She can hear their thoughts even from far within the palace’s depths. They toy at her mind, these pained desires and plaintive, wheedling pleas, begging for her attention, for her action. She tries to ignore them, to keep them out, but they speak so much and there are so many of them….
Mother, Mother—give us what was promised to us. Give us what we need. Give us what we fought and died for….
She finds herself walking up the stairways, perhaps to flee them—she isn’t sure. She isn’t sure of much these days. She has faint memories of how things were before, and she knows that, in some fashion, she chose to be here—but it gets quite difficult to remember sometimes.
She comes to a window. She hesitates—she doesn’t want to see, she desperately doesn’t want to—but she knows she needs to look. They’re getting so much stronger that she can’t quite help herself.
She walks to the window and looks out. She’s high up, several hundreds of feet at least, looking down on a clutch of porcelain-white towers, shimmering and queerly organic, like sea sponges or lumps of coral. More disturbing are the statues, which stand among the towers and straddle the streets, massive figures that are only vaguely human, frozen in positions of combat: a raised blade, a thrusting spear.
These are not what disturb her the most. Because standing far below her, upon the shores of this island and along its many canals and in the streets, are…
Monsters. Abominations. Tall, horrific, glittering creatures with blank, primitive faces, their backs and shoulders covered in horns and tusks.
Their thoughts batter her mind like the winds of a hurricane upon a house:
Mother…Mother! Please, let us go! Please, give us what we were promised….
She shuts her eyes and turns away. Some part of her knows that they were once human, that they became these things only because it was asked of them. But was it she who asked it of them? She can’t quite remember.
She walks up the stairs to her throne room, and the great, hideous, red seat is waiting for her. It is like a living thing, in some ways: a creature she created, begging for her presence. To sit upon the red throne is to become more of herself.
It’s not yours, she reminds herself. Not really. Yet some part of her remains unconvinced.
But to be near the throne makes her stronger, somehow, and it helps her remember. It helps her remember the very strange thing she saw the other day: she came across a window to another world, and inside that window were men. They didn’t know she was there, that she was listening, listening as they described a mine they were building, a deep hole in the earth….And she’d realized with sudden fury and disbelief what they were doing, whether they realized it or not.
As she remembers this, standing there before her great red throne, her fists clench, and she is filled with horror and rage and disgust.
After what she did for them, they would do this to her? They would make all of her sacrifices count for nothing?
She knows she must do something. She must act. But to do so might kill her.
Is it worth it?
She thinks about it.
Yes. Yes, it is.
She focuses, holds out her hand, and reaches for the sword.
The sword is always there. It is never truly gone, because since the day she picked it up it’s been a part of her, or perhaps she’s a part of it, for she knows deep down that it is really so much more than a sword: to grip the black handle and see the flickering blade is to bear witness to a thousand battles and a thousand murders and a thousand years of brutal conflict, to hear the shouts of thousands of armies and see the skies darkened with thousands of spears and arrows and watch the ground grow soft and dark with the blood of thousands of lives.
She holds the sword in the white tower. You’re me, the sword whispers to her. You’re of me, and I’m of you….
This isn’t true, she knows. She thinks it isn’t true, at least. But she needs to believe it just a little longer. Cooperating with the sword lets her do so much….
Including the ability to cross over to the land of the living, and wreak almost limitless destruction.
She takes a breath, shuts her eyes, and listens to the sword.
***
During Mulaghesh’s seventeen-year tenure as polis governor of Bulikov, she oversaw 127 assemblies of the Bulikov City Fathers, 314 city hearings, 514 town hall meetings, and 1,073 Worldly Regulations trials for those who had dared acknowledge the Divinities under the surveillance of Saypur. She knows the exact number because after each one of these meetings—which sometimes lasted up to ten hours—she would go back to her offices, pull out her portfolio, and make a single, solitary tick mark on the very last page.
Just one. Because somehow making these little tick marks helped her compartmentalize all of her contempt and fury and frustration, bottling it all up and releasing it in that one tiny, contained motion, gouging the nib of the pen along the soft, vulnerable surface of the page. And she often had plenty to release, for another delightful feature of any meeting of civic-minded Bulikovians was the heaps and heaps of insults, scorn, and outright threats they hurled at her at the top of their lungs.
