City of Bones

by Martha Wells

  "So there were people here," Elen said softly. "Mages, perhaps. Though if Aventine-denan was a Mage, his name wasn't passed down to the Warders. Maybe he found a way out."

  They might have passed dozens of glyphs like this one; traveling with their noses to the stone, trying to defeat that paralyzing sensation of falling, they could have missed any number of them. "Maybe," Khat agreed. "But the text said the Inhabitants stole hundreds of people. Maybe they dropped him along the way, like our Inhabitant dropped us, and he stayed here until he decided to see what happened if he jumped."

  "You dropped that rock chip to see what would happen and it fell, just like I said it would. If we jumped, we would fall. No one is jumping."

  "All right, all right, I said I wouldn't jump. But . . ." Khat stopped, holding up a hand to keep Elen from replying. Somewhere above them he heard a faint thump, as if something had struck one of the rocks. He thought his hearing was almost back to normal now, though it was hard to tell. The only thing to hear had been their own voices and a distant rushing like wind through a wadi, as if the gale that had carried them here still raged somewhere far away. He wondered if he had imagined the thump.

  Then it came again. Khat glanced at Elen and saw from her startled expression that she had heard it too this time. He motioned for her to come toward the wall, and she scrambled to his side.

  The next thump was on the ledge directly above them, and they both pressed back against the wall. Khat drew his knife, though he didn't know how much good it would do. An Inhabitant would hardly need to jump from ledge to ledge, but if some of the nastier creatures of the Waste had originally come there through these Doors there was no telling what might live here.

  Something dark swung down from the ledge above, and Elen gasped just as Khat realized it was Constans. The Warder landed on their ledge and didn't even have the grace to look surprised to see them. He demanded, "What is taking you so long?"

  Khat slumped back against the wall and let out his breath. It was a sure sign your situation was desperate when you were relieved to see Aristai Constans.

  Elen stepped forward, confronting the older Warder defiantly. "I hoped you were dead."

  "And it's lovely to see you, my dear."

  Khat put his knife away. "Where have you been?" He was glad to know the old bastard was alive, but he supposed he would get over that in a moment or two. Hopefully it was only relief at seeing another human face.

  "Waiting for you. We can only hold them off so long, and there's something of a language barrier." Constans stepped back, showing a complete disregard for the drop-off behind him, then reached up and caught the rim of the rock overhead. Pulling himself up without apparent effort, he added, "I suggest you hurry."

  "We?" Elen repeated, glancing at Khat. "Is ... is Riathen up there?"

  "We're not going anywhere with you until you tell us what's going on," Khat said, folding his arms. He had never been in a position to demand information from Constans before, and he wanted to make the most of it while he had the chance.

  Constans appeared again, head hanging down off the ledge. "Riathen is there. Why do you think this corridor hasn't been flooded with Inhabitants, heading for our world? The Doorway we came through is still open."

  "What about Seul and the Heir, and the lictors?" Elen persisted.

  "They had no resistance to the Inhabitant. They were drawn all the way up, and probably over to the other side."

  The other side. Khat felt a cold prickle travel up his spine. Curiosity had always been the bane of his life, but he felt not the slightest urge to see the other side of this Doorway.

  Suspicious, Elen said, "I had no resistance to the Inhabitant. Why didn't it draw us all the way up?"

  "Elen, you continually underestimate yourself, and I find it intolerable. You haven't even tried to use your power since we came here, have you?"

  Elen flushed, caught off guard. "I didn't think it wise, I-"

  He cut her off. "Riathen cannot hold the Inhabitants back for long, so I suggest you get over your reluctance and come along."

  "Riathen is holding them back?" Elen glanced at Khat, then asked Constans, "You're cooperating with him, and not trying to kill him?"

  "There hasn't been time for that." Constans was impatient. "My dear, if I had ever wanted to kill Sonet Riathen, I have had far better opportunities than this."

  "I'm not your dear anything. Stop calling me that. And Riathen told me ..." Elen stopped, wet her lips uncertainly.

