by D M Wozniak
Something dark and secret happened there, and I fear that it’s still happening now, somewhere south of us. Something the king would not tell me, since he knew I would not approve of it.
His slurred words from our last dinner together come to mind. He drank too much, and had let his guard down. A smudge on the the mirror-like sheen of his table.
There are some things I can never tell you. I’d like to, but I know you’d disagree, and you’d be too proud to fall in line. I don’t want to break you, Dem. So I keep you safe, instead.
Slowly, my suspicions harden into stone blocks in my mind, building a foundation of hatred. I will make this sad joke of a king eat his words. Whatever he’s doing with the help of the veiled man, I’m going to find out. And I’m going to stop him.
And Marine? What is her involvement in all of this? Is she a lover or an accomplice? And which is worse than the other?
I have too many questions and too few answers.
All of this is pure conjecture. My fortress of hatred is built upon a shaky foundation. What I need is proof, something beyond a missing airship and a black pitch stain.
Desperate for information, I approach everyone I meet on the broken-down road. A few farmers with their rusty plows. Two mothers cradling babies, exchanging milk for maize. A royal surveyor from the tax authority. I am hoping this last one might have heard something, but all I receive is a shake of his head as he drives a painted spike into the ground.
I must have patience.
Nobody is invisible. Everyone leaves some trace of their passing. Especially a voider masked in a blur, traveling with the most beautiful woman in the Northern Kingdom.
The next morning, as we ride through Gales, a wicked thought comes to me.
“This is where you were going to send your daughter with my voidstone,” I say, giving my spotted horse a nudge so it rides to the right of the effulgent’s dark one. I purposely use the words your daughter, like an alley thief stabbing someone in the back with a dagger. But it’s not his gold I want. It’s his reaction.
Still, the effulgent remains predictably silent.
“You know, she called you father,” I add, thrusting again with the knife. “Back in Fiscarlo. You were already a ways off, so you probably didn’t hear her.”
More silence, so I look in all directions as we pass through Gales.
There must be two dozen windmills dotting the golden fields, but none of them are moving. I look for villagers, wanting to ask them if they saw an airship, but nobody is around. The stillness—both within us and without—is disconcerting.
He draws back his hood and looks at me with cavernous eyes. “The events of the last few days have been too much for her to bear. I will pray upon it.”
Chimeline utters a short laugh behind us.
Surprised, I turn and look at her. Despite the pleasant weather, she still has the colored, patchwork blanket wrapped around herself, hiding most of her white-lace dress, and she shakes her head as she surveys the calm landscape.
“You have an opinion, Chimeline?” I ask her, eager to have some dialog after almost an entire day and night of introspection.
For a moment, she vacillates, seemingly weighing her desire to share her opinion against her caution to not offend anyone. Eventually, her desire wins out, and she nudges her tan horse to the right of mine, so that I am between the effulgent and her.
“If you're going to pray, perhaps you should be praying for forgiveness.”
“Are you referring to the new effulgent who took my place?”
“Yes! I’m referring to your daughter!” Chimeline replies with a surprising amount of forwardness.
He winces. He alternates his gaze between the two of us with what looks like summoned patience. “That term is not on the way of unwanting. One does not own the living.” His stare settles upon her. “But to address your comment, I imagine that I will never see her again, unless the Unnamed wills it.”
“But she loves you—she needs you,” Chimeline replies. “Can’t you see that?”
He takes a deep breath. “You say love, but you do not mean it. True love does not mean clutching to the transient things of this world. It is the absolute giving of one’s self. She knows this. She knows that she gives all of herself to the Unnamed and so do I. Becoming an effulgent was her calling ever since birth.” He looks down at her riding by his side. “Did you not read this in the Book of Unwanting?”
Chimeline nods weakly, mumbling something.
“Can you speak up, child?”
“I’m not sure that I agree.”
I look to the effulgent to gauge his reaction. Surprisingly, it’s not one of annoyance or disapproval. Instead, he only nods and says, “The way of unwanting is no easy path. There are very few who choose to walk it. Many who attempt to eventually leave.”
“The way that you said goodbye to her wasn’t right. It was cruel.” She gathers up the blanket around herself tighter. “When you said be nothing, you might as well have said you are nothing.”
He narrows his eyes in confusion. “Those two phrases mean completely different things.”
“Ugh!” She lifts her hands underneath her blanket. “You have no idea.”
He tilts his head.
“How much you’re hurting her,” she finishes.
“I don’t see how saying be nothing has any—”
“It hurts!” she yells, her boldness waxing. “Alright? It hurts, more than anything you can imagine. I don’t care if she’s a graycloak or not. Sure, half of her comes from your bloodline. But the other half of her is normal. She had a Xian mother, didn’t she?”
“That implies ownership—”
“Did she, or did she not?”
His expression is one of tolerance. “I suppose you could say that.”
“Well, do you think she is born without needs? Like your hairless skin? Or do you think she’s just a scared girl who never knew her mother or Xian heritage, and all she had in this world was a distant father, and now she doesn’t even have that?”
