The Wound of the World

by Edward W. Robertson

  "First you want us to find the shrine," Dante said. "Then you want us to find the Face of Dozundo. And once we bring it back to you, you'll relocate?"

  Kadda nodded. "We haven't been able to find it, but surely a great prophet and sorcerer like yourself can. Perhaps your god will help you, too."

  Dante had one of the clan's best artists sketch him a picture of a moonflower, which was a distinctive silver color with petals shaped like crescents. After making arrangements about where they could find the clan in the event that they brought back the statue, Dante, Blays, and Naran took off on horseback, trotting toward the pair of low blue mountains.

  "I don't mean to question your wisdom in this matter, but…" Naran wrinkled his forehead. "Actually, I do. I wish to question it most rigorously. We may be days away from invasion, and your plan is to run off to find a lost idol in a lost shrine?"

  "The norren are as stubborn as a constipated mule," Dante said. "They'll never leave just because we tell them to. Trying to push them to do something is like trying to push down the surface of a lake. This type of challenge they've given us is very common—if we follow through on it, it's a sign that we're serious, and that we respect their ways."

  "Evidently they have no respect for our time. It could take years to search these mountains!"

  "I know. That's why I'm planning to cheat."

  By nightfall, they had ridden within ten miles of the foothills. Dante woke before dawn to slay a host of winged insects. He sent these soaring toward the dark mountains. By the time the three of them had eaten a breakfast of flatbread and venison jerky and gotten on their way, his scouts were entering the mountains.

  The moonflowers sparkled like steel shavings, impossible to miss in direct sunlight. They didn't grow on the lower half of the mountains, and quit flowering some ways before the peaks, narrowing the search. On top of that, the only areas with a view of the sea were the southern exposures. At an initial pass, Dante only saw six sites on the closer of the two mountains that might qualify for the shrine's location.

  The mountains were weathered and slump-shouldered, no trouble for the horses to ascend, especially when Dante could scout the lay of the ridges from ahead. Early that afternoon, they reached the nearest site: a flat shelf of turf a few hundred feet across, bordered on its north side by a low cliff that looked out on the faraway sea. Most of the ground was covered in grass and weeds, but near the center, a lopsided circle of moonflowers bobbed their heads in the wind.

  Dante dismounted and walked around the ring of flowers. The three of them criss-crossed the site, eyes sharp for cairns, norren bones, statues, and so on. Finding nothing but rocks and lichen, they reconvened in the middle of the circle.

  Dante folded his arms. "Does anything about this look like a shrine?"

  "That depends," Blays said. "Do norren worship empty fields?"

  "If so, you'd think they'd choose one closer to home."

  They moved on to the next site, a rocky field sporting another ring of flowers. It took nearly two hours to check all the boulders and debris for a blue marble carving or other signs of shrineliness.

  "This is absurd," Naran said. "Even if the shrine is here, everything here is so weathered that we might not even know it when we see it. And that itself assumes its design will be obvious to human eyes."

  Blays swore. "And if it was obvious, you'd be able to see it through the eyes of your bugs, wouldn't you?"

  Their logic struck Dante like a hammer swaddled in velvet, leaving him unable to do anything but stand there and stare at them.

  "There are only a few more on this mountain," he said lamely. "After that, we'll check the next one."

  They moved on to the next ring, an uneven grassy slope. There was nothing there. The sun was already nearing the flatness of the sea. They made it to one more site before the sky grew too dark to see what they were doing. Dante didn't sleep well.

  He woke up cold and stiff. They moved out at first light. The next ring of flowers was only a short walk away, but Dante's enthusiasm was waning. Again, they found nothing. They headed on to the final possibility he'd scouted out, a small hilltop rising from the side of the mountain. The view was stunning, but his heart sank to his knees.

  "You're right," he said. "This is the Quivering Bow all over again."

  Naran swatted at a hectoring fly. "The Quivering Bow?"

  Blays chuckled. "That was a fun one. That time, a norren clan tricked us into assaulting one of their worst enemies, hastening the war that was brewing. At least this time they only seem intent on sending us on a wild goose chase."

