The Burning City (Spirit Binders) (2 page)
Read The Burning City (Spirit Binders) Online
Authors: Alaya Dawn Johnson
Kawadiri Archipelago
– Home to tribes conquered by the Maaram but still fighting for their independence.
– Home to tribes conquered by the Maaram but still fighting for their independence.
Kukicha
– Large island known for its rice farming; the Kukichans are the conquerors of the Akane tribes.
– Large island known for its rice farming; the Kukichans are the conquerors of the Akane tribes.
Maaram
– The chief rival of the Esselans. Their city is also called Maaram. Centuries later, the island of Maaram becomes known as Okika.
– The chief rival of the Esselans. Their city is also called Maaram. Centuries later, the island of Maaram becomes known as Okika.
Lana’s story
Characters
Ahi (full name Lei’ahi)
– Nahoa and Kohaku’s infant daughter.
– Nahoa and Kohaku’s infant daughter.
Akua
– A witch. Lana’s former teacher.
– A witch. Lana’s former teacher.
Arai
– Okikan general.
– Okikan general.
Edere
– Mo’i soldier.
– Mo’i soldier.
Elemak
e – Death guardian.
e – Death guardian.
Eliki
– Rebel leader.
– Rebel leader.
Ino
– Water sprite of the lake near Akua’s house on Okika Island.
– Water sprite of the lake near Akua’s house on Okika Island.
Kai (full name Kaleakai)
– Water guardian and Lana’s lover.
– Water guardian and Lana’s lover.
Kapa
– Lana’s father.
– Lana’s father.
Kohaku
– Mo’i of Essel.
– Mo’i of Essel.
Lana (full name Iolana)
– The black angel.
– The black angel.
Leilani
– Lana’s mother.
– Lana’s mother.
Leipaluka
– Rebel soldier.
– Rebel soldier.
Lipa
– Apothecary for the rebels.
– Apothecary for the rebels.
Makaho
– Head nun of the fire temple.
– Head nun of the fire temple.
Malie
– Nahoa’s maid.
– Nahoa’s maid.
Nahe (deceased)
– Kohaku’s former superior at the Kulanui. Tortured in Kohaku’s dungeon.
– Kohaku’s former superior at the Kulanui. Tortured in Kohaku’s dungeon.
Nahoa
– Kohaku’s wife.
– Kohaku’s wife.
Pano
– Rebel leader.
– Rebel leader.
Sabolu
– Stablehand for the fire temple.
– Stablehand for the fire temple.
Senona Ahi
– Fire guardian.
– Fire guardian.
Tope
– Rebel soldier.
– Rebel soldier.
Uele’a
– Stablehand for the fire temple.
– Stablehand for the fire temple.
Yechtak
– Member of the wind tribes and ambassador of the wind spirit.
– Member of the wind tribes and ambassador of the wind spirit.
Landmarks in Essel
Essel has eight districts total, which spiral outward from the city’s center.
Sea Street
– The north – south road that bifurcates Essel and connects the two bays.
– The north – south road that bifurcates Essel and connects the two bays.
Greater Bay
– The main harbor to the south. The Kulanui and the fire temple are both nearby.
– The main harbor to the south. The Kulanui and the fire temple are both nearby.
Lesser Bay
– The old, smaller harbor to the north. This has been in general disuse for centuries.
– The old, smaller harbor to the north. This has been in general disuse for centuries.
The Rushes
– An ancient farming community on the far west coast of the seventh district.
– An ancient farming community on the far west coast of the seventh district.
Nui’ahi
– Also known as the “sleeping sentinel,” this is the volcano that has loomed over the great city of Essel for centuries.
– Also known as the “sleeping sentinel,” this is the volcano that has loomed over the great city of Essel for centuries.
Kulanui
– The great center for learning in Essel; it has been in the city for nearly a thousand years. It is located in the third district, near the Greater Bay.
– The great center for learning in Essel; it has been in the city for nearly a thousand years. It is located in the third district, near the Greater Bay.
Mo’i’s House
– Another ancient structure, located more centrally in the third district.
– Another ancient structure, located more centrally in the third district.
Terms
Napulo
– A philosophy of spirit binding. In the past, those who called themselves napulo were evenly split on its morality. In the present, only those who dispute the spirit bindings actively retain an association with the philosophy.
– A philosophy of spirit binding. In the past, those who called themselves napulo were evenly split on its morality. In the present, only those who dispute the spirit bindings actively retain an association with the philosophy.
Mo’i
– The ruler of all Essel, chosen once every fifteen years by the fire spirit itself. In the ceremony at the heart of the fire shrine, many will offer themselves, but only one will be selected—and all the others will die in the great flame.
– The ruler of all Essel, chosen once every fifteen years by the fire spirit itself. In the ceremony at the heart of the fire shrine, many will offer themselves, but only one will be selected—and all the others will die in the great flame.
