The Edge of the World

by Kevin J. Anderson

  Hannes sat up with a jolt. Olabar! So she had brought him as a hostage into the heart of the Urecari continent. He felt dizzy, ready to faint. This was a terrible, ironic trick! He had stolen that amulet away from the church of Urec, and now it had fallen back into the hands of heretics. He should have let it burn with the rest of Ishalem.

  An angular, sour-faced physician scuttled in with a basin of tepid liquid that smelled of pungent herbs. He had a sharp pointed black beard, and his head was wrapped in the pale green olba traditionally worn by Urecari scholars. Pleased to find Hannes awake, the doctor moved forward while Asha dipped cloths into the fragrant liquid, dabbed at the still-healing scabs. The physician spoke anxiously. "He can see? His vision is restored?"

  "I told you his eyes were not gone. I told you I prayed," Asha said, "/was the first thing he looked upon."

  "What is your name?" Asha prompted. She always seemed to be chattering. "Tell us who you are. Are you a pilgrim? A merchant?"

  The doctor bent over him, touching, prodding, testing. Hannes flinched, but he clenched his jaw, refused to say anything. He loathed the very touch of these people! Hannes did not intend to tell them anything. Feigning deep weariness, he refused to speak, shaking his head.

  The doctor scolded Asha. "He must rest, but this is truly a good sign."

  Hannes lay back and closed his eyes, wanting these people to go away, willing himself to sink back into sleep. He preferred his own nightmares to thinking about what the Urecari might secretly have done to him.

  26

  Ishalem

  The prester-marshall's expedition to Ishalem departed from Calay with great fanfare: a dozen boats and barges full of carpenters, bricklayers, stonemasons, and other artisans, holds packed with tools, forged iron nails, bricks, and glassmaking materials--everything necessary to restore the holy city.

  Baine rode at the prow of the lead ship, which sailed down the Tierran coast until they reached the ugly black blot that had once been Ishalem. When he saw all that was left of the magnificent city, he wept. Dry winds whipped across the isthmus, and blown ash left a lingering gray fog in the air. He could not tear his eyes from the shockingly barren and empty hilltop where no sign of the sacred Arkship remained. The tears on his cheeks left tracks in the light dusting of ashes that clung to his face.

  But he drew strength from his faith, quoted aloud from the Book of Aiden, and granted himself only a few moments of per

  sonal sorrow. When Baine watched the somber mood spread among the workers and sailors, he stepped UP on the forecastle and spread his arms. His raised voice carried to the other boats that edged closer to the shore.

  "The fire has swept Ishalem clean, and we have a blank canvas. Our mission, as all the faithful know, is to improve the world by the grace of Ondun. Has there ever been a more clear challenge for the devout? We have brought our tools, our materials, and our willing bodies. Shall we make Ishalem a glorious city again?" He listened to the resounding cheer, then called even louder, "When this task is completed, even Ondun Himself will take notice. Perhaps He will find our offering worthy and He will return to us."

  The small construction fleet painstakingly worked their way through the sunken wrecks in the harbor. Ships had burned down to the waterline; the piers and wharves were nothing more than twisted black planks, and lonely pilings thrust up from the waters. Some of the workers, desperate to set f°ot m the holy land--especially now that they saw the wounds of Ishalem--lowered themselves over the sides and swam to shore, while dinghies shuttled more volunteers. Workers offloaded heavy materials onto flat rafts and poled them to shore.

  The Iborian shipwright, a weathered and meticulous man named Kjelnar, directed the establishment of a construction camp after leaving instructions for the placement of the drifting fresh-cut pine logs that he had ushered all the way from the northern forests. His first command was to erect the sawmills so that he and his burly northmen could process the logs into lumber.

  Kjelnar spoke in a low accented voice to Baine as they watched crowds swarm into the wreckage of the city to see what ihey could salvage. "The volunteers are anxious to get to work,

  Prester-Marshall, but if we are going to rebuild a city, we should start with a plan."

  "Ishalem originally rose without a plan," Baine pointed out. "Houses and churches sprang up around the Arkship atop the hill. Pilgrims came and settled over the centuries."

