A Reaper at the Gates

  For the next few nights, every time I so much as move, she flinches, as if worried I will come closer. So I stay far away from her, always on the other side of the fire, always a few yards behind her on the road. My mind churns, but I do not speak. It is as if her silence chokes me.

  But finally, the words will no longer stay down, and I find that I must say them, whatever the consequences.

  "Why didn't you kill her?" The night is warm, and we don't light a fire, instead laying out our bedrolls and looking up at the stars. "The Commandant? You could have poisoned her. Stabbed her. For skies' sake, you're Mirra of Serra--"

  "There is no Mirra of Serra!" Cook shrieks so loudly that a pack of sparrows takes flight from a nearby tree, as frightened as I am. "She's dead. She died in Kauf Prison when her child and husband died! I'm not Mirra. I'm Cook. And you will not speak to me of that murderous, traitorous bitch or what she would or wouldn't do. You know nothing of her."

  She breathes heavily, her dark eyes sparkling with rage. "I tried, girl," she hisses at me. "The first time I attacked Keris, she broke my arm and lashed Izzi to within an inch of her life. The child was five. I was forced to watch. The next time I got it in my head to try something, the Bitch of Blackcliff took out Izzi's eye."

  "Why not escape? You could have gotten out of there."

  "I tried. But the chances Keris would catch us were too high. She'd have tortured Izzi. And I'd had enough of people suffering for me. Perhaps Mirra of Serra would have been willing to sacrifice a child to save her own neck, but that's because Mirra of Serra had no soul. Mirra of Serra was as evil as the Commandant. And I'm not her. Not anymore."

  "You haven't asked about Nan and Pop," I whisper. "Or about Darin. You--"

  "I don't deserve to know how your brother is," she says. "As for your grandparents . . ." Her mouth splits into a small smile I do not recognize. "I had vengeance on their killer."

  "The Mask?" I say. "How?"

  "I hunted him. He wanted to die, in the end. I was merciful." Her eyes are black as dead coals. "You're judging me."

  "I wanted to kill him too. But . . ."

  "But I enjoyed it. And that makes me evil? Come now, girl. You cannot walk in the shadows as long as I have and not become one."

  I shift uncomfortably, remembering what the Jaduna said to me. You are young to stand so deeply in the shadow.

  "I am glad you killed him." I pause, considering my next words. But in the end, there is no delicate way to ask the question. "Why--why won't you touch me? Don't you--" Long for it, I want so say. The way I do?

  "The touch of a child brings a mother comfort." I can barely hear her. "But I'm no mother, girl. I'm a monster. Monsters don't merit comfort."

  She turns away from me and falls silent. I watch her back for a long time. She's so close. Close enough to touch. Close enough to hear whispered words of forgiveness.

  But I do not think that she would feel the embrace of a daughter if I touched her. And I do not think she would care about being forgiven.

  * * *

  The closer we get to Antium, the clearer it is that trouble is nigh. Cartloads of carpets and furniture trundle away from the city, their owners surrounded by dozens of guards. Once, we see a heavily armed caravan from afar. I cannot see what they carry, but I count at least a dozen Masks guarding whatever it is.

  "They're running," Cook spits. "Too scared to stay and fight. Mostly Illustrians, it seems. Move faster, girl. If the wealthy flee the city, the Karkauns must be close."

  We do not stop now, traveling day and night. But by the time we reach the outskirts of Antium, it is clear that disaster has already struck the Martials' fabled capital. We hike over a ridge near the Argent Hills, and the city comes into view below.

  As does the enormous army that surrounds it on three sides. Only the north end of Antium, which abuts the mountains, is protected.

  "Sweet bleeding skies," Cook murmurs. "If that's not skies-given justice, I don't know what is."

  "So many." I can barely speak. "The people in the city . . ." I shake my head, and immediately my thoughts go to the Scholars who are still enslaved in the city. My people. "There must be Scholars down there. The Commandant didn't kill all the slaves. The Illustrians didn't let her. What happens to them if the city is overrun?"

