Nine Layers of Sky Page 12

  Two

  ALMATY, KAZAKHSTAN, 21ST CENTURY

  Ilya did not like taking Elena with him, but he could not leave her to the mercy of the authorities. If the FSB man had not been so close behind, Ilya would have demanded that Elena give him the object, paid her the bulk of the money, and been gone. With the object no longer betraying her presence to the rusalki, as Ilya was now sure it had done, they would leave her alone. But the situation had become complicated by the murders and the consequently certain involvement of the FSB. Ilya had firsthand experience of such people. Those who were not brutal were incompetent and lazy, and could often be bought off over more trifling matters, but murder was a serious crime. He could hardly try to explain to them that the murders had not been committed by anything human. He had seen the marks in the shredded flesh, the bites on throat and rib cage. The men in the room had been killed by rusalki, but he did not know why and it was not, in any case, an explanation the police would believe.

  Moreover, it looked as though Westerners stayed at the Hotel Kazakhstan, and a set of murders would be bad for business. People would suspect the Mafiya. The Westerners would stay away, and he knew that few enough of them came to Kazakhstan in the first place—corruption, red tape, and violence made it a hard place in which to do business, even for the big oil and gas companies. No, the hotel manager would surely insist on the case being treated properly, and the girl at the desk had known Elena. So he had no choice, really. They must both run, and Kyrgyzstan—close, mountainous, with a different bureaucracy—was the most practical choice.

  Ilya did not want to respond to the small voice within that told him he would welcome a companion, especially such a pretty one. He had learned to do without friendship over the years, without women other than whores, but it was never easy. He stole a look at Elena, picking her way through the stones, her face set in determination. An intelligent woman, too, and a brave one. The best thing you can do, my hero, is to stay as far away from her as possible. Such a woman should have nothing to do with the likes of you.

  The storm front was coming in fast over the mountains. He could no longer see the ghoul, but no doubt it was there, hiding among the stones. But he had the sword. If he could slay rusalki, he could surely dispose of this one small creature. Unless there were more than one, and they were following …

  The volkh’s voice echoed in his head: not human. What am I, then? Ilya silently asked the wind, but there was no reply. He listened for that other small voice, but there was nothing.

  At the bottom of the slope, a road led toward a scattering of buildings that looked like one of the old communal kholkhoz farms. The city had ended abruptly, far behind them now and cut off by the mountain wall. To Ilya, it seemed as though Almaty huddled against the Tien Shan for protection, seeking shelter from the endless steppes. He remembered the steppes in earlier centuries, still swept by the wild horsemen, the riders with their leather armor, their hunting eagles, their swift and deadly bows. Two generations and Russian guns had put an end to that. The riders were gone, replaced with accountants and car salesmen. Perhaps it was better. Ilya did not know, but he wondered where such dreams might go to die.

  He heard Elena’s foot slip on loose gravel even before she cried out, but did not manage to reach her before she fell. She sprawled across the slope, hands scrabbling for purchase. Ilya, cursing his own weakness, hurried over and helped her up.

  “Are you hurt?”

  “I don’t think so. Bruised.” She stood up. She had dropped her handbag. Ilya spotted it among the stones. He picked it up. “No, I’m all right.” She leaned against him, steadying herself as she secured a shoe, and before he could think better of it, he put his arms around her. It was a long time since he had felt so close to anyone.

  I am here.

  Ilya blinked. A sudden burst of light spilled from the bag in his hand. Ilya saw a space open in thin air, a spark running up it like a fuse. There was a burst of light high in the air above the mountains, then it was gone.

  Ilya stared, but there was nothing there.

  “What was that?” Elena whispered.

  “I don’t know.” Embarrassed, he let her go. “We’d best get moving.”

