The Ruin of Angels--A Novel of the Craft Sequence

by Max Gladstone

  But when the Wastes struck, they struck hard. Hasim staggered first. His hand twisted in hers. He buckled, and Umar held him up. Izza felt the impact like a fist in her gut, like a knife in her arm, like a broken leg or a coal in her grip. She’d borne all those before, so she kept still, and fought.

  Silver monsters and corpse-snakes and things no language Izza knew could name climbed into their courtyard: the dead city’s demons, drawn by the smell of faith. Umar’s grip tightened, his focus shifted, and one of the courtyard’s chunks of masonry flew to bash in a corpse-snake’s skull, then struck a six-armed silver gorilla-scorpion thing in the chest. Izza heard a series of sharp pops, like a firework string, and fléchettes appeared, arrested, hovering, in a globe around them, stopped by the salt. One tiny razor hovered at eye level, burning red-hot as it tried to cross the enormous space the salt maze created. Momentum spent, it fell harmless to the courtyard stone.

  The rope of faith pulled, and this time Izza had no yardstick for the agony.

  In the cramping, aching wash, she almost missed a voice calling her name.

  She knew that voice. Isaak.

  Isaak, not distant, not praying, but Isaak here, banging on the door Umar barred.

  “That’s my friend,” she said, through gritted teeth.

  Umar: “A trick.”

  Sweat ran down her temple. She could barely speak through the agony. “Bullshit a trick. That’s my friend. He’s here.”

  “It’s not safe,” Hasim said. A spider-walker dawned over the eastern wall, huge and globular. Talon limbs tore roofing tiles free.

  “I think we’re a long way past safe.” No answer. Only pain. “If I go, can you hold up until I get back?”

  “I—” Hasim said.

  Umar said, “Yes.”

  And before Hasim could convince Umar otherwise, Izza slipped from their hands and jumped across the salt.

  The pain, instantly, got worse. The world outside the salt line rolled like a ship in a storm, and Izza’s experience of ships in storm tended to be from the shittiest part of the vessel. She kept her stomach, barely. Kept her footing at first, then didn’t. Tumbled. Some sort of revenant with turning blue gears in its eyes jumped her; she stabbed it in the side. It did not seem to mind, but at least the knife gave her a handle with which to shove it off. “Izza!” from behind the door, scared. Sounds of a struggle. She slipped out from under the revenant; a line of fléchettes tore through space in front of her; close one, she thought, diving into the shelter of the doorway, before she realized her cheek lay open and there was quite a lot of blood.

  Fuck it. Scream later.

  Grab the iron bar. Lift. Come on, Lady. I know You’re busy, but opening doors, this is what You’re for.

  “Izza?”

  “I’m coming!”

  The Lady tried to grip the iron bar, but it was iron, and iron didn’t like gods. She tried to make Izza strong, but some damn thing happened on the wall and all Her power slid out into Tara Abernathy. Behind the doors, screaming.

  Then the Lady laughed like Kai did when solving a puzzle, and popped the hinges.

  Izza danced back as the door fell in. Beyond, she saw Isaak, breaking the neck of a mantis wolf sort of thing three times his size.

  He landed in the dust, on his feet, bleeding. The mantis wolf fell beside him.

  Had they been alone, there would have been time for an apology, an embrace maybe, a joke.

  But they were not alone.

  The alley before the Temple of All Gods was full.

  Most were children. Street kids in rags, youngest around seven. Bruised, some. Some missing limbs, one or two blind, led by others. Among them, at their lead, in a rush of vertigo, she recognized the boy with the flowers, from the pier, with the scar on his cheek. He wore her blue disk around his neck, on a thin leather thong. And once she saw that, she saw the blue the others bore: a bead at the wrist, a shirt, a ring in ear or nose, a flash of tattoo on skin.

  Some were older: toughs and shy slender kids she recognized from the bars they crawled after Vogel’s meetings. They, too, wore the blue, and they were fighting, against the monsters of the old war.

  And the Lady was with them.

  She did not know what showed on her face. Something hot and wet stung her cheek, aside from, of course, the blood.

  “Did you think I was the only one?” Isaak asked.

  “They’re all—” She lost her voice.

