Myths of the Fallen City

by James Derry

  Jamal grinned slyly. “Life is a performance. And the Specularity blesses those who perform well. I will reflect their glory.”

  “You’re a crud-skinned Ardhian! If Gozir wanted to gaze upon a piece of manure such as yourself, then he’d shine his sunlight up a horse’s ass.” The sergeant advanced, punctuating each sentence with a slash of his sword. “You are a maggot. Lowly. Disgusting. Your meager worth is only measured in the sweat and the blood you shed for Gjuir-Khib.”

  Suddenly Jamal broke toward the sergeant’s overhead swing. He flung himself sideways at the last instant, just as the big Gjuiran’s wooden blade nearly caught his shoulder. Jamal’s own practice sword raked across the bare skin on the sergeant’s back.

  “Ach!” the sergeant exclaimed. “I’m bleeding.”

  Jamal flashed a smile, radiating with teenage bravado. “You didn’t say whose blood I had to shed.”

  ***

  Sygne sat at a table, twirling a brass protractor on a sheet of vellum. By the size of her hands in his field of vision, Jamal guessed that she was about eight years old.

  Two men and one woman in white cassocks sat across from her at the other side of the table. The first man had unruly hair that grew out of the sides of his balding head like the lopsided shrubs that emerged from the salty crags of the Albatherran coast. The second man wore a turban, and his beard was waxed into two points that extended halfway down his chest. The woman’s hair was shorn close to her scalp, so that she resembled an ascetic or an army recruit.

  “This is a serious undertaking, young one.” The woman put a soft hand over Sygne’s—to keep her from fiddling with the protractor. “If you’re going to become a scholar of the Academy, you must devote yourself entirely to your studies.”

  “I know that Mentor Shen Yong.”

  “That means no time for the outside world. No friends. No romance. No family.”

  “I already have that last one taken care of.”

  Shen Yong smiled sadly. “You have family here, Sygne. I hope you know that.”

  “I do.”

  “All the same, when you enter the Scholarship, you will no longer be the Academy’s foster-daughter. We will not show you any special favors.”

  “In fact,” the bearded man said, “I will judge you more harshly—and push you more fervently—for I know you are capable of achieving beyond the limits of most.”

  “Thank you, Mentor Jabira.”

  “Oh. I doubt you’ll be thanking me soon.” Jabira’s chuckle was somehow both comforting and sadistic.

  Mentor Shen Yong squeezed Sygne’s hand. “You will study and ruminate and validate fourteen hours a day. You will be tested, not only on what you learn, but on what new thoughts spring to your head from these learnings. And this will be your life for the next ten years. Do you understand the heavy burden that you are confronting?”

  “I understand,” Sygne said.

  “Then why do you take on this burden?” Jabira asked.

  “You’ve told me many times,” Sygne said, “in order to exert influence on a thing—to change it—you must first understand it.”

  Shen Yong released Sygne’s hands. Sygne had let go of her protractor. Through her eyes, Jamal could see that she had been drawing circles over a rough sketch of the continent of Embhra.

  Shen Yong asked, “What is it you seek to understand and change?”

  With clear eyes, young Sygne stared back at her former foster parents—her future professors. She answered, “The world.”

  ***

  Jamal stood in a new sort of training ground. Wooden posts were staked into the sand, with rough-hewn sacks of sand dangling like hanged criminals from their crossbars.

  Jamal’s sergeant seemed different, somehow. Less angry. Less impatient. Sygne thought she saw a glimmer of anticipation in his dark gray eyes. In Sygne’s experience, any instructor—no matter how brutish the field of study—enjoyed their work when they trained a student with exceptional potential.

  The sergeant grinned as he handed Jamal a heavy, blunt axe. “We need to put meat on your bones. All that spinning and rolling won’t do you any good in a battle unless you are able to strike as deftly as you dodge.”

  Jamal tested the weight of the axe. It was heavy. The strain of lifting it made his stomach ache. He stared out at the forest of targets.

  His trainer asked, “Are you ready?”

  ***

  “I am.”

