City of Blades (49 page)

“You
chose
to come here?”

“Oh, no, I didn't choose to
come
. But I chose to
stay
once I realized the consequences if I left.” She sighs and rubs her eyes, exhausted. “What's the last you know about me?”

“I know you vanished in Voortyashtan. That's all anyone knows.”

“Yes…I was on an exploratory mission, trying to find a rail passage out to the wildernesses, along the Solda to the coast, so we could try to bring it under control. We saw bandit kings and pestilence and warfare and mass rape. There was no leadership, no control after the Blink. And the Blink struck this place quite hard. I remember coming here, seeing the squalor and the vandals, fighting off attackers nearly every day and night. I was brazen, you see. And…reckless. I had just lost Shomal.”

Mulaghesh remembers this from her history books: Thinadeshi's four-year-old son, lost to plague during her travels on the Continent. “I see.”

“I was willing to fight everyone and everything, after that,” says Thinadeshi quietly. “I was going to win or die trying, and…and I didn't prefer which, honestly. But then one day we made it. We passed through the ranges and came to the ocean. But the question was, what was the easiest route? What was the best way to link the North Seas to Saypur? So we had to survey. And one morning I was walking along the coast, taking measurements of possible passages back through the ranges…and then I came upon it.”

Thinadeshi's words are growing slurred now: the opiates must be sloshing around in her system. “The Blink did a lot of damage to the Voortyashtani coast. So much of what they built was on the sea, so many miracles worked into the cliffs and the shore, and the Blink was so recent then. It was like chaos, unimaginable devastation. Homes and bridges and rubble all piled up on the bottom of the cliffs. And some of the cliffs had cracked
open
, like an egg. And I came to one of these cracks, and I looked in”—her face fills with an awful dread—“and they saw me, and they
called
up
to me.”

Thinadeshi's horrified expression sets a chill in Mulaghesh's belly. “Who? Who did?”

“The soldiers,” says Thinadeshi softly. “All the Voortyashtani soldiers.
Ever
. They were waiting for me in that cliff. It was a tomb, you see. A massive tomb, bigger than anything I'd ever seen. But the Voortyashtanis had a very strange way of memorializing their dead.” She looks at Mulaghesh, wild-eyed. “You know about their swords? That the two bond, with each becoming a vessel for the other, the body carrying the sword and the sword carrying the soul?”

“I'm familiar with it,” says Mulaghesh.

“That's what was down there,” says Thinadeshi. Her eyes are wide with awe. “All those swords. Thousands of them.
Millions
of them. All with
minds
in them, all with agency, memories of lives and inconceivable bloodshed, and all of them crying out to me.”

Mulaghesh remembers the reports of Choudhry searching the hills for a mythical tomb…but she never imagined that it was like this. “So the tomb wasn't full of bodies, but full of
swords
?”

“Yes. Voortyashtanis didn't consider there to be a difference between the two. Sentinels fashioned their lives to be weapons, their bodies and minds to be instruments of warfare—their swords were a part of that, perhaps the heart of what they became. That's why they call this place the City of Blades, after all. And when I found them, there were so many of them, exposed to the sky, spilling out into the sea, all of them screaming out to someone to find them, to help them.”

“But how were they still alive? How did they still
exist
? They were Divine, right? How could they exist without Voortya?”

“Because Voortya had made a pact with them,” says Thinadeshi wearily. “It was an agreement: they would make themselves into weapons, be her warriors and go to war for her, and she would give them eternal life. And this contract was so binding that it
had
to be executed—even if Voortya wasn't there! Her death did not, to use the terminology, render
any
thing null and void! The dead were
still
supposed to get their afterlife. They were
still
supposed to reside with Voortya in the City of Blades. And one day, they were
still
supposed to return to where their swords lay in the mortal world and begin the last war, the final war that would consume all of creation. This is what was promised them, and the dead, in essence, intend to see that the bargain is fulfilled. If it was only one or two departed souls, their power might be negligible—but there are
millions
here with me in the City of Blades. With their strength pooled they're able to make sure reality holds up its part of the bargain. They are
insisting
that they be remembered, and any Divine construction created to remember them is therefore forced to persist.” Suddenly she looks terribly, terribly weary. “But they needed Voortya herself in order for the agreement to be executed. Some part of her had to reside with them in the City of Blades. Or someone quite similar, I should say.”

