The Shining City (v5)

by Fiona Patton

  He was twelve years old, his youthful abilities at full strength, and the future shining as brightly as the sun. He and Drove had made the crossing to the Northern Trisect early on Oristo’s First Day to join the autumn festivities and fleece the hundreds of revelers that crowded into the farmer’s market. Throughout the morning, they’d woven past fruit carts overflowing with peaches, plums, and pomegranates, and fish carts overflowing with tchiros, sardines, and herrings. They’d made their way through narrow walls of wine barrels and oil jars with their clay sides glistening in the sunlight, and slid carefully between swaying towers of flatbread and pyramids of green-and-orange melons. They’d sampled the wares of every cart, stall, and table they passed, even paying for some of it as the mood took them. They’d watched bare-armed delinkon ladling out great splashing helpings of black-and-green olives from huge vats of brine, and wizened old spice merchants carefully measuring out minute quantities of saffron and pepper from tiny burlap bags. All around them, people crowded into every available space, as fire-eaters, jugglers, stilt-walkers, and street musicians moved gracefully among them, plying their trades beside sweetmeat sellers, kabob vendors, and raki merchants. The market’s militia—doubled for Harvest—patrolled the crowd, but they couldn’t be everywhere, and everywhere some sight or sound or odor drew the attention of the people away from their shine. By noon, both Graize and Drove had lifted half a dozen fat purses each.

  Dropping a copper asper into the wooden offerings box at Havo-Cami’s gate, Graize laughed out loud as he led Drove deep into its well-cultivated grounds. Tucking themselves into the farthest corner of the gardens, they sat with their backs against the cami’s northern wall and greedily polished off a fat lamb kebob and a piece of flatbread stuffed with hazelnuts and cheese curds each, washing them down with a jug of raki passed between them. Then, using the bulk of the larger boy to shield his movements, Graize carefully counted out their newly acquired wealth, splitting it between them, then tucked the empty purses into his tunic with a satisfied expression. Most lifters would be afraid to carry the evidence of their trade that way, but they would go for an asper apiece back at the western dockside market and Graize wasn’t afraid of anything, least of all catching the attention of some ham-fisted militiafarmer. It was a good afternoon’s work.

  Beside him, Drove shoved a huge piece of lokum into his mouth before leaning back to stare up at the aqueduct towering above their heads with a wide-eyed expression.

  “ ’S big,” he noted in a muffled voice, tying the brown ribbon about his finger.

  Graize shrugged.

  “Can’t see us?”

  “No one’s up there lookin’.”

  “You sure?”

  Graize gave a derisive snort. “Aqueduct’s run by Havo’s lot, an’ all they care about’s food an’ weather.” When Drove continued to look worried, he shook his head, turning to stare up at the aqueduct himself. The structure stood solidly at his back, blank with complacent disregard, and he waved a dismissive hand in Drove’s face. “Like I said, nothin’,” he declared as the sound of running water filled his mind. “Same as what’s in your head.” Wiping the grease from his fingers onto his tunic front, he stood. “C’mon,” he said, gesturing at the market. “We can still get in a bit more liftin’ ’fore we gotta get back.”

  Stung by the other boy’s remark, Drove bit into an overripe peach, allowing the juice to trickle down his chin, before standing as well. A shadow passed over his face, but Graize was already turning away and he paid it no heed.

  Now, as his mind slid from the memory, Graize studied it dispassionately. The shadow that had covered Drove’s face in death less than a year later had played no part in the afternoon’s events, and the aqueduct had played no part in Drove’s death.

  He frowned as the other boy, his body ravaged by the spirit attack which had killed him, appeared before him.

  “ ’S big,” Drove echoed.

  Graize raised an eyebrow at him, but otherwise remained silent.

  “Can’t see us?”

  “Like I said then, there’s no one up there looking.”

  Drove’s ghostly visage raised its eyes to the great stone arch above their heads. “Maybe not then,” he noted.

  “Even if there is now, what’s it to me?”

  “Nothin’, ’cept maybe who’s doin’ the lookin’ now.”

  Graize sent his mind out into the future streams. On a high tower in the middle of the streams, a dark-haired man stared down at him. He bared teeth at him.

