A Secret Atlas

by Michael A. Stackpole

  The day after he’d been shown the copied chart at Nysant, he had been taken out to the site where the original drawing had appeared. His guide knew the way through the verdant rain forest intimately, and Jorim had a sneaking suspicion the fellow made his living searching out and looting old Viruk ruins. Several hundred years back there had been a strong market for such things in Erumvirine, but tastes had shifted away more recently. Still, the odd pieces often had magical powers attributed to them, despite all evidence to the contrary.

  The last leg of the trek involved slithering through ruins until he came to a chamber that had survived the eons relatively intact. His guide, a slender, swarthy fellow with a nose which was much too large for his face, held a torch as Jorim studied the wall map. The chart he’d seen had just been an outline of the drawing, and not rendered terribly accurately, whereas the original had been painted as a mural in rich blues. Mildew had eaten away at the edges, but something in the white paint used to depict the Mountains of Ice resisted it. The chain of islands, likewise rendered in white, stood out against the blue of the ocean.

  Jorim studied it carefully, then made a detailed drawing. He affected mild disinterest to counter his guide’s growing enthusiasm. Retaining his composure was not easy, however, as things that had been poorly rendered on the chart still retained their clarity on the wall, and he had worked hard to re-create them accurately on his drawing. What the other chart maker had taken as lines to indicate mountains or squiggles that were rivers were in fact Soth symbols for Viruk words, and Jorim knew them well.

  The island of Ethgi, off which they were anchored, had been the largest in the chain on the original chart and the only one to have indications of a settlement. On that chart it appeared to have mountains that ringed a bay. The mural showed something different—a flat atoll with a circular reef. The Soth symbol that had been taken for hastily drawn mountains really represented the old Viruk word eshjii. For the Viruk it meant the island was home to demons and a place to be avoided at all costs.

  Sailing down to it had been relatively uneventful, save that breezes came only lightly. Captain Gryst exercised her crew endlessly, drilling them on raising and lowering sails, clearing the decks for battle, and conducting a host of minor repairs. She forbade Jorim from even using the word “demon” and from trying to explain to the sailors what they might face at Ethgi—no matter that the name they were using for it was the more recent pronunciation of the Viruk word.

  What eshjii truly meant in the Viruk tongue was Fennych. In all his travels Jorim had never seen more than one or two, and that was good. Singly or in pairs, the Fennych could be intelligent, amusing, even charming—displaying skills at games, singing, dancing, and even small contests of strength or dexterity. They often featured as comical characters in the stories of heroes, and Men tended to look upon their appearance as a good sign.

  For the Viruk, the Fenn were not comical. Though the tallest reached no more than three feet in height, their burly bodies boasted disproportionate strength. In their most humanoid form they had sharp teeth, keen-bladed retractable claws, acute vision and hearing, and a short bristle of hair on their heads, usually grey, with dark black stripes or spots running through it. The Fenn had the ability, however, to change shape into a variety of small and medium-sized animals—never quite looking like a dog, wolf, mountain cat, bear, or badger, but a mongrel mix of any two. More importantly to the Viruk, they had an insatiable taste for Viruk flesh, a hardiness that made killing them very difficult, and when in a pack they became feral, vicious, and all but unstoppable. While they would gladly burrow into graves to eat the dead, they were not beyond coursing and killing live prey—and it mattered not to them if it were male, female, adult, or child.

  Jorim had little doubt, given the animosity between Men and Viruk, why Fennych were seen favorably by Men. When they got into a pack and changed to their more bestial forms, any affection they might have had for humanity also vanished. They just became part of a voracious horde that could chew a swath through a forest, devouring anything that couldn’t get out of their way, be it plant, animal, or anything else.

  The boat reached the Stormwolf and Lieutenant Geressa Toron came up on to the wheel deck to report to Captain Gryst. Though Anaeda’s opposite in size and coloration, the two of them shared a devotion to the ship and the sea that made them seem more alike than not. Geressa glanced at Jorim as if she expected him to leave, but Anaeda shook her head.