  "Yes," Constans said. "He told you a great many things, and some of them were true." He pulled his head back, and they heard, "Hurry."

  Elen turned away, her hands knotting up into fists. "Damn him," she muttered, "to the highest level of Hell."

  "Better make it a little lower," Khat told her, sourly. "He could probably tunnel out of that one." What did he mean by language barrier? Khat wondered. Were Constans and Riathen up there trying to reason with the Inhabitants? It would be a strange thing to see if true, considering that Constans and Riathen could barely speak to each other without violence.

  They climbed again, moving as fast as they could, not stopping to rest. Khat felt as if they had been doing this forever, but eventually they reached the outcroppings just beneath the platform they had seen from below.

  It was an unbroken ring, circling the tower but open in the center. It didn't jut out that much farther than the ledges around them, but the one- or two-foot difference seemed to make the task of climbing up to it almost impossible. Khat didn't see how Constans had made it, except that the Warder was taller than he was and had a complete disregard for his personal survival. He was turning to Elen, about to suggest going from ledge to ledge beneath it, searching for an easier way up, when Constans appeared again, hanging his head down over the edge of the platform.

  They both flinched at his sudden appearance, but Constans said, "Finally. Give me your hand, Elen."

  Elen looked stubborn. Khat nudged her, gently. "Go on. We don't really have a choice."

  Muttering under her breath, Elen approached the edge gingerly, and stretched out her arms. Constans adjusted his position, and said, "Just lean forward."

  "Wait." Khat moved up behind her and braced his feet, and put an arm around her waist.

  Elen glanced back at him, murmured, "The positions we get into," then leaned forward over empty space. Constans caught her wrist before she could overbalance and Khat let go, and the Warder pulled her up over the edge. In another moment he appeared again.

  "Now you."

  "I know," Khat said. He could just reach the underside of the platform above, and steadied himself on it. He was considerably heavier than Elen. "You could end up dragging us both over the side, you know."

  "I could, but what would be the point of it?"

  "Uh, never mind," Khat muttered. He leaned forward and caught Constans's forearm. For an instant, strong as the Mad Warder was, Khat didn't think he would be able to do it. Then Constans's other hand caught the back of his belt and hauled him up and over.

  Khat sprawled on the stone, catching his breath, then propped himself up. The platform was smooth, the same cream color and texture as the inside walls of the Remnant. Carved on it was a dizzying pattern of spiraling lines, the same sort of pattern that covered the big ugly block and the Miracle. "The Ancients built this, they must have built the ramps," Khat said, not aware he had said it aloud until he heard his own voice. "How did they get up here?"

  "With great difficulty, one assumes," Constans said. "Look up."

  Khat did, and had to fight the urge to flatten himself back against the platform. Not more than thirty feet over their heads, if he was gauging the distance properly, the air was thick with the presence of the Inhabitants.

  Lines of light marked them, sparking as they struck each other or the walls of the tower in their constant swarming motion. He could feel the freezing cold of the wind that formed their bodies, sense their wish to rush down and destroy. Then Khat saw Riathen, standin
g perhaps ten feet away near the wall, holding up his hands toward the death in the air above. His face was rapt, and he was motionless, like a statue carved from obsidian. It seemed he might be holding the mass of raging creatures back by will alone, but once Khat looked for it he could see the telltale thickening of the air just below the swirling Inhabitants, the bending of it as if it were heavy with heat.

  Elen was standing near Riathen, one hand out as if she didn't quite dare to touch him, for fear she would break that terrible concentration.

  Khat turned back to Constans. "How long can he do that?"

  "Not long," the Warder said. He was still sitting on the edge of the platform, watching Riathen, his light eyes unreadable. "He isn't the Master Warder by accident, and his power was aided by the Remnant's awakening. But the effort is sure to kill him. I could help him, but he won't allow it. Whether it's an issue of trust, I don't know, but I do know he depends on me to solve this puzzle, and I have been quite unable to do so."

