The Broken Heavens

by Kameron Hurley

  “Angles,” Anavha said. “Giska taught me painting. You start to see angles in things, how the light hits them. So, I noticed.”

  Natanial took Anavha’s hand and sprinted for the building. Those at the barricade yelled and cursed, but he and Anavha were well gone by then, pounding through the next narrow intersection.

  He pulled Anavha into the relative shelter of a great wooden door. Twelve paces distant, a woman dressed in a homespun tunic was crying over the body of a dead young woman, which lay mangled in the street, bleeding into the gutter.

  Just ahead, a shimmering line of Tai Mora in their chitinous red armor crawled up the road toward the towering fortress at the center of the city.

  Natanial went after them, keeping his distance, because neither of them wore anything identifying which side they were on.

  “Is there any way for you to locate someone?” Natanial asked as they hurried after the army. “We need to find Monshara.”

  “She was still at the house, wasn’t she?” Anavha said. “I can take you to the house. The gate is there! It should still be open.”

  “How far is it from here?”

  Anavha stopped and stared at the smoking buildings. A riderless dog wandered out of a teahouse. Abandoned goods littered the streets, and glassy-eyed civilians wandered aimlessly. Most residents were clearly starving. Natanial noted that some of the bodies in the alleys were emaciated, tossed from houses and piled up like bags of sticks. A few had threadbare blankets thrown over them.

  “This way,” Anavha said, and now he took Natanial’s hand and pulled him through the falling city.

  They wended down bloody streets, and dodged civilians throwing roof tiles. Natanial caught a big riderless dog and walked with it next to them, using the dog for cover against the persistent rain of objects heaved from rooftops. He had no interest in dying by roof tile.

  Finally, they met up with a coterie of Tai Mora soldiers. Natanial held up his hands and called out the name of his company, and they went by them, each still eying the other warily. Around the next corner was a modest stone house, three stories tall. Outside, Monshara sat there atop a large bear, surveying the troops still pouring out. A little sparrow perched on her shoulder.

  Monshara waved them over through the lines of soldiers. “We need him at the gates,” she said. “We’re having trouble penetrating the fortress itself, and I don’t want to waste any more time. Can he do it? Something certainly got fucked up back there.”

  Natanial told Anavha what they needed. Anavha shook his head. “I could, but… I have to close these other two gates first. I’m afraid of what would happen if I didn’t. It might hurt people.”

  Natanial found that strangely amusing, that Anavha cared so much about accidently cutting a soldier in half when the soldiers he had unleashed on his own city were in the process of burning it to the ground.

  “Make sure everyone is in the city first,” Natanial said. “Then he can close these gates.”

  “We just got the main city door open,” Monshara said, gesturing to the little bird on her shoulder. “I’ve ordered the rest to come in that way, including your mop-up crew. Mount up and follow me. Give me a moment to order the gates cleared, and you can close them.”

  Monshara relayed her orders, and after a time, the march of soldiers through the building became a trickle, then ceased. Monshara lined up the force of about seventy fighters and found a second mount for Anavha.

  Once ready, she gave the order to close the winks. Anavha must have done something, though Natanial didn’t feel the change. Anavha simply nodded and said, “Done.”

  As the soldiers began to march, with Anavha and Natanial at the rear, Natanial heard a great groaning behind them, then a crash. The stone house collapsed under itself, blowing dust and debris out the front of what remained of the façade.

  Natanial kept his ax handy as they marched.

  The fight took them up through the city of Daorian and to the tall walls around the central fortress. The fortress of Daorian was not a living hold like those in Dhai and Saiduan. The Empress hated the flora and fauna of the world with such an intensity that she scoured the land as sterile as she could make it each year.

  As they came to the wall, it was already under siege, with the last of the city’s jista defenders on the walls, and Monshara’s giving them a fiery onslaught.

  Monshara wanted Anavha kept to the back of the company, to protect him. It was not until Natanial rode up alongside Anavha to supervise him while he created his gate that he realized Anavha was crying.