  Mentor Theopolus, the Academy’s Chief Librator, opened the door to the Scribes’ Vault. Sygne goggled for a moment at the rows of shelves. No other room in the world contained more riches, more power—the wisdom of thousands of papyrus scrolls and cuneiform tablets transcribed to paper and bound into tomes as thick as her thigh.

  Theopolus patted her shoulder. “Hit the books, young scholar.”

  ***

  “Hit the sacks, maggot!”

  ***

  Sygne was awoken by a nudge. The aisles of the Scribes’ Vault were pitch black, except for a single oil lamp floating in the darkness before her. Mentor Shen Yong leaned forward so that Sygne could see her face in the lamplight.

  Shen Yong said, “Jabira was quite gleeful at dinner tonight. That means tomorrow’s examination will be particularly brutal.”

  “I know.” Sygne wiped sleep from her eyes. She was walled between two stacks of books, a ‘finished’ pile and a ‘to be read’ pile. She asked, “What time is it?”

  Shen Yong set the lamp down and glided away into the gloom. She called over her shoulder, “Time to hit the books.”

  ***

  It had been raining for days, and the sand in the practice grounds had turned to ankle-deep quicksand. The sergeant pushed Jamal hard in the back, so that he nearly fell flat on his face in the mire.

  He ordered, “Hit the pylons!”

  ***

  Sygne was older, and her hair was longer. Although she wore it in a ponytail, strands kept falling loose and across her field of vision. The page in front of her blurred, and she took a moment to stare out of the nearest window of the Scribes’ Vault. It was a beautiful day, with city’s garden-mazes overflowing with color and fragrant smells. This would be one of the last pretty days of spring—then the monsoons of the Serrated Sea would push their way northward.

  The librator Theopolus appeared at her side and pointed to the table.

  “Hit the books.”

  ***

  “Hit the sandbag!”

  ***

  “Hit the books.”

  ***

  “Hit the bullseye!”

  Jamal’s throwing knife struck the circular target before him—just south of center. Jamal tilted his head and smirked. The sergeant patted him on the shoulder.

  “You’ll get better.”

  Now the admiration in the sergeant’s eyes was unmistakable. But it was dimmed by a clouding of regret, as if the veteran warrior was already mourning the fact that Jamal’s physical talent—and all of their hard practice—would amount to no more than three or five minutes of ferocious combat and then a quick death. Jamal had been assigned to the battlefront at Uhl-Arath, and everyone expected Uhl-Arath to be a charnel house.

  ***

  “Hit the books.”

  ***

  “Hit the man! Don’t hesitate!”

  Sygne saw Jamal sparring with another young Ardhian. This other recruit wasn’t nearly as toned or as fast as Jamal. His slim face was twisted into a grimace as Jamal battered his practice sword again and again.

  “Don’t focus on Kashan’s sword!” The sergeant shouted. “Focus on an incapacitating blow!”

  Jamal thrust a tentative jab at the scrawny recruit’s head.

  “Hit him!” the sergeant commanded. “In a real fight you’ll have no more than ten seconds to put down one caveman before more of his clan-mates jump on you. Remember! The trogs are pack animals.”

  Jamal stepped into a powerful blow, and t
he scrawny recruit flung himself backward and onto his ass. Kashan held his practice sword up over his face.

  “Kashan!” the sergeant bellowed. “Get up! Fight!”

  Kashan’s lips curled back, revealing that all of his front teeth had been knocked out. His gums had gouges missing from them. Sygne felt a rush of fury—not pity—pass through Jamal. He had been holding back before, but now he unleashed a volley of strikes at Kashan’s sword, swinging left and right until the wood shattered. Kashan screamed in terror. Jamal roared and brought the flat of his sword down hard on Kashan’s head.

  ***

  With that flash of unexpected violence, Sygne was shocked back to reality—or whatever passed for reality within the Dweller’s sphere of influence. For the first time in a long time, the Firstspawn’s lair seemed finite and unchanging. It was as if Sygne had weathered a heaving storm at sea, and now she had regained her ability to navigate through her surroundings. Despite the fact that it might bring on a fresh onrush of immersive memories, Sygne grabbed Jamal’s hand and pulled him away from the Dweller. She saw a new rift in one wall of the lair, and she dragged Jamal toward the new passage as forcefully as she could.