  The kid with the blue stone around his neck knelt. To her. And others started.

  And she felt them join her: awe and faith, strength, loyalty. Joy.

  She caught the flower boy by the arm, and pulled him to his feet. “No. We don’t kneel.” He rose, awed. “Get inside. Jump across the ring of salt—don’t touch it. Go!”

  The kids ran past them, and Izza caught Isaak in her arms. He was covered with ichor. Izza didn’t care.

  “Thank you,” they said at once, and, as something exploded in the background, there was time for a smile.

  Then they ran.

  * * *

  Zeddig hung from the squid’s heart, beaten, bloody, and fought to care.

  Some damn chemist could probably name the drug cocktails flowing through her, but chemistry was less than half the game. Sounds below the edge of hearing worked inside her brain and told her to relax. The mask piped mother-smells, triggering instincts of receptivity and information acquisition ontologically prior to more developed notions like judgment. Accept us, they did not command. Never command. Only suggest. Offer. Present a framework for thought, fix a maze for the rats to run where every end is one you want, and you won’t even have to train them.

  She tried to hate the squid, the tower, but could not muster the will to hate. This did not hurt, exactly. She had been hurt, in the rush, in the fight. She had hurt herself, been hurt by others who wanted to protect the city and its people. She fought for her faction. The squid tried to keep all factions safe. A clear hierarchy applied. And at this moment, the squid fought harder than ever. Something was happening. Zeddig thought she remembered it being important.

  She tried to hate Bescond, pacing the chamber of the heart, flanked by Wreckers, barking orders. Bescond, who hurt her, Bescond, who chased Ley through the city, Bescond, instrument of empire. Bescond, who herself inherited a system, Bescond, who did the best she could with the world in which she lived, Bescond, who saw chaos and wanted order. She was a zealot in pursuit of that order, Zeddig’s jaw proved that, but—no, she could not hate Bescond.

  Could she love her? the squid asked.

  Zeddig refused to answer.

  She dreamed, and in her dream, the door burst open.

  Three women ran through.

  Gal, ten feet tall and shining, for Camlaan and glory. She loved Gal.

  Raymet, too, bleeding and short and fierce, knife and blasting rod drawn, at Gal’s side. She loved Raymet.

  And there, beside them, in black: Ley.

  Gods.

  Zeddig realized she was crying.

  Wreckers launched themselves at Gal; she swung one into the next, and drew her sword. She brandished it, trailing rainbows, and the world sang.

  Raymet and Ley ran across the room toward Zeddig, but Bescond stood in their way: tripped Raymet, and punched Ley in the face. Raymet rolled forward, came up, scrambling toward Zeddig, but Ley grabbed Bescond’s arm and tried to break it.

  Ley knew how to fight. She took classes, at university, and kept in shape. But Bescond had made her stripes enforcing arrest warrants in the Wings. She broke Ley’s hold, and buried an elbow in Ley’s stomach. When Ley folded, Bescond kneed her in the head. Ley stumbled, blinked, blocked the follow-up jab, and the cross, but she took the uppercut below her ribs. She staggered. Bescond moved in, but the stagger was a feint, and Ley caught her by the shoulders and they went down together.

  Good instinct. Dumb move. Bescond was stronger, more compact. She wriggled under Ley like an eel; Ley grabbed her jacket, pulled it back to trap the woman�
��s arms, but when Bescond flexed, the jacket split. The Lieutenant reached back over her shoulder and jabbed her thumbs for Ley’s eyes, and Ley head-butted her in the back of the skull, and they rolled.

  Ley was bleeding. Bescond almost caught her in an arm lock, then did. Pulled. Ley pulled back. Raymet had reached the squid, struggled with Zeddig’s bonds; one Wrecker lay at Gal’s feet, and Gal fought the second now, blade flashing—but more arms sprouted from the chamber walls to snare her.

  Bescond tugged harder. Ley’s arm gave.

  Zeddig could not hear the crack, but she felt it, as if the arm were hers.

  And she screamed.

  This was good, the squid told her. Painful, but good. We have priorities, in this world. Hierarchy. Some may suffer, briefly, to keep the city safe.

  Bullshit.

  Bescond moved her grip from Ley’s arm to her neck.

