City of Stone and Silence

by Django Wexler

  On the whole, it seems easier to take the long way around. I hop down from the wall and start pushing through the crowd again, heading for the entrance to an alley between this building and its neighbor. It looks like a dead end, but there’s a broken slat in the fence on the far side if you know where to look, and a quick climb will take me into the back lot of a building on Fishmonger Row. From there it’s easy enough to cut the corner and get to Grandma’s.

  The crowd spits me out into the alley like a broken tooth. There’s not much here, just a long stretch of dirt between two buildings, smelling heavily of piss and rotting trash. Halfway along there’s a stack of wooden boxes, the ones that hold cheap jugs of rice wine, and beyond them an alcove with a back door into one of the buildings.

  I let my power sweep the alley, carefully. Opening my senses with so many people crowded so close can be distinctly uncomfortable. But there’s no one hiding in the darkened corners, so I jog past the stack of crates to the crooked fence at the rear. Just as I remember, one of the boards pops off, revealing some easy-to-climb slats. I’m about to scramble up—they’re splintery with protruding nails, making me thankful for my big stompy boots—when I feel several people in the alley behind me, their minds glowing with ugly suspicion.

  If you’re going to move, move fast. Isoka drilled that into me, before she left me to be educated as a lady, and I never quite forgot. I don’t have long enough to get myself over the fence, so I duck to the side of the alley, flattening myself in the doorway behind the crates. I’m pretty sure that gets me out of sight, and it’s dark enough they probably didn’t notice me.

  Probably. My heart is suddenly beating fast, and I feel the hard shape of my knife in its hiding spot. Probably they’re not looking for me, either. I hear rapid footsteps, and focus my attention. There are three people, one close and scared, two suspicious and bored, farther back toward the mouth of the alley. Peeking out, I can see a shadow darting toward me, and the light of a lamp further along. Before I have the chance to make out much else, the shadowy figure rounds the crates and slams into me shoulder first.

  I stagger back into the doorway with an oof. For a moment, I think of the knife, but I don’t feel any menace in the stranger’s mind, just high, tinkling worry. He—it’s a young man, probably not much older than me—presses himself against the boxes and puts a finger to his lips, his eyes frantically begging for silence.

  At the end of the alley, two older men are reduced to black silhouettes by the lantern one of them carries. As they approach, I can hear them over the babble of the crowd.

  “—sure he went this way?”

  “I saw something moving. He’s a quick little rotscum.”

  “Blessed above, it rotting stinks.”

  One of the pair raises his voice. “Hey! Get out here!”

  The boy stares at me, eyes wide. He has a broad, honest face and unruly hair with a hint of curls. His clothes are odd, though—he has a worker’s leather vest like mine, but I’d swear the shirt underneath is silk.

  Still, it’s obvious enough what’s happening. He must not have his draft papers, and so the Ward Guard are after him. That’s … not good. If they come after him, they’ll find me, too.

  “Listen, kid,” one of the guards says. “If I have to come back there and get shit all over my boots, you might have a little bit of an accident on the way back to the cells, you understand? Just rotting come out already.”

  Moving slowly, the boy slides away from the crates, coming closer to me. I shuffle backward, keeping my distance, but he’s just trying the door handle behind me. It’s locked, of course. I see him spit a silent curse.

  Footsteps echo down the alley, and the light is coming closer. There’s no chance of us staying hidden once they round the crates.

  Rot. If you’re going to move, move quickly, right?

  I push the boy into the doorway, shush him, then hand him my cap, letting my hair tumble down my back. He watches, openmouthed, as I shrug off the vest and hand him that, too. This idea is sounding worse and worse the more I think about it, but there’s no time to change now. I tug the first few buttons of my shirt open, then one more, fighting a blush. I may not be able to pass for a boy but I’m still not … generously shaped. Not much to be done.

  I step out from behind the crates. My heart is beating harder now than when I thought someone was going to attack me. I hope they’ll take the red in my cheeks for paint.

