by Mur Lafferty
She turned her faceless mask to the charred remains of a temple that had been dedicated to the moon goddess, Cotton, someone she no longer was. She waved her scythe in a diagonal slashing motion, then walked through the threshold that used to hold a pearl door. She vanished from the earth, and behind her the lost and lonely souls streamed through behind her, joyously following her to her new realm.
The name “Morrigan” floated into her mind, and she grasped it and felt it was hers. She cradled it as her own, and sought to explore her underground home as the souls swirled around her.
Above Dauphine, where the moon hung, smaller and duller, a small void circled the orb. Even a small void can create a vacuum, and it began to attract interest from far away.
Morrigan didn’t know about this void; if she had known, she wouldn’t have cared. She had a new name, a new weapon, a new home, and most importantly, she had her freedom. The crows belonged to her, and she could learn more of what was going on above ground than she ever had as the moon.
Her ghosts fashioned her a throne of bones and she sat there, reveled in their adoration, and watched through the eyes of her animals above.
Her time would come. Morrigan would make those responsible answer for their crimes.
* * * * *
Kate looked out of the temple window at the sunset peeking through the floating buildings, then at the mist gathered around the base of the buildings.
“What does Meridian do with their dead?” she asked suddenly. “Do you have vermin? Pets? Garbage collection?” The concept of living away from the ground felt completely alien to her.
A young acolyte, assigned to her for the afternoon, appeared at her elbow. With eyes fixed politely on the floor, she said, “We cremate our dead, My Lady. Different vermin breed in the buildings; one will have mice, others insects and still others rats. They usually come from pets. The bank has an infestation of hamsters, and the air market has geckos. Usually after vermin breeds to the point of trouble, either exterminators are brought in, or humane trappers who then sell the vermin as pets, and the whole thing starts all over again.”
“You sound like you don’t approve,” Kate said, laughing.
The young woman grimaced. “I grew up in an apartment building with a guinea pig problem. Seeing one of those little beady eyes chomping on my cereal one morning made sure I never saw them as cute again.”
“Okay, so cute vermin. Or not so cute. What about garbage? Surely you don’t drop it on Lathe?”
The acolyte’s eyes grew wide and she forgot herself, looking Kate in the face. “Oh goodness no, that’s prohibited. It doesn’t mean some don’t do it, but they’re punished severely. We’re not sky pirates who dump flotsam and jetsam over the side. We have a handful of buildings that transform the garbage using some power harnessed from the probability storms.”
“And then what?” Kate asked.
Her face went slack and she dropped her eyes again. “Um, actually I don’t know.”
Kate grinned. “Once you throw it away, it isn’t your problem anymore? Yeah, we had that where I’m from. Don’t be ashamed. I’ll find out from someone. You’ll have to excuse me; this is all so new to me, living off the ground.”
“I have to excuse you?” the acolyte asked.
“Sure, I’m the new person here, I’m at risk of insulting your way of life.”
“But, Lady, you created us.”
Kate shrugged, careful not to destroy the woman’s faith. “That’s true, Daniel and I made the world happen, but you all made it what it is. Which is why we have little idea what’s going on.” She took the woman’s chin and forced it up, making her look her in the eyes. “Look, you won’t offend me if you look at me, or talk to me like anyone else. In fact, I’d prefer it. Can you try to do that? Please?”
The acolyte’s lip trembled and Kate realized she was scaring her. She let her go, and the woman said, “Yes, Lady.”
“What’s your name?”
“Meredith, Lady.”
“Well, then, Meredith, how do you feel about showing me around the city tonight? You can take me and Daniel out, and show us what folks do for fun around here. How does that sound?”
Meredith’s eyes grew round and she stammered something about being needed at the temple.
“My temple, right? The temple built to honor me? Do you think that sweeping the floor here will honor me than helping me understand Meridian better?” Kate hated to pull rank, but it was honestly ridiculous how the priestesses seemed to balk at any changes she wished to make at the temple.