  Kjelnar raised his bushy ash-blond eyebrows. "Yes, and those people stripped all the wood from the surrounding hills, which has left the area barren and eroded. The dwellings they built were cramped, and the place was a firetrap. This time, we'll do better. We can improve it. Isn't that what the Book of Aiden says to do?"

  Baine took heart from Kjelnar's confidence. "You are the master builder. You create ships--now create a city that will be the ship of our faith. May the Compass guide you."

  The shipwright gazed up at the hills, the blackened streets, the maze of pathways and canals that were now choked with debris and charred timbers, and the tumble of skeletal frameworks that had once been houses and kirks. Kjelnar squared his shoulders, hesitated for a moment, then nodded. "As you command, Prester-Marshall."

  Their volunteers cleared out the old wells, and soon had fresh water to drink. Every day, people cast nets for fish or walked among the rocks below Aiden's Lighthouse to harvest mussels and catch crabs. Without trade, Ishalem had no other food supply.

  A handful of original inhabitants lingered like ghosts at the site of the obliterated city; many had fled into the surrounding hills, living like hermits, with little to eat. Prester-Marshall Baine determined that they were scavengers who had remained to pick through the wreckage. They fled whenever members of the reconstruction crew came near.

  The ruins were full of bodies, blackened horrors trapped by

  the blaze, their clothes and features torn away by fire and leaving only bones and staring skulls. Whether Aidenist or Urecari, they all looked the same. Workers gathered all the corpses they found, dragged them off to a barren hillside that they made into a cemetery, and gave each one an Aidenist burial in a separate grave. The prester-marshall felt it was best to be safe and give them all the correct blessings.

  For days, while bricks and tools were unloaded from the waiting ships, the people rebuilt the piers so that the Tierran ships could dock. Some pilgrims went to the top of the hill, hoping to find remnants of the Arkship, but though they returned with blackened lumps of old wood, no one could say if those were the true remains of the Arkship, or other fallen timbers.

  One dedicated work party excavated the wreckage of the Aidenist kirk, which had burned to its foundations, and PresterMarshall Baine decided that they would rebuild the kirk first. Sawmills began to whine, cutting the Iborian lumber

  During the first month, the crew made a great deal of progress, and the prester-marshall was pleased with what he saw. Fresh pine frameworks outlined the walls of a new kirk. The temporary camp tents were replaced by new barracks and a communal hall, so that the volunteers could live comfortably after an exhausting day at work. Each dawn, the prester-marshall gathered the workers and praised Ondun. Ishalem began to rise from the ashes.

  Then the Urecari raiding party swept down upon them.

  Fifty lean soldiers, covered with dust and riding powerful horses, charged up the coast from Outer Wahilir. Across their chests, they wore bright red battle sashes emblazoned with the unfurling fern symbol of Urec; white silk olbas covered their heads to reflect the hot sun. Seeing the encampment, the new buildings, and the unarmed workers, the raiders let out a howl

  of challenge, drew their long sharp swords, and rode in. Soldan Attar himself, the leader of Outer Wahilir, rode at the front of the scouting party, damning the Aidenists for returning like parasites to the city they had burned.

  Prester-Marshall Baine understood some of the Uraban language, but not enough to speak it. It was clear, though, that Attar had no interest in communicating as his men encircled the c
amp.

  The prester-marshall stepped up to the soldan, a sour-faced man with a thin scar on one cheek and deep wrinkles around his dark eyes, who sat high on his black horse. Baine touched the fishhook pendant at his throat and raised his hand in a gesture of peace. He spoke slowly, pointing to the new buildings and the piled fresh lumber and stacks of bricks. "We came to build, not to harm."

  Astride his horse, Soldan Attar gave no sign that he understood.

  "Not to harm," Baine repeated. "To build."

  The volunteer workers had gathered close, either offering protection or seeking reassurance. Other men, seeing the group of mounted soldiers, rushed down from the site of the half constructed kirk, clutching their hammers, shovels, and axes, though they were not fighters.

  The prester-marshall spread his hands, a pleading expression on his face. "You can help us," he continued in his most soothing voice. "Your men can help restore Ishalem for the glory of Ondun--Aidenist and Urecari together."

