The Worldbreaker Saga Omnibus

by Kameron Hurley

  “Who is your husband?” Lilia asked.

  “Anavha,” Roh said. “The omajista.” He pointed across the camp. Lilia turned. A big Tordinian man sat at a fire, taking instruction from someone showing him how to bind fireweed cord. Huddling beside him was a slight Dorinah man with a soft brown beard and sharp cheekbones who held a steaming cup of tea in his quaking hands.

  “That Dorinah boy?” Lilia said. “Your husband is an omajista?”

  Zezili looked genuinely shocked. “He’s a what? That… no.” She laughed. “No, that’s not possible.”

  “He got us out of the temple,” Roh said. “Opened a gate right there.”

  Zezili gaped. “What the fuck is happening?”

  “Who’s that man with him?” Lilia asked.

  “Saradyn,” Roh said.

  “Fucker chopped off my hand,” Zezili said, waving both hands at Lilia. “Called himself a king. Docile as a fucking lamb now, though. What the fuck did you do to him, kid?”

  “Nothing,” Roh said.

  “He follows you?” Lilia asked.

  “He listens to me,” Roh said, but he would not look at her. “I don’t know why. I asked him to look after Anavha.”

  Zezili snorted. “Fine irony, there.” She scratched at her chest again. “Fucking shit,” she said, and pulled up the tunic.

  A raised red welt the size of Lilia’s palm was pressed into Zezili’s skin. The shape was instantly familiar: the trefoil with the tail, the one Lilia’s mother had warded into her skin, the mark of the fifth temple, the one Kalinda had put into the box with Zezili’s bones. The skin was rubbed raw and irritated.

  “Itches like Rhea’s cunt,” Zezili said.

  “Don’t touch it!” Lilia said.

  “What is that?” Roh said.

  Lilia peered at the welt. Pressed her finger against it. The skin did not give. It was as if the silver trefoil Kalinda had put in the box had fused with Zezili’s chest.

  “A key?” Lilia said. “Kalinda put this piece in the box with you. She said we’d need it if we entered the fifth temple.”

  “Who is Kalinda?” Roh said.

  Zezili waved a hand at him. “I’ve been asking her the same thing. Don’t bother. Do you have any blood on you? Any you’d part with?”

  Roh said, “There is something deeply wrong with you.”

  “No shit,” Zezili said. “What the fuck are you two talking about?”

  “Saving the world,” Lilia said, tapping the symbol again.

  “Fuck, enough!” Zezili said, jerking her tunic back down. “Why are we still talking about that? All these people are running the fuck away, which frankly, is a better fucking idea than any of the ones I’ve heard.” Zezili grimaced at the porridge smeared all over the table. “That looks awful.”

  “Roh, if you’ve read that book, you know how to not just close the worlds, but… you know how to send the Tai Mora back, don’t you? How to… kill them?”

  Roh shook his head. “I… Li, if we’re going to do this, it shouldn’t be for revenge. If we leave it alone, the Tai Mora will close the ways between the worlds, and that’s that.”

  “But, it can do so much more–”

  “It can, but I don’t think they’ll figure that out. At least, I hope not.”

  “Hope is in short supply,” Zezili said.

  “I’m sorry, Li,” Roh said. “I just… I really don’t know. Let me think about this a little more, all right? Seeing everyone here has… I just need to think.”

  “Roh–”

  “I’m going to help Kadaan.”

  “How? You’re going to watch?” It came out crueler than she meant.

  His face flushed. “Don’t blame me,” Roh said, “because you have nothing left to live for.” He took his empty bowl with him and returned it to the kitchen tent. Then he stuffed his hands into his pockets and turned to the beach, the wind whipping his hair.

  Zezili hooted. Slapped the table. “He must know you very well, to dig like that.”

  “We were friends once.”

  “I’ve never had friends.”

  “That doesn’t surprise me.”

  “Nah,” Zezili said. “We are just alike.”

  Lilia recoiled. “We are nothing alike.”

  “We get what we want. I do it with violence. You do it with deception. Weak little liar.”

