The Vastness

by Hausladen, Blake;

  A curve? My eyes latched onto a distant shape—something was there. The failing light denied me the chance to study it, and the soiled baby inside my coat demanded action.

  I aimed the sled toward the spot and let it glide down. It was a fair distance, and I began to doubt my decision at once. I was headed out into the open trough of the valley where the wind and cold would be at its worst.

  We slowed as the slope gave way, until with a thud I was tumbled off the sled. Clea cried out, and I nearly lost my breathing tube.

  I spotted the sled but could not see what we’d struck. Clea hushed when I hugged her, and I bend down to retrieve the sled. Something bumped my shoulder. I flinched back, worried it was a person.

  Had they found me already?

  The world remained deathly quiet, and the thing that struck me stayed invisible.

  I edged forward and was bumped against. I grabbed at it this time instead of flinching back and got hold of something smooth and cured.

  It was the ribcage of a caribou, white bone against a white background.

  The acolyte’s cabin I’d hoped to find must be close, but I was out of time. The breathing tube was feeding me colder and colder air. I considered tearing my pack open to make a wind break across the ribs when I caught the squeak of wood through the rising wind.

  The luck of the sound offered hope, but I knew to fear such wind and focused on the slight sound. I heard it again and turned back the way I’d come. This did not make sense, but I could not wait and started toward it. I stumbled down into a fold of the ridge that faced almost due south and found a dark square amidst a vista of white. They’d built it against the rise I’d come down. The secret place was invisible from above and likely from below as well.

  I would have clapped, but I did not have time.

  The downhill side of the slope was blown clear for a brief span before the structure, and I stumbled upon another pile of bones. The heavy door made me work to get it open, but was not disappointed by the effort. Judging by the supplies stockpiled inside, the acolytes did not fear other men stumbling upon the spot. I lit a fire in the stove, worked the door closed, and cooked a pot of dried fish and radish. I did not worry about the smoke or the smell. Geart would be able to find Clea no matter which way we fled. While it simmered I worked to get us clean and dry. Clea had been messy and a bad rash covered her legs and backside. I massaged a bit of tallow into her dry skin and she fell asleep.

  I worked fast, ate fast, and filled my pack with supplies. I slept for short spans, waking at each ting of stove or shriek of the wind. When the light of the dawn began to show around the doorframe, I got us moving.

  I lingered long enough to build up the fire in the stove and tie metal tools to the inside of the door in hopes the Geart’s Hessier might make a racket loud enough for me when they found the spot.

  It was brighter out when I emerged, though not enough to judge where the sun would rise. I climbed northwest looking for another slope we could use. The wind picked up and sent icy snow clattering upon my coat like broken glass. It tried to push me down the hill, but I reached the top and took extra care to balance the extra weight of the pack before getting back onto the sled. We got moving soon enough and the ride proved long and smooth. The wind and the snow did not challenge me, and the morning storm gave way to an afternoon of bright blue sky. I spotted the next cabin as I marched us across the next long level slope that afternoon. I stopped long enough to tie noisemakers behind its door as well.

  The slope below it was a fast one and we covered a lot of ground. I did not stop at the third cabin that afternoon either. It was up the side of the valley and the climb up did not seem worth it, so decided to press on in search of the fourth.

  The sun was setting when I spotted the brown square, but even then I despised to stop. The sky was clear and a waning moon promised some light. The slope down the next stretch of the enormous valley might be steep enough to keep the sled moving. I turned my back on the cabin, rode down when I could, and walked us across to the next slope by the moonlight.

  I struck a rock in the darkness on our third slow ride that long night, but it did not throw me. I considered walking from there, but all I could think about was the Hessier who wished to consume my children. They would wait for nothing, so I opened my hood a touch and risked freezing my eyes to get keep a lookout for more rocks in the moonlight.

  The snow glisten and everything was dull in comparison. I steered us clear of rocks and passed a fifth and sixth cabin.

