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rosipheleeZaveka is a C'Tiri word formed of the runes for Balance and Justice. It means something between fair's fair and all's fair in love and war. It's usually said bitterly with a shrug. vashalar means 'better than brother'. It's used for very close friends, in-laws and, occasionally, lovers. Here it means 'foster-brother.'
I was born in the city of Vas C’Tir in the year the Dark came. By the time I uttered my first cry the bright towers were broken and the Imperial City, greatest of the earthbound citadels of the Light, lay under the yoke of Darkness. When I first opened my eyes upon the ruins of the empire, the sky was already dark. Vas C’Tir was a cold city in the days of my youth. Once it had been the jewel of the desert; now it shrank beneath clouded skies.
The old ones, the nurses and the guards at the orphanage, used to pull their shawls about their shoulders and grumble about the cold. We children never cared. We grew up wary of candle flames and lanterns, resentful of bright lights which might sting our eyes. The old ones wailed and whispered of the legions of Light and the bright hues of their banners; of the friezes on the walls of the temples, scarlet and cerulean and gold. For us, Vas C’Tir was a city in grey and beige and mauve, russet and taupe.
I hated the orphanage. We all did. It was built to be hated and resented. Resentment has always been one of the favourite tools of the Dark. It’s so efficient. The poor and neglected see the powerful at their feasts and bedecked in their power and they hunger. That hunger drives ambition; lifts the most powerful out of squalor and sets the weak to destruction to feed the Dark.
Well, I was hardly expecting you to approve, dear girl. You have such highblown morals. You’re not really very different from me; it could very easily have been you in Vas C’Tir. Your mother had the chance to escape before the shadows came down. She went away, with the bright legions, and left the Empire open for us to take. Zaveka, is the C’Tiri word. A balanced justice, you might say in English, or perhaps, Fair’s fair. C’Tiri is a more… nuanced language.
I never knew my mother. Nor my father, come to think of it. I dare say he fell in the defence of the city, like so many. Or perhaps he was with the legions. He never knew of me – I was born long enough after the city’s fall that I can say that with surety.
Like I said, we’re not so different.
When I was a few weeks old the Dark put the levy upon my district. There must have been some seditioners there. Standard practice that – reward those who help us and destroy the entire neighbourhood if there’s a rumour of sedition. Well, what would you do? Try to be clever, probably, but you’d be caught in the end and all those innocents around you would pay. Not just the hale adults of course but the old and the sick and the babies.
Except me, obviously. I survived the levy. When the Dark patrol came down to finish the survivors they found me lying in the ruins, chewing my fat baby toes and making the rubble dance in the air above me. Of course I was special. They used to try to tell me differently, the old bitches in the orphanage. They’d tell the story as they combed the nits from our hair and every time one of them reached that point she’d say, But it doesn’t make you special, and jerk the comb through the tangles. My scalp always hurt from that incessant, relentless combing.
I knew they were wrong, of course. It was obvious that I was special. It was why all the other children hated me. I had power and they envied me. Few of them would ever be able to escape. Our guardians began to teach me as soon as I could draw my runes and it became clear I was more than ordinary. We were very closely watched; many of us were orphans of the Light and some of the older children remembered enough of their parents to whisper their beliefs and dream of the day when the Light would return to reclaim the city.
As if that’s ever going to happen. You know as well as I do that they can barely defend what they did keep. What, no comment?
I thought they were fools, those Lightbound children. Now, after these centuries of eternal youth, I wonder if they were merely confused. The Dark could no more take the Citadel itself than the Light could destroy Darkholm. Your people had held C’Tiri so long that perhaps they forgot that they were merely a universe and not some extension of Citadel. They should have known better.
They didn’t last very long, those children, just long enough to spread some discontent. Then, one by one, they disappeared. We would rise at the morning bell to find their beds empty, sheets pristine. Those in the neighbouring beds would swear they had heard nothing. On those days the survivors would huddle in corners between classes and whisper conspiracies.
On reflection, they were fools.