  Anavha opened a great wink within the walls of the hold itself. It wavered briefly, and a shower of stones came down before the thing solidified. If it wavered while the army went through it, it was likely to kill a good many of them.

  Natanial waited at the back with Anavha, ensuring there were as many jistas and Dorinah soldiers killed as possible before they crossed through. When they finally did, he turned to see his own force swarming through the city, easily recognizable by their drabber clothing, their leather armor. They would eat well and be happy tonight.

  When the fortress itself was well cleared, Monshara came back for him and Anavha where they waited in the great courtyard below.

  “I have something for you to see,” Monshara said.

  Natanial picked his way after Monshara, Anavha coming behind. They went into the hold and up and up. She led him to the shattered door of a great hall. A little woman crouched in a far corner, face over her hands. A long chatelaine dangled from her waist. Even with her face covered, her dark hair and skinny frame marked her as a dajian, a Dhai slave, and he was amazed one had survived this long.

  Among the bodies of the Dorinah lying all around him, he saw a few twisted forms that he recognized from Tordin: the Empress’s strange, insect-like people. Some had survived the great fire there, the one that Zezili Hasaria ignited in an attempt to stop their rise. He wondered how many they had killed there, and if these were truly survivors from that conflagration or simply from some other nest elsewhere.

  “He’s here,” Monshara said, stepping over a broken beam and through a charred, splintered doorway so massive that Natanial wondered what such a thing was doing this deep inside the hold. Did they expect dogs and carts to go through?

  As he entered, he realized this was the throne room of the Dorinah queens. The great purple carpet was torn and stained. Eight dead animals, large as bears, lay in a pile at his left. It took half a moment to realize that’s what they were.

  The body of the Empress herself lay awkwardly on the steps of her dais, neck broken, her legs canted at a hard left angle, fingers clenched, mouth set in a sneering rictus. Someone had disemboweled her and cut her in half, no doubt to ensure she didn’t come back. And he didn’t blame them. Her skirts were askew, and under them he could see each of her four legs. The cut across her waspish waist had sprouted various organs, which all looked fairly normal. She and her kin bled out just like any other.

  Monshara pointed at the great silver throne on the dais. Natanial thought she meant to get his reaction to its artistry, and prepared an appropriate response, but as he formed the words, he noticed the man curled up against the throne, arms clinging to it. Thick black hair, curled and greasy, hung into his eyes and down his back. His beard was full, only a little gray mixed with the black. He was leaner than he should be, and as Natanial approached, he saw the man only had one hand.

  While Natanial knew who this must be, his mind took some time to process it. “Saradyn?” he said.

  The man raised the mop of his head. His eyes were large, dark, haunted; the same haunted look Saradyn always had, for he saw ghosts.

  “You’ve come,” Saradyn said. “It was foretold that you would come. She has seen it!” This last bit he shouted at the ceiling, gaze raised to the sky as if shouting at some god.

  “Saradyn,” Natanial said. “I’d hoped you were dead with Zezili.”

  Saradyn fixed a dark, sunken eye on Natanial. “T
raitor,” he said.

  “Perhaps,” Natanial said. “But who is it you’re working for here?”

  “Not for… they are mine. I command them.”

  “What’s he rambling about?” Monshara said.

  A clacking sound came from behind Saradyn. The walls began to move, revealing dark shapes twisted into the shadows behind the massive purple curtains.

  Natanial brought up his ax. The shadows seemed to peel from the walls and moved toward them. As they came into the light, the shapes resolved into four-legged, green-eyed figures with human faces and narrow torsos.

  “Didn’t you clear this room?” Natanial yelled at Monshara.

  Anavha screamed. Natanial stepped closer to him to protect him. The air shuddered. Natanial’s ears popped as the pressure of the room changed.

  “I did!” Monshara said. “I don’t know where they came from!”

  Great gaping holes appeared in the air all around them. One sliced clean through the tip of Natanial’s ax, swallowing it into darkness. The tears in the world yawned open like hungry mouths: opaque, like gazing into impossibly deep water.

  Natanial froze. Half of Monshara’s sword disappeared into one of the black circles, cut neatly in two.

