“They’re fine,” she said.
“You sure about that?” He was still gazing through the smoke, trying to count his men.
“Yes, they struck only Mered’s men; you saw it.”
“I don’t know what I saw.”
“Neither do I.” Kepi was shaking her head, still out of breath, confused, still wondering if this was all some kind of dream. That was the only reasonable explanation that came to mind, but even her dreams had never held anything like the vision that had flashed before her eyes. It was a delusion, a mirage. She wanted to forget it, but every bit of her was caked in dust and sand, and the stench was already in her nose, reminding her of all she’d witnessed. “What was that…?”
“Don’t know. Don’t think either of us will ever know,” said Ferris. “And I don’t think it matters. The war’s ended, this place is ended.” He gestured toward the rolling sands that were once a city. “It’s all ash and there’s no army, and certainly no one left to fight.”
“I know,” Kepi said as the reality of their situation slowly took hold of her, as she surveyed the ruined city, the field of bodies, and the men left standing. “This is a dead place.” It was true enough. “We’re done here.”
The army of the Ferens rode to where Kepi stood, the men leaping from their horses. Some collapsed to the ground, others simply bent over double. They had ridden nonstop from the high city to the rift, and onward to Solus. They had not taken a moment to pause or rest. When they did, their bodies gave out and they fell to the ground in exhaustion. They had assailed the city of the gods. Tired and out of strength, they had charged the armies of Mered and somehow survived. Ferris went to Baen Muire and he found his sworn men. He was already slapping backs, poking fun at those who had collapsed, and hugging the ones whose exhaustion had overcome their senses. Grown men shed tears; some simply hid their faces.
Ferris found Kepi and gave her a hard knock on the shoulder. “Join us. Let’s find amber and drink till we can’t see straight.”
His offer was tempting. She gripped his shoulder. “A moment, Ferris. There is something I must do first.”
72
The winds left Solus, but the twelve children of Pyras did not.
A man made of flame broke off from the others. His glimmering form entered the Antechamber ruins and the fires swirled around him. Even after the city’s destruction, after nearly every structure was reduced to dust, the Antechamber fire raged. The flames burned higher. The sky turned red and a glowing figure emerged from the pyre, the fires chasing him, coalescing around him and into him, swirling into his clutched hands where a golden citrine sparkled with life.
The Antechamber fire vanished.
All that remained of it was that marvelous little stone, the fires still eddying beneath its surface.
Ren had seen the citrine once before, when Suten Anu had taken off his mask on the last day of the year. The stone was called the Eye of the Sun and it hung upon the Ray’s forehead, but it had not belonged to Suten. For him, it held no power. He was only a steward. He could not wield its strength. Arko could. Ren saw that, but his father hadn’t known it, hadn’t even guessed at it. Oren Thrako, the onetime Prior Master, had called Ren’s father a drunk, and maybe he was right in some sense. Perhaps his father was too overcome by his own self-pity to sense the power within him.
The stone passed into Ren’s hands and he placed it on his brow.
The battle was over and the twelve were gone, vanished into starry dust, gone back to Atum.
Shaking it a bit, Ren sensed some stiffness in his right hand, but he dared not look at it. He knew that if he gave them life, the twelve would take a part of him. Like wood burned by a fire, a part of him would be consumed. His fingers were no longer fingers, and his hand was no longer flesh. The limb was blackened, but it glistened like the stars. He’d paid a price, but he’d also earned himself a boon of sorts.
When he gripped the citrine, memories flooded his mind. They were not his recollections. The figures in them were not familiar, not at first. He saw a younger version of Merit, then Kepi and Sarra, and finally himself, as a three-year-old child. He found Gneuss and Asher too. These were Arko’s memories, and they came to Ren in no particular order but they were all there. A whole lifetime of recollections filled his head. He’d wanted more than anything to know his family, his father. Arko Hark-Wadi was dead, but his memories lived. They were with Ren and they would always be with him. In an instant, he knew his father through and through. He saw the good and the bad, the happy and the sorrowful. He witnessed the fire that ended it all.
