Djinn City, page 30
A lady djinn appeared across the gate, covered in veils, and Kuriken rose in greeting. It was apparent he had been waiting for her. She approached with a nod, perfectly at ease, as if this was part of a regular routine. He poured wine for her and offered her a plate of fruit as she sat across from him, two intimates sharing a respite, a scene so incongruent, so normal, that Kaikobad forgot the horror they were living in. She removed her veils, and her beauty staggered him. It was perfect yet warm, animated even while she sat still, her hands held placidly on her lap, her field powered down to an inch of her flawless brown skin.
“Davala,” Kuriken said, savoring the name.
“Peace, Kuriken.”
“You risk much to come in person,” Kuriken said. “To enter this place is easier than leaving.”
“I know,” Davala said. “The paths are still open, my love. I have come to bring you back.”
“You have many loves,” Kuriken said with a smile and a genuine warmth Kaikobad had never seen in him.
“You were always my best,” Davala said. Her face grew fierce, black eyes sparking with the lithe grace of a leopard. “Come with me, love. I will forsake all others. We will forget this war in some icy mountain, some northern wilderness where neither man nor djinn will disturb us. We will spend eternity together, contemplating the sky, and you will not be violent, and I will not be restless.”
“I cannot,” Kuriken said. “I will not betray my word.”
“You are doomed,” Davala said. “You will die here.”
“I cannot die. I think I would welcome it.”
“This city is finished. Obstinate djinn! What that sorcerer brews inside his castle is anathema to life. He will destroy the world with his hubris. Will you stay and watch this happen?”
“And what will Horus do to this world, or bloody Memmion?” Kuriken asked. “I have seen them slaughter thousands. I have seen Barkan level mountains with his hammer. What will Bahamut do but drown the world one day? You are in bloodthirsty company, Davala, these are all monsters. None of us are innocent, love, none of us are right. But at least let me keep my honor. I alone am not an oath breaker.”
“The devil take your oath,” Davala said. “What do oaths mean to djinn? We are made of fire! I have lived a thousand years. What oath can last for the span we are expected to live?”
“We could live twenty thousand years, and still I would not relent,” Kuriken said. “Do not ask me this again. Remember you loved me once, the best parts of me.”
“I love you still, fool,” Davala said. “The shining knight of the First City. The great champion. You were always the best of us. But that city is gone now, Kuriken. That beauty, that grandeur, is ashes now. The time of champions is over. Horus wages a different sort of war. You must be able to see that, you must be able to change.”
“I will not.”
“And if you faced me on the field, would you run your spear through me?” Davala asked.
Kuriken looked at her for a long time. “If you stood across from me on that field outside, I would cut away my armor and let you kill me.”
“I believe you.” Davala shuddered. “Your insanity is contagious. Do you think I could ever harm you?”
“Your friends have sent you here for something,” Kuriken said. “Ask me now, and I’ll give it to you.”
“I came of my own accord,” Davala said sadly. “I had to try.”
“They call Elkran the Black Whisper. Where is he, this killer of djinn? Where is blood-soaked Memmion, who has traded his love of gold for gore? Where is Givaras, the breaker of Ghuls? I can see them from the walls. I grow hoarse calling to them. Why do they not come and fight?”
“You fool, do you think Givaras fights duels? Did you think you would face him in glorious combat and one of you would fall in heroic death, while the minstrels sang?” Davala asked. “You alone think this is a play, Kuriken, an epic song. Is your precious High King fighting duels? Is he thinking of honor and sacrifice in his tower?”
“Your friends are cowards.”
“They are playing to win this time,” Davala said. “The rules have all changed. Only you don’t understand that.”
“I am simple,” Kuriken said. “Too simple for you.”
“You are singular,” Davala said. “And you underestimate yourself. I must leave, dearest. It will be too late soon, even for you.”
“I was never tempted to leave,” Kuriken said. “Until you came.”
She drained her glass and walked away, through the gate into the haze outside, where the demons lurked. Kuriken sat for a very long time, staring after her. He made no sound, although it seemed to Kaikobad that he wept.
CHAPTER 36
Starvation Diet
“This is hopeless.” Givaras flopped down next to Indelbed.
They had been crouched in front of a promising tunnel for five hours now, flickering the field on and off. Hunting had dwindled in the past weeks, slowly petering off, until their reserves of the awful meat were low and putrid. For some reason, the wyrms weren’t coming.
“It’s God’s Eye,” Givaras said.
“This is part of the plan, right?”
“I wasn’t sure this would happen,” Givaras said. “It seems as if God’s Eye is now giving off pheromones that are repelling the wyrms, despite the lure of the distortion field. We will have to act soon.”
“So, to the maps!”
They hobbled to the Cartography, unaccountably excited. The 3-D model of the tunnels had been expanded greatly since the early days. Over the years they had mapped each tiny crack and geological layer with the thoroughness and scientific rigor typical of Givaras. They had calculated collapse pressures, drilling rates, and aquifer conditions with a degree of mathematical detail that had caused Indelbed sleepless days and nights. By the end of it, Indelbed knew a lot of math, and the geological survey was extremely accurate.
