Gods. Men. Damn him; he should’ve asked me. I could die giving birth to you, after all. Probably not, but it’s the principle of the thing.
Well.
I hope you’re listening, because sometimes gods—and demons—do that. I think that you’re awake, aware, and that you understand everything I’ve said.
Because I think I saw you, yesterday morning when I woke up. I think my eyes worked again, just for a moment, and you were the light I saw.
I think that if I wait ’til dawn and watch closely, I’ll see you again this morning.
And I think that if I wait long enough and listen carefully, one day I’ll hear footsteps on the road outside. Maybe a knock at the door. He’ll have learned basic courtesy by then from someone. We can hope for that, can’t we? Either way, he’ll come inside. He’ll wipe his feet, at least. He’ll hang his coat.
And then you and I, together, will welcome him home.
APPENDIX
1
A Glossary of Terms
Amn: Most populous and powerful of the Senmite races.
Arameri: Ruling family of the Amn; advisors to the Nobles’ Consortium and the Order of Itempas.
Art Row: Artists’ market at the Promenade, in East Shadow.
Blood sigil: The mark of a recognized Arameri family member.
Bonebender: A healer, often self-taught, with knowledge of herbalism, midwifery, bonesetting, and basic surgical techniques. Some bonebenders illegally utilize simple healing sigils.
Bright, the: The time of Itempas’s solitary rule, after the Gods’ War. General term for goodness, order, law, righteousness.
Darkwalkers: Worshippers of the Lord of Shadows.
Dateh Lorillalia: A scrivener, formerly of the Order of Itempas. Husband of Serymn Arameri.
Dekarta Arameri: Most recent former head of the Arameri family.
Demon: Children of forbidden unions between gods/godlings and mortals. Mortal, though they may possess innate magic that is equivalent, or greater, to that of godlings in strength.
Dump: A godling who dwells in West Shadow, overseeing the Shustocks junkyard. The Lord of Discards.
Easha: Local term for East Shadow.
Enefa: One of the Three. Former Goddess of Earth, creator of godlings and mortals, Mistress of Twilight and Dawn (deceased).
Eo: A godling who dwells in Shadow. The Merciful.
Gateway Park: A park built around Sky and the World Tree’s base, in East Shadow.
God: Immortal children of the Maelstrom. The Three.
Godling: Immortal children of the Three. Sometimes also referred to as gods.
Godsblood: A popular and expensive narcotic. Confers heightened awareness and temporary magical abilities on consumers.
God spots: Local/colloquial name for locations in Shadow that have been temporarily or permanently made magical by godlings.
Gods’ Realm: All places beyond the universe.
Gods’ War: An apocalyptic conflict in which Bright Itempas claimed rulership of the heavens after defeating his two siblings.
Hado: A member of the New Lights. Master of Initiates.
Heavens, Hells: Abodes for souls beyond the mortal realm.
Heretic: A worshipper of any god but Itempas.
High North: Northernmost continent. A backwater.
House of the Risen Sun: A mansion. One of several attached to the World Tree’s trunk.
Hundred Thousand Kingdoms, the: Collective term for the world since its unification under Arameri rule.
Ina: A godling who dwells in Shadow.
Interdiction, the: The period during which no godlings appeared in the mortal realm, per order of Bright Itempas.
Islands, the: Vast archipelago east of High North and Senm.
Itempan: General term for a worshipper of Itempas. Also used to refer to members of the Order of Itempas.
Itempas: One of the Three. The Bright Lord; master of heavens and earth; the Skyfather.
Kitr: A godling who dwells in Shadow. The Blade.
Lil: A godling who dwells in Shadow. The Hunger.
Madding: A godling who dwells in Shadow. The Lord of Debts.
Maelstrom: The creator of the Three. Unknowable.
Magic: The innate ability of gods and godlings to alter the material and immaterial world. Mortals may approximate this ability through the use of the gods’ language.
Maroland, the: Smallest continent, which once existed to the east of the islands; site of the first Arameri palace. Destroyed by Nahadoth.
