Dark Heart (Husk)

by Russell Kirkpatrick

  The cosmographers had a strong tradition of recording and debating concepts, and Lenares had spent many happy days in the vaults reading complex theorems. But none of them did more than touch on the notion of ‘nothing’ as a mathematical concept.

  Then one day she had come across the notes of the madman Qarismi of Kutrubul, a small town in the Biyyamid, a fertile area well to the south of Talamaq. He was famous for getting himself arrested every market day for his outrageous and blasphemous statements. Latterly, though, the Emperor had encouraged him, employing a note-taker to record his ramblings. These notes had recently been deposited in the cosmographers’ library, and no one else had seen them. Lenares was certain of that: cosmographers were taught to respect documents, but these were covered with some sort of jam. Mahudia would have lamented the state of the notes, but Lenares hadn’t cared.

  The madman had obviously appended new material to his lectures. ‘How many sons do I have?’ the crazy Qarismi asked himself in frenzied jottings in the margins of a discussion about root vegetables. ‘None. My heart is a void, I have no sons. What number is the number of my sons? How can the number of my sons be a number when it is nothing?’ The last line had been crossed out, but Lenares could still read it: ‘How can nothing be something? Is “none” a quantity of something?’

  Lenares had read on, fascinated. ‘Let x be the number of brothers I have, and y be the number of sisters. Let x = y. The mathematical difference between x and y is a number, but it is nothing. How can it be a number and a nothing? It must be a number—called 0. Zero after Ahmal’s naming. So, x – y = 0. But what does that mean? Zero is here defined as brothers minus sisters. But what does that mean?’

  The marginal notes continued on the next page. ‘Zero is defined by its context. Consider my debts: I and the moneylender Aleb know well it is possible for me to have less than no money. I buy a pastina, I have no money left. I buy another pastina, I owe Aleb. So zero is a placeholder: between the state of owning and owing, reality and its negation.’

  These strange words had come back to Lenares’ mind as she considered the hole in the world. She had tied her strange numbers to…to what? Not to nothing. To a mathematical concept that was defined by being between something? Yes. The hole was in the wall of the world, the material worldwall that separated time and space from the realm of the gods. So the hole was defined by the wall, in the same way that having no money was defined by being neither the state of owning nor owing. That was what she had instinctively worked out when she had assigned her own numbers to the hole. She had defined the hole by its context. Now she could track any contact the Daughter might make with the world. It would tug at her.

  As it did now.

  But she was no nearer knowing whether she had imagined Mahudia’s hand taking her numbers and tying them to the hole. Patience. Understanding would come.

  ‘No, I don’t truly understand what it is like not to exist,’ she said. ‘You would have to be a god to understand that.’ She smiled, not a nice smile. ‘What’s it like, Daughter? Is it a wonderful thing, not existing?’

  I don’t understand you. Of course I exist. The Daughter’s voice sounded vexed.

  ‘Then why all this effort to return to the world?’

  To help you, fool. Not that you’re proving worthy of it. Get up, girl; there is someone approaching. I have worked hard to bring him here. He, also, is necessary.

  ‘Poor cold Daughter, wrecking the world in an attempt to get back what you left behind. How much more will you destroy before you admit defeat?’

  Silence, little one. Or I will dispose of you and find someone more suited.

  ‘You can’t kill me,’ Lenares said. Time to test another of her theories. ‘You don’t have the strength. Especially not since you’ve just spent most of it on the wave that smashed the tea house, and the remainder helping me to this place.’

  Not all of my strength is spent, said the Daughter, her voice roughening. I still have enough to crush you like a bug.

  ‘And do you want to attract your brother’s attention in your weakened state?’

  The big gamble, but her numbers led her to suspect it. There was a simple pattern in the interval between major attacks through the hole(s) in the world that implied a recovery period. Finite strength.

  Not much of a risk, the voice hissed. Since he helped me with the wave.

  Oh. Get up, get up, Lenares told herself. I miscalculated.

