Chapter 23 Kulismos
A silent city is a crumbling mass of unalterable rules. For more than fifteen hundred years these Sigapoleis had controlled the western plains of the Fold, and they had done so by never changing. They had been nine, and now they were five; but it was a fair example of their inalterability that they still called themselves the Ennea, the Nine. Their walls never moved outward, and neither did the minds of their inhabitants. The time had long passed since they had tried to make anything new—a philosophy, a conquest (except of each other), or an invention.
And of course, no new Sigapolis. The towns and villages belonging to each city were forbidden to build defensive walls. The remaining five players in this ancient game of war and hatred would allow no new, late entrants. With the single exception of Farja, whenever a Silent City had been conquered and destroyed, another had taken its lands, and it was not rebuilt. Someday, it seemed, only one City would be left to claim the whole dismal half-continent for itself.
Their social strata had remained about the same for centuries: fifty percent slaves, forty-five percent freemen (taxed into varying states of poverty), and five percent nobility. The five percent nobility said ‘Ennea,’ while the ninety-five percent below them freely used the name Silent Cities, a term that had long ago been coined by a Perg historian. The cities were silent with respect to freedom, and beauty, and holiness, and any notion of anything ever getting any better.
Jules and Clay walked a public square of Kulismos, their hands raw from rowing and their backs sore, but their stomachs full and a few coins jingling in Jules’ belt purse. Jules even had a small skin of wine, just purchased. They passed huge marble columns, fountains, and monuments.
“That’s the public baths up there, Clay. We ought to go there first. And then, if we cut down some side streets, we’ll hit the market. No need to spend any money there; I’ll lift what we need. What are you looking at? That’s just the gymnasium.”
“No, I’m noticing that few of the people up here wear slaves’ ankle bands like those down by the river. Aren’t they—”
“They’re freemen, mostly, up here.”
Clay watched the people in their flowing tunics and light capes, some obviously rich, attended by slaves, most workaday types with grim expressions.
“They still look like slaves, Jules, even up here. What’s wrong with them?”
“Waiting for evening,” was Jules’ prompt reply. “Lots going on in the evening in a Silent City. Drinking, gambling, fights. Which reminds me, when we clear out of the market, let’s go to the Marcellan theater. They always have a tragedy there in the afternoons. You’ve got to see it, man. The hero always gets executed at the end, and they slip a condemned criminal on stage in place of the actor, dressed the same as him. The prisoner’s got a bag over his head, and you’re supposed to believe it’s the same man. Then they torture him to death right there in front of the audience.”
“You don’t mean—I mean, not literally?” asked Clay. “They just make it look like it.”
Jules looked up at him blankly. “Well, of course, literally,” he said. “Who would pay to see a fake?”
They walked on a bit, and Clay pointed at the ornate front of a grand basilica. “You said that’s a church. Well, don’t the church people protest when prisoners are tortured to death?”
“Fat chance,” said Jules. “They get that building given to them from the government and plenty of tax money with it; and all the bishops are named by the High King. And they say that if you check out the owners of places like the Marcellan, half of them are bishops.”
Clay made a quick guess. “The bishops are filthy rich?”
“Try to find a high-hat who isn’t wearing diamonds. And they’re usually married to ladies from the High King’s family. It’s real cozy.”
Clay considered for a while. “I just want to get out of here. No, I don’t want to go to the Marcellan. Let’s get on another boat and move on.”
“Can’t do that until after dark, lockpicker. I know a place you’ll like, though. Tonight we’ll go there.”
They entered the massive gates of the public bath, exchanging small coins for tokens.
“Go where? Some tavern like that last place?”
Jules’ narrow, dark eyed face achieved one of its rare thoughtful looks. Almost puzzled. “No, this is different. We’ll have to go outside the city wall, but we can get free bread without even asking—and we’ll meet some girls.”
“What kind?” Clay sneered. “I’m not—”
“No, man, these are good girls. Wait and see.”
