Revolving Door: Volume 3
The Great Unmaking - I
Content warnings (may contain spoilers)
This chapter depicts graphic animal death.
Kori changed everything.
With the woman on their side, time became an ally. And with such an ally, the balance swung heavily in their favour.
That much, Liss knew from the minute the priest explained what she could do. All at once, new ideas began to accrete from the loose matter of her half-formed plans.
“How far does your power extend?” she murmured.
“I exert my power in a sphere around myself,” said Kori, when asked. Her grasp of Orsandin was much firmer than Liss’. “The size changes according to my strength on that day. Some days, it is only whatever is within arm’s reach. On others, I can influence ten arms’ lengths around me.”
“Can you make a rowboat move faster?” asked Liss.
“I have never put it to that use. So I cannot say for sure.”
“In theory?”
“In theory, yes.”
“And how often can you do it?”
“As many times as I wish, until I lack the strength to continue. An hour a day, perhaps.”
“Any other limits?”
Kori yawned. “Counterspell,” she mumbled. “I channel the same energies as spellfolding…cannot be done inside a counterspell…”
The effect of the fireplace’s warmth was too powerful, it seemed, for Kori to harbour any more distrust. She joined the trio in their camp, curling up in front of the heat.
While the rest sank back into their slumber, Liss dwelled in the dark hall with a burning twig, beginning to explore the shelves.
There were drugs of many sorts she could not identify, firesticks which needed a sash to ignite, and an assortment of heavy tools piled in the last, unused corner. By now, her mind had been overcome with a fervour that kept her plotting well into the night. Even while the fire guttered, she lay awake thinking, a firestick clasped between her palms.
When the morning stretched its pale limbs through the gaps in the roof, she held in her mind a nascent plan. There was only one part she was uncertain about.
“Lacar,” she called as he rose and stretched. “Back in Madan…were there ways to communicate at a distance?”
Lowering his arms, he turned to the girl. “Huh? Better question: who's catching breakfast?”
Liss sighed. “I'll do it. If you tell me what you know.”
“Fine, fine. Get us some good, succulent fish, and then we'll talk.”
Liss emptied her pockets of coins and nails, replacing them with pebbles littered about the door. In the doorway, she paused, and waved for Noma to follow.
“We're catching breakfast,” she said.
Noma trailed Liss out the door, beginning to search for fallen rose apples—but rather than pay the pink apples any heed, her friend marched off in the other direction, towards the lagoon. Only now did she see that Liss held a fishing spear in her hand.
“You're in charge of spotting,” she said.
“Why do I have to spot?” Noma whined as she caught up. “I'll tell you whatever you need to know. Then I'll go back and pick some rose apples.”
“Come on,” Liss cajoled, tugging on her arm. “There’s deep water here. Let's spear us some tuna. It'll be incredible.”
Noma’s face fell farther. “Do you have any idea how big tuna are?”
“I've seen the tuna the fishers hauled home. We can take one. Let's get the rowboat.”
“I don't want to spear tuna!” Noma cried, even as she let herself be dragged towards the beach.
“You don't have to do any spearing. I'll take care of it. Tuna are no match for me.”
“They might be!”
Noma put on a show of refusing, though her feet no longer resisted. She followed Liss to the rowboat, and watched as she dragged it into the water, then climbed aboard after her. Together they rowed out of the lagoon, keeping themselves on the far side of the island from Madan.
Today, the sea was a translucent floor beneath them, ten stories deep. In the green and blue, they followed grand curtains of prey fish as they swirled around the jutting remains of some sunken old ruin. “Why can't we just catch some sardine?” asked Noma. “Look, there's so many.”
“Sardine are the consolation prize. We'll take some if there's no tuna—look!”
From the endless wells of blue beneath them, a flock of swordfish darted through the ball of sardines, splitting the current of flashing flanks like a poker through coals. They watched the hunters pierce through the veins of fish, snatching them in their mouths.
Then, a new, sleek beast charged through the fluttering veils of sardines like a knife, and launched through the surface with a smaller fish wriggling in its jaws.
“Oh! It’s a mammal!” Noma cried out as it burst through the waterline with a misty spout—but no sooner than her words came did Liss’ spear flicker past and thud into the creature’s hide.
The creature bucked and chittered, yanking on the rope.
Liss’s victorious shout was overtaken by a yelp as the rowboat tipped with the force of the creature caught on the barb. Without even a moment's thought, she sprang from the thwart and dove into the water, swimming after its flashing tail.
Noma gasped as the rowboat rocked, but she could not stop watching over the hull’s edge as the flash of pink and white that was her friend flew through the blue, latched onto the predator larger than herself. They skimmed through the surface once, twice, each time in a different posture. When the beast came up for air in a chimney blast of spray, Noma saw that all Liss was doing was clinging, white water trailing them with every toss of the beast's tail.
