by D M Wozniak
He shakes his head while looking at the ground. “No. We’ve achieved our objective. Established control of the bay.”
I lean forward in the firelight. “The bay?”
“The bay was always the objective,” he says. “It was never about invading the south. It was always about taking control of Xi Bay.”
I frown in confusion. The king never mentioned anything about the bay being a specific objective. In fact, he hardly ever brought it up at all.
"Why is the bay so vital?" I ask.
"Gold," one of the soldiers barks out, while another silences him with a shove.
The one in the lead scowls as he throws his pieces of stick into the fire. “Ignore him, master voider. He’s a young fool spreading nonsense.”
The other soldier speaks up. “I’m just saying what I heard, is all. There’s gold underwater.”
“And pearls,” says a third.
“A massive voidstone,” says the forth.
The lead soldier chuckles to himself as he stands. “It’s our ability to trade, you fools. Getting our exports out of the north and taking in the imports. I know that’s not as interesting as gold, pearls, and voidstones, but it’s the boring truth. Isn’t that right, master voider?”
I am half-lost in thought, staring at the forth soldier who mentioned a voidstone, but I am aware enough to understand that the one in the lead addressed me. So I nod, and clear my throat. “That is right. The more boring the story is, the greater chance of it being true.”
“Pack it up, men,” the soldier suddenly barks, rising to his feet.
“What, you're leaving?” I ask in surprise.
“We never intended to stay the night,” he says. “We are under orders to report our news back to the king immediately. It cannot wait.”
“No, it certainly cannot,” I answer.
He crosses the campfire and extends a hand. “Master voider, it has been a pleasure.”
“Mine as well.”
With that, the four solders pack up camp in remarkable time, given their lack of sobriety. As they guide their impressive horses onto the road, they immediately go into a canter and disappear into the north. For the longest time, all I hear is the diminishing sound of hooves upon the sandy road.
“That was interesting,” I say.
“Seems like good news to me,” Chimeline says.
I shake my head but don’t answer her.
“Isn’t the end of any war good news?” she adds.
“Yes,” I say. “It’s just that the king never mentioned anything to me about Xi Bay. And apparently, it's what this whole war was about.”
“Foolishness,” the effulgent scoffs. “One cannot own a bay. Xi Bay will be here long after all of us are gone, and it certainly doesn't recognize this absurd war.”
Before I can respond, I hear another rustle of grass, just like when I was searching for the sugarcanex.
It comes from the darkness on the eastern side of camp, just on the other side of the fire.
“Do you hear that?” the effulgent whispers at my side.
I nod, and then touch my voidstone.
Within the void, I fly ahead. Taking a piece of fire, I move my created sphere into the night air, all the way to the rear of the camp, near the eastern edge of the tall grasses. I do this so quickly that the man hiding there, spreading the grasses wide, has no chance to react.
For a brief moment I see his indivisibles.
When I let go and reenter the world, his recognizable face is near the ground and between stalks of grass. My ball of fire hovers ten feet above him, and he looks at it in fear, before lowering his gaze back onto me.
He’s one of the skullman from our dinner table last night at the mansion. The one with the scar across his forehead.
He’s the one. The one who murdered Jacyon and took Cleanthes’ mare.
Chimeline, who is sitting on the south side of the fire, screams and runs over toward the effulgent and me, while the man with the scar disappears from the edge.
“Good Unnamed, that was a skullman!” she cries, grabbing onto me. “He’s here to kill us.”
I break free of Chimeline’s hold and grab my voidstone again, watching his glistening indivisibles retreat through the field, getting smaller and hazier as he runs. He was about twenty-five yards away from me when he was hiding. Now he’s at least fifty. Too far to use voidance on him now. I would risk voideath simply by trying.
“No,” I answer as I let go. “He’s running back to Prainise to deliver the news.”
“You mean what the soldier was saying? That the war has ended?”
“No,” I say, shaking my head and looking at the ground. “That a war is about to begin.”
An Orange Line
“Blythe,” I say absently, looking across the campfire at the effulgent, his hairless face glowing red against the blue moonlit darkness. It seems like the first word the three of us have spoken since the soldiers and spy departed nearly a fullbell ago.
Admittedly, I am torn between apprehension and hope, and with this single word, I consciously choose the latter.
“Are you speaking to me?” the effulgent asks, looking up.
I gesture to the horses tethered out of sight, near the bridge. “Blythe. The word is branded into your saddle.”
“Oh,” he says. “The man who rode the horse before me must have done it.”
I look at him slyly, eager to break the heavy silence with some much-needed lightness. “You mean the former owner of your horse named him Blythe.”
He clears his throat, looking away. “You are just goading me now. It will not work.”
“Perhaps,” I admit. “I know you don’t believe in ownership or names. But sometimes names are necessary. And as we were riding here, I saw the word on your saddle and thought it may be offensive to you.”
“Giving a name to a horse is not offensive, master voider,” he responds. “It only proves my point. Whoever owned the animal felt it necessary to name them. So when I say names imply ownership, you now know what I mean.”
