City of Blades

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  There’s the sound of someone muttering, “Hmm…Hunh?”

  Mulaghesh looks around, trying to find its source. “What…What did you just do?”

  Then the sound of something shifting, but it has a strange quality to it, as if the sound is bouncing up a metal pipe from far away.

  “Shara?” says Sigrud. “Are you there?”

  And then, somehow, there’s a woman’s voice saying, “What in the hells?”

  There’s a click and the black pane changes, suddenly filling with golden light, which appears to be coming from a small electric lamp on a bedside table on the other side of the window.

  This is, Mulaghesh knows, impossible: what is on the other side of the window is the harbor and the North Seas. Yet it’s like the pane of glass is a hole, and by looking through the hole Mulaghesh can see…

  A bedroom. A woman’s bedroom. A very important woman’s bedroom, judging by the curtained, four-poster bed, the intricately wrought desk, the giant grandfather clock, and the countless paintings of very stern-looking officials wearing sashes and lots of ribbons and medals.

  She’s seen this place before, she realizes. This is the prime minister’s mansion….

  A face pokes through the curtains of the four-poster bed. It’s a familiar face, though it has far more lines and gray hairs than when Mulaghesh last saw it. It is also fixed in an expression of unspeakable, furious outrage.

  “What…What!” says Shara Komayd. “What in hells are you doing, Sigrud?”

  Mulaghesh says, “Ah, shit.”

  ***

  “Turyin?” says Shara. Her voice is distant and wobbly, as if it’s not coming from her mouth but is being pulled out of her room, packaged up, transported to this room in the SDC headquarters, and unwrapped beside Mulaghesh’s ear. But it’s also much, much older and wearier than Mulaghesh remembers, as if Shara has done nothing but talk since they last met. “Turyin, are you mad? This is the one thing we absolutely cannot risk right now!”

  “Okay,” says Mulaghesh. “Whoa. Hold on. I had no idea he was going to do that.” She looks at the pane of glass, as if trying to spot any hidden mechanisms. “This…This is a miracle, isn’t it?”

  “Of course it’s a damnable miracle! It is also three in the morning here! Are there any other obvious matters I need to confirm before you explain why you have interrupted me in a state of…of some serious undress? Assuming you have a reason, that is?”

  Sigrud says, “Turyin thinks your officer has gone to the afterlife.”

  Shara frowns. “What?”

  “Um…Okay,” says Mulaghesh. “Let me start from the beginning here.” She tries to rattle off the current state of things—a much more rambling and disjointed version of the very conclusions she just went through with Sigrud.

  Shara listens and grows so distracted she lets the curtains drop, revealing that she is wearing a set of bright pink-and-blue button-up pajamas. “But…But that’s not possible, Turyin,” she says when she finishes. “You can’t have seen her. Voortya is dead.”

  “I know.”

  “Very dead.”

  “I know! You don’t think I’ve been thinking that every day since I’ve been here?”

  “Yes, but…I mean, none of Voortya’s miracles work anymore. And I know. I tried them, all over the Continent. It was an easy way to determine if there were any alterations to reality in any given location, certain contortions of physical rules—”

  “You’re losing me.”

  “Fine. But the Divinity we know as Voortya is very, very much gone from this world.”

  “I know that. But I saw what I saw.”

  Shara sighs, fumbles with her nightstand, and puts on her spectacles. Then she walks to the window and says, “Press your translation of Choudhry’s message up against the glass. Hurry now. We can’t get caught like this…”

  Mulaghesh does so. To her surprise, the surface of the pane of glass is quite hard.

  She can’t see her, but she can hear Shara talk as she reads: “My word…Oh, my goodness gracious…What did that poor girl go through?”

  “So you get the gravity of our situation.”

  “Yes,” says Shara. Her voice sounds like she’s just aged ten years. “You may remove the message now, please.”

  Mulaghesh takes it away. Shara is staring into space, blinking wearily. Then there’s a soft sound from the four-poster bed, a quiet coo, and Shara comes to life. She rushes back to the bed, sticks her head through the curtains, and shushes something. After a moment longer she returns to the window.

