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

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  Sigrud reaches into his pack and pulls out a box of matches and Khadse’s coat. Thank the seas, he thinks, that I still smoke. He stuffs his arms into Khadse’s coat, which barely fits, but that’s the least of his problems. Then, moving carefully and smoothly, he lights one match. He hands it to the girl, then makes a bundle of half of the remaining matches and hands them to her as well. Then he strikes another match and picks up the other half of the remaining matches, so they’re both holding a lit match in one hand and a bundle of unlit matches in the other.

  He looks the young woman over: she’s breathing hard, both in pain and in terror.

  “Ready?” asks Sigrud.

  “Yes,” she says.

  “Then do it.”

  She shuts her eyes. At the same time, they both hold their lit matches to the unlit bundles. The matches flare bright, sending shafts of light shooting into the darkness.

  The bubble of past around them trembles. Shakes.

  Dissolves.

  Darkness comes spilling in, roaring and cheeping, the wild, strange sounds of the forest at night….

  But it comes to a halt just around them, held at bay by the flickering matches in their hands. It’s so dark it’s difficult to tell that they’re still in the slaughterhouse, but Sigrud can see the dawn light filtering through the cracks in one of the bay doors in the distance.

  The girl nods at Sigrud and slowly begins to move toward the door, the flame flickering in her fingers.

  Then the high, cold voice whispers in his ear, quivering with rage: “Where is she? She’s here, isn’t she?”

  Sigrud suppresses a smile. So the miracles in Khadse’s shoes are working, he thinks. He can’t properly see her….

  “You are working with them,” says the voice. “I knew it. I knew it. Your little light won’t last long, you know. And then I’ll have you.”

  “I’ll tell you everything,” says Sigrud. “Right now.”

  A pause. Sigrud can see the girl has almost made it to the door.

  “Tell me what?” says the voice.

  “About Komayd. The ones on her list. I know where they are.”

  This is, of course, fabulous bullshit. But the voice in the shadows seems to be considering it.

  The voice purrs, “If you have something to say, say it.”

  “I worked with Komayd,” says Sigrud. He makes sure to talk as slowly as possible. “I worked with her for a long, long time. Even if she didn’t know it, I worked for her and waited for her—right up until her death.”

  A soft clinking and clanking as the girl slides the door open.

  Then the voice speaks again, this time next to Sigrud’s other ear. “And?” it says, suspicious.

  “And she was a careful person,” says Sigrud. He watches as the flame crawls down the matchsticks. “But even the most careful person makes mistakes. As you know.”

  Sigrud watches as the girl slips away to safety. She doesn’t look back.

  “Once we were in a safe house, doing an interrogation,” says Sigrud. “But it was interrupted. Our enemies stormed in, you see, and almost took us prisoner. And from then on, I insisted on taking precautions in case it happened again. She hated it. But it was a very simple system.”

  Sigrud takes a breath.

  He picks up the radio transmitter, holds it up, and says, “It looks like this.”

  He drops the matches, pulls the coat up over his head with his left hand, and presses the button.

  Then there’s a bang.

  Sigrud does not really hear it. He hears maybe the first .0001 second of the bang. Because then he’s slammed to the ground so hard he briefly blacks out.

  Light. Heat. Noise. And smoke.

  He comes to, gasping and blinking, fire dancing all around him, and dimly realizes he’s not in any pain. The coat is still over his head, and his back and skull—which should have struck the floor at a lethal speed—have no pain at all. The coat must have stopped him from striking the floor, but, much like someone’s head snapping around in an auto accident, it didn’t slow his brain down any.

  He shakes himself, dazed, and sits up. The incendiary mines have done a good bit of damage: the shadows have been rent to shreds by a thousand little flames flickering all throughout the slaughterhouse. He looks for his assailant—this Nokov—but can’t see anything.

  Except…

  In the far corner of the slaughterhouse bays is a form, a shadow cast on the wall, though there’s no one to cast it. The shadow looks like the person, whoever they are, is bent over, hands on their knees, as if recovering from a stunning blow. Then the shadow shifts, and turns to look at him…

  He sees eyes in the shadow, cold and glimmering like distant stars.

