I know what happens next, because I gave the instructions before the battle began. In basements and back rooms across the Sixteenth Ward, men and women see the signal. They strike matches or use small Myrkai talents. A hundred fuses are lit.
They were each supposed to find themselves a hiding place. Some of them might survive.
A hundred fuses reach a hundred barrels. We didn’t have time to arrange any complicated pyrotechnics. There are just piles of things that the harborside has always had in quantity. Kindling—splintered boards and shredded ropes.
And whale oil.
We use a lot of oil in Kahnzoka. It lights lanterns and fires boilers, especially in the upper wards. And it all comes in by ship, transported by traders from the iceling lands, where strange, blond foreigners hunt the great sea-beasts and render them down. At any given time, there are thousands of tons of the stuff on the docks and in the warehouses. It’s kept in wax-sealed barrels, fairly safe from accident. But if one were to knock a hole in a few, and let the viscous content puddle on the floor …
From the wall, the flames look like blooming flowers.
The buildings where we’d stashed the oil catch immediately. I made sure there was a cache in the Black Flower, and I smile a little at the thought of Thul’s pleasure palace going up in smoke. The oil burns fast and hot, and the still-sealed barrels soon start to explode, spraying wood and burning oil across the roofs of neighboring structures.
The lower wards of Kahnzoka are built of dry wood, plaster, and straw. Getting them to burn is no trouble at all. Great sheets of fire are racing across the Sixteenth Ward within minutes, turning it into a set of shrinking islands in a rising crimson sea. The blaze spreads along the docks, leaping to the furled sails of the ships, spreading from pier to quay. The smoke soon blocks our view of everything except for the sullen, leaping glow of the flames.
It all burns. The streets where I grew up, where I watched Isoka suffer to try and feed us, keep us safe. The alleys where she was beaten, the doorsteps where she begged. The basement where we nearly froze to death for want of a few scraps of wood, now burning brighter than a furnace.
The family whose minds I destroyed are burning, now. See? I want to tell them. It wouldn’t have mattered. You would have died anyway.
I know that doesn’t mean anything.
And, of course, the Ward Guard are burning. Thousands of them, trapped in the labyrinth of alleys, unable to outrace the leaping flames and get to the sea or the gates. I can’t hear the screams above the roar of the fire, but I can imagine them.
Around me, people are cheering. Jakibsa is gone, hurrying back to Hasaka’s side. Giniva remains, her face impassive.
“What happens now?” she says.
“Now?” I let out a breath. “Now the Emperor calls in the Invincible Legions to destroy us.”
“And what are you going to do?”
Find Kuon Naga. Find Isoka. Or …
“What I can,” I say, “with what I have.”
24
ISOKA
The Harbor system is like the most perfect map ever made, of a city larger than any that ever existed.
It draws itself in my mind’s eye, lines of silver-gray ghost-light spreading outward in a branching, intersecting network, thin in some places and drawn tight into knots in others. I can see the angels, like sparkling ghosts, drawing power from the conduits running under the soil as they go about their tasks. In the distance, Soliton is its own tree of knots and branches, tied into the Harbor system at the edges, still transferring power in a massive flow into the city’s reserves. It’s almost done, I can see now, the great ship nearly empty.
Closer to, there are more draws on the system’s energy, the simpler, cruder designs of Prime’s walking corpses and monsters. I exert my will, and the system responds, closing down these unauthorized taps, and their glowing shapes vanish in an instant.
That’s a good start, Silvoa says. She manifests beside me in the strange non-space, looking considerably more solid than I ever saw her in the real world.
I have no idea what I’m doing. I stare at the system, in all its intricate complexity, and fight off despair. I can touch it, change it, I can feel that, but I have no idea how. Closing off Prime’s monsters was simple, but beyond that I feel like I’m walking through a house made of spun glass. I didn’t realize it would be so … complicated.
It’s not as bad as it looks, once you figure things out, Silova says.
You’ll help me?
