by Ben Peek
Bueralan shadowed her run. He told himself not to. He told himself that he would not fight her, that he would be no more successful than Xrie, but still he moved through the trees silently, his eyes on her until the trees around him suddenly thickened, and he lost sight of her.
It took but a handful of heartbeats to turn, to backtrack, to find her path, but even as he did, he heard the clash of blades and the shouts of soldiers, and when he reached Ai Sela, he found her standing over four bodies. At the sound of him, she spun around, her bloodied sword in her hand, but Bueralan had stopped before she could reach him.
It was her face that stopped him. In it was a quality he had not seen before, a quality that was awful in its coldness. It was not the bestial quality that overcame the Innocent at times, the rage that showed how the worst of the stories about him could be true. Rather, it was as if all that made her human, all her compassion and intelligence, all her hard despair, was gone, and in its place was a cold absence, a will so without compassion that Bueralan expected her to attack him.
Instead, she lowered her sword and walked past him.
She left him with the dead, a dead that, Bueralan realized, included Captain Mills. She lay against one of the trees, her bloody hands gripping her sword, her empty gaze on him.
Her last sight had been of him and Ai Sela, he knew.
‘Don’t touch her!’ The sword that pierced his stomach arrived with the voice, the two bursting out of the trees. ‘Traitor,’ the soldier spat, putting his weight behind the thrust.
The sword ran deep into him, but it did so in such a strange fashion that Bueralan was not sure if it was real or not. He had been stabbed before: he could not have lived the life he had without accepting that someone, somewhere, would beat his defences. But this time, as the blade ran up to the hilt, it was different. It was as if the weapon had been expected, as if the length of steel was always going to slide through his stomach, and his body was prepared. He did not feel the strength within him leave, did not feel his bodily functions fail, did not feel anything beside the throat of the soldier in his hand.
‘Don’t shout,’ he said, forcing himself not to crush his throat. ‘They will hear if you shout, and you don’t want them to hear.’
The young soldier did not let go of his sword. He held tightly to it as fear grew in his eyes.
‘What’s your name, boy?’ When he didn’t respond, Bueralan showed him his free hands. ‘Your name?’ he repeated. ‘I know you’re from the Spine. You’re the baker’s apprentice. Now, what’s your name?’
‘Jaerc.’ It was a whisper, given as he tried to step back, as he tried to release the hilt of the blade in the saboteur’s stomach.
But Bueralan’s hands had clamped around the boy’s hands. ‘Who is in charge?’ The young soldier tried to take another step back. ‘Jaerc.’ He tightened his grip. ‘Jaerc, I know what you are thinking, but you have to put it aside. I am no traitor. If I was, you would be dead. You can see that. But I am not a traitor and if you want to save some of the people here, if you want to help me do that, you need to tell me who was left at the back, who had the job of defending the rear.’
‘Essa,’ he whispered and tried to break his bloodstained hands free. ‘Captain Essa was given it.’
Bueralan released him. ‘Show me where he is.’
7.
Before Eilona left Nymar Alahn’s estate, she made a mistake.
‘Your guard.’ Nymar nodded at Caeli. ‘You would be best not to bring her.’
‘I have my orders,’ Caeli replied, her tone one that allowed no argument. ‘Your father was one of those people who gave them to me.’
‘I know, but.’ His hesitation was a breath in length. ‘But the Faithful know you. They know you as an enemy. They have branded you as that. You have killed their comrades. Your presence will only displease them.’
‘This is a negotiation,’ Eilona began, turning to the other woman. ‘I am sure I will be in no danger.’
‘Eilona.’ Caeli said her name softly, but sternly. ‘This is not how things are done. Trust me on this.’
She offered a smile that she knew was brittle. ‘I’m sure it will be fine,’ she said. She wanted to say, You don’t need to protect me. I know you don’t want to. She wanted to say, I understand. You don’t have to put yourself through this. ‘I am sure I will be fine. There’s no need to worry.’