As she uses her blanket to wipe her eyes, a sad smile cross my face. On one hand, I admire her courage. She’s baring her emotions to us two ill-tempered men—an effulgent and a master voider. As one of the harem, these emotions were probably one thing that was never asked to be shared. In the short time that I have known her I have never seen her this way, but it feels right. I only wish that these emotions were not rooted in pain.
I lean to the right, next to her. “Are you okay?” I ask.
“I’m fine,” she snaps. She doesn’t seem done speaking to the effulgent. Turning her head past me and to him, she says, “You remind me of my father when I was young,” she says. “It took me years to realize it, but he didn’t love me for who I am. He loved me for the role for which I was destined. And you...you are the same way with your daughter. It sickens me.”
“One does not own the darkness,” warns the effulgent.
“My father is not dead.”
“But your memories can be darkness. You must give them up. Forget them. Allow your mind to be filled with the Unnamed—”
“Are you seriously telling her not to remember her past?” I ask.
“As I said, memories can be darkness.”
“But we learn from that darkness,” I say. “The entire university is built upon such philosophy. The method of systematically repeating your failures until you succeed. Burying your head in the sand accomplishes nothing. It is the absence of reason.”
The effulgent doesn’t respond.
Chimeline turns to him, a pointed finger exiting the folds of her blanket. “What you have done to your daughter is wrong. She’s no different than any child. All she wants is to be loved by you, if you would only listen to her without judgment, and let her live the life she wants to live instead of the one which you thrust upon her.”
I can tell the effulgent desperately wants to say something, but by now Chimeline has started to tear up, and he seems to have the wis
dom to favor silence over proclamation.
“That is why I don’t agree with what is in that book. If holding back all of those words and feelings is part of the way of unwanting, then that is a road which I do not wish to travel.”
I let out a deep exhale.
We’re quickly approaching a line of thick trees. The way ahead goes into a shaded tunnel made of arching leaves and branches.
“We should reach Xi Bay Road by nightfall,” says the effulgent, perhaps changing the subject on purpose. “It is on the other side of this forest.”
He gently kicks the side of his horse and the animal trots on ahead.
Chimeline remains at my side. Her patchwork blanket whips around her as a breeze comes in from across the fields.
“We must be careful,” the effulgent adds over his shoulder. “Past this forest is plantation country. There are hilma fields.”
I let out a sharp laugh. “Are you worried that we’ll have the sudden urge to smoke it?”
“It is not the drug which I am worried about, master voider. It is the hideous men who cultivate it.”
I wave him off. “If we stay on Xi Bay Road, we’ll be fine. Any hilma plantations will be the king’s.”
He shakes his head. “I do not share your confidence. There is a war going on to the south which has sapped the king’s resources. The countryside has suffered. Lawlessness is prevalent. The way of unwanting is not taken. There could be skullmen.”
“Skullmen,” I murmur.
“I have seen these hilma growers with my own eyes. They must know the evil that they do, since they disguise themselves from the world.”
Chimeline looks at me, motioning with her hand to her face. “They paint a skull on their face?”
“Sometimes,” I say, trying to sound reassuring.
She looks at me in fear.
“Fear not. The Unnamed will protect us,” the effulgent calls out from up ahead.
Shaking my head in frustration, I exhale and stop my horse, just to put some space between us. The irony is too much. It’s inconceivable that this man chides my confidence in the things of this world, while blindly trusting in ghosts.
I turn around, to catch a final glimpse of the sunlit clearing before entering the cool shade.
As we’ve been arguing, we’ve passed entirely through the sleepy town of Gales without seeing a single soul.
But something is different. The breeze has picked up.
The windmills are spinning.
Red Petals
The second day on Xi Bay Road, the first red petals blow in on the wind.
The dense forest we passed through has thinned out, and the terrain has become rocky, almost barren and desert-like, even though plenty of grasses still poke out from the ground. Trees dot the landscape, but the oaks, pines, and willows of the north have diminished considerably. I count a few palms, but here, millionescent trees reign supreme. Entire towering lines of them hug the road and mark the boundaries of neighboring plots of land. Their glimmering leaves flicker on their branches like sequins. Gold leaves that will never fall.
The dusty breeze carries a maroon petal up from the gravelly surface of the road, past my horse’s feet, and I catch it in my hands, studying it.
“May I see that?” Chimeline asks.
She’s riding to the right of me, so I hand the flower to her, and watch as she brings it to her nose and breathes in deeply.
“Hilma,” she says, as she lets go, letting it join the hundreds of others. “I recognize the smell.”
The effulgent nods on the other side of her. “I have seen these flowers. Red, like the blood upon the hands of everyone who partakes in this evil.”
“These don’t look like hilma fields,” I say, looking out onto the plantations that flank both sides of the road, past the millionescent trees. I don’t see any color there—just row-upon-row of waist-high, brown-green plants baking in the sun.
“They aren’t,” says the effulgent. “The fields on this side of the forest are mostly cotton and tobacco.”
“Then where are these petals coming from?” I ask.
“We will find out soon enough,” he answers, motioning to the crest in the road up ahead.
The effulgent is correct. We’ve been on a gradual incline for most of the morning, and within a halfbell we reach a meager summit. The ground levels off, the horizon drops slightly, and we can see into the distance.