As much as I can. She smiles. Like I told Prime, I’ve been living—existing in here for five years.
Is Hagan all right?
She nods, and does something I can almost follow, a flurry of Eddica energy that passes between her and the system. A moment later Hagan is standing with us, outlined in gray light.
Worried about me? he says.
A little.
He gives a rueful smile. Considering you killed me in the first place, I’m not sure how to feel about that.
Wait, she did? Silvoa says. I thought you were friends.
It’s … complicated, I say. And I apologized for that. Didn’t I?
This is a story I have to hear, Silvoa says.
Later. I shake my head. Meroe and the others. Are they all right?
Most of them, Silvoa says. They’re in no danger now that you’ve shut down the corpses.
I need to find them.
There’s something we need to take care of first, I think, Silvoa says. She calls my attention to a part of the system that seems to be under attack, some external force bombarding it with Eddica energy in an attempt to gain entry.
It’s Prime, isn’t it? I say.
I’ll show you the way, Silvoa says.
* * *
I ask Hagan to help me with Soliton, making sure that the ship doesn’t leave once it finishes transferring its vast load of energy. Silvoa walks me through the process of giving the two of them authority in the system, below my own but still enough to command the ships and the angels. After Hagan flits away, I open my eyes and follow the ribbons of ghost-light Silvoa strings for me, out of the access chamber and back into the maze of the ziggurat.
This time we’re going up, ramp after ramp, and finally a tall, circular staircase, similar to the one in the Cresos stronghold. Near the very top, Silvoa directs me to a doorway. Dozens of corpses lie in front of it, guardians now reduced to empty husks without the Eddica energy that animated them. I step over the bodies and enter Prime’s inner sanctum.
It’s surprisingly bare, stone walls and floor devoid of ornament. I’d expected something more like Catoria’s throne room, but I suppose this makes more sense. Prime spends hardly any time here, in truth, roaming through the system and his corpse-bodies. All he has is a chair, a heavy, elaborately carved thing that must have come off one of the ships as a sacrifice. In it, almost lost among silken pillows, is the Prime Eddicant.
He looks much like the ghost-image he showed me in the access point. Stick-thin limbs, protruding ribs, skin the color of ash, and a few greasy hanks of white hair. His eyes aren’t bottomless voids, but simply gone, the sockets empty and scarred over. He breathes with difficulty, air rattling in his chest.
I can feel his power all around me, trying to get back into the system, trying to tear a hole in its defenses. He’s not giving up, even now. Blind as he is, he can sense my presence through Eddica, and he shifts in his cushioned throne as I approach.
“I … told you,” he says. “Eddicants are driven … to rule. We are … the same, in this.”
“We’re not,” I say. “You’d like to think that, wouldn’t you? That everyone is like you?”
“Not everyone. Only … the superior ones.” His cracked lips twist into a smile, while his invisible power batters at the walls of a cage. “I can … help you, you know.”
“I’m sure you could.” I shake my head. “But why should I let you?”
“You don’t know … what I have suffered.” He leans
forward. “I was born in a gutter, to a dying whore. When I was a boy—”
He stops, because I cut his head off. Only a trickle of thick, black blood escapes his ancient body, sizzling on my blades with a vile stench. His expression, insofar as I can tell, looks surprised.
“You know what?” I tell the corpse. “I don’t actually care. We all have sob stories, but not everyone decides they need to destroy the world.”
* * *
I find the humans of the Harbor in the ziggurat’s entrance chamber, tending to the wounded and laying out the dead.
Burned corpses are piled up around the place where they made their stand, five or six layers deep. Tartak users are still busy shoving the dead monsters aside to clear space. Our own dead are laid out in neat rows, covered by blankets or coats. Surprisingly few, all things considered, but every silent body pulls at me.
To command is to sacrifice. In all senses.
“Isoka!”
