Soleri

by Michael Johnston

  Arko hit Saad on the jaw with his free hand, hit him again and again, mangling his face and nearly snapping his neck. He enjoyed Saad’s every grimace, his every shout of pain. More than anything he wanted Saad to suffer the same fear Arko’s family endured. He could have struck him down with a quick blow but instead he did it slowly. He fought with time he did not have.

  A blade pierced Arko’s calf, a second one cut him across the arm, and the Ray of the Sun faltered just long enough for Saad to retreat.

  “I’m not letting you go, Saad.”

  He followed, but Saad’s men were upon him. Arko hit two with his fist, told his hired men to hurry to his side. “Push back!” he cried, too late.

  Saad was out of reach, backing deeper into the corridor. Arko met his eyes, saw that the boy was grinning now, his bloody face nearly giddy with victory. Where are the Harkans?

  The courtyard was empty, save for the Alehkar; no one was coming.

  His assassins’ bodies covered the floor. Arko saw only the Protector’s men, filling up the corridor. He was outnumbered. Surprise had been his only advantage, but it hadn’t been enough. His men were falling and there were no more to replace them, no Harkans.

  The Alehkar advanced, crowding the corridor, pushing Arko back into the Antechamber. They surrounded him, swarming around him like flies on a corpse.

  A blade penetrated his left shoulder, a hot sharpness in his skin that grew and spread like the first drink of strong liquor. He swung his other arm, forcing his attacker backward, and punched, knocking the man over. The assassin at his left took a sword in the chest. One remained. He swung valiantly, clearing the path ahead of Arko, before taking a knife to the back.

  “I’m not finished, Saad.” Arko would not give up, he would not submit. They had forced him to retreat into the Antechamber, but he resisted—he pushed hard against the soldiers. One man at a time he fought his way back into the corridor. He caught sight of Saad, his armor, bright and yellow. The Protector was retreating, but Arko caught up to him, his sword held out. “Boy,” he said, “don’t even think of running away from me.” The handle of the dagger still protruded from Arko’s shoulder.

  Saad shook his head, his eyes on the haft of the dagger. “You’re finished, Harkan, one way or another,” he said. “I’m under orders from the emperor himself.”

  The emperor? What the hell is this idiot talking about? So Sarra had not told the boy the truth. He didn’t know. Arko pushed past the soldiers. He stood once more face-to-face with Saad.

  “You damned fool!” Arko said. “You think Sarra Amunet will grant you power when this is done? That she will make you Ray? When she has coveted that position since she took the cowl of the Mother Priestess?” He pushed his blade into Saad’s chest and staggered backward. Seeing the sword strike their master, the Alehkar slashed frantically at Arko, cutting his leg, his cheek. Arko ignored the blows. His eyes were on Saad. Are you dead, boy? Is the task done?

  Saad cried out. His men caught him and carried him away. “Sir!” they cried. “Make way for the Protector!” they said as they made off with his body. They would try to save their master. They might manage it, but the look on Saad’s face when he realized Arko had gutted him was worth everything else, almost.

  With Saad gone, the men focused only on Arko. The Alehkar formed ranks, their captains calling out orders. They leveled their swords and pressed their shields into a wall, driving him back into the Antechamber.

  The men forced Arko backward until he stood against Suten’s desk, the chamber crowded with Alehkar.

  A mighty crack, and the doors to the Antechamber started to close, wood splitting and bronze bolts screaming. The soldiers on the other side were locking the door. The Alehkar around him began to panic. Arko pushed forward, over the fallen bodies, but the door was already halfway shut, and though he tried to wedge himself between them, the doors ground to a slow halt. Then the sound of the bolt sliding home. Shut in.

  The light dimmed. He was alone with the Alehkar, each of whom was as trapped as Arko himself. He turned, his body aching with every movement, his flesh tearing, ripping, heart pounding. He ducked behind the great table, his legs nearly giving out, his movements slowing. He tossed the table over to make a wall, to give him time to retrieve the shield from a fallen man. He was weak, but he could do this. He needed time.

  His vision started to go gray: there was smoke in the chamber. A sickly odor, like the scent of a butchered hog. Arko beat back the approaching soldiers, knocking two against the wall. Three more, he thought. Come on, then. He composed his stance.

