The Wound of the World

by Edward W. Robertson

  Even so, no sense wasting time.

  She walked into the shadows and through the wall. Hallway was clear. She moved back to the dullness of the actual world, sticking tight to the wall as she headed toward the stairs. She ascended. At the top, she moved back into the nether.

  From the perspective of the gates, the dungeons were on the left side of the keep. The chapel was all the way on the opposite side. On the outer walls, the guards stood out as silver silhouettes, streamers of shimmering mist following them as they moved. Raxa took off at a trot, cutting straight across the courtyard.

  If the Cathedral of Ivars weren't looming across the street like a sentinel of the gods, the word "chapel" would have come across as an eye-rolling piece of false modesty. The building that housed the Cycle would have been a cathedral in any other city. Its two spires poked over a hundred feet into the night. Its face was dark granite, swarming with gargoyles, demons, miniature dragons, all that churchly crap they used to humble you. A lantern hung out front, presumably in case anyone couldn't wait until morning to prostrate themselves and beg forgiveness for their latest failure.

  For just a moment, Raxa paused, head cocked at the splendid building. By definition, the rich were those who had lots of money. Which made them the best targets. The rich also almost always lived in stone houses. Where her talent was most useful. Was this a sign from Carvahal, the Silver Thief himself? A divine calling? If so, she'd better not ever reject her gift. To do so would risk invoking holy wrath.

  She strode through the outer wall, blundering into a tapestry on the other side; the fabric barely rustled, as if she were no more significant than a breeze. The main hall was deserted. She dashed across it, locating a stairwell.

  The fourth floor landing opened to an airy foyer with windows overlooking the grounds. The foyer doors were flanked by two grim-looking guards bearing wicked polearms. Within the shadows, nether danced on the blades. They'd tasted blood.

  Couple of toughies. But if they wanted to keep their treasures safe, they should have sent a priest.

  Raxa skipped through the wall. After ensuring the room beyond was vacant, she relaxed back into reality, letting her eyes adjust from the dazzling glow of the nether. The room had a high, arched ceiling, matched by high arched windows. Desks and shelves held a plethora of objects that looked worthy of her pockets.

  But there was no time to indulge in the pleasure of pawing through somebody else's collection. At the back of the room, a glass case stood on a low dais.

  The thick rugs swallowed up the sound of her footsteps. The glass was finely crafted—few bubbles, almost completely transparent. Within it, an oversized black book bore the unmistakable White Tree of Barden.

  She prodded the glass. It was embedded in the dais, a hinged flap providing access to the interior, but that was locked with a solid loop of iron. Raxa didn't see a keyhole in the lock. Damn priests probably didn't need keys.

  Then again, neither did she.

  She inhaled, drawing herself back into the world of bright and dark. The White Tree on the cover now extruded a dull light across the room. Raxa reached toward the glass. Years back, on discovering she could pass through it, she'd asked around, discovered glass was made from melted sand. Made sense she could pass through it, then.

  But while walking through rock was no tougher than walking through mist, crossing through glass was more like wading through water. She pushed her fingers through, picked up the book, and withdrew it.

  She snapped out of the nether. The book was heavy enough to brain someone with. Holding it in her hands, she expected lightning to shoot up her arms, or nether to spill out of her nose, but it seemed intent on doing nothing. Well, that was books for you.

  She set it on top of the glass and opened the cover. The smell of old parchment and leather wafted loose. The first few pages were blank, lightly yellowed, speckled with faint, gray-green spots. Then, in elegant script, written with the authority of one who ate kings and shat out priests, the book's title. And beneath that, in smaller letters from a different hand, the name of Dante Galand.

  Raxa swore under her breath, chuckling. Just like a high priest to tattoo their own name on an irreplaceable relic that was created centuries before they were messing their diapers. She flipped through a few more pages, ensuring there weren't any demons coiled and waiting to spring from the text, then tucked the tome under her arm.

