City of Blades

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  “That much?”

  Signe nods. “Old Voortyashtanis used them as water bags. They were big enough to keep a man on his feet for days. I suppose that was their standard amount of measurement.”

  “I guess we don’t know any killer’s corpses we could drain,” says Mulaghesh. “Or any murderous prisoners sentenced to death.”

  “No,” says Sigrud. “Though one wonders how Choudhry got any, in order to perform it herself.”

  Mulaghesh has been wondering the very same thing during her journey back, but it isn’t until she sees Sigrud that she has the idea. “Wait, we talked about this….Choudhry’d been in the military briefly before she joined the Ministry. She’d had to use lethal force once when someone tried to charge through a checkpoint.”

  “Lethal force?” says Signe. “So…you’re saying Choudhry was a killer herself?”

  “Which means she could have used her own blood,” says Sigrud. He pulls a face. “Two or three pints of blood…Very difficult for someone to manage that.”

  “What if she did it over time?” says Mulaghesh. “Bloodletting every couple of weeks?”

  “Still quite difficult, I would imagine,” says Sigrud. “A lot of recovery time needed. Either way, that doesn’t fix our problem. How are we to do this? I suppose you and I could do it, Turyin, but that wouldn’t be an easy thing to split between us.”

  “What if you could split it three ways?” says Signe.

  “That might work,” says Sigrud, “but who would be our third?”

  “I would,” says Signe.

  “You wo…” Sigrud slows and comes to a stop as he processes what Signe said. “You…You would?”

  She meets his gaze. “I would. Yes. I would be able to.”

  Sigrud stares at his daughter for a long time, his face a mix of confusion and anguish as he comes to understand what his daughter is saying. “I did not know.”

  “I know,” she says. “And…I know there’s a lot I don’t know about you.” She puts a hand on his shoulder.

  Sigrud looks at her hand and then at her, his one eye blinking rapidly. “If the world had been different.”

  “If it had been, yes. But it wasn’t.”

  “I hate to interrupt, but,” says Mulaghesh, coughing awkwardly, “split between three—that should be doable, yes?”

  “Maybe,” says Signe. “It’s still a lot. And you’d still be going through into the City of Blades weakened. You’re already exhausted, I can tell. Are you sure you still want to try?”

  “No, I definitely fucking don’t want to try,” says Mulaghesh. “But I don’t see another way. You’d better swing by the SDC infirmary, because we’re going to need some bloodletting tools.”

  “Why not just get Rada Smolisk to help us?” asks Signe. “She’s a doctor.”

  “Because I don’t want anyone else knowing about this beyond us. Doing this would mean taking her to the yard of statues. That’s not safe by a long shot. I know some field medicine, so that should be enough—at least, I hope it will be enough.”

  “So do I,” says Sigrud.

  ***

  Evening is falling as Sigrud and Mulaghesh wait in the yard of statues. Despite Mulaghesh’s recent interactions with the Divine, they’ve still lost none of their menace: the countless carvings and alien forms disturb her even when she’s not looking at them, like they turn to watch her when she’s not looking.

  The basin to her left is filled with cold seawater, hauled up bucket by bucket by SDC workers. Mulaghesh has already been to the apothecary shop and paid what felt like a few months’ salaries for the reeking, shriveled reagents: rosemary, pine needles, dried worms, grave dust, dried frog eggs, and bone powder, not to mention the sackcloth. Mulaghesh is pretty sure the apothecary sensed her desperation and overcharged her.

  Voortya’s pale white face hangs just over Mulaghesh’s shoulder. She tries to ignore it. She especially tries to ignore how the face seems to be looking into the basin of seawater, where Mulaghesh herself will likely be going very shortly, if all goes to plan. She’s outfitted herself with her carousel and a rifling, though she’s very aware that, if the other sentinels are at all like Zhurgut, these armaments won’t make a dent in them. She’s packed a decent field medical kit as well, though again, from seeing what Zhurgut did to the Dreylings, she doubts she’d be able to self-apply much after tangling with a sentinel. Her primary strategy is to move as undetected as possible. Though in the situation that she is detected, she’s also brought four grenades, but she’s a little reticent to use them: hand grenades are far easier to operate when the user possesses both hands.

