The Awakened City Page 25

  “rata!”

  Diasarta caught Gyalo’s arm. “What is it? Brother, do you see them?”

  “Yes. It’s Axane.” He could not make out her face. But that storm of jade and cobalt could not be mistaken. “I see her colors, Dasa. She’s alive.”

  “Brother.” Diasarta gripped his shoulder. “Ah, Brother. That’s good.”

  Gyalo bowed his face into his hands. A brief, uncontrollable spasm of weeping shook him: joy for the hope that had been fulfilled, grief for the one that had not. For he had seen Axane’s light, but not Chokyi’s.

  “He’s heading for the coach,” Diasarta said.

  Gyalo raised his head. Râvar mounted the steps, vanished inside. Axane followed, carefully, as if she bore something fragile. Gyalo felt hope stir again: Perhaps she was simply too far away for the baby’s paler colors to show within her own.

  The driver left his perch to stow the steps and slam the door. He climbed up again and gathered the reins. The coach lumbered off in the wake of the departing pilgrims. Ardashir and his men fell in behind, riding two by two like the Tapati guards whose place they had usurped.

  “What now, Brother?”

  Gyalo drew an unsteady breath. “We’ll follow. Now they’re out in the open it should be easier to slip in among them, as long as we stay clear of the coach. We can try tonight, when they camp.”

  Diasarta nodded. “What d’you suppose happened to the second Brethren?”

  “Râvar commandeered the coach. Perhaps they left together in the other one.”

  “Without their attendants?”

  “I don’t know.” Nor did he care. “We’ll wait a couple of hours, then get started, yes?”

  “Good.” Diasarta yawned. “I could use some more sleep.”

  Gyalo stared down at the Awakened City, a line of jeweled brilliance against the paler luminance of the grass—far in the distance now, trailed by the black blot of the coach and its little group of outriders. The force of the procession’s passage roiled the air, drawing behind it a pattern of turbulence that to his Shaper senses resembled the wake of a boat, but slower to resolve back to calm. Soon he and Diasarta, or perhaps just Diasarta, would be part of it. And then? Follow. Watch. Wait for some chance, some opening.

  Chokyi, he thought, trying to hold the hope that had returned as he watched Axane climb into the carriage. Instead, the sourceless flames in Râvar’s chambers rose before his inner eye—each one, tiny as it was, holding in itself the full measure of Râvar’s terrifying power. He was seized suddenly by a perverse desire—to explore those chambers, to discover where Axane, and perhaps Chokyi, had been imprisoned.

  “I’m going down. To the caverns.”

  Diasarta paused in midstretch. “What? Why?”

  “They may have left things behind. I could use a travel kit.”

  “But Brother, we don’t know for sure that they’ve all gone.”

  “If we meet anyone, we can pass ourselves off as stragglers. You don’t have to come with me, Dasa.”

  “rata’s wounds. You know I won’t let you go alone.”

  They went slantwise down the slope, the wind like a hand at their backs. They reached the fold of ridge that had hidden the track from view and started upward again. Beyond the short downward incline at the track’s crest, the cavern’s great mouth gaped—purely dark now, its counterfeit galaxy of lifelight and firelight extinguished by the City’s departure.

  Inside, Gyalo moved along the wall, searching for the torches he remembered had been fixed there. The first was too charred, but the second was usable. He wove heat patterns, making it burst into flame, then found another and lit it as well.

  They began to walk along the central thoroughfare. The settlements’ precisely marked borders were intact, but apart from stray bricks of grass and the ash of cook fires and a scattering of things too broken or ragged to be worth carrying, they had been stripped. There was something eerie about the emptiness; moving ever deeper into inky blackness, able to see no farther than the trembling double ring of illumination cast by the torches, Gyalo was seized by the sense that he passed through a place not newly deserted, but forsaken for hundreds of years. Only the odor of smoke and the lingering stench of overcrowded living conditions attested to the City’s recent occupancy.

  “Doesn’t look like they’ve left anything useful,” said Diasarta.

  “No.”

  “You seen enough yet, Brother?”

