Pyrebound - 15.5

Chapter 15.5 – Pyrebound
“I don’t know what you want me to tell you, Ram. If there’s a way to leverage your particular abilities against him, I’m just not seeing it.”

“I didn’t bring you along to solve my problems for me. You’re a sensible person I can bounce ideas off of, and I can trust you not to be biased. Not in the way I’m afraid of, I mean. You don’t care about this pyre.”

“That’s putting it a little strongly. I would definitely care if a hundred thousand people died.”

“I didn’t mean it that way.” He looked around for eavesdroppers, but nobody was close enough to snoop effectively. It was late morning on waning day, and there was plenty of room to spread out in the pyre’s common hall, even on the bottom-most of its five floors. Imbri had thrown back her hood to eat, and Bal lounged across three seats some ways down the table, slicing bread with a footlong blade to dip it into his broth; unsurprisingly, their fellow-diners were giving the three of them more than their fair share of space.

Ram had naively hoped to break their fast at the Moon-and-Stars, which used to offer a fair morning spread, but they’d arrived at the site that morning to find the infamous militia tavern was gone. Not merely closed but demolished, an empty lot, with some enterprising citizen’s grapevines growing among the bricks of the foundation. The Red Flute was at the other end of the pyre, and Imbri said her legs were still sore from the stairs, so they’d settled for the trough.

The food was as poor as Ram remembered, plain dry bread and broth from slaughterhouse remainders. The side of beans had condensed into a kind of paste from continual reheating, permeated with the flavor of onions which couldn’t decide if they were caramelized or plain old burnt, rounded out with a slick of olive oil on top. Classic hangover beans, the militiaman’s sworn panacea, too heavy and sticky to throw up.

Actual militiamen, or any men of the appropriate age, were notably scant in the seats around them. Most of the common hall’s customers would have gulped down their food in the early hours just after sunrise, so they could hurry off to open up their shops or catch a boat on the waterfront. Now Ram and company were surrounded by stranded travelers, small-time artisans between jobs, and public bondservants like the hall’s own attendants, polishing off leftovers before starting work on lunch.

In short, these were just the sort of men and women who might join up with Mannagiri’s “council,” which made it all the more maddening that they ate in silence, and stared whenever they could do so without catching Ram’s eye. It was almost certain that someone in this gigantic room, cluttered with mostly-empty tables and chairs of cheap metal, knew where a lot of his old militia friends were hiding. Possibly more than one was plotting to do murder later in the day. And there was nothing Ram could do about it.

Imbri cut into his thoughts. “Can we go? I’m not hungry enough to want to finish … whatever’s in this dish.”

“Beans,” Ram supplied. “You know, I used to think the grub was pretty good here, after growing up in Urapu. It’s all relative. Is this really the worst food you’ve ever had?”

“No, but only because your charming wife used to have a habit of sneaking dead roaches into my meals. She always knew just how long to wait between pranks, so I’d stop probing the whole dish before I ate. It got so bad I had to get Dad to order her to stop.”

“Yeah, that sounds like Darun. All right, I’m good to go. Bal, are you ready?”

Outside, the streets were mostly clear; it was unusually hot for an autumn day, and most citizens would put off any errands they hadn’t done already. “Yesterday I announced an amnesty for the militia; I’d like to spread the word today. Even if the actual militia are underground, there are places where I can give a speech and know it’ll be passed on. Like Shupengi’s ironworks. They’ve got the contract for crowhammer heads, and they used to have a soft spot for soldiers.”

Imbri slapped her cane against the ground. “Ram, you don’t need me with you while you traipse around the pyre recruiting for your private army. In fact, I don’t think the private army is a good idea in the first place. Didn’t we agree that we’re going to focus on disposing of Mannagiri first? Your old militia-mates aren’t going to help with that.”

“I don’t want them to do my dirty work for me, I just want them out of trouble. They’re living like outlaws because of me, and that makes them my responsibility.”

“No, they’re a distraction. A potentially fatal distraction.”

“Are they? Every militiaman I talk over is a militiaman who’s not working with Ninshuma, and that—uh, that … that … oh, hell. She’s gone.”

“Gone? What do you mean? Who’s gone?”

“Ninshuma. I just checked on her again, and she’s not where Etana had her holed up. She’s … there. At least a quarter-mile away from where we left her, and still going, fast. Damn it, she’s making her move.”

“What move? Ram, don’t do anything rash, it could be another trap.”

“Oh, I’m sure it’s a trap. But I’ve got a plan for this. Bal, keep an eye on me here, please.” He’d already checked her twice that morning before setting out for breakfast, then again just before they went into the common hall. Each time, she’d been perfectly stationary, and he’d half-expected not to find her because Etana’d gotten bored with waiting and sent the kill order. No such luck. Ram sat down in the shade of the nearest oak lining the promenade, and shut his eyes.