  "They die," Cook says. "Just like every other poor bastard unfortunate enough to get stuck there. Leave that to the Martials. It's their capital; they'll defend it. You've got something else to think about. How the bleeding hells are we going to get in there?"

  "They've only just gotten here." Men stream in to join the Karkaun army from a northeastern pass. "They're staying out of range of the city's catapults, which means they must not be planning to attack. You said you could sneak us in."

  "From the mountains north of the city," Cook says. "We'd have to go around the Argent Hills. It would take us days. Longer."

  "There will be chaos as they set up camp," I say. "We could take advantage of that. Sneak through at night. They'll have some women down there--"

  "Whores," Cook says. "Don't think I'd pass as one of those."

  "Cooks too," I say. "Laundresses. The Karkauns are horrible. They'd not go anywhere without their women to scrape and serve for them. I could go invisible."

  Cook shakes her head. "You said the invisibility altered your mind. Gave you visions, sometimes for hours. We need to think of something else. This is a bad idea."

  "It's necessary."

  "It's suicide."

  "It's something you might have done," I say quietly. "Before."

  "That makes me trust it even less," she says, but I can see her waver. She knows as well as I do that our options are limited.

  An hour later, I walk by her side as she hunches over a basket of stinking laundry. We've taken out two sentries who blocked our way into the encampment. Simple enough. But now that we walk among the Karkauns, it is anything but.

  There are so many of them. Much like in the Empire, their skin tones and features and hair vary. But they are all heavily tattooed, the top halves of their faces blue with woad so that the whites of their eyes stand out eerily.

  There are hundreds of campfires lit but few tents behind which Cook and I can take cover. Most of the men wear leather breeches and fur vests, and I have no sense of which are higher-ranking and which are not. The only Karkauns who stand out are those who wear strange bone-and-steel armor and who carry staffs with human skulls on top. When they walk, they are given a wide berth. But most are gathered around enormous unlit pyres, pouring what looks to be deep scarlet sand in intricate shapes around them.

  "Karkaun warlocks," Cook mutters to me. "Spend all their time terrifying the masses and attempting to raise spirits. They never manage it, but they're still treated like gods."

  The camp stinks of sweat and rancid vegetables. Huge piles of firewood belie the warm weather, and the Karkauns don't bother cleaning up all the horse dung. Jugs of some pale alcohol are as ubiquitous as the men, and there's a stench of sour milk that lingers over everything.

  "Bah!" An older Karkaun shoves Cook when she accidently bumps him with her basket. "Tek fidkayad urqin!"

  Cook swings her head back and forth, playing the old, confused woman well. The man knocks the basket out of her hands, and his friends laugh as clothes cascade onto the filthy ground. He kicks her in the gut as she tries to gather up the clothes quickly, making lewd gestures.

  I quickly help her gather the clothes, trusting that the Karkauns are too drunk to notice an invisible hand helping Cook. But when I crouch, she hisses at me.

  "You're flickering, girl! Move!"

  Sure enough, I look down to find my invisibility faltering. The Nightbringer! He must be in Antium--his presence is snuffing out my magic.

  Cook bolts swiftly through the knot of men, making her way steadily north.

  "You still there, girl?" Tension is thick on her skin, but she doesn't look back.

  "They're not very organized," I whisper in return.
"But skies, there are so many of them."

  "Long winters in the south," Cook says. "They've got nothing to do but breed."

  "Why strike now?" I ask. "Why here?"

  "There's a famine among their people and a firebrand warlock who has taken advantage of it. Nothing motivates a man like hunger in the bellies of his children. The Karkauns looked north and saw a wealthy, fat empire. Year after year, the Martials had plenty and the Karkauns had nothing. Empire wouldn't trade fairly with them either. Grimarr, their warlock priest, reminded them of that. And here we are."

  We are nearly through the northern end of the camp now. A flat cliff face stretches ahead of us, but Cook makes her way confidently toward it, shedding the basket of laundry as darkness falls and we get farther from the camp. "They're depending entirely on sheer numbers to win here. That or they've got something nasty up their sleeves--something the Martials can't fight."