I wasn’t the only informer, of course. It was worth so much. They paid in food for names and overheard plots. In those days there was little food and it was poor, tasteless stuff. The fertile fields of North C’Tir and Har Atmon did not adapt well to the constant clouds. Later, when the Dark had twisted the fields and the plots had grown harder to discover, they paid us in knowledge and that was worth more than the richest meal.
What was that? My runes? You had to ask, didn’t you? Never say Fate lacks humour. My name is Sirini, a good, old-fashioned C’Tiri name. Which means my runes are Set, for Joy, Rek, for love and Nok, for light. Needless to say, I don’t use them much. I was good with them as a child, though. It’s often the first sign of a great mage in C’Tir. You’d know that, though, wouldn’t you, with your C’Tiri lover?
Oh, did I hit a nerve? Heartsick, little cat? Well, you chose to stay. You were the only one to have a choice.
No – don’t walk away. We’re stuck here until they make some decision on the hostages. You want my company – it’s better than waiting alone. I’ll give you a weapon in return. I can’t use Nok now. It’s my birthright but I can’t stand it. It burns me when I try. Zaveka?
Okay, where were we? Oh, the orphanage. I suppose you and I balance each other in our childhoods. I had a roof over my head and regular meals, safety from the dangers of the street and the pleasure of an excellent education. You had love.
You can think that, if you like. I wouldn’t know. I don’t miss what I never had. I think we were equal, all considered. I even had a friend, just like you had your vashalar. Of course, Jethavi was my only friend.
They used to move people between the orphanages. You’d come back to classes after your noonmeal chores and someone would be gone and there would be a new child in their place. They were still trying to subdue the empire and keeping everyone, even the powerless, off-balance was part of the game.
As soon as we saw her we knew how special she was. The rest of us were dark-haired, with a few blondes whose parents had come from faraway provinces. Jethavi’s hair, in the dim light, was the colour of blood. Under bright sunlight, it would have been crimson, the mark of Imperial blood.
She looked at us coolly as we crowded in the doorway, staring at her. Even I would have been intimidated by all those hungry, suspicious gazes but she just looked back at us, arms crossed, eyebrows raised.
She was sitting at my desk, in the middle of the front row. I liked that desk – it was mine by right and I wasn’t going to give it up to some Imperial byblow, however much her hair glowed. I walked slowly across the room to her, my steps echoing on the board floor. When I was a metre away I stopped and stared at her, pretending she was some bratling asking for trouble.
“Sirini,” I said and waited.
“Jethavi,” she said in reply, raising an eyebrow. I loathed her in that moment, though I noted the gesture as one worth learning.
“You’re sitting at my desk.”
“Does it have your name on?”
“It doesn’t need it.” I gestured behind me and called, “Who left?”
“Tarej,” somebody called.
“You get his desk. Back there.”
She glanced where I had pointed and laughed softly. “I don’t want to sit at the back. I prefer the front row.”
I considered it and then shrugged, one-shouldered. “You can’t have my desk.”
“If it really matters,” she said, “I’ll have this one.” And she shifted to the next in row.
“But…” Arositu wailed from the crowd in the doorway.
We both turned to stare at her and she quailed. As the others pushed into class she trudged down the aisle to Tarej’s abandoned desk, her suds-soaked hem slapping against the boards.
I feel so old, remembering it. I wonder if you feel the same illusion – that we are not really ancient. I still think of myself as a girl, though it has been five thousand years since the partition. We are caught out of time, you and I. If any of those people passing by looked in at us they’d think we were schoolfriends, on the bitter edge of adulthood. Until they looked at our eyes.
It’s been so long since Jethavi and I were together. I do understand you, see, more than the others do. I know you think of them, on the cold nights, when the stars turn relentlessly around us.
You look impatient. There will be no news yet. These negotiations take time. And neither of us lack time. Or is it my meanderings that bother you? I’ll carry on with the story then.
