City of Blades (3 page)

“So this is what Shara's become?” Mulaghesh says. “She's a blackmailer? She's blackmailing me into doing this?”

“Not at all. You have the option of just doing the touring shuffle and not engaging in the operation. Or, you could forgo the shuffle and accept a colonel's pay.”

“So what's the operation?”

“I am told we are unable to reveal that until you have fully signed on.”

Mulaghesh laughs lowly. “So I can't figure out what I'm buying until I've bought it. Great. Why in hells would I want to do this?”

“Well…I think she hoped that her personal ask might suffice….”

Mulaghesh gives him a flat, stony stare.

“But in the eventuality that it did not, she did ask me to give you this.” He reaches into his satchel and holds out an envelope.

Mulaghesh glances at it. “What's that?”

“I've no idea. The prime minister wrote and sealed this herself.”

Mulaghesh takes it, opens it, and reads the letter. Pitry can see pen strokes through the paper. Though he can't read the writing, it looks to be no more than three words.

Mulaghesh stares at this letter with large, hollow eyes, and her hand begins to shake. She crumples up the letter and stares into space.

“Damn it,” she says softly. “How in the hells did she know.”

Pitry watches her. A fly lands on her shoulder, a second on her neck. She doesn't notice.

“You wouldn't have sent that if you hadn't meant it, would you,” she murmurs. She sighs and shakes her head. “
Damn
.”

“I take it,” Pitry says, “that you are considering the operation?”

Mulaghesh glares at him.

“Just asking,” he says.

“Well. What
can
you tell me about this operation?”

“Very little. I know it is on the Continent. I do know that it concerns a subject lots of people are paying attention to, including some very powerful people in Ghaladesh, some of whom are not wholly benign toward the prime minister's agendas.”

“Hence the cover story you're giving me. I remember when we used to do this stuff to dupe
other
nations, not our
own
. Sign of the times, I suppose.”

“Things do continue to worsen in Ghaladesh,” Pitry admits. “The press likes to describe Shara as ‘embattled.' We're still suffering from the last round of elections. Her efforts to reconstruct the Continent continue to be enormously unpopular in Saypur.”

“Imagine that,” Mulaghesh says. “I still remember the parties when she got elected. They all thought we were about to start our Golden Age.”

“The voting public remains quite fickle. And for some, it's easy to forget that the Battle of Bulikov took place only five years ago.”

Mulaghesh pulls her prosthetic arm in closer, as if it pains her. Pitry feels like the temperature in the room has just dropped ten degrees. Suddenly she looks a great deal more like the commander Pitry saw that day, when the god spoke from the sky and the buildings burned and Mulaghesh bellowed at her soldiers to man the fortifications.

“
I
haven't forgotten,” she says coldly.

Pitry coughs. “Ah, no. I don't suppose you would have.”

Mulaghesh stares off into space for a few seconds more, lost in thought. “All right,” she says, her voice unnervingly calm. “I'll do it.”

“You will?”

“Sure. Why not.” She places the balled-up note on the kitchen counter and smiles at him. His skin crawls: it is the not-quite-sane smile he's seen before on the faces of soldiers who have seen a lot of combat. “What's the worst that can happen?”

“I…I'm sure the prime minister will be delighted,” says Pitry.

“So what
is
the operation?”

“Well, like I said, you won't know until you've fully signed on….”

“I just said
yes,
damn it all.”

“And you won't be considered fully signed on until you're on the boat.”

Mulaghesh shuts her eyes. “Oh, for the love of…”

Pitry slides one file out of the satchel and hands it to her. “Here are your instructions for your transportation. Please make note of the date and time. I believe I will be rejoining you for at least part of your trip, so I expect I will see you again in three weeks.”

“Hurrah.” Mulaghesh takes the file. Her shoulders slump a little. “If wisdom comes with age, why do I keep making so many bad decisions, Pitry?”

“I…don't think I feel qualified to answer that question.”

“Well. At least you're honest.”

“Might I ask for a favor, ma'am? I need to return to Ghaladesh for some final preparations, but, considering today's events, I…” He glances at her various armaments.

“Would like something to defend yourself with on the road back to port?”

“I mistakenly assumed Javrat would be civilized.”

Mulaghesh snorts. “So did I. Let me dig you up something that'll look scary but you can't hurt yourself with.”

“I did receive
some
basic training when I first joined the Bulikov Embassy.”

“I know,” says Mulaghesh. “That's what I'm afraid of. You probably learned just enough to be a danger to your own damn self.”

Pitry bows as she marches off into the recesses of her home. He realizes that he has never seen Mulaghesh walk another way: it's as if her feet know only how to march.

When she's gone he snatches the balled-up piece of paper on the counter. This is, of course, a grievous violation of his position, not to mention a betrayal of Shara's trust in him.
I am such a terrible spy,
he thinks, before remembering that he's not actually a spy at all, which makes him feel a little less guilty.