  “I’ve never gotten anything I wanted!”

  “I keep thinking I’ll be like you, sacrificing myself for some bad cause–”

  “Why, when there are so many good ones?” Lilia sneered.

  “Don’t cat-talk me, kid.”

  “I should have left you in your stupid box,” Lilia said.

  “I would have liked that. I wouldn’t be so fucking itchy!”

  “I’m not like you,” Lilia repeated.

  “Yeah, well, keep telling yourself that.”

  Lilia got up. “I’m going to go find someone in charge.”

  “Sure,” Zezili said. She leaned closer to her. “Mind bleeding out a little here, into my cup, before you go? It’s so good.”

  “Go murder something,” Lilia said. She left Zezili staring morosely into her empty cup and made her way around the camp. She noted that the smell of smoke had gotten stronger. A few of the others commented on it; a runner had been sent out.

  Lilia tried to figure out which of the Woodland Dhai elders to speak to, but everyone insisted there were no leaders. They were a collective. Lilia wanted to cry with frustration.

  Maybe if she went back to Meyna… Meyna…! and Yisaoh with Zezili by her side, it would be more difficult to throw her out again. Zezili could protect her from the bone tree again. Lilia shivered at the memory. There was still time. She could make it right. She had come too far, given up too much, to stop now.

  She walked along the edge of the camp, brooding. Lilia felt a prickling along her spine and turned, expecting to see Zezili creeping around, but Zezili still sat at the table, talking to another Dhai, probably attempting to weasel him out of his blood, or take it outright. Lilia swept her gaze across the camp as a cool sea wind tickled her hair across her face. What was that feeling?

  And then Lilia saw him emerge from the woods, stepping on the heads of early blooming poppies. Behind him was a little figure, Dhai certainly, with tangled hair twisted back into braided knots. The Dhai person, she did not know, but his face she would never, could never forget.

  Lilia stared.

  He did not see her at first. Two of the camp’s scouts accompanied him, and his gaze swept the camp, presumably looking for someone in charge.

  He saw her.

  Taigan touched his thumb to his forehead in Lilia’s direction. That was a particularly cruel touch, she thought.

  He crossed the camp and came right up to her, as if no time had passed, as if he had not abandoned her at the harbor wall, broken and burned out. As if they were good friends separated by circumstances.

  “I suspected you outlasted them, little bird,” Taigan said.

  “We are both difficult to kill, it seems,” she said slowly. It came out more confident than it felt.

  “Life is full of little ironies,” Taigan said, and his mouth turned up at the corners. The figure behind him wore long tattered trousers and a short coat, both of Tai Mora make. The features, the slender figure, the dark hair and eyes, could be either Dhai or Tai Mora. Had Taigan brought around another spy? “I believe we can be of help to one another.”

  “I can’t imagine,” Lilia said, “how a burned out omajista you once threw off a cliff could possibly help you in any way.”

  “You would be serving yourself, of course. Ending this conflict with the Tai Mora. Isn’t that what we both want?”

  “Is it?” Lilia said. “You left me on the wall.”

  “I was compelled home. I was not my own, then. You understand.”

  “I don’t.”

  “I have a very brilliant plan.”

  “I’m sure,” Lilia said. “You always do
.”

  “It is,” Taigan said, “a brilliant plan, that is, but I can’t take credit for it. Luna can explain it in more depth,” and he acknowledged the figure beside him with a tilt of his head. “There’s a… device that channels the power of the satellites. We can use it to close the seams between the worlds.”

  Lilia laughed. “I have heard of it. Is that why you came here?”

  “That is a pertinent question,” Taigan said, “one I also wish had a different answer to. I was looking for the Saiduan allies that your little camp had made. You know your Catori, Meyna, she intends to run off with them.”

  “I don’t have time for you,” Lilia said. She turned away.

  “Ah, wait,” Taigan said. “I’m here because I know I was right all along.”

  “That was a revelation?”

  “Let’s say Luna is very familiar with how these temples, the engines, the beasts inside of them, operate. Luna has enlightened me during our many long days together.”

