City of Stairs (46 page)

… or disappear.

“Parnesi’s Cupboard,” she says quietly.

“What?” whispers Vohannes.

“Parnesi’s Cupboard—it’s what your brother used to kidnap me. It puts people into an invisible pocket of air—one that can’t be seen through by either mortal
or
Divinity.”
Because it was made by Jukov,
she remembers,
so one of his priests could sneak into Kolkan’s nunnery. So it would work excellently here.

“So even if Kolkan himself shows up …”

“We’d be hidden. We’d be safe.”

“Great! Well … Why don’t you use one of those, then?”

“Because my hands are bound,” whispers Shara. “There’s a line from the Jukoshtava I have to say,
and
a gesture I have to make.”

“Shit,” says Vohannes. He looks up at the Restorationists. “Here. Here, let’s see if we can shift around. …”

Slowly, they rotate so they’re facing away from one another. With their hands tied behind one another’s backs, Vohannes begins to clumsily fumble at her bonds.

“Good luck,” mutters Shara. “But I think they actually knew what they were doing when they tied these.”

One of the Restorationists laughs. “My, what an excellent deception! Untie your hands if you want, you depraved little pervert. The only person getting you out of that Bell is Father Kolkan himself.”

“And when he does,” says another, “you’ll wish you’d suffocated to death in there.”

Another: “Is that the first time you’ve ever touched a woman, Votrov? I would imagine so. …”

Vohannes ignores them and whispers, “Do you really think my brother can bring back Kolkan?”

Shara glances at the clear glass pane in Kolkan’s atrium. “Well. I will say that I now think
some
Divinity is in there.”

“But … not Kolkan?”

“I actually conversed with the Divinity, I think,” says Shara. “On the night they attacked your house. I saw many scenes from many different Divine texts. … But none of them were coherent. Moreover, I have seen that many of
Jukov’s
miracles still work—Parnesi’s Cupboard being one of them—so I am no longer quite sure that Jukov is truly gone, either.”

Vohannes grunts as he plucks at a knot, which refuses to budge. “So what you’re saying is … you don’t know.”

“Correct.”

“Great.”

He keeps tugging at her ropes. With some morbid amusement, Shara realizes this is the most intimate contact they’ve had since the night after Urav.

“I’m glad I’m here with you,” says Vohannes. “Here at the end of all this.”

“When we’re free, stay close,” says Shara. “Parnesi’s Cupboard is not large.”

“All right, but I want you to listen. … I’m
glad
, Shara. Do you understand?”

Shara is silent. Then she says, “You shouldn’t be.”

“Why?”

“Because when my cover was blown … I thought it was you who did it.”

He stops trying to untie her. “
Me?
”

“Yes. You … You suddenly got everything you wanted, Vo. Everything. And you were the only other one who knew who I was. And we thought we saw you at the loomworks, but it wasn’t really you. It had to be—”

“Volka.” She cannot see him, but Vohannes is quite still. “But … Shara, I would … I would
never
do that to you. Never. I
couldn’t
.”

“I know! I know that now, Vo. But I, I thought you were sick! I thought something was wrong with you. You seemed so unhappy, so miserable. …”

She can feel Vohannes looking around. “Maybe you weren’t wrong there,” he says softly. “Perhaps there
is
something wrong with me. But maybe I could have
never
been right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean … I mean, look at these people, these people I grew up with!” The Restorationists have gathered in Kolkan’s atrium, and they kneel on the floor to begin a prayer. “Look at them! They’re praying to pain, to punishment! They think that hate is holy, that every part of being human is
wrong
. So of
course
I grew up wrong! No human could grow up right in such a place!”

Somewhere, far in the distance, Shara hears a bell toll.

“What was that?” asks Vo.

“We need to hurry,” says Shara. Somewhere, softly, another bell tolls.

“Why?”