  Gyalo hesitated, glancing back toward the brightness of the entrance. In the pause, something that for a little while had been tugging at his attention came abruptly into focus.

  “Do you hear that?” he said.

  “Hear what, Brother?”

  It came again: a thudding, barely audible, as of stone pounding against stone.

  “Bloody ashes. I told you they mightn’t all be gone.”

  A bizarre suspicion was growing in Gyalo’s mind. “What if it’s not by choice?”

  “What, you think he left people shut up inside the rock?” Even as he said it, Gyalo saw the comprehension on Diasarta’s face.

  “It’s coming from the back.”

  Gyalo strode forward. The sound of pounding rose. They were closer to the cavern’s rear than he had realized; it materialized before them at the margins of the torchlight, punctured by another smooth symmetrical Shaper-made opening, with more blackness beyond.

  They found themselves in a downward-sloping passage. Another passage forked off to the left; it was from there that the pounding came. Within a few steps they reached its source: a great plaque of banded sandstone, sunk like a plug into the gray limestone of the cavern wall. The torchlight slid across the gleaming rock.

  “There was an opening here,” Gyalo said. “He blocked it off.”

  “rata! You think maybe it’s the other Brethren in there?”

  Thud. Thud. Thud. The blows continued, not fast and panicked, but measured, steady. Did they understand they could not break through? The patterns of the plaque did not indicate great thickness, but the stone was dense; without tools, they could work for days and only chip it. And they did not have days. If, as seemed plain, Râvar had shut them up in there to die, he would not have left them food or water.

  “Take my torch, Dasa, and stand back.”

  Diasarta obeyed. Gyalo put his mouth close to the plaque and cupped his hands around his lips. “Hey!” he yelled, into a pause between the blows. “Hey!”

  The thudding ceased. A voice came, very faint: “Is someone there?”

  “Yes. Can you hear me?”

  “We hear you! We’re trapped. Can you help us?”

  “Stand back and cover your eyes. There will be a light. Do you understand? Stand back and cover your eyes.”

  There was a hesitation. “We understand.”

  By the guttering torchlight Gyalo surveyed the structure of the plaque, searching for the best point on which to focus his shaping will. It was, by several orders of magnitude, the largest work he had attempted since his return to practice—and the most exacting, for if he were to unmake more than the plaque, he might compromise the structure of the passage. Yet he was confident of his skill. By the uncanny unconscious process that had deepened his understanding of his power even as he kept it prisoner, he knew exactly what to do.

  He breathed, gathering himself, then thrust his will forth like a pair of grasping hands, seizing the structure of the sandstone, forcing it apart, banishing it into the void of pre-being. Thunder rolled through the darkness; a flare of blue-white brilliance canceled for an instant the cavern’s artificial night. Gyalo shook his head, blinking away the afterimages. The sandstone was gone. Where it had been, the pitchy blackness was broken by the gleam of lifelights: several Tapati guards, gathered in a tight group, their stance suggesting shock or fear—and why not? Shaping had imprisoned them, but they could
not possibly have expected it to release them.

  A figure in red-and-white clothing pushed through the knot of guards. One, a large man with a wheat-colored lifelight, reached out a hand, as if to restrain her. “Old One—”

  “It’s all right, Reanu.”

  She halted in front of her men: the Daughter Sundit. She was exactly as Gyalo remembered her from Baushpar—small and sturdy, with a square, intelligent face. Her lifelight (which he had not known before, for he had never before seen her without the tether of manita), was a clear lapis blue, shot with darker currents. She squinted against the brightness of Diasarta’s torches, her hand raised to shield her eyes from what, after so long in darkness, must seem unbearable illumination. She showed no trace of her guards’ astonishment. She was as self-possessed as if she stood in her own domain.

  “That was shaping you used to free us.” Her voice held the arrogant command that Gyalo remembered so well—not peculiar to her but common to all the Brethren, who were trained to it over scores of lifetimes. Though when last he stood before her and her spirit-siblings, he had not thought it arrogance at all, but right—the right of the First Messenger’s children, immortal beings to whom he owed unquestioning allegiance.

