Ninth City Burning (39 page)

The white equus—I can't think of it as an unidentified object anymore—appears to be mostly unarmed. It darts and weaves through the sparse cloud of Valentines, dealing out punches and kicks—attacks more appropriate to a schoolyard brawler than a refined weapon—whenever an enemy ventures too close. The Valentines, in turn, seem more concerned with intervening in the duel going on above. Presumably, they know which source is theirs and are trying to turn the fight in its favor. The white equus appears to be trying to fend off these same attacks, and taking a good amount of punishment for its efforts. Its armor is cracked and split in several places, and it sheds shimmering blue gwayd with each twist and turn.

Just be careful,
I repeat to my 'drille.
Everyone fall in.

I report the situation back to Kitu, let him know my plan.
Very good, Chaser,
he says.
Swift wings and sharp blades to you.

Sharp and swift, sir.

We're swift, and we're sharp. The Valentines aren't expecting us, and we're able to cut well into them before they have a chance to respond. The first curl of Type 3s is rearing back to challenge us when from above there's a sound halfway between thunder and an infant's shrieking, like the sky is splitting open and not enjoying the experience one bit. FireChaser's senses quake and blur, and when she can see again, the air has filled with a faint
pinkish haze scattered with what look like glowing embers. The boiling energy of sources in combat is now completely still, surrounded by a dense ring of burning air. The duel is over.

All fighting in the vicinity of the surviving source ceases. The Valentines know as well as we do that the victor here could easily wipe every one of us from the sky. In a few seconds, that's exactly what will happen to one side or the other, depending on whose source won, but no one wants to be first, and general wisdom tells us that the first to run will also be the first to die.

As steadily as I can, I scan through my roster of fontani for Sixth, Third, and Ninth Legions. To the naked eye, all sources may look like rivers of darkness, but each has its own unique flow of energy, and if this is one of ours, I should be able to identify it. But my search comes up empty. Either FireChaser's sensory arrays are still too garbled to pick this source out, or it wasn't on our side when the battle started.

We're dead,
Midmurro says.
It's a Zero. We're all dead.

Shut up,
Sensen snarls.

Everyone cool it,
I say. My voice is steady, but I know if we're facing down a Zero, our chances of getting out of this alive aren't good. Our best shot would be to make killing us more trouble than it's worth.
On my mark, I want you all to shut down and drop. It might not go after you if you don't look like a threat.

What are you planning, Chaser?
Pelashwa asks.

My plan, if it deserves to be called a plan, involves what I'm sure will be a very brief rush into the airspace of this possible Zero. Hopefully, the split second of distraction I provide will be enough for the rest of my 'drille to get out of sight.

But before I can make my move, the white equus, which had been hovering nearby, falters and begins to sink, too damaged to remain aloft any longer, and, reflexively, I move to intercept.

It takes less than a second, but when I look back, the Valentine fighters have been reduced to a few misty clouds of gwayd.

Uo and his ride, SunOnWaves, dip down to help me hold the white equus, which struggles weakly in our grip, while the rest of my 'drille surrounds us, everyone still watching the lone source floating above.

Guess it wasn't a Zero,
Ottumtee comments.

Maybe it forgot which side it's on,
posits Uo.

But it wasn't one of ours, either, right?
Pelashwa says.
So who is it?

The source answers for itself. A woman's voice comes ringing through our equi, vibrating with the dangerous energy audible in communications with fontani.
This is Fontana Malandeera of the Twenty-Second Legion,
the source says.
I must speak with your commanders immediately. There is urgent news from the Front.

T
o attach overly much significance to any single experience or event strikes me as silly, but I cannot help thinking of the first time I saw the Valley of Endless Summer, what I now know as Ninth City, as the moment everything began to change. Until then, my life was an endless succession of dirt roads, of mountains and forests and nights spent in fields amid a circle of wagons, always in some new spot but never anywhere truly different. I knew of nothing more alien than the townships, with their paved streets, their smoking chimneys, their fearful citizens rushing among close-set houses. But as I stood atop the Great Ridge, looking down onto that terrain of summer amid a land enshrouded by winter, I felt the world expand around me. It was as if I had spent my life locked in a high tower, never knowing anything of the land below until one day I climbed down and set my feet on solid earth. Now it seems each step brings me to some strange new frontier. Every time I look, the world's boundaries have shifted again.