  “I’m getting antsy,” she says. “Where’s your daughter? I don’t want to try to bleed myself unless I have the right tools.”

  “She’ll be here. One question on my mind, though, is what do you plan to do once you get to this City of Blades?”

  “Find Choudhry. Find out how the Night of the Sea of Swords works. Then find out how to stop it.”

  Sigrud thinks about it, then shakes his head. “You have picked up Shara’s ability,” he says, “to produce elaborate plans that happen to lack the most important part.”

  “Well, what the hells do you suggest?”

  “Me? Blow it up. Bring explosives over there and mine the place. Then…Ktch.” He mimes pushing down a plunger. “Boom.”

  “You want me to blow up the afterlife.”

  Sigrud shrugs. “It worked for me in Bulikov.”

  The metal door squeaks open and Signe walks in, a small leather satchel hanging from her shoulder. When she sees them she nods and breaks into a run. “Biswal is coming,” she says breathlessly.

  “Eh?” says Mulaghesh. “Retreating from the highlands already?”

  “No, Biswal is coming, and he’s on the warpath. More so than when he left, I mean. He’s making a beeline for here, though I’ve no idea why—though the rumor has it he’s heard about, well…” She glances around at the statues. “This.”

  “He knows about the yard of statues?” says Mulaghesh. “How in hells could that have happened?”

  “Didn’t someone infiltrate this place just days ago?” says Sigrud. “After Zhurgut?”

  “Yeah…But…You think whoever is trying to start the Night of the Sea of Swords is behind the tip-off?” asks Mulaghesh. “Why would they go to Biswal all of the sudden? They haven’t exactly behaved lawfully so far.”

  “Well, it certainly is fucking us over right now, isn’t it?” asks Signe, furious. “If that was their goal, then they are wildly succeeding. What are we going to do?”

  “The same thing we were going to do before,” says Mulaghesh. “Only now we’ll need to hurry. If Biswal gets here we’ll never get the chance to try this again.”

  “You still want to move ahead with your plan, General?” asks Signe.

  “I don’t have a choice. Are you with me?”

  Signe and Sigrud glance at each other. Then, finally, they nod.

  “Good,” says Mulaghesh. “Roll up your sleeves.”

  Mulaghesh does Sigrud first—she knows he probably won’t show any pain, so he’s a good practice subject before moving on to Signe—and soon she has three needles with three tubes spurting out viscous blood into the basin of seawater.

  “So…you go over there,” says Signe, “wherever there is. And what do we do if you don’t come back?”

  “If I don’t come back, then the apocalypse happens,” says Mulaghesh. “And if that happens, you and your dad here need to evacuate everyone in Voortyashtan.”

  Sigrud nods. “Once you’re over there, I will go to the lighthouse and coordinate.”

  “How’s your arm?”

  “Painful. But mobile. It will do. Much like your hip. We ask much of our bodies.”

  They stand around the basin, staring at the muddy red waters.

  “So…how do we know when it’s done?” asks Sigrud, watching the arrhythmic gush of his own blood. “I frankly would like to have this thing out of me as
soon as possible.”

  “You’re the Voortyashtani, Signe,” says Mulaghesh. “You tell me.”

  “You forget that I’ve never seen a miracle performed, General,” she says. “Besides the resurrection of Zhurgut. I’m well out of my league.”

  “We’re all out of our league.” Mulaghesh kneels—keeping her left arm raised awkwardly so her own blood continues to pour into the basin—and lights the bundle of sackcloth at the foot of the plinth. She blows on it a little to get it going. “The miracles I’ve seen varied in showiness. Some you didn’t notice, some made sure you couldn’t help but notice. Are we going to see any rays of light, or chorus of singing, or—”

  “—or swirling waters?” says Sigrud.

  “Right, or that.”

  “No,” says Signe. “He means the water’s swirling. Right now.”

  Mulaghesh stands up. The reddish seawater in the basin is slowly circling, creating a small funnel in the center, like it’s draining away—but the level never lowers.

