TWENTY-FOUR

The heat of the day hit them like a wave as the wagon rumbled out from beneath the fortress and into the blazing daylight beyond. Reddish stone and rock surrounded them as they climbed the widening roadway, the horse-team foaming and champing as they pulled. Then the slope eased and the mountain walls opened up, and Chel got his first sight of Arowan.

The city sat on a plateau, an odd, flat depression in the mountainous surroundings, stretching for several miles in each direction. As they rode the road’s bumps, Chel saw flashes of the gorge that split the plateau, a winding chasm as if the two sides had slowly been pulled apart over centuries. The walls of the city rose from the giant standing pillars of rock that remained in the gorge’s centre, a towering cascade of domes and towers, jumbled over the sheer drops into nothingness below. In the strong, persistent headwind, pennants lashed from spires jostling between the glimmering silken sails of countless windmills, their varied revolutions somehow lazy and frantic. Sunlight gleamed from tiled roofs, bright blues and reds over white and sandy stone, the dazzling ribs of a giant central dome too bright to regard.

‘To answer your earlier question, friend,’ Foss called over the wagon’s racket, ‘never.’

‘What?’

‘Arowan has never fallen. It’s supposedly God’s chosen city.’

‘Supposedly?’

He shifted as the wagon bounced. ‘There’s some, er, difference of opinion on the matter.’

‘On the choice of city?’

‘On the god.’

Two rows of riders fell in alongside the wagon, their strides in unison, silvered armour brilliant in the sunlight. Neither riders nor guards aboard the wagon gave any acknowledgement, all attention fixed dead ahead. Lemon cast an eye over the riders and gave a nod, their manner apparently meeting her approval.

‘Let’s hope we break our streak here, eh, boys?’

‘What do you mean, friend?’

‘Aye, well, just thinking how the last couple of places we’ve sojourned with a reputation for clement neutrality have come to a, you know, somewhat explosive denouement.’

‘Evil days, Lemon.’

‘Evil days, Fossy.’

The plateau unfolded before them, and with it, the camps: a spread of tents and semi-permanent dwellings, organized in rows and clusters with clear roads and pathways cut between. They carpeted the plateau from the drop of the peaks on either side, all the way to near the lip of the gorge. Chel counted standards and improvised pennants, the milling denizens matched by the determined progress of riders and carts along the thoroughfares.

‘What is all this? Army camp?’

Foss squinted through the glare. ‘Doubtful, friend. These are pilgrims and refugees.’

Chel thought of the squalor of the Shanties beyond Roniaman, the incinerated remains of the slums that had ringed Denirnas. ‘They’re very well organized.’

‘They got through the fortress. They must have had some coin to their names. Probably bought a better class of camp.’

‘But they’re not allowed inside the city?’

‘Guess space is limited to the citizenry, friend. Connections or coin only get you so far.’

Chel peered over the ordered rows, shimmering in the haze of the day’s heat. ‘At least they’re safe here.’

Foss nodded, but did not comment. The riders either side of them pulled in as another procession approached, a thundering column of burnished cavalry riding two-by-two, then a stream of half a dozen wagons, each loaded to the gills with guardsmen, their elevated spears waving as they trundled over the rocky road. Chel turned to watch as they passed, the jangle of mail and tack barely audible over the sound of hooves and steel-rimmed wheels. Foss followed his gaze, then made the sign of the crook.

‘What’s wrong, Foss?’

‘Something is occurring, back at the fortress. They closed the gate behind us. Those folks were in a hurry.’

Chel nodded, unsettled. At least they were safe behind the fortress. Assuming Tarfel could say the right things to those who ran the city, ensure they weren’t thrown straight out. He looked back, watched the column begin their descent down the slope toward the fortress, dropping out of sight beneath the tips of the still-visible tower-tops. Unusual flags decked the top-most tower, facing inwards, toward the city, huge and patterned, he guessed as signals. Of the three on view, red featured predominantly.

He turned back and caught a lungful of road-dust, displaced by the column’s passage, blown straight into his mouth by a capricious swirl of the ever-present wind. Spitting grit, he cursed the wind and all who sailed on her. ‘Is it always so fucking windy here?’

Foss shrugged, Lemon likewise. Kosh, beyond them, leaned over. ‘What do your own eyes tell you?’

‘My eyes are full of this piss-cursed dust.’

‘Look around. The open plain beyond, the narrow gully of these mountains, the shape of the plateau.’

Chel spat the last of the mouth-dirt over the wagon-side. ‘I’m no student of terrain.’

‘Evidently. Then look at the features of the city, the stupid little flags—’

‘They’re called pennants.’

‘—the wind-drivers. The fixed constructions. All clear indications of the prevalence of this “piss-cursed” gale. The land around funnels it, and its denizens harness it. Effective, if uninspired.’

‘It’s always windy here?’

‘Best learn to keep your mouth closed, perhaps.’

