He shakes himself, dazed, and sits up. The incendiary mines have done a good bit of damage: the shadows have been rent to shreds by a thousand little flames flickering all throughout the slaughterhouse. He looks for his assailant—this Nokov—but can’t see anything.
Except…
In the far corner of the slaughterhouse bays is a form, a shadow cast on the wall, though there’s no one to cast it. The shadow looks like the person, whoever they are, is bent over, hands on their knees, as if recovering from a stunning blow. Then the shadow shifts, and turns to look at him…
He sees eyes in the shadow, cold and glimmering like distant stars.
“Look what you did!” shouts the voice, outraged and bewildered. “Look what you did!”
Sigrud stands and sprints for the doorway out, though he reels slightly like a drunk. As he runs he sees that his handiwork is not quite what it used to be: only two of the three incendiary mines he planted down here have gone off. He must have botched the third charge, which was the largest. Odds are that the receiver for the third charge was damaged in the explosion, but as he runs he covers as much of his body as he can with Khadse’s coat and clicks the transmitter over and over again, hoping it could sputter to life.
He sees the shadows roiling, swarming, swirling behind him, thousands of little pools joining together to snatch him up before he can reach the daylight outside.
Sigrud is twenty feet from the door, then ten. He can see the Luzhkov River just beyond, rippling in the sunlight.
“No!” cries the high, cold voice behind him. “No, no!”
Sigrud’s thumb makes one last frantic beat on the transmitter button: clickclickclickclickclick.
Then there’s a light on the walls, hot and orange, coming from somewhere behind him. A burst of searing heat washes over him.
The next thing he knows, Sigrud is shot through the doorway like a bullet from a gun.
Time seems to slow down. Sigrud slowly tilts ass over head over the surface of the Luzhkov, which allows him to see his handiwork: a bright ball of flame shooting out of the entrance of the slaughterhouse, licking at the waters like the tongue of a dragon.
Sigrud looks down—or, as he’s upside down, up—at the water surface hurtling at him.
This, he thinks, is not what I wanted.
He tries to pull the coat around him, but then…
Impact.
The world goes dark and all his senses are reduced to a tinny eeeeeeeeeeee in his ears. When he comes to he’s instantly aware that he’s underwater, that bubbles are streaming from his nose and mouth and, actually, there’s quite a bit of water in his throat.
Do not panic. Do not panic….
He begins thrashing, kicking, throwing himself up at the shimmering light above him, red and wicked orange. He bursts through the surface of the water, coughing and gasping, and is so relieved he nearly sinks back underneath again. He claws himself back up, his arms and legs working to tread water, and swims over to the far shore.
Finally he feels soft mud under his boots, and he hauls himself up the riverbank, gasping with exhaustion. There’s a tremendous crack behind him, and he turns just in time to see the slaughterhouse begin to collapse.
He frowns. He had intended just to make a lot of flash and heat, not bring the whole building down. I really do need to brush up on my explosives skills.
He watches the building collapse. He wonders if that thing—Nokov—died in the fire, perhaps trapped in it. He doubts it. He saw a Divinity take a few dozen artillery shells to the face in Bulikov eighteen years ago, and it didn’t even get a nosebleed.
But was it—he?—a Divinity? He sticks his pinky in his ear, trying to free a bubble of water. And what was the woman? What exactly have I stumbled into?
He remembers what the young Continental woman said: Don’t you know there’s a war going on?
He looks down at himself. Khadse’s coat has been torn apart—not by any outside force, but apparently from Sigrud’s very large arms pinwheeling and thrashing about in a coat about five sizes too small for him. Sighing, he pulls the shreds of it off of him. He would have dearly liked to keep such a device, but he reflects that it’s probably unwise to trust a miracle, especially one you’ve never seen before.
He stands and begins to limp away. Now to find his way back to his apartment and his cache of money and papers. And then to get the ever-living hells out of Ahanashtan.
And from there, on to Ghaladesh, he thinks, to keep Tatyana out of the hands of whatever that thing was.
Though he will need a local resource. But he has an excellent one in mind. One whose home address is a matter of public record.
Let’s just hope, he thinks as he trudges over to the road, she doesn’t shoot me on sight.
Sometimes people ask me about Vo. It’s very forward of them to do so, I find, but the press gets more and more forward these days. Any more forward and they’ll tip over onto their faces—or so I hope, perhaps.
I think the same thing I’ve always thought: that the status quo is lethally reflexive.
People don’t change. Nations don’t change. They get changed. Reluctantly. And not without a fight.
—LETTER FROM FORMER PRIME MINISTER ASHARA KOMAYD TO UPPER HOUSE MINORITY LEADER TURYIN MULAGHESH, 1732
Captain First Class Kavitha Mishra walks across the empty lots, hands in the pockets of her greatcoat. The wreckage of the slaughterhouse beyond is still steaming, ribbons of vapor unfurling from its depths. The Ahanashtani police have the area cordoned off, and she notes all the officers look very serious, frowning and shaking their heads, their cheeks and noses bright red under those tall, crested helmets. A couple of them have the glitter of gold about their shoulders—lieutenants, maybe, or perhaps a captain or two. A very serious affair, indeed.
The constable ahead holds up a black-gloved hand as she approaches. “I’m sorry, miss, this is a crime scene, and I—”
Mishra pulls out her credentials and holds them up. “Good morning,” she says.
He reads her credentials. Then his eyes widen and he takes a step back. “I see, ma’am,” he says. “Ah. Would you like me to get the lieutenant, ma’am?”
“If that’s who’s in charge—then yes, please.”
“Yes, ma’am.” He trots off. Mishra waits, casting an eye over the ruins of the slaughterhouse. She could walk into the scene if she wanted—no matter how much gold bedecks those uniforms, her position thoroughly trumps theirs—but she doesn’t. She doesn’t want to do anything especially memorable beyond appear and then depart.
The Ahanashtani lieutenant, his giant white mustache rippling with each indignant huff, strides across the pavement to her. “Yes, yes?” he asks. “How can I help you?”
She shows him her credentials. He, like the constable before him, is cowed, but he’s a lot more resentful about it.
“I see,” he says. “Well. How nice of you to join us, Captain Mishra. Ministry of Foreign Affairs, is it? What would this have to do with military intelligence? Unless…it has something to do with Komayd?”
The lieutenant looks uneasy at that, because the Ahanashtani authorities are under a lot of scrutiny right now. Allowing the former leader of the world’s most powerful nation to get assassinated in your backyard has that effect.