Yet as Mulaghesh watches the assembly of tribal leaders from the balconies of the Voortyashtani Galleries—the civic center of the city—she reflects that her stint in Bulikov was a leisurely stroll in comparison to this.
She watches, eyebrows raised, as an elderly, bearded man with a red band of a tattoo around his neck stands up from his bench, assumes a posture of deepest grief, and bellows, “I wish to lay deaths at the feet of the Orskova clan! I wish to hang the deaths of my tribe from their necks and their shoulders!” His comments are met with a chorus of boos and remarkably specific threats from about half the assembly.
Biswal, seated at the table at the front of the Galleries, rubs his temples. “Mr. Iska, you have been told twice now that the Laying of Deaths has been eliminated as a formal motion of the assembly. Please sit down.”
“Then how shall the wrongdoers and murderers in this room with me know guilt?” shouts the man. “Shall the names of my brothers and sisters and children who have died wrongly be forgotten, and perish into ash?”
More boos and catcalls. Mulaghesh thins her eyes as she watches the tribal leaders. They are all skinny, haggard things, dressed in robes and furs, their necks brightly tattooed and covered with curious patterns. Some are women, she sees, which surprises her: Bulikov strictly forbade women from doing anything more than firing out children as quickly and efficiently as possible.
But then, she thinks, Voortya probably wouldn’t have tolerated that bullshit.
“The persistence of the names of anyone,” says Biswal wearily, “dead or alive, is no longer part of the charge of the assembly. That was decided three meetings ago. Now may we please move on to the primary item on our agenda?” He raises a piece of paper for the assembly to see. “The murders at the town of Poshok, which Fort Thinadeshi is asking for any assistance on.”
“Murders committed by the Ternopyn clan!” shouts a woman at the back. “Butchers and thieves and liars!”
The Galleries fill up with bellowed accusations. Mulaghesh rolls her eyes. “Oh, for the love of…”
While Biswal deals with the commotion, Mulaghesh focuses on the unusual figure to his left: a small, mousy Continental woman of about thirty, with big dark eyes and a timid mouth, wearing clothes that look about three sizes too large for her. She sits hunched in a manner that suggests she wishes to fold up and disappear into the back of the chair. She scribbles madly on a large pad of paper as they talk, her fingers and wrists black with ink.
Biswal raises a hand in response to someone’s question. “I believe we might need to check with Governor Smolisk on this issue. Rada, would you happen to have last month’s minutes on hand?”
So that’s the Continental governor, thinks Mulaghesh. She watches as Rada digs frantically through a sack behind her chair, produces a sheaf of papers, flips through them, and reads aloud, �
��Th-The representative in que-qu-question s-s-said at the t-t-time, and I qu-quote…” She takes a deep breath, and reads, “ ‘M-may all the sons and d-daughters of the Hadyarod clan be g-g-gutted as rabbits and d-die upon the f-flames.’ ”
One of the tribal leaders crosses his arms triumphantly, as if his point has just been proven beyond a measure of a doubt.
“Thank you, Rada,” says Biswal. “Though this threat, Mr. Sokola, was indeed uttered at the last assembly, the victims at Poshok were not gutted, nor burned, nor were they members of your clan, the Hadyarod clan—as you surely know. And if I recall, that exact curse has been used at nearly every assembly of the tribal leaders, sometimes more than once per meeting. At the moment, I am not convinced that it is an indication of guilt, and I would prefer if we adhere to ways you all can cooperate with our investigation, or volunteer more pertinent informa—”
Biswal’s next words are drowned out by shouting. He sighs and looks to Rada, who shrugs in return and attempts to write down some of the more prominent shouts.
“This is a bit more energetic than most meetings,” says a voice.
Mulaghesh, who’s been slouching deep in her seat, looks up to see Signe standing above her. She’s wearing her usual scarf, but has opted for a leather jacket today rather than the sealskin, though it too bears the SDC insignia. “Oh?”
