Beasts of the Walking City

by Del Law

  “Yes,” I nod. “I can still remember it. We were living near a lake, up in the northern Akarii Reserve. They swept down on us, a whole army of them in red robes. I was just a kid, and I hid under the bed until my secondfather pulled me out. My mother and firstfather were both warriors—they died defending the rest of us. Only most of the rest of us died, too.”

  “Akarii scholars call them the Bloodknives, though I don’t know if they themselves use the name. An apocalyptic cult. There are considerable historical connections between them and the Akarii that you might find relevant, you know—it explains their fascination with birds, like us, but also their hatred of you.”

  “Maybe another time?” I really wishing he hadn’t downed the rest of the bourbon.

  Semper nods. “I will look forward to it.”

  We sit for a time in a comfortable silence, watching the pyrotechnics in the distance. It’s hard to tell who was winning, or really who was even on which side, but they sure were putting a lot of effort into it.

  “I wish you could sense her,” Semper says after awhile, meaning the Sister. He gestures in the air with his hands. “She is like this tremendous orb, this great sphere of…”

  “Semper, it’s a big round head. There’s a reason it’s like a big orb.”

  Semper grins, and I can see the white of his teeth in the flares. “I’m being inarticulate.”

  “I think I understand.”

  “Do you? I know you’ve seen power, Blackwell. But this! She is like a whole world of life, all contained just beneath the surface of her skin. Such a massive hive of interconnected energy.”

  I think about this. “Have you seen the Twins?”

  “On the knife, of course. I haven’t actually been in their presence.”

  “It’s a lot like you describe,” I say. “A lot of… density. Compacted intelligence spinning for it’s own sake. It is hard to put it into words.”

  “You’ve been in their presence?”

  “I have.”

  “Did they…” he pauses for a moment. “Did they speak to you?”

  I laugh. “They did not, of course. Why would you ask that?”

  “Because I think this one wants to.”

  Off on the horizon a ship bursts into fire then, and a moment later the wind brings the sound of the explosion to us. Below, on the rocks, a horned seal flips into the water and the rest of them follow suit. I guess life sucks when you’re meat.

  I shake my head and gave a small laugh. The rain increases in strength, coming in sheets across the water until we can’t see much but the rocks around us. I move to the edge of the ledge and look down at the relic. It hasn’t moved. I slide back to Semper. I have to cup my hands around my mouth and lean in to his ear to be heard.

  “If it does, it’s being pretty subtle about it, don’t you think?”

  “I’ll grant you that.” Semper leans in so I can hear him. “But I did have just that sense when I was communing. I’m not sure the relic is here for Nadrune, Blackwell. I think the relic may be here for you.”

  “Unless, of course, the relic has always been here, and we’ve just been the first ship to pass close enough to find it.”

  “This close to Tamaranth?” Semper shakes his head. “I find that unlikely.”

  “As unlikely as a relic talking to some random Hulgliev Retriever?”

  “Dekheret Akarii was an outcast and a wanderer when the Sisters spoke with her. How much different are you?”

  “Now that hurts.” I grin.

  “You understand what I’m saying.”

  “I do."

  "Why don't you give yourself more credit?"

  "You don’t seem to understand that I’m really nothing special, Semper. Hulgliev are dying out. I’m just one of the last ones around, and someone trained me as a mage so I could make a living. I don’t want to be someone who talks to relics.”

  “What do you want?”

  I sigh loudly, so Semper will hear it. “You really want to know? I want to drink bourbon and smoke leaf with my secondfather again. I want a roof that doesn’t leak on a small house near the Old City in Tamaranth in a neighborhood where there aren’t any dogs. I want a good noodle stand nearby. I want what’s left of my tribe around me, and to drink and argue with poets and farmers about things that don’t really matter. All of these politics? All of this family fighting, all of this war? What’s it all for? The wells will open for us all in time. We all go into that same darkness. I’m just looking to make my way. I want people to stop asking me what I want, and I want to leave the world changing to people who are really interested in changing it.”