  I’d spotted the seventh during the first grays of dawn. The half-light tricked my tired eyes, and I made the decision to start toward it when a great clatter echoed down the valley. I could not see far up the wide valley in the gloom, but the dawn was ripped open the next moment by a great flash that shook the ground and lit the line of ridge above me and the debris of a cabin that had been blasted up into the air. My noisemakers must have startled one of them. Or, more likely, Geart punished the one who’d revealed them.

  I turned my back on them and the seventh cabin. My heart was a hammer, and I could no longer find calm. I could already feel the exhaustion behind my eyes and deep in my hips. My mind and my body could no longer be trusted to make quick decisions or quick movements.

  I reconsidered a short sleep inside the cabin. I looked back at it once, but the weather that morning was clear, the wind light. I could not waste even a moment of clear weather.

  Hessier did not sleep.

  When I looked down the slope, I learned at last why the men of the Priests’ Home did not use sleds, and the sight held me still until I trusted what my eyes were showing me.

  It was not a snow-covered valley I’d raced along. It was a glacier, and the snow covered fissures I’d read about had been partially revealed by the shaking.

  Just paces away, a gap ten times the length of the sled had lost its snow cover and looked ready to swallow an entire herd of caribou, much less a fool girl.

  Burhn and his did not walk the glacier at all. They journey along the rocky northern slope and down along safe arms of rock to their hidden cabins. I’d been lucky—or just fast and light enough perhaps to sail over dozens or hundreds of fissures.

  I climbed up onto solid ground, and my sled was soon banging into rock after rock beneath the crusty layer of snow. A sled was useless along such a ridge.

  I was considering abandoning it when I happened upon the kind of foolish idea that Barok so often leapt at. Insanity had hold of me when I made the decision to act upon it and began the move by selecting which of my supplies were worth carrying. I left them there and stepped down onto the glacier with the rest. I found a wide section with no visible fissures, said a prayer that I would not cause one to open, and left the sled and heavy supplies there in the troth of the valley. The trip down and back took most of the morning, and it was a poor trap, I realized, as I saw my trail down to the spot. Perhaps it would snow.

  I retrieved my lighter pack and marched along the rocky wall of the valley after that. I left everything to hope that Geart and his Hessier would stumble down the center of the valley after me.

  I despised the day that followed. Clea was getting heavier and the boy inside me was turning into a monster. All day long he kicked and no amount of fat would soothe him. They wanted me to lie still. We needed rest.

  My only reward came when a great clatter reached my ears before a blast of magic lit the sky. Behind me fire blazed up from a wide fissure as though a dozen Hessier were trapped inside. Figures struggled toward the safety of the rock.

  I laughed through my breathing tube the rest of that long day. Geart was perhaps as able-minded as Sikhek or Parsatayn, but his creations were as dumb as the average oxen.

  The sun was setting when my fatigue started to threaten my footing. I’d been upright too long. I found the eleventh cabin tucked up along the horn of that tall ridge, I hoped it was the last, and closing the door as the dusty sun washed the horizon in reds and yellows. The colors were too d
azzling and my heart leapt in fear of magic. I stumbled back and clutched Clea until the pound of blood woke me. The blazing sheet was not made of flames. It was the reflection of the setting sun upon an endless smattering of lakes. I’d found it at last, the vast expanses of Berm.

  My heart calmed, and I could stand no more. I lay down upon the single cot there and black sleep took me.

  I woke with a start to the scent of cooked meat. Beyond the thin door the sky was black. Nothing stirred.

  The city. It was the smell of Verd’s kitchens starting the day. I smiled from the memory of early mornings in Enhedu. I would like the people of Verd.

  Clea woke then, too, wet and hungry, and all my urgencies returned in waves. My good girl settled into my last clean wrap. She enjoyed her breakfast while we marched across the charcoal-colored land beneath a thin moon and clouds. The smell of meat took on the flavor of slaughterhouses as the ridge angled down.

