The Divine Cities Trilogy: City of Stairs, City of Blades, and City of Miracles, With an Excerpt From Foundryside

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  One of his compatriots is standing in a doorway along the side of the hall, almost out of sight. His compatriot trembles slightly, jerking his shoulders with his hands at his sides, and there is something on his mask, something large and white-pink and rippled that extends outward, into the doorway, where Cheyschek cannot see.

  As Cheyschek nears, he sees that the something on his compatriot’s face is actually somethings: a pair of huge hands grasps the sides of the man’s head, yet the thumbs have been shoved deep into the man’s eye sockets, all the way up to the second knuckle.

  His compatriot gags, gurgles. Blood spurts around the thumbs, painting the wrists, the walls, the floor.

  Cheyschek sees now.

  There is a giant man standing in the shadows of the doorway, and he is murdering Cheyschek’s compatriot with his bare hands.

  The giant looks up, his one eye burning with a pale fire.

  Cheyschek screams, and blindly fires the bolt-shot. The giant man recoils, drops Cheyschek’s compatriot, and falls backward. Then the giant lies in the hallway, completely still.

  Cheyschek, weeping freely, runs to his compatriot and rips his mask off. When he sees what is below his screams turn to howls.

  He holds his dead compatriot in his arms. See what befalls the honored sons of my country, he wishes to say. See what happens to the righteous in such sullied times. But he does not have the control for the words.

  “At least I killed him,” he says to his dead friend, sobbing. “Please let that be enough. Please. At least I killed the man who did this to yo—”

  There is an irritated grunt. Cheyschek, startled, stops and looks around.

  With a curious determination, the big man slowly sits up and looks down at his hands in his lap.

  He opens his left hand. Inside it, glimmering in the light of the gas lamps, is Cheyschek’s bolt—which was apparently snatched out of midair before it could ever find its mark.

  The big man looks at the bolt with bemusement, as one would the strange toy of a child. Then he looks up at Cheyschek, and his one eye is filled with a cold, gray-blue calm, like the heart of an iceberg.

  Cheyschek fumbles to reload the bolt-shot. There is a flurry of movement. Cheyschek feels fingers around his throat, blood battering the backs of his eyes, the floor lifting away, and the last thing he sees is a glass window flying at him, breaking around him, before he is embraced by the cold night and, almost directly after, the street below.

  * * *

  —

  Shara is ready when the two men burst into the room: she is sitting perfectly still on the bed, hands raised. Vohannes, however, does not follow the advice she just gave him, but leaps to his feet, cane thrust forward like a rapier, damning them for this and that.

  “Hands in the air!” shouts one of the men.

  “Clearly I have done that,” says Shara.

  “Get down on the ground!” bellows the other. They are dressed, she notes, in gray robes that have been tied tight around the joints and neck: it has the look of ceremonial wear, and they have strange, flat gray masks upon their faces.

  “We will all sit down,” says Shara.

  Vohannes is nothing so placid: “I will fuck the mouths of all your ancestors before I listen to one word you vandals have to say!”

  “Vo,” says Shara calmly.

  “Get down! Down!” the second attacker shouts. “Do it! Now!”

  “Grab him!” says the first.

  “Listen,” says Shara.

  “Get fucked!” shouts Vohannes. He stabs at one of the men with his cane.

  The man grunts. “Stop that!”

  “Get down, damn you!” shouts the other attacker.

  But Vohannes is already moving for another strike. One of the masked men grabs his cane: there is a brief struggle, Vohannes lets go of his cane, and both of them stumble back.

  The attacker’s bolt-shot clicks, and Shara ducks slightly to the left as the bolt soars out, parting the air just where her neck was, before burying itself deep in the headboard of the bed.

  The three men, startled, stare at her and the quivering bolt behind her.

  Shara clears her throat. “Listen,” she says to the two attackers. “Listen to me now. You have made a terrible mistake.”

  “Shut up and get down on the ground!” shouts one of them.

