Ten Cities Down
by Lindsey Duncan
Timur walked the shadows of the Fourth City, conscious of the rock formations that surrounded everything in a protective cocoon. He had cheated the system; he was not supposed to be here. Many people spent their lives earning the right permits and greasing the right palms to descend towards the Ninth City, where a thin wall of crystal was the only thing that separated the here and now from the afterlife. You could touch eternity there, and it bled upwards.He shaded his eyes and followed the luminous moss-orbs that pointed the way to higher climes. Cottages flowed into the stone columns, stalactites and stalagmites fused centuries ago. Street vendors wandered through caverns that could have been made of a single shard of clouded glass. Light filtered down from … somewhere.
Timur suppressed a shiver, part unease and part relief to which he could not yet give voice. The guards paid no mind to anyone who wanted to ascend; they checked credentials only on the way down, but the Travelers would ride soon, hunting for the most recent escapee from the afterlife. It would be a race to the surface, and he was on foot.
An arch to the Third City loomed ahead. The two-story townhomes of skilled artisans and minor merchants began to detoriate, paint chipped, tiles loose—a letter or two missing from the hand-illuminated signs. Timur followed the wall and kept his head down. Over the past two levels, he had watched the cities dissolve, from pure gold to an outer shellac whose alleys housed those who would do anything to stay there.
His shoulders lifted as he neared the rock-cut gate. He found a smile and rolled his story over his tongue, testing it. The guards asked after his purpose with less interest as he ascended.
Out of the corner of his eye, he saw a swatch of cornsilk hair bob low as an arrow-thin girl sidled around the barrier on the far side of the gate and braced long limbs for a run. One hand wrapped behind her, holding the satchel to keep it from making any noise.
Timur hesitated, pretending to study fine linen through the nearest shop window. He wanted to do nothing that might bring the guards into a semblance of attention. When he had lived—lived being the operative word—in the Seventh City, he saw few breakaways: many children tried to reach the Sanctuary there, but success was a miracle.
Patient and canny, she waited until the leftmost guard started snort-snoring. She launched herself through the arch and towards a group of bell-skirted housewives, her body already pulling up to slow once past them. The women, who had seemed tied up in their own concerns, flurried as she darted by, their voices rising in a keen of alarm.
The sleeping guard jerked awake. His companion pushed away from the wall and hit the warning bell with his palm. She froze, dark eyes latched on terror, then spun away and ran. The sounding whistles of a patrol to the north drew nearer—she would never escape from them. Timur felt his heart jolt, but held himself where he was until she turned.
A striking profile, a chipped nose, and a hollow just under her chin … he knew her. His heart spasmed, and the escape he had planned tumbled sideways. He jumped away, stumbling as his foot came down sideways on the paving stones, and launched into the path of the duo. He was a light man, gaunt. The guards could have pushed past him and continued with barely a pause.
Timur caught the shoulder of the guard on the right and assumed a frantic look. He thrust air into lungs unused to it even in life. “Gods, man!” he said. “I desperately need your help.”
They slowed up, though with looks of leashed fury on their faces. “Wait here, sir,” the guard said brusquely, moving to step around him. “We’ll handle—”
Timur clung, counting on the man’s reluctance to swat a civilian. “It’s a matter of life and death, I say,” he insisted. “Life and death.” He prided himself on the fact that he wasn’t even lying. “Please, please …”
The girl slid between the carved obsidian walls and vanished. Timur could see the thoughts of the guards: more pleasant to stay here and deal with the low-dweller than scramble through the tunnels. They could put the approaching patrol on the chase.
Timur had not exercised his talents for the dramatic since his … yes, since his courtship days. He did not have to fake his stammers. “I found someone behind one of the shops,” he said, “with his head bashed in …”
The guards prodded him for details, and he led them down one of the cobbled thoroughfares, aiming for a limestone terrace. He described it as a bad fall, said nothing about blood, and hoped his face was not as transparent as it felt. What if they sensed he was something other than a low-dweller on holiday?
