Читать книгу Hot Obsidian - Olga McArrow - Страница 9

Across the border, even the best maps

Have nothing left to say

A void where stars sleep, flickering,

The Moon’s haven by day.

Across the border, across the border –

The end. Nothing moves on.

Water drains down into darkness,

Earth is sliced off and gone.

Far off, in darkness, shining myriads

of stars hang overhead.

I chose my path, and held to it, when

Across the border it led.

Crossing the border changed me, to them

I grew ugly, a repulsive goon –

Not all at once – in separate stages,

Measured, phased like the Moon.

The days once were when handsome I seemed!

My future filled with hope!

When at my zenith, with the strength I’d dreamed,

I crossed the border

Adult Milian. A canto of “Thorn poem”

The team fell into Pai’s Transvolo like a handful of stones thrown into a cold abyss. Despite all the efforts of Einar Sharlou, his young apprentice’s spell still included passing too close to the alien star.

“The Primal World!” exclaimed Jarmin, pointing at the golden sun, that pulsing ball of light that seemed no bigger than a Liht sphere from here. “Pai, please, let’s get closer, let’s take a look!” the little boy begged.

Nobody doubted Jarmin’s words. Nobody. His discovery shook everyone in the team, even Irin. For the first time in their whole journey, Irin’s teammates saw his face lose its usual twisted, menacing expression; it was almost serene now; there was lively interest, a spark of curiosity, a tinge of daydreaming… In the light of the Primal World’s sun, the little fanatic seemed just a boy his age, someone you would want to be friends with.

The beauty of this star seemed healing. The last argument had left a wide crack in the team’s mutual trust but now it felt like the crack was mended with invisible glue. In the face of the living legend, the young Lifekeepers felt united again.

“I wish I could do what you ask, Jarmin,” said Pai with a longing sadness. “But I’m afraid. Coming close to a star is extremely dangerous and I’m just a newbie. I might kill us all if I try…”

“Too bad…” sighed Jarmin.

“I wonder,” Milian squinted his eyes as an exciting idea came into his head, “whether it’s possible to use Transvolo for interstellar travel. What do you think, Pai?”

“I’ll find out one day,” said Pai Prior with determination. “But later, when I’m a proper mage.”

The stars faded into darkness before their eyes as the young Lifekeepers fell out of the Transvolo void into the real world.

The real world was pitch black, filled with Omnisian stars above and with cold sand below.

“Where are we?” asked Lainuver. He tried to sound confident but his voice betrayed him.

“In Kuldagan, of course,” answered Bala, a gentle smile lighting up his voice. “I’ve been there once with my master. This is what Kuldaganian night looks like beyond city walls. If there is no moon to light the way, it’s that dark. And it’s always cold at night in the desert.”

“Did something go wrong, Pai?” asked Juel cautiously. “We were supposed to land in the city.”

“I didn’t dare risk it,” confessed the young mage. “There are too many objects there. I was afraid I wouldn’t be able to calculate everything properly and would hurt someone. But we’re not far away, I swear!”

“Yeah, it’s just the dunes. They are quite lofty and obscure the view,” explained Bala. “I bet that we’d see the city right away if we climbed one. Kuldaganian cities shine like stars on the earth by night.”

“Like stars on the earth…” Milian echoed his words. And whispered,

O lovely land,

Entrancing land,

Far from woe, far from sorrows within;

As if dreams hide

Where the night sky ends, the earth begins…

It didn’t seem that he intended someone to hear his newborn poem but in the night that quiet, even whisper can be too loud to hide anything… The whole team heard the boy. Embarrassed, Milian fell silent.

“So you’re a poet, Mil…” said Orion, a strange thankfulness in his voice. “Why haven’t you ever read us anything of yours?”

“I preferred to listen to your stories instead.” Milian laughed the question away. “Let’s go. It’s getting colder and colder by the minute.”

Orion shrugged, unconvinced by his friend’s nervous laughter. What kind of storyteller was he if he couldn’t even notice a poet beside him? Orion made a promise to himself to shut up the next time someone asks him for another story so Milian would have a chance to shine as well.