  “You need to lay down your weapons,” says Shara, voice as smooth as fresh milk. “And surrender quietly.”

  “Filthy shally,” growls one of them. “Shut up, and get down.”

  “Why you—” Vohannes struggles to stand.

  “Stop, Vo,” she says.

  “Why?”

  “We aren’t in danger.”

  “Shut up!” shouts one of the attackers.

  “They almost shot you in the face!” says Vohannes.

  “Well, we are in some danger,” she admits. “But we just…We just need to wait.”

  The two attackers, she notes, are growing increasingly uncertain, so when Vohannes says, “For what?” they look a little relieved he asked.

  “For Sigrud.”

  “What? What are you talking about?”

  “We just have to wait,” says Shara, “for him to do what he does best.” She says to the attackers, “I will help my friend up now. I am unarmed. Please do not hurt me.” She reaches down and helps Vohannes up to sit on the bed.

  “Who is…Sigrud?” asks Vohannes.

  There is a horrific scream from nearby, and a burst of breaking glass. Then silence.

  “That is Sigrud,” says Shara.

  The two masked men look at each other. Though she cannot see their faces, she can tell they are disturbed.

  “You need to put down your weapons,” says Shara. “And wait here with us. If you do, you might survive. Be reasonable about this.”

  One of the masked men, apparently the leader, says, “It’s a mind game. A filthy shally mind game. Don’t listen to her. It’s the butler making noises. Go check it out. And if you see anyone, kill them, and do so with a clean conscience.” The second masked man, still shaken, nods and begins to walk out the door. The leader grabs his shoulder, says, “Only a mind game. We will be rewarded,” and pats him on the back before sending him on the way.

  “You just sent him to his death,” says Shara.

  “Shut up,” snaps the leader. He’s breathing hard now.

  “The rest of your men are dead, or dying. You need to surrender.”

  “That’s what you all always say, isn’t it? Surrender, surrender, always surrender. We’re done surrendering. We can’t give you any more.”

  “I ask nothing of you,” says Shara.

  “If you ask me to lay down my weapon, to lay down my freedom, then you ask everything of me.”

  “This is not war. This is a time of peace.”

  “Your peace. Peace for things like him,” he says with disgust, gesturing to Vohannes.

  “Hey…” says Vohannes.

  “You embrace sinners, cowards, blasphemers,” says the leader. “People who have turned their backs on their history, on everything that we are. This is how you wage your war on us.”

  “We,” says Shara forcefully. “Are not. At war.”

  The leader leans in and whispers, “The minute a shally steps within the Divine City, I am at war with them.”

  Shara is silent. The leader stands up, listens. There is nothing to hear.

  “Your friend is dead,” says Shara.

  “Shut up,” says the leader. He reaches over his shoulder and pulls out a short, thin sword. “Stand up. I’ll get you out of here myself.”

  Shara, supporting Vohannes’s limping weight, walks out of the guest room and down the hall while the leader stalks behind them.

  After a few seconds, she stops.

  “Keep goi
ng,” barks the leader.

  “Can you not see ahead of you?” asks Shara.

  He steps around them and sees there is something lying in the hallway.

  “No,” he whispers, and walks to it.

  It is a crumpled, masked body lying in a copious pool of blood. Though it is hard to see through the soaking gray cloth, his neck appears to be slashed wide open. The leader kneels and gently reaches up behind the mask to touch the man’s brow. He whispers something. After a moment, he stands back up, and the hand holding the sword is trembling.

  “Keep moving,” he says hoarsely, and Shara can tell he is weeping.

  They walk on. At first, the house seems terribly silent. But before they reach the stairs they hear the sounds of a struggle—wood snapping, the tinkle of breaking plates, and a rough shout—before seeing an open door to a large room on their left, with many shadows dancing on the threshold.

  “The ballroom,” mutters Vohannes.

  The leader walks forward quickly, sword held out front; then he braces himself and wheels into the room.

  Shara, dragging Vohannes, follows and looks in, though she already knows what she will see.