  “You have company?” asks Mulaghesh.

  “Something like that.” Her tone makes it clear that she’s not willing to discuss it.

  “When’s the last time you got sleep?” asks Mulaghesh.

  “Sleep?” asks Shara. She attempts to smile. “What’s that?”

  “I take it things aren’t going well.”

  “Oh, no. Not well at all. I fully expect this term in office will be my last.”

  “What! But what about all your programs? What about the harbor?”

  “Oh, well, they’ll be cut. The harbor they’ll keep—they’re contractually obliged to—but they’ll slash it to the bone. Unless whoever inherits the position from me chooses not to, of course, which seems unlikely. Anyway.” She rubs her eyes. “That is not the subject at hand. The subject at hand, I think, is one of sacrifice.”

  “Of what?”

  “Sacrifice. It grows clearer now. You know the story of Saint Zhurgut? How he fashioned Voortya’s sword from the arm of his son?”

  “I’ve heard mention of it.”

  “His son—his only child—fell in battle against the Jukoshtanis. This was before the Divinities united, of course. Anyway, instead of mourning and weeping, he struck off the hand of his son and presented it as a sacrifice to Voortya. This act of sacrifice was so great that it was transformed into a weapon for her, a tool of slaughter—the sword of Voortya.”

  “Which is her personal symbol,” says Mulaghesh.

  “Correct. But what many forget is that that act of sacrifice was done in mimicry of another, much older event—one that took place nearly one hundred years before. Because though it’s true Voortya was the first Divinity to create an afterlife, she could not do it alone. She was the Divinity of destruction. She could not build, or create. Such a capacity was beyond her. So she had to reach out to someone who could. Her opposite, as Choudhry mentions in her message—Ahanas.”

  “Ahanas?” says Mulaghesh, confused. “The…the Divinity of plants?”

  “Of growth, Turyin. Of fecundity, fertility, life—and creation. In other words, the very antithesis of Voortya in every way. In the very early days of the Continent, before the Divinities even united, it’s recorded that Voortya reached out to her opposite and asked for a truce. And, for a period, Voortya…courted her.”

  “Courted her? Like as in—”

  “As in romantically,” says Shara. “Sexually. Yes.”

  “So Voortya was…”

  “She was a Divinity. Which means our terms for whatever actions she might have taken do not have much application. Regardless, it became clear that Voortya had ends beyond romance. She used her relationship with the Divinity Ahanas to create the City of Blades, the ghostly island where her followers would wait for her after their deaths. The most common depiction of its creation has the two Divinities wading out into the sea and the white shores arising under their feet. It was, in some ways, both in accordance with and in complete contradiction to their own natures: life after death, creation beyond destruction. It was a powerfully self-contradictory act, and it required the two Divinities to become so entwined that, on some level, it wasn’t easy to tell one apart from the other. But once Voortya had gotten what she wanted—once she had secured an afterlife for her followers—she separated herself from Ahanas. Which was not an easy thing to do, at this point.”

  Mulaghesh remembers the drawings on the walls of Choudhry’s room. “She cu
t off her own hand, didn’t she?” she says softly.

  Shara cocks her head. “How did you know that?”

  “Choudhry painted it on her walls. Two figures standing on an island, one severing her hand at the wrist. She cut off her own hand while Ahanas held it, didn’t she?”

  Shara pushes her glasses up her nose. “Yes. Yes, she did. This is an interpretation of what, for we mortals, is an inconceivable act. But it is an apt one. Voortya was forced to mutilate herself in some fashion to strip herself away from Ahanas, to stay true to her nature and remain the Divinity her flock had chosen to follow. It was a tremendously traumatic event for both Divinities, and even after the Continent chose to unite, the two Divinities and two peoples refused to have anything to do with one another. But I suspect it was far more traumatic for Voortya.”

  “Why?”