  The floorboards were hot; he felt the heat through his sandals. Smoke whistled from between the wide planks, black soot winding its way around the face of the wood. The floor erupted into flame; the air turned black. A point pierced his belly, then another his back, another hot starburst of pain. He wrenched the knife from his stomach and forced it into the soldier’s chest, kicking him to the floor, he turned to face the other, but the smell of smoke and hog fat had already gotten the better of the man, who collapsed at Arko’s feet. Saad must be roasting a whole herd of pigs beneath him, their fat used as an accelerant. This was the old trial, the Emperor’s Justice, Mithra’s Fire—no enemy of the Soleri could survive it. Very clever, Sarra. Arko covered his mouth and nose with a cloth he tore from his bloody tunic.

  Saad’s last soldier approached, blade held high. Why fight, Arko thought, when you’re as dead as the man you seek to kill? But the soldier came at him anyway, desperation in his eyes, as if Saad might still let him live if he performed this last task. Arko bested him with the dagger, jamming it into his chest, blocking the sword with his bare arm, then smashing the soldier in the jaw with a closed fist. The man tumbled backward, the impact of the fall shattering the weakened floorboards. A beam collapsed, taking half the floor down with it. Arko heard the man cry out, saw the outlines of the trap they had built deep beneath the Antechamber for the dying pigs, for the wood and oil. The stink of burning pig flesh was everywhere, the sound of the animals screaming. Arko crawled toward the shutters and managed to reach the window just before a beam gave way, carrying another section of the floor down into the flames. With what strength remained in his limbs, he pounded the amber glass of the Empyreal Domain, but the window would not crack.

  Arko gasped.

  There was no air in the room; the fire had taken it all.

  There was only smoke and flame.

  The boards teetered, suspending him above the fiery pit.

  Arko Hark-Wadi thought of his children, his boy, his girls. He hoped his words reached Merit, he hoped Kepi was safe, he hoped Ren found the eld, that he would claim the throne before Sarra could move against him, he hoped and he hoped—but the moment had passed. The flames danced at his heels, angry and eddying. The floor collapsed and Arko fell into the fire.

  57

  Just after midday the gate to the underground city banged open and Ren rushed to the edge of the roof to see a hurried mass streaming out of the tunnel, followed by thick black smoke that swirled upward and finally left the passageway clear. Those who escaped coughed and spat. Ren grabbed his blade, shimmying down a narrow pillar to street level and sprinting through the open doorway, pushing through the crowd, turning sideways, shoving others aside, pressing his way down the long staircase, Adin at his heels, shouting, “Ren, wait! Not so fast, Ren!” From the rooftop Ren had seen smoke coming from the edge of the Shroud Wall, from what he guessed was the Antechamber, smoke pouring upward from the Waset. If Tye were not coming out, if she were still inside the Priory and the inner district was on fire, Ren would have to go in.

  It felt like ages since his escape through the Hollows with Oren Thrako at his back. He remembered the gates, the narrow passages—the goosenecks, Oren had called them—but the two of them had moved so quickly that Ren did not remember the way anymore. In the dark, with the acrid smell of smoke in his nostrils, he felt a moment of panic: which way was safety, and which way was a dead end?


  He struggled against the tide of bodies, battered by the people fleeing the fire, pushed and pulled in a hundred directions. A man carrying a filthy child knocked into him with so much force that Ren’s teeth rattled. Three boys not much younger than Ren stumbled past him, screaming, their hair smoking, all of them going the same way, away from the trouble. Adin pushed him onward, elbowing the crowd aside. They passed into a wide sewer, the smell of refuse everywhere, so thick it made the boys gag. This was not the path Ren had taken to escape—he would remember this chamber, dimmer and dingier than the rest.

  Adin uttered a long gagging sound, and the boy retched, splashing his most recent meal over his feet, last night’s bread. Ren tore a strip from his tunic and gave half to his friend. “Cover your mouth and nose with this,” he said, and tied his own face with the remaining half. Where are the passages, the goosenecks—the long, dark corridors that pass between the walls?

