City of Stone and Silence

by Django Wexler

  With my help, though, it might be fewer people. So I ignored Garo’s pleas to stay behind, and the twisting of my own stomach. I think about Isoka, and Grandma lying cold and dead, and the cuts on Kosura’s body.

  There are a dozen of us, moving in single file down a narrow, brick-walled corridor. No actual sewage runs through it, thankfully, but from the smell and nearby gurgles it can’t be far away. This tunnel goes all the way from a fountain in the Eleventh Ward to an accessway in the Fifth, just across the road and through two sets of gates. We’re only going half that way, underneath the gate on the Eleventh Ward side, then back up.

  “I’ve found the ladder,” Giniva reports.

  She’s in the lead, a tiny Myrkai flame kindled in one hand to light our way. Two others from the sanctuary are with us: Nari, a grim, skinny girl whose dark clothing matches her Xenos Well, and Vekata, the boy not much older than me who uses Rhema and swears he can fight. Then come Garo and I, followed by a small group of volunteers from Hotara’s street fighters, men and women whose toughness she vouched for. We’re all armed, even me, if only with a dagger.

  At least I know I can kill someone with a dagger.

  “If Thul hasn’t screwed us, the grate at the top should be unlocked,” Garo says. “It’s supposed to lead into a storeroom. Get it open as quiet as you can.”

  Giniva nods, her flame bobbing, and then disappears. We can hear her footsteps on the rungs as she ascends.

  “Got it,” her voice drifts down. “Come on up.”

  One by one, we climb the ladder. It’s just brackets set into the brick, rusted and rough under my hands. I follow Garo up, feeling cramped and helpless in the narrow vertical passage, and I’m breathing hard by the time I emerge into a long, narrow room. Shelves line one wall, stacked with gear—uniforms, crossbow bolts, lanterns, and jugs of fuel. There’s barely room for all of us. The last of the volunteers, a big, heavily tattooed woman, swings the grate closed behind us.

  “Main guard room is just outside,” Garo whispers. “Normally five men. Maybe ten now. Giniva opens the door. I head to the stairs and keep any reinforcements from below bottled up. The rest of you deal with whoever’s in there. Got it?”

  Muttered assents. I wonder when Garo learned to speak so casually of “dealing with” people. Maybe it’s another thing they train you in, being a noble.

  “Ready,” Giniva says.

  “Go,” Garo mouths.

  Giniva pulls the door open. The guard room is lit by a large fireplace and several lanterns, and the light dazzles me for a moment. Garo plunges onward, Melos gauntlets already ignited, barreling into a surprised-looking Ward Guard. A slam and a crackle of power send him crashing against the wall, and then Garo’s past, heading for the darker archway of the stairs leading down.

  “Rebels!” a woman shouts. “We’re under attack—”

  The others charge. There are the expected ten Ward Guard in the room, unarmored and without their spears, but still wearing swords. Most of them are sitting around a big table, where a card game was in progress, while another pair are sitting by the fire. They all go for their weapons.

  It’s so fast. When the Immortals had attacked us at the sanctuary, the battle seemed to be over in an eyeblink, but I had chalked that up to my panic. Fights on stage and in books seemed to go on for ages, with plenty of time for the opposing parties to exchange dramatic lines. But here half the Ward Guard are down before they have a chance to even draw their swords, our people hacking at them as they tangle themselves in the benches or bump into the table, sending cards flying.

  A few manage to back off, forming a circle near the hearth. Vekata and Nari move in on one side, Vekata glowing with golden light and moving faster than he has any right to, Nari cloaked in sticky shadows. The volunteers charge on the other side, and for a moment steel skitters against steel. The tattooed woman grabs a young guard’s arm, breaks it with a twist, and cuts his throat with a dagger. The sergeant of the Ward Guards, the woman who’d called the alarm, delivers a cut to the arm of a young rebel that sends him reeling away in a spray of blood. Vekata slips behind her with Rhema-driven speed and buries his dagger in the small of her back. Nari screams as a young Ward Guard’s wild swing slashes her hand, and she drops her blade. When he runs her through the stomach, he seems as surprised as she does. A moment later, a firebolt from Giniva sets the boy ablaze, and he’s screaming, too.

