Amanda Downum - The Drowning City

But it hears those drowning prayers too.

Throughout the city fires are doused, but rocks and cinder still rain, and wave after wave of ash blots out the sky. Buildings crumble beneath the weight of ejecta, piling stone upon stone over their unlucky occupants. If it cannot burn the city, the mountain means to bury it, to wipe out all trace of those who in their hubris bound it.

And that, the river decides, will not happen. Not to her namesake, this curiosity of men nestled in her delta, the home of the daughter who set her free. The daughter prays; the mother listens.

And as the mountain renews its offense, the river rises and enfolds the city in her arms.

Dawn never came.

From the tower beside the ruined dam, Isyllt and Asheris watched the mountain burn. Ash drifted past the window like gray snow. Eventually she slept, lulled by the roar of the river and the warmth of Asheris’s shoulder. When she woke her head was on his thigh and the darkness hadn’t brightened. The murk hid the mountain, giving only the occasional sullen flash of orange. The sky to the south was the yellowish gray of necrotic flesh.

“What time is it?” Her voice was a croak, throat raw and lips cracking. Her eyelids scraped as she blinked.

“Afternoon,” he said, his own voice rough. “Or it ought to be.”

Golden witchlights blossomed over their heads, driving away the gloom. Dirt smeared Asheris’s face and clothes and itched on Isyllt’s skin. When she scratched her cheek her nails came back black with grime; it dulled her ring, hid the diamond’s fire and clogged the setting.

Her left arm was numb, wedged between her and the floor. Her elbow creaked when she straightened it, and the rush of blood to her ruined hand made her eyes water. But it didn’t hurt as much as it should. Wincing, she eased her tattered sleeve back. The print of Asheris’s hand circled her wrist like a shackle gall, char-black and flaking in the middle, seeping raw flesh beneath. The edges were pink and blistered, hot and painful enough leave a sour taste in her mouth, but she couldn’t feel the worst parts. At least the ashen air had clogged her nose enough that she couldn’t smell the burnt-pork reek of it.

She’d seen burns like this before, knew the infection sure to follow in one as filthy as this. She might have another day before the fever set in. The bandage on her palm was foul with blood and soot, and she didn’t want to imagine the state of that wound.

“Wait here,” Asheris said and left the room, brushing futilely at the dirt on his coat.

Another tremor came while he was gone, rumbling softly through the stones. Isyllt tensed as dust sifted down from the ceiling, but nothing else gave way. He returned a few moments later with a length of linen and a brandy decanter.

“The pipes are broken,” he said as he crouched beside her. “No clean water.”

She picked up the brandy, smearing the glass. “Is this for the burn or for me?”

Asheris frowned, lifting her arm carefully to peer at the burn. “Internal application would be better, I think.”

He took the bottle from her and doused a corner of the cloth, wiped his fingers clean. She sighed as the smell filled the air, caramel-sweet and stinging the back of her nose. The sting was worse when she took a sip, not just in her sinuses but in the tiny cracks and cuts in her lips. The first swallow went down bitter with blood and char; the second numbed her tongue and coated her throat in sweet fire. Reluctantly, she set the bottle down after a third drink. The alcohol and the rush of the waterfall only reminded her how thirsty she was.

Asheris wrapped the burn loosely and rigged a sling. His eyes glittered in the witchlit gloom. Not the copper-red flash of an animal’s, but a crystalline sparkle like a flame behind amber.

“Who are you, really?” she asked as he tied the last knot.

“I’m Asheris, now.” He rocked back on his heels and raised a hand, palm up. “This is more than just a prison, or a skin. I have his memories, his loves, his life.”

“And before?”

“This tongue couldn’t pronounce my old name, and it’s lost to me anyway.” He chuckled. “We were well matched, Asheris-the-man and the jinn I was. I doubt their trap would have worked as well otherwise. Both so very curious, so incautious. The Emperor’s mages plied the man with wine and the jinn with incense, but it was that curiosity, that desire to know the other , that bespelled us long enough for their chains and stones to bind.” He touched his throat, rubbed the unscarred flesh.

Isyllt didn’t look at her ring, but she felt its weight keenly. “What will you do now?”

His smile sharpened for a moment. “Find some old colleagues. Imran wasn’t the only one who cast that spell. And I worry they may have tried it again.”

An army of bound jinn. Isyllt shuddered at the thought and Asheris nodded. “I won’t let them. After that-” He shrugged. “I don’t know. But first, I think we should leave the tower. The earth hasn’t settled yet-you slept through several tremors before that last, and I suspect more will come.”

He rose, taking her elbow to help her up. “Zhirin’s bargain did something. The river has woken. Whether it was any help to Symir, I don’t know.”

Isyllt stared at the darkness in the west, the sifting ash, the flare and flash of cinders. “Shall we find out?”

They wrapped their faces before they stepped outside, but that couldn’t stop the smell of smoke. Looking back at the tower, she saw how lucky they’d been-the stones at the river’s edge had crumbled and the tower leaned toward the cliff. Cracks spread across the queen’s carven face, bits of hair and cheek fallen away. Another good quake and the whole thing might topple over the falls.

They walked at first, either out of prudence or some unspoken respect for the black-burnt sky. But the closer they grew to the Northern Bank, the harder the way became. The earth had shifted-what had been the reedy banks of the Mir were now cliffs taller than a man, scattered with stones and still-warm ash. The corpses of trees littered the ground, half buried in debris. The once-gentle river thundered below. Nothing green remained.

When the ashfall rose to calf-height, they had to stop. Isyllt’s ring had begun to chill, and she could see only a few yards into the murk, even with their witchlights. Sweat ran down her face and she scrubbed it away with her veil.

“I suppose there aren’t many people around to notice,” Asheris said to himself. An instant later his eyes flashed, and his four wings unfurled, shining gold and cinnabar. Isyllt’s breath caught at the sight.

She stepped in close, hooking her good arm around his neck. It might be easier if he carried her, but she balked at the thought of being cradled like a babe in arms. Instead he tightened his arms around her waist and bore them up. She winced at the strain on her shoulder, then forgot the discomfort as the draft of his wings swirled the ash away and let her see the land below.

The Mir had shifted her bed yards to the south, leaving a swath of sooty mud bare. Gray froth tangled on the current, churned over the now-rocky bank. As they moved south she saw the remains of villages, streets buried under dust and cinders, thatched roofs burned away and beams like bones rising from the slag. Her ring chilled till her right hand was as numb as her left. The ferry landing and the hill above it were gone, washed away by mud and ash-nothing remained of the dock but a few charred splinters.

It was harder to breathe here. The ash fell thicker and the air reeked of alchemy-sulfur and salt spirits and salts of ammonia. Tears ran down her cheeks and she couldn’t stop coughing. Her exposed skin prickled painfully. Asheris didn’t falter, but his eyes reddened and watered and she could see the tightness of his jaw even through the veil.