The Vastness

by Hausladen, Blake;

Soma turned to me. “You contemplate victory.”

  “Unless you are willing to reconsider my last request, I do not believe that we could do anything more than slow Geart down. The best we can hope is to retreat into the Crimson Valley and draw him in. There are mines in the valley, as you know, that might keep his attention while you and your people escape.”

  Soma’s expression soured with each word I spoke. “Everyone out.”

  The King of Dahar and Maison were slow to move but relented. Mika did not budge and was the last person left in the dark tent. Soma eyed her.

  “I don’t answer to you.”

  She turned to me, and said, “I do not trust you. You mean to capture Geart and make the Hessier your servants once again.”

  “No. I mean to kill him, and you are going to help me.”

  “You suggested once that my power be given to others. I will not be party to the murder and sacrifice necessary to make further demands upon the White Mother. We must find another way to defeat him.”

  “She is awake now and her enemies are close. It would take very little to get her attention.”

  “I will not sacrifice anyone.”

  “Very little blood needs to be spilled. You need not be her only priestess. We can to draw him into the Crimson Valley and slaughter his beasts until he has exhausted whatever Vesteal blood or bones he holds.”

  She shook her head. “I cannot allow you to retreat into the valley and risk that Geart take hold of you. If we cannot get south to Dia, we must move west and join Barok.”

  “I will not be taken. Should he force his way into the valley I will retreat into the cavern and drop the mountain on us both. I will kill him or bury him.”

  “No,” Soma said, and turned to look at the map.

  Mika had not moved. To her I said, “Gag her.”

  Mika leapt in and landed a solid punch to Soma’s stomach and swept her onto her back. The spry girl was on top of her in the same motion, jammed a cloth in her mouth, and pressed a dagger against her throat.

  I knelt next to her. She managed one straight jab that split Mika’s lip but could do nothing after that except struggled to catch her breath.

  “Try to kill me,” I said to Soma and extended my bear arm for her to grasp. “Try to rip my soul from my body.”

  She thrashed and the knife drew a red line upon her throat. Mika got hold of her hair, pinned her head to the earth, and pressed the point of the knife into her eye socket.

  “I’m right here,” I said and waved my naked wrist in front of her face.

  She snatched it, and I was struck by the full weight of power. It was a flaming fist that burned the Shadow from my body and everything nearby. I collapsed forward, almost lost consciousness, and worried that I’d underestimated her.

  But I did not die. The earth around us was scorched black and purged of the Shadow. Only the Spirit of the Earth was there.

  “I will kill her,” I said to the bear earth. “I will take your vengeful daughter from you if you do not give me what I demand.”

  The spirit filled the tent—filled the valley. ‘Vile beast, begone!’

  Her words tore through me. I was lying flat on my back with Soma’s nails digging into my wrist when I managed to say the rest.

  “Great spirit, I demand you gift to the Savdi-Nuar the same power you gave to your priestess Soma O’Nropeel.”

  Mika slumped sideways like an untethered puppet and the presence of the Spirit faded. I struggled to my knees while Soma tugged the gag free and rolled Mika off of her.

  Soma’s voice was reduced to an angry gasp. “Get out.”

  I wanted very much to be moving, but could not find my legs. Mika managed to stand. Soma took up the fallen knife, slashed Mika’s face, and kicked her hard toward the tent flaps.

  “Get out,” Soma screamed and Chaukai exploded through the tent flaps.

  I was a dim and stumbling creature when I was hoisted up and thrown out onto the road. Those outside reacted first to Mika’s bloody face and then violently when they saw Soma’s wound. I was struck several hard blows. No one moved to help me. The Savdi-Nuar were all lying on their backs or clutching their knees.

  Hands snatched me up while Soma slapped away those trying to tend to her.

  “Quick order, eyes west,” a voice cried above the din and the Chaukai aimed their weapons down the road. A red glow had replaced the morning mists and black shapes swirled beside the road.