  Wearing a sneer of disgust, Soldan Attar raised his sword, turned the blade flat, and brought it down hard on the prestermarshall's forehead. As he collapsed in an explosion of pain, Baine heard screaming, the horses neighing, the charge of hooves--and more screaming. Then he sank into blackness.

  He did not awaken until most of the slaughter was already done.

  Blood crusted his forehead and eyes, and he choked on a stench in the air as thick and as foul as the Butchers' District on a hot summer afternoon. His hands were tied, but he could turn his head to see red-splattered bodies all around him: severed limbs, stumps of necks, lifeless eyes staring from loose heads that had been piled on the ground.

  Baine made a strangled noise. What had they done? He heard a pounding sound against wood, as though workers were driving piles for a new pier. He saw that he had been dragged to the construction site of the new kirk.

  Laughing, their fine uniforms covered with blood, the Urecari soldiers were erecting posts in the ground, at least fifty of them. They had used logs of Iborian pine brought in from the harbor. That wood had been meant for new buildings, but the prestermarshall felt ice in his chest as he saw other captives and guessed what lay in store for them. They moaned and wept, each one as bound and helpless as he was.

  Unbidden, tears flowed down his cheeks, and he felt an even greater sorrow than he had experienced upon seeing the burned city. The fire could have been an accident, flames blown out of control by the winds. But this massacre was deliberate, the work of human hands.

  "Why are you doing this?" Baine said, his voice a dry croak, as if his throat had filled with ashes. Nobody answered. The sol dan's men gave no sign that they understood him.

  With their horses tethered, the Urecari raiders walked about kicking dead bodies out of the way. Baine made a rough count of the corpses and the remaining captives, and realized that many of his people must have escaped, either into the hills or on the ships in the harbor. But not all of them..,'¦¦¦¦

  He turned his gaze toward the coast, looking at the bright sunlight that flashed on the Oceansea, and saw one of the Iborian boats--Kjelnar's craft--withdrawing from the harbor. Soldan Attar's soldiers stood on the newly built piers and fired flaming arrows that fell short of the ship.

  "Ondun protect us," Baine muttered. He hoped the shipwright had gotten away. Maybe he would make it back to Calay and tell King Korastine what had happened here

  When all the wooden posts were erected in a circle around the framework of the kirk, Soldan Attar walked among the prisoners, shouting at them. He took Prester-Marshall Baine first, grabbed him by the collar and dragged him to his feet. He spoke in an angry tone, but Baine understood little of what Attar said.

  "We wanted to build," Baine said, his voice carrying an kimmense weight of weariness.

  IThe soldan brought one of his soldiers forward. The man

  spoke in barely comprehensible Tierran. "We want no Aidenist help. You destroyed Ishalem. Heretics must be punished."

  Using blacksmiths' tools and anvils that the reconstruction crew had brought from Calay, Attar's people had previously fashioned thick, sharp fishhooks in a cruel mockery of the Aidenist symbol, each the size of a man's hand, which they strung with rope.

  Carrying the captives forward to the fresh posts pounded into the ground, the Urecari raiders suspended the poor victims on the hooks, jabbing barbed points into throats and letting the bodies dangle against the posts, struggling and gurgling briefly.

  Baine begged the soldan to not kill any more of his people, but Attar pretended not to understand. Another captive was hooked through the throat and suspended with feet just barely touching Ithe ground, then another and another. Some of the victims died

  Iimmediately, but as the Urecari soldiers grew more practiced in

  their torture, they were able to keep the luckless captives alive for longer.

  They saved Baine for last, making him watch. Soldan Attar's men were very careful as they thrust the sharpened hook under his jaw, avoiding his major blood vessels, catching the barb on his bones. Then they hoisted him up and tied off the ropes. Slow blood flowed down his chest in a thick stream, and he dangled kicking his feet, twitching like a hooked fish.

  Baine knew he would be a long time dying. And though his voice would no longer work, he mouthed a prayer for forgiveness a hope that Ondun would welcome these poor Aidenist souls who had never imagined they might become martyrs. Against the wooden post, his back was to the partially built kirk and the hill that had once held the Arkship. He could not turn his head, could not even look back to what he most wanted to see.

