City of Stairs (37 page)

She stepped in. There was no light in the room, but she could see the giant man sitting cross-legged in the corner. He had the air of a beaten dog about him: his hair matted and patchy, his skin covered in welts and infections and what she hoped was dirt. His head was bowed, so she could not see his eyes—or eye, she kept reminding herself—but he recoiled at the interruption of light.

She shut the door and sat in the corner opposite him, and waited. He hardly moved at all.

“We are leaving Dreyling waters,” Shara asked him. “Do you not wish to see your country one last time?”

He did not answer.

“You haven’t even been outside your room,” she said. “You are free. Don’t you wish to move about for the first time in what must be years?”

No answer.

“Don’t you at least want to bathe? We do have hot water.”

The giant man grunted slightly, as if he was about to speak but thought better of it.

“Yes?”

His accent was so thick he was almost unintelligible: “This … is not real.”

“What?”

He waved a hand. “Any of it.”

“It is. I promise you, it is. Your door is unlocked. You are free.”

He shook his head. “No. It can’t be. They are … My family …”

Shara waited, but he said no more.

“They are alive, as I told you they were,” she said softly.

“I
buried
them. I held their bones in my hands.”

“I cannot testify to whose bones those were, but they were not your family’s.”

“You are lying to me.”

“I am not. Your wife, Hild, was smuggled out of the country with your two daughters by a servant of yours before the coup. They crossed the border into Voortyashtan merely two days before the coup was complete. There they lived for the past six years, claiming to be relations of your servant. They had been working as farmers—poor ones, I suspect, as I doubt if someone of your wife’s background ever tilled earth, but they had made do.”

A long silence. Then: “What … ? What proof do you have of this?”

“Your family was not totally safe when I found them. They were, and are, being searched for—there are still many agents seeking any remnant of your family. We have removed your family from Voortyashtan, as I have no longer deemed that location safe. It has not been totally easy—your wife is, how shall I put this, a somewhat strong-willed woman.”

Sigrud smiles slightly.

“But, we got it done. When we did, your wife gave one of our officers a gift, as a gesture of thanks.” Shara reached into her pocket and pulled out a small burlap sack. She opened it and took out a gleaming, woven gold bracelet etched to resemble harsh, choppy waves.

She passed it to him. “Does this mean anything to you?”

He stared at it, the metal so bright and so clean in his filthy, scarred hands. His fingers began to tremble.

“Why don’t you come up to the deck with me?” she asked gently.

He stood up slowly, still staring at the bracelet. She opened the door, and he followed her out and up the stairs with the air of a sleepy child being herded to bed.

The slap of the cold wind was enough to make Shara pause, and she bent double and staggered out onto the deck of the dreadnought. The giant man took no notice, and crossed the threshold of the door and stared up at the sky in awed silence. He had avoided looking up when they brought him on board, and she had wondered about that.
Of course,
she thought.
How long has it been since he’s been outside? The sight of it must terrify him.

“Come,” she said, and she led him to the railing. The dark cliffs of the Dreyling shores lurked far across the waves. “I am told it is not quite so far away it looks. Though you may know more about that than I do.”

He looked down at the golden bracelet, snapped it around his wrist, and held up his arm, studying it. “I cannot see them. Can I?”

She shook her head. “It would not be safe, for you or for them. Not now. But maybe someday.”

“What do you want of me?” he asked.

“Want of you? Nothing, for now.”

“You have saved my family. You have freed me from prison. Why?”

“I believe that your information on the Dreyling countries will almost certainly be quite valuable,” says Shara. “And it will likely destabilize any relationships the Dreyling Republics have with the Continent.” A hint of smugness crept into her voice: this was the first major intelligence victory of her career, and she was not yet experienced enough to bother to mask her pride.

“That is not enough.”

“Enough for what?”

“For what you have done for me.”

Shara paused, unsure what to say.

“Ask something of me,” he said.

“What?”

“Ask something of me. Anything.”

“I don’t need anything from you.”

He laughed. “Yes, you do.”