I grunt. “Yes, it’s all perfectly clear to me, now.”
He nods as if unaware of my facetiousness. “I am happy to have helped. It is part of my duties to educate the ignorant.”
I grunt a laugh. “I could say the same.”
He looks like he’s sucking on a lemon. “The effulgency may be many things, but ignorant we are not.”
“You don’t think it may be even a little shortsighted to go through life ignoring the names of everyone you meet?”
“Names imply ownership, and ownership—”
“I know,” I interrupt. “I understand all that. My point is that names are convenient for everyone involved. Referring to you as the effulgent, while annoying, might work for a while. But what happens when we run into another effulgent? How do I differentiate you two without names?”
“I am a graycloak now.”
“Exactly,” I say. “First, you were an effulgent. Now, you’re a graycloak. It’s all very confusing.”
“I am a graycloak forevermore, because of what I’ve done.”
“It’s not just that,” I say. “Titles may change, but your name should not. Your name is who you are.”
He shakes his head in reply, as a deeper thought comes to me. “By the way, what does not having a name do?” I ask. “It makes you unnamed—just like The Unnamed. Can’t you admit that’s a little sacrilegious?”
He looks at me like I am daft. “It is never sacrilegious to esteem one’s maker.”
Chimeline sits next to me. She looks up from behind her blanket, tilting her head curiously. “Are you talking about giving the effulgent a name?”
“Yes!” I say. “Isn’t it annoying to refer to someone by their title or occupation? I don’t do that with you.”
She looks down as I realize the awkward situation I’ve created. But she seems to shrug it off after a moment, looking back up to me. “For the longest time, I called you your grace.”
“Yes, but I much prefer Dem.”
Behind her blanket, I see the hint of a smile.
I look back to the effulgent. “So? What do you think about Blythe?”
“That’s a girl’s name,” Chimeline giggles.
“It doesn’t have to be,” I reply. “It fits the man perfectly. Carefree and indifferent, to a fault.”
He shakes his head slowly, a faraway look in his eyes as he stands up from the fire. “Good Unnamed, give me patience with these people.”
“Blythe,” I repeat to myself, laughing for what seems like the first time in days. “I’m going to start using that.”
He walks in the direction of the horses.
“Where are you going, Blythe?” I call out.
After a moment of silence, he replies levelly from the darkness. “I’m getting the tents.”
I nod, turning back at Chimeline, who is staring into the fire. “See how nicely that works?”
She nods and flashes a brief smile, but seems troubled.
“What is it?” I ask her, leaning in.
“Do you think we’ll be safe here tonight?”
“Of course,” I say.
“But how can you be sure?” she asks, tightening the blanket around herself. “If what Colu said is true, there could be trouble.”
I put a hand on her shoulder, drawing her eyes to mine. “I'm not going to let anything happen to you.”
Her features soften a bit as she nods once and turns her attention back to the fire. “I just don’t like being out here.”
“Colu packed two tents. You can share mine tonight, if it makes you feel safer. Or if you’d rather sleep alone, I can stay by the fire. We’ll let Blythe have the other one.”
She cracks a small smile at my use of the effulgent's new name.
“Master voider,” says Blythe loudly from the distance.
I look his way and see nothing but darkness.
“Stay here.”
Getting up, I walk briskly to the horses through a trampled path. As the firelight dims the further I go, I can see the effulgent’s silhouette against the starlit horizon.
“What is it?”
I stand next to him. He’s pointing far off, down the length of the tributary and past the rolling hills full of tall grasses. “Look.”
“The spy?” Chimeline asks behind me, having ignored my warning.
A tall row of millionescent trees sits where Blythe is pointing. It runs parallel to Xi Bay Road, at least a mile away from us. Their towering silhouettes blot out the stars and indigo sky.
At their base, and above the rolling grasses, we see the slow movement of flickering orange light.
“Torches, I think. It’s certainly a fire of some sort.”
“A lot of torches,” Blythe answers.
“You think it’s Prainise skullmen?” Chimeline asks.
“Shh,” the effulgent says in reply, putting a finger to his lips. “Listen.”
Over the whisper of grasses and the wind, the sound of metal on metal rings out.
“Swords?” I ask.
“Armor.”
“How many, do you think?”
He shakes his head. “At least a hundred. Look at how long the line of light stretches out.”
“It looks like they’re all on foot,” I say.
Chimeline steps close to me—I can feel her fire-warmed body against mine. “Colu was right, then. Prainise is attacking. Tonight.”
“It appears so.”
“What are we going to do?” she asks.
I study the faint line of orange torchlight in the distance, feeling all the hope in me fade to guilt and regret. Why did the effulgent have to see this? If his hood had been gathered around himself and his face buried in typical shadow, there would have been no chance of it.
We were back on our way southward. But now, the ghost of Cleanthes drags me back from across the fields.
“The master voider was right to leave,” Blythe says. “This is bloodshed in the making, and black arcana will only make it worse.”
