The starline had carried the Sisterhood, which was safer and less costly than the way Miriam had traveled from the desert. Still, whatever had taken Anjie remained between the worlds, and it pressed the starline. Miriam felt it as the Sisterhood went south. She arrived in the ruins with one hundred seventy girls.
It was a devastating blow. The witches had used the starlines with impunity for decades. They were the only ones that knew about them. How could they be attacked en route, while walking lines?
Despite the shock, the dismay and the confusion that every girl felt, Miriam forced them to regroup and get organized. And while they muttered that it didn’t make sense, Miriam thought, What did? What did make sense? Certainly not that the Sisterhood had fallen to pieces, that the Country of Mirayhr had been overrun with silver ghouls. That the Willin Droul had taken the entire world by surprise and that, last of all—and most ridiculous—that the Sisterhood’s only hope of survival was to put every resource they had on chasing down one orphan from the islands …
Going after Sena, thematically, didn’t make sense—mechanically it was the only thing Miriam had. The Sisterhood would serve out its purpose. She would see to that.
Miriam’s skin prickled despite the warmth.
Though initially she had seen people near the ruins—huge green-skinned Veydens, looking like businessmen that had been stranded on a tropical island with only fine clothes to wear—they melted into the jungle at the Sisterhood’s arrival.
The ruins consisted of a few scorched and green-carpeted walls that rose from an ancient pile of paint cans. Corrosion had made the cans thin. They resembled hollow cylinders of rust-colored paper, part of the metallic scrap dumped decades ago by the look of it, all shrinking slowly into a vine-solidified mound.
Miriam got the Sisterhood moving right away.
South of the scrubby savannah that spread north and west, tendrils of hungry green supplanted grassland. The city of Bablemum lay just inside the jungle. A seed of commerce and government bounded by ceontes and thousands upon thousands of miles of dense jade-colored rot.
The Sisterhood did not follow the road. Even though their arrival had been noticed, Miriam took them along the jungle’s edge, through waist-deep grass. The sounds of birds, insects and leaves refuted the idea that this was a civilized place. There was no commerce along the road to the north. No people anywhere to be seen.
In addition to scrying on Caliph Howl, the blood-filled dish back in Parliament had shown Miriam other cities. Ekron, Iternum, Nilora and Os. Dadelon, Norwytch, Loonal and Gath. She had glimpsed Horth Gar and Afran. Everywhere it was the same. Disease and madness.
With a mix of compassion and regret, Miriam noticed the contrite and haunted circles around Autumn’s eyes.
It took them the whole day to walk from Umong to the outskirts of the city, following the jungle’s edge. As they neared, pushing through fields of round-bladed grass, Miriam noticed a few Veydens standing on rooftops in the outskirts at a distance of a hundred yards. They must have used their own brand of holomorphy to evade her diaglyphs. Perhaps witch doctors protected them from disease.
Keen as she was to establish contact and gather information, the Veydens withdrew before the Sisterhood could advance. But Miriam didn’t have to follow them. They retreated in the direction of the Iycestokian ship, the place she had pinpointed as Caliph Howl’s location.
Despite her unfamiliarity with the region, Miriam had no need of a map. The bowl of blood had given her the High King’s position and her diaglyphs led the way.
She pushed out of the grassland, into the actual city, and found the metropolis quiet. As evening fell, she could tell her girls were exhausted.
They needed a place to make camp. A building. Power seemed to be cut almost everywhere. Small things worked. Signs burnt with bright colors, sucking their energy from golden wires that coiled into the air and ended miraculously like antennae. But there was one building with noticeably more juice, one that clearly had its own grid, like the localization of chemiostatic power in the north. It glowed, independent of the surrounding darkened streets.
Miriam sent scouts to determine if it was occupied.
Word came back that it was empty, powered on bariothermic coils near the back of the building, and that it seemed tactically sound.
“I don’t like it,” said Autumn.
“I don’t either. But we have more than fifty qloins here.” Miriam looked around. “I don’t want to search for another place with power, do you?”
Autumn waved a hand back and forth.
“No. So we’ll make camp here,” said Miriam. “Then we’ll get some food into the girls. And then we’ll head for the Iycestokian ship.”
It had been two days and one night without sleep. It had been a full day without food. Necessities were necessities.
Miriam led the Sisterhood into the building, which advertised an opulent set of suites. It was an old hotel where dignitaries had stayed, regal and impressive from the outside; posh on the inside. The foyer bore the taint of calamity: a vase of withered flowers, a discarded washrag twisted and hardened with dried blood. A cash register had been overturned and left empty on the carpeted floor. There were a few personal effects abandoned off the waiting area, in the west hall.
Ensuring wealthy guests didn’t have to suffer an outage explained the localized grid. Miriam wondered how long the bariothermic coils would last. Ten, fifteen years without repair?
She assessed the building’s lines of sight. Its position was good. It commanded a clear view of the avenue out front and looked down on all approaching streets. It was also only a few blocks from where the High King’s ship was moored. When she climbed the stairs to the hotel’s roof, she could actually see the airship, levitating amid the trees.
The kitchen had canned goods but no running water.
That made sense if the mayor had discovered where the disease was coming from. He would have depressurized all the mains just prior to Bablemum’s gruesome end.
Bottled juice and alcohol would not go far. Miriam would have to find water soon. What they had carried from Parliament would not last the night.
By the time the Sisterhood had eaten, the sun was gone.
Miriam sent Autumn and two other sisters to the Iycestokian ship well after dark. They came back with word that the ship was only recently empty. Autumn claimed she could smell Taelin’s perfume.
The High King was close by.
Miriam was ready to send qloins into the surrounding streets when message came that sisters posted at the front door had received a visitor.
Miriam went straight down to the foyer and found an enormous Veyden. He waited quietly, surrounded by drawn kyrus.
“He has the mark,” said one of the girls.
So this Veyden was from the Willin Droul? This would explain their ability to evade the Sisterhood’s diaglyphs and why they had shrunk from Miriam’s approach.
Four girls surrounded the huge man, trepidation painted on their faces. Miriam planted herself in front of him.
“Sit down,” she ordered.
He did so.
“What is your name?”
“Kosti.”
“Why are you here, Kosti?”
He spoke reasonable Trade. “I need a token that I delivered my message. Something I can take back—”
Miriam called for a small case. Autumn handed it to her. Inside was a flashing array of gems, padparadshas: the Witchocracy’s untraceable reserve currency of choice.
She took one, large as her thumbnail, glittering with orange and pink-colored light, and put it into the Veyden’s hand.
“Now why are you here?”
Kosti turned the gem in his big green fingers. “I have a message from the Sslia.” Miriam’s heart stilled but she maintained her composure.