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

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  “Well, it certainly is fucking us over right now, isn’t it?” asks Signe, furious. “If that was their goal, then they are wildly succeeding. What are we going to do?”

  “The same thing we were going to do before,” says Mulaghesh. “Only now we’ll need to hurry. If Biswal gets here we’ll never get the chance to try this again.”

  “You still want to move ahead with your plan, General?” asks Signe.

  “I don’t have a choice. Are you with me?”

  Signe and Sigrud glance at each other. Then, finally, they nod.

  “Good,” says Mulaghesh. “Roll up your sleeves.”

  Mulaghesh does Sigrud first—she knows he probably won’t show any pain, so he’s a good practice subject before moving on to Signe—and soon she has three needles with three tubes spurting out viscous blood into the basin of seawater.

  “So…you go over there,” says Signe, “wherever there is. And what do we do if you don’t come back?”

  “If I don’t come back, then the apocalypse happens,” says Mulaghesh. “And if that happens, you and your dad here need to evacuate everyone in Voortyashtan.”

  Sigrud nods. “Once you’re over there, I will go to the lighthouse and coordinate.”

  “How’s your arm?”

  “Painful. But mobile. It will do. Much like your hip. We ask much of our bodies.”

  They stand around the basin, staring at the muddy red waters.

  “So…how do we know when it’s done?” asks Sigrud, watching the arrhythmic gush of his own blood. “I frankly would like to have this thing out of me as soon as possible.”

  “You’re the Voortyashtani, Signe,” says Mulaghesh. “You tell me.”

  “You forget that I’ve never seen a miracle performed, General,” she says. “Besides the resurrection of Zhurgut. I’m well out of my league.”

  “We’re all out of our league.” Mulaghesh kneels—keeping her left arm raised awkwardly so her own blood continues to pour into the basin—and lights the bundle of sackcloth at the foot of the plinth. She blows on it a little to get it going. “The miracles I’ve seen varied in showiness. Some you didn’t notice, some made sure you couldn’t help but notice. Are we going to see any rays of light, or chorus of singing, or—”

  “—or swirling waters?” says Sigrud.

  “Right, or that.”

  “No,” says Signe. “He means the water’s swirling. Right now.”

  Mulaghesh stands up. The reddish seawater in the basin is slowly circling, creating a small funnel in the center, like it’s draining away—but the level never lowers.

  “Huh,” says Mulaghesh. “Is this…it?”

  The more the sackcloth burns, the faster the water swirls, spinning more and more until it begins to make a low rumble as it rushes along the edge of the basin. Finally the sackcloth is just a heap of ash, but the waters keep accelerating.

  “Is it done?” asks Signe. “Finished?”

  “I believe it is just beginning,” says Sigrud.

  They watch, forgetting their bloodletting, as the water spins faster and faster until it’s a cyclone of bloodstained water, whirling so fast that the very air above it starts to spin with it. Somehow not a drop of it flies out, despite the shallow basin: Mulaghesh and the rest remain as dry as they were when they started.

  A cool breeze filters through the yard of statues. Then there’s a familiar sound: a soft, droning om, much like the sound the whole of Voortyashtan heard whenever Saint Zhurgut hurled his massive blade. And somehow, in some intangible way, there is the unmistakable feeling of a door being opened nearby.

  They all shiver. “I think…I think that is enough,” says Sigrud.

  “Yes,” says Signe. She looks up and peers around the yard as if she’s heard a curious noise. “Something’s changed. Something’s different now, though I can’t quite tell what.”

  Mulaghesh stares down into the roaring tunnel of water. “By the seas…I’m going in there?”

  “That seems to be the case,” says Sigrud, removing his syringe and applying a bandage. He walks over to assist Signe. “Are we so sure Sumitra Choudhry wasn’t beaten to death by the waters themselves?”

  “Thanks for the confidence boost,” says Mulaghesh. She winces as she slides the needle out of her arm and wraps her elbow up with bandages.