  She hesitated. Maybe it was the book's weight. Maybe her instincts were just that good. Whatever the case, Raxa frowned, head lowered. She couldn't name half the Council priests, and didn't care a bucket of nightsoil about the ones she could, but everyone knew at least a little about Galand, the Mallish boy who'd shown up out of the blue, helped to murder the existing head of the Council, and then roped Narashtovik into an insane war, only to—somehow, unbelievably—win it, and take over the Council for himself.

  Ambitious. Ruthless enough, too. But he'd promised to rebuild Narashtovik—and these days, the Dead City was thriving. He'd said the war was going to free the norren—and he'd set them loose, challenging Gask itself in the process. He was a true believer.

  And true believers weren't the type to deface the faith's most precious relics.

  Keeping the book under her arm, she made a quick pass of the chamber. Dozens of other books, but nothing that looked any different from within the netherworld. Nothing else protected in a chest or a case, either. She moved back to the dais, searching it for hidden compartments, then fixed her eyes on the wall behind it. This was black rock, rough hewn. Except for a patch dead center in the wall, roughly six feet tall and three across, that was nearly as smooth as the glass case.

  Raxa shifted into the shadows and walked through the wall. She popped into a closet-sized room on the other side. The silvery glare was so bright she had to shield her face, eyes watering. Nether boiled and churned like a fresh-forged blade quenched in water. The power in the chamber was so dense she could barely breathe.

  A wooden end table stood before her, thigh-high. On the table rested a book. On the book, a white tree glowed so powerfully her eyes stung with tears.

  As she reached for it, darkness flowed from her hand to its cover. Her arm went as cold as if she'd plunged it into a mountain stream.

  The nether was being ripped out of her body. Another moment, and she'd be trapped in the doorless space for good.

  7

  Blays' swords seemed to leap into his hands. He drove them forward in an X. An arrow bound for Dante's chest scraped into the blades and glanced away.

  "I've been shot!" Dante announced.

  Blays ignored him, sprinting forward. Naran gave Dante a startled look, but despite his refined ways, the captain was a man of action used to command. He ran after Blays.

  Dante sat up, head spinning. A thick wooden shaft jutted from his left shoulder. Just as he suspected, he had been shot. It ached dully. Injury seemed to slow everything down, including the sensation of pain. Was the slowness real, or imagined? If a sorcerer broke his own toe with a hammer, only to heal it, break it again, and repeat, could he get time moving so slowly that it stopped altogether?

  Steel clanged from somewhere in the grass ahead of him. Dante frowned at himself and called to the darkness. Fortunately, he'd already spilled plenty of blood. The shadows plunged into his shoulder. With a slurp, the arrowhead was expelled from his flesh. He closed the wound and stood.

  Black spots filled his vision. He staggered toward the tree, bracing himself against its trunk. He was no longer in any pain, but the site of the wound tingled, and his head was still loopy with after-pain. Fifty yards away, Blays and Naran were holding a conversation with what appeared to be a patch of grass.

  Dante picked up the bloody arrow—evidence of the crime—and walked over to them. A giant of a man was sprawled in the grass at Blays' feet, disarmed, bleeding from a pair of shallow cuts. A beard covered the entirety of the lower half of his face. He looked younger than Dante, but he was closer to seven feet tall tha
n to six. His fists looked big enough to knock down a bull.

  "You shot me." Dante brandished the telltale arrow. "Why?"

  The norren gave him a sullen look. "Because you were standing still enough to be shot."

  "Do you normally shoot everyone who stops to smell a flower or take a piss?"

  "That sounds needlessly hostile."

  "Then why," Dante said slowly, "did you shoot me?"

  "Well, you were hunting me, weren't you?"

  "We weren't hunting you. We were only trying to find you."

  The man sat up. "Yes. By hunting me. With weapons."

  Blays stepped between them, making a chopping motion. "Mistakes have been made. Arrows have been fired. People have been shot. Now, we can spend all day arguing about who shot who—"

  Dante sputtered. "He shot me!"

