The Wound of the World

by Edward W. Robertson

  The man gazed at Dante, eyes shifting between every shade of blue. His features didn't look Tanarian. In fact, they didn't look like any people Dante had yet seen: the eyes seemed to be too long at the corners, the mouth stretching too wide below his thick nose.

  Dante held his sword at his side. "Who are you?"

  He'd spoken in Mallish. When the man replied, his voice reverberating through the open air, it was in a flowing language that didn't remind Dante of anything he'd ever heard.

  The man lifted his left hand, pointing at Dante's chest. He spoke again, voice rising.

  "Whatever it is, it was that guy's fault." Blays pointed in the direction Gladdic had fled. "Unless you're asking who to thank for letting you out. In that case, it was all us."

  "He won't stop." Volo's voice was little more than a whisper. "Not unless we swear to serve him. Even then, he might take our souls instead."

  The man positioned the glaive horizontal to the ground, held lengthwise in front of his hips. His next words rang with a formal cadence. He stopped, the only sounds the steady bash of the rain and the frenzied beating of the water-people's bare feet as they ran toward the man in white. Though the air was warm, it suddenly smelled like a northern wind.

  "Don't make any moves," Dante murmured to the others. "We're not here to—"

  Without the slightest hint of anger or enmity, the man bent his knees, swung his glaive forward, and charged.

  He mounted the shelf of rock. Blays stepped forward, flicking his left-hand sword into the path of the glaive. The blades met with a wrenching screech. The purplish shadows on the Odo Sein weapon flickered wildly as it bent its nethereal strength to countering the physical power of the blow. The man pivoted to his right, meaning to turn the glaive into a lever to unbalance Blays or even toss him from his feet. Rather than resisting, Blays let his sword fall downward. He ducked under the whooshing polearm and spun inside the giant's range.

  He struck at the man's extended left arm. The blade stalled in the man's snapping arm raps, yet fought through to cut into his forearm. Fluid spattered from the wound, a ghostly blue that shimmered despite the lack of sunlight. Blays swung his right-hand sword in a backhand aimed at the giant's ribs.

  The man tucked back his hips and swung the glaive across his body. The angle was awkward and one-handed, yet his sheer strength propelled the weapon's shaft into Blays with enough force to send Blays tumbling to the earth.

  Volo let loose an arrow. It struck the man dead center in the chest. He pulled it free and flung it aside. Dante and Naran pincered him, drawing his attention away from Blays, who was still pulling himself to his feet. The pale man jabbed at Dante with the glaive's blade. As Dante intercepted its tip with his sword, the man rammed it backwards, thrusting the butt at Naran's head. Naran gave way, cutting at the end of the haft. The nethereal swords had shown the ability to slice through just about anything short of a block of solid rock, but it hit the haft with a hard click and bounced away.

  The giant jerked his wrists, whipping the glaive's butt back at Naran's head. Naran just had time to raise his shoulder and tuck his chin to his chest. The impact sent him skidding over the rock. As soon as he was down, the man bullrushed Dante.

  Another arrow hit the man in the thigh. He brushed it away. The wounds to his left arm and chest were shining with white light, sealing up before Dante's eyes. Seeing the ether at work, Dante pulled at the nether. It was still no use.

  Narrowing his eyes, he focused on the ether spilling from the giant's body, purging his mind of all thoughts. Nothing came.

  The glaive's bone point was thrusting for his throat. He swung at it in a broad arc, scuttling to the side. When his blade hit the enemy's, his arm jarred so hard he nearly dropped his sword.

  "He's like an Andrac," Dante yelled, backpedaling from another attack. "Healing himself. But I can't pull the ether from him!"

  Blays rushed the man from behind. As the man spun about, Blays trapped his glaive with one sword and hurled himself inside the man's guard, poised to strike at his head or chest. Instead, the giant snap-kicked Blays in the gut, sending him flying.

  Blays landed and didn't get up. Volo fired another arrow, but it flew past the man's head. Dante tried to rush him, but the man was already spinning about. Dante ducked. The glaive's shaft whooshed over his head. Dante popped to his feet and ran back five full steps.