“I am a Saypuri intelligence officer,” she said, nettled. “I have no need of anything you co—”

“You are a young girl,” said the man, “who cannot sail, who cannot fight, and who has never shed blood in her life. You may be clever, but you need much from me, I think. But you have too much pride to ask for it.”

Shara glared at him. “What are you proposing to be? My batsman? My
secretary
? Would you degrade yourself in such a manner?”

“Degrade?” He looked back across the sea. “Degrade … You do not know the meaning of the word. You do not know what they did to me in there. It is unspeakable. Now, to carry water, to serve food, to fight, to kill—whatever my future holds, I am numb to it. I am numb.” He said it again like he was trying to convince himself, and he turned to stare at her, pale and haunted. “Ask something of me. Ask.”

Though his face was scarred and filthy, Shara felt she could see through to him, and she understood that in some twisted manner he was asking her to tell him to die, for her permission for his death, because he could no longer imagine doing anything else.

Shara looked back at the shrinking Dreyling cliffs. And she then did something she would never do now: she bared her heart, and told him the truth, and made a promise she did not know if she could keep. “I ask you, then,” she said slowly, “to know that this is not good-bye for you. One day I will help you come back to your home. I will help you put together what has been broken. I promise I will bring you back.”

He looked out at sea, his one eye shining. And then, to her complete shock, he knelt to the ground, gripped the railing, and burst into tears.

* * *

“You’re positive you won’t reconsider?” says a voice.

“I’m positive I haven’t been
allowed
to consider it,” Mulaghesh’s says voice back. “Your damn council didn’t even give me the chance.”

“They can’t even
vote
, though!” says the voice. “The assembly was incomplete! You only have to exert some influence, Turyin!”

“Oh, for the seas’ sakes,” mutters Mulaghesh, weary, intoxicated. “Have I not exerted enough tonight? I will do as I am told, thank you, and they told me very clearly to
fuck off
.”

Shara enters the kitchen to see Vohannes Votrov, now clad in his usual white fur coat, standing before Mulaghesh, who eyes him sourly over a brimming glass of whisky. Votrov’s cane beats an impatient
tap-tap
against the heel of his boot.

“I thought we were locking down the embassy and admitting no visitors,” says Shara. “
Especially
this one.”

Vohannes turns and grins at her. “So! Here is the triumphant warrior, fresh off of her conquest. What an epic night you’ve had!”

“Vo, I honestly do not have time for your
supposed
charms. How did you get in?”

“By liberally applying my supposed charms, of course,” says Vohannes. “Please, help me—we must convince Governor Mulaghesh here to
get up
. You’re all letting a phenomenal opportunity float by!”

“I will not,” says Mulaghesh, “lift my ass one inch off of this chair. Not tonight.”

“But the city’s in mad shambles!” says Vohannes. “One half can only get to the other by walking all the way around the walls! I
know
that Bulikov does not have the resources to begin to reconstruct the Solda Bridge with any speed.”

“Don’t you
own
most of the construction companies in the city?” asks Shara.

“Well, true. … But while my own companies
could
begin to make headway, it’d be nothing compared to the exertion of the polis governor’s office … or the regional governor’s office. …”

“And why would we want to do this?”

“Do you think you’d have nothing to gain,” asks Vohannes, “by rendering all of Bulikov dependent on your planners and developers?”

“And we’d have to work with all of
his
companies, too,” says Mulaghesh.

“Merely a pleasant bonus,” says Vohannes.

“Literally, a bonus,” says Mulaghesh.

“Dozens of people are dead tonight, Vo,” says Shara. “I know you have your mission, your agenda, but can’t you show some modicum of decency? Shouldn’t you be mourning for your people?”

Vohannes’s grin sours until it’s a vicious rictus. “I hate to be the one to tell you this,
Ambassador,
” he says acidly, “but this is far from the first disaster to befall Bulikov. What about when Oshkev Street, destabilized by a random cavity from the Blink, abruptly
collapsed,
bringing down two apartment buildings and a school with it? We wept and mourned then, but what good did that do us? What about when the Continental Gas Company fumblingly tried to install a line in the Solda Quarter and started a fire that couldn’t be put out for
six days
? We wept and mourned then, but what good did that do us?”

