City of Stone and Silence

by Django Wexler

  I nod, and settle back against the wall. There’s not much to do now but wait. I watch the dead lizard-birds for a while, but they stand absolutely still, and that quickly gets boring. No one seems inclined to bring me food and water, which is fine with me for the moment, since I’m not eager to have to put the bucket to use.

  So this is where he kept you? I ask Silvoa. If you don’t mind talking about it, I mean.

  I don’t mind, she says. The worst has already happened, after all.

  You seem remarkably cheerful in spite of that.

  Well. I’m still around to be cheerful. That’s got to be worth something, right?

  I suppose. I manage a grin. Hagan isn’t nearly so talkative. I have the strong feeling that I would have liked Silvoa, if we’d met before she died. Why do you think he kept you around?

  At first I thought it was just because he was a vindictive, sadistic piece of rotscum, Silvoa says. And I still think that’s true, but there’s more to it. I think he’s lonely.

  Lonely? Prime? I shake my head. It’s hard to think of the mysterious master of this place as experiencing anything so human. I realize that I picture him as one of his corpses, a desiccated puppet with dead-black eyes.

  He talked to you about the Eddicants, right? she says. How he thinks that only people like us, Eddica mage-bloods, have the right to be here? To exist?

  A little.

  Imagine if you really believed that, but you’re the only Eddicant you’ve ever met. And then, suddenly, there’s another one.

  I don’t think I’d have responded by torturing her to death, I say.

  He kept me here for quite a while. She shakes her ghostly head. Tried to convince me of everything he claims. I think it was the fact that I didn’t believe him that finally made him start hurting me. After I died, he couldn’t bear to let me go.

  Or else he just wanted to keep torturing you, because he’s sadistic rotscum.

  That too, of course.

  I draw in a long breath and let it out, slowly, trying to calm the beating of my heart. I can’t get wound up yet. There’s a long way to go.

  What’s it like? I ask Silvoa.

  What?

  Dying.

  Oh. Her ghost-image smiles brightly. It really hurts.

  * * *

  We make a strange procession out of the Cresos pyramid, heading for the central obelisk and its plaza. It’s just after dawn on the day I’m going to walk into Prime’s lair.

  A messenger, one of the Cresos clan’s servants gifted with Rhema, has already made the dangerous nighttime journey to the Minders’ ziggurat and back. As I hoped, Gragant was willing to listen, and his delegation should have set out at the same time we did. The Cresos know this, which makes them nervous, especially Lord Toranaka. Catoria, dressed in well-tailored traveling clothes, waits with more patience than I would have given her credit for, while he exhausts himself ranting.

  “—and furthermore,” he says, beginning to run out of steam, “this is exactly the kind of matter on which you need the considered advice of the elders of the clan.”

  “It seems like I require your advice on all matters, lately,” Catoria says, making a show of inspecting her gloves. “I am seventeen, Uncle. Not a little girl any longer.”

  “And yet you rush into foolish meetings with our enemies!”

  “I don’t think the Minders are your enemies,” I put in. “Especially not when there’s walking corpses attacking both of you.”

  “If I was interested in your opinion, I would have asked for it,” he says icily. He’s wearing archaic wooden armor, like the guards last night, which makes him look blocky and heavyset. The helmet, face mask carved into a snarling demon, is under his arm. To Catoria, he says, “I thought that we had resolved this matter yesterday evening.”

  “Lady Gelmei presented me with some additional information,” Catoria says. “I changed my mind.”

  “And are the rest of us going to be privy to this remarkable revelation?”

  “No,” Catoria snaps. “I am the heir to the Cresos, Uncle, not you. I rule here. Unless you wish to contest that?”

  There’s a strained moment, while a variety of emotions cross Toranaka’s face. He glances at the rest of the clan, the Imperial mage-bloods and their servants standing ready, and I wonder if he’ll try to make a play for their loyalty. Judging by the way people are looking at Catoria, I don’t think much of his chances.