  Blays was still down. Volo's quiver was down to its last two or three arrows. Naran wasn't hurt too badly yet, but he was no better a swordsman than Dante.

  Far worse than that, the first of the water-people would be on them in less than a minute. As soon as they arrived to harry Dante from all sides, he and the others would have the choice of being torn apart by the furious minions, or impaled by the impassive giant.

  His heart felt like it was being squeezed through a straw. He didn't even know who the giant was. Couldn't even talk to him. He had no desire to fight the man—had, in fact, been trying to avoid that—but whatever Gladdic had released from the hexagon, it seemed bent on destroying everything in sight. Worse, it seemed capable of doing so. It had slaughtered the Odo Sein, killed an Andrac, sent the others scurrying away. Without the nether, what hope did he and Naran have?

  There was only one way out. They had to kill the giant with a single stroke. Before he could heal. He was too strong and too fast for Dante or Naran to pull that off—even Blays hadn't been able to do more than scratch him—but Volo's bow didn't have to worry about the man's reach nor the strength of his arms. Dante suspected the enemy's skull was thick enough to protect him from most shots, but he also suspected an arrow in his eye or mouth would do the trick.

  Dante turned to yell an order at Volo. As he watched, she nocked and loosed her last arrow. It hit the giant in the shoulder. He pulled it loose, snapped it into fragments, and cast it aside.

  Dante bit his teeth together. The water-people were closing in. The giant was undaunted. Dante lifted his sword, reminded himself not to get stuck in the Pastlands, and prepared to die.

  ~

  He stumbled and slid up the white grimrock, his legs aching, tears flowing down his face to be drowned in the rain. His right arm was numb. It felt twice the size it should. Ironic, considering it was now smaller than it had ever been. He was afraid he might bleed to death—he'd had to apply a tourniquet torn from his robes on the run, and it wasn't a good one—but maybe that would be a blessing.

  As Gladdic neared the ridge, he didn't bother to glance back at the fight near the ruins of the Riya Lase. He hadn't had nearly enough time to forge a force capable of destroying the White Lich. The entire attempt had been yet another failure. Yet again, that failure had been precipitated by the nethermancer from the north. He could only pray that by his unleashing of the Eiden Rane unexpectedly early, Galand would finally be destroyed.

  The ground leveled beneath his battered feet. He hobbled along, surveying the hellscape ahead for the Drakebane. Blighted loped uphill to make for the Riya Lase, pathetically eager to serve the one who had reduced them to their graceless state, but Gladdic saw no hint of the emperor nor of his retinue.

  This attempt had failed. But if he could find the Drakebane, they could withdraw. They could regroup. And they could strike at the White Lich again.

  His ether remained locked in the grasp of the Odo Sein, but that which had been disturbed would still show itself when looked at with purity of vision. Tuning his sight to the light, he took another look at the ground. The Blighted had left many tracks of their own, yet there it was: a cluster of dimly glowing white footprints carrying north across the jagged, alien landscape.

  Gladdic drew himself up and moved on.

  As he walked, he tore another piece from his robe to bind around his stump. The sight of the sliced meat and bone made him breathless. It wasn't the wound itself that disturbed him—flesh had never concerned him; it was a vessel, nothing more; when it was broken, it was no more gruesome than the breaking of a clay pot—but where it had come fr
om.

  Galand, again. Was there a symbolism to the taking of Gladdic's right hand? The hand that served the gods? A shudder racked his body, one that had nothing to do with the rain. After the fall of Collen to the barbarous rebels, certain rumors had spread forth. Gladdic had dismissed them as transparent propaganda—or, if that was giving too much credit to the crudely warlike leadership, as the superstitious whisperings of heretics and near-pagans—but what if they were correct? What if Galand truly was an avatar of Arawn?

  One sent to whisper lies far and wide. To bedevil Gladdic wherever he went. And, at last, to spread the ultimate darkness across not only Tanar Atain, but the entire world.