  Less than a hundred heartbeats, and it’s over. Nari’s on the ground, dying noisily, shadow energy evaporating around her in little puffs of darkness. The burning Ward Guard has gone still and silent, sheathed in flame, and the rest of them lie around the hearth in pools of blood. I’m trying very hard not to be sick.

  “Winch room,” Garo says, glancing over his shoulder. “Tori, take Momo and get the gate open. Everyone else with me!”

  I can hear the clatter on the stairs already, weapons and armor. A Ward Guard with a crossbow appears at the next landing down and fires, the bolt glancing off Garo’s Melos gauntlets in a shower of green sparks. She ducks out of the way as Giniva sends a firebolt back at her, and I hear raised voices.

  Momo, the tattooed woman, falls in behind me as I take the other side of the stairway, up to the top of the guardhouse. This room is empty except for the winch, a contraption of rope and pulleys with a single big crank-handle on one side. I suspect Garo sent me up here in case the mechanism needed puzzling out, but all I have to do is point Momo at it. Muscles bunch and strain in her back as she goes to work, and I can hear the rattle of chains and counterweights through the walls.

  There are windows here—arrowslits, really, but enough to get a decent view. The guardhouse is built into the wall itself, a tower just beside the gate. Looking south, toward the Eleventh Ward, I can see a crowd gathered in the squares of the High Market. They have spears, clubs, and torches, driving back the gathering darkness of early evening. The Ward Guard is spread out along the wall, armed with crossbows, but so far holding their fire. The mob can’t get to them, after all.

  As soon as Momo starts cranking, all that changes. The gates swing open, slowly at first, but with gathering momentum. A group of Ward Guard on the far side, caught flat-footed, struggles to block the archway, but they don’t get a chance to set their spears before the crowd surges forward. I hear the twang of crossbows, and people fall, but not nearly enough. They don’t need my encouragement, not anymore. The guards are pulled down, beaten to a pulp, trampled underfoot, and the mob surges past onto the highway.

  I run across the room to the other windows, facing north. From here, I can see out onto the military highway that separates the Fifth and Eleventh Wards. Another wall rises on the other side, with a matching gate leading into the Fifth. A dull glow from beyond it indicates a mob has formed on that side, too—the people we sent through Thul’s hidden tunnels have been working all day. More Ward Guard, arrayed to contain the threat, now find themselves assailed from both directions. They have better warning than their comrades at the Eleventh’s wall, time to form up and make a line of spears. But they’re badly outnumbered, and all their defenses are facing the wrong way—the walls were designed to contain insurrection from inside the wards, not repel an attack from the outside.

  Run, I urge the soldiers, silently. Just run. Take off your uniforms and lose yourselves in the crowd. Don’t die for no reason. The mob is hesitating, those in front not wanting to risk a charge onto that wall of spearpoints, but the pressure from behind is unstoppable. A bloodbath looms.

  I open my Kindre senses, the world unfolding to me like a flower, minds full of powerful emotion all around. It washes over me: acrid fear; hot, sweaty rage; crimson pain; and the sick purple of a lust for violence. And duty, a sound like a distant skirl of drums, holding the terrified guards in place.

  No. I reach out to them, still the drums, push that away. No duty to die. Not here. Not now. Run.

  For a moment, the two sides are still, in balance. Then the first spear falls from a guardsman’s ne
rvous fingers. A sergeant shouts at him, inaudible in the din, but the young man pushes past, leaving his place in the line. Those on either side turn to watch him, and another spear hits the dirt. Then another, and another.

  The Ward Guard crumbles, like a sugar cube soaked in water. The mob surges forward. My mind feels like I’ve rolled it in filth, but I find myself smiling.

  * * *

  Garo and I return to our impromptu headquarters at the Immortal safe house. Giniva stays behind, organizing a team to secure the gate. A couple of the volunteers carry Nari back with the rest of us. It’s hopeless, unless there’s another ghulwitch in the city with Grandma Tadeka’s skill, but I don’t have the heart to stop them. By the time we return, her faint moans have ceased, her dark tunic soaked with cooling blood.

