The Unwaba Revelations

by Samit Basu

  Kirin looked at Maya’s face, and wished he hadn’t woken up.

  Asvin, on the other hand, wished he hadn’t died, which, even Kirin would have acknowledged, gave him more claim to sympathy.

  She ran up to him, still unable to believe it was him, and he swept her up in his arms and would have kissed her, but at the last instant he let her go, because he had seen the sudden look of revulsion in her eyes when their skins had first touched, when she had felt how cold and clammy he was now, felt how differently his muscles moved. They stood facing each other uncertainly, smiling, and he found himself wondering whether he smelled terrible, and whether she was afraid of him. She was crying, and he would have cried too, but his eyes were dead and dry, and he suddenly felt dead, somehow more dead than he had felt before, because she stood in front of him, and no one had ever made him feel as alive as she had. She clasped his hands, trying to ignore the stiffness of his fingers, and then she held him close to her, ignoring the shivers running down her spine, ignoring the churning in her stomach, because dead or alive, he was Asvin, and she had missed him. And because she had so much to say to him, but her mouth had dried up, and her head was spinning wildly.

  After what seemed, to Kirin at least, like an eternity, Asvin released Maya, walked up to Kirin and shook his hand gravely. ‘It turns out I picked the wrong side when we last met; I would have apologized, but I feel I have been punished enough for my error,’ he said. ‘I understand we will be working together, and I want a chance to redeem myself.’

  Kirin made a noise halfway between a gurgle and a mumble. Trust the Hero to sound gracious even while smelling like last year’s garbage heap. Asvin had come between him and Maya when he was alive, and when he was dead. But coming between them while undead was simply rude. There should have been rules about this sort of thing. He looked at Maya, observing him with a hint of reproach in her eyes.

  ‘I’m, um, glad you’re back,’ he said. It was the best he could do, given that his primary desire at that moment was to strangle either Spikes or the unwaba. He could almost hear the chameleon’s voice in his head, stealing his lines: ‘Why didn’t you tell me Asvin would be here? Oh, but I thought you liked surprises.’

  ‘We’ve got to save the world, Asvin,’ said Maya.

  ‘Until a few minutes ago, I thought I was going to end it,’ said Asvin. ‘But clearly I have just changed sides. This is not a difficult proposition for someone of royal blood, though mine seems rather sluggish of late. What must I do?’

  Chapter Eleven

  Arathognan was tired, so tired he was afraid he would collapse any moment, but no one could have guessed it as he strode into the Chief Civilian’s temporary headquarters in south Kol. Red Phoenix guards led him underground, through a vast and musty wine-cellar to a secret chamber where the Civilian and Ombwiri waited with Shohm Muppo, the newly appointed commander of the surviving vamans in Kol. They rose as Thog entered, shaking rainwater out of his tied grey hair, trailing water as he sank gratefully into an empty chair. Thog blinked, his eyes adjusting to the light of wet Alocacti, to the grim expressions of the room’s other occupants. The muffled sound of a great roaring could be heard through the ceiling; outside, great sheets of rain lashed all over Kol, and gale-like winds howled dirges for the burnt city.

  ‘I visited the shelters. The tunnels are safe for the moment,’ said Thog. ‘But water is seeping through; the shelters are not as well sealed as the vamans promised.’

  ‘Only the newer ones, which were built in a hurry,’ said Shohm. ‘No one was ready for this. But even the weakest shelters will hold for a few days.’

  ‘They will not have to last that long,’ said the Civilian. ‘I do not think the rain will last the night.’

  ‘Let the rain last as long as the gods will,’ said Thog. ‘It keeps Koli spirits high. In every shelter, they sing the praises of the gods, for showing us mercy in our darkest hour. Truly, it is a miracle, a sign. Kol will survive.’

  The others looked at him blankly. No one had the heart to tell Arathognan, after all he’d been through, that the rain that had held off the invaders for two days had very little to do with the gods; that Kol’s fate was in their hands, and they had run out of ideas.

