The Unweaving

by D. P. Prior

  He thumbed his nose and gave a smile full of shameless malignity, just at the very moment Buck cracked the reins and the wagon lurched forward. Albert landed flat on his back atop a very angry dwarf. Rugbeard shoved him off, rolled to his feet, and delivered a nose-crunching head-butt that brought tears to Albert’s eyes.

  “What the…? Who, what, where…? Oh, shog it,” the dwarf said. He let out a rumbling snore while still on his feet. His eyes drooped shut, and he sank down on top of the slab of scarolite.

  And you, mon ami, are a drinker, if I’m not very much mistaken. Albert made a mental note as he rubbed his swollen nose. He wouldn’t forget. He never did. But first things first. He’d go along with Buck as far as it would take him, learn the ropes, make some contacts… He’d done it before, and he could do it again. He might be older now, a little thicker round the waist, but people didn’t change all that much. They all still wanted the same things and made the same mistakes trying to acquire them. It was a game he’d played pretty much all his life, and he was already relishing the prospect of starting out somewhere new.

  THE DEAD LANDS

  The elf, Gilbrum, glided through the vegetation with long, easy strides. Vines and branches writhed around him and then recoiled, opening a path for the others to follow.

  Out of the corner of his eye, Shader saw occasional flurries of movement—bulky shapes darting between clumps of sedges or hunkering down amid the roots of mangroves. If it was the lizard-men, they didn’t appear keen on another confrontation. Maybe having their noses bloodied once was enough for them, or maybe they were just biding their time, waiting for a more opportune moment to strike.

  In front of him, Shadrak shrouded himself in his cloak and trailed Gilbrum like a shadow. Rhiannon brought up the rear, sullen and listless, eyes locked on her muck-encrusted sandals. Mosquitoes dotted her robe, flitted in and out of her hair. She swiped at them halfheartedly, as if she’d come to realize the effort was futile.

  Gilbrum wove a twisting path between the trees and then skirted a quagmire tufted with towering reeds. The mud made slurping, sucking noises as they passed, and something slithered across its surface.

  The elf ran effortlessly up a steep bank and waited for them at the top. It was only when Shader trudged up beside him that he noticed Shadrak was no longer with them.

  “He is close,” Gilbrum said. “His preference is for stealth. It is the nature of his kind.”

  “What’s that, scum?” Rhiannon said.

  Gilbrum cocked his head, as if considering a reply, but then waved his hand to take in the sea of tall grass that rolled out ahead of them. “Follow in my footsteps. There are things in the grass that live for the taste of flesh. I know them well and can avoid them with ease.”

  The grass bent back as he approached, creating a narrow corridor for him to walk through. At its edges, countless snakes and scorpions slithered and skittered out of his path. What was visible of the ground was studded with milky-white pustules, within which hand-shaped shadows twitched and grasped. Gilbrum lithely stepped over them, or jumped when two or more were clustered together. When he stopped and turned back to beckon, Rhiannon gave Shader a worried look but then set off after the elf, careful to plant her sandals square in the middle of the footprints he’d left. Shader followed her, doing the same, but he drew the gladius just in case.

  “So, this whole place is alive?” Rhiannon asked with a quaver in her voice.

  Gilbrum held up his hand, eyes flicking left and right. “When you have been here a while, you can feel it breathe.”

  He continued in silence, the grass parting for him, until they emerged upon a muddy flat crawling with sausage-sized maggots. Gilbrum quickened his pace, slapping at them with his bow. Rhiannon hitched up her robe and danced across on tiptoe.

  The rank stench of rotten eggs filled Shader’s nostrils, and plumes of brownish gas hissed to the surface at the edges of the flat. Gilbrum paid no heed, but continued on as quickly as Rhiannon and Shader could follow. Up above, twin suns climbed into in the sky, blurred by a clogging miasma that rose from the marsh.

  When they entered a copse of bowed trees surrounding a murky pond, Shadrak was waiting for them.

  “Plane ship’s definitely gone,” he said.

  Shader looked to Gilbrum for an explanation, but the elf merely shrugged and asked, “This is where you entered the marsh?”

  “Close by,” Shadrak said. “We were shunted off course by the Perfect Peak.”

  Gilbrum nodded. “The Technocrat has many defenses. The need must be dire indeed, if you would risk going there.”