Caeli did not protest, not publicly, though Eilona could see that she wanted to. Once she was in the carriage, she waved to the other woman, whose gaze, she was surprised to see, was not chill or indifferent, but concerned. Then, the carriage moved off, and around her, the sunlit streets lined with tents, people and schools passed.
After two closed schools, Nymar’s carriage passed a squat building full of people. Out at the front was a handmade sign that said Se’Saera’s Mercy. Next to it stood two brown-robed Faithful. They had a line before them, one that consisted of poorly dressed men, women and children, each of them waiting to enter the building.
‘A soup kitchen?’ Eilona asked, as the carriage revealed the long stretch of the queue.
‘We can only run them twice a week because demand is so high,’ Nymar said.
‘So the Faithful do it, instead?’
‘As I said, they have been a great saviour to our city.’
‘Where do they get their food?’ Outside, one of the schools drifted slowly towards them, its towers disappearing into the morning’s sun. ‘Are they buying it, or is it from donations?’
‘A mix of both,’ he said. ‘At first, people were reluctant to take their food. Many had heard stories of cannibalism by the Leerans, and there were rumours about the Faithful. Some said that they would rather starve. At first, I thought it would drive the Faithful away, but instead they returned with fruit, rice, food like that. It wasn’t long until the queues started to form.’ He nodded in satisfaction at a crowd outside the window. ‘I hate to think of what would have happened without them.’
Soon, the schools, the streets and the people were replaced by a long stone bridge that ran from the Spires of Alati to Rje. At the entrance to the bridge stood a pair of guards, but the carriage passed by without incident. It was the only vehicle on the road, and Nymar, Eilona and the driver the only people on it, while around her, the destruction from three months ago still littered Leviathan’s Blood in shards of stone, the wreckage of ships and a broken central pillar.
A nation could lose its identity in war just as easily as it could be defined by it, Eilona knew. The thought rose unbidden, a bubble of air escaping. She remembered how Ooila had torn itself apart in search of a new identity as it moved from elected rule to full democracy, to an uncertain patriarchy and, finally, to a hereditary matriarchy with generations of suffering. People had done terrible things, things that they would not normally have done. It was as if, she remembered reading, all morality had been suspended.
With that thought in her mind, the carriage passed through the gate into Rje.
It was a much smaller city than the Spires of Alati, a piece of connective tissue between Nale and Guranatan. It was a city defined by expensive hotels, lavish restaurants, private coffee houses and other indemnities to ensure visiting diplomats who wished to speak officially – and unofficially, of course – with the Keepers of the Divine were kept happy.
Faje Metura, Aelyn’s former steward, met the carriage outside a relatively modest house. At the sight of the tall man and his two guards, Eilona felt herself tense. Her anxiety rose when Nymar opened the carriage door and, with a genuine smile, shook the other man’s hand with warmth. For his part, Faje was smoothly restrained, a professional who was used to revealing only the faintest, most benign, emotions. It was an expression that Eilona had seen her mother use, and within it was a suppressed emotion that made Eilona realize her mistake. She should never have left Caeli.
‘I thought we might walk around the streets of Rje and talk,’ Faje said, after he had greeted Eilona. Up close, the broken natu
re of his brown skin, which revealed patches of white, appeared startling and pronounced ‘There are many things I would like to show you, but mostly, I admit, I am tired of my office.’
Eilona agreed and, pushing aside her anxiety, said, ‘I wouldn’t mind being able to speak with some of the men and women from the cities that sank, if you don’t mind.’
‘Our refugees?’ Faje offered her a faint smile as they began to walk. ‘I am afraid you won’t find any here. This is a city for Se’Saera’s Faithful only.’
‘I have seen the Faithful helping others in the Spires.’ Nymar and Faje’s two guards fell in behind them. ‘Surely you don’t turn away those who are in need of help here?’
‘Of course not. Se’Saera does not turn her back on those in need.’
‘Unless they are not Faithful. That is the implication of your words, isn’t it?’ Eilona caught herself in mid-sentence. ‘My apologies,’ she said, forcing a smile. ‘Old habits, I am afraid.’
