Page 110 of City of Stone and Silence

“The story is in the archives, if you know where to look,” he says. “Millenia ago, this entire continent was as warm as the Harbor is now. There was a civilization here, developed to its fullest flower, and entirely based around the Eddica Well. Eddica is the first Well in more than name, you see. The other Wells were created with Eddica, down the centuries, to enable more people to access power. Vast quantities of energy were expended to drill holes in the fabric of the world.

“But the ancients didn’t understand as much as they thought they did. With every new Well, Eddica weakened, got rarer. The world itself began to change, and their home grew colder. Eventually, the survivors left the frozen waste it had become and conquered the lands around the Central Sea. The locals had no Wells, and no way to oppose their new masters. But the ancients were few, and mongrelized their line with the lesser races. Soon they were gone, leaving only mage-bloods as a distant shadow of their legacy.”

I watch him grow more animated in the course of this story, and I wonder how much of it he really found in the archives of the Harbor. It’s not the maddest thing I’ve ever heard—at least, not given the existence of Soliton and the Harbor itself—but people claiming descent from ancient kings and heroes is the stuff of fairy tales and legends. I wish Meroe were here to quiz him about it.

I also realize that Silvoa was right. Mad or not, this is what Prime wants me for—someone to listen to him. For my purposes, it’s all to the good, so I prod him onward.

“What does that have to do with the Harbor?” I give the words a doubting spin, and it works as intended. Prime draws himself up with a superior smile, leaning close to the bars.

“Not all the ancients abandoned their homeland. A few thought that the cold would be temporary. They used Eddica’s power to put themselves in stasis, waking many centuries later. Their own people thought them mad.

“The sleepers woke, one by one, to find their country still frozen and their people gone. Some of them went mad in truth, or killed themselves. Others followed the path of their brethren and used their power to carve out short-lived kingdoms in the west. Only the last of them, the strongest, had the will to understand what needed to be done. He saw what his people had become, the petty tyrants, the endless wars, the hideous perversion that is the Vile Rot. The Prime Eddicant wanted to reverse it all, and re-create the ancients in all their glory.”

“Ambitious,” I mutter. Prime ignores me.

“He built the Harbor,” he says. “Constructed armies of angels to maintain it and provide for the people who would live there. He created Soliton and the other great ships, and sent them out into the world to bring back mage-blood children. From them, he planned to purify the line of the ancients, the Eddicants, by carefully controlled breeding.” Prime’s eyes are locked on an invisible horizon. “By force of will, he would have reshaped this continent into a paradise.”

“Let me guess,” I interrupt. “They killed him.”

“Of course they killed him,” Prime says bitterly. “The lesser races could not understand his vision. They killed him, and then they killed each other. The angels maintained their vigil, and the great ships still sailed, though they grew ever more ragged. One by one, they failed, until only Soliton remained. It is life and death that provide the raw energy Eddica manipulates, and with the Harbor mostly empty and only Soliton to deliver power, the city began shifting into stasis to preserve itself, stuttering down the years at ever-shorter intervals.” He smiles again. “Then I arrived. The Prime Eddicant’s true heir.”

“So what are you going to do, when you get control of the system?”

“Take the step the original Prime could not, of course.” He looks at me, with the handsome, dead eyes of a statue. “His vision was grand, but too limited in scope. He wanted to re-create the ancients and ignore the rest of the world. But it was the passing of the heritage of the ancients to the rest of the world that must be reversed if the decay is to be repaired.”

My mouth is dry. He spreads his arms, beatifically.

“Join me, and we will use Soliton’s power to do what must be done. We will destroy the lesser races. Each slaughter of the unworthy will release Eddica energy, and I will use that power to create new servants. My army will expand until the world is cleansed of the ancients’ mistake, and only Eddicants remain. I will not be betrayed, because there will be no one left to betray me.”

Oh, Blessed’s breath and rotting ruin. I told the others Prime was mad, but I hadn’t expected this. And the worst part is, it might actually work. Not the re-creation of an ancient race, but the rest: in my mind’s eye, armies of walking corpses spread across the world like locusts, killing everyone they encounter, the very energy of those deaths fueling the creation of more monsters.

I become aware that Prime is staring at me. Waiting for me to respond. And what am I rotting supposed to say now? Yes, that sounds great, sign me up for your transcendently insane program of universal genocide?

Thankfully, at that moment, a shiver runs through the ziggurat. It’s the faintest vibration, this deep inside, but Prime’s head snaps around like a dog scenting prey.

“We will continue our discussion another time,” he says, not looking at me. “I appear to have other matters to attend to.”

He strides from the room, leaving me with the pair of lizard-birds. I put my hand on the conduit, and Silvoa’s ghostly form takes shape beside me.

Is it time? I ask her.

Yes. She looks grave. The attack has begun.

21

TORI

It’s been ages since I’ve visited the harbor. I’ve forgotten how bad it smells.

When people from the Second Ward say they’re going to the sea, they usually mean they’re going north, across the spine of Dragonback, the headland that bounds one side of Kahnzoka’s bay. There’s a long stretch of pleasant beach there, bordered by a forest managed by Imperial gamekeepers and dotted with “cabins” (that is, small mansions) owned by various nobles. There the smell of the salt water is bracing when the wind blows strong and cool off the ocean.

Here, it smells of—well, a variety of things, but first and foremost rotting fish. Kahnzoka’s fishmongers dump their offal in the harbor, or into the covered streams that drain into it. The rotting heads and guts wash against the shore under the piers and at the bottom of the tide walls. Small children from the Sixteenth Ward go diving in it, hunting for the crabs that live on the decaying meat. That was a job even Isoka never considered, no matter how hungry we got—the offal attracts sharks, too, in packs that will happily tear a child to shreds.

The fish market is still operating, even under the current strained circumstances. Without the daily catch, half the ward would starve. But tension is definitely in the air, and every vendor seems eager to sell what they can and move on. Women with colorful headscarves scurry up and down the rows of wheelbarrows, hardly bothering to haggle when they find what they’re looking for.

At the edges of the market, our people patrol in pairs. Hasaka has given them red sashes to mark them out. He’s been directing the effort to turn the shapeless mob that has now taken half the city into something resembling a militia, with officers and duty assignments. From his scowls and arguments with Hotara and the others, I gather that it isn’t going particularly well.

Two red-sashed women salute him, clumsily, as he and I leave the fish market and thread our way through the Sixteenth Ward’s maze. Another pair of guards follow behind us, spears at the ready. Though the Ward Guard have pulled back as far as the Second, everyone is certain the Immortals still have spies and agents in the lower wards. Night patrols have been ambushed, men and women found slaughtered and left in the street. Everyone is on edge.