  “Brax.”

  Drove nodded. “The priests of Havo’ve seen their aqueduct in danger an’ Brax’s gone to guard it.”

  “Has he now?”

  “Spar, too. He’s there to help Brax see the danger afore it gets to them.”

  “And what is the danger?”

  “You.”

  Graize snorted. “Why would I bother to attack the aqueduct?”

  “ ’Cause they’re guardin’ it, so you’ll wanna attack it.”

  “Will I?”

  “Yep.” Drove leaned back, arms crossed in triumph.

  “That’s a pretty twisted prophecy, even for me.”

  “Yep.”

  “And what if I don’t? What if I just carry on south with Panos and join up with Illan’s fleet like I planned to?”

  “Then you won’t defeat Brax there, an’ you won’t take Hisar away from Spar there neither.”

  “Hisar.”

  “Hisar’s with ’em.” Drove made a sour face. “What? D’you figure It’d just wait for you to call It back like a dog you’re ready to play with again? There’s some kinda danger in that water in darkness you saw, an’ It’s gonna go down there an’ fight it. Maybe It’ll come out, maybe It won’t.”

  “Maybe I don’t care.”

  Drove gave an elegant gesture incongruent with Graize’s memory of him. “Maybe Spar does. Maybe Spar’ll fight beside It. Maybe Brax will, too. An’ maybe they’ll come up stronger. You want ‘em fightin‘ side by side? Maybe against you? Stronger?”

  Graize glared at him, and Drove just raised his misty shoulders in another shrug. “Hey, I’m dead; this is your prophecy not mine,” he reminded him. “You do whatever you want. You always did, anyway.”

  He vanished and, beneath a shallow escarpment on the shores of the Halic-Salmanak, Graize awoke to the sound of rain.

  “That’s right,” he grumbled as he worked his way out from between Danjel and Rayne. “Go off an’ ghost-sulk.” Sliding carefully down the darkened bank, he landed on the shore in a spray of wet pebbles, then stood, staring down the length of dark water stretching out before him. They were too far north to see Anavatan’s great aqueduct, but it loomed as solidly now as it had then, only now it was no longer blank with any kind of disregard. Now Brax stared back at him from its heights, daring him to approach.

  Graize’s brows drew down in a scowl.

  “And what if I don’t?” he repeated.

  “What if?” he whispered. “What if? Place your shine. Place your shine.”

  Pulling his stag beetle from his pouch, he stared into the place where its eyes had been. “Holes, my little one,” he said to it solemnly, “twisty little holes where twisty little beetles creep. Priests who aren’t prophets see danger, and champions who aren’t militia rush to protect something that needs no protection against an enemy with no interest in attacking it. It smacks of manipulation. It smacks of a trap. If my own mind hadn’t told it to me, I’d call it a liar. And maybe it is a liar, anyway.”

  He stroked the stag beetle’s battered carapace. “And yet,” he whispered. “Brax has gone to the aqueduct and Spar’s gone with him. Did Spar lay this trap?”

  He shook his head. “We don’t really think so, do we, little beetle? The baby-seer’s not that subtle. He’s still a ratty little street lifter hiding behind Brax’s fists. But he knows about the trap, and He’s brought Hisar in to sweeten the bait.”

  He crouched down, pressing his fingers into the
cold, wet earth. “Danger to my Godling, and do I care?” he whispered in a singsong voice. The tiny spirits bobbing at the water’s edge stretched their minute claws toward him in response, and he dipped one finger in, allowing them to nibble at it like little fish, then sat back on his heels, sucking up the tiny spirit that still clung to one fingertip. His prophecy was often chaotic, but it was never subtle. It threw up the images he needed in whatever form it chose to. So what were its images this time?

  The aqueduct.

  Graize narrowed his eyes as the right pupil struggled to stay dilated against his vision, forcing his conscious mind to do the work. The aqueduct brought fresh, clean, spirit-laden water from the northern mountains to disappear into the great cistern beneath the Western Trisect.

