by Ben Peek
The cartographer began to speak again, but Se’Saera’s hand rose, and he was lifted from the ground and thrown backwards. Bueralan, barely able to move, dropped his good hand from Taela’s and began to search for a sword or a dagger. He could find none and he felt panic set in. Worse, he could not move quickly enough to free Taela from his weight, to give her a chance to run, and the woman who held him understood too late that the green-eyed gaze was on her and on the leather pouch around her neck.
Bueralan landed heavily on the ground, his body jarring with pain as Se’Saera grabbed the other woman and raised her to a standing position.
‘The Mother’s Gift,’ she said, her hand curling, touching the pouch. ‘That is what they call it here, is it not?’
‘Yes,’ Taela whispered.
Bueralan’s good hand reached out for Se’Saera’s leg, but a boot landed heavily on it and ground down hard until bones splintered.
‘I have heard much about the witches in Ooila,’ the god continued. ‘They make an elaborate ritual of their skills. They draw the soul from its small piece of glass or stone like a dog lured by a piece of meat. They trap it in a cold bottle to sit and wait for the blood of a pregnant woman to be dropped into it. Then it is drunk, and it finds the little vessel in the womb, and it takes hold with such violence that it kills the child waiting to be born. But do you know that none of that ritual is needed?’
She snapped the leather cord.
‘Please, I—’ Taela’s voice faltered into a whisper. ‘I’m not pregnant.’
‘You don’t need that, either.’
And as Bueralan cried out, as his note of objection tore from him more painfully than her name had, Se’Saera took the crystal from the pouch and crushed it in her hand. She raised it to Taela’s mouth and, with deliberate slowness, forced her fingers between the other woman’s lips. She pushed open Taela’s jaw, using a strength that no person could hope to match. Then she pushed her hand deeper into Taela. She did it in such a way that the violation was not just about the cruelty, but the enjoyment of that brutality. It was an act of pleasure and power and dominion over a human being who could not respond equally. Bueralan tried to raise himself off the ground to stop it, but Aela Ren’s boot left his hand and planted firmly on his chest. He could do nothing but watch as Taela resisted swallowing. As she held her breath. As tears streaked down her face. He watched as Se’Saera’s other hand closed over her nose to suffocate her, to force her body to accept the soul of his blood brother.
She held it there until Taela gasped desperately for breath. At that moment, Se’Saera’s palm fell flat against Taela’s mouth, and she forced the broken shards of the crystal down her throat.
Bueralan turned away, unable to watch the violation further. His bloody eye focused on the scarred face of the Innocent and saw the immortal man, the man who had known the gods of old so intimately, watch the new god intently.
The Inevitability of Responsibility
Her question, ‘Do you know who is lying to you?’ – the question that is phrased through her priests – is more insightful than she realizes.
—Tinh Tu, Private Diary
1.
Nale began to crack as the pillar beneath it started to splinter into Leviathan’s Blood.
Zaifyr watched as, in a mixture of pain and anger, Eidan climbed to his feet while the ground shook. Jae’le’s cloak fell from his shoulders, revealing the horrific wounds that were across the left side of his body. He began to say something to Aelyn – ‘You know he . . . This not the way . . .’ – but the words were slurred and Zaifyr was not sure what he said. When it became clear that he could not stand, when Aelyn, her face beginning to crumple in sorrow, moved towards him, Eidan curled his right hand into a fist and punched into the stone at his feet. The ground shuddered again, but this time splits began to emerge beneath Zaifyr’s feet. As if they were the shadows of birds passing above, they rushed past him and widened into fissures that opened under the Keepers. The fault lines went beyond them too: they tore down the wall and gate of Aelyn’s house and ran into the streets beyond.
As the ground shook again, Aelyn rose into the air. She lifted her Keepers with her, just before the northern half of Nale sagged. The stone beneath Zaifyr took on sudden and deliberate tilt. Frantically, he reached the lip of the break, intent on jumping across the gap emerging between him and Jae’le and Eidan, when a sudden wind knocked him off his feet.
