Voidfarer

by Sean McMullen

  "We must get to Alberin and warn the regent," I said as Riellen helped me to sit up. "I suppose a boat or horses are out of the question?"

  "No horses, and no boat, but there is a barge," said Halland. "It hit the pier yesterday and sank."

  "Er, I was hoping for one that was still afloat."

  "All of those were destroyed. This one was missed because it was below the surface, but it can be salvaged. Leave it to me."

  I struggled to assemble logistics and numbers in my head. "There are only eight people, one gnome, and a cat available here. You would need a crane, a dozen horses, and fifty men to get the barge raised, dragged to the slipway, and beached for repairs."

  "Oh no, we have a much cheaper method here," said Halland, as if the problem were too trivial for words.

  Leaning heavily on Riellen I got to my feet, and as I looked over the edge of the wharf I realized that while raising the barge was not a trivial matter, it was within the abilities of six men and two women. The deck of the barge was just below the surface, and all that projected above it was what looked like a large bellows from a smithy's forge and a tube going down into the water. Halland explained that a dozen ox hides had already been placed within the barge by divers, each with a pipe leading to it from the bellows. Two men working the bellows for some hours could inflate the ox hides and get the barge floating low in the water.

  "Normally it would only be to tow it to the slipway, where a team of horses would drag it clear of the river," explained Halland, "but were the bellows to be worked continually, there is no reason that the barge might not float for days, to drift down with the current as far as Alberin." Roval took the first pumping shift with Halland, working the bellows for a full two hours while Wallas kept watch from the top of the highest pile of rubble nearby. The others foraged in the ruins of the market for food, and I was left to rest. The pumping was very slow work, but gradually the hides inflated and displaced the water within the sunken barge. What ¦ was left of the figurehead after the collision was visible by the time Azorian and Pelmore took over, and by late afternoon the deck was about six inches above the waterline.

  "Give it another hour," said Halland. "We may get it nine inches clear of the water, but no more."

  "But look at the bubbles," I said. "We must keep pumping to keep it from sinking."

  "Would you prefer to swim to Alberin?"

  "Point taken."

  "Look, ah, I heard about the baron's castle," I said awkwardly. "So lucky—I mean, your wife and family escaping." "It is no concern of mine. They were all the baron's own." "But—"

  "I was only Uncle Halland. Remember, the baron was, how shall we say it, a passionate man." I shook my head.

  "How could you live such a life?" I asked, abandoning seemly manners for a moment.

  "Oh, there were compensations, like my appointment as militia commander. Then again, the baron's wife slept with me from time to time, out of sheer spite I suppose." He flung a stone to skip across the water. "Now all that is gone, and all of Gatrov. The loves, hates, politics, intrigues, alliances, prospects, scandals, betrayals, and secrets. The hopes for the future, the pride in the past, the annual incomes, the prospective inheritances, and the plans for inheritances. It is like the continent Torea, when that monster Warsovran unleashed his ether machine and melted the place down to the bedrock: nothing left but the memories of a few survivors."

  # 'M

  When he had gone I sat down against a bollard and closed my eyes. I was almost immediately aware of a frantic scrambling sound, followed by a yowl. I opened my eyes to see Solonor and Wallas facing off against each other a few yards away. The grass gnome was armed with his tiny spear, and Wallas was fluffed up like an overweight featherdown cushion.

  I asked something along the lines of "What the hell is going on?"

  "That little wanker in the green tights stuck a knitting needle in my bottom," declared Wallas.

  'That cat, it spoke Alberinese!" exclaimed Solonor.

  "I speak over a dozen languages," said Wallas huffily.

  "But most cats only speak Feline Yowl and Underfolk Standard."

  "Constable Wallas, Constable Solonor, who started this?" I asked.

  "That lard barrel in a fur rug is a Wayfarer?" gasped Solonor.

  "You recruited a gnome?" asked Wallas, with scorn dripping copiously from the last word.

  "And what's wrong with gnomes?" demanded Solonor.

  "Nothing that a little salt and a few hours marinating in a nice, full bodied red wine would not cure," replied Wallas smoothly.

