The Vastness

by Hausladen, Blake;

  I began to feel the rumble of the herd again as we crossed the plaza and I from the center of it I got a fresh look at the monstrous flow. At that distance they looked like a line of angry ants racing down the trunk of a felled birch tree. Behind them rose the teeth of the Bunda-Hith and the slope of the long white curve of glacier. It was clear enough that morning that I could see all the way up to where the ice curved northwest toward the Priests’ Home. I could not believe I’d traveled down it and caught the sideways glances of those around me.

  “You walked all the way down?” Ghemma asked. Hearing the question did not make it any easier to believe.

  “My daughter did all the hard work,” I said, and they laughed. It was the happiest sound I’d heard since Enhedu. Harmond seemed not to have heard us and his expression was off. I followed his gaze back toward the glacier.

  “Someone else is coming down,” he said.

  “Where?” several asked at the same time and everyone searched the wide white ribbon.

  “There,” he said. “Just coming off the ridge.”

  The dust thrown up by the herd obscured them, but they were there—Geart and his Ashmari had reached the spot upon the ridge where I’d met the herd.

  My advantage was spent.

  “That’s not Aden and his acolytes,” Harmond said. “Who else could be coming down the glacier?”

  All eyes turned to me. I was ready for the question. “It is worse that Aden feared. His enemies have come.”

  “What enemies?” the priest demanded. “Are those Hessier?”

  “From Bessradi. A war between them has been festering for centuries. For these creatures to be here, the Priests’ Home has fallen. They will kill us all. We must get moving.”

  We felt the sick tingle then and the sky darkened. Every person in Verd came to a halt and turned toward the glacier.

  A flash blinded me, and a long moment later a clap of thunder slapped my ears and shook the ground. A child began to cry somewhere in town, and shapes began to appear in the sky—the black dots of diving birds they seemed. I blinked at them as they got bigger, and then like a rain, charred hunks of caribou began to rain from the sky. Everyone screamed.

  “Get us moving!” I yelled.

  Harmond’s men shoved and shouted, and our gentle pace became a rumbling dash down the far side of the hill. The stubborn horses protested as much as the squeaky wheels and brakes of the wagons. We reached the docks, and half the town was yelling while Harmond led us toward the boats. They were flat-bottomed and wide, and there was more than enough to carry us all away.

  A second, third, and fourth flash tore open the sky.

  “Everyone in,” I shouted as the black rain began again. Verd screamed again and the singers and priest flocked to the boats. Soon the whole town was pouring down the hill behind us.

  “Run for your lives,” I screamed with all my breath and body. “You must flee the city or you will perish.”

  Harmond pulled me down onto a seat as the men prepared to cast off. Ghemma was right behind me, sheltering Clea from the horrible rain.

  “We must take or ruin every boat,” I said to Harmond. “They cannot be allowed to have even one.”

  He wanted to argue but did not. He led several of his men down the dock while the sky flashed and spit blood and bone upon us. The desperate crowd from town filled more boats, and Harmond and his men stood in the center of the long wharf yelling people toward empty craft. There was enough for almost everyone and the many hundreds of boats were underway when they hurried back to us.

  The explosions ceased, and the bizarre calm that followed filled with the splash of oars and shushing of mothers.

  Ours was the last boat to cast off, and the men had the oar working hard when a set of dark figures appeared upon the market hill. They came to a halt, and before I could call out a warning their dark grip reached out and strangled us. The men stopped rowing and all the chatter cursed.

  I wanted to yell, kick, or slap them back into motion. None of us could manage so much as a whimper. Geart had us.

  But we kept moving. It made no sense until I managed a look to my right at the river. We’d moved out into the swift current that pushed across the top of the docks and it was carrying us steadily away from the town. The black grip upon us weakened.

  Geart and his minions began to run down after us, and I lost sight of them in the twisted streets.

  The men began to move and needed no urging to get back to the oars. The hundreds of boats all began surging through the water, and the dark chill upon us faded further.

  “The air is getting colder,” I said, and searched for Geart along the wharfs.

  “We are getting farther from the springs that heat the river,” Harmond said. “I will get as cold as it was upon the glacier soon enough.”

  I wished I’d not bathed. My clean skin would take the chill hard, the air did not feel right.

  “No, damn it. I know cold. This is something else. Not natural. Row, damn you. Row!”

  The surface of the lake between us and the town stopped rippling and slowly turned white.

  “They are freezing the lake,” Ghemma said. “Can any of you hear their song?”

  No one replied, and the forward edge of the sheet engulfed us and began to creep out toward the rest of the boats. The six men at our oars had to bash the blades through the thin sheet of ice to keep us moving. The others in our boat, nine of them perhaps, were all singers—the best of them, if you could trust a place like Verd to sort out the weak from the strong. One of them was a priest.

  “We have to keep away their magic,” I said. An idea turned my stomach, but I choked it down. Clea’s blood could not be my first weapon for every battle.

  “What do we do?” the priest asked. He looked ready to swim for it.

  Behind us, Geart and his Hessier appeared upon the docks. The air around them was shrouded in a gray fog and the lake froze solid along the shore. They started out toward us.

