“Tell Angel farewell,” Chantri adds.
“She hears you.” I turn and walk away, swallowing my tears.
Outside the Fortress walls, the city rambles, a dirty, tattered skirt tumbling in layers from the south gate. The outer fringe of shacks rises from the dust with the stink of shit, of open sewers, penned up livestock bleating and braying. Chickens squawk, russet feathers flapping in twig cages. The main road cuts through a flurry of people, all shouting as if deafness is a common affliction. Some work at trades, others at drudgery, crofters among them selling withering greens and red meat visited by flies. The less industrious women expose their breasts and coo obscenities; children slap our legs as they run screeching past, chased by barking dogs. A man vomits against a wall, his body skeleton-thin, slick with sweat and ghostly pale. Craftsmen hawk their wares from the backs of wagons, and peddlers expel their foul breath in my face with their promises of ancient trinkets.
My sister strolls between Priest and me, her eyes wide with an expression that flits between curiosity and fright. The people here are all shades of color, from cream to midnight, but I note few with light hair, none so fair as Angel or I. We draw stares and frowns, questions in the eyes of leering men. Another band of urchins runs by, shrieking and slapping at me. I snarl and raise a hand to swat the next who tries. “Why are they doing that?” I bark.
“They check your pockets for iron pennies,” Priest explains. “The Fortress stamps their own coins. Most here will trade for their goods but some demand payment in metal. The children are trying to steal from us.”
“Where are those strict laws?” I growl as I push a man back who blocks my way, his hands draped with strings of colorful clay beads.
“Ahead,” Priest points. “We’re still outside the wall.”
Closer to the wall, buildings rise in height, the construction sturdier, squarer, forming rows with narrow alleys defining their borders. Across a span of open ground, the wall stands near fourteen feet high, coated with the same dust-colored clay as everything else. Men wearing scaled breastplates glint like metal reptiles. They pace the wall-walk with hooded eyes and bows on their backs, steel-tipped spears stabbing the sky. Wide enough for two wagons to pass side by side, the gates gape open. Four guards clad in leather monitor the procession of men and beasts passing through one way or the other.
“Whoa, whoa, whoa,” a stout guard calls out as we step into the wall’s shadow. He holds up a hand, sucking on his teeth, his eyes roving from me to Priest, noting the handless arm before sliding back to me. “You can’t go in there. No cripples inside the walls.”
“I’m Priest, from the Colony, here to see Mikel.”
“He’s an exception,” a narrow-faced sergeant calls from across the gap. “Let him through.”
“Who’s she?” the portly guard asks, grinning at me.
“A new arrival,” Priest replies and presses through before the next question.
The other side of the gate opens onto a wide dirt plaza, a giant market crowded with booths and wagons in orderly rows, colorful banners billowing in the lazy breeze, the sounds of hundreds of voices blending into a textured human hum. The chaos seems less garish than outside the wall, the people appearing somewhat wealthier but far less coarse. The air smells less putrid. Children scamper and screech, but they aren’t running like wild dogs stealing iron pennies.
Then Angel gasps and I follow her eyes. At the center of the plaza between the bright pennants and banners stands a gallows, three naked bodies dangling from the crosspiece, one a woman, her bare feet swiveled inward, toes pointed like a dancer.
“There’s your law,” Priest says. “One of the first things you see when you enter the wall.”
“What could they have done?” Angel asks.
“Abused a child, murdered, attempted murder, spread disease.” Priest leads us through the crowd, skirting the gallows. The heads loll at angles, purple and bloated, legs below the knees, black and swollen with stagnant blood. The corpses have let go their shit and piss. They stink, rank and sweet like rotting meat, flies buzzing in a black cloud.
“How long will they hang there,” I ask.
“Not much longer, I hope,” he replies, moving us along.
“Would a rapist hang?” The possibility toys with my emotions, the thought titillating. How intriguing that I would judge the entire culture on this answer.
