Then I crash against the dumpster lid.
Kiddu grabs me, pulls me down, puts a hand over my mouth.
“Shhhh!”
I breathe into her hand, calming down. I can already feel the bruise.
“Owww…”
“Oh, quiet. You’ll be fine.”
She sits down and puts her sandals on. We wait a bit in silence to make sure nobody’s noticed the commotion. But no lights turn on in the Temple’s windows facing our narrow alley.
Then we walk past the dumpster and emerge onto Nabuk Street.
I’ve never seen the street look so peaceful. Usually it’s a sluggish river of people. The only evidence of their passing now are a few paper Magic Meatroll wrappers scattered on the ground.
Footsteps and laughter on distant cobblestone—probably people on their way to or from the beer halls on other blocks. I move to put my hood up, but Kiddu stops me.
“That will make you look more suspicious. Just relax. Walk normally. This isn’t a big deal.”
“It is if we get caught.”
“By who? The only people around now are drunks and homeless people. And the soldiers only care about catching natives. Be a man, Gilly boy!”
She nudges me with her shoulder and grins up at me with her crooked-toothed smile. Something about that smile always makes me less annoyed at her. Even when she uses that obnoxious nickname.
After a few blocks, Nabuk Street narrows into a pedestrian bridge that arches over the Main Canal. Without all the raft congestion during the day, the water flows cool and swift, a breath of fresh air in the windless heat of the night. When we walk up the steep cobblestones, we pass a young couple, swaying and holding hands.
The crest of the bridge gives a straight on view of the Dividing Wall. I try not to stare, but I count at least three glowing-tipped staffs up there—imperial sorcerers, prowling the parapets. I shudder.
“Will you quit being so scared?” Kiddu says after the third time I look at the Wall. “They’re not even watching this side.”
“How do you know?”
“Sorcerers have three little lights on the front of their helmets. Do you see any lights?”
“I don’t think so.”
“That’s because they’re all looking the other way. They only care about what’s inside the Wall.”
I’ve never been inside the Wall—the natives’ city-within-a-city. I try to imagine what it’s like, knowing that those sorcerers are scanning your neighborhood every minute of every day and night, waiting to discharge their lightning staffs at any provocation. No wonder it’s supposed to be a hellhole.
I try to stay calm as the buildings thin out around us, even though the sorcerers on the Wall now have complete line of sight. Now only a few merchant booths dot the sides of the street, some of them boarded up or burnt out.
Finally, I see our destination, the big round structure on top of a hill—the Grand Circus.
The Grand Circus used to be called the Grand Colosseum, before the Akkadians outlawed slavery. I always thought that was fitting. It hasn’t changed much.
We angle around its entryway—double gravitic gates with tawdry symmetrical winged beasts engraved on them, lined with old-fashioned torches still smoldering in the night—and hug the big circle of its outer wall. This is surprisingly short and uneven, crumbling in places.
It takes us a minute to walk around the back.
Finally, we reach an unremarkable back door. It’s a stone slab, no larger than the hinged door that opens to my dorm room. But like most outer doors in Libri, it only opens with gravitic magic.
Kiddu rummages in her outer robe’s pockets and pulls out a thin wand. It’s tipped with tiny specks of black gems arranged in a zigzag pattern.
“Okay,” she says. “Here goes nothing.”
She closes her eyes and waves the wand in front of the door in a vague figure-8 pattern.
Nothing happens.
“By the power of Lord Eyenki, I adjure you: OPEN!”
Now she’s just being silly.
“Hm,” she says. “The boss mentioned this thing might not work.”
“You’re not even doing it right. Let me try.”
I’ve never actually used a keywand, let alone the highly illegal version Kiddu has. But I know how their magic works. The trick is just getting the angle right through trial and error. So I hold out the wand, sweeping it up and down and back and forth, twisting and turning it as I move it.
“Hey!” Kiddu says. “It jittered.”
I still my arm and twist the wand just so.
Surely enough, the stone door jitters again. And it emits a low, barely audible pulsing sound: wohm-wohm. I bring my hand straight up, slowly but surely, like I’m cutting upwards with a knife. In the same motion, the door slides up too, stone rasping against stone.
It catches, seems to hold. But there’s barely enough space for us to duck underneath. That doesn’t stop Kiddu—she gets down on her stomach and rolls under. After some frantic gesturing on her part, I do the same.
Behind us, the door slams shut, raising a cloud of dust. I’m sure the soldiers on the Dividing Wall must have heard.
Kiddu darts down the open-air passage and around the corner. A waft of excrement assaults my nostrils.
“Oooh,” she says. “Found it.”
“Is it … sleeping?”
“Like a giant fluffy baby. Come and see.”
I follow her into an open anteroom. Two big, hinged wooden gates on the opposite side lead into the sandpit arena. A grooved stone track runs along the dusty floor and beneath the gates.
Attached to the track, with a greasy stone bearing, is a large chain of neatly-cut pearlstone. It’s wound partially around a pole sticking out from the wall.
Attached to the pearlstone chain is a thick pearlstone collar.
Attached to the collar—a mass of fur and feathered wings and claws and horns—lies a slumbering lamashu.