Schisms

by James Wolanyk

  “Come,” he said, clicking through his teeth. “I’m feeling generous with my insights.”

  * * * *

  Anna stared down at the mass of notes and charts littering Konrad’s desk, wondering where he’d found the time and energy to compile such a report. In fact, she wondered how anybody on his estate had the mental fortitude to work through the dread of the past days.

  Gardeners and gatekeepers had paused to smile at their master, even as Chayam units patrolled the rose-lined paths ringing the hill. Sparrows chirped through the bleats of officers’ whistles. Fountains bubbled with clear, dazzling water, appearing almost ethereal under smoke-threaded skies. Strange, crablike machines skittered over the grass, whirring with brass cogs and copper valves.

  She had the sense that Konrad’s estate might survive the war without ever truly experiencing it.

  “Half of this is in Orsas,”Anna said finally. “Tell me what to make of it.”

  “That half was submitted to the assembly in the central garrison,” Konrad said, rubbing at his chin. “They believe the strike was a diversion for the main attack, which is certainly plausible.”

  “You don’t sound convinced.”

  “I’m not.” He gestured to a set of blueprints, which appeared to detail the archives from above. Red ink covered a patch of the northern vaults. “You see, the blast in the ministers’ towers was nearly a half-hour later than the explosions in the archives.”

  “Making it a diversion, just as the assembly said.”

  “Why would they need a diversion?” Konrad asked. “They’d already infiltrated the tower with powder over their runes and explosives in their skin. Nobody new was entering.”

  She pondered his point. “Have you told this to the assembly?”

  “They have more pressing issues on their minds. The breakers said they’d investigate, but they’re too swamped with the missives flowing in from Hazan.”

  Anna leaned over the table, studying the blueprints. “So what do you think the connection is?”

  “The tower’s blast was a diversion for the archives.”

  “They went for the Council, Konrad. You can’t tell me that wasn’t their objective.”

  “Two birds, a single stone,” he said, shrugging. “If you ask me, they were discovered too soon. They only triggered the charges when the vault’s unit noticed them. They were rippling, or something like that.”

  “Invisible,” Anna whispered, recalling the bald man’s rune.

  “Not enough, evidently.”

  “What did they take?”

  “Nothing, as far as we can tell. But they must’ve been seeking something, and we have to assume that they transcribed it, or locked it away in their heads somewhere. We didn’t manage to take any of them down.”

  Anna frowned at the blast points. “What do they keep in these vaults?”

  “Mostly urban planning documents, some schematics for new structures, things like that. We think they were trying to get deeper into the archives, and simply didn’t make it far enough. But it’s dangerous to assume.”

  “Schematics,” Anna said. “What sort of schematics?”

  “Mostly future plans. If they’re looking to hit a hard target, they’ve already proven they can do it.”

  “I don’t know what to make of it, Konrad.”

  He nodded, pacing in a wide circle. “Nor do I. But I know you like to stay apprised.”

  A set of soft, clattering steps echoed from the staircase. Moments later, a small head—thick with shiny black hair—appeared between the banister rods. Curious eyes blinked at Anna.

  “Nulam, Makis,” Konrad said, smirking.

  Hesitant at first, the boy finally crept up the stairs and stood before them, biting at his nails. He seemed a bit taller than when Anna had last seen him, and his skin had grown lighter, perhaps as a result of the curfews. But his shyness remained. He reminded Anna of the coyotes she’d once known in the fields, swift to investigate and swifter to flee. Elegant, diamond-shaped sigils pulsed over his bare forearms.

  “Does he know flatspeak?” Anna asked.

  “Yes,” Makis said gently. “Your name is Anna.”

  Hearing her true name, for reasons she couldn’t comprehend, jarred her. She blinked at the boy and worked to pull on a smile. “Yes, that’s right. Your father is showing me his work.”

  “Are you a tutor?”

  “No,” she said, “I do the same work as him.”

  His eyes lit up. “A fighter.” Then his eyes danced between the two of them, enthusiasm swelling like waves on the shoreline. “When I’m older, I’ll be a fighter too. I’ll join an order like my father.”