  "Solve what puzzle?"

  "The puzzle of this place!" Showing real irritation for once, Constans took a swing at him. Khat rolled out of reach. "Obviously this is another part of the Remnant, perhaps meant to close the Door permanently, but just as obviously it isn't working."

  "Nothing's obvious when you're dealing with the Ancients,"

  Khat snapped. But it was the first time he had seen Aristai Constans agitated by any of this, and it shocked him out of his daze. "That could be why they left the relics to open the Door over this Remnant-they never finished what they were trying to do up here. But they were able to close the Door at the other end. . . . This must do something else." Something important, something worth fighting their way up here, holding back the Inhabitants while they built the ramps and the platform. Whether they used tools and labor or Mages who melted the ramps right out of the walls of the Doorway, it had been no light task. Aventine-denan, twenty-seventh dynasty, day seventy-one, he thought, remembering the glyph.

  Constans was saying, "I've tried touching his mind, but I can see all the way down into the bottom of his soul, and it's as if there's nothing there, no thought, no feelings. I refuse to believe he's only a shell; I suspect it's some method to keep the Inhabitants from noticing his presence. He's opened his eyes twice, but he doesn't understand a word I've said ..."

  Neither do I, Khat thought. Constans was facing away, looking across the platform toward the opposite side from where Riathen and Elen stood. Khat followed his gaze.

  At first he saw nothing but the platform, the cream color of its stone blending seamlessly into the tan and gold of the Doorway's walls. Then his eyes found the figure of a man, seated near the wall.

  Khat got to his feet, then stopped abruptly, looking up at the Inhabitants massed overhead. They felt too close for comfort, but standing wasn't really bringing them any closer. He went toward the figure, not quite believing what he saw.

  It was a man, seated cross-legged on the platform, covered in dust the same color as the Doorway's walls. He sat so still he might have been a statue. Or a corpse. Khat didn't think he was breathing.

  Khat stopped within a few feet of him, and sat on his heels to look more closely. He was a big man, even seated, and Khat thought he might be about his own height or a little taller when standing. His face was finely made, his nose aquiline, and he had the bone structure most people in Charisat thought of as Patrician, though it turned up in the kris Enclave often enough. Khat thought the man was old; the dust coated his face so thickly it obscured even his skin color, but it also marked the hairline tracks of age at the corners of his eyes and the sides of his mouth. He wore robes of an unusual cut, and a headcloth in a strange fashion, wound around his head with the ends tucked in, leaving his neck unprotected.

  Constans was standing behind him. Khat glanced up and said, "He's dead."

  Constans answered, "Not quite."

  The man's eyes opened. Startled, Khat sat back with a thump. Against the dust-rimmed lids and lashes, the man's eyes were a deep liquid brown.

  He was looking up at Constans, but without recognition, or any real awareness. The Warder said, "You see, he is alive, and he must be here for some purpose."

  "You don't really think he's an Ancient..." Khat wasn't aware he had let his words trail off. What else? he asked himself. The Door hasn't been open since the Survivor Time. What else can he be? His heart was starting to pound, with excitement this time instead of fear. In the Old Menian of the Enclave, he said, "Who are you?"

  The eyes moved to him, and for the first time focused.

  "That's it," Constans said softly. "I tried in Tradetongue, several of the Last Sea dialects, and what I know of Menian, but I suspect my version was too pidgin to catch his interest." He added, "He's trying to soul-read you."

  Khat shook his head, not taking his eyes from the man. "I can't feel anything."

  "You wouldn't. Hmm. He's failed."

  The man's gaze sharpened, became more aware. His right hand lifted from his lap.

  Constans said nothing. Khat was paralyzed.

  Moving slowly, as if the muscles had almost forgotten their purpose from long disuse, the man reached out and touched Khat's cheek. Khat felt no impulse to pull away, which was odd in itself. He was wary of just about everybody, and had no reason to trust this man simply because he might be an Ancient Mage. But there was no threat in the gesture, or in the man's eyes. Then the man said, "Success."