Their escape plan had come with a lot of complex problems. Surprisingly, water had been their greatest one, the fear of flooding from the aquifers above, as well as some slight chance of gas ingress. They would have to create a casing from the field to prevent the tunnel from collapsing.
A second problem was provisions for God’s Eye. He was their engine, and they would start with a limited quantity of fuel, with little likelihood of restocking along the way. The proto-dragon would starve while he tunneled the path, but if he made it close enough, they would live.
Their route was 3S27, the designation of the third tunnel from the bottom of the map, following a direct route to the S curve of the outer boundary that sank below the iron dome. It was the twenty-seventh route they had mapped, the one finally settled on. During this first phase they would be using preexisting bores, requiring just a degree of enlargement to fit the wider God’s Eye, which would save precious energy. If they were attacked by a convergence in these tunnels, they would be dead, for even God’s Eye would be a sitting target, unable to turn. The entire success of the plan depended on Givaras’s theories on dragon evolution and the strength of whatever dominance pheromone the giant wyrm gave off.
The S curve was phase two with its own dilemma. The outer curve was definitively sealed off by some construct, creating the self-contained prison network. They would have to break through. If they failed, they would face a long and futile return leg back to the central chamber.
If they succeeded at the boundary, finally, phase three would start: a last desperate, grinding, crawling dash to the sea, moving through unknown sand and clay formations and possible bedrock. They would be starving by this point, wholly reliant on God’s Eye’s instinct to complete his metamorphosis in water. Here again they depended on theory, for no one living had ever charted the evolution of the giant wyrms, either underground or in the seas. No one had even seen the mature, final iteration of the dragon, the mythical creature of air. They were gambling that the earth wyrm, the sea wyrm, and the airborne dragon were the same creature. If these were in fact three different animals, they were dead.
“This is the worst possible timing,” Indelbed said, after the initial euphoria had dissipated. “I’m blind and sick, and you haven’t even regrown your legs. We won’t even make it to the boundary.”
“Ah, I’m not bothering to regrow. I’m using these.”
Indelbed touched something hard, and through field vision he saw the ghostly outline of Risal’s shin bones, held by the djinn like relics.
“I’ll walk out wearing Risal this season, haha.”
“Can you even do that?”
“Why not? She’s not using them. I just have to liven them up a bit and reconstruct my knee joints.”
“We’ll look like a pair of real sick bastards if we ever get out, won’t we, Master?”
“Trust me, boy, we will see daylight again.”
“And then?”
“You’re a dragon, and I’m Givaras the Broken. The world outside is full of awful things that I’ve made. Men and djinn will weep when they see us.”
“Good.”
“You got any food in this shithole? I’m starving.”
“Shit, Maria, how did you get in here?”
“You’re kidding, right? Your security is Abdul. Relax, all your guys know me. They think we’re getting married. They practically handed over the house keys to me.”
“Fuck off.”
“I heard you did something to your uncle.”
“He’s out of the trust. Mother is taking over.”
“Sorry about your dad. I liked him.”
“He used to hit on you.”
“Yeah, a little bit, but not in a gross way.”
“Seen your boyfriend lately?”
“Not personally, thank god. He sent word. He wants progress, and he’s not being subtle with his threats.”
“What did you tell him?”
“Shit, Rais, I told him everything, what do you think?”
“He knows we’re holed up here?”
“He knew that anyway.”
“You know he killed my dad, right?”
“Yeah, he told me,” Maria said. “He also threatened to kill my parents. He wants an exact log of where you’re going to be for the next week. I think he might be thinking about grabbing you or something.”
“You can move in here, you know. He can’t get in as long as Barabas is here.”
“Yeah, and we can live happily ever after humping in your cousin’s shitty room with your mother next door.” Maria swept around. “Why isn’t there any goddamn furniture in here? What was he, a monk?”
“He was like ten years old when he left,” Rais said. “He was poor. Never had any stuff. He never complained. My mom won’t let anyone change the furniture.”
“Guess you guys are shit at looking out for family. Fucking Khan Rahmans.”
“Yeah, I guess we just kind of blipped over it.”
“You liked him, though, right?”
“Yeah, the little I knew him. He was funny,” Rais said. He looked around. “You want lunch? I can get Butloo to bring something.”
“That weird old dude? No thanks.”
“No, my mom’s cook is here. He’s taken over the kitchen.”
“Oh, okay then, yes.” Maria sat on the bed, which, other than Rais’s plastic chair, was literally the only option. “Rais, this stress is killing me. When are you going to deal with this guy?”
“My mom’s working on that.”
“Thank fuck at least one of you has balls.”
“You know, you’re a really pleasant person.”
“Yeah, whatever. So I’m going to be hanging around here spying on you. Just go about your business.”
“I was going to take a nap.”
“Well, you’d best take the floor then.”
“I’m beginning to envy the engineer.”
“Do you want me to tell your mother why I’m here?”