“There isn’t anyone here.” The first guard restrained a glower.
“He must have crawled off.” Timur fought to keep from flushing. He hastened on, “See, the ground is scuffed and some of the roof tiles have fallen, just as I said.”
“Crawled off. Right.” The other guard mustered a thin thread of assurance. “We’ll look into it.”
They wouldn’t, but that suited him just fine. Timur cut his faked worries short to slip into shadows, his mission set aside even though he knew that he could count the hours he had to run. He had little hope of finding her, but wandered away from the main streets, scouring the dark. No glowlights here in the marginal part of the Fourth City, and the phosphorescent moss grew in sickly patches.
Shanties and hovels rotted, disintegrated, melted into the stalagmite masses around which the city had been built. People shuffled without volition, lost to themselves. Timur tried to ignore the feeling of familiarity. It was too similar to the tunnels of the afterlife.
There were nine levels to the city, from the Ninth City up to the criminal region that was the First City. As a scribe, he knew it had a name—Nicantha—but it had not been used much since firestorms consumed the surface. He also knew that humanity endured up there, that there was another world he had neglected for his lines and ledgers.
Not that he had a choice now. Only on the surface would he be safe from the Travelers.
It was hard to believe he had escaped. He knew that the barrier wall from the hereafter was constructed in part from the bodies of the deceased, but had not truly expected to regain his when he crossed—much less unblemished. They taught in the afterlife that escape intact was impossible, that only the exceptional could cross the barrier, and even their souls corroded. Not true … he hoped.
A flick, a shuffle of motion, and she landed in front of him, the satchel hanging free. “Thank you for the rescue,” she said. “Who are you?”
The truth scraped at the inside of his throat. “My name is Andris,” he said.
“Civine.” Her chin tipped, querulous. “Why did you help me?”
Gods, but he could see her mother there, in the wispy brows and the half-drawn smile. He had no idea how long he had been gone, but she couldn’t be more than twelve—nine years, then? She had forgotten him, surely. She had his eyes, cat’s hazel, his slightness, and nothing more, perhaps not even a memory.
“I’m tired of the city and leaving,” he said. “I had nothing to lose.”
Civine thought about this and nodded. “Va,” she said, indicating it was fine. “I just have one more to go.” She shouldered the satchel again and turned away.
“Wait!”
Her eyes widened as she paused. “Yeah?”
“What about you?” he said. “Why are you here?”
The bag dropped from her shoulder. “My mother and I,” she said. “We’ve been living in Third—wasn’t going to last much longer, we were sure to be bumped up to Second—and then a blueblood merchant out of Fifth starts strutting and saying it would be much better if she moved in with him. Just her.” She snorted for emphasis, though she looked more frightened than tough. “Not her and me.”
“And?” Third and rising! Of course, after his death, they had been moved to Fourth where he had met her, but he had never expected their fortunes to dissolve, not when they had the money from his death legacy to live on. He felt a stab of guilt.
“Today I come home and no sight of her,” Civine continued. “I ask around, and turns out he came on down with a handful of guardsmen and insists she comes right then. So I can just walk up to the arch and say that my mother is two cities down, can I join her? No. You know how it works.” At this, the tension in her face dropped, and she looked lost. “I just have to find her. Once I make it, they can sort the papers and make it work.”
Would it? Timur wondered. The fact that his once-wife’s new paramour had showed up with an armed escort made him uneasy. “Let me help you,” he said. “I know a way down to Fifth.”
“You do?” Flame burnished her eyes. “Can you tell me?”
“I can show you.” The maps were musty in his mind, but he could feel the memory: a vapor tunnel, through which the powers of the city flowed from the deepest rock, connected to the aqueducts. It had been new when he died—they would not have closed it. He should have spent more time studying the schematics, but he could make it. “I’ll come with you.”
