City of Stairs (38 page)

What a wonderful thing it was,
Shara thinks,
to feel common.

Mulaghesh is snoring in her chair in the violet hours just before dawn. Vohannes has to help Shara up the stairs. She stops for breath beside the wide stairway windows. The stars rest on a blanket of soft purple clouds, supported by the walls and cityscape of Bulikov; it is scenic to the degree that it could be the work of a sentimental, tactless painter.

Vohannes slowly limps up behind her, suddenly quite frail.

“I’m …” Shara knows she is about to say something she shouldn’t, but she’s too inebriated to stop herself. “I’m sorry about your accident, Vo.”

“It’s the way things are,” he says softly. If he knows she knows how he really got hurt, he does not show it. “I only ask your help in changing them.”

When they finally make it to her room, she sits on her bed, holding her forehead. The room spins and sways like the deck of a ship.

“It’s been a while,” says Vohannes’s voice in the dark, “since I’ve been in a woman’s bedroom. …”

“You and Ivanya … ?”

He shakes his head. “It’s … not quite like that.”

She falls back onto the bed. Vohannes smirks, sits beside her, and leans back on one hand so he’s hovering just over her, the sides of their hips kissing.

Shara blinks, surprised. “I didn’t think,” she says, “that this was something you were interested in.”

“Well, it’s … not quite like
that
, either.”

She smiles a little sadly.
Poor Vo,
she thinks.
Always torn between two worlds …

“Don’t I disgust you?” she asks.

“Why would you think that?”

“I’m not doing anything you want. I’m not helping you, or Bulikov, or the Continent. I’m your enemy, your obstacle.”

“Your
policies
are my enemy.” He sighs. “One day I will change your mind. Maybe I will tonight.”

“Don’t be ridiculous. Do tycoons such as yourself often take advantage of drunken women?”

“Mm. Do you know,” says Vohannes, “that when I returned, there had been rumors that I’d found myself a Saypuri mistress? I was reviled, you know. And, I think, envied as well … But none of it meant anything to me.” His eyes are lacquered: could he be crying? “I was not drawn to you for some exotic fling—I was drawn to you because you were you.”

What right does he have,
thinks Shara,
to be so pretty?

“If you don’t want me here,” he says, “say ‘
no
,’ and I’ll leave.”

She thinks on it and sighs dramatically. “You always do cause such difficult conundrums. …”

He kisses her neck. His beard tickles the corner of her jaw.

“Hm,” she says. “Well … Well.” She reaches up, grabs the corner of the bedspread, and flips it back. “I suppose”—she suppresses a laugh as he kisses her collarbone—“you had better get in.”

“Who am I to deny an ambassador what she wants?” He shrugs off his white fur coat.

Was his council meeting so important,
Shara wonders,
that he had to change?

She must have said it aloud, because Vohannes looks back and says, “I didn’t change. I’ve been wearing this all night.”

Shara tries to hold onto a thought—
That’s not right—
but then he starts unbuttoning his shirt, and she begins to think about many different things at once.

* * *

“How would you like me to lie?”

“How would you
like
to?”

“Well, I mean … because of your hip …”

“Oh. Oh, yes … Right.”

“Here … Is here good?”

“There is good. There is very good. Mmm.”

This is a bad idea,
Shara thinks, but she tries to ignore it, and lose herself in this small joy. …

But she can’t. “Vo …”

“Yes?”

“Are … ? Are you enjoying yourself?”

“Yes.”

“Are you sure?”

“Yes.”

“I only ask because …”

“I know! I know … It’s … Too much wine …”

“Are you
sure
I’m not hurting you?”

“No! You’re fine! You’re absolutely … You’re fine.”

“Well … Maybe let me shift to … There. Is that better?”

“It is.” He sounds more determined than amorous. “This is …”

“Yes?”

“This …”

“… yes?

“This should not be so … so difficult. …”

“Vo … If you don’t
want
to …”

“I
do
want to!”

“I know, but … but you shouldn’t feel like you have to—”

“I’m just … I’m just …
Gods
.” He collapses next to her.

Seconds tick away in the dark room. She wonders if he’s asleep.

“I’m sorry,” he says softly.

“Don’t be.”

