Nine Layers of Sky

by Liz Williams

  Ilya strained to hear the voice at the other end of the telephone line, but there was only the crackle of static.

  “I don’t … even if that’s the case, then I can’t just …”

  Ilya made a sudden decision. “Elena. Give me the bag.”

  After a doubtful moment, she handed it over to him. He reached inside it for the object, cupped the heavy fossil in his hands.

  “Ilya? What are you doing?”

  He closed his eyes. “Seeing if I can get us out of here.” In imagination, he conjured forests, meadows, still lakes. He tried not to remember Manas’ words: You might not find yourself on solid ground, or in the middle of a sea. Take us away from here, he prayed to the thing in his hands. Take us somewhere safe.

  I hear you. That familiar, small voice. He knew, now, that it was the coil.

  Dimly, he was aware that the official’s voice was breaking up, as though the connection was a bad one. But the official was only standing in the next room. It was working. He frowned, concentrating. Behind his eyelids the world grew bright, then dark. For a terrible moment Ilya felt as though the walls were closing in on him, slamming forward to crush him between them. He thought he cried out. Then everything was quiet.

  Elena said, “Has it worked?”

  “I don’t know.” They were still sitting in a room. But looking around him, he could see a difference. The paint on the walls was a dull green, rather than blue, and surely the bench was in a different position? Rising, he moved silently across to the door. He could hear nothing beyond it. Ilya waited a minute, then tried the door. It opened easily. He stepped out into twilight. They went through the door of the hut, expecting to be stopped at any moment, but there was no sign of life beyond.

  “I can’t see a soul. Come on. Let’s go while we can.”

  Elena needed no persuasion. They ducked into the scrub by the side of the road. A ditch ran along the roadside, running with a trickle of water. It was easy enough to traverse. They went along it for several hundred meters, then dodged back onto the slope. The hut lay behind them in a blur of faint light. The road was quiet. They started walking, but they had gone no more than a couple of kilometers before Ilya had to rest.

  “Are you sure you’re all right?” Elena’s face was creased with worry. He looked away.

  “Sorry. I just don’t seem to have much stamina.” He could date to the hour how long he had been clean. How long did it take before withdrawal started to ebb? He had felt all right for the last couple of days, but now it was back, as though the drug’s lack was eating through his bones. He would have done anything for a shot. Elena sat down on the dusty earth beside him and put an arm around his shoulders. Her touch was somehow irritating, even uncomfortable, but he did not want to push her away. He wished that they had found somewhere to stay, that they were back on the bus, that he could lose himself in her and try to block out the insistent summons of the drug, but it was no use. He would just have to ride it out. He put his head on his knees and said, “Give me a moment.”

  When he woke, the sky was pale behind a tangle of sage. He was lying uncomfortably on his back on stony ground, his coat tucked beneath him and his head resting on Elena’s shoulder. Her eyes were open. She was staring at the sky.

  “God, Elena, what time is it?”

  “Nearly dawn, I think.” She sat up, grimacing, and rubbed the back of her neck.

  “What happened? Did I pass out?” Shame came in a hot rush.

  “Yes, you did. Are you certain that this really is the other place? Byelovodye?”

  He looked about him.

  “Look at the road,” he said. It was the same black substance that they had seen before. It reached into the distance, snaking through ochre hills dusted with snow. The air smelled of sagebrush and cold.

  “Do you think you can walk?” Her voice was tentative, considerate of his pride, but he did not think he had much left.

  There was no traffic. Soon, the stony land fell away and the road led down through groves of apricot and almond, lacy with blossom. They saw no sign of habitation, though once a herd of horses flashed across the road. A bridge led over a mass of foam. Ilya and Elena, in unspoken agreement, climbed down the embankment to a scatter of sand and stones, to wash as best they could. The freezing water made Ilya feel slightly more human. Elena perched on a rock above the current, vigorously scrubbing her face.

  “That’s better. Ilya, when we go round the next bend, I want to see a first-class hotel with a proper bathtub… .” She grinned at him. “Arrange it for me, would you?”