  I should care about that. She was one of ours, from the sanctuary. The people I’m supposed to be protecting. But I feel numb. There were bodies in the High Market, rioters cut down by crossbow bolts from the walls. No one seemed to be doing anything about them.

  Back in the upper room of the safe house, someone has found a map of the city, started drawing lines in pencil. As the sun sets, reports start to trickle in from the other teams Garo sent out, and the picture they draw is one of brilliant success. Our people have taken the Ward Guard by surprise across nearly a dozen districts, opening gates and spreading the news of the rebellion. Some garrisons surrender outright, or even defect, turning on their officers and joining the mob. The fire of rebellion spreads across Kahnzoka, reaching out from the lower ward to move up the hill.

  The guards, desperate, hold the line at the Third Ward. None of Thul’s tunnels and secret doors go that high, and the walls are well-fortified. Garo gives orders to let them be, secure what we’ve won. The guards have abandoned the outer walls, now hopelessly outflanked, and he sends people to man them, in case the government tries to launch an assault from the countryside.

  I sit beside him, nodding, while it all happens, excited people shouting at each other and sketching pencil lines on the map. They ask my opinion, and I defer to Garo. My thoughts have returned to the Immortal captain in the basement, and what she might know.

  Where are you, Isoka? Does it even matter? If my hands were bloody before, they’re positively steeped in crimson now. What was I supposed to do?

  Not this.

  Giniva returns, just after midnight. Garo is still at the table, deep shadows under his eyes, working by candlelight. He looks up as she comes in, and she wordlessly hands him a sealed envelope. In the flickering light, I catch the color of the wax: Imperial purple. Garo breaks it open with one finger, scans the contents, and smiles.

  “It’s from Kuon Naga,” he says, as a hush falls across the room. “He wants to negotiate.”

  20

  ISOKA

  I’m walking toward Prime’s bone-strewn ziggurat. Skulls grin down at me, and the ropes of bones clatter faintly in the afternoon breeze.

  The last time I came here, I had the best fighters in the crew with me, and we failed. People died.

  This time, I’m alone.

  A dozen walking corpses wait in front of the entrance, a wall of desiccated flesh and blank, staring eyes. I ascend the staircase and stop in front of them, ready to ignite my blades.

  “Isoka Deepwalker,” one of them says, in Prime’s rich, resonant tones, so different from the rasp he makes in my head. The corpse steps forward, its torn, dried lip twisting into a smile. “Are you here to kill me?”

  “I’m here to take you up on your offer,” I tell the thing. “If it still stands.”

  There’s a moment of silence that I take for hesitation. Then Prime laughs.

  * * *

  “He’ll know it’s a trick,” Meroe says.

  “Probably.” I inspect my boots, which have seen better days. There’s a hole developing near my left toe. I wonder if the angels make boots.

  It’s nearly noon, and we’re standing in the arched doorway of our own ziggurat. I’m checking my gear one last time.

  “So,” Meroe says, “how do you know he won’t kill you immediately?”

  “I don’t, not for certain. But I have a hunch.”

  “This is not reassuring,” Meroe says, pacing.

  “You were there this morning when we went over this.”

  “I know!” She turns on her heel to face me. There’s no anger on her face this time, just worry and pain. “I know. But…”

  “Prime wants something from me,” I say. “I have a guess what it might be. Even if I’m wrong, though, I think he’ll keep me alive. You didn’t hear him when he made his offer. He had to know how I feel, but he’s…” I shake my head. “Desperate.”

  “Less sympathy for the guy who kills our friends with walking corpses, please,” Meroe says.

  “I don’t have any sympathy.” I lace my fraying boot tight. “I just feel like I understand.”

  I straighten up, and she comes over to face me. We look at each other for a few moments, in silence.

  “You’re leaving me again,” she says.

  “We talked about this, too,” I say. “I’m not trying to protect you. I’m going to need you to pull my rotting hide out of the fire.”

