City of Blades (33 page)

“Why?”

“She changed significantly. Before this event, Voortya was always depicted as a four-armed animal, a creature of tusks and horns and teeth. Not unlike a monster. After this, though, she began being depicted as a four-armed human woman dressed in the arrayments of battle: armor and sword and spear. And she never spoke again.”

“Never?”

“Never. There is a lot of speculation about this transformation. Some wonder if her trauma left her mute. But others suggest that her interactions with Ahanas changed her: she tasted, very briefly, life and love. She tasted an existence beyond one of torment and destruction. As a creature of war, she had never imagined that this could even exist. But then, suddenly, she did. She understood what was possible. And then she had to abandon it, and return to what she was.”

“Why did she do that?”

Shara shrugs. “I suspect it was because her people needed her. She had promised them an afterlife, and she was sworn to deliver. These things have a power of their own, you see. Voortya had never been defeated before this moment. She had never lost a battle, nor had her people. But in order to accomplish this victory, in order to win and create this life beyond death for her children, she had to defeat herself, to strike down her own being, to sacrifice herself. Again, the act of self-contradiction: life through death, victory through defeat. And, having done so, I think she never really recovered.”

“So what does this have to do with anything?”

“I suspect,” says Shara slowly, “that if the Voortyashtani afterlife still exists somewhere, then its persistence can somehow be traced back to this one act. A sacrifice is a promise, in a way, a symbolic exchange of power. Voortya gave up immense power to create the afterlife. I suspect that power escaped the wrath of the Kaj, and can still be found somewhere, anchoring her life beyond death to this world.”

“So…where is it?” asks Mulaghesh.

“Where is what?”

“This, I don't know, power?”

“Oh, I've no idea,” says Shara. “We're far beyond the realm of conventional knowledge here. Voortya's interactions with Ahanas occurred before Bulikov was even founded. I suspect you're dealing with something that took place back in the very early days of existence, before the Divinities understood what they themselves really were.”

“Could it be…Could it be the thinadeskite?”

“What, the thinadeskite as the physical manifestation of this power?” asks Shara. “That's…Well, that's not a
bad
idea, Turyin. But that too leaves a lot to be answered for—this thing you saw, this apparition—if it had anything in common with the original Voortya, why would she destroy the mines, the source of her own power?”

“You yourself said she was traumatized,” says Mulaghesh. “Maybe we're dealing with another mad Divinity.”

“Perhaps. But it doesn't seem to fit. Voortya never spoke, and in most depictions of her—when she took a comprehensible, humanoid form, that is—she had four arms and one missing hand. None of this matches up with what you saw and heard. And I would need undeniable proof if I were to try to do anything. I am not quite as powerful as when you left me, Turyin.”

“So…So how does that help me figure out what to do next?” asks Mulaghesh, frustrated. “I don't need stories, I need leads!”

Shara sighs deeply. Mulaghesh is suddenly aware of how frail Shara seems, and she realizes that her demand is likely just one of thousands Shara must hear every single day. “I know. I know it's not what you wanted. But I suspect it's all I can give you. It is known that Voortyashtanis possessed a ritual to glimpse into the life beyond death, into the City of Blades—the Window to the White Shores. If there is a ritual that allowed them to fully cross
over,
I suspect it is a fusion of a Voortyashtani rite and an
Ahanashtani
rite. And, because of this curious quality, I expect it's never been recorded. The one person who might know, it seems, is the old man Choudhry mentioned.”

“And he told Choudhry how to cross over. And she went there to…to try to stop whatever's happening. But obviously she failed somehow.”

“I know,” says Shara. “But you will succeed.”

“I know I have to! You don't have to tell me that!”

“I did not say you
have
to succeed,” says Shara. “I said you
will
. There is not a doubt in my mind, Turyin, that you can resolve this. You have been through far worse trials and faced far more difficult situations than this. You have a military fortress at your disposal, as well as a massive construction fleet. Though they may be unwilling, they are still potential resources.”

“And just how in the hells am I going to
use
them?” snaps Mulaghesh, furious.

