City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1)(145)

Shara sits up and looks through the gates, which are bent and torn. At first all she can see is smoke and flame. Then the wind slowly, gently scrapes the smoke away.

The building, shops, and homes all down the street leading up to the embassy have been halved. Wooden teeth and partial living rooms droop over the exposed foundations. The street itself has been pulverized into a rocky, smoking ditch. Starlings sit on the windowsills, on the streetlights, on the sidewalks, silently watching … something.

Kolkan stands in the middle of the street, slightly hunched over, his robes and rags fluttering in the smoke.

No, she thinks. Not Kolkan.

Shara stands, takes the bolt point of black lead from her pocket, and limps down the street to the silent Divinity.

“That hurt, didn’t it?” she calls.

The Divinity does not answer.

“You’ve never experienced the destructive capabilities of our modern age,” she says. “Perhaps the modern rejects you as much as you reject it.”

The Divinity raises its head to look at her, but otherwise does nothing.

“Maybe you can keep fighting. But I don’t think you have it in you. This world doesn’t want you anymore. And even more, you don’t want it.”

The Divinity angrily says, “I AM PAIN.”

Shara stands before it and says, “And you are pleasure.”

The Divinity hesitates, and says, “I AM JUDGMENT.”

“You are corruption.”

Then, defiantly: “I AM ORDER!”

“You are chaos.”

“I AM SERENITY!”

“You are madness.”

“I AM DISCIPLINE!”

“You are rebellion.”

Trembling with fury, the Divinity says, “I AM KOLKAN!”

Shara shakes her head. “You are Jukov.”

The Divinity is silent. Though she cannot see its eyes, she knows it is staring at her.

“Jukov faked his death, didn’t he?” says Shara. “He saw what was happening to the Continent, so he faked his death, and hid, and sent a copy of himself in his place. He was the Divinity of trickery, after all. The old texts said he hid in a pane of glass, but we never knew what that meant—or I didn’t, until today. When I saw Kolkan’s jail cell—a single pane of clear glass …”

The Divinity bows its head. It seems to tremble slightly. Then it lifts a hand and pulls off its robes.

It is Kolkan: the stern man made of clay and stone.

It is Jukov: the skinny, laughing man of fur and bells.

It is both of them: both Divinities twisted together, shoved together, melded into one person. Kolkan’s head, with Jukov’s warped face appearing at Kolkan’s neck; one arm on one side, a forked arm with two clenched fists on the other; two legs, but one leg has two feet. …

It stares at her with muddled, mad eyes, a tottering, tortured wreck of a human form. Then its faces wrinkle, and it begins to weep. Its two mouths scream in two voices, “I am everything! I am nothing! I am the beginning and I am the end! I am the fire and I am the water! I am of the light and I am of the dark! I am chaos and I am order! I am life and I am death!” It turns to the ruined buildings of Bulikov: “Listen to me! Will you listen to me? I have listened to you! Will you listen to me? Just tell me what I should be for you! Tell me! Please, just tell me! Tell me, please!”

“I see now,” says Shara. “The prison cell was meant only for Kolkan, wasn’t it?”

“For Jukov to hide there, he had to become Kolkan,” says the Divinity. It puts its hands over its ears, as if hearing a roaring cacophony. “Too many things, too many, all in one. Too many things I needed to be. Too many people I needed to serve. Too much, too much … The world is too much.” It looks at Shara pleadingly. “I don’t want to do this anymore.”

Shara looks down at the tiny black blade in her fingers.

The Divinity follows her gaze, nods, and says through its two mouths, “Do it.”

Despite everything, Shara hesitates.

“Do it,” the Divinity says again. “I never really knew what they wanted. I never really knew what they needed me to be.” The Divinity kneels. “Do it. Please.”

Shara walks around behind the Divinity, bends low, and places the black blade at its throat.

As she says, “I’m sorry,” the Divinity whispers, “Thank you.”

Shara grasps its forehead and pulls the blade across.

Instantly, the Divinity is gone, as if it never was.

The air fills with crashes and groans as hundreds of white skyscrapers come tumbling down, and screams as innumerable starlings take flight.





Good historians keep the past in their head and the future in their heart.

—Efrem Pangyui, “On History Lost”





What Is Sown


Shara lies in the tub of warm water in the dark room, trying not to think. Sheer white undergarments cling and suck to her flesh. Her eyes are wrapped with bandages to keep the light out, yet still she sees bursts of colored light and colorful words, and her head still thrums and bangs with a monstrous migraine. She is not so sure she wouldn’t have preferred simply dying from the philosopher’s stones: to deal with a hangover this hellish and psychedelic is something she did not anticipate.