid at the back of his throat.’

  He felt a surge of anger so intense it was like being struck in the chest.

  “Beloved One,” Ardashir said, “I do not know the name of this village, or even if it had one. There is no one now to tell us.”

  Ardashir had come to him that morning. There is something I would show you, Beloved One. When Râvar asked what, and why, the First Disciple put his bandaged hands together and said, in a tone of such intensity that Râvar knew it would be dangerous to refuse: Beloved One, I entreat you. And at last they were there, and Râvar knew exactly why, and also why Ardashir had not prepared him.

  He looked at the First Disciple, standing by him on the hill. How much courage did it require to stare so fixedly ahead, refusing his gaze? Much, judging by the tension of Ardashir’s jaw. Less, probably, than to trick Râvar into coming here.

  “Let us take a closer look.” Ardashir stepped forward.

  Râvar drew his robe around him and followed, as did two of the Twentymen. It was cold; bulky clouds leaned overhead, and Râvar’s feet sank into the ground, soft with recent rains. The trees were leafless, as if dead, though they still breathed the light of life—the brightest thing, apart from Râvar’s own lifelight and those of his companions, in all the dull landscape. The semblance of deadness was a natural part, in this land, of the turning of the seasons. In Refuge, living plants never dropped all their leaves, and the seasons varied only between hot and less hot, little rain and more rain.

  The stench of burned things was growing sickening. Râvar pulled the hanging sleeve of his robe over his hand and pressed it across his nose and mouth. His eyes picked out pattern: the conformations around the settlement that spoke of long use and occupancy, the probable path of the fire, the wood and stone of the houses and other buildings, still recognizable despite the char. In their ugly ruin, the structures were less displeasing to him than they would have been intact. Weeks of close contact had not softened his distaste for the places the people of this world made to live and work in, with their harsh angles and rough materials.

  At the foot of the hill a track straggled into being, widening as it neared the first of the houses. It was probably passable enough in summer, but at the moment it was deep with mud. Beside it the first corpses lay, six men sprawled in unnatural poses. Near their hands were weapons: staves and instruments with sharp wooden tines bound to the ends of long handles. The cold had delayed putrefaction, but predators had been at work, enormous black birds with cruel beaks that flapped up as Râvar and the others approached. Râvar felt his stomach lurch. One of the Twentymen made a gagging sound.

  “If you’re going to be sick,” Ardashir said without looking around, “do us the favor of going off to the side.”

  Enough, Râvar thought. He turned to the two men. “Leave us.”

  “Beloved One,” they said, bowing, and hastened to retrace their steps.

  Ardashir had halted by one of the corpses and was gazing down at it, his hands clasped behind his back. In Ninyâser he had indulged his taste for rich clothing, acquiring a wardrobe that filled two leather trunks; he looked like a noble in his elaborate fur-trimmed coat and gold-tooled boots, the neck of his brocade overtunic held with a silver brooch. Even his bandages were fine, soft white linen neatly wrapped and tied at the wrist, though the stains that marked them were the same.

  “This one,” he said, “is one of your faithful, Beloved One.”

  Râvar already knew that, for the man’s tunic was made of grass cloth. He took careful hold of his anger.

  “To what purpose have you brought me here, Ardashir?”

  “I wanted you to see, Beloved One. I have been telling you. But I wanted you to see.”

  “And now I’ve seen. What would you have me do?”

  Ardashir pivoted, and for the first time since they had arrived looked Râvar in the face. “Beloved One, I wanted you to know the darkness that has come to walk beside a journey that began in light. Here, before you in this place, is the thing I warned you of, the consequence of allowing your faithful to spread your word in so violent a way. Rumor of our approach precedes us. The people fear us, and have begun to prepare themselves. In this village, your followers met an armed militia. It drove them off, but they returned in greater numbers, and this is the result. Five of our people killed and fourteen wounded. Ten men of this village dead—or at least, ten who can be counted, since others may have been burned inside their houses. And all the villagers made homeless. I wanted you to see it with your own eyes, Beloved One, for I could never convey to you in words the darkness of what was done here.”

  “What of the darkness of denying rata?”

  “We don’t know that these people did deny him, Beloved One, only that word of your followers’ harsh proselytizing drove them to arm themselves, and so engendered greater violence. Beloved One, this can only grow worse. These things feed upon themselves—believe me, I know. And you will forgive me, but I must speak my mind—it is the coarse element of your following that is responsible, the debased men and women whom yo
u have all along refused to turn away from the Awakened City, and who came to you in such numbers during our sojourn in Ninyâser. These people do not follow you for the joy of rata’s rising, but because they wish to throw off the rule of law and run mad in the end times—”

  “How often, Ardashir, must I answer this argument?”

