The Vastness

by Hausladen, Blake;

  “You will freeze to death and Aden will chisel your unborn child from your body.”

  “No. I will return with a load of wood and you will make me a fire and fresh kettle of stew.”

  I was already sweating beneath the massive sheath of sealskin. Burhn hadn’t notice yet that it was one of his, altered to fit me. I strode out before he got wise and made it all the way to the wide space before the heavy inner door when someone caught up to me and took hold of my arm. It was the butcher.

  “I have nothing of yours,” I said.

  “Madam, do not go. None of them will come to save you. Aden and one Vesteal is enough. Burhn brought two midwives ...” He pointed at the yurt where Burhn’s companions had gone. I’d assumed them acolytes like the rest. I was already too warm, and bit back my anger.

  “So why stop me?” I asked.

  He let go of my arm and brushed my shoulder as though to wipe me clean of his insult.

  “Well?” I asked.

  He held up a fat stick. “For you.”

  I took it, half convinced it would turn into a snake and bite me. It did not, and the butcher motioned for me to put it to my mouth. I had a memory of Burhn and others handling them. It was a rolled length of caribou hide with all the hairs on the inside.

  “Breath in through the tube and out through your nose,” he said.

  “You made this for me?”

  “No. It is mine. I want you to have it,” he said and tears began to well in his eyes. “When Aden recovers I am the first he will make Ashmari. I will never use it again.”

  I glared at him. “This is how you say sorry?”

  “Sorry? For what?”

  “What will Aden use to power that magic that entombs your soul?”

  “Bones from your—” He cast his gaze onto the floor and held his face in his hands.

  Men.

  I turned to leave.

  “Wait,” he said and trotted away without explanation. I was left to suffocate in the monstrous coat, while the audience of acolytes pretended not to watch.

  The butcher returned with a sack and shoved it at me. His cheeks were damp. “Don’t let any of them see. It was for someone else but I will never see them again. Lean back to make it stop.”

  “Thank you,” I said and kissed his cheek—anything to be free of the unbalanced zealot.

  He started back the way he had come, and I reached the entrance hall at last. The air between the two iron doors was colder than the darkest night of Bessradi winter. I checked my clothing and boots and aired them until they were dry. I practiced with the stick for a time, and then looked into the sack.

  “A sled?” I asked and remember the hills where I grew up and the sled I’d made with a few boards and some twine. This one had metal blades and a solid handle. It was small—a child’s.

  My happiness withered. The butcher had a wife and child somewhere. He had made the sled to give as a gift but would never see his child again.

  I turned my back upon the fool, fixed the breathing tube in my mouth, and opened the outer door.

  The blast of light was as brutal as the first lash of blowing snow. I cinched the fur collar of my hood until the vertical oval allowed only the breathing tube and dim view of the slope. It took a murderous amount of time before my eyes could tell the difference between snow, sea, and cloudless sky. The air shimmered with swirls of icy snow that curled off the fortress top above.

  Not so much a fortress, I recognized. What a nightmare it would be to attack this place and managed somehow to capture the battlement high above, only to find out that it was meaningless window dressing. The single unassuming iron door was the only way in.

  I left those thoughts aside and took my first deep breath through the tube. It was like sucking air straight from a caribou’s nose, and the taste made me gag until I tried to get a breath without it. The air froze my lips to my teeth, and my unhappy stomach was slapped quiet. I clasped the tube in my mouth, caught my breath, and considered the slope and the sled.

  The blowing snow hid most of what was below, but I could see that the slope was clear and decided to try the sled.

  I sat down upon it and allowed it to carry me a short way before I pulled up on the handle. It crunched into the snow and came to a halt.

  Well enough then, and far better than walking all the way down.