  It was no more than early afternoon, but the sky was already dark with rain. They had reached the road. The village was perhaps half a kilometer ahead. Ilya could see a light in a window, heard voices idly discussing the weather. He paused for a moment and listened further. He could hear the small creatures in the mountains: a squirrel running along a branch, the sudden flutter of a flock of birds flying upward, then the rattle and rush of branches being thrust violently aside. And all the while a pounding sound upon the wet earth, as insistent as a drum. It was a long time since he had heard that sound: the noise of hoofbeats, a multitude of horses, ridden fast.

  “Ilya?” Elena asked. “What’s wrong?”

  He had expected sirens, not horses. “I don’t know,” he said. “I can hear hoofbeats.”

  Elena looked around. “Where? I can’t see anything.”

  “They’re in the mountains,” Ilya murmured, but even as he spoke, it was no longer true, and the hair prickled at the back of his neck. The riders were down from the slopes, and at the head of the road on which they were now standing. The horses, free from the constraint of the trees, ran swift as thought, faster than any normal animal. And they were bringing the storm with them.

  “They’re coming for us,” he whispered.

  “My God, Ilya—who? What are you talking about? Where are they?” Elena was looking wildly about her. She would not yet be able to see or hear them, but they were coming. “If someone’s after us, we have to get off the road.” She pointed to a strip of trees on the other side of the valley, marking the path of a streambed. She tugged at Ilya’s sleeve. They stumbled across a bank of stones toward the trees. The drumming noise grew louder, blotting out all other sound and deafening Ilya. He put his hands to his ears, but it did no good. Then the first wave of rain hit them, drenching and sudden.

  They had almost reached the trees when Ilya made the mistake of looking back. The riders were coming through the rain. They bore banners the color of blood, and they wore short leather jerkins and close helmets. The front line rode without reins, gripping their horses with their knees, their bows trained upon Ilya and his companion. He had seen nothing like them for over a hundred years. Elena had turned, too, and he saw her face grow blank with shock. As he stared, the riders parted. A figure was riding with them, dressed in a tall conical helmet and armor made of gold, chased and configured with images of leaves, lions, and spirals.

  He heard Elena gasp, “That’s the Golden Warrior!” They could not see the face beneath the golden helmet. The Warrior raised a hand, gave a command. Elena said, “No.” She grabbed Ilya’s arm, dragging him in a zigzag toward the trees. Something small and dark darted between his feet, and the ground seemed to give way beneath him.

  He was alone, staggering through a landscape of branches and mist and rain.

  Do not be afraid. I am here.

  He tasted cloud-cold on his tongue and then, quick as a dream, the sun came out. The warriors were gone. And Ilya was not where he had been.

  Interlude

  BYELOVEDYE, N.E. 80

  The airships wallowed like tethered porpoises over the refinery, riding the warm forest wind. A pair of boots dangled from an open hatch: Shadia Anikova, completing the afternoon’s air detail. Despite the attendant threats, it was work she enjoyed, monitoring the borders of the Republic, checking for breaches. It was proper army work and it got her out in the open air, away from the confines of Central Command and the solicitous, disquieting presence of the Mechvor Kitai. If only she hadn’t been posted so close to the southern border this time.

  They were high up here, close to the range that divided Pergama from the southern steppe. It was still possible to see the distant heights of the Balchus, snowcapped even in summer, rising in irregular detail above the Pergama plain. First
City was lost in the distance, veiled in the afternoon haze. Beyond that, there was nothing but the endless forest, rolling two thousand miles to the north of the Republic. Someone else would be sitting above the forest even now, on the deck of another airship, watching for a breach. Anikova envied that person, even though the southern detail got extra pay. The south was the province of the kochebniki, the horse clans. And the clans were known to kill strangers, calling them devils and worse.

  The airship dipped ponderously as Anikova swung hand over hand down the guide rope to the deck. Below, a bulbous dome tethered to a wide platform towered above the surrounding trees. At the edges of the platform, shockwire and trips protected the raised walkways from intruders, in compliance with standard regulations. But the principal intruders here were only the rats that inhabited the underside of the platform barriers. Occasionally goats from the river pastures would wander up and come to grief on the shockwire.