  “Beloved One.” On Ardashir’s face was the dogged expression that had grown much too familiar these past weeks. “If you will allow such people to come to you, you must accept the necessity of controlling them. I cannot do it for you any longer. The City is grown too scattered, too unruly. There are citizens now who barely know who I am, who refuse to bow to my authority. I have forbidden proselytizing groups like the one that burned this village—forbidden them in your name! Still they roam. Beloved One, I care nothing for blasphemers, but it should be rata’s fires that burn them, not ours!”

  “Do you forget what we have encountered on this march? The betrayals we have suffered? The violence turned toward us?”

  “It is one thing to destroy armies, to bring judgment on those who oppose you with treachery and the sword. It is another to burn villages and farmsteads, to riot in the towns. The Darxasa says—”

  “Do not dare to use my father’s words to chide me!”

  Ardashir’s mouth was tight. “Beloved One, I have begun to fear that I have failed my duty to you, for it seems to me sometimes that I have taught you to be too human.”

  Fury flashed like lightning. For a moment the edges of Râvar’s vision flickered white. He breathed deeply, summoning control. The moment of confrontation had been approaching for some time. For weeks Axdashir had been reporting incidents, uttering warnings, implying but never quite articulating a course of action Râvar had no intention of following: that he should order the Awakened City to stop ranging out across the countryside, making converts and punishing those who refused. It was time, and past time, that Ardashir understood.

  “Ardashir, I know why you brought me to this place, and also why you brought me as you did, without preparing me. You thought I did not understand your warnings. You thought, by showing me the truth, to shock me. You thought by shocking me to move me to forbid my followers to proclaim me in this way.”

  Ardashir was as rigid as a tree trunk. His face was expressionless, but the heat of his anger showed, just a little, in the flush across his cheekbones.

  “I will not forbid them, Ardashir. Shall I tell you why?”

  “Yes, Beloved One.” Ardashir’s lips barely moved.

  “It is true that you taught me to be human. But the anger that is in me now I did not learn from you. It was at Dracâriya I learned it, at the hands of the blasphemer King. And in this anger, which you judge too human, I came at last to understand my father’s wrath. My father is love and light. But he is also fire and judgment, and when he returns at the end of time that is the face the world will see.” Râvar stepped toward the First Disciple, his eyes trained upon Ardashir’s unyielding face. “Compassion is the Fifth Foundation of the Way, but it is preceded by Consciousness. I have said it before: My father’s word must be given, and it must be given as it will be understood. The world and all in it are dark with ash, and there are some who can only understand in punishment.” Another step. This time, Ardashir fell back. “So I will not tell my faithful they cannot defend themselves against those who threaten or refuse them.” Another step. Again Ardashir fell back. “I will not tell them to turn from treachery and attack.” Another step. “I will ask them to speak my father’s word with love—but if their love is thrown back into their faces, they have my leave to answer, to show my anger and my father’s. For as Dracâriya made clear to me, as the battles since have made clear to me, love is not enough!”

  Râvar halted. He had forced Ardashir into the mud of the track. The flush across the First Disciple’s cheeks had deepened; his hands were fisted at his sides.

  “Do you understand now, Ardashir?”

  Ardashir nodded once, stiffly, as if he did not trust himself to speak.

  “Don’t think,” Râvar said more gently, “that I do not grieve for what’s happened in this place, or that I do not see your pain. For the sake of the souls that were lost here, and for your sake, because you are my First Disciple, I shall make it clean. I shall take this darkness on myself.”

  Ardashir’s iron composure cracked. An expression of utter consternation came across his face. “Beloved One, I did not intend—”

  “Did you not?” Râvar said softly. “But you brought me here. What did you think I would do?”

  Their gazes held. Then Ardashir’s, slowly, slid away.

  “Go back to the others. I’ll do this alone.”

  “Beloved One.” Ardashir turned, like a man not entirely in command of his body, and began to climb the hill.

  Râvar closed his eyes, gathering himself. He did not want to do this. He did not want to walk among the dead, to forage among the ruins. But he had begun the charade. It must be played out.