Mortal realm: The universe, created by the Three.
Nahadoth: One of the Three. The Nightlord. Also called the Lord of Shadows.
Nemmer: A godling who dwells in Shadow. The Lady of Secrets.
Nimaro Reservation: A protectorate of the Arameri, established after the Maroland’s destruction to provide a home for survivors. Located at the southeast edge of the Senm continent.
Nobles’ Consortium: Ruling political body of the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.
Oboro: A godling who dwells in Shadow.
Order of Itempas: The priesthood dedicated to Bright Itempas. In addition to spiritual guidance, also responsible for law and order, education, public health and welfare, and the eradication of heresy. Also known as the Itempan Order.
Order-Keepers: Acolytes (priests in training) of the Order of Itempas, responsible for maintenance of public order.
Order of New Light: An unauthorized priesthood dedicated to Bright Itempas, comprised mainly of former members of the Order of Itempas. Colloquially known as the “New Lights.”
Paitya: A godling who dwells in Shadow. The Terror.
Pilgrim: Worshippers of the Gray Lady who journey to Shadow to pray at the World Tree. Generally High Northers.
Previt: One of the higher rankings for priests of the Order of Itempas.
Promenade, the: Northernmost edge of Gateway Park in East Shadow. A site popular with pilgrims, due to its view of the World Tree. Also the site of Art Row and the city’s largest White Hall.
Role: A godling who dwells in Shadow. The Lady of Compassion.
Salon: Headquarters for the Nobles’ Consortium.
Script: A series of sigils, used by scriveners to produce complex or sequential magical effects.
Scrivener: A scholar of the gods’ written language.
Senm: Southernmost and largest continent of the world.
Senmite: The Amn language, used as a common tongue for all the Hundred Thousand Kingdoms.
Serymn Arameri: An Arameri fullblood, husband of Dateh Lorillalia. Owner of the House of the Risen Sun.
Shadow: Local/colloquial name for the largest city on the Senm continent (official name is Sky).
Shahar Arameri: High priestess of Itempas at the time of the Gods’ War. Her descendants are the Arameri family.
Shustocks: A neighborhood in Wesha.
Sieh: A godling, also called the Trickster. Eldest of all the godlings.
Sigil: An ideograph of the gods’ language, used by scriveners to imitate the magic of the gods.
Sky: Official name of the largest city on the Senm continent. Also, the palace of the Arameri family.
Strafe: A city along the northwestern coast of the Senm continent.
Teman Protectorate, the: A Senmite kingdom.
Time of the Three: Before the Gods’ War.
T’vril Arameri: Current head of the Arameri family.
Velly: A cold-water fish, normally smoked and salted. A Maroneh delicacy.
Wesha: Local term for West Shadow.
White Hall: The Order of Itempas’s houses of worship, education, and justice.
World Tree, the: A leafy evergreen tree estimated to be 125,000 feet in height, created by the Gray Lady. Sacred to worshippers of the Lady.
Yeine: One of the Three. The current Goddess of Earth, Mistress of Twilight and Dawn. Also called the Gray Lady.
APPENDIX
2
Historical Record; First Scriveners’ notes, volu
me 96; from the collection of T’vril Arameri.
(Interview conducted and originally transcribed by First Scrivener Y’li Denai/Arameri, at Sky, year 1512 of the Bright, may He shine upon us forever. Recorded in fixed messaging sphere. Secondary transcription completed by Librarian Sheta Arameri, year 2250 of the Bright. WARNING: contains heretical references, marked “HR.” Used with permission of the Litaria.)
FIRST SCRIVENER Y’LI ARAMERI: Are you comfortable?
NEMUE SARFITH ENULAI1: Should I be?
YA: Of course. You are a guest of the Arameri, Enulai Sarfith.
NS: Exactly! (laughs) I suppose I should enjoy it while I can. I doubt you’ll have many more Maro guests here in the future.
