City of Stairs

by Robert Jackson Bennett

  “Degrade?” He looked back across the sea. “Degrade … You do not know the meaning of the word. You do not know what they did to me in there. It is unspeakable. Now, to carry water, to serve food, to fight, to kill—whatever my future holds, I am numb to it. I am numb.” He said it again like he was trying to convince himself, and he turned to stare at her, pale and haunted. “Ask something of me. Ask.”

  Though his face was scarred and filthy, Shara felt she could see through to him, and she understood that in some twisted manner he was asking for her permission to die, because he could no longer imagine doing anything else.

  Shara looked back at the shrinking Dreyling cliffs. And she then did something she would never do now: she bared her heart, and told him the truth, and made a promise she did not know if she could keep. “I ask you, then,” she said slowly, “to know that this is not good-bye for you. One day I will help you come back to your home. I will help you put together what has been broken. I promise I will bring you back.”

  He looked out at sea, his one eye shining. And then, to her complete shock, he knelt to the ground, gripped the railing, and burst into tears.

  * * *

  “You’re positive you won’t reconsider?” says a voice.

  “I’m positive I haven’t been allowed to consider it,” Mulaghesh’s voice says back. “Your damn council didn’t even give me the chance.”

  “They can’t even vote, though!” says the voice. “The assembly was incomplete! You only have to exert some influence, Turyin!”

  “Oh, for the seas’ sakes,” mutters Mulaghesh, weary, intoxicated. “Have I not exerted enough tonight? I will do as I am told, thank you, and they told me very clearly to fuck off.”

  Shara enters the kitchen to see Vohannes Votrov, now clad in his usual white fur coat, standing before Mulaghesh, who eyes him sourly over a brimming glass of whiskey. Votrov’s cane beats an impatient tap-tap against the heel of his boot.

  “I thought we were locking down the embassy and admitting no visitors,” says Shara. “Especially this one.”

  Vohannes turns and grins at her. “So! Here is the triumphant warrior, fresh off of her conquest. What an epic night you’ve had!”

  “Vo, I honestly do not have time for your supposed charms. How did you get in?”

  “By liberally applying my supposed charms, of course,” says Vohannes. “Please, help me—we must convince Governor Mulaghesh here to get up. You’re all letting a phenomenal opportunity float by!”

  “I will not,” says Mulaghesh, “lift my ass one inch off of this chair. Not tonight.”

  “But the city’s in mad shambles!” says Vohannes. “One half can only get to the other by walking all the way around the walls! I know that Bulikov does not have the resources to begin to reconstruct the Solda Bridge with any speed.”

  “Don’t you own most of the construction companies in the city?” asks Shara.

  “Well, true … But while my own companies could begin to make headway, it’d be nothing compared to the exertion of the polis governor’s office … or the regional governor’s office.…”

  “And why would we want to do this?”

  “Do you think you’d have nothing to gain,” asks Vohannes, “by rendering all of Bulikov dependent on your planners and developers?”

  “And we’d have to work with all of his companies, too,” says Mulaghesh.

  “Merely a pleasant bonus,” says Vohannes.

  “Literally, a bonus,” says Mulaghesh.

  “Dozens of people are dead tonight, Vo,” says Shara. “I know you have your mission, your agenda, but can’t you show some modicum of decency? Shouldn’t you be mourning for your people?”

  Vohannes’s grin sours until it’s a vicious rictus. “I hate to be the one to tell you this, Ambassador,” he says acidly, “but this is far from the first disaster to befall Bulikov. What about when Oshkev Street, destabilized by a random cavity from the Blink, abruptly collapsed, bringing down two apartment buildings and a school with it? We wept and mourned then, but what good did that do us? What about when the Continental Gas Company fumblingly tried to install a line in the Solda Quarter and started a fire that couldn’t be put out for six days? We wept and mourned then, but what good did that do us?”

  Shara glances at Mulaghesh, who reluctantly shrugs: No, he’s not making this up.

