Citadel of the Sky (Thrones of the Firstborn Book 1)

by Chrysoula Tzavelas

  Kiar took a deep breath, wondering if anything else would come to investigate. She really needed to figure out how she was going to get out of here. That was the smart thing to do. This was a place where eidolons acted like people and animals, like living things, and it was the place enemies came from, a cousin to the phantasmagory but vaster and wilder. She had to share the mysteries with someone.

  But surely more information couldn’t make things any worse? There was no research in any book to help her. She edged around the giant and pushed her way out of the vine thicket, passing under a smear of buzzing she hoped was insects. Beyond was a shallow incline leading up to a cliff, then down in a wide, gently curving path. What passed for the sky beyond the drop was the stark black of a night without stars. Cautiously, Kiar dropped to her knees as she approached the edge of the cliff and then down to her belly, unwilling to let whatever might look up notice her.

  The landscape below the cliff was just as monochromatic as the jungle: light grey for the land and dark grey pooling like water, here and there. The vines flowed down the cliff, though not in the profusion she’d encountered at her point of origin. She could see other giants moving through other tangles of vegetation directly below her. Further away, thin dark strips divided the areas of vegetation and giants into irregular, polygonal fields. To her left and right were other plateaus, precisely placed at equidistant points on a circle; each had a beard of vines. Beyond those plateaus was only darkness.

  In the heart of the vast circle indicated by the plateaus was a teeming throng of creatures. There were many more black dancers—andani—, tightly packed into precise squares and other creatures as well: grotesque parodies of humans and giant birds and—Lord of Winter—the nemesis beast.

  She stared at it for a long time, observing her own reaction. But what Tiana had done seemed to have worked. It was disgusting, but it didn’t take up residence in her brain. It was just a thing. An eidolon nemesis beast, far more familiar than the six-legged giant. Perhaps the nemesis beast inoculated the Logos against these other strange monsters too, so that she could look and say, Oh, how strange, instead of screaming.

  She remembered too, what Tiana had whispered to her. Jinriki thinks it was engineered to hurt us.

  Then she methodically continued her inspection. Whoever had engineered an eidolon designed to destroy minds had been very, very busy. The mass of monsters in the distance crowded around a monolithic pile of stone, charcoal against the black sky. From the energetic movement of individuals within the army, she determined that they were very excited. About what, she couldn’t imagine.

  The giant moaned somewhere behind her. She looked around, saw an andani crouching near her, and rolled to her feet, stumbling back down the slope towards the vegetation tangle. Once she was a good distance away, she paused to study the creature again. It hadn’t followed her, and it hadn’t run. It was just sitting there… watching.

  Kiar shivered. “I have to get out of here.” Her voice was comforting, even distorted as it was. “Intelligence gathered. Time to wake up….” And she tried to wake herself from the phantasmagory, instinctively. But there was no indication there was a phantasmagory here. It was a cousin to the phantasmagory, but the two were not connected.

  “This isn’t the phantasmagory. There must be some other way,” she told her observer. “It feels real. It’s cold here. I can taste the air, I can feel the ground. Well, what passes for the ground. But how do you step out of a world?”

  She fumbled her way back into the tangle, hoping she didn’t get stepped on by the giant. But it had moved only one giant-sized step from where it was previously. She stopped next to the third pair of legs and pressed her fingers against one.

  She could feel it, too. It was cool and pebbled, and she thought she could feel movement under the surface. Then the leg she was touching lifted and a trilling flock of birds flew down from the creature’s head to perch on the leg. She backed away, hands raised to fend them off, but they didn’t attack her. Instead all of them looked at her, moving their heads in unison. Then one of them trilled, and a second one picked up the sound, and a third, each one in at a different pitch. The beast itself moaned as well, creating an extraordinary harmony. She froze, staring up at it. The beauty seemed out of place.

  Then she shook herself. “Oops. I was just curious.” Kiar backed up, pulling some of the foliage between her and the giant. Another three birds trilled at her. Suddenly she was worried that she’d hurt it, that what she interpreted as beauty was actually pain. She covered her ears with her hands and turned her back, pushing her way deeper into the monochrome jungle. After only a moment, the vegetation was too thick to climb through.

