The Armies of Heaven

by Jane Kindred

  “If you’ll pardon my saying so, Nazkia, you’re not. Your mind needs to be sharp, and it won’t be if you’re continually waking. You cry out in your sleep, often long before you wake, and you thrash and scream when you do.” His gave me a reproachful look. “You’re alarming your men. And your cries are bound to bring unwanted attention now that we’ll be nearing farmsteads.”

  I couldn’t argue with this. If I endangered the troops because of my pride and modesty, it was a useless pride and modesty. “I see your point.”

  Belphagor laughed. “Well, don’t look as if I’ve just condemned you to the gallows. I promise you, we’ll be chaste as angels.”

  “I’m not worried about that.” I glowered in irritation, though in truth, the two of them had never been able to be discreet. “It’s just— What will the Virtues think?”

  “They’ll think it’s none of their business and they’ll keep their mouths shut. They are well-trained soldiers, amazed as I am to say it, and they have great respect for you. If you think one of them will even raise an eyebrow, you’re mistaken.”

  “All right,” I said impatiently. “Just tell me where your tent is. I’m exhausted and I don’t want to talk anymore.”

  He held out his arm with exaggerated chivalry and I sighed and took it as he led me across the grounds of our camp to where Vasily already waited.

  “This is awkward,” I admitted as I climbed inside. “Is there even room for three?”

  Vasily silenced me with a kiss.

  Belphagor cleared his throat behind me. “When I promised her we’d be chaste as angels, I meant all of us, Vasily.”

  “Quiet,” Vasily grumbled and curled around me snugly as I lay down. “Just go to sleep, Bel.” Normally, Vasily showed him an almost deferential respect. It was when he was most aroused by Belphagor that Vasily was sullen and rude. It seemed to be an odd part of their cycle of “courtship” and a prelude to the rough treatment Vasily so desperately desired.

  I wondered what I’d gotten myself into, but I had little time to worry about it; I fell asleep the moment I closed my eyes.

  I dreamt I was down at the lakeshore still, bathing in the moonlight. As the breeze rose and died around me, light shimmered in it.

  At first, I thought the glint of moonlight on the water reflected up at me, but as I watched, the shimmering light moved of its own accord like swarms of tiny fireflies forming shapes in the air. If I didn’t look at them straight on, they were easier to see, and at last I realized they were all around me, beings that looked like women made of liquid and light. They were very much like the wings of my element in the terrestrial manifestation of my radiance—translucent, sparkling columns of water.

  Long tresses made of little glints of light flowed about them as if they were under the surface of the lake and not above it with me. What had seemed to be a breeze was the touch of their flowing hair and swirling garments as they circled me.

  When I’d begun to perceive them visually, I also began to hear their voices, like songs or musical calls distorted by the medium of liquid instead of air, but at last, I made out the words: “Padshaya Koroleva.”

  I tried to focus on them as they wavered and fluxed as if the water they were made of rippled with waves that variously reflected the moonlight. “Are you syla?”

  “We are rusalki. Nechysta syla.” If I understood the term correctly, it meant “unclean force,” a term for a demon, in earthly vernacular. “We bring dreams of what was and is in the grove above the lake.”

  So my intuition had been correct. What I’d seen in the Winter Palace, Kae had actually experienced. And Ola… She was really in a pit somewhere in the south of Heaven.

  “We are the ones who see the past. The syla see what is and will be. We come because the syla cannot see.” The voice I thought I’d heard at Pyr Amaravati had whispered the same.

  “What does that mean? What can’t they see?”

  “Darkness comes between.” The lilting voices of the rusalki crossed and echoed around me. I couldn’t tell when one stopped speaking and another began. “Like the shadow of the world upon the moon or the moon upon the sun. The Little Queen has closed her eyes.”

  My heart twisted. “Little Queen” was the name the syla had given to Ola when they’d first seen her. “What do you mean, she’s ‘closed her eyes’? What’s happened?”

  “They cannot tell,” said a rusalka from one side.

  “They cannot see,” said one from the other.