  “There he—Hold on.” The two Ward Guards come to a halt and raise the lantern. I resist the urge to flinch. “What’re you doing here?”

  “Looking for a little rotting privacy.” I try to let the cultured accent I’ve spent the last few years perfecting slip away, putting on a Sixteenth District drawl. “Do you mind?”

  The guard’s lip twists skeptically. I wouldn’t believe me, either. I’ve met streetwalkers at the hospital younger than I am, but …

  “It’s just that you’re making my gentleman … nervous.” I give them a raised eyebrow that I hope conveys weary amusement, but probably just looks like a facial spasm. Oh, rot. “And I wouldn’t want him to catch cold.”

  “Did you see anyone run through here?” the other guard says.

  “Nobody. It’s a dead end.” I nod to the fence.

  “Rot.” The guard looks at his partner. “You were supposed to keep your eye on him.”

  “How was I supposed to know he’d take off?” The other guard shakes his head as they both turn away. “Sergeant’s not going to like it.”

  “We’ll just tell him the records got mixed up…”

  Their voices fade as they rejoin the crowd. I lean against the pile of crates for a moment, breathing hard, skin feeling very warm.

  It worked. I can’t believe that worked. I try to picture Ofalo’s face, if he saw me, and nearly laugh out loud. Who’s an innocent child now?

  “Have they gone?” the boy says, in a whisper.

  I spin to face him. I’d almost forgotten he was there. He’s still clutching my cap and vest to his chest, and at the sight of me his cheeks go crimson, and he looks firmly at the ground. I hurriedly do up my shirt, then clear my throat.

  “Can I have my things?”

  “Oh! Of course.” He hands the cap and vest over, and I work on fixing my hair back in place. “That was brilliant. Brave. Both. I never would have … I mean, you…”

  “Thanks. I wanted to make sure they didn’t think I was a boy.”

  “They might—I mean, you’re not—” He seemed to be having some difficulty, and took a deep breath. “Obviously you’re not a prostitute.”

  “I know.”

  “I just … I mean, I know. It was a bluff. I just wanted to be sure you didn’t think I thought … right.”

  His accent confirms what I’d suspected from the quality of his shirt—he’s not an Eleventh Ward resident, any more than I am. I don’t know what he’s doing here. Kosura says that upper-ward men sometimes come down looking for diversions, though somehow he doesn’t look like the type to be slumming for brothel girls. Whoever he is, I decide, it’s long past time I was gone.

  “Thank you,” he manages, eventually. “I didn’t know how I was going to get out of that.”

  “Don’t mention it,” I tell him, feeling a little sour. It takes a moment of thought before I figure out why—if he’s from the upper wards, he didn’t really need my help. He could always pull out his papers, just like I could, and the worst he’d suffer was a family reprimand.

  Oh well. At least the Ward Guard didn’t take me in.

  “Be more careful next time,” I tell him. “Or get some draft papers.”

  “I’ll try. I mean, I will.”

  I give him a polite nod and go to the fence, knocking aside the loose slat. I’m nearly to the top when he shouts after me.

  “Um. Please. What’s your name?”

  I look back. I’m not sure why. Something about what I can feel from his mind, a pulse of blue-white sincerity that makes my skin ting
le.

  He is, I note belatedly, quite handsome.

  “Tori,” I call back, before dropping over the fence.

  It’s a common-enough name. He certainly won’t be able to track me back to the Second Ward. So no harm done.

  Right?

  4

  ISOKA

  Of course Meroe takes charge immediately.

  She’s been organizing scavenging and defense since we got to the Garden, so when she gives orders, people listen. Pack leaders are designated and duties assigned. Establish a perimeter, light torches to push back the darkness, gather supplies and see what we have left. The younger teens are delegated to keep the rest of the children together and make sure no one strays.

  In a quarter of an hour, we go from a confused crowd of several hundred frightened people, clustered on an alien shore, to something like an organized crew. Through it all, she never even raises her voice, just listens and thinks and speaks so reasonably that no one even argues.

  Blessed above, I want to kiss her. Nothing is more attractive than competence.