Mulaghesh slowly realizes what she means. “
You?
” she asks, horrified. “They wanted
you
to stand in for Voortya?”

Thinadeshi smiles weakly. “They needed the Maiden of Steel, Queen of Grief, Empress of Graves, She Who Clove the Earth in Twain, Devourer of Children. Am I not all these things, to some extent? I devoted my life to the railroads, to reconstruction, so I am the Maiden of Steel. I've torn apart mountains to build them, so I am She Who Clove the Earth in Twain. Hundreds of laborers died fulfilling my dangerous dream, so I am the Empress of Graves. And…my own children perished in my endeavors. My family suffered unspeakably for everything I wrought. So I am also Queen of Grief, and Devourer of Children. Perhaps it was my punishment to become this thing. Perhaps I deserve this. Whatever the case, they needed someone who matched their
idea
of Voortya—and I came close enough to count. There was a vacuum, and I merely filled it.”

“But why did you consent?”

“Because when they spoke to me,” says Thinadeshi, “when they reached out to me and begged me to take up the mantle of their mother, I understood that their true hope was that I would allow them their last war. Their final great battle, the one they'd been promised for centuries. And I could not allow that. I could not allow them to make war upon my country, not after it had just been freed.

“So I climbed down to them. And as I did, the world…changed. The skies grew dark. The stars changed—they became older, stranger. And the farther I climbed down the broken cliff to them, the more the world shifted and churned until I was walking down a white staircase, and then I was in a grand, white courtyard with many passageways and staircases up—and the voices asked me to climb up, up, and I did. I climbed and I climbed until I came to the top of the tower, and there was the great, awful red throne, and beside it…Beside it was this.”

Thinadeshi closes her eyes once more, and concentrates. She reaches out with her right hand, appearing to sift through the empty air before her. Then her fingers clench around something, and she pulls out…

Suddenly there is a sword in her hand, or rather a sword hilt, as the blade is but a faint flicker of golden light. Mulaghesh can't tell exactly where it came from: it feels as if it's
always
been in her hand, but Thinadeshi simply chose to make it visible now.

The hilt and handle are strange to Mulaghesh's eyes: at first it appears to be made of some dark, viscous black material, like volcanic glass. But then the light shifts, and the hilt isn't dark stone, but a severed hand. Its blackened fingers clutch the bottom of the formless blade, its thumb and forefinger crooked in such a manner that Mulaghesh knows it was not made by any artist.

The more she looks at the sword the more she perceives many things in it, even sensations: the sound of steel on steel, the sight of distant flames, the rumble of horses' hooves. The sword flickers back and forth between being made of stone and fire and steel and lightning before, finally, becoming a human hand once more. And as she looks she knows that this is no mere sculpture: the hand is real, sacrificed by a man long ago to his Divinity, and through the sacrifice of his son she became exceedingly powerful, and this sacrifice was memorialized on stones and books and pieces of armor, the hand clutching the blade, the sacrifice paired with assault.

“The sword of Voortya,” says Thinadeshi quietly. “It is with me always now. Just like the sentinels and their own weapons, it is a part of me. It whispers to me, telling me I am Voortya, telling me what I must do, playing with my thoughts. It is damnably hard to resist sometimes. For long stretches, I think I
am
Voortya, sometimes.”

“That sounds dangerous,” says Mulaghesh.

