The Awakened City Read online

  An echoing silence followed on this bitter speech.

  “Well.” The King’s face was hard, remote. “I will think on what I have heard, and consider how to proceed. Roas, put up your sword and see these people out.”

  The sword point withdrew, leaving behind a burning echo of itself. Gyalo prostrated himself; beside him, Reanu did the same. Sundit turned, straight as a spear; she spoke no word of farewell, not even the invocation of the god.

  They paused outside the summerhouse so that Reanu could receive his knives back. In the palanquin, Sundit leaned back her head and closed her eyes, allowing herself at last to show her desperate weariness. Gyalo’s wound throbbed; he sat bent forward, so his blood-wet tunic would not touch the palanquin’s silk padding. He, too, was exhausted, light-headed with the release of tension. Reanu had looped the curtains down, isolating them in a stifling red box.

  “He’s partly right, you know.” Sundit spoke without opening her eyes. “The Caryaxists did more than merely suppress the Way of rata. A plant that grows and seeds in secret for eighty years does not breed true. We did know that. We expected change. We expected damage. But we didn’t expect the extent of it, or how we would be blamed.” She sighed. “He, whom many revile as a blasphemer, should understand how difficult it is to make peace when you first must win back the hearts of those you need to pacify.”

  They turned a corner. The palanquin jolted. Gyalo grasped at the curtains to steady himself.

  “I used to tutor him in Rimpang, when we were all in exile. He could not sit still for more than a quarter of an hour at a time … I called him my little lightning bolt. I used to tell him of our father Marduspida, who hated his lessons, too. ‘But I’m not going to be a prophet, Sister Sunni,’ he’d say, ‘I’m going to be a soldier. A soldier doesn’t need to read books.’” Again she sighed. “I never understood how he came to dislike me so.” She opened her eyes. “Was it planned, what you did today?”

  “No.” It was an effort to speak. “I saw his impatience. His anger. It seemed to me his interest must be seized a different way, or he would become too angry to hear us out.”

  “Could you have unmade that sword?”

  Gyalo shook his head. “I told him the truth.”

  “So you were prepared to let yourself be killed.”

  “I had to offer something real.”

  She regarded him. The sun shone through the curtains, casting a red gloom across her face, darkening her tattoo. At last she closed her eyes again.

  “Remind me to get someone to tend your back.”

  16

  Gyalo

  GYALO DREAMED THAT night of Teispas. The captain was unwounded; he wore the dress uniform of the Exile Army and his black hair was smoothly combed and braided. Gyalo stood beside him in the moonlight, on the second-floor balcony of the dwelling of Thuxra City’s military administrator, where he and the exploration party had stopped before their departure into the Burning Land. Did you remember? Teispas said, staring out at the shadows of the administrator’s garden, and Gyalo, puzzled, asked, Remember what? And Teispas replied, angry: You don’t ask the proper questions, then turned and walked away and would not pause, no matter how Gyalo called after him. His red coat shredded as he went, revealing the lash marks on his back.

  Gyalo woke uneasy in the first gray light of dawn, his scars aching. Just a dream, he reassured himself. He had not forgotten anything. Everything had been said.

  That afternoon a palanquin arrived to fetch Sundit to the King. She remained for several hours. Since she did not summon Gyalo afterward to tell him what had transpired, he sought out Reanu, who had accompanied her.

  “He asked questions,” the big Tapati said. “About the pretender. Also about you. He’s very interested in you.”

  “What did he want to know?”

  “What do you think? About your shaping.”

  “What did she say?”

  “She told him about the cave. About the bandits. He questioned me, too.

  “And what did you say?”

  “What she did. More or less.”

  “I see.”