After dark they left the city through the southeastern gate. At once they were in the City of Graves. Surrounded by its own wall, this cemetery was only used by the well-moneyed class of Kulismos. A little moonlight showed Clay well-paved, orderly streets laid between large and ornate monuments of every description: towers, temples, pyramids, even palaces. Many thousands of the living could have been housed here, for the cemetery was in fact larger than most Sigapoleian towns. But all was still and somber as they left the tall city walls behind them and were surrounded by mausoleums.
Jules turned to Clay. “Are you afraid? You want to go back and join the dice game at the Red Goat?”
“Of course not. I practically grew up in a cemetery, so it doesn’t bother me. But when you told me we’d meet some nice girls, I didn’t know you meant nice and dead.”
“Shhh!” As Jules gripped Clay’s arm hard, Clay could feel him shivering, even in the August heat. “Don’t say anything about the dead. They’ll hear.”
Clay laughed. “Don’t be superstitious.”
“Well, I’ll tell you the truth, lockpicker, I brought you here to scare you. It didn’t work, so—so I guess we should go back.”
“You mean there aren’t any girls? No free bread?”
“Sure there are. I’ve been there. The Pidemoi, they meet beyond the wall over there in the plague colony. I used to go there nights last year, but that was before the High King closed the road into the colony. Then the Pidemoi started going around this way. But I stopped going.”
Clay saw, or thought he saw, a few figures slipping along a street running below and parallel to their own. He heard the sound of sandals scraping on stone.
“What kind of crazy people meet in a plague colony?” he asked.
“Crazy, that’s the Pidemoi. They worship Thoz, but not in the basilicas. Instead, they meet in houses when they can or in other hiding places where they think the High King’s soldiers won’t find them. And who’d look in a plague colony? Actually, High King Plautus probably knows about it, but what can he do?”
Clay was becoming mildly alarmed. “But they’ll get the plague. We’ll get the plague.”
“Right. We don’t want that, so let’s go.”
“Wait a minute, but you said you went with them last year several times. How come you didn’t get it?”
“Well, I was sick, you know.”
“That was the plague?”
“Sure,” Jules said weakly.
Now a group of four or five persons was passing quite closely on their side of the street. One of these came aside to them and spoke. A girl’s voice.
“Not only the water,” she said quietly and waited.
“The water and the blood,” Jules mumbled.
“Jules? Is that Jules?”
“Yeah, Claudia, it’s me.”
She came to him and hugged the boy. “You’ve been gone so long. We missed you. And you brought a friend? Is he a pilgrim, a Pidemos?”
“Huh-uh. Look, we’re not coming tonight. I just brought him to see the City of Graves. He’s new here.”
“Friend, come along,” said the girl, but Clay thought he heard some nervousness in her voice. He guessed that she must be worried that he might be a government spy.
“Uh, right,” he said, “but, uh, Claudia, what’s this about a p
lague? I mean, where are you meeting?”
“Don’t worry, it’s safe.” She paused. “Look, where are you from? You don’t sound like us, or like a Perg either.”
Clay considered how to answer. “I’m from far away.”
“Is—is he trustworthy, Jules?”
“Sure he is! He’s my pal. We’ve come all the way from Korinthos together.”
“We can’t be too careful,” she explained to Clay. “Two believers were arrested this past week, just for preaching. They may have been forced to tell secrets about the rest of us.”
“What is this, some kind of conspiracy?” Clay asked.
To his surprise, she giggled. “You might say that. No, not really. Come and we’ll tell you about it.”
“But the—”
“The Blue Plague? Young people don’t get it, almost never. It takes proud adults. We’ve been meeting in the Blue Colony for two years now, and none of us has shown the first sign of it.”
“Except Jules,” Clay said dryly.
“What, Jules has it?”
“No, just joking. I guess we’ll go with you now.”
The three went on in the company of Claudia’s young friends, the miserable Jules being too frightened to return to Kulismos alone. As they went, Claudia spoke quietly to the others.
“Some of you don’t know that Bekah’s parents were arrested. Don’t be afraid. They knew it might happen to them, and they’re in Zuz’s hands. But Bekah will probably be here tonight, and she’s terribly worried and upset. We’ll be praying for her.”