He offered Kosh a sour, close-mouthed smile, and sat back against the wagon-side. She hadn’t exactly been amiable company since the news of Denirnas’s destruction – her usual self, except more so, as Chel thought of her – he was sympathetic to her directionless, miserable anger. Sympathetic, but not impervious.

Their re-expanded cortege rode down into the plateau, rumbling over its undulating surface, weaving down the cleared roadways of the expansive camp. It was huge, a city before a city. It seemed to have districts, regions, lines of demarcation between arrivals of differing origins. He recognized standards of the south, the east, the wetlands, some from along the coast, the pennants brought north by the refugees as mementos of home.

A great congregation stood gathered at the edge of one of the camp divisions, spilling into the roadway. The lead riders bellowed for them to clear the way and they shuffled back beneath the spindly shade of a blackened, withered tree, set apart from the dwellings around it. Chel stared at the tree as they rolled past, the gathering beneath it, the expectant expressions, glassy-eyed with wonder, their arms painted like spreading roots. So the message of the Mother of Storms had made it to Serica ahead of him. Then they were gone, lost behind the skeleton of a half-built structure adjoining the road, bedecked by a team of southern craftsmen hammering away beneath the hot sun.

They were close to the city now, close enough to see the ring of small towers that marked the camp’s end and the clear scrub before the gorge’s cleft, close enough to slip between the long shadows of the tallest towers crowding over the walls above like eager children. One tower in particular stood out, a narrow, twisted construction of sand-coloured stone, its lines gently spiralled, garlanded with slow-turning wind-drivers like pale flowers, rising from the heart of the city into the pastel sky.

A giant bridge awaited them, wide enough for half a dozen wagons to travel abreast with room between for stretching. Hewn from curving blocks of the sand-coloured stone, it rose in a smooth arc over the sheer drop below, its surface worn by the passage of decades, if not centuries of traffic. At its end stood the boxy gatehouse, projecting from the sheer walls, its wide-open gates a flat, dark arch. Another, smaller gateway lay beside it, some way around the sweep of the walls. A stunted, orphaned thing, Chel traced its line back to the ruins of another bridge, now little more than broken spars and a severed stub of stone, jutting from the craggy edge of the gorge opposite.

The wind did not relent, carrying strong, exotic tangs from the waiting city: spice and saffron, woodsmoke and burning oil, cured meats and leather. White birds turned lazy circles overhead, riding the incessant gusts, occasionally swooping into the gorge or erupting from it like angels reborn.

Kosh watched the birds, her entire body juddering to the shakes of the wagon on the road. She gazed at them, jaw loose, her eyes as absent as the folk before the tree. Chel reached to prod her, to check she was well, then with a clatter of bumps the wagon mounted the long bridge, and Chel found himself staring past her into the depths of the gorge. At first he saw only darkness, a numb emptiness beside the glare of sun from pale stone, then he found he could pick out the curve of the vast rocky pillars through the blurred gaps in the bridge-side, the variegated strata of millennia stacked from lightless canyon floor to the creeping foundations of the city’s walls. Water flowed somewhere beneath, and fast; the spray from its emission drifted within the wind-sheltered gorge, sparkling like rainbows where it met the piercing shafts of light that angled within the clasp of the ravine. Chel squinted, seeing flashes of what could be waterfalls, or waterwheels, fixed against the rocky walls below, silver strips of water flushed over them and away by narrow aqueducts, into the shadow of the monstrous rock pillar on which the city sat. Could there be tunnels beneath? The angle of his view was poor, his window closing. Already they were nearly at the bridge’s end, and the city’s shadow had embraced them.

The riders drove them through several gatehouses and into the twining narrow streets of the city, cleared by the bellow of their approach. The city lived vertically, buildings stacked and nestled, ramps and curling stairs leading ever upward toward the sunlit upper reaches. Bridges and covered passageways passed overhead, strung between tilting structures, and everywhere hung bright and fluttering silk, stretches, tassels, and strips, pulled flat against the whistling wind. Chel gathered snatches of greater edifices rising between the narrow loom of the twisting streets, the glittering domes he’d seen from the plateau, the gnarled spire topped with swooping wind-sails. At the roadsides, beneath raised colonnades, citizens went about their business in the cool of the shade, long-robed and serious, unperturbed by the rumble of the wagon and its escort.

The spectacle of it all washed over Chel, his eyes unfocused, unable to choose any one thing to rest on amidst the flickering splashes of coloured silk and mind-muddling architecture. Around the wagon, all seemed similarly overwhelmed, all bar Loveless; she kept her gaze down, her hood still pulled low. Even Kosh seemed impressed with what she saw, although she was evidently trying not to show it.

They rolled past a tall, narrow building as they climbed, pressed against the roadside, its stone ancient and pitted compared with its creeping neighbours. Its windows to the street were as tall and narrow as the building itself, almost pointed slots in its facade, its doorway a dark arch to a candlelit interior. An inverted triangle of bronze marked the yellow stone above the door, greened and darkened by the years, but polished and free of tarnish. Foss stared at it as they passed, staring at the triangle, the walls and windows, what little of the re-tiled roof they could see from beneath. He sat back as they rounded the next curve and mounted a well-worn stone ramp, unconsciously making the sign of the crook with one hand.

