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

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  Mostly because the money is unimaginable, even to Khadse, who’s very good at imagining lots of money and in fact spends much of his free time doing so. This isn’t the first job he’s done for his employer, but this payday is an order of magnitude larger than the last. Enough money to make a man worry.

  But the wardrobe requests…that’s odd. Very odd indeed.

  For when Khadse went to pick up the most recent installment of his payment, he found the money came with a folded black coat and a pair of black, well-polished shoes. Both came with strict instructions: he was to wear these articles of clothing whenever he performed his contracted duties, with absolutely no exceptions. The instructions suggested that if he did not do so, his very life would be in danger.

  At the time, Khadse simply thought—All right. My new employer is mad. I’ve worked for madmen before. It’s not so bad. Yet then he tried them on, and found that both the coat and the shoes fit perfectly well—which was very strange, as Khadse had never met his new employer, let alone told him his shoe size.

  He tries not to think about it as he climbs the stairs to the third floor. Tries not to think about how those articles of clothing—so neat, so dark, so perfect—are of course what he’s wearing right now. He tries not to think about how spectacularly strange all of this is, or about how his employer specifically requested Khadse go alone for this job, without his usual team in tow.

  Khadse climbs to the third floor. Very close now.

  I wouldn’t even be doing this damned job, he thinks, if it weren’t for Komayd. Which was fairly true: when Ashara Komayd came to be prime minister, oh, seventeen years ago or so, her first order of business had been clearing out all the hardliners from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Hardliners like Khadse, who saw a lot of action in those days, plenty of it very nasty.

  He can still remember her memo, ringing with that self-important, priggish tone Komayd was always affecting: We must remember not only what we do, but how we do it. As such, the Ministry will be going through a period of reorganization and reorientation as we make adjustments for the future.

  Ashara Komayd was cleaning house, cutting everyone recruited by her aunt, Vinya Komayd—and Khadse had always been a favorite of Vinya’s.

  And suddenly, there he was. Cut loose in Ahanashtan after a decade of service, and promptly forgotten. He tried to find some pleasure when Komayd herself was booted from Parliament, what, thirteen years ago now? But politicians always have their parachutes. It’s the grunts like Khadse who have the harder landings. Even Komayd’s personal thug, that lumbering, one-eyed oaf of a Dreyling, even he’d gotten a plum retirement, some kind of royal position in the Dreyling Shores—though he’d also heard the fool had found some way to cock it all up.

  I’d be doing this for free, Khadse thinks, seething. Twelve years of service, and then so long, Rahul, good-bye to you, good-bye to you and all you worked for, all you fought for, all you bled for, I’m off to spend the Ministry’s coffers on worthless idealism and leave the intelligence world a smoking crater behind me.

  He walks down the fourth-floor hall. Another guard, a woman, young and trim and dressed in black, stands at attention at the corner. As Khadse expected.

  Khadse shuffles toward the young guard, his face the very picture of doddering befuddlement, holding a smudged piece of paper with a name and a hotel room on it. “Pardon me, ma’am,” says Khadse, bowing low and emanating obsequiousness, “but…I seem to be on the wrong floor, perhaps?”

  “You are,” says the guard. “This floor is off-limits, sir.”

  “The fifth floor is off-limits?” says Khadse, surprised.

  The guard almost rolls her eyes. “There is no fifth floor, sir.”

  “Oh, no?” He stares around himself. “But what floor is…”

  “This is the fourth floor, sir.”

  “Oh. But this is the Golden Hotel, yes?”

  “Yes. It is.”

  “But I…Oh, dear.” Khadse drops the piece of paper, which flutters to the guard’s feet.

  The guard, sighing, reaches down to pick it up.

  She doesn’t see Khadse step lightly behind her. Doesn’t see him whip his knife out. Doesn’t have time to react as the steel bites into her jugular and severs it wide open.

  The spray of blood is phenomenal. Khadse dances away from it, careful to avoid any spatter on his clothing—he reflects, very briefly, that avoiding bloodstains is one of his oddest but most valuable talents. The guard falls to her knees, gagging, and he dances forward and delivers a devastating side-kick to the back of her head.

  The guard collapses to the ground, pouring blood. Again, Khadse puts down his valise and dons the brown gloves. He wipes and sheathes the knife, then searches her. He finds a hotel key—this one 402—grabs the guard by the ankles, and hauls her around the corner, out of view.

  Quickly now. Quick, quick.

  He presses his ear to the door of 402—they’re all suites up here—and, hearing nothing, opens it. He hauls her in and dumps her body behind the couch. Then he wipes off his brown gloves, pulls them off, and exits, delicately picking up his valise on the way.

  He almost wants to whistle merrily as he steps over the bloodstains. Khadse always was good with a knife. He had to learn to be, after an operation in Jukoshtan when some Continental took objection to the way he was walking and tried his damnedest to slit Khadse’s throat. Khadse walked away from the experience with a lurid scar across his neck and a predilection for working close and dirty. Do to the Continentals, he used to say to his colleagues, as they would do to you.

