The Broken Kingdoms it-2

by N. K. Jemisin

  Broken bowel, voices screaming… I felt ill, and defeated. "It wasn't big enough to pass through, anyway," I muttered, slumping onto the bed.

  "True. With practice, however-and more paint-no doubt you could pass through these portals."

  That got my attention. "What?"

  "Your magic isn't that different from my own," he said, and abruptly I recalled the holes he'd used to capture me and Madding and the others. "Both are variants on the scrivening technique that permits instantaneous transport through matter and distance via a gate. Which is itself merely an approximation of the gods' ability to traverse space and time at will. It seems that your gift expresses itself extraversively, however, while mine is introversive."

  I groaned. "Pretend I haven't spent my life studying musty old scrolls full of made-up words."

  "Ah. My apologies. Let me try an analogy. Imagine that you hold a lump of gold in your hands. Gold is quite soft in its pure form; you can mold it with your fingers if you exert enough pressure. Then it can become many things: coins, a bracelet, a cup to hold water. Yet gold isn't useful for every purpose. A sword made of gold would bend easily and be too heavy to wield. For that, a different metal-say, iron-is better."

  A rustle of cloth was my warning before Dateh took my hand. His fingers were dry, thick-skinned, callused at the tips. He turned over my hand, exposing my own calluses from carving wood and clipping linvin saplings, and also the stains from my makeshift paints. I did not pull away, though I wanted to. I did not like the feel of his hand.

  "The magic in you is like gold," he said. "You've learned to shape it in one way, but there are others. I imagine you'll discover them with time and experimentation. The magic in me is more like iron: it can be shaped and used in similar ways, but its fundamental properties and uses are very different. And I, unlike you, have learned many ways to shape it. Now do you understand?"

  I did. Dateh's holes, or portals, or whatever he called them, were like my doorways. He created them at will, perhaps using his own method to invoke them as I used painting. But while his magic opened a dark, cold space devoid of-everything-my magic opened the way to existing spaces… or created new spaces out of nothingness.

  While I mulled this, I found myself rubbing my eyes with my free hand. They ached, though not as badly as on the previous occasions I'd used my magic. I supposed I hadn't overdone it this time.

  "And your eyes," Dateh said. I stopped rubbing them, annoyed. He missed nothing. "That's even more unique. You saw Serymn's blood sigil. Can you see other magic?"

  I considered lying, but in spite of myself, I was intrigued. "Yes," I said. "Any magic."

  He seemed to consider this. "Can you see me?"

  "No. You don't have any godwords, or you're masking them."

  "What?"

  I gestured vaguely with my hands, which gave me an excuse to pull away from him. "With most scriveners, I see godwords written on their skin, glowing. I can't see the skin, but I can see the words, wrapped around their arms and so on."

  "Fascinating. Most scriveners do that, you know, when they've mastered a new sigil or word-script. It's tradition. They write the sigils on their skin to symbolize their comprehension. The ink washes off, but I suppose there's a magical residue."

  "You don't see it?"

  "No, Lady Oree. Your eyes are quite unique; I have nothing that compares. Although-"

  All at once, Dateh became visible to me. I was too distracted by his looks at first to realize the significance of what I saw. I couldn't help it, because he was not Amn. Or at least not completely, not with hair so straight and limp that it cupped his skull as if painted on. He wore it short, probably because the priests' fashion of long hair worn in a queue would look ridiculous on him. His skin was paler than Madding's, but there were other things about him that hinted at a less than pure Amn heritage. He was shorter than me, and his eyes were as dark as polished Darrwood. Those eyes would've been more at home among my own people or one of the High North races.

  How in all the gods' names had an Arameri-proudest members of the Amn race and notorious for their scorn of anyone not pure Amn-contrived to marry a non-Amn rebel scrivener?

  But as my shock at this realization faded, a more important one finally struck me: I could see him.

  Him, that was, and not the markings of his scrivener power. In fact, I saw no godwords on him at all. He was simply visible, all over, like a godling.