  “You know of Gandaw’s plans?” Shader asked.

  “The Unweaving of all Creation? Who does not live in dread of this?”

  “It has started,” Shader said.

  Gilbrum hung his head in silence, as if he were grieving or pondering a response. “And you will stop him?”

  Shader shrugged. “Ain permitting.”

  Gilbrum sighed and cast his gaze around the marsh. “I would join you, only I am bound to this place. I have no freedom in Malkuth, save where the Sour Marsh has encroached.”

  “But can you lead us there?” Rhiannon asked.

  Gilbrum nodded. “You can see the Perfect Peak from the edge of the Sour Marsh. A black moat encompasses it—another pollution, this time of Gandaw’s making. The earth around the mountain has been dead for hundreds of years, devoid of all life. Yes, I will lead you there, but I would counsel against a direct assault. Metal orbs patrol the skies, and they spit fire that burns to the bone.”

  “What would you suggest?” Shader asked.

  Gilbrum sighed again, and this time sat down cross-legged, gesturing for the others to do the same. When they complied, he reached beneath his cloak and drew out a small wooden box, which he placed on the ground. He opened the lid, and a ghostly fire spilled forth, casting a comforting warmth over them.

  “The Unweaving was attempted once before,” he said, “back when the Sour Marsh was a mere trickle at the foot of the Farfalls. It is not a swift process, this unmaking of worlds, and back then, Gandaw was thwarted by the dwarves. Their tale even reached their kin across the mountains, and thus made its way to us.”

  “Kin?” Shader said. “I knew a dwarf from Aethir. He was present at this first Unweaving. He told me the dwarves were creatures of Gandaw. How is it they have kin in Qlippoth?”

  Gilbrum looked up at the sky and then focused on Shader. Moisture rimmed his verdant eyes. “Your friend was correct. Gandaw made the dwarves. He made them to mine the scarolite ore he had been led to by the homunculi.”

  Gilbrum’s gaze flicked to Shadrak and then back to Shader. The assassin was rigid beneath his hooded cloak.

  “Like so much that Gandaw made, the dwarves were not an original idea. Whatever has been dreamed, whatever has entered the minds of humans, was inspiration for his experiments. Long before Gandaw melded the races to form dwarves, the Creator had dreamed such beings for himself. Like my people, the elves, the dwarves were a remedy for the nightmares. We are the Creator’s defense against madness.” Gilbrum shook his head and looked off into the trees.

  “If the Sour Marsh goes unchecked, the nightmares will encompass all of Malkuth. Aethir will be a living horror, and the Creator will be rendered insane.”

  Shader thought about something the Gray Abbot had told him. “Aethir is the Dreaming to the natives of Sahul—a country on our Earth.”

  Gilbrum was nodding. “The nightmares would seep through the portals between worlds. If the Sour Marsh spreads its evil throughout Malkuth, the Earth will be contaminated. For this reason, I cannot leave it untended. It is the task my people are charged with. One elf, for a span of one hundred years, must slow the progress of the marsh’s malevolence. We can spare no more. Our people are few. The nightmares of Qlippoth are slowly killing us, just as they killed the dwarves.”

  “The dwarves of Qlippoth are dead?” Shader said.

  Gilbrum picked up a fallen l
eaf and gave it his full attention. “The city of Arnoch was their mightiest structure. It enabled them to hold out for years against the worst horrors imaginable. The Creator dreams darkly, and his protectors ultimately fight a losing battle. Arnoch now lies beneath the sea, a lost testament to a good people. Gandaw’s dwarves are a pale imitation, tainted with the blood of the homunculi, the spawn of the Deceiver.”

  “Spawn of the Deceiver,” Rhiannon said with a sardonic smile at Shadrak. “Sounds about right, if you ask me.”

  Shadrak’s eyes glowered red from beneath his hood, but he said nothing. Perhaps there was nothing he could say. Maybe he knew as little as Shader and Rhiannon.

  “They have removed themselves from the life of Malkuth,” Gilbrum continued. “They skulk in the sun-starved chambers of Arx Gravis at the foot of a deep ravine. But it is to them that you should go. Gandaw bred his dwarves for mining scarolite, and they know the tunnels that run beneath the Perfect Peak.”

  “What if we still want to take a look at this mountain for ourselves?” Shadrak said.