  But that would be a distraction, for both of us. Sooner or later, people are going to start asking what to do next, and they’re going to ask me. So: options.

  Get back on the ship—apparently not going to happen. Not long after the last of us leaves the ramp, it starts to rise again, metal folding and groaning back up into Soliton’s titanic Bow. The angels retreat, glowing blue eyes turning away, until only one remains: a dog-shaped thing, hulking and broad shouldered, with wild feathery growths along its flanks. It stands at the top of the ramp as it rises, and I get the distinct sense that it’s watching me. Soon, though, the rising metal blocks even this straggler from sight. When the ramp stops with a clang, there’s no more movement from the great ship, which rises above us like a steel cliff. I can feel Eddica power pulsing through the air, energy flowing out of Soliton toward … something, but I can’t reach it with my own feeble strength.

  Not the ship, which leaves the land. The dock extends out into the water from a rocky beach bordered by a strip of grass a dozen yards wide. Beyond that is a wall of trees that looks almost solid in the gloom, with barely a speck of starry sky visible through their interlocking canopies. The air is alive with animal sounds, hoots and chirps that could be birds, insects, or something stranger. Everything smells of salt and rust.

  From the tower above Soliton, I’d seen structures rising up through the trees, but it had been too dark to get more than a glimpse. From ground level, I have no idea where they might be, even if we wanted to go there.

  So—the land isn’t too welcoming, either. Which doesn’t leave much, does it?

  Rot.

  When the pace of Meroe’s orders slows, I nudge her and call the Council together, a little ways off from the others. Shiara, for once, is less than her perfectly composed self—she must not have had time to apply her makeup. Zarun seems to be more in his element, barking commands to his crew, then striding over to me all swagger and confidence. It fades the moment the four of us are alone.

  “What,” he says through gritted teeth, “the rotting hell is going on?”

  “I don’t know,” I spit back, “any more than I knew last time.”

  “You can’t—” Shiara begins.

  “Talk to the ship?” I give an aggravated sigh. “Apparently not.”

  “So now rotting what?” Zarun says.

  The others look at me. Again.

  “For now we stay here,” I say. “Hunker down and wait until morning.”

  “That’s not much of a plan,” Shiara says.

  “It’s a rotting lot better than blundering around a forest in the dark,” I say. “When the sun comes up we’ll be able to see what we’re walking into.”

  “Assuming the sun does come up,” Zarun mutters. “We’re inside some kind of dome, remember?”

  “We can see the moon and the stars,” Meroe says reasonably, “so I think we can assume we’ll be able to see the sun as well.” She glances at me. “I agree with Isoka that we should stay put until dawn. We’ll have to move pretty soon after that, though, to find fresh water.”

  I nod. “For now, make sure nobody wanders off. I don’t want anyone outside our cordon.”

  Zarun glances over his shoulder. “You think there’s something dangerous out there?”

  “I’m just going to assume everything is trying to kill us until we prove otherwise.”

  Shiara actually smiles, pale and vulnerable-looking without her face paint. “I can get behind that.”

  The pair of them turn away, heading back to join the others. I step closer to Meroe, who’s staring off into the jungle.

  “Hey.” She blinks and looks at me, and I take her hand. “You okay?”

  “I’m okay.” Meroe takes a deep breath. “Just … trying to think.”

  “You’re doing great.”

  She looks a little embarrassed. “Everyone knows what they need to do. I’m just reminding them.”

  I squeeze her hand, and she squeezes back, returning to her study of the forest. I follow her gaze.

  “So what are you thinking?”

  “You saw buildings, right? When we were coming in.”

  I nod. “Just shadows, really, but that’s what it looked like.”

  “I’m wondering if there’s people here.” She looks back at the ship. “The Scholar said that Soliton empties itself out every twenty years or so. We figured that was because every so often it went close enough to the Rot that everybody died.”

  “If anyone survived, though, it looks like the angels force them off the ship here.” I frown. “Why?”

