Coldmaker(62)

‘But I plan on finding out,’ Shilah said, tapping the spot. ‘I’m going to go where Cold falls everywhere. And crops grow huge and juicy, way bigger than mine. And there are lakes filled with Cold water where you can swim without getting burned. And there are birds singing, and all kinds of animals that are supposed to be extinct. And when you walk, you walk on grass instead of sand and mud. Jadans aren’t slaves in Langria. You’ll see.’

The map began shaking in my hands.

She put a hand over mine, keeping it steady. ‘But I don’t want to go alone. I can survive out here alone, but there’s so much I can’t do on my own. So I’ve been waiting for someone else who believes.’

I felt sweat prickle on my forehead, and I moved the map aside so I wouldn’t stain the ink if any drops fell. ‘How do I even know what to believe any more?’

‘The map was my mother’s,’ Shilah explained gently, getting up and picking a selection of fruit. ‘The best Jadan I’ve ever met. She told me all about Langria. And that she’d heard some runaway Jadans from Paphos would march—’

‘Are there secret Cry Patches?’ I blurted out, trying to think clearly in spite of the fact that my whole world seemed to be tumbling around me. ‘Patches that the Khat doesn’t know about? Is that where you get your Cold? Is that how Langria could be real?’

Shilah laughed, plucking an apricot and adding it to her collection. She came over and dropped all the fruit in my lap. The rush of the current below was soft at the mouth of the cave, and it almost sounded like the River was tittering along with her.

‘With questions like that,’ she said with a grin, ‘I think I picked the right partner after all.’





Chapter Twenty


White smoke broke through the sky this time.

Every Jadan on their corner stiffened, watching the thin clouds billow above the Cry Temple. Thoth’s earlier walk down Arch Road had warned us that something like this might happen, as he drew an unusable symbol on each of our foreheads and commanded us to kneel until told otherwise. He’d scratched his quill across our skin wearing an expression of firm purpose, although he hadn’t said a word about what we should expect.

The Priests in white showed up again, but this time, they lined the corners beside us, kneeling down and laying their Closed Eye poles at their sides. Their chants were different now, the tone more reverent and quieter. The taskmasters were back in droves, but their whips remained curled at their hips, and they too dropped to their knees at the sight of the white smoke rising.

Even Thoth had set himself gently down to the ground, taking care not to wrinkle his uniform, as he knelt with the rest of us.

Not a single word was spoken for a full bell. Noble shoppers appeared at the edges of the street, but it was clear something was happening, so they remained to one side, silent.

I felt the ink drip into my eyes, the sweat practically pouring from me now. Shilah had made sure she returned me to my barracks with a full stomach of both miracle food and Cold the night before. I’d never felt so full of life, the juices of so many fruits still on the back of my tongue. My dreams too had been like nothing I’d experienced before, and when I woke up, it was with clarity, and ideas involving the sky and stars filling my brain.

If Shilah could make a Jadan Garden, then maybe I could make something impossible too.

My body felt whole, and my mind felt as if it was flying rather than trudging through the dunes. I’d hoped to have a normal day of errands during which I might half-heartedly consider Shilah’s offer of running away together and searching for Langria.

But I could think of nothing other than the distinct sound of the ram’s horn, and the thickening of the white smoke that was now rising all over Paphos.

Rams had gone extinct with the Drought, and their horns were very rare, only used on holy occasions. I’d heard the instrument sounded only twice in my life: once when the Khat had his firstborn son, and once in honour of the Vicaress of Belisk when she was called up to the Crier. If I could even believe that such things happened any more.

The horn sounded out closer, blaring in a series of extended blasts. I could tell its player was nearing Arch Road. The Priest and taskmasters hadn’t moved from their knees, although some of their expressions had soured from being in contact with the hot stone.

And then the Khat’s chariot appeared.

I’d only ever seen the structure in paintings or in stories, but I recognized it instantly.

The chariot was being carried by four of the largest Jadans I’d ever seen, so fierce that they made Slab Hagan look like a well-fed infant. Four golden poles extended onto each of the Jadans’ muscular shoulders, and they marched down Arch Road in perfect unison so their cherished bounty would remain stable. Armoured soldiers of the Khat flanked the sides of the chariot. They too marched in unison, weapons lowered, moving as one unit, the sound of their boots booming a thousand times louder than Thoth’s metal soles. The golden curtains on the chariot were drawn, lined underneath with the same kind of waxy paper as my Cold Wrap, and I almost broke into a smile of recognition. If my own experience was anything to go by, the air in the chariot would be so cool that the Khat would need a dozen layers of windcloth just to feel comfortable.

The idea that the Khat wasn’t any more divine than I was still tugged at the edges of my sanity. The man behind those golden curtains had power, huge and reaching, but it wasn’t the kind he claimed. It couldn’t be. For a Jadan Garden existed. One which had nothing to do with him, yet thundered with beauty.