YA: I see you’ve decided not to use the new word. Maroneh2—
NS: Three words, actually, in the old tongue. Maro n neh. Nobody says it right. Too much of a mouthful. I was Maro all my life; I’ll be Maro ’til I die. Not long, now.
YA: For the record, would you be willing to state your age?
NS: The Father has blessed me with two hundred and two years.
YA: (laughs) I was told you liked to claim that age.
NS: You believe I’m lying?
YA: Well… madam—I mean, Enulai…
NS: Call me what you like. But remember that enulai always speak the truth, boy. Lying is dangerous. And I wouldn’t bother lying about something so trivial as my age. So write it down!
YA: Yes, madam. I have done so.
NS: You Amn never listen. In the days following the War,3 we warned you to respect the Dark Father (HR). He is not our enemy—we told you—even if he is Bright Itempas’s. Before the War, he loved us better than Enefa (HR) herself. The things you must have done to him, to fill his heart with such rage.
YA: Madam, please. We do not speak… that name you mentioned, the—
NS: What? Enefa? (shouts) Enefa, Enefa, Enefa!
YA: (sighs)
NS: Roll your eyes at me one more time.
YA: My apologies for disrespecting you, madam. It is only… The absolute dominance of Itempas is the fundamental principle of the Bright.
NS: I love the White Lord as much as you do. It was my people He chose as the model for His mortal appearance (HR), and we were the first to receive His blessing of knowledge (HR). Mathematics and astronomy and writing and—all of that, all of it, we did it before any of you Senmites, or those ignorant bastards up in the north, or that bunch of pirates on the islands. Yet for all He gave us, we have always remembered that He is one of Three. Without His siblings, He is nothing (HR).
YA: Madam!
NS: Report me to your family head if you like. What will he do, kill me? Destroy my people? I have nothing left to lose, boy. That’s the only reason I came.
YA: Because the Maro royal family is gone.4
NS: No, fool, because the Maro are gone. Oh, if we get to making babies, there might be enough of us to limp along for a while longer, but we’ll never be what we were. You Amn will never let us get that strong again.
YA: Er, yes, madam. But specifically, it was the duty of the enulai to serve the royal family, was it not? As, ah, let’s see, bodyguards and storytellers—
NS: Historians.
YA: Well, yes, but much of that history… I have a list here… legends and myths…
NS: It was all true.
YA: Madam, really.
NS: Why did you bother to invite me here?
YA: Because I am a historian as well.
NS: Then listen. That’s the most important thing any historian can do. Hear clearly with just your ears, not with ten thousand Amn lies garbling everything—
YA: But, madam, an example, one of the enulai stories recorded… the tale of the Fish Goddess.
NS: Yes. Yiho, of the Shoth clan, though they’re all dead now, too, I suppose.
YA: The tale speaks of her sitting by a river for three days during a famine and causing schools of ocean fish to swim up the river—from salt water to fresh water—and fling themselves into nets.
NS: Yes, yes. And ever since then, those breeds of fish have continued to swim up the river to spawn, every year. She changed them forever.
YA: But that’s… Is the tale from before the War? Was this Yiho a godling?
NS: No, of course not. She dies an old woman at the end of the tale, doesn’t she?
YA: Well, then—
NS: Though the gods had many children.
YA: (pause) My gods. (sound of a blow) Ah!
NS: That’s for blaspheming.
YA: I don’t believe this. (sighs) You’re right, my apologies. I forgot myself. I was only… You’re suggesting that the woman described in the tale was… was a half-breed, a child of the gods—
NS: All of us are children of the gods. But Yiho was special.
YA: (silence)
NS: (laughs) What’s that I see in your pale eyes, boy? Have you suddenly started listening? Figures.
YA: Remembering, actually. Many of the Maro stories in my records prominently feature enulai themselves.
NS: Yes, go on…
YA: Every member of the royal family had an enulai. The enulai would educate them, advise them, protect them from danger.
NS: (laughs) Get to the point, boy. I’m not getting any younger.