  "I expect that's their game," Dante said darkly. "There's no shrine. There's certainly no Face of Dozundo carved from blue marble. Without my scouts to speed things up, we could have wasted weeks out here."

  "Sounds like we should go back and yell at them."

  "Agreed," Naran said. "But first, I get to tell you 'I told you so.'"

  Dante stalked toward his horse. "And I get to not to listen. It's for your own good, really."

  Blays grew thoughtful. "Because otherwise, you would turn him into moonflower chow?"

  "Correct."

  A frown crept across Blays' face. "Something doesn't feel quite right about this."

  "That would be the feeling of humiliation. I'd think you'll recognize it from every time you take your pants off."

  "Think about the trick they played with the Quivering Bow. Or just the other day, when they let us assume Ramm was their chieftain. They like to play on ignorance. Sending us on a hunt for something that isn't there isn't very clever. It's much funnier to send us after something we'll never find even when it's right under our nose."

  Dante turned away from his mount. "Kadda came up with the relic and shrine business awfully fast. If it's invented from whole cloth, she lies like a Kandean."

  "Take us back to the first site. I've got an idea."

  Dante led them across the green hills, returning to the flat, grassy shelf backed up by the cliffs. Blays glanced at the grounds, then at the cliffs, then out to sea. He turned back to the cliffs and vanished.

  As Blays shadowalked through the netherworld, Dante could feel the barest hint of his presence heading toward the rock wall. And then Blays was gone. A hawk cried out from the heights. Dante had barely glanced back at the cliff face when Blays reappeared.

  He grinned, jerking a thumb behind him. "There's a cave back there. Want to open it up?"

  Dante opened a cut on his arm. "How did you know?"

  "Kadda said it would be at the place where the sea shines on its grim and stony face. I figured she was talking about some big old statue. But she meant a cliff face."

  "Stony." Dante shook his head. "Hiding it right under our nose."

  He sank the nether into the rock, feeling its shape, then pulled the stone back to either side. A large hollow opened before them. Dante lit his torchstone and walked inside.

  ~

  They had arranged to meet at the same tree as before, but Dante decided to save time by going right up to the clan. The Walking Fish were arrayed in a thorny grove of trees that had sprung up around an L-shaped pond. Many were working on wooden carvings or birch bark drawings. Others were smoking fish, weaving matting for their yurts, or flaking arrowheads from obsidian.

  Noticing the riders, they went still. Kadda strolled forth to meet them. As before, she was flanked by two enormous warriors.

  "Back already?" She looked Dante up and down. "Did your god tell you he's changed his mind?"

  "No," Dante said. "But yours told me he missed you."

  Blays lowered a battered leather sack to the ground, grunting at its weight. He untied its thong and yanked it open. A blue face stared up at Kadda, its skin and beard marbled with white. Though the coloration was phantasmagoric, the muscles, wrinkles, and hair chiseled into the stone looked so lifelike Dante was certain it was about to blink.

  "The Face of Dozudo," Dante said. "Unless you lost some other blue marble relic bust you
didn't think to tell us about."

  She reached out to touch its face, hesitating at the last moment, as if it might sting her. She composed herself and caressed its brow. "Where did you find it?"

  "Behind several tons of rock."

  "I'm not sure you can trust that wiseman of yours," Blays said. "We found it in a dirty old cave. If he was telling you all that was a 'shrine,' he needs to raise his standards."

  "It was buried in a cave?" She eyed Dante. "Then how did you find it?"

  He shrugged. "I told you, I'm a prophet. So you should heed my words when I tell you it's time to leave the valley."

  "Our agreement. Yes, I'd like to honor it. But I don't have the authority to make these people leave."

  "You're the chieftain. Where you go, they'll follow."

  Kadda shook her head sadly. "But I'm not the chief. Not anymore."

  "Since when?"

  "Since you brought back the Face of Dozundo. That means the clan of the Walking Fish has entered a new era. One I'm not worthy enough to guide us through."

