The Awakened City Read online

  With enormous effort, he said: “Go in light. The ceremony is ended.”

  He did not care if it was wrong; he wanted only to make an end. But it was exactly, and simply, what they wanted: dismissal. The tension broke. They lay back on their pallets, or rose to go about their business. Ardashir, who all this time had stood tensely by his side, stooped. Râvar let the other man assist him to his feet and guide him through the curtain, into his own space.

  “Leave me,” he whispered.

  Ardashir obeyed. Râvar stumbled to his bed. He was deliriously thirsty. He seized the bowl of water he had shaped to look at himself, spilling half of it in his haste, and gulped it dry. He let the bowl slip from his hands and sank down on the ground.

  For a time he remained there, folded in on himself. Terror shook him like a fever. His lies rose up like the Range of Clouds: vast, unscalable. The rough faces of the waiting men, their devouring gaze, spun behind his eyes. Demons, the old instinct whispered. He could almost feel their hands, ripping him to pieces.

  Gradually, he calmed. They’re just men, he told himself. Why should he fear creatures he could seal into the earth, or destroy with storm and fire? He was no longer helpless; he was strong, and would grow stronger. He had held them in his hand today, played like a musician upon their awe and faith, made them tremble to his will. He could do so again. And if he did misstep, if he lost their belief … why, he would make others believe in him. He knew how to do it now. He knew something else: He had a talent for it.

  I will do this thing. Like a plague he would sweep down upon the world beyond the mountains, bringing to it what it had sent on Refuge: a false Messenger, a blasphemous faith, as much destruction as he could make. He would steal the souls of its people, blackening them with blasphemy past any point of cleansing. He would bring justice on the Brethren. And when he died and came before rata at last, he would laugh as the flames enclosed him, and shout into the god’s great face: I would do it all again!

  He lay down in his blankets, and fell asleep. He woke to touch: gentle fingers, brushing the tumbled hair back from his face. For a moment, still half-unconscious, he thought it was Axane. It was Ardashir. The older man drew away when Râvar opened his eyes, his dark face unreadable. He had, Râvar realized, shaved off his own beard.

  “I’ve brought you food, Beloved One.”

  Râvar found that he was hungry. He sat up and ate.

  After that he went out to his followers every day. Sometimes, in a parody of the Communion ceremonies he had conducted in Refuge, he gave them thoughts for meditation and led them in the Communion litany. Sometimes he preached, expanding his message, refining his falsehoods, elaborating his invented doctrine. Sometimes he sat and answered questions, for they were eager to know the details of his creation, the wonders he had seen in the Burning Land. He began to wind Refuge into his stories—the Cavern of the Blood where he told them he had woken, the red sandstone cliffs that had been his first shelter, the bitterbark-shaded banks of the river Revelation, from which, new in his flesh, he had drunk. It was a way of anchoring his fictions in something real, but it also pleased him to seal Refuge at the heart of his deception, so they would know in some form the lost world that was the cause of their destruction.

  To set his power on display, he shaped for them. He made fire for warmth in the desert night. He parted the earth to release an underground spring, and formed a large sandstone basin so they had a place to bathe and wash their clothes. He shaped wheat and rice, for the prison’s storehouses had been destroyed in the collapse and the irrigated gardens of Thuxra City grew no grain. For his own pleasure he shaped the fruits and nuts he had known in Refuge; when he realized they were unfamiliar to his followers, he said they were the food of paradise, which he had eaten in the time after his creation. These were minor shapings, none requiring more than a fraction of his power. But to the men, who had lived their preprison lives under Caryaxist rule and had never witnessed even the manita-crippled abilities of the Shapers of the ratist church, they were wonders, further proof of his divinity.