  She grasped the rocks with abraded hands and heaved herself upwards, hissing as her chest tightened painfully. Hurry, she told herself, something is coming.

  And something came from out of the sun, a dazzling blaze of light, so bright Lenares had to shield her eyes. When next she looked there were three suns, one on each side of the main sun.

  ‘Pretty,’ she said, as she scrambled across the rocks and towards the cave. ‘But an illusion.’

  I’ve made the air colder so I can manifest myself, said the Daughter. Then: Where are you going? Don’t go in the cave, Lenares. Please.

  Lenares blinked: her eyes were still dazed by the glare of the sun. The cave mouth was disturbingly circular and, as she focused, she could see nothing within. But it is open to the sun: light should be illuminating the rear of the cave.

  Not a cave, then.

  She found herself between gods.

  A cold mist emerged from the cave, the barest emanation, but flowing against the onshore breeze. It flailed in the air, writhed, then began to shape itself into a hand. Cruelly sharp talons raked the air above Lenares, searching.

  He has awoken, the Daughter said. You must flee.

  ‘I’m already fleeing you!’ Lenares yelled. The talons might be made of mist, but she had no doubt they could hurt her.

  Flee. I will keep him at bay.

  ‘Why should I care? He’s no worse than you.’

  You are wrong, Lenares; of all the things you have ever claimed, that is the most wrong. The Son must never be let loose in the world. He will lay waste to it.

  A hand of shimmering rainbow light came from out of the sea, a sun-shaped amalgam of sparkle on the waves and reflection from the clouds. It was the most beautiful, fragile thing Lenares had ever seen, and she said so, even as she scrambled for her life.

  It is all I can do, the Daughter admitted, in my weakened state. Manipulate sunlight and cloud crystals through temperature. Behold the battle of the exhausted gods, fought with weapons without substance. A bitter laugh rippled across the shore.

  The two hands came together, the grey hand of the Son and the shimmering rainbow-hued hand of the Daughter. Clashed, drew apart, and clashed again, looking for a grip. Lenares reached the sand and began to run in earnest. Her rib flamed in agony, but she forced herself to ignore it.

  Out of my way, sister, rumbled a voice so deep it shook the earth. Small rocks were shaken loose from the cliff above and clattered down onto the beach. Lenares had to wait until they stopped falling.

  She is mine. I found her, I raised her. Find yourself another tool.

  I don’t want her. I need no tool. I simply want to deprive you of her.

  The fingers locked together with a ghostly sound. Ethereal digits squirmed above the rocks as the two gods traded spiteful insults.

  She’s mine.

  I should have killed you before our ascension.

  Then you would not have been chosen, you fool.

  It would have been worth it. This whole effort to become corporeal again is so I can get my hands around your throat. I want to feel your arteries pumping in vain against my fingers.

  So you’ve said, many times. I still don’t believe you. I loved you once, brother, and I know you loved me.

  Stop lying. There is no moral high ground to be claimed between you and me. The girl believes you are no better than I am. She is right.

  The beach was nearly at an end. Ahead lay a small promontory. If she could just get around the point, she might be able to scale the cliff, or find shelter somewhere. To avo
id their gaze long enough to devise some strategy. Eventually to find the others.

  To find Torve.

  She turned to see the two giant hands wrestling on the beach, scoring deep marks on the sand, knocking rocks from the cliff-face, occasionally splashing in the surf. The Son appeared to be getting the better of his sister. His hand was larger, his talons longer, while hers struggled under his, pale knuckles scraping on the rocks. The rainbow colours had dimmed.

  Just then the sun went behind a cloud.

  The Daughter’s hand disappeared and the Son roared in triumph. Lenares leapt forward onto the rocks of the headland, spurred on by the bellows behind her, bellows drawing nearer to the accompaniment of crashing and thumping, as though the god dragged the cave along with him.

  She did not want to get caught up in that grey hand.

  She had underestimated them both. Her numbers were correct, but only in a relative sense. All her calculations of the strength of the gods had to be increased by some constant below which they did not fall. It made sense: they had to have some baseline strength or they would not survive beyond the walls of the world. The strength might come from beyond the world, in which case it could not be enumerated.

