Hollow Empire

by Sam Hawke

  It was not a dead bird, as I had first thought, though I was far from convinced the brownish stains on the fabric were not blood. I cut it open on the kitchen bench while Sjease watched, silent but visibly distressed, hovering just beside me. My slice exposed a strange interior. A sticky, pungent clump of dark, matted feathers, stones, and dirt. At the center lay something round and brown like a seed, about the size of an eye, and around it a little cross frame of wood wound through with yarn in an interlocking pattern. I recoiled from the thing. I still could not have said why it had affected us so but there was something almost malevolent radiating from it, inexplicable but undeniable. If I had been alone perhaps I might have convinced myself it was an overreaction, but Sjease’s tight face and shallow breathing echoed my own.

  “What is it?” Sjease asked at last, voice hesitant and shaken.

  “I honestly have no clue,” I said, regarding the thing with suspicion, a coil of dread in my stomach.

  “And where did it come from? That wasn’t there yesterday, I’m sure of it. Who left it there?”

  I imagined the scene as if I’d witnessed it; a shadowy figure throwing it up and over the wall, then slipping away into the night. But why? What were we looking at? “I have no clue about that, either,” I said quietly, “but I think it’s safe to assume they aren’t wishing us well.”

  INCIDENT: Poisoning of Credola Devin Leka

  POISON: Zarnika

  INCIDENT NOTES: Series of incidents targeting C. Devin’s reputation observed over a period (see further notes at page d77); Leka family standing affected. C. Devin ceased appearing in public, rumors of a facial condition emerged. Investigation through household servants suggested extreme facial swelling and vomiting. Suspect zarnika poisoning through hair tonic but family refused further investigation (internal?? consider C. Keiran, noting unfortunate feud beginning when C. Devin made reference to C. Keiran’s ‘skin flaps’ in public).

  (from proofing notes of Credo Osi Oromani)

  10

  Kalina

  Lord Ectar did not answer my first note, nor my second. By the end of the second day keeping a low profile in our apartments, Jov’s injuries were healing but his mood had darkened; first there had been word of the rumors spreading through the servants, then the strange and disturbing parcel thrown over our wall, and then upon turning up in exasperation to try to see them in person, I was told everyone in the Talafan entourage was feeling “poorly” and could take no visitors. This despite the fact that I had arrived as several other visitors were leaving, including the Perest-Avani High Priestess and her disconcertingly attractive translator, who smiled at me with surprising warmth as we crossed paths.

  “Please pass on my regards and my sympathies to the delegation,” I had told the household manager, covering my frustration with a bow. I had no way of knowing whether the refusal was being extended to all Sjon or if it was targeted at me or my family. The women were isolated in that household, so how would they have learned gossip about the circumstances of a death, without contacts here in the city? Yet as I left the gardens and glanced back, the pale shape of a face at the window gazed back at me, unmoving. I raised a tentative hand in a wave, and it snapped back out of sight so fast it might never have been there. It left me unsettled. Tuhash had been Zhafi’s lover and Lady Mosecca’s son. If they believed the rumors, they likely hated my brother, and perhaps me by extension. Quite apart from the effect this might have on my future position as Ambassador, it made my insides heavy with regret.

  Afterward, in the interests of maintaining appearances, Hadrea and I had taken Davi and Dee along with the rest of the family to make kites and fly them from the city walls. I tried to ignore the whispering, the sidelong looks, the carefully phrased questions, but it grew harder the more I smiled through them, ignoring their subtle digs and forays. It wasn’t quite at scandal level, not yet, but momentum was building. Nor did it help that Hadrea was by my side, defiant and unfazed, provocative in her complete disregard for their opinions. I watched her now, striding confidently along the wall with Davi, showing him how to catch the wind and keep it. As with most physical activities she seemed almost supernaturally good at it, her snapping bright colors gliding and soaring with precision. If she even noticed people staring she gave no sign, but there was an awkwardness between us, an unseen block of questions I wanted to ask her but could not.