  Jamal stumbled into a trot to keep up with her pace. Perhaps he was regaining his wits and his ‘sea legs’ as well. She didn’t risk looking back to check his face. They fled from the lair.

  They skirted past a shoulder of rock, then around a few more corners in the new passage. Soon they were safely hidden in pitch-black shadows.

  Jamal panted. “That was incredible. Incredibly horrible.”

  “Did you see Ilona?”

  “She killed herself… Is that right? Is that what I saw?”

  Sygne nodded vigorously in the impenetrable dark. “Yes. I nearly did the same thing she did. Walked into the… the…”

  “Don’t say it. Don’t use its name!”

  “I won’t. But you saved me! You grabbed my shoulder and stopped me…”

  “I did? I…”

  Sygne said, “I saw your memories when you touched me.”

  “I saw your memories too. There was a shipwreck… At first… I think…”

  “I saw you training to be a soldier. It was so vivid! Like I was there.”

  “Mostly I saw you reading.”

  “I saw you tumbling. Sparring with your sergeant. It was riveting.”

  “Yeah. Your memories were mostly boring.”

  “What?”

  Jamal asked, “How did you break free from the spell?”

  “You did something shocking. I supposed that snapped me out of it.”

  “What did I do?”

  “Jamal? I think there’s blood on my hands.”

  “Your blood?”

  “No. I think I’m holding something...wet and slick.”

  “Then drop it!”

  “Shhh! No. I... Let’s keep walking,” Sygne suggested. “I don’t feel safe here in the dark, so close to the… you-know-what.”

  ***

  They walked for a long time. Sygne followed the cave wall with her right hand. If the tunnel branched to the left, Sygne couldn’t see it. There were no puddles of glowing water to light their way.

  Eventually she heard the shushing sounds of the ocean tides. They stepped around a shoulder of rock to emerge into a dimly lit, barrel-shaped cave.

  “Look at that.” Jamal pointed to a ragged hole in the ceiling that showed the purple light of dawn.

  “Beautiful! We made it through the night.”

  Sygne glanced down at the object in her left hand. She knew what she would see. It was the broken tip of one of the Dweller’s quills—the one that she had grabbed when she had been close to Ilona. Sygne wasn’t sure how she’d been able to touch it—let alone break it—during her memory-swap with Jamal, but here it was. It was a little bit longer than a scribe’s pen, dark black, and it was still dripping with the princess’s blood.

  Sygne bent down and rubbed it against the sole of her sandal until it was mostly clean.

  “What are you going to do with that?” Jamal asked.

  Sygne tucked it into the sash of her bloomers; it was set like a dagger close to her hip.

  Jamal groaned. “You don’t know where that thing has been.”

  “Exactly right.” Sygne held up her hands, as if there was nothing else she could do. “It’s a specimen. Do you know how valuable it might be? Proof of an Ancient One?”

  Jamal sighed. “Like you said: We made it through the night. I’m just hoping we can avoid any other trouble.”

  ‘We.’ Sygne liked that the self-described number-one protagonist had used that word. ‘We’ implied friendship. A partnership.

  Jamal did a careful check of their surroundings. In the dim light, he pointed out that they were situated on a ledge in the cave wall, overlooking a pocket of sea water. He said, “Let’s rest a while—till the sun’s fully up. Maybe we’ll find a better way to get out of here.”

  Their ledge was wide enough that they could sit down and still give each other a comfortable amount of room. Sygne pointed to the cave’s natural skylight. “If I remember, it should be a couple hours until high tide. If the tide rises high enough, we’ll be able to swim to that hole.”

  Jamal squinted into the darkness. The other side of the cave was cloaked in shadow. “This spot suddenly doesn’t seem so restful, if you think it’s going to fill up with water.”

  “Sorry.”

  “It’s fine.” Jamal leaned back until he was lying with the back of his head resting on the palms of his hands.

  “Jamal? Can I ask you a question?”

  “Mmm-hmm.” Jamal closed his eyes.

  “Do you remember Kashan?”

