The Shining City (v5)

by Fiona Patton

  And Brax stood directly in front of him, one hand reaching forward, the other hidden from view.

  Graize reacted at once. Pulling his knife, he lunged toward his longtime enemy with a half-muffled scream. Brax stumbled backward as the blade passed within an inch of his face, then he turned and ran.

  Graize gave chase.

  Hisar zigzagged through the crowds as fast as He could run, dodging stalls, carts, and people, trying to keep them between Graize and Himself while still remaining in sight. Graize stayed right on His heels, coming on so quickly that Hisar was afraid He might have to take to the air just to keep him from catching up. They raced through the fruit and bread markets and finally broke free of the crowds as the cheese and milk markets gave way once again to the cattle pens built up against the north wall. Hisar spun left, pelting toward the aqueduct now towering above them, Graize still in hot pursuit. As they reached the wall that separated the grounds of Havo-Cami from the marketplace, Hisar sent a pulse down a very different lien.

  Spar’s head jerked up as a frantic plea hit him in the chest like a blow. He, too, had been struggling to make his way to Havo-Cami through panicking crowds and driving rain. Now, with the strength of Hisar’s own panic making him gasp for breath, he shoved himself up against a vintner’s stall and sent a stream of reassuring power back to the young God. The panic gutted out like a candle flame and after a moment, he pushed himself up and pressed on again with a greater sense of urgency, reaching the cami’s grounds a few moments later.

  The added strength calmed Hisar at once. Putting on a renewed burst of speed, he vaulted the north garden wall and took flight in a blur of invisible wings, heading straight for the aqueduct.

  Just before It reached the top, It saw Spar.

  High above, Brax pressed against the cami wall, out of the worst of the storm. From this distance, he couldn’t have seen the strait on a clear day, but he still stared into the rain, feeling Estavia’s restless patrol as a throbbing tension that made his sword arm ache. Flexing his fingers to work the stiffness out, he nearly fell off the sentinel platform in surprise as Hisar rocketed past him in a spray of metallic fire.

  Throwing one hand out to brace himself, he shot the young God an angry glare.

  “What!” he demanded.

  Below, Graize vaulted the north garden wall after his enemy, intent on keeping him in view, but when he landed in the soft, moss-covered earth of the cami’s rose garden, Brax was nowhere to be seen. Quickly, he scanned the wet earth around him for footprints, but found none. He dropped into a crouch, pulling his knife, and spun about, but there was nowhere Brax could be hiding either beside him or behind him.

  His eyes narrowed. He’d seen his quarry leap over the wall. He had to be here.

  A shadowy figure, nearly invisible in the mist and the rain, emerged from a stand of cypress trees near the cami and beckoned to him. Recognizing Drove from the breadth of his shoulders, Graize set off at once. Brax was here somewhere and his fellow lifter was going to show him where.

  Hisar buffeted Brax with Its wings, sending a plume of water from the trough at his feet shooting up into the air. Gripping the iron ring with one hand, Brax made a grab for the young God with the other, but It leaped back out of reach, before returning to buzz about his head once again. Jaw set, Brax made another grab for It, his hand passing right through Its body.

  “Get a grip on yourself, you jackass!” he shouted. “And tell me what’s wrong?”

  Taking on Its Graize-seeming, Hisar manifested before him immediately.

  “HE’S COMING!” It panted, making no attempt to dampen the resonance that caused It voice to reverberate in the air between them. “GRAIZE IS COMING, AND SPAR’S IN THE GARDEN! THEY’LL MEET ANY MOMENT NOW!”

  Brax’s expression hardened. “Get to Spar,” he growled. “Warn him.”

  “THERE’S NO TIME!”

  “Then get me down there.”

  Hisar’s eyes widened, then sucking as much power as It could manage through both liens—so much power that down in the gardens, both Spar and Graize stumbled and almost fell—It caught Brax around the chest, and hurled Itself from the aqueduct.

  They hit the ground hard enough to knock the wind from Brax’s lungs. As he struggled to his feet, Graize rounded the corner and saw Spar.