  “Don’t move, Monshara!” Natanial said. Anavha, too, had quieted, though his face was twisted.

  “Control it, Anavha!” Natanial said.

  The shrieking figures clacked around and through the holes in the air. Some lost limbs, bits of faces, digits. Others clattered around, regardless. One lost nearly all of its head, and the body meandered on for several paces before falling at Natanial’s feet.

  Anavha sweated heavily. His hands trembled. “I can’t stop it,” he said, just loud enough for Natanial to hear him over the figures.

  “Fucking amateurs!” Monshara yelled. “Shut it down!”

  The black holes became more focused, tight little speckles crawling across the air like demented dust motes. Natanial blinked furiously, as if he could dispel the floating blackness from his vision.

  One of the creatures slipped through the maze of tears in reality, a hunk of its elbow missing, the lower arm hanging by a hank of skin. Natanial gouged it in the head with the sheared handle of his ax, running it through the eye.

  “Anavha!” Natanial yelled, again, trying to keep an eye on him without bumbling into one of the tears in the world.

  Saradyn heaved himself up from behind the throne and stumbled toward Anavha. “These are mine,” Saradyn said. “My women! My pets! Mine!”

  He stumbled, miraculously weaving in and out of the puckered black holes. Natanial had no interest in losing his own limbs, but Saradyn’s rambling, drunken path was taking him closer to Anavha.

  Natanial hefted the ax handle, weighing his options. Saradyn was six paces from Anavha. Five.

  Natanial threw his ax handle. It hit Anavha squarely in the back of the head. Anavha gasped, clutched at his head, and bowled over. The black eyes winked out. Natanial crossed to Saradyn and headbutted him. Natanial pulled a knife from Saradyn’s belt and backed up against Anavha, who had fallen to his knees, still clutching at the back of his head. Blood seeped through his fingers. That could make things even worse.

  “Be calm,” Natanial said. “Calm yourself the way you were taught. We have this.”

  Most of the creatures, a dozen in all, were on the ground or barely standing, too injured and stunned to continue. They peered at Natanial and Anavha with their beady eyes.

  Seven soldiers came in from the door behind them. One wore the purple coat of a sinajista.

  “Burn these things!” Monshara said.

  Natanial pointed at Saradyn. “But not him,” he said. “Leave him.”

  The creatures went up in flame. They oozed a thick, oily smoke that left those who remained coughing heavily. Natanial pulled Anavha to his feet and dragged him over to the soldiers, near the door where the air was better, then went back for Saradyn. Monshara leaned in the doorway with the soldiers, being tended by a passing medic.

  “Why do you want that mad old man?” Monshara said.

  “Saradyn is many things,” Natanial said. “But he has one especially useful skill. He’s worth taking back with us.”

  “I don’t have time for laggards,” Monshara said. “Speak plainly.”

  Natanial gazed into Saradyn’s haggard face: the matted hair, the tangled beard, and the dark eyes – eyes that still held the wild, angry soul of a man Natanial had believed could unite Tordin.

  “Your empress needs a way to detect infiltrators,” Natanial said, “to see who’s from this world and who isn’t, to root out all those little spies in her temples. I’ve seen this man do that. Daorian is fallen. You and I need to remind your empress just how useful we are to her.”

  11

  Luna sat with Yisaoh over tea and half of a biscuit, still shivering with the memory of the field of the dead, though ze had cleaned off the mud and sludge from hir face and changed clothes. It had been over an hour, and still no one had opened a wink to them. They sat in a small alcove in what had once been a very grand hall. Tirajista-trained vines covered most of the windows, but light still cut through in places, illuminating the dusty, intricately tiled floor. The people and beasts that swam across the floor’s design were utterly foreign to Luna.

  “Does this happen a lot?” Luna asked. “Not being able to call on Oma?”

  “More than Kirana would like,” Yisaoh said. She offered her own biscuit to her daughter, Tasia, who took it and scampered off into the hall. Tasia had insisted on having tea; a treat, here, Luna discovered. Weak tea and moldering biscuits.

