by Ben Peek
‘Yeah,’ Ayae said. ‘You got a beer?’
‘Finest beer in Neela.’ She held up a brown bottle with a yellow and green label. ‘What about yours?’
She showed her black label with a white boar. ‘Competing for the title.’
Caeli laughed and the two of them continued to walk through the streets. Ahead, the soldiers from Refuge spilled out of The Collapsed City. A handful of them had set up a band, a flute, a pair of guitars, a harmonica and a drummer. They had gathered quite the audience around them, people holding bowls of meat and potato, with bottles and mugs in their hands. A pair of children ran with a kite past them, along the well-lit street. At the end of it, Captain Heast and Bueralan Le were leading two horses towards the inn. The two women gave a short greeting before they turned down a street filled with people.
‘I like his tattoos,’ Caeli said, after a swig from her bottle. ‘You know him well?’
‘No,’ Ayae said. ‘Just a few conversations here and there. I heard that the group he was part of are all dead.’
‘A lot of us are dead.’
She thought of Faise and Zineer and Samuel Orlan. She thought even of Illaan. ‘How’re you holding up?’
‘About Xrie?’ Caeli gave half a shrug. ‘I wasn’t surprised. He was always going to die with a sword in his hand. But it hurt to hear. I didn’t love him or anything, but he deserved better.’
They all did. It was one of the reasons why so many people had embraced Sinae’s wake, Ayae knew. ‘Did Lady Wagan tell you what we plan to do in Mireea?’
‘Yeah.’ She glanced out the corner of her eye. ‘You know she plans to open schools here in Neela, right?’
‘I’m not surprised.’
Caeli grinned and took a swig from her bottle. Ahead, Kal Essa was showing children how to throw dice against a wall. He appeared, Ayae thought, quite drunk.
‘You got other plans?’ her friend asked, after they had passed him. ‘You’re not just going to stay on the Mountains of Ger, are you?’
‘No.’ She hesitated. She hadn’t told anyone this, yet, wasn’t sure of herself. ‘I was thinking of going to Sooia.’
‘I could go to Sooia.’ It was said casually. ‘If you’d like the company.’
‘I would.’ In silence, the two of them continued down the street, towards the men and women offering brown bottles of beer, towards the centre of the grand wake that had taken hold of a whole city. ‘I would never have imagined this,’ Ayae said, emptying the last of her bottle. ‘I couldn’t have ever thought of this a year ago. I couldn’t have thought of it a week ago, but – well, that’s kind of the way it is, now.’ Behind the wake, behind the fires, the people, the food, behind it all, the strange shape of the Mountains of Ger beckoned to her. Within those mountains, five people waited for her. Five ancient men and women who had once believed they were the children of the gods. ‘We’re orphans,’ Ayae said. ‘We have to guide ourselves. We have to make our own choices. We have to decide what kind of world we live in. What words mean. What actions define.’ She paused. ‘We’re orphans,’ she repeated, and smiled.
THE ETERNAL KINGDOM
Ben Peek is the critically acclaimed author of The Godless, Leviathan’s Blood, The Eternal Kingdom and three previous novels, Black Sheep, Twenty-Six Lies/One Truth, and Above/Below, co-written with Stephanie Campisi. He has also written a short story collection, Dead Americans. In addition to this, Peek is the creator of the psychogeography pamphlet The Urban Sprawl Project. With the artist Anna Brown, he created the autobiographical comic Nowhere Near Savannah. He lives in Sydney with his partner, the photographer Nikilyn Nevins, and their two cats, Capote and Harper.
www.theurbansprawlproject
@nosubstance
By Ben Peek
THE CHILDREN TRILOGY
The Godless
Leviathan’s Blood
The Eternal Kingdom
Acknowledgements
Those to thank include John Jarrold, Bella Pagan, Julie Crisp, Neil Lang, Pete Wolverton, Irene Holickit, Kyla Ward and Tessa Kum. All the people who have supported the books through all the ways that they can have earned my undying gratitude, as well.
But above all these people is my partner, Nikilyn Nevins. There are no words to properly explain the support, patience and love she has provided during the long journey of these three books. Over the years I have written this trilogy there have been international moves, visas, deaths in the family, illness, rooms without windows, market stalls, photography, tattoos, biobanks, Spanish, the adventures of publishing, and two black cats, Harper and Capote, who moved in. It is impossible to explain how important she has been during this time, but the fact that I am here and haven’t disintegrated into a host of self-destructive behaviours perhaps gives some indication of it.
First published 2017 by Macmillan
This electronic edition published 2017 by Macmillan
an imprint of Pan Macmillan
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Associated companies throughout the world
www.panmacmillan.com
ISBN 978-1-4472-5411-9
Copyright © Ben Peek, 2017
Cover images: Shutterstock
Cover design by Neil Lang, Pan Macmillan Art Department
The right of Ben Peek to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988.
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A CIP catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library.
Map artwork © David Atkinson 2014: handmademaps.com
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