Ren looked at the twelve empty pedestals and recalled what the twelve had said to him.
“We are the ones who came before.
“We are the Pyraethi, the First and the Last.
“We are from the time before the Soleri and after the Soleri we will be.”
73
“Give me a moment,” Kepi said, her hand leaving Ferris’s shoulder.
Not far from where she stood, the kingsguard surrounded Ren, heads going this way and that, men edging past one another, trying to catch a glimpse at the one who saved them. She did the same. She observed the way he talked, his back straight, head high, and how he laughed, shoulders bent and flapping, and the way his lips curled when he grinned. My brother.
A whole lifetime separated them, or at least a portion of one. She had gone off to Feren as a child and a bride. She’d seen her first husband die, and spent a year in a Feren prison. Later, she was wed to the king of that same land, and she’d watched him die. She lived each day with that grief, and Ren knew nothing of it. He was her blood, yet he was a stranger. He’d spent the last ten years in a cell, locked deep beneath the earth, somewhere in this ruined place that was once a city.
Kepi saw the chance for a reunion of sorts.
There was hope, or something like it.
This was an opportunity to start again, or to make a start.
She went to Ren, and as she did so her thoughts spiraled backward to the last time she saw him. Kepi was there again, watching the imperial soldiers as they dragged Ren from the Hornring. She was a child once more and angry that someone was taking away her little brother. Years had passed. Long years. Nonetheless, Ren was back and he was changed, but Kepi still held that child’s anger. She ached with the pain of their separation, so that part of her, that child, caught hold of Kepi and she ran to him.
74
A girl approached. Ren recognized her as the one who’d held back Mered’s soldiers—the girl who’d given him that moment of quiet he’d needed. His sister, he knew.
Ren went to her, reluctant at first, unsure, but she ran to him with open arms and they embraced.
“Brother,” she said, “and king.”
“Yes, sister,” he said, overwhelmed by her unbridled affection, by her blissful grin, her simple beauty. He’d feared she was an enemy, Merit’s stooge. He was wrong. She was someone else entirely. The kite settled upon her shoulder, its eyes glistening with the same fire he’d seen in the eyes of the eld. In an instant, he knew again they were the same. They shared the same blood. The eld. The kite. She saw it too. They came together as equals and embraced, holding each other for a moment before parting.
Someone was clearing his throat. Abruptly, Ren realized he was not alone.
Kollen gaped; he had no words.
Tye simply cried, whether out of joy or fear he couldn’t tell.
Ott sat on the ground, his head shaking. He caught sight of the blackened fist, but Ren quickly covered it with the tunic he wore beneath his armor.
Seeing that Ren had his own people, his sister took a step or two backward and allowed the black shield to once more encircle Ren. The best warriors in Harkana, men who had seen whole lifetimes of battle, were struck silent by the destruction of the city. Butcher wobbled on his feet. Asher said nothing.
The dead were everywhere, but not everyone had fallen. In the distance, the Harkan Army rode cautiously forward.
Unharmed but reluctant, they cantered toward the black shields, carefully picking their way through the bodies. Others had survived as well. A scattering of the red soldiers lived. Whether this was by chance or design Ren did not know, but they were there nonetheless, and Mered was among them. His palanquin had fallen to the ground. The men who’d held it were dead, eviscerated. Mered rose from the field of bodies, his eyes as shocked as any other. A scattering of captains surrounded him, their rank made clear by their royal attire. There were foot soldiers, too, men who’d hidden beneath fallen bodies, or so he guessed.
Ren approached Mered, trying not to step on the bodies or the sundered remains of a thousand different weapons.
Mered stood among his captains. His foot soldiers gathered at his side.
Ren held the horn in one hand, and the golden citrine hung glistening on his forehead. It sat just as it had upon his father’s head and on Suten’s as well. It stood as it had upon the brow of Re, first of the Soleri.
