The Awakened City

by Victoria Strauss

  Once on the road, he quickly came to regret his decision. Parvâti was a delight; she was an extraordinarily good-natured child, easy to please, rarely fussing or out of sorts. But Axane’s closeness in the coach was unbearably awkward and unpleasant; and it was torment to lie next to her in the dark, tempted by her soft breathing and her restless colors to acts he could deny his body but was powerless to stop himself from imagining. At such moments it seemed that he, not she, was the one being punished.

  As often as he resolved to abandon her, however, he changed his mind. It would be cruel to separate Parvâti from her mother, he told himself, and he did not wish to be cruel to his daughter. He did not want to explain to Ardashir why he had banished the woman rata had supposedly charged him to protect, especially after he had gone to so much trouble to fetch her. Nor was he prepared to deal with the issue of finding one of his followers to tend Parvâti, who, though she was mostly weaned, required care he could not manage with his damaged hands. Those reasons seemed sufficiently compelling; if there were another, he was not prepared to admit it.

  Slowly, with time and habit, it grew easier. The task of keeping Parvâti amused during the long hours in the coach gave them a frail expanse of common ground. Also, Axane was so diligent in her efforts to please him, never complaining, obeying all his instructions without hesitation—even when, as he had sometimes amused himself by doing in the beginning, he gave her orders that were cruel or stupid, such as making her sit without a cushion on the coach’s hard wooden seat, or hold his water cup all day without drinking herself. As a matter of practicality, he began to accept some of her offers of assistance, in matters that were difficult for him—arranging the bedding, packing up and laying out his clothes, braiding his hair.

  He was not foolish. He did not mistake her compliance for a change of heart. He had not forgotten—would never forget—how much she had once kept hidden behind the quiet face she showed the world. She’s not to be trusted, he reminded himself each morning, each night, each time he allowed her to help him. When he slept and when he left her, he never failed to imprison her.

  He returned to the room with the clothes he had removed and dropped them in the chest. He laid the Blood of rata atop them, then took the sash Axane offered him and wrapped it around his waist, letting her knot it for him. He went again to sit on the bed.

  “Give her to me.”

  Axane scooped Parvâti up and set her in his lap. She was a year old, too heavy for him to lift with his crooked hands. He wrapped her in his arms and pressed his cheek against her hair, breathing in her warm familiar scent. She did not want to be still today; she wriggled against the confinement of his embrace, babbling nonsense syllables with such conviction that it almost seemed he should understand her, and yanked at his braid, which had fallen forward over his shoulder. He smelled burning again: his hair, which had absorbed the village’s charcoal stench.

  “Undo this tie for me, would you?”

  Axane unfolded herself from the floor, where she had arranged herself neatly on her knees to await his will, and came to unwind the cord that held the plait, leaning close enough that for a moment he was fully enclosed within her lifelight.

  “Shall I wash your hair for you?” she asked. “You can dry it by the brazier.”

  “No,” he said, as he usually did when she offered anything that would bring her close to him for an extended time. Yet he felt the temptation, like the pull of sleep—not the sexual temptation that sometimes wracked him when he lay awake at night, but simply the desire to be cared for, to be touched. He recognized the unwisdom of it, even as he drew a breath, and said, “On second thought, yes. That would be good.”

  “Come, little bird.” She came close again to lift Parvâti away. “You must play alone for a little while.”

  He watched as she settled their daughter among the toys he had made her, rings and sticks and little stone figures. “You never call her Parvâti.”

  “Yes, I do.”

  “Do you wish she still had that ugly name?”

  “She’s always been my little bird.” Axane got to her feet. “Ever since she was born. Fill the basin for me, would you?”

  He shaped more water, agitating its patterns to warm them. Bracing his hands on the lacquered surface of the stand, he bent low and closed his eyes. She gathered up his hair and dropped it into the basin, scooping water to massage his scalp. Her touch was sure and gentle. He yielded to the pleasure, and in that loosening found a memory: his mother, washing his hair just that way when he was a boy. He could almost smell the odor of the herbs she had used. It was rare that such remembering brought anything but guilt and grief. But today, in the recaptured sense of his mother’s tenderness, he found something gentler and more sad—something that for once had no anger in it.