After yesterday’s disaster, chasing after Ninshuma in person was out of the question, even if she hadn’t been running around the other end of the pyre. Leaving her alone was equally unacceptable. There was a third way, but it was so repellent that Ram had hesitated to take it until it became absolutely necessary. Now was the time. Many rounds of practice with Pimna and Shennai had taught him the knack of fine control, and he would not need to strain his vision outside his own domain.

When he opened his eyes again, he was a tenth of a mile down the road, in the Palace, in the body of a young woman tasked with cooking the Lugal’s lunch. He was briefly disoriented by the smell of fresh beef, by surroundings fresher and clearer than anything he had ever seen in Mannagiri’s dungeon. But he shook it off soon enough, and marched out of the kitchen to accost a flamekeeper snitching cookies from the dining hall.

“This is the Ensi,” Ram announced. “Ninshuma is loose, and moving fast. Inform the lugal at once.” He just had time to register the shock on the young man’s face before he let the handmaiden go.

The next step would be trickier. Going by the density of haranuu, Ninshuma was running through the south-central end of the pyre, where industry was thickest. Ram took a quick peek in ahead of her (how easy it was here!) and turned a handmaiden’s eyes out the window of her textile mill just in time to see a woman walking briskly past, her form curiously and unpleasantly bright against the dim street. She’d changed out her rags from yesterday for a shapeless blue dress and matching veil. A bit heavy and concealing for the weather, but nothing that would attract attention. She kept her head down, and her hands tucked inside her clothes, like a very modest free woman forced to move about unescorted.

What was she after? There were any number of high-value targets in this area, and she was walking past them all. Of course, every workshop or mill would be swarming with handmaidens Ram could command, and at least a few flamekeepers; she’d want a softer target. Something valuable she could get to quickest through this area.

She was already out of sight; Ram let the handmaiden go, and grabbed another a few blocks down the street. There was no way Ninshuma—or Mannagiri, controlling her—could know she’d been spotted. But she’d be in a hurry to reach her target, before Etana learned his trap had failed, and her master would be on high alert. Ram would have one chance to take her out … which left only the question of how. Fire would only make her stronger, and send her running for her objective.

As Ram watched from a woodshop window, she turned the corner. It was annoyingly difficult for Ram to see the big picture from inside a handmaiden, but if he kept ducking in and out he’d do nothing but watch until she accomplished whatever terrible thing she was up to. Nothing for it; he turned the woman’s face to the crew of bondsmen in the room with his pawn—who looked to be waiting for her to melt a basin of waxy polish for them—and said “excuse me, something’s come up” before popping the window open and slipping out onto the street.

His chosen woman wasn’t in the best of shape, but she made it around the corner before his quarry could turn again. Running after her might attract attention, tip her off. He settled for a very urgent walk, which soon had the poor girl panting. “That’s Ninshuma, the Atellui, up ahead in the blue dress,” he gasped under her waning breath. “She’s escaped, and she’s up to no good. I’m sure she means murder. I need you to stay after her, as well as you can. If you meet any flamekeepers, let them know, and borrow a sword. Men are no match for her.”

He pulled out, only to dart back in two blocks ahead. Ninshuma was headed back out of the factory district, towards the fields. Shupengi’s ironworks—the same he had planned to visit with Imbri—was one of the last along her path. Ram’s first pick was inside a windowless room, useless. He let her go, hopped on to another, who was nearsighted. Damn it! The third and fourth were in a room with its window shut and locked, the fifth was working with a great vat of liquid metal too heavy to move … and still Ninshuma was making her steady way down the street.

Number six was working in a well-ventilated corner room on the first floor, reprocessing hunks of scrap metal in a little furnace. The corner beside her was piled high with chunks of the worthless slag. Ram lost two seconds sifting through for a piece small enough to throw, then leaned out the window. Ninshuma was already past him, and the angle was poor, but he couldn’t delay any longer. He leaned the woman out a little farther, drew back with her right hand, and flung the slag as hard as he could at the back of her head.

It was a glancing blow, but still more than enough to knock her down. If she’d been a normal woman, she’d have been down for the rest of the day, if not for good. She wasn’t, so she was already stirring again before Ram could even get his handmaiden out the window with another hunk of slag. Desperately he threw it, but he only skimmed her shoulder, and Ninshuma was off at the fastest run she could manage in her cumbersome dress.

“Stop her!” Ram screamed. “Kill her!” But there were few pedestrians around, and all in sight were unarmed and unready to do murder even at a handmaiden’s command. Still, Ram’s vessel was less constrained by her clothing, was gaining ground rapidly—

The figure in the blue dress paused, and with a convulsive motion shed her cloth prison to dart forward at doubled speed with a flamekeeper’s long shining sword in her hand. No doubt she’d just killed its owner, but what did she need it for? Ram could tell it was Karagene; it would never obey her.