  “She changed significantly. Before this event, Voortya was always depicted as a four-armed animal, a creature of tusks and horns and teeth. Not unlike a monster. After this, though, she began being depicted as a four-armed human woman dressed in the arrayments of battle: armor and sword and spear. And she never spoke again.”

  “Never?”

  “Never. There is a lot of speculation about this transformation. Some wonder if her trauma left her mute. But others suggest that her interactions with Ahanas changed her: she tasted, very briefly, life and love. She tasted an existence beyond one of torment and destruction. As a creature of war, she had never imagined that this could even exist. But then, suddenly, she did. She understood what was possible. And then she had to abandon it, and return to what she was.”

  “Why did she do that?”

  Shara shrugs. “I suspect it was because her people needed her. She had promised them an afterlife, and she was sworn to deliver. These things have a power of their own, you see. Voortya had never been defeated before this moment. She had never lost a battle, nor had her people. But in order to accomplish this victory, in order to win and create this life beyond death for her children, she had to defeat herself, to strike down her own being, to sacrifice herself. Again, the act of self-contradiction: life through death, victory through defeat. And, having done so, I think she never really recovered.”

  “So what does this have to do with anything?”

  “I suspect,” says Shara slowly, “that if the Voortyashtani afterlife still exists somewhere, then its persistence can somehow be traced back to this one act. A sacrifice is a promise, in a way, a symbolic exchange of power. Voortya gave up immense power to create the afterlife. I suspect that power escaped the wrath of the Kaj, and can still be found somewhere, anchoring her life beyond death to this world.”

  “So…where is it?” asks Mulaghesh.

  “Where is what?”

  “This, I don’t know, power?”

  “Oh, I’ve no idea,” says Shara. “We’re far beyond the realm of conventional knowledge here. Voortya’s interactions with Ahanas occurred before Bulikov was even founded. I suspect you’re dealing with something that took place back in the very early days of existence, before the Divinities understood what they themselves really were.”

  “Could it be…Could it be the thinadeskite?”

  “What, the thinadeskite as the physical manifestation of this power?” asks Shara. “That’s…Well, that’s not a bad idea, Turyin. But that too leaves a lot to be answered for—this thing you saw, this apparition—if it had anything in common with the original Voortya, why would she destroy the mines, the source of her own power?”

  “You yourself said she was traumatized,” says Mulaghesh. “Maybe we’re dealing with another mad Divinity.”

  “Perhaps. But it doesn’t seem to fit. Voortya never spoke, and in most depictions of her—when she took a comprehensible, humanoid form, that is—she had four arms and one missing hand. None of this matches up with what you saw and heard. And I would need undeniable proof if I were to try to do anything. I am not quite as powerful as when you left me, Turyin.”

  “So…So how does that help me figure out what to do next?” asks Mulaghesh, frustrated. “I don’t need stories, I need leads!”

  Shara sighs deeply. Mulaghesh is suddenly aware of how frail Shara seems, and she realizes that her demand is likely just one of thousands Shara must hear every single day. “I know. I know it’s not what you wanted. But I suspect it’s all I can give you. It is known that Voortyashtanis possessed a ritual to glimpse into the life beyond death, into the City of Blades—the Window to the White Shores. If there is a ritual that allowed them to fully cross over, I suspect it is a fusion of a Voortyashtani rite and an Ahanashtani rite. And, because of this curious quality, I expect it’s never been recorded. The one person who might know, it seems, is the old man Choudhry mentioned.”

  “And he told Choudhry how to cross over. And she went there to…to try to stop whatever’s happening. But obviously she failed somehow.”

  “I know,” says Shara. “But you will succeed.”

  “I know I have to! You don’t have to tell me that!”

  “I did not say you have to succeed,” says Shara. “I said you will. There is not a doubt in my mind, Turyin, that you can resolve this. You have been through far worse trials and faced far more difficult situations than this. You have a military fortress at your disposal, as well as a massive construction fleet. Though they may be unwilling, they are still potential resources.”

  “And just how in the hells am I going to use them?” snaps Mulaghesh, furious.