‘You all right, Fossy?’ Lemon had one eye on him, the other on the dancing strings of hanging silks.

‘Hmm? Yes. Well.’

‘Aye, right. What is it?’

He rubbed one eye, clearing a patch of his gentle patina of road-dust. ‘That place back there.’

‘The little chapel?’

‘Yes. The little chapel.’

Chel leaned against the wagon-side, gripping with one hand to stop him sliding as they climbed. ‘Something wrong with it? Thought that was your sort of thing?’

He raised an eyebrow, but his heart wasn’t in it. ‘It was an old chapel. Very old.’

‘Seemed like they were taking care of it though, eh?’

‘Yes. Exactly.’ He sighed and rubbed at his eyes again. ‘There aren’t supposed to be any old chapels here.’

‘There aren’t?’

‘No. It’s … The teaching of the True Church, the reason for its foundation … This was the seat of the Church, the Old Church. But they abandoned it, turned their backs to God, spurned the Shepherd. They … According to the Articles … They tore down their chapels, desecrated them. The seat of the Church was lost, the city and its region were deemed Godless. The New Church arose from the ruins, a church for the people, the true believers, who would never again …’ He tailed off, looking miserable.

‘But if there’s an old chapel here …’ Chel said, eyes on Foss, waiting for him to complete the thought.

Lemon did it for him. ‘… Then the old foundation story ain’t quite so pure and virtuous, eh? Oh, chin up, Fossy, it’s not like the current bunch are a particularly fine exponent of the Shepherd’s ethics, is it?’

Kosh sniffed. ‘Your people’s need to invent mythical figures of worship appears to be some kind of tribal failing, and should long ago have been stamped out. The inbreeding of your continent presents many lingering issues.’

‘Hoy,’ Lemon said, ‘I’ll have you know—’

‘Yes, yes, “No Clyde is beholden to any God”, very bold. I’m sure you find other ways to be subverted by intercessors.’

‘What do you mean by that?’

‘In this uncultured south, you are a fearful, uneducated people, ripe for prescription. Tell the mud-dwellers that an invisible sky-demon wants their labour or land, or that perhaps a man with a golden crown has the backing of the so-called Almighty and must be obeyed, and they fall over themselves to do as they’re told. The ignorant masses just want to feel like they’re on the right side, after all.’

Foss was staring at her, nostrils flared. ‘You say too much, young lady.’

‘I say nothing less obvious than the nose on your face. Power structures that claim authority from things unseen are exploitative by definition, especially when such claims are enforced with fear of a conveniently unverifiable afterlife. Any student of history, anyone with half-a-day’s learning, will see this. Unless, of course, their position in said structure defines their worth.’

‘Meaning?’ Chel said.

‘Meaning that nobody wants to look too closely at the contents of the pie they are selling, and that, paradoxically, those with the power to change affairs have the least incentive to do so. It can require an outside influence to effect change, as we say in my country.’

‘No gods in your country, Nort?’

They turned toward the front of the wagon. Rennic was watching, eyes intent, ignoring the wagon’s rock. Chel had had no idea the big man had been listening.

Kosh made a moue. ‘The true spirits are those in material things, in the wood and the water. The spirit of the ore, ground and fired and rolled as steel, honed and hammered and pressed into service, respected, venerated. The partnership of craftsman and element.’

‘And who leads you?’

‘Leads? We lead ourselves, mercenary. Ours is a meritocracy, where those of ability and education may vie for local administration, and those of the greatest ability rise to serve at the level of canton, or even on the federated assembly.’

‘Administration? That open to anyone?’

‘Of course, anyone from the appropriate classes.’

‘The appropriate classes?’

‘It would not do to inflict the burdens of duty and administration on those ill-equipped to perform such functions. We have our own mud-farmers in our country, after all.’

‘But if they had ability, could one of your mud-farmers serve?’

‘Had I the wings of a bird, could I soar like an eagle?’

Rennic narrowed his eyes. ‘No gods or kings, yet still some rule.’

Kosh shrugged. ‘It is nature’s law.’

‘Shame nature isn’t around to corroborate. Still,’ the big man stretched his arms as the wagon’s climb levelled off and the vehicle began to slow, ‘you’ve got one thing right. If you want people to do what you want, make them afraid. Make them think they’re under attack.’

The wagon came to a halt on a wide, incongruous plaza, a network of fountains at its centre, fully a hundred feet above the gate through which they’d entered the city. Still towers and spires clustered around its circumference, including the great twisted spire Chel had seen from beyond the walls, but before them stood the great gilded dome Chel had seen from afar.

‘The House of the Keeper,’ Loveless said, motioning them to dismount. ‘Keep your fucking mouths shut in there, or so help me I will flay you all.’