  He smiled back. “I’ll speak to the serfs directly.”

  But when they clambered back up the embankment, and followed the curve of the road, they found only a huddle of buildings, eaten away by fire.

  “What can have happened?” Elena asked, shocked. “This looks recent.” The air smelled of smoke and soot. Treading gingerly over the wreckage, Ilya turned his ankle on something smooth that rolled beneath his foot. It was a blackened bone.

  “Bandits wouldn’t do this, surely?”

  “Maybe there’s been a raid,” Ilya said.

  “But to burn a whole village out like this… .” She fell silent. They both knew how many times it had happened before in their own world: the squads sent in, a quick flurry of death in the night, then the world closing over tragedy like the waters of a pool after a stone has been hurled into its depths.

  “We shouldn’t stay too long,” Ilya said.

  Three kilometers along the road, they came across another village. This, too, had been burned. All that was left were ruined walls and the fire-swept branches of an apricot tree, its remaining blossom still crisped by heat.

  Ilya was looking up the slope. “Look.”

  The poles sprang up from the hillside like a grove of trees. They were ten feet high, tied with red rags. A horsetail banner had been nailed to the top of each pole; the long hairs stirred in the wind.

  The sight made Ilya uneasy. “I haven’t seen anything like this for a long time. This is a very old custom.”

  “They still do it out on the steppe sometimes. They mark the dead in the old way, just as the hordes used to do.”

  “But this is a Moslem region,” Ilya said. He pointed to the regular graveyard down the valley: the pointed stones each bearing the etched face of the dead, encased neatly between white plaster walls. “Why didn’t they bury their dead down there?”

  “Maybe it wasn’t their dead.”

  He knew she was thinking of the Golden Warrior, the horde sweeping down. The back of his neck prickled.

  “Ilya? I think we should go.”

  He felt as though the poles were watching them, spirits rising from the dust. He did not look back. They walked alongside the road, keeping close to the almond groves. Ilya kept listening, but it was as if a blanket of silence had fallen over the world.

  Interlude

  BYELOVODYE, N.E. 80

  You have to find them,” the General said. He leaned back in his chair and gave Anikova a narrow look.

  “I’ll do my best, sir.”

  Outside, spring rain was gliding over the city, casting the mountains into shadow and stormcloud. Anikova had come into Central Command at a run, but she had still been too slow to avoid a soaking. Now, she sat on the edge of a silk-upholstered chair, trying not to scatter rainwater over General Umarov’s immaculate office. The carpet alone must have cost a fortune. But she was not supposed to take note of things like that. She had already taken care to comment on the austerity of his office, dropping a word in the right circles, knowing it would get back to the General and that he would understand. It was not the first time her tact had been rewarded.

  “You’ll do more than that. The breaches have been increasing in number ever since the coil was stolen. There has been too much chaos already and those we have sent to deal with it are failing to report back. I have heard nothing from the Mechvor Kovalin or his local recruits for three days now. We need stability. If the
coil falls into the wrong hands, that’s precisely what we will not have. We need one gate open, under central control.”

  “I understand,” Anikova said. She thought with a vague, unfamiliar wistfulness of the woman she had seen, the woman from the other side. I would love to know what is really happening there. I would like to see it with my own eyes. But, of course, that was impossible.

  “Do we know where the latest breach occurred?”

  “We have it down to a ten kilometer radius on the Pergama border, just south of Irzighan.” The General’s fleshy mouth pursed in irritation. “Ever since the coil went missing, it’s these regions that seem to be affected most.”

  “How big was it?”

  “Not too large, luckily. More like a crack than a breach, according to the reports. It sealed itself almost immediately, but if any interventionists came through, they must be found.” He leaned across the desk. “Colonel Anikova, this isn’t the first of these minor rifts in the area. There was another one a few days ago, not far from your own family’s dacha. I had it checked out and nothing was reported, but we need to make it clear to people, to keep their eyes open.”