  "Solonor, did you attack Wallas?" I asked.

  "I wanted his scrotum as a backpack, but he were so fat that I couldn't work out which end were which when he were curled up and asleep."

  "My scrotum as a backpack?" sneered Wallas. "How very lower-class."

  "Lower-class!" exclaimed Solonor. "Constable Riellen warned me about your kind, lackeys of the oligarkysomething establishment, she warned me, she did."

  "Hold a moment, Solonor—did you say Wallas was asleep?" I exclaimed. "Wallas, you were meant to be on watch."

  "It was only a catnap," muttered Wallas. "I am a cat, after all."

  "Constable Wallas, Constable Solonor, I order both of you to leave each other alone," I concluded wearily but firmly. "Wallas, get back to your post. Solonor, stand with him, and stab him in the fundamental with that spear if he looks like nodding off again."

  "But sir—" began Wallas.

  "Wallas, believe me, this is the easy way. If /ever catch you asleep on sentry duty again, you will be taken to a place of diet, and there you will be hung by the tail until thin."

  >: x x

  They left together, still muttering threats and insults. I closed my eyes again, and this time I did manage to get some actual sleep. I was awakened by the sound of feet crunching through charcoal and shattered stone. Lavenci sat down beside me and unwrapped a canvas parcel. In it were pastries, some slices of roast meat, cheeses, bread, and ajar of expensive wine.

  "So, the foraging went well," I observed.

  "Pelmore, Roval, and myself found that many stalls and carts in the market were smashed but not burned," Lavenci explained. "I've tried the wine, it's excellent."

  I tasted the wine, which was red and a very nice vintage, then drank two mouthfuls.

  "No more?" she asked.

  "Best keep it for when things get worse," I suggested before returning my attention to the bread and roast.

  "Things can get worse?" asked Lavenci. "Here, have my share. It's ladymeat, a pork fillet."

  "Ladyship, I couldn't."

  "I am a vegetarian, Inspector. Remember?"

  It was during this somewhat informal and early dinner that Halland arrived and announced that the barge was sufficiently high in the water to be usable as transport. He ordered that we wait until it was actually twilight before we set off, just in case the fighting towers were still in the area. It was a relief to be leaving the nightmare ruins of the town, but for me it was possibly too much of a relief. Pain was building up behind both of my eyes, and nausea was clutching at my stomach. I tossed the remains of my dinner to those pumping at the bellows, rather than wasting it, then began to untie the mooring ropes.

  With Pelmore and Captain Danzar pumping at the bellows, Halland at the tiller, and Roval, Lavenci, Azorian, and Riellen pushing on the twenty foot barge pole, the vessel began to move ponderously away from the remains of the pier. I remained ashore, casting off the ropes. The barge began to catch the current.

  Suddenly the scene collapsed into flashes of swirling color before my eyes. My legs jellied, and I dropped to my knees, my hands over my face.

  "Sir, what is the matter?" came Riellen's shout.

  "I'm blind!" I cried back.

  "Don't move, sir, I'm coming."

  "No Riellen, you can't swim!"

  The barge must have been close enough for her to jump for the pier, because I heard the thud of her feet as she landed. Then I heard Hal
land calling for her to catch the mooring rope. She grasped me by the arm and tried to drag me away.

  "Get up, sir, come with me."

  "Constable, I can't stand. Leave me! That's an order." "Don't panic, sir. Just letting go of you to tie the rope about your waist."

  The departing barge dragged both Riellen and me over the edge of the pier and into the water. When my head was above the surface again I heard Lavenci screaming at the uncomprehending Azorian to help her haul in the rope. After what seemed an eternity I felt myself bump against the side of the barge. Hands grasped at me. One of them must have belonged to Lavenci, because I heard her cry out with pain, then I was being laid out on the deck.

  "I thought I gave you an order, Riellen," I wheezed between coughs.

  "I disobeyed, sir. Shall I put myself on report?" "Blinding headache," I mumbled, almost as an apology. "The ordeals of the days past must have caught up with him," said Lavenci. "Healers call it delayed shock." "Hit my head ..." I mumbled.

