The Broken Heavens

by Kameron Hurley

  “Probably for the fifth temple, though,” Maralah said. “If she beats us to it–”

  “We want her to.”

  “Why?” Roh said.

  “Because once her jistas are in place, they’re locked into the mechanism. And that also means she can’t use them.”

  “How the fuck do you know that?” Zezili said.

  “I have… sources,” Lilia said. “All of her jistas are going to be concentrating their power there. She won’t be thinking about defense in there because we won’t have shown our hand too early. She’ll have no idea we’re coming.”

  “We still have to make sure no one is in the Assembly Chamber,” Roh said. “It will be busier during the day.”

  “Not if Kirana is gone,” Lilia said.

  Maralah shook her head. “We don’t know that.”

  “The Kai’s living quarters are there,” Roh said. “Her family could be there, and soldiers to guard them–”

  “My contact can clear out the soldiers,” Lilia said.

  “Her family–”

  “If they are there, we’ll deal with them,” Lilia said. “They are the least of our concerns. We still go in through the ceiling. We still step through the circle.”

  “Are we agreed in this?” Maralah asked.

  Lilia held her breath.

  Zezili said, “I’ll do this whatever way kills the most of them.”

  Roh leaned over to Anavha, translating.

  “How precise can you be?” Lilia asked Anavha. “Could you open a gate right on top of the table? Or right inside the door?”

  Anavha considered that. “I could get you onto the table, yes. Or very near it.”

  “We act quickly,” Lilia said. “If we are fast enough, focused enough, they will have no time to counter us. I know that now. I was… overthinking. I’m sorry. Kadaan and Roh go through Anavha’s gate first, pushing out a defensive wall to mask the sound and keep others out. The rest of us, we make a circle around the table. There will be a raised green circle beneath it. Step right onto it and hold hands.”

  Taigan snorted. “And then what, we sing religious songs?”

  The phrase sent a knife of fear through Lilia. She thought of the loop again, the possibility that all of this was going to end the same way. “Fast,” Lilia said. “No thinking. I want to practice it, right here, around this table. Anavha?”

  “Are you serious?” Roh said.

  “Yes,” Lilia said.

  Anavha took them all outside, and opened a gate just above the kitchen table. They ran through the exercise three times. The third time, they were all through and in place in just twenty seconds. Lilia chewed at her fingernail after she finished the count the third time, wondering if that was going to be fast enough. Perhaps, perhaps not. Surely it would be fast enough to keep Taigan from burning the whole temple down around them. She could hope.

  “That’s as fast as it’s getting,” Maralah said. “We’re losing time. If someone else gets up on that dais before you–”

  “If someone’s up there when we get in,” Lilia said, “we’ll have enough free jistas to knock them off. Our focus is on getting me on that pedestal, no matter the cost.”

  “And then we close the ways?” Maralah said.

  “Yes,” Lilia said. She didn’t know what else to say, because she had no idea what she was actually going to do this time, knowing precisely what came next.

  47

  Kirana lay in bed with Yisaoh, absently stroking her temple while the light of the satellites streamed through the windows and the double helix of the suns made their slow bid for dominance of the sky. She wanted to linger much longer, but she already heard the children awake in the next room, laughing. And the sky waited for no one.

  She pulled off her coverlet and dressed just as someone knocked at the door and peeked in. A little Dhai servant, come to stoke the fire and set out tea.

  “Come in,” Kirana said.

  “Shall I let in the children?” the Dhai girl asked.

  “Give Yisaoh a few more moments to sleep.”

  “Yes, Empress.” The girl set the tea tray on the table at the window and went to tend the banked fire.

  Kirana had dreamed of death, of fighting herself in a large dark cavern as it slowly filled with water. She stood at the basin of water on her dresser and peeled off her sweaty shift. Wiped the stale sweat from her chest, under her arms, beneath her breasts. She gazed long at herself in the polished metal mirror, her face so thin and ravaged by worry and hunger that she could have been looking at a stranger. How would she know?

  Another knock at the door.