The dune they chose to climb was a mighty beast. It took the team a while to reach the top. Their feet sank in the sand with every step, the cold wind drained their warmth slowly but steadily, and their cloaks were no help. But all their efforts and suffering were rewarded in the end when they reached the top of the sandy monster and saw the shining lights of the city below.

Stars in the sky, stars on the earth; a place where dreams hide… All that Milian had expressed in his snatch of a poem before anyone had seen that with their own eyes. Poetry is a sister to magic, yes, but it also has a lot in common with divination. Fortune-telling.

Seeing the lights of the city and hearing its distant murmur lifted the team’s spirits again. The Lifekeepers ran down the dune with a burst of boyish laughter, eager to reach Torgor, that shining diadem crowning the dark sands.

In the cold air, their every breath was a puff of white vapour that the desert hungrily snatched away the moment it appeared; their every step was a fleeting impression in the sand, soon erased by everlasting winds; their voices were devoid of echoes, swallowed by the dunes. The desert holds few memories…

“I heard that Kuldaganian nightlife is truly something!” said Lainuver. He was so cold that his teeth chattered, making speaking difficult, but he just couldn’t wait to share his excitement.

“Oh we’ll have fun there all right!” Oasis’s happy voice joined him in the dark. “I’m so sick of Firaskian curfews!”

“Sorry to disappoint you,” said Bala, “but Kuldaganian nights are mostly work, not fun. It’s just too hot there by day to do anything, so the locals mostly live by night.”

“Oh…” Oasis’s enthusiasm died in an instant. “And what about the city we’re going to from here? That ‘Border’? Is it just like Torgor?”

“No,” said Bala remembering his visit to Border five years ago. His speech became slow and thoughtful. “Border’s people are diurnal. It’s a bit like Firaska: a city with walls and a little army to defend them. They have desert raiders threatening them from one side and No-Man’s-Land bandits from the other. But there are no curfews, so ‘nightlife’ is a thing there, yes. I think you’ll like it!” He tried to sound cheerful and supportive but with the cold that cruel, even Bala couldn’t be his usual self.

Kuldagan is a land of mystery. Formally, it’s a part of the South but in terms of magic, it’s an anomaly. Torgor is the last city where magic is reliable; further north, casting spells is a gamble. The closer you are to Border, the city guarding the entrance to the No Man’s Land, the higher the stakes in that gamble are. That’s why no mage ever takes their Transvolo further than Torgor.

Torgor is a big, busy city, similar to Mirumir in many ways, zigarella smoke excluded. There are little shops, cafés, and dlars (local inns) on every corner and a spectacular market in the central square where all kinds of curiosities from around the world are sold.

The cult of Ancestors’ purity is still a thing in Torgor but it’s slowly fading, losing its influence to the massive multicultural flow of merchants and tourists passing through the city every day. Most of the Torgor locals still look somewhat like the city’s first people: Arnika who was a blue-eyed, brown-skinned redhead and Vadro, her husband, who had pale skin, grey eyes, and silver hair. But very few modern Torgorians are perfect copies of their Ancestors nowadays.

To everyone but Bala who had already been to Torgor, seeing so many similar faces seemed creepy. The boys couldn’t help commenting on that, though in very hushed voices not to be overheard by the locals.

Juel, trying to mend the team's morale, made an unusual decision upon their arrival at the city: he allowed his teammates to spend their money freely. They had saved a lot by having their own mage learn Transvolo instead of hiring a specialist and even earned some with Lainuver’s and Oasis’s shadow business, so he could allow such a gesture.

The trick worked like magic! Soon, Juel’s warriors were laughing again, happy with all the souvenirs, treats, and books they got from the market. But Juel himself couldn’t even crack a smile; in the gloomy light of his true mission, the whole world seemed dreary to the young Faizul. He left the others to their fun and went away to look for a caravan that would agree to take them along. Beyond Torgor, joining a caravan is the only sure way to reach another city alive; you don’t walk the dune sea alone unless you are a Wanderer.