  “Report, Lieutenant. Master Anturasi has an interest in this.”

  The slender woman nodded, the sunlight flashing gold highlights into her light brown hair. “We were greeted warmly by the people, who are all half-starved. Most of them are fisherfolk who cast their nets outside the bay, but never beyond sight of the island. Others raise some crops at the edge of the jungle. They clear an area, farm until it produces no more, then clear another. They offer food and fish to the forest spirits. The last several years, the island and seas have produced a bounty, but this year they did not. Their fishing grounds yielded nothing, and the gardens did not get enough rain. And now they say the forest spirits are angry and have killed people who have tried to clear more land.

  “We were greeted warmly because the last time this cycle took place—I can’t tell how long ago, but the oldest person there claimed to be a hundred and three, and it was before she was born—a priest prophesied that in the next time of terror, a ship would arrive to carry them away. They believe the Stormwolf is that ship.”

  Anaeda walked to the rail and stared at the island. “How many did they say they were?”

  “Five hundred, but I think they were lying. I saw few children and fewer women of childbearing age.”

  Anaeda looked at Jorim. “What do you think?”

  “I suspect the good years meant the Fennych population grew swiftly. If this is a cycle, they’ve been through it before. If the Fenn attack in a pack, the settlement could be wiped out.” Jorim sighed. “Even if their reported numbers are correct, it’s not a group the fleet can absorb. Malnourished, and not having any education or abilities beyond basic survival skills, means their chances elsewhere in the world would be small.”

  The captain raised an eyebrow. “Are you suggesting we just let them die?”

  “I’m suggesting nothing of the sort, but we can’t let a mythical prophecy create an obligation. If you think about it, Captain, the people there had to have sailed here—either by themselves or in the holds of Viruk ships. They know they can sail away, but they’ve not tried it. We’re a week and a half out of Nysant under calm winds. They could have saved themselves already if they wanted to. Instead, they are waiting to be saved, and had we not chanced on this voyage and that chart, we’d never have come here.”

  Anaeda smiled slowly. “Your point is well-taken, but it does not solve the problem they face. We can’t take them with us, nor can we send them north to Nysant on one of our tenders. If we did take them aboard, the crew would view them as bad omens. Worse yet, they might have diseases and, at the very least, would eat far more than we can spare. To leave them behind, however, would have the crew blaming any evil that befell us on their spirits. I need something I can do to help them. Have you a suggestion?”

  Jorim nodded. “I do. I’ve never seen a Fenn pack in full rampage, but villages in Ummummorar tell stories of how they manage to keep the Fenn at bay. We’ll use up some of our supplies, but I think the crew will understand.”

  He glanced at the sky. “We have enough time before dusk to make the plan work. Captain, if you’ll order the Seawolf in to Ethgi’s harbor, we’ll have the problem solved in no time.”

  Jorim waited with a contingent of soldiers from the Stormwolf at the inland edges of Archurko. The settlement was little more than a collection of mud huts and longhouses built from native bamboo. The town had dug a trench and raised a breastwork long in the past, though new slivers of sharpened bamboo had been set in place. It would not have been enough to even slow the Fennych, since
many could leap to the top of the mound with ease, but the wall’s fierce appearance gave people heart.

  He’d been overjoyed when Captain Gryst gave him leave to accompany the expeditionary force onto the island. While the soldiers and sailors went about their duty, he spoke with the village elders to learn more about the settlement’s history. It did not surprise him that the headman also served as a priest of Quun, the Bear. Followers of that god valued steadfastness and continuity above all else, so would easily see themselves bound by traditions and as part of cycles.

  Several things did surprise him, however. He asked for and was given samples of the fish they caught. He easily recognized them, but there were far fewer species than he would have expected. The total of varieties he saw available were a third of those sold in Nysant and when he asked why other fish were not eaten, his questions were answered with a simple, “It is against our way.”