  This was wrong. Zeddig would not accept. She would die first. She would kill.

  A space opened between her and the squid, and in that space, Zeddig dove.

  She fell into the dead city as the squid’s world tore, and she dragged the others with her.

  She sprawled on a checkerboard tile rooftop. She should feel cold. Delving inside the tower—she should have died at once. The knife must be working, in the sky. No time to think. Zeddig scrambled across tiles. Everything hurt. Her leg did not work. How many broken bones? She didn’t care. Didn’t care about Gal, or the Wrecker she’d dragged through into the dead city, or Raymet.

  She forced herself to stand, and scraped across cracked marble to Bescond, who straddled Ley’s back, struggling with both arms against Ley’s one to crush her windpipe, break her neck. The Lieutenant had not noticed their fall. Her teeth were bare and bloody, and her hat had fallen. The squid-god at her neck pulsed joy into her blood.

  Zeddig hit her, with her full weight and her closed fist. A bone in her hand snapped. Something in Bescond’s face did too. Zeddig liked that. Balance.

  Bescond fell, and Zeddig fell atop her, and kept hitting her until she went limp.

  She collapsed, barely able to breathe, staring at Ley, who cradled her broken arm and clenched her teeth against the pain. Or was that smiling?

  “Don’t you have somewhere to be?” Zeddig asked.

  “I love you,” Ley said. “I had to come back.”

  “Yeah. But.” She pointed up, to the web in the broken sky.

  She slumped against the checkerboard tile. “My sister’s up there,” she said. “She can do it.”

  * * *

  Kai was losing it.

  There were too many voices. Scared, sad, loving, furious, resigned, they warred, these visions of the world. They were tearing her apart. She could not let them break her. She had to forge them to a single truth.

  To live was to decide. Each path killed worlds. Which to choose? Who to break?

  I have a few suggestions, a squid said.

  * * *

  On the beach of Alikand, ancient glass beasts from the God Wars charged onlookers gathered to see the Altus launch. A man screamed. Blood sprayed sand. But the glass beasts shattered as Aman flew among them, the angel of Hala, full in glory.

  In the Bite, where rambling alleys sheltered pockets of Alikand, a spider walker tore through an apartment block, until Haskei struck it in a cyclone, tearing limbs asunder.

  Where the dead city rushed into Alikand, angels flew to meet it. Lai toppled a tower of glass and eyes and teeth; Ko swept down into rippling streets to rescue a young man almost crushed by falling buildings. But they could not be everywhere at once. The Craftwork monstrosities Gerhardt called to being, they knew how to fight angels. Lai suffered the first great wound, as the wreckage golem gathered her into its flame, and exploded; she flew free, skin cracked, victorious and bleeding light. But each victory slowed them, and there were too many to save.

  They tried. Down generations they had saved themselves, gathered texts and argued timing and tactics. They feared the right moment would never come. They feared it would. And now, they fought, and soared, and spent themselves to save their people.

  And still, people began to die.

  * * *

  Kai lacked a Lord herself, so the voice was not in her mind—but it remained in the web all the same, a burbling immensity turning in the depths of this crafted nightmare, a rubbery ground of being.

  You see the chaos they create, it said. You see what happens when we let them work their will. People scream and die. They suffer—they cannot help but suffer. They cannot agree on names for roads. How could they agree on the foundations of a world? Only we can fix them. Only we can braid them whole.

  Hear the screams. Smell that child’s sweat as she flees the many-limbed horror of her history. Feel the heartbeat: a man runs home, fears his children lost. They all knew this day would come. The dead city would break through; the world would fail. They know, deep down, that this is what freedom looks like—and so, though they claim to yearn for it, they truly yearn for us.

  They’re tempest-tossed. They have made their own storm, and when the flood takes them, they drown.

  You cannot stop this. Let me.

  Fuck you, Kai told the squid. I can save them myself.

  She took the voices, and looked down upon the city, and began to decide.

  * * *

  Pain split Tara’s skull, and she staggered in midair as the world changed beneath.

  She let a screaming godlet’s body fall, but two more caught her from behind. Their talons skittered off the thin glyphs dyed into her suit in place of pinstripes. Coming back to herself, she cast the godlings off and shredded them, exploiting a weakness in their strange loops. A wave of gray struck her shield—and some splashed through.