  Reanu regarded Gyalo. With his gravity and bulk he gave the impression of an older man, but Gyalo guessed he was probably no more than twenty-five. He was handsome beneath his tattoos, with a well-shaped mouth and large, heavy-lidded eyes. At his throat he wore the amulet of the Aspect Skambys, the soldiers’ Aspect, Patron of war and weather; it and the thong that tied it were the exact blue-black of his tattoos, and it had been some time before Gyalo realized they were not a permanent part of his anatomy.

  “It took some grit to do what you did yesterday.”

  Gyalo shrugged.

  “Was it true about the sword? Were you really not sure you could shatter it?”

  “It was true.”

  Reanu nodded, thoughtfully.

  Two more days passed. There was no reason, really, to remain, and Gyalo urgently desired to be on his way. Yet he could not bring himself to leave without being certain that he and Sundit had been successful. “I’m sorry,” he whispered to Axane, at night before he slept. “Just a little longer.”

  On the fourth day another palanquin arrived, with a summons not for Sundit but for Gyalo. Word was brought to him in the garden; he sent the servant away, then spent some minutes considering what to do. Did the King simply wish to question him, as he had Sundit and Reanu? Was this something more? A dozen scenarios chased through his mind, from an arrest with manita to something more permanent. Yet if he refused to go, what impact would that have on his and Sundit’s embassy? At last he rose and went out to the palanquin just as he was, in his coarse servant’s clothing, his hair loose over his shoulders.

  He was borne not to the gardens but to the palace itself. In an elaborately columned inner courtyard, a liveried functionary was waiting to conduct him through a magnificent maze of halls and corridors; the functionary’s disapproval of Gyalo’s uncourtly appearance was clear, but he gave no sign of realizing that he was in the presence of an apostate. They came at last to a pair of lacquered doors with ornate silver hinges. The functionary pushed them open and bowed low, and spoke Gyalo’s name. Then he stepped aside, gesturing for Gyalo to go in.

  The chamber was large, its ivory-paneled walls painted with a series of life-size hunting scenes—of which, but for their varicolored auras, the guards positioned in each corner might have been a part. Sun fell through a long row of windows; the air was faintly hazed with the smoke of the incense that burned on a small brazier. There was no furnishing but a large table at the room’s center, and a smaller table nearby. Santaxma stood waiting, the rain cloud of his lifelight shimmering around him, his hair hidden beneath a golden turban and his silken garments glowing several shades of crimson.

  Gyalo prostrated himself, every sense alert.

  “Rise,” the King said, pleasantly. He gestured to the smaller table, which held an enameled jug, a pair of matching goblets, and several plates of small edibles. “May I offer you refreshment? Perhaps some wine?”

  “Wine would be welcome, Majesty.”

  Santaxma crossed briskly to the table, his gold-embroidered indoor shoes silent on the tile, and poured both goblets full. He held one toward Gyalo, who came forward to take it. Their eyes met. Santaxma’s were knowing, entirely unafraid.

  “Come.” Santaxma returned to the larger table. “See what I have here.”

  It was an enormous, exquisitely detailed map of Arsace, drawn with colored inks on heavy parchment. The King set his goblet on the table’s edge and leaned over the map in a whisper of red silks, his pear-shaped ruby earrings swinging.

  “According to my Dreamers,” he said, “the pretender and his band are approximately here.” His manicured forefinger came to rest on a point just north of Darna, on the black-ink ribbon of the Great South Way.

  “You let him pass Darna, M
ajesty?”

  Santaxma smiled. “I did. Thus far they are advancing peacefully, moving at a rate of less than ten miles a day—not surprising for such a large train. Now, I believe he will hold this route all the way to Ninyâser.” His finger stroked up the road’s great length, more than half the length of Arsace itself. “It’s the easiest and most obvious way for a large party heading for Baushpar—also, as the Daughter Sundit has pointed out to me, the towns and cities where his missionaries have been sighted all lie along the Great South Way—Darna, Orimene, Sardis, Hâras, Abaxtra, and of course Ninyâser—” He tapped each, lightly, as he named it. “She surmises, and I think it is a reasonable supposition, that their purpose was not simply to send him believers, but to prepare his way in those cities, so he will gather yet more followers as he passes through.”