  “Disaster is our constant companion in Bulikov, Ambassador,” says Vohannes. “Grief and decency are mere decorations that hang upon the real problem: Bulikov desperately needs help and reconstruction. Real reconstruction, which we cannot do ourselves!”

  “I’m sorry,” says Shara. “I should not have said that.” She sits—her legs sing out in praise—and rubs her eyes again. “But the bridge has just fallen,” she moans, “and already we must begin scheming again.… What is this about a council?”

  “The City Fathers called an emergency meeting to discuss what to do,” says Vohannes. “After deciding basic search-and-rescue matters, I wanted them to ask Saypur for help in recovery. They eventually voted against me, though they offered no alternate plan. But the vote isn’t really legitimate, as Wiclov was nowhere to be found.”

  Shara’s fingers drum against the tabletop. “Is that so?”

  “Yes. Funny, isn’t it? No one’s seen him for nearly a week, not since he stood at the embassy gates and hurled invective at you, in fact.”

  Though Sigrud saw him deliver Torskeny to the mhovost, thinks Shara, before disappearing down an alley.… She thinks, then blearily looks at Mulaghesh for help.

  “Please don’t make me stand up,” Mulaghesh begs.

  “I won’t,” says Shara. “Not tonight. This … Vo, this must wait until the morning.”

  “You must strike,” says Vohannes, “while the iron is hot!”

  “I don’t decide public policy!”

  “But you must have many friends in high places, don’t you?”

  “Whose friendship is already tested, or will be, by what’s happened tonight.” She sighs. “Vo, you’ve no idea what’s happened in the past few hours. I say this in strictest confidence, but we have suffered considerable losses. And we are still nowhere on figuring out who our enemies are, or what they’re doing! This is not the time for huge plans. We will leave Bulikov to Bulikov, for tonight.”

  “That policy,” says Vohannes, “is almost certainly what created the Restorationists in the first place, and it will be the father of every consequence after. This city pickles in its walls. Every disaster is an opportunity, Shara! Make the most of this one.”

  “I have suffered so many disasters tonight.” She laughs hollowly. “You don’t want me in your corner, Vo. By sunup, I might not have a career.”

  “I very much doubt that. Especially since right now every man, woman, and child in Bulikov thinks you all to be glorious, glorious heroes.”

  Mulaghesh and Shara are both nodding in their chairs, but they blink awake at this claim.

  “Wh-What?” says Mulaghesh.

  “What do you mean, what?” asks Vohannes.

  “I mean … what did you just say?”

  “Oh? Did you really not realize? That crowd out there …” He points north, toward the door. “Did you think they’re angry? Seeking to throw down the gates? No, they’re amazed! You all slaughtered a monster in front of a terrified city! It’s the … Well, it’s the stuff legends are made of.”

  Shara says, “But it was a holy creature.… There used to be a temple to Urav in the city square! This country used to worship that thing!”

  “The operative word being used to. That was over three hundred years ago! It was trying to kill us all!”

  “But … But it was Sigrud who did almost all of it!”

  He shrugs. “The credit spreads. The City Fathers were confounded about what to do. You may just be the first Saypuri to have ever won the commendation of Bulikov in the city’s history. And if you or anyone in Ghaladesh tried, Saypur could sail into this city, rebuild the bridge, and be
considered a savior ever after!”

  Shara and Mulaghesh both sit dumbfounded. Vohannes produces a cigarette from a tiny silver box and fits it into his holder. “But let’s just hope,” he says, “they don’t find out who you really are. Knowing your family history, it would create some nasty parallels, would it not?”

  * * *

  Shara drinks. It feels appropriate to do so: she is a soldier among soldiers, celebrating their survival when so many perished. The wine mixes with the fatigue, and Vohannes joins her and Mulaghesh, and the whole evening transmutes from one of frayed nerves and horrible trauma to one of their old school nights, sitting up in their common room with their classmates, sharing gossip and determinedly ignoring the mad world outside.

  What a wonderful thing it was, Shara thinks, to feel common.