Zaifyr fell backwards. He slid down the steepening incline, but regained his footing by angling his body flat and using his feet and hands to brake. He achieved that without any injury, but he knew that Aelyn’s attack had not meant to injure him. It had only been intended to throw him away from his brothers and in that, he knew, she had succeeded. Ahead, he saw Jae’le’s cloak rise into the air as the wind began to form a series of dark funnels around where he and Eidan stood.
Zaifyr began to move. He knew that once Aelyn had grabbed Eidan – as she would, even if his brother had rejected what she said – she would turn on Jae’le.
Behind him, he heard Aelyn’s house groan and, a moment later, stones scattered across the ground as one of the towers toppled. Yet, when he turned towards it, to make sure that the distance between him and it was adequate, it was not the splitting house that caused him concern, but the sight of two of Se’Saera’s creatures making their way towards him. The first held the large two-handed mace that had done so much damage to Eidan.
He still could not sense the dead properly. His power was returning, but not enough that he could have the dead catch the ugly mace that was hurled at him. Instead, he ducked beneath it, but the tilt of the ground took him off balance, and he slid across the stone, closer to the pair. It was the second of the two, the lean creature with bone spikes on its shoulders, that rushed him as he tried to regain his balance. The bones, Zaifyr saw, were taken from humans and had been nailed into place against the creature’s shoulders; similarly the chains that had been wrapped around its hands had been attached with long spikes that pierced wickedly through its skin. He saw that very closely as the hands came within millimetres of landing on him, and would have done on a second attack, had not an albatross ploughed head-first into the creature’s back.
The giant dark-winged bird was the first of a dozen that came in low and fast along the tilting land of Nale. Their long sword-like beaks were levelled like spears and their sharp claws followed.
They did not stop to aid Zaifyr, but instead continued up the growing incline of stone, before disappearing over the ledge in answer to Jae’le. The sight of them did not reassure Zaifyr: they were nothing more than a token of what his brother could have once summoned. Yet it was also true that the sheer size of the birds and the violence that could be rendered by their beaks and claws would provide some distraction. Already, Zaifyr could hear shouts from the Keepers.
Before him, the lean creature tore the broken-necked albatross from its back and casually tossed it aside. Behind it, the larger one picked its ugly mace up from the ground.
On instinct, Zaifyr reached out to the haunt of the albatross. The dead bird appeared before him, clearly in confusion, and its thoughts were so alien, so strange, that for a moment Zaifyr felt his control of it slip; but as the two creatures closed in, the ghost of the bird erupted into the air in a sudden burst of broken white colouring and began tearing into the skin of the lean creature, ripping at the wounds it had already made. Roaring, the creature dropped to the ground, but Zaifyr could not watch its attempts to stop the bird’s attack.
He ducked under the heavy swing of the large creature’s mace. In a snatching motion, Zaifyr reached out at the creature’s chest and snagged the cold haunt within. He was trying for the Leeran soldier, but with his power still struggling to return after the feedback from the child’s naming, he had to rely upon a physical motion to help direct his attack, and he caught the ancient dead within. The cold thing snarled and pulled back, the strength it had threatening to break his hold—
Its sudden plunge into Leviathan’s Blood thrust Zaifyr into the creature as they both hit the water. In a fury of churned ocean, he lost sight of the stone floor plunging downwards and could not see the creature he still gripped. He could taste the bitter salt and felt the harshness of the water against his skin, scalding it. He tried to quell his panic, but he did not know how deep he was being dragged, only that he was indeed going deeper, caught in the wake as half of Nale plunged. In desperation, Zaifyr put his feet against the creature’s chest and pushed – only to feel its hand grab his calf and latch tightly onto it.