‘No, no need to apologize,’ Faje said easily. ‘I know you are a historian in Zoum. You have not yet written a book, have you?’
‘I mostly lecture. My partner publishes more.’
‘Perhaps you will write a book on Se’Saera. After all, what she does is no different to what all the gods have done, is it?’
‘Generally speaking, but the gods were a long time ago. Most of what we know is more of an educated guess than a fact.’
‘You will have to trust me, then. What Se’Saera does is no more than what any of the old gods did. As you can see from Nymar being here, we have made strong ties to other cities. We hope to build such a relationship with Muriel Wagan and Lian Alahn.’
‘That is why I am here. Neela will soon be inhabitable, and work on Mesi is proceeding apace. No one wants the relationships between those two cities and the rest of Yeflam to worsen.’
‘It will be difficult.’ Faje led her out of the street and into a busier lane, filled with the Faithful. ‘Muriel Wagan’s reputation is not the best, at least not here.’
Eilona’s skin prickled in warning. ‘My mother and Lian Alahn have worked very hard to create peace on the shore.’
‘Only out of selfishness, I fear,’ he said. ‘After all, if Mireea had not fallen, neither you nor I would be here having this conversation.’
8.
Spirits began to appear along the soggy, burned shoreline well before Heüala did.
One of Meina’s soldiers delivered the news to Zaifyr. He had no real idea how much time had passed since he and the others had stepped onto Glafanr, but it was long enough that the others had left him alone. Meina, Anguish and Jix had left the captain’s cabin hours, days, maybe months ago, each to enter their own timeless world aboard the ship. Zaifyr had left the cabin as well: he had wandered alone through the long corridors, climbed the rigging, stood beside the wheel, and watched for the sight of the dead in the still river they drifted down. He did not sleep and he did not feel hunger, but eventually he returned to the cabin and its chained book. He sat there, tapping against the charm beneath his left wrist in an odd beat. It was there that the soldier Meina sent found him.
Outside, Zaifyr found the Captain of Steel by the rail. The small pitch-black form of Anguish sat on her shoulder, and he, not her, turned towards Zaifyr as he approached.
‘Can you see it?’ she asked.
He looked across the still water: a man, his body made from pale silvered lines, rode a horse. It was similarly defined, but it was stretched out in a gallop to keep pace with Glafanr. ‘I do.’
‘I have seen his like before in Mireea.’ She continued to stare out across the water. ‘Anguish tells me that you have seen them before, as well.’
‘They were in Yeflam,’ the creature murmured.
‘Ancestors from the tribes of the Plateau.’ Zaifyr remembered the misshapen bodies that they had worn, the awful violence within them. ‘They should not be here.’
But they were, of course.
Zaifyr had never liked the Plateau. He had walked across it early in his life, when he heard about pacifist tribes who lived with the spirits of their ancient family members. He had thought that the tribes would be able to help him live beside the dead and even, perhaps, help him find a way to ease their torment. But the haunts he saw every waking moment of his life were not like the dead in the soil of the Plateau. Those spirits had no fear of losing their identity and they had no desperate need of him. They had responded to Zaifyr in a way unlike any other dead man or woman.
It was not long until the lone rider was joined by another and another, until half a dozen spirits had emerged from the still, burned landscape.
They were a patrol, Meina said, and Zaifyr agreed. They came to shadow Glafanr, but not to attack it and, with a sinking sensation, the charm-laced man believed that they would find more of them in Heüala. The thought was not one that filled Zaifyr with pleasure. He could remember only bits and pieces about the kind of soldiers the ancestors had been, but he knew that, for all the violence, all the horror, they had been an excellent fighting force.
Ahead, Heüala, the City of the Dead, began to appear.
It was defined at first in slivers of silvered shape: a straight line high in the sky, a hint of a round dome, a long wall. It took a moment for each part of the city to emerge, as if it had no real form of its own, but was instead made in response to the expectations of those who came to it.