  I let the sled go and was soon racing down the slope faster than any horse could ride or bird could fly. The blinding swirls of snow tried to pry open my hood and coat and kept me ignorant of what lay before me. I shot on as straight as an arrow and began to expect with every moment that I would slam into a boulder, the long wall, or a drift of snow that would fling me through the air. All I could do was hold on. I closed my eyes tight against the stinging air and considered my chances if I threw myself off and let my body tumble to a halt.

  Fate did not give me long enough to consider this foolish option before the bite of the cold subsided and I emerged from the blowing snow to find that I was halfway down the long slope. I laughed through the hairy tube and leaned right to turn toward the gates at the center of the wall below.

  It was then that I heard the first crack of wood. I leaned back as fast as I could, but the child’s toy came apart all at once and I was flung forward. I skipped twice before the world became a tumbling blur. The rasp of the smooth sealskin against the snow filled my ears as I slid at last to a halt. My head spun and ears rung. It felt like a horse had kicked me in the face. The breathing tube was jammed down into my hood where its wet end had frozen to my cheekbone.

  I waited for the first wrack of pain—a broken bone or trouble with my child. I felt only warmth, and I worried for a long time that this meant that I was bleeding.

  It took longer than it should have to recognize that I was warmer because it was in fact warmer. I’d come down off the mountain, the air was still, and the black sealskin was catching every bit of the bright sun.

  I sat up and saw the two lines drawn by the sled blades. They’d continued on to strike the wall to the right and left of the gate. Of the rest of the sled, there was no sign.

  I managed to stand without any pain, reorient the breathing tube, and put one foot in front of the other. My boots pushed deep, but I kept my pace slow.

  A startled grunt from above was the first sound of alarm. The guards began to yell and rushed out and down.

  “You’ll not escape us,” the first said.

  “Escape? I do not have my baby with me, and there is nowhere for me to go other than the rocky shore and back up again. Didn’t anyone tell you? I’m headed down for more wood to keep the child warm.”

  He was not the brightest of men. “Wood?”

  “From the wreckage. The acolytes have made several trips for me. Would any of you care to help?”

  They debated marching me back up. They wore heavy hides instead of the much better sealskin. A trip up and back would be hard.

  “No need to make the climb,” I said. “Send a man down and back with me. Once I’ve returned here, there is nowhere for me to go but back up to the keep.”

  The cold made their debate short. One man was volunteered to escort me down and the rest retreated back into their tower and the comfort of the hot springs beneath it.

  My escort had his own breathing tube so I did not have to suffer his questions as we climbed. We made it to the gray beach, and I was enveloped in the loneliness of the place. The bay was frozen over and no gulls perched upon the tall spires of stone that framed the beach. I found no shells, no rodent’s trails, or even their droppings. The air lacked the tang of fish, and I could find neither weed nor moss between the salty stones. All there was to see was the wreckage of the ship that brought me. Its remains had been dashed to splinters by the devilish sea.

  I looked out across the ice and willed a ship to appear—tall sails blazing in a beam of sunlight and a prow smashing its way through the ice toward me.

  Soon enough. They would find me, and the remains of the Sh
adow’s cult would decorate that lonely shore.

  “Well?” the man asked. “Did you come for the wood or the view?”

  I filled a pack with the largest pieces and marched up ahead of him, indent upon outpacing him. He hurried to follow but could not keep up.

  I began to sweat and cursed myself. The quick trudge was exhausting me and I was a long way from food and rest. I searched for calm. Clea needed me calm—calm, steady, and smart. My stomach stabbed me too, hungry from the want of two people. I pulled my arm inside the coat and worked to find the piece of fat I’d brought along. I got hold of it and tore a piece free. I disturbed my hood in the process and the frozen air washed across my cheeks and around my head. It sent a chill down my damp back. My neck tightened and a headache began to flash across my temples and behind my eyes.

  My escort paced ahead of me, shaking his head.

  Damn you, Dia. Slow down.

  I fixed my hood, and switched between chewing on the fat and breathing through the tube. I recalled Leger standing rooted to a spot while lesser men ran around in a panic. He had always walked while other men ran.