  Khat was afraid to move, afraid to do anything that might send the man back into his trance. The word had been in Old Menian, but with a pronunciation so different he was surprised he understood him at all. The voice was soft and deep, but with a catch in it from long silence. In the same language, Khat said, "What?"

  The old man pulled back his hand, lowered it again to his lap. The touch had been so light, the movement so slow, it had barely disturbed the dust. Almost painfully, he said, "She was the greatest Mage of our time, but when I left, her efforts had produced only monsters. I should have known she would never give up."

  It took Khat moments to sort out that sentence, to understand what the old man meant. He asked, "What was her name?"

  "Yoane Eveba. Remember it. She was the grandmother of all your kind."

  Khat thought the accent on "grandmother" gave it double meaning. Maybe "creator" was a better translation. This was not a trick of the Inhabitants. The names of the Mages who had created the kris had not been preserved, and in Old Menian "krismen" meant only "desert people." But Yoane was a common female name in the Enclave, one that he had never heard in any of the Fringe Cities. Khat's great-aunt had been called Yoane. This man might be a product of his imagination, if he had been driven mad by the Inhabitants, but Constans could see him too, and he doubted they had the same taste in hallucinations. Carefully he asked, "Who are you, and why are you here? How do you live after all this time?"

  "I am Sevan-denarin, a Builder. I am here because I failed. There was no point in returning. I do not live, and there is no time here."

  I must not be understanding him, Khat thought, frustrated. The kris had always thought their Old Menian was unchanged since the Survivor Time, but obviously some words had shifted in their meaning. Others had strange changes in tone that he knew must signify something. Constans interrupted his thoughts with, "My patience has really been exemplary, but I would like a translation, if you don't mind."

  Constans sounded a little dangerous, so Khat repeated what he thought the man had said. Constans said, "I know he tried to soul-read you. Ask him if he is a Mage."

  "Are you a Mage?" Khat asked, not thinking the question would be much use. There was no way to be sure if the word had the same sense in Old Menian.

  "I was a Builder. I do not live."

  "He's a Builder, and he doesn't live," Khat repeated for Constans's benefit. "Now does that clear everything up?"

  "Ask him what this place was meant to do."

  "I'm getting there," Khat said, annoyed. "This isn't easy." To Sev
an-denarin he said, "Did you build this platform? Was it used to close the Door?"

  "I Built this, and the Gatehouses beneath each Door. The Gatehouses were only a temporary measure. This was meant to close all the corridors, to seal them on the Other Side, preventing the invaders from ever breaching the barriers into our world again. There was failure. One fought past our defenses and attacked Ashonai, who held the catalyst. She fell down the corridor, and the catalyst was lost. I knew they would have to seal the Door to prevent the invaders from entering our world again, that there would be no time to forge another catalyst or to carry it up here to us. The others returned, or died. I stayed."

  The catalyst had been something small enough for a woman-Mage to hold as she stood on this platform. The seal of the great closing, Ecazar had said. Possibly a mistranslation. Khat was almost afraid to form the thought into words, for fear of tempting fate against them. "This catalyst," he said, giving the word the same odd twist in inflection Sevan-denarin had. "What does it look like?"

  Elen shouted a warning, interrupting the old man's answer, and Khat twisted around.

  Sonet Riathen had collapsed. Elen was at his side, holding his head. Khat looked up at the swarming Inhabitants above, waiting for them to drop like a rockfall. But the barrier of warped air was still overhead, though he was certain it was lower. He didn't understand. Then he saw Constans, eyes narrowed with concentration, holding his hands up toward the barrier.

  He took over whatever Riathen was doing to hold them off, Khat realized, and we don't have much time. "Elen! Elen, come here."

  She lowered Riathen's head gently, then got to her feet and came toward him. "He's dead. He wouldn't let me help him," she said, her eyes brimming but her voice fiercely angry. "He wouldn't let me even try." She saw Sevan-denarin for the first time and stopped. "What is ... who is that?"