  Signe asks, “Are you going in?”

  “I guess.” Mulaghesh sits on the edge of the basin, like a deep-sea diver about to drop herself in the ocean. She looks up at them. “Are we all ready?”

  “Is it possible for any normal human to be ready for this?” asks Signe.

  “Fair point.” Mulaghesh grips the edge of the basin, then freezes, suddenly seized with terror. This could be the last moment she has in this world, the last second of genuine waking life. “I didn’t think I’d make it to this age,” says Mulaghesh. “If…If I don’t come back…Tell them…Tell everyone I said I’m sorry. Okay? Just tell them that.”

  “We will,” says Signe. “I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them that, and I’ll tell them the truth.”

  “You had better,” says Mulaghesh. “Someone needs to.” Then without another thought, she pitches herself backward into the whirlpool.

  * * *

  —

  She expects to fall down a tunnel. That’s what it was, after all, when she saw it: a whirlpool of rushing, roaring water, with a narrow tunnel leading straight down into the center of the basin.

  But when she falls backward that’s not what she experiences at all. Instead it’s like she’s fallen into the surface of a still lake: the water embraces her all at once, a solid, flat surface rather than a raging whirlpool, and it’s not a narrow column of water but a vast, dark ocean with a single hole of light at the top. She’s not being whipped around by a cyclone of water; she’s just…falling. It’s like she’s fallen through a hole cut in ice, and she can see the rippling faces of her two comrades looking in at her.

  Most disconcertingly, though, she’s sinking. Fast.

  Her instincts kick in: she needs to swim up, back up, now. She kicks her feet, trying to gain traction, but she’s weighed down by her gear, which itself is strapped to her body very tightly, so she can’t let go.

  She plummets down into the darkness, feeling the inexorable pressure of all that water gripping her whole body. It’s like she’s in the hand of a giant, tightening its freezing grip. The hole of light above her is just a pinprick now. She knows she shouldn’t—she’s been trained on drowning—but she starts panicking, kicking wildly, flailing about in the icy depths. One trickle of water penetrates her lips, and suddenly all the air comes flooding out of her, crystalline bubbles bursting from her nose and mouth and spiraling up to the tiny white pinprick above.

  She’s drowning. She’s drowning and she knows it. She’s going to die in this damned big bathtub and there’s nothing she can do about it.

  But then the world…tips.

  The pull of gravity spins about her.

  Suddenly she’s not falling, but rising, rising up toward the surface, her legs pointed toward what looks like a pool of stars below her—no, above her.

  She awkwardly flips herself over and looks up, lungs screaming for air, as she flies up toward the pool of stars. Then she realizes it’s not quite a pool, exactly, but a hole, just like the one she fell through…except the stars in the sky she’s seeing aren’t right at all.

  She punches through the surface of the water and launches herself up, surging for air, gasping hugely.

  Her fingers find stone. She grabs onto it and clings tight like a child first learning to swim. Once she catches her breath she looks around herself.

  She stares.

  “What the…What the fuck,” she breathes.

  She’s in what looks to be a gazing pool set in a courtyard between two giant, towering buildings, each
of which resembles a flowering anemone. The ground of the courtyard is covered with white gravel, upon which sit broad, white marble tiles, forming a grid. Golden light flows from nearby doorways, creating honey-colored slashes across the gravel, and standing at odd angles on the tiles are statues of…

  Wait. Those aren’t statues at all.

  Her skin crawls as she realizes six Voortyashtani sentinels are standing in the courtyard with her, their massive, hideous armor flexing ever so slightly as they breathe. Mulaghesh tries to stay perfectly still in the water of the gazing pool. She’s made a lot of noise so far, but none of them stand or react to her—just like when she had her vision before.

  She waits. Nothing happens. Then she stirs up her courage and says, “Hey—hey!”

  None of them move. Warily, she climbs out of the gazing pool, then scurries over to the wall for shelter. Her breath produces an incredible amount of condensation, even though her skin doesn’t feel cold. It’s as if there’s just something frigid about this place that can’t react correctly to the living.