Another bell tolls. And another. And another. They all have different tones, as if some are very large and others are very small, but more than that, each bell has a resonance that seems like it can only be perceived by different parts of the
mind
, pouring in alien experiences: when one bell tolls, she imagines she sees hot, murky swamps, tangles of vines, and clutches of flowering orchids; when another bell tolls, she smells flaming pitch, and sawdust, and mortar; when the next bell tolls, she can hear the crash of metal, the screaming of crows, the howls of warfare; with the next, she tastes wine, raw meat, sugar, blood, and what she suspects to be semen; on the next, she hears the crushing grind of huge stones being pushed against one another, terrible weight bearing down upon her; and then, when the final bell joins the tolling, she feels a wintry chill in her arms and a flickering fire in her feet and heart.

One bell for each Divinity,
thinks Shara.
I don’t know how he did it, or even
what
he’s doing, but Volka’s found a way to ring all the bells of the Seat of the World.

“What’s going on, Shara?” asks Vohannes.

“Look at the window,” says Shara, “and you’ll see.”

With each pulse, a faint light appears in the window. Not a holy light: sunlight. Golden sunlight, as if the sun is so bright it is penetrating all the layers of earth to shine into this dark, dreary place.

The sun isn’t shining through the earth,
she thinks.
We’re rising up.

“He’s moving it,” she says. “He’s raising it. He’s raising the Seat of the World.”

* * *

Mulaghesh’s soldiers are doing a halfhearted job of fortifying the embassy courtyard when the light begins to change.

Mulaghesh herself is monitoring their work from the embassy gates: the embassy walls are tall and white with iron railing at the top, and while they’re quite pretty they’re well short of military defenses. The embassy is also very exposed, sitting on an intersection between two major roads: one road runs along the walls, and the other runs all the way through Bulikov and straight up to the embassy gates. Mulaghesh can peer through the bars of the gates and see clear to downtown Bulikov.
If Shara’s right about those six-inch cannons,
she thinks,
there are about a million angles those things could take to wipe us out.

Despite this exposed position, Mulaghesh has not prodded her soldiers along much, mostly because she privately hopes Shara is terribly, terribly wrong. But when she begins to hear the bells in the distance, and the shadows of the iron railing begin to dance on the courtyard stone, her mouth falls open enough for her cigarillo to come tumbling out.

She turns around. The sun itself is moving: though it is rendered somewhat hazy and strange by the walls of Bulikov, it is like a drop of liquid gold, and it streaks from where it sat just above the horizon and twirls and dances to the left, twisting through the sky and growing slightly larger until it’s on the other horizon, just starting to set.

Mulaghesh wonders:
Is a whole day being lost before our eyes?

The cacophony of the bells beats on her senses, as if with each toll they are breaking down invisible structures and rebuilding them.

Then yellow-orange sunlight pulses over the rooftops of Bulikov. One sunbeam lances down as if shot through a veil of clouds—yet there are no clouds that she can see—and glances off the bell tower in the center of the city, which glows brightly.

Mulaghesh and her soldiers are forced to look away; when they look back, they see the sunlight—the
setting
sunlight—glints off of a huge polished roof. Mulaghesh has to shade her eyes to keep from being blinded.

A mammoth, ornate, cream white cathedral sits in the center of Bulikov, with its bell tower almost half a mile tall.

“What is that?” says one of her lieutenants. “Where did that come from?”

Mulaghesh sighs.
How I hate it,
she thinks,
when the alarmists are proven right.

“All right!” she bellows. “Kindly take your eyes
off
the skyline and get your asses back to work! Start installing fortifications and gun batteries behind the embassy walls, and make it quick!”

“
Gun
batteries?” says one of her corporals. A girl barely in her twenties, she wipes her brow, nervous. “Governor, are you sure?”

“I absolutely am. So get a move on, and if you need the toe of my boot to speed you on your way, then I will be only too happy to apply it to your dainty backsides! What are you all staring at me for?
Fucking move!
”

I am lost among the seas of fate and time

But at least I have love.

—message scrawled on the common room wall of Fadhuri Academy

V
olka descends the stairs in the Seat of the World with a decidedly beatific, satisfied air. “I have done good works,” he says aloud. “And I think Father Kolkan shall be pleased.”

Vohannes can’t help but scoff in disgust.

