Silence of the Soleri

by Michael Johnston

  “But I am not simply your first citizen. I am the patron of the Horu, master of the flamines. Why, you ask? Because Horu feasts upon souls, and I intend to deliver up a great many of them. Shall I send the Harkans to my god?” he asked, and the crowd once more erupted in applause. “Shall I send Barca and his traitors to the underworld?” They applauded again.

  Wat bent his head and whispered, “A man cannot rule Solus without a divine sanction, and I think he’s just produced one. We know why he chose the god of death as his master.”

  Sarra had already guessed at what Wat said, but she nodded, her eyes on Mered. He had not yet finished. It seemed this “first citizen” had one last thing to say. The elderly man stood tall and waited a moment while his servants produced another dozen torches. Their light made Mered’s red robes glow like some ruby caught in the setting sun. It was a wonderful display and Sarra supposed the commoners must have found it terribly enchanting, but she couldn’t wait for him to finish.

  “Do I hear any complaints,” Mered asked, finality in his voice, “or does my voice echo with the will of this city?” There was no need to wait for an answer; the applause was immediate and deafening.

  The city roared its approval.

  Even Sarra clapped a bit, just to be a good sport.

  17

  Merit Hark-Wadi threw open the shutters of the carriage and thrust her head out of the window. She had at last arrived in Solus. It was her first visit to the city of the gods, so it was no surprise that she came here with suspicion, with a heart full of worry and a head stuffed with questions. She had no idea where she was headed or what would happen when she got there. The false king of Harkana had simply packed her up and sent her off to the capital. He knew she held the favor of the commoners of Harkana. She’d spent a lifetime currying it. He could not place her in some cage. If the people heard of it, they’d rise up against him. She’d been all but king during her father’s long absences from the throne. I was their ruler, and I’ll rule them again, she told herself, if only to settle her nerves.

  Merit’s eyes slowly adjusted to the light. The world came back into focus and her thoughts did something similar. She was in Solus, and everything was strange. The stones of the city’s vast promenade were as foreign as the faces that looked down from every window. The streets stretched to infinity, and every corner was stuffed with statues, each commemorating some forgotten hero or long-ago war. There was too much to take in, too many spectacles. There were pools and fountains, great displays of dancing water, dazzling to the eye and decadent beyond all measure. And each monument was taller than the last one. Everything carried a sense of arrogance. It was a pompous place, no doubt populated by pompous folk.

  She disliked it immediately.

  Harwen was a humble city. Only a handful of structures stretched above a single story. Here, banners waved from buildings of improbable height. Most were four or five stories tall and at first she guessed that was common, but after seeing a few more blocks, the four- and five-story buildings seemed abruptly unimpressive. There were even taller ones near the city’s center. Her bruises ached, but the wonders made Merit forget the pain, at least for the moment. The monuments and temples, the great public structures, quickly outnumbered the homes and other smaller buildings. They’d reached the edge of the city center and had come upon something truly novel: the White-Wall district, or at least that’s what she thought she’d found. She’d heard of it, of course. It was the place where the wellborn made their homes, where they quartered their armies and tended their vast gardens. The White-Wall district was, in fact, a city within a city, and each domicile was in itself another city within that one. Each had its calcium-white walls, which were twice, sometimes three times, her height. Only through slots and narrow gates could she catch glimpses of the marvels beyond: gardens lush with exotic flowers, trees pruned in the most absurd fashions. This was a place of splendor, and there was something decidedly un-Harkan about it. It was a little too clean for her taste, too perfect for the kind of perfection she preferred.

  At the curb, she noticed a block of white marble fit carefully among the other stones. The word “SAAD” was meticulously incised into the stone. She guessed it was the street name. The wall stretched the length of the road and there was only one door in it, so she supposed there was only one house behind the wall and only one family inside it. Merit Hark-Wadi was reasonably certain she’d arrived at the house of Saad. It was grand enough, and old. Above the wall, which was already too tall, she glimpsed the ancient structure. Merit knew it by name and reputation. The Cloud Garden was one of the fabled wonders of the realm, a great house whose origin stretched back to a time before the birth of the empire, to the Amber Age of the Middle Kingdom. The long terraces jutted out in every direction, hanging like leafless branches. And at the top, almost too distant to discern, she saw a line of green dangling from the uppermost level of the structure.