  “Roh is also familiar with it,” Lilia said. “We don’t need a second person.”

  “Roh?” Luna’s eyes widened. It was the first thing they had said.

  “Rohinmey,” Lilia said, “yes.”

  “I need to find him, Taigan,” Luna said, breathless.

  “Down on the beach,” Lilia said. “The path is there, middle of camp.”

  Luna ran. It clicked for Lilia, then. Was this the same Luna, the one Roh had fled south with? The other one who had originally translated the book?

  Something the creature in Tira’s temple had said came back to her. The heavens themselves will draw them together. She glanced up at the sky, the baleful eye of Oma, sparkling violet Sina, shimmering green Tira.

  “Listen,” Taigan said, leaning so close he startled her. “Luna was always a better translator than the boy. Suffice to say that though our people can power it, it was designed for one such as you to operate it. It’s a bit complicated, but you have time to learn it.”

  “One such as me?”

  “Someone motivated by revenge.”

  “Luna knows how to operate it?”

  “More or less.”

  “That doesn’t inspire confidence.”

  “Yes, well, what does these days?”

  “I don’t have any allies anymore, Taigan.”

  “You have me!” he said brightly. “What more do you need?”

  “Taigan, the last time–”

  “Yes, yes, the matter of the cliff. But this time I am much more confident. I have been proven right. I like it when I’m right.”

  “We can’t do this, just the two of us.”

  “Three, with Luna! You are so hesitant. The Lilia I knew was bolder.”

  “She was also gifted,” Lilia said.

  “Not that you did much with it.”

  “You are so cheerfully unpleasant,” Lilia said.

  “What’s the use of being miserably unpleasant, really?” Taigan said.

  “I just… I don’t know if we can do this without allies from Meyna, or Yisaoh.” Lilia chewed at her fingernail. Taigan, Luna, Roh… she tried fitting all the pieces together. With Taigan they had one more omajista. With Luna – another person who could help navigate the temples, maybe? A Key and a Worldbreaker. Was Zezili the Key? Meyna and Ahkio were useless except in getting her access to more jistas. How to get into the fifth temple? That was the trick. How to convince Maralah and her people to help. What did Maralah have to gain? Everyone wanted to run away.

  “Oh, well, you can ask them all about it soon,” Taigan said.

  “What?”

  “You haven’t heard?” Taigan snorted. “Oh, it’s all the Woodland Dhai can natter about. We stayed with some of them for a few days on the journey here. The smoke? The Tai Mora just invaded your little pacifist Kai’s camp. Your Dhai friends are on their way here. What a happy reunion we’ll all have!”

  “What!” Lilia cried. “How did the Tai Mora find them? I worked so hard to protect–”

  Taigan tilted his head to the sky.

  “What is it?” Lilia asked, following his gaze.

  “Well,” he said. “This is interesting.”

  31

  When Gian and her retinue had gone, Kirana went down to the Sanctuary to spend time with her children. They were alone at a far table. Their nursemaid was picking through the library stacks, presumably for something appropriate, considering their position here. As Kirana sat with them, Tasia nattered on brightly about what they had been learning, mostly Tai Mora history, which all three found fairly interesting, as it was largely about their immediate ancestors.

  Tasia, Kirana thought, smoothing back the girl’s dark hair from her face, my Tasia. Surely her children were the best versions possible. The only ones worth saving. Surely.

  Corina and Moira, the elder two, were engaged in some memory game that Kirana only half paid attention to.

  “When will Mam be with us?” Moira said as they finished their game. She had asked every day.

  “Soon,” Kirana said.

  “You keep saying that,” Corina said. “It’s never happening, is it?” Brash, that one, little chin jutting toward her, dark eyes defiant.

  “Hush, now,” Kirana said. “I got you all over, didn’t I? I saved us all, haven’t I? When have I ever lied?”

  Tasia smiled brightly. “You never did, Mama,” she said. “You came for me too!”

  Kirana kissed her forehead. “Of course I did. I always keep my promises. Always.”