He stares at the words on the letter in confusion. “Huh?” he says.

“What was that?” says Mulaghesh's voice from the next room.

“N-Nothing!” Pitry balls the letter back up and replaces it.

Mulaghesh returns carrying a very long machete. “I have no idea what the original owner used this for,” she says. “Maybe hacking up teak. But if it can cut lukewarm butter now, I'll be surprised.” She hands it over and walks him to her door. “So, three weeks, huh?”

“That is correct.”

“Then that's three weeks to eat as much decent food as I can,” says Mulaghesh. “Unless the Continent suddenly figured out how to make dumplings and rice right. And, ugh…” Her hand goes to her stomach. “I thought for so long my belly would never have to deal with cabbage again….”

Pitry bids her good-bye and walks back up the hill. He glances back once, surveying her bland, unhappy little cottage, the sands around it winking with empty bottles and broken glass. Though he's never been involved in an operation—besides Bulikov, which he feels doesn't count—he can't help but be a little concerned about how all this is starting. And he's not sure why a letter containing only the words “
Make it matter
” could have any impact on whether it starts at all.

I have trudged through fire and death to come and ask you this: Can we not be better? Can we not do better? Are we so complacent in our comfortable lives that we can no longer even dream of hope, true hope—not simply hope for Saypur, but for humanity itself?

Our ancestors were legends who remade the world. Are we willing to be so small-minded with our brief time upon these shores?

—PARLIAMENTARY ADDRESS BY PRIME MINISTER ASHARA KOMAYD, 1721

S
he awakes in the night and tries not to scream. The scream rattles around in her throat, a hot bubble of air swelling up inside of her, and she flails around trying to find purchase on something, anything, her right hand twisting the bedsheets into a knot and the balls of her bare feet pressed against the stone wall. She pushes and strains as her brain insists she's still there, she's still at the embassy and it's still five years ago, her arm trapped under the rubble and the sky thick with smoke, the whole world ruined and gone in an instant. She's still turning over on the street, still glimpsing the young soldier facedown on the concrete, a dew drop of blood in his ear that swells and swells until it brims over, and a trickle of red weaves down his smooth cheek, the cheek of a boy.

Mulaghesh listens for the waves. She knows the waves are there. She knows where she is. She just has to find something to hold on to.

Finally she hears them: soft and steady, the gentle rise and fall as the waters scrape the sand on the shore, just a few hundred feet beyond her little cottage.

You're in Javrat,
she tells herself.
You know that. You're not in Bulikov. All of that happened long ago. Just listen to the waves….

She tries to remember how to relax. She tells each system of muscles to stop, just
stop
already, and she finally goes limp. It's then that the pain seeps into her as every muscle remembers it's been straining to the point of breaking.

She takes a breath and moves her arms and legs to see if she's strained or sprained anything. She aches, but she seems to be all right.

She glances at her alarm clock. It's not even midnight yet. But she knows she'll get no more sleep tonight.

Oh, well,
she thinks.
Only four hours to wait.
She does not look forward to waiting on the docks for the ship to come in. She finds she doesn't want to see people, or perhaps to be seen by them.

Her gaze moves to the object to the right of the alarm clock: a human hand rendered in dark oak wood, frozen in mid-clutch. The artisan who made it for her said it would help her hold things, and while this is true, Turyin Mulaghesh has always found its pose slightly disconcerting: there is something painful about it, like the hand is so tense in its desire to grasp something that it can hardly move its fingers.

Groaning as her stomach muscles protest, Mulaghesh sits up, takes the false hand and its harness, shoulders her way into its well-worn straps, and gently affixes the prosthetic to where her arm ends a few inches above the wrist. She wraps the soft cotton sleeve around her upper arm, then takes the four leather belts at the false hand's end, ties them over the sleeve, buckles them, and draws them taut.

She spends some time with the belts, tightening them, loosening them, adjusting them. It always takes time for everything to fit into the right place. She knows it'll never be perfect.

In the dark, General Turyin Mulaghesh tries to make herself whole.

Mulaghesh squints as the passenger vessel
Kaypee
slowly approaches the dock, a blinding knife of white on the dark tablecloth of the sea. It takes some time for her eyes to decipher that it is not moving incredibly slowly but is simply incredibly large—nearly eight hundred feet long. She sourly reflects that once her country reserved such effort and industry for warfare, yet now in its eighth decade of hegemony, Saypur deigns to put her vast resources toward decadent indulgences.

But the ship is probably not the true source of Mulaghesh's ire: there on the boarding dock, she is surrounded by families with shrieking babies and sulky teens, doe-eyed lovers still tangled in one another's arms, and elderly couples emitting a beatific, contented glow as they stare out at the sea.