  Could that be a way to defeat them? Cause them to draw more and more of their strength until they no longer had enough to sustain themselves?

  A thought for another day.

  Could a misty hand cast a shadow? Something loomed over her. She kept her head down, she did not want to look; her fear was finally getting the better of her, it was harder and harder to take steps forward; so cruel, she had almost escaped…

  ‘Ahoy, the shore!’ a cheery voice cried. It came from somewhere to her right, out to sea.

  Above her a deep growl shook the headland, and the shadow vanished.

  ‘Hoy!’ There was a man in a boat, and he was waving to her with a small, pale hand. A human, welcoming hand. ‘Can you tell me how far it is to Foulwater Mouth? Oh my, I’m lost, oh yes indeed.’

  The man brought his boat to shore on the next beach. Lenares helped him to drag it the last few yards, though the effort bit into her chest.

  She watched the man carefully. Something must be special about him, else why did the gods flee? She didn’t think it was because they had fought themselves to exhaustion. The Son had seemed on the point of killing her and vanquishing the Daughter.

  ‘I thank you, oh yes, you’ve been most kind,’ said the funny little man. He was old, over thirty at least, with thin, wispy hair and a pate burned red by the sun. His features were generous to a fault: too much mouth, a large nose and wide, staring eyes. He looked harmless, but she would soon know.

  ‘My name is Lenares,’ she said.

  ‘Oh my, yes. Mine is Olifa, late of Eisarn,’ he said in a breathless rush. ‘A long way south of here. Inland. Not much of a sailor really, but this boat and I have gotten along just fine, oh yes. Are you local? Do you know the way to Foulwater Mouth?’

  ‘I am Lenares of Talamaq,’ she said, then corrected herself. ‘I mean, Lenares the Cosmographer. No, I am not local. You are more local than me.’

  ‘You look like a local, yes you do. So you don’t know how to find Foulwater Mouth?’

  ‘No, but I can help row a boat,’ she said, wincing at the thought of the damage she might do her rib. He saw her wince, she was certain of it, but he passed no comment, pausing in silence for a while, obviously thinking.

  ‘Well, it would be pleasant to have an attractive companion on my journey north, oh yes,’ he said eventually.

  ‘Is that why you want to go to Foulwater Mouth? To find an attractive companion?’

  The man laughed. ‘Oh my, young lady, how funny you are!’ He licked his lips. ‘I will not have to look very far for attractive companionship, no indeed. Not far at all.’

  ‘That’s good,’ Lenares said. ‘I want to travel Fatherward, I mean north, as quickly as I can. I am trying to find someone, and I think he will be walking north. So I hope your search doesn’t take long.’

  This occasioned another laugh from the man.

  His numbers were ambiguous. A teller of truth who had recently taken up lying; a killer of men who had aided an important quest. A man with more than one name; a man who had endured mockery. He intended, according to the numbers, to enjoy her companionship to the full.

  She could see no real threat in that.

  They launched the little boat on the outgoing tide. It had bench seats in the front and the back—the bow and the stern, she told the man, having read a scroll about sailing some years ago—and a place in the middle that held the mast and sail. The mast was down at the moment, the man explained, because he didn’t know how to use it. He seemed ineffectual, for all the history she could read in him, and Lenares wondered if she had made a mistake taking up with him. Who would travel by boat while not knowing how to operate it?

  She became thoroughly soaked during the launching process, and the saltwater stung her wounds. She sucked at the more accessible cuts, but this didn’t help.

  ‘You ought to use some ointment on those,’ said Olifa. ‘Keep them free of infection. I’ve seen what can happen to a dirty wound. Oh my, yes.’

  ‘I would if I had any.’

  ‘I’m something of an expert on mixtures and the like,’ the man said. ‘I’ll see if I can find you something in the next town.’

  ‘I don’t have any money,’ Lenares said anxiously. ‘And I haven’t eaten or drunk since yesterday.’