  “Do you have many children?”

  “Three.”

  “The others went over?”

  “Yes, they are living with Kirana in that temple.”

  Luna could not finish hir own biscuit. Hir stomach cramped painfully. The larvae of little weevils waved their maggoty forms at hir from inside of it as ze set down the rest. More protein, ze thought wearily, and washed it down with the rest of the tea. Hir stomach cramped. Though hunger roared again since ze had eaten, ze knew from long practice that ze needed to go slowly or ze would vomit everything up, or worse.

  They sat in silence while the toxic wind rattled the windows and makeshift coverings around the stronghold.

  “There are two dozen of us still here,” Yisaoh said. “Not a lot, by any standard.” She spoke softly, staring into her tea, as if talking to herself. “What are another two dozen dead, after all this blood and sorrow?”

  “You destroyed the Saiduan. All of them. For what? For nothing.”

  Yisaoh sighed. “I cannot make you help us. Nor can Kirana, as much as she would like to believe herself a god.”

  “You aren’t as confident in her anymore.”

  Yisaoh peered at her. “Perhaps not. She knows that. She knows I question these decisions. As do you, as you have every right to. But Luna… you were willing to die rather than help end all this. What if you chose to live?”

  The air around them grew heavy. Luna tensed. Hir ears popped.

  A slender tear appeared six paces away, beside the large empty hearth, certainly meant for cooking more than heat here.

  “Oma has returned,” Yisaoh murmured.

  The seam widened, and a jista, Suari, stepped through, flanked by two soldiers.

  “Consort Yisaoh? You are well?” Suari asked, tentative, gaze darting about the foyer.

  “The child doesn’t bite,” Yisaoh said. “We had a chat.”

  “Empress Kirana said to bring hir back immediately, once we held Oma again.”

  “Where is Kirana?” Yisaoh asked.

  “There has been an… incident. Nothing to worry about, consort. But an urgent matter the Empress needed to address.”

  “There was a time I was her most urgent matter,” Yisaoh said, and stood. She offered a hand to Luna. “I’m sorry, but you must go back.”

  “She will put me in a cell again,” Luna said.

/>   “Suari, you will tell the Empress I request that she release Luna when she has helped with the task set her. No more death. No more imprisonment.”

  Suari’s jaw tightened. “Of course, consort.”

  Yisaoh squeezed Luna’s hand. “That’s all the protection I can offer you, my word.”

  “When the ways between are closed… there won’t be any more death? No more war?”

  “I am weary of war. So is Kirana. We want to raise our family, Luna, as anyone else would.”

  Luna gazed at where Tasia played in the outer hall, munching on a biscuit as she set her dolls to the task of finding a missing dog, or some such.

  Ze nodded, once, not to Yisaoh, but in the direction of Tasia. Then, to Suari, “I will tell the Empress what I know. But only her.”

  “I understand,” Suari said. He glanced at Yisaoh. “I will have her wait in a guest room, until the Empress returns.”

  Yisaoh inclined her head.

  Luna trusted no one. Relied on nothing. But ze had leapt before, and would leap again.

  “If I do this – I want to be free, Yisaoh.”

  “I know. So do I, Luna. So do I.”

  “What the fuck is it?” Kirana demanded, raising her spyglass to her eye and gazing out over the plateau, toward the massive mountain that had fallen from the sky.

  “We’ve already gotten birds back, and a runner,” said Madah, her intelligence officer and a former line commander. “It’s not a mountain, it’s some kind of boat.”

  The spyglass gave Kirana a clearer view of the outline of the great shape that marred the horizon. There certainly was something… organic about it. Something alive, as if some great gnarl-skinned monster slumbered out there in the woods.

  “Is the stronghold intact?”

  “Much of it was crushed,” Madah said. “What wasn’t crushed shattered in the aftershocks. The temples have held, though.”

  “Fuck,” Kirana said. She took the spyglass from her eye. “Gaiso had charge of that hold. We had thousands of soldiers and sixteen jistas under her there.”

  “There are still damage reports coming in from the settlements. There… could be some survivors?”