“She knows about the pictures. She already tore me a new one.” Rais snorted. “I’m sorry, Maria, but you have to pick a side. You can’t tread water anymore. If you’re with us, you’ve got to be with us, you’ve got to help.”
“Can you beat them?” Maria asked. She didn’t sound sarcastic anymore, just tired and frightened, and Rais felt a surge of affection for her. It was easy to forget that none of this was her fault. “Can you even hold them off?”
“I’ll keep trying. You have to trust me. We have a shot, I promise. Come over tomorrow for the meeting. We’ll tell you everything.”
“What if I blab it all to Dargoman?”
“If you do, you do. What am I gonna do? Hurt you? This is me showing trust.”
“All right, I’m all in.”
CHAPTER 37
Last Supper
They gathered in Kaikobad’s library, now restored to its former glory and more, the old rattan chairs tossed out, replaced by good leather armchairs behind a walnut-colored coffee table. Indelbed would have been amazed at such wealth. Rais remembered going through this very room with his cousin, searching the dusty shelves for magical texts, and felt a lead ball of regret in his gut, that peculiar combination of cringing sorrow and shame that came with the memory of past failures. Next door, Kaikobad’s even breathing rattled their ears, a steady in and out for the past ten years, seemingly untouched by time, but his ghost lurked in this room, dampening their cheer at this most dire hour, reminding them that their losses were many, their successes very few.
Even Barabas was cast down by the varied dooms hanging over them, from the murderous threat of Dargoman, to the cataclysmic promise of Matteras, down to the insane final solution that lurked in the bay. They huddled around the table nursing mugs of hot tea, Moffat proposing outlandish solutions to the Dargoman problem.
“Why can’t we just kill him?” Maria asked finally. “He’s only human.”
“He’s protected by a lot of spells,” Rais said. “His entire body is crawling with constructs. I saw them in the Assembly.”
“I’ve got the invisible knife. The Five Strikes thing,” Maria said. “Won’t that cut through all his spells? I can get in a room with him…”
“It probably would,” Rais said.
“He’s very well protected,” Juny said. “I’ve had him followed before. He’s never alone. He’s got at least ten bodyguards at all times. Even if you somehow got him in a room alone and stabbed him, Maria, you wouldn’t get out alive. We are not going to risk any of our people just to kill him.”
“Barabas?” Rais asked hopefully.
“Can’t touch an emissary,” the djinn said. “We’d lose every shred of dignatas we’ve got left. Matteras would take us to court and keep us there for the next hundred years.”
“Why don’t we take him to court?” Rais said. “We’ve got him dead to rights for murder.”
“Not murder,” Juny said. “But you might have a good idea.”
“Why not murder?” Maria asked. “My dad’s a secretary. If you’ve got evidence, we can get Dargoman remanded before he knows what’s happening.”
“I don’t think remand would hold him,” Rais said.
“We won’t take him to human court, dear,” Juny said. “We’ll take him to the Celestial Court of the djinn. Unfortunately, in the Lore, an emissary murdering a human isn’t that serious a crime. Not enough to stop him.”
“Loss of dignatas, though,” Barabas said. “Not that anyone’s counting. Matteras is so popular now, even his servants are strutting around commanding this or that.”
“No, but I think we can get Dargoman for something else,” Juny said with a rare smile.
“What?” Rais asked.
“Breach of contract.”
“What?”
“Thank god for your uncle Kaikobad,” Juny said. “I don’t know if you recall the conversation the day we first met Dargoman. Kaikobad hired him. They had a verbal contract in which Dargoman explicitly agreed to protect Indelbed.”
“I remember you making him say that,” Rais said.
“Same thing. He went along with it, he acted accordingly. Well, I think we can show enough to imply that he deliberately broke the contract,” Juny said.
“Is that really serious?” Maria asked.
“Breach of contract is the most serious crime in djinn law,” Juny said.
“Will it work?”
“It’s serious enough that they will call for a hearing, and he will have to personally attend,” Juny said. “I know the judge. He’s a conservative, but the good kind. Breach of contract won’t sit well with him. Remember, Dargoman switched patrons. That kind of thing is unacceptable to conservatives. Once Dargoman comes in, I can tie him up with legal arguments for at least a month.”
“Clever,” Barabas said, and laughed. “If you can actually prove breach of contract, he’s going to be in big trouble. You’ll beggar his dignatas.”
“Let’s say we occupy Dargoman for a while,” Juny said. “The question is, can you make it count, Rais?”
“Matteras.”
“Yes, Matteras,” Juny said.
“He’s gone to Siberia, to see Kuriken, I heard,” Barabas said. “The Assembly didn’t reach any decision, but the way it was going, well, not too many objections by the big guys. We’re hanging by a thread, I’d say. If he and Kuriken come to terms, they probably have enough clout to get this thing done.”
“And Bahamut?” Juny asked.
“Look, I can’t say what Bahamut will do,” Barabas said. “I don’t know why he lives in the ruins of Gangaridai, I don’t know why he won’t come out of the water. I have no idea if he’s really got a bomb that works, or if he’s going to set it off.”
