The next few days unfolded similarly and the void still grew at his core, its pull becoming more savage with each passing day. He left his cabin only a handful of times, to relieve himself and snatch some food from the kitchens. During one of his outings, he ran into a worried Grimpwind.
“A dead man onboard is bad luck in those waters,” the captain told him with a nervous laugh that was meant to be light but conveyed little more than fearful superstition.
“The crew worries when one does not show signs of life for so long,” he added.
Cassien assured him that he was fine and agreed to come out at least every other day provided that he was not disturbed in the meantime.
Cassien spent the forty days it took the Wavecarver to make its way across the Empty Sea, sitting in the dark and scrutinizing his inner workings. He only left the confines of his cabin at the agreed intervals, always at night and not once did he emerge from the ship’s entrails. Only the storms that occasionally shook the vessel perturbed his work. But even during those long hours, when it felt as if the ship might lose its fight with the raging sea and he had to steady himself arms stretched-out against the wall of his cabin lest he came crashing against them, he remained stubbornly directed inward.
At some point he realized that the void was not a part of him and he expanded his attention to external things external as well, for, he reasoned, if its source was not in him, then perhaps its remedy was not either. He tried to focus his attention on the sounds and smells that composed his sensorial world, the loud contractions of the ship around him, the damp, almost stingy smell of the grease and seawater-soaked wood, on the feeling of the cloth on his body, of the cold creeping over his skin. But within a day he concluded that his assumption had been wrong. He had no possible grasp on what was external to him and shining his efforts there was pointless.
Later came the idea that his observing and knowing would not suffice. By then he had been patiently scrutinizing himself for days. He had allowed everything that resided in him to spring forth and yet he was no closer to fending off the void that ripped at his center like a hungry beast.
One day, as he was absorbed deep within himself, well past the point where one becomes oblivious to the world around him, the voice of his master rose from the murky recesses of his mind; words from his childhood, from another life it seemed.
They were sitting in the temple’s courtyard. It was summer. The large Mago tree in the center of the courtyard spread cool shades over them. It was mid-afternoon. The sun shone bright somewhere above and the stones that paved the courtyard were hot. He was nine, maybe ten and was sweating and uncomfortable. His eyes were closed. He shook slightly. Anger coursed through him like a trail of molten lava rushing down the side of a volcano. The urge to punch something was threatening to overcome his restraint. The trunk of the tree they sat under kept flashing in his mind. He contracted his leg muscles as hard as he could and found some measure of relief in the pain that resulted. His clasped hands rested on his lap. They were clenched together and his knuckles were white with tension. He was remotely aware of some current of sadness that ran beneath his rolling rage. Maybe ideas of his parents were close somewhere below too. But when his attention momentarily inched toward them, waves of fear strained into a redoubling of his anger.
“You are attached to the object of your anger,” Master Baccus was saying in a quiet and soothing voice. “The sadness has led to fear which in turn condensed into anger. I sense it seething in you.”
The words of his master only seemed to feed his anger. He clenched his teeth, his hands contracted further. His anger twisted and turned against the old man sitting in front of him.
Master Baccus continued softly.
“It might take years for you to be able to water your hardened anger into a malleable mud that you can swipe aside to reveal what is behind.”
“Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!” flashed in burning letters in Cassien’s head as something hard and nasty extended toward his master.
His anger swelled to unbearable levels and tore a whimper out of him. The pain of his contracted hands, of his strained muscles, was not enough to appease his rage. He needed to hurt something, be it himself or someone else. There had to be more pain, the anger called for it. It was the only outlet.
“But there is another way…”
The tension of his anger, the effort it took for him not to give into the call of pain became unbearable; he grunted under the pressure. It was a coarse, broken sound that ripped through his wet lips; one that belonged to a beast, not to a child.
“We do and undo most effortlessly when the mind is not present,” Master Baccus went on. “The secret is in the absent presence, the unobstructed flow of the Breath. You see, in removing oneself behind a wall of willfully condensed attention one can allow for the unknowable work to occur.”
The words of his master made no sense to the child that Cassien was. He curled up onto himself in a fruitless effort to contain the wild emotions that rocked him.
Master Baccus stood up and said:
“But first, you have too much energy. We need to tire you out.”
There was mischievousness in his voice Cassien did not catch. And next thing he knew, he was drenched in a bucket-worth of cold water. He cried out, a very child-like cry, and the shock of the unexpected sensation pulled him out of the grip of his anger. Master Baccus took the opportunity to get him busy with going through numerous forms of his Gi-Yu until he was too tired to think or feel much besides hunger and sleepiness. Then only, did the temple runner instruct him of the wall he had spoken about.
“Rigidly grasp with your mind onto the words,” he told him. “Repeat them over and over as if your life depended on it. If need be, do so until you fall asleep, but until then do not stop.”
The words, Cassien realized, were what he needed. They would be the wall he would raise to protect himself from the void and to allow the unknowable work his master spoke about to take place and rid him of it.