  That was unexpected. “And ridiculous,” she whispered. “I didn’t do any wading through a forest when I got here. I couldn’t even see.” But she conjured up her sword again and slashed at the vines. The cut vegetation shriveled where the sword touched it.

  Her sword clanged off something. A set of four strands ran parallel to the ground, one above the other, starting at her knees and ending over her head. The vines twined around it, but after they shriveled and crumbled, the sword against the strands made only black sparks. They were very thin and hard to see; at first she’d thought they were just lateral vines. But they were smaller, dull black, and very taut.

  Kiar hesitated. Something felt wrong. The thought almost made her laugh. Standing in a colorless world of monsters and something felt wrong? But she carefully cleaned all the vines off several feet of the strands and then stepped back, squinting. They weren’t quite parallel. They were wider at the thinner side of the tangle, narrower at the thicker side. She held up her hand sideways, spread her fingers, looked through them. Yes. The strands were like thin, long fingers, like the strings on a violin. Presumably, somewhere in the deepest part of the thicket, was the place that they met the palm.

  She needed to find out. She felt more cheerful as soon as she admitted that to herself. It was better to have a direction and an achievable goal, than to fumble around blindly, after all. And a guide, as strange as it was. But she’d only taken a few steps along the path indicated by the strands before she stopped and looked at them again. The third one was close to her eye level. It looked like thick wire, pulled taut. She wondered if it would make music when she touched it.

  She brushed her fingers over it.

  Vision exploded around her. Concepts without words flashed in her head: a great hive, a machine, pulling. Puppets full of needles, wire piercing her flesh. What happened to a world turned inside out? A team of horses could pull a man apart.

  She was running through the vegetation again, swords whirling around her, running towards the iris, eye, valve, gate she was certain the strands led to. There it was. A flap of eidolon stuff, thick and organic, pulled aside by four wires on the near side and four wires on the far side. They reached through the flap to whatever was on the other side. Her world. Her world with hooks in it.

  Almost imperceptibly, the wires tightened.

  Chapter 24

  The Time for Beer

  Mousame’s local beer was wretched, and Tiana hated every swallow she made herself take. After only two mugs, it stopped tasting so bad, and she wondered if adding salt would bring back the misery. They’d tried to convince her to relocate to the tavern when she’d run herself down beating on the Mystery Spot. She’d demanded they relocate the tavern to her, instead. It was liberating to stop caring if they were frightened of her.

  They’d brought her a table and a chair, and bread and salt. And a bottle of wine, to start with, but that was too good for her. Beer. With salt in. Kiar was gone. Yithiere would cut her to pieces.

  Lisette snatched the salt crock out from under Tiana’s fingers. “Oh, stop it.”

  Tiana slouched in her chair. “I can do what I want.”

  Lisette, sitting to Tiana’s left, handed the salt crock to the nervous tavern boy hovering nearby. “You don’t want the salt. You don’t even want the beer
.”

  Berrin, sitting to Tiana’s right, sniffed at the untouched mug in front of him. “It’s not that bad.”

  Tiana narrowed her eyes at Berrin and gulped at the salty beer. It made her thirsty, so she drank more. Her tongue began to hurt, and Berrin pushed his mug over to her, eyes crinkling. Scraping her tongue against her teeth, she poured the untainted beer down her throat.

  “You’re quaffing,” Lisette pointed out, wrinkling her nose.

  Tiana turned so fast she almost knocked her chair over. “Why haven’t you sent one of them back to tell everyone what’s happened?” she demanded. “Tell Jerya all about it. Bring back people who know what they’re doing. I can’t believe I thought my insane father had a good idea.”

  Lisette’s eyes shadowed. “I won’t betray you. We’ll go back when you say so.”

  Tiana tilted her chair back. “Yithiere or Twist or even Jant could find Kiar. Even Gisen.”