  "—or we can agree that no lasting harm was done. So we can argue about it, and get mad at each other until we get in another fight. One where someone gets hurt badly, or even killed. Or we can put it behind us and get on with our business."

  Dante rubbed his shoulder. "Agreed."

  "Agreed," the norren said. "Then again, you've got your sword pointed at my throat. So I'd probably agree to anything. Except the suggestion that I should be stabbed with it."

  Blays sheathed his swords. "We need to speak to your chieftain."

  "He's not here."

  "I'm going to assume by 'here' you mean 'in our immediate presence.' In that case, I request that you go wherever he is and get him for us."

  The man stood, brushing off his trousers. "Then I'll go do that."

  Dante narrowed his eyes. "No you're not. You're going to run away."

  "Are you giving me permission?"

  "A great calamity's about to strike your lands. If your people are here when it happens, you'll get calamitized, too. You need to convince your chieftain to see me."

  "It sounds like all I need to do is tell him there's a terrible calamity." The norren regarded him for two long moments. "But I'll tell him he should talk to you." He bent to pick up his bow and spear. "Stay here. Or you can choose to leave, I'm not your human king. But if you do leave, we won't know where to find you."

  Dante smiled tightly. "We'll be here."

  The man gazed at them, then turned and walked away. Dante had half a mind to follow him with a dead grasshopper, but the norren were skittish enough already. If they happened to have a sorcerer capable of detecting the grasshopper, they'd never speak to him again.

  Even so, he posted a couple of lookouts in nearby trees in case the clan would rather have a human-hunt than a conversation. Less than an hour later, a lone figure approached through the grass. His height topped seven feet and he looked like he'd have to turn his shoulders to fit through a human door. Their beards, bulk, and features made it harder to peg a norren's age, but Dante had spent enough time among them to guess this man was in his late twenties or early thirties. Feathers and fine silver chains dangled from his spear. His armor was composed of boiled leather and black iron bands, the metal etched with rune-like depictions of wolves, deer, owls, and snakes. His bearing was as proud as his armor.

  Wordlessly, he stopped across from the three humans, his gaze settling on Dante. "Alok says he shot you. But you don't look very shot to me."

  "I got better," Dante said. "You're the chieftain of this clan?"

  "That's who you sent for, isn't it? My name is Ramm. Alok said you think a disaster's coming to the Valley of Northern Spirits."

  "It could hit within a matter of days. Before winter at the latest. You need to relocate your people."

  "What kind of disaster? And how do you know it's coming?"

  "The land will be transformed." Dante paused; he'd been on the brink of saying that he knew it was coming because he was the one bringing it. If he confessed to destroying the clan's land, however, it wouldn't be an illogical response for the chieftain to hoist Dante on the end of his fancy spear. "I'm a…prophet. Of Arawn. He's sent me a vision of this valley being destroyed."

  Ramm scratched a bushy eyebrow. "That could mean anything. Gods don't like to show mortals the exact future. What you saw was probably just a metaphor."

  "For what?"

  "How should I know? Do I look like Arawn?"

  "Trust us on this," Blays said. "I know we look like short, scrawny little humans. But my friend and I are members of the Broken Herons Clan from the hills north of Tantonnen."

  The chief snorted. "It's impossible that any clan would ever admit a human. So your claim that the Broken Herons took two humans is double impossible."

  "Our chief's name is Hopp. This happened several years ago, during the Chainbreakers' War. Did you hear of that one?"

  "No. And since you're a liar, I can only conclude you're about to tell me more lies. Goodbye, liars." He turned and walked away, broad shoulders swaying.

  Blays spun on Dante. "Does Hopp still have one of our loons? Can we get him to talk to this guy?"

  "It's worth a shot." Dante jogged after the norren. "Ramm! Do your people speak to Josun Joh?"

  The norren stopped in his tracks. "Do they what?"

  "In the north, the clans venerate the god Josun Joh. Some speak to him. Do you do that here?"

  Ramm's brows bent together. "You mean Dozundo. Wait here."

  "For what?"

  "For me to get our chieftain."