  “Huh,” says Mulaghesh. “Is this…it?”

  The more the sackcloth burns, the faster the water swirls, spinning more and more until it begins to make a low rumble as it rushes along the edge of the basin. Finally the sackcloth is just a heap of ash, but the waters keep accelerating.

  “Is it done?” asks Signe. “Finished?”

  “I believe it is just beginning,” says Sigrud.

  They watch, forgetting their bloodletting, as the water spins faster and faster until it’s a cyclone of bloodstained water, whirling so fast that the very air above it starts to spin with it. Somehow not a drop of it flies out, despite the shallow basin: Mulaghesh and the rest remain as dry as they were when they started.

  A cool breeze filters through the yard of statues. Then there’s a familiar sound: a soft, droning om, much like the sound the whole of Voortyashtan heard whenever Saint Zhurgut hurled his massive blade. And somehow, in some intangible way, there is the unmistakable feeling of a door being opened nearby.

  They all shiver. “I think…I think that is enough,” says Sigrud.

  “Yes,” says Signe. She looks up and peers around the yard as if she’s heard a curious noise. “Something’s changed. Something’s different now, though I can’t quite tell what.”

  Mulaghesh stares down into the roaring tunnel of water. “By the seas…I’m going in there?”

  “That seems to be the case,” says Sigrud, removing his syringe and applying a bandage. He walks over to assist Signe. “Are we so sure Sumitra Choudhry wasn’t beaten to death by the waters themselves?”

  “Thanks for the confidence boost,” says Mulaghesh. She winces as she slides the needle out of her arm and wraps her elbow up with bandages.

  Signe asks, “Are you going in?”

  “I guess.” Mulaghesh sits on the edge of the basin, like a deep-sea diver about to drop herself in the ocean. She looks up at them. “Are we all ready?”

  “Is it possible for any normal human to be ready for this?” asks Signe.

  “Fair point.” Mulaghesh grips the edge of the basin, then freezes, suddenly seized with terror. This could be the last moment she has in this world, the last second of genuine waking life. “I didn’t think I’d make it to this age,” says Mulaghesh. “If…If I don’t come back…Tell them…Tell everyone I said I’m sorry. Okay? Just tell them that.”

  “We will,” says Signe. “I’ll tell them. I’ll tell them that, and I’ll tell them the truth.”

  “You had better,” says Mulaghesh. “Someone needs to.” Then without another thought, she pitches herself backward into the whirlpool.

  ***

  She expects to fall down a tunnel. That’s what it was, after all, when she saw it: a whirlpool of rushing, roaring water, with a narrow tunnel leading straight down into the center of the basin.

  But when she falls backward that’s not what she experiences at all. Instead it’s like she’s fallen into the surface of a still lake: the water embraces her all at once, a solid, flat surface rather than a raging whirlpool, and it’s not a narrow column of water but a vast, dark ocean with a single hole of light at the top. She’s not being whipped around by a cyclone of water; she’s just…falling. It’s like she’s fallen through a hole cut in ice, and she can see the rippling faces of her two comrades looking in at her.

  Most disconcertingly, though, she’s sinking. Fast.

  Her instincts kick in: she needs to swim up, back up, now. She kicks her feet, trying to gain traction, but she’s weighed down by her gear, which itself is strapped to her body very tightly, so she can’t let go.

  She plummets down into the darkness, feeling the inexorable pressure of all that water gripping her whole body. It’s like she’s in the hand of a giant, tightening its freezing grip. The hole of light above her is just a pinprick now. She knows she shouldn’t—she’s been trained on drowning—but she starts panicking, kicking wildly, flailing about in the icy depths. One trickle of water penetrates her lips, and suddenly all the air comes flooding out of her, crystalline bubbles bursting from her nose and mouth and spiraling up to the tiny white pinprick above.

  She’s drowning. She’s drowning and she knows it. She’s going to die in this damned big bathtub and there’s nothing she can do about it.

  But then the world…tips.

  The pull of gravity spins about her.