It was the night before the Wavecarver reached Cahifu. Cassien opened his eyes. Repetition had prevailed, the wall was raised. The void had been contained, or maybe filled, or possibly satiated; he did not know for sure. But regardless of what had happened behind the wall he raised patiently over the course of the past few days, the important fact was that it was most definitely gone.
The cabin was dark, but Cassien could see the outline of the door and the lines of his berth. He unfolded his legs and stood up. His legs felt stiff and weak. He shook them to release some of the numbness and pressed his thumbs along the edges of his thigh muscles.
“The world is quiet,” he thought.
During his stay in Gray Arlung the void had subtly crept over him, and, without Cassien realizing it, it had become a background tension tainting every facets of his world. Now, with it gone, the world seemed strangely peaceful, still even.
He left his cabin and walked up to the main deck. A full moon, hanging low over the horizon, welcomed him. It was large and bright and occupied most of his field of vision as he emerged from the ship’s entrails. The Wavecarver was tranquil in the moon’s glare. A gentle wind blew over the ship. It folded itself into its sails and pushed it quietly forward. A couple of seamen were arched over the railing to his right. They peered into the open sea while talking quietly. Their breaths rushed toward the stern as they spoke. Cassien walked to the opposite railing and breathed in deeply. He felt peaceful and balanced. The feeling was a gentle exuberance that seemed reflected in the scenery before him. The sea was smooth under the moonlight. The sounds of the waves splashing over the hull of the ship were muffled and the cold wind was a soothing caress on his skin. He held on to the feeling while in the back of his mind the words of the wall kept declining in a silent plea:
“Get away from me, my black dogs.”
The words were slow and deliberate, at once calmly recited and calming.
Cassien exhaled lengthily and smiled for the first time in a long
while. He would sleep now; a restorative sleep filled with dreams of his love. He knew that the sea would come to an end soon, against giant granite walls. And that beyond those walls Aria was waiting for him.
Chapter Thirty One
The prince lifted his blade up by pushing down on its hilt, and he stepped over a man lying on the ground. The man was curled up like a child on a pile of paper and smelled something awful. He blocked the entirety of the small alleyway between the two steel and glass buildings beyond which the prince meant to go. The stench that emanated from him reminded the prince of old ale and pig sties. He hurried down the alleyway, instinctively exhaling from his nose. Some hundred feet above him, the midday sun shone on glass panels. Its light bounced between the buildings all the way down to the ground and as he approached the broken windows of the buildings the prince had to raise a hand against its reflected glare.
A quarter-click later, the prince reached the end of the alleyway. The buildings on either side of him stretched into shoulder-high platforms that devolved into long staircases and were mirrored by two identical sets of staircases and buildings across a wide plaza. He carefully knelt down and with his pack to the building on his right he slowly crept forward until he reached the end of the platform. He now had full view of the back of the building and the plaza to his left.
Broken glass and trash littered the plaza. Scattered around it were imposing wheeled machines; some with long necks and thin tongues lolling to the ground from tiny round heads, others squat and wide with massive rolls protruding from their ends. Others yet, were simple square boxes with scores of colorful eyes atop their frames.
The prince stood still, eyes darting from one machine to the next, aware of each one and of the plaza as a whole. Nothing moved in the oppressive stillness of that late-fall morning. The only sound to be heard was the occasional whoosh of the wind lazily blowing through the hollow buildings.
Everything was quiet. But the prince knew they were around, probably closer than he thought. The familiar feeling had started tugging at him at dawn as he was leaving the small village where he spent the night. Over the next hour it steadily grew and now, some ten miles west of the village, he knew they were close.
He did not know how they found him. Sometimes it took them many summers. But they always caught his trail. There would be three, maybe four of them. He did not remember at what point they started chasing him and neither could he recollect when their coming had become knowledge. But he always sensed their presence; a contraction of his feelings into a subtle disquiet, something he could not initially put his finger on, a seemingly irrational apprehension that grabbed him and sharpened him into heightened focus. Over time the connection had become clearly obvious: they were coming and he knew it.
Left hand on the handle of his sword, he mapped the safest route to the other side of the plaza. The closest of the machines was to his left, a third of the way across the large space. He could run to it and hide in its long shadow. From there he would bounce from one machine to the next until he reached the alleyway between the twin buildings across the plaza. On the other hand, he could run straight across to the other side; a faster alternative that, on the downside, would leave him more open to being detected.
His right hand lifted to the oval stone hanging from the chain at his neck; his fingers finding comfort in the familiar curves. He tucked the pendant into his shirt and focused on his surroundings. There would be battle, he knew it.
He looked back at the alley behind him: no movement. He did another visual swipe of the portion of the plaza in front of him: nothing moved. His sense of uneasiness grew. He scrutinized the top of the buildings across the plaza: nothing there. He stood up slowly and peered over the platform to his right.
The plaza stretched the width of the buildings, with more machines and more trash, some rounded up in piles, but nothing moved there. Past the buildings the plaza turned into a road that bent to the left, went on for a while and disappeared behind a smaller set of constructions. Beyond the road, trees formed a line in the distance, smoke rose in bent columns in the sky and, stark against the horizon, tall buildings shone bright in the morning light.