“But what about all the people at the mansion?” Chimeline asks. “It’s not just skullmen. There are women and children!”
“They are already doomed.”
“That’s ridiculous!”
“They strayed from the way of unwanting,” Blythe explains. “They’ve embraced a life of selfishness built upon the destruction of mind and body. None of that is the master voider’s fault.”
I look sideways at him in shock.
“But Dem can help,” continues Chimeline. “Despite the mistakes of these people, he can help.”
“By doing what?” Blythe asks.
She looks to me in desperation and I shake my head. “I am not about to kill a hundred people with voidance.”
“You don’t have to kill them,” she says. “You can instill fear in their hearts. Scare them so that they flee and never come back. Like what Colu said.”
Chimeline reaches out and touches me gently on the arm.
“Dem, I met many of these women today. They are good people. Mothers. Sisters. Families. So many of them have already suffered. Lost loved ones to hilma—or the fighting over it. Don’t let it happen again. Please.”
Families.
I swallow, knowing what I want to do, and what I should do.
I want to continue south, and let this sliver of light fade into the distance. Let the two villages destroy each other. Colu was right. I see it now. I had only moved opportunity from one group to the other. Shifting sands in an unforgiving world.
You are strong, Democryos. You are sand.
All selfish thoughts fade away the moment I look into Chimeline’s wide eyes, full of moonlight and hope. And there is no doubt of what I am going to do.
I will cut sideways across this field and head the skullmen off. I will teach Prainise a lesson.
I’m not doing this for Colu.
I’m doing this for the memory of Cleanthes.
All of the people back at the plantation were his family. Despite the cloud of hilma surrounding Cleanthes, there was selfless love hidden there. He had lost his gift for voidance, but never his gift of innocence.
The same thing shines in Chimeline’s eyes.
“Alright, let’s go,” I say to them both, as I walk around my horse and untie the reigns. “Leave the fire to die on its own. And stay close to me.”
At first, Chimeline stands there in disbelief. Then she rushes over to me, hugging me deeply.
“Good Unnamed, help us all.” Blythe mumbles.
Entombed
We ride hard to the northeast for a quarterbell, passing up the line of golden light to ensure a buffer of darkness remains between us and them.
I want to head them off.
But as we near the line of trees, one small, motionless flame glows at the center of them. It is meager, unnoticeable until the last moment. Barely strong enough to cast a cobweb of wide shadowy lines in all directions.
Someone is there, waiting.
This is not the approaching army—we’re too far in front of them. But it could be a scout.
I approach cautiously.
The lowest branches of the millionescents hang high enough off of the ground that I can lean over and grasp my horse’s neck to pass through and underneath them.
Only then, under a towering ceiling of dimly glittering gold, do I finally see who it is.
The one-eyed Colu sits on horseback in the center of the road, a raised lantern in his hand. Covered in leather armor and a vest of chainmail, he looks at me, a surprised but tense look upon his red-painted face.
“You came back,” he says gruffly.
I nod, peering down the length of the road in both directions.
The section of dirt path we’re on has a gentle curve to it. It’s about ten yards wide and nestled between two rows of tightly-packed, alternating millionescents. They function as sheer walls, seemingly extending to the stars—almost like being inside of so
me grand effulgency temple. The branches begin about ten feet up. Nearer to the ground I can see past thick trunks into the darkened countryside.
Chimeline and Blythe silently enter the road behind me.
The first signs of the approaching army appear in the distance: a faint, yellow glow upon the trees up ahead, and the distant ring of metal.
Before I address Colu, I quickly turn to Chimeline and Blythe and point in the direction they came from. “Do you remember that cluster of pines we passed a moment ago?”
They both nod.
“Hide there, until this is over.”
“But, Dem—”
“Do it,” I forcefully whisper, and then I softly add, “Please. I don’t need complications.”
“He is right,” Blythe adds. “Only swords and black arcana will be used here. Words of peace and forgiveness will not.”
Their horses flap their lips together in seeming agreement.
She nods hesitantly, and they both turn their horses around and head into the night.
“Dem?” Chimeline asks, turning her body as it disappears into shadow.
“Yes?”
“Be careful.”
I nod and turn to Colu. “Are you alone?”
He shakes his head. “I have twenty skullmen flanking these trees,” he says. “Ten on each side.”
I look around in all directions. “I didn’t see them.”
“They’re hidden. And it’s a good thing they know who the three of you are. Else you’d be dead by now.”
I nod. “What’s your plan?”
“I was going to stall them with conversation. At my signal, my men would take out as many as they can with darts.”
“How many?”
“If they’re able to take down two each, that’s forty Prainise. Which should be about half of them.”
I take a deep breath. “And then what?”
He hunches his shoulders. “That was the extent of my plan.”
The first of the Prainise men start approaching from around the bend, fifty yards into the distance. I can already see in the torchlight that they’re wearing full armor and carrying swords and maces.
One of them points in our direction, and the first few stop and spread out their arms, causing the entire column to come to a noisy halt.