“What are we going to do?” she asked.
He shrugged, steadying Isyllt with a hand on her elbow. “Stay out of the way until Haroun’s wrath is spent.”
“But Symir is going to burn!”
“There’s nothing we can do to stop that now.”
She turned away, gritting her teeth in fear and frustration. Even the river’s nearness couldn’t soothe her now, though it steadied her, eased the drain of spent magic. She could see the gray bulk of the dam upriver, the sharp-toothed mountains behind it blotting out the stars.
“The dam,” Zhirin said. Her voice sounded odd and distant, like a stranger’s. “If we release the dam, the river can help stop the fire.”
Asheris shook his head. “Then the city would flood and burn. It would only add to the destruction.”
“You always speak of the mountain as though it lived. Do you think the river is any less alive?”
“Fair enough. But men bound the river as they did the mountain. What makes you think the Mir would help us if it could?”
She smiled slowly. “Because I’ve asked.”
Without her charms, Xinai would have died a dozen times on the mountain. As it was, her spells were all but exhausted when she reached the foothills near the Kurun Tam. Her muscles screamed, pushed to their limits, and falling rock and ash left her bruised and burned; her lungs felt scoured raw despite the scarf over her face.
The pillar of smoke blotted out the sky, hid the coming dawn. Lava writhed down the slope like red-gold worms, consuming everything in its path. It would be on them soon.
People moved among the trees, gawking like her. She didn’t know if they were Tigers or Dai Tranh or Khas, didn’t have it in her to care anymore. They’d all be just as dead if they didn’t run.
She might have stood and stared until the fire took her, but the earth shook again and Haroun belched another gout of smoke and sparks. A moment later the rain of stones resumed. A black rock the size of her head landed a yard away, shaking Xinai out of her daze.
A hand closed on her arm, yanking her toward the cover of the trees before another could crush her. Phailin’s face was streaked with soot and blood and her mouth worked soundlessly. An instant later Xinai realized that the girl was shouting, and she was the one deaf.
The road, already softened by rain, was murderous now. Mud slid away in sheets from the steeper slopes, and branches and sometimes whole trees blocked their path. A horse passed them, only to founder and fall, crushing its rider as it rolled. Xinai was glad she couldn’t hear man or animal scream.
The ash thickened, worse than rain; a stone struck Xinai’s shoulder, wringing a gasp from her burning throat. She stumbled, slid, scrambled up again. Just a little farther, she told herself—they were almost to the ferry. Her sweat-drenched scarf smothered her and she clawed it away from her mouth. Her lungs hurt so much already she didn’t care about the ash.
The slope eased, trees thinning. Almost there—Another tremor and she hunched, arms around her head to ward off falling stones. Phailin slipped and crashed into her and they both went down in a tangle of limbs and mud. Xinai tugged at the girl’s arm, but she didn’t move. She pulled her a few feet, then paused as she saw the black blood glistening across Phailin’s face. Xinai touched the wound, and jerked her hand away when shattered bone shifted under her fingers.
Hands on her shoulders, pulling her up, turning her. She could barely stand, or focus on Riuh’s face. He was shouting, voice sharp with fear, but she could only shake her head and gesture angrily at her useless ears. He flinched when he saw Phailin, jaw working as he swallowed. He took Xinai’s arm, dragging her toward the dock. Her knees shook and she wondered if he’d have to carry her to the boat.
Then a familiar chill settled into her flesh, driving back the pain and filling her with unnatural strength. She knew she should protest, but it was too much relief to let someone else move for her.
Even through half-numb limbs, she felt instead of heard a roar building behind them. They turned just in time to see a wall of mud and trees sweep down on them.
The Sajet Dam curved across the river like gray veils, two tiers of stone where the Green Maiden Falls had once cascaded. Zhirin had seen the waterfall only in pictures, or in her dreams. Towers rose on either side of the water, their western faces carved into colossal statues of women—the ancient Assari queens Sajet and Anuket, though she had always thought of them as the River Mother and one of her reed-maiden daughters. The towers were home to guards and engineers and the mages who siphoned energy from the surging water. Walkways fringed the walls like lace, arching over the rushing spillways.