“Too many hiding spots,” the prince thought.
A shiver ran through him and goose bumps raised the hairs on his forearms. His heart sped up and started beating in his ears. He quickly moved against the side of the platform on his left and flattened himself against it. He inspected the rest of the plaza beyond.
It was similarly littered with machines and trash and stretched for a couple hundred yards before ending at the bottom of two large cylindrical structures. Nothing stood out, nothing moved.
Suddenly something expanded in his mind, and a surge of adrenaline hit him.
“They’re here.” the voice that was not his warned him.
He darted forward and drew his blade in a swift motion. He flipped the handle in his hand and the tip of his sword trailing behind him, he rushed across the plaza. They were close now. The knowledge beat hard inside him and overflowed his vision with green tints. Before the feeling of that awareness had a chance to sink in, a shadow spread over him and immediately started shrinking. The world slowed down, colors faded to green, sounds became muffled as if the air had turned into water. The prince stopped in his tracks and using his momentum spun around in a graceful movement that sent debris flying in a wide circle around him. He gripped his sword in both hands and raised it above his head, parallel to the ground. A fraction of a second later, a blade landed brutally on his. The sharp sound of steel against steel echoed lazily through the plaza and sparks flew in the prince’s face. He grunted under the effort it took to keep his blade up and strained his legs, back, and shoulders against his assailant’s weight. As the blades hissed against one another, the prince angled his blade perpendicular to the ground, twisted his body left, and, before the man even touched the ground, he landed a powerful turn kick on the side of his ribcage.
Somewhere in the back of his mind he registered the way the man’s ribs gave under his foot and the cracking sound that mingled with the sound of the impact. The man let out a suppressed grunt and went rolling over broken glass.
“There are more.” the voice informed him.
Using the recoil from his kick, the prince effortlessly turned around, and before the man had even stopped rolling on the ground he was rushing toward the alley on the other side of the plaza.
“Two more ahead. One atop each building,” the voice notified him. “One further. Straight ahead. Coming from the alley.”
The prince acknowledged the information like he would the sensation of a breeze on his skin. He took a few more steps forward and suddenly threw himself to the left. He bounced hard against one of the steel machines as shaftless arrows tore through the space he occupied the instant before.
“No running away today,” he thought.
He dropped his pack at the feet of the machine and readied himself. The man he had kicked to the ground was already coming after him. His face was obtuse with pain; streaks of blood ran down his forehead and cheeks and dripped onto a sword-over-shield embroidery on the lapel of his dark suit. If he was in any kind of pain his movements did not betray it in the least.
Two more attackers landed ahead of the prince, sending swirls of dust and shards of glass flying under the impact. They were some two hundred feet away. The prince turned toward the closer enemy.
“CYTHRA!” the man was shouting as he rushed toward him, sword raised above his head and an expression of pure hatred on his face.
“Cythra…” the name was vaguely familiar; he had been called that in the past, he thought; maybe.
The prince faced the man, sword loosely to his side and the beat in his head slowed to a crawl.
With a scream, the stranger brought his sword down and the prince stepped into the blow. He blocked the blade with his sword raised and immediately angled it so that it ran the length of his own body. He let momentum of the man’s blade c
arry it down his side and once the two blades lost contact, he brought his sword parallel to the ground with a flick of his wrist. He took another step forward, past the man and the edge of his sword buried itself into his throat. The prince swirled around and pulled his blade free and the man collapsed, his opened neck spurting blood around him.
Another surge coursed through the prince and he swiftly moved out of the way of another volley of shaft-less arrows. He rounded the long-necked machine he had smashed into an instant earlier, putting it between him and the direction the projectiles had come from.
The two other attackers were upon him now. One of them came straight at him while the other jumped through an opening in the steel machine to his right. The man facing him held a thin blade that he thrust blindingly fast toward his face.
The world around the prince thickened some more. Wavy green filters clouded his vision and further dampened the sounds around him.
The tip of the man’s small sword flashed repeatedly at his face, slower now and the prince swiped it away with his own sword or angled his head out of its way.
“On your right,” the voice in his mind calmly informed him.
Without looking that way, the prince leaped to the left, away from a crackling blow that would surely have caved his skull in. He faced both his adversaries, aware that a third one was coming, moving fast toward the mouth of the alleyway. They rushed him through an emerald haze, both wearing the same embroidered black suit, one with his long thin blade, the other with two forearm-long rods which crackled with blue sparks, both with eyes too wide-open for sanity bulging from grimace-distorted faces.
He danced with them for a few beats, avoiding the blows coming from two directions at once. In the madness of that moment the prince sensed every movement with dizzying clarity. The pressure in his head mounted, unrelentingly warning him of blows heading his way. The instant stretched before him, a shivering mess of knowledge he did not understand but instinctively trusted. As he leaped, parried, lunged, and thrust madly, the pendant around his neck radiated a gentle warmth that anchored him to the moment.
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