  I planted my feet, enjoyed the mouthful of fat, and breathed until my heart slowed. Then I took a single step and paused the way our lost captain would between swings of his axe. The pace did not hurry my breathing. I imagined him there beside me, walking along as calm as the frozen stones around me.

  Step by step, his ghost and I climbed the stone stairway. I gained on my escort and marched along beside him through the gates. The men in the watch tower did not show themselves.

  “See you tomorrow,” I said.

  He said nothing, and waited on me to start across the plateau before retreating inside.

  It was warmer still there in the noontime sun—though it was strange to me how low it stayed upon the horizon. I worked to keep track of its progress as I advanced up the slope into the wind and swirling snow. Before long I could not make sense of the time or my true heading. I trusted the slope after that and marched on.

  Ready, breathe, step, relax.

  Ready, breathe, step, relax.

  It got colder. My legs threatened to cramp and my lower back became damp with sweat. I feared the effect the cold would have upon that moisture when it penetrated the heavy skin.

  I searched the ghostly horizon for the fortress and worried. Darkness could not be far off, and no amount of careful breathing and patient movement would see me through the night.

  My right calf began to shake and as I tried to compensate then my left hip began to twinge. The gray of dusk signaled my danger.

  I was close to panic when I stumbled straight into the dark stone of the keep. I could not keep calm after that, and franticly followed the wall to the iron door. I hit it hard with my shoulder and stumbled into the entrance hall as the sky turned black behind me. The struggle to close the heavy door had my heart banging away in the back of my neck. I couldn’t stop trembling. The pack of timber I’d managed to carry clattered to the stone floor, and voices rose beyond.

  Men came with lanterns. Burhn was with them.

  “Pleasant enough walk. Who want to go with me tomorrow?” I said but the crack in my voice betrayed me.

  Burhn couldn’t look me in the eyes, and their stillness stole my feeling of triumph.

  “What has happened?” I asked.

  “Aden wants to speak to you in the morning,” he said and stepped aside for another man. It was the butcher—had been the butcher. His eyes were dead, and the color had gone from his face and hands. He was Ashmari, or was meant to be. He leaned to the side, and his flesh hung poorly as though he would come apart at any moment. He would not make it long, but here was the first of Aden’s new creations.

  I woke to the meaning of this and screamed. I punched Burhn on the chin and he went down. The rest stumbled back and I pushed my way through. “Where is my daughter? What have you done with her?”

  The sagging Ashmari tried to take hold of me but it staggered and fell hard against the wall instead. The men lost track of me as they worked to right him, and I hurried down the terraces and into my yurt. Clea’s bundle of blankets was empty, and I fell to my knees. I’d not been here to protect her.

  Her cry pierced the silence and stabbed through my guts. I flung off my heavy clothes and ran out in search of her. The cry came from the far side of the cavern—from the midwives’ yurt.

  A pair of men moved to block me. I knocked the first man flat on his back and dashed around the second.

  “Dia, stop,” Burhn said from above as they pursued me. “Aden gave her to the midwives. The decision has been made.”

  I kept moving and got to their yurt before any could block me. Inside, I found two bare-breasted women trying to shove one nipple and then another into Clea’s mouth. My girl screamed and reached toward me with a hand that was missing a pinky finger. My veins filled with venom.

  I snatched up the iron skillet from the hot stove as the pair stood, and flung the sizzling contents across the face and breasts of the first. She screamed once before I brought the iron weight down on the top of her head. The other dropped Clea and raised her arms to defend herself. I beat them away, broke her jaw, and bashed in the side of her skull.

  Burhn and others crowded around the entrance, but none dared enter.

  I tossed the bloody skillet onto the stone floor between us, whipped the blood out of my eyes, and scooped up Clea. She quieted the moment I had hold of her.

  The men retreated as I stepped out, and I said to Burhn, “You owe me a fire and a bowl of stew.”