Civine frowned, lips twitching. A protest formed, perhaps to say that she could take care of herself, but fear won out. “Va.” She started walking.
Moisture breathed from the walls, the inner city clammy and flat. Dark eyes scanned them from the shadows and dismissed them. Voices bumped in the background, monotone interrupted by sudden jerks of temper. Despite her bravado, Civine fell back, fingers fidgeting.
“Towards the scenic district,” Timur murmured, as much to have something to say as to direct her. “Not far now.”
“Where are we going?” She, in turn, was asking for the sake of words.
“The Serene Gardens. They were quite a landmark when they first opened.” He stopped, wondering if the words seemed odd to her. Civine showed no change in expression, only a faint smile at the sound of a friendly voice.
The streets lightened ahead, brightening and opening onto more populated areas. Civine clung to the wall and Timur stepped to flank her. Every sound had him turning to search for the patrols.
It was in silence that he had his first warning—silence, and a rising chill that had no physical presence. He flinched as his bones ached; the pain made him stumble.
Civine clutched his arm. “Andris?”
It took him a second to recognize his assumed name. “I’m—” He realized what it was as passerby clutched their cloaks closer and hunched in on themselves. “Civine!” He caught her arm and darted for the nearest shop, carrying her squawking across the threshold.
She spun free, landing in a crouch. “What are you doing?”
Shoppers turned towards them with murmured exclamations and polite surprise, but Timur led them deep into the closeness of the stone shelves. The smell of linen and mint rose to meet them.
Howling voices ripped down the streets. The unholy cries met with no resistance. People dashed to one side, tight to the walls, bunched, whispering. Riders in white and grey flashed by, scanning every face. No one had the luxury of avoiding their gaze, no one but the people huddled in the backs of shops.
The Travelers rode on, faster than any mortal tread for the surface. The hunt passed him—passed him and would corner him when they worked their way back down. When they did, they would unmake him—not even the half existence of death. He swallowed the sensation of panic.
“Andris?” Civine’s voice was quavery, worried.
“Let them pass.” He tried to guard himself from her questions.
Minutes slipped by. The shop stayed hushed, customers frozen in the act of plucking cloth and examining threads. Motion faded back in, then conversation. Most of them had seen this before, though the Travelers were not often unleashed in pursuit. Timur nodded to his charge and started for the door.
“I’ve never seen Travelers before,” Civine said, darting after. “Someone escaped from the afterlife?” At his nod, even though his pace quickened further, she continued, “Why would anyone want to do that? I mean, dead is dead, right?”
“That’s exactly the reason,” Timur said. “Death is nothing more than time without break or resolution. How can you bear that when you’re not done with life?”
“Most people die of old age, though,” Civine objected. “If you’re not ready then, when will you be?”
She lived a rising life, almost banished to the punishing surface, and she still believed that? After his initial surprise, Timur realized the thought comforted him. “I only wish that were true. Shh—I need to think about the route.”
They stepped under the wrought-iron arch into the close dark of the garden. Candles concealed in niches turned the air luminous gold, embroidering flowers and tracing the outline of leaves, but the most striking feature of the Serene Gardens was the water: rivers, fountains and waterfalls, crossed by bridges of mahogany and cherry. Real trees shaded the plants in their magical suspension, their seedlings rescued from the surface before the Wasting.
Couples kissed under the willows. A family picnicked by the pond. Idyllic setting, perfect day—it was always perfect under the earth.
Timur hesitated, then headed for the bounding wall. False wood lay between them and the access tunnels. He felt along the planks until the door made itself evident under his fingers. A gentle push, and it swung open into servant corridors.
No immediate sign of the vapor tunnel. His eyes scanned buckets, brooms, spare candles and the arcane framework that adjusted the spells. He took two steps and almost ended up with a vine headdress when Civine plowed into him.
She squawked. “Which way?”
“I’m not sure …”
“What’s that?” Civine stalked over to a dangling sheet that rippled with the courses of circulated air. She grabbed it, pulled … and it fluttered away from a cut in the rock, rusty and murky.
