The healer who’d operated on Hendrik, Kano of the Mushroom Conservancy, and Thad rode their own ponies beside them. Behind them came hundreds. A legion of ex-guards, once-priests, merchants, farmers, sex workers, brewers, bakers, beggars, people from all over the Stone City who’d been secretly, dangerously living in hope for decades, maybe generations. As they formed up into casual ranks, Dagan kept looking back, admiring and wondering. “There are so many…”
“Yes.” Hen glanced back, too. “I lived my whole life up here, feeling busy and important. No idea anything was wrong.”
“How could you, sweetness? You were wrapped up so tight in it. Since you were just a baby.” Dagan could hardly believe it even though he knew it was true. At five years old, they took Hendrik from his family, started training him to serve the Children of the Blood and the City. They took the Children even earlier, spiriting them away to something called a creche, both school and care facility in the Complex. Eventually their future guards would join them there, the companions for their tragically short lifetimes of luxury. And yet, in the end, “They underestimated you, though.”
“They underestimated my rage,” Hen admitted with a snort. “How it didn’t get me killed, I’m not sure. But now…I’m glad I got to come back and show them. Show it.”
Dagan’s heart swelled to hear this. There had never been any real question in his mind: They both had to come here, to do this, no matter what the outcome. But Hendrik had kicked, had fought, had cried. Hendrik had been desperate not to see this place again. So to hear him say this…
Beautiful.
“They underestimated your love,” Dagan corrected quietly. “That’s what you’ve shown them. All of you.”
Hen kissed his hair again. “I like that better. I used to think love was the source of stupidity. Now I know I had it backwards. That was rage.”
Dagan patted Hen’s thigh as Piret motioned for them to get moving. The mare didn’t need his heels; she followed the ponies before her easily, though the cobblestone streets must’ve felt strange beneath her iron-shod hooves.
As they left the square behind, the broad streets narrowed and twisted upward. Clusters of city-dwellers filtered through side-alleys, gathering on street corners or squeezed into lines along the main thoroughfare, waving strips of green cloth. Some were the uniform spring green of the resistance, some were improvised from whatever green thing had been around the house, a repurposed sleeve, a towel, a glove.
No one knew who they were, at least not their names. Dagan had barely been outside the Red Lantern as the City had experienced first its political death throes then the beginnings of its cautious rebirth. And yet, every Stone City resident who met his gaze on that winding pathway up the hill nodded or smiled or even glared as if they did know him. A few raised a hand and said Hendrik’s name, and he saluted them in return. Hundreds, then thousands of people passing by, some hollow-eyed and ragged, some dressed in rich silks and dripping with jewelry, side-by-side. Watching.
The Guardhall hovered above them as they mounted the final switchback, white and cold against the bright sky. When it finally came into view properly, green-shirted guards lined the stairs and clustered around a large, rectangular slab before the doors. Dagan shivered, recognizing it for what it was. Hendrik squeezed him tighter around the middle and kissed the shell of his ear. “You don’t have to look at it.”
“I’m fucking looking at it,” Dagan said through clenched teeth. “If I spit on it, am I going to get stabbed by one of those guards?”
Hen chuckled, chest bouncing against his back. “Aim for the ground. I hear the glass cost more than rebuilding the See would’ve.”
They rode up the stairs, dismounting only at the top. Hendrik batted away help, sliding onto the mounting block one-legged holding nothing but Dagan’s shoulder. He accepted his crutch, however, as they filed past the slab in turn. A long, stone bier had been set up on the porch just in front of the Guardhall’s forbidding entrance, and on top of that a glass-paneled box, soldered together artfully with silvery metal. It was a work of fine craftsmanship, but stark, plain, unadorned.
Within was a charred corpse of a thing, some seven feet in length, twisted and burned. Its arms, elongated things almost like the bones of a bird’s wings, terminated in long, ashen claws. How could something so frail-seeming have sent Hendrik flying across a cavern with one easy swipe? How could that skull, so fragile and empty now, though larger than a man’s should’ve been, have sent that dark voice echoing through their minds as well as the tunnels? It was a twisted wreck, but even in this burned state, the thing was large and terrifying. And powerful.