  “Yes?”

  “Madah has urgent news from the beachhead.”

  Kirana pulled on her shift again and opened the door. A little Tai Mora page stood there, fairly shaking. “She opened a way into the Assembly Chamber?”

  “Yes, Empress.”

  “Tell her I’ll be a moment.”

  Kirana dressed. Kissed Yisaoh. Yisaoh murmured something, but did not wake.

  Kirana went through her office and into the Assembly Chamber where Madah already waited, pacing the room with Mysa Joasta, one of the omajistas Kirana had assigned to her.

  “News?” Kirana asked.

  “The sand bar has become unstable,” Madah said. “I don’t suggest we try and brute force our way in any longer. I can move the temple, if you give me a few more jistas, but I’m worried it relies on the sea water. That it breaths it.”

  “I have a better idea,” Kirana said. “I’ll have Yivsa bring a gift, one the temple may well recognize.”

  “The boy’s blood?”

  “Oravan said it worked downstairs, to wake the temple keeper. They got little out of it, though. Just more nonsense about a guide and a key.”

  “You think it will recognize you, with his blood?”

  “I will make it recognize me,” Kirana said. “You have everyone assembled on the beachhead?”

  “We’re ready.”

  “Give me a few minutes to prepare. I want Himsa and Talahina to come with us.”

  When she had gathered her stargazers, Mysa opened a wink between the temple’s Assembly Chamber and the sandbar about fifteen hundred paces from the shoreline where Gian and her jistas waited for them.

  “This is quite an undertaking,” Gian said.

  “I expected nothing less,” Kirana said.

  The seething leviathan of the temple pulsed so strongly the water rippled around it; the sandbar trembled slightly.

  Kirana freed the blood inside her jar and smeared it on her palm. She peered at the gooey creature and smiled grimly. “Let’s see what you say now, friend.” She pressed her palm to its skin.

  A tremor. A sigh.

  A seam opened in the side of the leviathan, and a gush of seawater poured out, soaking Kirana’s shoes.

  “In!” Kirana called to those behind her. “I want to open another wink between this temple and the basement in Oma’s Temple so we can communicate with them there. Are the jistas still locked into the other temples?”

  “Yes,” Madah said. “No change.”

  Kirana waited for her force of jistas and fighters to enter ahead of her; many were the same trusted people she had left with Yisaoh back on their world. When Kirana finally slipped through the slit in the temple’s skin, Talahina was already ordering around the jistas and getting them up onto pedestals. The great cavern sparkled with light; the constellations on the ceiling began to move and shimmer.

  Kirana gaped, taking in the measure of the cavern. Her feet splashed in the water beneath her. “An organic machine,” she said.

  Gian, beside her, said, “Like our ark. Something built, awakened, and left… sleeping, for a time.”

  “Now we wake it up,” Kirana said.

  Her parajista stepped onto a glowing blue pedestal and a surge of power bent him nearly double. His mouth opened in a silent scream.

  The tirajista and sinajista were next. Talahina conferred with Oravan, and
they argued over something.

  Kirana came over to them. “What is it?”

  “We need someone to go in there, the Key,” Oravan said, gesturing to a great white webbing that bisected the cavern. “These last two pieces we were… less certain about. Let’s ask Mysa.”

  “I don’t want to risk too many omajistas,” Kirana said. “I don’t want to get stuck in here.”

  “Suari would have been–” Talahina began.

  “We don’t have him,” Kirana snapped. “Does it have to be a jista?”

  “Yes,” Talahina said.

  “Gian?” Kirana said. “You have a strong jista?”

  Gian frowned. Nodded. She called up three of her people and gave them over to Oravan.

  Oravan instructed the first to get up into the webbing and then call on his star.

  There was a brilliant flash of white light, then a sound like a burst melon. Bits of flesh and blood, broken bones and gooey viscera, splattered them all as the jista was obliterated by the combined burst of power.

  “Well, that… didn’t work,” Oravan said, staring at the fleshy bits of what was left of the jista.