  I glance up at the moon--almost full, but not quite. In three days, it will fatten into the Grain Moon. By the Grain Moon, the forgotten will find their master.

  Cook doubles back twice to make sure we aren't followed before she gestures me close to the cliff face. She nods upward. "There's a cave about fifty feet up," she says. "Leads deeper into the mountains. Stay here, and stay invisible, just in case."

  "How the hells are you going to--"

  She crooks her fingers. There is something familiar about the motion, and then suddenly she is climbing the sheer rock face with the spryness of a spider. I gape. It is unnatural--no, impossible. She is not flying, exactly, but there is a lightness to her that is distinctly inhuman.

  "What the hells--"

  A rope falls and smacks me in the head. Cook's face appears from overhead. "Tie it around you," she says. "Brace your feet on the wall, in the wedges, in whatever space you can find, and climb."

  When I finally reach her, I am out of breath, and when I ask her how she did it, she hisses at me and starts off through the cave without turning back.

  We are deep in the mountains before Cook finally suggests I drop my invisibility.

  "It might take me a few minutes to wake up," I say to her. "I have visions, and I'm not sure--"

  "I'll make sure you don't die."

  I nod but find myself paralyzed. I do not wish to face the visions--not after what the Nightbringer showed me.

  Though my mother cannot see me, she cocks her head, as if she senses my discomfort. My face flushes, and though I search for an explanation, I cannot find one. I'm a coward, I want to say. I always have been. Skies, this is humiliating. If she were just Cook, I would not have cared. But she is my mother. My mother. I have spent years wondering what she would think of me.

  She looks around the tunnel and finally sits on the earth floor. "I'm tired," she says. "Damn Karkauns. Come. Sit next to an old woman, girl."

  I ease down beside her, and for the first time she doesn't flinch away from me--because she can't see me.

  "These visions," she says after a time. "They are frightening?"

  I think of her in the prison cell. The singing. The crack. Those sounds that meant nothing until they meant everything. And even now, even when I do not comprehend who she has become, I cannot bear to tell her what I saw. I cannot say it, for saying it will make it real.

  "Yes." I dig my feet into the ground, sliding them back and forth. "They're frightening." And what will I see now that the visions turn out to be from the past? Something else? Some other horror?

  "Best get it done quickly then." Her voice is not exactly gentle, but it isn't harsh either. She hesitates and holds out a hand, palm up. Her jaw is tight, and she swallows.

  Her skin is warm. Calloused. And though she might not look like my mother, or sound like her, or act like her, she still has her hands. I squeeze--and she shudders.

  I shrug off the invisibility, welcoming the visions because they cannot be worse than holding the hand of a woman who bore me but who is disgusted by my touch.

  The visions are upon me, but this time I walk through streets of fire, past walls burned black. Screams echo from blazing buildings and dread fills my bones. I cry out.

  When I open my eyes, Cook is hovering over me, one hand on my face, the other still clenched between my fingers. Her face is pained, as if touching me is more than she can bear. She doesn't ask about the visions. And I do not tell her.

  * * *

  When we approach the entrance to the Mariner Embassy, a wet, crumbling set of steps that lead up to a wooden door, Cook slows.

  "There should be two guards here," she says. "It has always been guarded. That lever there--it allows them to collapse the whole damn thing in case of an attack."

  I draw my dagger, and Cook draws her bow. She pushes the door open gently, and when we enter, all is silent. In the streets beyond the building, drums thunder, and I am transported back to Blackcliff almost instantly. Carts rumble past, their occupants shouting requests, soldiers bellowing orders. Boots thump, marching in time, and a crisp voice directs a platoon to the walls. Antium prepares for war.

  "This isn't right," I say. "Musa had people here. They were to have slaves' cuffs ready for us, maps, the Blood Shrike's movements . . ."

  "They must have left before the Karkauns' attack," Cook says. "They can't all have gone."

  But they have. I can feel it. This place has been empty for days.

  We're on our own.

  XLV: Elias

  The ghosts explode into the Empire like flaming stones hurtling from a ballista. The border wall is nothing but shreds.

