The Divine Cities Trilogy: City of Stairs, City of Blades, and City of Miracles, With an Excerpt From Foundryside

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  “Could it be…Could it be the thinadeskite?”

  “What, the thinadeskite as the physical manifestation of this power?” asks Shara. “That’s…Well, that’s not a bad idea, Turyin. But that too leaves a lot to be answered for—this thing you saw, this apparition—if it had anything in common with the original Voortya, why would she destroy the mines, the source of her own power?”

  “You yourself said she was traumatized,” says Mulaghesh. “Maybe we’re dealing with another mad Divinity.”

  “Perhaps. But it doesn’t seem to fit. Voortya never spoke, and in most depictions of her—when she took a comprehensible, humanoid form, that is—she had four arms and one missing hand. None of this matches up with what you saw and heard. And I would need undeniable proof if I were to try to do anything. I am not quite as powerful as when you left me, Turyin.”

  “So…So how does that help me figure out what to do next?” asks Mulaghesh, frustrated. “I don’t need stories, I need leads!”

  Shara sighs deeply. Mulaghesh is suddenly aware of how frail Shara seems, and she realizes that her demand is likely just one of thousands Shara must hear every single day. “I know. I know it’s not what you wanted. But I suspect it’s all I can give you. It is known that Voortyashtanis possessed a ritual to glimpse into the life beyond death, into the City of Blades—the Window to the White Shores. If there is a ritual that allowed them to fully cross over, I suspect it is a fusion of a Voortyashtani rite and an Ahanashtani rite. And, because of this curious quality, I expect it’s never been recorded. The one person who might know, it seems, is the old man Choudhry mentioned.”

  “And he told Choudhry how to cross over. And she went there to…to try to stop whatever’s happening. But obviously she failed somehow.”

  “I know,” says Shara. “But you will succeed.”

  “I know I have to! You don’t have to tell me that!”

  “I did not say you have to succeed,” says Shara. “I said you will. There is not a doubt in my mind, Turyin, that you can resolve this. You have been through far worse trials and faced far more difficult situations than this. You have a military fortress at your disposal, as well as a massive construction fleet. Though they may be unwilling, they are still potential resources.”

  “And just how in the hells am I going to use them?” snaps Mulaghesh, furious.

  “In Bulikov,” says Shara, “how did you convince me to collapse the tunnel to the Seat of the World, the greatest discovery in modern history, mere moments after I’d discovered it?”

  “I…Hells, I can’t remember!”

  “You did it,” says Shara, “by being a very belligerent, obnoxious woman.”

  Mulaghesh stares at her in disbelief. “Well…Well, thank you very fucking much!”

  “You have a talent,” says Shara, “for valuing what you feel is right over anything else, including, occasionally, the people around you. You do what you feel is right not because it is satisfying, but because you find any other option to be intolerable. This makes you incredibly frustrating to deal with. But it also means you find solutions where many others would simply give up.”

  “But…But this is a fucking Divinity we’re talking about! Surely if you went to the Ministry and told them what would happen—”

  “We have nothing definitive,” says Shara. “No concrete evidence, no proof—only your testimony, and that message of Choudhry’s. A half-coherent letter from an agent who went mad and has vanished, and your story, part of a clandestine operation that is occurring completely off the books. If I were to use what little we have here to mobilize our forces under the precept that another Divine event was imminent, there is a not-insignificant chance that it could result in something very similar to a coup.”

  “A coup?” says Mulaghesh, aghast. “In Saypur?”

  “I’m sure it would begin as an impeachment,” says Shara wearily. “Or something wearing much more civilized trappings. But I know there are forces in the military and industry that would be the ones to ramrod it through. I’ve broken a lot of rules to put you where you are now, Turyin. Without solid evidence, my opponents in Ghaladesh would say I was fabricating the whole thing, trying to drum up support where I have none. And when the dust settled, it would be these figures that would possess much more global power—something that could be terribly bad for Saypur, and the world.”

  Mulaghesh rubs the center of her forehead. “I thought you were going to toss all those ratfucks out on their ears when you got elected.”