The earthquakes had already weakened the foundations. A hairline fissure spread down the lower face of the dam, slowly leaking threads of water. As they drew closer, she could make out people moving on the walkways and tower balconies.
When they were within range of normal eyes, a man ran from the northern tower. He looked around, probably for horses—Zhirin wondered what he would have thought if he’d seen them land. “Lord al Seth, what’s happened?”
“The mountain has woken. Take your men and get out of here. Symir isn’t safe—keep to the Southern Bank and avoid the wind from the west.”
“But the dam—”
“There’s nothing you can do for it now, and the earth may keep shaking. I’ll look after the dam.”
They waited as both towers emptied. The already skittish horses would have nothing to do with the causeway, and the guards finally released those stabled in the northern tower.
“Are you sure about this?” Asheris asked as they watched the evacuation. Isyllt had barely spoken since they landed, only stood in a weary daze, her mangled hands held against her chest.
“Can you think of any other way?”
His silence was answer enough.
When the last of the guards had vanished on the other side, Zhirin stepped onto the causeway across the top tier. The roar of water through the sluices was deafening and she felt the force of it shivering through the stones beneath her feet.
The river was different here. The Mir she knew was soft-voiced, relentless but gentle, deep and dangerous but not angry. The water behind the dam raged and surged, pushing against her prison, constantly searching for a way out, a way free. She tasted of stone and snowmelt, carried dizzying images of falls and cataracts, of soaring mountains and jagged crags and the distant lands beyond them.
Zhirin closed her eyes and listened, let the river’s voice fill her, let her intentions spill out. She wasn’t sure how long she stood there, but when she opened her eyes again the eastern sky had begun to gray and she knew what she needed to do.
“I’m no engineer,” Asheris said when she returned to the bank, “but I think we can manage to open the floodgates.”
Zhirin shook her head. “It’s not enough. She wants freedom. Can you break the dam?”
He and Isyllt looked at each other, dark face and white wearing identical frowns.
“I can find the faults,” Isyllt said at last, “but I’m too weak to do much else.” Her mouth twisted at the admission.
Asheris smiled wryly. “Show them to me and I can exploit them. This is a day of breaking bonds.”
“And everything else,” muttered Isyllt, touching her swollen lip.
Zhirin stood in the center of the causeway while Asheris and Isyllt went about their work. She couldn’t bear to watch the plumes of ash in the western sky, the rain of cinders; instead she bent her head and let the river’s dark thoughts fill her.
She knew what was needed. What was demanded. It was a much lower price than the mountain had claimed. And when she thought of her city burning behind her, of Jabbor’s forests, it was easy to agree.
He would understand, she thought. And even if he didn’t, this was better. Her love of the river was older than her feelings for him, older than her desire for the cunning sorceries of the Kurun Tam. Still, she was glad she’d known both. Even glad she’d met Isyllt, when
she thought about it. Gladder still to know that she wouldn’t grow as cold and heartless.
She searched in her purse, found the wooden comb Suni had given her. It took a moment to free her braids; ash and bits of leaves fluttered loose. As soon as the teeth touched her hair the water answered, waves rising and strengthening. Somewhere in the churning depths in front of her she felt spirits stir, glimpsed pale mottled faces and long weed-green hair.
Sister, they called. Sisterdaughtermotherriver.
“We’re ready,” Isyllt called soon after. “Get clear.”
“No.” The strength of her voice surprised her. “This is where I need to be.”
She saw understanding in their faces. “Are you sure?” Isyllt’s voice was much gentler than she’d ever heard before.
“You don’t have to,” Asheris said. Not arguing or pleading, and she was grateful for it.
“No. But this will be best.”
The lake surged and roiled, waves crashing against stone, high enough that their spray slicked her face. The voices of the reed-maidens filled her head.
“I’m ready,” she told them. “Do it.”
Asheris and Isyllt clasped hands, and she felt the magic gathering beneath her. She waved once in farewell, then turned back to the waiting water.