  Maybe he sees it, too, because he just bows his head. Catoria nods, satisfied, and gestures imperiously. We depart—a column of Cresos nobility in their antique armor, followed by their servants from a hodgepodge of nations, haphazardly armed. And beside Catoria, of course, myself and Shiara, me in my Soliton-made leather armor, Shiara having traded her kizen for a lighter, sturdier robe. It could be a bad theatrical production, mixing costumes from various times and places and hoping the audience won’t notice.

  “He doesn’t look happy,” Shiara says, sliding in beside me as we set out. She nods at Toranaka. “Do you think he’ll make trouble?”

  “You’d know better than I would,” I say. “But I’m more worried about Catoria and Gragant.”

  And Meroe, though I don’t say that out loud. She is not going to be happy with this plan.

  It takes longer than it should to reach the obelisk, since the Cresos in their armor aren’t well-suited for maneuvering through the underbrush. Several of them, including Toranaka—to my secret delight—trip and have to be righted by their companions, like errant turtles. By the time we get there, the Minder contingent has already arrived, a dozen monks in brown robes. I recognize Gragant and the huge, brooding Harak.

  “This could be an ambush,” Toranaka says. “Be cautious, my lady.”

  “Tough to ambush someone when you have a quarter as many men as they do,” I say. The Cresos party is considerably larger than the monks’.

  Toranaka is about to say something cutting, but Catoria interrupts him. “Gragant is many things, but a liar is not one of them. He will not attack us if he has given his word.”

  “Did he not lie to you when he took Silvoa to Prime?” Toranaka says.

  “No,” Catoria says quietly. “Silvoa did that herself.” She shakes her head. “Stay here, Uncle. Isoka, come with me.”

  “But—” Toranaka sputters.

  Catoria is already moving across the courtyard, toward the obelisk. Seeing her advance, with only me for company, Gragant comes to meet us with just Harak at his side. He smiles when he recognizes me, but his expression becomes more solemn as he turns to Catoria.

  “I admit that I was surprised to receive your message,” he says. “It’s been five years since you’ve wanted to talk to me.”

  “I was determined it was going to be the rest of my life.” Catoria glances at me. “But it has been suggested to me that my anger is misplaced.”

  Gragant raises an eyebrow. Catoria takes a deep breath.

  “Silvoa intended to confront Prime regardless. She lied to me about it, but that is on her account, not yours. As her friend, I … can’t blame you for accompanying her.”

  “She was always impossible to stop once she’d made up her mind,” Gragant says. He smiles, very slightly. “I’ve missed you, Catoria. You’ve grown.”

  Something passes between the two of them, wordlessly and too deep for me to understand. It lasts only a moment, and then Gragant turns to me.

  “I take it Catoria allowed you to use her access point?”

  “This morning,” I say with a nod.

  I had managed to catch only a few hours’ sleep, which somehow made me feel even worse. This time, when I’d gone to the access point and let the tendrils of the Harbor’s system wrap around my mind, I’d felt Prime’s presence from the beginning. But he’d said nothing, only watched, as the system withdrew and made its announcement in its dead, flat voice.

  access request received; home//balthazar

  result:

  authorized/accepted

  Two
down, one to go.

  Gragant listens intently as I explain the plan that Catoria and I have worked out. Harak frowns, disapproving, but Gragant himself nods thoughtfully.

  “It’s an awful risk for you,” he says. “With our combined strength, we might be able to simply overwhelm Prime’s defenses.”

  “I’m not so certain,” I say. “That ziggurat has to be packed full of traps and guards he hasn’t shown us yet. Even if we won, it would cost too much.” I hear, involuntarily, the screams of the crew I’d led to their deaths, Safiya’s wet gurgle as the monster ripped her in two. “I can’t accept that.”

  “Even still,” Harak rumbles. “There will be a cost.”

  “Of course there will,” Catoria says. “But it is a necessary one. We have avoided dealing with Prime for long enough.”

  “I think,” Gragant says slowly, “that I agree. The Divine Being has set us a challenge, and we must meet it.”