  Anna’s chest began to ache. “That’s ambitious.”

  “He has his mother’s determination,” Konrad said. “And my handsome features.”

  “When I’ve gathered ten years, I’ll be initiated,” Makis continued. “I already know how to change the barrel of a ruj, and make fire from stones, and gather water in the flats.”

  “It’s impressive,” Anna said quietly. “I’m sure you’ll make your family proud.”

  He nodded with bold, bright eyes, wringing his hands together anxiously.

  Anna couldn’t recall the last time she’d seen a child with so much passion. Passion for a trade leading to violence, no less. She could already sense his path, swathed in ribbons and order accommodations, tucking his scars under bandaging and violet tunics.

  “Makis?” a woman called. She ascended the stairs in a quick, delicate rush of taps, seizing up when she spotted Anna at Konrad’s side. “Forgive him.”

  “He’s part of our unit,” Konrad said. “But studies come before strikes.”

  Makis giggled at that.

  Anna’s stomach soured.

  “Come along,” the woman said, taking the boy’s hand and leading him back down the steps.

  “He’s spirited, isn’t he?” Konrad asked.

  Anna nodded. “I need to return to the central garrison.”

  “Anna.”

  She glanced up at him, gripping the sides of the table to stem her nausea.

  “After the Seed Massacre,” he said softly, “everybody assumed that you were dead. But I knew you were alive. You had to be. Nobody should’ve survived what they put you through. And when our strike failed, they held me in that kales for a year. More than a year, if we’re being precise. They stripped my skin every morning.” He looked away. “You would think that pain loses its meaning after so long, but it doesn’t. I only kept my mind because I knew that one day, I’d find you again. And when I found you, I had to make things right. You may not agree with what I stand for, Anna, but I’m not empty inside.”

  Anna opened her mouth, but couldn’t find the proper words.

  “Take this,” he said, sliding a ribbon-bound scroll toward her. “This is what you’ve been after. It’s not a ploy. An updated missive came in from the breakers, and I thought you ought to be the first to know.”

  Her fingertips went cold as she peered at Konrad, then the scroll, then Konrad once more. With an urging nod from the southerner, she slid its ribbon off and unfurled the paper. Before her was a mass of charting lines and topography, marked by a black swirl in its lower-left corner. Northern Rzolka. The tracker. Her heart thumped faster, louder.

  “You won’t need fighters,” Konrad said. “Trust me.”

  Anna’s hands were shaking. “I don’t understand.”

  “Just go and see, Anna.” His eyes had taken on a somber glaze. “I don’t know if you’ll ever get the closure you deserve, but this is the best I can do. Consider our bargain fulfilled.”

  Questions swirled through her head, but the sheer rush of memories stilled them. She nodded, fumbling to slip the ribbon back over the paper, and swallowed. “Thank you.”

  “You should go now
, before the forge is too hot.”

  Anna’s lips quivered. “When it ends,” she whispered. “If it ends.”

  * * * *

  Evening brought blood-red skies, smeared over the northern strand like a wicked scar. Endless strings of Huuri ascetics, coated in ash and chalk, wandered through the streets with swaying pails of incense, all the while chanting prayers for the man-skins and their coming tribulations. Several of the worshipers brought their newborns—round, nearly gelatinous forms, passed through the Huuri navel twice in each lifetime—to be blessed at the state’s shrines, hoping that the spilling of sacred blood would ultimately prove auspicious. Beyond the city’s walls, the shabad communities had gathered offerings and formed prayer circles and buried their stores of pickled vegetables, pointedly aware of who would suffer most if Golyna fell under siege.

  Anna spooled those recollections through her head as she rested in the parlor of her unit’s garrison, wondering how quickly the faithful would abandon their beliefs once the invasion began. The better part of her day had been spent with clusters of Pashan officers, coordinating and poring over maps, shuffling tokens across a tabletop that equated to real lives—including those of her own forces. It had been monotonous, but a welcome distraction from the horrors she recalled in Gal Asur.