  Shara smiles weakly. “There are rather a lot of ratfucks, unfortunately.”

  “So I’m on my own,” says Mulaghesh. “Even after this.”

  “No, no. Not alone. I do not think you are on your own. On the contrary, you have Sig—”

  She stops speaking and looks over Mulaghesh’s shoulder. Mulaghesh turns and sees that Sigrud has leapt to his feet and is silently stalking toward a blank section of wall. He examines the wall, looking it up and down, then looks at Shara in the windowpane and shakes his head.

  Shara mouths, “Good luck,” to Mulaghesh, wipes her fingers across the glass, and vanishes. The glass grows transparent yet again.

  Sigrud turns to the wall and feels along the crown molding. His finger finds a carving of a whale tooth. He presses it—there’s a click!—and the wall falls back like a door.

  Sigrud dives into the gap. There’s a cry of surprise and possibly pain from the other side. Mulaghesh has already grabbed the carousel and is raising it at the secret door, finger close to the trigger but not on it, not yet. She paces to line up along the wall behind the door, holding the carousel just at head-height.

  Someone tumbles into the room, stumbling from a hard shove. Mulaghesh’s instincts kick in and she puts the carousel’s sights right on their head, though it takes her a second to realize this particular head possesses bright blond hair arranged in an urbane coiffure, along with two furious blue eyes watching her from behind a pair of severe-looking glasses.

  “Shit,” says Mulaghesh. “Signe, between you and your father, I’m wondering if your whole family just doesn’t know how to use a door.”

  * * *

  —

  Sigrud walks back in and shuts the secret door. “How dare you!” Signe says to him. “How dare you treat me like that!”

  He ignores her and sits back down on the couch with his back to them, and lights his pipe.

  Mulaghesh looks at the panel in the wall. “I guess you forgot to tell me you had one of these in my room.”

  “You didn’t ask,” Signe says angrily. “You knew we had servants’ doors all throughout SDC headquarters. Of course we’d have one here; this is a vice-presidential suite”—she looks around at the chicken bones and tobacco—“though I see you have treated it with your usual amount of care.”

  “Why would I want one of these in my room?”

  “If you had ordered food it’d have come through that very door. It’s all perfectly innocent!”

  “I can order food from my room?”

  “What else did you think the button in the corner with the sign RING FOR SERVICE is for?” She looks back at Mulaghesh, who has not yet lowered her gun. “Please stop pointing that at me.”

  “What did you hear?” asks Mulaghesh.

  Signe glances around the room. Looking, Mulaghesh realizes, for the third person she heard. “Nothing.”

  “That’s a pretty bold lie.”

  “I didn’t come here to eavesdrop!”

  “Maybe. But that’s what you wound up doing.” Mulaghesh lowers the carousel and sets two chairs up facing one another. She sits in one and gestures to the other. Signe slowly sits. “So. What’d you hear?”

  “You can’t shoot me, you know,” says Signe. “This is my company’s property. I could stand up and leave right now.”

  “Try it,” says Mulaghesh. “I
might have one hand, but I still know how to restrain someone and not leave a mark.”

  Signe looks to her father. “Are you going to allow this?”

  “I remember today,” he says, “when you introduced me to the welders here, then abandoned me, leaving me with them. It is no fun, being stuck in a difficult spot.”

  “I…I swear,” says Signe, “you two are the most frustrating, useless people alive! But of course you’d gang up on me; you both know each other so well.”

  Mulaghesh says simply, “The afterlife.”

  With those two words Signe freezes, just for a second, her pale blue eyes flicking away and then back.

  “Yeah,” says Mulaghesh. “You heard. I’m betting you heard a lot. Why don’t we have a civil conversation about this?”

  Signe considers her options. Then she takes out her silver box filled with her tiny black cigarettes. She lights a match with a thumbnail—a trick Mulaghesh feels like she’s been sitting on for a while—takes a long drag, and exhales, a seemingly endless river of smoke flowing from somewhere deep inside of her. “All right. I will be direct. You…You think Sumitra Choudhry—poor little mad Sumitra Choudhry—has somehow traveled to Voortya’s City of Blades?”

