XVII
The Inner Elements
are Exposed

Mekvat shielded his eyes against the midday sun. Winter had lingered, but now it was unseasonably warm.

It is an honor to be here but one I would gladly forego! What am I doing? I’m no warrior. No politician, either. 

The city had been terrorized for weeks. A handful of survivors from Kusumnu arrived first, distraught, deranged, and behind them, waves of people from the settlements and villages along the road, fleeing the advancing invasion.

Remnants of the defense forces they sent to Kusumnu returned, broken, defeated, telling wild stories of leaping warriors clothed in leaves and wielding weapons that didn’t bend or break. Monsters. Heavy beasts with horns and teeth. Huge walking birds that could kick out eyes and shear bodies in a single bite. Warriors who ate the dead. Finally came this group of foreigners, seeking a parlay.

Mekvat hobbled out to meet the invaders, along with representatives from each district of the city and several military commanders.

We share the distinction of being both eminent and disposable. Pabirak will be done with me one way or another.

The invaders lounged in the shade between their main encampment and the city, near Tortoise Hill. Their leader was too young. No gray hair. Thin and muscular, he appeared without armor, taunting them with his bare, unguarded torso.

He is without fear, or so he wants us to think.

The leader spoke through a translator. “I see farmers and old women. Is there no king in Nepsilam?”

As the eldest member of the delegation, Mekvat spoke first. “This is Kindhir’s land and Shenefret is his heir. He is not expecting any visitors. Tell us, are you only passing through, and if so, when will you be leaving?”

Their leader let out a derisive grunt and waved a lazy arm as though swatting invisible insects. “You are on my land. Will you yield it willingly to me or suffer the fate of Kusumnu?”

Several bald young men dressed in ceremonial robes advanced, each carrying a parcel wrapped in a fine cloth, which they distributed to Mekvat’s delegation.

Mekvat flopped the soft cloth open. It was a human skull, cleaned of flesh but not bleached or polished, pate daubed with seven dots of dried blood.

A military commander shouted, “Sacrilege! Insult!”

“No,” the translator said. “A message. These belonged to your counterparts in Kusumnu. You are entreated by Les-trelátha-las-Taláni, the king of Kalparaana, the rightful king of Kwelitánsit, which you now call the domain of Kindhir, to lay down your arms, open your gates, and welcome your rightful rulers. If you do not, someone else will hold your skull.”

Mekvat’s first impulse was to throw the skull back at them but he dared not dishonor his compatriot’s remains. Calmly, he wrapped the parcel and said to his fellows, “There is no point in reasoning with a madman.”

At this, the young guards, who had suddenly multiplied while they weren’t looking, grabbed the delegates, disarmed them, stripped them naked, and chased them back toward the city with whips and canes.

As the delegation reached the gates, the invading army played a long blast on long-necked brass horns shaped like the heads of wolves and dragons, loose tongues clattering in the bells. The sound was both hideous and terrifying.

Greeted by Shemulak and several students, Mekvat took a robe they offered and covered himself.

“That was no parlay.” He stopped to catch his breath. “They are stalling to give themselves time to set up their engines.” He slapped the young students’ hands away. “Stop tugging at my sleeves! Can’t you see I’ve suffered enough?”

* * * * *

Atnan watched the parlay from the city walls, as much fascinated by the process as he was anxious for its outcome. Technically, he and the other students should have remained in the tower, but no one did.

When everyone breaks the rule, whatever they are doing becomes the new rule.

Barlas and Zakinder stood watch with him, dressed in ill-fitting scale shirts and plain round helmets painted to resemble tortoise shells.

Long hair braided and tucked down his shirt, Barlas’s helmet still sat at an unfortunate angle. Knocking on it, he said, “Don’t like this bucket on my head, eh?”

Atnan ignored him, too busy watching the invaders, who were spreading out along the farmland, digging trenches, starting fires, and pulling down trees. Huge siege towers and engines poked up from over the horizon, dragged by beasts of burden and scores of soldiers. The scene unfolding before him was yet another that he had read about but never expected to see in real life.

They are amassed in one spot now, but surely they will surround the city soon, to cut off any chance of supply and reinforcement. They may dig trenches or create other hazards. When they do, we will slowly starve. The waiting will be torture. Even so, it will take them several weeks to get properly entrenched — if that is their plan. From the look of it, they mean to bring out the ladders and towers right away. They may think they can assault only one side of the city. If so, time is short.