To Juel’s teammates' credit, they didn’t forget about their duty amidst the fun and bought a set of proper desert clothes for every team member – thick, layered, woollen cloak, jacket, and trousers – to keep both daily heat and nightly cold at bay. Bala went through several dlars asking people everything about the desert and its “aren”, which meant much more than just “sand” in the local tongue. “Aren is sand, glass, and monolith,” Kuldaganians said, “but only Wanderers still remember how to tame the third – monolith – aspect.” That was an interesting but not very useful piece of information. The useful one was about maskaks. Bala told Irin everything about those creatures and stressed the importance of spotting and killing them in time so they wouldn’t tell their bandit masters about the approaching caravan. Irin took Bala’s warning very seriously and promised to be on alert. He even visited a local smithy and bought himself an extra hundred of arrows for the journey. Jet-black, with striped feathers and barbed arrowheads, they looked deadly.

That night, filled with shopping, asking around, looking around, and enjoying the exotic city, turned out to be so exhausting that the boys fell asleep in their rented room just where their exhaustion had caught up with each of them: at the table, on the floor, among the backpacks… Orion was snoring by the door where he had collapsed after stumbling over the doorstep. He had overestimated his stamina a bit while tasting local alcohol.

That was how Juel found his team after a rowdy night. For a while, the mighty Faizul just stood there, at a loss what to do, then looked at the lukewarm sky, sighed, and curled up in the nearest bed like a big, heavy cat. He knew he could trust his inner “clock” to wake him up in time. And he needed a nap after a sleepless night too.

Bala, the most responsible one of the lot, woke up even earlier than Juel and made a hurry-up breakfast for the team and a simple sobering potion for Orion.

Refreshed but still sleepy, the Lifekeepers paid for the room and headed to the gates to catch up with their caravan.

The merchant the caravan belonged to, an elderly woman, frowned as she saw the young warriors. That they were young, she knew (Juel had told her that), what she didn’t expect, though, was a gaggle of kids. She gave Juel a grim, reproachful look. He replied with ardent praise and swore that each of his teammates would be worth at least three bandits in a battle and that having a master archer in the caravan might even save them a battle altogether. That was the longest speech Juel’s teammates had ever heard from him. Their leader could be eloquent when he wanted! Finally, the old merchant nodded in approval. Lifekeepers did have a good reputation, even young ones, after all.

“My name is Ramayana Arnika-Vadro,” she introduced herself to the younger boys. “You are welcome to join my caravan. May our journey be an easy one.”

…Patience. Patience. Patience. This is the very first lesson a Lifekeeper must learn and they all do. Even Jarmin, a six-year-old, had learned his lesson of patience years ago, so he endured the hardships of the desert journey stoically, without even a pip, even though they were nearly killing him. His teammates and the merchants did everything they could to ease the little boy’s suffering. Ramayana allowed Jarmin to sit on one of her dunewalkers instead of walking the sands himself. Juel, Orion, Bala, and Lainuver shared their water with him. The younger Lifekeepers – Kosta, Pai, Milian, and Oasis (Irin just didn’t care) – wanted to share theirs as well but Juel forbade that. Those four were still too young, so depriving them of water would be a sure way to turn four capable warriors into helpless children. Jarmin’s troubles aside, the journey was going well, probably thanks to Irin who kept watching for maskak scouts as he had promised and shot them all at sight.

Caravans rarely go straight to Border; they usually take a little detour to one of the smaller cities to have a rest, trade a bit, and refill their water supplies. There are two such cities on the way from Torgor to Border: Aren-Castell and Aldaren-Turin. Ramayana Arnika-Vadro preferred the latter. Juel and his team didn’t care what she chose; water and rest were all they could think about then.

When Aldaren-Turin had come into view, everyone cheered, even Ramayana’s most seasoned followers. But their joy was a bit different, tinged with their knowledge of the true hardships that awaited them beyond the Turin-Castell crossroads.