  When the first grays of dawn lit the world, Verd appeared below and it was too large to be believed. I stood for a time and counted its many hundreds of buildings. The place was larger than Urnedi—larger than Almidi. It hugged a river that flowed northwest from the bottom of the glacier and into to the handle of a saw blade-shaped lake. Tall columns of chimney smoke rose from scores of the town’s buildings, but I could not hear any of its sounds over the rumble of the vigorous river.

  I kept staring at the lake and the tall pines clustered around it. I’d not see a tree since leaving Enhedu, and so I stood there like a child while the warming sun showed me the pines that pillowed that lake and all the many beyond it.

  The rumbling of the river grew and pulled my eyes back down to a thick ribbon of trees that ran between the town and the ridge.

  The ribbon was moving. It was not trees, but a herd of caribou too vast to count. It was moving south and crossed the river between Verd and the glacier. They must number in the millions—a hundred million or more, as the stories bragged.

  I’d not conceived that the Bermish tale of them could be true, and it took far longer than it should have for me to work out that I was on the wrong side of this flow.

  I’d made if off the glacier but could go no further.

  44

  King Barok Vesteal

  The 32nd of Spring, 1196

  Errati, Leger, and I meet Admiral Mercanfur beneath the Whittle as he came ashore with thirteen heavy chests and a Chaukai captain with long blond hair that I recognized but could not name. Around us, the three massive piers of Urnedi Harbor were thick with ready ships. The warm ocean breeze tussled with the wisp of flame upon my elbow and danced with the red pennants upon every mast. Clever and a fresh carriage waited for us at the foot of the pier. The harbor and streets of the city were still decorated from the festival that had seen every Edonia face save Soma’s crew in the East and Mercanfur’s crew on the way back to us from Bessradi. I’d managed to sing the songs and drink the beer. I’d smiled once, perhaps while my city swirled in celebration, but our move south never left my mind.

  Leger proved more present than I was, saying to the captain, “You look well Detree. How did you and the Cynt boys fair in Bessradi?”

  “It’s a long way from the Oreol. You are looking better, too, I must say.”

  Leger laughed warmly at this seeming insult, and I scratched at my memory. Was he the first of the men of the Oreol that Leger had encountered, one of the few who’d seen him succumb to Haton’s wine? Before I could complete the reconciliation, the necessities of the day took over.

  Detree produced a thin knife and with it scored his scared palm before passing it around the circle. The act had become a casual thing for most, but with Leger eyeing each man, the old nervousness too brief hold.

  “Apologies for my delay,” Mercanfur said when it was done and presented a letter from Rahan. “Urmand made a mess of things as we made our way south and had to be reminded who owns the river. We completed the required repair at sea so will not be delayed making the return trip.”

  “I have supplies and fresh crew ready for you,” I said, and with Mercanfur’s permission the men and materials began to flow aboard.

  He would want the fleet moving before the tide shifted, so Errati opened Rahan’s letter for me and read it where we stood.

  * * *

  The 20th of Spring, 1197

  Dear brother,

  As agreed, the coins required for your move south accompany this letter. I would call us insane for the attempt if you and I had not laid the groundwork for this adventure in the Kogan Valley last year.

  Keep as far back from Alsonelm as you can. Your man Errati’s former chancellery colleagues proved largely intact despite the damage done to them last year. The Corneth in Alsonelm have backed their money lending and much of the Kaaryon’s wealthy has moved their holdings north as we feared. They have mobilized the militias north of the river and have as many as 70,000 men in addition the Hemari 2nd. They maintain that they are neutral, but with so large a force it cannot be discounted that they would set us all aside if they could.

  Beware as well the angry magic of the Spirits. Avinda and I have control of the singers that continue to emerge, but the tap-tap-tap of songs comes at us from all directions now. The phenomenon of spontaneous learning grows more widespread, as though Geart tore open a path for all to follow. There is no way to judge what magics you will face as you move toward us.