  “Polnochnoi Sud will open for Padshaya Koroleva.”

  “On the night of the tsvetok paporotnika.”

  “The flower of the fern?” I spun about, trying to keep up with who was speaking. “You mean on Ivan Kupala?” My first encounter with the syla had been on the eve of the Russian celebration of midsummer. They’d shown me the magical flower I’d later lost to Helga, giving her the power of influence that had made her the leader of the Social Liberation Party.

  “When you reach the water’s end, you will enter the Midnight Court.” They were disappearing now, the glinting lights winking out, and their melodic voices dissolving into the sound of the wind.

  “Wait,” I pleaded. “I don’t understand. How can I get there?” The water churned up around me and I floundered and went under, gasping and taking it into my lungs. Then someone was hauling me onto the shore, and I hugged the ground, coughing and vomiting lake water.

  I resisted the hands tugging at me and the muffled voices calling my name. I only wanted to rest here, but they were insistent. I opened my eyes, confused to find myself soaking wet and cradled in Vasily’s arms on the shore of Lake Superna. Vasily was dripping wet as well, as if he’d fished me out of the water himself, and Belphagor stood over us. Around us hovered a dozen anxious Virtues.

  “What’s going on?” I struggled to sit up.

  Belphagor helped me to my feet. “You were sleepwalking, it seems.”

  Vasily picked himself up and steadied me on the other side. “The dream again?”

  I shook my head. “Not that one, anyway.” I nodded to the troops as I regained my bearings. “Please. I’m fine. Everyone go back to sleep. We have a long ride ahead of us tomorrow.”

  Belphagor murmured in my ear as we headed back up the hill. “Still think sleeping on your own is a good idea?”

  “Exactly how did sleeping with you two do me any good? I nearly drowned.”

  “Yes, and you were doing it very quietly. If it weren’t for Vasily wondering what was taking you so long after he thought you’d gotten up to use the ‘facilities,’ no one would have known you were gone.” He held open the flap as we reached the tent.

  I sighed in acquiescence and ducked inside. “You might be interested to know what I dreamt about,” I said when they’d climbed in after me. “Though it wasn’t Ola this time, not directly.”

  Vasily wrapped his arms around me. “What was the dream?”

  “I was visited by the Unseen World—but not the syla. They called themselves rusalki. They claimed the syla sent them to give me a message.”

  “Rusalki?” Belphagor’s brow wrinkled with concern. “No wonder you nearly drowned.”

  “You’ve heard of them?”

  “I’ve never heard of them appearing in Heaven before, but they’re not known for their altruism. I believe their specialty is tempting men to their deaths. I’m surprised your friends would send any kind of message through them.”

  “It seems they had no other way of contacting me. But they told me I would visit the Midnight Court on the eve of Ivan Kupala.”

  Belphagor frowned. “There’s no way you can do that, Nazkia. The stakes are too high for you to be running off to the world of Man in the middle of all this.”

  “I have no intention of running off. But they seemed to know something of Ola. If there’s a chance the syla know where she is, I can’t ignore them. They knew the last time she disappeared, and I didn’t pay attention. She’d be with us now if I’d listened carefully. I’d have f
ound her at Solovetsky.” I ran my hand through my damp hair. “If one of us needs to go below in order to get her back…” I paused. Belphagor was giving me a peculiar look.

  Vasily directed a sullen glare at the airspirit. “You might as well tell her.”

  I glanced from one to the other. “Tell me what?”

  “Bel’s planning to fall. He’s going back with Love.”

  Belphagor sighed at my expression of dismay. “I wasn’t going to tell you until we got to Elysium. It’s not like I’m abandoning you—either of you—I just need to see someone. Take care of some unfinished business. It should only take me a few days.”

  “It should work out perfectly,” Vasily snapped. “He’ll be right there at the Midnight Court anyway. He’s going to see that sodding leshi, Misha.”

  “I never said I was going to see Misha.”

  “And you never said you weren’t. You see? He won’t even deny it.”