  Hands hastily fluttered about my head, and again Lavenci cried out in pain.

  "There's a large lump," she gasped presendy. "Danol? Danolarian!" I was still conscious, but a great lethargy was weighing down all my limbs.

  "You never can tell with blows to the head," said Halland. "Most likely he bleeds within his skull."

  "What's to do?" asked Riellen.

  "Complete rest..." suggested Lavenci, her voice fading and echoing as the maelstrom of colors before my eyes faded to blackness.

  xw.

  I found myself standing before Madame Jilli the Ferrygirl. This time she was smiling, but it was a badly disguised smile of concern.

  "This is not another migraine," I said before she could speak.

  "No Danol, it is much worse."

  "I know symptoms, I have done Basic Medicar Techniques for Inspectors. I have daemonglare poisoning, do I not?" "So many people only pause to think once they are dead." "So I really am dead?" "No, but you are in a lot of trouble."

  "Actually, I had noticed." "You can still save yourself." "How?"

  "You will have to face up to things, things that are very cruel."

  "Things with horns, pitchforks, and pointy tails?" "Things much worse than that."

  "Er, for how long?"

  "It will not be eternity, but it will seem like it." "Ah, so what are we doing?" I asked. "You shall soon return to your body, and live. Someone is helping."

  "But you said I was in a lot of trouble." "Death is the escape. Life is the torture." "So I shall live?" "Yes."

  "Oh," I sighed as I looked up at her, with sheer relief almost dissolving my body. "Do any of the souls ever tell you how pretty you are?"

  "Why Danol, how sweet, thank you. Most souls are so wrapped up in thoughts of their fate that they never stop to consider how I feel. Go now, go. You are alive, and I have real clients to carry."

  A figure shambled soundlessly out of the darkness.

  "Why Captain Danzar, brave, brave Captain Danzar," sighed the Ferrygirl, enfolding the dead soul in her arms. "Such a humiliating way to die, after fighting so bravely against the Lupanians. What you need is a nice cuddle before you get into my boat."

  >: >: #

  I waved as Madame Jilli pushed her boat away with Captain Danzar sitting near the bow, then I became aware of someone else beside me. I turned, and recognized Azorian.

  "Something terrible has happened on the barge," I said to myself, not expecting the soul of the student to reply.

  "There is nothing wrong on the barge," he replied, staring after the ferrygirl's boat. "I am not dead, and neither are you."

  "But... we are here, on the shores of the afterlife."

  "Captain Danzar is dead, you are close to death, and I am holding on to the string by which your life dangles over the chasm of eternity."

  "So you are a healer?"

  "I am a fabricator."

  "I don't understand."

  "On your world there is no word for what I do."

  Suddenly I understood. Azorian was from Lupan. Trust my word upon it, you tend to be much calmer about things when you are at the edge of death. The astounding revelation merely had me surprised, rather than catatonic with shock.

  "Can I assume that you are, er, different from the Lupanians with the heat weapons?" I asked, hoping that my question was sufficiently diplomatic.

  "Yes. The glasswalkers are warriors, but I am a mere artisan. I was not meant to make the journey here."

  "These glasswalkers, are they here to conquer our world?"

  "Please, no more for now. You must return to your body, or even I will not be able to hold you."

  He took me by the arm, and we began to walk away from the riverbank. The landscape faded into a uniform grey; then I was aware of hardness pressing against my back. My stomach burned, and not a muscle of my body would respond. I could hear the creak of the air pump, and the lapping of the water around the barge.

  "I am making the damaged parts of you whole again," came Azorian's thought in my brain. "I have been working your lungs, and beating your hearts, too. In an hour you will awake. You should even be able to stand."

  "Did the same thing happen to Captain Danzar?" I thought back.

  "Yes. You were both poisoned. I could not save both of you, together. My apologies." "Why me?"

  "Because you have been kind to me, and I appreciate kindness." I suddenly had a new appreciation of the merits of being kind. "I can hear things from ... the world of the living, and I can feel the deck under my back."