  “You did this,” Soma screamed to me. “Who are they?”

  “The slaves who built the tithe road and Crimson Valley,” I said. “I burn them in piles along the road over the many years it took to carve the pass and unearth my cinnabar. We are standing above the largest mass grave in Zoviya.”

  The seething forms began to move up the slope toward us.

  “You devil,” Soma said, cleared her throat, and spat at me. “You have stolen the Earth gift. Do you mean to murder me as well?”

  “Your death here would be accidental.”

  The rock beneath the seething black forms began to glow, and a wave of heat washed up the slope. All around us, other fiery forms began to rise and set fire to the trees and brush.

  “We are surrounded,” someone yelled.

  “I hate you,” Soma said.

  62

  Queen Soma O’Nropeel

  The 61st of Spring, 1197

  The ghosts spewed black ash while the blue light of desperate Chaukai songs kept our burning flesh alive. Their mouths worked, moaning as they drifted closer. Their anger and misery throbbed, and their heat pressed us down. They were in torment.

  Through their sorrow I caught glimpses of their lives—separated from their family, worked to death, murdered for sport. The more terribly they had suffered the stronger Sikhek became. The tithe roads were veins of misery that poisoned the very earth.

  All by Sikhek’s design.

  I wished that he was a simple man or Hessier that I could kill him. Instead he stood, serene in the blue light of our magic, a proud author of his private powers. He thought himself noble.

  The pavilion caught fire as we collapsed into a smaller circle at the top of the road.

  “Ma’am,” cried Graves over the bawl of the ghosts and keening of songs. “Hessier below them to the west, ma’am. We are betrayed.”

  A column of bright metal and tall pikes advanced behind the mass of wraiths, as if driving them toward us. I reached out with all of the White Mother’s present fury, took hold of every soul within my reach, and tore the Shadow free of them.

  The Chaukai’s song surged and then began to fail, while the armored column remained unaffected.

  “They are not Hessier,” Sikhek said to me. “This is the army I promised you.”

  He looked like he wanted me to thank him. His conceit had no rival. I wanted no part of his designs. The last of the Chaukai blue lights faded away, and the heat crashed in upon me.

  “Get away from me,” I screamed above the clamor.

  The moaning ceased and the wall of fiery ash withdrew as though they were ships at my command. My head spun and my ears rang. What was this? I began to feel the wide circle around us, the vast place blasted free of the Shadow by the flames. The White Mother was close. Did I have some hold over the dead where She was strongest? I reached out as I had done a thousand times to mend souls, but instead of working to braid the light and the dark, I pushed. My touch pushed them like a wind, and they withdrew further.

  Her power was so strong there upon the blasted earth. I turned on Sikhek and called upon Her that I might strike him down. And She came. A happy blue heat crept along my limb and my body began to glow. Her spirit filled my body, and I felt a nudge as though She wished something of me. I gave myself to Her and slide back from myself as if into a dream.

  She raised my arms high into the air and screamed like a babe fresh born. Mad She seemed as She turned and saw the world with my eyes.

  I understood Her terror and all of Her pain. I felt every co
ld touch of the lingering dead upon Her—every one of the million upon millions of unwelcome hands and bodies pressed into Her. She was taken by madness—a howling desperation to be away—free. Anywhere, anything. Stop. Confused. Die. Stop.

  Stop!

  I leapt up out of Her nightmare and put my hands into Hers, into mine. I made a fist that blazed like the sun, took hold of Her vast rudderless rage, and struck out at the cold death things that clung to me, to Her.

  My mountains cracked, and every soul within my reach that lingered like a tick within my flesh was thrust out. They caught fire as they emerged, and the madness and terror became delight.

  I, The Spirit of the Earth, cried out in triumph as flames sprouted from a million ancient graves.

  Soma, no!

  The rising blast of heat would burn the world of men. Already it had begun, each billowing form cracking into bright flame. The millions would set the world on fire.