  “Kashan? From back in my army days?” Jamal coughed, and his eyes fluttered open. “I suppose I do, if you saw him in my memories.”

  “I saw what you did to him…”

  “Did to him?”

  “You bashed him over the head. On the practice fields.”

  “Oh.” Jamal’s posture eased, and he closed his eyes again. “That’s all, you mean?”

  “He was helpless. You attacked him.”

  Jamal scowled, but he still seemed to be on his way to falling asleep. “Kashan was a slave boy like me. He volunteered for the army, but I think he knew he would be too weak to be a useful soldier. I started to wonder if he was counting on it.”

  “I don’t understand.”

  “Kashan thought if he could endure a few months of training—showing how worthless he was in a fight—then he’d get moved to the auxiliary. Loading gear, polishing weapons, cooking food, and digging latrines. That would have been the sort of thankless work he’d been doing in Gjuir-Khib, but with a ticket to freedom waiting for him after his tour was done.

  “It was clever, in a way. But I think I resented him for it. He was sliding by on weakness while I was toiling my way toward a certain death. One day I snapped, and I knocked him unconscious. After that, the powers-that-be finally assigned Kashan to the auxiliary. The next time I saw him, he apologized to me. That’s how I knew I had been in the right.”

  Sygne was silent.

  Jamal grumbled and lifted himself onto his elbows. “I did feel bad about it. Kashan was just trying to make the most out of what he’d been given in life.”

  “What happened to him?” she asked.

  “He marched with the new regiment to Uhl-Arath.”

  “The tin mines that had been overrun with troglodytes.”

  “Yes.” Jamal’s eyes took on a faraway cast. “When we got there, we found that the cavemen had camped out on the bluffs overlooking our approach. They had hundreds of heavy rocks with them, and they heaved them down on our first phalanx. They ruined a lot of expensive shields, and killed a dozen men. The cavemen were hooting like they do. It was obvious they had a lot more stones ready to throw at us.

  “So the lieutenants pulled up fodder from auxiliary. Kashan was among
them. I remember seeing his face…” Jamal shook his head. “I remember he was holding another wooden sword. He never earned a real sword, even when he was being pushed out into real combat. They pointed spears at Kashan’s back—him and the rest of the fodder. And they made them run out, one at a time, toward the hills. It turns out that one man running for his life can dodge a lot of rocks. But not forever. One by one, the auxiliary soldiers were all pulped. I didn’t stay to watch it happen, and I didn’t see Kashan die. But the savages did waste all of their rocks. The next day, our forces charged again and gained that first row of bluffs.”

  “I’m sorry,” Sygne said. “You’ve been through a lot.”

  “Yeah. Well, at least we got to take our revenge on troglodytes. At least they weren’t men. When you war against other men, it’s always a tragedy—even when you win. Don’t get me wrong—it’s always better to see an enemy die, rather than one of your friends. But it’s a brutal thing to drive a piece of metal through a man’s body and end his life. Take him away permanently from his lovers, his family, his friends.”

  Sygne shuddered. “I knew soldiers in Albatherra. I saw how they were changed by war.”

  “I’m glad that I’ve been able to avoid war, for most of my career. But always I seemed to be drawn into violent professions. Bodyguard. Mercenary. Expeditioner. Pirate.”

  “You were a pirate?”

  “For a while. But all of those professions ended with me bringing more pain into the world than good. There was this woman I knew…” Sygne saw Jamal’s eyes float along the edge of the dawn showing through the natural skylight. “She told me, ‘Just bring good to the world. Just bring glory. Even if the gods were never watching, act like they are.’ And that’s the way I’ve tried to live, but I was stupid about it. I thought glory could only come through adventure—by material accomplishments. Eventually I realized glory could come through song… Or artistry… Wise leading… Or teaching…”

  He gestured to Sygne, and she nodded back. She wanted to ask Jamal more about this woman and her life-changing advice, but she wasn’t sure that she could keep from sounding jealous if she did.

  Before she could say anything, Jamal asked, “How about you? In your memories, I saw this young girl who thought she could change the world. When did you decide you wanted to turn your scientician skills to entertainment?”