  But the Lights hated godlings…

  "What the hells are you?" I whispered.

  "So you can see me," he said. "I'd wondered. I suppose it works only when I use magic, though."

  "When you…?"

  He pointed above us, off toward a corner of the room. I followed his finger, confused, but saw nothing.

  Wait. I blinked, squinted, as if that would help. There was something else etched against the dark of my vision. Something small, no bigger than a ten-meri coin, or Serymn's blood sigil. It hovered, glimmering with an impossible black radiance that shimmered faintly; that was the only way I'd been able to sift it from the darkness that I usually saw. It looked just like-

  I swallowed. It was. A tiny, almost-unnoticeable version of the same holes that had attacked us at Madding's house.

  "I can enlarge it at will," he said when I finally spotted it. "I often use portals at this size for surveillance."

  I understood then why he'd compared me to gold and himself to iron: my magic was prettier, but his made a better weapon.

  "You haven't answered my question," I said.

  "What am I?" He looked amused. "I'm the same as you."

  "No," I said. "You're a scrivener. I might have a knack for magic, but lots of people have that-"

  "You have far more than a 'knack' for magic, Lady Oree. This?" He gestured toward the floor, where my drawing was. "Is something that only a trained, first-rank scrivener of many years' experience could attempt. And that scrivener would need hours of drawing time and half a dozen fail-safe scripts on hand in case the activation went wrong-neither of which you seem to need." He smiled thinly. "Neither do I, I should note. I am considered something of a prodigy among scriveners because of it. I imagine you would be, too, if you had been found and trained early."

  My hands clenched into fists on my knees. "What are you?"

  "I am a demon," he said. "And so are you."

  I fell silent, more in confusion than in shock. That would come later.

  "Demons aren't real," I said at last. "The gods killed them all aeons ago. There's nothing left but stories to frighten children."

  Dateh patted my hand where it sat on my knee. At first I thought it was a clumsy attempt on his part to comfort me; the gesture felt awkward and forced. Then I realized he didn't like touching me, either.

  "The Order of Itempas punishes unauthorized magic use," Dateh said. "Have you never wondered why?"

  Actually, I had not. I'd thought it was just another way for the Order to control who had power and who didn't. But I said what the priests had taught me: "It's a matter of public safety. Most people can use magic, but only scriveners should, because they have the training to keep it safe. Write even one line of a sigil wrong and the ground could open up, lightning could strike, anything might happen."

  "Yes, though that isn't the only reason. The edict against wild magic actually predates the scrivening art that tamed it." He was watching me. He was like Shiny, like Serymn; I could feel his gaze. So many strong-willed people around me, all of them dangerous. "The Gods' War was not the first war among the gods, after all. Long before the Three fought among themselves, they fought their own children-the half-breed ones they'd borne with mortal men and women."

  All of a sudden, inexplicably, I thought of my father. I heard his voice in my ears, saw the gentle wavelets of his song as they rode the air.

  Serymn's voice: there had been rumors about him.

  "The demons lost that war," Dateh said. He spoke softly, for which I was grateful, because all at once I felt unsteady.
Chilled, as if the room had grown colder. "It was foolish for them to fight, really, given the gods' power. Some of the demons no doubt realized this, and hid instead."

  I closed my eyes and inwardly mourned my father all over again.

  "Those demons survived," I said. My voice shook. "That's what you're saying. Not many of them. But enough." My father. His father, too, he'd told me once. And his grandmother, and an uncle, and more. Generations of us in the Maroland, the world's heart. Hidden among the Bright Lord's most devout people.

  "Yes," said Dateh. "They survived. And some of them, perhaps to camouflage themselves, hid among mortals with more distant, thinner gods' blood in their veins-mortals who had to struggle to use magic, borrowing the gods' language to facilitate even simple tasks. The gods' legacy is what turned the key in humankind, unlocking the door to magic, but in most mortals that door is barely ajar.

