The Woad to Wuin

by Peter David

  As I dressed her wound, I said slowly, “Sharee … is it possible that there was something on the ends of those arrows beyond just simple points?”

  “You mean poison,” was her blunt response. Obviously the same thing had occurred to her when she saw the damage that had been done to me.

  “Yes.”

  Slowly she nodded.

  “Wonderful,” I said.

  Sharee forced herself up to a seated position, and then reached around and opened her carry sack. She began to extract small bottles and vials and lay them out in front of her, studying them thoughtfully. Then she selected a couple of them, unstoppered an empty one, and began mixing small drams of several of the liquids.

  “What the hell are you doing?” I asked after watching this odd procedure for several minutes. “Preparing some sort of magic brew? I thought you said your magiks were depleted for some unknown reason.”

  “This is not magic. This is good, old-fashioned potioning.” She put down another vial, picked up a third, and added a bit of the contents of that one. “If there was a poison on the arrow, this antitoxin I’m preparing may help.”

  “Don’t you need to know what sort of poison was used in order to produce such a solution?”

  “Generally, yes. What I’m making here is a sort of all-purpose brew. Because it’s so broad in its nature, it’s not as effective as something specific to a particular poison would be. But it will have to do. Ideally it will last us until we can find a healer who can do more for us than my poor skills will allow.”

  “From where I’m sitting, your skills don’t look too poor to me.”

  Something akin to a smile passed across her face. “From where you’re sitting, you can barely sit.”

  “True,” and I actually gave a short laugh.

  Considering we were perched atop rocks in the middle of the sea, with waves surging about us, an unknown destination ahead of us and certain doom behind us, it was a surprisingly genuine moment of warmth. “What is it about you, Sharee? What is it that causes the time I spend with you to be involved mostly in running away while people are trying to kill us …”

  “When you’re not raping me, you mean?” Her eyes were hard then, and I found to my annoyance I could not meet her gaze.

  “We’ve been over that,” I said. “I see no reason to belabor it at this point.”

  “No. No, you wouldn’t.” She sounded almost disappointed in me, and for a moment my temper flared at the thought of her sitting in judgment on me yet again. But I found I was too tired to get myself worked up about it.

  She finished her crafting of the potion, poured off half into a bottle for me and handed it to me. I paused, looked at it, passed it under my nose. It smelled vile. I looked to Sharee and she was simply sitting there, staring at me. “Ladies first,” I said.

  “Meaning you suspect I might have poisoned it, and you want to see me drink it first.” I nodded. She looked at me pityingly. “Apropos … if I wanted to poison you … I would give you something harmless and let the cargo the arrow bore do the work for me.”

  That was certainly an unassailable observation. With that depressing truth at the forefront of my mind, I downed the concoction. She followed a heartbeat later, and then we sat there a moment and stared at each other, each of us likely thinking the same thing: I wonder if it worked.

  “Come,” she said abruptly, and stood. “Let’s be off.”

  “The sun hasn’t much farther to go in its path,” I pointed out. “We have a place here to rest. Perhaps we should do so …”

  “Tides ebb and flow, Apropos,” she reminded me. “I would not be one to assume that Beliquose wouldn’t endeavor to follow us should the waters recede. Nor do I think he will let nightfall daunt him. Are you interested in going to sleep and never waking up again?”

  “If we keep moving,” I pointed out, “and there is poison in our systems, the movement may hasten its work.”

  She blinked, and then her mouth thinned in annoyance. “Yes. Yes, that’s true,” she admitted. “It seems we may be doomed and damned either way, Apropos.”

  “A status with which I am unfortunately quite familiar.” I thought a moment and then said grudgingly, “Best if we keep moving, I suppose. If I am to die, I’d rather not give that bastard the satisfaction of it being under his sword.” She nodded and, as we started to walk once more, I said, “Sharee … generally the fate of my corpse is of small consequence to me, but I’d sooner not give that buffoon the satisfaction of mutilating it. So in the unfortunate event that I should die before you … push my body into the sea, would you?”