“Yes. Even Brursk there is getting into it.” She points at an obese man in a blue leather jerkin who is making a fist and screaming across the aisle at someone. “He’s usually as placid as a cow.”
“This doesn’t seem like very placid company.” She looks through their ranks again, trying to spy anything suspicious; but, in her opinion, the whole lot of them look like mad bombers. She can’t imagine what Biswal wanted her to do here. “Do you come to these things often?”
“I try to. Don’t let their tattoos and their crude threats fool you, General—some of these people are quite clever, and smell change in the wind. The more powerful leaders imagine the harbor and all of its profits to be a pie, and themselves the only ones authorized to do the cutting. Hence why I’m here.”
Something slowly clicks in Mulaghesh’s head. “Is that why the SDC headquarters is so permanent looking?”
“I beg your pardon?”
“You keep claiming that the harbor will be done within two years. Why would you want to build something so permanent—unless you wanted to be here for a long, long while?”
“And what would you imagine us doing?”
“Taking your slice of the pie, of course,” says Mulaghesh. “The harbor’s a one-time deal. But if you’re the shipping company on the Solda—by the seas, you’d make billions of drekels every year.”
Signe smiles serenely. “Hm. You’re no fool, General, I’ll give you that. Though some of these damn tribes intend to milk us for all we’re worth, threatening to give away portions of the shipping rights to other companies….But they forget who it is who’ll control the mouth of the Solda itself.”
“I do wonder, CTO Harkvaldsson,” says Mulaghesh, “if it’s possible for you to even piss without some amount of skullduggery and plotting.”
“Well, I also take it upon myself to be an ambassador for the harbor.” She leans forward, listening. “Speaking of which…”
“…murders were committed by no clansman!” a thin woman is shouting below. “Nor committed by any human hand! No Voortyashtani that we know did such a thing, this I assure you! This is a curse, a Divine retribution for the sacrilege being committed to our ancient ancestral home!”
“I assume, Mrs. Balakilya,” says Biswal, “that you are referring to the harbor.”
“The Dreylings and their great machines grind up the bones of our very culture!” cries the woman. “They awaken many things that lie sleeping! The Divine will not tolerate this insult, and we shall all pay the price!”
Biswal nods. “Thank you for your opinion on the matter, Mrs. Balakilya. But I do believe CTO Harkvaldsson is present in the balcony, so perhaps she’d like to comment.”
All heads turn to Mulaghesh and Signe. Mulaghesh is used to being the focus of the ire of a crowd, but so many furious eyes make even her cringe a little. Yet one group of tribal leaders in the back—their necks dyed a soft yellow—stands and strikes a reverential pose, as if saluting them.
Or perhaps specifically saluting Signe, who stands at the railing and says in a loud, clear voice, “As I have testified to and even personally shown some of the assembly members, what the Southern Dreyling Company is hauling up from the floor of the Solda Bay is nothing more than rotting stone. We researched our undertaking carefully and concluded that no surviving architecture is present in the bay. What we drag up is sand and silt and rubble, and nothing more. If we were to find any artifact or item of cultural import, we would notify the assembly immediately.”
“These are lies!” cries the thin woman—Balakilya—but again, the assembly dissolves into shouts.
“I assure you,” says Signe calmly, “they are not.”
Yet then there’s one shout that rings out above the muttering: “Who is that there?”
Everyone stops, frowning, to see who’s shouting. It proves to be a bowlegged man at the back with a ratty beard, and he leaps up onto his bench and flings a finger at Mulaghesh. “Who is that beside you? Who is that with the wooden hand?”
“Ah, shit,” mutters Mulaghesh, sinking low in her chair.
Then someone else cries out: “It’s the soldier who was there when Kolkan was slain!”
Balakilya screams triumphantly, “You see? Do you see? Why would Saypur bring the lieutenant of the god-killer if they did not fear the retribution from the Divine? Why would she be here if not to defend them against the vengeance of Voortya!”
“I…think I’m going to back out on this one,” Mulaghesh says, standing. “I’m pretty sure my presence here isn’t helping much.”