  They begged audiences with him, at which, like Ardashir, they wanted to acknowledge their misdeeds. Many had been thieves, or lived by cheating others—bad men, but not incomprehensibly so. But some had done things that eclipsed even Ardashir’s horrible crime, and their confessions opened a window on a degeneracy Râvar could not have imagined, even when he still believed the outside world a realm of demons. It made him feel soiled to hear these tales. Still he listened, for he understood that the men’s surrender of their secrets was an act of faith more compelling than any oath.

  The panic he had suffered after his first sermon never visited him again. Each time he went out to them it was easier. Each time he spoke, he grew more confident of his ability to seize them with his words. He had always known he spoke well; from childhood, he had delighted in outtalking his cousins and his friends, and later his fellow Shaper trainees. But this was more. To weave nets with words and entrap those who listened. To change his listeners, as if his speech were a power as potent as his shaping. He was beginning also to recognize the self-sustaining nature of the role he played, the backward justification their belief forced on them. If his actions seemed strange, it was not him they doubted, but their own understanding. If his words seemed out of place, they found a way to make them fit. Even the reactions he sometimes could not suppress—his horror at their crimes, his distaste for their coarse ways—served him, for they believed him innocent in his new flesh, pure as a child. They did their best to check their rough talk in his presence. They began to keep their clothes and bodies clean, to trim their beards and braid their hair.

  Some weeks after he began to go out, one of Ardashir’s scavenging parties encountered a band of travelers, exhausted and hungry from the journey over Thuxra Notch. A holy man had passed through their village, they said, with word of the Next Messenger; they had come to see for themselves if it were true. They were brought to Râvar, trembling with awe. When he blessed them, two fell down in fits.

  It was these travelers, these pilgrims who had abandoned their homes and families on word from a wandering ex-criminal (for the so-called holy man was certainly one of the prisoners who had witnessed Thuxra’s fall), who sparked in Râvar the idea of the Awakened City. Even as he cemented his followers’ belief, he had not been certain of exactly what he would do next. Now he thought he saw a way to build not just a mass of followers but an army of them—and at the same time to prepare his path, to sow seeds of belief that could be harvested as he marched upon Baushpar. It was far more ambitious than anything he had previously imagined. It went against his impatient nature, for it meant waiting, perhaps for a considerable time. Could he bear to spend so long among these alien people, playing Messenger for them, giving them his power, taking on their sins? But if he could not, why had he come?

  He sought Ardashir’s advice, gladder than ever that he had enlisted this man as his teacher, for he was able to present his ignorance as part of his effort to become proficient in the ways of humanity. Ardashir was an eager adviser, offering counsel drawn from his experience as the leader of a large and complex community. When at last the plan was firm, Râvar went out to address his followers.

  He had ordered Ardashir to assemble them outside the barracks. The sun was just beginning to set. He had wrapped himself in light, a dozen different jewel colors that coiled about his body and flowed out upon the ground. His heart raced, as it had the first time he had ever spoken to them.

  “Children of rata,” he began.

  “Messenger,” they responded. “Beloved of rata.”

  “Children of the Promise.”

  “Fulfiller of the Promise. He who opens the way.”

  “You’ve been patient during the time of my healing, and I am grateful. But now I am replenished, in balance again, and the time has come to take up once more the task my father gave me—to bring light into the
world’s darkness, to herald the dawning of the new age, to open the way for rata’s return.”

  “Praise rata’s name!”

  “One of the signs of rata’s Promise has been given, the act of destruction that brought down Thuxra City. The second sign, the act of generation, will raise a city: the Awakened City, a City you and I will build together.” He described this perfect community of the faithful, which would be seeded in some sheltered place yet to be discovered, and nurtured there to strength. He told them how its citizens would be washed in light—the darkness they possessed already, the ash of their birth-burden and the stain of their sins, could not be purged, but no further deed would mark them. He told them how, at the proper time, the City would emerge and march upon Baushpar, where the Brethren would surrender to the Messenger the leadership of the church—a church remade, a new faith for the time of Interim that lay between rata’s rising and his return, a Way of rata awake. Afterward, they would march upon the rest of Galea, bearing word of the risen god. Thus rata’s children would be led out of exile. Thus the way would be opened for rata’s return.

