A voice in her head: Have you ever heard of Saint Petrenko?
And then the words of the Watcher: It was Petrenko who developed the method that the old ones first used to make their swords.
“I think I know who it is,” says Mulaghesh softly. “But damned if I know why.” She looks at Thinadeshi. “Can you leave with me? Do you have enough strength for that?”
Thinadeshi laughs hollowly. “If I leave, they leave.” She nods out the window. “I’m the only thing keeping them back. Even as you’re talking to me now, I’m fighting a war here.” She taps the side of her head. “It’s killing me. Destroying the mine weakened me terribly. But I have to keep fighting them, telling them not yet, not yet….So I can’t go, General. More so, I won’t.”
Mulaghesh and Thinadeshi exchange a silent moment then: the two women look at each other, each hard-eyed and determined, and Mulaghesh understands right away that to try to convince Thinadeshi to leave her post would be a waste of time. Her mind’s made up, and Mulaghesh can respect that.
“How much time do you have?” asks Mulaghesh.
Thinadeshi looks relieved they’re moving on. “Not much. The closer we get to the land of the living, the more the sentinels awake. It’s getting harder and harder.”
“I would propose that I go back to Voortyashtan, find the swords, and destroy them,” says Mulaghesh. “But what happens if you die before I do that?”
“Then they invade,” says Thinadeshi. “And you die.”
“Shit,” says Mulaghesh. She rubs her mouth, frustrated. “So there’s no Plan B? No backup option?”
Thinadeshi is quiet. Then she slowly looks at the sword in her hand. “There is…one option.” She holds it out to Mulaghesh, her face grim. “You can take this.”
“What? Me take the sword of Voortya? What the hells are you talking about? Won’t that kill you?”
“I’m already being killed,” says Thinadeshi. “This strange device won’t keep me alive much longer. And it will take some time for its powers to depart from me: in essence, it will take time for this place to realize I’ve dropped the act. Probably no longer than the time I have with the sword. You can take it, in case you fail.”
“And what in the hells am I supposed to do with it?”
“It’s a token,” says Thinadeshi, “a symbol. It can be unlocked, unfolded, interpreted to be many things. You can do many deeds with it if you use it the right way, if you think about it the right way. Voortya was the goddess of warfare, General. And you of all people should know that war is an art requiring decorum and formality. It feverishly adheres to rules and traditions—and that can be used against it. Take it!”
Mulaghesh reaches out hesitantly, then takes the black, severed hand from Thinadeshi’s grasp. Instantly the faint sword blade vanishes, and Mulaghesh is left holding a heavy black sword handle with a rather curious crossguard, and nothing more: there is no suggestion of fingers or flesh in it, no flash of lightning, no lick of flame. It is just a thing, not a Divine conceit made solid.
“That all sounds like a bunch of variations on ‘I don’t know’ to me,” says Mulaghesh.
“It responds to different people in different ways,” says Thinadeshi. “And the dead still believe me to be Voortya. Once I am gone, it will awaken to you—but I am not sure how. And I would prefer we not have to depend on that at all.”
“Me neither,” says Mulaghesh. “So how do I get out of this place?”
“I can push you back,” says Thinadeshi. “That will not sap my strength much, or so I hope.” She shuts her eyes. “I see an entryway—a doorway in the water. My face looks down on it. No, no…It’s Voortya’s face, of course. There is a young woman there, waiting.” She opens her eyes. “Is that safe? Should she be there?”
“Was she blond and kind of unbearable-looking?”
“She was blond, yes. And she did have a…a combative look to her….”
“Then that’s fine.” She gathers up her gear. “Can you just…do it now?”
“I can,” says Thinadeshi. She reaches out to Mulaghesh, then hesitates. “I suppose this would be my last chance to ask how the world has gotten along without me, wouldn’t it?”
“Yeah. Is there anything you want me to say or do?” says Mulaghesh. “Anything you want me to tell your family?”
Since Mulaghesh first saw Thinadeshi she’s always had a hard look in her eye, as if her soul is an anvil and she expects the whole of the world to be shaped on it; but at this question the barest crack begins to show, and she trembles a little. “I think…I think it would be best to think that I did die all those years ago. I did leave the land of the living, after all. Is that not death? But I think I chose this before then. When I chose to travel to the Continent and take my children with me…When I chose accomplishment over my responsibilities…I look back on all I did, all I got done, and they fill me with nothing at all. Not pride, not joy, not contentment. All I have now is this insatiable hunger.”
“Hunger for what?”
She smiles faintly. “To tell my children that, despite everything, I loved them. And I wished I could have loved them more, showed them that more.”
“I’ll tell them, if I can find them,” says Mulaghesh.
Thinadeshi’s face hardens. “Then go,” she says. “And get it done.” She taps Mulaghesh on the forehead, just barely pushing her off balance, and Mulaghesh falls backward, sure to strike the floor….
…But she doesn’t. The floor isn’t there. Instead there are the still, cool, dark waters, and she’s plummeting down through them again, sinking faster and faster. The white citadel of the City of Blades shrinks above her, dwindling down until it’s a slice of light above her, and then it’s gone.
She knows what’s going to happen this time, but it doesn’t make it any easier: again, the pressure builds and builds until it feels like her head is about to crack like an egg. She swears she can feel her ribs popping and creaking. She doesn’t struggle this time, but curls up into a ball. Then she feels gravity swirling around her, like the world can’t decide what’s up and what’s down, and when she opens her eyes she sees a dark black hole opening above her.
She punches through, flailing wildly. Her arms strike the rim of the stone basin. She’s still blinking water out of her eyes, but she can see the canvas roof of the yard of statues above her.
“Careful! Careful!” says Signe’s voice. Signe grabs her by her arms and hauls her out. She bounces roughly off of a stone edge below before both she and Signe topple over into the mud.
“Good heavens,” says Signe. “What happened to you? Did you…Did you actually go there? And why are you…well…red?”
Mulaghesh coughs up what feels like a liter of seawater again. “I know who it is,” she gasps. “I know who it is!”
“Who…what is?”
Mulaghesh rolls over and pulls herself up onto all fours. The bone-white faces of the statues stare at her expectantly.
“It’s Rada Smolisk,” she says quietly. “Rada Smolisk is who’s waking up the dead.”