  They searched for the door, for the path through to the next chamber, but they saw no gates save the one they had already entered. One by one people staggered past, tasting the air, pushing away the black smoke and the stink of human waste. Up ahead they found a long, wide stair that passed over a churning stream of black water and climbed up quickly. At the top, they staggered into a lightless chamber, stumbled into a wall, then inched through the darkness, following the murmurs of a distant crowd. They reached an archway and paused. Ren saw the sewer, the people running, covering their noses with one hand. The shouts of the crowd made it hard to think.

  “Where are we?” Adin asked

  “Lost.” Ren tore a clean strip of fabric from his tunic and pressed it to his mouth. “We’re lost.”

  “I noticed,” Adin said, splashing filthy water on his face.

  “We should go back.”

  “No,” Adin said, grabbing Ren by the tunic as he eyed a sideways chamber. It was larger than the first, still choked with smoke but smelling less of sewage.

  “Following your nose?” Ren asked.

  “Better than following you.”

  “Let’s hope.”

  Ren came around a rocky outcropping and caught sight of the chamber’s full length, a long series of corridors packed shoulder to shoulder with the escaping masses. Behind him, Ren heard a scuffle. Adin had pulled a boy from the crowd.

  Ren pushed him aside. “We have no time, Adin.”

  “But—” Adin pointed at the boy. Ren came closer, the strange boy’s face settling into a familiar shape: It was Kollen Pisk, one of the older boys. Soot covered his gaunt features, but the long crooked nose, the black eyes, and beard were unmistakable. Adin had found one of the Priory boys.

  “He’s just come from Tolemy’s house,” Adin said. “He can help us find it.”

  The older boy laughed. “You two shits going back there?” He glanced from one skinny boy to the next. “Just the two of you? Good luck with that.”

  “We’re lost,” Ren said.

  “No kidding.”

  “Will you help us, we need to find our way back. Were you the only one released?”

  “You dumb prick. You think I was released?” Kollen raised a hand to his brow, wiping away sweat. “The guards fled. They saved their asses and left us to die. A few of us, the ones in the classrooms and in the refectory, escaped.”

  Ren felt a stab of anguish. “When did you leave?”

  “Just now.”

  “Then there’s still time.”

  “For what, crap-jaw? Time to get yourself killed?”

  Ren smacked Kollen on the ear, but the older boy punched back.

  “Kollen!” Ren said, putting his hand on his dagger and making sure the other boy saw. “Do it again and I’ll cut your throat. Now, tell us the way back.”

  Kollen bit his lip. “King of Harkana, and you come all the way back here for the rest of us?” he asked. “For what? Oh I see. Your little girl is it? Tye?”

  Ren flushed scarlet. “How do you know?”

  “Everyone knows. After they took you to the sun, the guards stripped her down and searched her for weapons. They saw the truth.”

  “What happened—where is she?”

  “That’s the thing. No one knows where the guards took her, but I don’t think it was back to her family.” He leered.

  Ren lunged at Kollen but stopped himself. The arrogant boy was his only hope for finding the Priory.

  “You’re a damn fool, Hark-Wadi. You always were.”

  “Maybe so, but that’s my business. Show us the way you came.”

  The larger boy hesitated, looking over his shoulder, to the way the other two boys had come, but Kollen didn’t flee. He righted himself and grunted a bit, pinching his nose to stop the blood, brushing his hair from his eyes. The crowd pushed, the smoke swirled around him. The older boy looked toward the gate, toward the route that led to the surface. He wasn’t far; he could escape—Ren saw the thought flicker across his face—but he instead said, “Back there.” He pointed to the far side of a massive turret and began walking.

  “Come on,” Ren said.

  They followed the tall boy through the passage, Kollen telling how the priors had opened the gates when the fire started, how the boys had first been confused, then elated, then terrified when they saw the smoke and the flames. They had pushed for the door, toward fresh air, crushing one another in their urgency.

  The older boy led them through a dim passage that curved to the west, behind the more well-worn routes through the underground city. Ren was thinking about Tye, hoping she was still in the Priory, that she was alive and unmolested. A sick feeling in his gut told him things had gone terribly wrong for the girl.

  Up ahead stood a massive wall with a small black opening—a gooseneck. He took them through the narrow archway, past the gate, winding left, then right. The corridor was lightless and unguarded, the gates left open. In their panic, the people were avoiding the narrow passages in favor of the corridors that led directly to the surface. He guessed the older boy had come this way to get himself as far as possible from the Priory. He was an escaped prisoner and the underground city was a perfect place to hide as he fled.