  He will not be harmed.

  How she wished she could trust its words.

  It was the unit’s last night in the province, for better or worse. The city put everybody on edge, especially Khutai and the other Hazani irregulars, who could hardly cope with the clamor of a dense caravan, let alone districts swarming with makeshift detention centers and roaming packs of fighters. They were all doing their best to keep spirits high, Anna included. They set out the best wine and meat they could scrounge from the bare-bones market stalls, recited bawdy tales from every tract of their homelands, and bathed in the way of the Kojadi nobles, dumping flower petals and thick, sweet oils into the water. But it did little to disguise the severity of their situation. For many of them it was a final comfort before death, and for everybody, a farewell to at least one comrade.

  Anna listened to the others whooping and puffing on reed flutes in the common room, struggling to force Yatrin’s face out of her awareness. The Nahoran interrogators should’ve been doing their work on her, not him. That was a leader’s burden. No, she decided, it was an honest woman’s burden. Regardless of how the others viewed her, she sensed only cowardice in herself.

  All we can do is be strong.

  Rashig entered the parlor with his white sleeves joined, his face a perfect mask of Alakeph composure. Creases below his eyes spoke of his sleeplessness; it was a natural consequence of the sudden shift in leadership, which had forced him under a landslide of operations meetings and conferences with Hall-Mother Adanna. It was a duty he’d never asked for, nor expected to receive during Mesar’s lifetime. There hadn’t even been a formal grooming process. Voicing hardships, however, stood against their sacred precepts.

  “Is everything well?” Anna asked.

  “Venerable Gideon Mosharan and his charge have arrived,” he said in a quiet, hoarse voice. His charge. The term alone made Anna’s skin crawl. “Will you see them?”

  Anna nodded. “Thank you, Rashig.”

  “May our Mother’s light embrace you.” He turned away as mechanically as he’d spoken his blessing, exiting just before Ramyi came bounding into the room.

  “Anna!” she squealed, a smile cutting from ear to ear. “I have a surprise for you. Well, several surprises. They’re mostly tricks. The breakers showed me how to track a soglav. And I learned how many leagues are between the Nahoran cities. Did you know there’s a city built upon water? Oh, and they showed me how to boil down the sap from those little trees on—” Ramyi stopped suddenly, her eyes narrowing. “Are you all right, Anna?”

  She worked to pull on a dim smile. Now she could see the resemblance between the girl and her sister, forever crystallized in the delicate almond rounding of their eyes. Forever hammered into their sense of right and wrong. “Of course,” she said, patting the cushion beside her. “Come, sit with me. Tell me more.”

  Joining her hands sheepishly, Ramyi made her way to Anna’s side and sat. “I’ve really missed you. I’ve been studying so much.”

  “I’ve heard. But I’m glad you’re making progress. Really, I am.”

  “So much of it,” she said. “I could cross the seas with nothing but the nebulae. Can you believe it?”

  She hoped the girl was too young to see the bittersweet twist of her lips. “Gideon is a wise man, indeed.”

  “He knows everything. And he gave me a talisman. He said it would keep me safe while we fight.”

  “Show me it,” Anna whispered.

  Frowning at her tone, Ramyi fished the bronze pendant out from beneath her shirt. It was a simple bead of metal, nothing more. Not another eastern trick.

  Anna relaxed. “It’s lovely.”

  “Isn’t it? Not everybody believes in charms, but I think this one is real. It’s like I can feel it. When we fight, nothing will hurt me. Us, I mean. I’ll be able to keep us safe now.”

  “We should speak about that, Ramyi,” Anna said softly. “About keeping you safe.”

  Ramyi’s lips settled into a flat line. “What do you mean?”

  It was difficult to meet the girl’s eyes. Even more difficult to keep her own voice level, especially as the voice of the girl’s older sister scratched at her memories. I’ll do what I can for Ramyi. Promises made, promises broken. “Do you trust me?”