  “There’s just no talking to you, Vasya.” Belphagor turned on his side and faced the wall of the tent. “But if you need me to, Nazkia, yes, I can go to the Midnight Court.”

  “Ha!” Vasily flipped over to face the other side, and I was stuck between them in more ways than one. At least the source of their tension was clear. I couldn’t blame Vasily for being bristly over Misha. The ability of the syla’s “Little Brother” to charm a man seemed almost equal to Aeval’s. The last time Belphagor had encountered him, Misha had nearly convinced him to stay with him in the Unseen World forever.

  Over the next several days, we made good time along the shores of Superna and I was surprised to discover support among the peasants of the eastern Firmament. If they knew of me at all, I’d expected it would be as Bloody Anazakia, the scapegoat Aeval invented to take the blame for her own crimes. Instead, they came out of the fields and villages to see the procession full of excitement and welcome, with shouts of “Long live Queen Anazakia! Long live the true queen of Heaven!” This grand reception meant word of my move on Elysium preceded us, making our timetable more urgent and putting the troops on guard against the first signs of opposition.

  We reached the tip of Lake Superna in just over ten days and would soon be heading into the more populated urban areas surrounding Iriy, where I had no idea what kind of reception to expect. With both loyalists and anti-monarchists to contend with, we’d be lucky if there were any support for me at all.

  As we made camp, I was conscious of the fact that this was the eve of Ivan Kupala. If the syla were still expecting me in the Unseen World, it couldn’t have been because they’d seen it. Even if I’d been near the portals in Raqia, it would still be at least four days by train before I could reach their realm in Tsarskoe Selo.

  I walked down shore with Love for a bath just after dusk. The waning moon had already set, but as I started to undress, I caught the glinting lights of the rusalki out of the corner of my eye.

  “Do you see that?” I waded into the lake still in my chemise and glanced back at Love. “Those lights?”

  Love squinted at the water as if she thought she’d seen something but couldn’t be sure. At last she shook her head.

  “Are you there?” I called out.

  “Who are you talking to?”

  “The rusalki.”

  Love looked perturbed. “Don’t tell me there are spirits only you can see in Heaven, too.”

  I opened my mouth to answer but a sudden tug pulled me under. The swirling shapes of the rusalki surrounded me, and the water flowed with the sound of their musical voices. The echoing melodies were so captivating that the meaning of the words—if there were words—was lost, and I listened so raptly I almost forgot to hold my breath. Through the mesmerizing sound, I heard Love scream my name just as the rusalki dragged me deep into the lake. I tried to fight them, but the pressure of the water and their grabbing hands was too great, and everything around me began slipping into darkness.

  I emerged gradually from a comforting limbo, at first able to hear but not to make sense of what I heard, then aware of whispers discussing my well-being but unable to see. At last, as someone draped a blanket over me, I opened my eyes.

  I lay soaking wet on a floor of cold black stone that shone like polished onyx. I rose onto my knees and pulled the blanket around me. A half-circle of slight, dark-haired syla clad in red gossamer sheaths stood around me. The tremendous jeweled platinum columns of the Midnight Court rose high overhead, holding up nothing but a vast, star-filled sky.

  Apparently, the Unseen World had portals of its own.

  “Padshaya Koroleva.” The syla genuflected, and one of them took my hand and drew me to my feet. “Syla are sorry we must use water cousins to bring Fallen Queen to Polnochnoi Sud.”

  Mystified, I let her lead me to the velvet ivory chaise longue on the daïs flanked by twelve silver chairs etched with peculiar symbols in the language of the Unseen. This had once been the seat of Aeval’s power, before her quarrel with the syla had prompted her to seek a new court to rule.

  Anxious to learn why they’d gone to such lengths to bring me here, I perched awkwardly on the edge of the chaise—in part because I didn’t want to ruin the plush fabric with the damp blanket, and in part because sitting even symbolically on the throne of the Unseen World made me uncomfortable. “What is it you know about Ola? The rusalki said you couldn’t see because she’d closed her eyes. What does that mean?”

  “Syla see through eyes of queen’s daughter. We see what Little Queen sees, until she closes eyes. Little Queen is afraid.”