“No, Lady. I mean, yes, Lady. I mean, when would you like to go?”
“Thank goodness,” Kate said. “We can go at sunset. Daniel’s checking out his temple; he should be back up soon. Please get me an acolyte's robe so I can look like I’m from the temple too.”
She sighed and looked back out of the window. “God, I could use a drink. You guys have wine here, right?”
Meredith grinned over her shoulder at Kate, relaxing at last. “I know just the place.”
* * * * *
Kate held the glass of wine up to her face, frowning at the thin, slightly bubbly green liquid inside.
“‘I don’t know what it is, but it’s green,’” Daniel quoted in a bad Scottish accent, and Kate snorted at him.
She glanced over her glass at Meredith, who encouraged her with a grin. “Things grow differently in Lathe. That’s the finest wine that this area can grow. It’s called Cmar. Trust me.”
Kate put the glass to her lips, reminded herself that she was immortal, and then took a sip.
It didn’t taste green. Kate had always wondered why you didn’t see sparkling red wine. Maybe because it sucked? But this tasted like a fruity red wine with the heavy tannins replaced with … she couldn’t place it. Something light and airy, something besides the bubbles, which left a tingle in her mouth long after she had swallowed.
“That’s amazing,” she said.
Meredith nodded happily. They sat at a table in the back of a bar that was on the bottom floor of a squat building near the outer edge of Meridian. The bar was called “Bottomless,” and its walls and floor were made of glass so you could look down and see the swirling clouds and, every once in a while, a glimmer from Lathe, hundreds of feet below.
Kate had heard of restaurants on top of skyscrapers with amazing views, but this was a new experience. She bet it would be amazing during the day, but they only opened at sunset.
“There’s plenty to see at night,” said the bar owner, a tall man named Sam who was built like a refrigerator (and who was amused greatly at this). He was remarkably pale, more than most of the citizens of the world, nearly as pale as Kate and Daniel.
He didn’t blink at Kate and Daniel, even though their skin was much like his, and Daniel’s missing eye was hard to hide. He welcomed them with open arms and said that all priestesses of Kate were welcome there. Meredith greeted him by name and he hugged her, almost engulfing her with his bulk.
“I always love the priestesses of Kate,” he said. “I feel they bring a little of the goddess’s smile my way.”
Kate grinned at him, wondering how much he really had ascertained. “I’m sure they do,” she said.
He had seated them at a back table, where he said they could see the most of the wondrous things that went on during the evening below, and brought them a bottle of his best Cmar.
“So what are we looking for here? Or is it just the view?” Daniel asked, looking toward the mass of darkness that indicated the hills east of Lathe. Occasional bursts of light flickered from inside the caves.
“I’m not sure, exactly,” Meredith admitted. “When I come I usually sit near the bar and chat with Sam. I rarely sit at the tables. I go to Lathe often enough on temple business; I don’t need the view.”
“There are always things to see in Lathe at night,” Sam said, bringing another bottle of Cmar without being asked.
“Like?” Daniel asked.
As if
that was the invitation he was waiting for, Sam pulled up a chair, its feet sliding smoothly and noiselessly over the glass floor, and settled his bulk into it.
“Well, the scientists work more at night. The one who’ve lost their minds tend to be more nocturnal. Not sure why, maybe they feel more like animals, maybe they don’t like the sun anymore.”
Daniel chuckled. “Maybe they’ve met Barris.”
Kate glared at him. Openly admitting that they knew and disliked the sun god was not a good way of keeping a low profile, but Sam didn’t miss a beat.
“You might be onto something there. I had one man in here who had left Meridian in disgrace, but discovered something in Lathe that helped him make his riches back, so he returned to the city. But he was a changed man, very flashy. He told me at length how he hid from the sun and only came out in the dark, when the moon ruled the sky. He worshipped her, he said, and said he was working on a way to communicate with her.”
