Khalim’s fist struck the vast marble door and made no sound. The wall of the white city loomed above him, high as the red twilight sky, its perfect flat surface marred only with its faint, gray veins. The seam between the doors let none of the perpetual low sunlight escape. The city was exactly as Khalim had left it: flawless, impenetrable, and silent.
Khalim did not belong here, and he never had. His hand was dark against the great door, the tattered threads of his clothing brighter than even the sky. He had left the dust of the road and the wet earth of the forest behind, but he felt as though he would leave a mark on the marble just by touching it.
He knocked again, scraping his knuckles against the stone but leaving neither dirt nor blood on the surface. The marble only appeared smooth.
“I know you’re there,” Khalim said to the door. “I was in your presence for fifteen years. I could find you again even in this place.”
With a low rumble like distant thunder, the door shuddered open. On either side, the statues that were once Jahan and Ihsad stood watch, each regal profile framed in scarlet light.
Khalim hesitated at the threshold. He had left the citadel once, at the risk of angering its god. If those doors shut behind him, he might not receive another chance at freedom.
I can go wherever I want, he thought. Not even these walls can stop me.
But he could not go to the land of the living. That barrier remained in place.
The city’s central thoroughfare stretched out before him until it reached the sealed temple, where the sun bathed the columns red. How long had he spent under those silent arches, waiting for the night that never came and the morning that never followed? That, perhaps, was what frightened him the most—that he had already passed an age in this place, and everyone that he had ever known and loved was long dead, and he did not know where to find them.
Khalim stepped over the threshold.
He stopped, tension holding him back, but his feet retained the appearance of flesh and his hands moved at his command, uncurling from the anxious fists he had been holding. Jahan and Ihsad looked down on him, blank marble eyes unblinking. They had turned to stone at their posts, each hair on their heads and fold in their clothing carved with such exquisite detail that they might have stepped down from their pedestals at any moment. They almost seemed to breathe.
“Hello, Khalim.”
The voice was familiar, but it didn’t come from either of the vigilant statues. With a start, Khalim lowered his eyes from the marble faces, and found himself looking at his own face.
He’d seen his own reflection before—in the rice fields, when they flooded, and in the polished armor of the soldiers of the Ascended. He had some idea of his own appearance. This was something quite different, without distortion of form or color, alive and moving.
This man’s eyes, however, were a bright, metallic gold, the color of a new coin.
“Welcome home, child,” he said in Khalim’s voice. “You’ve been wandering a long time.”
The owl had said that Khalim might have his face stolen. He hadn’t understood at the time that he had already met that fate.
All the furious words he had gathered in his wanderings fell away. All he could say was, “You.”
The god smiled with Khalim’s face. “You are always welcome here,” he said. “I’m sorry you felt the need to venture outside my walls. I’m glad nothing befell you out there.”
“This is a prison,” Khalim whispered.
The reflection of his face adopted a look of concern and pity. “The others don’t think so. This is a place of protection, a reflection of the kingdom that Phyreios once was, and will be again.”
“But it’s empty,” Khalim said. “Your kingdom has no people in it, only statues.”
Another smile, beatific and patronizing. “I had hoped you would be the first.”
Khalim shook his head. He’d almost turned to stone once. He wasn’t going to stay here long enough to let it happen a second time. “Who are you, really?”
The man—the god—who looked like Khalim shimmered and turned as transparent as a trick of the light. When he turned solid again, he was half again as tall, dressed in armor that glittered red in the low sunlight, his shoulders broad and his face sharply angled. He looked like the Ascended—like the Ascended had once looked, Khalim thought, before centuries of consuming blood and faith had made them something even more inhuman. This god’s skin was still brown and soft, his hair shining with perfumed oil rather than metal.
“I had a name, once,” he said, “but it has long been forgotten. I am called Torr, now, the First Hero and the King of Phyreios.”
For the first time, Khalim looked upon the face of his god. In all the years they had spent together, he hadn’t imagined the presence he carried to have a face. It had always been a sensation, a reassurance, a promise that Khalim would be granted what he needed to move forward. It was the soft sunlight glow of his magic as it knit together torn flesh and broken bone. It was the terrible visions that he dreamed each night as the downfall of Phyreios grew closer.
Torr. Khalim held the name in his mouth, feeling its weight and its contours. He did not recognize it. Names in his mother tongue had soft edges and syllables that flowed into one another like music. It was yet another sign that this god was no longer a part of him, and never had been, really.
But he had a name now, and a face not so unlike a man’s face. He was more than human, nine feet tall with eyes that shone like the sun, but not so much more. He wasn’t a worm from under the mountain, or a titan with skin of bronze.