  As he spoke to more people he discovered many things that were counter to their “way.” Sailing beyond sight of the island was a violation of religious law. The manufacture and consumption of alcoholic beverages was similarly banned. Religious laws proscribed many things, narrowly focusing their lives on things that were important and would allow them to survive.

  Jorim slowly began to form a picture in his mind of what must have happened down through the eons. The small settlement looked to its religious leaders for direction during times of crises. A priest, or a series of them, outlawed one thing and another. It could have been that during a particularly poor year for grain, he forbade brewing. Conversely a celebration where men drank to excess and started fighting might have resulted in the same ban. Similarly, cases of food poisoning linked to one type of fish might have resulted in its banning, and the fear of ships being lost in a storm when too far from the village might have caused the laws about that to be born.

  Instead of expanding and growing as a society should, this one contracted. The whole idea of a society shrinking sent a chill down his spine. His entire life, his family’s vocation was dedicated to expanding society and its horizons. Removing the people from Ethgi would not only be logistically impossible, it would destroy them. Nysant would be seen as a pit of vice and depravity—and he wasn’t sure he disagreed wholly with that—and the Ethgisti would flee back to their island as fast as they could.

  Darkness had fallen and silence stolen in save for the crackling of torch flames and the flutter of bats’ wings in the night. All the soldiers remained still, their eyes and ears straining. The breeze easily carried their scent into the jungle, but it also carried another scent. And that scent drew the Fennych as fire draws insects.

  The soldiers and sailors had not been happy when cask after cask of rice beer had been loaded into boats and rowed to shore. The villagers carried it through Archurko and to the forest edge, where the casks were buried to within a foot of their tops, then broken open. Jorim had no idea how many Fenn there might be, so he’d had twenty casks shipped out, and the expedition’s personnel mourned each one as if it were a sweetheart.

  He had hoped rice beer would work, for in Ummummorar a variety of fruits and roots were mashed up and allowed to ferment in preparation for what was known to be prime Fennych season. When it passed without danger, the villagers consumed the mixture in an orgy of drunken joy. If danger did present itself, the potent liquor was poured into troughs made from split and hollowed logs.

  True to the Ummummoraran tales, the island Fennych approached the alcohol cautiously. Jorim could barely make out the single individual crawling forward to reach the first cask. About the size of a small bear, but with a long tail and tufted ears, it dipped a paw into the rice beer, then licked. It growled, then tried a bit more, before grabbing the edge of the cask with both paws and plunging its head fully into it.

  In less time than it took for bubbles to rise from the first Fennych’s splash, others poured from the forest and went for the beer. Some dived in and splashed, others crowded around, muzzles sunk deep, while yet others jostled and pushed like puppies searching for a teat. A few fought for possession of a cask, then broke apart, little harm done, to chase other interlopers away from their prize.

  Snaps and snarls filled the air, followed by long howls that sounded mournful. As the din died down and the owl-moon’s face shone over the scene, furry, barrel-chested creatures lay all around the casks, twitching and snoring, staggering a few steps and falling. Several poked their unconscious comrades, prodding them to get up, but gradually succumbed to drink and gravity.

  When Captain Gryst deemed all to be safe, the people of the Stormwolf left the breastworks and approached the horde of drunken monsters. Jorim made certain he was out in front and reached them first. They’d not begun to revert to their more docile form, but they hardly seemed threatening. He checked first one, then another, looking at their teeth and paws, and after looking over a half dozen, settled on the third one he’d inspected.

  He rolled the young male onto his stomach, then lifted him by the scruff of his neck. “This one will do, Captain.”

  Anaeda nodded. “Slaughter the rest of them, then report back to the ship.”

  A sergeant with the Sea Dragons looked at her. “Begging your pardon, Captain—”

  “Yes, Sergeant Solok?”