  The scream of rage caught Spar completely by surprise. Intent on reaching the cami’s kitchen door, he never saw Graize until he was upon him. The world took on the misty quality of the past, the rain became hail, and the grounds of Havo-Cami became the rain-slicked cobblestones of Liman Caddesi six years before.

  Brax tried to dive between the two of them only to see Drove, made physical by the strength of both Graize and Spar’s abilities, leap toward him, knife in hand. As the ghostly lifter attacked, Brax instinctively rolled to one side, then came up with his own knife at the ready, the strength of the past driving away any thought of the sword at his side. Swinging the blade in a tight arc to keep Drove at bay, he worked his way toward Spar.

  His kardos, meanwhile, had recovered quickly enough to aim a vicious kick at his old rival, catching Graize in the chest and knocking him backward. But Graize righted himself at once. As lightning skipped across the sky above them, he shifted his own blade from hand to hand, then lunged at Spar again, only to come face-to-face with Brax, who’d finally managed to get between them.

  As they’d done six years ago, Graize showed his teeth at him while Drove inched forward. Brax swung his head from side to side, keeping them both in view as Spar drew his own knife and moved to stand beside him.

  “The baby rat-seer’s finally grown up enough to quit hidin’ behind you, yeah?” Graize sneered, his eyes glittering with madness. “But this time it won’t help you. Look up, Brax. The past is here, and I’m going to use it to strip your God’s protection away from you just like I did on the grasslands a year ago!”

  A scattering of hail scored across Brax’s cheek. As he flinched back instinctively, Drove attacked. But this time, when Drove moved under Brax’s guard to slice at him, Brax brought his own blade up, cutting through the apparition’s jacket to draw a line of white across his arm.

  “No, you won’t!” he shouted back.

  Meanwhile, beside him, Spar fell back before the ferocity of Graize’s assault. Ducking a wild flurry of blows, he dropped to the ground, then came up with a rock clenched in one fist. Rather than throw it at his old adversary, he waited for Graize to lunge forward again, then dodged to one side and hit him as hard as he could in the right temple. Graize’s head snapped sideways, and behind them, they heard Hisar gasp in pain.

  Weakened by His attempt at a physical manifestation, the young God had been able to do little more than watch His two priests fight, but now, as blood began to pour down Graize’s face, He felt the past surround him in layers of freezing cold mist. They tore at His human-seeming, causing Him to waver in and out of focus, then finally, with a cry of distress, His seeming shattered to become a spinning vortex of wraithlike creatures of hunger and need.

  They fell on Drove at once and, with all the grace of a pair of ghostly dancers, they replayed the terrible events of six years ago. Drove turned. The creatures caught him up. Leaping upon his back and neck, they sucked greedily at his image until he was little more than a series of fine white lines, then flung him into the street. As the other three combatants watched in horror, the creatures rose into the air, mist-covered claws outstretched toward them.

  Graize stumbled back against Spar, his blood-covered face pale with shock. He turned to grab him as he had six years before, but as his hand caught hold of the other’s shoulder, Brax leaped forward. His knife streaked out in a deadly arc, but suddenly the creatures vanished and Hisar appeared between them, His golden-seeming snapping back and forth as He struggled to keep a physical form. The young God cried out again and, remembering his promise, Brax jerked his hand back just in time. The blade scraped against Graize’s tunic, slicing through the cloth and leaving little m
ore than a thin line of red across his chest, then he jerked his arm up and hit his old enemy a vicious crack across his injured temple with his elbow.

  Graize collapsed like an unstrung puppet, Hisar falling to the ground beside him, almost as insensible as His abayos. As the world around them returned to the present, Spar and Brax stood over them, expressions of weary uncertainty on their faces.

  Deep within his mind, darkness crashed over Graize with all the fury of an ocean storm. He stood braced against it for a single moment, but when a swarm of sharp-clawed spirits, clad in the tattered remnants of the past, hurled over the crest directly toward him, his mind broke and ran.