  Mulaghesh is snoring in her chair in the violet hours just before dawn. Vohannes has to help Shara up the stairs. She stops for breath beside the wide stairway windows. The stars rest on a blanket of soft purple clouds, supported by the cityscape of Bulikov. It is scenic to the degree that it could be the work of a sentimental, tactless painter.

  Vohannes slowly limps up behind her, suddenly quite frail.

  “I’m …” Shara knows she is about to say something she shouldn’t, but she’s too inebriated to stop herself. “I’m sorry about your accident, Vo.”

  “It’s the way things are,” he says softly. If he knows she knows how he really got hurt, he does not show it. “I only ask your help in changing them.”

  When they finally make it to her room, she sits on her bed, holding her forehead. The room spins and sways like the deck of a ship.

  “It’s been a while,” says Vohannes’s voice in the dark, “since I’ve been in a woman’s bedroom.…”

  “You and Ivanya …?”

  He shakes his head. “It’s … not quite like that.”

  She falls back onto the bed. Vohannes smirks, sits beside her, and leans back on one hand so he’s hovering just over her, the sides of their hips kissing.

  Shara blinks, surprised. “I didn’t think,” she says, “that this was something you were interested in.”

  “Well, it’s … not quite like that, either.”

  She smiles a little sadly. Poor Vo, she thinks. Always torn between two worlds …

  “Don’t I disgust you?” she asks.

  “Why would you think that?”

  “I’m not doing anything you want. I’m not helping you, or Bulikov, or the Continent. I’m your enemy, your obstacle.”

  “Your policies are my enemy.” He sighs. “One day I will change your mind. Maybe I will tonight.”

  “Don’t be ridiculous. Do tycoons such as yourself often take advantage of drunken women?”

  “Mm. Do you know,” says Vohannes, “that when I returned, there had been rumors that I’d found myself a Saypuri mistress? I was reviled, you know. And, I think, envied as well … But none of it meant anything to me.” His eyes seem lacquered: could he be crying? “I was not drawn to you for some exotic fling—I was drawn to you because you were you.”

  What right does he have, thinks Shara, to be so pretty?

  “If you don’t want me here,” he says, “say ‘no,’ and I’ll leave.”

  She thinks on it and sighs dramatically. “You always do cause such difficult conundrums.…”

  He kisses her neck. His beard tickles the corner of her jaw. “Hm,” she says. “Well … Well.” She reaches up, grabs the corner of the bedspread, and flips it back. “I suppose”—she suppresses a laugh as he kisses her collarbone—“you had better get in.”

  “Who am I to deny an ambassador what she wants?” He shrugs off his white fur coat.

  Was his council meeting so important, Shara wonders, that he had to change?

  She must have said it aloud, because Vohannes looks back and says, “I didn’t change. I’ve been wearing this all night.”

  Shara tries to hold on to a thought—That’s not right—but then he starts unbuttoning his shirt, and she begins to think about many different things at once.

  * * *

  “How would you like me to lie?”

  “How would you like to?”

  “Well, I mean … because of your hip …”

  “Oh. Oh, yes … Right.”

  “Here … Is here good?”

  “There is good. There is very good. Mmm.”

  This is a bad idea, Shara thinks, but she tries to ignore it, and lose herself in this small joy.…

  But she can’t. “Vo …”

  “Yes?”

  “Are … Are you enjoying yourself?”

  “Yes.”

  “Are you sure?”

  “Yes.”

  “I only ask because …”

  “I know! I know … It’s … Too much wine …”

  “Are you sure I’m not hurting you?”

  “No! You’re fine! You’re absolutely … You’re fine.”

  “Well … Maybe let me shift to … There. Is that better?”

  “It is.” He sounds more determined than amorous. “This is …”

  “Yes?”

  “This …”

  “… yes?”

  “This should not be so … so difficult.…”

  “Vo … If you don’t want to …”

  “I do want to!”

  “I know, but … but you shouldn’t feel like you have to—”

  “I’m just … I’m just … Gods.” He collapses next to her.

  Seconds tick away in the dark room. She wonders if he’s asleep.

  “I’m sorry,” he says softly.

  “Don’t be.”