Mulaghesh seems to be the one person who hasn't been reinvigorated by her stay on Javrat. Whereas everyone else is loose and open in their light, tropical clothing, Mulaghesh's appearance is decidedly contained: her graying hair is pulled back in a taut bun, and she wears her immense gray military greatcoat, which conceals most of her false hand. The one tropical influence she allows is a pair of blue-tinted sunglasses, but their chief purpose is to conceal her puffy, hungover eyes.

From behind the dark lenses she watches the young families, the fathers gawky and long-legged in their too-short shorts, the children awkward, mumbly, desperately earnest. She watches, envious, as the young lovers caress one another.

When did such opportunities become closed to me?
she thinks as she watches their clear faces, bereft of scars or kinks in their noses, or their smooth shoulders, which have clearly never borne the weight of a pack. She shifts her left sleeve so it covers more of her false hand.
When did I get so old? When did I get so fucking old?

She's startled by a sharp whistle and sees that she's been so lost in thought she completely ignored the ship's arrival. She picks up her bag and tries her hardest to not think about the journey back to the Continent, the land where she fought a war in her youth, wasted decades of her life in bureaucracy, and lost a hand, all in the shadow of that nation's dead gods.

To call the
Kaypee
sumptuous would be an understatement, but Mulaghesh has no eye for its latticed ceilings or expansive decks. Instead she marches straight to her cabin—not one of the nicer ones by a long shot—and waits for evening. She sleeps all the way through the ship's departure, nestled down in the folds of her greatcoat. She forgot how comfortable it is, and as her shoulders and arms lose themselves in its fabric she is reminded of long rests outdoors, in the cold and the rain and the mud, memories that would be unpleasant for most but have gained a somewhat rosy hue for Mulaghesh.

How sad it is,
she thinks as she dozes,
that on a luxury passenger ship I am cheered most by memories of miserable soldiering
.

The sky is purpled and hazy through her porthole when she wakes. She checks her watch, confirms it's 1600, rises, and winds her way down to the Tohmay reception room.

An attendant out front politely inquires which company she should be listed under. “Thivani Industries,” she says. He checks the list, nods, and opens the door for her with a smile. Mulaghesh enters and walks down the narrow hallway until she enters the final chamber. Like the rest of the ship, it is ridiculously luxurious—
How much did they spend on my damn ticket?—
though, to her regret, the bar is deserted. The only person in the room sits at a table before a row of glass doors that look out on the wide, dark sea.

Pitry Suturashni hears her coming, stands, and smiles. His face is a pale green color, and there's a stench of vomit about him. “Welcome! General. I'm glad you could make it.”

“I'm going to assume,” says Mulaghesh, “that the only reason I'm on
this
ship is because it was the first available.”

“You are correct in thinking that, though you are a valued resource, we would not normally opt for such transportation.” Pitry hiccups and places the back of his hand to his mouth.

“You need me to get a bucket?”

Pitry shakes his head, though he has to think about it. “As…unpatriotic it might be for a Saypuri, I admit my seamanship is not…terribly accomplished.”

“Shara had a terribly sensitive stomach, I recall,” Mulaghesh says as she sits. “You just had to show that girl a picture of a boat to make her paint the walls with her breakfast.” Pitry's shading grows more unpleasant. “This ship's bound, I note, for Ahanashtan. Is that where the operation is?”

“No,” says Pitry. “You will be taking a ship from Ahanashtan to your final destination. Though Shara has given me strict instructions that she would prefer to tell you about that herself.”

“Herself?” asks Mulaghesh. She glances around the room. “Is she…here?”

Pitry reaches down and picks up a leather satchel from beside his chair. He pulls out a small wooden box and places it on the table in front of them.

“What, is Shara in there?” asks Mulaghesh.

“In a way,” says Pitry. He slides a panel from the side of the box, revealing a brass tube that he rotates out so it points toward Mulaghesh. Then he slides the top panel away, revealing a small, oily black disc in the center of the box. Pitry finds a small lever on the side of the box and cranks it for about twenty seconds. Then he hits a button and the box begins to hiss.

“Oh, what fresh hell is this,” says Mulaghesh. “Another contraption?”

“One of the Department of Reconstruction's interesting new projects,” says Pitry, with a slightly hurt tone.

“The DOR never found a functioning thing it couldn't fuck up,” says Mulaghesh. “I dread what would happen if they tried to reinvent the toilet.”

Pitry sighs again, takes a file from the satchel, and hands it to her. It has a fat, red wax seal on the front. Mulaghesh notes that the seal has no insignia or symbol.
So whatever's in it,
thinks Mulaghesh,
certainly didn't come from any of the normal authorities.

“Crack it open when she tells you to,” says Pitry.

“She?”

Then a voice rises up from somewhere in the box's hissing, soft and somewhat sad, and sounding much, much older than when Mulaghesh last heard it: “Hello, Turyin.”

“Damn,” says Mulaghesh, surprised. “
Shara?
”

“She can't hear you,” says Pitry. “It's a recording. It captures sound, just like telephones transport it.”