  After the ravian attack had devastated central Kol, when it was clear that the city’s defences did not stand a chance against the light-pillars of the akashraths, Ombwiri had asked the Kaos butterflies to give Kol rain, and lots of it. All through the day and night, endless clouds, dark and pregnant, had swarmed over Kol, pouring out their hearts, covering the city in hissing forests of steam. The Asa had swelled and overflowed; merry, gurgling tributaries now ran down the streets of Kol. Great fires had sizzled in fury as they were extinguished, revealed the charred bones of Kol’s greatest towers. Most of central Kol was in ruins, but millions of lives had been saved. The akashraths had tried to burn through the clouds, but had failed; while the beams of light were strong enough to pierce the clouds and destroy all they touched with their sheer intensity, no fire could be lit in the torrents of water that enveloped Kol. The butterflies had rested at night, and had flapped their wings at Ombwiri’s command again the next day at dawn; all through the night, Koli warriors had flown desperately through mazes of bridges and fallen buildings, seeking out and aiding wounded citizens, trying not to look up at the eerie phosphorescent symbols on the airships that hung in the air above them.

  But as dawn came and clouds gathered again, one Kaos butterfly, too exhausted to push the elements any more, had stiffened and fallen off Ombwiri’s arm; yet another had died at sunset. Now only one Kaos butterfly remained, sitting on Ombwiri’s shoulder, its wings beating slowly and rhythmically as Ombwiri egged it on with a variety of healing and invigorating spells. The Civilian had spent hours watching the last butterfly and waiting for inspiration to strike. Outside, it would soon grow dark above the rainclouds. What would happen when the skies cleared? Could the airships fly forever? What would happen when Kol dried up by dawn and rose at first light, fresh and sparkling, waiting to be engulfed in flames?

  Roshin arrived with fresh news. Mantric had created strong ward spells that could be attached to vroomsticks, allowing them to fly steadily in the rain. Most of Enki’s spellbinders were zooming all around the city, trying to create illusions of tall towers in the city’s parks to confuse and distract the ravians. Pashans were wading through the streets, dragging massive land-barges full of corpses, dragging away great chunks of masonry, and trying to repair anything that had not been burnt completely. Yarni and his pashans, now conscripted city guardsmen, had spent most of the day being extremely and creatively violent to opportunistic looters. And the vamans had opened more of their tunnels to the people of Kol; many tube-worms already were carrying people to exits outside the city.

  ‘Is there anything the vaman king can do for us tomorrow, Shohm?’ asked the Civilian.

  ‘We have already assembled heavy catapults underneath the city,’ said Shohm. ‘But it will take at least a day to raise them to the rooftops. And if the ravians are given a day, there might be no rooftops.’

  ‘Then we have nothing,’ said the Civilian. ‘We will have to abandon the city.’

  ‘They will come down one day, soon. When they do, we will be waiting. The vaman king sends you his word. We will vanquish the ravians and rebuild Kol for you.’

  ‘Should I order the defenders to leave their posts?’ asked Roshin.

  ‘Yes. If they object, tell them they will have all the battles they want in the days to come.’

  ‘Very well. When will you leave? I will ensure all arrangements are made.’

  ‘I will not be leaving,’ said the Civilian, her face covered in shadow, her voice flat and even.

  ‘Neither will I,’ said Arathognan. ‘We will find some way to fight them if the rain-gods abandon us.’

  ‘I could go ask the men outside to flee,’ said Roshin. ‘But I suspect it would be a waste of time.’

  ‘Don’t bother asking the spellbi
nders,’ said Ombwiri. ‘It was hard enough to get them to join.’

  ‘And it is not in the nature of vamans to leave problems unsolved,’ said Shohm.

  ‘That’s quite enough solidarity for one evening,’ said the Civilian. ‘In case any of you have plans of standing in a circle and joining hands one by one, abandon them. Instead, let us spend the few hours we have left devising a plan to destroy those airships.’

  At sunset, the last butterfly was allowed to rest. The stars came out again, and so did swarms of carpets and vroomsticks, wheeling and circling angrily under the hovering metal animals’ vast bellies. On rooftops and bridges in the soggy, smouldering heart of Kol, artillerymen looked up at the clear sky and prayed that the night would never end. And far outside Kol, streams of humans, asurs and pashans trudged out of freshly dug tunnels, looked back at their city, charred and broken, and wept. Innumerable words of love and compassion, of regret, longing and forgiveness were spoken in Kol that night, and even in the gloom there was an all-pervading calm; Kol had accepted that its time had ended, and was preparing itself for a quick, dignified death. The Chapter of Chroniclers was formally declared closed, and its records smuggled out of the city. In the ruins of the Fragrant Underbelly, Triog sat alone, mixing himself drinks and toasting his lost patrons with tuneless songs. And when dawn came, and tendrils of light snaked their way across the sky, skirting wisps of cloud, gently melting the darkness, and the last Kaos butterfly fell off Ombwiri’s arm and spiraled slowly downwards like an autumn leaf, Kol was ready. Kol was silent. Silent save for the droning of the akashraths, as their hatches opened, as metal panels slid aside, and mighty light-throwing cannons hummed their way to incandescence.