  “That won’t be a problem, Apropos. It’s all that I can do to restrain myself from pushing you into the sea while you’re still alive.”

  Unsurprisingly, I took little comfort in that.

  We kept the conversation to a minimum as we continued on our hard path. The rocky surface of the Middle Finger was not conducive to comfort. In addition to the notions of being dry and warm seeming to belong to another lifetime, soon I couldn’t recall a time where my legs did not ache thanks to the unyielding nature of the surface upon which we trod. There still seemed to be no sign of land, and soon the sun had set. There was a half-moon up, which provided us at least with some light by which we could see our path, but the area to either side of the Finger was dark and black. Save for the slapping of the waves against the rocks, the silence was unmitigated. I felt as if we were the only two creatures alive on the planet. Indeed … what if we were? What if, as we were making this insane crossing, massive wars had erupted at home, and every man, woman, and child had been slain in a final orgy of annihilation? Or if a plague had broken out and even now the bodies were being piled twenty high, with the last of the victims coughing up blood even as they piled more corpses onto the stacks. If Beliquose and his followers had been overwhelmed by the waves, dragged into the depths of the sea …

  Sharee and I might be the only man and woman alive on the face of the planet.

  “Idiocy!” I said out of nowhere. Sharee was a dim form just in front of me, the darkness making it difficult to make out details. She paused a moment and I think she turned in my direction; it was hard to tell.

  “What is?”

  “Nothing. Nothing,” I said impatiently. Both our voices sounded strained, hoarse whispers of how we normally came across.

  We kept moving, for moving had become an end unto itself. The steady tap-tap of my staff echoed in the silence. I had no idea whether the antitoxin that Sharee had given us was doing anything productive. All I knew was that I was getting more and more tired with each passing step. I wondered if I collapsed whether Sharee would keep going without me. I then wondered if Sharee collapsed, whether I’d go on without her. Part of me said yes. Most of me did. But a small part of me said no, and that annoyed me no end. If I was developing an annoying strain of compassion, I might as well count myself among the dead right then and there, for that would surely be the death of me as it was for every other altruistic fool, and that list included my former best friend.

  I realized I couldn’t remember walking anymore. I was just making the motion automatically. Overwhelming fatigue caused my joints to become slowed, and I felt as if I could barely move. That was when I further realized that I’d stopped walking altogether. My body had simply ceased locomotion, and the message was only just then getting to my brain.

  I began to waver, to topple, and I heard Sharee’s voice cry out, “Apropos!” from ahead of me, and at that moment I not only didn’t care whether I stood or not, but whether I lived or died. I’d been pushed to endurance and beyond, and I was done. The Finger was narrow where we happened to be at that moment, and with a low moan I toppled off the side and fell, the world spinning away from me, knowing that the icy fingers of the sea would reach up for me and pull me down, and also knowing that I just didn’t give a damn anymore.

  And I hit ground.

  I lay there for a moment, stunned, wondering if somehow the entirety of th
e sea had turned to ice. “Apropos?” came Sharee’s voice from above, and I understood her confusion, for my vertical departure had been absent a splash.

  “I … believe so, yes,” I said slowly. I reached around, spreading my fingers, grasping what I now realized was ground beneath me. It seeped through my fingers, tiny granules. “Sand. I’m … lying on sand.”

  An instant later Sharee was by my side, looking around in wonderment. “We made it …”

  “We made it?” I couldn’t quite believe it. I used my staff to push myself to standing, and then I squinted.

  Sure enough. It had not been evident while standing on the elevated rock of the Finger, but from this new point of view we saw that we were standing on what appeared to be a vast plain. It was hard to tell, for the moon had ducked behind clouds and now seemed to have no inclination to reemerge. But it was land, definitely land.

  I let out a sob of relief, and Sharee did as well. She actually sagged against me and for a moment, just a moment, we embraced, two warhorses coming through a difficult campaign. Then, just as quickly, the moment was gone, and Sharee straightened up.