“Not likely,” he replies, stopping to face me. “Maybe, if it happens repeatedly. I don’t know the details of the laws, Rimma. You can ask Mikel, but perhaps not today.” He regards me with distrust, as though I’m driven to destroy myself and my sister before the day is done. “Pregnancy is just as desirous here as it is at the Colony and among the packs. Children are off-limits and spreading disease will send you to the gallows, but other than that, there are few sexual restrictions. Just don’t…read aggression into every inquiry.”
“Fine, Priest, I’ll try not to murder anyone my first week here.”
“Thank you,” he says dryly.
“Please, let’s keep going,” Angel pleads. “This is hard enough without you two bickering.”
The main road slopes gently upward, meandering around stodgy buildings constructed of steel, gray block, and stone, some with a smattering of windows intact. Clay dwellings and shops pebble the open spaces between larger square structures. Like a rag blanket, fields and pastures lay patched together with metal barns rusting between them, forges standing alone, billowing heat in liquid waves to the harsh clang of hammers. The whole place has the surreal quality of overlapping worlds.
The gray stronghold itself sits alone, consuming the top of the hill, surrounded by easily defensible land left open for horses and crops. Seven stories at its peak and sprawling, the stronghold is a cluster of nine massive hexagonal stacks connected by solid slabs of tower. From this central fortress, seven lower projections extend its reach, set it looming over the land within the wall. It’s a monster of an older age.
Closer up, it surrenders a measure of its formidable threat, most of its lower windows and many of those above boarded up. On the first level, metal pipes exit through holes in the wood, their steel tentacles puffing white clouds of smoke. Cracks etch the gray façade like winkles on an ancient face, parts sloughing and peeling with age. Not far from the curved, granite steps, soldiers in brown shirts with red bands on their shoulders train with quarterstaffs, steel swords, and bows.
Guards at the main doors watch us approach with mixed interest, eyebrows raised as they exchange glances.
“I’m Priest, from the Colony. Here to see Mikel.”
“Is he expecting you?” a cocky guard asks, winking slyly at me and tugging at the scruffy black hair on his chin.
“We have reason to meet,” Priest replies.
“You got the Touch?” the guard asks. “They shouldn’t have let you in with the Touch.”
With a sigh, Priest raises his arm in answer. “Do you want a demonstration?”
The other men perk up at that, hands fingering the hilts at their belts. Scruffy chin backs up a step. “Just saying we gotta check, is all. We got rules.”
The offending arm drops and the guards relax, as if Priest’s magic shoots from his stump like an arrow and he’s just unstrung his bow. I can’t help smiling at the men’s ignorance and three of the four guards smile back.
Rubbing the back of his neck, Priest dons a patient face. “Why don’t you just let Mikel know Priest is here with a guest and see what he says?”
“Who should I say she is?” the guard asks, wheedling for my name as he sneaks another wink.
“Does it matter, asshole?” I reply. “He doesn’t know me from shit.” Angel pokes my ribs and growls at me.
“No need for that,” Scruffy says with a frown.
“Can I help here?” The voice comes from behind me. The man isn’t tall, but broad in the chest with sandy hair brushing his collar. Two red triangular patches adorn the shoulders of his brown shirt, marking his rank, along with the sheathed sword dangling at this hip.
“Major.” Scruffy stands at attention. “They want to see the Commander. They’re from the Colony.”
“And…” the major asks. He wears the battle-scarred visage of a Biter as he eyes the soldier from beneath low, straight brows. His nose is slightly bent and the scar on his cheek bears the red tenderness of recent infliction.
“Um…He’s Touched and I thought I should…check.”
“Good thinking,” the major says with a nod, studying us.
“I’m Priest. This is Rimma.” He glances briefly at Angel in apology. “I’m here to speak with Mikel.”
“Major Cullan. My pleasure.” He nods his welcome. “I have a fondness for the Colony, an aunt and cousin there. Sometimes I wish the Fortress was a little more…or less...” He eyes the guards and opens one of four doors for us. “I’ll escort them up.”