  And then there was a new sound, a throbbing sound like a great heart beating in the distance, and Kol looked up in wonder, and found new hope.

  The sky was full of dragons.

  A great brood of Skuan dragons, green, red, black and blue, studded the horizon to the north and west, speeding towards Kol’s tower on swift leathery wings beating in unison, thumping out the rhythm of the world’s heart. From the south came gigantic slow-flying huracans with winds of destruction in their wake, and the earth shook with every beat of their wings. And from the east, trailing cloud-streams, the snake-like dragons of Xi’en slithered across the sky, their usual calm and majesty abandoned in the incredible fury of their approach. From every direction they bore down on the akashraths, and as they flew over Kol’s suburbs, hurtling towards the towers of central Kol and the airships, Kolis forgot all caution, poured out of shelters and took to the streets, their cheers dying quickly, their blossoming awe at the sheer scale of the spectacle before their eyes overcoming their joy.

  The akashraths blazed forth in all their deadly glory, and an avalanche of screams rushed through Kol as columns of white light bore once again into the city, crushing stone, melting tar, flesh and bone, sending waves of flame running again through Kol’s streets. Vaman catapults and their controllers flew through the air like twigs. Carpets and vroomsticks disappeared forever into impenetrable walls of smoke. And then, as suddenly as they had appeared, the light-pillars vanished. The airships sealed themselves and waited for the dragons.

  The first onslaught came in a torrent of fire, as the Skuan dragons looped and circled in swarms, each sending thick streams of flame scurrying along the golden bodies of the akashraths. The dragons attacked from every angle at once, sometimes hovering, flapping their wings, sometimes streaking along the surfaces of the ships, seeking weaknesses in their armour. The Xi’en dragons joined in the onslaught, their horned heads stabbing forward, spitting out comets of fire that exploded into the sides of the airships. The first attack was disorganized, driven by rage; the roars of the dragons were often interrupted by harsh cries of pain as massive bodies slammed into one another with unimaginable force, and several magnificent Skuan drakes were injured by stray claws and fangs as they retreated to bring order into their ranks. Within minutes, the air around the akashraths was empty again, and massive reptile shapes sped upwards and away, falling effortlessly into lines, synchronizing their wing-beats and fiery snouts, their leaders throwing messages from mind to ageless mind as their shadows rippled over the rooftops.

  On the streets, Kolis cried out in dismay; the ravian airships seemed unharmed. Their surfaces, and the air around them, shimmered slightly in the sunlight, but their movements were, as always, measured and unhurried, as they too rearranged their ranks, moving away from one another, each seeking a different altitude.

  The Skuan dragons attacked again. Sleek, deadly saurian bodies arced upwards and steered into low, flat dives, skimming over the airships two by two, engulfing them in flame, and shooting past, only to waver, circle and rise again. But still the akashraths held firm; whatever the wondrous metal they were wrought of was, it was impervious to fire. Or perhaps there was some magic in the symbols carved on their undersides, which now glowed fiery red instead of pale green as they awaited the next wave of dragons.

  The Xi’en dragons, realizing that fire was not the answer, chose, instead, to try sheer force. As the last of the fire-drakes hurtled away from the airships, the lords of the eastern skies descended on the giant metallic animals, raking them with their horns, claws and fangs, curling and slithering across their smooth bodies, slamming into every curve, every carving, every possible weakness in the metal hides. The akashraths began to sway and stutter; soon great dents and furrows began to appear on their skins. Nearly every inch of the akashraths was covered with slithering, jostling, hammering dragons. It could only be a matter of time before one broke through.

