City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1)(134)

“So even if Kolkan himself shows up …”

“We’d be hidden. We’d be safe.”

“Great! Well … Why don’t you use one of those, then?”

“Because my hands are bound,” whispers Shara. “There’s a line from the Jukoshtava I have to say, and a gesture I have to make.”

“Shit,” says Vohannes. He looks up at the Restorationists. “Here. Here, let’s see if we can shift around. …”

Slowly, they rotate so they’re facing away from one another. With their hands tied behind one another’s backs, Vohannes begins to clumsily fumble at her bonds.

“Good luck,” mutters Shara. “But I think they actually knew what they were doing when they tied these.”

One of the Restorationists laughs. “My, what an excellent deception! Untie your hands if you want, you depraved little pervert. The only person getting you out of that Bell is Father Kolkan himself.”

“And when he does,” says another, “you’ll wish you’d suffocated to death in there.”

Another: “Is that the first time you’ve ever touched a woman, Votrov? I would imagine so. …”

Vohannes ignores them and whispers, “Do you really think my brother can bring back Kolkan?”

Shara glances at the clear glass pane in Kolkan’s atrium. “Well. I will say that I now think some Divinity is in there.”

“But … not Kolkan?”

“I actually conversed with the Divinity, I think,” says Shara. “On the night they attacked your house. I saw many scenes from many different Divine texts. … But none of them were coherent. Moreover, I have seen that many of Jukov’s miracles still work—Parnesi’s Cupboard being one of them—so I am no longer quite sure that Jukov is truly gone, either.”

Vohannes grunts as he plucks at a knot, which refuses to budge. “So what you’re saying is … you don’t know.”

“Correct.”

“Great.”

He keeps tugging at her ropes. With some morbid amusement, Shara realizes this is the most intimate contact they’ve had since the night after Urav.

“I’m glad I’m here with you,” says Vohannes. “Here at the end of all this.”

“When we’re free, stay close,” says Shara. “Parnesi’s Cupboard is not large.”

“All right, but I want you to listen. … I’m glad, Shara. Do you understand?”

Shara is silent. Then she says, “You shouldn’t be.”

“Why?”

“Because when my cover was blown … I thought it was you who did it.”

He stops trying to untie her. “Me?”

“Yes. You … You suddenly got everything you wanted, Vo. Everything. And you were the only other one who knew who I was. And we thought we saw you at the loomworks, but it wasn’t really you. It had to be—”

“Volka.” She cannot see him, but Vohannes is quite still. “But … Shara, I would … I would never do that to you. Never. I couldn’t.”

“I know! I know that now, Vo. But I, I thought you were sick! I thought something was wrong with you. You seemed so unhappy, so miserable. …”

She can feel Vohannes looking around. “Maybe you weren’t wrong there,” he says softly. “Perhaps there is something wrong with me. But maybe I could have never been right.”

“What do you mean?”

“I mean … I mean, look at these people, these people I grew up with!” The Restorationists have gathered in Kolkan’s atrium, and they kneel on the floor to begin a prayer. “Look at them! They’re praying to pain, to punishment! They think that hate is holy, that every part of being human is wrong. So of course I grew up wrong! No human could grow up right in such a place!”

Somewhere, far in the distance, Shara hears a bell toll.

“What was that?” asks Vo.

“We need to hurry,” says Shara. Somewhere, softly, another bell tolls.

“Why?”

Another bell tolls. And another. And another. They all have different tones, as if some are very large and others are very small, but more than that, each bell has a resonance that seems like it can only be perceived by different parts of the mind, pouring in alien experiences: when one bell tolls, she imagines she sees hot, murky swamps, tangles of vines, and clutches of flowering orchids; when another bell tolls, she smells flaming pitch, and sawdust, and mortar; when the next bell tolls, she can hear the crash of metal, the screaming of crows, the howls of warfare; with the next, she tastes wine, raw meat, sugar, blood, and what she suspects to be semen; on the next, she hears the crushing grind of huge stones being pushed against one another, terrible weight bearing down upon her; and then, when the final bell joins the tolling, she feels a wintry chill in her arms and a flickering fire in her feet and heart.

One bell for each Divinity, thinks Shara. I don’t know how he did it, or even what he’s doing, but Volka’s found a way to ring all the bells of the Seat of the World.

“What’s going on, Shara?” asks Vohannes.

“Look at the window,” says Shara, “and you’ll see.”

With each pulse, a faint light appears in the window. Not a holy light: sunlight. Golden sunlight, as if the sun is so bright it is penetrating all the layers of earth to shine into this dark, dreary place.