by Geoff Ryman
The beast began to keen, like a great bird, and it circled, over the roofs, beating backwards with its giant wings, reaching down with its hind legs to land on the highest point of the Most Important House.
“On the temple! On the temple!” the woman wailed, for the temple had been neglected. She hid her head, and her husband stared ahead, silently. On her knees, she began to claw at the snow as if to hide.
Asu Kweetar settled on the roof of the ziggurat, where the Family were supposed to worship. The beast walked upright on its hind legs, striding the peak of the temple, giant wings held aloft, light in a white arc across them. Then the beast spoke, into their heads.
“Why?” it said. “Why did you choose to do this? Why did you choose to follow the Galu? I don’t understand how, or why?”
The Loyal Dogs found they did not know either. They were silent, watching.
“Was it fear? Was it worship of strength? What did it, when there is a God, and you can choose to believe, if you want to?” The beast held up one of the Flowers, with tendrils of fire, over its head.
“There grew a Tree in paradise,” the beast began. The Dogs groaned aloud. The words were from the One Book, and they knew what was coming next. “And the ancients called it the Tree of Life, and on that Tree, the Flowers grew . . .” The voice of the beast twisted with loss and longing and anger. “. . . until the Snake destroyed it. Now! Look!” The beast threw the Flower down.
The warriors on its back emptied their nets, in a tangle, and there was an avalanche of light on the roof of the temple, and with it, rumbling, came the sound of a great fall, a booming noise.
The sound gathered strength; the air and stone surrendered to it, and everything shook, the air and stone moving in waves, until something seemed to give, to split. The beast shrieked and whistled, beside itself with excitement, spinning round and round itself like a puppy, its tail lashing. There came a crackling from the fabric of the temple. Branches of light forked up from it, like lightning; roots forked down. Then, with a gentle rustling like leaves and a tinkling like thousands of icy bells, the Flowers rose up together onto the limbs of Life.
“The Tree! The Tree! The Tree!” screeched Asu Kweetar, leaping up and snapping.
The Tree stood, a blistering white in all its parts, branches and trunk, a young tree, heavy with blossom.
“Oh!” sighed the beast. “It shines.” The beast crouched low, quivering, its front legs outstretched. It circled one more time, and then settled, under the Tree. It laid its head on its paws and looked up at it.
“Can you hear its voice?” the beast asked, softly. “Like wind in the branches. Like rain on leaves. Can you hear what it says? It says that it’s come back. The Garden is restored, here. No more voices in the night. No more fear. It says there is time now. You don’t have to die.”
The beast fell silent, and everything was held in suspension. The snow fell hissing. Everything was white, illuminated, silver. The clouds overhead were silver, glistening, and the snow turned and twinkled like sequins, reflecting criss-cross shafts of light. The patterns of the crystals were illuminated, and could be seen. The air and the stone and the gusts of snow seemed as orderly as the streets of a city that have been planned. The Loyal Dogs stood silent too, not sure what they felt, not wanting to move.
Then came a sudden, hideous blare of noise: crude trumpets and bashing gongs and cymbals. Faint and far away, but harsh enough to break the peace, the music of the Masters.
The Dogs did not know what to do. They loved the Flower: should they take it? Should they defend it? They loved the Galu, loved their Masters. Should they defend them? The Dogs began to run. They ran in all directions, away from the temple, towards the temple, towards their barracks, or back and forth between them. Some grabbed the arms of their fleeing comrades, and spun them around to face them. “Fight! We fight!” they shouted, and their comrades only shook their heads, weeping. The light had made everything they had done poison. Some drew swords, and in a kind of blind panic, slew the deserters. Some suddenly stopped, as though weary, and stared. Others, full of bitterness, without quite realising it, turned, swords drawn and began to stumble towards the Flower, not sure if they wanted to destroy it or preserve it. They began to gather, in the scattering of the Dogs, like strands into a single thread.
“Go back!” wailed the beast in dismay. “Go back, you don’t understand! The Flower is yours by right, you don’t need to fight us for it, but you must get away from this place until our work is done!”
The discipline asserted itself. The Spiders recognised each other, and fell into their ranks. With a sudden dipping of the knees, they picked up their polished columns of metal, and began to jog with them, carrying them towards the Tree.