  There was a series of clicks and hums, and flaps opened on the sides of the akashraths, revealing rows upon rows of barrels. Finding the openings they sought, the dragons slid towards the barrels, intent upon burning up the airships’ innards.

  With flashes of red, blue and green, the barrels spat explosives, and tore the Xi’en dragonbrood to shreds. Wide, gaping holes appeared in the dragons’ bodies; dragonhides bulged and split apart as explosions rippled through one Xi’en sky-snake after another. Immense bodies, torn to ribbons, fell away from the airships and plummeted down on the city, shattering buildings, snapping bridges, starting fires. The airships, still firing, began to move, shedding dragons on the way in a rain of burning flesh. Vast fire-serpents uncoiled limply and fell; the survivors, against all reason, did not retreat. The akashraths met the next Skuan charge with flashes and fire, bringing down dragon after dragon, and on the ground people cried out in sorrow as shape after graceful shape halted in mid-air, caught by the ravians, jerking and thrashing in position , and then hurtled downwards, crushing Kol with their spine-shattering descent.

  The dragons seemed undaunted by this; it was as if a great power drove them onwards, renewing their fire and fury. The huracans, volcano-born earthquake-bringers from the south-western islands, had reached the airships now, but they did not rush in like the others; instead, they soared higher and higher above the akashraths until, from the streets, they were just tiny specks impossibly high in the sky. At a signal from the huracan leader, the Skuan and Xi’en dragons surrounding and snapping at the akashraths fell back. And then the huracans folded their wings and fell like stones in unison, crashing down on the tops of the akashraths, smashing their massive quake-bringing tails, with their giant spiked clubs at the ends, into the gleaming metal.

  The airships’ shells rippled, dented, groaned, and finally cracked. Metal screamed, plates burst out, gaps appeared in the ships’ armours, displaying their innards, showing ravians scurrying about amidst great rooms full of sophisticated machines.

  Driven to a frenzy, the Xi’en and Skuan dragons attacked again. Ignoring the deadly light-bursts, pushing their dying comrades’ bodies in front of them as shields, they swarmed around the airships, while the huracans spat lava into the ships through the cracks on the roofs. Gripping the shattered bodies of their brethren in their cruel talons, the dragons swiftly blocked the expl
osive-hurling barrels long enough for the huracans to take off, ponderously, and move to a safe distance high above the battle. And then every dragon that still survived, every dragon that had flown for a week to be part of the greatest mustering of dragons this world had ever soon, snorted, puffed, and filled the gaps in the akashraths’ armours with fire. The airships kept up their relentless barrage, and the sky above Kol was a mind-churning melee of broken, falling bodies, ripped metal plates, sparks, showers of blood and cries of pain. But the dragons would not be defeated, and time and time again they rallied and pounced, using fire, claws and talons, ripping and burning, twisting and dodging, opening new breaches for their comrades to attack through, and as the ravians died inside the airships, and burned along with the dials and levers they were using, the akashraths stopped spitting fire, and their flame-volleys spluttered, crackled and died.

  The dragons roasted the airships for several minutes. When they were satisfied that everyone in them had been properly cooked, they fell back, rose high into the sky and screamed in savage triumph, streams of fire streaking up towards the heavens as yells of joy and gratitude rose in the streets far below. There were no words, no meeting between the people of Kol and their sky-warrior saviours, no thanks given nor asked for; the dragons had shown no sign that they had even noticed Kol’s defenders all along. Nor did they descend to mourn their fallen brethren; they had died in combat and returned to the earth they cherished and guarded, and for dragons, that was enough. With great thumping wing-beats, they turned towards their homes, in the mountains and islands, and went their separate ways, their mission fulfilled, their numbers drastically diminished.

  The akashraths continued to float above Kol for the rest of the day, charred, twisted, belching smoke and sparks, their humming and grinding now turned to dying screeches and moans. But they were losing power; the few defenders left on Kol’s rooftops did not know whether the ships ran themselves, or whether some ravians survived still, but the akashraths were slowly descending on the city. An hour before sunset, they were low enough for the vaman artillery to attack. And as the vamans pounded the husks of the akashraths with enchanted projectiles, loaded with spells of attack by Mantric and the spellbinders, the airships exploded, one by one, and their ruins fell spectacularly over the wasteland of broken buildings and dead dragons that was Kol, bare-boned, smoking, shattered.