  “She seems to say that’s what she was intending to do,” says Mulaghesh.

  “And I assume that what is—or was—being mined up by the fortress was this…thinadeskite you mentioned?”

  Mulaghesh grimaces. So much for state secrets. “Yes.”

  “And both you and Choudhry believe this material has some kind of connection to the Voortyashtani afterlife?”

  “Jury’s still out on that one.”

  “At the very least,” says Signe, “you think it is connected to Voortya…whom you said you saw. That you…you saw.” Mulaghesh feels Signe’s bright, hard gaze poring over her, studying her every feature, and she is suddenly aware of how intensely, furiously bright this young woman is. “Do you really believe that?”

  “I don’t know what I believe. But I know what I saw.”

  Mulaghesh doesn’t like the condescending, dismissive smile creeping into Signe’s face. “You’re mad,” says Signe. “The two of you, if he believes it. The three of you, if Choudhry did too. I’m glad I heard what I did, because now I know I’m dealing with absolute loonies, rather than merely suspecting it!”

  “I’ve been there,” says Mulaghesh quietly. “I’ve seen it. Remember when I almost fainted before the statue of Voortya in your yard? It took me there. It showed me something. Sumitra Choudhry had been at that spot before me, performed some rite, and I walked right into its aftereffects.”

  “But even the Voortyashtanis believe the afterlife’s gone!” says Signe. “Everyone accepts that now, when you die, you just rot in the damned ground! If these people don’t believe it, why should you?”

  “They haven’t seen gods before,” says Mulaghesh fiercely. “And I have. I almost died facing them. You are young and clever and brash. But I have seen so, so much more of life than you have, child. I have been so close to the Divine before, I could smell it. And I smell it again, right now.”

  Signe grows sober at this. She looks back and forth between Mulaghesh and Sigrud, who is still facing away. “Do…Do you really believe what you’re saying?”

  “I do,” says Mulaghesh. She sits back and watches Signe coldly. “And I also believe that if the Voortyashtani afterlife is possible, the Night of the Sea of Swords is possible as well. I also believe that that makes investing in this harbor a damn stupid idea, isn’t it? And you know there are forces in Saypur just itching to rebuke the prime minister, cut her pet project loose, and walk away from it, leaving it to die. I believe they’re looking for any excuse to scrap it. And I believe I could tell them the CTO of SDC was hiding Voortyashtani artifacts in order to blackmail the locals. I could tell them anything because frankly, Signe, they’re just waiting for an excuse. If one of Shara’s own trusted deputies says it’s over, then it’s over.”

  Signe stares at her in horror. “You…You wouldn’t.”

  “I wouldn’t? I just told you what I saw, what I believe. This is my greatest nightmare come to life, Signe Harkvaldsson. Do not trifle with me as I try to amend the situation.”

  “What is it you want?” asks Signe, panicked. “To scare me into silence? What would I gain from telling anyone what you believe?”

  “I don’t want to scare you. I want you to help, damn it.” She grabs the decoded message and shoves it into Signe’s hands. “You’re Voortyashtani. You were raised here. Look at this and tell me if you see one damn thing that sounds familiar, that means anything. Anything.”

  Signe stares at Mulaghesh, confused, then turns to the message. “I have never been told to read something so mad with quite so much pressure. It’s absolut—”

  She trails off. Then all the color slowly leaves her face.

  “What?” says Mulaghesh.

  “Oh, no,” Signe says quietly. “Oh, oh, please no.”

  Sigrud turns around, now concerned. “Signe? What is wrong?”

  Signe sits frozen for nearly half a minute, then shuts her eyes. “I hoped it wasn’t there. I hoped it’d just disappeared somehow, swallowed by the seas.”

  “What are you talking about?” says Mulaghesh.

  She says softly, “The Isle of Memory.”

  “It’s real?” says Mulaghesh. “This island is real?”