“No!” said the beast, pacing the temple. “Don’t be deceived, Dogs. We are prepared to fight you. We don’t want to, but we will. And if you try to take the Flower now, I can tell you that we have a dreadful, dreadful, unexpected ally. Go back!”
The Dogs still came. Their breath shot out from their nostrils, a blazing white, obscuring everything they saw, except for the Tree.
“Fools have no eyes! Fools have no ears!” wailed the beast.
Then it gave a snarl, and shook itself, and lowered its head. The two warriors on its back slipped down on to the roof of the temple. They stood beside the beast, a quarter of its height, both of them armoured, one in white metal, with a dome of armour over her swollen belly. Later, in the few songs that were sung and largely disbelieved, there was no telling which of the two was meant by the name Warrior who Carried Life.
Cara stood on the top of the temple, and the light of the Flower was like a beam through her eyes that she could train. She could see the Loyal Dogs as they surged into the square; she could almost count them: too many, too many to hold back for long. The Spiders planted four towers around the temple. Clawed buttresses bit into the pavement and gripped, and the towers rose with a sound like flutes, one section telescoping out of another. The Turtles, who fight with patience, crouched under their shells to wait. The rest of the Dogs charged up the ramp. It was the only way to surmount the seven giant levels of the ziggurat. It was smooth, clad in limestone, with no steps, forty times the height of a man. Cara saw leather-soled sandals flattening the snow, polishing it.
“Cara,” said Stefile, fear rising in her voice.
“They’ll slip,” said Cara. “They’ll fall.” Her thoughts were murderous. She wanted to cut them all down. In her mind she glimpsed a Dog, made immortal by the Flower. He grinned at her in vindication.You won’t get that, my lovely, she promised him. Either way, you won’t get that. The Galu will have you.
She was depending on the Galu. The Galu would not let anything else have the Flower. They would burn their own Dogs to prevent it—at least as far as Cara knew. She heard their horrible music, and wished it closer. There were stars overhead. God had returned, surrounded by death. She, Cara, was yearning for the Galu to kill again. The snow swirled around them, like all the contradictions, and somewhere amid them was God. The Dogs were nearly upon them.
The shield and the spear leapt out at the Dogs ringing against their heads, pushing them back. Asu Kweetar screeched inside their heads, so loudly they dropped to their knees and covered their ears, but the sound didn’t stop. They slipped on the snow, feet flailing. A Man with Wrists of Steel fell backwards on to his comrades, and rolled, with a rumble of clanking metal. A Shadow Man slipped, and grabbed those ahead of him. His doubles grabbed as well, pulling men off their feet. A Man who Cuts Horses drew his sword, and his overarching backstroke slashed those behind him. A rank of Angels, fearsome, impatient, seeing only the Flower so clearly ahead of them, flung themselves forward. Dervishes, they broke through the men ahead of them, and very suddenly spun themselves into pieces, a flurry of blood and flesh, on the drawn swords they did not see.
Cords of braided metal were thrown, arching through the air between the towers of the Spiders. The cords hung low over the to
p of the temple. The first of the Spiders launched himself into the air, sailing down the length of the cord, with a sizzling sound, on a pulley. Asu Kweetar turned to him. “You serve nothing,” he told the man, and drew his bow, and let loose an arrow. Its tip was white, and it plunged through the head and helmet of the Spider, and ploughed a furrow along his spine.
The most noble of his comrades, Angels and Horses,were just then gaining the top of the ramp. The Spider swept low over it, his hanging legs smashing into the heads of his companions, the scythe that was bound to his hands slamming into the backs of their necks. He somersaulted, a helpless mass across the stone, and up, slightly, across into the opposite tower.
The arrows of the Beast were curved like boomerangs, and returned to him, to be plucked from the air and sent out again. The shield and the spear pushed back the Dogs in advance. Those behind them pushed forward. The line up the ramp swelled in its middle, and suddenly overspilled its edges. The column of flesh, seething, began to slide helplessly, irrevocably backwards, on slush that was hardening into ruby ice. Those who fell dragged down those in front of them and, together, they slid sideways into the legs of those behind them. With a slow sagging of the knees, those behind settled on top of them. The descending weight of even more men above them pushed them to one side. Slowly, helplessly, they seemed to ooze towards the edge of the ramp. In a tangle, like holly, they pulled each other, rolling, over it. Some were able to cling, for a time, to the slope. Others judged the distance to the layer of the temple beneath them, and jumped. The clacking, wailing music of the Galu ground closer.