  As always, he had prepared what he would say. As always the words seized him, pouring from him as they would. His followers stood enthralled, their lifelights shimmering against the deepening darkness.

  “Will you follow me, children of rata?” he called at last. “Will you join me in this act of generation? Will you abide with me in this holy time of Interim? Will you embrace this new Way of rata, the Way of rata awake?”

  “Yes!” they cried. “We will follow!”

  “I do not promise you ease, children. I do not promise you rest. Many will turn away from the word we speak. Many will reject us. But more will follow. And though there will be struggle, and suffering, and sorrow, there will also be joy. There will be light—light such as has not been seen in this corrupted world since my father lay down to sleep. We will set Galea ablaze! Is it enough, children? Will you stand with me? Will you make this journey?”

  “Beloved of rata! We will stand! Lead us! Lead us!”

  Their faith embraced him. He could no longer feel the boundaries of his body. He was part of the night, as vast and vaporous as a god.

  “rata!” He flung out his light-wreathed arms. “Risen god of all the world! Look down on your children, look down on these souls I have taken for my own, and know what I do in your name!”

  The stars spun. His followers roared.

  They departed the next morning, bringing with them nothing but the clothes they wore and their sleeping pallets. All else, Râvar assured them, he would provide. They passed the ruins of Thuxra City, recently emptied of its remaining survivors. Râvar had destroyed it from a distance; not till that day had he seen it close. He remembered that great act of power; he relived it sometimes in his dreams. Still it shocked him to realize the weight and breadth of what he had brought down.

  I did that. I.

  He led them over Thuxra Notch, along an artificial river of flat stones that they told him was called a road. He provided for them as he had promised, making water flow when there was none, shaping food twice daily, kindling fires for them to huddle over at night. Each evening he blessed them with light before they slept. The weather was kind. Some of the men grumbled and fell behind, and the pilgrims from the village kept apart in fear of the ex-prisoners, but there was little conflict or mishap. By the time they reached the steppe, the journey was already sliding into legend. Ardashir had made a name for it: the First Pilgrimage. He had named the journeyers as well: the First Faithful.

  They left the road, turning west into the trackless grasslands, searching for a place to establish a permanent camp. A band of nomads led them to the cavern complex. The moment he perceived its patterns, Râvar knew it was the proper place: large enough to hold an army, obscure enough to let it gather in secret, accessible enough that those who sought it could easily reach it. He announced to his weary followers that the First Pilgrimage was done; here they would stop, and build their City. Summoning the strength he had not fully tested since his recovery, he made a miracle for them, vaporizing the rock of the ridge in six blinding explosions so that the narrow fissure of the caverns’ entrance became a perfect half circle, its lip as smooth and glossy as polished metal.

  He allowed the faithful a few days of rest and exploration, then ordered Ardashir to call them all together. He had kindled a fire, and made food; the great cold spaces of the cave pressed around them as they ate, and the entrance’s new arch was filled with stars. After they had eaten, a leather pouch was passed among them. It held two hundred and seven stalks of grass, one hundred of them short. Those who drew short would go into the world as missionaries, proclaiming Râvar’s coming and recruiting pilgrims to send back, according to a plan devised by Ardashir. The rest would remain to begin the building of the new community.

  When all the stalks were drawn, Râvar addressed them—not passionately, as when he preached, but quietly, intimately.

  “The ceremony I give you tonight will never be repeated. I intend to ask a pledge of you, a sacrifice. You all know the marks I bear upon my hands”— he extended them, ridged with scar tissue, crippled and twisted—“the injury taken in my flesh as the sign of my service to my father. Now I ask the same of you. Wear my mark, as a sign of your faith in me. Those you call to our Awakened City will also bear the mark, but of all my followers, only you will bear it on both your hands. For you are my First Faithful, whom I love above all others who will ever follow me.”