  “Try another until it does work!” Kirana said. “I’m getting up on that pedestal.”

  Talahina said, “Are you sure? What if–”

  “If anyone’s going to break the world, it’s me,” Kirana said. She climbed up. Once standing there, she wiped her palms on her tunic. Below, Gian looked less than impressed.

  “How much of this are you guessing at?” Gian called.

  Kirana said, “Have you done this before? Make a good suggestion or get out of the way.”

  A sound behind her. A gasp from the jistas nearby. Oravan swore.

  Kirana swung her gaze to the other side of the chamber where a group of around two dozen people were already scrambling to their feet. They had simply… appeared. No wink, no–

  She felt the wave of air headed toward her, too late. Kirana tumbled off the pedestal and into the water below.

  48

  Lilia did not know where or when she lost the little container of Hasao’s blood, but she knew the moment she realized the little vial was missing from her tunic pocket. Blood was the key to everything, and it was missing.

  She stepped through the wink and into the Assembly Chamber just behind Zezili. Distracted, Lilia squeezed at her pockets even as the others leapt off the table and assembled quickly around it. Kadaan had a wall of air up to shield them; Lilia knew they only had a few precious seconds before someone sensed them here.

  “What are you grabbing at?” Zezili asked, helping her down from the table and keeping hold of her hand as they got into place.

  “I had… a small jar of blood here, in my pocket.”

  “Oh,” Zezili said, “yes, I ate that. It was terrible, not as good as fresh, but I did feel better.”

  “You… what?”

  “When you came back to bed. I could smell it.”

  “Step forward!” Roh called.

  Lilia and Zezili stepped forward with the others. Lilia pressed her feet to the circle. “This isn’t good,” Lilia said.

  Maralah said, “Ready Songs of Unmaking. I want any jista in there immediately cut off.”

  “What’s a little old blood, between colleagues?” Zezili said to Lilia.

  “No, no, no,” Lilia said. She squeezed Zezili’s hand. “We can only do this once, now. We can’t–”

  A cry came from the other side of the room, a familiar one.

  “Stop! What are you–”

  They began to sink through the floor. Lilia’s ears popped as Kadaan dropped his shield. She was aware of someone running up behind her, from the direction of the Kai’s old study, but she dared not look back, dared not because she feared it might be Gian and this was all going to go wrong again.

  A hand gripped Lilia’s collar, yanking her head back.

  Lilia had just enough time to realize it was Yisaoh holding her tight, falling in after them, before the light winked out.

  Lilia struck the cold, wet floor just as hard the second time as the first. She clawed her way up, hands slick against the tongue-like surface. It was not dark this time, and not empty. Far from it.

  The air fairly sparked with power. Her head swam; her vision was dazzled by the blazing lights. All of the jista pedestals were filled, their jistas captured in the twists of power. Beside Lilia, Yisaoh lay on her side, coughing and wheezing.

  Kadaan, Maralah and Taigan were already up.

  “Songs of Unmaking!” Maralah called, but it was already done. Lilia knew because the two winks leading outside the room went out.

  “Luna!” Lilia called.

  Luna scrambled after her as she began limping to the great dais at the center of it all.

  The figure at the top of the dais flew off and fell into the water below. Lilia had a feeling it was Kirana. Who else would be arrogant enough to get up there? Just Kirana. And Lilia.

  “Zezili!” Lilia said. “Watch that woman in the water, but don’t kill her! Just make sure she doesn’t come after me.”

  And there was Gian, gaping, surrounded by powerless jistas, all cut off from their stars. Her people raised their weapons.

  “Don’t! Wait!” Kirana splashed over to them, arms raised, staring at something behind Lilia and Luna.

  Lilia turned and saw what Kirana did: Yisaoh, getting to her feet beside them. She looked dazed. This wasn’t Lilia’s Yisaoh. She could see that immediately. The hair was too short, and she was too thin. Kirana’s Yisaoh. Somehow Kirana had gotten her Yisaoh through.

  Ahkio, Lilia thought. That traitor.