  Dante's mouth fell open. "You said you were the chieftain!"

  "No I didn't. If our chieftain would come talk to a trespassing human, that wouldn't make her much of a leader, would it? Now stay here." He jogged away, spear rattling.

  Dante clamped his fingers to his temples. "Why did we ever help these people again?"

  "We were young and foolish." Blays seated himself under the tree and swigged from a flask of something that probably wasn't water. "Anyway, if these guys are that annoying, then we won't feel bad if they're all killed when they don't listen."

  Ramm was back in less than half an hour. He was accompanied by two other men with bows and long spears and a woman in a plain brown cloak. Most norren carried an air of calm unflappability around with them, but her bearing was so steady you could have built a house of cards on her.

  "I'm Kadda," she said. "I'm chief of the Walking Fish. You're in our valley. What do you want?"

  Dante repeated his warning, along with his fabricated credentials as a prophet. "By year's end, this valley will be ripped apart. Please, move your clan before it's too late."

  "Do you know why we're here?"

  "Because we came to your land, and insisted on seeing you, and showed enough knowledge of norren matters that you relented. Is that a complete enough chain of causality for you?"

  Kadda smiled crookedly. "You do know other norren, don't you? It could be that our ancestors knew the ancestors of your friends. Years on top of years ago, we lived in the north, too. Every year, the humans would come for us to take us. Put us to work in their fields and mines. No matter how well we hid, sooner or later, we had to hunt for meat. And they'd find us. And they'd take us.

  "One day, the elders gathered. They decided there was only one way out: to leave. So that's what they did. Many died along the way, but at last, our ancestors settled here. For three hundred years, we've been free. The ancestors, they sacrificed their lives, everything they knew, to escape human troubles. Now you're telling me that human troubles have found us again—and again, we need to leave our home because of it."

  "That's correct," Dante said.

  She burst into laughter. "Do you have any shame at all?"

  "Plenty. But my feelings don't matter. Your lives do."

  "How do I know this isn't a trick to take the valley for stupid human farms?"

  Dante darkened the air around them until their faces were nothing but dark outlines, eyes shining white from within the fog. "If I wanted your land, I wouldn't have to trick you into leaving. I'd just kill you and take it." He dropped his hand, returning the world to its normal brightness.
"If I'm right about what's coming, it will happen before year's end. If I'm wrong, you can always come back then."

  Kadda exhaled through her large norren nose. "I think you're telling the truth. But we can't go."

  "Wrong. You have legs. They will support you in any decision you make."

  "When our ancestors came here, they brought a great relic with them. They brought it to that mountain to watch over us." She pointed northwest, where a pair of low peaks rose from the surrounding flatland. "If we leave this valley without it, we'll be cursed."

  Blays shifted his eyes between her and the mountain. "Might I suggest you don't leave without it?"

  "We lost it long ago. We can't find it—but if you can, that will be proof Dozundo knows you're telling the truth, and wants us to go. If you can't find it, then you are liars, and we will stay."

  Dante wanted to kick and scream and hit things with other things, such as her head with a large club. But he knew norren. The harder you pressed them, the more stubborn and indifferent they grew. The only way to reach them was to win their trust.

  "Tell me more about this lost relic."

  "It's called the Face of Dozundo," Kadda said. "It's carved from blue marble by the master Ellin, whose nulla was stonework. And it's the most beautiful statue that you'll ever see."

  Blays squinted at the two peaks, neither of which were tall enough to bear snow yet. "Do you remember the last place you saw it?"

  "The only place such a sacred item could be: our shrine."

  "Interesting. Have you tried checking the shrine?"

  "Yes." Kadda gave a lingering look toward the peaks. "But that was lost, too."

  "Come now, everyone knows you have to tether your shrines. Otherwise they'll get up and wander away."

  "Only our holiest wiseman knew where it was. Then he got eaten by a bear. But we know two things about the shrine: it rests where the moonflowers grow in rings, and that you will know it by the shine of the sea on its grim and stony face."