  The ballroom is quite ornate, or at least it was. One masked attacker is kneeling on the floor, clutching his wrist and shrieking: his hand has been completely amputated, and blood spurts out to fan across the wooden floor. Another masked attacker sits in the corner, quite dead, with the handle of a short, black-bladed knife buried in his neck. In the center of the room the dining table has been kicked over, and behind this barricade stands Sigrud, covered in sweat and blood, with one frantic and miserable masked attacker in a headlock under his left arm. With his right hand Sigrud holds the remains of the ballroom chandelier—which has apparently been ripped out of the ceiling—and he is using it to fend off another attacker, who attempts to engage him with a sword. But though it is hard to tell through all the glimmering crystals flying through the air, the attacker appears to be steadily losing, stumbling back with every blow, in between which Sigrud, using the fist holding the chandelier, manages to pummel the face of the unhappy man in his headlock.

  The leader of the attackers stands agog at this sight for a moment, before holding his sword high, screaming at the top of his lungs, and rushing in, bounding over the table.

  Sigrud gives him an irritated glance—What now?—and lifts up the headlocked man just in time for the man’s back to receive the point of the leader’s sword.

  Both masked men gag in shock. Sigrud swings the chandelier around so that it hooks the blade of the free attacker, shoves the man to the floor, and releases the chandelier.

  The leader lets go of the hilt of his sword, pulls out a short knife, and with an anguished scream, dives at Sigrud.

  Sigrud releases the headlock on the dead (or dying) man, grabs the leader’s wrist before the knife can strike home, head-butts the leader soundly, and then—to the vocal horror of Vohannes—opens his mouth wide, lunges forward, and tears out most of the man’s throat with his teeth.

  The gush of blood is positively tidal. Shara feels a little disgusted at herself for thinking only, This will definitely make the papers.

  Sigrud, now totally anointed with crimson, drops the leader, grabs the sword sticking out of the dead man’s back, and seemingly without a thought hurls it like a javelin at the shrieking attacker with the severed wrist. The point of the blade catches the man just under the joint of his jawbone. He collapses immediately. The sword wobbles, and though it is buried deep enough in the man’s skull that it does not fall out, the wobbling is accompanied by an unpleasant cracking noise.

  Sigrud turns to the groaning man trapped under the remains of the chandelier.

  “No,” says Shara.

  He turns to look at her. His one eye is alight with a cold rage.

  “We need one alive.”

  “They shot me,” he says, and holds up a bleeding palm. “With an arrow.”

  “We need one alive, Sigrud.”

  “They shot me,” he says again, incensed, “with an arrow.”

  “There must be more downstairs,” says Shara. “The hostages, Sigrud. Think. Take care of them—carefully.”

  Sigrud makes a face like a child who has just been given onerous chores. He walks to the man with the knife in his neck, pulls it out, and stalks out of the room.

  Vohannes stares around his ruined ballroom. “This?” he says. “This is what your man does best?”

  Shara approaches the masked man struggling to lift the chandelier and begins to disarm him. “We all have our talents.”

  * * *

  —

  Sigrud spots no masked attackers guarding the hostages when he runs down the stairs. “Oh, thank goodness you came, we—” says one woman, before fully seeing him. Then she begins shrieking.

  Mulaghesh is not half so fazed. She clears her throat from beside a pillar in the foyer: the polis governor is hunched over a robed figure and appears to be calmly garroting him with a festively colored ribbon. Mulaghesh looks at him, her left eye blooming dark from what must have been a terrific blow, and says, “Two more. Out the door.”

  When Sigrud makes it outside the car is already trundling away, but is not gaining much speed yet. His boots thud as he sprints across the cobblestones. He hears one of the men inside it cry, “Go! Go! Hurry!”

  The answer: “I am! I’m trying!”

  The car shifts into a higher gear, but just before it can pull away, Sigrud leaps forward and grabs onto the back door.

  “Shit!” shrieks one of the men. “Oh, gods!”