Afraid that he would be dragged down to the ocean’s floor, Zaifyr snapped hold of the ancient dead with his power. Its form twisted beneath him, and the physical hand tightened, looking now to break the leg it held. Zaifyr tore the ancient dead towards him, trying to rip it not just from the body it was in, but from the blood ties that secured it to the Leeran soldier. The ties held the two of them in strained conflict as they sank deeper and deeper, the black water rushing past in a depthless oblivion. The creature did not want to give way: to do so would leave it in the landscape dominated by Leviathan’s Blood, and while one of the ancient killers from the Plateau might well wish for but a drop of blood to hit his or her prison in the dirt, the blood of the Leviathan was not what it desired. The remains of the god treated no human with kindness. It was in that black prison that Zaifyr left the ancient dead after he tore it in bursts of white from the body of the Leeran soldier. Its cold hate raged at him as he kicked free of its chest, but it could do nothing to stop Zaifyr’s desperate rush to the surface.
His legs ached with the strength it took to challenge the pull that the sinking parts of Nale left in its wake. He could see very little, but was dimly aware of more stone plunging into the water. The echo of it in the water left him concerned that another piece of land might be falling above him. He almost changed direction when the downward drag of the water lessened. Had he become disorientated and started to swim in the wake of the destruction? That fear exploded through him when he felt stone, and if his hand had not broken the surface a moment later he would have stopped his ascent.
Instead, he pulled himself out of the water at the feet of Kaqua, the Pauper.
2.
‘You should take him with you,’ Caeli said quietly.
‘No,’ Ayae replied, her voice also hushed, as if she believed that they might be overheard, among the sound of voices, the cries for help, the demands to know what was going on. ‘Let him help with the evacuation.’
Behind her, the shattered smile of Sin’s Hand leaked light onto the road. Inside, a handful of men and women pored over a map of Yeflam, while the blue-armoured Yeflam Guards stood in a circle outside, responding to individuals and directing crowds. It was not what Ayae had expected to happen when she and Caeli stepped out of the brothel, intent on chasing down the still-burning figure of Eira; but after a handful of steps both had staggered beneath a rushing wave of raw power, and in its wake, Ayae and Caeli had felt the name Se’Saera thrust upon them. Ayae had vomited on the ground, harder hit by the wave than the blonde woman, and when she raised her head, Xrie was standing before her.
He watched her intently without saying a word. At his side, his sword remained in its sheath, but Ayae became slowly aware of the fact that his armour was scratched and gouged, that the blue in his clothes was torn and stained, just as the lower half of his face was, leaving him with the appearance of having feasted on another. Beside her, Caeli had begun to draw her sword, but Ayae’s hand had fallen on her shoulder. ‘No,’ she said, even as, from the darkness behind him, two dozen Yeflam Guards emerged. ‘He’s not here to fight.’
‘You really want to take that risk?’ the guard asked.
‘You’re not here to fight, are you?’ she said to him.
‘No,’ Xrie replied roughly. ‘I am not here to fight you.’
Her hand had tightened on Caeli’s.
‘I will not abandon my soldiers,’ he continued, taking a step forward. As he drew closer, he revealed an ugly bandage around his throat. ‘I will not see them killed by Se’Saera’s beasts. I will not see them sacrificed, just as I will not see their families killed. I will not betray their trust.’
‘Betrayal of your peers, but not your country.’ From behind her, Lian Alahn emerged from the narrow alley next to the brothel. He was covered in dust and cobwebs, having taken a passageway that Sinae told Ayae later was rarely used, even by politicians who wanted to keep their reputations unsullied. Sinae followed Alahn and his guard, standing on one side of Lady Wagan, with the blonde woman whom Ayae believed was Sinae’s own guard, on her right. Alahn scowled. ‘I could almost applaud you,’ he added, ‘if I did not believe that you knew full well of the attempt on my life.’
‘Spare me your indignation, Mister Alahn.’ The Soldier turned and indicated for one of his soldiers to come forward. In his hand, he held a cloth sack, its end stained darkly even in the night. ‘You are a man of opportunism and I have never had time for such men. However, what is taking place on Yeflam now goes far beyond you and the petty politics you peddle. If you doubt me, you need only ask a friend of mine for his opinion on the matter.’
The red-bearded head of Fiel, the Feral, rolled out of the sack.
