The Indivisible and the Void

by D M Wozniak

  Nearby laughter erupts.

  I jump in place as the three men behind me guffaw, heartily consumed in their conversation. They are obvious to ours.

  Leaning in, I bite my lip, concerned with her words. “Aphelime, I...” I clear my throat. “Do you not approve of this marriage?” I whisper, looking around.

  She shakes her head, still smiling. “No, my dear. Of course I approve. I would not be here celebrating with you if I did not.”

  I straighten up, feeling slightly better, but then she continues with a pointed finger into my chest.

  “But you should have known better.”

  I tilt my head as my heart tightens. She means my past with Marine. How we grew close.

  This was the last thing I thought I’d be discussing tonight. And from any other person, it would only be met with my anger or dismissal. But neither of those feelings are within me. Aphelime is perhaps the mother I never had. There is love behind her sting.

  “We’ve all heard the story of her near voideath. Dem, she was your student. You should have known better. That was tephra acting within you.”

  At first I don’t answer her. I only shake my head and look at the bottommost layer of sand in the vase. “We both decided that she should be expelled. To avoid any confusion. So that we could have a proper relationship.”

  “Well, you had to! She nearly burnt down the Royal House!”

  I nod.

  “She nearly destroyed you too, Dem. And you nearly destroyed her. You could have been removed as master voider, and she could have died from voideath.”

  “I know.”

  She withdraws her finger and takes a deep breath, still careful to keep her voice down. “Look at this room.”

  I subtly raise my head and look around.

  “These people. If you were not surrounded by powerful men who protected you, you would not be standing here today. It is a good thing you are so well-liked. Something like this, it could have been an excuse to get rid of you.”

  She grasps my hand. Hers is shaking slightly, but I know this is only due to her age. She’s not afraid of anything.

  “I don’t wish to dwell on this, Dem. That was not my intent.”

  “Than what was it?”

  “Tephra is not bad. When it is mixed with the other ten kinds of love. A little destruction is good for us all. Just make sure that the Lady Marine is more to you than black sand. And the same goes for her.”

  “What do you mean?”

  “Are you sure she loves you because of you? Or just the black flaxen robe that fits you so well?”

  “She loves me, Aphelime,” I proclaim with all my heart. “And I love her.”

  But her eyes pierce through me as she continues to squeeze my wrist.

  Her hand shakes, but her eyes do not.

  Something in the Water

  It’s still night when I awake, but it must be many fullbells later. The moon, once near the horizon and filtered through the bamboo wall, is now high up in the sky. There’s a small hole in the thatched roof directly above where I lay, and I can see it clearly.

  I take a deep breath.

  It must have been the mix of aromas that caused me to regain consciousness. The orange scent of Chimeline and the bittersweet smell of cooked meat hang in the air.

  A few bright voices echo out in the night. The campfire is on the other side of the house. I can’t see it directly, but orange light laps against the sides of everything, and the sound of their laughter is like a trickle of fresh water over stones. It’s this laughter, more than the empty deathbed across from me, that tells me I was successful in saving Yisla’s life.

  Chimeline stands in the shadows near the edge of the room, looking out into the moonlit dirt clearing. She seems lost in thought and must think that I’m asleep, but as soon as I slowly sit up in the straw bed and swing my legs over the side, she turns and approaches me.

  Sitting down on the bed to the right of me, she curls her feet under her.

  “You healed her,” she says. I detect a hint of surprise in her voice.

  I only nod, looking back at the empty deathbed.

  “Yisla’s sitting by the campfire with her sister,” she adds. “Her appetite has returned.”

  Chimeline softly scratches my back with the fingers of her left hand. “What about you? Are you hungry? Yerla killed one of her chickens for you.”

  “Yes,” I say immediately. “I’m famished.”

  “Are you well enough to walk? I remember last time you had trouble.”

  I move my fingers and toes. There is only a trace of numbness.

  It’s interesting. I had apparently worked on Yisla for all of the afternoon. Time does not pass in the void the same way it does in the real world. Yet I am not even close to voideath. A small action repeated slowly over time is much more manageable than, say, heating all of the indivisibles inside of the airship, simultaneously. Or water in a tub.

  It’s like the rain. Each raindrop weighs practically nothing. But lifting a lake is impossible.

  I look sideways at her. She’s still wearing the same white lace dress and ivory effulgent beads, but she’s clutching something in her right hand.

  “I thought you stayed back at the temple.”

  “I did, for a time. But then it started getting dark out, and I was worried about you. The effulgent said it was a good idea to check on you.”

  “Well, if the effulgent said so, it must have been the right thing to do.”

  She nods, oblivious to my sarcasm.

  “What do you have there?” I ask.

  “Oh this?” she says, bringing a small book out of the shadows and into the moonlight. “The graycloak gave it to me. It’s the Book of Unwanting.”

  She opens up the bleached-leather cover, and rifles through the few hundred pages of hand-written text. “The graycloak says that there are many other books, but they are private and only meant for the effulgents and graycloaks. This here is their public writings meant for us commoners. The writings are handed down over centuries.” She takes her hand off of my back and gently caresses the white cover.