“Mother,” she whispered, and wasn’t sure if she meant Fei Minh or the Mir. Her hands tightened on the railing, rust scraping her palms. No, that wasn’t the way. She inhaled a damp breath, blew out her fear as the lower dam crumbled with a roar.
The causeway shattered.
She raised her arms and opened them to the oncoming wall of water. It hurt for an instant, as the impact broke her limbs, drove shards of rib into her lungs, but the river took the pain.
The river took everything.
Chapter 21
Dark and fast, the river runs, thick with flotsam—jagged stone and bits of iron spinning in the current before they sink into the mud; a girl’s shattered body; a daughter’s soul cradled in her mother’s arms. Water rushes over the banks. Spirits ride the surge, ecstatic in their freedom.
The river rages, decades of anger unleashed, tempered by a daughter’s grief, a daughter’s hope. A daughter’s bargain.
The mountain shakes, heaving the river in her bed, undoing centuries of patient carving. Fish and snakes writhe in upthrust mud; slime glistens on bones and stones hidden for hundreds of years. The water tastes of ash, of hot stone, of blood and brimstone.
Boats snap their moorings and capsize, throwing screaming passengers into the roar and rush. That part of the river that was a girl mourns each snuffed and broken life, but knows she cannot save them all. Mud rushes down the flanks of the shaking mountain, adds its weight to the flood.
In the city, canals burst out of their banks, water sweeping over streets and sidewalks. A bull kheyman washes onto the steps of a house, roaring his outrage. The earth trembles and a bridge shudders and gives way. In the Floating Garden, potted trees break their tethers and bob away, shedding leaves and branches into the hungry current. In Straylight, buildings groan and slide, bricks and mortar raining into the floodwaters. In the harbor, the sea already churns, vexed to tempest by the earth’s upheaval. Caught between wave and flood, docks splinter, ships founder and sink. Bayside windows shatter under the onslaught, doors burst from their hinges. The water snatches people off quays and sidewalks and drowns all their cries and prayers.
But it hears those drowning prayers too.
Throughout the city fires are doused, but rocks and cinder still rain, and wave after wave of ash blots out the sky. Buildings crumble beneath the weight of ejecta, piling stone upon stone over their unlucky occupants. If it cannot burn the city, the mountain means to bury it, to wipe out all trace of those who in their hubris bound it.
And that, the river decides, will not happen. Not to her namesake, this curiosity of men nestled in her delta, the home of the daughter who set her free. The daughter prays; the mother listens.
And as the mountain renews its offense, the river rises and enfolds the city in her arms.
Dawn never came.
From the tower beside the ruined dam, Isyllt and Asheris watched the mountain burn. Ash drifted past the window like gray snow. Eventually she slept, lulled by the roar of the river and the warmth of Asheris’s shoulder. When she woke her head was on his thigh and the darkness hadn’t brightened. The murk hid the mountain, giving only the occasional sullen flash of orange. The sky to the south was the yellowish gray of necrotic flesh.
“What time is it?” Her voice was a croak, throat raw and lips cracking. Her eyelids scraped as she blinked.
“Afternoon,” he said, his own voice rough. “Or it ought to be.”
Golden witchlights blossomed over their heads, driving away the gloom. Dirt smeared Asheris’s face and clothes and itched on Isyllt’s skin. When she scratched her cheek her nails came back black with grime; it dulled her ring, hid the diamond’s fire and clogged the setting.
Her left arm was numb, wedged between her and the floor. Her elbow creaked when she straightened it, and the rush of blood to her ruined hand made her eyes water. But it didn’t hurt as much as it should. Wincing, she eased her tattered sleeve back. The print of Asheris’s hand circled her wrist like a shackle gall, char-black and flaking in the middle, seeping raw flesh beneath. The edges were pink and blistered, hot and painful enough leave a sour taste in her mouth, but she couldn’t feel the worst parts. At least the ashen air had clogged her nose enough that she couldn’t smell the burnt-pork reek of it.
She’d seen burns like this before, knew the infection sure to follow in one as filthy as this. She might have another day before the fever set in. The bandage on her palm was foul with blood and soot, and she didn’t want to imagine the state of that wound.