  “Look what you did!” shouts the voice, outraged and bewildered. “Look what you did!”

  Sigrud stands and sprints for the doorway out, though he reels slightly like a drunk. As he runs he sees that his handiwork is not quite what it used to be: only two of the three incendiary mines he planted down here have gone off. He must have botched the third charge, which was the largest. Odds are that the receiver for the third charge was damaged in the explosion, but as he runs he covers as much of his body as he can with Khadse’s coat and clicks the transmitter over and over again, hoping it could sputter to life.

  He sees the shadows roiling, swarming, swirling behind him, thousands of little pools joining together to snatch him up before he can reach the daylight outside.

  Sigrud is twenty feet from the door, then ten. He can see the Luzhkov River just beyond, rippling in the sunlight.

  “No!” cries the high, cold voice behind him. “No, no!”

  Sigrud’s thumb makes one last frantic beat on the transmitter button: clickcli­ckclick­click­click.

  Then there’s a light on the walls, hot and orange, coming from somewhere behind him. A burst of searing heat washes over him.

  The next thing he knows, Sigrud is shot through the doorway like a bullet from a gun.

  Time seems to slow down. Sigrud slowly tilts ass over head over the surface of the Luzhkov, which allows him to see his handiwork: a bright ball of flame shooting out of the entrance of the slaughterhouse, licking at the waters like the tongue of a dragon.

  Sigrud looks down—or, as he’s upside down, up—at the water surface hurtling at him.

  This, he thinks, is not what I wanted.

  He tries to pull the coat around him, but then…

  Impact.

  The world goes dark and all his senses are reduced to a tinny eeeee­eeeee­ee in his ears. When he comes to he’s instantly aware that he’s underwater, that bubbles are streaming from his nose and mouth and, actually, there’s quite a bit of water in his throat.

  Do not panic. Do not panic….

  He begins thrashing, kicking, throwing himself up at the shimmering light above him, red and wicked orange. He bursts through the surface of the water, coughing and gasping, and is so relieved he nearly sinks back underneath again. He claws himself back up, his arms and legs working to tread water, and swims over to the far shore.

  Finally he feels soft mud under his boots, and he hauls himself up the riverbank, gasping with exhaustion. There’s a tremendous crack behind him, and he turns just in time to see the slaughterhouse begin to collapse.

  He frowns. He had intended just to make a lot of flash and heat, not bring the whole building down. I really do need to brush up on my explosives skills.

  He watches the building collapse. He wonders if that thing—Nokov—died in the fire, perhaps trapped in it. He doubts it. He saw a Divinity take a few dozen artillery shells to the face in Bulikov eighteen years ago, and it didn’t even get a nosebleed.

  But was it—he?—a Divinity? He sticks his pinky in his ear, trying to free a bubble of water. And what was the woman? What exactly have I stumbled into?<
br />
  He remembers what the young Continental woman said: Don’t you know there’s a war going on?

  He looks down at himself. Khadse’s coat has been torn apart—not by any outside force, but apparently from Sigrud’s very large arms pinwheeling and thrashing about in a coat about five sizes too small for him. Sighing, he pulls the shreds of it off of him. He would have dearly liked to keep such a device, but he reflects that it’s probably unwise to trust a miracle, especially one you’ve never seen before.

  He stands and begins to limp away. Now to find his way back to his apartment and his cache of money and papers. And then to get the ever-living hells out of Ahanashtan.

  And from there, on to Ghaladesh, he thinks, to keep Tatyana out of the hands of whatever that thing was.

  Though he will need a local resource. But he has an excellent one in mind. One whose home address is a matter of public record.

  Let’s just hope, he thinks as he trudges over to the road, she doesn’t shoot me on sight.

  Sometimes people ask me about Vo. It’s very forward of them to do so, I find, but the press gets more and more forward these days. Any more forward and they’ll tip over onto their faces—or so I hope, perhaps.