A moment later, the first of three quakes shook Yeflam. The head shifted and rolled past Alahn. The Traders’ Union official ignored it as he tried to keep his balance, only to fall when the second quake moved the ground. Finally, the head came to rest at the feet of Lady Wagan.
She picked it up by its red hair a moment before the third and strongest quake shook Yeflam. Without so much as a false step, the Lady of the Ghosts held the head and walked past Alahn and Ayae. ‘You do as I say,’ she said to Xrie, ‘and we will save as many people as we can. After that, we will march on Se’Saera and take our retribution for all that she has done.’
Xrie did not reply immediately and Ayae, her hand dropping to her sword, believed that he would deny her.
‘Agreed,’ he said in his damaged voice.
Ignoring Lian Alahn’s loud protests, Lady Wagan led the Soldier into Sin’s Hand. In the wreckage of the bar, she had a map of the artificial country laid out and began to plan the evacuation. Ayae lit the candles and lamps in the room, and once she had finished, she saw that Alahn had entered. He was not lending his voice to the plans and did not until Ayae stood in the doorway, preparing to leave. Now the Yeflam people had begun to flood the dark streets: their cries for help filtered through the conversation and planning of movements. In the distance, Ayae could hear shouts and screams – worse, she heard the sound of stone breaking, as if the whole of Yeflam was groaning in pain. Her gaze turned in the direction of Nale, and she thought of Zaifyr.
The night had been bright when she first stepped out of the door in pursuit of Eira, but the light had come from the bodies of the dead. She had seen that light in Mireea after Fo and Bau died and she could still remember the chill when one brushed against her. If she closed her eyes on the step of Sin’s Hand, she could picture the ghosts of Mireea along the cobbled roads. She could see the haunted look that they gave her as they passed, a look that mixed envy with desire. The darkness that she stared at now was far more troubling. In it, she saw only tragedy, and her mind conjured images of Zaifyr lying dead beside Jae’le and Eidan.
‘You don’t have to go,’ Caeli said, her voice still soft. ‘He would not expect it.’
‘But he would do it for me,’ she replied.
The guard grunted, but she had seen the same bright sky Ayae had. ‘Try to stay safe,’ Caeli said to her. ‘I don’t want to have to come looking for you.’
3.
‘After you were released from your prison, I asked your sister why she accepted your freedom.’ The Pauper spoke casually from the broken piece of stone he sat upon, his faded robes drawn about him in a mash of sodden colour. ‘You had destroyed he
r home just as you had destroyed mine, after all. Do you know what she said?’
Zaifyr rose slowly to his feet. He ached: his skin felt as if it had been scalded, and the effort of swimming up had left his muscles burning. His clothes were heavy with water that irritated his skin, but they had been torn as well. The ancient dead had done that, and it had ripped handfuls of charms off him as it did. No doubt they drifted through the ocean, where they would come to rest on the floor of Leviathan’s Blood. But what he had lost was replaceable.
As a light rain began to fall, he gazed at the ruins around him and admitted that what he saw might not be so easily replaced either.
Nale was split in half.
The northern half of it had fallen into the black ocean. Eidan’s punch through the ground had broken the huge pillar that held it. It had also spread destruction to the cities that surrounded Nale. The bridges had gone first, it appeared. Even in the night, Zaifyr could see how a tremendous weight had been put on them, as they struggled to hold Nale aloft. When the bridges had given way, the force by which they were wrenched into Leviathan’s Blood, the strength that tore them out of the stone fittings, was so powerful that the pillars that held up the other cities had cracked. He could see that the edges of Fiys and Maala had already begun to sag, and he could hear the grating of stone, as if it were the groan of the living, as it struggled to remain upright. Voices – in shouts and screams – filled the night to accompany it. They joined the cries that came from the churning waves of Leviathan’s Blood, from the people who clung to pieces of wreckage and who were terrified by the water that they were in.
‘She said,’ Kaqua continued, after it became clear that Zaifyr would not reply, ‘that she did not resent a dog its nature.’
Behind the Keeper, the Enclave slumped, half its walls broken to reveal furniture like the innards of a giant, while its end pointed towards the Mountains of Ger.