I have a moment to brace before Meroe hits me like a runaway cart, so I stagger but don’t actually fall over. She wraps her arms around me, as tight as a limpet. For a moment she presses her cheek against my chest, as though listening to my heartbeat. Then she’s kissing me, over and over, and I finally have the presence of mind to kiss her back.
“You did it,” she says, pressed tight against me. “You made it.”
“So did you.” I smile. “You said you were certain we’d succeed.”
“Obviously I was lying for your benefit,” she says. “You need a lot of reassurance, you know.”
“My strange princess.”
Someone clears his throat. Meroe, reluctantly, loosens her grip, and we pull apart to find some of the others watching. Zarun is grinning in a knowing way that makes me want to punch him—no changes there—while Thora has one arm around Jack’s shoulders and one hand over her mouth, presumably keeping her from making inappropriate remarks. Gragant and Harak look on with monastic calm, but I can’t help but notice they’re hand in hand themselves. Catoria, standing beside them, looks wistful.
“Um,” I say. “Sorry.”
“Don’t mind us,” Jack says, fighting free of Thora’s grip for a moment. “If you want to mmmmf—”
Thora raises her eyebrows and sighs.
“I take it Prime is defeated?” Gragant says.
“He’s dead,” I tell them. “He won’t bother us again.”
The monk breathes out. “Then the Harbor is going to be a different place.”
“Is it?” Catoria says, looking at me.
“I have control of the Harbor system,” I say, getting the drift. “But the only thing I plan to do is start up food and supply deliveries to our ziggurat.”
“Thank the gods,” Zarun says. “I’m not eager to move in here.”
“Beyond that, we’ll have to work out some kind of arrangement to make any decisions that come up,” I say. “A council, I suppose. It worked on Soliton.”
“Hopefully without challenges in the ring, though,” Meroe murmurs.
Gragant and Catoria glance at one another. I clear my throat.
“On that note,” I say, “there’s someone who wants to say hello.”
I send a silent message through the system, and Silvoa emerges from the corridor.
Fashioning a new angel turned out to be surprisingly easy. Silvoa did most of the work, of course, spreading Eddica energy through raw stone, animating it and directing it to shape itself according to her wishes. It still needs work, she says, but for the moment it will serve. It looks just like her ghost-image, an iceling girl about my age, barefoot and dressed in a simple robe. She makes her way over to us, hesitantly, and raises a hand.
“You—” Gragant stares, then shakes his head. “Silvoa is dead.”
“She is.” The angel’s voice is rough, not much like Silvoa’s own. “I am, I mean. But I’m also … not.”
Catoria needs no convincing. She runs forward, as Meroe did, and wraps her arms around the stony figure. Silvoa’s angel rests her hands on the girl’s shoulders, infinitely careful, as Catoria weeps on her carved shoulder.
“I think,” Silvoa says, “we have a lot to talk about.”
“And I think I speak for the rest of us,” Thora booms, “when I say that I need a drink!”
Behind her, the mass of crew—bloodied, wounded, exhausted—raise a raucous cheer.
* * *
Meroe lies in our bed, a tangle of limbs and sheets, sweat slowly drying on her brown skin. Her chest rises and falls in the slow, comfortable rhythm of sleep. I lie beside her, still sweaty myself, my body aching pleasantly from her urgent attentions. My thoughts, though, refuse to still.
The Harbor isn’t going to be a return to the grand civilization of the Ancients, like Prime wanted. But it can be something else. A refuge. Most of our crew, like the Cresos and Minders, can’t return to the lands they came from. Wouldn’t want to, in truth, because what would be left for them? Here there’s food and shelter for everyone. Now that I control the angels, the crew can retrieve the goods we left behind on Soliton. They can live here, cast-offs and exiles.
The original inhabitants, brought here by the first Prime Eddicant, ended up killing each other, of course. There’s no guarantee it won’t end that way. But they can try.
I look down at Meroe, let out a breath, and get quietly to my feet.
“Going somewhere?” Meroe says, without opening her eyes.
“Just to wash up,” I say.