  Suddenly she’s not falling, but rising, rising up toward the surface, her legs pointed toward what looks like a pool of stars below her—no, above her.

  She awkwardly flips herself over and looks up, lungs screaming for air, as she flies up toward the pool of stars. Then she realizes it’s not quite a pool, exactly, but a hole, just like the one she fell through…except the stars in the sky she’s seeing aren’t right at all.

  She punches through the surface of the water and launches herself up, surging for air, gasping hugely.

  Her fingers find stone. She grabs onto it and clings tight like a child first learning to swim. Once she catches her breath she looks around herself.

  She stares.

  “What the…What the fuck,” she breathes.

  She’s in what looks to be a gazing pool set in a courtyard between two giant, towering buildings, each of which resembles a flowering anemone. The ground of the courtyard is covered with white gravel, upon which sit broad, white marble tiles, forming a grid. Golden light flows from nearby doorways, creating honey-colored slashes across the gravel, and standing at odd angles on the tiles are statues of…

  Wait. Those aren’t statues at all.

  Her skin crawls as she realizes six Voortyashtani sentinels are standing in the courtyard with her, their massive, hideous armor flexing ever so slightly as they breathe. Mulaghesh tries to stay perfectly still in the water of the gazing pool. She’s made a lot of noise so far, but none of them stand or react to her—just like when she had her vision before.

  She waits. Nothing happens. Then she stirs up her courage and says, “Hey—hey!”

  None of them move. Warily, she climbs out of the gazing pool, then scurries over to the wall for shelter. Her breath produces an incredible amount of condensation, even though her skin doesn’t feel cold. It’s as if there’s just something frigid about this place that can’t react correctly to the living.

  She looks herself over, mostly to make sure her ammunition is still secured to her rig. The cartridges should still work—she’s seen these damned things fire underwater before. And Signe’s brace has held, so she’s still gripping the rifling. It’s then that she notices that she’s now stained a dark red from head to toe: her clothes, skin, and even her hair are all a dusty crimson. It’s like she’s been marinating in blood, even though her time in the basin was hardly more than a minute or so.

  She licks her fingers and rubs her skin, assuming it will wash off. It doesn’t.

  “Shit,” she mutters. This will make her easy to spot in this colorless place.

  She considers what to do now. She looks up at the t
wo massive towers above her, riddled with windows glowing white or gold. The starry sky above is beautiful and strange, featuring some stars that are both the wrong size and the wrong color. Every once in a while a shooting star blazes bright against the dark. It’s a hauntingly beautiful place, albeit strange and ghostly.

  She looks at one group of sentinels, then walks closer until they’re about ten feet from her. She can see variations in their armor now: some feature more aquatic ornamentations, others have more antlers, and some have only teeth of all shapes lining their shoulders and backs. They’re like different uniforms, she thinks. Maybe from different military units, different regions of Voortyashtan…or different eras in history.

  She walks closer, rifling at the ready. The closest sentinel still faces away from her, but if it was conscious or alert, it’d hear her footfalls. Then she realizes that the sentinel is speaking, mumbling. She leans closer, listening, until she can hear its words:

  “I threw down the bridges, threw down the walls, leapt among the fleeing flock and struck them down like wheat before the scythe. I did this for you, Mother, I did this for you….”

  She walks to the next two, and hears:

  “I stood upon the prow of my vessel and my heart leapt forth and I struck down their ships one by one, dashing them to flotsam and jetsam, and as we sailed by they clutched to the debris and cried out for help and we laughed at them. I did this for you, Mother. We did this for you….”

  “We laid siege to the city for three weeks and four days, and when they opened the gates to admit defeat our swords fell upon them like rain upon a rooftop. They had thought we would be kind, that we would sanction their lives in return for their submission, but oh what fools they were, Mother, what fools they were….”

  She listens to them, hearing each brutal story, each horrific victory. They’re reliving them over and over, she realizes, reliving their accomplishments, celebrating the deeds that won them their place here in the afterlife. But always they tie each story back to their “mother,” and each time they do there is a note of recrimination in it: as if they did these things for her, and secretly they did not wish to do them at all, and now she has somehow betrayed them.