What do they know that we don’t? What do we know that they don’t?

Zakinder shouted over the wall. “Despoilers! Cack-hands! My great-grandfather planted that tree!”

Atnan noted that the sun was in full-face, casting no shadows. Would the sun waver, diminish before the event, or would it happen at once?

Such a powerful omen. How can it be turned to our advantage?

Zakinder peered over the walls. “Oh, Radu’s ankles! They’ve occupied Tortoise Hill.” He shouted, “Go drink from a latrine, you rag-bellies!”

It looked different from above.

“What’s he on about?” Barlas asked Atnan in Fyrean, hitching the shoulder of his plate mail.

Atnan signed a hasty explanation about the dozing elder beast.

“What variety of thoughtless gut-bucket do you have to be to put your guardians to sleep? No more sense than half a clam! Don’t they care about the spirits? The ancestors? I tell you, now’d be about the time to have an elder beast on your side — make a little noise, eh?”

Atnan shaded his eyes and squinted toward the city’s delegation, now fanned out in a semi-circle at the base of the hill. This reminded him of the “Slumbering Giants” tapestry in the storage tunnel beneath the Academy. The beast in that scene was about the same size as the hill, he thought — maybe sixty people with their arms locked could encircle it. Atnan thought about how Ma-Huthra Shen had rescued them from the wild hogs at Maur.

Now would be a very good time for him to make some noise, if he really is under there. The sages and the histories say it is a mound of earth, nothing more. Two texts disagree, the tapestry and the scrolls — not counting the stories the people tell.

Loud shouting erupted from the soldiers on the wall. Zakinder and Barlas watched beside him as the delegation began wrestling with their interlocutors. Barlas gasped, covered his mouth. Soldiers shouted the news down to the people in the streets below, causing a general uproar.

Zakinder shouted over the wall. “Cankers! Yellow-toothed! Bung-sucking muck-scuttles! Have you no respect? Shame! Abomination!”

Outwardly, Atnan remained still, even as his fluids churned furiously inside.

Nothing Selolo has told me about these people makes me think they would have respect for any customs not their own. I expect them to terrorize and brutalize everyone they meet — more confirmation of Selolo’s story. They mean to terrorize us — why don’t we terrorize them first? What if we could convince them we have power over nature, to command the earth and the sun  … ?

Dodging soldiers and their insults, Atnan pushed past the guards and soldiers on the wall, arriving at the gate just as the delegation slipped inside. He tried jumping to make himself seen over the crowd, without success. Head down, he shouldered his way to the edge of the group toward Shemulak, who shot him a stern look and waved him away.

The minister shoved through a cloud of students and marched toward the archives, deep in conversation. Hoping to catch them, Atnan followed behind, but the crowds running in the opposite direction made it difficult to close ground. At the walls, a mob began to form.

They’re angry enough to start a fight they probably can’t win, seeing as the city is down to a third of the available soldiery.

He danced and wedged his way up the avenue all the way to the ministerial district where the crowds finally thinned out enough he could sprint. Panting and sweating, Atnan caught up to the gaggle of scholars at the Kusumnu mosaic, a ram with a large yellow safflower in its teeth.

“Go away, Atnan,” Shemulak huffed. “This is not the time.”

Time? Oh, Shemulak, if you only knew what you were saying! No, no this is the exact time, the only time!

Atnan gestured inside, indicating that he wanted Shemulak to go with him.

Shemulak glanced sideways at Mekvat and Pabirak, now walking into the tower. He stood motionless, mouth pressed into a grim line.

The spirits guided me to these scrolls — I didn’t understand the reasons then, but I do now.

On his slate, he wrote, “I need your help. We can save the city.”

“Save the city? It’s a fever, Atnan. You need to lie down. You’re in shock — we all are.” He paused and started to say something else, but instead whirled abruptly and headed inside.

Atnan took this to mean he should follow. They hastened toward Shemulak’s carrel, the sage’s long legs moving so quickly that Atnan had to jog to catch up. When he did, Atnan tugged Shemulak’s sleeve and indicated for the elder man to follow him instead.

“Follow you? Where?”

Atnan answered by walking away. He led Shemulak through the maze of corridors and stairs, into a few dead-ends and circuitous routes, but eventually, he found the bronze-plated door.

“Atnan, I am indulging you against my better judgment. Why are we in a basement?”

