Page 72 of City of Stone and Silence

Zarun smiles. “If you don’t mind a condescending answer.”

“Harak talked about the Divine Being,” I say. “But I always thought the Jyashtani had a whole bunch of gods.”

That was the general impression on the Kahnzoka docks, anyway—idols with the heads of animals. In the Empire, the worship of gods is considered unbearably primitive, a practice of heretics and barbarians who haven’t yet accepted the teachings of the Blessed One. On Soliton, such matters were mostly not discussed. Zarun had never seemed like a particularly religious person, but you never know what someone does in private, and I was hoping not to offend him.

For that matter, it occurs to me, I have no idea what Meroe thinks on the subject of the divine, and whether there are gods of Nimar. Not being a particularly dedicated scholar of the Blessed One, it hadn’t occurred to me to raise the subject. Back in Kahnzoka, I’d always stayed as far away from the supplicators as possible.

“It’s … complicated.” Zarun scratches the back of his head. “Most Jyashtani worship the pantheon as a whole, and a few specific patrons in particular. But some priests talk about how all the gods are different aspects of one overall divinity, which presents different faces at different times. Frankly that’s about when my head starts to hurt, especially since in the stories the gods are always fighting each other, which seems like it would be hard if they were all the same person.”

“I don’t know about the Minders specifically,” Meroe says, “but the one god or many gods question has been debated in Jyashtani theology for centuries. They’ve fought wars over it.”

“Of course you know Jyashtani theology,” I deadpan.

She puts on a faux-haughty look. “A princess should be able to hold her own in any discussion.” After I dissolve in giggles, while Zarun looks a bit lost, she says, “Honestly, it’s mostly from history books. Different sects are always getting themselves declared heretics by the Grand Temple in Horimae for political reasons.”

“If the Minders were a group that sought out mage-bloods, the Grand Temple wouldn’t have liked that at all,” Zarun says. “So maybe they packed them all off to Soliton.”

Before long, we break out of the trees and into the open fields maintained by the Harbor’s angels. They’re a patchwork, some just harvested and plowed, others yellow or green with crops I don’t recognize. The angels move among them, slow and meticulous, multiple limbs carefully sliding along each stalk.

We give them a wide berth, sticking to the fallow fields, and the angels pay us no attention whatsoever. Still, no one speaks until we’ve left them behind and crossed into another belt of jungle.

“I keep wondering what happened to them,” Meroe says.

“Who?” Zarun says.

“The ancients.” She gestures vaguely at the strange, artificial world around us. “The ones who built this place, built Soliton. They had so much power, but…” She spreads her hand. “Where did they go?”

“Maybe they wiped themselves out,” Zarun offers. “Like the people of the Rot did.”

Zarun doesn’t know Meroe is a ghulwitch—at least, I think he doesn’t. I give Meroe an awkward glance, and say, “This place isn’t destroyed, though.”

“If anything, it’s preserved,” Meroe says, nodding. “We ought to be buried under twenty feet of snow.”

“Then maybe they left,” Zarun says, clearly impatient with the topic. “Or maybe they just got bored and decided to walk into the sea. Does it matter?”

It might, I answer him, but silently. Zarun is visibly on edge as we come into sight of the great ziggurat, and not eager to contemplate ancient mysteries. I have the same impulse, but … Understanding what the ancients did, where they’ve gone, may be the only way I get back to Tori. I glance toward the sun, already near its zenith. There’s not much time left.

The Minders’ home looks the same as Prime’s, so much so that my skin pebbles to goose bumps as we approach. Instead of bones, however, the monks have painted the stones of the ziggurat in bright colors, abstract patterns on the stair-stepped blocks that seem to shift and change as we come closer. A man and a woman, both in the same brown robes Harak had worn, stand watch at the base of the ramp. They straighten up at our approach.

“You want to do the honors?” I ask Zarun.

He makes a sour face, but nods. When he speaks in Jyashtani, I do my best to follow, though the pidgin I’ve learned aboard Soliton is inadequate to the task.

“Greetings!” he says. “We are something from the something.”

I glance at Meroe, pleadingly, and she leans close.

“He says we’re the ambassadors of the newcomers,” she says. Then, as Zarun continues, “He says Harak visited us, and now we’d like to speak to their leader.”

The two guards look at one another, then make a deep bow. The woman speaks, rapid-fire, and Meroe translates, “She says we’re welcome here, and Gragant will be happy to see us.”

“That was easy.” I feel tense, full of nervous energy. “So far, so good, right?”

The guards lead us inside, through a series of high-ceilinged halls, similar to the building we call home. The Minders have made it their own, however, laying down reed mats to soften the floors and stringing enormous tapestries over the stone walls. These hangings have no pictures, only long lines of text, written in a highly stylized hand with a calligraphy brush. I can’t make heads or tails of it, but I assume it’s religious.

There are more of them than I had guessed, at least a hundred spread throughout the rooms we pass through. In the first chamber, large groups are engaged in some kind of quiet, contemplative activity, either prayer or meditation or both, sitting in ranks with their heads bowed. The second room is given over to more energetic pursuits. The monks, stripped to loincloths—men and women both, I can’t help but note—move in unison through complicated forms that seem half dance, half combat training. Beyond them, a pair are actually fighting, a young man and woman exchanging blows under the careful eye of an older trainer. The boy gets in a few punches solid enough to make me wince, but the girl gets her leg around his and sends him spinning to the floor, then immediately follows him down, her body laid across his and her elbow pressed against his throat. The referee barks something that sounds encouraging.

Our guide speaks, and Meroe raises her eyebrows.