  “Do you even know how to read?” I ask her.

  She flashes me a disapproving look. “Is that what you think? That just because I am a harem girl, I’m illiterate as well?”

  I hunch my shoulders. “I don’t mean any offense. It just strikes me as improbable. A blacksmith wouldn’t know either.”

  “Sometimes people are not always what they seem,” she snaps. But then I see her body relax and her voice softens as well. “My father taught me. He said that his greatest treasure was his ability to read, and he passed this treasure onto me before I left him.”

  I murmur an utterance of surprise, sensing the frailness of her words. “Well, he was a good man, then,” I say.

  “Sometimes,” she replies distantly, as she continues to caress the small book in her hands. “I’ve never owned a book before. They are far too costly. It’s beautiful, isn’t it?”

  I can’t help but let out a short laugh. “It sounds to me like that little white book of yours is a corrupting possession. Don’t you think that’s ironic?”

  She narrows her dark eyebrows in confusion.

  “Wanting the Book of Unwanting?”

  Slowly, her expression turns to outright anger.

  “You know, the effulgent is a decent man,” she rebukes sharply. “You should listen to what he has to say.”

  I let out another laugh, this one louder. “Alright.”

  “I’m serious. Maybe you should read this book. We could discuss it.”

  I turn to her as I point to the empty bed in front of us. “You do realize that Yisla would be dead if it weren’t for voidance. What the effulgent wanted to do—what is probably written in that stupid book of yours—is that she was meant to die. Which is complete bullshit.”

  I stand up, but she grabs my hand, preventing me from walking away.

  “But what if we never came here?”

&nb
sp; “What?”

  She stands as well, coming close to me in the darkness. “I mean—what if we died when the airship crashed? You would have never been here, in this village.”

  “Then Yisla would have died.”

  Chimeline tilts her head up in the moonlight which is coming through the hole in the roof. “Don’t you think that’s important?” she asks in a high pitch. “That maybe you and I are here for a reason?”

  “No.”

  “Well, I think you misunderstand him. The effulgent never wanted Yisla to die. He just wished to let whatever happen, happen. And maybe I’m part of this too, somehow. Maybe the Unnamed has been speaking to me. Telling me not to do things, when I had been instructed otherwise. He knows what we should do, and he knows that we are all part of something greater.”

  “Something greater?”

  She nods.

  “Like what?”

  She shrugs. “Maybe he will let me know what he wants. In time.”

  I shake my head. “What do you want? What is your something greater?”

  She clutches the book close. “I don’t know yet. But I think that I will find it, traveling with you.”

  I glace at the book, which she holds lovingly. “Do me one favor. Just don’t trade one master for another.”

  She wrinkles her nose curiously.

  I push her bangs aside and gently touch her forehead with my finger.

  “This is your master now. Chimeline.”

  She opens her mouth, about to say something, when joyful shouts break the silence.

  It’s the two sisters—they see us standing just inside the shelter.

  They sit huddled on the far side of the fire. Their eyes glow in blue, orange, and red, and they both stand and run over, as if I am Father Wintertide himself, bearing an armful of honey candies.

  Yisla drops to her knees in front of me, but I immediately pull her up, and instead they both give me a tight hug that almost knocks me off my feet. When they pull their faces from my waist, I see tears in their eyes as they excitedly talk over each other for my attention.

  I silence both of them with my outstretched hands.

  “I hear that you have made an excellent dinner. Is there any left for a tired, old man?”

  They both erupt in invitation, leading me back to the fire.

  I motion for Chimeline to come as well, but she shakes her head, continuing to stand where she is.

  Yerla hands me the rest of the charred bird, wrapped in large, clean leaves, and the three of us sit down on the stumps of old trees.

  “I wish I could offer you more,” Yerla tells me. “This was my best hen. She laid two eggs most days. I don’t have anything else to give you.”

  “You don’t owe me anything,” I say, trying to keep my voice both kind and instructional. They both nod stoically, but then Yerla speaks up, her chin raised defiantly in the firelight.

  “Can I ask you a question?”

  “Of course.”

  “Why did you save him?”

  “The effulgent?” I ask, after a pause. “Because, despite our differences, he deserves a chance at life. Just like your sister.”

  She tilts her head, and I stop eating for a moment.

  “Listen to me, Yerla. I am glad that you freed me. I truly am. But please understand that what you did—stabbing another person—is never right. I know that you were scared for your sister, but you must always try to do what is right. And killing and hurting is almost never the right thing to do.”

  “But he locked you up.”

  I nod. “And that’s only the start of our disagreements. But that doesn’t mean that we should resort to stabbing people in the back. Death comes for us all.” I look at Yisla and then back to Yerla. “Unfortunately, both of you girls know this all too well, given the suffering you’ve been through. Don’t you think the world gives us enough death on its own?”

  Eventually, they nod and lean back into the shadows. Out of the corner of my eye, I notice that Chimeline is still watching us from the house.