  “Understood,” Anikova said. I know there was a breach. I saw it. I spoke to someone from the other side. The General was looking at her; she was suddenly certain that he could read her knowledge in her face. She said nothing.

  “I want you to leave right away. Go to the border.”

  “I’m ready, sir,” Anikova said, knowing that it was a lie.

  Part Nine

  One

  BYELOVODYE, N.E. 80

  The day wore on toward noon. They were having to rest more frequently now, and not only on Ilya’s behalf. Elena could see the pinched lines of fatigue in his face, but she could also feel them in her own. Her feet hurt and they had long since run out of the food she had brought for the bus ride. Moreover, the burial poles had awoken within her an atavistic fear, a sense of something cold and ancient, that she had thought long dead. Rationally, she knew this to be nonsense. Why shouldn’t the locals bury their dead in the manner of their choosing? They were entitled to their customs, after all. But somehow she could not help thinking of Tamerlane’s horse hordes, sweeping across the country almost as far as the Dneiper and the Don, inspiring an old terror.

  As she had reminded her sister, she was not even a native Russian. The land of the horse clans was where she had been born; it was her country. And yet she knew that was not quite true. The old refrain: My country was the Soviet Union, and they abolished it. The familiar sense of not belonging swept over her. But if she felt this way, how must Ilya feel? Or had he seen so many changes that it was all the same to him in the end? Slightly breathless from an uphill climb, she asked him. He looked at her askance.

  “This is not my kind of country,” he said, with finality. “Russia is my country.”

  “But where does Russia begin and end? Borders change, you know.” Elena found herself mildly put out, as though he had disowned her.

  “Russia—real Russia—is the land where I grew up: Siberia, the North. Birch trees, black earth, ice on the water in the morning, white cranes that are said to dance. I can’t leave it for long, I know this. I could have traveled the world these past years.” He smiled. “I’ve often cursed the fate that keeps me here. Why couldn’t I have been born a Hawaiian hero, I ask myself? But the country pulls me. Your Russia—” He stopped, turned her to face him, and put a gentle hand across her heart. “Maybe that’s in here. Whatever it is.”

  A typical Slavic gesture, she thought: sentimental, sincere. She replied in kind. “Then that means you, Ilya.”

  He bent to kiss her, then his head went up. She saw it in his eyes before he spoke. He said, “No.” She did not have to ask him what he meant; she could hear the hoofbeats herself, coming too fast.

  “Quickly,” Ilya said and pulled her toward the trees. They raced over the stony ground, gaining the illusory shelter of an apricot grove just as the horsemen swept around the curve in the road. Elena ducked beneath foaming blossoms. The horsemen halted, milling alongside the road. She could see the Golden Warrior among them: straight-backed, on a mare as white as the apricot flowers. There were perhaps twenty of them; too many to outfight or run.

  “Keep still,” Ilya murmured in her ear. She did not need to be told. She thought: One man I might be able to handle, but I can do nothing about so many. And Ilya isn’t well. She felt icy cold. Her heart lumped along in her chest. Somewhere, a bird was singing: a lark, high in the pale air. The Golden Warrior was riding swiftly around the perimeter of the horde, gathering them together. The sunlight glittered over the scales of armor. One of the men slid down from his horse. He threw a handful of red dust to the ground, then prostrated himself on hands and knees. He smelled the earth like a dog and raised his head, crying something in a harsh language. He pointed in the direction of the apricot grove. Ilya’s arm grew tight around Elena’s waist.

  “Elena, when I tell you, go.”

  “Where to? There’s nowhere—”

  “Up in the rocks behind the grove. I’ll be right behind you.”

  The horsemen, tightly grouped, were riding toward the grove. As they approached, they fanned out.

  “Now,” Ilya hissed. “As quietly as you can.”

  They glided back through the grove, breaking out into open ground.

  “Run.”