Even to say “the world,” as if this one place contains the sum of all existence, is a mistake. The ground we tread is only a single point in an infinite web of worlds—the Realms, they are collectively called, though I have been learning their individual names as well. Our Realm, everything from the center of the Earth to the farthest reaches of the night sky, is called Hestia, named after the goddess of hearth and home in some ancient religion. The Realms found beyond Lunar Veil are not titled so sensibly. Instead, they have names such as Oz and Perelandra, Neverland and MapleWhite. Nonsense words, which Charles tells me come from imaginary countries described in old stories. I suppose I can understand why the explorers who first saw these places, at sea in a universe expanding beyond
all reason or understanding, would seek out some familiar and comforting reference. I only wish the names they chose were not quite so ridiculous.

From Hestia, these Realms lead away in a line of ten, each connecting to the next like beads on a string. To reach any one, you must first travel through one of its neighbors. A person cannot go from Hestia to Barsoom, the fourth Realm distant, without first traversing Dis, Oz, and Arda in that order. And before that, you must cross the murky passage of Lunar Veil. There are other gateways out of Hestia, each attending on some celestial body: Mercurial Veil, Jovian Veil, and Saturnine Veil to name a few. It is presumed that the egresses from our Realm, like the Realms themselves, are beyond counting, perhaps one for every star in the firmament, even those too small or distant to see from Earth. Lunar Veil and the Realms beyond are significant for one very important reason: They constitute the path that brought our enemy here.

This string of ten Realms is known as the Corridor, largely because travel therein follows a single, fixed path. It seems odd that we would think of a succession of Realms, each as large and complex as our own, as something narrow, but I suppose this is so when compared to what follows. As with Hestia, the Realms of the Corridor branch out in multitudinous directions, but only by walking these ten in order can we find our way to the Front. The tenth Realm of the Corridor is called Wonderland, and from there the Realms bloom into a web of interconnected realities as intricate and convoluted as a rabbits' warren. We call this tangle of worlds the Lattice, and it is from somewhere inside this maze, we believe, that the Valentines originate.

In contrast to the Realms of the Corridor, with their fanciful titles, those of the Lattice are designated by strings of letters and numbers, a system I find nearly as incoherent. We do not know how many worlds the Lattice contains, only that, unlike the Corridor—which we believe began as a tunnel of exploration, newly discovered and never settled—the Lattice was claimed and cultivated long before our armies arrived. We have seen few Realms therein where the Valentines did not maintain some presence, though never have we encountered anything like a permanent colony. All we have ever found are military outposts, which have taken strong and universal exception to our presence in their domain.

Drawn out as a map, the Realms as we know them look something like a tree. Hestia is at the root, and from there the trunk of the Corridor grows,
eventually spreading its branches to become the Lattice. The ragged edge of the uppermost boughs represents the Front, the line of Realms where our Legions are locked in combat with the Valentines. According to Charles, the beginning of the war was a time of chaos, when muddled clashes would roll from Realm to Realm, and the lines of battle shifted dramatically and often. Since then, the fighting has settled along a frontier of fifteen Realms, and while it is not unknown for one side or the other to advance or retreat, for the past three hundred years, the Front has been little but a slow and grinding stalemate.

All of this has been part of my education at the Academy of Ninth City. Khorography, as the mapping of the Realms is called, is part of the quite overwhelming field of Khorology, or study of the Realms, and one of several topics in which I have received remedial instruction, albeit the only one with Jax as my teacher. It is no simple subject, but Jax is a capable tutor, affable and never haughty about his superior knowledge. He can be quite funny at times, though if I am honest, I must admit I do not fully understand his sense of humor. Often my first clue that a joke has been made is Jax's sheepish grin, his way of apologizing for digressing, something I am sometimes impatient with him about. But I am grateful for his help, and never more so than today, as it helps me understand the debate now under way in Ninth City's Hall of the Principate, where the fate of Earth and its inhabitants is being decided.

Two days have passed since battle began in the skies beneath Lunar Veil, and only now is the general state of emergency being lifted. I grew concerned when Charles had been gone an hour, though Jax assured me it was common for surface evacuations to last through the day whether or not there was any danger. “The Legion doesn't want nonessential personnel running around until all the fighters are back in,” he said, but I could tell his show of confidence was largely for my benefit.

It was getting on toward dusk by the time Charles returned, and it was only to bring news that the battle had spread. Our enemy was at large, and it was possible he would target Ninth City. We must be prepared to fight.

