by D M Wozniak
Turn slightly to the left. You are going a ways off. There, that is better.
How much further?
Not long. If it helps, just think of the centuries the enervated have been in here. Our time left is a heartbeat.
Soon, I see it. Another pinprick, but this one is not white. It’s non-black. Simply colorless.
It’s the glorious world of the void. Indivisibles.
Back to safety.
At first, I am disoriented, since I don’t know what’s in front of me. As the black is left behind, all I see through the oval door are jagged shards and shimmering points of grayness. Then I realize that I am looking upwards, at the broken ceiling of the temple, and the stars beyond.
Meanwhile, the sounds around me are getting louder, like the wind whistling through an ajar door. It is almost a screaming. The glass spheres quickly float past me, through the oval and into the colorless night.
As this happens, the outside world and the indivisibles go darker.
We’re losing light.
The voidstone is weakening.
And then nothing.
Perfect silence.
Blythe?
It is so quiet. There is not one iota of sound.
You can let go of the stone now. It is finished.
This is a foreign thought. My body.
I have a body.
Remembering this, I think of my arm. My arm has a hand. My hand has fingers.
Move it.
As I do this, the void disappears.
The world never seemed so beautiful.
Glorious night. Vivid orange glow against luxurious velvet blue.
Blythe grabs me by the shoulders. He’s smiling wide.
“We did it, master voider. Eleutheria!”
His happiness seems strange to me. It’s misplaced. The flashes of color are all I see. The beach, the cloud-trees, the heavy grate, the man in silver with the blue face. And hundreds more. They haunt me. Through tears, I close my eyes and they’re still there. Like after staring at the sun, their phantom trails follow me. Blythe is shaking me and clasping me on the back, but I feel unworthy to be here.
“I’m sorry, Blythe.”
“What are you sorry about? No grander first steps on the way of unwanting have ever been made.”
How can I explain to him that my entire life has been a lie?
“I’m so sorry.”
Opening my eyes, I see Cleanthes’ voidstone in my hands. I’m clutching it by its gold setting. It’s no longer heavy. It’s nothing. It’s absolutely nothing.
Instinctively, I weakly push it away. I want nothing to do with it.
And then, something strange happens.
It ricochets off of the wooden bench in front of us, and then slowly spins in mid-air, its delicate gold chain fanning outward.
It’s floating.
I reach out and touch the stone from below, giving it a gentle push upwards with my palm.
And watch as it rises up into the night sky.
“What is happening?” I ask Blythe.
But his mouth is open and neck is craned, just like mine is.
“It’s in stasis,” he whispers.
“Did they tell you that this would happen?”
“Not exactly.”
He wipes his eyes with the back of his hand.
My energy is gone. My body slinks down sideways across the back of the bench, until I am lying on my back on the wooden seat. I watch Cleanthes’ voidstone rise up into the night, mere feet from the jagged edge of the vaulted ceiling. Only the sky above is its limit, and then I realize that even this is a falsehood.
There is no limit to what we have done here tonight.
“How is this even possible?” I ask, to nobody in particular.
“You mean that it’s flying away?”
“Yes.”
“Axion is weightless,” Blythe answers. “There are no souls to weigh it down, my friend.”
Mander and Reddles
The softest thunder wakes me.
I slowly rise from the temple’s wooden bench, groaning in pain from my aching back.
It’s still night. The torches have all gone out. The world is cast in shades of blue. Looking up past the shattered, vaulted ceiling, I expect storm clouds, but the sky is as clear as can be. Stars glitter in every direction.
That’s not thunder. It’s the faraway sound of horses’ hooves.
I look across the square to see if anyone is approaching, but find it still empty. A weak fringe of orange down an eastern alleyway gleams past the silhouette of a shop’s awning. It’s not coming from the torches, but from the sun.
Meet me tomorrow. Sunrise. In Temberlain’s Ashes.
“Shit,” I mumble. I don’t have long if I’m going to meet Marine.
“It is a shitty morning,” booms Colu, causing me to jump in place. Turning in my seat, I see him sitting on the bench behind me, arms out at his sides.
I clear my throat and twist my fists into my eyes, trying to clear them. Colu drinks out of a suede wineskin, then holds out a piece of dried meat.
“Want some?”
“Where did you get that?”
“In the park.”
“You scavenged it?”
He shrugs his shoulders as he takes a bite from another piece. “If that’s what you want to call it.”
I look to the darkened trees in the park behind him. Dozens of people huddle in the shadows, heads down as they scrutinize the ground for anything of value. Some pick up blankets and dump out baskets on the grass. I hear the faraway, crystalline sound of shattered glass.
“Beggars started coming in a fullbell ago, while you were asleep. Meanwhile, the injured were asking for water and food. So the hairless ass and I went into the park and brought in what we could find, before all the pickings were gone.”
He takes a swig of from the wineskin. “Take, for instance, this excellent Xian wine. Care for some?”
“Are you sure there’s any left?”
He laughs, as he’s sober enough to catch my dig.
There’s a larger skin next to him on the bench. “Is that water?” I ask.