  Gyalo held his goblet, whose contents he had not yet sampled, trying to divine in the King’s words and manner some inkling of his intent. The guards were armed with crossbows; ranged as they were at the corners of the room, there was always at least one who was out of his sight. Clever, he thought.

  “About halfway between Darna and Ninyâser, the Way passes through the Dracâriya region.” Santaxma touched the map again, at a spot where the road’s thick black line ran through an area of hills, carefully drawn and shaded in green ink. “You know the place I mean, yes?”

  “I do, Majesty.” The Dracâriya hills were barren moorland, not natural but man-made, created centuries ago by overtimbering and erosion. The Way twisted between them, so deep that at times it was like traveling through a gorge.

  “It’s there, I believe, that we have the best chance of coming on him unawares. Assuming he continues to move at his current pace, we should have no difficulty intercepting him. Now, since he does not know you found your way to the Daughter, or that she found her way to me, he has no reason to assume that anyone apart from you knows who and what he really is.” Santaxma raised his hard black gaze from the map, his finger still planted atop the Dracâriya hills. “Would you agree?”

  “Yes, Majesty.”

  “Nevertheless”—his eyes fell again—“if he is shrewd, and from what you have told me it seems abundantly clear that he is, he will anticipate opposition, especially once he begins his campaign of destruction. I think it is wise to assume he will scout the way ahead. So I cannot approach before an army. Nor is there need. He himself is dangerous, but his followers are only rabble. Is that not so?”

  “Ordinary men and women, Majesty. Yes.”

  “What I’ll do, therefore, is separately to dispatch several half companies of horse and foot to the Dracâriya hills. They will take up positions above and beyond the chosen ambush point. At the same time, I myself will advance openly along the Great South Way, with a sizable, but unremarkable, retinue.”

  Gyalo said: “You intend to lead this force yourself, Majesty?”

  “You would suggest someone else?”

  “Forgive me, Majesty, it is only that it is a grave risk.”

  “As you may recall, I am no stranger to risk. Thus far, I seem to have managed rather well.” Santaxma smiled one of his tight smiles. “I’ll dispatch an embassy with much pomp and honor, to say that the King has heard of the man who calls himself the Next Messenger, and has come to parley with him. I will propose we meet somewhere here.” He tapped a spot where the hills drew especially close to the road. “I will wait for him with certain of my staff and a guard, as is appropriate. Meanwhile, men will have been placed in concealment above the road, equipped with glass vessels of manita, which at the proper moment they will drop before and behind him, entirely enveloping him in the drug.” He brought his closed fist down upon the parchment. “Any attendants he has brought with him will be killed, and he will be seized and bound. The men stationed in the hills will surround and contain his followers, so they will not riot when they discover their Messenger has been taken from them.”

  “rata,” Gyalo said, forgetting himself in his dismay. “You still intend to capture him alive.”

  “Certainly I do. Dangerous as this man may be for his Shaper strength, the power of his call is far more perilous. If he dies, his shaping dies—but what of the legend he has built around himself, which echoes so ruinously in the hearts of my people? He may become a saint, a martyr, like the seditionist Caryax, whose execution did not destroy his ideas but ensured their survival, so they might later be embraced by those who brought so much misery on Arsace. And will I not then be blamed for murdering a Messenger? No. It is the myth I want to kill, and for that he must be alive. I will bring him back to Ninyâser, where I will expose him as the heretic he is. The people will know me not only as the liberator of Arsace, but as a defender of the faith, vanquisher of a great and terrible blasphemy.” A different sort of smile curved his lips, inward, anticipatory. “They will not be so ready, then, to call me blasphemer.”

  “Majesty, forgive me, but this is the man who brought down the walls of Thuxra City! There is only one way to be sure of him, and that is to kill him!”