  Instead he simply stared with burning eyes, and all he could see were the ashes of Ishalem.

  27

  Olabar

  In the center of Olabar, crowds gathered to answer the priestess's strident call. The humid air made the sunlight sparkle off of whitewashed buildings and cobblestoned streets. Clad in brilliant red robes, Ur-Sikara Lukai raised her arms and finished her benediction. Her loud and angry prayer made the crowd even more restless. Everyone felt the pain of Ishalem, the outrage and fervor against the Aidenists.

  Soldan-Shah Imir wished it had not come to this.

  He stood with his son Omra in the shadow of the tower

  ing bronze statue. The handsome and muscular figure of Oenar, Imir's great-grandfather (and probably not an accurate representation of the man's features), stood as tall as three men. As a leader of Uraba, the former soldan-shah's only memorable accomplishment had been to commission this giant statue of himself, a towering work of cast bronze eclipsed only by the statue of Urec on the other side of Olabar's central square. Urec's statue was an arm's length taller, since it would be blasphemy for any soldan-shah to elevate himself above Urec.

  Imir had never paid much attention to the grandiose statue, the shape of Oenar's nose, the stylized beard, the metal draping of his regal robes. Even so, all of Olabar was going to miss it once it was melted down.

  Ur-Sikara Lukai turned to bless the giant metal figure. "This statue was a gift so that we might remember a great man and our great heritage. Now it is another gift, a gift that will serve in the cause of war, a gift that will grant us a thousand swords!" The people cheered.

  "We will need more than a thousand swords," Zarif Omra muttered, just loudly enough for his father to hear. The soldanshah knew his son was right, especially after the news he'd recently heard. He'd been outraged to learn what Soldan Attar had done to the Aidenist reconstruction crew in Ishalem. Attar had crowed about his accomplishment, expecting cheers and praise... and many Urabans had rejoiced at the first decisive blow being struck against the enemy.

  Imir, however, thought it an indescribably foolish thing to do. Attar had always been a hothead, and he'd wanted any excuse to take revenge on the Aidenists for killing his equally foolish brother Fillok at the beginning of this mess. Now, thanks to the provocative act--made even worse by the fact that one of the

  victims was Prester-Marshall Baine himself--Imir had to
prepare a full-scale army for the conflict that would likely escalate.

  As soldan-shah, he had expected to rule a rich land in times of prosperity, facing and solving problems that were by no means insurmountable. He did not want to fight a war, although his people, his priestesses, his advisers all cried out for blood, excited by the idea of a crusade against the Aidenists without guessing the harsh reality of it.

  After a courier had brought news of the massacre in Ishalem, Imir raged against Attar privately in his quarters, smashing pots, tearing down hangings, shouting at the walls. When he had finally calmed enough to consider the possibilities, he summoned Giladen, the ambassador who had already helped to broker the Edict treaty with King Korastine. After Fillok's ill-considered attack on a Tierran trading ship, the Aidenist ruler would have been within his rights to go to war, and yet Korastine had been willing to stop the sparks of hatred before they burst into a raging fire. The burning of Ishalem, an even greater conflagration, was now eclipsed by the slaughter of those Aidenists, including the leader of their church. Imir's stomach lurched at the thought of it.

  But he had to hope there was still a chance for peace. Giladen rushed off to present himself in Galay, insisting that the Urabans did not want a war, that Soldan Attar had acted on his own... begging the Tierrans not to retaliate. If the price of peace included Attar's head on a pike, then Imir was willing to pay it.

  Though he looked doubtful, Giladen had read the soldanshah's written plea and nodded. "Korastine is a reasonable man, Soldan-Shah. He will hear your words, though I cannot guarantee what he will decide. His people will certainly be outraged about the massacre."

  "As am I," Imir said. "Make sure Korastine knows that."

  After Ambassador Giladen departed with the carefully worded parchment, Zarif Omra had come to Imir in his quarters. In the month since his marriage to Gliaparia, the zarif had gradually emerged from his depression; time and personal strength had more to do with the change, however, than his new wife did.