Sigrud watches, pleased, as the Divine army is progressively decimated by the cannon fire. He adjusts the Mornvieva and aims her bow at the robed figure. Couple hundred shells going off, he thinks, should make quite a pop.
He spots a white structure with a crystal roof from Old Bulikov—What are all these white buildings doing here? he wonders—walks to the side of the ship, and readies himself.
“Probably won’t survive this,” he says aloud. Then he shrugs. Ah, well. I always thought I would die sailing.
Sigrud jumps; the crystal roof flies at him much too quickly; he sees the sky in its glittering reflection.
My hand, he realizes. It no longer aches.
The sky breaks apart.
*
Shara sits up just in time to see the belly of the steel ship part the smoke above them. A tiny dark shape flies from its side and plummets into one of the white buildings.
Kolkan watches, curious, as the metal ship sails down, down, speeding toward him, the wings cutting through the street facades and raining stone on the sidewalks.
Shara realizes what is about to happen. She throws up another layer of snow, then a second, then a third, and screams, “Off the wall! Everyone off the wall!”
Kolkan watches with a slight air of disbelief as the bow of the ship flies at him, crumples on his brow …
The world is turned to fire.
*
Shara is deaf, dumb, blind. … The world is clanging, ringing, smashing, crashing, cheeping, fluttering, and she is sure the massive amount of psychedelics she took is not helping. She hears Mulaghesh groan from nearby: “My arm, my arm. My fucking arm …”
Shara sits up and looks through the gates, which are bent and torn. At first all she can see is smoke and flame. Then the wind slowly, gently scrapes the smoke away.
The building, shops, and homes all down the street leading up to the embassy have been halved. Wooden teeth and partial living rooms droop over the exposed foundations. The street itself has been pulverized into a rocky, smoking ditch. Starlings sit on the windowsills, on the streetlights, on the sidewalks, silently watching … something.
Kolkan stands in the middle of the street, slightly hunched over, his robes and rags fluttering in the smoke.
No, she thinks. Not Kolkan.
Shara stands, takes the bolt point of black lead from her pocket, and limps down the street to the silent Divinity.
“That hurt, didn’t it?” she calls.
The Divinity does not answer.
“You’ve never experienced the destructive capabilities of our modern age,” she says. “Perhaps the modern rejects you as much as you reject it.”
The Divinity raises its head to look at her, but otherwise does nothing.
“Maybe you can keep fighting. But I don’t think you have it in you. This world doesn’t want you anymore. And even more, you don’t want it.”
The Divinity angrily says, “I AM PAIN.”
Shara stands before it and says, “And you are pleasure.”
The Divinity hesitates, and says, “I AM JUDGMENT.”
“You are corruption.”
Then, defiantly: “I AM ORDER!”
“You are chaos.”
“I AM SERENITY!”
“You are madness.”
“I AM DISCIPLINE!”
“You are rebellion.”
Trembling with fury, the Divinity says, “I AM KOLKAN!”
Shara shakes her head. “You are Jukov.”
The Divinity is silent. Though she cannot see its eyes, she knows it is staring at her.
“Jukov faked his death, didn’t he?” says Shara. “He saw what was happening to the Continent, so he faked his death, and hid, and sent a copy of himself in his place. He was the Divinity of trickery, after all. The old texts said he hid in a pane of glass, but we never knew what that meant—or I didn’t, until today. When I saw Kolkan’s jail cell—a single pane of clear glass …”
The Divinity bows its head. It seems to tremble slightly. Then it lifts a hand and pulls off its robes.
It is Kolkan: the stern man made of clay and stone.
It is Jukov: the skinny, laughing man of fur and bells.
It is both of them: both Divinities twisted together, shoved together, melded into one person. Kolkan’s head, with Jukov’s warped face appearing at Kolkan’s neck; one arm on one side, a forked arm with two clenched fists on the other; two legs, but one leg has two feet. …
It stares at her with muddled, mad eyes, a tottering, tortured wreck of a human form. Then its faces wrinkle, and it begins to weep. Its two mouths scream in two voices, “I am everything! I am nothing! I am the beginning and I am the end! I am the fire and I am the water! I am of the light and I am of the dark! I am chaos and I am order! I am life and I am death!” It turns to the ruined buildings of Bulikov: “Listen to me! Will you listen to me? I have listened to you! Will you listen to me? Just tell me what I should be for you! Tell me! Please, just tell me! Tell me, please!”