  Merit was still glancing out the carriage window when the guard flung open the door.

  “Come now,” he said. His name was Assen, and he’d accompanied her on the journey from Harwen. He was a Soleri man, hair black and cut short at the neck, clean-shaven too. The trip was only a day’s ride, but he’d hardly spoken a word to her as they crossed the Plague Road. She’d asked her share of questions, but the man had kept his lips shut. In fact, up until that moment, he’d done little more than trace the curve of her breast with his eyes, and he’d done that more times than she could count or countenance for that matter.

  “Ah, you do speak,” she said as she let herself out of the carriage. “I thought only your eyes worked, and even those seemed fixed in only one spot,” she said, her supple breasts bunching together as she passed through the narrow carriage door. “Tell me, Assen, what’s all that going on in the distance?” Farther off, in the city center, voices rang out, sistrums banged. There was a celebration, or so she gathered.

  “It’s the Opening of the Mundus, a feast my patron sponsored.”

  “Your patron?”

  “Yes, the house of Saad paid for the thing.”

  “I see, and which Saad is that? I’ve heard Amen is unavailable of late, so who is it?” she asked, smirking, angry, but most of all tired and not willing to admit it. She was exhausted in every possible way, her body bruised, her thoughts a jumble. Every bump in the road had elicited some ache or other pain. Every inch of her throbbed from the beating she’d taken, but she put on the best face she could manage, and since it was the only part of her that wasn’t bruised she did a fair job of it.

  “You’ll see whomever you see. From what I’ve been told, you’re nothing but a sand-eating ransom, so I doubt you’ll find more comfort than a servant,” Assen replied. He took her roughly by the arm and led her through the tall bronze gates, past two spearmen, and a row of shields. It was early in the day, but there were signs of revelry in the house. Some sort of feast had transpired the night before and was perhaps still in progress. Men and women, obviously wellborn, lay unconscious in the gardens, their clothes and hair disheveled. Some were braced against trees, and more than one had his or her face in the sand. There were noble women half-stripped and others wearing less.

  “I suppose I missed the celebration?” she asked.

  “Something like that. Yesterday was just the first of two banquets, part of the opening, but I doubt you’d know about such things.”

  “Feel free to enlighten me,” said Merit. It did not appear as though she’d missed much more than a good party. “Is this the patron’s house?”

  Assen started to nod, but caught himself midway through the act.

  That’s interesting. It definitely narrowed the list. There was only a handful men who could afford the extravagance of a citywide festival. She guessed this was Mered or Tarkhen Saad, the remaining brothers of Raden, the old Protector, the man who’d stood against her grandfather. She’d committed all of their names to memory. One had to know their enemies after all.

  Assen left
her with a clutch of spearmen, disappearing without a word or gesture, leaving her to stand alone among the soldiers.

  She did not wait long.

  Others took Merit. The men, their robes stitched with gold, were more finely dressed than the carriage driver, and they had manners to suit their attire. She guessed they were her patron’s private guard. “I am Abet,” said the tallest of the bunch. He had a thin face and an even thinner nose, and his teeth were white, which was rare in Harkana but was perhaps common here. She’d never seen a fighting man who bothered to keep his teeth looking shiny. “Up the steps?” she asked. A broad staircase stood before her.

  “To the top,” said Abet, pointing and bowing slightly. The man was well spoken, his words carrying the accent of the highborn, or at least the servant of the highborn. Abet wore a woolen mantle, which must have felt miserable beneath the midday sun, but he showed no sign of perspiration. “It’s a long walk,” he said. “Come.” And she did. The steps were, of course, shaded, but not by any fixed structure. Servants held aloft great plumes of what she guessed were ostrich feathers, fanning Merit and the soldiers, waving at her as she made her way up the steps. She scaled a series of stairs, doubling back at each terrace and climbing again, higher and higher, until, at last, she could see above the palace’s white wall.