“And now”—Volka takes the final step off of the stairs—“to bring him home.” He looks sideways at where Vohannes and Shara are trapped. “Maybe after this, we shall embrace as true brothers. Perhaps he will cleanse you. Perhaps he will show mercy.”

“If he made you in his image, Volka,” says Vohannes, “then I very much fucking doubt it.”

Volka sniffs and walks to Kolkan’s atrium. The Restorationists are arranged before the clear glass pane, a kneeling congregation awaiting their prophet. Volka calmly drifts through their ranks—Shara is reminded of a debutante at a ball—and stops before one man in particular.

Shara’s bonds are growing looser. “Keep trying,” she says desperately. “Please, Vo.”

Vohannes grunts, pulls harder.

“The hammer,” Volka says softly.

The man produces a long, silver hammer. Volka takes it delicately, then walks to the ladder and slowly climbs up to the glass.

Shara almost has her thumb through one loop of rope, but this has pulled another cord tight around her wrist.

Volka holds the silver hammer to his lips and whispers to it, chanting something.

I don’t want to see him,
thinks Shara.
I can’t. Anyone but him, anyone but Kolkan. …

She twists at the ropes. Something hot drips into her palm. She feels one cord slip over her pinky knuckle, then her thumb.

The silver hammer quivers, its edges blurring as if the metal itself trembles, filled with an energy it can barely contain.

Vohannes grabs hold of the ropes; Shara lunges forward, hoping they’ll break, but they hold fast.

Volka holds the hammer high. The yellow-orange sunlight blazes off of the hammer’s head.

The dribbling heat in Shara’s palm is now a trickle, thick and wet.

Someone do something,
thinks Shara.

Volka cries out and swings the hammer forward.

With a tinny
snap,
the glass shatters.

Golden sunlight pours through, illuminating the white stone of the temple floor until it flares bright. It is a sun, a star, a blaze of light that is pure, terrible, heatless.

Both Vohannes and Shara cry out, blinded. The burst of light is so shocking that they twist away and fall over. Something grinds uncomfortably in Shara’s wrist: a bad sprain, perhaps

Then silence. Shara waits, then looks up.

The men in Kolkashtani wraps are staring at something before them.

There is a figure standing in front of the broken window, sunlight falling on its shoulders.

It is man-like, but it is very tall: nine feet tall at least. He—if it really is a he—is draped in thick gray robes from head to toe, concealing his face, his hands, his feet; yet his head slowly turns from side to side with a puzzled air, taking in his environs and the kneeling men before him as if awoken from a very peculiar dream.

“No,” whispers Shara.

“He lives,” says Volka. “He
lives
!”

The robed figure turns its head to look at him.

“Father Kolkan!” cries Volka. “Father Kolkan, you are brought back to us! We are saved! We are saved!”

* * *

Volka scurries down the ladder and joins the men before Kolkan, who still has hardly moved. Volka drops to his knees and falls to his face, hands splayed at the toes of the Divinity.

“Father Kolkan,” Volka says, “are you all right?”

Kolkan is silent. One would mistake him for a statue, if the breeze did not rustle his robes so.

“You have been away for many, many years,” says Volka. “I wish I could tell you that all the world is right and good upon your waking. But in your absence, all has gone awry: our colonies have rebelled, they have
murdered
your brothers and sisters, and they have enslaved us all!”

The men around him all nod and peek up at Kolkan, expecting him to react with shock: but Kolkan is still and silent under his gray robes.

“Vo,” whispers Shara.

“Yes?”

“Do what I do,” she whispers. She rolls over onto her face, kneels, and bows forward until her forehead kisses the floor.

“What are you—?”

“Penitence,” Shara says quietly. “Kolkan will always recognize penitence.”

“What?”

“Prostrate yourself before him! And do
nothing else!
Anything else will be considered an offense!”

Reluctantly, Vohannes rolls over and bows as well.

And if Kolkan doesn’t pay much attention,
thinks Shara,
maybe I can finish what Vo started on my knot.