  The passage opened into a wide, smoke-filled corridor. The boys walked shoulder to shoulder, not wanting to lose contact with each other, Ren with a hand on Adin’s shoulder, feeling the sweat drip off his friend’s neck. The caverns were growing warmer, the smoke thicker. The crowds thinned as they pressed deeper into the Hollows. Ren and the two boys passed unmolested through the goosenecks, but the smoke at the end of the last was so dense they could hardly see. They clutched fabric, torn from their shirts and wetted, to their mouths and noses. They wiped their eyes, but the sting was maddening.

  The smoke churned, caught in an unseen draft. Ren pushed onward, but something held him back: Kollen’s arm across his chest. “There.” The older boy pointed through a patch of smoke, across a bridge, at a doorway.

  The path was unguarded, but smoke poured from the Priory. The darkness beyond the door flickered red and orange.

  “Are we really going in there?” Adin asked.

  “Do we have a choice?” Ren had to find Tye. He tore a fresh strip from his tunic and covered his face again. He put his shoulder down and barreled toward the door. It gave way, hotly, to a plume of smoke and fire. Ren was aware of Kollen and Adin behind him, dimly, the sound of their coughing cutting through the gloom.

  Inside, smoldering embers and fallen beams littered the corridors and fire rippled across the ceiling, but the stones held. The Priory’s walls were rock, but the substructures, the floors and ceilings, were wood. The boards were alive with flame, the heat intense. Up ahead, the body of a boy lay crushed under a fallen beam. Somewhere, from inside the Priory, a voice cried out, “Help!” followed by a single long shriek. A boy emerged from the smoke, his body black with soot, his hair on fire, skin peeling at the neck. He plowed directly into Ren, his hot breath exhaling into Ren’s mouth as the two collided. The boy was unrecognizable—the fire had t
aken his face from him, robbed him of his voice—but Ren tackled him and beat the flames out as the boy screamed. A second shadow emerged from the smoke. “Kollen, get them out of here,” Ren demanded. Kollen picked up the burnt boy and slung him over one shoulder while he pulled the other by the scruff of his neck, and led them both toward the entry.

  Ren tried to orient himself.

  The Priory felt alien, changed, but not only by the fire and smoke. Not even a month had passed since he had last been there, but the place felt different, the corridors smaller, the ceilings lower.

  Down the hall Ren and Adin found two more boys huddled in their cells, Nix and Benk, neither boy older than ten. Ren pulled them out of their cells, and Adin started to ferry them to Kollen, who would show them the route to the surface. But both boys made it only a few steps before stopping. “You’re looking for survivors?” Benk asked.

  “As many as we can,” said Adin.

  “I’ll help you,” said Benk, and Nix nodded too. Four of them would be able to cover more ground. So they did, scurrying through the Priory’s serpentine corridors, moving beams and leaping across gaps in the floor. They found Aric dead in his cell, only seven years old—choked to death on smoke, probably. Geb was dead too, his head crushed by a fallen door. A second body lay at his feet, the face burnt beyond recognition. Is that you, Tye? Ren couldn’t tell. Keep looking. Keep looking as long as you can.

  He found three more boys, including Carr Bergen. “Where is everyone?” Ren asked.

  “The guards bolted when the fire started,” Carr said. “They left us to die in our cells. Everyone in the refectory escaped.” He scowled at Kollen, who joined them once more. “They left without opening our cells. He left.” Carr pointed at Kollen.

  “I saved my own ass,” Kollen said. “Nothing wrong with that. I should have kept going when you two found me. Now we’re all going to die in here, isn’t that just roses?”

  Ren pushed past the older boy, leading Carr and the others out to the hallways. They clambered up steps into the practice hall and found two more boys huddled in a corner, half dead from smoke. Ren could not recall their names, but he guessed they were nine or ten. The pair was sitting on a half-burnt rug, brandishing wooden swords. Ren reached out a hand to pull them up, moving more quickly now, not stopping to talk. They went up and down the hallways, beating down doors and freeing whomever they could. They searched the crypt and the passages beneath the Priory.