  He walks to Room 408—which is, as he expected, right beside the King Suite, where Ashara Komayd has set up her offices for the past month. Doing what, Khadse isn’t sure. The general word is that she’s managing some charity or other, something about locating orphans and finding homes for them.

  But from what Khadse’s employer said, it’s a lot more than just that.

  But then, thinks Khadse as he silently unlocks Room 408, the mad bastard also said this hotel was covered in defenses. He opens the door. But I don’t call two soft young eggs like those a very rigorous defense.

  Again, Khadse tries not to think about the coat and shoes he’s currently wearing. Tries not to think about how his employer suggested that such articles of clothing would serve as tools against Komayd’s defenses—which, of course, would suggest that Komayd’s offices are covered in the sort of defenses Khadse cannot see.

  That, he finds, is a very disturbing idea.

  Horseshit, is what it is, he thinks, shutting the door behind him. Mere horseshit.

  The hotel suite is empty, but its arrangement is deeply familiar to Khadse, from the weapons on the distant desk to the security reports on the bedside table. Here is where the guards prepare for their assignments, there is the telescope they use to watch the street from the balcony, and here is where they doze in between their shifts.

  Khadse stalks over to the wall and presses his ear against it, listening hard. He’s almost positive Komayd’s over there, along with two of her guards. An unusual amount of security for a former prime minister, but then Komayd’s received more death threats than almost anyone alive.

  He can hear the two guards. He hears them clear their throats, cough very slightly. But Komayd he doesn’t hear at all. Which is troubling.

  She should be in there. She really should. He did his homework.

  Thinking rapidly, Khadse silently pads over to the balcony. The doors have glass windows, veiled with thin white curtains. He sidles up to the windows and glances out sideways, at the balcony next door.

  His eyes widen.

  There she is.

  There sits the woman herself. The woman descended from the Kaj, conqueror of the gods and the Continent, the woman who killed two Divinities herself nearly twenty years ago.

  How small she is. How frail. Her
hair is snow-white—prematurely so, surely—and she sits hunched in a small iron chair, watching the street below, a cup of tea steaming in her small hands. Khadse’s so struck by her smallness, her blandness, that he almost forgets his job.

  That’s not right, he thinks, withdrawing. Not right for her to be outside, so exposed. Too dangerous.

  His heart goes cold as he thinks. Komayd is still an operative at her heart, after all these years. And why would an operative watch the street? Why risk such exposure?

  The answer is, of course, that Komayd is looking for something. A message, perhaps. And while Khadse could have no idea what that message would contain or when it might arrive, it could make Komayd move. And that would ruin everything.

  Khadse whirls around, kneels, and opens his briefcase. Inside his briefcase is something very new, very dangerous, and very vile: an adapted version of an antipersonnel mine, one specifically engineered to direct all of its explosive force to one side. It’s also been augmented for this one job, since most antipersonnel mines might have difficulty penetrating a wall—but this one packs such a punch it should have no issues whatsoever.

  Khadse takes the mine out and gently affixes it to the wall next to Ashara Komayd’s suite. He licks his lips as he goes through the activation procedure—three simple steps—and then sets the timer for four minutes. That should give him enough time to get to safety. But if anything goes wrong, he has another new toy as well: a radio override that can allow him to trigger the blast early, if he wants.

  He dearly hopes he never needs to. Triggering it early might mean triggering it when he’s still too close. But one must be sure about such things.

  He stands, glances out at Komayd one last time—he mutters, “So long, you damned bitch”—and slips out of the hotel room.

  Down the hallway, past the bloodstains, then down the stairs. Down the stairs and through the lobby, where all the people are still going through their dull little motions, yawning as they page through the newspapers, snuffling through a hangover as they sip coffee or try to decide what they’ll do with their vacation day.

  None of them notices Khadse. None of them notices as he trots across the lobby and out the door to the streets, where a light rain is falling.

  This isn’t the first time Khadse’s worked such a job, so he really should be calm about such things. His heart shouldn’t be humming, shouldn’t be pattering. Yet it is.

  Komayd. Finally. Finally, finally, finally.

  He should walk away. Should walk south, or east. Yet he can’t resist. He walks north, north to the very street Komayd was watching. He wants to see her one last time, wants to enjoy his imminent victory.

  The sun breaks free of the clouds as Khadse turns the corner. The street is mostly empty, as everyone’s gone to work at this hour. He keeps to the edges of the street, silently counting the seconds, keeping his distance from the Golden but allowing himself a slight glance to the side….

  His eyes rove among the balconies. Then he spies her, sitting on the fourth-floor balcony. A wisp of steam from her tea is visible even from here.

  He ducks into a doorway to watch her, his blood dancing with anticipation.

  Here it comes. Here it comes.

  Then Komayd sits up. She frowns.

  Khadse frowns as well. She sees something.

  He steps out of the doorway a little, peering out to see what she’s looking at.

  Then he spies her: a young Continental girl is standing on the sidewalk, staring right up at Komayd’s balcony and violently gesturing to her. The girl is pale with an upturned nose, her hair crinkled and bushy. He’s never seen her before—which is bad. His team did their homework. They should know everyone who comes into contact with Komayd.