“Leave now,” says Signe, “and you’ll only inspire more questions.”
“She leaves because it’s true!” shouts Balakilya, striding to stand in the central aisle. “She fears the truth, so she flees from it!”
“See?” says Signe.
“General Mulaghesh,” says Biswal, looking up, “perhaps if you could spare a few words for—”
“She’s come to murder whatever’s left of our culture!” cries Balakilya.
“She’s here to force us to bow to the whip of Saypur!” shouts another man.
“Oh, for the love of…” Mulaghesh walks to the railing. “You want to know why I’m here? Here of all places on this damned world?”
“Tell us!” shouts one of the men below. “Tell us!”
“Fine!” snarls Mulaghesh. “I’m on vacation, you dumb sons of bitches!”
A loud silence echoes over the Galleries. Mulaghesh turns and strides away. As she walks through the door she hears someone say, very quietly, “Did she say vacation?”
***
Mulaghesh sulks in the hallways of the Galleries as she waits for the assembly to end. The Galleries are a deeply strange place to her: the interior is like being inside the bones of a massive beached whale, its roof made of white, arcing ribs, topped with a line of vertebrae with spinous flowerings. The thunderous shouts from the assembly chamber begin to feel like the roar of water, and suddenly it’s not so difficult to believe that she’s trapped in the belly of some undersea leviathan.
Bored, she looks at the displays along the walls of the Galleries, which are curated like the walls of a museum. She strolls down the hallway, absently looking at each one—though she quickly sees these aren’t just art pieces.
The first display is a massive, rounded standing stone that—according to the sign beside it—was carved by Saint Zhurgut himself during his “elevation.” It looks to Mulaghesh as if the stone’s been run through a sawmill: it’s been hacked and slashed many, many times, yet never cracked. Whatever blade sank through this stone did so perfectly, like a knife through butter. The sign reads:
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Upon gripping his blade forged by Voortya, Saint Zhurgut was elevated, ascending into a state of pure warfare and battle, and this stone was his first test of power. Voortyashtani blades held many purposes beyond battle, however: stories suggest that the ancient Voortyashtani swords could communicate, serving as conduits for thought and speech. Swords were such a way of life among this ancient polis that many records suggest that human and weapon were considered indivisible. Regrettably, no Voortyashtani blades have survived to see modern times.
“What a tragedy,” mutters Mulaghesh. But she doesn’t feel really disturbed until she looks at the next display.
She stops and stares. She’s happy she’s alone, for she feels she might make a scene.
The exhibit is completely empty except for a stone mask standing on a thin steel pole. Unlike many of the other displays this mask is not large, though it is perhaps slightly wider and taller than the average human face. It’s also a little too round, as the normal human skull is somewhat oblong. But it’s the face that is the most disturbing part: the eyeholes are small and set both too far apart and far too low, leaving a prodigious brow above them with a single ridge-like seam running through their middle. The seam ends in a tiny, insignificant point of a nose with no nostrils, and below that are two short rows of needle-like teeth, a bad parody of a human mouth. Around the edges of the mask are many small holes through which, presumably, one once threaded string to tie the mask onto one’s face.
It’s not the real thing. Mulaghesh knows it isn’t. But she’s seen an abundance of sketches and paintings, for these masks haunt Saypur to this day. These masks—the real ones, the ones made of steel and bone—were present in Saypuri life for hundreds and hundreds of years, right up until the Night of the Red Sands.
For wasn’t every Saypuri terrified of waking up and finding such a face staring in through their window? Wasn’t every road and every river and every port watched by those blank, staring eyes? Mulaghesh was told that the people (if they could even be called such things) that wore those masks would go by Saypuri slums at night while everyone slept, and toss in little metal tokens through the open windows, tiny coin-like baubles fashioned to resemble their headgear. The Saypuri slaves would then wake up and find these distorted, grinning skulls no bigger than the palm of their hand waiting on their floors or on their tables, and they would understand the unspoken message: We were here. Walls mean nothing to us. Nothing can be kept from us.
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