collided like wrecks of wagon wheels, while newer thoroughfares dissected their arcs into modern grids.
The rolling ground and the course of the frozen river that cut the city in half were exactly as he remembered. Even the lines of the bare, black trees seemed the same until he noticed the pale green buds of leaves. They should have been white.
He thought the mistake could have been his own or a matter of his injured eyes. Maybe he misremembered. Or perhaps the trees had been replaced since he had last been here. It had been ten years. The trees had been young.
He let it go and continued walking. He didn’t have the strength to waste, wondering over trees or tiny, altered details like shop signs and street names. He noted them and ignored them. He didn’t stop. He didn’t dare to. And he didn’t look back. He didn’t want to see the trail his own blood studded across the white snow. He needed to find a temple. The priests there would know how to tend his wounds.
He staggered past people. Most of them seemed to be going home for the evening. An older woman with a child pulled away from him as though he were contagious. Men in dull blue hats and long coats simply checked their pocket watches or straightened their cuffs as he passed by.
No one offered him any assistance, not even answering his requests for the time or for directions to the Black Tower of the Payshmura.
Finally he found Blackbird’s Bridge, one landmark he could remember. But when he looked out from the height of the bridge, he found the hazy, brown skyline disorienting. There appeared to be two yellow-tiled domes of the Gaunsho’im Council. One stood, as Kahlil remembered, in the north of the city, near the Seven Palaces. The other shone far south of the first, where the old Execution Grounds had been.
The Gaunsho’im must have built a second Council Hall. He couldn’t imagine why, but he didn’t understand half of what the Gaunsho’im did. They were the rulers of noble families, and they answered for their wastefulness to only themselves. If they wanted a second Council building, that was their concern. Construction of new buildings could be expected, even in times as bad as these. So long as the Gaunsho’im met their yearly tithes to the church, they could build as many tributes to their own importance as they pleased.
Kahlil stared down over the Seven Palaces and then past them. He saw long, gleaming roofs with tiles that shone like faceted crystal where none had stood before. To the west, clusters of dull, redbrick buildings piled up against each other. When he had last been here, only a scattered shantytown stood close to the riverbank. The additions didn’t bother him so much. It was the one absence that frightened him.
The massive Black Tower should have shot up from the north point of the city like a black blade piercing the heavens. But it was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t a structure that could be missed. It had dominated the skyline, with huge cords of metal twisting up to a single, gleaming point. Its shadow alone should have sliced across the city in a straight, sharp stroke.
Kahlil stared and squinted and turned in a circle, but still couldn’t find the tower. How could it be gone? He sank down to his knees, suddenly gripped with a sick fear.
He knew.
He couldn’t remember, but he knew. Somehow he had allowed this to happen. He had failed foolishly and terribly. He supposed it was only fair that now he had nowhere to go, no one to care for him.
His eyes stung and burned, and he closed them. It would do him no good looking for a tower that no longer stood. He struggled to remember what he had done wrong. Without knowing, how could he make it right?
The chill of the snow soaked through his heavy pants. The night grew darker and colder. Now that he had stopped searching, the pain of his injuries began to cut into his awareness. He pulled both arms in close to his body and tucked his bare hands into the pockets of his
The rolling ground and the course of the frozen river that cut the city in half were exactly as he remembered. Even the lines of the bare, black trees seemed the same until he noticed the pale green buds of leaves. They should have been white.
He thought the mistake could have been his own or a matter of his injured eyes. Maybe he misremembered. Or perhaps the trees had been replaced since he had last been here. It had been ten years. The trees had been young.
He let it go and continued walking. He didn’t have the strength to waste, wondering over trees or tiny, altered details like shop signs and street names. He noted them and ignored them. He didn’t stop. He didn’t dare to. And he didn’t look back. He didn’t want to see the trail his own blood studded across the white snow. He needed to find a temple. The priests there would know how to tend his wounds.
He staggered past people. Most of them seemed to be going home for the evening. An older woman with a child pulled away from him as though he were contagious. Men in dull blue hats and long coats simply checked their pocket watches or straightened their cuffs as he passed by.
No one offered him any assistance, not even answering his requests for the time or for directions to the Black Tower of the Payshmura.
Finally he found Blackbird’s Bridge, one landmark he could remember. But when he looked out from the height of the bridge, he found the hazy, brown skyline disorienting. There appeared to be two yellow-tiled domes of the Gaunsho’im Council. One stood, as Kahlil remembered, in the north of the city, near the Seven Palaces. The other shone far south of the first, where the old Execution Grounds had been.
The Gaunsho’im must have built a second Council Hall. He couldn’t imagine why, but he didn’t understand half of what the Gaunsho’im did. They were the rulers of noble families, and they answered for their wastefulness to only themselves. If they wanted a second Council building, that was their concern. Construction of new buildings could be expected, even in times as bad as these. So long as the Gaunsho’im met their yearly tithes to the church, they could build as many tributes to their own importance as they pleased.
Kahlil stared down over the Seven Palaces and then past them. He saw long, gleaming roofs with tiles that shone like faceted crystal where none had stood before. To the west, clusters of dull, redbrick buildings piled up against each other. When he had last been here, only a scattered shantytown stood close to the riverbank. The additions didn’t bother him so much. It was the one absence that frightened him.
The massive Black Tower should have shot up from the north point of the city like a black blade piercing the heavens. But it was nowhere to be seen. It wasn’t a structure that could be missed. It had dominated the skyline, with huge cords of metal twisting up to a single, gleaming point. Its shadow alone should have sliced across the city in a straight, sharp stroke.
Kahlil stared and squinted and turned in a circle, but still couldn’t find the tower. How could it be gone? He sank down to his knees, suddenly gripped with a sick fear.
He knew.
He couldn’t remember, but he knew. Somehow he had allowed this to happen. He had failed foolishly and terribly. He supposed it was only fair that now he had nowhere to go, no one to care for him.
His eyes stung and burned, and he closed them. It would do him no good looking for a tower that no longer stood. He struggled to remember what he had done wrong. Without knowing, how could he make it right?
The chill of the snow soaked through his heavy pants. The night grew darker and colder. Now that he had stopped searching, the pain of his injuries began to cut into his awareness. He pulled both arms in close to his body and tucked his bare hands into the pockets of his
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