  “Kiar’s either gone or she’s not. Rushing around won’t change that.” Her eyebrows drew together. “First you attacked the Mystery Spot and now you’re attacking yourself. Stop it. Notice it.”

  Tiana looked away, towards the Mystery Spot across the street. It was more than just a fuzzy round blur now; her ministrations with the emanations had warped it into the rough outline of a human. It made no difference, though; she still couldn’t force it to respond to her as it had to Kiar. The horrible blankness of it felt imprinted on her eyes; she no longer had to search for it. She had the awful feeling that rather than molding it into the shape of a human, she’d uncovered a shape that was already there, a shape that was all that remained of Kiar.

  She gulped at her beer and then coughed as she swallowed too fast. Then she swallowed more, until the ache in her throat subsided. Dammit, she’d just saved Kiar. She’d unleashed some kind of monster and for what? Kiar to be eaten by a tourist attraction?

  Lord of Winter, she wanted to tear this town down, looking for her. It was a dismal place, though the gawkers mostly stayed on the other side of town. The villagers did something or other with cotton when they didn’t have so many tourists. Kiar would have known. There were strange little huts scattered between the houses. She had no idea what was in them. What if there was another Mystery Spot? What if Kiar was trapped?

  There was shouting from the road behind her. Slater moved away to investigate and Tiana tipped her chair forward again. Jinriki was on the table between her and Lisette, shining in the afternoon sunlight. She traced her fingers over the engravings, felt the rough texture of the red-stained lower blade, the stone that had once been black and was now clear. All that power, spent. He hadn’t spoken to her since she’d hurled him away. She wondered if he’d like it if she started tearing down the mysterious buildings. Wouldn’t he like that?

  But Jerya wouldn’t approve. Her stomach tightened painfully. Jerya never approved of anything she did. Jerya certainly wouldn’t approve of this. It would be about as far from approval as Jerya could get. Kiar would never have come here if Tiana hadn’t suggested it. Everyone would be at home and safe.

  Tiana lowered her head until her forehead was resting on Jinriki’s cool handle. She wished she could make the ground open up and swallow her or wrap herself in an untouchable shield like Kiar. If only she’d had Kiar’s powers and Kiar had hers. Responsible Kiar with the emanations and empty-headed Tiana, locked in a cage out of everyone’s way. Jerya would never miss her.

  Her eyes felt gritty and dry. She knew what she should do. She needed to rise, take up Jinriki and order everybody back to the city. She ought to end this foolish misadventure and let people who knew what they were doing try to rescue Kiar. If she could even be rescued, if she wasn’t already just a smear of emptiness. Life isn’t a drama. In her mind’s eye, Jerya turned away.

  She pushed herself to her feet and went to investigate one of the smallest buildings, which was exactly what Kiar would have predicted and completely undramatic. When she returned a few minutes later, Jinriki wasn’t shining any longer. The sky had clouded over. There was more shouting behind her, and she realized that Berrin had gone as well. Lisette was standing a few feet away.

  Tiana’s head hurt again, an ongoing dull pain rather than the throbbing ache of before. “What’s going on?” She picked Jinriki up.

  Lisette had cleaned the dust of the street from her face and hands, and smoothed her hair back. “The people on the hill saw something exciting. Berrin’s gone to see for himself.” She was troubled, though she kept it from her face.

  Tiana stood on her toes, shading her eyes with her free hand. People were running. Some of the tents and stalls were packing up without any care for organization, while other campers were talking animatedly. Four riders galloped north, scattering chickens and children. She saw Berrin and Slater galloping back towards them.

  “What is it?” she called.

  “Raiders,” said Slater as they drew up. “Enemy raiders, on a line to the town.”

  “Oh, Rann’s balls.” Lisette’s eyes widened at Tiana’s vulgarity. Tiana stomped her feet. “Keldera’s cunt!” Liberating. She tightened her hand on Jinriki’s hilt and took a deep breath, inspecting that place inside that brought forth the magic. She was still recovering from her earlier exertions, an hour after a hard race and she didn’t know how long her second wind would last. Adrenalin made her breath quicken.

