The Vastness

by Hausladen, Blake;

  He had tears in his eyes when he looked back down at me. “Get yourself a drink of water and head to the next plaza. Everyone with a craft is already headed that way.”

  I did as I was told and started farther up toward the wagons and water casks. No one was in line, and a greencoat leaned against the wagon. He was the same I’d run into twice the previous day. Corwin, perhaps, was his name? I couldn’t think straight.

  He waved at me, and I froze.

  “Easy there,” he said. “Just saying good morning.”

  I raised my hand, blushed, and put it back down.

  “You’ve lost your friend,” he said. “And got your lip split, too. My, but that’s deep. Come here, I can wash it out for you at least.”

  I did as I was told, and he led me to the water cask at the back of the wagon. He filled a cup for me, and I drank it gingerly while he found a cloth. He knelt down and dabbed at my lower lip. I felt it spread open, winced, and began to cry.

  He withdrew the cloth and frowned. “You got hit hard, little one. Hold still now, okay?”

  I nodded, dripped tears, and winced again and again from the bite and throb of the terrible pain.

  He looked around, petted his mustache and beard, and then put a finger to his lips. He whispered, “Hold still and promise you won’t tell anyone. My captain would kill me. Promise?”

  I nodded, and he began to sing a song I could not understand. The verse stole my pain and washed my skin in the same warmth and happiness I’d felt the previous day. A dim blue glow shown from his fingers, and before I could back away, he touched his fingers to my lip.

  The world buckled like I’d been struck another blow. My head swam in fire, and my flesh seemed to sizzle.

  His song stopped, and I staggered into the back of the wagon. My vision swirled with bright stars, and I held on there until the world steadied.

  “What happened?” someone yelled.

  Lieutenant Corwin was lying on his back, and I yelped back from a terrible heat. The back of the wagon was charred black, and smoke rose from the circle of grass where I had been standing.

  A pair of soldiers came around the side of the wagon and looked down at Corwin.

  I turned and I ran while all the world behind me began to yell.

  I jumped over those that slept as I raced down the hill and kept on until I was lost in the darkness of the narrow streets.

  9

  Emi

  Theft

  I leaned against a post and gasped for breath. I could not believe I had run so far or so fast. I was thirsty and growled. I’d had hold of a beautiful cup of clean water but had not been quick enough to drink it. My hands were empty.

  They looked different, too.

  I held them up and could not believe they were mine. The nails were whole and my skin was smooth and unbroken. I touched my face and my lips. The swelling and the cut were gone. My heels did not sting when I set them down, and my scalp did not itch. My eyes felt clean when I blinked. My stomach did not stab me. My shoulders did not ache, nor my teeth. I had all my teeth!

  A million little hurts I’d never bothered to count were all made stark by their absence. Corwin had healed me, through and through.

  Had his magic gone wrong? It seemed that it must have, and I worried for him. Had he been moving there upon the ground? I could not recall.

  “You there,” someone yelled from the far end of the street. “Come along.”

  The man wasn’t one of the soldiers. He looked more like my old overseer, all bent and unhappy.

  “You have a skill?” he asked. “Get a move on.”

  The offer! I would get to be a weaver again.

  I hurried to join him, and he yelled at others as we continued along.

  “Those with a skill, now is your chance. This offer is not going to last forever. He’s going to sign your names to pledges of services. You won’t be churls anymore.”

  The group grew to fifty-six by the time I set eyes on the tithe tower that rose over the next plaza. But when we reached a road that turned toward it, he kept us moving toward the river instead. No one protested, so we moved on.

  The road curved farther away from the plaza as we went, though I did begin to hear the din of the crowd I was expecting. Had the plan changed?

  We reached Gatehouse Road, and the man turned us up toward Tin Bridge. A high wall separated that road from the river, and a number of bodies lay in the shade beneath the wall. I pinched my nose when I saw their size, but the stink of bloat wasn’t in the air. The men piled there were large, not swollen. Their faces were different, too. They were from the north.

  I could not find Lord Rahan’s soldiers anywhere up or down Gatehouse Road, but did see gangs of men hidden in the back of the rows we passed. None of the others noticed.

  “Come on there,” the overseer said and waved me on. “You’ll get left behind. You don’t want to miss the Exaltier’s offer, do you?”

  The nervous murmur of the crowd ahead of us was too familiar to my ears. Something wasn’t right. The crowd was too big … 234,812 people.

  How did I know that? I could not see them.

  How?

  I got angry as I followed. Something had happened to me. Something was happening in the Warrens, too. Neither had been explained to me.

  The overseer stomped back toward me and grabbed my arm. I’d stopped walking. He grinned at me and dragged me along without a word.

  We got to the wide half circle of open stone behind the Tin Bridge gatehouse, and even the overseer slowed at the sight of it. The crowd was too thick to distinguish one mass of bodies from the next. Other overseers were bringing in more churls along the half dozen streets that led to the bridge. The gates were closed and gangs of men with clubs hemmed in the mass.