  “Of course,” Ramyi said. She shifted on the cushion, leaning closer and tilting her head with confusion. “What’s wrong, Anna?”

  “Nothing. But tomorrow, everybody will be moving to their posts.”

  “Oh, I know,” Ramyi said, beaming once again. “Gideon said I’ll be going to the north. I’ll be ready for them, Anna. You won’t need to watch me at all.”

  Anna’s throat tightened. Her own post was in Hedilam, far from whatever coastal city they’d placed Ramyi in. On whose orders? “You’re a strong girl. And when I say this, I want you to listen very carefully.”

  Just then a shadow moved into the doorway. It was Gideon Mosharan, resting like a statue upon his walking stick, flashing his dull smile as he watched. “Forgive my intrusion,” he said. “I’m sure Ramyi has much to tell you.”

  “She does,” Anna said. “Please, come in.”

  Ramyi tugged at Anna’s sleeve. “What did you want to tell me?”

  Anna shook her head. “It’s nothing. We’ll speak later, once you’ve eaten and set out your bedroll with the others. Go and speak with them, would you? They’ve also missed you.”

  “If you say so,” Ramyi said, grinning at Anna and Gideon. She rose and made her way into the common room, whistling a Nahoran lay as she went.

  Silence lingered with the new void. The old breaker’s joints cracked as he shuffled closer, dragging the raw end of his walking stick over the hardwood in horrid screeches.

  “She’s coming along well, is she not?” Gideon asked.

  Anna nodded, staring into her lap. “Did you assign her to the north?”

  “My recommendations were sought, yes.”

  “She belongs with me. It takes a certain way to handle her once the fighting begins.”

  The breaker made an appreciative hum, though it reached Anna’s ears as patronizing, mocking in some sense. “A certain way.”

  “Yes,” Anna said flatly. “I’m grateful for what you’ve done for her, but assigning her to a separate post won’t do. She’s not equipped for that.”

  “Very well, Kuzalem.” He sighed. “The rosters shall be amended.”

  “Thank you.”

  “There’s something else on your mind.”

  “Many things,” Anna said.

  “Something rather pointed, or
so I detect. What burdens you?”

  Anna meshed her hands in her lap and glanced away. “Nothing to concern you, Gideon.”

  “It’s a breaker’s duty to know the way of minds.”

  “Ramyi has a sister,” Anna said softly. “She had one.”

  “You uncovered some writ?”

  “No,” Anna said. “The woman who assaulted the towers told it to me. I believed it upon her words alone.”

  “A cardinal offense among breakers, as it were.”

  “She told me that the Toymaker is a fiction,” she continued. “Is that true?”

  “Such outlandish ideas could only be an attempt to survive.” Gideon shook his head, frowning. “This woman is dead now?”

  “Yes.”

  Gideon nodded, scratching the white stubble across his cheeks. “A curious world we walk, ah?”

  “You can’t tell her.”

  “Certainly not. In my trade, there are fewer things more detestable than the bleeding of precious words. But it casts light upon her ways.”

  Anna closed her eyes. “It does.”

  “Did this sister reveal anything further before her life fled?”

  It returned in a great surge, a swell that surely trickled into Anna’s brows. She shook her head.

  “Most intriguing,” Gideon said, tapping his stick and clicking his tongue. “Fear not, Kuzalem. The crimes of her supposed kin will be repaid tenfold once the interlopers arrive.” His laugh was wild and wet and choked, a drowning man’s final spurt of madness. “You can’t imagine what gifts she has.”

  Opening her eyes, Anna met the breaker’s hungry stare directly. “We’ll find out in Hedilam.”

  Chapter 13

  The wind moved strangely that night, according to the Jilal fighters in Anna’s encampment. Wind being the countless souls of the slain, of course. Fierce, airy, frigid, sweltering. Wind spoke for itself, bridging the divide between the corporeal and the spectral, allowing the Jilal to commune with the world’s ancestors and glean their secrets. That night they were fleeing from some tremendous horror, racing up the mountain slopes, raking through scrubby clusters, seeking out every hollow and gash in the withered stone.