  For a long time, everything is quiet, as I return to tearing into both wings and a leg. The only sound is my hasty eating, the crackle of the fire, and a flurry of bats flying overhead. Then, the sisters start up a private conversation, arms wrapped over each other’s shoulders, all hushed giggles and whispered talking.

  When I have finished the rest of the bird, I clear my throat and lick my fingers clean. “There is one other important thing to discuss,” I say.

  Yisla and Yerla break apart from their huddle, and look at me across the fire.

  “Yisla, your body was invaded. I destroyed the invaders inside of you, but it’s important that we understand the cause of them, else you might be at risk of becoming sick again. Or your sister.”

  They look at each other fearfully, and then back to me.

  I finger the gold setting of my voidstone. “I wish Submaster Herrophilus was here. He would know exactly what to do. Exactly what questions to ask. But hopefully I can get to the bottom of this.”

  When I look back at the sisters, I realize that they have no idea what I am talking about.

  “It usually comes from food or water,” I say. “Improperly cooked food, or contaminated water.”

  Both girls tilt their heads in confusion, as a worried thought comes over me.

  The bird.

  I touch the voidstone, and analyze the remains of the bones lying on the ground between my feet. I am looking for any sign of the coiled snakes that invaded Yisla’s veins. But there is nothing.

  Sighing, I let go.

  “I had worried that perhaps your chickens are the cause. That the meat had turned.”

  “We never kill the chickens,” they say in unison, and despite the gravity of my thoughts, I cannot help but smile at what remains of their innocence. “Tonight is special,” adds Yerla.

  “Yes, it is,” I answer. “Thank you for that. It was an excellent dinner.” Then I turn to the coop which is a few feet into the distance. “What about the eggs?”

  Yerla speaks up again. “We always sell them fresh. Most of the time we don’t even eat them—we get more money from selling them in the village and buying maize.”

  I stand and take a walk over to the coop. Both sisters follow me, as I open up the rotting door and take a step inside. The birds start to cluck, perhaps noticing a stranger in their midst.

  “Do you need me to light a torch?” asks one of the girls. “We used to have a lantern, but we sold it.”

  “No,” I say, waving her off with a hand.

  Touching the voidstone again, I spend some time inspecting the entire room. Inside of the birds’ bodies, inside of their eggs, inside of the droppings on the floor. Nothing resembles the grotesque spirals that had taken over Yisla.

  I close the flimsy door. “It wasn’t the chickens,” I say.

  Scratching my head, I meander back through the fire pit, and eventually reenter the open-walled house. The kitchen table is full of feathers, where Yerla must have prepared the bird before dinner. The large clay urn I saw Yerla use at the well numerous times rests on it too.

  I peer inside of the urn.

  “Are you thirsty?” Yerla says, at my side. She hands me a small, malformed, clay cup from the nearby counter next to the trough.

  “Thank you,” I say, taking it from her. I am thirsty, but before I dip the mug into the half-filled pot, I touch my voidstone again and analyze the water, checking it for the spirals.

  It’s clean as well.

  Dipping my cup into the urn, I take a cautious sip. It’s tastes pure.

  “I boiled it,” adds Yerla.

  “I don’t understand,” I eventually say, downing the rest of my cup and setting it down on the table forcefully.

  Both of the sisters are quiet, but Chimeline, who had been standing under the shade of the house the entire time, takes a step nearer. “What don’t you understand?”

  “Why Yisla became sick, and Yerla didn’t.” I point to the c
oop. “The chickens are all fine. Eggs are all fine. This water came from the well in the center of town which everyone drinks from, and it has been boiled too. It’s fine. I’m trying to think of what would have caused the invaders.”

  “Maybe there is no reason, other than the Unnamed wanted it to be so.”

  I glare at Chimeline, annoyed with her unexpected and irrational statement, but I don’t say anything. I only silently reflect on how the effulgent and graycloak have been busy proselytizing rubbish while I have been saving lives.

  I turn back to the two young girls. “Is there anything that you’re not telling me? Anything that is different between you two?”

  They look at each other in confusion.

  “Think back to before you became sick,” I say calmly to Yisla. “Was there something you did that Yerla did not do?”

  Yerla replies for her. “I am older. I do most of the work. She only fetches the water in the morning while I build up the fire. Everything else we do together.”

  “From the well in the center of town,” I add uselessly, as I exhale, tapping the table with my empty mug.

  I gaze out into the moonlit clearing—the dying fire, the swooping bats overhead, and eventually the faraway stars. And briefly my thoughts go equally as distant. How did all of this happen? Days ago, I was on my way south, flying through the skies in my airship to find Marine. Now I am in this ruin of a house, trying to solve the mystery of a dying peasant. A girl, who if she died, would be mourned only by her equally-doomed sister.

  Look how far I have steered off course.

  But my journey was destined for failure from the start, even before my airship crashed and burned in some farmer’s forgotten field. The glittering prize was already won by someone else.

  The man behind the veil.

  I am not so disillusioned to expect that my life will ever be the same. I will never get Marine back. I will never get my old station back, fleeing the citadel without permission as I did. But I will get my revenge. For all that has happened, not only to me, but to every poor soul hurt with his voidance.