  Sigrud’s hands are so slick with blood that he almost loses his hold. He wedges a foot into the running board, then reaches up with his right hand and stabs his black knife into the roof of the car.

  “Shoot him, damn you!” cries a voice.

  A bolt-shot appears in the window. Sigrud leans to the side. The bolt slices through the glass of the window, missing him by inches, but does not shatter the window. Sigrud punches through the window with his left hand, grabs the man who fired at him by the collar, and repeatedly slams him against the door and roof of the car.

  The driver, now totally panicked, begins swerving throughout the street. Sigrud can see coffeehouse patrons, restaurant attendees, and horse-and-cart drivers stare in amazement as they fly by. A small child points and laughs, delighted.

  Sigrud can feel it when the man goes unconscious, and he begins to haul the man out of the broken window with one arm, intending to hurl him from the car. But then the car makes a hard turn….

  He looks up. The corner of a building flies at them. Sigrud immediately sees that the driver intends to scrape the car along the building’s side, scraping off Sigrud as well.

  Sigrud considers climbing onto the roof of the car, judges that he doesn’t have enough time, pulls his knife free, and dives away.

  It is a painful landing, but not as painful as what happens to the unconscious man dangling out the broken window of the car: there is a wet smack, and something goes tumbling across the stony streets. Sigrud can hear the driver begin to scream in horror, and what’s left of the passenger slips out the window to roll into the gutter.

  The car makes a wide turn and roars down an alley. Sigrud, now quite frustrated, gets to his feet and sprints after it.

  He turns down the alley. The car has come to a stop several yards down. He runs to the car and flings open the driver’s-side door to see…

  Nothing. The car is empty.

  He looks around. The alley ends in the blank side of a building, yet before that there is nothing: no windows, no ladders, no sluice gates or manhole covers or doors.

  Sigrud grunts, sticks his knife back in its sheath, and slowly walks the alley, feeling the walls. None of them give. It’s like the driver simply disappeared.

  He sighs and scratches his cheek. “Not
again.”

  I am the stone beneath the tree.

  I am the mountain under the sun.

  I am the river below the earth.

  I dwell in the caves in the hills.

  I dwell in the caves in your heart.

  I have seen what lies there.

  I know what lives in your minds.

  I know right. I know justice.

  I am Kolkan, and you will listen.

  —THE KOLKASHTAVA, BOOK TWO

  A MEMORY ENGRAVED

  The officers’ mess hall of the Bulikov Police Department is a unique vantage point for the unfolding panic. There are windows that allow the mess hall attendees to see into the front offices, where a full-scale riot is building—composed of politicians, reporters, outraged citizens, and family members of the hostages—and one can also see back into the halls of the interview rooms, where the Bulikov police are still confused as to who exactly is a suspect, who should get to go to the hospital, and what in the world to do with Sigrud.

  “This is a new experience for me,” says Shara.

  “Really?” says Mulaghesh. “I would have thought you’d been arrested at least a couple of times.”

  “No, no. I never get arrested. One of the perks of being a handler.”

  “It must be nice. You seem very calm for someone who’s just been through an assassination attempt. How do you feel?”

  Shara shrugs. The truth is she feels ridiculous, sitting here sipping tea with Mulaghesh while chaos surges around them. Their status immediately set them apart from the other rescued hostages, mostly due to Mulaghesh, whom all the police officers seem acquainted with. Mulaghesh holds a pack of ice to her eye and occasionally mutters curses about being “too shitting slow” or, alternately, “too shitting old.” She’s already sent her orders to the local outpost, and a small squad of Saypuri veterans should be here shortly to take watch over the both of them. Though Shara has not said so, she privately dreads this: one’s own security often makes it hard to penetrate that of one’s opponents. And Sigrud often provides enough security, anyway. Sigrud, however, is currently cooling off in a holding cell. The captured attacker has gone totally untouched, stuck in a tiny cell normally reserved for the most violent offenders.