  “Like Nadrune?”

  “Sure. Like Nadrune.”

  “She will not be stopped now, Blackwell. Not with a Sister behind her. She will roll over Tamaranth and move on to the rest of the continent.”

  “I thought that’s what you wanted, Semper. Aren’t you convincing me to stand up with her? To be the good Akarii pet? Aren’t you Akarii too? That sounds almost disloyal.”

  “Maybe it’s the bourbon talking.” Semper looks at the horizon, tightens the sodden wrap that lies around his neck and pushes the hair back out of his eyes. Water streams down his head and drips from his sideburns. “I’m still loyal, Blackwell. The Akarii are my blood and my bones. I’m loyal to the family that raised me, that trained me, and that now gives me a position of weight and importance, and a lot of money to go along with it. Nadrune’s father will be dead someday, and then it will likely be Nadrune or Bakron who leads the First Family next, and so I am loyal to myself. I am selfish, yes? I work to preserve what I have gained.

  “But I’d be a fool not to be aware of Nadrune’s shortcomings, and how her way of battering down all resistance with force sows the seeds of her own undoing. And a fool to imagine the Akarii are still what they once were. I’ve read the diaries of great people, Blackwell. Great people in great times, who made the world a better place for those who were living in it. The library in Tilhtinon holds books that were written in their own hands.

  “Nadrune is a woman of great power. But she’s not a Dekheret. Dekheret didn’t conquer all the other Families by force—she united them to a common purpose, and inspired them with a vision. She may bring everyone together, but she’ll do it with the edge of her knife. Though I will say Bakron would do worse.”

  “I think I’ve struck a nerve.”

  Semper shakes his head and smiles to himself. “Maybe. But I believe that Nadrune can change, Blackwell. Over time, if we’re consistent, if we put the right people around her? Maybe she can become better than she is. And I’d like to think that you’ll be one of them. You want to know why I’ve been spending time with you? That’s why. I think Akarii needs people who aren’t interested in positions of power, people like Dekheret and Farsoth who aren’t so concerned with watching what everyone else is doing, but who can step out and make the family just a little bit better.”

  “That’s some bourbon.”

  “I’m serious, Blackwell. The family needs you. I hope you can see that. Despite who and what Nadrune is now, I hope you’ll decide to stay, to look past that.”

  The sounds from the horizon are growing louder, and the lights are brighter. A faint smell of ozone is in the air. What can I say, that I’d be more inclined to help out if I wasn’t wearing a collar?

  “Speaking of watching and being watched,” Semper says, “don’t have any illusion that you have any secrets either, Blackwell. With all the broadcasts Nadrune is doing on the knife now, you’re a very visible figure. And the ship is full of people who make your business their business. That’s only going to get worse now with this new Sister. I delight that you’ve taken enough of an interest in our art to use it as your subterfuge, but don’t be naïve enough to think that your meetings with that, well, that woman, are any secret to those who have an interest in having you watched. Which, by the way, is just about everyone.”

  It’s dark, so I don’t think he can see my fur going bl
ack. I have that sinking feeling, and I realize that of course he’s right. Is that why Mircada hasn’t responded these last few days? Yet again, I’m feeling stupid.

  “Thanks,” I say. “I guess.”

  “Just be careful. Do you know her well? Do you know her motives?”

  I shake my head, though I don’t think he can see me. “Back off, Semper.”

  “Backing off,” he says. “I do have another flask, if that helps.”

  It does.

  We sit in a largely comfortable silence after that. On the horizon the lights begin to dim, and the sounds of the battle diminish. Either the fighting has died down, or the ships have drifted away from us. There's no way to tell in the downpour now, but then there’s a light high up above our heads and it’s descending, and it’s a podship, one of the larger cargo ones. It draws level with the ledge and opens its hatch, and a mage from inside, a Stona, beckons us aboard. I pick up Semper and leap across, landing awkwardly on the wet metal flooring.

  “What news?” Semper asks the mage.