He nods and tosses it to me.
I open the stopper and let the stream of clean water quench my dry mouth. After drinking my fill, I give it back to him and ask, “Where’s Chimeline?”
“Sleeping,” he says, pointing to the ground nearby, under open stars. She’s buried in a flurry of blankets, which I assume were taken from the park as well. “She was afraid to be under the roof,” he adds.
I nod. “And Blythe?”
He motions with his head. “Hairless ass has been speaking with the wounded all night about his fucking Unnamed. Talk about a captive audience.”
I look over to Blythe, sitting about fifty yards away, cross-legged next to a person with a bandaged arm. Behind him, soldiers sit against a low stone wall, most with their heads resting on their folded arms.
The thunder of hooves and wagon wheels gets louder. The echo makes it impossible to tell which direction they’re coming from.
One of the soldiers stands and starts kicking the others awake. They obviously don’t want to be caught dreaming.
Caught dreaming.
I blink rapidly as recent events catch up to me.
It seems impossible. Only a dream. Entering a voidstone while using voidance. Delving. Eleutheria. The white room. The souls floating through me. Flashes of memories from other lands. And then the stone rising up into the night sky.
None of it seems true.
In a flurry of hand movements, I count my voidstones. Mine is still hanging around my neck, outside my white shirt. In my pants pocket is a second one. Anaxarchis’ stone.
The third one—Cleanthes’—is missing.
It wasn’t a dream.
“She loves you, you know.”
Shaken out of my thoughts, I turn around and face Colu again.
“What?”
“Your girl. She loves you.”<
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“Chimeline?” I ask.
He lets the breath out of his nose and rolls his one eye. “Who else?”
I look in her direction. Her curled up body faces away underneath the blankets.
“She doesn’t think that she’s worthy of you,” he adds loudly.
“Will you keep your voice down?” I whisper forcefully. Despite the sound of approaching horses, I’m worried that she’ll overhear. But after another glance in her direction, I can tell that she’s still asleep.
“Did she say that to you?”
“More or less.”
“That’s ridiculous.”
He takes his arms off the bench and leans forward. “Come on. She’s a harem girl. Or an assassin. Or both.”
He belches. “Actually, I don’t know what the fuck she is, but it doesn’t matter. The fact remains.”
“What fact?”
“She’s not a good match for you! You’re the master fucking voider.”
“Lower your voice,” I urgently whisper again.
He reaches out and touches my arm—the action of man not fully sober. “You know, you should just tell her. Rip off the bandage. She’s a nice girl. She doesn’t deserve you stringing her along.”
I bring my hand to the gold setting around my necklace. It’s this that I need to rip off of me. This is the bandage. I feel its heaviness. It used to remind me of power. It used to fill me with self-confidence. Now it makes me nauseous.
“I am no longer the master voider,” I mumble. “I am nothing.”
He laughs, despite the somber tone in my voice. “You’ve been hanging around Blythe too long,” he says. “Now you talk in riddles.”
The time for voidance has ended.
The echoing, ubiquitous sound suddenly becomes staccato and directional, as bright, orange light bleeds into the square from the perimeter.
One after another, horse-drawn wagons bearing torches enter the square from the corner road, soldiers on horseback riding alongside them. Three of the wagons head directly to the rows of dead bodies, while another three approach the wounded and Blythe.
A carriage arrives last. This one is made of polished wood. Red velvet curtains line the windows, and the driver is dressed in black-and-white semi-formal attire. He’s not a soldier like the others.
“There’s someone important in there,” Colu mumbles.
I stand and begin walking. I pass the wounded, Blythe, and the chaotic mix of soldiers who have just arrived. I pass the dead, already being lifted and placed into the wagons. I pass the soldier with the mustache and fat nose—the one I had sent away fullbells ago. My destination is the carriage with its curved wooden surface glowing in the torchlight.
The driver gets off his perch, walks around the side, and opens the door.
A flaming torch is mounted next to it, but through the opening and red velvet panels I only see darkness.
“Ah, the master voider,” says a clear voice from the shadows.
A large, muscular man with an angular face leans into the firelight. He’s wearing the suited, gray-and-red formal attire of a commander. His hair is short, grayish-blond, and damp—perhaps from an early morning bath. And a gold star-shaped medal hangs around his neck on a red ribbon. It clangs against the pins on his chest as he deftly works his way out the relatively small opening.
“You must be Commander Reddles,” I say.
He nods distantly, already looking past me to the dead, the wounded, and the rubble, his face slowly caving into what looks like worry and frustration. “This is worse than I thought,” he says levelly.
“Mander, you need to see this,” he then says, slightly louder. “Nearly the entire temple is destroyed.”
“Yes, um, certainly commander,” replies a soft voice that I recognize instantly.
My submaster climbs out of the darkness.
He’s wearing a traditional black flaxen cloak over gray silken pants. His wild and curly brown hair is even more unkempt than I remembered and his brass-rimmed glasses reflect the torchlight. He grabs onto the door frame in three different places before speaking up.