  “Zezili!” Lilia called. “Grab that woman! Grab Yisaoh!”

  Zezili came back around and took Yisaoh’s arm. Yisaoh punched her; Zezili’s face came away grinning and bloody. She twisted Yisaoh’s arm behind her, forcing her over. Yisaoh cried out.

  “Let her alone!” Kirana said. “Please. You aren’t here for her. She’s nothing. You’re here for me, aren’t you?”

  The old anger rose in Lilia, the rage that had made her snap this woman’s back. Lilia grit her teeth. “Step away from the dais,” Lilia said. “Keep your hands above your head. I know you have a weapon there in your wrist. Don’t come near me or Zezili will murder Yisaoh, your Yisaoh. Because you already murdered ours, didn’t you?”

  “It’s the way it is,” Kirana said. “Every cycle, the worlds come together to murder each other. And the cycle will keep going on, Lilia, you and me and those who come after us, again and again, cycle after cycle. In some other world, you did the same as I did.”

  Lilia shivered, because Kirana was right, wasn’t she? I was the monster, Lilia thought, remembering the terrible influx of golden women with green eyes.

  “Get up there, Lilia!” Roh called. “Taigan?”

  “This is ridiculous,” Taigan said. “I’d prefer to burn them all where they stand.”

  “Don’t you dare!” Lilia shouted. She pointed to the great white cage where he needed to be. “You wanted to break the world, Taigan, or maybe save it? It’s time.”

  “Oh, there’s, ahh…” the little Tai Mora man near the webbing began. His companion hushed him. Lilia noted the splattering of flesh and viscera all around them. How many people had they tried to feed to it?

  Lilia needed to get to the top. “Roh!” she called. “Can you get me up?”

  A gentle wind enveloped her and took her to the top of the pedestal, far more softly this time. Perhaps Roh was not as frazzled. And he had Kadaan and Anavha and Maralah with him this time; the other pedestals were already powered by Gian and Kirana’s people.

  Lilia gazed down at Gian as Taigan climbed into his niche. Lilia’s shadow loomed over the cavern as the brilliant white light enveloped Taigan behind her. Lilia’s feet and fingers tingled. This time, she stared at the floor beneath her, and saw the symbol: the trefoil with the tail. The missing piece?

  “Luna!” Lilia said. “A missing piece. What do you know about a
missing piece?”

  “What?” Luna cried, splashing in the water below.

  Lilia raised her arm and stared at her wrist where her mother had warded that symbol into her flesh. What if she chose to just flood this whole temple, and end them all? How could they live beside these people? How could they possibly make a future together? When her ancestors broke the world, they had left their descendants to put it back together. Lilia resented them all, resented their arrogance and hubris. Lilia hated those old dusty jistas who had made the temples, but she hated the future more. Why did the choice come down to her, the choice to continue some terrible cycle or break it? All on…

  “Can you do it?” Luna called.

  Lilia shook herself out of her dark thoughts. Not all on her. She had believed it was all her choices that led them here, but that, too, was arrogant. As arrogant as her ancestors had been. Luna chose to be here. Taigan, even. And Anavha! That poor boy should have stayed on the farm, what was he thinking? Roh, dear Roh, who had traveled so long and so far, fuelled on what? On hope. Hope that they could get here. That they could change something, instead of just continuing the same cycle over and over again.

  Many worlds, Lilia thought. A multitude of choices. She was thinking narrowly, without understanding the rules of the machine. They were all mucking about in this big thing, trying to make it work, trying to save themselves.

  “Luna!” she said. “Do we have to break the world?”

  “What do you mean?”

  Lilia could feel the power beckoning to her to open herself to it, calling, calling… She closed her eyes. Clenched her fists. “It’s called the Worldbreaker, the book, and… the person up here. But do we have to break the world? Can’t we… couldn’t we… put it back together?”

  “I… don’t know!” Luna said. “There are… There are trillions of worlds here, Lilia, too many choices. I… yes, you can! I took those pages out of the book! The instructions! I’m sorry! I don’t remember them.”