Then on the third ascent, there was a hiss, and a boom that made the water bubble. Blood swirled up through the foam. Noma screamed Liss’ name. Froth parted, and out of the current bobbed the girl’s head, spitting saltwater.
She kicked towards the rowboat, trailing red. Noma rowed madly to meet her. Treading water with her hair floating untied around her shoulders, Liss thrust the gleaming carcass over the hull—spear, barb and all—so heavy the rowboat began to list to a side. There was a gaping wound where its mouth had been, spilling blood onto the deck.
Its hunter sprang aboard after, and grinned, touching Noma’s arm with one bloodied hand. It was all the mammal’s blood, mixed with water. Liss was bathed in blood, from waist to arm.
“And there is breakfast, and lunch, and maybe dinner too,” she said with a grin.
Noma, caught between wonder and terror, unwrapped her wrist straps and began to wipe the blood off her arm. “You are like no one else I’ve ever met,” she muttered.
“I know,” Liss replied.
“In Madan, and across the Greater Isles, we all learned to drum and dance.” So began Lacar as he skinned the creature, which he had called a porpoise and appeared impressed they had hauled home. “From childhood, we learned to dance in our cots. We stamped on floor planks, banged our fists on walls. We all spoke the language of rhythm.”
The part of the hall Liss had esteemed to be a tavern bar revealed itself now as an old kitchen, with knives hidden in boxes and bins. They had passed Kori near the exit, gathering kindling from the ground, and now they heard the crunch of her feet on twigs outside.
“There were the harvest dances—we would drum and dance the night of the equinox away. War dances—our kings and queens would play the tower on the square, and we would know our ships were to sail. Tap the beat of the spring dance and every citizen of Madan would come out dancing in the snow. We rowed to a beat, and marched to a beat. It was who we were: people of dance and song. But now, our drums are gone, and the drum tower has been made a storehouse for rotting food. All coated in purple and black.”
“Why do you speak of the dancing as if it’s in the past? Madan still lives.”
The porpoise’s hide was as thick as a finger. Rolling it aside, Lacar laid out the butchered meat and began to fillet it. “Madan…is not quite what it was,” he answered. “Our old king was slain in our final stand. The new king is in Orsand’s pocket. The day they took the city, Orsand had all our drums taken and burned. First the ceremonial drums. Then the ones in our homes. Now there’s nothing left to call us together.” He slid a strip of meat to the side.
Liss wrapped her arms around her knees and frowned. “They keep taking what matters most to us.”
Lacar began to slice the meat into thick, fatty slabs. “I’ll tell you what. Orsand has made an art out of conquest. We of the Greater Isles were the first artisans of war. Then we were beaten at our own game, and we could not but grudgingly respect it, when we were kicked to our feet. You see, they took not what mattered most, but what united us. Our dances were not just important: they gathered us—the Being spoke through the beat. And our king, too. Orsand bought him, because they knew what he meant to us. Without those things, none could rally us.”
Liss frowned. In her mind’s eye, the memory of the occupation of Henkor played again, like a document of history opening before her eye. “They broke our trust in our neighbours,” she muttered. “When one erred, we were all punished.”
“Exactly.” He pointed the knife over his shoulder. “Break the bonds and break the people.”
“Then to mount an insurgence…more than warships and weapons…we must unite Madan again.”
“Perhaps. But that cannot be done now.” Lacar paused, picking up the next strip of meat.
“Why not?” Liss propped up her chin on her knees. “The king. He still leads?”
“In a way. King Vicola, son of King Lecsan… You see, unlike on Henkor, our people and our port were the prize for Orsand. They needed our loyalty. They had to keep us a king. So they executed the dissident father, and made the son their puppet. Thirteen when he was crowned. Too young to assert his will.”
“Would he rebel, given the means?”
“Can’t say. If there’s any rebellion in him, he hasn’t shown it.”
“I think he will. There is an Orsandin yoke on his back—but once it is lifted…”
“I wouldn't have quite so much faith in him. He’s done nothing but parrot the governor’s policy to us.”
Liss gritted her teeth. “No, I think I will. When you're thirteen…and you watch your father get slaughtered for insurgency…what do you do, but fall in line? And when you're eighteen, and a window opens…”
At this, Lacar paused, laying the knife on the counter. “Do you truly…intend to help us take our city back?”
Liss glared. “There is no other way,” she answered. “I fled Henkor in search of a way to free my homeland from the shadow of Orsand. Now I see…we will never be free while this filthy breeding ground keeps churning out new soldiers and ships.” Her eyes narrowed. “Henkor cannot be free until Madan is. We win freedom together.”
He sighed. “You children…you get these wild ideas of what you can do, and then…we end up here, plotting a foolhardy revolt.”