  “I need a knife,” I said, and unwrapped Clea’s bundle. “I want you all to share the nouns you know. We are going to sing them, just the nouns.”

  “Nonsense,” the priest said. “I’m not giving up my family’s words. This whole thing is a trick to get us to cough them up.”

  “Then you can find yourself another boat,” I said, and took the knife that Harmond offered.

  “What do you intend?” Ghemma asked and wrapped her arms protectively around Clea.

  It stung my heart, but the desire to survive smashed the feeling aside. “I’m going to bless you all with the blood of my daughter like I did Harmond, and you are going to sing a song that will hold away the cold. Now get hold out one of her feet so I do not hurt her more than is necessary.”

  Ghemma held Clea close and looked ready to knock me overboard.

  “I love you for protecting my daughter, but the evil marching toward us will tear her apart if we do not escape. Do as I say.”

  Harmond put his huge hand gently upon Ghemma shoulder. “We must trust her.”

  She looked once back at Geart, shuddered, and hurriedly unbundled Clea’s wrap. I cut my daughter’s heel before other instincts could take hold, and I squeezed her blood into my palm to the sound of my daughter’s most desperate scream.

  I smeared it upon Ghemma’s forehead and lips, kissed her cheeks, and said, “Sing your nouns, if you wish to be free. Just the nouns.”

  She growled and then sang them, one and after another and my ears popped as they banged away amidst Geart’s powerful verse. The air began to warm. The rowers and the rest yelled for joy, bashed at the ice, and got us moving.

  Geart bellowed. The sound was the rumble of a metal drum filled with iron ore. He and his two dozen halted their march across the ice and fixed their eyes upon us. The dark tingle upon my flesh grew. They needed only stop her singing and we were doomed.

  “Quickly,” I shouted, and began to paint the faces of the rest. “Sing the words with her. Sing them together. We m
ust sap the strength of their song.”

  They followed Ghemma’s lead and as each new singer added their voice, the darkness diminished. When Harmond joined the song, all that was left was the rising warmth of the river water. The men at the oars got us out beyond the edge of the reaching sheet.

  Behind us, Geart changed his magic again, and we could hear the deep crack of ice as the lake froze deep beneath his feet. His Hessier started running as the reaching ice began to encircle our boat, and their dark touch tickled our flesh once again.

  “A third word,” I said. “Who knows another word?”

  Harmond immediately added a third and a fourth, and with each the group gasped as if kissed. They chanted all four in unison and our circle grew.

  “Sapphire and breast?” the priest said. “Such words you surrender?”

  “Sing you fool,” I said, and had to slap the man to get him to rejoin to choir.

  I cheered them on as the ice reached further around us and we continued to gain on the other boats. I yelled at them to row for their lives.

  Behind us, one of the Hessier fell through the ice, but the rest kept coming and our circle of open water shrank by half.

  “More words,” I said and looked for reluctant faces. A man from the town offered a fifth, and while the group folded it into their chant, I turned to the reluctant priest.

  “Birch?” he said. The endeavor was beyond him, and I could not abide his weakness. I rewet my fingers with Clea’s blood and painted his teeth and his eyes.

  He screamed and wept. He lost his breath and looked slowly around.

  “Grandfather, you were wrong,” he said, and spoke one word after another before singing it to the group.

  My ears shot with pain. My vision vibrated and the blood upon my hands began to burn. All the many terrors around me fell away and the words cut their way into my head. Clea was looking into my eyes when the words found their way inside. Once after another they struck like fists.

  flesh man sapphire breast birch wolf raven rabbit maple

  The group lost their cohesion as the priest’s words crashed through our skulls. I slumped into Harmond, who sat unmoving. Several of the singers collapsed as if they’d been torn open. Only Ghemma kept singing and the long cadence of the nine nouns made the air vibrate.

  I pressed Clea into her arms. She stood and she sang loud enough it seemed that the entire world must hear her. A cheer rose from the other boats, and I turned to see another group of Hessier falling through the ice.

  Behind them, the warm river began to flood across the top of the sheet, and along the southern and northern shore, the warm dry rocks refused to anchor the ice. The sheet broke free along one edge and began to split apart.

  “One more,” I said. “Anyone? One more?”

  There were no more reluctant faces. All I saw was fatigue.

  Geart’s song.

  “His magic. The one that is freezing the ice,” I said. “Can any of you hear it? Someone take their noun. Someone steal the noun for water from them.”

  Ghemma could not stop singing and the rest were out cold. Sweat poured down her face. I stood, hugged her close with Clea clutched between us. I worried she would lose her will, but her head came up and she sang the word she’d taken.

  water

  My ears keened with pain and my vision blurred white as the powerful word stabbed me. The others gasped and then belted out the purest joy of laughter before Ghemma began to sing the great song once again. She repeated the verse, faster and faster until their song was the shriek of a storm.

  I felt I might join her. The pain and joy sliced and swirled through me—a thing waiting and wanting to be born from me. My lips began to move.

  “Look there,” someone called, and I was shocked awake.

