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

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  With no small amount of disbelief, she begins to wonder if her aunt has somehow been compromised. Could someone possibly gather enough material to own and control the heir apparent to the prime minister’s seat? A corrupt politician, thinks Shara. What a wildly unconventional idea. After all, one can’t mount the last few steps on the ladder without a lot of nasty compromises. And, more so, if one pried open any of Auntie Vinya’s closet doors, surely a whole parade of skeletons would come tumbling out.

  But Shara is surprised at how terribly guilty and ashamed she feels to make such a decision. This is, after all, the woman who raised her, who took care of her and oversaw her education after her parents died in the Plague Years. But just as Vinya is minister first, aunt second, Shara has always been an operative first and foremost.

  So Shara returns to her old maxim: When in doubt, be patient, and watch.

  Vinya asks, “Now. What is this movement you talked about?”

  Shara summarizes the New Bulikov movement in a handful of sentences.

  “Oh,” says Vinya. “Oh, I remember this. This is the thing with the man who wants to make us guns.”

  “Yes. Votrov.”

  “Yes, yes. Some ministers are really keen on it, but I’ve tried to stall it as much as I can….I do not want us to be dependent on a place like Bulikov for anything. Especially gunpowder! So Votrov is the man who got attacked last night?”

  “Yes.” Shara measures exactly what to share now, and decides not to reveal that the Restorationists were after his steel.

  “Votrov…that name is strangely familiar, for some reason….”

  “We…went to school together.”

  Vinya holds up a finger. “Ah. Ah. I remember now. That’s him? The boy from Fadhuri? He’s the one wanting to make us guns? I remember being terrified he’d get you pregnant.”

  “Aunt Vinya…”

  “He didn’t, did he?”

  “Aunt Vinya!”

  “Fine, fine…”

  “I don’t think he will give up on the munitions proposal,” says Shara. “Just as a note. He seems very insistent on trying to bring industry to the Continent.”

  “He can be as insistent as he likes,” says Vinya. “That’s not happening on my watch. It’s better for the Continent to remain the way it is. Things are tenuously stable right now.”

  “Not here,” says Shara. “Obviously.”

  Vinya waves a hand. “The Continent is the Continent. It’s always been that way, ever since the War. And I hope you’re not getting soft on me, Shara. You know every country in the world wants to bleed Saypur dry. And every single time they’ll claim children are starving in the streets, bloodshed of the innocent, and so on and so forth….We hear it dozens of times every day. The wise look after their own, and leave the rest to fate—especially if it’s the Continent. But enough about this. So. You want me to extend your work there, I assume. What do you have that’s so solid?”

  “We’ll be pulling in a likely Restorationist agent for questioning shortly. Off the grid.”

  “Who’s this agent you wish to grab?”

  “A…maid.”

  Vinya laughs. “A what?”

  “The university maid! Which, I remind you, is where Pangyui worked. Cases and operations, as you know, frequently run on some of the most menial of workers.”

  “Hm,” says Vinya. “Fair point. Speaking of which, have you found anything else on Pangyui’s murder?”

  Here it is, thinks Shara. She attempts to step back into a cold veil and keep her face still. “No, not yet. But we are following our leads.”

  “No? Nothing?”

  “Not so far. But we’re working on it.”

  “That’s interesting.” Vinya’s tongue, red as a pomegranate, explores an incisor. She smiles. “Because I show you ran a check on a bank just two days ago. You haven’t mentioned that.”

  Shara’s blood turns to ice. She’s watching my background check requests?

  She scrambles for an excuse. “I did,” she says. “I was checking on Votrov.”

  “Were you?” says Vinya. “Votrov owns several banks in Bulikov. Many much larger than the one you asked for a check on. And that one he owns through a rather dense tangle of channels. So I’m curious—why that bank, in particular?”

  “For the reasons you just outlined. It seemed likely that if he had anything to hide, it’d be there.”

  Vinya nods slowly. “But looking for something like that would require a full finance check. Which you did not initiate.”

  “I became distracted,” says Shara. “So many bodies, you see.”

  Both Vinya and Shara’s faces hang in the windowpanes, staring at one another, perfectly stoic.

  “It would have nothing to do, then,” says Vinya quietly, “with how that particular bank is the closest bank to Bulikov University with safety deposit boxes, would it?”

  She knows.

  “Safety deposit boxes?” asks Shara. Her words drip with innocence.

  “Yes. That is, after all, your most preferred method of dead drops. You tend to like the finance people. They are so process-oriented, not unlike yourself.”

  “I haven’t had enough time here to do anything necessitating a dead drop, Auntie.”

  “No.” Vinya’s eyes appear to drift backward into her head, and Shara gets the strange and horrible feeling of being looked through. Suddenly she understands how Vinya has commanded so many committees and oversight hearings with complete confidence. “But you would have probably taught this method to Efrem.”

  I hope I’m not sweating right now. “Where are you going with this, Aunt Vinya?”

  “Shara, my dear,” says Vinya slowly, “you’re not hiding anything from me, are you?”

  Shara attempts a tiny smile. “I am not the one who is hiding things.”