  Sikhek knew this. Still he stood with a soft smile, though his clothes and hair smoldered. “That is enough, Soma. You don’t want it to end like this.”

  All of this had been by his design, and he would have more in store for us yet, should I save him. I wanted to refuse him, but could not let the world burn.

  “No, White Mother,” I said and I fought with Her for my body and Her power. “Do not kill the children for their Father’s sins.”

  Her insane happiness at the ending of the world spun as I forced myself to remember the day my children were taken from me, their youth stolen by murder, and their blood splattered upon me like a curse.

  “Be still,” I said with my hands in Hers. The growing red heat of the legions of waking wraiths from Khrim to Alsonelm to Berm began to fade. The cold southern breeze took hold and all but the most substantial of them began to drift away.

  The tattooed Savdi-Nuar rose, smiled, and nod as though they had been watching and learning. Sikhek spoke a few words to them before leading them down to the knot of substantial ghosts that remained upon the tortured slope. I sat helpless upon the road while they told the ghosts to follow them. In twos and threes, the wraiths began to turn.

  I seethed with renewed raged and the ghosts glowed hotter. The Savdi-Nuar noticed this, too, and made soft grunts before telling the ghosts to cool. Some sang healing song to their number, stealing away the many hurts of the ghostly fire.

  They had none to spare for me. I slid down onto my side as all my exhaustion caught up to me.

  Mika approached and knelt close. “Thank you, Soma. This was more than we had hoped from you. The pikemen will hold the pass while you evacuate. Sikhek and the ghosts are coming with us.”

  Before I could catch my breath to scream at her, she turned and followed Sikhek down. More and more of the ghosts followed them until the entire mass started down the pass.

  The steel-plate pikemen were moving, too, up the road with a train of heavy kit. One unfurled a tall blood-red pennant and waved it high overhead. High upon the mountain to the south, a matching red speck appeared, followed by a measure sequence of yellows, reds, and blues.

  An officer of their numbered crossed to me and drew his pike up to his shoulder with a jerk. “The main body will be here in five days. We will camp along the road here and deploy south along the river. Keep your Chaukai massed here for us to use for healing. You have four days to get what people who can make it west of the pass before we withdraw to the valley. ”

  He turned before I could reply and ordered his companies into motion. These were not simple soldiers. I could feel the tang of magic amongst them. Each was a singer.

  I had given Sikhek an army of ghosts, and he had given to me one I could not control.

  I lay with my burned and battered people upon the road and could do nothing until fresh Chaukai healers arrived.

  The aging day drew lines across my vision as I struggled to recover. Desperate people by the tens of thousands flowed up the long road toward us while fresh lava poured down from Mount Sesson and Mount Amey like tears.

  My ears would not stop ringing.

  63

  King Barok Vesteal

  The 61st of Spring, 1197

  Nace’s report of Evand in hand, I ordered my army into the Kaaryon unopposed.

  It was serene. I’d expected to be troubled and conflicted as I crossed back into the place that had expelled me. All I found was calm.

  The guttering flame of my friends’ souls, the rumble of my army, and the imagined whispers of my stolen wife were the only sounds.

  The ground quake once a time later, as though She was welcoming me home.

  “She screams,” Evela cried out.

  I hurried out of my carriage to see the druids spilling out onto the road. They covered their ears and screamed in pain and terror. The earth bucked toward me and I landed in a heap.

  All along the Daavum Mountains upon the western horizon, fists of ash began to punch up at the sky. The haze of the low clouds around each boiled away in expanding circles, and the color of the vast hills beneath them grew dark as millions of pulverized rocks rained down.

  The earth heaved, and booms louder than any sound I’d heard smashed us once and again. I was airborne, and then the ground slapped up at me. I lost myself until the angry earth’s shaking subsided.