  She set eyes upon the great city, and a sense of melancholy came over Merit. Her father had ruled here, and these same people had taken his life, all within the span of a few weeks.

  She glared at Solus through a red haze.

  As she crested the last tread a man greeted her with a slight bow, then straightened himself to reveal flowing red robes and a face sheathed partially in muslin, his hair concealed by a deep cowl.

  “Come, Merit of Harkana, I’m sure you’re eager to see my garden. It’s the only one of its kind,” he said, walking with her, waving away Abet. A wide promenade ringed the uppermost terrace, and she quickly realized it was that line of green she’d spotted from the street. Wreathed in folds of leafy plants, the trellis pulsed with color, every inch of it blossoming with life. Merit was a desert girl. She marveled at the lushness of it, at the bright-green leaves and iridescent flowers. From lemon to ochre, a hundred shades of yellow accompanied a hundred different aromas. It almost made her head spin. This might as well be another world. And perhaps it was—the gardens were fashioned by the Soleri, gods who were said to have descended from another realm, not this earth but Atum, the home from before time.

  “You’ve imported the flora?” she asked, the question sounding almost silly. But if he wanted to exhibit his wealth, she might as well let him. Merit knew how to play to a man’s vanity. And besides, a little courtesy might earn her a bit of kindness. Her throat was dry, and her eyes too, and there was water everywhere. Carried through miniature canals, it trickled down onto the plants. It fed the golden poppies and vibrant blue lotus, but it cooled the air as well, restoring her dry eyes and sore throat. If only she had a cup, she could reach out and catch those droplets as they dribbled from the plants.

  The master of the house caught her eye and motioned to some distant servant.

  “In past times, I visited these gardens daily,” he said. “But of late, I’ve had little chance to walk here. I am Mered, but I think you’ve already guessed at that. This is my home, and it has been my family’s home for centuries,” he said, walking, urging her to follow, red robe billowing in the morning breeze. “Did you know that each of the terraces was once draped in flowering plants? You thought this one terrace was an extravagance—didn’t you?”

  “I did,” she admitted. Though even that admission was a bit of a lie; she had thought it to be beyond all extravagance. A servant appeared, cup in hand. The amber in it was cool and Merit took it down in one long draft.

  Mered waited. He seemed to enjoy watching Merit, as if thirst were something he savored, something precious—like his gardens. “We once maintained a dozen such terraces, but now there is only one. See our poverty? The desert takes everything from us, but the sand and heat are not our only foe, nor is the depletion of the amaranth.”

  “What else ails you?”

  “This city, its leadership.”

  “Is the Mother Priestess not a skilled mouthpiece? Do you not heed the words of Tolemy? I’ve heard it said that his every utterance is a poem, that his every command is a holy dictate. Am I wrong?” she asked, looking coy.

  Mered almost chuckled. “The Soleri are silent. They made this place. The Cloud Garden is proof of their existence. Our greatest builders are unable to replicate the construction of these balconies. They cannot make stones that jab at the sky, hanging in the air as if nothing supported them. These terraces are a mystery, as are the Soleri. These balconies should, by all rights, collapse. The whole thing ought to topple over, yet it has stood here for millennia, undisturbed by the shaking of the earth, or my weight. This is not the work of men. I believe in our gods. They once walked these streets and built these palaces, but it is their current whereabouts that concern me. They are silent, and have been for too long—don’t you think?”

  “I don’t pretend to understand their reasoning.”