  I feel the spirits in the same way that I feel the contours of the Waiting Place. They're bits of winter in a blanket of warmth and they move like a school of fish, closely packed and streaking in one direction--southwest, toward a Martial village I sneak supplies from. The people who live there are decent and hardworking. And they've no bleeding idea what's coming.

  I want to help them. But that's also what the jinn want--for it's a distraction from my duty. Yet again, they're trying to use my humanity against me.

  Not this time. What matters now is not the humans whom the ghosts will possess and torment. It's the border of the Waiting Place. I have to restore it. There will be more ghosts entering the Forest. They, at least, must be kept within its boundaries.

  The thought has scarcely formed in my mind when the magic rises from the earth, winding its way into my body. It's stronger this time, as if sensing that finally I understand how I've been manipulated by the jinn. Feeling Mauth, letting the magic consume me, is a relief--but also a transgression. I shudder at Mauth's closeness. This doesn't feel like using my physical magic, which is simply a matter of harnessing something that's already part of me. No--this magic is something alien. It sinks in like a disease and colors my sight. The magic changes something fundamental within. I do not feel like myself.

  But my discomfort can wait. I have more pressing work.

  The magic allows me to see what the border should look like. All I need to do is apply my willpower to rebuild it. I gather my strength.

  Far to the south, the ghosts close in on the village. Don't think about it.

  Mauth's magic flares in response, his presence stronger. Section by section, I rebuild the border, imagining great bricks of light rising all at once, solid and unbreakable. When I open my eyes, the wall is there, glowing as if it never came down. The border cannot call the escaped ghosts back. But it can catch new ghosts who are bound for the Waiting Place.

  And there will be many of those.

  Now what? Do I go after the rogue ghosts? A nudge from Mauth toward the southwest is my answer. The windwalking comes easily--more easily than it ever has. And though I expect the magic to wear off the farther I get from the Forest, it stays with me, for this is Mauth's magic, not my own.

  The ghosts have scattered, splintering among the countryside into dozens of small groups. But I make for the village closest to the Waiting Place. When I am still a mile away, I hear screams.

 
I slow in a village square, and it is a testament to the havoc the ghosts have created that none of the villagers seem to notice that I appeared out of thin air.

  "Thaddius! My son! No!" a white-haired man screams. A younger man twists the old man's arms behind his back and pulls them up with inhuman, inexorable force. "Release me--don't do this--aaa--" An audible crunch sounds, and the father slumps, unconscious from pain. The younger man lifts him up, as if he's nothing but a pebble, and flings him across the village--hundreds and hundreds of yards.

  I draw my scims, prepared to attack, when Mauth yanks at me.

  Of course, Elias, you idiot, I chide myself. I can't single-handedly beat up everyone inhabited by a ghost. Shaeva tapped my heart, my head. Mauth's true power is here and here. The magic nudges me toward the closest group of possessed villagers. My throat grows warm, and I can sense, somehow, that Mauth wants me to speak.

  "Stop," I say, but not as Elias. I speak as the Banu al-Mauth. I pinion the possessed with my gaze, one by one. I wait for an attack, but all they do is stare balefully, wary of the magic they can sense roiling within me.

  "Come," I order them. My voice booms with a supernatural note of command. They must listen. "Come."

  They snarl and yip, and I cast Mauth's magic out like a thin line, wrapping it around each of them, tugging them close. Some come in the bodies they have stolen. Others are still spirits, and they drift toward me with hostile moans. Soon, a small group of a few dozen spirits forms a half circle around me.

  Should I rope them together with magic? Send them streaming back to the Waiting Place, as I did with the ghosts that plagued the Tribes?

  No. For as I look at these tortured faces, I realize the spirits don't wish to be here. They want to move on, to leave this world. Sending them back to the Forest will only prolong their suffering.

  The magic fills my sight, and I see the ghosts for what they are: hurting, alone, confused, regretful. Some are desperate for forgiveness. Others for kindness. Others for understanding. Others for an explanation.