“Aren-Castell” means “sand castle” in Kuldaganian; “Aldaren-Turin” means “battle turret” which sounds much more serious. Soon, the Lifekeepers saw why. Every Kuldaganian city is surrounded by a wall but only Aldaren-Turin’s wall is made of a pure monolith, which is aren in its third, known only to Wanderers, aspect. Even more: that wall looks like a remnant of some other structure, gargantuan in its size, possibly an ancient fortress, broken at its foundation and carried away by some monstrous force. Rami and Otis, the first people of Aldaren-Turin, founded their city in the ruins of that structure and called its jagged outline a wall. Even defeated, the unnamed “turin” protects people still…

“Their ‘turin’ sounds familiar to ‘turris’,” mused Milian. “How tall do you think that ancient thing had been? Orion?”

Orion dozed off again; during the journey, he had learned to do that while walking and abused his new skill shamelessly. He jerked his head up as he heard Milian’s call and stared at Aldaren-Turin’s wall for a while, thinking. Slowly, a familiar smile dawned on his tired face. A moment later, he was already tugging at Jarmin’s cloak to wake him up. Lulled by the dunewalker’s steady pace, the boy was sleeping tightly; he didn’t look very happy at being awakened like that. But Orion asked, “Hey, kid, want to hear a fairy-tale?”, changing Jarmin’s mood in an instant. The little boy smiled, very carefully, of course, so his dry lips would not crack again.

With Milian and Jarmin both ready to listen now, Orion began his tale. He didn’t approve of that pathos-filled tone most professional storytellers used, so his stories always had that flavour of sincere simplicity in them that his teammates liked. His speech flowing with a steady, graceful pace like a wide river, his tone, changing and dancing to give every event a flavour, every character a voice, his unfailing confidence – nothing betrayed the fact that he was thinking up his stories on the go, picking them up everywhere, like a curious toddler picks up colourful pebbles and seashells from the ground.

Right now, the “seashell”, picked up by Orion and turned into the story was Milian’s question about the ancient structure that used to be on top of Aldaren-Turin’s “wall”.

It happened in a faraway world where people were a lot like us in that their knowledge grew way faster than their self-awareness did. Such disbalance never ends well.

Those people believed that their world was created by gods and that the gods lived in the sky. Eventually, somebody came up with an idea of reaching the sky so people themselves could become gods. The idea turned out to be so strong, captivating, and infectious that it outlived its creator and kept spawning various cults for centuries. The Cult of the Tower was the strongest of them all.

For years, the cultists placed one row of stone blocks above the other, lifting incredible weights with their machines and magic. Countless generations lived and died for the sake of the crazy dream. From birth to death, the cultists toiled at the enormous building site, having little time for anything else. Eventually, the “unnecessary” things like love, games, poems, and songs were forgotten. Only one song, the howling song that helped them keep the rhythm while working, survived in the end. Love and friendship didn’t survive at all, replaced by the endless loyalty to the cult.

Day by day, the cursed tower grew, a black splinter in the skin of the earth.

Meanwhile, the gods watched from above, curious. They threw no lightning bolts and sent no curses upon humanity. Why would they? For a god, hurting a human being is like hurting a feeble-minded child; nothing to be proud of there. Breaking their tower? Sure, the gods could do that easily but why would they? Who in their right mind breaks a baby’s toy? Not gods. So they watched and they waited for little creatures down below to teach themselves a lesson.

…Being born in such a world in such a time is one of the worst things that can happen to a poet. But zealot worlds would die if no poets were born in the most difficult times. So Milia, a little blue-eyed girl, was born in the Tower Cult.

While her peers were building toy towers from pebbles and meowed miserably trying to sing the howling song of the builders, Milia made up songs of her own. There were words in them, rhymes, and music. She could turn anything into a song or a poem: golden autumns, chilly dawns, starry sky – all things she saw around her. The older Milia grew, the more powerful her songs became. And – oh, the horror! – some children left their pebble towers and howling exercises to listen to her sing.