But he certainly had the look of a hero, more than Khalim ever did. He was the image of the champions of old, made greater with each retelling of their tales.
How Khalim hated him.
“I don’t understand,” he said, finding his voice again. “You could have slain the worm yourself. You could have cast the Ascended down. You didn’t need me at all.”
Torr shook his head. “I could not. I had been away from the world for so long that I could not act upon it. I needed a vessel to take me to Phyreios.”
“That’s all I was, then,” Khalim said. “A vessel. An empty basket. You needed someone to carry you across the desert, and you cast me aside when you were done with me.”
The god reached out a strong, long-fingered hand to caress Khalim’s face. Khalim pulled away.
“Is that what you think?” Torr said. “That you were chosen at random, that you were interchangeable? That anyone could have done what you did?”
Khalim spread out his arms to indicate the stone visages of Ihsad and Jahan. “You could have chosen someone better.”
“No,” said Torr. “You were always my chosen. That’s why I brought you here.”
“You brought me here when you were done with me,” Khalim shouted. It was perhaps the loudest sound ever to trouble the marble streets, but no one was there to complain, and no birds stirred from the white columns. “Everything—the magic, the dreams, the horrible dreams, it all was to make me take you to Phyreios so you could rule. I thought I was supposed to save the city, but so many died anyway, even before the Ascended finished their ritual. It didn’t make a difference. Why couldn’t you have just left me alone, and found someone else to take you to your throne?”
Torr’s face, beautiful and alien, looked at him with pity. “Oh, my child. I understand that you are angry. Most mortals are, especially when they meet an untimely end.”
Khalim said nothing.
“It was not my intention to return to Phyreios to rule. I had hoped to leave it in the hands of its people, to a mortal king and his council, but the Ascended were much worse than I anticipated. So much damage had been done. I had to help them rebuild.” Torr sighed, and he sounded almost human. “You’re angry because you could not live longer. Most mortals are, even those who live to an old age. It will fade with time.”
“I’m angry because you took me away,” Khalim argued. “I didn’t die. I was still breathing when—when you—”
His memory failed him. He remembered the ritual chamber and the smell of blood, the shaking of the earth, and the crushing darkness. He remembered kneeling before the god’s bright presence, begging not to be taken. The details still eluded him.
“You were moments from death,” Torr said, placating. “The city had fallen upon you. It would not have been an easy passage.”
“I don’t care. You should have let me die a mortal’s death. How could I be mourned when you walk the city streets wearing my face? How could I find peace trapped here and turning to stone, away from all my ancestors?”
Torr’s answer was maddeningly flat. “You would not say these things if you had perished under the rubble.”
“You could be right,” Khalim said. “But it doesn’t matter. You lifted my body out of the pit. I didn’t have to die. You didn’t have to send me away.”
“Enough.” The voice of the god shook the towering walls. The sound of stone cracking thundered across the bloody sky. “I chose you, but you are still a mortal soul. You cannot see what I see. In another thousand years, you might begin to understand. Now, will you cease your foolishness and stay in the place I offer you? Or are you going to wander the wilds again, with no one to protect you?”
The gates were still open. Beyond them lay all the realms ever dreamt of by mortal minds, and still others besides, with all their wonders and dangers alike.
“I don’t need anyone to protect me,” Khalim said. “I go where I choose.”
A sneer crossed Torr’s perfect face. “So be it.”
The city rippled like a still lake disturbed by a stone. Khalim let it push him toward the open gate, out of the white city and away from its indifferent master.
But it was not Torr’s wrath that troubled the marble streets. The anger disappeared, and a troubled, ungodlike confusion replaced it. “Something has happened,” he muttered. “Someone has breached the boundaries of this world.”
The city remained the same: here stood the gate, and Jahan and Ihsad watching over it; there lay the temple with its impenetrable doors, all carved of flawless marble. But something had changed. The air sang with a subtle vibration, and deep below Khalim’s feet, far beneath the paving stones, the earth shifted.
Khalim, silent, asked the fabric of this strange world what might have happened, and what could trouble even the visible manifestation of a god in his own realm.
The answer came not from the world around him but from his own troubled memory.
“Eske.”
Back to Chapter LXIV: The Gate of Bone
Forward to Chapter LXV: The Long Walk
This is the last interlude, and there are four more chapters to go! Thanks for coming along for the ride.
One criticism I got from my beta reader was that Torr needs to be more sympathetic. He’s not a villain, he’s not hungry for power, he just doesn’t understand why some human would have an objection to the actions he took for the greater good. So that’s something I’m working on as I’m doing my rewrites.
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