  “I know.” She closes her eyes. “But it always seems to work out this way.”

  “‘To command is to sacrifice.’ Someone told me that once.”

  “Smartass,” Meroe says, and kisses me.

  We press tight against one another, hearts beating side by side. I never want to stop, never want to leave that embrace. I kiss along the line of her jaw and into the hollow of her throat, tasting the faint tang of sweat.

  “This is going to work,” I say. “And when it’s over, we’ll get back on Soliton, and go keep Tori safe from Kuon Naga. And then…”

  “And then?” Meroe murmurs.

  “You know I have no rotting idea what happens then,” I say. “But whatever it is, we do it together.”

  She squeezes me a little tighter.

  “And,” I whisper, “when we get Soliton sailing north again, we’ll have some time to kill before we arrive.”

  Meroe giggles, and her hands slide somewhere inappropriate. “I might have some ideas there.”

  “Really?” I kiss her again. “Such a strange princess.”

  She laughs. When I pull away, there are tears in her eyes.

  * * *

  The corpses take hold of me, two to a side. More crowd around, forming a mass of stinking, rotting bodies. I hold my breath, waiting for the move that means that I was wrong, that Prime wants to kill me after all and this was a horrible mistake.

  It doesn’t come, at least not yet. The monsters drag me ungently, and I stumble trying to keep up. But they don’t dig their fingers in to rip and tear. We walk arm in arm, like the world’s worst dance troupe, up the steps and in the front door of the ziggurat. After a few turns, a ramp leads down, into the stony depths of the building.

  It’s all I can do not to sigh with relief when I see the cage. It’s a crude thing, made from scrap metal awkwardly shaped into floor-to-ceiling bars in an otherwise unfurnished stone room. Inside the bars there’s nothing but a wooden bucket in one corner. Stains on the stone around it hint that I’m not the first prisoner who’s been kept here.

  Two of the lizard-monsters wait on the outside of the bars, feathers ruffling as we enter, bones visible through gaps in their rotting, shrunken hide. One bar has been bent sideways enough to make a hole for me to enter, and I step through at the corpses’ prodding. A lizard pads forward, grasps the metal in its teeth, and bends it straight. Up close, it looks like pieces of Soliton, rusted plates twisted into shape.

  “Well?” I say aloud. “What now?”

  “Now you explain what you’re up to,” Prime says, his sonorous, unreal voice coming from one of the corpses.

  “I told you. You offered to partner with me. I’d like to take you up on it.”

  “Why should I believe you?”

  “You’re
the one who said that our kind is driven to rule.”

  He snorts. “You’ll lose that tone soon enough.”

  I shrug. The corpses turn, as one, and shuffle out of the room, leaving the two lizards behind as guards. Prime is taking no chances. My Melos blades might be able to cut their way through the bars eventually—maybe, the ship-metal is rotting tough—but certainly not before these two monstrous jailers did something about it.

  I eye them suspiciously. Prime can probably see and hear through them, just as he can speak through his walking corpses. I settle down in the corner farthest from the pair of them—thankfully not the one occupied by the bucket—and put my hand in my pocket. The bit of conduit I used in Catoria’s chambers is still there, and I let words silently form in my mind.

  Silvoa? Can you hear me?

  Her face appears in front of me, the faintest ghostly sketch. She nods. I wait a moment, to see if my captors react, but either they can’t see the Eddica-light or they don’t care.

  You must have made it inside Prime’s stronghold, then, she says in my mind.

  He tossed me in a cell.

  More or less as planned. Her image glances around. This is where he kept me.

  I thought it might be. I can’t imagine he has many prisoners. I hesitate for a moment. Are you … all right? Back in Catoria’s room—

  It’s not as bad as it sounds, she says briskly. I ham it up a bit, honestly.

  It sounded like he was tearing your fingernails out.

  He can make it painful for me, Silvoa admits. But he can’t do any permanent damage. I’m already dead, after all.

  And he won’t notice you talking to me?

  Not in here. This is his domain; it’s where I’m supposed to be.