People began talking, spreading rumours and fears around the girl. She is just a child and yet people wander from the true path because of her songs, only children for now but what will happen when she grows up? Then adult engineers and mages, workers and slaves will fall for her witchcraft and the Tower will fall. Then humanity will be doomed to crawl the earth forever and all hope of reaching the sky will be lost.

One early morning, three cult leaders – Chief Engineer, Chief Mage, and Chief Priest – held a council at the foot of the Black Tower. All three were old people, with families, with children and grandchildren of their own. Neither liked the idea of killing a child but they decided that it was necessary.

“For the future of humanity!” said the Mage and the Engineer.

“And to save the souls from sin,” quietly added the Priest.

But the sun that rose above the horizon, turned into fanatic flames in their eyes. They were flickering there like hot embers, for all the world to see… including the gods in the sky.

Soon, the three leaders announced their decision to the crowd. No one was brave enough to stand up for Milia, the shackles of faith and habit were that heavy on people. The most open-minded of them only wept when they saw the guards lead the girl to the Tower. The others just stared in silence.

“You will be led to the top of the Tower,” said the Priest, “so the holy sky would drive all the sin from your soul. Then you will be thrown down. This is the decision made in the light of the dawn before the gods themselves. Today, at midday, you will be put to death.”

Milia lifted her eyes to the top of the skyscraping Tower. That moment, fear of death seized her and took her gift of speech away. People watched in horror at the miracle of their life, now destroyed; watched the poor child try to say something and fail to do so, the very child that had been singing so merrily for them just a few hours ago. Yet again, not a single person stepped out of the crowd to help the little girl.

In the midday, Milia’s long ascension to the Tower began. The way up would be difficult for an adult warrior, let alone a child. Sometimes, she had to walk the stairs, sometimes she had a chance to catch her breath when a part of the way could be covered in a mechanical elevator or a magical levitation device. A group of armed guards clad in white followed the condemned child everywhere.

By the end of the way, Milia was so exhausted that she became as white as chalk herself. Bitter cold reigned on the top of the Tower, ferocious winds howled there, and the air was so thin the girl could barely breathe.

When Milia reached the last storey, half-built, open to the elements, the first stars were already shining in the dark, velvety sky. There were so many of them! Above the lights of the city, there was nothing that could outshine even the smallest ones. There was a river, a whole river of stars!

The power of the beautiful sight took Milia’s breath away, she gasped, she felt the fear of death release its grasp on her throat, and, finally, she sang. She could make everything into a song, even the river of stars, the river of worlds in the sky where the gods dwelled.

Carried by the wind to the foot of the Tower, that song made people wake up. They no longer stared up in silence, waiting for Milia to fall; they stirred, they cried, they cursed the Tower and those who condemned the innocent child to death. Only the three Chiefs remained unmoved by the song.

“What a horrible sorcery!” they said. “We were right to condemn the child. Just imagine what would have happened if the little witch had a chance to grow up!”

Only the gloomy warriors clad in white didn’t acknowledge the powerful song. All of them had been deaf from birth; that was why they were chosen to follow the girl. They threw Milia off the Tower, just like they were ordered to.

No one saw the child’s body fall but everyone saw the fall of the Tower itself. In roar and thunder, torn apart by huge cracks, it crashed to the ground, centuries of endless toil and howling songs turned into rubble and dust in a single moment.

The city was spared – by pure luck or the will of the gods, who knows. The only victims of the fall, by a strange coincidence, were the three Chiefs and the deaf guards. Blinded by freedom, inspired by hope, people searched and searched for Milia’s body, some even believed that she had survived the fall but no, the girl was never found.

Why did the Tower fall? Did the gods have a hand in it? Who knows.

Sometimes, heavy things just collapse under their own weight, Towers and cults alike.

As to the people awakened by Milia’s song and the Tower’s crash, they did learn their lesson. Technology, magic, and faith, when they are not balanced by other things, make unstable constructions and you need balance first of all to reach the sky where the gods dwell.