“Liar.” She sits up with a yawn. “You’re going to take Soliton back to Kahnzoka and find Tori.”
“I have to.”
“I know.” She crosses her arms. “And for some idiot reason you think you’re going to leave me behind.”
“It’s safe here now,” I say. “Silvoa is running the system. And the crew needs someone to be in charge while I’m gone.”
“I don’t want to be safe, Isoka. I want to be with you. Why is that so hard for you to understand?”
I stare at her, in the semi-darkness, and slowly shake my head. “I don’t know.”
“Well. I’ll punch you as often as needed.”
“Please do.”
“Besides, you promised to show me Kahnzoka.”
“I did.” I smile, just a little. “I don’t know what will happen when we get there.”
“We’ll deal with it. We’ll get Tori back.”
“Are you reassuring me again?”
She shrugs, and I laugh out loud.
* * *
A day later, when we’re finally ready to go, we find we’re not alone.
At my silent command, Soliton lowers its colossal ramp. The ship’s angels—their shapes twisted and bizarre in comparison to the Harbor’s—are lined up at the top, several ranks deep, as though in greeting. At their head is an angel with a dog’s shape, which lowers its head to me politely.
“I see you’re already getting the place organized, Hagan.”
I’m doing my best, he says in my mind. There’s a lot of dust.
“And you two?”
Meroe, behind me, is grinning. In front of me are Jack and Zarun, eyeing one another awkwardly.
“Clever Jack proclaims that she will accompany her fearless leader wherever the winds may take her,” Jack says.
“You don’t have to,” I say. “Stay here with Thora.”
Jack shakes her head. “Jack owes you a debt, Deepwalker and Princess Meroe. She intends to see that it is paid.”
“I,” Zarun drawls, “just think it’s going to get a little boring around here.”
“Really.” I glare at him. “That’s all?”
“That’s enough, isn’t it? Say this for you, Deepwalker. Being around you is never boring.”
“Clever Jack hears that Zarun made an indecent proposition to Lady Catoria,” Jack says. “And was rebuffed with some prejudice in the hearing of her retainers.”
I roll my eyes. “Boring, eh?”
“Come on,” Meroe says, putting her arms
around my shoulders. “Show me the Empire.”
“I can show you the Sixteenth Ward, at least,” I tell her. “It’s not pretty, but I know where to get the best noodles.”
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
Once again, I’m here with a list of people to thank! Writing a series can be a long and lonely process, and I’m very lucky to have an excellent group helping me out. Casey Blair got me started in YA and continues to provide me with stacks of recommended reading and gets me out of story jams. Liz Bourke and Iori Kusano once again took on the delicate task of sensitivity reading, and provided invaluable insight. Without Seth Fishman, my agent, this book would never have reached its audience, and the same goes for everyone at The Gernert Company: Jack Gernert, Will Roberts, Rebecca Gardner, and Ellen Goodson.
At Tor Teen, my editor, Ali Fisher, has performed wonders, and generously tolerated my occasionally complex schedule. My thanks also to the rest of the Tor crew: Desirae Friesen, Peter Lutjen, Kevin Sweeney, Ed Chapman, Kathleen Doherty, and of course the legendary Tom Doherty. And, as well, to the Macmillan sales team, the Tor Teen marketing team, and the digital marketing team. Richard Anderson has produced another of his spectacular covers, and I’m thrilled, as always, to get to put my name on it.
Last but not least, of course, my thanks to everyone who followed Isoka and Meroe on their adventure and came back for more. That’s why I’m here!
MORE BOOKS BY DJANGO WEXLER
THE WELLS OF SORCERY TRILOGY
for young adults
Ship of Smoke and Steel
THE SHADOW CAMPAIGNS
for adults
The Thousand Names
The Shadow Throne
The Price of Valor
The Guns of Empire
The Infernal Battalion
THE FORBIDDEN LIBRARY SERIES
for young readers
City of Stone and Silence Page 37