  “Why does Soliton do anything?” Meroe shrugs. “But if there’s buildings, maybe someone’s living here. They might be able to help us.”

  “Or try to kill us,” I say. “Or the buildings are as old as the docks, and full of crabs.”

  “You’re such an optimist.”

  “Just trying to keep you grounded.”

  I look up at Soliton again, a dark thought forming in my mind. While the ship showed no signs of activity, obviously it won’t wait here forever. Unless it’s changed its usual pattern, eventually it will return to its yearly cycle, gathering fresh sacrifices from around the Central Sea. If Meroe is right, and it won’t return for twenty years afterward, then that would be the end of any chance of getting back to Kahnzoka before Kuon Naga’s deadline. If the ship leaves and I’m not on it, my sister will be kidnapped and sold to a brothel, or worse. I imagine her wide, innocent eyes as Naga’s thugs break down her door—

  No. The thought makes my heart beat louder, echoing in my ears. I won’t let it happen.

  Something moves, up on the deck. An angel? For a moment, I think I see the dog-thing again, silhouetted against the starry sky. And then—did it jump off?

  “Meroe—” I begin.

  “Deepwalker!” someone shouts.

  We both turn. A young man with a long spear skids to a halt, breathing hard.

  “We caught an intruder!” he says. “He wants to talk to whoever’s in charge.”

  Meroe and I exchange a look.

  * * *

  Aifin, the boy we’d once called the Moron, is waiting beside the stranger, a short sword in hand. He’s motionless, but a faint golden light surrounds him. Aifin can’t hear or speak, but he’s an adept in Rhema, the Well of Speed, and fully capable of slashing the prisoner’s throat between eyeblinks.

  He and Meroe exchange a string of hand signs. I’ve learned a few for use in a fight, but the two of them have been slowly fleshing out a whole vocabulary. Aifin nods and takes a step back, though the golden light of his Well remains.

  The stranger is on his knees. He’s a man in his early twenties, with Imperial features. His hair is long, bound up in a tight queue that’s coiled in a complicated knot on the back of his head. In combination with his clothes—a long, somewhat threadbare gray robe with voluminous sleeves and a white under-tunic—it makes him look like an actor in
a historical drama, something about the Rockfire War.

  Zarun and Shiara arrive, and the prisoner looks between us. His eyes are wide with fear.

  “Aifin says he came in from the forest,” Meroe whispers. “He didn’t try to hide, and he’s not armed.”

  “All right,” Zarun says, looking down at the stranger. “So what are you doing here?”

  “Please,” the man says. “You’re all in the gravest danger. I entreat you to listen to me.”

  Zarun narrows his eyes. “Did you all catch that?”

  “More or less,” I say. Among ourselves, Soliton’s crew speak a polyglot accumulation of Imperial and Jyashtani, with words borrowed from the icelings and other tongues in the mix. The stranger’s Imperial is pure and formal, archaic to my ears. I’m not surprised Zarun finds it hard to follow. It takes a conscious effort to revert to my own tongue after so many weeks speaking pidgin. “Who are you? And what kind of danger?”

  The prisoner turns to me. He looks a bit shocked by my appearance—I suppose my crab-shell armor and blue-marked skin seem strange by traditional Imperial standards. But he clears his throat and says, “My name is Guran Veldi. I happened to be near the docks when Soliton came in, so I got here expediently, but it won’t be long before Prime’s creatures detect your presence. Please.” His eyes flick to Zarun. “Leave these infidels and come with me. I’m certain my lady will welcome you.”

  I have so many questions I’m honestly not sure what to ask first, but a warning is a warning. “Double-check the perimeter,” I tell Zarun, “and be ready to take the reserve wherever we need it. Something bad may be coming.”

  “Right.” Zarun glares at Veldi, and his lip curls. “‘Infidel.’ It’s been a while since anyone called me that.”

  “Later,” I tell him. To Veldi, I say, “Start with what these creatures are. Some kind of crab?”

  “Nothing so crude,” Veldi moans. “Please, we have to go. If they find us it will be too late.”