  The Stona dips his beak at Semper, not willing to meet my eyes. “We have prevailed, of course. Four ships out of Tamaranth disguised themselves as merchants, and fired upon us as we drew close. They had a large number of mages aboard, but they could not stand against us. Three of their ships were destroyed, and the fourth has been taken intact. We lost one of our own to the rocks, the Geneken Kai.”

  “A supply ship.”

  The Stona nods. “Some of the crew perished, but most of them were rescued and most of the supplies were salvaged.”

  Semper looks at me. “Four ships? Surely they couldn’t hope to eliminate our fleet with four ships.”

  I shrug. Semper turns back to the mage. “What Family were they?”

  “Kerul, we suspect. But possibly Ciordoi.”

  “Nadrune has instructed us to bring the relic back to her vessel. You have brought the necessary equipment?”

  They confer, and the pilot moves the ship underneath the ledge, as close in to the relic as she can get. The bigger ship is definitely more stable in the wind and rain. The crew throws ropes and netting around the Sister and makes them all tight to the combat nets, and the pilot attempts to pull away slowly.

  But the Sister will not budge. Carefully, the pilot engages more and more of the ship’s power. The nets pull taut and the ropes strain nearly to breaking, and still we’re not moving.

  “We’ll need more ropes,” I say. “Stronger netting. And another strong ship, too.”

  Semper puts two fingers to his knife. Soon we’re joined by the largest of the podships. It maneuvers in as close as it can, but with the overhanging ledge and the other ship roped close in to the Sister, it can’t get close enough for the crew to throw the netting.

  I tell the pilots I’ll climb across, and I work my way out onto the ropes. They’re thick, taut, and close together, but they’re still wet.

  I try not to look down.

  When I reach the Sister I climb across the netting and steady myself against the ledge overhead. I grab the nets from the other ship’s crew and work to drape them around the bulk of the relic, and then to tie them securely to the large lines from the ships. As I reach around underneath to untangle some of the netting there, a stretch of my inner arm brushes against the bare metal of the Sister, and shock of aether, like a blast from a knife, travels through me and makes all my hair stand on end. I’m thrown up against the spire from the impact, and I almost lose it. I have to scrabble crazily at the ropes and nets to keep from plunging head first onto the water below.

  I feel the collar at my neck go very hot and then rapidly very cold, colder than the chill water below.

  Then the world of aether washes over me.

  Hanging there, I’m overwhelmed. I’m swimming in the river of the lei line and then there’s the huge, spinning, throbbing complexity of the Sister that fills up the air around me. It’s like holding on to the sun. The Sister overwhelms everything else in my mind, blocking out the noise of the sea, the wind and the spray of salt, the podships hovering just out of reach, the mages within them, as though it’s the only thing in my world.

  All I can do is hang there for a few minutes and catch my breath.

  I shake myself, secure the nets, and gesture the second podship to back away until the lines are taut and then I check everything again to make sure everything remains intact.

  Just like two tractors moving a great big rock, I think.

  Then I climb across the lines to the hold of the second podship.

  “Try it now,” I tell the pilot. The man nods, signals back to the first ship, and the two engage their engines. The lines begin to vibrate and the nets creak. The pilots rev up their engines in tandem, and barely, just barely the head begins to move. It pulls slowly away from the cliff, and then as we move out over the ocean we slowly pick up speed.

  But when the pilots try to turn in toward the launching bays on the Mercy, we almost collide. The head continues on in the direction we’d been flying with it’s own heavy inertia. The lines go slack and then tighten again as the Sister passes the ships in midair. The pilots look across at each other, panicked, and then they’re scrambling to try to keep their ships from colliding as we’re taken along for the ride.

  A rope snaps, and then another.

  The first ship is pulled sharply up and swung around behind the head, and I can see Semper spread-eagled on the deck with his eyes closed, an expression of utter horror on his face and his lips moving as they whip by us.

  I grab onto handholds and then the larger ship is flipped and spun after it.