  “Is it not bad manners to stare in any culture?” Hadrea said to me suddenly, and I blinked in surprise, and felt blood rush to my cheeks. I opened my mouth to apologize before she nodded once to her left and I snapped it shut again, realizing she was not talking about me at all. Through the merry crowd filling the walkway atop the walls, watching the kites and flying them, I saw her, too: a pale-faced figure, hair bound in a sensible scarf, her gaze locked on our group, twisting the end of her kite string in both hands. She was too distant to make out the detail of her face but as I peered at her it felt as if our eyes met. Unease spread through me like a growing stain, then a group of chattering young people crossed her path and she was lost to the crowd.

  “She was Talafan?” Hadrea was looking at me curiously, her head cocked to one side and a concerned question in her eyes. I had been staring at the space where the woman had been, my mouth slightly open, my hands clenched in nervous fists. I shook myself and forced a shrug and a smile.

  “I guess so.” There was no reason to feel uneasy, but I realized even as I tried to shake it off that I did. Probably inevitable after spending two days obsessively poring over theories of conspiracies and assassins. My smile widened. “You are famous, to be fair.”

  Hadrea tossed her head with a snort. “She was not looking at me. Who do they call the Hero of Silasta, eh?” And she laughed when I ducked my head, embarrassed.

  Silly or not, I kept an eye out for our observer, but with no luck: she had disappeared.

  “Whoops, we’re getting tangled.” A much smaller kite was dancing dangerously close to the one Dee was controlling—and I ignored the tingling sensation down my spine, knowing it was only my imagination reacting to having been watched. Our assassin was not a northern woman, and no matter how intense her glare it was not a threat on our lives. It did make me wonder, though, how fast rumors of the manner of Tuhash’s demise had spread. Could she be someone from the Talafan party who had known him? I thought again of the face at the window at the Leaning Lady and then for some reason of the old woman in the viewing box who had taken the doll from me. I shivered at the memory of the latter.

  “Auntie!” Dee called out, half-laughing. “Help!”

  The smaller kite, pale white against the blue sky, was butting up against our larger, brighter one. I put a hand on Dee’s and gestured with my other in the opposite direction. “Here, let’s move this way.” We started to move away, but they were tangled and it had no effect. I started to pull our kite in, but Dee gasped, her eyes wide, and I whirled around even as I heard a heavy, menacing beat of air behind me. I had an impression of white and motion and a high-pitched shrieking cry, and then fiery sharp pain erupted as something seized my shoulder and slashed at my forehead. I flung my arms up to protect my face from the attack, and beside me Dee screamed and screamed. The heavy pounding of powerful wings, a stabbing, slashing beak, claws like a metal trap around my upper arm … blinded by my own bleeding forearms, I staggered sideways into the side of the parapet and crushed the great bird between my shoulder and the stone. Its claws released my arm and it slid off me, stunned at the blow. I sucked in a mouthful of grateful, desperate air but even as I tried to regain my balance the creature had flung itself aloft, wings beating hard enough to raise a cloud of dust from the walkway, and then with another terrifying swoop, latched onto Ana.

  She howled with pain as it dug its claws directly into her short curly hair. She ran, panicking, down the walkway, stumbling and screaming all the while, the frightened crowd parting around her in alarm. I dragged blood out of my own eye and followed after her, but the kite cord was
caught in my legs somehow and I almost tripped.

  “Mama!” one of the boys yelled, trying to beat at the bird but succeeding only in collecting some slashes on his forearms as it turned its beak on him. Still it maintained its horrible clawing grip on Ana and her screams only intensified. Then Hadrea was there, what looked like a walking stick in her hands, striding past me.

  “Stay still!” she barked, in such a forceful tone that Ana, hysterical as she was, stopped spinning and screaming for a moment. Without hesitation Hadrea swung the stick in a swift arc above Ana’s head, striking the bird across its chest and wing and sending it tumbling off Ana and onto the walkway. There was a moment of silence as the crowd stared. Hadrea, letting out her breath, passed the stick from one hand to the other and then returned it to an elderly man standing nearby. “Thank you,” she said calmly.

  I tugged and scrambled to untangle myself from the kite cord then, free at last, crossed the last of the distance. “Are you all right?” I asked Ana. Large gouges shone red and gleaming from her scalp and she had gone a strange color. “Boys!” Her sons scrambled up and caught their mother on their shoulders as she slumped back, drained and beginning to cry. Etrika pressed her scarf to the worst of the cuts on Ana’s head and someone from the crowd offered theirs to her son for his arm.