  “This killing is likely to be thirsty work, Captain.” The man smiled as his men fell to butchering the sleeping Fenns. “Be a shame to waste what’s left of the beer.”

  Chapter Thirty-two

  4th day, Month of the Rat, Year of the Dog

  9th Year of Imperial Prince Cyron’s Court

  162nd Year of the Komyr Dynasty

  736th year since the Cataclysm

  Telarunde, Solaeth

  Had the situation they’d discovered in the small town of Telarunde not been so potentially explosive, Moraven Tolo might have laughed. As it was, he shot a hand out to restrain Ciras. Tyressa had the good grace to look at him before she chose to do anything. Keles Anturasi just reined his horse to a stop, then squinted and studied the town square as if trying to clear his mind of the fog that sometimes consumed him.

  The journey from Asath to the coast of the Dark Sea had gone quickly. They decided to avoid Gria, so Moraven led them northeast to a cove where smugglers plied their trade. The smugglers were not choosy about cargo, and accepted their horses as partial payment of passage. They’d often transported xidantzu and did not mind having one in their debt. Moraven had employed this family before and found one of their virtues was that they had a very short memory span, save for good friends.

  The passage to Eoloth went quickly and uncharacteristically smoothly. They saw no pirates and had no foul weather. The food, which was served very salty and cold, made them long for the rancid rations on the Catfish, but within three days they’d quit the ship and entered Solaeth’s largest city.

  Eoloth’s buildings rose to three and four stories, despite being made of mud bricks that were then stuccoed over and whitewashed. The people actually took pride in their homes and regularly decorated them with verses scripted in bright paint surrounding doors and windows, or with painted-on ivy that could never have survived in the cool, dry climate. The brightest colors and most exotic images adorned the wealthier homes, though neither Keles nor Ciras thought much of what the Eolothans counted as wealth.

  The two of them shared many characteristics born of an early life of privilege. Ciras remained very precise in action and ritual. He even continued to be well-mannered despite being hot, tired, and hungry—a state that was nearly constant in the ship’s cramped, damp quarters. Moraven admired his stubbornness and unwillingness to compromise unless there was a tactical advantage.

  Keles likewise found the hardships trying, but remained game and made the best of things. Moraven had been led to believe Keles was smart, but the young man did make a number of errors. They were not consistent, but similar in nature. Part of the time he seemed to be in a fog, and several days complained of waking with a headache as if he’d spe
nt the previous night drinking.

  Tyressa intrigued Moraven because she possessed a discipline that belied her age and clearly had been well trained, but was more than willing to listen to his ideas about how they might accomplish their missions. Usually warriors associated with a nation or particular noble house looked down on xidantzu—thinking them too independent to be worthy of hire. Tyressa seemed to put that all aside, save where Keles’ safety might be jeopardized.

  Once they’d bypassed Gria, Tyressa had opened the sealed orders she’d been carrying. She passed a message to Moraven, then read through the remaining documents. After a second read, she turned them over to Keles. He read them, frowned, and slumped back against the boat’s hull. “This is going to be difficult.”

  Moraven had smiled. “That would be true of any mission out here. This just makes it more curious.”

  The Prince’s message had expanded Keles’ mission by adding two additional tasks. First, he was to help Moraven in locating possible caches of weapons from the time before the Cataclysm. He was to make exact maps of their locations and not communicate any of that information to anyone, even his grandfather. That latter instruction had confused Keles, but he agreed to it, noting, “It just means I’ll have to have lots more things to give him, so he won’t go looking for stuff.”

  The second thing the Prince asked him to do was to help find Borosan Gryst. Keles knew who that was and brightened at the prospect of meeting him. Keles started to explain about something Gryst might be carrying, but then grew quiet. Everyone in the group noticed his reluctance to explain further, but no one cared, since they’d undoubtedly learn what it was if they ever found Gryst.