  "That is because you are alive again. To put it in your language, you are doing a type of darkwalking," Azorian explained. "Part of you is existing in the world of the ether, the life force."

  "But I don't know how to darkwalk. Riellen does all the darkwalking in my squad."

  "That is why it is so hard to bring you back. Now rest, rest."

  >: >:

  I lay listening to the sounds around me. There were occasional voices, sometimes Halland called orders, and once I heard Wallas meow. The creaking of the pump never ceased, neither did the lapping of water. At last I heard footsteps approaching.

  "But the inspector and Azorian are here," said Riellen's voice.

  "Here at the bow is as private as we may get," replied Lavenci. "Azorian cannot understand us, and the Inspector is beyond hearing."

  "What is Azorian doing? He had been holding the inspector's head and chanting all night and all morning."

  "I do not know, Constable."

  "Why did you bring me up here?" asked Riellen.

  "For privacy, Constable Riellen. So that we can say what we like."

  "But sister, I always say what I like."

  "I've noticed. Constable, the inspector is dying, yet I know so little about him. Can you speak of him to me?"

  "I know nothing of his background, ladyship."

  "Oh come now! You must have learned something of him after two or three years serving with him. What about little, personal things?"

  "He has his weaknesses," said Riellen guardedly. "But they are nothing out of the ordinary."

  "Constable, the man is dying! What harm will it do if I learn that he picks his nose or farts in the bathwater? I know he was in the Torean fleet that invaded Diomeda, but—well, he is just amazing. After just three years in this realm he already knows enough Alberinese to pass for a local as long as he speaks slowly. I put it to you that Danolarian was a young Torean navy officer, and a very bright one at that."

  'There is no crime in that, ladyship."

  "Or possibly a ship's sorcerer."

  "He has practiced no sorcery since I have known him!" snapped Riellen.

  "There are other Toreans in the ports of Acrema and Scalticar. They talk freely about their pasts, and some even

  boast about crimes committed in kingdoms that have been burned to ashes. Why is Danol so secretive?"

  "Ladyship, he has always been a good, brave man, and a very just inspector. I have learned much from him. Why are you
so intent on knowing his past?"

  "Danol once rescued me from the Inquisition Constables. For a short time we courted each other, then he was sent back on the road. He says he wrote, but I received no letters. I traveled to Gatrov because I learned he was to be there—I have powerful friends who can find out such things. We had a—a misunderstanding about my grubby past, and silly games I played with him. I had to agree to, to leave him alone after one last dance."

  "It did not look that way!" said Riellen sternly, "but then I know nothing of courtship."

  "Well neither do I!" snapped Lavenci abruptly. "That was the basis of my fight with the inspector."

  "What do you mean?"

  "None of your business!"

  'Those who choose bedmates unwisely often look for excuses, ladyship. It is common among the upper classes."

  There was an icy silence that was probably shorter than it seemed.

  "You mean Pelmore and myself," said Lavenci at last "I have yet to work out how that happened. One moment I was dancing with Danolarian, alive with delight to be in his arms, the next I was a giddy girl of fifteen again, wandering through a huge revel in search of adventure, and determined to learn of the pleasures of dalliance with some exciting, wicked stranger. Pelmore stood out from the crowd as if light were shining from his face. My breath became short, my pulse raced, my body burned, my lips were engorged with blood. Then, in bed, at the very moment that... that things of the most intimate nature commenced between us, it all dissolved. I was lying beneath a stranger, and I had no idea how I got there. Leaving that mystery aside, however, Danolarian blundered in on Pelmore and me while we were undressing, quite by chance. Might he have gone away and cast the constancy glamour upon us, in a fit of jealous rage?"

  "The inspector is not a sorcerer, you vile, unfeeling, upper class, counterrevolutionary bitch—with respect, ladyship."

  "Perhaps not, yet the glamour that binds me to Pel-bore still stands!" retorted Lavenci. "Pelmore is a fine but oppressed worker." "Then you try kissing him."

  "Pelmore himself may have commissioned the glamour," suggested Riellen, changing tack with uncharacteristic speed. "He might have thought to better himself by marrying you, a rich lady."