  “Yes.” Discarded habit stirred in him, his tongue wanting to add her title: Old One.

  “You are apostate, then.”

  He was acutely aware of the nakedness of his face. He had shaved his beard a few days ago, tired of the itch; his hair was pulled back and braided. But why should she know him? It had been a long time. He was greatly changed. She believed him dead. “Yes.”

  “Who are you? Answer me.”

  He thought of Ardashir, who had made the same demand. “I am no one.”

  She stepped closer. Her tattooed brow creased. And suddenly there it was: the change, the shift. Recognition.

  “It can’t be.” It was a whisper. “Are you—can you be Gyalo Amdo Samchen?”

  He said nothing.

  “You are. I see you are. But we were told you were dead, fallen from your window in Faal. How did you get free?” Her shock was ebbing, giving way to anger. “Why are you here? Have you joined the army of the pretender? Do you believe his ugly blasphemy, you who thought that rata was awake?”

  “He has nothing to do with that ash-cursed blasphemer.” It was Diasarta, coming to stand at Gyalo’s elbow. Anger roughened his voice. “rata, Brother! Don’t let her talk to you like that!”

  Sundit’s gaze raked Diasarta’s face. “I remember you, too.”

  “And well you should, after what you and your kin put me through. You’ve done enough for these people, Brother. Let’s go.”

  “Apostate!” Sundit commanded. “You are not dismissed!”

  “You are hardly in a position to give me orders,” Gyalo said. “I could seal you in again as easily as I released you.”

  “You do not dare.”

  “Are you so sure?”

  “Why did you release us?” She frowned. “Did you know who you would find behind the stone?”

  “I suspected.”

  “Why, then? It’s hardly in your interest. And after—you could have turned away, but you did not. You let me recognize you.”

  Gyalo was aware of the Tapati at her back. He could open up the stone beneath their feet, but could he unmake a thrown knife before it struck him?

  “If you do not follow the pretender,” she said, “why are you in his City?”

  “He stole something from me. I came to get it back. Why did he imprison you?”

  An indescribable bitterness came across her face. “Because I would not bow down to him. Because my Brother did.”

  “What?”

  “Oh yes. It’s true. Vivaniya of the Brethren swore his faith to a blasphemer. He knelt before that evil boy and acknowledged him the Messenger. And it is even worse than that. Do you know who he is, this pretender?”

  “I do. Do you?”

  “He told me before he shut me in.” Her mouth twisted. “The last of Refuge’s Shapers. I would not have credited it, except how else could he know of Refuge? And it explains …” She broke off. “Did you recognize him from Refuge?”

  “I knew who he was before I got here.”

  “How?”

  “Not all of Refuge died at your soldiers’ hands. There was another survivor. Axane, who is now my wife.”

  “The same Axane …?” Her eyes widened.

  “Yes. After she fled Baushpar, she hid herself among the hangers-on of your army so she could return and warn her people. He and she escaped the massacre. He brought her back with him across the desert. He told her everything he intended. She saw him destroy Thuxra City.”

  Sundit was shaking her head. “Surely not. It’s part of his pretense, the destruction of the prison. Obviously he is powerful, but no Shaper is capable of such a thing. There’s no record of any act so great, even from the time before the Shaper War.”

  “Axane witnessed it, I tell you. Set aside your prejudices, the things you think you know. Râvar is no mere apostate. He is a Shaper unbound all his life, trained to skills our world has long forgotten—skills perhaps it never owned. He is immensely powerful—immensely powerful, perhaps more powerful than any Shaper who has ever lived. He is capable of all he threatens, and more.”

  She looked at him. He saw her struggling with her disbelief. “Râvar?” she said at last. “That’s his name?”

  “Yes.”