YA: Protect them, often using strange abilities that the Litaria has designated unlikely or impossible—
NS: Because you scriveners don’t make your own magic. You borrow it, secondhand, using the gods’ language. But if you spoke the magic yourselves—if that didn’t kill you—or, better still, if you could simply will a thing into being, you could do all that the gods do. And more.
YA: Enulai Sarfith, I wish you had not told me this.
NS: (laughs)
YA: You know what I must do.
NS: (more laughter) Ah, boy. What does it matter? I am the last descendant of Enulai—daughter of Enefa, last-born of the mortal gods who chose to spend their brief days among humankind. All the Maro’s kings and queens are dead. All my children and grandchildren are dead. All of us who carried the Gray Mother’s blood—we’re as dead as she is. Why should I bother hiding anymore?
YA: (speaks to a servant, sending for guards)
NS: (while he speaks, softly) All gone, demonkind. All gone. No need to search for more. None left.5
YA: I’m sorry. (garbled)
NS: Don’t be. (garbled) destroyed the last of demonkind. No need to search for more now.
YA: No need to search for more.
NS: There are no demons left in the world, anywhere.
YA: None left. (garbled, until the guards come) Farewell, Enulai. I’m sorry it had to turn out this way.
NS: (laughing) I’m not. Good-bye, boy.
[Interview ends]6
extras
meet the author
N. K. Jemisin
N. K. JEMISIN is a career counselor, political blogger, and would-be gourmand living in New York City. She’s been writing since the age of ten, although her early works will never see the light of day. Find out more about the author at www.nkjemisin.com.
introducing
If you enjoyed
THE BROKEN KINGDOMS,
look out for
THE KINGDOM OF GODS
Book Three of the Inheritance Trilogy
by N. K. Jemisin
I was sitting corporeal at the top of the Nowhere Stair, sulking, when the children found me. Total chance, that. Mortals think we plan everything. Oh, how I wish life were as simple as they thought we gods had made it.
They were a matched set. Six years old—I am good at gauging ages in mortals, at least the young ones—bright-eyed, quick-minded, like children who have had good food and space to run and pleasures to stimulate the soul. The boy was dark-haired and dark-eyed and dark-skinned, tall for his age, solemn. The girl was blonde and green-eyed and pale, intent. Pretty, both of them. Richly dressed. And little tyrants, as Arameri tended to be even at that age.
“Yo
u will assist us,” said the girl in a haughty tone.
I stared at her, torn between amazement and amusement. She had no idea who—or what—I was; that much was clear. The boy, who looked less certain, glanced from her to me and said nothing.
“Arameri brats on the loose,” I drawled. “Someone’s going to get in trouble for letting you two run into me down here.”
At this they both looked apprehensive, and I realized the problem: they were lost. We were in the underpalace, those levels beneath Sky’s bulk that sit in near-permanent shadow and which had once been the demesne of the palace’s lowblood servants—though clearly that was no longer the case. A layer of dust coated the floors all around us, and aside from the two in front of me, there was no scent of mortals anywhere nearby. How long had they been wandering down here? They looked tired and frazzled and depleted by despair.
Which they covered with belligerence. “You will instruct us in how we might reach the overpalace,” said the girl, “or guide us there.” She thought a moment, then lifted her chin and added, “Do this now, or it will not go well with you!”
I couldn’t help it. I laughed. It was just too perfect: her fumbling attempt at hauteur, their extremely poor luck in meeting me, all of it. Once upon a time, little girls like her had made my life a hell, ordering me about and giggling while I contorted myself to obey. Now I was free to see this one as she truly was: just a frightened creature parroting the mannerisms of her parents, with no more notion of how to ask for what she wanted than how to fly.
And sure enough, when I laughed, she scowled and put her hands on her hips and poked out her bottom lip in a way that I have always adored in children. (In adults it is infuriating.) Her brother, who seemed sweeter-natured, was beginning to glower, too. Delightful.
The Broken Kingdoms: Book Two of the Inheritance Trilogy Page 33