As they approached the cemetery wall, Clay heard scraps of conversation in youthful voices. Soon they came to twenty or thirty people. A few at a time were scaling the wall with help from those below. When Clay’s turn came he scrambled over and dropped to the ground on the far side, and though it was very dark, he could see that he had left the cemetery. Now they were padding down a slope between mounds that appeared to be rough huts. They made for a faint light and soon came to a ring of stones in the midst of which a single small lamp was placed. The Pidemoi seated themselves on the stones and waited expectantly.
In the weak light, Clay at last got a clearer impression of these people. Dimly he saw teenage girls (as promised) and boys, and several adults. None were richly dressed and some were as ragged as Jules and himself. He could just make out on the ankle of one of the boys the iron band used to identify slave laborers in Kulismos.
Soon someone began to speak, a man in his thirties or forties.
“Welcome everyone, and Thoz bless you. I’m Jonas, and I’m the pastor of the younger folk. Some of you remember Andrew was pastor until recently, but Andrew was arrested, and since then, we’ve heard that he was killed. Please pray for Thena his wife.”
Sympathetic murmurings were heard around the circle.
“We’re here to worship Thoz, but first—it’s hard to worship on an empty stomach. Claudia, you’ve brought something?”
“We have bread,” said Claudia. “Several loaves, and some water.”
“I’ll pray in a moment, then let’s have a time of quiet talk,” said Jonas. “Claudia will distribute bread a little up the slope over there for those who are hungry. In a little while we’ll all assemble again for singing.”
After the prayer, Jules went for the bread, but Clay stayed where he was. He had seen enough of city life to know that this was not at all like refreshments at a party. Likely, some of these youths had not eaten that day. Clay and Jules had had plenty to eat.
Toward the end of this pause, one of two girls seated somewhat behind him introduced herself as Theba and asked his name. He told her. After a very brief pause, the girl beside Theba made a slight gasping sound, as of someone who has bumped into something in the dark. Then she muttered a word or two in Kreenspam, the language of the Sarrs, about something ‘remembered.’ Clay was surprised to hear Kreenspam spoken hundreds of miles from the Sarrlands, and was about to ask her about it, but Jonas now began to lead the group in song. Clay, of course, did not know the song, but most of the others joined in.
I walked alone at night
Outside the city walls
And did not fear the jackal’s bite
Nor heed their cries and calls.
I walked alone at day
The Colosseum’s sand
And did not fear the spears that slay
By High King’s stern command.
I fear no harm or pain,
Though I am led before
The mega-lions of the plain,
The Dragons of Notoschor.
I have a lion’s heart
And gladly face travails;
For turning every fiery dart,
I have a Dragon’s scales.
A true and righteous cause,
If borne by only one,
Is sheltered by the hand of Thoz
And Zuz His only Son.
Be merciful to me, Kroz,
Be merciful to me.
I worship You, I love Your laws;
Be merciful to me.
As the Pidemoi sang, Clay could hear strong emotion in their voices. Some cried. And as they sang, many other voices, reedy and clear, strange and breathless, arose outside their circle and joined them. When the Pidemoi came to the last stanza and repeated it many times, these mysterious voices swelled until hundreds, perhaps thousands, were singing; and the little group of teens was drowned out in a tapestry of echoes and harmonization. At last, they only sat and listened while the outside voices continued and then ended the song.
“What was that?” Clay whispered more or less to himself.
Theba leaned forward. “It’s the Lost Ones, those who have fallen to the Blue Plague. When we come here, they don’t bother us, and they sometimes sing with us. But I’ve never heard them sing like that! Usually, it’s just a few. I wonder why they’re so stirred up tonight.”
Jonas began to lead them in a prayer, but before he had said much, a lantern bearer appeared at a distance and approached their circle. Jonas stood and called out a welcome, and soon the man came among them. Revealed by his own light, he was thin and ragged with sharp features and a glittering eye. His hair was streaked with silver gray, and his complexion had a bluish tone. Many of the Pidemoi shrank away from him.
“May I speak to you?” he said thinly.
“Yes, Augustus,” Jonas answered. “But be brief. These children are afraid of you.”
“You know me then?”
“I know you were the High King until eleven years past, when you contracted the plague and were driven out by your own son.”
“All true, but I haven’t come to speak of that.”
He slowly set down the frame covered with skins that held his oil lamp. The handle clinked against the rim.