Inside, I pause in the immense foyer, my eyes adjusting to the dimness as the major lights a lantern at a marble counter. The stronghold’s interior is as monstrous as the outside, a study of sharp shadows and half-light, glass and steel. A mixed aroma of smoke and food fills my nose.
“My aunt, Simone, left for the Colony shortly after my cousin was born,” the major continues, raising the lantern. “I was a boy of six at the time.”
Angel and I share a glance at the disclosure, and I remember Chantri’s remark to Konnard that she still had cousins here.
“Would you like to meet your cousin one day?” Priest asks.
“Despite how awkward that meeting might be, yes, I would. I was fond of my aunt,” the major confesses. “Unfortunately, my duties here require my presence, and Mikel isn’t likely to condone my absence for so a long trip.”
“Your cousin, Chantri, camps beyond your gates,” Priest informs him. “She awaits my return at the last farm before the waste.”
The major stares at Priest, chin drawn back in surprise as he filters the information. “Chantri?”
“She’s fair like you,” Priest notes, “reddish-blond hair in short spikes, a limp, hard to miss. You might consider a ride down there.”
“I just might,” he replies thoughtfully. “Thank you.”
Without further conversation, Cullan shows us to a heavy door that opens to a pitch-black stairwell. I glance inside but wander past him, following Angel toward the glow emanating from the building’s core. When we reach the light, I notice that the floors above us are hollowed out here, each layer rimmed with a deep balcony. I gaze all the way up to a peaked skylight in the roof, a vast mosaic of glass triangles and diamonds, so much larger than the small wedges of sunlight in the ceilings of Heaven. The day pours down on all the floors, filtering into the dark depths before the shadows swallow it up.
“Each section has one,” Cullan says, stepping up beside me. “It’s called an atrium. Hardly efficient use of space, but the light is…reliable.”
“Huh.” I look up at the Forerunners on each level, busy as ants inside a giant hill, most striding with purpose. Only a few stand at the balcony looking down at us. “A good place for speeches.”
“And not much else,” the major agrees, “beyond the daylight.” On this lower floor, the muted light spills on pale pink tiles patterned in diamonds. Angel wanders to the glowing center, where the space sinks slightly deeper, girded by angled steps and huge stonework pools hinting of fountains and trickling waterfalls, all filled in now with sprouting pale greens leaves,
The major steers me back toward Priest and the blind darkness of the stair, Angel hurrying to catch us.
We climb and climb, spiraling upward with the lantern light, every sound echoing in the metal stairwell until we emerge on the top level where all the glass windows are intact. Cullan excuses himself to announce our arrival to the Commander while Angel and I drift to the view high above the city. We gaze down from this aerie at the men and horses, the sprawl of buildings and crosshatch of roads, the long snaking wall, and jumbled dwellings of the outer city beyond the gate. To the west, copses of willow and broadleaf cottonwoods ruffle the skyline along with the distinctive towers and swag of a massive bridge, a river’s silver glitter.
“One day soon we’ll circle around this floor and gaze out all the windows,” I whisper to Angel, my feeble attempt at cheeriness.
“I’m a shadow, Rimma. I’m barely here.” Her voice is a squeak, tears welling in her eyes.
“Leave then,” I mutter. “I didn’t force you to come here.”
“I’m not leaving you,” she snaps. “You’re my twin.”
Her words ring of accusation and draw my sigh. “I’ll find a way, Angel,” I tell her. “I’ll make a place for us, do whatever I need to do. Trust me.”
“No,” she says, backing away. “Don’t
do
anything.”
“Rimma,” Priest calls, though he’s looking at my sister and her tearful cheeks. I’d feel better if the two of them just slit my throat. “Mikel will meet with us.”
Major Cullan leads us through a maze of corridors to Mikel’s door where he bids his farewell, perhaps to ride down to the stream where Chantri and Tannis wait. Even at this height in the stronghold, the place crawls with men. There are women here too, some clearly toiling, carrying baskets of wash or trays of food, others less obviously occupied. From what I observe, not one of them wears red stripes sewn on her shoulders. A guard announces us and closes the door behind us.