Jethavi was the first person I ever met who was as intelligent as I am. It’s not vanity – you’re clever yourself and you know that not everyone can keep pace. Even my tutors weren’t good enough to follow all the threads of my thought. But Jethavi could and every time I relaxed or was tempted to be lazy, she surpassed me. I didn’t like being second best.
At some point in those years the relentless competition between us became a game with its own rules and protocols. We still tried to best each other but in most things we were equal. Compared to our peers we were brilliant – the contest had driven us ahead of them.
I think if we had only driven each other to intellectual heights they might have seperated us. Clever children are useful but dangerous. Leave enough of them together and they get ambitious. Generation never fails to war against generation. They left us because, together, our powers grew apace but Jethavi and I both knew that from the moment we became friends rather than rivals we were being watched. Jethavi endured it with cool disdain while I fumed, sullen and resentful.
“I’m used to it,” she said to me one night. We were sitting on the roof of the portico at the front of the orphanage, sharing sweetmeats we had been given by our tutors. I had written Nok in the dust and it glowed with a dim and steady light. The sky above us was dark although something far above made the clouds glow a faint grey.
“How can you be?” I asked her. “I can always feel it. They’re always testing us.”
She shrugged. “They’ve always watched me. They’re afriad I might be ambitious. It shows how little they know of C’Tiri.”
She was bitter and it surprised me. In all the time I had known her I had never realised that she resented the Dark. She caught my gaze and leant towards me, lowering her voice. As her hair swung over the rune it glowed as red as fresh blood.
“I am an only child,” she said fiercely. “Some twinless, baseborn descendent of a nameless one’s bastard. I could never be Empress. The closer I could ever come, if the rest of my line weakened, would be to birth heirs. That is what they hope for; that is why they let me live.”
I caught her hands in mine and squeezed them tight. Words didn’t work.
After that the competition meant more. I finally understood why she needed to prove her worth. We learnt each other’s weaknesses and disguised them from those who watched and taught. Then, in private, we would drill each other mercilessly until those weaknesses ceased to exist. We came powerful and cunning and cruel because it was the only way for Jethavi to win some freedom.
Oh, I admit it, we both had an aptitude for it. You know how seductive power is. I doubt you’ve ever tried cruelty though. Not really your thing, is it, my dear? You’ll have to take my word for it – it’s almost as intoxicating as power. And cruelty shared, where you each know the next twist in the game, even though you haven’t planned it, is richer than anything but the rush of the kill.
At last, the spring before we were twelve, they deemed us strong enough to learn to kill.
As with any addiction, it began small. We spent hours diligently snuffing the life from ants, wrapping shadows around their tiny, tenacious souls. As we grew faster and stronger they let us practice on larger creatures. By the beginning of summer we were spending our free time zapping the cockroaches in the dorm. Briefly, we were popular with our fellow orphans.
I can see you’re about as fond of roaches as I am. I suppose you had the same problems. I hated them – the scuttering, the hissing, the antennae, the legs. I hated waking in the night feeling them crawling across my face. There was real satisfaction in killing them.
Then the locusts came. There had been rumours in the city about the fate of Har Atmon and slowly the food rations had been cut. It was only when they reached North C’Tir that the Lords of the Dark who ruled the city announced their presence. They said there was nothing to fear; that the problem would soon be solved. But our classes were cancelled after our teachers were rushed out of the city. Three days later they returned for us and all the other children with any hint of power, transporting us into the fields.
They were black against the grey sky and the air roared with the sound of their wings. We learnt in seconds to keep our mouths shut against them and Jethavi and I joined hands to stop them from seperating us. We were directed into place with shoves and gestures and there, in aline of our peers, we began to kill.
At first it was a contest to see who could do more. Dead insects heaped around our feet and tangled in our long hair. We killed with fire and shadows, with rune magic and pure power.
And still they came. The fields around us were bare. A mile to our south another line fought the swarms that we couldn’t hold back. Beyond them, another line and beyond that the golden fields of North C’Tir, ripening towards a harvest that would feed us all.
The others fell around us, collapsing as their powers gave out. Fresh mages dragged them away to recover and took their places. Jethavi and I kept killing.