  The gesture, though—three fingers, then two. Khadse doesn’t know the meaning of the numbers, but it’s clear what the gesture is: it’s a warning.

  The girl glances around the street as she gestures to Komayd. As she does, her gaze falls on Khadse.

  The girl freezes. She and Khadse lock eyes.

  Her eyes are of a very, very curious color. They’re not quite blue, not quite gray, not quite green, nor brown….They’re of no color at all, it seems.

  Khadse looks up at Komayd. Komayd, he sees, is looking right at him.

  Komayd’s face twists up in disgust, and though it’s impossible—From this distance? And after so long?—he swears he can see that she recognizes him.

  He sees Komayd’s mouth move, saying one word: “Khadse.”

  “Shit,” says Khadse.

  His right hand flies down to his pocket, where the radio trigger is hidden. He looks to the pale Continental girl, wondering if she’ll attack—but she’s gone. The sidewalk just down the road from him is totally empty. She’s nowhere to be found.

  Khadse looks around, anxious, wondering if she’s about to assault him. He doesn’t see her anywhere.

  Then he looks back up at Komayd—and sees the impossible has happened.

  The pale Continental girl is now on the balcony with Komayd, helping her stand, trying to usher her away.

  He stares at them, stupefied. How could the girl have moved so quickly? How could she have vanished from one place and suddenly reappeared across the street and four floors up? It’s impossible.

  The girl kicks open the balcony doors and hauls Komayd through.

  I’m blown, he thinks. They’re on the move.

  Khadse’s hand is on the remote.

  He’s much too close. He’s right across the street. But he’s blown.

  Nothing more to do about it. One must be sure about such things.

  Khadse hits the trigger.

  The blast knocks him to the ground, showers him with debris, makes his ears ring and his eyes water. It’s like someone slapped him on either side of the head and kicked him in the stomach. He feels an ache on his right side and slowly realizes the detonation hurled him against the wall, only it happened too fast for him to understand.

  The world swims around him. Khadse slowly sits up.

  Everything is dim and distant. The world is full of muddled screams. The air hangs heavy with smoke and dust.

  Blinking hard, Khadse looks at the Golden. The building’s top-right corner has been completely excised as if it were a tumor, a gaping, splintered, smoking hole right where Komayd’s balcony used to be. It looks as if the mine took out not only Komayd’s suite but also Room 408 and most of the rooms around it.

  There’s no sign of Komayd, or the strange Continental girl. He suppresses the desire to step closer, to make sure the job is done. He just stares up at the damage, head cocked.

  A Continental man—a baker of some kind, by his dress—stops him and frantically asks, “What happened? What happened?”

  Khadse turns and walks away. He calmly walks south, through the streaming crowds, through the police and medical autos speeding down the streets, through the throngs of people gathering on the sidewalks, all looking north at the column of smoke streaming from the Golden.

  He says not a word, does not a thing. All he does is walk. He barely even breathes.

  He makes it to his safe house. He confirms the door hasn’t been tampered with, nor the windows, then unlocks the door and walks inside. He goes straight to the radio, turns it on, and stands there for the better part of three hours, listening.

  He waits, and waits, until finally they begin reporting on the explosion. He keeps waiting until they finally announce it.

  …just confirmed that Ashara Komayd, former prime minister of Saypur, was killed in the blast…

  Khadse exhales slowly.

  Then he slowly, slowly lowers himself to sit on the floor.

  And then, to his own surprise, he begins laughing.

  * * *

  —

  They approach the tree in the morning, while the mist s
till clings to the forest undergrowth, carrying axes and the two-man saw between them, tin helmets on their heads, their packs strapped to their backs. The tree is marked by a single blob of yellow paint that drips down its trunk. They survey the area, gauge where the tree should fall, and then, like surgeons before a delicate operation, they begin.

  He looks up at the tree as the others scurry about. To convince this grand old thing to fall, he thinks, is like carving off a piece of time itself.

  They begin the face cut with the two-man saw, he on one end and a partner on the other, ripping the saw back and forth, its curved teeth slashing through the soft white flesh, peels of wood speckling their hands and arms and boots. Once the bottom of the face cut is established, they chop at it with axes, swinging like pistons in an engine, down and in, down and in, hacking off huge chunks of wood.

  They pause to wipe their brows and consider their work. “How does it look, Dreyling?” the foreman asks him.

  Sigrud je Harkvaldsson pauses. He wishes they’d use the name he gave them—Bjorn—but they rarely do.

  He kneels and lays his head sideways in the face cut, vaguely aware of the several tons of wood suspended directly above his skull. Then he squints, stands, waves to the left, and says, “Ten degrees east.”

  “You sure, Dreyling?”

  “Ten degrees east,” he says.

  The other men glance at one another, smirking. Then they resume with this slight adjustment in the face cut.

  Once the face cut is complete, they move to the opposite side of the tree and begin again with the two-man saw, slicing through the wood in agonizing strokes to grow close, but not too close, to the face cut.

  When the man at the other end of the saw tires, Sigrud just waits, silently, for someone else to take up the other end. Then they resume sawing.

  “I damnably do swear, Dreyling, are you an automaton?” says the foreman.

  He says nothing as he saws.