  “He told me … before he shut me in … what he meant to do.” She seemed to be speaking to herself. “How he will bring suffering on Arsace. How he means to revenge himself upon the Brethren. I asked him if he did not know that the Brethren’s souls are immortal, and cannot be destroyed as our bodies can be, and he said, With your bodies dead and Baushpar gone, who will there be to seek you out when you are reborn? I said to him, You will never destroy Baushpar, and he looked at me … he looked at me and laughed. One of my enemies gone, he said, and closed us into the rock. I didn’t think … but if he could do it … if he could …”

  The words trailed off. For a moment she stood, her face intense with thought. Then, abruptly, she turned to her guards.

  “Reanu. Take one of the torches and ready us for departure.”

  So firm was this command that Diasarta did not protest when the large guard stepped forward, but willingly yielded up the torch.

  “He took your coach,” Gyalo said. “The horses, too.”

  “No matter. We’ll walk. We’ll go overland to Darna, which, if I’m not mistaken, lies due north of here. Even on foot, we will move more quickly than he, with that mass of followers. At Darna we will get horses, and continue along the Great South Way. We should be weeks ahead of him by the time we reach Ninyâser.”

  “Ninyâser?”

  “I will go to the King. I’ve been planning it, sitting in the dark, even though I knew I would not get free. Whatever the truth of his power, this creature, this … Râvar … must be stopped. We Brethren do not have the resources, but Santaxma does, and though he may not care for Baushpar or the Brethren, he will not tolerate a threat to Arsace.” She took a step forward. “And you, apostate, will come with me.”

  Diasarta sucked in his breath. Gyalo laughed.

  “You think I am jesting?” Sundit snapped.

  “You can’t seriously imagine I would subject myself to the church, after all this time.”

  “No, no!” She made an impatient gesture. “It is your help I need. There was just one obstacle I could not see my way around—that my word alone might not be enough. But now I have you. You will stand with me, and confirm with the authority of firsthand experience who this Râvar is. You will speak of his intent, and of this great power he wields. You will help me persuade the King to act.”

  “Let me understand,” Gyalo said. “You want my help—a free Shaper, corrupt and
possibly insane, not to mention an escaped prisoner and a man you once suspected of the basest heresy?”

  Her gaze did not flinch. “Things are not well between the Brethren and the King, as I believe you know. I fear he will not heed me.”

  “And you think he will heed me? More likely he’ll order me killed the moment he learns who I am.”

  “No. He is faithless. As long as he does not believe you dangerous, your apostasy won’t concern him. I’ll tell him you’ve submitted to my authority, that you have repented and revowed yourself to the church. I’ll even say you are retethered. The risk you take in facing him will speak as clearly as your words of the urgency of this matter.”

  “He won’t believe you,” Gyalo said tightly. “What free Shaper would willingly retether himself?”

  “You.” She held his eyes. “You did it once before. He knows that. If it can be believed of anyone, it can be believed of you.”

  “And am I to suppose that at the end of it you wouldn’t try to hold me? That you’d simply let me go?”

  “How could I prevent it?” She stepped toward him. He could almost feel the force of her will, pressing on the air between them. “Listen to me. There is more at stake here than the Doctrine of Baushpar. I would not have thought I could say such a thing, but it is so, and in the name of survival we sometimes have no choice but to set aside our principles and our enmities. This must be true now for you as well as me. I know you’ve renounced the church. For all I know, you may have renounced rata himself. But I remember you, Gyalo Amdo Samchen, I remember the man you were, and I cannot believe you are indifferent to Arsace’s fate, to the suffering of its people. I cannot believe you do not see the duty here, you who did so much for what you believed to be your duty. You knew it was I behind the stone, yet you did not turn away. Don’t turn from this.”

  “rata! This is madness. Come, Diasarta.”

  He turned to leave. Sundit’s voice rang after him.

  “Gyalo Amdo Samchen! By the oaths you once followed, in the name of the god to whom you were once vowed, by the reverence you once bore me and my kin, I command you to accompany me!”

  Fury seized Gyalo, a rage such as he had rarely felt. It swung him around; it propelled him toward her, one step, two, before he was able to stop himself. Her face changed. Reanu surged forward, clasping his ink-marked arms around her waist, lifting her off her feet and swinging her around, placing his broad body between her and Gyalo.