  The thought frightened him. But fear put a spring in his step. He tottered over the rolling, unholy white rock of the Wound, occasionally spitting on it, and only altering course to avoid an upthrust stone or a passing Blight. He was afraid the Drakebane would make haste for the boats and depart before Gladdic caught up, but within minutes, he gazed across the unclean vista and spied the emperor and his retinue holding a conversation beneath a stand of especially tall bone-growths.

  The Odo Sein were the first to notice him. He could feel the judgment behind their masks. Though he begrudgingly admired their dedication, he didn't care for the knights' stoic scorn. Ignoring their gazes, he presented himself to the Drakebane and bowed his head.

  "Gladdic." The man's voice was as heavy as his features, which were unusually thick for a Tanarian. The mark of the well-guarded Drakebane line. His black hair was streaked with orange—a sign of general nobility, one significant enough that dyeing one's own hair orange had been illegal for centuries. The emperor stood on that brink of male age when youth was almost all but spent, and in the blink of an eye, a man could collapse from the haleness of a warrior into the doddering of an old fool. "You live?"

  "The White Lich is freed." His news caused even the Odo Sein to declare oaths. Used to being at the center of such shock and dismay, Gladdic waited for the hubbub to pass. "Neither the Andrac nor the Odo Sein could stop him. When I saw that this was so, I retreated. For I believe we may yet destroy him."

  The Drakebane shook his head slowly. "It is too late, priest. Your promise is broken. You have failed."

  "I do not understand, Emperor."

  "And you don't need to." The lord nodded to his retinue and turned as if to go.

  "Emperor!" Gladdic fought to keep the plea from his voice. "Will you not fight? You've already lost your throne." This caused three of the Odo Sein to turn; even with their helmets in place, he could feel the murder within their eyes. "If you let the foe take free rein, you'll lose your country as well."

  "No, priest. I have the feeling Mallon will prove quite welcoming to as many of my people as I care to save."

  "While I am sure they will provide accommodations for displaced royalty, I know King Charles well, Your Majesty. I am afraid he will turn away all of your…refugees."

  "My line has fought the liches for centuries. We know their power. Do you think we were so arrogant that we never considered a day like today might befall us? We knew our home could be destroyed at any time—you believe we never thought to secure another?"

  "Please, Majesty. I do not know what King Charles has told you, but I do know his mind. He will make you promises, if that suits him. And then he will break them, because that also suits him."

  The emperor broke into laughter. "We have no need for his promises! We have been preparing since before Charles' time, priest. Why do you think my people have all been made to speak Mallish? Our spies are in your palace. Our priests are in your temples. Your priests have been taught to fear the return of the Dragon; they chafe at your faith's denial, champing at the bit for reform. Your military has built boats to carry us from here to Bressel—and to make it our new home. And if your king denies us, then he will soon be king of nothing."

  Gladdic's mind felt as though it was tumbling into an abyss. "But I pledged myself to cleanse your land. For this, you betray me?"

  "You betrayed yourself when you failed. I do what I must to keep my people alive. I've fought this evil for too long—let it take this land, and the rebels with it."

  "No." Gladdic reached for the Drakebane's raincloak. An Odo Sein interposed himself between them, pressing a gauntleted hand against Gladdic's breastbone. "Your Majesty! You can't do this!"

  "Oh, priest." Pity and contempt entered the Drakebane's piercing eyes. He lifted a silver charm from his neck showing a snake wrapped around the eyes of a proud man. "I already have."

  He turned and walked away. Gladdic's throat closed on itself, his chest tightening. His legs weakened beneath him. Was his aging body about to give out on him at last? He smiled at the thought. Everything he'd worked to build had been ruined; everything he'd tried to make pure had been defiled; where he'd placed trust, it had been betrayed. Worst of all, he had abetted the very man who would now try to take Gladdic's cherished home—Bressel, civilization's north star in a black void of brutality, ugliness, and heresy—and cast it down from the sky.

  But at least death, at last, would spare him the fate of watching the shadow he'd helped give birth to as it devoured the world's last lights.

  He sank to the horrid grimstone, the rain beating against his gaunt, wrinkled face, and waited for Arawn to claim him. He was an old man and everything he had ever done had only made the mortal realm a more wretched place.

