City of Stairs (The Divine Cities, #1)(91)

She walks on. Next she sees sixty panes of glass. A foot made of brass. A corpse wrapped in a blanket, tied with silver twine.

Shara cannot see the end of the aisle. Over fifteen hundred years, she thinks, of miraculous items.

The historian in her says, How fortuitous the Kaj thought to store them all.

The operative in her says, He should have destroyed every single one of them when he had the chance.

“Ambassador?” calls Mulaghesh’s voice.

“Yes?”

“Did … you say something?”

“No.” Shara pauses. “At least, I don’t think I did.”

A long silence. Shara surveys a collection of silver thumbs.

“Is it possible for these things to talk in your head?” asks Mulaghesh.

“Anything is possible here,” says Shara. “Ignore it.”

A bucket full of children’s shoes.

A walking stick made of horsehair.

A cabinet spilling ancient parchments.

A cloth mask, made to look like the face of an old man.

A wooden carving of a man with seven erect members of varying length.

She tries to focus, but her mind keeps searching through all the stories she’s memorized, trying to place these items in the thousands of Continental legends. Is that the knot that held a thunderstorm in its tangle, and when untied brought endless rain? Could that be the harp of a hovtarik, from the court of Taalhavras, which made the tapestries come alive? And is that the red arrow made by Voortya, that pierced the belly of a tidal wave and turned it to a gentle current?

“No,” says Sigrud’s voice. “No. That is not so.”

“Sigrud?” says Shara. “Are you all right?”

A low hum from a few yards away.

“No!” says Sigrud. “That is a lie!”

Shara walks quickly down the aisle until she sees Sigrud standing on the opposite side of a shelf, staring at a small, polished black orb sitting in a velvet-lined box.

“Sigrud?”

“No,” he says to the orb. “I left that place. I am … I am not there anymore.”

“Is he all right?” calls Mulaghesh.

“Sigrud, listen to me,” says Shara.

“They died because”—he searches for an explanation—“because they tried to hurt me.”

“Sigrud …”

“No. No! No, I will not!”

In the velvet box, the glassy black orb rotates slightly to the left; Shara is reminded of a dog cocking its head: Why not?

“Because I,” Sigrud says forcefully, “am not. A king!”

“Sigrud!” shouts Shara.

He blinks, startled. The black orb sinks a little lower in the velvet, like it’s disappointed to lose its playmate.

Sigrud slowly turns to look at her. “What … ? What has happened?”

“You’re here,” she says. “You’re here in the Warehouse, with me.”

He rubs his temple, shaken.

“The things here are … They’re very old,” she explains. “I think they’re bored. And they’ve been … feeding off one another. Like fish trapped in a shrinking pond.”

“I have found nothing missing,” he grumbles. “The shelves are quite full. Over full, even.”

“Me neither,” says Mulaghesh’s voice from the next aisle. “You don’t want us to climb the ladders, do you?”

“Does it look like the ladders have been moved?” asks Shara. “Look at the dust.”

A pause. “No.”

“Then it would have been something on the first few shelves.”

Shara directs her own attention to the lowest shelves of her remaining aisles and continues her search.

Four brass oil lamps. A blank, polished wooden board. Children’s dolls. A spinning wheel whose wheel is slowly rotating, though there seems to be no flax, and certainly no spinner.

Then, in the final spot, just ahead …

Nothing.

Maybe nothing. Nothing that she can see, at least.

Shara thinks, Something missing?

She strides toward the empty space. Her eyes are so used to seeing random material in the corner of her vision that she does not pay much attention to what’s below her. But as she nears the blank space on the shelf, she thinks, briefly, Did I see something shining on the ground?

A wire, maybe?

Something catches at her ankle; pulls; breaks—a tinny ping!

There is a tinkle of metal from the next aisle over; a tiny steel key goes skittering across the boards.

Immediately Sigrud roars, “Down! Now!”

A puff of black smoke across the aisle to her right.

Then a wild blossom of orange flames, and a concussive blast.

A wave of heat batters her right side. Shara is lifted off the ground. She crashes into the shelves next to her, sending ancient treasures flying: a leather bag tumbles through the air, vomiting an endless stream of golden coins; a streamer of pale ribbon strikes the ground and turns to leaves.

Dust and metal and old wood spin around her. She falls to the ground, paws at a shelf, but cannot stand.

A fire rages to her right. Smoke coils and curls up on the ceiling, like a black cat finding sanctuary in a sunbeam.

On her left, the statue of Taalhavras crashes off the shelf. Sigrud awkwardly clambers through to kneel beside her.