  He stared into the darkness, reliving another memory: a child in a ragged, yellow tunic standing on the top of the Tannery Precinct’s Oristo-Cami. The aqueduct and its reservoir built up against the God-Wall had been nothing more to him than a solid presence to the north, just visible from the subtemple’s windows. The retired priest whose duty it had been to teach the orphans who’d fallen into his care had simply told them that it ended in their precinct and had pointed out the high walls that guarded the entrance to the cistern. But the high walls of Oristo-Cami itself had been of greater interest to Graize, and once he’d vaulted over them and disappeared into the larger world beyond, both they and the aqueduct had been forgotten. Until now.

  He stood, allowing the rain to pour down his face. There were spirits in the cistern and they were growing stronger, just as the spirits that had pooled about the city streets had once grown strong. And Hisar was going down into the cistern to fight them.

  “Because Hisar will not suffer any other of Its kind to grow in strength,” he said with a tinge of pride in his voice. “But the real question is, will I?”

  Sighting along the Halic’s dark water, he reluctantly allowed the lien created by jealousy and rage on the grasslands to tingle against his chest as he came to a decision. “No,” he said. “I will not.”

  Perched atop Estavia-Sarayi’s armory tower in the seeming of a golden eagle, Hisar jerked in surprise as a familiar ripple of power passed across Its consciousness.

  Graize.

  It turned at once, then checked, Its luminescent eyes narrowing. The lien held no sense of urgency, just intensity. Graize was thinking about It, nothing more. Still, it was a beginning . . .

  It made to rise, then sat back. No, It decided, just thinking, even intense thinking, wasn’t enough. It hunkered back down in a petulant ruffle of metaphysical feathers. Even when his mind had cleared and he’d returned to come kind of shaky sanity, Graize refused to speak to It. So, if Graize wanted something from It now, he could come to It. Hisar was tired of hovering outside his mind like some kind of half-tamed hawk banging on the shutters to be let indoors.

  Shaking out Its wings, dry regardless of the light rain now beginning to fall, It rose fluidly into the air and, ignoring the growing insistence of Graize’s thoughts, headed off across the city’s rooftops.

  The young God maintained a regular nightly patrol of the Western Trisect now, flitting about in the form of an immature owl, seeking Its tower symbols and the ones who carved them. Peeking through the latticed windows of homes and shops, feeling for the lives within; most of them sworn to one God or another, and a few, tantalizingly free of oaths. Ensuring that all was still well in Its city. When the faintest orange glow to the east heralded the coming of dawn, It would transform to the seeming of a golden swift, passing over the sentinels on the God-Wall close enough to ruffle the edge of their cloaks, before swooping along the length of the aqueduct to alight upon the reservoir once again. Then neatly tucking Its wings against Its sides, It would study the water intently, listening as the priests of Havo began the Morning Invocation and trying to discern if the spirits were stirring in response to the call of the sworn.

  Tonight, as always, the water flowing into the reservoir made no answer and, wheeling about, It headed for the site of Its own growing power, Its unfinished temple.

  Alighting upon the sea chain’s newly repaired stone-and-iron bollard a few minutes later, It cast Its gaze across the work site. Once the other six temples had come onboard, the work had begun in earnest. Piles of building materials showed themselves to Its metaphysical sight: lines of square-cut marble and limestone blocks, stacks of timbers, and piles of slate roof and ceramic floor tiles surrounded by wooden troughs for mixing mortar and strange-looking rope and wooden devices for lifting the heavy stones into place. The foundations had been excavated, and the outer walls begun, and in the very center, Hisar could just make out the small, rectangular pit dug for Its central shrine nearly ten feet below that.

  Ihsan had explained its purpose.

  “A central shrine is both traditional and essential, symbolizing as it does, the heart of the Gods’ community of worshipers. Each and every temple and cami has one, and each and every shrine is individually designed and adorned to represent the sensibility and dominion of its God. Ystazia’s for example is extremely ornate, whereas I understand that Estavia’s is more practically built with an eye to defense.”

  Flying across the site, Hisar alit upon the roof of the shed where he and Spar had found all the tower symbols. As, one by one, the storage buildings had been demolished to make way for the temple’s foundation, Spar had been adamant that this small structure be left strictly alone out of respect for those who had already consecrated it to Hisar.