  “I am your superior. It’s my job to restrict what people know. And I will tell you what this all tastes like, to me….It tastes like you have stumbled across a dead drop of Pangyui’s, and you have yet to access it. But you do not wish to report it until you review its contents. However, my dear, I must remind you”—her words are so frosty Shara feels like she’s been slapped—“Pangyui was my agent. My operation. I don’t run many ops these days, but when I do, I make sure they stay mine. And the product of that operation, whatever it may be, goes to me first. Me, Shara. It does not get digested by another operative who just happens to be there, an agent not assigned to that operation. Not unless that operative wishes to be very abruptly pulled out of that intelligence theater. Do I make myself clear?”

  Shara blinks slowly.

  “Do you understand, Shara?” Vinya asks again.

  Though Shara is perfectly passive, in her head she is engaged in rigorous debate. As she sees it, she has four options. She can:

  1. Tell her aunt that she’s had contact with a Divinity, and thus needs access to everything Pangyui has produced. (However, this would require telling a possibly compromised official about the most dangerous intelligence breakthrough in modern history.)

  2. Withhold both the Pangyui dead drop as well as the Divine contact from her aunt and pursue her own investigation of both. (However, this would risk being pulled from Bulikov altogether, though all her aunt seems to care about now is the Pangyui dead drop.)

  3. Give up the content of Pangyui’s safety deposit box to her aunt—its contents likely being the very thing someone killed Pangyui to try to get, and failed—and continue investigating the Divine contact and Pangyui’s death on her own.

  4. Tell Vinya she isn’t going to read the material, see what the maid has to say, and then decide from there.

  Right, thinks Shara. Number four it is.

  “If I find anything produced by Efrem,” says Shara, “rest assured that I will deliver it to you first, Aunt Vinya.”

  �
�Without your review?”

  “Without my review, of course. I am only interested in Efrem’s operation to the extent that it could have caused his death.”

  Vinya nods and smiles widely. “What a satisfying briefing this has been! So much intrigue, so much history, so much culture…I believe I may send you some messengers shortly. Because I suspect that Efrem’s work did generate some product, and I expect you will find it soon.”

  Translation: I know it has already generated product, and I’m sending someone to get it now before you can do anything with it.

  “Thank you, Auntie,” says Shara. “I appreciate all the support you can lend.”

  “Oh, absolutely, dear,” says Vinya. “An intelligence agency is only as strong as its operatives in the field. We must support our overseas operatives: where boot soles strike the ground is where the work gets done.” She smiles again, says, “Take care, dear, and keep me posted,” and wipes the glass with her fingertips.

  As her aunt’s face dissolves, Shara wonders what speech she pilfered those lines from, and mutters, “Ta-ta.”

  People tell me what a great woman I am for helping the Kaj kill the gods. They tell me this with their eyes filled with tears. They paw at my clothing, wishing to touch me. They treat me as if I am a god myself.

  But I say to them, “I did not lift a sword to the gods. I did not strike them down. I loosed not a single shaft against them. That was him, and only him. He was the only one who knew how his weapon really worked. And when he died, he took his secrets to the grave.”

  As he should have. Such a thing should never be known by people.

  In truth, we did almost no fighting at all on the Continent. The gods were dead, or dying. The land was dead, or dying. We saw many horrors that I cannot describe, nor would I wish to. Most of the fighting done was in our souls.

  The only people we made war against on the Continent was a tribe the Continentals called “the Blessed.” They were, I was to understand, descendants of unions between humanity and the Divine, creatures of perverse intercourse with either the gods or the creatures of the gods. These beings rallied some of the people of the Continent, most of them sick or starving, and fought us.

  The fighting was bitter, and I hated the Blessed so. They were almost impossibly hard to kill. Yet their skin was not iron, nor were they strong of arm: they were simply lucky, impossibly lucky. Their lives were charmed, for they were the children of gods, though it seems the more they muddied their blood with that of other mortals, the less charmed they became.

  They were not charmed enough, though. We cast them down with the others. We slaughtered their tiny armies and shed their blood in the streets. We piled their bodies in the town squares and we set them alight. And they burned just the same as other men and other women. And other children.

  The people in the towns came outside to watch the fires. And as they watched, I could see their hearts and hopes die within them.

  I wondered if we, soldiers of Saypur, were still men, still women, on the inside.

  Such is the way of victory.

  —MEMOIRS OF JINDAY SAGRESHA,

  FIRST LIEUTENANT TO THE KAJ

  Shara checks the clock for the sixth time and confirms that, yes, it is still 3:30 in the afternoon. She sighs.

  This day has been spectacularly ill-timed. Sigrud was bailed out just as the workday started, which meant that when he arrived to pick up the university maid, she’d already gone to work—and though there are many powers Shara can exercise in her duties for the Ministry, walking into a woman’s workplace, picking her up, and walking out with her is something she can’t quite pull off.

  She guesses it is still about an hour and a half until the maid returns to her apartments. Shara mutters to Pitry that she’s going for a walk around the corner, and he protests, but one glance from her quiets him. Still, she wears a coat with a hood, so she’s not immediately identifiable as Saypuri.