Shara glances at Mulaghesh, who reluctantly shrugs:
No, he’s not making this up.

“Disaster is our constant companion in Bulikov, Ambassador,” says Vohannes. “Grief and decency are mere decorations that hang upon the real problem: Bulikov desperately needs help and reconstruction.
Real
reconstruction, which we cannot do ourselves!”

“I’m sorry,” says Shara. “I should not have said that.” She sits—her legs sing out in praise—and rubs her eyes again. “But the bridge has just fallen,” she moans, “and already we must begin scheming again. … What is this about a council?”

“The City Fathers called an emergency meeting to discuss what to do,” says Vohannes. “After deciding basic search-and-rescue matters, I wanted them to ask Saypur for help in recovery. They eventually voted against me, though they offered no alternate plan. But the vote isn’t really legitimate, as Wiclov was nowhere to be found.”

Shara’s fingers drum against the tabletop. “Is that so?”

“Yes. Funny, isn’t it? No one’s seen him for nearly a week, not since he stood at the embassy gates and hurled invective at you, in fact.”

Though Sigrud saw him deliver Torskeny to the mhovost,
thinks Shara,
before disappearing down an alley. …
She thinks, then blearily looks at Mulaghesh for help.

“Please don’t make me stand up,” Mulaghesh begs.

“I won’t,” says Shara. “Not tonight. This … Vo, this
must
wait until the morning.”

“You must strike,” says Vohannes, “while the iron is hot!”

“I don’t decide public policy!”

“But you must have many friends in high places, don’t you?”

“Whose friendship is already tested, or
will
be, by what’s happened tonight.” She sighs. “Vo, you’ve no idea what’s happened in the past few hours. I say this in strictest confidence, but we have suffered
considerable
losses. And we are still nowhere on figuring out who our enemies are, or what they’re doing! This is not the time for huge plans. We will leave Bulikov to Bulikov, for tonight.”

“That policy,” says Vohannes, “is almost certainly what created the Restorationists in the first place, and it will be the father of every consequence after. This city pickles in its own jar. Every disaster is an opportunity, Shara! Make the most of this one.”

“I have suffered so many disasters tonight.” She laughs hollowly. “You don’t want me in your corner, Vo. By sunup, I might not have a career.”

“I very much doubt that.
Especially
since right now every man, woman, and child in Bulikov thinks you all to be glorious, glorious heroes.”

Mulaghesh and Shara are both nodding in their chairs, but they blink awake at this claim.

“Wh-
What
?” says Mulaghesh.

“What do you mean, what?” asks Vohannes.

“I mean … what did you just say?”

“Oh? Did you
really
not realize? That crowd out there …” He points north, toward the door. “Did you think they’re angry? Seeking to throw down the gates? No, they’re
amazed
! You all slaughtered a monster in front of a terrified city! It’s the … Well, it’s the stuff legends are made of.”

Shara says, “But it was a holy creature. … There used to be a temple to Urav in the city square! This country used to
worship
that thing!”

“The operative word being
used
to. That was over three hundred years ago! It was trying to
kill
us all!”

“But … But it was Sigrud who did almost all of it!”

He shrugs. “The credit spreads. The City Fathers were confounded about what to do. You may just be the first Saypuri to have ever won the commendation of Bulikov in the city’s history. And if you or anyone in Ghaladesh tried, Saypur could sail into this city, rebuild the bridge, and be considered a savior ever after!”

Shara and Mulaghesh both sit dumbfounded. Vohannes produces a cigarette from a tiny silver box and fits it into his holder. “But let’s just hope,” he says, “they don’t find out who you
really
are. Knowing your family history, it would create some nasty parallels, would it not?”

* * *

Shara drinks. It feels appropriate to do so: she is a soldier among soldiers, celebrating their survival when so many perished. The wine mixes with the fatigue, and Vohannes joins her and Mulaghesh, and the whole evening transmutes from one of frayed nerves and horrible trauma to one of their old school nights, sitting up in their common room with their classmates, sharing gossip and determinedly ignoring the mad world outside.