“Voortya was killed in the colonies,” says Volka. “Taalhavras and Ahanas were slain when the colonials invaded. And Jukov, cowardly Jukov, surrendered to them, and was executed! The colonials rule over us as if we are dogs, and they have outlawed our love for you, Father Kolkan. We are not allowed to worship you as we wish, to hold you in our hearts. But we have waited for you, Father Kolkan! My followers and I have kept the faith, and worked to bring you back! We even rebuilt your atrium in the Seat of the World for you! I labored to carry the stones from Kovashta itself back to this place, so when you returned you would be met by signs of praise and worship! And we have captured the most heretical betrayer of your ways,
and
the child of the very man who overthrew our Holy Lands!” Volka points backward at Shara and Vohannes and does a brief double take when he sees them bowed forward in penitence. “Wise cowards, they throw themselves on your mercy. But so do we all! We all throw ourselves upon your mercy, Father Kolkan! We are your devoted servants! We have created an army of the sky to war for you, but we fear this will not be enough! We beg of you, please, help us throw off our shackles, rise up, and bring righteousness and glory back to the world!”

The Seat of the World is silent. Shara tilts her head up slightly to see and begins to quietly work one hand out of her ropes.

Kolkan’s head turns back and forth as he surveys his tiny, black-clad flock.

He shifts from one foot to the other and examines the rest of the Seat of the World.

A voice is then heard somewhere in the temple; not heard with Shara’s ears, but somewhere in her mind—a muffled voice that could be the sound of rocks being crushed together, though there is a single word in it:

“WHERE?”

Volka hesitates and lifts his head. “Wh-where what, my Father Kolkan?”

Kolkan continues staring around the Seat of the World. The voice sounds again:
“WHERE IS THE FLAME AND THE SPARROW?”

Volka blinks and glances back at his lieutenants, who are just as dumbfounded as he is. “I … I am not sure what you mean, Father Kolkan.”

“WHEN I AM MET,”
says the voice,
“I AM TO BE MET WITH THE FLAME AND THE SPARROW.”

A long pause.

“WHY DO YOU NOT BEAR THEM?”

“I … had never heard of this ritual, Father Kolkan,” says Volka. He rises to a kneel, like the rest of his followers. “I read so much about you, but … but you have been gone from this world for many hundreds of years. This must have been a rite that I missed.”

“DO YOU,”
asks the voice,
“INSULT ME?”

“No! No, no! No, Father Kolkan, we would never do such a thing!” Volka’s followers fervently shake their heads.

“THEN WHY DO YOU NOT BEAR THEM?”

“I just … I didn’t know, Father Kolkan. I am not even sure what they—”

“IGNORANCE,”
says the voice,
“IS NO EXCUSE.”

Kolkan steps forward and looks at his flock. His head tilts back and forth, as if seeing many things in them.

“YOU ARE UNWORTHY.”

Volka is mute with shock.

The voice says,
“YOU HAVE BATHED FRUITS IN THE WATERS OF THE OCEAN. YOU HAVE MIXED LINENS AND COTTONS WITH YOUR GARMENTS. YOU HAVE CREATED GLASS WITH MANY FLAWS. YOU HAVE TASTED THE FLESH OF SONGBIRDS. I SEE THESE WRONGS IN YOU. YOU ARE UNREPENTANT OF THEM. AND NOW, AS I EMERGE, YOU DO NOT MEET ME WITH THE FLAME AND THE SPARROW.”

Volka and his followers glance among themselves, wondering what to do. “F-Father Kolkan, please,” murmurs Volka. “Please … forgive us. We followed all your edicts that we could find, that we
knew
. But we freed you, Father Kolkan! Please forgive u—”

Kolkan points at him. Volka halts as if frozen.

“FORGIVENESS,”
says Kolkan’s voice,
“IS FOR THE WORTHY.”

Kolkan looks at Volka’s followers.
“YOU ARE AS THE DUST AND THE STONE AND THE MUD.”

From what Shara can see, there is no change, no flash of light; but in one instant, they are men, and in the next, they are statues of dark stone.

Volka stands before Kolkan, still frozen, but alive: Shara can see his eyes turning in his sockets.

