The earth begets bone

And fire warms stone

Inscribed in wax

Children let their words become bright and shining

Sun’s light through glass

Pilot blue-hot

Bubble scent of berries

In the company of crayons and rocks

Kurikuneku - earlier

Although the city burned with fear and anguish, it all felt far too calm for Kotire’s taste.

She was slow to move in the aftermath of the fighting – stumbling over broken glass, cutting her feet on the shards once in a while, holding herself up by pressing her body against the side of each building she passed. A few alley rats saw her and laughed, pointing and waving their flagons of ale. “Look, a mad drunk,” they shouted. There was a greedy gleam in their eyes as they looked at her, but she met it with angry steel and they disappeared down another corner, chuckling among themselves.

There was a terrible weight in her chest, the feeling of something broken inside. The roads of Kurikuneku were quiet, except on those occasions when, leaning against a wall and struggling to bend to the side and look, she saw Enforcers fighting with haggard street-urchins and workers off their shifts. It hurt to bent her body, and she didn’t dare let herself be seen, so she only got a few quick glimpses of the fighting. It was in dark corners and forgotten corridors, though. The city, mostly, went about its life as though nothing had happened.

When she was far enough away to bend her neck and crane her head upward – every nerve in her back screaming in protest at the many shards of glass embedded in her body – Kotire saw that the Tower of God still bore the scar of her encounter with God. An enormous hole in the tower, sharp like the points of the glass itself.

Kotire could only travel an hour before she had to stop. She stumbled into an old, abandoned warehouse – filled with dust and mold. Some of the workers had gone to fight against the Enforcers, others had gone to hide in their homes and stay out of trouble. The rest of them, the apathetic fools, lay in their blood in the warehouse, victims of an indiscriminate sweep. A single Invictan soldier lay dead among the civilians, her skull bashed in with a rock that lay just next to her corpse. In the warehouse she managed to find an open box, and a prybar with which to open the other boxes. There were clothes – old Invictan uniforms as well as civilian clothes – in the box.

With her back against the crate, the smell of death and dust cloying mockingly in her nostrils, Kotire picked the glass from her wounds and bound the cuts with ripped old cloth, washed with spit and canteen-water from the dead soldier. With muscles screaming, she dragged the dead soldier’s pack to the place beside her against the crate. Opening the pack she found rations – ate them hurriedly, greedily, and set the Invictan rifle beside her with its barrel pointed to the warehouse door. She laid her head back against the crate and fell almost immediately into a deep slumber.

In her dreams, she awoke in the same warehouse. At first, she believed herself awake, then she looked down at her hands and saw hands that were not her own, felt the cool metal sting of the tags around her neck and read off the name Arshay. She looked down and saw a dozen knives buried in her belly, but they didn’t hurt or stop her from moving.

In the dream, God opened the doors of the warehouse and stepped inside, resplendent and shining with the glory of too much humanity. Kotire growled and raised her rifle and fired, fired again, fired again, and the bullets disappeared. She tossed the rifle like a spear – its bayonet struck God through the throat and tore Its head from Its shoulders. The head toppled to the ground and laughed. The body continued to walk toward Kotire, slow, almost bored.

The thing stood over Kotire, staring down at her with the eyes in its neck and its shoulders. She stared back, resigned, yet defiant.

She awoke. No knives in her belly, only an endless deep ache. No dead man’s tags around her neck, just the mantle of a soldier who never existed. No Invictan God standing over her – only the dread of her enemy’s own boredom.

When she stumbled from the warehouse Kotire had to shield her eyes from the bright sun, but it didn’t take her long to adjust. She was a little stronger than she’d been, though her wounds still stung horribly. A little food and water from the dead soldier gave her the energy to walk a little faster. She made her way partway across the city – but because she could not climb, she had to take the side roads and alleyways. Once a small crowd spotted her and pointed, shouting, “Soldiers! Down with the regime!” but she disappeared into an empty (but for the owner) tavern which would not kick her out for fear of upsetting the gun-wielding soldier of the Emperor. As the crowd dashed past, Kotire listened to their footsteps on the cobblestones and held her breath. She heard them come to a stop as they emerged into a square, and then the series of cracking gunshots as they were brought down by the real soldiers.

She opened the door and glanced down the alleyway, making sure the soldiers were gone, and then she walked up behind the members of the crowd. They had little of worth on them, but she did find an unlocked navigation device of some kind. She entered the location of Devraj’s tavern into it.

It took two more days to cross the city and find Devraj’s tavern – sleeping in the abandoned houses of those killed in the riots, dodging the crowds of soldiers and of workers, noting fewer and fewer soldiers in the city each day. They couldn’t have been overpowered by the civilians, but they were increasingly departing wherever Kotire looked. And the Enforcers were the ones fighting in the streets now. The Enforcers had less restraint than the soldiers – they brought cannons and bombs and fired into the crowds that gathered.

The city shook around Kotire, and she moved only during the long, terrible silences between the bouts of violence. Each day she grew a little stronger, surviving off the food in the kitchens of the dead and sleeping on their abandoned beds. She changed out her old bandages – dusty old cloth for soft, quality cloth. And when she did, she found that her wounds were healing. Slowly, yes, but they were healing. Her bones were still horribly bruised, but she could live with that – it was lucky she hadn’t broken every bone in her body, that her fall had been slowed by the outcroppings she’d struck on the way down.