  I think the same thing I’ve always thought: that the status quo is lethally reflexive.

  People don’t change. Nations don’t change. They get changed. Reluctantly. And not without a fight.

  —LETTER FROM FORMER PRIME MINISTER ASHARA KOMAYD TO UPPER HOUSE MINORITY LEADER TURYIN MULAGHESH, 1732

  Captain First Class Kavitha Mishra walks across the empty lots, hands in the pockets of her greatcoat. The wreckage of the slaughterhouse beyond is still steaming, ribbons of vapor unfurling from its depths. The Ahanashtani police have the area cordoned off, and she notes all the officers look very serious, frowning and shaking their heads, their cheeks and noses bright red under those tall, crested helmets. A couple of them have the glitter of gold about their shoulders—lieutenants, maybe, or perhaps a captain or two. A very serious affair, indeed.

  The constable ahead holds up a black-gloved hand as she approaches. “I’m sorry, miss, this is a crime scene, and I—”

  Mishra pulls out her credentials and holds them up. “Good morning,” she says.

  He reads her credentials. Then his eyes widen and he takes a step back. “I see, ma’am,” he says. “Ah. Would you like me to get the lieutenant, ma’am?”

  “If that’s who’s in charge—then yes, please.”

  “Yes, ma’am.” He trots off. Mishra waits, casting an eye over the ruins of the slaughterhouse. She could walk into the scene if she wanted—no matter how much gold bedecks those uniforms, her position thoroughly trumps theirs—but she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to do anything especially memorable beyond appear and then depart.

  The Ahanashtani lieutenant, his giant white mustache rippling with each indignant huff, strides across the pavement to her. “Yes, yes?” he asks. “How can I help you?”

  She shows him her credentials. He, like the constable before him, is cowed, but he’s a lot more resentful about it.

  “I see,” he says. “Well. How nice of you to join us, Captain Mishra. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is it? What would this have to do with military intelligence? Unless…it has something to do with Komayd?”

  The lieutenant looks uneasy at that, because the Ahanashtani authorities are under a lot of scrutiny right now. Allowing the former leader of the world’s most powerful nation to get assassinated in your backyard has that effect.

  “We’re not sure yet,” says Mishra. “We’re still assessing the situation. Do you have any reason to believe it’s connected?”

  “No,” he says, surprised. “Not yet, at least. Though I certainly hope not.”

  “You said you had another series of deaths at another location, downriver?”

  “A coal warehouse, yes. Professionally done. Very professionally done.” He looks her over. “I do hope you’re not about to tell me that Saypur had something to do with it, though. I thought the days of murderous conflict taking place at our back door without any warning were behind us.”

  “There’s little I can tell you now. But one thing I absolutely can tell you is that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs had absolutely nothing to do with this. Though it does worry us. Have you identified any of the bodies?”

  “Not a one. It’s early yet.”

  “And…” She nods ahead at the burned-down slaughterhouse. “No body found here?”

  “Not yet. Though it’s in a poor state. It’ll take some time to search.”

  “And nothing washed downriver?”

  “No.” He gives her a hard look. “Who exactly might I be looking for, Captain?”

  “Someone tall,” says Mishra. “Hair cut very short. A Dreyling. With a false eye.”

  He shakes his head. “We’ve found no body matching that description, ma’am. Can you give me any more?”

  “If I knew more, Lieutenant, I would give it. Just an unsavory character that has been identified at another recent incident.” She pulls out her card and hands it over. “If you happen to learn of anything, can you notify me, please? We’d like to keep abreast of this situation.”

  “I would be happy to, ma’am,” he says, though he smiles icily enough that it’s obvious he means quite the opposite.

  “Thank you, Lieutenant,” says Mishra. She nods to him, then turns and walks back to her auto.

  She takes a short breath of relief. She expected someone from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs would have already paid him a visit—someone who would have had official orders to be there—and that could have been awkward. For while Mishra did have orders to check in on the scene, they didn’t come from the Ministry.