Timur stared. Nine years indeed. Could the world decay this fast?
“That’s what we’re looking for,” he said. “Straight down for a while and around three bends. Simple, right?”
She looked skeptical. “What about a light?”
“Safer to move without it.” Timur found he could already make out the gradations, and shuddered with the knowledge that it was more than normal human sight. He was used to this—too used to it. “We aren’t supposed to be doing this, after all.”
“But …” Her hands played with the cloth.
“I’ll stay ahead of you,” he said. “I can see fairly well, and I’ll catch you if you fall.” I’ll always catch you, he vowed, for however short a time I can.
She moved to his side and watched the opening from his perspective. “Va.” The light affirmative again, without enthusiasm. “There are footholds, right?”
Timur felt over the end and nodded. He hopped down to encourage her. His foot jarred hard on perspiring stone.
“Easy to find by feel,” he said. “Come on.”
The steps had been hewn precise and identical, capped with bronze, but that was a long time ago. Most of the caps were missing, the stone cut and crumbled through the impact of workers and thieves. Sluggish heat swirled up through the vapor tunnel, vented from the deeps.
Timur winced as the stone cut his hands, but made no sound. Civine whimpered, but each time her foot came down, it cracked with increased determination.
They dropped into the curve. Hollow voices moved dimly through the rock from the city. Echoing arias: they were not too far from Sixth. Timur thought the tunnel went that far, but no deeper.
He reached out a hand to help Civine down the last step. Illusory shapes swelled in the darkness, and it was all he could do not to jerk away. Here, he reminded himself, they were nothing but shadow. On the other side of the crystal wall …
Oh, you learned very quickly to flee from figments of darkness.
“We should have brought light.” Her voice echoed. She squeaked, clapping a hand over her mouth.
“I can see.” He put a hand on her shoulder to guide her. “The passage curves gently to the left here. We follow it until it forks.”
Phantasmal voices purred around them, but the journey had no more dangers than the occasional bumped toe. Civine bit her lip and made only muted sounds of protest; Timur found he did not feel it, and wished otherwise.
They found the passage by feel. “You first—I’m right behind you,” he said.
“So what if it’s walled off?” she wondered. “What if there are spikes or traps, or workers, or thieves …”
His hand under her elbow steadied her. A steady rush and thunder surrounded them, and all that happened was that both ended up soaking wet as they stepped under a waterfall.
“Gah! Augh …” Civine spluttered, spit and then started to giggle.
Timur clapped a hand over her mouth and pulled them both back through the spray. Before she could protest, he murmured, “Public waterfall. No one was looking up, but …”
Civine crinkled her nose. “Does that mean we’re muddying the drinking water?”
“No one ever died of it.” He leaned forward. “If we can get on the first rock outcropping …”
Then his foot went, and he had no other choice. He cracked down hard on his tailbone and slid, landing in a heap on the phosphorescent moss.
Civine scurried after him, reaching a hand down to help him. Slick fingers fell through his.
“What are you doing?”
She went still. To the accompaniment of squelching water, Timur rolled into a protective crouch. “This is all my -”
“Ha! You’re old to be waterfall walking.” The speaker was a boy of maybe seventeen, long locks swept back with a headband.
Timur’s heart pounded even through his relief. “I’m showing my daughter how,” he said.
“A lot of fun,” Civine said brightly. She shivered; her clothes were too thin for the drenching she had received.
A mischievous smile on the young man’s face. “Isn’t it?”
Timur worked his way down the rock face. “Could you lend us some towels?” he said. “We’re a ways from home, and -”
“He was supposed to bring them,”Civine piped up.
“She forgot,” Timur said.
The boy quirked a grin. “Va. You just come drop them on our doorstep some day—or keep them, as it please you.”
That was one thing about the Cities. No matter the exalted depths, the young never changed. Timur glanced to his daughter and smiled. She would make her home here, one way or another.