Meredith looked over the horizon. “You might want to look him up, then. Shouldn’t we have a waxing moon by now? It’s been a new moon for days.”
“The moon is gone?” Kate asked, her voice catching.
Sam scratched his chin. “Now that you mention it, it’s been clear since that last improbability storm and I haven't seen a moon in the last few nights either.”
The chewing, horrific pain enveloped her as her prison aboard a stationary airship caught fire and plummeted. She had tried to keep the airship in the sky, but it was during the day, her weak time, and she was little more than mortal. It crashed into a temple dedicated to her — there was too much pain and chaos to note the irony — and she struggled toward a hole in the ship’s hull. The burning balloon then sank and covered the ship, and fire was everywhere.
Kate blinked her eyes, trying to clear the vision. Was it something she had imagined, or something that had actually happened? She knocked back the last of the green stuff in her glass with one gulp, the bubbling liquid reminding her not so much of nice tingles, but ...
“Careful, miss,” Sam said, pouring her another glass. “This stuff is strong. Best to be sipped.”
Kate blinked at him. It had been a long time since she had felt alcohol seep through her system. “And if you want to forget something?”
He laughed, a pleasing, friendly sound. “Then let me leave the cork out of the bottle for you.”
Daniel put his hand on her arm and squeezed. She didn’t meet his eye. If the moon was actually gone from the sky, they were going to have even bigger problems. As if they didn’t have enough.
Meredith glanced at Sam and shifted in her chair. “So, uh, what else did you want to know about Meridian?”
Kate appreciated the distraction and sipped at her wine, letting Daniel take this one.
“Anything, really. Where we come from, they didn’t have cities in the air, and the whole thing is just really strange to us.” He glanced down through the floor. “Really strange,” he repeated.
“I know what you mean,” Sam said. “I am from Leviathan City, the city under the waves. My people worshiped Ishmael, and the other gods were barely known, if at all. We worshiped the moon, as she moved the tides, and Persi, as she blessed the water creatures around us and kept the leviathan away. We didn’t believe in the other gods we had heard about from the rare above-ground visitors. Coming to Meridian was a shock to me to learn about the sun, and Kate and Daniel, and the others.”
They weren’t known in Leviathan City? This was news. “What brought you to Meridian, and what made you stay?” asked Kate.
“We were solitary for many years, but plague hit the city when I was a boy. My parents were a doctor and a scholar, so they were sent to Meridian to try to find a cure.”
Kate finished off her glass and looked at Sam unsteadily. “And did they?”
Sam looked down at Lathe, frowning. “They did. But the council of elders said that we had been tainted by the city in the air, and would not let us return home. We were allowed into the city long enough to deliver the information about the cure and remove our belongings, and then we were exiled.”
“Dude, that’s cold,” Daniel said.
Sam nodded and continued. “Minimal trade between the cities meant that my parents’ riches meant little outside, so we arrived in Lathe poor and homeless. The good thing about Lathe is they’ll take in anyone, so we found an abandoned house and my parents began their lives anew.”
“Leviathan City seems pretty intolerant of outsiders,” Kate said, glancing at Daniel. He nodded in silent agreement; rescuing the god Ishmael may not be as easy as they’d hoped.
“After the plague was, I assume, cured, my people shut off all connection with the outside world. My parents and I became the only citizens that we know of outside the city.”
“Why are they so intolerant?” Kate asked. “Surely they were grateful for the cure?”
Sam poured himself a glass of the green wine and knocked it back, much like Kate had. “People above ground were blasphemers,” he said flatly. “They did not worship Ishmael as we did; they had new gods to worship. When my parents gave their full reports about Lathe and Meridian, they saw only cities of sin and horror. Anyone who has touched the outside must be irrevocably tainted, and must not be allowed into Leviathan City.”
Sam snapped his head up, his eyes instantly regaining the sparkle they’d had when they’d entered his bar. “But! You are here to ask about Meridian, not Leviathan City, am I right?”