Ignoring him, Atnan pressed on, lighting the lamps one by one. First, Atnan took him to the tapestry with the sleeping beast, and he wrote, “slept them well by burning seeds of Kusumnu’s blooms”.

“Well, yes, I suppose there are many flowers around Kusumnu, but the seeds of red poppies in particular might be distilled into a powerful soporific. I fail to see — ”

Atnan continued down the corridor, lighting all the lamps until they reached the tapestry with the two rings of writing.

The elder man covered his mouth with his hand. “I saw your transcription, but the full — yes, yes, I think I see it now — or I’m starting to. These stories agree with your cousin’s dreams … somehow.” Shemulak stepped back to take the whole tapestry in, scanning it top to bottom. “This is all very interesting, Wet-Socks. What has it to do with us?”

Atnan tapped on his slate and wrote, “Wake him up.”

“Who? Shigshag? Us? Why?”

Atnan signed in the affirmative, then wrote, “You have knowledge of plants. First Shigshag then the sun. They will fear us.”

Shemulak stood silent for a moment, moving in close to the tapestry as if he meant to examine the individual fibers of each thread. “I envy you sometimes, Wet-Socks,” he said. “The island. The scrolls. This chamber and its stories. And the timing! I want to say you’re extraordinarily lucky, but I think the truth is you’re just stubborn enough to turn bad luck good. Every setback and misfortune propels you along some unseen path — which now includes me, an herbalist, of all people, just when one is needed.” He sighed. “You know, I thought about turning you away when you came to the archives. Even now, after everything, I don’t want to believe you, but there you are, as mute as a stone and just as unmovable, utterly convinced you can churn spoiled cream into sweet butter — it’s all so very peculiar, this, this … convergence of history and circumstance …” Shemulak trailed off then added in a low voice, “I must ask you, Atnan of Del.” He brushed his fingertips along the story-signs. “How certain are you?”

Atnan rubbed the rune of Verity burned into his hand.

I’m no more certain now than when I navigated the fog. No more than when I dragged the urns out of the sand or pulled the last one off the fire. No more than when I confessed to the elders. No more than when I stumbled upon the pregnant seer or tried to deposit the scrolls at Gwetlak, and certainly no more than when I brought them here. I am never sure of the end, only the next step.

He signed in the affirmative as energetically as he could.

Shemulak straightened and turned back down the corridor. “Then we must consult the Sage Prime.”

Selolo slept on the bakery floor and had the most vivid dream of her life:

I hear the sound of crashing surf as I descend into slumber, into the sea. I am drowning but not drowning, breathing the dark water in, letting it fill me. I dissolve, billowing like dye dropped in a barrel.

I perfuse the water until I become the entire sea, cradling the land, caressing the sky. I can feel everything: the fish and whales swimming inside, the boats tickling my skin, the breeze rippling my broad surface, every contour of every coastline. My rivers probe the land like fleshy tendrils, drawing water down from the mountains into my depths.

I am vast, bounded only by sky and land. Without them, I would expand until I submerged everything. I crave this, but the land jabs at me, rough, dry. The sky is soft and I want to fill it, but the burning of the sun, moon, and stars prevents me.

Everything is whirling, whirling.

I solidify. My body is the earth, stony, silent. I am planted. My roots run so deep I cannot tell if they end. Only my tender surface is exposed. The sea tickles at my edges, the wind chaps my skin. The people crawl over me like fleas. I barely notice. I only want to be left alone.

Again I dissolve, this time into vapor. The sky is my body, the wind my arms, whirling, whirling. I am Huma-Lapsala, always moving. I uproot trees, flatten mountains, drive the sea into the land, the rivers into the sea.

The people are a pleasant texture, like tiny grains of sand, like pretty little pod-beans. I caress them. I want to meet with them, but I am vast and they are tiny. I would never fit.

“A pathway exists,” I tell myself. I don’t understand what I mean — what she means. We are one. “Kalparaana,” we whisper.

Of all such trees, it was the biggest, the last. Now it lies broken, smoldering. No more climbing down, no more walking among the pretty little pod-beans.

The sun, moon, and stars move in our belly, whirling, dancing, circles within circles. Among them, the stars of Jalit, shaped like people but not people, and the stars of the Fyreans, five masked dancers, shapeless until they spin themselves into first one form, then another, and the stars of the Silgath, illuminating the mountains and forests.