“You've no idea. I think it is not the true thing, or at least not as it was: like the City of Blades, like everything Divine, it is but a shadow of its former self. But that is still more dangerous and more powerful than any device any mortal has ever wielded. One day I will be rid of it. Perhaps soon.” Thinadeshi sits back as if the effort of producing the weapon exhausted her. “When I took up the sword of Voortya, in the eyes of the dead, it was as if I
was
her. And because she'd granted them power, they then bestowed it upon
me
. I was given limited abilities, both within this ghostly realm and beyond. And one of those powers was to enter the land of the living, and destroy. Which I did.

“I crossed over, and I attacked the cliffs with all the power that was granted to me. I brought down the tomb, I pummeled the earth, I hacked at it again and again with the sword of Voortya. The effort exhausted me—in retrospect, it nearly killed me, for I had done something only a Divinity should be able to do—but I did it.”

“Why?”

“They wished to return to where their swords lay—but what if there were no swords? What could they do then? The blades act as beacons, you see, tying the land of the dead to the land of the living. By destroying them I cut the strings and set this island adrift, existing in a half-real state. I was marooned here with them, dressed up as their dead god, but at least the world was safe. At least my people were safe. At least my children could finally go on to live happy, safe lives.”

“How have you stayed alive all this time?” asks Mulaghesh. “I don't see any food or water around here.”

“I've wondered that myself,” says Thinadeshi. “But I never get hungry here, or thirsty. My suspicion is that this place is some kind of a limbo, really. When Voortya died, it stopped being completely real…and when I destroyed the swords, and destroyed the last final link to mortal life with them, it became even less real than that. Time doesn't work here, or if it does, it doesn't work the way it should.”

Thinadeshi is silent for a long, long time. She draws a rattling breath. “But then,” she croaks. “But then, but then, but then…I felt it. I felt it out there in the land of the living. Somehow we were being pulled back. Someone had found the tomb, or what was left of it. Someone had found the swords. And they began meddling i—”

Mulaghesh sits upright, every muscle in her body clenched to the point of straining. “Son of a bitch! Son of a damned
bitch
!”

Thinadeshi draws away from her, alarmed. “What? What is it? What's wrong with you?”

“It's the thinadeskite!” cries Mulaghesh.

“The what?”

“The thinadeskite! It's not some naturally occurring ore!
It's what's left of their damned swords!
”

“Thina…deskite?” asks Thinadeshi. “What do you mean?”

“It's this ore,” says Mulaghesh. “Or that's what they thought it was, discovered outside of Fort Thin…” She pauses as she realizes nearly everything she's about to reference has been named for the ill-looking person sitting before her. “Never mind. But they thought it was this natural resource with some unusual properties, so they started digging it up. But it wasn't natural at all; it was what was left of the swords after you obliterated the tomb, pulverized it beyond recognition! That must have been why Choudhry was so interested in the geomorphological history of the cliffs: she could
tell
that something was wrong! She must have noticed some sign of the damage you did, and known that it couldn't possibly have been some natural effect!”

Thinadeshi looks at her side-eyed. “I won't pretend to know anything about a lick of what you're saying here, but do go on.”

Mulaghesh scratches her scalp, excited and anxious. “
And
that must be why the ore never tested as Divine! Because it
isn't
the will of a Divinity that makes it work—it's the will of the dead! If you're right, and anything that memorializes the dead is
forced
to persist, then that would explain everything—why the man atop the Tooth was still alive, why the ‘tribute' statues they hauled up from the bottom of the sea are still around, and why any miracle relating to the dead still functions! And that's why I had flashbacks down in the mine's tunnels—I was literally walking through a sea of souls and memories.”

“I will assume you are talking about the mine I destroyed,” says Thinadeshi.

Mulaghesh stops. “Oh. That's right. That was you, after all.”

“Yes,” says Thinadeshi, nettled. “This was the incident in which you shot me, if you remember.”

“Which was pretty damned justified, if I might say so! From my end you looked a damn sight like the real thing!”

“Of course I did!” snaps Thinadeshi. “When one wields even a shadow of a Divinity's power, that power tends to follow decorum and clothe one correctly!”