“I suppose I am not,” he whispers, “the man I was.”

“No one’s asking you to be.”

He breathes heavily for a moment; she suspects he is weeping. “ ‘The world is our crucible,’ ” he murmurs. “ ‘And with each burn, we are shaped.’ ”

Shara knows the line. “The Kolkashtava?”

He laughs bitterly. “Maybe Volka was right. Once a Kolkashtani …”

Then he is silent.

Shara wonders what kind of man thinks of his brother when naked in a woman’s bed. Then they both find troubled sleep.

* * *

Shara’s consciousness churns awake, kicking against the dark, oily waters of a hangover. The pillowcase against her face is sandpaper; her arms, exposed, are frigidly cold; while her feet, deep in the comforter, are sweltering.

A voice barks, “Get up. Get
up
.”

The pillow on her head rises up, and cruel daylight stabs in.

“Roll over,” says Mulaghesh’s voice, “and get
up
!”

Shara turns in the sheets. Mulaghesh is standing at her bed, holding up the morning paper like it’s the severed head of an enemy.

“What?” says Shara. “
What?
” She is, thankfully, still wearing her slip; Vohannes, however, is long gone. She wonders if he fled in shame, and feels hurt that he might think so poorly of her.

“Read this,” says Mulaghesh. She points to a blurry article.

“You want me to wh—”

“Read! Just read.”

Shara digs in the pillows for her glasses. Shoving them on her nose, she encounters her own face, rendered in black and white on the front page of the newspaper. The picture shows her standing by the Solda: behind her is the dead form of Urav, and at her feet, covered in blood, is Sigrud, whose face is hidden by a veil of oily hair. It is, she thinks, the best photo of her she has ever seen in her life: she is caught in regal profile, the wind catching her hair
just
so, making it a soft river of ebony trailing out from behind her head.

Her bemusement is dashed when she reads the article below:

BULIKOV SAVED!

The central quarters of Bulikov were terrorized last night by a sudden, inexplicable, and horrifying attack from the Solda River. It has been confirmed that an enormous creature of an aquatic nature (the nature of the creature obligates this paper to refer to it only as “the creature,” for to be any more precise could incur legal consequences) swam upstream against the Solda, broke through the ice, and began pulling passersby off of the celebrated river walks and into the freezing water.

The size and mass of this creature was so great that it managed to level several riverside buildings before any municipal forces were able to react. A stunning twenty-seven citizens lost their lives, and as of 4:00 a.m. this morning, more reports are still coming in. Few bodies have been recovered.

The Bulikov Police Department quickly mounted an attack to capture or kill the creature, but this provoked it into damaging the Solda Bridge to the point that it collapsed, killing six officers and injuring nine more, including the celebrated officer Captain Miklav Nesrhev. As of this morning, Captain Nesrhev is now stable and recovering at the House of Seven Sisters infirmary.

The resolution of this threat may be the most amazing element, as the creature was finally felled by a highly unlikely hero, for Bulikov: it has been revealed that the recent appointment to the Saypuri Embassy, Ashara Thivani, is in truth Ashara Komayd, niece of the Saypuri Minister of Foreign Affairs Vinya Komayd, and great-granddaughter of the controversial general Avshakta si Komayd, the infamous last Kaj of Saypur. Sources confirm that it was through her efforts and planning that the creature was successfully stopped, and killed.

“The ambassador and her associates identified the nature of the creature, and prescribed a method for containing and killing it,” said a source in the city government, who preferred to go unnamed. “Without her help, dozens if not hundreds more of Bulikov’s citizens would have been lost.”

Several police officers have also commended the ambassador’s behavior during the attack: “We were trying to evacuate the embassy, but she insisted on coming to help,” said Viktor Povroy, a sergeant in the Bulikov Police Department. “She and her colleagues set to it right away. I’ve never seen a more audacious plan put together so quickly.”

The ambassador and the polis governor of Bulikov, Turyin Mulaghesh, are also credited with saving Captain Nesrhev’s life. “Without them,” testified Povroy, “he would have drowned or froze to death.”

However, many questions remain: why did the ambassador hide her identity? Why was she so singularly adept at combating such a creature? And what does it mean for Bulikov, to have a member of the Komayd family in a position of power in the city once again?