The young man was as lavish as any partner in crime. He sent them away wrapped in the enormous linen towels of the rich. Civine whipped one around her hair and tied the knot jauntily at the ear.
“We’re looking for the Gal’Vordran estate,” she said, hailing down a servant.
It turned out to be a manor with broad eaves and an imposing moraine around the outside. Pretentious, but nothing out of the ordinary … until Timur noticed the iron casings on the windows, the readiness of the gate post. This was the home of a man who had abandoned his lover’s daughter.
“I don’t think we can both walk in,” he said. “I’ll explain myself as a servant and ask your mother to come out to get you.” The minute he said it, though his intention was to protect her, his mouth iced with the realization. It would mean facing his wife.
Keep his voice down, his face covered, and she would never recognize him.
Civine made a face, but flopped onto the slate street to wait. He tried not to watch her too hard before he headed for the gates.
The guards raked him with their eyes. “Who are you? What is your business here?”
“The lord Gal’Vordran—” it occurred to Timur that he didn’t even know the man’s given name “—requested the services of a scribe. I’m he.”
“Are you.” The study turned skeptical. “Ragged for a scribe, aren’t you?”
“I was told to come as I was. A matter perhaps of some urgency?” He gave no time for those words to sink in, turning to the gravel and mud that made up the moraine. Concentrating, he drew on the light of illumination and sketched a sigil on the rock. It glowed for half a second, pretty but powerless, before it faded. “As you can see, my credentials are in order.”
The guard hesitated, then nodded. “Go through.”
Like most of the affluent, Gal’Vordran had an interior garden. Like most of Fifth, it was a rock garden rather than the luxurious green of recreational plants. Unlike most of Fifth, it was not supplemented by the faux ferns and greenery popular with the wealthy—sterile, stark, unrelieved rows.
The interior followed the same mold, dull black that peeled off into rare gouts of light. Timur felt a flicker of foreboding, put it down to jealousy. He caught a servant’s cloak from the kitchen closet.
He found her in the library, copying an old record. Still regal, still beautiful, lush blonde hair tucked back with absent reserve. The name was on his lips; it froze there, and so did he.
She looked up, her manner quizzical. “Can I help you?”
Timur remembered himself, lowered his knee and voice both, but it was painful to take his eyes off her. “I have news of your daughter, milady.”
“Milady! Who are you talking to?” That smile! Distant sunlight could not be more perfect. It faded into concern. “Is Civine all right? I asked one of the families to look after her …”
From what Timur already knew of his daughter, she would never have accepted that. “She is here, milady. She came for you.”
Scarlet dotted her cheeks. “Oh, no. You must not bring her here. I told the lord that—” She stopped, her body drawn high and still. “Timur?”
Gemlight, how did she know him? The best he could do was not acknowledge the question. “Civine risked two descents to reach you—”
She stepped to him, put hands on his shoulders, eyes wavering and cavern-sea blue. “Timur. I know you like the other end of my mind. How did you manage?”
To the wonder in her voice, to the sense that no time had passed, he surrendered, and finally gave himself into full consciousness of the woman he had married. “Navella,” he said, poor poetry on his lips. “I never meant to leave …”
“Shh, why would I think that?” She started to touch his lips with one finger, but could not finish the gesture, trembling with shock. “Timur, what are you? You look normal …”
“I escaped, Navella. I don’t know how I succeeded, but I was headed up.” He reached for her hand and clasped it.
“I heard the Travelers ride through.” Her eyes drank him in, disbelieving. “They were coming for you.”
“Yes.”
“You came back down to bring my daughter?”
“To bring her home,” he confirmed.
Navella clutched him close, her head falling into his shoulder, and he felt the strange stirrings of life within him. Almost, there was joy, but he could not be sure whether it was death or the brevity of the meeting that took it away.
“No,” she said. “Not home. Not here.” She raised her eyes to his. “My lord, he is … looking for an heir.”