By dusk she was using both hands to trace Thun in the air, sending swarm after swarm delerious with passion, turning them against themselves. I was on my knees, calling shadow lances to punch through the swarms. The locusts fell like rain.
Then the last grey light faded into night. The locusts began to settle as the air grew cold. As we sank in exhaustion lesser mages, their powers exhausted, ran forward with oil and torches to scorch the swarm. The two of us staggered back to the shelters. In the first we were stripped of our clothes and sluiced down to get rid of the locusts clinging to us. Only then were we allowed through to collect clean clothes and food.
The next day was worse. The others weakened earlier, mere hours after we had been woken by the whir of the swarm. For hours Jethavi and I fought alone, winnowing their ranks in the hope that those behind us would not be overwhelmed. Still they came, by their myriad thousands. The wind began to rise, lifting dust from the bare fields to cling to our lips and rim our eyes. As the skies began to darken again something changed. The air grew hotter, heavier and the wind blew harder. Something in me began to break, a last hot barrier holding power back. I felt Jethavi’s hand grow warm and wet in mine.
Thunder roared overhead, louder than I had ever heard, and I flinched, waiting for the slash of the rain. The air was tingling against my bare arms.
Then the lightning came, slashing from the rumbling clouds to lash and burn the locusts. It was dark lightning, blacker than black, and it forked against the grey sky like cracks in reality. As it faded the thunder roared again and the clouds thinned and parted to show us the night sky.
We fell to our knees, gazing into the infinite sky. Until the last cloud faded it seemed that the darkness continued for ever, glorious and unabated.
Then we saw the stars, scattered across the darkness like the locusts had been against the clouds.
That’s so wrong, you know. To fill the purity of darkness with so much light. In the desert you cannot escape it – the night is so impure. Only in darkness can the soul be free. Only in the ultimate darkness can you gaze into the sky with unimpeded sight. There are no stars in Darkholm. There is only the cold earth and the Dark.
My heart almost broke, kneeling in the ravaged fields of C’Tir. But then the Lords of the Dark came riding out of the sky. Darkness swirled at their heels as they plunged down on the arid land. As the hooves of their mounts touched the soil Darkness flowed across the land. Thick and chill it brushed us, wrapping us in its infinite embrace. And as it filled the air and blotted out the sight of the accursed stars the swarm began to die.
We had killed them in their hundreds and, at our greatest power, by their thousands. Now they fell in their millions, their deaths rushing through our minds like thistledown across our skin. It was beautiful.
And when the dying was done and the Darkness called to rein, the Lords came for us, for we alone had stood while others fell. And after that we were no longer taught by minor officers and orphanage keepers but in the high chambers of the palace where Jethavi’s ancestors had once ruled, imperial and righteous.
We still lived in the orphanage but we spent little time there. Perhaps that was why we were the last to know about Ceriti’s baby. Poor Ceriti. She was the only one of those lightbound children to have survived into her teens. The rest, brighter, wilder and more reckless, were gone by then. Ceriti had stopped fighting. She lived her life in a daze of horror at the way the world had changed. She was older than us; old enough to remember the days before the Dark.
She was beautiful, she was powerless and she despaired too much to fight. Everyone who might have looked after her was dead. I think Ceriti was dead too, inside where it mattered. It was only a matter of time until she became what she became.
We were thirteen when the baby was born. Jethavi and I, exhausted from our lessons, slept through the commotion. Afterwards one of the other girls, Arositu, came for us.
She led us silently to the girls’ bathroom. Some of the boys were lurking in the corridor but they fled at the sight of the two of us. We had taught them to be afraid.
Ceriti was crouched in the corner, crying, whilst two of the other girls tended to her. A third girl was cradling the whimpering baby, a boy. She looked up at us with dislike as we entered and said, “What did you fetch them for?”
“We need their runes,” Arositu said and turned to us. “You’re still C’Tiri. We need to name him.”
Jethavi nodded wordlessly, staring at Ceriti. I nodded too, watching my friend.