  “I have said I will take you there.” Gilbrum shut the lid of the wooden box, and its warmth gave way to the damp chill of the marsh.

  Where the box had sat, the ground had dried, and tufts of virgin grass poked through the soil.

  He stood and shouldered his bow. “Perhaps you have skills I am not familiar with. I know only that I can see no way to enter the Perfect Peak uninvited, apart from that I have described.”

  “It’s a habit of mine to learn everything I can about an enemy before I make a move,” Shadrak said. “Even if you’re right, a quick reccy won’t be wasted.”

  “Indeed,” Gilbrum said. “I can see how such scrupulosity would make you a formidable foe; but what of you two?” He looked from Rhiannon to Shader. “What is your purpose in this? Forgive my asking, only your allegiance to this Nous of yours raises questions. The dwarves were deceived, and now they are impotent, afraid of where their actions might lead. Are you certain of what your Nous wants?”

  Shader chewed his bottom lip and rubbed his thumb over the pommel of the gladius.

  “As sure as I can be,” Rhiannon said. “Way I see it, Gandaw wants to wreck everything, so if Nous is worth his salt, he’s bound to want us to kick his—”

  “What else can we do?” Shader asked. “If Nous wants us to permit the unmaking of the worlds, he has given no sign.” Nor would he, Shader knew. The ways of Nous were always frustratingly vague, hence the years of moral theology just to comprehend what a just and loving deity might desire. “If we do nothing, when we have the power to act, we would be complicit in Gandaw’s destruction of Creation.”

  “Like the dwarves,” Gilbrum said.

  “Like Nous, useless scut.” Shadrak pulled out a knife and started to scrape beneath his thumbnail.

  “What’s that supposed to mean?” Rhiannon asked.

  “Nous grants us free will,” Shader said, more dismissively than he’d intended, his focus never wavering from Gilbrum. “He is lord of love.” He is love. Adeptus Ludo had never tired of hammering that point home. “He would not desire the Unweaving.”

  “But what response would he make?” Gilbrum asked. “Would he want you to kill to prevent it?”

  “What do you think?” There was vitriol in Rhiannon’s tone.

  Gilbrum offered her a hand up. “My people say the answer to fear is love, and yet we still have a use for arrows.”

  “I say we kill the shogger,” Rhiannon said.

  “Looks like we agree on something, then,” Shadrak said, springing to his feet.

  “Well, that’s just… Not sure how I feel about that.” Rhiannon shifted the sword on her back, ran a hand through her hair, and wandered away toward the undergrowth.

  Shader tensed when he saw Shadrak follow her, but the two stopped and started speaking—or rather Shadrak did the talking, and Rhiannon just rolled her shoulders, making more eye contact with the buzzing insects than with the assassin.

  Gilbrum crouched beside Shader, keeping his voice low. “There is love between you and the woman?”

  Shader felt his face tighten. He fought the urge to glance at Rhiannon, and instead held Gilbrum’s gaze. “Not like… Not the sort of…”

  Gilbrum put a hand on his shoulder. His eyes rippled like emerald ponds. “This conflict is unnatural,” he said. “Be careful, my friend, there is the taste of deception in all this.”

  In all what? Shader wanted to ask, but Gilbrum removed his hand and set off once more.

  The elf led them at a brisk pace, the undergrowth recoiling wherever he set his feet, but creeping back as soon as the companions had passed.

  Shader became aware of a pulse thrumming through the soles of his boots. Gilbrum explained this was the heart of the Sour Marsh. He halted the group and held up his hand. A faint susurrus rose from the boggy ground and whispered through the trees.

  “Listen,” Gilbrum said, holding his open palm above the earth. “The breath of the marsh. As I told you, it is a creature, all its parts extensions of one organic whole; and it is sentient, utterly evil.”

  Shader had the disquieting feeling the ground might suddenly shift beneath him, or open up to swallow him whole.

  “That box of yours,” Shadrak said. “Couldn’t help noticing, but when the fire was burning, it reclaimed the land in some way.”

  “That is its purpose,” Gilbrum said. “But the Sour Marsh is too vast, its infection too advanced. It smothers each new growth within hours. My task is futile, and yet I am sworn to keep trying. At best, I will slow the death of Aethir by a few hundred years, but in time, it will come.”