  ‘My, you are in a bad way,’ the man said. ‘Never mind, I have plenty of money, and food and drink enough to share, if you don’t mind your bread stale and your cheese hard, oh yes. And as for repayment, there are many ways you can make yourself useful on our journey north, however long it lasts, oh yes indeed.’

  Lenares knew the words he spoke had more than one meaning, but she put them aside. The man seemed friendly, and would hardly attack her now she had made it clear she had no money. She had just been in the presence of two gods powerful enough to reshape the world, and the harmlessness of this man encouraged her to relax. To lower her guard.

  They let down the sail and soon it filled with the breeze. Once they had mastered the skill of jibbing, the boat propelled them northward more quickly and certainly with far less effort than rowing, though they both suffered the occasional knock when the boat didn’t behave as they expected.

  She told him her story as the beautiful green waters rolled under the hull and the wild coast passed them by. A new world revealed itself to Lenares as she watched fish darting about in large groups, weaving their way between strange multicoloured trees. He seemed very interested in what she had to say, so she continued, even though she really wanted silence in which to contemplate the wonderful underwater panorama passing below. She did spread herself across the bow seat, with her head over the gunwale, watching the amazing antics of the fish as she talked and nibbled on a hard heel of bread.

  Olifa did not believe all the parts about the gods and the holes in the world, though he was too polite to say so. He was fascinated, though, by her tales of Raceme and the Bhrudwans she had fallen in with.

  ‘A red-haired man and his two children? Two? Oh my, a girl as well as a boy? Do tell!’

  And he clapped his hands as she told of the fireball and then of the wave sent to smash the tea house.

  ‘You have a wonderful imagination, Lenares,’ he said. ‘Such description; I can well believe what it must have been like. But I am a scientist, my girl, and I know such things don’t happen without a natural explanation. I don’t hold with all this intervention of the gods.’

  ‘How else do you think I ended up on the beach?’ Lenares said. ‘You interrupted a battle between the gods: surely you saw the great hands?’

  ‘Oh dear, oh my, no hands did I see,’ he replied, and she knew he told the truth, hard as it was to accept: he had been right there in his boat.

  Surely it was not all in my head. Of course not: people saw the other manifestati
ons of the gods. She wanted to know why the gods had been invisible to this man, but he had already moved on. She hoped it had not taken place entirely within her head, and, at the thought, part of her wanted to go back to the beach and check the sand for marks.

  ‘Whatever the explanation, I’m glad you are with me,’ Olifa said, smiling toothily. ‘Oh my, yes.’

  Lenares smiled back. ‘No one says that to me. Not even Torve lately.’

  ‘Torve is your lover?’ A casual question.

  Lenares could feel herself blushing. ‘No. I thought he might be, but his master won’t let him.’

  ‘Ah, an oft-repeated tale. Well, I have no master to tell me what to do.’

  His glance at her was intended to be meaningful, but Lenares could not interpret it. Did he want to be her lover? Surely not; he was so old.

  She thought again of Torve. He would have wanted to search for her, but she doubted Dryman would let him. She could ask Olifa to take her back to the beach. She could maybe scale the cliff, and hope the gods weren’t still there, waiting for her. But when she got to the top, there would be no one there. And she would then have to hurry through an unfamiliar country to catch them up. No, this was the better way.

  The morning blended into afternoon as Olifa talked about himself while Lenares watched the parade of the sea. He was an alchemist, he said, a man of wealth and great talent (all true, the numbers said, or, at least, he believed it to be true, though he had not said the wealth was recent) who had worked for years in an enormous mine. He made the occupation sound important and mysterious. His tales of seeking for precious metals hidden under the ground appealed to Lenares and her love of puzzles, and she told him so.

  ‘You are a lovely girl, oh yes, so I will tell you our secret,’ he said. ‘We dig for many metals, yes, but our real purpose is to search for a special stone. It is found in the heart of our richest lodes, in such small quantities it is almost impossible to identify, but I am an expert, oh yes. The expert, really. The only one.’