  “If that is the case,” Harak says, “then the Minders should act alone. The Divine Being’s challenge is for us.”

  “Perhaps the challenge is not only the defeat of Prime,” Gragant says.

  Harak frowns, but doesn’t answer.

  * * *

  It’s hard to keep track of time in the cell, but it has to be getting close to evening when Prime comes to see me. I glare as a single human figure enters, the lizard-birds remaining motionless.

  “You’re late,” I tell him. “The last time I was in a cell, things were a lot more interesting.”

  “I’m terribly sorry to disappoint you,” Prime says, in his actor’s baritone.

  For a moment I wonder if he’s finally come to see me in person, but it’s clear immediately that this body is only another puppet. It’s handsome, square-jawed with high cheekbones and slick, well-coiffed hair, but it looks more like a piece of sculpture than a genuine human face. It moves deliberately, under careful control, with none of the unconscious tics of a living person. When Prime isn’t concentrating, it remains absolutely still, just like the corpse-monsters behind it.

  “Are you ready to bargain?” I say.

  “Bargain?” The dead face manages an ironic smile. “I’m not sure you’re in much of a position to bargain.”

  “I think we’re in the perfect position to come to an agreement. We both have something the other wants.”

  “That’s a fascinating theory.” He leans forward. “You’re aware, of course, of what I can do to you whenever I choose.”

  “It won’t get you what you want, any more than it did with Silvoa.”

  “You’ve been talking to my little wayward ghost, I see.” The smile again, like something he’d rehearsed from a book. “What do you think you have that I want?”

  “The ability to leave this building, obviously.”

  Prime’s expression goes dead still, which I take for a good sign.

  “You were already here when the Cresos and the Minders came ashore,” I say. “I gather you’d been here for a while.”

  “A while,” Prime agrees. He tries to sound nonchalant, but even the fake voice shows cracks.

  “And you clearly want to use the access points. To take control of the Harbor system for yourself.”

  He gives a modest shrug.

  “It follows, then, that it’s not the presence of the other crews that’s keeping you out. If you’d been able to take control, you would have done it before they arrived. Which also explains why you’ve only harassed them intermittently, without risking any of your little pets.” I nod at the lizard-birds. “You can’t get to those access points yourself, can you?”

  Prime stares at me in stony silence. I lean back against the wall.

  “Is it just that you’re afraid?” I say. “Trapped in your own fortress?”

  “Afraid?” He laughs, suddenly all confidence. “Is that what you think?”

  “It fits the evidence.”

  “You have no idea who you’re dealing with,” he says. “What class of being you’re dealing with. I am the Prime Eddicant. I was at death’s door when Soliton brought me here. My power—the true power, the heart of being—has kept me alive ever since. Can you possibly understand that? The force of will necessary to transcend death for centuries?”

  Centuries? I try not to let my reaction show. Blessed’s rotting balls. He’s madder than I thought.

  “And now you think to … what, fool me?” He shakes his head. “Form an alliance, then stab me in the back? As though I would allow such a thing. Did you learn nothing from watching your friends torn to pieces?”

  I learned quite a lot. “I wanted to destroy you. I tried to get the others to help me. Gragant and the Minders, Catoria and the Cresos.”

  “I know. I felt you use their access points.”

  “Gragant I defeated in a contest.” Never mind what sort of contest. “But Catoria refused to grant me access, no matter how I pleaded with her.”

  He’s smiling again. “So what you were not offered, you took.”

  “Yes.” I lower my gaze. “I had to fight my way out again, of course.”

  I’m not usually a great liar. But this lie is what Prime wants to believe.

  “You were right,” I go on, as his smile widens. “I thought about it for a long time. I took over Soliton’s crew, just like I took over my ward in Kahnzoka. I didn’t know what I was, then, but I do now. I want to help you.”

  “What about the others?” he says. “Your friends. Your lover.”

  “I have the access points. I don’t need them anymore.”

  “Then grant me access,” he says. There’s no disguising the hunger in his voice. “I can show you how.”