Again Ram let go, found another handmaiden down a side street ahead. She was already running for the commotion; Ram caught her before she could use her fire, and instead sent her rushing headlong to punch Ninshuma in the side of the head, then follow up with another blow to the stomach. The Atellui stumbled, then shoved Ram’s woman out of the way—she was quite short—and rushed on, casting the sword aside.

Ram’s pawn picked it up, and followed hard with the weapon raised high, but Ninshuma’s legs were longer. Ram realized three things at once: first, that he would never catch her, second, that the sword in his woman’s hand was intensely hot, and third that Ninshuma’s mad rush had carried her right up to one of the pyre’s enormous granaries, fifty feet tall and flush with parched grain from the harvest.

It was guarded, of course. Two flamekeepers, standing ready with swords drawn. There was nothing Ram could do to save them; Ninshuma didn’t even slow down. There was a flash of light, bright as the sun, and both were down. Another flash, and the door and its locks were shattered. Ram’s pawn was still more than a hundred feet away when his enemy skipped lightly in.

A granary’s form followed its function; the grain was stored at elevation to keep it from vermin, with plenty of ventilation to discourage rot, which made it as good as a chimney for a handmaiden. Ram’s woman stumbled up to the doorway just as the ceiling of the first floor shattered, and burning grain came down in a torrent.

The heat was staggering, so hot that even Ram was compelled to back up. It sucked air greedily in through every gap, strong enough to bowl Ram’s woman over, and set the brick walls groaning ominously. Great tongues of fire streamed out of every window. Ninshuma was invisible behind the mass of embers pouring down and out, and Ram retreated, coughing and slapping burning patches of the handmaiden’s gown. Chunks of masonry fell away with sharp cracks, like bits of shell from a hatching egg.

Was she dead? Surely—but no. Even from the limited vantage of the handmaiden Ram could see an inconstant candle-flicker light through the groaning walls, still burning under the crushing, stifling pressure. He made his hapless little woman (what would she think of this?) take several more steps back. “Everyone, back up!” he shouted, not that any seemed to need the advice. Dozens were staring, but from a distance.

It was a terrible blow, even if, as Ram suspected, Mannagiri would lose his handmaiden in the end. That much grain would have fed a good fraction of this pyre through the winter months, and with river traffic restricted prices would be up. It was too late to save the seed, but he’d need to put it out before the fire spread, if only he knew how—

The granary trembled, and split open from top to bottom with a crash, spewing red embers and black smoke in all directions. The crowd of gawkers took to their heels, screaming; Ram ignored them, bracing his handmaiden to squint into the heart of the fire while the fuming cloud passed over her. But there was nothing to see, and before long the poor girl bent over, hacking and gagging in the street. She was still wheezing when the pavement lit up golden, and looked up to see a sphere of pure light rising out of the wreckage, trailing soot and sparks behind it.

It was Ninshuma—or was it? No human could survive what she had, and what rose up now was less mortal blood and bone than the God’s own power briefly manifest, bound to a soul made giddy by its own abundance. The shape of a woman was just barely suggested through the terrible brilliance, a shape only indwelt eyes could bear to look on, clothed in more power than it could retain. The trial might have killed Ram, but a handmaiden could pour out the excess like an overflowing cup.

For a long moment she paused over the crucible that had shaped her, then rose gracefully into the sky on an updraft, ignoring the mingled screams and hymns that greeted her. “I’m sorry,” Ram croaked, and let the handmaiden go.

He opened his eyes and saw Imbri looming over him, shaking him by the shoulder. “Ram! What the hell is going on?” Everyone else on the street was frozen in place, staring at the plume of smoke rising up from the south. Ninshuma herself was a barely visible speck in the bright blue sky.

“Disaster,” he said, pushing himself to his feet. The little light in the sky wavered, then flitted off to the east. In a breath she was halfway across the pyre, where she dipped below the skyline. Then came a distant crash, and a second plume of smoke. “She’s burning our food.” And he would never catch her on foot, in his own body or anyone else’s. Even if he did, could he do anything to hurt that ethereal shape?

He would soon find out; a skybarque was rising from the roof of the acolytes’ school, not far away. He shuffled rapidly through the five handmaidens on board—ignoring a twinge of unease at how quickly and carelessly he had learned to do it—until he found one who was not actively flying the craft. “This is the Ensi. I’m on the street in front of the Common Hall. Come get me, please.”

Two minutes and an awkward street scene later, he was aloft, and Ninshuma was streaking across the pyre to crash into her third granary. “Get me as close as you can,” he commanded. The four women who weren’t keeping the vessel aloft turned to stare at him, and he could imagine the expressions behind their veils. “It’s the Atellui. I’ll handle her, but I need to get closer. Move us in, fast!”