Arositu crouched down and beckoned us forward into a circle. Ceriti stayed behind but the baby was placed between us, on the cold tile floor.
“Bring forward the bowl,” Arositu said, beginning to sway back and forth on her heels.
Someone put down a tin bowl and Arositu reached into her clothes to produce a clay bottle. She emptied its contents into the bowl and crouched back. I could smell the water from across the circle, sour and sulphurous. It was undoubtedly naming water. She must have stolen it – I never asked.
“We are gathered to witness,” she said. “The child lies souless, unanchored and weak. We are gathered.”
We all chorused in response, “We are gathered.”
“We cast first anchor,” Arositu said. “Bring forth the knife.”
She took the blade in her right hand, pressing her own auspice scar to the hilt and seized the baby’s hand. She sliced across his palm and then shoved the bowl beneath the hand, squeezing until a great glob of blood dropped into the water.
She pushed the howling baby away again and we all leant forward eagerly. The blood spread through the water, growing long and thin until it was a straight line running from north to south.
“The auspice is Veka,” Arositu announced.
Jethavi and three others leant forward and traced Veka in the air. The runes hung glowing in the dim room until they all whispered, “Veka.” Then the runes flared through the air, shooting down to touch the baby’s bare skin.
“Justice is his first anchor,” Arositu intoned. “What was the hour of his birth?”
“Meg,” Ceriti whispered weakly.
Six girls traced Meg. The late hour was a common time for births.
“Air is his second anchor. What was the day of his birth?”
“Nok,” Ceriti whispered.
I was the only one to carry Nok and I traced it slowly for it had already begun to hurt me.
“Nok,” I said and it flared through the air. That was the last time I used Nok uncorrupted.
“Light is his third anchor,” Arositu said formally. “We bear witness.”
“We bear witness,” we all said.
It was only then that we heard the hammering on the door. The guardians had finally realised that something was amiss. The naming called upon old powers and the disturbance must have had every mage in the building uneasy.
“Go,” I said to the others.
“We’ll hold the door,” Jethavi said. “Use the window and the stairs. Use Meg to aid you through the air.”
And we both called darkness to bar the door. The others were weak but the naming matters. If we hadn’t named the child he would have had no soul and he would have been the monster that I am not, whatever you may think of me. I am all too human.
We didn’t realise that two of our highest of teachers were on the other side of the door. It seemed that one of the men who had used Ceriti had been more highly placed then any of us suspected.
Three days later we left Vas C’Tir for Darkholm.
I could try to describe our time there but I don’t think you’d understand it. Suffice to say we were embraced by the Darkness, filled and fulfilled. We learnt to call the Dark and manipulate it – the inverse, I imagine of all you learnt.
It was easier for me. I was only talented and ambitious. I wasn’t Jethavi C’Tiri.
They watched her, the men with hunger and the women with pity. The banner of her hair marked her and they all knew what she could be. She was my Jethavi; she did not quail beneath their gaze. Instead every day she drove herself harder. By her fourteenth birthday she was a power among the Dark, though she would not admit it. Of course, so was I, for what Jethavi did, I did.
She always walked tall, slender and proud and strong. If I had been her I might have cut off all that brilliant, bright hair, to disguise myself from the stares. But Jethavi wore it loose and long, a straight fall of red like a river of blood down her back. That year, she stopped eating. I bore it for a week, watching her weaken and grow frail, though she never stooped. Then I went to her and accused her of failing. She looked at me with silent reproach, her grey eyes full of shadows.
“You’re just like Ceriti,” I said. It was a low blow, for I knew she still had nightmares about Ceriti but it worked for she ate again.
She withdrew from me more and more, vanishing into her own silence. Night after night she would go to the amphitheatre at Darkholm’s heart and kneel amongst the swirling Darkness. I don’t know what she gave to the Dark those nights or what strength she found but every night she would rise again and stumble into the Darkness, waiting for its embrace. I would stand at the side of the amphitheatre and wait for her, as the edge of the Dark brushed around me, seducing me.
