The Voortyashtanis realized someone had taught the Saypuris these methods, and quickly traced the information back to Saint Torya. The Voortyashtanis then executed every slave and servant who had come in contact with Torya’s estate, and petitioned Bulikov not only for Torya to be defrocked, but also executed. They won their petition, and Torya was brutally disemboweled in 1475 for crimes against the Continent’s colonies.
But the Voortyashtanis’ victory was not complete: Torya’s laws persisted and were worked upon in secret. When the Kaj himself created his mysterious weaponry to slay the Divinities in 1636, a copy of Torya’s laws was one of his most heavily used references. And in the 1640s, when Vallaicha Thinadeshi began the great technological revolution that would secure Saypur’s place in the world, none of it would have been possible without the work of Saint Torya, performed just under two hundred years earlier.
Saypur, being a proud nation, would not like to admit that a Continental contributed so much to the foundation of their technological achievements. But we forget another lesson of history when we do so: a slave will use any tool to escape their slavery, even those of their masters.
—DR. EFREM PANGYUI, “THE SUDDEN HEGEMONY”
First the rain—the screaming, awful rain. The slap of the downpour is so stunning that Mulaghesh, who’s spent the latter part of her trip cloistered in her cabin aboard the Dreyling cargo ship Hjemdal, is almost stupefied by such brutal weather, and it makes her rethink the desire she’s had for the last two weeks: to get the hells off of this chain of boats and set her feet on dry land.
But not this land, she thinks. Not any land that exists under weather like this….
She shields her eyes, walks out on deck, and looks.
She is faced with the wide, expansive mouth of a river—the Solda River, of course, whose waters once passed through Bulikov, the very city where she was stationed for nearly two decades. On each side of the river mouth are two vast, ragged peaks that slowly recede down to the waters in a rambling jangle of sharp, broken, blade-like stones. No wonder they call it the city of blades, she thinks. It all looks like rubble, as if the cliffs surrounding the city have been steadily collapsing—yet amidst the stones about the peaks are lights, streams of smoke, and thousands of glimmering windows.
“So that’s the city of Voortyashtan,” she says grimly. “Well. It lives up to expectations.”
Then she sees the harbor. Or, rather, what will one day be the harbor—maybe.
“Holy shit,” she says.
The main issue with reconstructing the Continent—the underlying aim of nearly all of Shara Komayd’s legislation—is one of access. There has only ever been one functioning international harbor on the Continent in modern history: Ahanashtan, which has always been Saypur’s key foothold on the Continent. But if you’re trying to bring aid and support to the entirety of the Continent, having only one way in and one way out makes it quite difficult.
Yet as the Continent’s climate changed—growing steadily colder with no Divinities to miraculously warm the weather—there became only one remaining decent warm-water port: Voortyashtan. Which happens to sit on the mouth of the Solda River, which, if brought under control, would give the entire world access to the inner recesses of the Continent.
And long ago, Voortyashtan did once possess a harbor. In fact, back in the days of the Divinities, it was far, far larger and busier than any harbor the contemporary powers could ever aspire to. But it was put to unspeakable, monstrous purposes—purposes that make modern Saypuris shiver to think of even today.
“Every obstacle,” Shara used to say (before her own career became mired in its own obstacles), “is always an opportunity.” Would it not be a tremendous symbolic victory, she asked, if Saypur built a new harbor in Voortyashtan and put it to good use? Wouldn’t they all sleep a little better at night knowing Voortyashtan, that most backward and dangerous of cities, was slowly being modernized, led along like a mule is led by a dangling turnip?
So it was decided that the Department of Reconstruction, with the approval of the polis of Voortyashtan, would reconstruct its ancient harbor, thus bringing swift aid to the other half of the Continent, and probably making Voortyashtan the second-richest polis on the Continent in the meantime.
But as to who would do the actual work—that was another issue. Saypur, being a naval nation, naturally had a dozen contractors and companies willing to do the job—but for Saypuri prices, all of which were astronomically high. For a while it seemed the harbor would never be built without some outrageous financing miracle, but then the newly founded United Dreyling States—having overthrown the corrupt Dreyling Republics a mere three years ago, and desperate for income—came forward with a series of bids so low that Saypur wondered if the Dreylings were using slave labor. But in the end, the Southern Dreyling Company—or SDC, as many prefer—finally captured the prize and signed the contracts.
Though from what Mulaghesh last heard, the construction of the harbor has so far proven to be more difficult than anyone anticipated. She remembers hearing about how some tremendous wreckage from the Blink blocked up much of the Solda River’s mouth and would have to be removed. And if she recalls, all of SDC’s most brilliant engineers were still scratching their heads over it.
Yet now, just outside the Solda Bay, she sees that they seem to be making headway. Remarkable headway, in fact.
In the mouth of the bay is a forest of dredging cranes, each 150 feet high, all in lines radiating outward from the shore. Some of the cranes are building other cranes, reaching farther and farther out to sea, while the ones closer to the shore are deconstructing the cranes at the back. It’s a brilliant, confusing, impressive mess of construction work, and for a moment Mulaghesh wonders if these mechanisms are here to repair the ruined mess of Voortyashtan or if they’re here to tear it down. The shore behind the cranes is awash with activity: tiny timber structures and makeshift piers all fueling the work taking place in the bay, reforging this ruined metropolis into what could one day be the trade capital of the western coast of the Continent.
But where’s the wreckage the cranes are supposed to be hauling away? From what Mulaghesh can see, the Solda Bay is wide and clear.
“We’ll have to cut a sharp turn here, ma’am,” says the captain of the Hjemdal. “Might wish to hold on tight.”
“Cut around what?” says Mulaghesh. “It damned well looks like we’re in open seas to me, Captain.”
“Stand on the port side and look down, ma’am,” says the captain, “and you might catch a glimpse of it.”
Mulaghesh does so, holding tight to the railing.
The ship veers beneath her. Dark water washes up the hull. She sees nothing, but then…