  “Let’s go,” she said briskly. “We have to keep moving. Beliquose may be behind us, and for all we know, gaining. But with any luck, the worst is over.”

  Well, you know about me and my luck.

  Chapter 7

  The Tragic Waste

  I‘m sure you remember—going on the assumption that you’re not mentally deficient in some manner—how I said earlier that I could scarce remember what it was like to be dry as we clung desperately to our lives during our crossing on the Middle Finger. Well, in very short order as we embarked upon our trek across the Tragic Waste, I quickly forgot what it was like to have moisture in the vicinity.

  It was not until daylight that we were fully able to discern just what it was that lay ahead of us. The ground had been shifting and unpleasant to walk upon, and once we had light available to us, we could readily see why.

  Now, as it happened, I didn’t actually see the sun rise. We had been moving under the night sky for what seemed an eternity, and I had not had a proper night’s sleep in possibly days. At one point I sat down to rest, over Sharee’s protests. I have to admit, the woman may have been incredibly irritating, but her stamina was simply staggering. I had trained with some remarkably sturdy knights in my time, and any of them would have been hard pressed to keep up with her. Her assertions that we had to keep moving became reduced to little more than an annoying buzz, as I was unable to focus on her at all. The next thing I knew, the sun was on my face and I was slumped sideways, coming to startled wakefulness. The first thing to greet my eyes was Sharee, seated a short distance away in a cross-legged position. Her hood was up and her head was slumped forward, her breathing slow and steady. I was almost relieved to see that she was sleeping. It gave me some hope that she was actually mortal.

  I sat up slowly, stretching out my body as best I could, feeling the creaking in the joints. Then I looked around. And around.

  The Tragic Waste was a desert of the first magnitude. It stretched on and on, to the horizon and farther, and there was nothing there. I mean nothing. Just sand, blowing across the plains in leisurely manner. No grass. No trees. Not the slightest shrub. No hint of animal life of any kind. Just sand. Sand in small, mountainous ridges in one direction, or sand that was unyielding and flat in another. Sand that I could already taste between my lips, sand that I had to squint against to prevent it from getting in my eyes.

  Sand and nothingness in all directions, save for the very, very far distance, so far that it could have been the end of the world. And in that distance, there was what appeared to be a mountain range, but it looked as inhospitable as the rest of the place.

  I looked behind us and saw that there was no sign of our tracks. The blowing sands had completely covered them. It was as if we had not been there at all.

  Now, if one were of a rational frame of mind, this might have been good news. Bicce’s status was uncertain; if the bitch had managed to survive being washed into the sea, then she could probably track us through the pits of Hell. But if she had been removed from the equation, then Beliquose—were he still of a mind to pursue us—would be limited to more conventional means of tracking, in which case we might well have given him the slip.

  But none of that went through my mind at that moment. Instead, nothing went through my mind.

  I could never have anticipated the effect the Tragic Waste had upon me. In retrospect, however, I suppose I should have seen it coming.

  All my life I had been surrounded by something. A forest, much of the time … the Elderwoods, where I grew up, learning forest craft and the tricks of staying alive. Or I had resided in a castle, safe and secure within four great stone walls. I had traveled, yes, but usually through forest paths, or valleys, or glades.

  I had never seen anything like this. Never. The emptiness, the … the nothing. Even now as I write of it, separated by the passage of time and experience, I feel a chill fist closing about the base of my spine. Back then, when I was first struck by my new surroundings, the impact was catastrophic.

  My mind was so locked down that I didn’t even realize at first that something was happening. I went blank, blacked out, the world suddenly becoming a great white haze. From what seemed a great distance I heard Sharee calling my name. I looked up at her, tried to focus upon her. My chest was thumping in agony, and I realized that I’d stopped breathing. I forced myself to draw a deep breath through my nose and then out through my mouth. The air was hot and raw and hurt going in and coming out.