“Tonight, we Lost Ones felt the presence of the one you have waited for, the King of Prophecy. He is the true Lord of Kulismos. He has come at last, and he is among you.”
After Augustus took his lamp and was gone, the little group was abuzz with wonder. The purpose of the meeting seemed forgotten as they broke up into knots of whisperers. Near Clay, one of the young men was repeating to Jules a well-memorized prophecy that had come to Kulismos more than a hundred years earlier, brought westward by traveling bards and wanderers:
A king and queen shall come,
teaching men to make way for the Goloth,
completing the work of Kulismos.
The Silent Cities shall sing;
the Perg shall end his heresy;
and the people of the East shall be saved.
Even in the darkness Clay felt conspicuous. His life depended on secrecy, and now these people somehow knew that among the ten or fifteen males in their group could be found the Lila-me. And not only did these few Pidemoi know, but all of the Lost Ones knew too. Soon everyone would know. He began to edge away from the others, each step taking him farther from the one lamp
among them, a little deeper into anonymity.
He thought of Jules. Should he find him? But Jules had heard too much now, and Jules was bright. Yes, he would know that the Lost Ones had made no such announcement on previous meetings and that Clay was perhaps the only newcomer that night. Even if two or three of the other boys were new, suspicion would naturally fall on Clay. He had just arrived in the city, he spoke with an accent, and he knew little about Sigapoleian culture.
Clay took a few more steps away from the others. He felt practically invisible now. But one of the girls had been watching him. She came to him now, and he heard the rustle of her clothing as she bowed.
“Please, come with me, Your Eminence,” she whispered. “I have a message for you concerning your sister.”
He knew by her voice that she was the same girl who had spoken in Kreenspam. She strode off southward, the way the group had come, and turned back to him.
“Please come, we must hurry.”
Clay began to breathe heavily and his thoughts raced. “What do you know about my sister?”
“That’s what I want to tell you—in a safe place. Please hurry.”
Clay followed her the short distance to the cemetery wall.
“You want to go back there?”
She did. They climbed back over, and as Clay began to walk back up the Street of Graves, she caught him by the arm.
“No, Emperor, not that way. The brethren will look for us there. Another street angles to our left over here. After we cross a bridge, we’ll be at the largest of the tombs.”
It took some time in such a vast cemetery, but at last they came to the monument she had spoken of, one of the graves that were virtually palaces of the dead. Beyond a colossal bridge, it rose like a hill, round tower on square base, marble columns gleaming in the night. They crossed the bridge, climbed the great stairs, and entered the doors. Inside, it was altogether too dark to move around safely, but the girl felt her way forward far into the interior until she found something. When Clay caught up to her, she drew him to it. His hand rested on cool marble.
“This is the sarcophagus,” she said. “His bones are within.”
“Whose bones? Look, who are you?”
“When I’m feeling brave, I say Princess Bekah; but lately I haven’t been feeling very brave.”
“So you’re the girl whose parents were arrested. But why ‘Princess’?”
“My parents,” she said, “are the Unknown King and Queen of this city.”
“I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“Nobody does,” she said bitterly. “But for Your Eminence I have to explain. You see, far across the eastern ocean I have a home country, the Land of Unknown Kings. We come out from there to every nation to watch over the people. But it’s very hard for us because the people reject us and hold to their established kings. They laugh. Lately, I’ve often wished my parents and I weren’t unknown royalty. It’s such a miserable thing to be so responsible and yet have so little authority, don’t you see? But you wouldn’t understand.”
“You’d be surprised how much I understand,” Clay said, grinning in the dark.
“But of course, you would,” said Bekah, recollecting herself. “I’m sorry.”
“No problem. But what about my sister?”
“Earlier this month, my father and mother were visited by a messenger Lusetta who came all the way from the Palace of Reflections in the South.”
“A Lusetta—that’s some kind of Sarr?”
“Yes, the Sarrs and the Unknown Kings trust one another and often exchange news. Anyway, this Lusetta Angfetu was sent by Princess Simone to look for you. (Your sister is well, by the way.) Angfetu was supposed to bring back news about you. We had nothing to tell him and wondered if he could possibly be mistaken about you and Simone: I mean, that you really are the Lila-mes.”