It took Timur a minute to realize. “He’d want to marry her off. That would be—”
“That would be soon, to someone brutish and old,” Navella said. “I am, if not happy, content, but I know him. Take her away from here.”
He heard the wistfulness in her voice. “Come away,” he said. “I can find somewhere for the two of you …”
“A jealous man.” She squeezed his hand tighter. “I don’t have the money to support us both. That’s why I agreed to come here. I wish she could have one of her parents with her, but I fear that may not be possible.”
“You could …” Timur hesitated. Life on the surface was not as bad as the governors of the Cities insisted, he knew from his readings, but it was nothing to compare with the luxury of Fifth. “Will he be good to you? If he is so harsh …”
“He does love me.” Apology and regret in her voice. “Would you do something for me, Timur? One last thing?”
“It’s the least I can do,” he said, “after I left you both.”
Silence, enough to agree, even if she did not put it into words. “Take her to the Sanctuary. They won’t turn her away.”
Timur thought of the Travelers above him. They might have reached the surface by now, might be raking the upper straits for signs of him. The longer he waited … but she was right. The Sanctuary had been founded to raise orphaned highborn, but its caretakers would accepted any child who could reach it. “Of course,” he said. “Are you sure?”
“Sure.” Navella leaned in and kissed his cheek. “I held you in my heart for a long time, Timur. I wish it could have been different.”
That note of hope was also a note of finality. He let his heart break again. “Make sure he takes care of you.”
“Be careful, Timur.”
He moved to the door before he could stop himself. The momentum carried him down the hall in an unremembered haze until he ran straight into Civine.
She squawked and stumbled backwards. He caught her arm instinctively. “What are you doing here?”
“I followed you, which is a good thing.” She staved off his complaints with a glare. “Is that it? Do I go to the Sanctuary, no matter what I decide? Didn’t I show I could take care of myself coming this far?” She drew herself up. “Isn’t my father supposed to believe in me as well as take care of me and why didn’t you tell …”
He reached out to a clamp a hand to her mouth before she could start screaming. She collapsed against him with almost enough force to knock him over, started pounding him with her fists. When this proved ineffective, she kicked him in the shins.
“I want to come with you,” she said. “I want to know what sunlight is, to stop worrying about someone telling me I’m not good enough for things …”
He winced from where he had fallen. “I’m only leaving because I have no other choice.”
“I’ve seen Seventh when I was little. It’s not that special.” She stood, arms crossed, defiant.
“I’m sorry.” Timur clambered to his feet, putting a hand on her shoulder. “This is all your mother wanted. Please? We need to get out of here,” he said, flicking a look down the corridor.
Civine sighed. “Va. That’s the easy part. I came over a gap in the back wall.” She fell silent, brooding. He could feel the adolescent rebellion straining for some better expression. “So how did you get out?”
Timur paused as he handed her up the wall. “I escaped when I gave up,” he murmured.
She paused, eyes piercing. “I don’t understand. Gave up?”
“The Sea of Evermore bounds on the crystal wall between the afterlife and Ninth,” he said. It was one of the attractions of the Ninth City: the Sea was very pretty to those who ignored its purpose. “We wade into it when we finally decide we want—we need—to forget. I swam out as far as I could …”
“And then?”
“It didn’t work. I’ll never know why.” He shook his head. “I saw the wall. I decided to keep my head up and approach it. I thought just one glimpse beyond into the City would satisfy me. Instead …”
“Instead?” Civine prompted as they wound out of the avenue.
“I couldn’t bear it.” Timur smiled wryly. “I held my breath and dove. So long and so deep that when I swam for the wall, it parted under my fingers. I think I almost drowned.”
“Is it possible for you to do that?”
“I have no idea.” Would he simply end up back where he had started? Would he wander forever now?
“That would be horrible. People ought to only die once.”
Timur remained silent. Once the Travelers found him, he would never know.