  Some of those with my group stopped walking, but the overseer shook his cane at them and grabbed one man by the hair. He dragged him forward and kicked a few more toward a man who stood beside several barrels.

  “What’s your skill?” the man asked the first.

  “Carpenter,” he replied, his head bowed.

  “Tin smith,” said the second.

  Each was given a tin cup from one of the barrels and was pointed to another man farther into the crowd. They went, and it was my turn.

  “Well?” he asked. “You going to give it, or do I put you with the muckers?”

  “Weaver.”

  “Got one here for Mish,” he said and jammed a cup into my hands. A second man grabbed my arm and pulled me through the gang line toward a group of larger men. None of them wore the black dalmatics or their insignia, but they were bosses, every one of them.

  And there in the center of the group was the boss from Yellow Row.

  “Weaver for you, Mish,” said the man who had hold of me. “Says she is, anyway.”

  Mish turned, smiled, and said, “There she is. Our magical pattern maker. Worth any thousand of the rest of this lot. You are in time.”

  Magical? Was that what I was?

  “Get them ready to move,” Mish said.

  “It’s not enough,” another boss said. “They will want more.”

  “Don’t be an idiot. This bunch is already more than what crosses the bridge every day, and they are the best of the bunch. Let Rahan and his Hemari feed the rest. This is the lot worth keeping.”

  The bosses followed his order and started signaled to others as they moved through the crowd. Mish drew me along toward the gates and left me with another man.

  “Emi,” someone called.

  It was one of the girls from my lodge. She and the rest of the girls from Yellow Row were bunched together near the front. They carried the washtubs and extra tunicas from our lodges. Two of the girls shoved their way to me, took me by the arms, and hurried me back to the rest.

  “Where did you go?” one of them asked.

  I shrugged and searched for Dame Franni. She was with the tubs and tears rolled down her face. Why was she crying? I made my way to her and took
her hand, as Pia had done with her mother and father.

  “Oh, darling girl. You made it back,” she said and dried her eyes. “Where is Pia?”

  I started to cry, too. “She is with her family.”

  “It will be okay,” she said, gave me hug, and blinked away new tears. I squeezed her as hard as I could. She winced from some hurt, and I was surprised how frail she was. She continued the hug though and it was marvelous.

  Mish’s voice rang out from somewhere in front, and the gates were pulled open. The bosses started forward, and the great mass of us were yelled into motion. Franni and the other dames collected up their tubs and we started walking along with the rest.

  They were taking us across the bridge. I would be back to my pattern table. I smiled and walked. I’d be one of the first across, and I fell to counting the many stones of the long bridge.

  … 34, 35, 36 …

  A warm breeze washed over me as I paced on and on over the even gray squares, while the shadows of those around me danced in the sunlight.

  … 452, 453, 454 …

  The dancing shadows had gone. I lost my count and looked up. I’d walked through the crowd and forward of the bosses.

  “What are you doing? Get behind me, you jumped up little churl,” Mish said, and smacked me across the shoulder with his cane.

  My healed flesh rang with pain, but I did not know what to do. I’d walked forward through the crowd and the bosses, and was in front of everyone. He made to strike me a second time, and I jumped out of his way.

  He huffed and continued on. The rest of the bosses with him all looked ready to knock me down, too, and I hurried out of their way to the rail.

  A monstrous ship was headed down the river toward us. Its forward end was torn and black, with tall scaffolding rising up through the damage. Above it flew two tall white wings of canvas. Two hundred seventy-four men stood ready with bows aboard the ship, and a distance behind it, fifteen long ships lined with oars followed on. The tall ship was close enough that I could see the brown hair and northern faces of the archers.

  The river was filled with soot, bits of wood, and bodies. All the other bridges along it were gone. Smoke rose from what was left of them. Tin Bridge was the only way across the river. Its dark and solid stones were not going anywhere.

  Someone bumped into me, and someone else shoved me along. I stumbled forward, nearly tripping over something, and picked my head up to look around.

  On the far side of the river, soldiers in yellow gathered in huge numbers. Between them and us, soldiers lay everywhere upon the bridge in puddles of drying blood. Each was pierced with arrows, and their fallen pennants were ones of yellow and blue.

  “This is where they fought the battle,” someone said.

  “Why is the Exaltier taking us across?”

  “Quiet there,” an overseer yelled and struck the pair with his cane.

  The bosses kept us marching across the carpet of dead men as the ships rushed closer and closer. The pennants the tall ship flew were green and black.

  Did no one else see the ships coming?

  The bosses marched along the center of the bridge and chatted away, while the men and women around me had their heads down and trudged along despite the warmth and the promise of work on the far side.

  Didn’t they want to go?

  I hurried through them toward the center of the bridge and looked for someone else who was happy to cross the bridge. None of them were. Why?