The ancestors arrive in a river of light, all dancing around the center, a burned-out stump.

“Kalparaana,” we whisper. “Its name is Love.”

The sun-deer leaps and the moon-wolf chases behind, but something is wrong. The wolf is catching up, closing in.

The Cloaked Ones stand at the river of blood in anticipation, ready to celebrate.

The mountains heave. The sun darkens.

“This happens sometimes,” we say. “It is the end of the world. Move the earth, Selolo. Move the sun. Owl will understand.”

Selolo awoke with a clarity of mind she had never experienced before. The time was almost upon them. Hastily she dressed herself and snuck out of the bakery into the dark city, running toward the base of the wall where Barlas lay snoring.

“Wake, wake!” She shook him, first gently and then more vigorously, and when that didn’t work, she leaned into him with her hip and rocked him back and forth.

“Huh?”

“You trust?”

“Hay-hay. Trust what?”

“We go. To Owl. Help him.”

“Now?”

“Move earth. Move sun.”

He propped himself on an elbow. “I don’t understand.”

She pushed on him gently. “No understand. Do, do!”

Psst! Psst! The noise came from behind. The vegetable-seller was awake nearby with a quizzical expression.

Selolo ignored him while Barlas tried to signal for him to go back to sleep, which only prompted the man to stand all the way up and carefully step over sleeping soldiers to join them.

“Atnan.” Selolo gestured toward the tower.

Zakinder hissed out some imperial that she took to be a demand for further clarification. Having none to give, she started down the avenue toward the tower. The two men fell into step behind her.

When they passed the bakery, Glesimel was standing outside, mostly dressed and clutching a blanket around herself. She began sleepily interrogating her husband, who waved her back. She refused, settling their disagreement with a peck on her husband’s cheek, which he returned to her vigorously on the lips, nearly bowling her over in the process.

The four of them entered the Academy gates with Zakinder in the lead. He walked up to a conscript leaning on his spear near the door. After some official-sounding conversation, the soldier waved them through. Zakinder seemed quite impressed with himself.

Sometimes you only need to look the part — and speak the language.

They stepped into the broad ramp that wrapped around the tower. “Now what?” Barlas asked her. She didn’t know.

A young man advanced and made some demand in a voice both squeaky and imperious. Zakinder stepped forward and ordered the young man to take them to Atnan of Del, his voice also imperious but not squeaky. The young man bowed and indicated they should walk up the ramp.

Around midway up, they heard loud voices coming from a room up ahead, arguing, almost violent. Something smacked a table, a door slammed, and Atnan and Shemulak dashed into the hallway almost walking right into them.

The two men stopped and exchanged ominous glances. Atnan grinned and signed for them to follow.

Barlas asked her, “Help Owl?”

“Hay-hay,” she replied.

* * * * *

Atnan ducked into the storage tunnel behind Shemulak and held the door open for the others. He pressed a finger to his lips to indicate they should be silent.

Once they were all inside, Atnan surveyed the worried faces and imagined all their unspoken questions. How would they be answered? Shemulak could only speak imperial, which Barlas and Selolo couldn’t understand. Zakinder and Glesimel had learned a few of his signs, but not nearly enough. He was the only one in the room who could understand everyone else, and the only one who couldn’t speak.

Their plan might not work after all.

Zakinder spoke first. “Say, what are we doing here anyway?”

Atnan indicated to Shemulak that he should inform Zakinder and Glesimel, and he would inform Barlas and Selolo. They moved over to the tapestry on the wall that depicted the scholars of Mek enchanting an elder beast.

Shemulak said, “We’re going to wake up Shigshag.”

Atnan signed the same.

“Wake him up?” Zakinder asked, and Glesimel added, “How?”

Selolo ran her fingers over the picture, “Basko tetele, basko ura.” Move the earth, move the sun.     

Atnan signed affirmative.

Shemulak tapped the bronze censer. “We now know the potion Kindhir used to put the elder beasts to sleep, and I have knowledge of which plants should counteract it. I’ve already prepared several bundles. All we have to do is burn them.”

“Not in that!” Glesimel said.

“No, we must smuggle parcels of the incense in — ”

“Smuggle?” Zakinder said, intrigued.

Barlas and Selolo spoke in hushed tones among themselves. Atnan signed the plan as best he could.

