The Awakened City

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Chapter One

The Messenger

He wore light -- shimmering veils and coils of it, moving around him as he walked. It was not the natural radiance of his flesh, which only he could see, but illusion, shaped from the substance of the air. Beneath it he was as he had first come to them, naked but for a breechclout and the cloak of his long black hair. It was cold in the passage -- the cold of rock, of deep subterranean places -- and his body was tense with chill. A heavy golden chain lay around his neck. From it, cased in gold, hung an amber -- colored crystal larger than a man's clenched fist, with a heart of flame.

The passage kinked. He could hear the crowd -- a rushing sound that reminded him, briefly, of the hiss of wind across the meadows of his lost home. Ahead, a slash of brightness split the passage's black. He increased his pace, launching himself into the illumination as if into water.

Below, on the tumbled and stalagmited floor of a deep cavern, his faithful massed more than a thousand strong. To his Shaper senses they were not just a throng of men and women, but a roiling play of color and light, stippled here and there with the ordinary flame of torches. At the sight of him, they roared. He stood above them on the ledge he had made, his radiant arms spread wide, their adulation pouring like sunlight into the dark void at his center. He was warm now, warm as the heat patterns the torches printed on the substance of the air. He threw back his head and laughed.

"People!" he shouted. The natural acoustics of the cavern sent his voice pealing out above the clamor. "People of the Promise!"

"Fulfiller of the Promise!" they shouted back. "He who opens the way!"

"People of the new age!"

"Guardian of Interim, who speaks the word of the risen god!""People of Ârata!"

"Beloved of Ârata, who sets our feet upon the Waking Road!"

He was not certain when these phrases had become invariable. In the beginning, his calls and their responses had altered with each ceremony. But now the cadences were constant, as if they were part of a true religious rite, and not the basest and most final blasphemy.

He gathered himself and leaped outward into nothingness, focusing his will upon the air below his feet so that it grew slow and thick, allowing him to drift leaflike to the cavern's floor. Unlike the illusory brilliance in which he was clad, this was real shaping, accompanied by the flash and thunder all transformation made; but to his followers, who because of the strange proscriptions of this world had never witnessed unfettered shaping, his descent was not the exercise of a human power, but a miracle. He allowed his shimmering attire to billow as he fell, so they might glimpse his body; he knew thathe was beautiful to both men and women, and that for many, faith was most urgent when it was bound to carnal longing.

He alighted gently on the broken rock. Before him, his followers were a scintillating wall -- men and women and children, young and middle -- aged and elderly, individuals and couples and even families. There were soldiers here, and blacksmiths, and seamstresses, and prostitutes; there were people who had given up their wealth to join him and people who had owned nothing to sacrifice. There were those who had passed all their lives in virtue and those who had followed the most violent of criminal pursuits. Yet in that place, in that moment, they were all alike, for they were all his creatures -- stolen souls, every one of them, blackened past any point of cleansing with the blasphemy into which he had enticed them. The wonder and dread and desire in their faces seemed to flow from a single heart.

He stepped toward them. They parted like grass, those closest to him sinking to their knees. Slowly he walked among them, his hands held before him, palms out, so they could see the terrible scars the Blood of Ârata had inflicted when he brought it out of the Burning Land. They were allowed to touch his wounds if they dared, and many did, quick feather- brushes of finger on finger, palm on palm -- and occasionally a brief warm shock on ankle or hip or shoulder, as those driven by greater courage or greater need sought a more intimate contact. It had taken an act of will in the beginning to endure it, but over time it had become part of the larger thing he had learned to crave: their awe, their adoration, which for a little while filled up the emptiness in him where those same passions once had lived.

"Messenger," they sighed. "Beloved One. Most beautiful."

He made a single circuit of the cavern. Then he left them for the heights above, thickening the air before him to make a kind of invisible stairway he could climb. That was far more difficult than the trick he had performed to descend -- beyond the capacity of most Shapers, in fact -- but to his huge gift it was nothing. On the overhang again, he turned toward the faithful. They responded -- not a roar this time, but a rumble, a mutter, which was somehow more powerful than the greater noise. He imagined he could feel it under his bare feet.

"People of the Promise."

"Beloved One." Many held up their palms, showing him the proof of their faith. "Child of Ârata."

"You who have gathered here in Ârata's name. You who have woken to the truth. You who in understanding have chosen me, and thus become my father's chosen. Look upon the sign my father has given, the sign of his rising, the sign of his will, the sign that his age -- old promise soon will be fulfilled."

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Excerpted from The Awakened City by Victoria Strauss
All rights reserved by the original copyright owners. Excerpts are provided for display purposes only and may not be reproduced, reprinted or distributed without the written permission of the publisher.