The steerswoman shook her head, but obediently turned the prow, while her sister put more heat under the sail. “She’s torching the granaries, one after another, and soaking up the heat for a boost. She’s so hot she’s flying. If any of you have any good ideas how to deal with that, I’d love to hear them.” Again, only veiled stares—but what did he expect? “We’ll improvise, then.”

“Sir?” One of the women pointed, and Ram turned his head to see a series of bright, multicolored lights flashing above the Palace roof.

“Yes, go there first.” Hopefully someone there had a better idea how to end this than he did. If they didn’t, damn them for making him waste more time landing and talking to them.

As it turned out, he didn’t have to waste much. Along with the handmaiden, there were several men waiting on the rooftop, two of the largest holding a large, familiar-looking satchel between them. As the barque was touching down, they began swinging it back and forth, building up momentum. Ram braced himself to catch it, was still knocked over by the fifty-pound impact. He got back up, calling for the barque to take off again, and looked over the side to wave Piridur his thanks.

Two of the handmaidens had taken the initiative to tear the long leather bag open, scorching off the sealed knots Ram had last seen from a lonely hilltop in the desert. The great metal spikes were still lovingly wrapped inside, encumbered with layers of fabric and twine; he held one up with a pleading look, and the lot burned away. There was no time to clear another. They were at the granary.

The whole fifty-foot tower was ablaze, its destroyer incubating inside. Barques weren’t made to hover in place, and the local airflow was hellish, so they could only circle around waiting for her to reemerge. “If she slows down at all, hold her in place! Everyone who’s not needed to keep this thing up. Not fire, percussion. Do you understand?” They trembled, but he saw nods all around.

The roof collapsed, and the little goddess shot out, wreathed in death and glory as before. She made to rush away again, then paused, catching the barque out of the corner of her eye—an annoying insect drawn to her light. Languidly she raised her hand within her corona, as if not quite sure whether it was worth her time to blast them out of the air.

Ram’s own directions spoiled his first shot. A fireball cracked behind Ninshuma, slapping her out of the way, and the bullspike skimmed past her. Ram swore, turned—the satchel was ablaze, and he snatched another weapon from the ashes of its wrappings—the barque lurched beneath them with a loud crash of ruptured glass—Ninshuma twirled in the air and raced away.

The barque groaned and shook, but held. He didn’t need to tell them to follow. A volley of blasts knocked Ninshuma backwards, then from side to side, a toy in a cat’s paws. They drew nearer, the bombardment stopped to avoid hitting their own vessel, and she darted away, the metal of the barque squealing beneath them as they turned to follow. Another barrage, again cut short—another escape. She was small and nimble, their craft was clumsy, and they couldn’t risk another blow.

But her light was already dimming, and she flew lower and slower; such a little goddess needed her burnt offerings. Desperate, she turned to strike, and another blast went off beside her, then another. Aimless and bewildered, she turned in the air. Too long. Ram’s next spike struck her through the thigh, and she fell with a terrible scream onto the roof of a bakery.

They waited, but she did not rise, and her divine light steadily faded until she was nothing more than a mortal woman, naked, hurt, and afraid, surrounded by her enemies and abandoned by her master. Ram motioned the barque lower, then hopped off. It flew off unsteadily; from below, he could see that a great chunk of its hold had been torn away, leaving it little more than a flying metal deck. When it had landed safely on the nearest large building, he turned his attention back to Ninshuma.

She wasn’t crying. Only breathing very quickly, bent over and clutching at her leg where a half-melted spine of metal stuck out. From time to time she groaned and rocked a bit, clenching down on the wounded place with both hands. His shadow fell across her, and briefly she froze, but did not turn around to face him. She was bent low, her long hair hanging like a curtain around her. It was all the modesty she would get, for what little it was worth, and he would not take it from her.

“I’d let you live if I could,” he said. She nodded, and let out a whimper, slapping helplessly at her leg. From what little he could see, she had tried to melt the spike in a panic, and done it ineptly. There would be clots of metal all up and down her leg. In Atellu she might have been healed, though the pain of excising it all might have broken her. But here? What would be the point?

“I can forgive you for what you did. I know you didn’t have much choice. I’m sorry—“ She shook her head and moaned, like a woman in labor.

“You’re right.” He drew Beshi, then stepped closer, thinking back to a lonely desert streambank from long, long ago. It wasn’t her fault, he thought. She was only being what the world had made her. “I’m going to kill him, you know. As soon as I can.”

Another nod. She bent lower, letting go of her leg to lay both hands flat against the rooftop. She made a noise, something that might have been “do it.”

He held Beshi in both hands above her spine, trying to keep the trembling point directly over her heart. “Atellu will live,” he promised, and drove it down.