  I was shivering violently, as if I was having a great chill despite the heat. At first I thought that the rapid transition from wet to dry had made me ill, but I quickly realized this wasn’t the case. The trembling wasn’t just physical; it was in my head. I was shaking not from cold, but from fear. That was it. Pure, stinking fear in my nose, in my throat, in my mind, just paralyzing me.

  “Stand up, Apropos,” Sharee said sternly. I shook my head so violently it might have tumbled off my shoulders, and again—this time with even more vehemence—she said, “Stand up!”

  I did so, but with great reluctance, balancing myself with my staff. But my right leg was questionable under the best of circumstances, and now my left leg was giving way as well. I trembled so violently that it nearly collapsed beneath me, sending me to the ground. “What the hell is wrong with you?” demanded Sharee.

  She was standing directly in front of me, looking me full in the face. I looked past her shoulder at the endless vista of nothingness in front of us, to the side of us, behind us. I had never felt so naked and vulnerable, and this time I did fall. I hit the ground hard, dropping to my knees, shaking my head furiously as if I could make the entire desert go away through simple denial of its existence.

  Sharee crouched in front of me, grabbed my face, and turned it to look up at her. Her exasperation and impatience with me was evident, but then she saw something of the sheer, stark terror that was in my eyes, and instead of becoming angrier, or even just leaving me to fend for myself—as, I must admit, I might have done—her face softened, and she almost looked sympathetic. “Apropos … what’s wrong?”

  My jaw twitched furiously as I fought to bring it under control so I could get the words out. “The … the desert … en … ensorcelled somehow … making me … with fear … filled with …”

  Amazingly, she was actually able to discern what I was trying to say from my half-witted rantings. “It’s not the desert,” she said firmly. “There’s nothing mystical about the desert. It’s just a desert. This is coming from within you. Look around, Apropos. It’s just sand and a few dunes and some plains. Nothing here to be afraid of.”

  “It’s the nothing. That’s what it is. Nothing …”

  “What?” Her eyebrows knit in confusion. She was gently pulling me to my feet. Her hand rested on my shoulder, and although it didn’t make me calmer, it did prevent me from becoming even mo
re panicked than I was. “Just … walk with me, Apropos. One step at a time. Place the staff. Pull yourself forward.” Her voice was slightly singsong, as if she were dealing with a child. At that moment, though, I was hardly in condition to take offense at being condescended to. I did what she said, endeavoring simply to walk with as much concentration as a toddler might exhibit. “Now …” she continued, “how is ‘nothing’ so upsetting to you?”

  I knew perfectly well what she was doing. She was trying to divert me from my concerns with distracting chitchat. My fundamentally perverse nature almost prompted me to ignore her obvious maneuvers, but instead I focused on what she was saying … mostly because I was trying to understand it myself. “There’s … there’s so much … nothing … so much … it’s …”

  “It’s not like at home, is it,” she acknowledged. “With the forest, and the trees …”

  “Danger … danger everywhere.” The quaking in my knees was causing a similar disruptive sound in my voice. It was amazing that she could understand anything I was saying. “We’re out here … in the open … exposed …”

  “If it’s danger you’re worried about, consider this: Back home, danger can hide in the trees, behind brush, inside a cave, waiting to spring out at you. Here,” and she made a sweeping gesture, “nothing can surprise you. You can see it coming from miles away.”

  “And when it comes,” I said darkly, “there’s no place to hide from it. And … and it’s more than that. Much more. It’s …”

  “It’s what?” she urged.

  Everything I was feeling, everything I was trying to express, warred for dominance in my mind, and the truth of it was out of my mouth before I’d even realized what it was going to be.

  “This … this is Death’s Domain,” I said.

  I know. It sounds absurd, coming from one such as me. So trite, so overblown a sentiment. And yet, at that moment, I truly felt Death to be an actual entity, stalking the cruel sands, seeking out anyone who had been so foolish as to wander into his arena. I even kept glancing over my shoulder in fear of the notion that he was standing directly behind me.