Kai
– An old word for water, used to invoke the water spirit.
– An old word for water, used to invoke the water spirit.
Make’ lai
– An old word for death, used to invoke the death spirit.
– An old word for death, used to invoke the death spirit.
Mandagah Fish (and Mandagah Jewels)
– A type of fish native to the outer islands, where generations of divers harvest the brightly colored jewels that grow in their mouths. Recently, disasters have greatly reduced their numbers.
– A type of fish native to the outer islands, where generations of divers harvest the brightly colored jewels that grow in their mouths. Recently, disasters have greatly reduced their numbers.
Outer Islands
– The term for the warm, spirit-heavy islands that scatter the rim of the island world. The guardians of the three major spirits all have shrines in the outer islands.
– The term for the warm, spirit-heavy islands that scatter the rim of the island world. The guardians of the three major spirits all have shrines in the outer islands.
Inner Islands
– The term for the frozen heart of the island world, where the three major spirits remain imprisoned.
– The term for the frozen heart of the island world, where the three major spirits remain imprisoned.
Spirit Bindings
– The central tenet of island life. The spirits ruling fire, death, and water have been bound by humans for a thousand years, thus protecting humans from environmental extremes. Wind used to be bound, but it broke free five hundred years before Lana’s time.
– The central tenet of island life. The spirits ruling fire, death, and water have been bound by humans for a thousand years, thus protecting humans from environmental extremes. Wind used to be bound, but it broke free five hundred years before Lana’s time.
Prologue
T
HIS HOUSE HELD ANCIENT TREASURES—mats woven with long-extinct dune grass, walls of acacia wood turned burgundy with age, and notes slipped into its nooks and crannies like messages across time to the woman now trapped inside. Leilani could hardly have devised a more fascinating prison. The ocean was a constant presence, beating against a shore a few dozen yards away. Leilani could almost imagine throwing off her clothes and diving beneath the water—if it weren’t for the winter cold and the sprites that ever so gently prevented her from exiting the door. She tried twice, and stopped. Leilani knew enough about power to recognize a superior force.
HIS HOUSE HELD ANCIENT TREASURES—mats woven with long-extinct dune grass, walls of acacia wood turned burgundy with age, and notes slipped into its nooks and crannies like messages across time to the woman now trapped inside. Leilani could hardly have devised a more fascinating prison. The ocean was a constant presence, beating against a shore a few dozen yards away. Leilani could almost imagine throwing off her clothes and diving beneath the water—if it weren’t for the winter cold and the sprites that ever so gently prevented her from exiting the door. She tried twice, and stopped. Leilani knew enough about power to recognize a superior force.
Her daughter was safe. Her husband. . .she would not think of her husband. Instead, she spent her days hunting for the notes. They were written in an ancient form of Essela and one could sometimes take her hours to struggle through. The words and grammar were largely the same, but the characters slightly, maddeningly different. The content of the notes would have been stiflingly banal in other circumstances, but fascinated her now.
“I would go to the Nui’ahi,” read one in large, childish script. And another: “I would feed the big eel fish.” She imagined a child a thousand years dead, exuberantly placing his or her wishes in the wall and hoping an indulgent parent would grant them. It reminded her of Lana at that age, though most of Lana’s wishes had centered on diving. Some of the notes were in an older hand. “I wish to see Ile ride a wave,” and “I would watch Ile dance.” She showed these notes to Akua, but the witch would hardly look at them before going away again. Leilani learned to keep them out of sight if she hoped for conversation. Occasionally, the witch made Leilani sit in the middle of the room while she attempted a geas. It always failed, and given the witch in question, Leilani knew this was astonishing. Other than these eerie, aborted moments, Akua left Leilani largely alone. And Leilani, whose options were either brooding over her fractured family or exploring the ancient house, chose the latter.
But one month after the great eruption, she found a note very different from the others. The handwriting was recognizably that of the parent, but the characters seemed to form nonsense words. A different language? She stared at the brittle parchment. Almost everyone in the islands spoke the same language. They had for centuries. Somehow, she knew that this note would not convey the familiar wishes of a parent to a child. The characters were cramped and hurried. It felt like a confession. Like a secret. Like a hint of what had truly happened in this house centuries before.
Deliberately, she left it in the open and waited for Akua to return. The witch read it as though she could not look away. She bent down and picked it up. Her hand trembled. Leilani realized what should have been obvious from the first: Akua had loves and disappointments just like everyone else. It was her combination of extreme power and emotional detachment that made her seem inhuman.
“Where did you find this?” Akua asked.
“Beneath the mat closest to the door. What does it say?”
Akua was silent for a long time, long enough for Leilani to give up on an answer. Her words, when she spoke, rang with the natural intonation of poetry.
“
Haven’t I always loved you?