  “I suppose I am not,” he whispers, “the man I was.”

  “No one’s asking you to be.”

  He breathes heavily for a moment; she suspects he is weeping. “ ‘The world is our crucible,’ ” he murmurs. “ ‘And with each burn, we are shaped.’ ”

  Shara knows the line. “The Kolkashtava?”

  He laughs bitterly. “Maybe Volka was right. Once a Kolkashtani …”

  Then he is silent.

  Shara wonders what kind of man thinks of his brother when naked in a woman’s bed. Then they both find troubled sleep.

  * * *

  Shara’s consciousness churns awake, kicking against the dark, oily waters of a hangover. The pillowcase against her face is sandpaper; her arms, exposed, are frigidly cold; while her feet, deep in the comforter, are sweltering.

  A voice barks, “Get up. Get up.”

  The pillow on her head rises up, and cruel daylight stabs in.

  “Roll over,” says Mulaghesh’s voice, “and get up!”

  Shara turns in the sheets. Mulaghesh is standing at her bed, holding up the morning paper like it’s the severed head of an enemy.

  “What?” says Shara. “What?” She is, thankfully, still wearing her slip; Vohannes, however, is long gone. She wonders if he fled in shame, and feels hurt that he might think so poorly of her.

  “Read this,” says Mulaghesh. She points to a blurry article.

  “You want me to wh—”

  “Read! Just read.”

  Shara digs in the pillows for her glasses. Shoving them on her nose, she encounters her own face, rendered in black and white on the front page of the newspaper. The picture shows her standing by the Solda: behind her is the dead form of Urav, and at her feet, covered in blood, is Sigrud, whose face is hidden by a veil of oily hair. It is, she thinks, the best photo of her she has ever seen in her life: she is caught in regal profile, the wind catching her hair just so, making it a soft river of ebony trailing out from behind her head.

  Her bemusement is dashed when she reads the article below:

  BULIKOV SAVED!

  The central quarters of Bulikov were terrorized last night by a sudden, inexplicable, and horrifying attack from the Solda River. It has been confirmed that an enormous creature of an aquatic nature (the nature of the creature obligates this paper to refer to it only as “the
creature,” for to be any more precise could incur legal consequences) swam upstream against the Solda, broke through the ice, and began pulling passersby off of the celebrated river walks and into the freezing water.

  The size and mass of this creature was so great that it managed to level several riverside buildings before any municipal forces were able to react. A stunning twenty-seven citizens lost their lives, and as of 4:00 a.m. this morning, more reports are still coming in. Few bodies have been recovered.

  The Bulikov Police Department quickly mounted an attack to capture or kill the creature, but this provoked it into damaging the Solda Bridge to the point that it collapsed, killing six officers and injuring nine more, including the celebrated officer Captain Miklav Nesrhev. As of this morning, Captain Nesrhev is now stable and recovering at the House of Seven Sisters infirmary.

  The resolution of this threat may be the most amazing element, as the creature was finally felled by a highly unlikely hero, for Bulikov: it has been revealed that the recent appointment to the Saypuri Embassy, Ashara Thivani, is in truth Ashara Komayd, niece of the Saypuri Minister of Foreign Affairs Vinya Komayd, and great-granddaughter of the controversial general Avshakta si Komayd, the infamous last Kaj of Saypur. Sources confirm that it was through her efforts and planning that the creature was successfully stopped, and killed.

  “The ambassador and her associates identified the nature of the creature, and prescribed a method for containing and killing it,” said a source in the city government, who preferred to go unnamed. “Without her help, dozens if not hundreds more of Bulikov’s citizens would have been lost.”

  Several police officers have also commended the ambassador’s behavior during the attack: “We were trying to evacuate the embassy, but she insisted on coming to help,” said Viktor Povroy, a sergeant in the Bulikov Police Department. “She and her colleagues set to it right away. I’ve never seen a more audacious plan put together so quickly.”

  The ambassador and the polis governor of Bulikov, Turyin Mulaghesh, are also credited with saving Captain Nesrhev’s life. “Without them,” testified Povroy,