  To the south, Panos stopped so suddenly that Yal nearly trod on her heels. They’d been searching the marketplace for Graize ever since he’d suddenly disappeared. Now the Skirosian oracle raised one hand to forestall any questions before taking a deep breath through her nose. She let it out slowly and carefully, then pursed her lips.

  “Acacia, wormwood, and marigold; the signature odors of Incasa’s hand at work,” she observed, tapping one fingernail against her teeth. “But old and just a bit stale. His hand at work years ago, not now. I see.” She nodded to herself. “A future that that should have been, waylaid by a God’s design, re-forming now, and three figures poised to choose if they will follow a mountain path reopening before them, a path that may just lead them to a silver tower. All by the God’s design again.”

  She scanned the crowd once more as if to satisfy herself that what she was sensing was fully accurate, then turned to Danjel and Hares.

  “Graize has returned to a path he’s both run from and run to for so very long,” she said. “He doesn’t need us now.”

  Hares nodded at once. “The Volinski fleet will be sailing down the strait,” he agreed. “We should carry on to the eastern shore as planned.”

  Danjel’s eyes narrowed. “Wait. He doesn’t need us?” he echoed in an incredulous voice. “Since when?”

  Panos’ expression remained even. “Since now.” She reached out to catch a raindrop on her fingertip, staring at it with an expression of deep sadness. “Would you prefer me to say that we cannot help him?” she asked.

  “Not really.”

  “Does your prophecy say any different?”

  As Danjel made no reply, she shrugged eloquently. “Then as hard as it may be to accept, it is what it is. You are not his destiny; nor am I. We walked beside him for a time; sometimes we even carried him,” she added acknowledging his sour expression with an indulgent one of her own. “But now he stands before a choice and we cannot help him make it. That’s up to the ones who were waylaid along with him.”

  “Spar and Brax?”

  “None other.”

  Danjel shook his head. “Do you really think they’ll help him? They’re more likely to try and kill him.”

  “Perhaps at first, but don’t forget, there’s a tower standing beside them, and it’s still a golden one. It may make them see sense before It changes color.”

  “Is it going to change color?”

  Panos shrugged. “I don’t know. Clearly, It has a choice to make as well.”

  Danjel’s expression showed his opinion of Hisar’s ability in that regard and Panos waved a weary hand at him. “Whatever may come to pass, Graize’s old adversaries cannot make their choices without him any more than he can make his choice without them. The mountain path has manifested before them. There are only the two ways left to go: up . . .” she raised a hand into the air, “ . . . or down.” She dropped it. “Future or past.”

  “And you don’t care which one they choose?” Danjel pressed.

  “Grow up,” she snapped, an uncharacteristically angry note in her voice. “My caring has nothing to do with it, nor does yours. We all walk our own paths. Sometimes they cross and we’re able to walk together for a while, but in the end everyone walks alone.” She wrapped her cloak more tightly around her shoulders. “Now, my path leads me south. Throw grasses in the air or sing to the spirits of the storm if you cannot proceed without direction, Wyrdin, but move shortly or you may drown in war.” Without waiting for a reply, she spun on her heel and disappeared into the crowds, her retinue struggling to fall into line behind her.

  Danjel remained where he stood, his smooth brow furrowed with indecision, until Yal slipped a hand in his.

  “What did your prophecy tell you before, my love,” she asked gently, nudging him until his features flowed to her preferred female form.

  Danjel frowned. “That our path lay with Graize.”

  “And now?”

  “Now?” Danjel glanced up at the sky. “I don’t know. The world is covered in mist and rain and surrounded by stone walls and tall buildings. I can’t see anything clearly.”

  “Then choose without seeing like the rest of us have to. We have three paths before us: we can go home, we can continue to search for Graize, or we can follow Panos. Which path calls to you the strongest?”

  The Yuruk gave a soft bark of laughter. “Home. Always home.”

  “Without Graize?”

  Danjel hesitated. “It would have to be,” she said after a moment.

  “Can it be?”