In the huge mausoleum Bekah’s whispering sounded odd, weirdly amplified and blurred. “Angfetu flew off westward, and the matter seemed ended. But that very evening—it was August second—a strange ship passed down the river on its way from Farja. My father recognized the prow, which was carved as the three dogs’ heads of Cerberus, the hound of Hades. Members of the great witch cult of Farja were on that ship, Emperor Clay. Even, they say, the Smoke Hag. They went on, and we heard nothing of them. But this morning another of the Unknown Kings arrived, King Zendor of Quintusia; and he looked up the family I’ve been hiding with since my parents were arrested. I wasn’t there, but he left a message for me. He told me that he had come up the river just ahead of the Cerberus and that both he and the Smoke Hag are searching for you.”
“Why is everybody looking for me?” Clay said, exasperated. “All I want to do is get out of this crazy Fold and go home.”
Bekah was quiet for a moment. “Truly? You haven’t come to be Emperor?”
“No, that was somebody else’s idea. A Fijata.”
“Oh, then you mean the Fijata Razabera.”
“You know her?”
“She’s visited here with my family. Where is she now?”
In his haste, Angfetu had not passed on news of Razabera’s fate, so Clay now told Bekah of how Razabera had found at Crow Wood a Door to the Old World and had gone to Simone and Clay’s home in Indiana in order to bring them into the Fold. Razabera had hoped that Clay’s claim to the Empire might be generally recognized in the East, and that therefore he might avert a great war between humans and Sarrs. But Razabera died before they could leave Indiana, murdered by members of the witch cult, who had followed her through the Door. Some of the wolf-Sarrs, the Ulrigs, had also passed the Door and had killed the witches and brought Clay and Simone through the Door. The teens had agreed to come to the Fold only because they believed that they could draw the witches away from their home and so protect their mother.
Clay also told Bekah about his capture at Lucilla, his enslavement, his escape, and his travels since. It was somehow comforting to relate all this to a girl his own age who heard it all patiently.
After he was done, Bekah said, as if to herself, “So you never wanted to come here.”
“No,” Clay said.
“And you came alone—I mean, with no army.”
Clay was surprised to hear in her voice that Bekah was on the verge of tears.
“Why is our side always so pathetic?” she said. “Tonight, when you said your name, my hopes lifted for the first time since father and mother were arrested. I guess I thought you would free them.”
He heard her pull herself up onto the sarcophagus.
“I’ll be lucky if I’m not arrested myself,” Clay said. “After tonight, the whole city will know about me. I need help to get out of here.”
She laughed miserably. “So I’m supposed to help you? That’s rich. The Emperor finally comes and he’s a kid in rags, hiding out from the authorities. He needs my help, me, an orphan. I’m sorry, but I expected things to be so different.”
“Well, what do you want me to do?” said Clay a little too loudly, so that echoes from the rotunda boomed back at him and he cringed. “Everything’s closing in on me,” he said more quietly. “Can you get me on a boat going east?”
Now he could tell by her breathing that Bekah was crying. “I can’t even go outdoors in daylight,” she answered. “The High King’s men are looking for me. And I don’t have any money to give you, or I would. Just go on, Clay, go back to the river and try to stow away on some ship. You can’t go back in the city now because the witches will have arrived. They’ll use their influence with High King Plautus to start a general search for you. They’ll be turning the town upside down.” Clay turned to go. “You got here at all and you’re alive,” she added. “That must mean something. Thoz must have some plans for you.”
“Yeah, whoever he is.”
She drew in a breath at this. “You’re Eminence—you’re a believer, aren’t you? A Pidemo
s?”
“No.”
Clay’s exposure to the Bible had been limited to the memorization of one short Psalm years before at a Vacation Bible School. He hoped in a God of some sort, especially when he was in desperate trouble.
“I thought at least that—” Bekah sounded flabbergasted. “Well, if you aren’t—then—there really is no hope.” The girl slid off the sarcophagus and padded toward the door. “Sleep well, if you stay here tonight,” she threw back at him tearfully. “This is the tomb of Quintus, your ancestor.”