  His breathing slowed. The pain in his chest eased. Did he cry then? Perhaps he did. Because he wasn't going to die, and that, finally, taught him the only lesson worth knowing.

  There are gods, and they are not merciful.

  ~

  Dante stood against the wrath of the giant and searched for any meaning to be found in his last moments. He found them as empty as an old skull. He was going to die, and so were his friends, and their deaths would mean nothing. Lost to a fight where victory, even if it were possible, would gain him nothing.

  The giant charged and he scampered to the side, feinting an attack to engage the towering man while Naran came at him from the rear. As before, the man was wise to their tricks, batting Naran away with the blade of his glaive.

  Dante rushed the giant, sandals splashing through the rain gathering on the solid ground. Before he'd come within range of the nethereal sword, the blue-white man pivoted about, slamming the butt of his polearm into Dante's side. The blow sent him flying. He landed on a span of iron, his forehead cracking into the metal.

  Blood dribbled from his eyebrow. It and the ground beneath him smelled the same. Out of hopeless habit, he reached out for the nether, meaning to feed his blood to it. The shadows kept their peace.

  He wondered if he should bother to get up. The thought of accepting his fate was so tempting he closed his eyes. An end, at last, to all the struggles he never seemed to be able to escape. Yet this thought troubled him—he'd had it not long ago, when the swamp dragon had nearly drowned him. And he'd discovered he had more backbone than he knew.

  He cocked his head. Heart pounding in his ears, he reached into himself, seeking out the nether entwined in his spine. It was there, but his whole body was alive with shadows. Just like when he'd been constructing his sword, he couldn't tell what part might be the trace.

  Another drop of blood fell from his forehead. He ordered the nether to it. Nearly all of the shadows within him stayed put, locked in place by the aura of the Odo Sein. Yet some of those braided inside his spine began to stir.

  He drew his trace from himself. The act felt startling, a combination of pain and relief, like diving into icy water or removing a long thorn from your flesh. He held the shadows in one hand and made a fist with the other. His face hurt—he was grinning.

  He rose to his feet and faced the giant, who'd been distracted by Naran slashing at his ankles as he advanced on Dante. Shaping the nether into a killing bolt, Dante finally understood why they went through such strife. Why they fought all the smaller fights even when it was for the good of someone else ra
ther than themselves.

  Because when they fought the little fights, they grew strong enough to be able to fight back when it truly mattered.

  The giant drove Naran into a full retreat. The enemy glanced at Volo, who was tending to Blays, or possibly trying to take one of his swords, then turned back to Dante. He tilted his head, color-shifting eyes locking onto the shadows in Dante's hand. As Dante hurled them at the man's face, the giant bared his teeth, the muscles of his cheeks striated like granite cliffs.

  It took Dante a second to understand the twisted look on the man's face was a grin. At the last instant, the giant turned his head and ducked his chin. The nether gouged across his forehead and into his hairline, sending ether swirling around his head like powdery snowflakes. Faint blue fluid seeped down his face.

  "Sorcerer." The man spoke Mallish with a thick accent that made the word sound like "zor-zor-or," uptilted slightly at the end. He laughed like a tin sheet being shaken back and forth. "You have skill. Skill earns choice. I will offer it to you one time."

  Dante backed across the iron ground and the giant followed. "Let me guess. Join you or die?"

  The blue-white man shook his head in four slow sweeps. "Join me—or join them."

  He gestured to the pool-dwellers who had come to a stop to watch them from a hundred yards away. Their faces were sick with anxiety.

  "If I join you," Dante said. "What then?"

  "You will be made as me. My servant. But to the others, a god."

  "And my friends?"

  "Keep them. All gods need slaves."

  Dante retreated another few steps and the giant strolled after him. The wound on the man's face was already closing. The bolt of shadows hadn't caused more than a groove in his skin. It was like his body was so infused with ether that it had a natural armor against sorcerous attacks. The nether in Dante's trace was limited. Even if he depleted it entirely, he doubted it would be enough. And he did not want to see what happened if he used it all.