When she emerged from the Darkness she always seemed dazed, as lost and confused as a child on the battlefield. I would take her hand and lead her back through the shadowed streets to the acolytes’ dorm. There, in the secret silence of night she would cling to me until the morning bell rang and she put her masks back on. Sometimes, rarely, she would beg me to never leave her and I promised. I promised.
Then our studies came to a final end. It was a time between outright war, though there were bloody battles in many universes. But those fights did not touch us, you and Jethavi and I. They took us back to C’Tiri to await our assignments out in the myriad universes.
We travelled by night , using the worldgates to cross the Void from universe to universe. In the worlds ruled by the Dark the sky was shrouded and we could afford to stop and eat, steaming cups of soup in cold mountain villages or sweet, cold fruit in vast cities. Sometimes we left the gate to see stars in the sky above and then we hurried, rushing through to the next world, watching for the danger of the Light. I remember glimpses of forests and cliffs, grey roofs and water shimmering silver under the moon.
When we stepped into Vas C’Tir I thought it was another stop. It was only when Jethavi tensed beside me that I recognised the city of my birth. It seemed so faded and poor. The paint on the walls was flaking and as we walked through the streets we trampled fragments of the old paintings, broken images of the glory of C’Tir.
They took us back to the orphanage. It seemed to me that the others, cringing from us, were only ghosts, and only Jethavi and I lived and she only just. Perhaps I had been in the Darkness too long. The grey city seemed like a dream to me.
They told us we must part. I was to go to another universe, to join the battle. Annah-Dareq three-one-one. Yes, this universe. This very accursed universe.
Jethavi was to stay in C’Tir. We both knew then that everything we had done had failed. It had not been enough.
I argued. I raged and shouted and called the Dark to prove my power. And I whilst I raged Jethavi slipped away. I didn’t realise. I didn’t see her go. I was too busy being angry.
When I realised, I ran. Out to the roof. Our hiding place. Our secret place. I knew she’d be there, hiding from the horror of it. I didn’t realise. I didn’t understand.
There was so much blood.
That was a stupid thing to do. Don’t you know better by now? You should never let an enemy cry on your shoulder. I could have killed you so easily.
No, I didn’t think of it. I could have done, though. How have you managed to live so long?
What happened next? I don’t know. They took me away. They wouldn’t let me stay. They wouldn’t let me bury her. They wouldn’t let me call her death. I hope Arositu did it. I hope somebody did.
You want to know what happened to me? Nothing. Nothing that mattered. After that there was only the Dark.
They took me to your world. They told me to watch you. You were still at school. We were only fifteen, you and I. Neither of us were children any more. The Dark feared you, even then. I suppose you suspected that. You were Lynx’s daughter, after all, and they couldn’t kill you, however much they tried. So they told me to devote my life to you; to watch you, learn you, be prepared for you.
I hated you.
Why? You know why. Don’t you remember? Don’t you remember who your best friend was? The friend you were happy with?
Yes. Azella. Azella C’Tiri. Alive in exile.
She looked just like her. Imperial and proud. But happy. They were both happy, her and her brother. Imperial heirs in exile. They should have been hurting. They should have been bleeding for their people. They should have died for us.
Don’t touch me. Don’t.
What news? Oh. I see.
Did you hear that? It’s over. They’re both dead. Your hostage and mine. There’s nothing left to wait for. All is even in the end. Zaveka.
Time to go, then. Let the battle begin again.
My name? No, they don’t have sphinxes in Vas C’Tir.
Don’t you remember? Three years after the Partition, after you lost them, you went to Egypt one summer. I followed you – it was why the Dark left me here, in this eternal prison.
It almost felt like home but it was too bright to be C’Tiri. The sun hurt too much. You seemed to enjoy it, though. You did all the tourist things. So, of course, so did I.
You and I are probably the only people who remember the Sphinx. It’s almost gone now, ground to sand by the wind.
I remember that proud face rising from the desert, implacable, unreadable. As the sun set the sky was as red as blood around her head. She could have been C’Tiri.
