The Walking City's War by J Boothby

Author:J Boothby [Boothby, J]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Edge of the Knife: Episode 3
Published: 2020-01-09T22:00:00+00:00

8

I sprint toward the Residence walls and run roughly parallel to a wide path that meanders through the garden here. The path enters the Residence through a large arch, carved like a Sister’s wide-open mouth. I duck through it.

The power is still on here, and the glowing orbs that hang from the arch illuminate a grand passageway that stretches deep into the Residence—a main artery of traffic that’s now deserted. The floors here are cut from an opalescent stone; rows of majestic columns stretch into the distance. The walls are hung with tapestries and lined with visual projections depicting great events in the city’s past.

I don’t stop to look. I keep running until I come to the transport system.

I was told once that the Chancellor who ruled after Hadran had installed it, just to help her find her way around the Residence. She had been a Solingi, and wasn’t used to living in something so large. It’s old Flowermech tech, a thick, heavy structure of flowering vines that wrap around the standing columns in a lattice, and from the lattice drop giant, fragrant blooms on thick tendrils. The blooms are inverted, facing upward, and you can ride in them. The petals are as hard as any wood or metal, and they’re so colorful you know a Kruk had to have been involved in the design somehow: bright reds, greens, blues, and some vivid shades of lavender circle a tall central pistil that’s a glossy black, flickering with glyphs showing the different locations you can get to.

It’s still running—power reserves, I guess. I climb into a bloom, grab one of the four stamens, and select the glyph for the Chancellor’s primary meeting hall for the Akarii family.

The bloom shifts, and above my head I see the tendrils supporting the blossom sprout shoots that wrap around the overhead lattice farther down the line. The other tendrils unwind from where they’d been attached, and the blossom swings forward. The tendrils rewrap themselves farther down the lattice and the blossom heads down the hall faster than you’d think, kind of like a kid swinging hand over hand on overhead bars.

I jump off and send three more flowers on their ways to different ends of the Residence: to the Chancellor’s Suite, to the Great Rooms of the Wind where the Chancellor traditionally meets with his captains, and to the Rotunda where the Tel Kharan have probably ousted the City Garrison and settled in.

The noise from the battle in the garden is growing louder as I climb onto a last flower, this one for an observation platform near Rilhey’s Bridge, which runs close to where the Chancellor’s Suite is. I’m guessing Nadrune can’t resist setting up shop in the Suite, and I know from guard duty that Rilhey’s Bridge has been a favorite spot for assassins. Not that I’m out to kill her. Or am I?

The blossom sways gently through the long halls, moving higher and higher within the Residence at each turn. I pass vaulted rooms that are entirely empty and small rooms that have been hastily abandoned.

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