  From my side I looked out onto a scene from Bayen’s hell. The fields looked more like an ocean. It rose and fell in ripples of brown and black, and bodies were strewn about it. The druids lay around me, gasping for air. Leger and the ghosts dove around us, and the scream of men and horse filled the air.

  Lady Jayme crawled across to me, a knife in one hand. Her nose was smashed in and one of her legs was broken. “Let me heal them,” she gasped.

  Scream and more explosions tore at my ears, I grabbed at her as the earth bucked us. She was quick, and before I registered the pain of the knife, she was bathed in my blood.

  Blue at first, her magic became yellow before the colors mixed to a vivid green that lanced through every man and horse. On she sang, healing our wounds as the earth smashed at us again and again.

  Through the tumult I became aware of the terrible sounds of new ghosts rising around us.

  Evela and Fana crawled to me across the quaking ground. Their skin glistened blue.

  “She is taken by madness. Someone is struggling to contain Her,” Evela said, and without further explanation, she painted their faces with my blood.

  They pressed their glowing hands into the torn earth and the glimmer upon their skin spread fast and far. The rising ghosts returned to their rest, the quaking subsided, and the battered pair collapsed. Jayme’s weakening verse failed, the many colors of magic flickered out, and the world became still and mundane.

  The resulting view could not be real.

  The top half of Mount Webb and all three peaks north of it had been blown away. Their torn remains vomited ash and sent red jets of lava the size of rivers arching high through the air to spill down the peaks in all directions.

  The Oreol Coast was no more.

  64

  Minister Sikhek Vesteal

  My army of ghosts began to flow down the long slope leaving a wide smoldering swath in the wet, knee-deep ground cover. Washes of blue light caressed me as Savdi-Nuar singers healed our wounded. They had none to spare for Soma and her people. She managed to stand. The waking sun had cleared the horizon and she blazed in her yellow uniform like a young God, her many flaws lit for all to see. Blood leaked down her cut cheek into the collar of her uniform, and the dark mole beneath her left eye sprouted a gray hair. She’d lost her hairpin during the struggle and her unruly mop of ash-colored hair hung over one shoulder like the mane of a shaggy horse.

  She looked down at me and every set of eyes in the pass did the same.

  Remarkable. Their attention was absolute. So recently this level of attention had been a constant for me. Every passerby, every crowd, and every prince had gawked at me without fail. I’d noticed the absence of attention a time or two since
losing my power in Enhedu, but seeing it then filled me with nostalgia.

  A heavy drop of liquid spattered on a nearby surface and drew me out of this contemplation. I searched for it and found a circle upon the toe of Soma’s dusty boot and traced its origin to the lick of Mika’s blood left along the edge of the knife she held.

  Her hand flexed upon the blade as she looked at me.

  “You are upset.”

  Her response was breathless sequence of syllables. “Your deceit—there is no measure that can describe it. No punishment would be enough to pay for your crimes.”

  “My plan succeeded. There are now five hundred men and women with your ability. Many of the ghosts that tortured the Spirit of the Earth have been purged and She can rest while we get control of Geart. This should please you.”

  “You did not have my permission. You have abused the Spirit of the Earth at my expense. You did it for your gain.”

  “I saved your life in Bessradi. I did so again today. All you need to do is get the refugee over the pass and down to the Bessradi River.”

  “Get out of my sight.”

  “It would be best if you spent the morning with Mika and Maison to explain your power to them. The family will have very little time to get hold of it before Geart’s beasts are upon us.”

  “They have studied me enough, you villain. I will give them nothing more. The next time I see you I will find a way to kill you.”

  “I wish that were true.”

  “This is your doing,” she screamed. “All the misery. All of it. I will see you unmade.”

  My flesh began to quake, and a long moment of terror took hold. Could she burn my soul out of my body?

  “I will stop Geart,” I said.

  “You will fail. It is what you do,” she replied and turned away.

  The Savdi-Nuar had moved further down the pass. Mika took my arm and led me to a horse. We rode down the path of scorched earth and around the host.