“There’s something here. I know there is,” he said, and… something was.
It was caked in dirt, but when he pulled it out, the soil fell away and it glimmered white as pearl. It was… a feather? Not just any feather. Its edges met the air in that melting way, as though it might dissolve. “Wraith,” said Sarai, surprised.
“The white bird,” said Lazlo. He stared at the feather, turning it over in his hand. Fragmented images flittered at the edge of memory. Glimpses of white feathers, of wings etched against stars. His brow furrowed. Trying to catch the memories was like trying to catch a reflection. As soon as he reached for them, they warped and vanished.
For her part, Sarai wondered what a feather from Wraith was doing here, buried in the earth of Lazlo’s unconscious mind. But it was a dream—from a blow to the head, no less—and likely meant nothing at all.
“Lazlo,” she said, licking her lips, fear hot and tight in her throat and her chest. “Do you know what’s happened? Do you know where you are?”
He looked around. “This is the abbey orchard. I used to play here as a boy.”
“No,” she said. “This is a dream. Do you know where you are?”
His brow furrowed. “I… I was walking,” he said. “To the north anchor.”
Sarai nodded. She stroked his face, marveling at what it had come to mean to her in so short a span of time—this crooked nose, these rough-cut cheeks, these rivercat lashes and dreamer’s eyes. She wanted to stay with him, that was all she wanted—even here, in this austere place. Give them half a minute and they could turn it into paradise—frost flowers blooming on the bare black trees, and a little house with a potbellied stove, a fleece rug in front of it just right for making love.
The last thing she wanted to do—the very last thing—was push him out a door where she couldn’t follow. But she kissed his lips, and kissed his eyelids, and whispered the words that would do just that. She said, “Lazlo. You have to wake up now, my love.”
And he did.
From the quiet of the orchard and Sarai’s caress, Lazlo woke to… quiet that wasn’t silence, but sound pulled inside out. His head was stuffed with it, bursting, and he couldn’t hear a thing. He was deaf, and he was choking. The air was thick and he couldn’t breathe. Dust. Smoke. Why…? Why was he lying down?
He tried to sit up. Failed.
He lay there, blinking, and shapes began to resolve from the dim. Overhead, he saw a shred of sky. No, not sky. Weep’s sky: the citadel. He could see the outline of its wings.
The outline of wings. Yes. For an instant, he captured the memory—white wings against stars—just a glimpse, accompanied by a sensation of weightlessness that was the antithesis of what he was feeling now, sprawled out on the street, staring up at the citadel. Sarai was up there. Sarai. Her words were still in his mind, her hands still on his face. She had just been with him.…
No, that was a dream. She’d said so. He’d been walking to the anchor, that was it. He remembered… Drave running, and white light. Understanding slowly seeped into his mind. Explosionist. Explosion. Drave had done this.
Done what?
A ringing supplanted the silence in his head. It was low but growing. He shook it, trying to clear it, and the moths on his brow and cheeks took flight and fluttered around his head in a corona. The ringing grew louder. Terrible. He was able to roll onto his side, though, and from there get his knees and elbows under him and push up. He squinted, his eyes stinging from the hot, filthy air, and looked around. Smoke swirled like the mahalath, and fire was shooting up behind an edge of shattered rooftops. They looked like broken teeth. He could feel the heat of the flames on his face, but he still couldn’t hear its roar or anything but the ringing.
He got to his feet. The world swung arcs around him. He fell and got up again, slower now.
The dust and smoke moved like a river among islands of debris—pieces of wall and roof, even an iron stove standing upright, as though it had been delivered by wagon. He shuddered at his luck, that nothing had hit him. That was when he saw Drave, who hadn’t been so lucky.
Stumbling, Lazlo knelt beside him. He saw Isagol’s eyes first, staring up from the mural. The explosionist’s eyes were staring, too, but filmed with dust, unseeing.
Dead.
Lazlo rose and continued on, though surely only a fool goes toward fire and not away from it. He had to see what Drave had done, but that wasn’t the only reason. He’d been going to the anchor when the blast hit. He couldn’t quite remember the reason, but whatever it was, it hadn’t let him go. The same compulsion pulled him now.
“My name,” he’d told Sarai when she asked what he was looking for. “The truth.”
What truth? Everything was blurred, inside his head and out. But if only a fool goes toward a fire, then he was in good company. He didn’t hear their approach from behind him, but in a moment he was swept up with them: Tizerkane from the barracks, fiercer than he’d ever seen them. They raced past. Someone stopped. It was Ruza, and it was so good to see his face. His lips were moving, but Lazlo couldn’t hear. He shook his head, touched his ears to make Ruza understand, and his fingers came away wet. He looked at them and they were red.
That couldn’t be good.
Ruza saw, and gripped his arm. Lazlo had never seen his friend look so serious. He wanted to make a joke, but nothing came to mind. He knocked Ruza’s hand away and gestured ahead. “Come on,” he said, though he couldn’t hear his own words any better than Ruza’s.
Together they rounded the corner to see what the explosion had wrought.
62
A CALM APOCALYPSE
Heavy gray smoke churned skyward. There was an acrid stink of saltpeter, and the air was dense and grainy. The ruins around the anchor’s east flank were no more. There was a wasteland of fiery debris now. The scene was apocalyptic, but… it was a calm apocalypse. No one was running or screaming. No one lived here, and that was a mercy. There was no one to evacuate, no one and nothing to save.
In the midst of it all, the anchor loomed indomitable. For all the savage power of the blast, it was unscathed. Lazlo could make out Rasalas on high, hazy in the scrim of dust-diffused firelight. The beast seemed so untouchable up there, as though it would always and forever lord its death leer over the city.
“Are you all right?” Ruza demanded, and Lazlo started to nod before he realized he’d heard him. The words had an underwater warble and there was still a tinny ringing in his ears, but he could hear. “I’m fine,” he said, too on edge to be relieved. The panic was leaving him, though, and the disorientation, too. He saw Eril-Fane giving orders. A fire wagon rolled up. Already the flames were dying down as the ancient timbers were consumed. Everything was under control. It seemed no one had even been hurt—except for Drave, and no one would mourn for him.