  “Are you all right?” Hadrea, with a wary glance at the stunned bird on the ground, put a gentle hand on my shoulder and brushed hair out of the cuts on my face. “These are not too bad,” she said, then frowned at the other shoulder. “These are worse. We will need to get you both to the hospital.” I risked a glance down at my own arm and felt my stomach roil unpleasantly. There were deep wounds in the flesh of my upper arm and shoulder where the bird had clung to me. As if seeing them close somehow activated the pain, they stung and burned with fresh intensity. I peered down at the bird cautiously, noting the size of the claws.

  It was a rorutus, a powerful hunter bird that preyed on small mammals out in the plains and rarely came near the city. I’d never seen one up close before, though Arjai Reed had a stuffed one he’d showed me once. It was magnificent, even dazed and with its beak and claws scarlet with our blood. I started to crouch beside it but the rorutus shook its great head as if startled then flapped its wings frantically as it tried to right itself. The whole crowd, myself included, sprang backward, and a child started crying somewhere in the circle we had inadvertently formed around the struggling bird.

  My chest tightened with pity for the thing even as I recoiled. Hadrea closed her hands into fists, but her face looked grim and sad and I knew she felt it, too. But then the rorutus got both its feet on the ground, shook its head again, beak glinting menacingly, and flapped its wings again, and suddenly it was airborne once more. I flinched back, heart pounding, and I wasn’t the only one; several people nearby screamed, and everyone pushed away still farther. But whatever interest or instinct had been driving the bird toward me and Ana, it was gone now, and so was my feathered enemy; swooping, sailing, sometimes lurching lopsidedly and being buffeted by the wind, it took off into the blue sky without so much as a squawk.

  The crowd returned to life as if a spell had been broken. The wall walk filled with people crowding around me, asking questions, checking my wounds, staring. A bit of nervous laughter even rippled through the gathering; feeling on the edge of hysteria myself, I understood the urge. It had all happened so quickly and so unexpectedly. But Hadrea scowled around at them, unamused. “Clear the way so we can go to the hospital,” she said loudly, and she looked so fierce people scrambled to obey.

  Ana was still crying but had calmed enough to be led to the nearest stairs by one of the boys while the other raced ahead to call a litter. Dee, silent and wide-eyed but ever practical, recovered our kite while Hadrea bound her scarf around my arm to stop the bleeding. Still shaken, but recognizing the drama had ended, most people drifted back to their kites or their conversations. I saw a flash of white out of the corner of my eye and whirled, but it was only the white kite that had bumped into ours; it had lost the high wind and was slowly descending to the marshes outside the city, its string apparently abandoned. The owner must have lost hold during my tangled drag or in the confusion. Even so, I squinted at my feathered attacker and kept watch as it disappeared into the distance, some part of me afraid to turn my back on it in case it returned.

  “I have never seen a bird do that before,” Hadrea said at my side, soft enough that only I could hear.

  “Neither have I,” I said, trying to keep my tone even and not reveal the extent to which it had unsettled me. It had just been a random thing. A wild bird. Unfortunate, but hardly sinister. But Hadrea was looking at me with a funny expression, and with an unpleasant jolt I recognized it. Fear. I wasn’t sure I had ever seen her afraid before, and it made my own anxious stomach worse. “Do you … do you think this is the kind of thing that can be … done?” I felt stupid saying it aloud. But I had seen a man choke and then break his leg in strange and suspicious circumstances only a few days prior, and there was just something about this incident that felt similarly improbable.

  Hadrea didn’t answer, but she still looked worried.

  “Auntie, we should go,” Dee interjected, appearing beside me.

  I nodded to her, but risked a further question, almost whispered, to Hadrea. “Is it something that could be done with fresken?”

  Her head snapped around and her eyes were sharp, her jaw tight. “No.” Then she shook her head, her face softening. “No,” she continued in a more conciliatory tone. “That is not how fresken works.”

  There was a short, tight silence. “Hadrea,” I said tentatively. “About the other night…”

  But she had turned away again. “Come on.” She steered me gently by my uninjured arm. “Dee is right. You will need those cleaned. Birds can be dirty creatures and their wounds can turn bad.”