“Do you think a felled city can never stand again?” Liss snapped. “Madan is still here. Still breathes. In all but name. You have told me everything I need to know.” She leaned back in her sack, rolling onto her side to peer up at Noma, who sat fiddling with two bags of herbs. Noticing her friend's attention, she let the bags fall into her lap. Her eyes smiled, though she tried to hide it.
“Well, pray, share your plans, then,” Lacar muttered. “Over this wondrous meal of porpoise, if you must.”
”Soon, soon. It will begin with a boat in the dead of night…”
It took all of lunch for Liss to convince both Lacar and Kori of her plan.
She watched as their sceptical interrogations shifted, by the minute, to a kind of complicity; their questions were like the shore waters that tested the hulls of boats before they were set upon the sea. And their questions became suggestions, and extensions, until they were all plotting together.
“…start at the mill houses…no one will want the conquerors gone less…”
“…no, no, not a day before. Once the first pole falls…everything will follow at once…”
The plot was wild, and strange, but there was something in Lacar and Kori’s eyes—a look of glee like when one is shown a hidden back door for the first time—that told Liss there was more than a sliver of a chance it could succeed.
“Before they leave to cross the Mouth of the World,” said Lacar, “all ships must call at Madan. There is no other city among our isles that can stock a boat for two weeks’ sailing. And that means a chokepoint. We can take them by the necks.”
*
On the matter of boats, it turned out that Lacar was not only a seasoned sailor, but also knowledgeable enough in shipbuilding to erect a mast on the rowboat. Hidden under a rocky overhang near the inlet of the lagoon was a shipwrecked single-handed canoe, its sail still intact though its prow had caved in. He decided, on an inspection, that it would be easier to transplant the sail to their vessel than to repair the prow, and then he spent the rest of the afternoon doing just that—sawing, lashing, sealing holes with fat.
Through this all, Noma had kept her distance from the plan. Over lunch, whenever Liss had turned to watch her friend, she had only seen the girl listening with a furrow in her brow.
While Lacar toiled at his work on the edge of the water, Liss found Noma, sitting on a rock some way up the mound into which the warehouse was recessed. “May I join you?” she called out from below.
“Sure.”
The mound was easily scaled, sloping gently enough that her momentum from running carried her up to Noma. She was in the midst of tying blades of grass together, threading the tip of one through the loop of another.
Liss crouched to sit in the undergrowth. “You've been very quiet about my plan,” she said. “Are you against it? Is it too ambitious?”
Noma turned. The same frown had reappeared. “I’m not against it. You’ve thought harder about this than I could possibly imagine.”
Liss folded her arms to think. “Can I be honest about something?”
“What’s that?”
“If any of this sounds like a bad idea, you need only tell me. If you object, I will rethink it.”
Noma stopped tying a knot in the grass. She hugged her knees close and watched her unwaveringly. “Why?” she murmured. “My opinion isn't special.”
“Because I admire your sense of judgment. You’re discerning and careful. And I’m not. So tell me if anything doesn't feel right.”
Hiding her chin behind her knees, Noma’s eyes darted away. “You know, back when you caught that porpoise, the water was full of blood. For a moment I was worried it was you who was bleeding. But when I found out it wasn’t…the fear didn’t go away. It was just…so much red.” Her throat constricted on the last syllable. “I’m worried. About what will happen, if you succeed. If you really do drive Orsand out of the Greater Isles. What if they bring retribution upon us? What if they send bigger warships, and leave fewer people alive this time? That sort of thing is too big for me to imagine.”
Liss turned the question in her head, for she knew. that it was important that she knew her answer to it. “Lacar said something earlier. Orsand is smaller than the Greater Isles. And nowhere else in its empire does it have the right climate and soil for aroca. If they can use our resources against us…then we can use them against Orsand, too.”
“That may be true…but do you know what you’re really opening the door to here?” Noma murmured. “Do you know what you’re going to start?”
“Retribution,” Liss answered. “Emperor Milaston should have known. He’s the one who doesn’t know what he’s started.” Noticing then that her companion’s dour look had not lightened, she let her voice soften. “You know, you’re the person so far who’s had the most faith that the plan will succeed.”
Noma turned away. “Well, you’re good at what you do…and believe you can do anything you decide to, so…”
Liss smiled. “I can’t say I don’t have limits…you know this.”
A smile cracked through her grimness. “You really thought I wouldn’t notice how sore you were yesterday.”
“Can’t hide anything from you, can I,” she sighed, and let her head drop to her friend’s shoulder.
Both fell silent for several minutes, or perhaps a tenth of a day. Green birds fluttered through the trees, showing their hidden lavender plumage in flight. Against the gentle rumble of waves, Lacar’s saw scraped against wood. Soaking in the warmth, Liss began listening closely to Noma’s breathing, and only then began to notice that it was agitated.
