XX
Day is Drowned
in Darkness

Atnan held his breath, reciting the runes to himself to calm his fluids long enough to let himself think. Finally, he came to a decision: He couldn’t let his friend go off alone, possibly to death. Without alerting the others, he slipped outside. Surely Barlas would start his search at Tortoise Hill and spiral out from there. The only issue was getting there himself.

Furtively, he stole from rock to woodpile to haystack to overturned cart, sometimes tripping over the uneven ground, sometimes scrambling to take cover at the approach of invading soldiers.

All that remained of Tortoise Hill was a large excavation half-filled with detritus, elongated like a trench along the line that Shigshag must have followed toward the mountains. Picking his way along the lip of the basin, Atnan cautiously kept his head below the far rim. As he worked his way around to the enemy side, he came upon a pit with the bodies of several invaders at the bottom, their corpses smashed into the earth, armor still intact.

With effort, he managed to scuttle down into the pit and undress one of the warriors. The bits of armor were light but tough, as well as flexible and fibrous. Outside, the armor was splattered with muck and on the inside, blood. They smelled like death. Still, a disguise might afford him the ability to travel the battlefield unmolested.

It didn’t.

Almost as soon as he stood up inside the pit he was lassoed and dragged to the surface, stripped to his coverlet, and dragged squirming and kicking to a corralled area by several thickly muscled bald men. Their garments might have been mistaken for scholar’s robes, except they were covered with orange flowers instead of blue wool.

They held him down and examined him, stopping to discuss the scar on his hand in their language. It came quickly, like hot rain on a new roof — not that he would have understood any of it had they been speaking slower. They marked his shoulders with blood mopped out of a large wooden bucket then dropped him roughly into an enclosure fenced with sharpened stakes.

Pulling himself up from the muck, he saw Barlas sitting in a corner, head in hands. He crawled over to his friend and put a hand on his shoulder. The big Fyrean startled and swept back as though ready to resist, knocking Atnan off his feet.

“Oh no, Inky-Fingers, I’m sorry,” he said, helping Atnan to right himself.

Atnan signed to ask if Selolo had been found.

Barlas showed him a half-tangled web of beads wrapped around his hand, unmistakably Selolo’s. “Just this.” He shuddered and touched the red marks on his shoulders. “Figure they’ll make a meal of us, in front of the city so everyone can see. Or a meal of me and a snack of you, eh?”

Atnan grunted. If he could speak he would have said, “Now is not a good time for jokes.” Then again, it might not be a good time for anything else.

If we are waiting to be eaten, I hope Selolo is already dead.

Barlas said, “Thought maybe her bird might show up and lead me to her. Can’t trust birds, though, always winging off on their own, eh?”

Atnan thought about Ma-Huthra Shen. Before Shigshag, she was the most powerful living creature he had ever encountered. She wouldn’t last a moment against the war machinery clattering past — though she might have been some help with the terror birds. Even Shigshag had only kicked the anthill, stirring them to action. The lines of an old epic came to him:

Ah, Llachmanoth, ye savage abnormality

Ye many-tentacled miscreation, I hack at thee

Too bad that ancient sea monster wasn’t around to be aroused.

“Gong farmer! Blood-guzzler! Let me — ” Zakinder fell into the enclosure, face down in the muck. “ — go.” He spat and wiped his eyes. “Next time you had better kill me, you pair of dog’s balls!”

Zakinder sat up, and Atnan and Barlas helped him to his feet. His shoulders bore the same sticky red marks.

Atnan made a gesture that he hoped Zakinder would interpret as asking him if he were alone.

Just then, Shemulak and Glesimel were tossed alongside them. Zakinder rushed to embrace his wife, and the two of them sobbed on each other’s shoulders.

Shemulak said to Atnan, “They moved on us, and we tried to run away into the country, but … ” He trailed off, and indicated the enclosure. “They took our gall-thorn, too.”

Atnan indicated the same.

“This was always a possible outcome.” The scholar hung his head.

We are still alive, so we can still struggle.

Atnan held his hand out, fingers splayed, and touched each fingertip, repeating the names of the Five to himself. Barlas joined him, raising the hand with Selolo’s necklace, saying the names aloud. Atnan indicated for the others to follow along.

It may be futile, but it’s something we can do, together.

After a few rounds, they stopped. Together they watched the sun dwindle to a sliver and then disappear altogether. The chattering horns blasted around the camp and there was a loud cheer followed by drumming. Chaotic shouting broke out in pockets and some of the soldiers ran past the enclosure, heading away from the lines.