  Lisette and the guards were watching her. A horse stomped, and a young man scrambled past, calling to someone. Then Lisette said, “My horse is lame, and I’m not leaving.” She turned away.

  Tiana said, “I’m staying. Lisette, you should leave, get someplace safe—” She blinked and paid attention to what Lisette had just said.

  “Of course you’re staying. Figure out a good plan, Princess, because I’m not leaving.” Lisette’s voice was hard.

  “You can’t stay. What if you got hurt?” Tiana protested, but Lisette just walked away. “I’ll be distracted,” she called after. “I’ve got to do this! Lisette!”

  Slater said, “We’ll protect her, Princess. What are you going to do?”

  She wished—but she was here now, and that was that. The burst of adrenalin fell under the shadow of a darker feeling. More of the merchants packed up their wares. A door slammed and rattled. She could hear the fear, high and shrill, in the murmur of voices. Jerya. Oh, Kiar.

  She felt the phantasmagory below her, like cool water just touching bare toes. She slipped in, no splash, with a sigh. There was nothing around her. The phantasmagory was empty and calm. The biters were gone, and the black silhouettes, and the ghost. All the ancestral memories and the personal strongholds were gone, too. Everything was gone, like it had been purged, or made new again. She felt a peculiar chord of grief for what was lost, for all that she could conjure up her own special place whenever she wanted.

  Then she inhaled and let the emptiness fill her up.

  There she goes, said the tall one. Look at her face.

  We should get her and the other one out of here, said the strong one.

  If she doesn’t—Princess?

  She moved past them, forcing words through forgotten lips. There’s nobody here to tell. Nobody will know. I’m sorry. The hill loomed ahead, glaring bright, distorted by the lens of the phantasmagory.

  A black cloud with a crimson core and argent eyes walked beside her. “Is that fear, little one? Such an odd taste.”

  In two worlds, she said, I’m not afraid. Don’t worry about that. There’s no room.

  The tall one turned away and said, Hell. This—

  She stopped and looked back at him.

  He lowered his head, raised it, said, All right. You’re doing your job, Princess. I don’t understand how, but—we’ll do ours. We’ll take Lady Lisette to the tavern. It looked defensible. He walked to Lisette.

  The strong one caught her hand and brought it to his lips. She saw her own shadowy feelings reflected in the twist of his mouth, until the black cloud moved across her and the sword in her ot
her hand raised to point at him. He dropped her hand, swung back onto his horse. Good luck, Princess.

  She walked past him, down the long road and up the high hill. They stopped as she passed and watched her go, with her long sword in her hand. Faces peered out of shutters. Children cried. A rider charged past and another horse reared, rather than go around her. Beyond the voices, there was a sound like thunder.

  From the top of the hill, she saw the invaders. They moved like a flock of birds, dark shapes on monstrous mounts and creatures that looked like mount and rider in one. They moved quickly; they were not exploring, not watching their flanks. They were very close. Soon, they would sweep past the east slope of the hill and into the town.

  Soon. Not yet. Tiana stepped off the steep side of the hill, spreading her arms.

  When her grandfather had walked off Reader Tower, his eidolons had soared to the tower’s peak, but he had not. He fell to the flagstones far below, and nobody ever knew if that was what he intended, or just… one of his little confusions.

  No one will know.

  “Little girl, I know.”

  She drifted gently on an emanation. It was easier than she remembered. She must have recovered more than she thought. “You aren’t supposed to call me that.”

  The black cloud beside her shifted, glinted red. “Sometimes it is all that is speakable.”

  The troop of invaders was so near now. The riders were slender and armored all in black, from helm to boot. Their mounts were more wolf than horse, though they ran on heavy hooves and bore three horns. They were the color of deep water. The other creatures—they had the hands and heads of men, and twice the legs, but the clawed feet of beasts.

  Tiana looked at the sword in her hand. “I don’t know how to use you.”

  The black cloud said, “Do what you always do. Do what you did before.”

  She flexed her hand around his handle. “I might drop you.”