  She looks herself over, mostly to make sure her ammunition is still secured to her rig. The cartridges should still work—she’s seen these damned things fire underwater before. And Signe’s brace has held, so she’s still gripping the rifling. It’s then that she notices that she’s now stained a dark red from head to toe: her clothes, skin, and even her hair are all a dusty crimson. It’s like she’s been marinating in blood, even though her time in the basin was hardly more than a minute or so.

  She licks her fingers and rubs her skin, assuming it will wash off. It doesn’t.

  “Shit,” she mutters. This will make her easy to spot in this colorless place.

  She considers what to do now. She looks up at the two massive towers above her, riddled with windows glowing white or gold. The starry sky above is beautiful and strange, featuring some stars that are both the wrong size and the wrong color. Every once in a while a shooting star blazes bright against the dark. It’s a hauntingly beautiful place, albeit strange and ghostly.

  She looks at one group of sentinels, then walks closer until they’re about ten feet from her. She can see variations in their armor now: some feature more aquatic ornamentations, others have more antlers, and some have only teeth of all shapes lining their shoulders and backs. They’re like different uniforms, she thinks. Maybe from different military units, different regions of Voortyashtan…or different eras in history.

  She walks closer, rifling at the ready. The closest sentinel still faces away from her, but if it was conscious or alert, it’d hear her footfalls. Then she realizes that the sentinel is speaking, mumbling. She leans closer, listening, until she can hear its words:

  “I threw down the bridges, threw down the walls, leapt among the fleeing flock and struck them down like wheat before the scythe. I did this for you, Mother, I did this for you….”

  She walks to the next two, and hears:

  “I stood upon the prow of my vessel and my heart leapt forth and I struck down their ships one by one, dashing them to flotsam and jetsam, and as we sailed by they clutched to the debris and cried out for help and we laughed at them. I did this for you, Mother. We did this for you….”

  “We laid siege to the city for three weeks and four days, and when they opened the gates to admit defeat our swords fell upon them like rain upon a rooftop. They had thought we would be kind, that we would sanction their lives in return for their submission, but oh what fools they were, Mother, what fools they were….”

  She listens to them, hearing each brutal story, each horrific victory. They’re reliving them over and over, she realizes, reliving their accomplishments, celebrating the deeds that won them their place here in the afterlife. But always they tie each story back to their “mother,” and each time they do there is a note of recrimination in it: as if they did these things for her, and secretly they did not wish to do them at all, and now she has somehow betrayed them.

  She listens to them mumbling, then looks ahead into the gold-lit hallway leading away from the courtyard.

  “Now…,” she whispers. “Where in hells is Choudhry?”

  * * *

  —

  She wanders through the corridors and streets of the City of Blades, trotting over bridges and along canals and through cavernous tunnels. The streets are not all white stone: many of them are battered or rent shields hammered flat, just like in the dome atop the Tooth. She keeps an eye on the horizon, trying to spy that giant tower she saw in her vision, but the buildings and statues are so impossibly tall that it’s difficult to see anything behind them. She can only look straight up, really.

  The streets are dotted with clumps of sentinels, all of them dormant and muttering like the ones she saw in the courtyard. They barely seem aware of their own presence, let alone Mulaghesh’s. But then she notices that no matter where the sentinels are standing, they’re all staring in one direction, as if they can see something behind the towering walls and statues.

  So—what are they looking at?

  Following this hunch—and completely ignoring common sense—she starts to run toward the sentinels, moving from small clumps to large groups and teeming crowds of sentinels, as they all seem to be magnetically drawn to something, clustering around some fixed point deep in the city.

  As she dodges between two tall, muttering sentinels standing on a narrow, ivory-colored bridge, she suddenly stops. Then she backs up and looks down the canal.

  The City of Blades seems to be riddled with canals, and the one she’s currently standing over looks like one of the biggest. As she looks down its length she can see countless other bridges straddling it, bridges of many shapes and sizes.