  “Of course it’s real,” says Signe. She sounds terribly sad and weary. “I know it is. I’ve been there before.”

  “Can you take me there?”

  Signe bows her head, and it’s shocking to see someone who is usually the picture of confidence crumple so thoroughly. Then, very quietly, she says, “Yes.”

  * * *

  —

  The aluminum roof of the SDC guard booth plinks and plonks with countless fat raindrops, which sound more like a rain of marbles. Lennart Björck, cursing, maneuvers all his pots and pans so they catch each tiny waterfall. This small armada of crockery is his constant and unwelcome partner during his guard shifts, for though he tries to patch the roof after each torrential downpour, there’s always something he missed.

  He does a double take as he dumps one of the larger pots out of the booth window. Someone is walking down the road to them, slipping and sliding in the muck. It seems to be a woman, from their size and the tendrils of wet hair peeking out of their heavy cloak, but he can’t see much else about them. Not that he would expect to in this weather. You want as much between you and the atmosphere in Voortyashtan as you can manage.

  He squints. The woman is carrying something very curious: a very large pine box, about four or five feet long. It’s also quite flat, not more than three or four inches thick.

  He puts his rifling close, leaning it against the wall. Then he stands at the window and waits for her. She struggles up and maneuvers the pine box around so she can speak to him. It looks like the box is immensely heavy. “Delivery for General Mulaghesh from the fortress!”

  “General Mulaghesh?” he says. “The Saypuri?” He looks closer at her. Her face is bound up in a scarf, and he can’t make much out about her. “Who is it from?”

  “Captain Nadar.”

  “Oh. Well then. Here, hand it here.”

  She hesitates. “I’m told it’s a very sensitive item.”

  “I can’t allow any items to enter the harbor works without a proper inspection first, miss. We’re at a high security alert.”

  She hesitates some more, then reluctantly hefts up the pine box. “It is a very old item, they told me. Not to be touched. Especially with the naked skin. Oils, you see.”

  “Yes, yes,” says Björck. He takes the pine box—it easily weighs over fifty pounds—places it on a table, and opens it. He gasps softly. “Oh-hoh.”

  Inside is a massive, glimmering sword, over four fe
et long and thick as a butcher’s cleaver. Its handle is beautiful yet disturbing, featuring patterns of tusks and teeth and chitin. And the blade shines so strangely, as if it’s not a sword but a mirror. He checks the lining—being careful not to touch the sword, following the woman’s instructions—but he sees no hint of explosives or hidden detonation devices.

  He stares into his reflection in the blade. He likes what he sees, for some reason. His eyes flash handsomely; his shoulders look broader. Somehow he looks stronger in the blade. Fiercer. Powerful.

  “It is not to be touched, they said,” says the woman again.

  “Mm?” says Björck, startled. “Oh. Yes, of course.” He shuts the box and rehooks the clasp. “Due to the increased security, I’ll have to be the one to bring the package to her. Unless you have written approval from the fortress…”

  “Captain Nadar did not give me any,” says the woman. “But…provided you do not touch it…it should be no issue.” She bows. “Thank you. And good day,” she says, and she turns and walks up the road.

  Björck watches her, thinking this all very queer. Then he puts the box under his arm and flags over his supervisor. Upon hearing that it’s from the fortress for the general, he’s given permission to go ahead.

  The rain begins to let up as he walks down the seawall road. With each step the box feels a little heavier and a little heavier, as if begging to be dropped, to taste the glint of moonlight, and be held.

  I wonder, Björck thinks, why it is I think such things?

  * * *

  —

  “Signe…,” says Sigrud. “Are…Are you sure you—”

  “We need to go to my office,” Signe says suddenly. She stands, and suddenly all the fear and anxiety is gone from her. “I’ll need maps.”

  “O-Okay,” says Mulaghesh.

  “Just one moment, first.” Signe goes back to the secret door, opens it, and grabs a briefcase that was sitting on the stairs. Mulaghesh pauses to wonder exactly what brought Signe to her room in the first place.