She sensed it, cocked her head up to study him. “So how do we get down to Seventh? I figure once we get there it must be easy.”
“I’ll need to speak to the portrait artists here,” he said. “I want to be sure my information is correct.”
Civine bobbed her head. “Is there anything I can do?”
“Do you have any money?” At her nod, he said, “Buy yourself something from a street vendor. Something sweet.”
“Oh, twist my arm.” She scuttled away.
Timur chuckled and went to chat up the painters, careful to avoid those he had known in life. They had come to him several times, wanting to know about this historical scene or that myth of the ancestors. Now he relied on them for the esoteric dimensions of the present.
“The old zoo hasn’t been renewed for over a decade?” Timur asked casually.
The woman in her cotton smock waved a brush. “Hasn’t been a need. They’re building a new one close to the arch of Eighth. Why do we laborers need to see creatures of the past, after all?”
Timur kept his face straight. Common was not the way he would have described any resident of Fifth. Just the woman’s front room was larger and more ornate than most of the homes in Third. He entered the main thoroughfare with a plan and without the towel, lost in thought. It took him a moment to realize that Civine was not waiting for him.
The sight of a rock-candy vendor had him legging over as fast as he could. “Have you seen a blonde child, about twelve?”
The man squinted. “Scrawny, fiery little thing? She said she was going up.”
Timur’s heart seized. “Which direction?” Where had she gotten such stubbornness? Her mother and he had always been content to bend to the way of things.
“Up Chrysophase, towards the Rhodonite—hey!”
Timur limp-stepped into a run, trying to scan side streets without slowing. She had to be heading to the vapor tunnel, but she could just as easily duck into the shadows. The swell of pride met a torrent of worry.
If she had turned aside, he did not see her. He offered no explanation to the startled couple by the public waterfall as he darted up the stones and plunged through the icy breach. He would have sworn he tasted the tear-salt bitterness of the underwaters.
His ears cleared in time to hear scrabbling ahead. He held back the urge to call out and leapt into the passage. A winking glow ahead, painting the blonde wraith in silhouette.
She stayed just beyond him, around the next bend, until she reached the climb to the next City and his eyes gave him an advantage. She paused and looked down.
“Civine!” he risked the call. “What are you doing?”
Those hazel eyes—his eyes in reflection—stared through him. “If I go, you have to follow.” Then she was darting, scrambling, a madcap flail of limbs precariously close to stepping off and plummeting into darkness.
“Civine …” Fear kept him from interrupting her, even as he hauled hand over hand.
The light flicked out as she disappeared. He heard fleet steps arrowing to the garden.
Timur made it up and stumbled. She’d kicked some of the equipment over in passing. He had the sneaking idea it had been on purpose.
Could she really lead him on a chase all the way to the surface? Surely they couldn’t pass through the arches at a run—the guards would stop them. He clasped this reassurance even as he followed her.
He felt the chill on the edge of the garden. He braced his body to cry out warning.
Too late. Civine ran head-first into one of three Travelers who stood at the head of the avenue. They spun her about as she squawked and flailed. Massive white fists held her still.
Timur pressed himself to the wall and darted closer. As long as they simply let her go, it would be all right. He had his first look at the faces of the Travelers, and he flinched. Gaunt and spectral, what struck to the soul was the fleeting nature of those countenances: drawn faces, terrified, resigned and hopeless, flicking like masks over the features beneath.
Civine was unmoved, unafraid, blazing. He heard her answer their questions with impatient ease.
One pale palm thrust out. Timur did not have to hear the words to know they were asking for her pass.
She rolled her eyes, turning to reach into her satchel. He saw the flash of the knife as she rooted. She had to be stalling for time.
Timur braced himself. He had to interfere. The Travelers were legendarily harsh with mortals out of their city. He sent a silent apology to Navella that he had not been able to complete her last request.
“Va, he’s my father,” Civine was saying. “But you get nothing.”