  As far as the crags, the pines formed a dense, dark wall, but from this height Anikova could glimpse the tops of the native trees—ezhny, bhul, and dzadra— floating above the line of conifers. Behind her, the dome bulged slowly upward as it filled. A light wind stirred the blue feathers of the dzadra, as though smoke drifted across the top of the forest, and the kited airships bounced on their moorings above the dome. Their shadows fell across the platform as they moved, momentarily hiding the sun.

  Anikova was squinting upward into the sky, trying to see whether there was any sign of the returning DK9, the two o’clock, when Arkady Iskakhov came down the walkway to stand beside her. He sketched a salute, though Anikova was never one to stand on ceremony. Having made colonel in her mid-forties, she was content to go no further. She did not like to think that it was because she feared further promotion, perhaps a permanent posting to the south. Even Central Command was better than that, even Kitai. Or was that really true anymore?

  “Two o’clock’s late,” Iskakhov remarked.

  “Yes, I know. I was just wondering why.”

  Iskakhov shrugged. “Don’t know. They said they were coming in early. In fact, they had a head wind. Maybe there was a hitch over Sanskiya.”

  “Could be. So, are you going off shift now?”

  “In a minute, yes. I’ve got to log the readings, but actually, she’s looking pretty good at the moment.” They turned to look at the billowing udder of the dome, a khaki bag straining at its moorings. “And then I’m off. Back on Wednesday. Do you want anything from town?” He was a good sort, Anikova thought. Not her type, but a decent soldier all the same.

  “No, I don’t think so, thanks,” she said. “I’m staying till tomorrow night, then I’m returning to First City. Kak zhal, eh?—a real shame. I’ve been working at Central Command for the past few weeks. To be honest with you—” but then she broke off. Iskakhov would understand. Even among sympathetic colleagues, one had to be careful what one said these days.

  “Ladna. So we won’t be seeing each other for a bit?”

  “I hope not. Nothing personal, Colonel.”

  Wind stirred the swelling bag of the dome and it bulged out across the platform. “Here we go,” Anikova said, shielding her eyes. Above them, the serene watermelon shape of the two o’clock airship sailed into view.

  “Christ,” Iskakhov said. “He’s a bit low.”

  “Why is he flying so low?” Anikova said simultaneously, and then the airship turned, revealing a soundless burst of light that tore a vertical strip in the world from sky to forest.

  “My God, my God, it’s a breach!” Anikova heard Iskakhov cry. “Why didn’t the monitors pick it up?”

  With horror, Anikova realized that she could see clear to the other side of the breach. It was huge. She had never seen such a rift in the world before. Beyond lay a whirling mass of mist and water. Then, as abruptly as it had come, it closed, but it was already too late for the airship.

  The guide ropes of the DK9 brushed the azure plumes of dzadra and then the topmost masts of the pines. From this angle, the airship was immense, foreshortened against the sky. As it approached, it lost height, lurching so that its nose nudged the trees. They could see the truncated front of the cabin, slung low under the base of the ship, and as they watched, there was a sudden, soundless flare of light. The airship burst upward, its sides opening out like petals in a flower of fire, then sank down into the trees. Tinder-dry, they sparked and flared.

  Anikova and Iskakhov were enveloped in an immense wash of heat, which scorched the throat and eyes, but Anikova was already running for the console comm. She could barely speak. Trying to shout into the comm, she heard her parched voice as a whisper, but the crew had seen the whole thing on the monitors, and in minutes they were out on the platform.

  Anikova could hardly see through the smoke pouring from the blazing forest. She heard the siren start up and a rumble as the fireditches opened, but they had left it too late. The flames ran in rivulets along the dry edges of grass toward the platform and licked around its heavy legs, flowing under and around it until the refinery was circled by a burning collar. The crew started up the side ladders toward the kited ships. Anikova turned and came face-to-face with the foreman, ashen beneath the smoke.

  “The protocols—” the man managed to say.

  “Fuck the protocols,” Anikova shouted. “Do you want to die?” Through the sooty haze she glimpsed Iskakhov vanishing up the ladder, and ran after him, the foreman close at her heels.