Shemulak held up his hands for quiet. “I should tell you that the Prime Sage objected to this plan.” He paused. “Strenuously.”

“So we heard,” Zakinder said. “What are we talking about here? Some basic breaking and entering?”

“Breaking and exiting,” his wife corrected.

“Ah, well, it wouldn’t be the first time I’ve snuck out of the city,” Zakinder said. “The issue is getting back inside.”

Shemulak said, “There is a chance this won’t work at all, and an even better chance we end up dead or captured.”

Zakinder paused. “You  … you aren’t planning a return trip, are you?”

Shemulak folded his hands. “Success or failure, we don’t know what will happen. Atnan and I had decided to do this alone, but any help is appreciated. You all saw the siege engines, the rams, the ladders. We heard what they did to Kusumnu, and how they treated our representatives. It’s only a matter of time before  … ” He sighed. “If you want to leave, now is the time.”

“Ta’ana gango,” Selolo said. River of blood. “Te basko tetele.” You will move the earth.

“Hay-hay,” Barlas said.

Zakinder and Glesimel looked at one another tenderly.

“It’s been a good life, love,” Zakinder said.

“A very good life, husband.” Glesimel leaned forward so their foreheads touched. “I am not afraid to die, only of doing it apart from you.”

Shemulak distributed two small bundles of moss and sticks to each of them. He warned them not to breathe the smoke. “If it can wake an elder beast, I don’t know what it may do to you.”

Zakinder and Barlas led them up to the top of the wall on the side of the city facing the river. So long as they gave the proper salutes no one questioned them. They arrived at a dilapidated guard tower, which was locked.

“This is the bad side of town,” Zakinder explained. “I used to spend a lot of time up here.”

“A lot of time alone, you mean,” Glesimel said.

He tugged at the tips of his mustache playfully. “I said what I said.”

They climbed over a broken lintel to drop into the guard station then around some debris to a boarded-up window, which Barlas and Zakinder wrenched out with their spears. The window led to a ledge that they inched across until they reached a crack in the wall just wide enough to jam hands and feet into. Finally, they dropped onto a grassy knoll.

They snuck around the base of the wall until they could see Tortoise Hill, then advanced silently from cover to cover until they reached the foot of the hill. By the time they reached the hill, the horizon beyond the enemy encampment was showing the first signs of dawn.

Whether we succeed or fail, we will be exposed. To both sides.

“Find any deep holes or cracks that you can, light your bundle, and throw it in,” Shemulak explained.

Atnan signed to Barlas and Selolo that they should put the smoke underground.

They broke into three groups: Atnan and Shemulak, Barlas and Selolo, and Zakinder and Glesimel, each group searching for any opening that might lead to the beast’s lungs. Bundles lit and deposited, they gathered back at the base of the hill nearest the city to wait.

Nothing happened.

Taláni surveyed the machinery rattling toward the front line with Uluri beside him, torch in hand. Towers ground past on thick wooden wheels, smelling of pine tar and sounding like a grist mill. Behind those, torsion engines clattered, rolling into positions from which to launch metal-tipped darts as thick as his arm.

How far I have come from the challenge circle! I am not skilled in this kind of battle, all wood and stone, not bone and sinew, all marching and shouting, no thrill of the dance. Ah, there is much blood inside this beast, but first, we must pierce its stony hide. Yet I wish to fight living warriors, not dead walls!

He and Uluri made their way onto a small promontory overlooking the field, toward the round hill where they had parlayed the day before.

“We wouldn’t have come this far without you,” he told her. “These wondrous mechanisms all sprang from your imagination, your effort. What spirits must whisper in your ears! Who else would make armor from leaves and melt stars into spear points? When we enter our glory, you will be lavished with every reward.”

Uluri laughed quietly. “I can’t reasonably claim to be uninterested at this point, can I?”

“You chose a more glorious path.” He paused. “Reign with me, and you may take, or not take, any lovers you desire.”

“What’s that?” she asked.

“Be my queen — ”

“No, that.” She pointed toward the hill.

Squinting into the murky pre-dawn light, he saw a small band of people scurrying around.

“Spies?” he asked.

“They are too small in number and too disorganized to be a raiding party. Locals who didn’t make it into the city walls, perhaps.”

“They will make good captives. Or sport.”

“I’ll take care of it.”

“We ride together.”

“But you are wekáru. You should — ”

“Yes, I am wekáru.”

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