What, then, did it say about Zaifyr that Heüala was not built on the barren land around it, but rather that it sat in the middle of the River of the Dead, surrounded by a stillness of water that made it look as if it floated? Zaifyr did not know. It was certainly not an image that he had been told of as a child, or seen before. To get a clearer look at it, he walked to the front of Glafanr, where he was joined by Meina, Anguish and Steel. Lor Jix already waited there. He was not pleased to see Heüala, not in the way he had greeted the ship he had stood on. If anything, he appeared confused by what he saw before him.
Up closer, Heüala looked like a walled prison island. There was a single, empty dock, from which paths ran up the barren ground to the gate of Heüala. Despite the actual space between the two being small, the paths looped and turned, disappearing and re-emerging from the ground beneath. There were dozens of paths and not one was like another, not in terms of design, or the material that had been used to construct it. Some were made from dirt, others from stone, and others from gold. As near as Zaifyr could tell, they all ended at the gate of Heüala, but he was not at all confident of that: the path chosen could very well be a choice of divine judgement, or a reflection of the souls that came to it. The gate, likewise, baffled him, for it was not made from any earthly substance that Zaifyr could name. Instead, it had been forced from something solid and dark, and then it had been speckled with white, as if the stars themselves had been captured and warped into the gates, creating a sense of depth in which anyone who gazed at it could be lost.
Yet, it was what was wrapped around the highest building that drew Zaifyr’s attention, even before he saw the spirits on the walls, saw the scouts that had followed them leap into the water and begin to ride to the city. It was the sight of a form he had seen before, a horrific, monstrous figure that had pushed through the sky over Yeflam.
It was, as then, a body made from darkness, one bestial, yet unlike any beast Zaifyr had seen in size, and in the spread of the wings that lay against its colossal body. It was different, as well. The body he had seen over Yeflam had not been completely formed: it had been breaking apart, as if it was made from smoke. But that was no longer apparent. The creature appeared whole and, despite its stillness, very much alive.
‘Se’Saera,’ he whispered.
9.
Eilona realized she was in very real danger long before the tall, elegant building appeared before her.
She was afraid, but she worked to control that fear. At first, she did not know why she should be frightened. A perfectly acceptable response to the situation
was to stop, to request that she be taken back to the carriage, to demand that she be returned to Caeli, but she did not. She continued to walk beside Faje, with the building drawing closer, and the Faithful gathering around the small group. At first, Eilona thought her sense of control came from the fact that none of the Faithful threatened her, that it came, she believed, because they had not been called over by Faje. The Faithful had instead simply risen from where they sat reading outside Rje’s buildings, or from where they stood, working on an upturned carriage or broken balcony. But it was not until Faje led her alone up the stairs to the tall building that Eilona knew she would see through whatever was before her because she had placed herself in this danger. She would take responsibility for the situation she was in.
Her only problem was that Faje sensed her fear.
‘There’s no need to be afraid,’ he said and offered his hand to her. ‘I want to show you our printing press, nothing more.’
Eilona did not take his hand. ‘I did not think there was a press on Rje.’ Her voice was cool and controlled, much to her satisfaction.
With a faint smile, Faje lowered his hand and turned to open the door for her. ‘This one came from Gogair,’ he said, after she had entered. ‘It was a gift from Se’Saera. But why should it not be in Yeflam? As a nation, we have one of the highest levels of literacy in the world.’
Inside, an expensive, well-furnished but abandoned hotel foyer waited. ‘Yeflam’s presses are also some of the most politicized in the world.’
‘Ah, but isn’t all literature political?’
The press was located on the second floor. At first, Eilona thought that there had been a fight there, but no, the walls of three rooms had been knocked out to accommodate the size of the press. The long, black machinery stretched like a mythical creature through the broken brick. There was nobody operating it and, despite Faje’s assurance that he had brought Eilona into the building to see it, he did not attempt to show it to her. Instead, he led her up another flight of stairs.