Kate poured more wine unsteadily into her glass. “We’re from, uh, the South, so we don’t know much about any city north of where we’re from, including Leviathan City. We want to know about everywhere, honestly. Thank you for your story, Sam, that can’t have been easy for you.”
He waved his hand in dismissal. “It happened so long ago it’s hardly forgotten,” he said, apparently forgetting the pain that had been scrawled on his face a minute before.
“Now, let me tell you of how I came from Lathe to Meridian. That is a much more interesting story.”
* * * * *
“I have to admit, it was a tough change moving to Lathe. Leviathan City is a strange place, but it’s not as strange as Lathe. Lathe is very dry.”
Daniel laughed. “That’s the big difference? The weather?”
Sam cleared his throat. “It is relevant. The diseases in a dry area are much different from the diseases in a wet one. Meridian had better physicians, but as my parents were poor, we ended up in Lathe, and my mother had to start from scratch. We looked different and talked different from everyone else.”
“I went to the strange establishment that stands for school in Lathe, where we were taught not so much reading and writing and math, but how to live in the world where the buildings will not stay on the ground, whales swim in the air instead of the ocean, and the entirety is built entirely of penniless castoffs from the city above. I learned basic tinkering and farming.”
He paused to wet his throat, and Kate said, “How can people farm in this soil?”
“The vegetables here are recalcitrant, odd things. They are fed not by water but by the improbability storms, so you may not get what you plant. But they do sustain people.”
“So how did you get to Meridian?” Kate asked.
“Remember when I said I learned some tinkering?” Sam asked. They nodded. “Well, I invented a new way of getting grapes to do more or less what you want them to, and then fermented them to make sparkling wine.”
“So the Cmar is yours?” Kate asked, pouring herself another glass.
“It is indeed. So I sold some crates of wine to Meridian, some to Dauphine, and other cities. I made enough to buy this bar and retool it to have a glass floor so I could keep an eye on my vineyard. It’s on the hill over there.” He pointed into the darkness, north of the cities. Kate squinted drunkenly and willed herself to see through the darkness. She spotted a vineyard and a little building nestled into the hill; the winery, she assumed.
“And the res
t is history,” Daniel concluded, draining his glass. “This is damn tasty stuff, Sam. I gotta tell you.”
Sam bowed his head. “Thank you. I’m very proud of it.”
“So what do people do in Lathe?” Kate asked. “I mean, you know, for fun?”
Daniel looked at her with a little smile, and she realized she was sounding pretty plastered. But to hell with it; it had been forever since she’d been drunk.
“There are bars such as mine, but with lesser vintages, of course,” Sam said. “They have their own version of theater with clockwork actors and there are always the caves.”
“The caves? Are there tours or something?” Daniel asked.
“No, it’s more of a child-like dare that adults go through. The scientists who wish to be left alone go there, and often set traps.”
“Traps,” Daniel said, dumbstruck. “What, is this a D&D game?”
Sam looked at him blankly, and Daniel mumbled an apology. “The traps are often quite deadly, but you can often sell them to dealers in town if you can deactivate them safely. It’s adventure, it’s money, and there’s a thriving trade. It makes the scientists cranky, though.”
“I can imagine,” Kate said. Her eyelids were growing heavy.
Daniel poked her in the ribs. “Come on, Kate. The night just started. Don’t fall asleep on me.”
She closed her eyes and willed some of the alcohol out of her system. “Whew. That was some good stuff, Sam. Thank you.”
Sam stared at her, and she blushed, realizing that sobering up instantly was not something mortals did. He recovered quickly though, and thanked her for the compliment.
Sam returned to work and Meredith talked about the city, pointing out interesting buildings and describing the more entertaining parts of town. “Tomorrow, if you like, we can go to the market. There’s always merchants there from Lathe and Meridian and all sorts of places.”
“I'd love to, but we’re heading to Lathe tomorrow. We have business there,” Kate said, looking through the floor at the ground.