  The young God twisted Its head back and forth, studying both the shed and the pit. It had a feeling that It had neither an ornate nor a practical heart but rather a ragged, weather-beaten one with a hole in the back wall. But It also had a feeling that neither the six temples nor the master builder would be willing to accept that.

  It was going to have to make them. Once It had more actual followers, It amended, to support Its position.

  Still, It considered, craning Its head to take in the entire temple site, It may not have many worshipers . . . yet, but It did have a growing host of well-wishers. Although most of the building materials and money for labor and equipment had been donated by the temples, the city’s masons had promised marble to line Its entrance hall, the glaziers had offered glass for its meditation room windows, the carpenters were working on a dozen latticed shutters, and the blacksmiths had promised proper iron door handles for the exterior and bronze ones for the interior. Lines of farmers and fishers brought food and drink for the workers’ noontime meal every day, and a physician and healer-delinkos were always on site in case of accidents. Spar’s bookmonger friends were donating books for a library and Zondar, one of Kemal’s kardon, a gardener at Havo-Sarayi, had promised seeds and fruit trees for the gardens she’d insisted be included in the plans.

  As the work had progressed, Hisar Itself had become a familiar sight. Perched on the bollard, half in and half out of the physical world, It had watched over the work and silently accepted the offerings, feeling the bindings of power and obligation grow as the workers had become used to Its presence and begun to ask for the power of Its domain: the strength of Creation to their labor and the weakness of Destruction to the rock which blunted their tools and bruised their hands. Every day, Hisar had the growing feeling that It was, maddeningly, on the very brink of being able to grant those requests.

  But not yet. The illusive figures who left It seeds of unbound power every night in the symbols they carved were growing in number. They had yet to come face-to-face with their young God, but Hisar was sure that time was coming soon. One night, as It had sat silently upon the bollard, a youth carrying no oaths to any God, had vaulted over the wooden palisade which surrounded the site and left a new offering behind: a single, smooth piece of marble with a simple rectangular form etched on one end. She’d departed just as swiftly, asking nothing in return, but the power inherent in the gift had fed Hisar as nothing had before, and the young God’d had to hold Itself firmly in place to
keep from racing after her. But Spar had taught It about patience and It had actually listened, so It had waited to see if she’d return.

  She hadn’t, but since then, a steady stream of unsworn youths had offered up small bits of stone or tile to the site each night. And each morning, the master builder would set them to one side to be accepted by Spar and Hisar before including them in the building plans. With each offering, Hisar had felt Itself growing stronger and more substantial, feeling for the first time, what it might be like to be a God of Gol-Beyaz.

  Now, It turned to consider the silver lake shining in the moonlight. The home of the Gods was barely disturbed by the rain, its surface rippled and pitted, glowing with a bright, almost blinding light to Its sensitive gaze.

  Hisar frowned. Since the work had begun, It had sensed the growing interest of the Gods, feeling Their regard as a dull ache deep within the center of Its being. The ache changed in character and timber depending on the God, and Hisar had become adept at telling one from another.

  Ystazia viewed the building with a professional scrutiny that tasted of silk and rainbows, and Hisar found Itself wanting to dance when She noticed It. Oristo watched over the workers with a proprietary eye, bringing images of overprotective chickens to Hisar’s mind. That made It feel restless and a little confined. Usara cast a blue light across the site whenever He turned His regard that way, watching over the workers’ health and well-being, and Hisar found Itself mesmerized by the thought of just how fragile the physical world really was. Havo filled the air with the sound of leaves rustling on the branches of trees still unplanted, reminding everyone that time marched swiftly on. That caused Hisar to shiver like the breeze was blowing right through It. And Estavia’s regard smelled of iron and copper and blood that made It want to keen unhappily as if Its own followers were going into battle to risk injury and death.

  Only Incasa held Himself apart, and Hisar found Itself unwillingly reaching out, seeking the senior Deity’s attention as It had once sought Graize’s. But the God of Prophecy remained aloof. Just like Graize. That always put Hisar in a hurt and angry mood, souring Its visits and cutting them short. But the young God always returned and It always, eventually, reached out for Incasa again.