We stop our horses and take in the view.
Patches of green, gray, brown, and tan are everywhere, all dissected with lines of gold from the millionescents. But about a half-mile away, we see a brilliant patch of red, a fresh wound upon the land. Speckles from it extend in our direction and down the road, like it was touched by some artist’s brush, half-dry with crimson paint.
“There,” the effulgent says, pointing. “We should stay clear of it. There will be skullmen.”
“I don’t want to deviate from the road,” I answer. “We’re making good time. Besides, I’m sure that’s a royal plantation.”
“How do you know?” asks Chimeline.
“It’s not hidden. No rogue plantation would be situated directly off Xi Bay Road like that. It’s too obvious.”
I hold a hand over my eyes and try to make out any details. It looks like there are people working in the fields, shapes moving within the huge parallelogram of red. A few observation towers sit above the field—small, wooden houses perched upon thick beams with narrow ladders.
The effulgent looks at me and lowers his hood. Again, I’m drawn into his strangeness. Every time he does this, I’m taken by surprise at the utter smoothness of his face. No eyebrows or facial hair whatsoever. A pristine mask. If it weren’t for the sharp lines of his jaw, I would almost think that he wasn’t a man at all.
“There was a side road, a mile or so back,” he says. “We might be able to take it west and head south a different way.”
“We’re not going out of our way,” I say.
“Why seek out danger?” he asks, almost at a whisper, even though there are no others about. “Skullmen only know violence. They are beyond the way of unwanting.”
“I’m not seeking out danger. I’m seeking out information. Somebody there may know something.”
He huffs.
“Trust me,” I add as I nudge my horse forward. My body shifts upon the saddle, as I feel the shallow decline of the road ahead. A moment later, the soft sound of horses’ feet on the gravel tells me that the two are following close behind.
“Do people smoke the petals?” asks Chimeline. I turn back and see that she’s riding next to the effulgent and addressing him.
“No,” he answers. “The flower is harmless. It’s the sap that is turned into the evil drug.”
“It’s not entirely harmful,” I say, loud enough for them to hear. “We have studied it at the university for generations, and there are many fields in the Northern Kingdom where it is grown safely. I am sure that the one ahead of us is of this kind. Hilma, when used judiciously, can be very beneficial.”
“How can you say that?” he asks.
“It is a pain killer,” I answer. “Watered-down doses are given to our hospitals’ sickest patients, to aid in their recovery. We’ve recently sent shipments south for the war.”
“Such as waste,” he replies.
I’m not sure if he’s referring to the war itself or our wartime use of hilma, but I don’t bother asking him to clarify.
“Imagine the pain that a soldier goes through after losing a limb,” I say. “Our voiders can save a life, but they cannot take away pain. Pain is in the mind—it is off limits to our power. That is why hilma can be useful.”
“When pain is bestowed on us, it is a gift from the Unnamed,” the effulgent says. “It is bestowed on us for a reason.”
I feel a spark of anger in me and hold up my horse until the two catch up. “What if your Unnamed bestowed the hilma plant for a reason as well? Did you ever think about that?”
“Nothing evil can come from the Unnamed,” he says dismissively. “It is mankind that turns it evil.”
I shake my head at his readied remarks, and for a while we travel in silence. But then the effulgent continues.
“The plant goes through two main stages of development. The first stage is the blooming stage. These are the red flowers.”
I turn to him. “And they are worthless?”
“Nothing from the Unnamed is worthless.”
“You know what I mean,” I snap. “I’m speaking about the petals being used as a drug.”
He nods. “You are correct.”
“They are beautiful, though,” Chimeline adds.
“The second stage is the wilting stage,” he says. “This is usually signaled by the petals falling off of their own accord.” He points to the hundreds of them that we’re trampling over. “As you can see, the plantation we’re approaching is just entering this second stage.”
“And what happens then?”
“Each stem has a bulb on its tip—just underneath where the petals fell off. By now these bulbs have grown to the size of an egg, and they are engorged with sap.”
“I’ve seen samples of that substance,” I say.
“There is a special tool. A scorer, like a sharp fork. The workers use this to cut the sides of each bulb during the day. Overnight, the sap oozes out, and the next day it is hand-collected, bulb-by-bulb.” He takes a deep breath in the dusty, afternoon air. “I imagine that it’s a tireless process, enabled by forced labor.”
“The workers of our royal plantations are treated very well,” I interject.
“But what about the rogue ones?” he asks. “The ones run by skullmen? You think that these evil men care about the poor people working in the fields?”
“I’ve never seen a rogue plantation, so I really cannot say.”
After a moment of silence, he replies. “That is the problem with you, isn’t it?”
I look at him—his rock-smooth head and dark, inset eyes filled with judgment. “What in Temberlain’s Ashes are you talking about?”
He nods, as if he has just convinced himself of a newfound belief. “You sit in the citadel, surrounded by luxury. Surrounded by the things that you perceive you own. You study black arcana and you work through odd experiments, but everything you see is distorted. Like a person talking into a seashell, you hear voices but they are your own. You are in a prison of your own comfort.”