  “I don’t know.” Danjel squared her shoulders. “But I do know that our path doesn’t follow Panos.”

  “So we don’t go south.”

  “No.” The Yuruk glanced up at the sky with a sour expression. “And we can’t wander the marketplace hoping to trip over Graize either.” She grew thoughtful. “We can’t get home without mounts, and Rayne has our mounts. She’ll be joining the attack on Bahce-Koy, and that’s west across the Halic and through the mainland Trisect of Anavatan. So we go west.”

  “During an attack?”

  “It’s good cover. No one’s going to notice us in these clothes if they’re busy staring at a northern attack fleet.”

  “That’s true. All right, my love, we choose to go west. We will walk our paths together.” Tucking her arm in Danjel’s, Yal grinned up at her. “Was that so hard?”

  “I suppose not.”

  “Then come on.”

  Rejoining the crowds, they headed west toward the Halic-Salmanak.

  Far to the southwest, with the warning bells of Anavatan ringing in her ears, Rayne brought her band of Yuruk raiders in line with those of her kin moving against Bahce-Koy. It was an ambitious plan and one so absurd that their leaders had reckoned that even if Sable Company did see them in the midst of all the other looming dangers, they’d never take them seriously. Historically, Bahce-Koy was exempt from most of the Yuruk raids. The garden village was built right up against Anavatan itself in a small hollow and shared the highest point in the God-Wall with the city. They had no flocks and little else in the way of livestock; instead, they tended to vast fields of flowers grown to grace the tables and altars of Anavatan’s many temples and camis. The Yuruk had no interest in flowers, and so Bahce-Koy had grown lax and complacent. Their western gate was old and in need of repair and, unlike the other villages along Gol-Beyaz, it had done little to prepare itself for the attacks they all knew were coming. This would be a raid more to cause mischief and panic than for spoils, but that suited Rayne just fine. She liked both mischief and panic.

  As her teyos, Ozan, raised his red yak’s tail standard, she followed suit and with an undulating cry that was echoed by her people, urged her pony into a gallop.

  To the south, the Petchan hill fighters swept toward the villages of Kepek and Kinor-Koy, casting the muting effect before them like a cloak. The militia met them at the edge of the grasslands. Reinforced by two troops of Verdant Company archers and a full circle of Sable Company seers to combat the muting effect, they dug in and held their ground against a foe that blinked in and out of their line of sight like hundreds of guttering candle flames.

  Meanwhile, to the south, word came down from Anahtar-Hisar that enemy ships had been sighted in the southern strait, their sails stowed for battle. New bells began to toll, and in moments, a f
ull complement of warriors and militia lined the shore while eight of Estavia’s penteconters moved into position across the narrow waters. Smaller than the Skirosian vessels, they were counting on their greater maneuverability to cut off any of King Pyrros’ heavy ramming ships that might break through their defenses. The archers crouched at their stations, oars drawn in, bows at the ready, and the signalers raised their trumpets as the kaptins stood on the prows above each great painted oculus, waiting for the bell atop Anahtar-Hisar to toll again. As the Skirosian fleet appeared, it sounded three times, its ringing tones echoing across the water. The archers stood, weapons raised, and Estavia’s lien thrumming down their bowstrings to spark against the arrowheads.

  To the north, the red-sailed ships of Volinsk swept down the Bogazi-Isik Strait, and Gerek-Hisar’s heavy militia-barge began the laborious task of dragging the sea chain across the Halic as the bulk of Anavatan’s fleet went out to meet the enemy in the driving rain. A Sable Company seer stood on every prow and, as a single trumpet sounded from the battlements of Estavia-Sarayi, they began to sing their invitation to the God of Battles to join them on the line.

  14

  The Crossing

  THE SPIRITS WERE NEARLY upon him, there was no clear path to safety, and he couldn’t run any longer. Lost in prophecy, Graize stumbled to his knees, feeling the first of them score a line of fire across his back. With a surge of rage, he spun about and struck out at them with every ounce of strength and hate he still possessed. They would not steal his life away, not again.