  “And then you’ll have no reason to keep me alive.” I shake my head. “No, thanks.”

  “That leaves us at a bit of an impasse, doesn’t it?”

  I shrug. His face goes dead again for a while, its guiding intelligence elsewhere. When animation returns to it, his expression is thoughtful.

  “Do you know how this place came to be?” he says. “The Harbor. Has Silvoa puzzled it out?”

  “You told me it was built by Eddicants as somewhere they could rule.”

  “It was built by one man. The first Prime Eddicant. And the last, until me.”

  I shake my head, uncomprehending.

  “The story is in the archives, if you know where to look,” he says. “Millenia ago, this entire continent was as warm as the Harbor is now. There was a civilization here, developed to its fullest flower, and entirely based around the Eddica Well. Eddica is the first Well in more than name, you see. The other Wells were created with Eddica, down the centuries, to enable more people to access power. Vast quantities of energy were expended to drill holes in the fabric of the world.

  “But the ancients didn’t understand as much as they thought they did. With every new Well, Eddica weakened, got rarer. The world itself began to change, and their home grew colder. Eventually, the survivors left the frozen waste it had become and conquered the lands around the Central Sea. The locals had no Wells, and no way to oppose their new masters. But the ancients were few, and mongrelized their line with the lesser races. Soon they were gone, leaving only mage-bloods as a distant shadow of their legacy.”

  I watch him grow more animated in the course of this story, and I wonder how much of it he really found in the archives of the Harbor. It’s not the maddest thing I’ve ever heard—at least, not given the existence of Soliton and the Harbor itself—but people claiming descent from ancient kings and heroes is the stuff of fairy tales and legends. I wish Meroe were here to quiz him about it.

  I also realize that Silvoa was right. Mad or not, this is what Prime wants me for—someone to listen to him. For my purposes, it’s all to the good, so I prod him onward.

  “What does that have to do with the Harbor?” I give the words a doubting spin, and it works as intended. Prime draws himself up with a superior smile, leaning close to the bars.

  “Not all the ancients abandoned their ho
meland. A few thought that the cold would be temporary. They used Eddica’s power to put themselves in stasis, waking many centuries later. Their own people thought them mad.

  “The sleepers woke, one by one, to find their country still frozen and their people gone. Some of them went mad in truth, or killed themselves. Others followed the path of their brethren and used their power to carve out short-lived kingdoms in the west. Only the last of them, the strongest, had the will to understand what needed to be done. He saw what his people had become, the petty tyrants, the endless wars, the hideous perversion that is the Vile Rot. The Prime Eddicant wanted to reverse it all, and re-create the ancients in all their glory.”

  “Ambitious,” I mutter. Prime ignores me.

  “He built the Harbor,” he says. “Constructed armies of angels to maintain it and provide for the people who would live there. He created Soliton and the other great ships, and sent them out into the world to bring back mage-blood children. From them, he planned to purify the line of the ancients, the Eddicants, by carefully controlled breeding.” Prime’s eyes are locked on an invisible horizon. “By force of will, he would have reshaped this continent into a paradise.”

  “Let me guess,” I interrupt. “They killed him.”

  “Of course they killed him,” Prime says bitterly. “The lesser races could not understand his vision. They killed him, and then they killed each other. The angels maintained their vigil, and the great ships still sailed, though they grew ever more ragged. One by one, they failed, until only Soliton remained. It is life and death that provide the raw energy Eddica manipulates, and with the Harbor mostly empty and only Soliton to deliver power, the city began shifting into stasis to preserve itself, stuttering down the years at ever-shorter intervals.” He smiles again. “Then I arrived. The Prime Eddicant’s true heir.”

  “So what are you going to do, when you get control of the system?”

  “Take the step the original Prime could not, of course.” He looks at me, with the handsome, dead eyes of a statue. “His vision was grand, but too limited in scope. He wanted to re-create the ancients and ignore the rest of the world. But it was the passing of the heritage of the ancients to the rest of the world that must be reversed if the decay is to be repaired.”