As of the time of this paper’s publication, the embassy has yet to make an official comment.

Shara stares at the paper, feverishly hoping that the words will dance and rearrange themselves until it tells another story entirely.

“Oh, no,” she whispers.

To have one’s cover blown … To be known to an enemy, to have a dossier on you compiled in some distant and lethal department,
that
is one thing: all operatives are prepared for
that
.

But to have your name and story splashed across the newspaper, to be known not in the secret annals of government but in the front rooms and dining rooms and public houses across the world …
That
is horror beyond horror.

“No,” says Shara again. “No. That … That can’t be.”

“Yeah,” says Mulaghesh.

“And this is the … the …”

“
The
Continental Herald
.”

“So it doesn’t just go to Bulikov, but …”

“To the entire Continent,” says Mulaghesh. “Yeah.”

The reality of it all comes crashing down on her. “Ohh … Oh no, oh no, oh
no
!”

“Who all knew who you are?” asks Mulaghesh.

“You,” says Shara. “Sigrud, Vo … A few employees here suspect I’m more than I say I am, but there’s a leap between that and being …”

“Being the great-granddaughter of the Kaj,” says Mulaghesh. “Yeah. No shit. I know
I
didn’t say anything. I never talk to the press.”

“And Sigrud wouldn’t,” says Shara. “So …”

She parses down the ideas, the possibilities.

Vinya, maybe? Shara is no longer sure what to think of her aunt; she feels almost certain Vinya has been compromised somehow, but for Vinya, it seems overwhelmingly likely that her compromise would be
political
, ceding power only for the opportunity to gain more.
And this would be very, very damaging, politically.

She keeps boiling down her options, down and down, hoping to avoid what she increasingly feels is an inevitable conclusion.

“It could only be Vohannes,” she says finally.

“Okay, but …
why
?”

Would this be some petty revenge over last night? she wonders. It seems unlikely. Or could he be punishing her for her refusal to intervene in Bulikov? Or … “Could … Could he be trying to use me to get the attention of Ghaladesh?” she asks aloud.

“How would blowing your cover possibly do that?” asks Mulaghesh.

“Well … It makes for a great story, doesn’t it? The great-granddaughter of the Kaj, swooping in and saving Bulikov. It gets people talking. … And talk is as good as action in the geopolitical realm. It would focus the world’s attentions all on Bulikov—and then he could make his pitch. I mean, you’ve met him. All Vo ever needs is a spotlight.”

“Yeah, but … but that has
got
to be,” says Mulaghesh, “the stupidest possible way to spur Ghaladesh into doing anything! Right?”

Shara doesn’t entirely disagree, but she doesn’t entirely agree, either. And she remembers what Vo mumbled last night:
Once a Kolkashtani …

She can’t help but feel that she’s missing something. But whatever the cause, she knows she cannot trust Vo any longer, and she thinks it was foolish to have done so in the first place: to collaborate with such a passionate, broken, divided creature was always a poor decision.

From nearby, there’s the sound of a throat being cleared.

Mulaghesh looks to the window, and asks, “What was that?”

But Shara knows that sound quite well, having heard it throughout her childhood: two parts impatience, one part condescension. …

“Nothing outside,” Mulaghesh says, peeking through the draped window, “except for the crowd, of course. I didn’t imagine that sound, did I?”

Shara glances at the shuttered window next to her desk. The bottom left pane is shimmering strangely, and the reflection in the glass is slightly warped.

“Governor,” Shara says, “could you please … excuse me for a moment?”

“Are you going to be sick?”

“Possibly. I just need to … to gather myself.”

“I’ll be downstairs,” Mulaghesh says, “but I won’t have long to wait around. There’s so much to clean up, I’ll have to return to my quarters very shortly.”

“I understand.”

The office door clicks closed. Shara arrives at the window just as her aunt’s face appears.

* * *

“I believe … that I am almost as much to blame as you,” says Vinya.

Shara says nothing. She does not move. She does not speak. She only watches. Vinya, for her part, is just as reserved and removed as Shara. The two look at one another through the glass with expressions slightly suspicious, slightly hurt, and slightly aggrieved all at once.