  I found my way inside my yurt and the blood was still wet upon my arms and face when Burhn eased his way in, offered me heaping bowl, and kindled a fire.

  When the air began to warm I told him to get out.

  “I’m to make my way back down the glacier to get more acid,” he said. “I’m leaving at first light. I fear you were right after all, Dia. You will outlive me.”

  “Best keep moving north when you reach Verd. I will kill Aden and everyone else here and then I am coming for you.”

  “You are a cold-hearted devil, Madam Vesteal.”

  “Says the villain who cut off my daughter’s finger and helped a thousand-year old madman turn a friend into a useless corpse. Take your walk down the glacier. Come back if your religion can justify what you do here, but know that I will kill you soon enough either way.”

  He left me to my stew.

  27

  Leger

  I woke and the mists stung me. They swirled close and had teeth and claws. The cobblestones of Moorsmoth moved beneath me and the world flashed yellow and then red as I was dragged across the stone. Somewhere close, a song of magic echoed.

  The grip of the mists became the hooks and tentacles of the Shadow, but I lacked a body for them to pierce. Was this Bayen’s hell reaching out for me at last? The pain pulled like the heartburn of sorrows unknown. An unsolved mystery. These were pains of the flesh. I could make no sense of it.

  I tasted metal and saw a flash of old steel and heard a great clatter of armor. My elbow struck something, and then my cheek.

  “Will he be drunk?” someone asked.

  “Because he was drunk when he died? I don’t hold to that theology. Ghosts don’t linger because they are unhappy.”

  “Your faith is based upon the whispers of a tree and ghosts.”

  “Doesn’t make it wrong. Are you okay? Did the song weaken you?”

  “What hell is this?” I screamed, and I heard my voice.

  The clattering armor ceased. The pain subsided. My vision was obstructed by something, but I could see the butcher’s racks. I was lying upon the floor of the shop. I stood and clattered up as if in armor. It was before the dawn, and the streets beyond the shop were dark and empty. The bright colors of painted porches and wide awning startled my eyes. The fog and haze faded while I searched.

  I clattered when I moved and could not understand my limbs. I felt light—too light. The armor was famili
ar.

  “The ancient Chaukai armor?” I asked.

  None of it was strapped together. I turned over my hand and could see the inside of the armor through a tumbled of black smoke. I turned toward the speakers.

  The first was a Sermod I did not know. She slumped into a chair and another woman was keeping her from sliding onto the floor. Two more Sermod stood behind them and backed away from me.

  “You have bound my soul into this armor,” I shouted, and the armor ratted. “What have you done to me? I will kill you.”

  “You will not,” Lady Jayme said.

  Her words compelled me but could not hold me.

  “You are no Hessier. You have no hold over me.” I started toward her. The second woman looked up at me and held up her hands. It was Fana. I remembered seeing the pair upon the road. I remembered her smiling. She looked much older and her pregnant belly stuck out at me. My anger and confusion dizzied me.

  “Do not hurt Lady Jayme, Leger. She is a servant of the Earth now.”

  “What servant of the White Lady would do such a thing to me? You have defiled my soul.”

  “Leger, we are losing. I would make a thousand like you if there was enough blood in Barok’s veins.”

  I felt the sheen of it upon the armor. It had been painted with it.

  Anger swirled, but so too did my desire for revenge. Haton had murdered me.

  “Where is Haton?”

  “Dead. You killed him and the Chaukai killed all the thralls in Enhedu. Much has happened since you were betrayed.”

  “We must move him,” Lady Jayme said. “His spirit will fade. We must get him back to Barok.”

  “Will you come with us, Leger? I will tell you all that has happened.”

  The sheen of blood was being cooked away and the cold and hungry mists appeared again. I did not want to fade back to nothingness.

  “If you ever treat me like a Hessier, Fana, the love I have left for you will die and I will kill you and all those that conspired to make me.”