  Dhai servants brought in dinner, and they ate together under the light of Oma streaming through the dome above. When they were done, their nursemaid took them up for baths and rest. Kirana watched them go, and then sat alone in the vast chamber, relishing the silence.

  Kirana did not believe in any gods. Perhaps that was her personal failing. They were useful ways to explain the horror of the skies, and the random chance that gave one person unconscionable power and another a terrible craving for drink that murdered their guts and ruined their lives. It wasn’t fair. It was simply life.

  She pulled over one of the books Tasia had been reading. Something about raising dogs. Kirana realized that what she wanted more than anything was simply to raise daughters who were happy farmers and herders. Maybe a village elder or two.

  The light in the room flickered, as if a great cloud were passing over Oma’s eye. She squinted, still peering into the book. The lights began to flicker more intensely. She had to cover her eyes, fearful of a headache.

  Hurried footsteps came from the hall. She opened her eyes, shielding her vision as she closed the book. One of the big Sanctuary doors creaked open.

  Yivsa came in, breathless. “Did you see the sky?”

  “What?” Kirana raised her gaze to the ceiling. The sky seemed to be spinning. She had to look away, overcome by vertigo. “What is–?”

  “It’s time,” Yivsa said

  Kirana stood, still a little wobbly. The light in the chamber flashed: red, blue, green, purple lightning. She needed to get out of here before it made her sick. “Give the order. Get them all into place. Is Gian still here?”

  “Already en route back to the ark, but I can get a runner.”

  “Do it. Tell Madah I want a report from her assault on that camp full of Saiduan.”

  Kirana cast one last glance back into the room. She rested her hand on the skin of the temple. “Let’s finish this, you fucker,” she muttered, and closed the door behind her.

  The sky shimmered.

  Lilia had to shield her eyes. Something winked at them, a flickering blue star. A cracking boom filled the air.

  The ground shuddered.

  When Lilia looked again, Para gazed back at her, the three satellites sitting diagonally in the sky, with the larger, spinning mass of red Oma whirling closer and closer to them, as if threatening to burst them apart.

  A brilliant cascade of bluish-amber light filled the sky. It was eerie, like something from a dream. The great face of Oma winked
at her as the other satellites began to fall into orbit around it, blinking and flashing like something alive. Tira, Para, Sina, three pieces broken away from a much larger object, lining up again for the first time in two thousand years.

  Cries came from the camp, all around them. The world looked, collectively, to the sky.

  The satellites began to pulse and dance. They aligned themselves into orbit around Oma.

  “Oh no,” Lilia breathed.

  Zezili ran up to her, huffing. “What the fuck…?” she said, and moved to shield Lilia, as if expected the stars to explode.

  Maralah, from the head of the cavern trail, climbed back up into the camp. “We knew this was coming!” Maralah called. Behind her, Kadaan helped Roh up, both of them scrambling across the camp.

  But no one could have known this was coming, really, Lilia thought. No one had seen this happen in two thousand years.

  Sina, Para, and Tira began to slowly rotate around Oma, so near it was as if they were creating a new sun in the bleary violet sky.

  “If those things collide, we might be fucked,” Zezili said. “I mean, shit, nothing you can do now, huh?”

  “The hand of Oma,” Lilia said. “If only they would.”

  The three satellites, rotating around the fourth, instead came so close to one another’s orbits that they had the appearance of a single flickering eye spilling ghostly red-violet light across the world.

  Maralah strode across the camp toward them. Lilia took her gaze away from the sky, glanced back at Taigan.

  “You!” Maralah said, and while the sky seethed, the air all around Lilia grew heavy as spoiled milk.

  Taigan waved at Maralah. “Hello, Maralah! It’s been an age. Isn’t this delightful? No one has seen such a show in two thousand years! What a time to be alive.”

  Lilia’s ears popped.

  “Maralah!” Lilia called. “Don’t! He’s here to… help. Inasmuch as Taigan helps. Don’t start using your gift here! Not now!”

  Maralah stared at Lilia as if she were mad. “I’m not!” she said. “Who is… Are you pulling, Taigan? I’m not calling Sina.”