  But the horsemen had seen them. There was a shout from behind and the sudden rattle of hooves on stone. Elena was already bolting toward the rocks: high slabs, with a crack running vertically between them. Ilya pushed her against the rock and stood between her and the horsemen. The white mare outstripped the flanking riders and galloped up the slope. The Warrior’s golden armor flashed in the light, blinding Elena. The mare reared above them and she saw directly into the shining helm. She saw a girl’s face, fierce and cold, then the visage of a Mongol rider. Then there was nothing, only a blank and cloudy oval. Ilya struck out with the sword. The mare danced back. Elena saw the Warrior’s head turn from side to side. The Warrior kicked the mare forward; Ilya went down under its hooves.

  Elena was seized around the waist and dragged up, to be slung across the Warrior’s saddlebow. She saw the flash of a knife as it sliced through the shoulder strap of her bag and then the bag, containing the object, was flying through the air as the Warrior threw it to a waiting horseman. But she was more worried about Ilya than the bag. She struggled in the Warrior’s grip, kicking and punching, but the Warrior wheeled the mare around and galloped toward the trees. She heard Ilya’s voice, calling her name, and went slack with relief. At least he was still alive.

  She turned her head as the Warrior’s grip slackened. It plucked an arrow from the quiver at its shoulder and slotted it into a bow as Ilya ran forward.

  “No!” Elena shouted. She slid over the mare’s shoulder, half-falling to the ground. The bow came up. There was a whirring hiss past her ear, but the Warrior had not yet loosed the arrow. It took Elena a moment to realize that the attack had come from behind. A bullet glanced off the golden armor and ricocheted into the rocks. The mare screamed and wheeled around, hooves sliding in the dust. The Warrior cried out, grasped Elena by the arm, and dragged her back over the saddle. The horsemen, moving like a tide, turned and headed for the road.

  Elena looked back. Ilya was picking himself up from the earth. Someone was standing on the rocks above them, lowering some kind of gun. Elena saw a visored helmet, booted feet, and a khaki uniform. The figure was visibly female. As Elena opened her mouth to speak, the woman raised her hands and took off the helmet. Elena recognized her immediately: Colonel Anikova. She saw the gun come up again, the woman aiming down the sight, but the mare was into the trees and away. The ground flew past until all Elena could see was a cloud of dust, and then nothing at all.

  Two

  BYELOVODYE, N.E. 80

  Ilya was sitting on a bench with his head in his hands.

  “I’ll ask you once again,” the w
oman said in her curiously accented Russian. “What’s your connection with the horse clan? Why did you go to them?”

  “I’ll tell you again,” Ilya said wearily. He had managed to resist giving her his name: a petty triumph, even though she probably knew it already. He had been forced to hand over the sword; that was enough. He wondered how far, if at all, she might be connected with the volkh. “We did not go to the horse clan; they came to us. They found us along the road and attacked us. As you saw, my friend has been captured. I have to find her.”

  The woman smiled. “I remember reading of the old days in the Kazakh and Kyrgyz lands, how a girl might be snatched up over the saddle of a horse and galloped away to be married.”

  Ilya looked at her. If she was trying to bait him, she was doing an excellent job of it.

  “A barbaric custom, or so it seems. But often, I read, the girl would collude in her own abduction, entice a young man to carry her away so that she could tell her family it was none of her doing, and it would be too late for them to do anything about it.”

  “Elena’s not Kazakh. Are you suggesting that whole scenario was a setup?”

  “Why didn’t they take you?”

  “I’m not as pretty?”

  The woman gave him a contemptuous glance and abandoned the game.

  “They took her because she has something they want. Something in the bag she was carrying.”

  “Look,” Ilya said. “Of course she had something in her bag. It was some kind of device that came into her possession entirely by accident. I understand people like you. I know how you think; I know what games you expect to play, and I’m sick of it. I got sick of it eighty years ago, so you can imagine how I feel about it now. Just let me explain and give me the fucking truth.”

  The woman appeared taken aback by this outburst. “Very well, why don’t you tell me what you know?”

  “If you’ll let me have a cigarette, I will.” He did not think she would comply, but after a moment she reached into her pocket and took out a packet. He did not recognize the brand: a white box with a red star embossed across it. She took one for herself, then lit his own. It tasted ordinary and wonderful.