Cold had made both metal and stone more brittle, and grease was thick. A Spider on his pulley squealed to a halt overhead, halfway down a cord, blocking it. There was a sudden, spreading crackle through the stones of the square. The buttress of a tower sprang free from shattered pavement. With a tortured creaking, the tower leaned towards the ziggurat, held only by the web of cords that linked it to the other towers. The Spiders who clung to its lower sections jumped down from it. There was a crinkling sound of breakage, as the wires of the cords snapped. Then the cords burst apart, lashing through the air. Slowly, as if with great deliberation, the tower fell, trailing men after it who plummeted down, kicking, on to the stone. The tower fell on the ramp, crushing one side of itself, bending from the top. The tower began to slide, wiping everything out of its path, or gliding over it. As it fell, the crumpled top moved farther and farther out from the ramp; the entire, massive edifice began to roll, gathering speed, whipping the metal cords round with it. Like a barrel down stairs, it began to bounce, rising up and dropping down, rising up again, and hammering the limestone beneath it. The Dogs scattered in front of it, hurling themselves off the ramp, kneeling under its shelter, hands over their heads. Some of them on the ramp were miraculously passed over as the tower, hollow and elastic, sprang up into the air, making whiplash, metallic noises all along its length. It reared up one final time before sweeping into the Dogs still at the base of the ramp.
Then silence. The Dogs had been trained not to cry out in pain. They had also been trained to regroup. They stirred, struggling up through the limbs of comrades. A Baked Man pulled a length of metal from out of his leather skin, and walked on, barefoot on frozen blood and water. The Turtles began to creep forward under their shells.
“No!” snarled Asu Kweetar. “You defeat yourselves! Go back!” He launched himself into the air. He flew low over the ramp, gathering up straggling warriors in his front and rear paws, beating others with his giant, soft white wings.
Cara watched, bemused. It was almost funny, this sudden collapse of the Fighting Schools, like watching a clumsy giant fall.
“I’m almost disappointed,” she said. “I have not yet had to strike a single blow.”
A Man who Cuts Horses was suddenly standing in front of her. Cara whinnied at him, mocking. He struck. His sword dipped and swerved around Cara’s, rose up, and was driven down. He severed Cara’s arm clean away. She barked out a nervous laugh. She fell backwards, and sat on the stone.
Stefile called her name and leapt forward. The Man who Cuts Horses wiped aside her blow almost casually. A Man with Wrists of Steel lumbered up behind him, ponderous in his armour, and swung at Stefile. She danced backwards, out of the way of his heavy downward stroke. Then, untrained, she jumped as hard as she could on the blunt back of the sword. There was a grating of metal on metal as the sword slipped out of his grasp. He blinked at Stefile for a moment through the slit of his visor, and then snatched Stefile’s sword from her, grabbing it by the blade with his metal-shod hand.
The Man who Cuts Horses lifted up his sword.I still haven’t struck a single blow, thought Cara. Her arm was beside her on the stone, still holding the sword. The Horseman swung down. With a sudden humming sound the arm somersaulted into the air and blocked the blow with Cara’s sword. It rose in the air, flipped over the Horseman’s head and slapped him across the buttocks with the flat of the sword. Outraged by the dire insult, the warrior spun around to find himself facing the sword alone, pink and white-flecked, floating in the air. He swung at it, and ducked out of the way. Then, very carefully, it inserted the Horseman’s blade into its handle, and wrenched it out of his grip. Cara yelped with laughter.
The Steel Wrists swung at Stefile. Suddenly a shield descended from above, and absorbed the blow. It stayed in front of Stefile, blocking her view. She heard the Steel Wrists give a little cry of surprise. This was followed a few moments later by a clattering, spreading crash from below. The shield was raised. The Steel Wrists was simply no longer there. Stefile felt a tap on her shoulder and turned. Cara’s arm presented her with her own white sword, gave a little wave, and then darted off, swimming through the air like an eel.