There were armies at Ren’s back, but he didn’t need them. He’d vanquished several already. He guessed that was enough to cow any soldier.
Mered’s men, the captains and soldiers who’d sworn their lives to the first citizen, turned on him at Ren’s approach. One after another they stabbed Mered with their blades, each one taking his shot, sliding home the knife until Mered’s pale red robe was torn and dappled with darker spots of red. He fell, a look of disbelief still clinging to his face. Even in the end, he’d trusted his men. He’d thought their loyalty was absolute.
He was wrong.
Mered’s body struck the earth, and his robe fell open, revealing that he was not actually a man but was instead a woman, her true sex revealed to all in the moment of her passing.
Their master had collapsed, and the generals and foot soldiers fell to their knees, frightened, uncertain. Some dropped their blades, others held up their bloody knives as evidence of their newfound loyalty. There were too few of them to be of any consequence.
“Go. Leave and never return,” Ren said to them.
Solus, whatever it had been, whatever it could have been, was ended. The city was no more. There were no more white-walled houses, no temples, no monuments … and no walls.
75
When the soldiers left his company and Ren was at last alone with Tye and Kollen, he spotted the Rachins, marching carefully over the dunes, raising a cloud of ash and sand in their wake.
Upon arrival, a soldier tore off his helmet, revealing long black hair. His beard reached down to his belly. “I’m the lord marshal of the guard. You the boy?” His eyes were on Kollen.
“I’m the son,” said Kollen.
The man paled ever so slightly. “The king’s dead,” he said. “Been that way for a week. Poison. Mered’s doing, or so we guessed. Seems he had his eye on our kingdom.”
“Dead … the king … I thought…” Kollen stammered, apparently unsure of what to say.
“You’re the king, sire, or you soon will be if you ride out with us. We’ll be a week on the road, maybe longer if the high passes are blocked.”
“Don’t care,” said Kollen. “I just want to go home.” He looked to Ren. “You’ll pardon me if I leave, but I think I’ve spent enough of my life in this city. It’s time for the ransoms to go home, time for all of us to go home.” He gave Ren a manful hug, surprising him with a quick embrace. “I’ll see you again, friend.”
“Go,” said Ren. “I’ve been trying to get our asses out of this city since we left the priory. Get out of here. There will be nothing here within a day, a mound of sand and nothing more.”
“We’ll be the first to leave,” said Kollen. “I don’t want to sleep another night in this place.” It seemed as though he were going to say something else, but the Rachins all gathered around him, wanting to get a good look at their new king. Ren thought he saw the smallest hint of a smile on the boy’s face. He let Kollen have his moment.
“Must be nice,” said Tye. “Being king and all that and having a royal escort. No one’s going to ride out for me. They say Barden killed the lords of the Wyrre, murdered every last one of them.”
“Come to Harwen. You’ll always be welcome—”
“No, don’t you get it Ren? They’re all dead, which means I’m the last living bit of Wyrren royalty. When my father dressed me as a boy and sent me off to the priory, he did it to save his son, but the king must be dead and my brother as well. Isn’t that the strangest thing? The priory saved me. I’m the last one, the queen of all the Wyrre—assuming anyone is left alive in it.”
“There’re people. You’ll see. Still, I wish you’d stay.”
“I can’t. Didn’t you hear Kollen? It’s time for all of us to go home: you to Harwen, Kollen to Zagre, your sister to Rifka. We’re all going home.”
“I’ll send two hundred Harkans. I’m sure the army can spare the men, and you can’t just march into the throne room and declare yourself queen. They’ll think you’re some peasant girl with a delusional mind.”
“You do have a point,” she said, but then she scrunched up her face as if in thought. “Ren, I see what you’re doing. You’re still trying to protect me. You won’t stop.”
“I don’t care.”
“Ren.”
“What?”
“I’ll come to Harwen. One day, when I’m queen.”