  Geart and his Hessier had turned around. The open circle of water around our boat remained, while the sheet of ice turned in the current. One Hessier after another was crashed through, leaving only Geart.

  He looked back at me once before turning slowly and walking back toward the town.

  Ghemma let go of her song, and the storm came to an end.

  We were away.

  54

  Sikhek Vesteal

  The long walk back to Cyaudi did not clear my head. I hurried in, hoping for distraction.

  The city was larger than I remembered. As large as Alsonelm, perhaps as large as Alsonvale. It had outgrown its walls, built new ones and was close to outgrowing those as well.

  I wandered for a time but did not have to go far before I found a long avenue of noisy taverns and brothels. I found a man with seven slaves and coin to spend. I guided him to an alley, killed his guard and liberated him of his coin, clothes, and his slaves. I sold them the next morning and found a brothel on the other side of the city that bragged on its selection of wine.

  The first taste of it came as the Khrimish girls I’d chosen slid from their clothes. Their hands caressed my healed body and I lost track of myself in red hair, red wine, and laughter. Food came. Then more wine and more girls. I used up the ones from Khrim and made due with a trio of devils from Berm while my redheaded angels rested around my bed. I slept while being kissed and woke up to the same. The exercise added a human color to my pale flesh, and I became strong enough to take hold of a waist and feel the glorious smack of my hips against opened thighs. All my hurts faded, the wine flowed, and days rolled by.

  “Can you get off of me?” someone said some time days later. “Long enough to breath?”

  I wasn’t sure which redhead in the pile said it. I was fucking her, but that didn’t help solve the mystery. I laughed, finished as fast as I could for her sake, and let them sort out the puzzle of limbs.

  “We’ve been in here for days,” another said. “Need a break. I’ll end up with a child at this rate.”

  “More than you bargained for, if that’s the case,” I said, drank down the rest of the bottle and rolled onto my back. “Get out then. All of you. Come back in the morning.”

  They took the coin due them from the stack on the table, and I ate of leg of something. Lamb, I think. I closed my eyes in hopes death or sunrise.

  It was never a quiet street at that time of night but the bedlam below bit at my ears. I made for the window armed with the leg of mutton.

  Several men were taking turns hitting a Bermish vagabond. He didn’t put up any fight, but kept yelling at the top of his voice and only yelled louder as they hit him.

  “Let the noisy fucker be,” I shouted down and struck one of them with a well- aimed fling of the leg bone.

  They cursed up at me but decided to move on. The Bermish man, though, didn’t stop yelling—likely the reason for the beating in the first place.

  “Cinnabar,” he shouted amidst his ravings, and I stood up straight. It was a word no one was supposed to know, and I remembered saying it during my own mad ramblings aboard the Kingfisher. The crew may have heard me. Soma had used this knowledge against me. Geart may have heard me, too. He would have a hard time finding my mines, if this was the best he could do—a thrall screaming the word in hopes of drawing the attention of someone who knew about my mines. He was two provinces away from Aneth and the valley that hid my secret. He might as well be searching for my source of mercury upon the bottom of the sea.

  “Could you keep the peace?” I said down to the doorman and tossed him a gold quarter. He tipped his hat at me, led the men down a thin alley, and the yelling came to an abrupt stop.

  I lounge in the peace and fell sound asleep for the first time in—forever, perhaps.

  I woke with calendars swirling in my mind and sat up with a start. It had only been 27 days since I witness Dia’s escape. For Geart’s to already have thralls in Yudyith, he would have to have come straight down off the mountain. He’d taken Verd, and was already on the move north. I’d made that march myself when I’d first come to Zoviya. I’d had five hundred Hessier when I’d done it and mercury enough to replace them all thrice over. What did Ge
art have that he could be moving so fast?

  He had a piece of a Vesteal, if not the whole child, and he was coming to find me.

  I ordered food and a washerwoman while I pondered, but the dizzying calculations fell away like a bad dream when her hands and her sponge slid down my back and arms. Wine followed, and my girls returned.

  Days rolled by. Drunk, fucked, and well fed, I lived without remembering. Pleasure. Black currant wine. Brazed calf shanks. Divonte served between bosoms. Long legs. Warm, dark tumbles.

  I snored loud enough to be billed for the rooms on either side of mine.

  My coins ran low and then they were gone.

  I’d not paid enough attention, and it earned me a stab in the guts before I could secure more. It hurt enough I felt as though I might actually die. I was tossed out the window. I crawled into an alley while the effect of wound and wine faded.

  I found myself sprawled upon the greasy cobblestones where the thrall had died days before. The stink of his corpse was upon the dark stones. When I stumbled out, the doorman gave me a thin coin in farewell.

  I walked my way free of the uncaring city and sat down along the river’s edge. The farmers hadn’t returned to their fields. No rice had been planted anywhere as far as the eye could see.

  The province’s drunken orgy was going to last, it seemed, until it ran out of coin or got itself stabbed, too.

  I decided that doing something else in another town in another place was in order. A while later I noticed that I had not moved. I woke up there and fell asleep again. My guts stopped hurting.