  “In Bulikov,” says Shara, “how did you convince me to collapse the tunnel to the Seat of the World, the greatest discovery in modern history, mere moments after I’d discovered it?”

  “I…Hells, I can’t remember!”

  “You did it,” says Shara, “by being a very belligerent, obnoxious woman.”

  Mulaghesh stares at her in disbelief. “Well…Well, thank you very fucking much!”

  “You have a talent,” says Shara, “for valuing what you feel is right over anything else, including, occasionally, the people around you. You do what you feel is right not because it is satisfying, but because you find any other option to be intolerable. This makes you incredibly frustrating to deal with. But it also means you find solutions where many others would simply give up.”

  “But…But this is a fucking Divinity we’re talking about! Surely if you went to the Ministry and told them what would happen—”

  “We have nothing definitive,” says Shara. “No concrete evidence, no proof—only your testimony, and that message of Choudhry’s. A half-coherent letter from an agent who went mad and has vanished, and your story, part of a clandestine operation that is occurring completely off the books. If I were to use what little we have here to mobilize our forces under the precept that another Divine event was imminent, there is a not-insignificant chance that it could result in something very similar to a coup.”

  “A coup?” says Mulaghesh, aghast. “In Saypur?”

  “I’m sure it would begin as an impeachment,” says Shara wearily. “Or something wearing much more civilized trappings. But I know there are forces in the military and industry that would be the ones to ramrod it through. I’ve broken a lot of rules to put you where you are now, Turyin. Without solid evidence, my opponents in Ghaladesh would say I was fabricating the whole thing, trying to drum up support where I have none. And when the dust settled, it would be these figures that would possess much more global power—something that could be terribly bad for Saypur, and the world.”

  Mulaghesh rubs the center of her forehead. “I thought you were going to toss all those ratfucks out on their ears when you got elected.”

  Shara smiles weakly. “There are rather a lot of ratfucks, unfortunately.”

  “So I’m on my own,” says Mulaghesh. “Even after this.”

  “No, no. Not alone. I do not think you are on your own. On the contrary, you have Sig—”

  She stops speaking and looks over Mulaghesh’s shoulder. Mulaghesh turns and sees that S
igrud has leapt to his feet and is silently stalking toward a blank section of wall. He examines the wall, looking it up and down, then looks at Shara in the windowpane and shakes his head.

  Shara mouths, “Good luck,” to Mulaghesh, wipes her fingers across the glass, and vanishes. The glass grows transparent yet again.

  Sigrud turns to the wall and feels along the crown molding. His finger finds a carving of a whale tooth. He presses it—there’s a click!—and the wall falls back like a door.

  Sigrud dives into the gap. There’s a cry of surprise and possibly pain from the other side. Mulaghesh has already grabbed the carousel and is raising it at the secret door, finger close to the trigger but not on it, not yet. She paces to line up along the wall behind the door, holding the carousel just at head-height.

  Someone tumbles into the room, stumbling from a hard shove. Mulaghesh’s instincts kick in and she puts the carousel’s sights right on their head, though it takes her a second to realize this particular head possesses bright blond hair arranged in an urbane coiffure, along with two furious blue eyes watching her from behind a pair of severe-looking glasses.

  “Shit,” says Mulaghesh. “Signe, between you and your father, I’m wondering if your whole family just doesn’t know how to use a door.”

  ***

  Sigrud walks back in and shuts the secret door. “How dare you!” Signe says to him. “How dare you treat me like that!”

  He ignores her and sits back down on the couch with his back to them, and lights his pipe.

  Mulaghesh looks at the panel in the wall. “I guess you forgot to tell me you had one of these in my room.”

  “You didn’t ask,” Signe says angrily. “You knew we had servants’ doors all throughout SDC headquarters. Of course we’d have one here; this is a vice-presidential suite”—she looks around at the chicken bones and tobacco—“though I see you have treated it with your usual amount of care.”

  “Why would I want one of these in my room?”

  “If you had ordered food it’d have come through that very door. It’s all perfectly innocent!”