  She drives north, away from the industrial neighborhoods, passing all the mills and the refineries and the plants belching up steam. She tools around until she comes to the traffic tunnels connecting east Ahanashtan to all the north-south thoroughfares—tiny, cramped arteries carved into the hillsides. She drives into one tunnel and pulls over about halfway through, guiding her auto onto the shoulder. Then she sits for a moment, watching the other autos. She looks in the rearview mirror, her amber-colored eyes narrow and watchful. Once she’s confirmed she wasn’t followed, she pulls out the envelope.

  The envelope is thick and very formal-looking, closed by a string tied around a brass button. Mishra checks her surroundings again, then opens the envelope and pulls out what appears to be a piece of black paper.

  She’s done this before, many times. But she still can’t help shuddering every time she touches the paper. She knows it’s not really paper, it’s something else: its surface feels as soft as sable, yet if you push on it it’s as hard as glass….Whatever it is, her skin recognizes it as something alien.

  And it is simply too black. Far too black.

  She takes out a pencil and begins to write on the paper. She can’t read what she’s writing—gray on black is too tricky for her eyes, in any light—but she knows it won’t matter to him. The controller, as he prefers to be called in casual conversation, can see in any darkness.

  She writes:

  BODIES NOT YET IDENTIFIED. NO CONNECTION TO KHADSE OR KOMAYD HAS BEEN MADE. I HAVE CONFIRMED THAT KHADSE’S OPERATIONAL HOUSE HAS BEEN THOROUGHLY CLEANED.

  PROVIDED AHANASHTANI POLICE WITH THE DESCRIPTION YOU GAVE. NO SIGN OF THE SUSPECT YET. PLEASE ADVISE AS TO WHETHER OR NOT I SHOULD NOTIFY THE MINISTRY THROUGH OFFICIAL CHANNELS.

  —KM

  She folds up the paper and steps out of her car, wincing as a large, rattling truck goes cruising by, spewing exhaust. Though Mishra’s a Saypuri, she’s a country girl at heart, and much prefers a horse and cart over all these new autos.

  She walks to a small service door on the side of the tunnel, checks her surroundings again, and opens it.

 
Inside is a small cement closet, just four bare walls and a floor. There’s a broken broomstick standing in the corner, along with an old dusty glass bottle. Besides that, there’s nothing.

  She places the paper in the middle of the closet floor, then shuts the door, watching as the door’s shadow falls across the paper.

  Mishra checks her watch—Five minutes to go—leans up against the tunnel wall, and lights a cigarette.

  She doesn’t wonder if it will work. She knows it will work. All the bits of shadow paper find him quick enough, if placed in deep enough darkness. No matter where that darkness happens to be, for all darkness is one to him.

  She watches the traffic, making note of the models of cars, the colors, the faces of the drivers. He’s protected her, blessed her, given her defenses—but after last night, who knows if they’ll work. What mad risks I take, she thinks, for a creature I can barely understand.

  But she knows that’s wrong. She does understand him. And he understands her.

  She remembers when he first came to her—1729, she thinks it was, almost ten years ago. Four years after Voortyashtan. Four years after her brother Sanjay had died in combat there, stabbed by a shtani girl hardly older than fifteen. He’d been battling insurgents, trying to save the girl, but the girl didn’t understand that—or perhaps she did, but didn’t care. Who knows what these degenerates think?

  And what did Saypur get for her brother’s sacrifice? What was earned by his death? After Komayd left power, Mishra couldn’t tell. The Ministry and the military were in tatters. Public trust in the national forces was at an all-time low. The merchants were spilling into government and treating generals and commanders as if they were simple bureaucratic officials, pencil pushers and seat-fillers. Mishra, like a lot of other loyalists, found herself disgusted with her nation.

  She thought she kept her disgust a secret. But it soon became clear that she hadn’t. Because one day, while she was stationed here in Ahanashtan, someone slipped a letter under her apartment door.