  “There are some diseases that spread by bird contact,” Dee began, “and there’s this horrible one that makes you bleed from the—” She caught herself and her enthusiastic expression slipped away. “Sorry, Auntie.”

  “Oh, good, I was worried it was just going to be a scratch or two,” I said. I tried to smile to show her I was joking, but the pain was building and I was starting to feel dizzy. “You know how I like the attention.”

  * * *

  Cleaning the wounds hurt more than having them inflicted, and by the time the physic had finished stitching up the worst of the cuts I was deeply grateful for having been unconscious and having no memory of any of my surgery after the river. The pain-numbing agent worked well enough but the sound and sensation of the skin being stitched together, especially on my scalp, was nightmarish.

  “You’ll need to stay here for at least a few hours,” the physic told me briskly as he tied off the last of the thread. “Yes, yes, I know you’re extremely busy,” he added, raising a hand to cut off my protest, “and I’m aware it is in the middle of karodee. Nevertheless, my responsibility is to make sure you are properly recovered, and that there are no complications. With your medical history, you have to be careful, Credola. And there are a number of diseases linked to birds, some of which can be very serious.”

  “Yes, I hear I could end up bleeding out of some unpleasant place,” I muttered, rolling over on the pallet and taking a deep, frustrated breath.

  “What was that, Credola?” The physic had already started to move to the next patient.

  “Never mind.” A few hours, I could hold off a few hours. “How’s my cousin?”

  “Ana Oromani? With the scalp wounds?” He scratched his cheek. “She’s doing well. There was a lot of blood, but no damage to her skull. She’ll be fine.”

  “Good.” With the mood Ana had been in lately, I couldn’t imagine a random bird attack would have improved it in any case, but at least she hadn’t suffered any permanent harm.

  Still, when I asked Dee how her mother was an hour later when she came by to see me, she twisted one foot awkwardly on the ground
and stared at it as she answered. “She’s all right. She’s … a bit upset. It was very scary,” she added, as if I’d criticized her mother for weakness. Then the set of her jaw changed fractionally, and her tone took on a studied evenness. “She doesn’t much like it here. Grandma told her there are birds in Telasa too and she got really cross.”

  My mouth twitched but I smoothed it out. “It was scary. I’m so glad she’s all right though.”

  “I’m sorry I said the thing about the bleeding eyes disease,” Dee said, peering at me earnestly through smudged glasses.

  “Oh, eyes, was it?” I muttered dryly.

  “I just thought of it. Sometimes I say things without thinking. I’m sorry, Auntie.”

  I reached out with my unbandaged arm and ruffled her hair. “It’s fine. Look, can you do me a favor? Can you go home with Etrika and check on Jov?” Hadrea, once satisfied I was being properly cared for, had gone to our apartments to report what had happened, and I knew how worried he’d be. I’d been lucky: a lot of scratches on my forearms and some on my face and head, plus the gouges in my arm from the claws, but nothing that wouldn’t heal, eyeball bleeding aside. But it was another blow against our family, even if one without malicious source.

  Once Dee left I passed the time having silent arguments with myself in my head. Had it just been a random incident? Hadrea had said definitively that Darfri magic could not control an animal. It sounded absurd even in my head. But also … there were other magics in the world, other things we didn’t fully understand. Uniform religion was intrinsically tied to the Talafan Empire and its expansion over the centuries: the Emperor was the anointed leader and their Star God tolerated no competition. Yet no land as vast as Talafar and all the territories it had swallowed could be a monolith of culture or spirituality. Talafan folklore was infested with witches and their strange magics; my brother had brought me a book of their children’s stories before the siege, and it had been full of tales of witchmothers and flying princesses escaping towers and cruel princes and feeding hearts to hungry mountains. And animals that befriended lonely children and did the bidding of witches. Witches were part of Talafan folklore, and perhaps they, like the Darfri in my homeland, persisted in the face of indifference or opposition from the dominant culture. Once I might have assumed them to be no more than tales, children’s stories, but we had been criminally, stupidly wrong about Darfri beliefs and magic and I wouldn’t make that mistake again.