Abruptly, Barlas asked, “Atnan, can you whistle?”

Atnan pursed his lips and whistled a short tune.

“No, not a song — like Selolo does, eh?” He put his fingers up to his lips in a ring and blew ineffectually. “She insisted on bringing that eagle, so it’s gotta be around here somewhere. It may not lead us to her, but it might lead her to us if she’s still — ” He didn’t finish.

“More like this.” Zakinder curled his tongue back and blew a soft but firm note through the gap in his front teeth, then he grinned, showing off the gap by brushing it with the tip of his tongue.

Barlas scrambled over to him, shushed him. With his voice, he sang a three-note tune. Zakinder tried it out, quietly, then when Barlas confirmed, he let out a blast at full volume.

They all looked to the skies, and Zakinder whistled again. A soldier threw a rock and barked at them. Atnan retrieved the rock from the muck and threw it back, his shot glancing off the fencing.

The attempt was worth it. Every one, until the end.

Atnan heard a small chirp just as a platform swayed by them only a short distance away, borne by multiple soldiers. Two figures, a woman and a man wearing a fox pelt, rode atop the litter in front of a large burning censer.

Immediately, Barlas stripped his shirt to wrap around the wounded arm, which he held aloft. Nokokolë swooped down onto his hand. Pulling her close in, he said, “Find her — and bring us the fox, too, eh?”

Selolo scanned the battlefield. As the sky dimmed, the wind grew colder, biting at her nose and cheeks. Birds and insects started their night-songs, and a murmur arose in the ranks below as the soldiers stood, shielding their eyes with their hands.

The sun dwindled, waning like the moon until it was a crescent, then a black void. Writhing tendrils of light shimmered around the edge of the black disk as stars began to fill a deep purple sky. Some of the soldiers broke ranks and fled, but most held, and the machines creaked inexorably forward. Drums thundered, horns blasted.

Taláni spoke to her as he commenced the attack, but she didn’t respond. The scaffold lurched forward in the darkness.

“This will be our ruler-name,” he said, “Imíksil-Shavrakáli.”

All the lines converge on this point. I didn’t expect to be alone.

Quietly, she slipped the shears from the lining of her sleeve and fondled them into position. Her body tensed, quivering.

I have been silent for so long, I hardly remember how to speak. I barely remember the sound of my own voice. Spirits! Why do you require so much of me?

“No,” she said slowly as a tear ran down her cheek. “I am Wi’inaxáyo-wa’axána-kirelítsu. You took my name, my land, my family, my body. You made me drink blood and made me kill for you. You planted a child inside me, then cast us out to die.”

“A child?”

In the height of his surprise, she moved, jabbing the shears toward his ribs with all the swiftness and violence she could. As the point made its way toward her target, she wished to un-live that moment and all the ones that had led her there, to walk back to the last night they had spent together, when the assassin came to ruin her happiness.

If you loved me, why cast me out? If you hated me, why not allow your mother to slit my throat? No, you are unfeeling toward me, toward everything.

No, if she were to walk back, it must be before the moment he arrived in Lolo, to ruin every happiness.

Even if I sink this blade up to the handle, what heart is there to wound? Spirits, forgive me! This is no murder because this is no man, only an empty skin filled with stolen blood.

His hand shot out and clamped down on her wrist until the shears fell jangling from her grip. He grabbed her other wrist, laughing. “I should have known. Still, I broke you before, and I will again.” His eyes widened. “Look, Selolo! Your vision is coming true, whether you want it or not. Why have we been reunited? This glory is appointed for you — for us — by the spirits.”

Bright pearls of light began to dance along the edge of the dark circle.

“Kindhir’s sun is dead,” he said, “and mine is emerging!”

“No! The vision was a lie. I made it up to please you.”

He maneuvered her around so the sun was at her back. “We are all wax in the hands of the spirits.”

From behind, Selolo heard someone whistle, three sharp blasts, and a familiar chirp in reply.

Not alone, after all.

At the last moment, she ducked.

* * * * *

Taláni stared into the hole where the sun had been, holding Selolo so her face was framed by the center of the void, the tendrils of light streaming from her hair.

She was a vision of glory.

Bright pearls of light began to dance along the edge of the disk. Enthralled, he watched them shimmer and twist.