  Dante clenched his jaw. "I can't say I disagree with your decision to step down. Who'll be replacing you?"

  "Everyone knows it's bad luck to choose a new chieftain before spring. You should probably wait to come back until then."

  "You can't be serious."

  "It's regretful, but there's nothing any of us can do." She took a long breath through her nose. "Ahh, and yet it feels so freeing."

  Heat crept up the back of Dante's neck. "You think you're putting one over on me. But when I leave here, the disaster doesn't leave with me. You're only hurting your own people."

  "We've seen human kingdoms come and go. We're still here. I think we'll be fine."

  Blays exhaled raggedly. "I'd try to shame your honor, but it appears you haven't got any. Maybe it's lost in a shrine somewhere."

  "We have to leave," Dante said. "Before I start killing them."

  Blays snorted, then caught the look on his face and grew sober. "Okay, we do have to leave. Keep an eye on the valley, ex-chief Kadda. If it starts to do anything strange, such as rip in half, you might want to run."

  Nether flickered around Dante's hands, drawn by the overwhelming urge to lash out at their smug, stupid, stubborn faces. That, however, would defeat the purpose of trying to save their lives, so he strode back to his horse instead. As he mounted up, he was tempted to reach into the blue stone statue and melt it into a hard blue puddle. Kadda hadn't held up her end of the deal. She didn't deserve to profit from it.

  But a part of him knew that not all of his anger was caused by the norren—much of what he felt was still the fault of the Keeper. Besides which, if he destroyed the Face, he wouldn't only be taking it from her. He'd be taking it from the clan. And future generations lasting for countless years. Ever since the cracking of Arawn's Mill, people had been mortal. Born in order to die. But art could still be eternal. Whatever talent had carved the Face of Dozundo was immortal. The idea of destroying the statue disturbed him worse than the thought of annihilating the clan.

  In most circumstances, Blays would have derided him for getting fooled by the norren yet again. But Blays rode in silence. Naran, too, although he was often so stiff and silent he could be mistaken for the masthead of his own ship.

  After several miles, Dante slowed his horse to a walk. "We weren't trying to rob them. We weren't trying to hurt them in any way. All we were trying to do was help—and all they did was take advantage of us."

  Blays glanced behind them. "How does that make them any different than the Colleners? Or the Kandeans?"

  "Is it that hopeless? Trying to make things better? What else are we supposed to do?"

  "I suppose we could tend to our own lands. Failing that, there's always rum."

  Dante lapsed into silence. Riding along the rim of the valley, his options slowly clarified. He could get lost in his rage, letting it pull him off his path. Or he could forge forward with his work. Do what he could. And pray it was enough.

  At the end of the valley, he stopped, gazing northeast. "For now, we'll leave the norren be. There's plenty of other land for me to deal with. Naran, would you mind heading back to Collen?"

  The captain smiled. "Am I that useless to you?"

  "Just the opposite. We can no longer trust the Keeper. I'd like to have a pair of smart eyes on her."

  Naran touched his loon. "I'll let you know if I see anything out of order."

  He struck northeast toward the distant city, dust pluming from the hooves of his astie.

  "Well," Blays said. "Ready to smash the gods' hard work?"

  Dante smiled. "If it offends them, then they shouldn't have left the world unattended for so long."

  Having already surveyed his course, he wasted no time riding up the hill to their west. A little past its crown, he dismounted and drew his knife across the back of his arm. Shadows fell on him like rain. He sent them worming into the slope below him.

  Rock cracked like thunder. Dust shot into the sky. With a rumble, the western face of the hill slipped loose, shaking the earth as it tumbled downhill.

  Dante grinned at the devastation. "Now that was satisfying."

  Stones broke, smacking against each other as they sought new resting places. When the dust settled, Dante moved to the edge, inspecting the twenty-foot cliff he'd chiseled into the hill. Troops could still climb it, assuming they had ropes, but wagons wouldn't have any hope. And the Colleners could defend it with a handful of soldiers.

