The Broken Kingdoms

That evening, I learned my father was dead.

One month after that, I set out for the city of Sky to start my own new life.

And ten years passed.

“Discarded Treasure” (encaustic on canvas)

PLEASE HELP ME,” said the woman. I recognized her voice immediately. She, her husband, and two children had looked over—but not bought—a wall hanging at my table perhaps an hour before. She had been annoyed then. The hanging was expensive, and her children were pushy. Now she was afraid, her voice calm on the surface but tremolo with fear underneath.

“What is it?” I asked.

“My family. I can’t find them.”

I put on my best “friendly local” smile. “Maybe they wandered off. It’s easy to get lost this close to the trunk. Where did you last see them?”

“There.” I heard her move. Pointing, probably. She seemed to realize her error after a moment, with the usual sudden awkwardness. “Ah… sorry, I’ll ask someone else—”

“Up to you,” I said lightly, “but if you’re talking about a nice clean alley over near the White Hall, then I think I know what happened.”

Her gasp told me I’d guessed right. “How did you…”

I heard a soft snort from Ohn, the nearest of the other art sellers along this side of the park. This made me smile, which I hoped the woman would interpret as friendliness and not amusement at her expense.

“Did they go in the alley?” I asked.

“Oh… well…” The woman fidgeted; I heard her hands rub together. I knew the problem already, but I let her muddle through. No one likes to have their errors pointed out. “It’s just that… my son needed a toilet. None of the businesses around here would let him use theirs unless we bought something. We don’t have a lot of money….”

She’d given that same excuse to avoid buying my wall hanging. That didn’t bother me—I’d have been the first to say no one needed anything I sold—but I was annoyed to hear that she’d taken it so far. Too cheap to buy a wall hanging was one thing, but too cheap to buy a snack or a trinket? That was all we businesspeople asked in exchange for letting out-of-towners gawk at us, crowd out regular customers, and then complain about how unfriendly city dwellers were.

I decided not to point out that her family could have used the facilities at the White Hall for free.

“That particular alley has a unique property,” I explained instead. “Anyone who enters the alley and disrobes, even partially, gets transported to the middle of the Sun Market.” The market dwellers had built a stage on the arrival spot, actually—the better to point and laugh at hapless people who appeared there bare-assed. “If you go to the Market, you should find your family.”

“Oh, thank the Lady,” the woman said. (That phrase has always sounded strange to my ears.) “Thank you. I’d heard things about this city. I didn’t want to come, but my husband—he’s a High Norther, wanted to see the Lady’s Tree…” She let out a deep breath. “How do I get to this market?”

Finally. “Well, it’s in West Shadow; this is East Shadow. Wesha, Easha.”

“What?”

“Those are the names people use, if you stop to ask directions.”

“Oh. But… Shadow? I’ve heard people use that word, but the city’s name is—”

I shook my head. “Like I said, that’s not what it’s called by the people who live here.” I gestured overhead, where I could dimly perceive the ghostly green ripples of the World Tree’s ever-rustling leaf canopy. The roots and trunk were dark to me, the Tree’s living magic hidden behind foot-thick outer bark, but its tender leaves danced and glimmered at the very limit of my sight. Sometimes I watched them for hours.

“We don’t get a lot of sky here,” I said. “You see?”

“Oh. I… I see.”

I nodded. “You’ll need to take a coach to the rootwall at Sixth Street, then either ride the ferry or walk the elevated path through the tunnel. This time of day, they’ll have the lanterns at full wick for out-of-towners, so that’s good. Nothing worse than walking the root in the dark—not that it makes much difference to me.” I grinned to put her at ease. “But you wouldn’t believe how many people go crazy over a little darkness. Anyway, once you get to the other side, you’ll be in Wesha. There are always palanquins around, so you can either catch one or walk to the Sun Market. It’s not far, just keep the Tree on your right, and—”