  “Of what? What made her close her eyes?”

  “The syla see what Fallen Queen sees.”

  Their cryptic speech was maddening. “Please, just tell me what you saw.”

  They shared some kind of silent communication before one spoke again. “We see Little Queen take the flower of the fern.”

  I nearly jumped from my seat in vexation. This was the same vague pronouncement they’d been making since they’d first seen Ola when she was three weeks old.

  “Tsvetok paporotnika is made of element you share. It comes from Heaven, from First Queen. Little Queen makes a…” She paused and looked at her sisters. “Ah, yes. Little Queen makes a protection of this element. She cannot be touched. You see this when you sleep.”

  “The dreams.” I leaned forward on the seat. “The column of flame. It’s protecting her? It’s real?”

  “It is element of flower, element of Little Queen. It is her spirit.”

  “It’s true, then. She’s an aetherspirit.”

  The syla looked at her sisters without comprehending. They all shook their heads. “The syla do not know this word. Spirit of Little Queen is the fire in the air of Heaven. Makes air sweet and sharp. It is…” She paused again. “It is the Fifth.”

  “The fifth element.” I nodded. “The Quintessence. Yes, that’s the aether.”

  She shrugged her delicate shoulders. “Little Queen uses to protect, and Fallen Queen sees. So syla see. Then syla see boy who is not boy, who watches Little Queen.”

  “You mean Azel Kaeyevich. My sister’s child. But how is he a boy who isn’t a boy?”

  “Little Prince has another spirit.” This idea seemed to disturb them all. “Spirit is trapped. Little Queen sees other spirit and she is afraid. She closes eyes.”

  “Another spirit. Another element? He has more than one?”

  Now she seemed to change the subject entirely. “The syla are grateful for what Padshaya Koroleva has done for us.”

  “I didn’t really do anything.” My part in stopping the Seraphim from their campaign of slaughter against the syla at Helga’s behest had been insignificant. The firespirits hadn’t returned to the world of Man because Aeval’s anger at their treasonous support of the revolution had caused her to bind them to the Empyrean so they could never leave it.

  “It is because Fallen Queen has protected syla that we tell what we see. Syla wish to protect Fallen Queen. But syla are not accustomed to language of Men and angels.
It is tiresome and syla do not always use right words.”

  “That’s why they’ve asked me to come.” I looked up and saw Belphagor’s Misha leaning against a column of the arcade. He pushed himself away and came forward. “It’s good to see you, Anazakia.” He gave me his wide smile, his green eyes glowing like a cat’s in the dark as he approached. I’d forgotten the blue-green hint of color in his skin, like a delicately colored paskha egg, as well as the peculiar, vine-like nature of his long hair. Misha was half human, and these characteristics only appeared in the Unseen World.

  “And how lovely to see you presiding over the Midnight Court.” He bowed deeply as he reached the daïs.

  “I’m not presiding!” I leapt from my seat. I’d feared from the first time I saw the Polnochnoi Sud that they intended for me to take the place of their long-absent queen.

  Misha winked at me as he straightened. “I’m only teasing. Perhaps you’d like to take a walk while we speak.” He offered his arm.

  I stepped down and took it, pulling the blanket around me like a robe as we passed through the arch into the mirrored corridor that led to the many halls of the Unseen World. “What’s going on? What is it the syla want to say they can’t tell me themselves?”

  “It’s not that they can’t tell you. They just don’t want to get anything wrong. They want what I’m about to explain to be perfectly clear so you can make up your own mind about what you wish to do about it.”

  I nodded, anxious and impatient with all this hesitancy.

  “They have seen what you have, as I understand it. That your little girl is being kept in an oubliette.”

  I stopped in horror. “An oubliette!” The only purpose of an oubliette was to forget about someone. I couldn’t believe how cruel Helga had become. “Do they know where she is? It looked like the southern lands of Heaven. Do they know the palace?”

  “Not specifically, but it is in Vilon.” Misha looked at me with concern. “Would you like to sit somewhere? We could go to the garden.”