  But on one bridge, about a quarter mile down the canal, she can see something lying on its stairs.

  No—not something. Someone. A human form, limp and lying there, stained red just as she is.

  “Ah, shit,” says Mulaghesh quietly.

  She navigates through the crowd of sentinels and runs along the canal to the other bridge.

  Not like this, she thinks. It shouldn’t end like this.

  But when she emerges from one group of sentinels, and sees the body’s dark hair spilling over the white stairs, her shoulders slump.

  She knows what this is, who this is.

  She slowly walks over to the body.

  It’s a woman. She’s dressed in civilian clothes, but the bandolier, the grenades, and the satchel hanging from her shoulder all suggest access to military supplies. Mulaghesh uses her toe to open the satchel. Inside is a bundle of brown tubes tied together, each capped with metal: TNT.

  Packed for one hell of a pop, thinks Mulaghesh.

  “So this is what happened to Biswal’s missing explosives,” she says aloud. “The Voortyashtanis never stole them. You did.” She almost wants to laugh at the sheer stupidity of it all.

  Then she sighs, steels herself, and turns the body over.

  She isn’t sure what she was expecting. All this time Mulaghesh has only had a picture and a file to go on, an idea of a person more than a person themselves. Yet when she sees the corpse of the young Saypuri woman, stiff and cold, she feels a pang she wasn’t expecting.

  “Sumitra Choudhry,” says Mulaghesh. “Damn it.”

  She’s not terribly decomposed, Mulaghesh notes, which suggests that time doesn’t work too well here, as Mulaghesh suspected. There’s a scab on her brow, left over from her fight outside the tunnel to the mines, probably. She looks terribly, terribly young to Mulaghesh’s eyes, not yet thirty. There’s a trace of irritation or discomfort to her large, dark eyes, as if she can’t believe this is happening to her, that she should come so far just to die here, alone on a bridge over ghostly waters.

  “I’m sorry,” says Mulaghesh to her.

  The only answer is the trickle of the waters below.

  She looks close
r at the satchel of TNT, wondering what Choudhry planned to use it on. Probably to blow up the citadel, Mulaghesh thinks, just as Sigrud proposed. Mulaghesh considers taking the TNT herself, but she’s never been a fast hand with explosives, and she doesn’t want to try now with so much at stake. She definitely doesn’t want to run around with a bunch of friction-sensitive explosives on her back as a just-in-case measure, either.

  Mulaghesh wonders why it hurts as much as it does to see Choudhry here. But she realizes she’s been thinking of Choudhry primarily as a soldier: a soldier operating on her own, trying to stop a threat to her country before it gained momentum, a soldier willing to lay down her life in the line of duty. To see she finally made that ultimate sacrifice is saddening, despite everything that’s happened so far.

  “For so long I thought you were dead,” Mulaghesh says to her. “I don’t know why I’m so surprised to find out I was right.”

  Then a strange, singing voice says over her shoulder, “It’s odd she even got here.”

  Mulaghesh whirls around, rifling at the ready. Then she realizes that the voice came from nearly fourteen feet above her, and slowly looks up.

  * * *

  —

  Towering over her is what looks like the figure of an enormous woman, or perhaps a sculpture of a woman made of metal: she is silvery and glimmering, her arms and shoulders smooth like chrome. There is an artfulness to her that is both beautiful and yet repellent—Mulaghesh immediately senses that this thing was made by someone—and her limbs are terribly distorted, far too long and thin for a normal human. There’s something blade-like about them, the way they narrow and thin at the middle, then expand outward at the ends. Her hands and fingers are nothing but knives, long and curved and thin—so thin it’s hard to tell how many fingers she actually has. She wears a ragged skirt that starts high above her waist and then drifts down to coil around her narrow legs. Her feet, Mulaghesh sees, are clawed, like those of a bird, and the woman’s face is hidden behind a veil made of woven hair, long and silky and somewhat translucent.