  He approached the corpses. One by one he stooped beside them and set a bead of light upon each lightless forehead. He half closed his eyes to blur the sight of their wounds and the damage done by the birds, breathing shallowly against the stink of their decay. I’ve seen worse, he told himself. I’ve smelled worse. At least, because of the cold, there were no flies. Still, it was too much, much too much, like the terrible riverbank of his memory.

  He entered the village, firming the mud underfoot, unmaking the charred brick and timbers that blocked his way. To those watching from above, it would seem that light traveled before him, that each step created thunder. He went into all the hollow houses. He blessed more sprawled corpses. He blessed the bones he found amid the ash. He blessed even the carcasses of the animals. Ardashir had been right: Many people had died here. Many.

  At last he returned to the track. At the bottom of the hill, he faced the village once again. Throwing back his head and spreading wide his arms, he plunged his shaping will into the ground—deep loam and clay, the bedrock far beneath—and altered the patterns of its composition so that it quivered and liquesced. The impact rolled like a wave below his feet; blue-white brilliance lit the sullen afternoon. Softly, the ruins of the village sank and vanished.

  He shifted his will, bringing the patterns of the soil back to their proper form. Where the village had been, the ground spread as bare and brown as the winter fields. Apart from those, and the track, there was no trace of what had once existed here.

  Slowly Râvar climbed to his followers, waiting at the crest of the hill. The Twentymen’s faces showed the familiar awe, but in Ardashir’s was something different. As Râvar drew near, he started forward and fell to his knees. He seized the muddy hem of Râvar’s robe and bent low, pressing it to his face.

  “Beloved One.” His voice was muffled. “I am a blackened man. Forgive me.”

  Râvar looked down at him, feeling the floating weariness that always followed on a large expenditure of power.

  “Look at me, Ardashir.”

  Ardashir obeyed. His expression was naked. Tears stood in his eyes. Râvar dropped to his haunches. He reached out and took the other man’s face between his filthy, ash-stained hands.

  “You are my First Disciple,” he said, too softly for the waiting Twentymen to hear. “I will always forgive you.”

  He tightened his grip, digging his fingers into Ardashir’s temples. Ardashir dragged in his breath. Râvar released him and rose.

  “Come,” he said. “Let’s go back.”

  The palanquin was comfortable, with padded backrests and fitted cushions. It was the property of one of the nobles who had joined the pilgrimage in Ninyâser, who had been honored to lend it for the purpose of the expedition. Before stepping inside, Râvar had unmade the mud and soot that soiled his hands and boots and the hem of his robe; but somehow he could not quite banish the odor of char. It made
him queasy. In his mind’s eye he could still see the ruins, the bones, the corpses. As often as he pushed the images away they returned, as if he were still there, still walking.

  rata, but I’m tired.

  It was more than just the physical cost of shaping, more even than the raw exhaustion of his chronic sleeplessness. Since Dracâriya he had felt this way: tired, always tired.

  He had lain in his tent for two days, while the Awakened City tended its wounds and buried its dead. On the third day he rose and opened a passage through the fallen hills—an act that demanded less strength than the one that had made the destruction, for unmaking was the easiest of a Shaper’s arts, but difficult enough in his depleted state. He took care with it, creating a smooth, level thoroughfare between high rock walls, its curving proportions far more pleasing than the hard-edged road it replaced. The hills’ collapse might be ascribed to earthquake or some other natural event, but the thoroughfare could not be dismissed so: Even to those who did not believe in him, it was clearly the work of a great power.

  The Awakened City moved on. Below and just above the river Hatane, there had been many other travelers, but after Dracâriya the traffic dwindled, and later, as word of the City’s advance spread, it ceased entirely. In some of the towns and villages, Râvar was welcomed—as in the market town of Hâras, whose mayor was waiting to greet him, and stood behind him in the central plaza as he spoke to a large and curious crowd. He took many converts with him when he left. In other places he was shunned. The walled city of Abaxtra barred its gates against him; his angry followers clashed with townsfolk in the suburbs, leaving whole streets burning.

  A month after Dracâriya, as the pilgrimage drew near Ninyâser, it came upon a blockade, manned by several companies of Exile cavalry. Ardashir went to parley, and returned with the Exiles’ demand: Râvar was to surrender into their hands, and the Awakened City was to be dispersed. Mantling himself in light, Râvar alighted from his coach and approached the commander, who was waiting with several lieutenants. Either the rumors of Râvar’s power had not yet reached Ninyâser, or the Exiles had not believed what they heard. Their astonishment as they saw him was almost comical.