Haven’t I always loved you?
And yet you only see her,
Dancing by the fire
.”
.”
The death had grown to know the girl, to feel comfortable in her shadow. It would trail her for hours, then days—a week, once—before recalling its geas. It attempted to kill her the way a master attempts to beat a skilled partner in a shell game, with more interest than conviction. It had been cast off like a splinter from a carving, a death not of death, and it had grown and changed. It recalled the sublime consciousness of the whole, but did not long to return there. The girl was complete and bright with the life it longed to quench. That time in the guardian’s shrine, when she had nearly passed beyond the gate, she had tried to bind the death with words alone. She had noted the substance of its key, and it had stilled at the burning, frantic, hope in her eyes as she struggled for more, as she uncovered truth with desperation. “So long as it wields the key,” she had said, “the death is bound to petty human emotion.”
True. And its emotions were not merely petty. Of late, they had even been transcendent.
Oh, the dying souls it feasted on in the wake of the fires and ash. Oh, the thousand living flames, some as bright as hers, snuffed and snuffed and snuffed until it felt like a glutton at a banquet. The avatar had returned to the center to be subsumed by the ceaseless totality of the death godhead. But it had been forgotten, cast out again fully formed. The self-same splinter, sent to hound the water girl, the angel girl, once more. That had never happened before. The avatars are not of themselves. They are projections of the whole. Yet it seemed to be itself, to be a thing like she was a person, and the sensation stayed its hand, even when the old lady’s geas seemed to burn with urgency.
The avatar is the death, but death is not its avatar.
Sixty days left
, the geas said.
Fifty-nine days.
And still it trailed her and warmed its burgeoning selfhood with her own. They were much alike in that. New-molded clay being fired in the ashes of Essel’s volcano. In the smoke from twenty thousand extinguished flames.
, the geas said.
Fifty-nine days.
And still it trailed her and warmed its burgeoning selfhood with her own. They were much alike in that. New-molded clay being fired in the ashes of Essel’s volcano. In the smoke from twenty thousand extinguished flames.
“Do you really think you’ll find your mother?” it said to her, on day fifty-two.
Shadows looked like paint beneath her eyes, but she smiled. “Honestly? Probably only if Akua lets me.”
She would not have known that a year or even a few months before. She was finally asking the right questions, at last getting closer to their answers. It wondered how long the old lady could continue her game.
And the lonely avatar, caught between selfhood and godhead? It bided. Day fifty-one, she realized she should visit the fire temple. The old lady’s chosen player was quickly learning the stakes. Forming her own conclusions.
Which is the trouble with avatars, isn’t it?
PART I
Fate
1
T
HE WOMAN’S HAIR WAS THE FIRST part of her to catch fire—it was long, and streaked with gray, and for a horrified moment, Lana wondered if she’d finally found her mother. Her thin lips mouthed prayers that Lana couldn’t hear over the thrumming whispers of the gathered crowd. The woman had wrapped her wrists in yards of sennit braid, the brown of the rough cordage blending with her skin so that from a distance it almost looked like lumping scar tissue. A breeze blew in off the great bay, bringing with it the familiar scent of ash and—far too redolently—burning flesh.
HE WOMAN’S HAIR WAS THE FIRST part of her to catch fire—it was long, and streaked with gray, and for a horrified moment, Lana wondered if she’d finally found her mother. Her thin lips mouthed prayers that Lana couldn’t hear over the thrumming whispers of the gathered crowd. The woman had wrapped her wrists in yards of sennit braid, the brown of the rough cordage blending with her skin so that from a distance it almost looked like lumping scar tissue. A breeze blew in off the great bay, bringing with it the familiar scent of ash and—far too redolently—burning flesh.
Beside her, an older man averted his head. “Napulo freaks,” he said, almost spitting the words into the pounded ash at their feet.
Lana walked forward. The crowd might have been dense, but it receded like a tide at her approach, as if the splayed edges of her black wings might burn them.
The breeze picked up—the flames traveled down the woman’s arms and caught on the sennit braid. Lana winced at the sudden flare. The woman threw her head back and collapsed to her knees. She let out a wordless wail, a high keening that made the skin on Lana’s arms prickle and tears sting in her eyes. What possible reason could anyone have to burn herself alive?
“Someone stop her!” Lana shouted.
But two others—also napulo disciples, she guessed, judging by the rough cordage around their arms—stood in her way.
“We cannot let you pass, black angel,” the oldest one said, almost gently.
The other frowned. “The great fire will be free. We know the black angel understands sacrifice.”
Lana could have cursed, but she felt paralyzed with horror. This close, she could see the napulo woman’s blackening skin, her agonized face as she waited for the fire to consume her. How could Lana have failed to recognize this as an exercise in power, however unusual? This fanatic was giving herself up in the ultimate self-sacrifice to her ideals.
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