  “Lift your head.”

  He did. She twisted his hair into a rope, wringing it out, then wrapped it in the same cloth he had used to dry his face and hands.

  “Shall I comb it for you?”

  It seemed quite natural to say yes.

  He sat down on the matting. Axane knelt behind him and pulled away the cloth, so that his hair tumbled over his shoulders, its wetness soaking through the fabric of his tunics. He was inside her light again; the air before him shaded meadow green and sky blue, the colors shifting with the fluidity of water. Gently, she began to tease through the tangles, first with her fingers, then with a comb. He yielded to the tugging, his eyes half-closed. Nearby, Parvâti banged two of her wooden rings together, commenting to herself in her unintelligible baby language.

  “Where did you go today?” Axane asked.

  He called himself back from the brink of sleep. “A village. One of the proselytizing bands met resistance there and burned it to the ground.” From the start he had talked to her freely about such matters. She knew everything he had done and why, even his entombment of the Daughter Sundit. At first it had been to goad her, part of his plan of punishment. Slowly it had become something else. It was more relief than he liked to admit to speak the truth to someone who understood it, even if her understanding carried judgment. He was able also to ask her the questions he did not want to ask Ardashir—elementary, foolish questions about the many things of this world he did not understand or recognize. It was she, in Ninyâser, who had explained locks to him, cooperating in her own imprisonment. “Ardashir wanted me to see it.”

  “Why?” The comb slipped from crown to waist.

  “I’ve told you why. He wants me to forbid the bands.”

  “What did you tell him?”

  “What he needed to hear.”

  “You’re good at that.”

  Râvar pulled a little away from her. “What do you mean?”

  “You always know what to say. What to do.” She reached after him; the comb whispered down his back. “And he believes, they all believe, because they love you. They truly love you, Râvar.”

  But you don’t.

  She gathered his hair in her hands and smoothed it, then resumed her combing, stroke after slow stroke. He sank into the rhythm of it. His limbs were warm and heavy. His eyes fell closed.

  He came to himself, drifting up from sleep like a swimmer. He was lying on his back. The matting was hard under his body, but he felt profoundly comfortable, warm and cushioned, as if he were swaddled in soft quilts. Distantly, he could hear Parvati’s babbling.

  He opened his eyes. The ceiling hung above him, the artificial patterns of its construction netting the natural patterns of the pine boards that composed it. He turned his head and saw Axane. She knelt by him, very close; she stared down at him, her lips parted, her face, usually so shuttered, strangely open and uncertain.

  His breath caught. Lying by her at night he had imagined forcing her, humbling her, as in the Burning Land. More recently, in the changed atmosphere between them, he had sensed that if he reached for her she would yiel
d. That was no better: A false surrender was hardly different from a coerced one. But at that moment, in the way she looked at him, it seemed to him he saw something different.

  Desire seized him. Every fiber of his body, the very blood inside him, seemed to flash into flame. He lifted his hand, meaning to set it against her cheek.

  She did not move or pull away. But her expression changed. Infinitesimally; and yet he saw it, and read the message of aversion there. As abruptly as it had taken him, his arousal vanished. He let his hand fall and sat up, pulling away from her.

  “Râvar—”

  She did not continue. He saw a falling in her face, a kind of acceptance, then a smoothing, like a curtain dropping down. She let out her breath and got to her feet, bending to retrieve the basin, which for some reason was sitting on the floor beside her.

  “I was just emptying the water into the pots,” she said, and went to put the basin back in its stand.

  He got to his feet. He felt angry, and bruisingly stupid. This was what came of letting her touch him—this confusion, this loss of guard. He had actually fallen asleep! With the door unbarriered! She could simply have gathered Parvâti up and walked away.