Sheer coincidence. No other explanation, she thought.

When Kotire reached Devraj’s tavern, she found him alone, with his head buried in his hands as the radio played from nearby. She closed the door lightly behind her, hoping he wouldn’t hear, but he was always sharp. His head shot up, hands in fists on the counter. He started to growl at her, and then his gaze softened. “You’re hurt,” he said. “What happened.” His voice was flat, filled with dread.

“I climbed the Tower of God,” Kotire said, her own voice scratchy and barely above a whisper. How long had it been since she’d spoken aloud? She asked and he answered. She laughed. He shook his head.

“You survived?” Devraj asked. “I heard of the disturbance, but I thought you had to be dead, if that was you at all. If it wasn’t just propaganda, convenient and coincidental, to accompany the march north.”

“March north?” Kotire asked. “They’ve already gone?”

“They marched through Carakhte already and they’re headed for Kivv now,” Devraj said. “Just got the words yesterday.” He gestured at the radio. “The border-town burned down. Supposedly it was an Abrist terrorist attack. They even say they caught some major Scholar involved in planning it – executed him right here in Kurikuneku.” He narrowed his eyes. “But I think we know better. That’s not our style.”

“I can’t imagine Ranotia ordering something like that. He made it out of the city alright?”

“Yeah,” Devraj said, his voice low, the word yeah almost slurred by the way he spoke it. “The rest of your Cell is fine, minus… well. You know.” Kotire nodded and approached the bar. “You could probably use a drink, huh?”

“A drink and a way out of here,” Kotire said. “It’s all gone wrong, hasn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Devraj muttered. “Hey, I’ve got my radio if you need to contact your cell.”

“I don’t need to contact my cell,” Kotire said. “But there’s somebody else I should speak to, I think.”

“Well, feel free to make use of it.” Devraj shrugged and poured Kotire a small glass of wine. “Here, for your pain.” Kotire downed the wine in a single gulp and set the glass lightly on the table. She glanced toward the windows – covered, boarded up.

“How have you been holding up?” Kotire asked.

“I haven’t left this building in a week,” Devraj replied, shaking his head. “It’s madness out there. People actually think they’re going to overthrow the regime. Some people, at least. Others just want food. Maybe a few are just hoping they can get better treatment out of this. They’re all idiots, though. We’re at war. Countries at war don’t tolerate dissent.”

“And the Emperor?”

“Marching with the armies.”

“It seems like a lot of soldiers have left the city.”

“That’s true, but the Enforcers are more harsh than ever.”

“I noticed.”

“Was it you that killed Beren? They said he was assassinated by an Adma fighter. Press says the Adma fighter in question was trying to blackmail Beren, and that when he wouldn’t cooperate with her, tried to go behind her back to rat her out to the organization, she found out and killed him. At least that’s the gist. I guess that was you.”

“I guess it was,” Kotire muttered. “At least they haven’t been bothering you?”

“Right,” Devraj said. “Beren’s coin.” He reached under the bar and pulled it out, rolled it between his fingers. “He said he’d know if I got rid of it. I guess I don’t need to worry about that anymore.” He flipped the coin to Kotire, and to her own surprise she caught it in her palm without difficulty. “Hey, want to do me a favor? Take this out of the city and throw it in a river.”

Kotire nodded. “I’ll do that… once I’m out.”

“Yeah. Radio’s in the back room.”

It was bigger than the other radio devices she’d used on her journeys – not meant to be portable, but meant for long range broadcasting along encrypted channels. It was amazing that the Enforcers hadn’t found, or hadn’t questioned Devraj’s right to have, this device.

Her mind was hazy and she had to try several times to make the connection correctly. But in time, she managed it. She waited minutes before the answer came. “Who’s this?” It was a young girl’s voice, not what Kotire had been expecting.

“Aleks?” she asked, not knowing what else to say.

There was a shuffling sound, and Aleks’ distantly familiar voice came over the radio. “Who’s there?” Aleks asked. “Why are you broadcasting on this frequency?”

“Relax, it’s me,” Kotire said.

“Who?”

She scoffed. “Kotire. Don’t you remember me?”

“Oh. Right. You’re alive?”

“I’m alive. You too?”

“Yep.”

“What’s happening in Kivv?”

“Why don’t you ask your cell leader.”

“I’m going to,” Kotire protested at the flat response from Aleks. “As soon as I’m able to get hold of him. But I’m in trouble right now. Kurikuneku is in chaos. I wouldn’t be broadcasting from the middle of the city if I weren’t sure that with everything going on right now it’ll pass completely unnoticed…”

“You’re broadcasting from Kurikuneku?” Aleks said.

“Yes, but –“

The breath on the other end of the radio stopped.

“Hello? Can you hear me?”

Nothing.

In frustration, Kotire kicked the radio and threw the receiver down, then walked out into the hallway. Devraj stepped out in front of her. “Don’t damage my machinery,” he said sternly. “Do you need another drink?”

“Yeah,” Kotire said, nodding slowly and gritting her teeth. “And… can I stay the night before I leave?”

“Stay as long as you need, as long as it’s safe at least.” Devraj shrugged. “Not like I was going to be getting any business for a while anyway.” He went and boarded up the door and returned to the bar. “So what can I get for you?”