“Wait here,” Asheris said and left the room, brushing futilely at the dirt on his coat.
Another tremor came while he was gone, rumbling softly through the stones. Isyllt tensed as dust sifted down from the ceiling, but nothing else gave way. He returned a few moments later with a length of linen and a brandy decanter.
“The pipes are broken,” he said as he crouched beside her. “No clean water.”
She picked up the brandy, smearing the glass. “Is this for the burn or for me?”
Asheris frowned, lifting her arm carefully to peer at the burn. “Internal application would be better, I think.”
He took the bottle from her and doused a corner of the cloth, wiped his fingers clean. She sighed as the smell filled the air, caramel-sweet and stinging the back of her nose. The sting was worse when she took a sip, not just in her sinuses but in the tiny cracks and cuts in her lips. The first swallow went down bitter with blood and char; the second numbed her tongue and coated her throat in sweet fire. Reluctantly, she set the bottle down after a third drink. The alcohol and the rush of the waterfall only reminded her how thirsty she was.
Asheris wrapped the burn loosely and rigged a sling. His eyes glittered in the witchlit gloom. Not the copper-red flash of an animal’s, but a crystalline sparkle like a flame behind amber.
“Who are you, really?” she asked as he tied the last knot.
“I’m Asheris, now.” He rocked back on his heels and raised a hand, palm up. “This is more than just a prison, or a skin. I have his memories, his loves, his life.”
“And before?”
“This tongue couldn’t pronounce my old name, and it’s lost to me anyway.” He chuckled. “We were well matched, Asheris-the-man and the jinn I was. I doubt their trap would have worked as well otherwise. Both so very curious, so incautious. The Emperor’s mages plied the man with wine and the jinn with incense, but it was that curiosity, that desire to know the other, that bespelled us long enough for their chains and stones to bind.” He touched his throat, rubbed the unscarred flesh.
Isyllt didn’t look at her ring, but she felt its weight keenly. “What will you do now?”
His smile sharpened for a mome
nt. “Find some old colleagues. Imran wasn’t the only one who cast that spell. And I worry they may have tried it again.”
An army of bound jinn. Isyllt shuddered at the thought and Asheris nodded. “I won’t let them. After that—” He shrugged. “I don’t know. But first, I think we should leave the tower. The earth hasn’t settled yet—you slept through several tremors before that last, and I suspect more will come.”
He rose, taking her elbow to help her up. “Zhirin’s bargain did something. The river has woken. Whether it was any help to Symir, I don’t know.”
Isyllt stared at the darkness in the west, the sifting ash, the flare and flash of cinders. “Shall we find out?”
They wrapped their faces before they stepped outside, but that couldn’t stop the smell of smoke. Looking back at the tower, she saw how lucky they’d been—the stones at the river’s edge had crumbled and the tower leaned toward the cliff. Cracks spread across the queen’s carven face, bits of hair and cheek fallen away. Another good quake and the whole thing might topple over the falls.
They walked at first, either out of prudence or some unspoken respect for the black-burnt sky. But the closer they grew to the Northern Bank, the harder the way became. The earth had shifted—what had been the reedy banks of the Mir were now cliffs taller than a man, scattered with stones and still-warm ash. The corpses of trees littered the ground, half buried in debris. The once-gentle river thundered below. Nothing green remained.
When the ashfall rose to calf-height, they had to stop. Isyllt’s ring had begun to chill, and she could see only a few yards into the murk, even with their witchlights. Sweat ran down her face and she scrubbed it away with her veil.
“I suppose there aren’t many people around to notice,” Asheris said to himself. An instant later his eyes flashed, and his four wings unfurled, shining gold and cinnabar. Isyllt’s breath caught at the sight.
She stepped in close, hooking her good arm around his neck. It might be easier if he carried her, but she balked at the thought of being cradled like a babe in arms. Instead he tightened his arms around her waist and bore them up. She winced at the strain on her shoulder, then forgot the discomfort as the draft of his wings swirled the ash away and let her see the land below.
The Drowning City Page 27