“In Bulikov,” says Shara, “how did you convince me to collapse the tunnel to the Seat of the World, the greatest discovery in modern history, mere moments after I'd discovered it?”

“I…Hells, I can't remember!”

“You did it,” says Shara, “by being a very belligerent, obnoxious woman.”

Mulaghesh stares at her in disbelief. “Well…Well, thank you very fucking much!”

“You have a talent,” says Shara, “for valuing what you feel is right over anything else, including, occasionally, the people around you. You do what you feel is right not because it is satisfying, but because you find any other option to be intolerable. This makes you incredibly frustrating to deal with. But it also means you find solutions where many others would simply give up.”

“But…But this is a fucking Divinity we're talking about! Surely if you went to the Ministry and told them what would happen—”

“We have nothing definitive,” says Shara. “No concrete evidence, no proof—only your testimony, and that message of Choudhry's. A half-coherent letter from an agent who went mad and has vanished, and your story, part of a clandestine operation that is occurring completely off the books. If I were to use what little we have here to mobilize our forces under the precept that another Divine event was imminent, there is a not-insignificant chance that it could result in something very similar to a coup.”

“A
coup
?” says Mulaghesh, aghast. “In
Saypur
?”

“I'm sure it would begin as an impeachment,” says Shara wearily. “Or something wearing much more civilized trappings. But I know there are forces in the military and industry that would be the ones to ramrod it through. I've broken a lot of rules to put you where you are now, Turyin. Without solid evidence, my opponents in Ghaladesh would say I was fabricating the whole thing, trying to drum up support where I have none. And when the dust settled, it would be these figures that would possess much more global power—something that could be terribly bad for Saypur, and the world.”

Mulaghesh rubs the center of her forehead. “I thought you were going to toss all those ratfucks out on their ears when you got elected.”

Shara smiles weakly. “There are rather a lot of ratfucks, unfortunately.”

“So I'm on my own,” says Mulaghesh. “Even after this.”

“No, no. Not alone. I do not think you are on your own. On the contrary, you have Sig—”

She stops speaking and looks over Mulaghesh's shoulder. Mulaghesh turns and sees that Sigrud has leapt to his feet and is silently stalking toward a blank section of wall. He examines the wall, looking it up and down, then looks at Shara in the windowpane and shakes his head.

Shara mouths, “Good luck,” to Mulaghesh, wipes her fingers across the glass, and vanishes. The glass grows transparent yet again.

Sigrud turns to the wall and feels along the crown molding. His finger finds a carving of a whale tooth. He presses it—there's a
click!—
and the wall falls back like a door.

Sigrud dives into the gap. There's a cry of surprise and possibly pain from the other side. Mulaghesh has already grabbed the carousel and is raising it at the secret door, finger close to the trigger but not on it, not yet. She paces to line up along the wall behind the door, holding the carousel just at head-height.

Someone tumbles into the room, stumbling from a hard shove. Mulaghesh's instincts kick in and she puts the carousel's sights right on their head, though it takes her a second to realize this particular head possesses bright blond hair arranged in an urbane coiffure, along with two furious blue eyes watching her from behind a pair of severe-looking glasses.

“Shit,” says Mulaghesh. “Signe, between you and your father, I'm wondering if your whole family just doesn't know how to use a door.”

Sigrud walks back in and shuts the secret door. “How
dare
you!” Signe says to him. “How dare you treat me like that!”

He ignores her and sits back down on the couch with his back to them, and lights his pipe.

Mulaghesh looks at the panel in the wall. “I guess you forgot to tell me you had one of these in my room.”

“You didn't ask,” Signe says angrily. “You
knew
we had servants' doors all throughout SDC headquarters. Of
course
we'd have one here; this is a vice-presidential suite”—she looks around at the chicken bones and tobacco—“though I see you have treated it with your usual amount of care.”

“Why would I want one of these in my room?”

“If you had ordered food it'd have come through that very door. It's all perfectly innocent!”

“I can order food from my room?”

“What else did you think the button in the corner with the sign
RING FOR SERVICE
is for?” She looks back at Mulaghesh, who has not yet lowered her gun. “Please stop pointing that at me.”

“What did you hear?” asks Mulaghesh.