  Why didn’t she?

  He stepped roughly around Parvâti and retrieved his boots, stamping into them barefoot, then took the Blood and seized another of his rich robes and left the room. He turned to block the doorway. Parvâti was crawling after one of her toys; from the stand that held the basin, Axane watched him, her face unreadable. The heat of humiliation rose into his cheeks, burning nearly as hot as his desire had; rage throbbed below his breastbone, though he could scarcely tell if it were for her or for himself.

  He laid the shaping across the door. He pulled on the robe, settled the Blood around his neck. Then he went downstairs.

  “Ardashir,” he called to the First Disciple, sitting with his men in the kitchen. “I will speak to the faithful. Arrange it.”

  Ardashir sent some of the Twentymen to announce a ceremony. The rest carried Râvar to the town’s central plaza. He waited in the palanquin while the faithful gathered. At Ardashir’s word he emerged, wrapped in his usual cloak of light. With typical forethought, Ardashir had drawn up a cart so Râvar could stand above the level of the gathering, and arranged wooden boxes and a table into a sort of stairway, so he could ascend with dignity. The faithful shouted when they saw him, a deep, pulsating roar. The eleven Twentymen who had accompanied him—an excessive number, it seemed to Râvar, but Ardashir had insisted—ranged themselves along the cart’s front, legs apart, staves braced before them. The plaza was packed from edge to edge; the day’s delay had given more of the straggling City time to catch up, and Râvar thought there must be near five hundred pilgrims present. Lifelights shone from every window of the surrounding houses and even on the roofs, where people balanced precariously on the tiles. Many brandished candles or flaring torches. Others held up banners bearing the Messenger’s symbols: the open eye surrounded by a circle, the coiled spiral, the hand slashed by a scar, the hexagon centered with a flame.

  The shouting went on and on. Râvar had to raise his arms at last to call for quiet. Even then, it was some time before it fell.

  He spoke to them of the deeds of the march. Named by the names Ardashir had invented, they did indeed sound glorious. He spoke to them of what was to come: Baushpar, the Brethren’s acknowledgment, his investment as the leader of the rata’s wakened Way. He spoke to them of the wonders of the new primal age, into which he would escort them. For the first time in many weeks the words came to him as they had in the beginning, and he felt the living bond that linked him to his followers: his power, their surrender.

  It was near evening when he began; it was full dark when he finished. He shaped trinkets for them and stood watching as they jumped and snatched for them. Mine. He felt a rush of fierce emotion. They are mine.

  He turned, trailing veils of light, and descended from the cart, ignoring Ardashir’s upheld hand. “Ready!” Ardashir called to the Twentymen, assuming Râvar meant to get back into the palanquin; it took him a moment to realize that Râvar was moving in the opposite direction.

  “Beloved One!” He ran to catch Râvar’s arm. “What are you doing?”

  Râvar shook him off. “I will go among them. As I always do.”

  “No, Beloved One! They are not—this is not—”

  But Râvar was already amid the crowd. They pressed aside to let him through, falling away from him like leaves; he saw the adoration in their faces, the wonder. Slowly he advanced, as he had during a thousand other ceremonies, holding out his hands so they could view his scars. Behind him, he drew a wake of quiet.

  “Light be on you, children.” He reached out, touching faces, hands, shoulders, bestowing jewel points of brilliance. “Peace be on you. Holiness be on you.”

  “Beloved One,” they murmured. “Merciful Messenger.”

  He was deep among them. A young woman in a green dress seized his hand and pressed a hot kiss into his palm. When she released him another, emboldened, imitated her. Behind him, someone touched his hair. Fingers plucked the fabric of his robe, tugged at his sleeves. They were no longer falling away from him so readily. He thrust out his hands to part them; a forest of eager hands reached back. A man seized his fingers and did not release them when he tried to pull away, dragging him off-balance; he staggered and might have fallen had not a dozen pilgrims seized him by the arms and shoulders. Instinctively, he wrenched away. At once his hands were grabbed again, his arms stretched in opposite directions.