  The staggered streets and alleys unscroll before her, damp gray walls and gleaming stones and khaki ice slurry. Her nose grows raw and brittle, her toes numb. She thought the walk would clear her head, but all the suspicions and paranoia cling to her like fog.

  Then she glances up, sees the man standing in the street ahead of her, and stops.

  He wears only a pale orange robe: he has no shoes, no hat—in fact, he is completely bald—and no gloves. His arms are even bare, and, like his face, they are deeply tanned.

  She stares at him. No…It can’t be. That’s illegal, isn’t it?

  The icy wind rises. The robed man takes no notice: he sees her watching and smiles placidly. “Looking for something?” His voice is deep and cheery. “Or would you be here for warmth?” He points up. A sign above him reads: DROVSKANI STREET WARMING SHELTER.

  “I’m…not sure,” says Shara.

  “Oh. Would you perhaps be here to make a donation?”

  She considers it, and finds he intrigues her. “Possibly.”

  “Excellent!” he cries. “This way, then, and I will show you all the good work we do here. So thoughtful and kind to give to us, on such a bitter day.”

  Shara follows him. “Yes…”

  “People rarely wish to even go out of doors, let alone give.”

  “Yes…Pardon me. Might I ask you something?”

  “You may ask me”—he shoves open the door—“anything you wish.”

  “Are you…Olvoshtani?”

  He stops and looks at her with an expression both confused and slightly offended. “No,” he says. “That would be illegal, to follow a Divinity. Wouldn’t it?”

  Shara is not sure what to say. The robed man smiles his glittering grin again, and they continue into the shelter.

  Ragged urchins and trembling men and women crowd around a wide, long fireplace bedecked with many bubbling cauldrons. The room is filled with coughs and groans and, among the children, miserable whimpers.

  “But your robes,” says Shara. “Your bearing…”

  “What have they,” he asks, “to do with the Divine?”

  “They’re…historically that of an Olvoshtani.”

  “And historically when one wished to praise the Divine, one looked up to the sky, arms outstretched.” He hauls an empty cauldron out of the kitchens and pours soup into it, with a rap rap rap as he taps his spoon against the side of the pot. “But if a man were to do this today, in the street, would he be arrested?”

  Shara looks back into the kitchens. She sees many other shelter attendants there wearing pale orange robes, cheerily working away, all hairless, all quite exposed to the frozen air. “So if you are not Olvoshtani,” says Shara, “what are you?”

  “We’re a warming shelter, of course.”

  “Well, all right, but what are you?”

  “A person, I suppose. A person who wishes to help other persons.”

  She tries another tack: “Why do you not warm yourself against the cold?”

  “Cold?”

  “It is freezing outside. I can see men hacking holes in the ice to fish from here.”

  “That is the water’s affair,” he says. “The temperature of the wind, that is the wind’s affair. The temperature of my feet, my hands…that is my affair.”

  “Because,” says Shara, remembering the old texts, “you have captured a secret flame in your heart.”

  The man stops and appears to struggle between trying to close off his face and looking positively delighted with what she has said.

  “Are you Olvoshtani?” says Shara.

  “How can I be Olvoshtani,” says the robed man, “if there is no Olvos?”

  Then it comes to her. “Oh,” says Shara. “Oh, I remember this. You are…Dispersed.”

  The robed man makes a face: If you wish to say so.

  When the Divinity Olvos abandoned the Continent, her people di
d not—not completely, anyway. Jukoshtan and Voortyashtan were the first cities to record sightings of people resembling Olvoshtani priests, wearing yellow or orange robes and sporting no other adornments, not shoes or gloves or even hair, only too happy to expose themselves to the elements. These people appeared nomadic, traveling through villages and cities, walking the world with apparently no other agenda than to help people when they most desperately needed it. Yet they did not claim to be Olvoshtani, or priests, or part of any higher order: though some called them “the Abandoned” or “the Dispersed,” they themselves did not declare to be anything at all. “We are here,” they were known to say. “What more is there to be?”

  “I am afraid you are mistaken,” says the robed man. “We do not claim that name.”

  “No, you wouldn’t,” says Shara. “You reject names, don’t you?”

  “There is nothing to reject. Names are other people’s affairs. They are things to help people identify the things that they themselves are not.”

  “So what are you doing, here in Bulikov? By what reason are you here?”

  He gestures to the throngs of miserable people huddling by the fire. Some are families, with young children: a father pulls off his infant’s tiny boots to bare her bluish feet to the warmth. “This,” says the robed man, now without a trace of joy, “seems reason enough.”

  “So you live to offer hope, as the old texts say. To be a light in dark places.”

  “Old texts say many things. You say these things as though they are special—as if it is unusual for one person to see another in pain, and wish to help. As if,” he says quietly, “to do the extraordinary—or what you think is extraordinary—a person must be told to do so, by the Divine.”

  “Well, don’t you?”

  “Do you? You have not donated yet, but if you did—would it be because you were told to?” He picks up a lump of black bread.

  “No.”

  “Do you—a Saypuri, obviously—need a Divinity to live your life?”

  “That’s different. We’re from different countries.”