Signe glances around the room. Looking, Mulaghesh realizes, for the third person she heard. “Nothing.”

“That's a pretty bold lie.”

“I didn't come here to eavesdrop!”

“Maybe. But that's what you wound up doing.” Mulaghesh lowers the carousel and sets two chairs up facing one another. She sits in one and gestures to the other. Signe slowly sits. “So. What'd you hear?”

“You can't shoot me, you know,” says Signe. “This is my company's property. I could stand up and leave right now.”

“Try it,” says Mulaghesh. “I might have one hand, but I still know how to restrain someone and not leave a mark.”

Signe looks to her father. “Are you going to allow this?”

“I remember today,” he says, “when you introduced me to the welders here, then abandoned me, leaving me with them. It is no fun, being stuck in a difficult spot.”

“I…I
swear,
” says Signe, “you two are the most frustrating, useless people alive! But of course you'd gang up on me; you both
know
each other so well.”

Mulaghesh says simply, “The afterlife.”

With those two words Signe freezes, just for a second, her pale blue eyes flicking away and then back.

“Yeah,” says Mulaghesh. “You heard. I'm betting you heard a lot. Why don't we have a civil conversation about this?”

Signe considers her options. Then she takes out her silver box filled with her tiny black cigarettes. She lights a match with a thumbnail—a trick Mulaghesh feels like she's been sitting on for a while—takes a long drag, and exhales, a seemingly endless river of smoke flowing from somewhere deep inside of her. “All right. I will be direct. You…You think Sumitra Choudhry—poor little mad Sumitra Choudhry—has somehow traveled to Voortya's City of Blades?”

“She seems to say that's what she was intending to do,” says Mulaghesh.

“And I assume that what is—or
was—
being mined up by the fortress was this…thinadeskite you mentioned?”

Mulaghesh grimaces.
So much for state secrets
. “Yes.”

“And both you and Choudhry believe this material has some kind of connection to the Voortyashtani afterlife?”

“Jury's still out on that one.”

“At the very least,” says Signe, “you think it is connected to
Voortya
…whom you said you saw. That you…you
saw
.” Mulaghesh feels Signe's bright, hard gaze poring over her, studying her every feature, and she is suddenly aware of how intensely, furiously bright this young woman is. “Do you really believe that?”

“I don't know what I believe. But I know what I saw.”

Mulaghesh doesn't like the condescending, dismissive smile creeping into Signe's face. “You're mad,” says Signe. “The two of you, if he believes it. The
three
of you, if Choudhry did too. I'm glad I heard what I did, because now I
know
I'm dealing with absolute
loonies,
rather than merely suspecting it!”

“I've been there,” says Mulaghesh quietly. “I've seen it. Remember when I almost fainted before the statue of Voortya in your yard? It took me there. It showed me something. Sumitra Choudhry had been at that spot before me, performed some rite, and I walked right into its aftereffects.”

“But even the Voortyashtanis believe the afterlife's gone!” says Signe. “Everyone accepts that now, when you die, you just rot in the damned ground! If these people don't believe it, why should you?”

“They haven't seen gods before,” says Mulaghesh fiercely. “And I have. I almost died facing them. You are young and clever and brash. But I have seen so, so much more of life than you have, child. I have been so close to the Divine before, I could smell it. And I smell it again, right now.”

Signe grows sober at this. She looks back and forth between Mulaghesh and Sigrud, who is still facing away. “Do…Do you
really
believe what you're saying?”

“I do,” says Mulaghesh. She sits back and watches Signe coldly. “And I also believe that if the Voortyashtani afterlife is possible, the Night of the Sea of Swords is possible as well. I also believe that that makes investing in this harbor a damn stupid idea, isn't it? And you
know
there are forces in Saypur just
itching
to rebuke the prime minister, cut her pet project loose, and walk away from it, leaving it to die. I believe they're looking for any excuse to scrap it. And I believe I could tell them the CTO of SDC was hiding Voortyashtani artifacts in order to blackmail the locals. I could tell them anything because frankly, Signe, they're just waiting for an excuse. If one of Shara's own trusted deputies says it's over, then it's over.”