  The shield hadn’t broken. Power still flowed from the Temple of All Gods. She was winning, dammit! This wasn’t fair.

  What else was new?

  What had happened, what (jaws formed of a god’s ribs snapped shut around her, but she splintered them offhand)—oh. The shield stood, in Alikand. But now the wards of Agdel Lex were breaking.

  We have a problem, she prayed.

  * * *

  On the roof of the Anaxmander Stacks Raymet saw Zeddig fall, and Ley, and Bescond, together. She knelt, herself, beneath an obscenity.

  A cold wind blew from the Wound. She did not, at first, look up. She kept her eyes to the ground, and would have prayed if she had any god to hear her.

  Across the rooftop, Gal tossed the Wrecker into space. She radiated glory. Smiled like a storm front. She was not looking at Raymet.

  She was looking up.

  Where the gray flesh pillar of the tower’s heart had been, in a wrongness in the sky, there stood a man. He was dark-skinned and white of hair and beard. He wore a gray suit, and there were no eyes in his sockets, but fire. His teeth were bare, and he clutched one hand to his side.

  Maestre Gerhardt. The first master of the Craft, who had destroyed half a continent in the infancy of his power. Always dying, never dead.

  Broken angels and impaled gods and snapped girders and chips of stone orbited him. Space warped and rippled, and time ran strange.

  Another shape shared the center of the chaos: a woman in a suit, holding a blade driven to its hilt through the man’s ribs, piercing his heart.

  But Gerhardt would not let himself fall. He would fight forever. He would kill all who came before him. And Gal’s Queen had sent her into the world to die.

  Gal was already running, blade raised, toward the Craftsman. Who stood, crazed in his dying moment, unable after a hundred fifty years to let himself fail. Who could kill Gal in a heartbeat, and she would die happy, quest fulfilled.

  And Raymet would lose her.

  No.

  She threw herself into the dying Craftsman’s storm.

  * * *

  Izza’s mind was a mess of prayer.

  —Just bottle the Waste-gods somewhere else—

  We can’t, Hasim shot back. There’s no othe
r choke point.

  I’ll fight them. Umar.

  Bullshit, Tara prayed; her limbs ached with her struggle, and her focus was slipping. Some teeth got through her wards, and a gray god-stain spread across her arm. I can handle this. There’s no sense in all of us dying.

  We will fight together.

  Adults, dammit. Izza held Isaak’s hand, and the faithful, her Lady’s faithful, gathered in the circle, each linked to each. She felt the Lady’s frustration: She had power, She lent power, but She was a story, and this story was not Hers. The Lady didn’t make last stands.

  The Lady ran.

  Izza squeezed Isaak’s hand, and slipped from it, and vaulted over the salt circle. She was in her limbs: the Blue Lady of Kavekana and Agdel Lex and Alikand, and gods alone knew where else around the world by now, as the faith spread shipboard from poor kids and thieves to poor kids and thieves. Izza crested the wall in a running jump and sprinted south through the unfolding metropolis: a leap carried her from a dead city siege spire to an Alikander market, and with a slip she found herself running through an Iskari office, between cubicles, as scared clerks sheltered under desks, only to dive out the window into a bomb-blasted crater, because the Blue Lady scorned all borders. Izza sprinted, climbed, scrambled along clotheslines, vaulted from lamppost to lamppost, toward the gray tide flowing into Agdel Lex. Toward Tara Abernathy, who fought that grayness back with lightning and razors and will.

  What, Tara prayed, the hells—she stabbed a thing that did not have a face in its face—are you doing?

  What I can, Izza answered.

  The gods of the Waste towered above her, inchoate. They were knives in the dark, they were fire, they were Penitents’ eyes and stale beer breath and everything Izza ever feared.

  She stood atop the tallest building she could find—it had been an observatory, once—and spread her arms, and let the Lady burn through her: all that faith, all that meaning, the tastiest target in the world, theirs to seize if they could just catch her fleshy shell.

  “Come get me,” she said.

  The gray roared, roped itself into a mile-high serpent, and lunged for her.