  “If Gandaw doesn’t get there first,” Rhiannon said.

  “Yeah, but it’s different with Gandaw,” Shadrak said. “From what I’ve seen, he ain’t no brainless wrecker.”

  “Really?” Rhiannon said. “And just what have you seen?”

  Shadrak answered with a glare, the blades in his baldrics sparkling when he let his cloak fall open.

  “You are right,” Gilbrum said. “His evil is intolerance.”

  “Has my sympathy there,” Rhiannon said.

  “He can’t abide imperfection,” Shader said. “Apparently, Ain wasn’t quite up to the task of creation.”

  “Got you,” Rhiannon said. “Gandaw’s going to straighten things out. Lucky old us.”

  “Maybe he has a point,” Shadrak said. “If this crap spewing over the mountains is anything to go by.”

  “Oh, of course.” Rhiannon applauded, a rictus grin revealing her teeth. “And don’t forget the rest of the scum that infects Creation. You know, cheats, cowards, rapists; and let’s not forget back-stabbing midgets.”

  “That’s enough, Rhiannon,” Shader said.

  She turned on him, face reddening. “Don’t you shogging tell me—”

  “Shut it.” Shader winced as he said the words.

  Rhiannon spun away from him and punched a tree. “Shog!” she swore, rubbing her hand.

  Gilbrum shook his head and set off once more. Shadrak was close on his tail, but Shader hung back a little way, making sure Rhiannon was still with them. Each time she nearly caught up, she stopped until Shader put more distance between them, and then she’d start walking again. Not once did she meet his gaze.

  Shader’s hand crept into his coat pocket, fingers stroking the cover of his Liber. He longed to open its pages in the hope of gleaning some inspiration, some wisdom, but right now, he viewed the scriptures with a cynicism that would have made Gandaw seem like a luminary. What kind of hope could he find in a book cobbled together by a creature as foul as the Liche Lord of Verusia? How could an entire religion have sprung from its pages? Out of all his Templum tutors, only Adeptus Ludo had raised the issue of inconsistencies in the Liber, disparate elements that made no sense unless interpreted from within the context of a ‘golden thread’ Ludo claimed ran through the scriptures, retaining some long-forgotten teaching. Creation might once have been a good; the Li
ber may have once been pure; but right now, it seemed to Shader both were irretrievably compromised. Maybe it was better if Gandaw had his way. Surely he couldn’t make a worse job of it than Nous.

  With a resolve he had to impose upon himself, he quickened his pace to catch up with Gilbrum. His concern for Rhiannon now vacillated between anger and indifference, both of which, he was all too aware, would dissolve like phantoms in the mist if he were to delve more than skin-deep.

  “This Skeyr Magnus,” he said. “What is it he wants?”

  Gilbrum’s eyes remained on the path ahead, and he spoke as if distracted. “To be a new Gandaw, perhaps. Power, like most. But his ambitions are born of fear. It is the way of all creatures. You know this, and you know the answer, but it is both too simple and too difficult.”

  “I don’t know what you—”

  “Love, my friend. It has always been about love. This Nous of yours obscures that truth, I think. The dwarves fell for the same reason.”

  “You blame Nous for the dwarves’ betrayal of the Hybrids?”

  “I do not,” Gilbrum said. “For as I said before, I know nothing of Nous. But I do know about the Deceiver, the father of the Creator.”

  “The Demiurgos?”

  Gilbrum nodded. “It was he who led Otto Blightey astray, and Gandaw was Blightey’s pupil.”

  “What?” Shader said. “I thought they were in opposition. Blightey’s a liche, a necromancer…”

  “The antithesis of Gandaw’s science?” Gilbrum said with a raised eyebrow. “It was Gandaw who found a way to bring Blightey back from the Abyss. The Archon had banished the Liche Lord’s skull there, locked in a casket of scarolite. But even that was not strong enough to hold it. It broke free and drifted through the Abyss, finding its way to Gehenna at the heart of Aethir. There, it threatened the Creator. Blightey’s skull has a terrible power, which even the gods fear. He secured a new body and stole the invulnerable armor the Cynocephalus had forged for his own warding. Thus protected, he waded through the acidic waters of the black river that spans the Abyss, until he discovered the means to reach out to Earth through the subtleties of dreams. This was how he himself had first been swayed by the demon known as the Dweller.”