“I’d like that.”
“I know, and I’ll take the soldiers. For old time’s sake, I suppose, I’ll let the king of the Harkans lend me a hand.”
76
Kepi rode out with the Feren Army, the ruins of Solus still smoldering in the distance. They’d come here to end a war and they’d seen it done, but not in the way they’d imagined. There’d been no great battle. Ren had done the work of ten thousand men and he’d done it all in an instant. She didn’t pretend to fully understand what had happened. He’d been over it all, told her the story of the gods, but she struggled to accept it, to know that her family and her blood held such power. It made her head spin, and she longed for home, but it was not the place of her birth that captured her thoughts. Though she’d spent a good portion of her life dreading the forest kingdom, avoiding a marriage to this lord or that one, she found herself feeling heartsick for the forest. She longed for the cool air, the dampness of the fog.
She was done with the desert; there was no need for them to stay in this place.
The city was gone, the empire finished. Ash remained, and smoke. In fact, that was all that was left of the city.
Kepi rode north toward Feren.
A kingdom of problems awaited her arrival. There were traitors to be found, warlords who had taken coin from Mered. There were laws to change, and customs to end. Good men would be in short supply, but she swore to find them. Kepi would not want for work.
“You’re coming to Rifka,” she said. It was a command, not a question.
“My queen requires it?” Ferris asked.
“She does.” Kepi paused here, feeling suddenly vulnerable. She did not want to admit anything, but she couldn’t help herself. “I’m all alone there, and you cannot tear a kingdom apart without an ally.”
“Aye, so it’s the army at Caerwynt you’re after?”
“No, well … yes, I do need them on my side. But I need more than just swords. I’ll give you some damned title if it means something to you, but in all honesty…”
“What?” he asked.
“I just need a friend.” The words hung in the air. She felt sheepish, much as she had on the night of her wedding to Dagrun.
“Aye,” Ferris said, and he nodded his understanding as they rode northward, the ruined city vanishing into the sand kicked up by their horses.
77
“Do you hear that?” Ren asked Ott. The pair stood on the ruined stairs of the Waset, the sun setting at their backs. The battle had come and gone. A day had passed. The army had needed time to mend wounds, time to rest and regroup, time enough to bury the dead.
“What?” asked
Ott.
“The quiet,” said Ren. “When I lived in the priory, all I heard or knew of this city were the calls of the hawkers, the sweet songs of the buskers, the cries of some captain drilling his soldiers in the plaza, the damned bells. I heard every bit of it—sometimes all at once.”
“But you never laid eyes on Solus.”
“Not until they set me free, but I spent most of my time running this way and that. I don’t remember much.”
“And now it’s gone.”
“I suppose,” said Ren. He looked out at the dunes, the waves of sand, punctuated here and there by some piece of tower or wall. There was no city to be seen. “Maybe they’ll call this the City of Sand in fifty or a hundred years. Perhaps they’ll forget all about Solus and what we did here. It’ll be the city of ash—not light. There’s hardly any trace of it left.” Indeed, the only life in the city seemed to come from the tents of the invading armies. On the field below, in the place that had once been the gardens of the Empyreal Domain, the Harkans made camp while they mended their wounds and readied themselves for the march home to Harwen. Ren would lead that charge. He would return, at last, with the horn strapped to his back and his father’s blade. A bastard, but a king nonetheless.
Merit could not be found.
“I’m not going to contest your rule,” said Ott. “I hope that’s not why you called me here. We’ve been over all that.”
“I know, but I don’t mind you mentioning it. No, this is the only spot I could find that didn’t have a tent on it.” Ren tugged at the linen wrappings on his hand. After he put to rest the army of Mered, he wrapped his tunic over the fingers and later he called it a wound. Ren unwrapped the linen and revealed the skin that was not skin. He showed Ott the shimmering yet black thing that stood in place of his hand.
Silence of the Soleri Page 43