  “And so I shall, I promise you. Once his charlatanry has been revealed, I will provide him with a most public execution.”

  “What if you fail to subdue him, Majesty? Even if you succeed, how will you hold him? How will you keep him powerless?”

  “How does the church keep its captured apostates powerless, when they refuse to take their prescribed manita doses? I have already consulted with the most renowned manita masters in Ninyâser, one of whom will be accompanying me to tend to him after he is taken. I am to be provided with a specially concentrated formula—more powerful, I am assured, even than the manita with which King Vantyas won the Battle of Clay, and capable in sufficient quantity of subduing the most mighty Shaper. Now, there is always the chance he will see through the ruse, or for some other reason refuse my embassy. In that case, I will have to employ a more direct approach, for which my men will also be prepared—though I pray it does not come to that, for then it may not be possible to avoid killing large numbers of his followers. But I don’t think he will refuse. I will send him gifts, as to a fellow prince, and a proclamation that my ambassadors will read, to make it seem I am considering whether to acknowledge him. Did you not say it is his ambition to steal souls from rata? How could he resist the opportunity to steal Arsace’s King?”

  He spoke with easy confidence. Plainly, in his own mind at least, he had already answered every objection. With a terrible falling understanding, Gyalo saw that he and Sundit had succeeded—but not on their terms. They had tried to invoke the specter of the Shaper War, the terror of Râvar’s extraordinary gift; but what Santaxma had seen was the threat of more religiously inspired unrest, for that was what he himself feared most. His scheme might indeed succeed in luring Râvar into ambush; Gyalo thought the King was probably correct about the temptation his soul would pose. But after that … Gyalo saw, flickering in his mind, the sourceless flames in Râvar’s chambers, a feat of power he, another Shaper, could not begin to comprehend.

  “So.” Santaxma brought his ringed hands lightly together, the gesture of a man who has made his case and is ready to move on. “I trust your concerns are addressed?”

  It was not really a question. Gyalo’s back prickled with awareness of the guards he could not see. “Yes, Majesty.”

  “Excellent.” The King smiled. “You haven’t tried your wine.”

  Gyalo raised the goblet and sipped. The wine was sweetened, fiery with spices.

  “As you may already have surmised,” Santaxma said, “I haven’t called you here merely to discuss strategy. I have a proposition to put to you. I am a man accustomed to using every resource at my disposal. When I march against the pretender, I want you with me. A Shaper to oppose a Shaper.”

  Gyalo was dumbfounded. With all the possibilities he had anxiously considered as the palanquin carried him through the streets of Ninyâser, this one had never crossed his min
d.

  “Majesty …” He groped for words, conscious of the thinness of the edge he walked. “I have but a fraction of his strength or skill. I don’t think I would be any use to you.”

  “I suspect you underestimate yourself. The Daughter Sundit has told me of your deeds.”

  “Majesty … to associate yourself with someone like me … if people impute blasphemy to you now, what will be said if it becomes known that you employed an apostate?”

  “Ah, but by the side of my mining of the Land, it is a very small transgression, wouldn’t you agree? I am certain, in any case, that I can gain the Brethren’s pardon—given that they would not wish it known that in the matter of untethered Shapers, they have sinned much worse than I.” Again the King smiled. “Now, I am a pragmatic man. For all I am your sovereign, to whom by law you owe duty, I do not expect you to undertake this of your own goodwill. I realize you have no need to bow to any authority, or take any actions but those that please you. Even an offer of payment presents a dilemma, for what is gold to one who can create it for himself? But I have put my mind to it, and here is what I propose. I have no doubt you fear greatly for your wife and child. When my men ride down on the pretender’s train, there will be those whose sole instruction is to find your family and bear them to safety. Further, I will deed to you a house and land, so you and your family may live in comfort. And I will undertake, when all of this is finished, to convince the Brethren you are dead—truly dead this time—so you need never fear their interference.”