Cara gave a fresh howl of laughter. “Stef! Stef!” she cried. From out of the stump of her shoulder, baby fingers emerged, wiggling. “The Flower!” Using her left arm as a prop, she jumped to her feet. “The Flower! The Flower! The Flower!” she roared, and hopped up and down with delight. She grabbed hold of the Man who Cuts Horses and, although somewhat asymmetrical, swung him around in a little dance. Aghast, the Horseman pulled himself free, his bearded cheeks puffed out at the impropriety. They were supposed to be fighting! Shrieking with laughter, possessed with it, Cara reached up and wrested a handful of petals from the Tree and crammed them into the Horseman’s mouth. Infuriated, the Horseman spat them out. Then he realised what he’d done. His jaw dropped open. Shaking his head, muttering, he simply turned and walked away, back down the ramp.
Cara felt something in the air all around her that was like the buffering of many small wings. Stefile was beside her. Cara could feel her hand. Cara swung her around too in a kind of stumbling peasant jig. All she could see was the light. It seemed to form highways up through the snow and sky, big and broad enough to walk on. The beams shone through her, tickling, making her want to giggle. The snow all around her was like thousands of bells, rolling.
A Baked Man stomped towards her, stiffly, with wattled knees.Like a baby, Cara thought. He jammed a long sliver of metal into her neck. Cara left it there. She had not been made immortal to give blows, but to absorb them. Feeling a thin, wide grin spread across her face, she reached up into the Tree, and peeled away a petal of the Flower. She pressed it into his hands, and held them. His encrusted mouth was a tiny straining circle of surprise. That made Cara laugh out loud. He was at other times a cheerful soul, and without quite knowing why, he laughed too, a brief, hearty chuckle, the light of the Flower illuminating the velvety black of his eyes.
“This’s yours,” said Cara, her words slurred. “Always been. Now go. “’Fore the Galu.”
The Baked Man stared back at her, confused, almost hurt.
The music of the Galu screeched and bashed and rattled overhead.
“Run!” hissed Cara, and gave him a push.
Yes! she suddenly thought, with a thrill, as the Baked Man skittered down the icy ramp. Something caught up both of them, bo
th Cara and the Baked Man, and suddenly he was lifted up as he ran. He squawked, kicking, and squealed, and he soared up and over the walls, out of the square. There was a roaring in Cara’s ears like a wave, and it seemed to carry her down the ramp. She advanced arms outstretched.
An Angel smashed his fist into her chest. She grabbed his hand without looking, and pulled it out, and held it by the wrist, and pulled the Angel with her. A kind of warrior she didn’t know ran towards her and rammed his spear into her gut. She walked forward on the spear, smiling. She patted his cheek—a child’s trick to distract him—and kicked his feet out from under him. Armoured, he tobogganed down the ramp. The Angel she held began to scream, staring at her arm. The arm had begun to glow, like the Flower. He broke free, and ran.
“Time to go home now!” said Cara, in a high mocking voice that was hardly her own. It filled the square, it shook the stone. “Time to go home now!”
A flight of arrows rose up against her, and she turned to welcome them. They dug into her shoulders and chest and arms.
“Dance,” she whispered.
All the weapons of the Fighting Schools rose up against them. The swords, the shields, the spears all danced in front of her like a curtain, prodding, slapping, poking, herding their masters backwards. The metal duplicates of the Shadow Men wrested control from them, and made them walk backwards. Tossing her head, Cara danced on the ice, arms still held outwards, snapping her fingers, flicking off the blood. She whirled and stumbled down towards the Dogs.
The stones of the pavement began to shake. With a hollow scraping sound, like the shifting of the grate, the first of the great stones began to rise. The men on top of it howled, and dropped to their knees, and clasped its edges as it swept upwards, bearing them away.
“Whee!” Cara cried, feeling everything race past her. She looked up at her arms against the sky. They were as clear as water, and they flowed around bones that were like ice, light bending and rippling through them. Magic swelled, unbearable within her, aching like love, until she thought she would burst. She opened her mouth to howl, and it was like something rupturing; a torrent seemed to pour out of her, with the weight of the universe behind it. She felt it sweep across the square, and break against the old walls, rearing up, and then surging over them. Dimly she saw all the warriors and all their goods rise up too, like a flock of ravens, borne up, lifted over the walls. She saw the giant towers turning in the air, glinting like ships.