  The fire had reached the edge of the platform, creeping swiftly over and across. As Anikova climbed, she felt the rungs grow hot, and through the smoke she found herself looking out across a sea of fire as the forest caught alight. The flames ran along the platform toward the dome, and then Anikova was up and into the cabin of the kite, hauled over the portal by Iskakhov. She reached for the foreman’s hand, but the man’s foot slipped on the greasy rung. The foreman fell, going down without a sound into the flames boiling at the foot of the ladder. Iskakhov grabbed at Anikova and pulled her back into the cabin. His face was grey.

  “Where’s everyone else?” she cried hoarsely. Only a third of the crew were in the cabin, casting off. “We can’t leave now.”

  “If we don’t, we never will,” someone said grimly. The kite rope was sucked into the edge of the cabin and there was a lurch as the ship detached. They floated upward, rocking on the hot shaft of air, and through the open door Anikova watched, fascinated and numb, as the filled dome expanded and tore. She covered her mouth as the gas welled upward and then they were away, spinning over the burning woods and up into the clear air.

  Iskakhov knelt, retching on the cabin floor, and Anikova’s legs gave way. She sat down hastily beside him. When she tried to speak, she found that no sound came from her seared throat, and when she raised her hands, they were black with soot.

  Below, the forest was on fire.

  Part Four

  One

  Ilya?” BYELOVODYE, N.E. 80

  Elena looked frantically around, but her companion was nowhere to be seen. And neither were the line of trees, the road, or the slope down which they had so recently come. She glanced behind her, half-expecting to see the warriors, but there was no one. The wall of the mountains stretched away behind her, but they were higher than even the Tien Shan, and the sky that their snowy summits seemed to reach was a darker blue. There was no sign of the storm, but the ground beneath her feet was wet with the passage of rain. She was standing at the edge of a field. Lines of young wheat marched away toward a break of oaks, their leaves yellow with the first touch of spring.

  “Ilya?” Elena called again. There was no reply. It was very quiet. A flock of birds wheeled overhead and she could hear the whistle of their wings. They were white cranes, with long, graceful necks, and as she watched, they turned and flew toward the sun. The air smelled strange, and it was a moment before Elena realized that it was merely fresh, without the acrid tang of pollution that filtered up from the city streets.

  Slowly, she began to walk alon
g the edges of the wheatfield, trying to fight down the panic and analyzing the data at her disposal. If the warriors had been some kind of mirage, they had been a very detailed one. She had smelled the sweat of the horses, heard the creak of the harnesses. And what of the Golden Warrior? Even now, a ferocious debate was raging between Kazakhstan’s academics as to whether the armor had belonged to a woman. It was, apparently, a woman’s helmet, and it was certainly true that the armor was quite small. And it had been a woman’s fierce face that Elena thought she had glimpsed beneath the tall, golden cone—but then, she wanted to believe that the Golden Warrior had been female, so perhaps her expectations had engineered her vision.

  Yet none of this could offer any explanation of where Elena was now. And a sudden cold thought struck her: What had happened to the object?

  Elena scrabbled in her handbag and there it was, as heavy and unyielding as ever. She slung the bag more securely about her neck, undid her heavy winter coat, and slipped off the uncomfortable shoes. Where there was a wheatfield, there would be habitation. She remembered the voices she had heard in the vision. They had sounded normal, ordinary. There had been a child. Whatever this world might be, she told herself, if they grew crops and raised children, it could not be as terrifying as all that.

  Two

  BYELOVODYE, N.E. 80

  There was no sign of Elena or, thank God, of the warriors. And he knew at once that this was not the true world, even though the sounds that came to him were familiar ones: birdsong, the noise of small animals in the undergrowth, the rustle of leaves. To his disgust, Ilya found that he was shaking. Some hero, indeed. The first sign of real danger and he stood quivering in his boots. Elena was better off without him, wherever she might be.

  Farther off, he could hear voices. Ilya listened.