  "Yet there are some few among us who are born with more. In those mortals, the door is wide open. We need no sigils, no years of study. Magic is ingrained in our very flesh." He touched my face just under one eye, and I flinched. "Call us throwbacks, if you will. Like our murdered ancestors, we are the best of mortalkind-and everything our gods fear."

  He dropped his hand onto mine again, and it was not awkward this time. It was possessive.

  "You're never going to let me go, are you?" I said it softly.

  He paused for a moment.

  "No, Lady Oree," he said, and I heard him smile. "We aren't."

  12

  "Destruction" (charcoal and blood, sketch)

  I HAVE A REQUEST," I said to the Nypri when he rose to leave. "My friends, Madding and the others. I need to know what you plan to do with them."

  "That isn't something you need to know, Lady Oree." Dateh's tone was gently chiding.

  I set my jaw. "You seem to want me to join you willingly."

  He fell silent for a moment, contemplating. That was gratifying, because my statement had been a gamble. I had no idea why he wanted me, beyond the fact that we were both demons. Perhaps he thought I could eventually develop magic as powerful as his, or perhaps demons had some symbolic value to the New Lights. Whatever the reason, I knew leverage when I saw it.

  At last he said, "My wife believes you can be rehabilitated, made to see reason." He glanced at my drawing on the floor. "I, however, am beginning to wonder whether you're too dangerous to be worth the effort."

  I nibbled my bottom lip. "I won't try that again."

  "We are both Itempans here, Lady Oree. You'll try it if you think it will work. And if there is insufficient disincentive." He folded his arms, thoughtful. "Hmm. I've been trying to figure out what to do with him…"

  "What?"

  "Your Maroneh friend."

  "My-" I started. "You mean Shiny." So he hadn't escaped. Damnation.

  "Yes, whatever his name is." For once, Dateh sounded annoyed. "I thought he was a godling, too, given his intriguing ability to return from death. But I've had him in the Empty for days now, and he's shown no sign of resistance, magical or otherwise. He just keeps dying."

  The small hairs along my skin prickled. I opened my mouth to say, That's our god you're torturing, you bastard, but then I stopped. What would Dateh do, if he knew he had the Bright Lord of Order as his prisoner? Would he even believe it? Or would he question Shiny-and be shocked to learn, as I had been, that Shiny loved the Nightlord and would disapprove of any action that threatened him? What would these madmen do then?

  "Maybe he's… like us," I said instead. "A d-demon." It was hard to say the words.

  "No. I did test him. There are distinct properties that can be observed in the blood… Aside from his peculiar ability, he's mortal in every way that I can determine." He sighed and did not see my start as I realized that was why they'd taken my blood. "The Order has discovered any number of minor magical variants over the centuries. I suppose he's just another of those." Dateh paused, long enough for the silence to unnerve me further. "This man lived with you in the city, I'm told. I can't kill him, but I think you've guessed the ways in which I can make his brief periods of life unpleasant. You are valuable to me; he is not. Do we understand each other?"

  I swallowed. "Yes, Lord Dateh. I understand you perfectly."

  "Excellent. I'll have him placed with you later today, then. I should warn you, though; after this much time in the Empty, he may require… assistance." I clenched my fists on my knees while he knocked on the door to be let out.

  But as he did so, something changed.

  It was just a momentary flicker, so fast that I thought I imagined it. For that instant, Dateh's body looked wholly different. Wrong. I saw his nearer arm, curiously doubled as he rested it on the doorsill. Two arms, not one. Two hands gripping the smooth wood.

  I blinked in surprise and suddenly the image was gone. Then the door opened, and so was Dateh.

  I slept. I didn't mean to, but I was exhausted after my effort to use magic. When I opened my still-twinging eyes, the light of sunset was thin and fading on my skin. Someone had been in the room during that time, which meant I'd slept hard; I was usually quick to wake at any untoward noise. My visitors had been busy. I found the furniture put back in place and a tray of food on the table. The candles were gone when I checked, replaced by a single small lantern of a design that I found odd-until I realized it held nothing more than a slow-burning moistened wick. No reservoir of oil that I could use for painting. Other items in the room had been removed or replaced, too, ostensibly because they could have been used for their pigment. The food was a bowl of some sort of porridge, as bland and textureless as they could've made it and kept it palatable. And the air smelled of floor cleanser. I felt a moment's grief for my drawing, poor as it had been.

