City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1)(136)

Volka cries out and swings the hammer forward.

With a tinny snap, the glass shatters.

Golden sunlight pours through, illuminating the white stone of the temple floor until it flares bright. It is a sun, a star, a blaze of light that is pure, terrible, heatless.

Both Vohannes and Shara cry out, blinded. The burst of light is so shocking that they twist away and fall over. Something grinds uncomfortably in Shara’s wrist: a bad sprain, perhaps

Then silence. Shara waits, then looks up.

The men in Kolkashtani wraps are staring at something before them.

There is a figure standing in front of the broken window, sunlight falling on its shoulders.

It is man-like, but it is very tall: nine feet tall at least. He—if it really is a he—is draped in thick gray robes from head to toe, concealing his face, his hands, his feet; yet his head slowly turns from side to side with a puzzled air, taking in his environs and the kneeling men before him as if awoken from a very peculiar dream.

“No,” whispers Shara.

“He lives,” says Volka. “He lives!”

The robed figure turns its head to look at him.

“Father Kolkan!” cries Volka. “Father Kolkan, you are brought back to us! We are saved! We are saved!”

*

Volka scurries down the ladder and joins the men before Kolkan, who still has hardly moved. Volka drops to his knees and falls to his face, hands splayed at the toes of the Divinity.

“Father Kolkan,” Volka says, “are you all right?”

Kolkan is silent. One would mistake him for a statue, if the breeze did not rustle his robes so.

“You have been away for many, many years,” says Volka. “I wish I could tell you that all the world is right and good upon your waking. But in your absence, all has gone awry: our colonies have rebelled, they have murdered your brothers and sisters, and they have enslaved us all!”

The men around him all nod and peek up at Kolkan, expecting him to react with shock: but Kolkan is still and silent under his gray robes.

“Vo,” whispers Shara.

“Yes?”

“Do what I do,” she whispers. She rolls over onto her face, kneels, and bows forward until her forehead kisses the floor.

“What are you—?”

“Penitence,” Shara says quietly. “Kolkan will always recognize penitence.”

“What?”

“Prostrate yourself before him! And do nothing else! Anything else will be considered an offense!”

Reluctantly, Vohannes rolls over and bows as well.

And if Kolkan doesn’t pay much attention, thinks Shara, maybe I can finish what Vo started on my knot.

“Voortya was killed in the colonies,” says Volka. “Taalhavras and Ahanas were slain when the colonials invaded. And Jukov, cowardly Jukov, surrendered to them, and was executed! The colonials rule over us as if we are dogs, and they have outlawed our love for you, Father Kolkan. We are not allowed to worship you as we wish, to hold you in our hearts. But we have waited for you, Father Kolkan! My followers and I have kept the faith, and worked to bring you back! We even rebuilt your atrium in the Seat of the World for you! I labored to carry the stones from Kovashta itself back to this place, so when you returned you would be met by signs of praise and worship! And we have captured the most heretical betrayer of your ways, and the child of the very man who overthrew our Holy Lands!” Volka points backward at Shara and Vohannes and does a brief double take when he sees them bowed forward in penitence. “Wise cowards, they throw themselves on your mercy. But so do we all! We all throw ourselves upon your mercy, Father Kolkan! We are your devoted servants! We have created an army of the sky to war for you, but we fear this will not be enough! We beg of you, please, help us throw off our shackles, rise up, and bring righteousness and glory back to the world!”

The Seat of the World is silent. Shara tilts her head up slightly to see and begins to quietly work one hand out of her ropes.

Kolkan’s head turns back and forth as he surveys his tiny, black-clad flock.

He shifts from one foot to the other and examines the rest of the Seat of the World.

A voice is then heard somewhere in the temple; not heard with Shara’s ears, but somewhere in her mind—a muffled voice that could be the sound of rocks being crushed together, though there is a single word in it:

“WHERE?”

Volka hesitates and lifts his head. “Wh-where what, my Father Kolkan?”

Kolkan continues staring around the Seat of the World. The voice sounds again: “WHERE IS THE FLAME AND THE SPARROW?”

Volka blinks and glances back at his lieutenants, who are just as dumbfounded as he is. “I … I am not sure what you mean, Father Kolkan.”

“WHEN I AM MET,” says the voice, “I AM TO BE MET WITH THE FLAME AND THE SPARROW.”

A long pause.

“WHY DO YOU NOT BEAR THEM?”

“I … had never heard of this ritual, Father Kolkan,” says Volka. He rises to a kneel, like the rest of his followers. “I read so much about you, but … but you have been gone from this world for many hundreds of years. This must have been a rite that I missed.”

“DO YOU,” asks the voice, “INSULT ME?”

“No! No, no! No, Father Kolkan, we would never do such a thing!” Volka’s followers fervently shake their heads.