He saw the blade move, aimed at her own chest. She had surely never used a knife on anything but vegetables before. He admired her from a sick sense of safety, for he knew she didn’t have the strength to do more than nick herself.
He had forgotten how fluid the world of shadows was and how easily things changed there. He had forgotten that the Travelers carried it with them.
Her scream masked his. He knew more than felt or saw the motion of her soul. Her success garroted him. He dropped, spent, gasping and cursing inwardly that stubbornness, that wild determination that had thrown her out of reach.
The Travelers whirled around the tiny body. Timur would have railed at them had there been even an inch for hope, but he remembered this. They took the body, which dissolved into crystal and became part of the wall. They took the soul to the other side. The one he could rescue; the other he could not.
It was their divine task, will they or not. They carried her away so swiftly that he had no hope of following. He collapsed to the cobbled rock, any number of mad plans coursing down his mind to the grim conclusion that none of them had a chance.
It was harder to believe than his escape had been. No child should sacrifice herself for a parent.
He picked himself up by rote and went as far as the arch down. No trace of them—not a whisper, not a trail of dust. He’d had her and lost her, all on borrowed time. He forced himself to turn, mapping the ascent without being conscious of the path. There was nowhere else to go, but no hurry now. He wandered, sometimes got lost entirely. Time was as fluid as it had been below.
Warmer then, with the heat of the overworld sinking down through rock. Lighter then, as tendrils of real sunlight cast a harsh pallor on shattered stone and shriveled moss. The First City was a cesspool, practically a nomad’s camp, but they were giving away jugs of some liquid that was at least partly water.
Timur took one along with a handful of hard bread. He completed his journey because there was nothing else. The guards eyed him apathetically and wandered through the speech that was supposed to make sure he understood the consequences of venturing onto the surface. Timur pretended to listen, and they pretended to be satisfied.
All-enveloping light flooded around him as he stepped out of the tunnel onto a limitless expanse of sand and rock. For the first time in his life, he lost track of the horizon. The dizzying sense of space filled his lungs and pulsed through his veins.
A group of standing stones marked the final boundary of the City. He passed them and sank into the sand, suddenly exhausted. He curled up in the shadow of the far side, where the Travelers could not touch him.
He realized as he squinted into the distance that his fears about the loss of sensation had been unfounded. He had barely noticed it, but since Civine had run from him, the emotions poured in, real and thick as he had always remembered them. Now he wished them gone.
He let himself sleep and found comfort in the absence of thought. His dreams danced with far-fetched chances. Given time, if the mythic libraries of the east were real, their texts on rebirth …
Something hard nudged him in the ribs.
“You’re going to roast like a bad chicken like that.”
Timur started, head coming back so fast he felt a muscle tear. Civine stood over him, impatient, exasperated, two pale fists on her hips. He scrambled to his feet, catching her up in a hug that he suddenly realized was their first. “Gemlight! What …”
Civine snorted into his shoulder. “You told me what to do. I just find that patch of sea and I keep swimming. Easy. Getting back through the Cities was a snap with all those back ways. I told you I could take care of myself.”
She shivered like an earthquake, and held her tight, laughing, crying, it made no difference which. Finally she pulled back, all pragmatism. “We should get going, right?” she said. “No fun to find out if we can do this dying thing again.”
There was no thought of returning to the City, but there was another world out there, however hostile and unknown. “There’s an oasis four days out,” he said. “The traders who run it can give us an idea of the lay of the land.”
Civine grinned. “This,” she said, “is going to be fantastic.”
One look at the flushed face, and nine years of nothing seemed to disappear. “It just might be,” he said, and put the Nine Cities—and the tenth—behind him.
LINDSEY DUNCAN is a life-long writer and professional Celtic harp performer, with short fiction and poetry in several speculative fiction publications. She feels that music and language are inextricably linked. She lives, performs and teaches harp in Cincinnati, Ohio and is a student at Indiana University, working on a self-designed major. She can be found on the web at http://www.LindseyDuncan.com/