  I ate and then went to the window, wondering if I would ever escape from this place. I guessed that I had been imprisoned for five days, maybe six. Soon it would be Gebre, the spring equinox. All over the world, White Halls would deck themselves in festive ribbons and encanda, lanterns given a special fuel to make their flame burn white instead of red or gold. The Halls would throw open their doors to all comers, celebrating the approach of summer's long days-and even now, with so many doubting their faith, those Halls would be full. Yet at the same time, in every city, there would be ceremonies dedicated to the Nightlord, too, and to the Lady. That was something new and still strange to me.

  An hour passed before the door of my cell opened again. Three men entered, carrying something heavy-two somethings, I realized, as they grunted and jostled the table and chairs out of the way. The first object they put down squeaked faintly, and I realized it was another cot, like the one I slept on.

  The second object they put down was Shiny, dumped on the cot. He groaned once and then lay still.

  "A present from the Nypri," said one of the men, and another laughed. They left, and I hurried to Shiny's side.

  His flesh was as cold as a corpse's. I had never felt him that cold; he never stayed dead long enough to completely lose body temperature. Yet when I fumbled for his pulse, it was racing. His breath came in harsh, quick pants. They had cleaned him up; he was wearing the sleeveless white smock and pants of a new initiate. But what had they bathed him in, ice water?

  "Shiny?" All thoughts of his real name fled my mind as I wrestled him onto his back, then tugged a blanket over him. I touched his face and he jerked away, making a quick animal sound. "It's Oree. Oree."

  "Oree." His voice was hoarse, as mine had been, perhaps for the same reason. But he settled after that, no longer moving away from my touch.

  He was mortal, Dateh had said, but I knew the truth. Beneath the mortal veneer, he was the god of light, and he had spent five days trapped in a lightless hell. Hurrying across the room, I found the lantern, which thankfully I had not yet blown out. Would such a tiny light help him? I brought it closer, putting it on the shelf above Shiny's bed. His eyes were shut tight, and all his muscles quivered like wires ready to snap. He was only a little warmer.


  Seeing no better option, I slipped under the covers with him and tried to warm him with my body. This was not easy, as the cot was narrow and Shiny took up all but a few inches of it. Finally I had to climb on top of him, resting my head on his chest. I wasn't fond of the overly intimate position, but there was nothing else to be done.

  I was completely caught by surprise when Shiny suddenly wrapped himself around me and turned us over, holding me solidly in place with an arm around the waist, a hand cupping my head against his shoulder, and his leg thrown over mine. I was not quite pinned but I couldn't move much, either. Not that I tried; I was too stunned for that, wondering what had prompted this sudden gesture of affection. If that it was.

  He seemed reassured by the fact that I didn't fight him. The quivering tension gradually drained out of his body, his breath against my ear slowing to something more normal. After a while, we both grew warm, and despite spending the whole day asleep, I could not quite help it; I slept again.

  When I awoke, I guessed that it was late. Near midnight, give or take a few hours. I was still sleepy but had a growing need to urinate, which was a problem because I was still neatly tucked into the complicated tangle of Shiny's body. His long, slow breaths told me he was asleep, and deeply, which he probably needed after his ordeal.

  Working carefully and slowly, I extricated myself from his grip and then eased my way to a sitting position, from which I managed to clamber over him to reach the floor at last. By this point, the need had grown urgent, so I stood to hurry.

  A hand caught my wrist, and I yelped.

  "Where are you going?" Shiny rasped.

  Taking a deep breath to slow my heart, I said, "The bathroom," and waited for him to let me go.

  He didn't move. I shifted from one foot to the other uncomfortably. Finally I said, "If you don't let go, the floor is going to be very wet in a minute."