“AND YOU … ,”
says Kolkan’s voice.
“YOU THINK YOU ARE NOT AS THE DUST AND THE STONE AND THE MUD. YOU WILL BE REMINDED OF WHAT YOU ARE.”

Whatever hold Kolkan had on him is apparently lifted, and Volka falls to the ground, gasping. “I … I will,” he says. “I will, Father Kolkan. I will remem—” He gags, lurches forward, and shrieks with pain. “Ah! Ah, my stomach, it—” Shara can see his belly bulging, swelling, as if pregnant. Horrified, she turns her head back to face the ground.

Volka’s shrieks build and build until finally they are a gurgle. She hears him fall to the ground. There is a
pop!
as the Butterfly’s Bell around them vanishes, and Volka is silent, though she can hear him struggling.

“YOU WILL KNOW PAIN.”

There is a sound like heavy cloth being torn. Helpless to stop herself, Shara glances up. Black round stones—hundreds of them—come spilling out of Volka’s open stomach, glistening in a wash of blood, the pile growing and growing even as Shara watches.

She gags. Kolkan looks up slightly, and she turns back to face the ground.

“HM,”
says Kolkan’s voice.

She and Vohannes are silent. She can hear Vohannes’s trembling breath beside her.

“THIS IS A SIGHT I KNOW WELL,”
says his voice.
“AND A SIGHT I WELCOME. TIME MAY HAVE PASSED, BUT THOSE OF FLESH STILL REQUIRE JUDGMENT.”

Shara feels her limbs stiffen. She wonders if Kolkan is turning them to stone, but apparently not: she is paralyzed, just as Volka was.

There is a
crack,
and Vohannes begins to slide toward Kolkan, as though the stone floor of the temple is a conveyor belt. Out of the side of her eye Shara can see Vohannes look back at her, terrified, shocked.
Don’t leave me!
he seems to say.
Don’t!

“COME BEFORE ME,”
says Kolkan’s voice.
“AND PLEAD YOUR CASE.”

Shara cannot see, but she hears Vohannes’s voice: “M-my case?”

“YES. YOU HAVE ASSUMED THE POSE OF THE SHAMEFUL AND THE PENITENT. PLEAD YOUR CASE, AND I WILL CONSIDER MY JUDGMENT.”

It’s like his judgments before he pronounced his edicts,
thinks Shara.
But Vo doesn’t know what the hell he’s doing.

A long silence. Then Vohannes says, “I—I am … I am not an old man, Father Kolkan, but I have seen much life. I have … I have lost my family. I have lost my friends. I have lost my home, in many ways. But … but I will not
distract
you with these tales.”

Vohannes nearly shouts the word “distract.” If she had the mind for it, Shara would roll her eyes.
Not a particularly subtle message, Vo. …

“I am penitent, Father Kolkan,” says Vohannes. His voice grows stronger. “I
am
. I am sorrowful. I am ashamed. Namely, I am ashamed that I was
asked
to be ashamed, that it was
expected
of me.” He swallows. “And I am ashamed that, to a certain extent, I did as they asked. I did and, and I
do
hate myself. I hated myself because I didn’t know another way to live.

“I am sorrowful. I am sorrowful that I happened to be born into a world where being disgusted with yourself was what you were supposed to be. I am sorrowful that my fellow countrymen feel that being human is something to repress, something ugly, something nasty. It’s … It’s just a fucking shame. It really is.”

If Shara could move, her mouth would drop open in shock.

“I am penitent,” says Vohannes. “I am penitent for all the relationships this shame has ruined. I am penitent that I’ve allowed my shame and unhappiness to spread to others. I’ve fucked men and I’ve fucked women, Father Kolkan. I have sucked numerous pricks, and I have had my prick sucked by numerous people. I have fucked and been fucked. And it was lovely, really lovely. I had an excellent time doing it, and I would gladly do it again. I really would.” He laughs. “I have been lucky enough to find and meet and come to hold beautiful people in my arms—honestly, some beautiful, lovely, brilliant people—and I am filled with regret that my awful self-hate drove them away.