  “Messenger! Beautiful One! Walker in Light!”

  They were not murmuring now, but calling, clamoring for his attention. His shoulder joints cracked; he strained backward against the tension but by then they were gripping not just his hands but his wrists and forearms, and he could not get free. His robe was dragged tight over his chest; he heard the sound of ripping as seams started to give way. Someone seized a handful of his hair and yanked his head back, hard. He felt a searing pain in his scalp.

  Animal panic burst within him. He shouted, knowing it only by the tearing in his throat, and flung out his shaping will as another man might have flung out his arms to ward a blow. There was a burst of light, a huge concussion. It hurled the faithful back like chaff.

  In the echoing silence, Râvar stood trembling. Around him spread a ring of empty space. Beyond it, pilgrims lay like felled timber. Some were motionless; some struggled dazedly to rise. Those still on their feet were transfixed with shock. The glowing watchers in the windows and at the roofs were still.

  Then Ardashir cut through, and the Twentymen, laying about them with their staves, striding across the fallen faithful without heed to whom they trampled. They reached Râvar and closed around him, shoulder to shoulder, a ring of protection.

  “See, you fools!” Ardashir shouted at the silent throng, his orator’s voice cracking with fury. “See what you have wrought! From this day, he will not come among you again!”

  He took Râvar’s arm. His grip was like a vise; Râvar, shaking violently, was grateful for the support. “Go,” he said, and his men obeyed. Still silent, the crowd fell back to let them through.

  Râvar sat shaking through the jolting journey to the house. His mind was strangely blank. At the house, Ardashir pulled back the door of the palanquin and assisted Râvar out, up the steps, inside. He did it all without a word. Once the door was closed, he turned on Râvar like a striking snake.

  “What were you thinking of?” he hissed. “What possessed you?”

  The stinging aftermath of panic twisted easily into an answering anger. “They could not have harmed me.”

  “Are you mad? They nearly tore you apart! Look! Look at this!” He snatched at the torn sleeve of Râvar’s robe, ripping it entirely off. He tossed it aside. “And this!” He pointed at Râvar’s forehead. “They made you bleed! They made you bleed
!”

  Râvar touched his forehead, looked at his fingers. Ardashir was right. His anger vanished; he felt suddenly as if he might faint.

  “You are too heedless, Beloved One!” For the second time that day, Ardashir’s self-control was in utter disarray. Behind him the Twentymen watched, horrified. “I’ve told you and told you, those who follow you now are not like the pilgrims in the caverns. You cannot simply go among them any longer. Beloved One, you ignore my counsel in other things, but in this you must heed me! You cannot do this again. Say you will heed me. Say you will heed me!”

  “I’ll heed you, Ardashir.”

  Râvar’s easy acquiescence seemed to catch Ardashir off guard. He was still fumbling for a response as Râvar turned away. On the first stair, Râvar stumbled; Ardashir leaped forward, but Râvar flung up his arm. “No. Get away.”

  He managed to get up the stairs without faltering. In the dark front chamber, with its narrow children’s beds, reaction overwhelmed him, and he sank shivering to the floor. He experienced the hands again, the avid pulling. There was a throbbing where unseen fingers had yanked his hair. He touched the wetness on his forehead, followed it to the source of the pain: a bloody hollow in his scalp. Whoever it was had not simply pulled his hair, but wrenched out a hank of it at the roots.

  He felt the empty echo of his shock. When he stepped among them, it had not seemed any different from the ceremonies in the caverns. He tried, but could not reconstruct the process by which their mood had turned.

  I was never in any danger, he told himself. And yet there had been that instant when purely human terror had overwhelmed him, and he had struck out like any ordinary man to defend himself. In memory, he traveled back to the earliest days of his deception, to the first time he had ever gone before his followers and seen how they might tear him into pieces. It had been a long time, very long, since he had thought of that. Since he had had any sense that they could truly touch him.