“There will be another fontana here in the city with you,” Charles said, “but she may not be in a condition to fend off a Zero by herself. If there's a strike on Ninth City, she'll need your help.”

Charles himself was to rejoin the battle. He had returned only to see us
and to escort reinforcements back into combat. The air over Ninth City had filled with the buzzing specks of soldiers and fighters rising and descending among the tall buildings. When they had collected overhead, hovering like a cloud of midges, Charles looked at us, and said, “You can do this. You just have to believe in yourselves and each other.” And then he was gone in a gust of wind and light.

“At least there are three of us,” Jax said, watching the fighters disappear into the darkening sky. In the low light, the great peaks of Ninth City seemed lonely as mountaintops. “No one's heard of more than one Zero trying to strike a city at a time. Three against one should be OK.”

I could tell he was nervous; so was I. We have both progressed in our training, but we are plainly a long way from being able to contend with a source of Charles's prowess. Only that day he had defeated our best efforts with hardly a breath of exertion. Charles has promised that with practice, I will be better able to control my mijmere, but I wonder sometimes whether his assurances are merely nice words meant to prop up my spirits. In our skirmish, I had built a concert hall to hide in, with balconies full of gracious and appreciative onlookers and an orchestra flooding the place with music, which I have come to understand is my Theme. But even before Charles began his attack, I heard a discord rising. My Genius, the man I know as the Maestro, was able to quell the disorder, but by then Charles had smashed through the doors, and my symphony was in ruins.

Jax and I both knew a Valentine source would likely be too much for us to contend with, and there was no telling whether this fontana Charles had mentioned was a seasoned warrior or untried amateur. I wondered why she had not come to wait with us at the Forum. Was she afraid?

As darkness fell, a heavy quiet descended with it, the kind of silence that precedes a storm, or a stalking predator, when even the birds and insects cease their chatter. It seemed to me something terrible was trailing us, misting our necks with its hot, cloudy breath. The night was cool, and I thought I smelled fire on the air. I wondered where Mama was just then, and Baby Adam, in the midst of such peril. And I thought of Rae. I knew she would be down in the city's shelters, but I had the strange feeling she had found her way into danger, and this frightened me even more.

Just then I would have given my eyeteeth to be anywhere else, anywhere but this plain of stone, with the night and our foes coming for us. It was my first real taste of the work I had been recruited to perform, and
I did not know how anyone could bear something so lonesome and desolate. I had joined the Legion to be a protector, and now it seemed clear I lacked the stomach for it.

The City Guns began to rumble then, stark pillars of light illuminating the sky. Suddenly, I felt something close around my palm. Jax had slipped his hand into mine. I did not feel it happen, nor could I say what his intentions were. Normally, I would have pulled away with some sharp remark at his presumption, but I did not. To my surprise, his touch reassured me. It told me that if I had to fight, I would not fight alone. He said not a word about it, and neither did I.

We waited all night, alone in the Forum, while the City Guns roared out their thundering tattoo and the sky rumbled and shimmered and glowed with the fury of distant battle. All across the horizon, armies wielding weapons of thelemity tore rips and scratches bright with blossoming color, displays I once considered wonders and called by such whimsical names as angel's stitches and moon babies but now knew to be only the tracks of this endless war.

Charles did not reappear until the following day, just before noon. He looked tired, weariness I knew must be more mental than physical. Visiting a mijmere has a way of restoring a person's constitution. Jax and I had each shaded once or twice over the course of the night, whenever we became fatigued, though never for very long, as we did not fully trust ourselves to control that sleepwalking power in the midst of a city.

“The fighting's over,” Charles told us, “the worst of it, anyway.” His voice and expression indicated the worst was bad indeed. “Romeo doesn't have enough strength left to try for another city. We're safe for now. Go get some sleep. There will be a meeting of the Consulate in the morning, and I want the two of you there. Whatever they decide, it will concern you both.”

Charles was not inclined to say more, but it was plain from his demeanor that our situation was grave. I retired to my room, not expecting to sleep much, but was unexpectedly overcome by a deep and heavy exhaustion. It was a feeling I knew well, the kind of tiredness that comes after a day of strenuous work, or a long journey through the cold, but it seemed unaccountable when I had done nothing more than stand around the Forum, occasionally visiting my mijmere. For all it lacked sense, it was real enough: I was asleep in no time.