City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1)

by Robert Jackson Bennett

She has no doubt that stuffed in some drawer in his office in the university are hundreds of charcoal sketches of the university cornices, gates, and, almost certainly, dozens and dozens of doorknobs, for Efrem was always fascinated by what people did with their hands: It is how people interact with the world, he told her once. The soul might be within the eyes, but the subconscious, the matter of their behavior, that is in the hands. Watch a man’s hands, and you watch his heart.

Sigrud makes a face like a child who has just been given onerous chores. He walks to the man with the knife in his neck, pulls it out, and stalks out of the room. Vohannes stares around his ruined ballroom. “This?” he says. “This is what your man does best?” Shara approaches the masked man struggling to lift the chandelier and begins to disarm him. “We all have our talents.”

“It is freezing outside. I can see men hacking holes in the ice to fish from here.” “That is the water’s affair,” he says. “The temperature of the wind, that is the wind’s affair. The temperature of my feet, my hands … that is my affair.”

“I am afraid you are mistaken,” says the robed man. “We do not claim that name.” “No, you wouldn’t,” says Shara. “You reject names, don’t you?” “There is nothing to reject. Names are other people’s affairs. They are things to help people identify the things that they themselves are not.”

He’d wanted her to scream back at him. She could tell. But she would not give him that. This was not a fight. She was not complicit in what he’d done. She could not imagine a purer betrayal.

“Sigrud,” she says. “Give me your flask.” Sigrud lifts his head and frowns. “I know you have one. I don’t care about that. Just give it to me. And a knife.” Sparks as Mulaghesh taps her cigarillo against the wall. “I don’t think I like where this is going.” Sigrud clambers to his feet, rustles in his coat—there is the tinkling of metal: unpleasant instruments, surely—and produces a flask of dark brown glass. “What is it?” asks Shara. “They said it was plum wine,” he says. “But from the fumes … I think the salesman, he might not have been so honest.” “And … have you tried it?” “Yes. And I have not gone blind. So.” He holds out a small blade.

The tea trade has rocketed on the Continent in the past decades: what was previously considered a distasteful Saypuri eccentricity has become much more appealing as the climate on the Continent grows colder and colder with each year. And there is the additional factor that Magya has discovered a mostly forgotten old bit of folk herbalism: teas brewed with a handful of poppy fruit tend to feel so much more … relaxing than other types of tea. And after implementing this secret recipe, Magya’s trade has quintupled.

“Yes,” says Nesrhev. “We didn’t see it. We were alerted too late. It’s a miracle”—he checks himself, but Shara waves him on—“it’s a good thing it hasn’t attacked the bridge, whatever it is.

“So do you know what in all the hells this could be?” asks Nesrhev. Shara watches as part of the ruined buildings tumbles off and drops into the river with a plook. “I have some ideas,” she says. “But … Well. I will just say that I suspect this thing is in violation of the WR.” For the first time, the veteran Nesrhev looks shocked. “You’re saying this thing is Divine?” “Perhaps. Not everything Divine was good or godly,” says Shara. “So what are you going to do?” asks one of Nesrhev’s lieutenants. “Give it a fine?”

“You are genuinely suggesting that you, by yourself, can kill a Divine horror like that?” asks Mulaghesh. Sigrud contemplates it; then he nods. “Yes. The circumstances are favorable. The river is not big.” “The Solda,” says Nesrhev, “is almost a mile wide!” “But it is not the sea,” says Sigrud. “Not the ocean. Which I am used to. And with the ice …” He shrugs. “It is quite very possible.” “It’s killed almost thirty people tonight, sir,” says Nesrhev. “It would be an easy thing for it to kill you.” “Perhaps. But. If so …” Again, Sigrud shrugs. “Then I would die.”

He shrugs. “As I told you,” he says, “it is a thing of the water. Things of the water, they are all alike, deep down. No matter who made them or where they came from.” “But are you so terribly sure of yourself that you’re really willing to try this alone?” “The more you are at sea,” Sigrud explains, “the more you learn. And the more you learn, the more help and assistance is a troublesome bother.”

The doctor, grumbling, bows, and Shara leads him outside. A crowd is milling in front of the embassy gates, having followed them here from the river. “If you could,” says Shara, “we would appreciate your discretion. If you could avoid discussing any details of what you saw here …” “It would be against my profession,” says the doctor, “and more so this examination was conducted so poorly that I would prefer no one ever know about it.”

“So, whatever is happening in this alley, it happens to specific items with specific markings. A reaction—like a chemical. It waits for the right thing. It’s not looking for an incantation, or some gesture, it’s looking for … I don’t know. For things to look right.” “Like a guard,” says Sigrud. “Like what?” “Like a guard, watching the gate of a fortress. Do you have your badge? Are your colors right? Do you carry the right flag? If not, you don’t get through.”

“Now let me remind you of our current predicament!” says Mulaghesh. “We face ridiculous odds, yes! Absurd odds! But we are trained soldiers! And we have on our side the great-granddaughter of the Kaj, who just a month ago brought down a Divine horror that was ravaging this very city! You wish to relive history? Are your standards so low? You will make it this day! You are heroes that will be sung about for centuries to come! You are legends! And you will be victorious!” To Shara’s utter surprise, a bloodthirsty cheer rises up among the soldiers. They begin to chant: Komayd! Komayd! Komayd! Shara turns a furious beet red and mutters, “Ohmygoodness.”