“Um, driver, can you, um, move this flame. It is perilously close to the opening. With the, um, wind and all.”
The driver steps forward and grabs the gold handle of the torch next to the door, pulling it up and out of its anchor. He takes a few steps away from the carriage with it.
“Thank you, kind sir.”
Finally, he exits the carriage with sounds of exertion, and then flashes me a weary smile before closing the door after himself.
“Greetings, my dear friend.”
I let out a breath, realizing that in nervous anticipation, I had been holding it.
Despite everything, I return his smile.
Here stands submaster Mander—another voider whom I once taught. He is alive, and just the same as when I left him. He’s not rotting in a well as Anaxarchis was, nor is he consumed with hilma, like Cleanthes. He’s just the same clumsy and spineless man I’ve always known.
I’ll take this over the alternative.
I step closer, arms out, with the intention of embracing him. But he holds out a palm.
“Dem, have you seen yourself? You are covered in, um, dust and grime. I would embrace you, but I have just showered and dressed for the day. And I have appointments after this. Xian merchant dignitaries. I am assisting in the discussions around the, um, new trade embargoes.”
The scent of soap and sandalwood drifts my way. It’s the smell of a man who has been well taken care of, despite being in the very epicenter of a war. A man who only sees the perfect places.
The way I used to be.
Reddles continues to survey the damage as Mander clears his throat and continues. “When I heard that you and Marine were, um, here in the city, I was elated. It warms my heart to see you, although I wish it were under better circumstances.”
I take a step closer. “You’ve seen Marine?”
“Um, yes. Of course. Yesterday morning.”
“Who was she with?”
He pushes his glasses up the bridge of his nose. “Nobody. She was, um, alone. Walking through the Union. She was in a hurry. I said my greetings, and, um, she continued on her way.”
I utter a groan, and he points to the rubble.
“You were involved in this, um, this horrible undoing.”
I nod.
“I trust that your lady was not—”
“No,” I interrupt. “She wasn’t present.”
Reddles takes a step closer, his hawkish face looking down at me. “What happened here?”
I pause before I reply, deciding how honest I should be. Reddles may be working with the voider-effulgent. He may know everything, and simply be playing along.
But I can play along too.
The commander must sense my reluctance. “Master voider, if you know something, you need to share it with me. It’s imperative that I get to the bottom of what happened here.” His voice is more pleading than his words imply.
A strange emotion rises within me. A tinge of hypocritical resentment builds and even overshadows my distrust.
“If it is that important to you, commander, then why did you wait until nearly sunrise to arrive?”
I turn to Mander and raise my voice. “And there should be voiders here helping here with the wounded. Not assisting in matters of trade.”
Mander opens his mouth, but the commander replies first. “I have spoken with my cadet about the delay. He didn’t think the attack was important enough to wake me. His judgment is clearly lacking.”
“Yes, um, Dem, I was not informed until—”
“The important thing is that we’re here now,” interrupts the commander with an outstretched hand. “And I am concerned. I have finally been able to secure peace in this city, but it is a fragile peace.” He flashes another worried look to the remains of the tower, shaking his head in thought. “Two days ago, I dispatched some of my men north, relaying the good news to the kin
g that we’ve taken the city and an accord has been signed. But this?” He points while taking a deep breath. “This can shatter our peace overnight. This can make me a liar in the eyes of the king.”
His concern for the king’s perception of him over the wellbeing of the people in the city seems almost too subtle to contrive.
He doesn’t appear to be acting.
Briefly, I look to the flurry of soldiers behind me in the square. Most of the dead and wounded have been loaded onto the wagons—already one of them is pulling away. Near the remains of the temple, Blythe, Chimeline, and Colu stand together, looking at me. Past them and down the same narrow alleyway I spied before, the orange light grows.
Sunrise is here.
I remind myself that all of this conjecture is meaningless. Only when I see Marine, will I know the truth. Who is the voider-effulgent? Is Reddles working with him? All of it.
Turning back to the contrasting pair, I decide to play things out.
“The man we’re looking for is the greatest of traitors,” I say.
“A Xian voider,” Reddles says, narrowing his eyes. “I knew it.”
“No,” I say sharply. “Not Xian.”
“A northerner, then? Some Xian sympathizer?” He quickly looks between Mander and me. “One of yours from the university?”
“This has nothing to do with north versus south. It’s much more complicated than that.”
“How so?”
“Have you been approached by an effulgent in the last few days? Or in the recent past?”
Reddles shakes his head. “An effulgent? No. Why?”
Taking a deep breath, I begin to relay my story.
I explain that there is an effulgent who can also work voidance. Someone who may be in disguise. His general appearance in the park when the fountain blew to pieces. His goal of gaining control of the massive voidstone underneath Xi Bay. I leave it at that. No mention of the empowered or enervated. No mention of eleutheria or Marine.
Mander replies first.
“Why would this voider-effulgent, um, traitor, destroy one of his own temples?”
“Because I was in it.”
His mouth hangs open in confusion.
“He was trying to kill me,” I add. “Because I am close on his trail.”