At last Noma began to squirm, before slipping her shoulder from under Liss’ head.
“Noma…don’t go…” Liss propped herself up on an arm.
Noma flopped onto her side and curled up. “Don't lean on me like that.”
“Alright, alright,” Liss sighed, patting her shoulder. “I’ll go salt the meat, silly.”
Unlike with Henkor, Orsand had taken pains to give Madan the illusion of retaining control over its production and commerce. Farmers still carted farm goods to the marketplace to sell. The citizens of the port were largely sailors, captains, and others who were needed to keep a city running—administrators, maintenance, constabulary.
But there were also the ones who lived off the crust fallen from the table, and though Orsand had deterred these strays into hiding, they still thrived, worming into the cracks.
All of this was held together at the seams by Orsandin Peacetime Law, as it was known—a total Orsandin control of policy and foreign relations, delivered by the mouth of King Vicola. There was no aroca here; there was no need for it, with the counterspell affixed to the land by iron poles. An iron rule it was, iron smelted from the Orsandin homeland stock, brought here after the first fleet to prop up the newly subjugated colony. The counterspell may as well have grown full-formed from the land.
It was on the dim night of the new moon, when no great light hung over the sea, that Liss and Lacar rowed through the swamplands not far from where they hadlast departed, wearing a scarf over her head. There would be constables watching the roads at the city limits, and she would not chance it—she had made enough of a ruckus when she had slaughtered six police. Rather, Lacar had shared his own favoured route—down into the heathland and through the old culvert, the water only foot-high at this time of the year.
There was a half-collapsed hut on the edge of the city, where Liss broke to scarf down seaweed and salted porpoise. Then it was onward through the heath, to the yawning hole in the dark. She crawled in among the roots, boots soiled and squelching. Pulling a lamp and a nail from her satchel, she lit it with a spark.
She listened to the sounds above as she crept through the maze of culverts under the city—always take the upward paths, Lacar had said, and she only had to backtrack once. The trickle of water and the splash of her boots was soon joined by the muffled creak of a mill, always slowly spinning. And then, finding handholds carved into the wall and a steeply inclined pipe through which the current dripped, she climbed out of the culvert, showered in water, to find herself beside that decrepit wheel.
She had never seen a mill in the middle of a city, nor one quite so small, cut to its niche. Its wheel spun in the stone channel that emptied into the drain, in whose mud she now stood, sulfurous and cracking without the monsoon floods to feed it. The banks of the channel cut between two buildings, their chimneys like spires into the purple predawn sky.
She climbed, then, towards the first gap between the walls she saw, and then the scent of old grain and new smoke reached her, a ghost of a past that was no more. The mill rose out of the industrial corner of the city; these edifices had dwindled in use since the arrival of Orsand, who had moved manufacturing closer to the mines.
But still, they were not devoid of life. When Madan had been taken, Orsand had reassigned the city houses to citizens by pay grade. First to the navy. Then to the police. The people who ran the industries, the locksmiths and builders and shipwrights. And everyone left without a place, for lack of need, could leave for the hills or stay on the streets and beg. And beg they did, though their brethren called to arms by the conquerors kicked them into the ditches and scattered their homes.
These rough sleepers had needed shelter and a store of food. The old mills had both. The slums had sprouted in and among the storehouses, the old brick alleys now playing host to makeshift canopies teetering on wooden sticks, and begging bowls, the scraps crawling with roaches.
This was where Liss’ work would begin.
*
With a face not much different from most other Makora people and tattoos similar to those sported by other enlistees, Liss could get around unnoticed as long as her dawn-coloured hair was covered. For a week, she lurked in the hovels, spreading the whispered secret of a coming revolt. A week, no more: long enough that it began to disperse upon its own strength, but not so long that the constabulary could start to suspect her.
Some of her listeners laughed, baffled at her bold words in such dangerous times. Others demanded her silence, then asked her to visit their alley pubs later. It was from these small footholds that she planted the news, and a firestick or two—“but you cannot whisper a word of it to the constabulary or the navy.”
They took her to the house of poets, who wrote the underground press, and they fed her and housed her, though she refused their wine. The press had a web of informants; they knew who could be entrusted with these words.
Here it was, among these downtrodden dreamers and makers, that Liss saw the true face of Madan. A second soul, surging deep beneath the surface, there were fathoms of starving anger housed here—a war that wanted to break loose from the caging peacetime law. Many still had their sashes, hidden in the folds of sleeves or in cracks in bricks.
So, for seven long days—she counted them religiously—Liss laid inroads under the houses and through the veins. Then, on the eighth, long before the sun had set, she crept through the sewers—sheltered by a tavern musician’s sheepskin cloak—and emerged in the port, to begin the great unmaking.