  Ardashir had protested. The marks, he said, would make the missionaries and the pilgrims too identifiable. But to Râvar, it seemed important that his followers be set apart—not in others’ perception, but in their own. Talismans or amulets could be lost or set aside. But scars they would always carry with them.

  “Approach me now, and accept the marks.”

  One by one they came forward, and in the leaping firelight knelt so that a man chosen by Ardashir, who was skilled with a knife, could score a shallow cut across their palms and smear soot into the wounds. No one hesitated, not even the village pilgrims. The man marked his own hands last, the second one with difficulty. Râvar set a point of light upon his forehead, as he had on the foreheads of the others.

  “You are sealed now,” he told them, “sealed to my father and to me. In the history of this world, there has not been another moment like this one. Great is rata. Great is his awakened Way.”

  “Go in light,” they chorused, making the god’s sign with their newly wounded hands.

  The missionaries departed the following day, and the rest of the First Faithful set about the labor of preparation. Ardashir dispatched scouting parties to survey the terrain and began to plan the organization of the community, a task Râvar was content to leave entirely to him. The steppes and the surrounding hills provided some sustenance; what could not be hunted or gathered, Râvar shaped. He altered and improved the caverns, and created his own domain. He preached sermons, heard confessions, gave blessings. He spent hours on the ridge above the steppe, scanning the horizon for approaching pilgrims. He began to fear that his gamble was a failure. But two months after the missionaries’ departure, converts began to arrive, by ones and twos and dozens, with his mark on their hands and his faith in their hearts. He welcomed and blessed them. When their numbers grew too large for him to dispense individual blessings, he began to conduct the mass rituals in the smaller cavern.

  It was some time since he had been conscious of walking the razor’s edge. He had grown confident in his role, like a rope dancer so accustomed to the rope that he had forgotten both the difficulty and the unnaturalness of his performance. His duties, ably directed by Ardashir, occupied much of his time; his idle moments he filled compulsively with activity, exploring the distant reaches of the caverns, inventing new tricks of shaping to amuse himself and astonish his followers. But as his attention turned from the necessities of survival,
as his blasphemy hardened into dogma and the pretense that had required constant vigilance became instinctive, he began to be aware again, as in the raw aftermath of Refuge, of the void of loss—of the emptiness where once had lived all that had been stolen from him, all he had repudiated. Like a dwelling built above a pit, his new life straddled the void but did not fill it. Vengeance would fill it. The Brethren’s death would fill it. But those things still lay far ahead.

  Sometimes he woke in the deep hours of the night and could hardly breathe for loneliness. In Refuge he had not known what loneliness was. There had barely been a moment when he was not surrounded by his loving kin, his admiring friends, his fellow Shapers. And always there had been rata, a vast living presence, an enormous warm attention turned upon his own small self. In prayer and meditation he had felt the weight of rata’s love like hands pressing on his shoulders. All his people were rata’s chosen. But he had always, secretly, felt more chosen than the rest.

  He was no one’s chosen. The faith in which he had grown up was as base a delusion as the one he forced upon his followers. The void had always been there. Only now he knew it.

  rata was silent. He could not even sense the god’s anger. Sometimes this enraged him: How could the god ignore his blasphemy? Sometimes he felt contempt: Was rata really so indifferent? Sometimes he would have given anything to feel the agony of rata’s fires, just to fill the emptiness.

  He had rarely thought about Axane since the early days of his convalescence, other than to wonder if she had indeed gone to Ninyâser as she had planned, and, occasionally, to calculate where she was in her pregnancy. Now she and the child were always in his mind. It made less and less sense that they should be apart from him, the last of Refuge, the last of his blood, adrift in this alien world. In the night he longed for Axane, whom he had loved so terribly and hated so wretchedly, who had betrayed him and whom he had betrayed. He longed for his child. One morning he woke knowing beyond doubt that it had been the worst mistake of his life to let them go. So he had reached out his hand, and fetched them back.