Suddenly, the pearls became a searing flash and Selolo broke free from his grasp. He blinked and rubbed his eyes. All he could see were green and red blotches followed by a blurry outline of dark feathers filling his view.

The Great Bird has arrived, to carry me to glory!

Instead, it slammed into him, talons sinking deep into his eye, cheeks, and nose. He reeled back, tearing away strips of flesh. Blindly he swiped and flailed, grabbing the arms of the throne to steady himself, knocking Selolo to the platform at his feet in the process. Blood streamed down his face to drip on his throne. Hot waves of rage pulsed through him as he watched his power, his life, his vigor draining out of him.

The bird wheeled again. This time he crouched and pulled his knife from his belt. “Come, come!” In the vision, he subdued the beast.

The spirits are testing me — I believe! I believe!

The eagle swooped and he slashed at it. Talons dug into his wrist and forearm. He tried to keep hold of the knife but it tumbled out, hitting the scaffolding — tink, tink! — on its way to the ground. Still attached to his arm, the eagle sliced into his neck and chest with its heavy beak.

With his free hand, Taláni grabbed a flapping wing and jerked the bird away. As it loosed its grip on his other arm, he caught its head and pulled as hard as he could.

Talons swung up to grab him under his jaw and ears. Determined to either subdue the beast or kill it, he pulled harder. From the platform, Selolo shoved him with her feet. He stepped back to brace himself and grabbed the flaming censer, flinching back into empty air. The eagle went limp as they fell together, fluttering, flailing, a tangle of skin, hair, and feathers. He grasped at the scaffolding as he tumbled and managed to snag a crossbeam, which only jerked his shoulder out of socket. His entire body exploded in pain as he hit the ground.

Shuffling feet. Concerned shouting. The eagle’s body, soft, beneath his own. Blood.

Finding himself still alive and surrounded by the soldiers who had been carrying his litter, he laughed uncontrollably.

Mekvat wandered the academy, fluids unsettled. All his routines were upset, his foods rationed, his waking and sleeping mandated. Even his band of young disciple-admirers had been torn away to fight off the invasion. Every moment was filled with councils and committees, discussions, conversations, colloquies, seminars — if only words could defeat an invading army, then victory would be assured!

Meanwhile, the sun entered the throes of death and darkness crept along the battlefield. From the spiral ramp, he watched as the sun was sectioned like an orange and consumed, slice by slice, until midday became midnight. The invaders let out a long shout, signaling their advance. Their shout was answered from the city below.

Pabirak joined him at the railing.

“Two of ours awoke the beast,” Mekvat said, staring off into the dark, watching the torches and censers wobbling toward them. “One is a minor sage, Shemulak. You may know him. The other is of no consequence. They brought this havoc upon us all.”

“They bought us a chance — or the merest sliver of one. How do you know?”

“They sought my blessing for their plan.”

“And you gave it?”

“Mek’s eyes, no! They ought to be — how did you put it? — de-thumbed. Look! The sun is dying because of them! Kindhir’s legacy will crumble — because of them. They blaspheme the — ”

“Minister, the people don’t see it that way. Whole new philosophies are sprouting across the city. New schools of thought, new rites and ceremonies — or old ones, renewed. The stories of the elder beasts are not just stories anymore, old man! Much of our accumulated wisdom demands reappraisal.”

“Demands? So you welcome this? Retread old ground? Upset the balance? Reopen settled questions?”

“Only those that were wrongly settled.”

“I never took you for a radical.”

“I never took you for someone indifferent to the truth.”

They waited in the darkness, watching, listening to the drums and horns.

Pabirak let out a deep breath. “None of it matters if we don’t survive. Even now, our scholars are bolstering the people, convincing them that these signs in earth and heaven mean we can be victorious.”

Mekvat scoffed.

“You said something to me once, Minister. You said we saw you as ‘a dusty old pot, too stupid to quit, and too stubborn to die’. I remember your exact words because they struck a deep blow at the time. I never saw you that way. I admired you. I cared about you.”

“And now?”

“If you survive all this, however unlikely that may be, I expect you to leave the academy forever. No retirement, no ceremonial status. Go back, go home, go to some hollowed-out log and cover yourself with moss and wait to die. Whatever you do, leave the rest of us to rebuild without you.”

The way Pabirak emphasized the last phrase made the bile rise in Mekvat’s throat. Many things occurred to him to say, but he decided not to waste any more words.

Pabirak clapped his shoulder. “I have more important matters to attend to.”

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