  You were right about Evand, I am saddened to say. He did not take the opportunity in the west to call the disaffected nobility to his name, so Yarik and the Corneth in Alsonelm remains the only options for those ill-made men.

  We are vastly outnumbered and so must hold to our original plan. I have entrusted the details of my forces to the Chaukai captain that accompanies this letter.

  I remain convinced that we will not survive the year if the petty lords of the Kaaryon cannot be divided against each other. I’ve sent Evand north to Alsonelm in hopes my public mistreatment of him might encourage him to rebellion. He spent the season learning the factions and families who oppose us, so is well equipped to meet the lords of Alsonelm. I would prefer that he relearn his disdain for slaves but we need him to become Alsonelm’s slave master. I considered sending Emilia along with him, but need her in Bessradi to stay ahead of the half-million men Yarik has stacked against us here. I did send Liv and his men from the 5th with him, though. To isolate Evand entirely would be too cruel.

  I worry that our brother will never forgive us for handling him so roughly. Please keep this letter and the rest of our correspondence close. When the day comes, we may need it to explain to him the necessity of our actions.

  It troubles me, brother, how badly Zoviya wants its slaves back. I dream of the reconciliation that must occur after this war has murdered so many, but can see no path that does not include the fields of Zoviya sown with the bodies of a generation.

  We may need to look to the children of other men to mend the wounds we cause. Our history is too dark to be erased, rewritten, or forgiven. I am choosing to instead to embrace it and win a way forward for us all. I trust that you to stand with me in this.

  Be safe, my brother, as you come south to us. The Spirit needs you now more than ever.

  Your brother always,

  Exaltier Rahan Yentif

  I liked the news about Evand the least. It was a mean trick we were playing on him. The advice of those around Rahan would be much darker though. Bessradi preference was the death of a rival, and whispers against Evand must flutter around my brother like a cloud of moths.

  “Very well,” I said. “My reply needs no amendment. Admiral, please convey it to Rahan.”

  Mercanfur accepted a satchel from Errati that contained a reporting of the fleet and my fresh letter to Rahan detailing our disposition. He’d been eyeing the fleet and thumbed through the sheets in the satchel. “The Khrimish sent more ships than we expected, it seems. How many do I have for the move?”

  “Ninety-six ships with a total complement o
f 15,000 men, including a full brigade of Chaukai and 120 healers. A copy of the manifest for each ship is included there per your requirements.”

  “Have events recommended any changes to our plans?”

  “None. I trust Harod to hold Eril at bay on the Aderanion tithe road while the spring thaw keeps the fields flooded. Before the waters subside, you must burn your way south along the Erilion Coast and force them to turn. Do not linger, though. You are far more needed upon the Bessradi River. The Heneurans are already marching south to strike Eril’s through the passes while they are turned to fend you off. If all goes well, Yarik will get no help from the west.”

  “You still think you can beat me to the Bessradi River?”

  “The greencoats will not be slowed,” Leger said, “but I would not bet against the captains of your fleet.”

  “Wise. Did I hear right that Soma defeated the Yud?”

  “Yes. She will be moving on the Priest’s Home again as soon as she has her fleet together. I’ve sent her a fresh box to keep the wind at her back.”

  He did not seem pleased and read my confusion. He glanced once at Leger and my arm and said, “I worry about the pace of the magic taken hold of us—of you. Men and ships stand to become as inconsequential as bits of sawdust and meat.”

  The pier swayed lightly as another small quake vibrated the peninsula. All eyes turned to the smoking dome of Mount Virk.

  “Case in point,” he said. “We are mad marching the army upon the skirt of that mountain.”

  “The song that fixes the world burns me to death, my friend. There is nothing sane or equitable about any of this. The battle will be at Bessradi. We must be there. We march today.”

  “You remain resolved to the ending they mean for you?”