  “You don’t?” he asked. “Are you certain of those words?” His voice carried an edge, a piercing curiosity. “We all know the story of the Soleri and what happened after the War of the Four, how the gods chose to seclude themselves behind the wall. I don’t believe it. It may contain a piece of the truth, but not all of it. There is a secret history to this empire, or so I believe. Few know it, but I think you’re one of them, Merit Hark-Wadi, daughter of Arko, our most recently deceased Ray. Fathers do tend to share their secrets with their daughters.…”

  “If only Arko had been such a man,” she lied. “But he was a distant father, a king who kept his own counsel. It is a tragedy, but there was no opportunity for me to visit my father while he was Ray, though I do wish that I had seen him in your magnificent city.” She was worried now. He knows something, she thought, or he thinks I know something, and of course I do. I know everything about the dead gods, but I’m not going to share it.

  They had completed a full circle of the terrace. Having shown her the gardens in their entirety, Mered brought her out to a small balcony, a kind of perch, designed, she guessed, for looking out over the city and admiring it.

  “Yes,” he said. “Your father’s tenure was short, but not uneventful. He was after change, but it wasn’t the kind of change the city wanted. I’m giving the people what they desire, but that’s a different matter. It’s your father that concerns me. He sent a great many messages, most of them to Harkana. Many of those were belayed, but I am certain that at least one message reached its recipient. A man you knew carried it. Asher—is it? Asher Hacal, captain of your father’s kingsguard.”

  “He was my father’s man, yes,” said Merit. The last time she’d seen Asher, he was quartered with her army outside Harwen. She assumed he died there. “I heard he was with my father,” she said. “They say he camped outside the wall, waiting for the sun god to take his king’s life.”

  “Asher did wait at the wall. He made a camp on the Field of Osokohn and our soldiers kept watch over him. When your father was made Ray, the doors were opened and Wat’s men ushered him into the city. He served in Arko’s guard and eventually as a messenger. See, your father, as Ray, was privy to knowledge of considerable importance. I think he shared that knowledge with you, and I believe Asher was the one who carried it.”

  “Carried what?”

  “A message of some sort. Only you would know its contents.”

  “Ha! I wish I did. If only he’d reached me. I’m certain it must have been something of great importance. You’ve made me curious now. What sort of secrets do you think my father was keeping?”

  “The sort men die to protect. I think you received that message. See, I’ve already guessed at a bit of what it said. I know why Arko was desperate to send scrolls. There was a secret he wanted to share with his daughter, the quee
n regent of his beloved kingdom.”

  Merit colored her face with impassivity, but Mered’s eyes were on her now, probing, searching for some reaction. He’d find none. She’d stood up to Harkan warlords, angry over one dispute or another. Surely, she could face this old man. She smirked at him, at his veil and the way he hid his face.

  “See that wall?” Mered pointed toward a towering white edifice.

  “The Shroud Wall,” she said. “The Empyreal Domain, where the gods live and die.”

  “Do they?” he asked. “I’ve sent dozens of men over the rim. None returned, but a few shot messages over the barrier, describing what they saw. There are gardens and small fields. There’s enough food to feed the Kiltet, but little more, so what do our gods eat?”

  “I’m no philosopher, I don’t—”

  “Know, yes, you don’t know. Perhaps the Soleri do not eat anything at all. No one knows what goes on behind that wall, but everyone guesses at it. I make educated guesses. There is no food for the Soleri, so there are no Soleri. No one knows the truth, but it is interesting to note that my spies never once saw the Soleri leave their palace. Don’t you find it odd that the sun god’s children choose to live in darkness?”

  “I don’t care where they choose to live or die. In my dreams, they’ve all got swords in their bellies and their heads are hung neatly on stakes.”

  “Lovely. It’s a shame I seldom dream. I prefer action to thought. You see, I sent my nephew into the Empyreal Domain. I wanted to see what he would find, but he failed to return. Like my spies, he disappeared. This is no coincidence. There are secrets in the domain, and those who witness them do not return. I believe the Soleri have left their holy realm, that they’ve gone somewhere else, and in doing so they’ve placed the empire in the hands of the Ray. It’s the only logical explanation for Suten’s bumbling and your father’s too. See, I suspect these things. I have theories, but you have answers—don’t you?” he asked.