  We’re trailing along after the head like two tails of a kite

  It’s a close thing, but the podships don’t collide. The pilots catch and level the ships, engage the engines to slow the Sister, and then slowly bring it back down to the loading deck of the Mercy. Once it’s there, we hover nearby to watch, and all of us cluster by the open hold. Servants go to work, fussing and chirping at each other. A crane is brought up from below. Kruk carpenters start to build a thick wooden frame around the head to hold it in place, and four Tel Kharan marines in full armor take up positions around the Sister. More and more people from the upperdecks come out to see the Sister, until there are hundreds of them all craning their necks for a view of it.

  I'm sure Nadrune would want me down there for a photoshoot, but I stay with the ship as it heads back to the launching bay, and shake hands with the pilot, who seems like a decent human. The smaller ship follows us in, and when it touches down I walk over and stick my head in. “Are you all right?”

  Semper’s legs are shaking, and his skin tone is still very white, whiter than I’ve seen most humans get while they’re still alive. His long hair is all tangled about him, and beads of sweat cover his face. I help him step into the landing bay, and catch him when his legs give out. I sit with him up against the smaller ship while he catches his breath.

  The pilots and crew head out of the landing bay into the deeper part of the ship without speaking to the engineers, who stand silently in a line while the mages exit. No love lost, there. Then the engineers approach the two ships with grim expressions on their faces. They rope them down to mooring hitches, unfasten the combat netting from the hulls and begin to examine them in detail, calling out at any dent or smoke-scar they find. The other ships have already been tied down from the earlier battle.

  All save my ship, which seems a little weird to me.

  Gravhnal is there, though, polishing up a piece of the aft plating where a long dark streak from an energy burst has blackened it.

  Gravhnal notices me watching him, then, and he stops polishing to look at me strangely, tilting his head from one side to the other. He points to me, then to the podship, and then to his wrist, where he’s still wearing Mircada’s bracelet.

  He’s not very subtle about it.

  I look around. The ships are all unguarded. None of the other engineers are paying attention. Most of the city-shi
p is probably either up at the Sister by now or watching broadcasts of it via the knife.

  Gravhnal makes his eyes comically wide, waves me over, and points again to the ship in an exaggerated way, and I see it silently lift a bit into the air, hovering. I gesture that I need a minute.

  Semper’s color is slowly changing as blood flows back into his face. “My first flight was on a ship smaller than this one,” I say, with forced casualness. “It was several years ago, and a few of us were headed into the mangrove swamps around Tamaranth against a number of assassins we’d heard had been sent in to get the Chancellor by the Grohmn-Elite. We were flying low to the tree line in the dark, with no lighting and some strung-out Halfromen for a pilot who was flying with his feet. We thought we had a location on a group of them, and were coming in close, when this gigantic bird burst up in front of us? I’d never seen anything like it before—it was big and red, with stripes of black across its wings, four long talons and a great beak. It bounced off the nose of the podship and came straight in through the viewport, which had no screening, into the cabin with us, hitting the pilot straight in his brain-casing and knocking him unconscious. None of the rest of us could fly, of course, and the ship ploughed down into the trees and ended up nose down in water and mud. The pilot ended up hanging from a tree from his support harness. I ended up head-down in a thicket of ferns, and some Councilor from Tamaranth had to pick us up in her own private yacht.”

  “That’s inspiring,” Semper says.

  “Most flights seem easy to me now.”

  “They would have to.” Semper looks around him, and seemed to take in his surroundings. “This was my first flight, you know.”

  I laugh. “I’m sure no one noticed.”

  Semper grimaces. “I think I can stand now.”

  “You’re feeling better? You’re certain?”

  “Yes. Though some sleep will be most welcome.”

  “Then I’m really sorry about this, my friend,” I say.

  I reach across his chest, and pluck his knife out of his sheath. It’s tiny, a scholar’s tool, but it opens up all of the Mercy’s power to me. I draw aether up through the floor and let it fill me, breathing deeply, and everything suddenly seems sharper and more urgent. All the exhaustion I’d had from being awake through the night is gone.