Unbalanced things always fall.

“Jarmin fell asleep again, poor thing,” said Milian. “I don’t think he’s heard the ending.”

“Yeah, he probably hasn't…” Orion scratched his neck. That sunburn on his skin was itchy. Or maybe he was feeling unsure of what he wanted to say and the subconscious gesture just betrayed that. “What’s important, is that you have. The tale was for you, Mil. Some thoughts are better told this way, you know.”

“Ah, I get it now,” Milian nodded. “That’s why you called her ‘Milia’, huh? And the tower… it’s the Order, right? You think it’s going to fall.”

“Glad to know we’re on the same page,” Orion nodded, his face unusually serious.

“And the reason is?” Milian looked him in the eye.

“Fanaticism,” was Orion’s answer. “Our glorious leader is one step away from the point of no return. Well, at least I think so. But the problem is that I have no idea what to do about it.”

“Yeah… me neither,” sighed Milian.

They walked the rest of the way to Aldaren-Turin in silence.

Ramayana’s caravan spent one day and one night in the city. Juel’s team took this time to rest and have fun. Aldaren-Turin’s market was nowhere as impressive as Torgor’s but the boys enjoyed it all the same. Some things they bought there were unique to the city and would surely make great mementoes in the future. Some books, written by the locals, were one of a kind. Handwritten and clumsily bound in cheap leather, they narrated stories only the author and a few of their friends had ever read. Taking these books on a journey into the big world seemed an interesting idea to Milian, and his friends quickly joined the fun, making the local unappreciated writers’ day.

Jarmin was a little child and children of his age are special to Kuldaganians: they are the only people allowed to swim in city fountains. It doesn’t even matter whether they are freaks that broke the Ancestors’ purity taboo or foreigners that look even more alien. They are kids and childhood is holy. So Jarmin spent the day in Aldaren Turin’s fountain, his flaxen hair looking funny among the bald heads of the descendants of Rami and Otiz, neither of which had hair on their body, brows and eyelashes excluded.

Local dlars’ walls were thick enough to keep the rooms cool even in the fiercest heat of the day and warm even in the fiercest cold the night, so everyone enjoyed the best rest possible. Speaking of walls: only Aldaren-Turin’s city wall was made of monolith; all the walls inside were plain aren concrete. The descendants of Rami and Otiz were no different from other Kuldaganian citizens in that matter.

Monolith interested Pai greatly. He wouldn’t shut up about the Wanderer’s “magic” that they used to manipulate the aspects of aren, the “magic” that worked in the unstable zone somehow without exploding. He tried to ask around, hoping to learn more, but had no luck. Definitely, a Kuldaganian city was no place to learn the Wanderers’ ways.

Pai found some consolation after the caravan had left Aldaren-Turin, though, for they now followed an ancient road paved with rune-inscribed stones enchanted to keep the sands away. Since they had stepped on that road, Pai did little but staring at those runes, absolutely fascinated by them.

For the rest of the team, the journey was as mirthless as before. Thankfully (most likely due to Irin’s constant vigil and excellent marksmanship) no bandits bothered the caravan. At some point, Ramayana Arnika-Vadro approached Irin and asked him to stay and work for her. He refused but did that so loudly and hastily that there were no doubts about how much he actually wanted to accept the offer.

When the lights of Border came into view, it was early evening with only a few stars in the sky. The collective light of the city’s oil lanterns and firefly jars made it look like a gate to the dark unknown beyond. A gate to the No Man’s Land.

Milian felt his heart sink at the sight. The image was more that it seemed. It felt like approaching a point of no return, an unseen border beyond which nothing would ever be the same. The boy could not explain the dread it was giving him and had no words to express the feeling; but the others must have felt something similar for they were all grim despite the comforts and curiosities the city could offer.

The team left the city the next morning on the backs of ten chargas that stepped so softly on the firm ground that replaced the shifty Kuldaganian sand beyond the border.