Dagan flicked his gaze to Demetrius, who stood with one hand against the glass, looking down into the thing’s long-withered face. As if he felt the look, Demetrius glanced his way then shook his head. “Was it just like me, a thousand years ago?” he wondered, his dark eyes large with wonder and horror.
Alonza slipped an arm around Demetrius’s shoulder from the other side but didn’t answer. No one could. Dagan couldn’t think that this dark and rotten creature was an inevitability, the final form of all natural lifecasters. He’d seen too much good come from lifecasting, carefully cultivated, judiciously used, giving instead of taking. But the odds of it happening again, now that people would find out that lifecasting could be used as this thing had used it for centuries…
That was a problem for Jessica. For Alonza and Demetrius. For Piret and Sister Eva.
Hendrik’s lip curled as he took a long look at the dead thing. “They shouldn’t have risked going back for the fucking thing. The whole place could’ve collapsed on them.”
Glancing out at the trail of the parade behind them, at the Stone Citizens lining the street waiting for their turn to see this macabre display, Dagan couldn’t help but disagree. “No. No, they need this. They need to see with their own eyes. They were denied it for too long.”
“As long as they burn it to ash when everyone’s had their look,” Hen mumbled. “Assuming it can be burned to ash.”
The fact that it wasn’t already didn’t seem to bode well for that. But then, human ingenuity was far from dead in the City; if they could make that burning oil, they could think of something.
Again, a problem for someone else. Thank all the forest gods. We’re coming back to you.
They relocated to a row of seats in front of the Guardhall doors, where guards closed ranks in front of them. Then, the rest of the parade, the green flags on foot, filed past the glass box of remains, some barely glancing at it, some stopping to stare or yell or cry. Jak, when his turn came, turned and dropped the hood he’d been wearing, then winked up at them. Kajja waved and started to shout his name before someone stopped her with a laugh.
Once the parade had finished, anyone could file past and look at the thing, and it seemed the whole of the City had turned out. How so many people could live behind these walls, though it was now clear more of them had been underground than above, was beyond Dagan. Kon and Alara came by, Alara weeping, Kon somber-faced; Hendrik sent a guard to pluck them from the crowd and bring them up to the seats. Someone brought ale and bread for the heroes of the day, and Kajja fed and comforted Alara as best she could.
The faces, though wildly varied in color, shape, and expression, began to melt into one as the sun sank over the far-off wastes. Dagan leaned against Hen’s shoulder and watched the people mourn their past and hope for their future in almost complete silence, until someone from in front of the glass box shouted, “Hendrik! Hendrik, it’s Marek!”
Hen started to his feet, steadying himself with the crutch. “Let him through, please! Him, yes! And anyone with him!”
“Who is it?” Dagan leaned forward to catch a glimpse of the man; he had curly hair pulled up into a half ponytail, the rest trailing to his shoulders. Lovely, dark umber skin with glowing jewel undertones; large eyes so dark, the pupil and iris seemed as one. His clothes were as fine as anything Dagan had seen in the City, perhaps the finest.
The line of guards closed around the man and the woman with him; she was dressed just as well and carried a bundle against her chest, like a sack of flour. A tiny fist shot out from the flour-sack, however, and then a cry of protest. A baby.
“It’s Kass’s brother,” Hendrik said. His brow furrowed, perhaps in confusion, though Dagan couldn’t fathom why. Hen took a few steps down and held out his free hand—the left, not the customary right.
Marek returned the gesture and gripped his hand, pumping it enthusiastically. He smiled, bright and very charming indeed, but there was something in those inky-black eyes that spoke of sadness, loss. The entire day’s emotions rolled up into one compelling expression, no doubt. “Hendrik. I hoped we’d see you today. I’ve been asking all over the City about you.”
Hen gestured to his right leg. “Confined against my own will,” he said by way of explanation.
“They said.” Marek glanced down and winced at the truncated limb but recovered quickly enough. “You’re well, though?”
“Yes. At last. And you? It’s been…a long time.”
Marek ducked his head, clearly embarrassed. “I wish I’d come more often.”
“He understood.” Hen said it quietly, though, a note of sadness in his voice.
“I know. Our mother never did, though. She cried every time I went without her.” Marek sighed. “It’s a cruel business.”
Hen’s eyebrows went up. “She did? She cried, I mean?”
“Embarrassed the hells out of my father, so she was never allowed to see Kass in public.”