  He moved north, raising a spine of naked rock, then ripping open a fault between two massive slabs, creating a ravine as bad as the ones they'd seen in the glacier fields of the Woduns. Though the changes to the landscape were vast, they were slow to deplete his supply of nether. He wasn't building anything. He wasn't doing any fine shaping or meaningful building.

  He was destroying. And it was always far easier to destroy than to create.

  They slept under the stars. Dante woke angry, but he turned his wrath on the blankness of the land, cracking open cliffs and chasms, lifting ridges and spikes. As soon as Naran was back in Collen, Dante requested a delivery of shaden. A rider delivered the heavy snails to him the following morning. Drawing on the nether collected within the shells, he was able to extend himself five times as far, covering miles per day, leaving a wandering trail of ruin behind him.

  He lost himself so deeply in the work that he wouldn't have noticed if a Mallish army had marched up and made camp around him. Blays kept watch, moving from hill to hill as Dante chewed his way north. They didn't talk much and they didn't need to. Sometimes, when Dante paused between assaults on the earth, he'd catch a look on Blays' face that was somewhere between thoughtful and troubled.

  Naran reported in via the loon each night. The Keeper didn't seem to be up to any new tricks—either that, or her skullduggery was too subtle for Naran to spot—but a group of Collenese soldiers had run across a party of Mallish scouts investigating the torn-up king's road. They'd skirmished, but the Mallish had escaped.

  Naran had word from Bressel, too. According to his crew stationed there, King Charles had announced that the Collen Basin had once again rebelled against its Mallish lords.

  And this time, the Colleners had raised demons from the shadows.

  It was, the king said, a staggering heresy. But it would not be allowed to stand. A cohort of ethermancers would be sent to purify the realm—along with a second, larger army. Collen would be back in Mallon's hands before the end of the year.

  Hearing this, Dante's jaw dropped. "That's disgusting. I can't believe it."

  "That a king would lie to his subjects?" Blays said. "If you find that disillusioning, then I have terrible news about the Falmac's Eve fairies."

  "Gladdic's behind this lie. I'm sure of it. Knowing his hunger for glory, he'll insist on leading the new army into Collen. He'll deliver himself right to us."

  "I thought he was down in Tanar Atain."

  "What if that was a ruse to stop us from lookin
g for him in Bressel?"

  Blays frowned. "Then it was an awfully cunning ruse, depending as it did on you raiding a fort while disguised as Gladdic, bumping into one of his underlings who happened to have that piece of intelligence, and then being fed that intelligence despite the underling not having any idea who you really were or why you needed to be fed it. If Gladdic's that clever, we should start sewing our white flags right now."

  Gladdic's involvement was speculation. But Mallon's intentions were clear. Dante pushed himself to the brink, gouging trenches, tossing up walls of jagged rock. The effort made him stand tall. The catharsis of devastation had him eager to rise each morning. Hard and clear, the desert sunlight seemed to be trying to show him something. But all it shined on was more wasteland.

  Somehow, the wasteland seemed to be enough. Everything fell away except the brightness of the sky, the crispness of the nights, the flaming wall of orange and pink that erupted at the end of each day when the sunset struck the dust in the air.

  The land was as empty as a bowl that had never been used. And that seemed to be the point: Dante had nothing except himself, a trusted friend to watch his back, and the job. All of his other troubles were petty nothings. Soon, he would walk away, and his work here would remain in testament to what he had done.

  Mile by mile and day by day, they forged north. The Green Mountains sharped on the horizon. Blays stopped to stare, then turned around, taking in the trail they'd left behind them. Parts of it looked like a god had stabbed at the earth. In others, it looked like a dragon was burrowing beneath the soil, with only its horns and spine breaking the surface.

  "Know what's funny?" Blays said. "No one's here to see this being created. But the Colleners will see the results. They'll come up with stories to explain it. Some will be true, or close to it, but others will be exaggerated, or just plain made-up."

  "Let me guess. You're going to spread stories of your own. Like this was all your work, and while you were slaving to save the realm, I was busy wandering around eating berries and crapping my pants."