  We were being stolen. Stolen. Was I free, that suddenly I could be taken and feel sad at the loss of my liberty?

  What had I done with it, if I was free? Pia had used me like the house slaves she grew up with. I’d been pushed across the Warrens for two days with no say in anything that had happened to me.

  “Order—ready … aim …” came a call out from out upon the river.

  The bosses and overseers fled back into the crowd and hid themselves amongst us.

  “Hold,” the same voice called, and the bosses began to laugh.

  “See, boys,” Mish said. “They are cowards. Rahan doesn’t have the guts to kill a few churls.”

  None of the bosses stood up very far and each held a pair of churls between them and the ship.

  One of the bosses had hold of Dame Franni.

  I did not want him to do it. I did not want them to take her.

  “Keep moving,” the bosses yelled. They pushed and pulled, and the mass began to move.

  I did not want them to take Franni.

  I stomped forward while the rest crept along, dreading an arrow. The stones of Tin Bridge rushed beneath me.

  … 10, 11, 12 …

  Those around me moved too slowly, and I pushed them aside.

  … 36, 37, 38 …

  The city was collecting toward the center of the bridge. We numbered 243,081 and were being stolen by 1,731 bosses. Twenty-seven ships with 1,254 archers and 1,432 soldiers rowed their way toward us, and from the barracks along the wharfs 300 soldiers and 7,254 spearmen ran like mad toward the bridge.

  Across the river, 19,322 men and horses gathered close and another 72,221 marched in. The city’s 312,820 free citizens looked on, while the rest of the Warrens’ 1,343,272 churls remained oblivious to the great events of the cities that consumed them—had consumed 3,020 of us in two days.

  “Where are you going?” someone said.

  … 61, 62, 63 …

  “Stop,” came the call from behind me.

  … 64, 65, 66—

  “Stop, damn you.”

  I turned and looked back. I was alone out upon the center of the bridge. I had stomped my way through the crowd again and was twenty stones in front of Mish and the rest of the bosses. They cowered in the crowd, too afraid of the archers to come and get me.

  Everyone had stopped.

  “Get back here,” he yelled and then ducked behind the girl he held.

  I did not want to. I did not want to be a churl. I did not want to sleep on a shelf. I did not want to cross the bridge.

  I wanted to dance with numbers and all the millions of people that moved around me.

  “No,” I said.

  “By Bayen above girl, you come back here this instant or I will have you flayed.”

  “No,” I screamed, and threw my cup at him.

  The bit of tin did not make it even half way to him and clattered uselessly upon the stone.

  All of Bessradi watched, while I stood there alone upon the bridge.

  Mish laughed, grabbed a girl, and started toward me.

  Someone in the crowd threw their cup, and it struck him upon the back of his head. It was Dame Franni.

  Three more were thrown before he could turn around, and all at once the girls of Yellow Row, all 3,143 of them, threw their cups as well.

  The clatter of the tin drowned out Mish’s fury, and a great pile of tin started to form as every churl with a cup let fly. The bosses lashed out all around them, but their tiny voices were lost to the sound of our defiance.

  They tried to drag the crowd forward, but each was only able to yank one or two. They were a thousand thieves. We were a quarter million of the most skilled workers in all of Zoviya.

  Out upon the ships, the archers and soldiers cheered us on.

  Mish drew a knife and stabbed a woman who refused to move. He collected another by the hair, yanked her toward me, and kicked the tin cups as he came.

  I stood my ground, looked toward the archers, and pointed at Mish.

  Their captain quieted his men, drew his bow, and fired.

  The arrow went well wide and struck the far rail with a deafening crack.

  Mish spun toward the sound and forgot for a moment the girl he was using as a shield. The captain’s second arrow pierced his chest and Mish fell into the pile of cups with a clatter.

  The crowd saw him fall, and a startled hush fell upon the bridge.

  There were fewer girls from Yellow Row in the crowd—four fewer. I searched for Franni in the crowd and fou
nd her. An overseer who rose up out of the crowd was standing upon her neck.

  I pointed at the man, and started toward him. “Throw him over the rail.”

  He looked at me and laughed. A girl my size was the first to move, and she took hold of his arm and pulled. He punched her so hard I could hear the bones of her small face break. She fell beside Franni.

  I screamed with the rest of Yellow Row and charged him. My small legs had not gotten me halfway around the pile of cups when the man and those around him were swarmed. The mass of bodies seethed, and jammed itself toward the rails. A man went over with a little scream, and then twelve more. Arrows from the ships stabbed down at them, and my count of those still alive fell by thirteen.

  I stopped, closed my eyes, and watched the rest. The men who had been our masters went into the water twenty at a time. In one place, a long section of railing must have given way, because 734 people went into the river all at once. The opening became the place where the rest were taken. The city’s craftsmen were thorough after that, and threw the last of the bosses, bailiffs, and overseers into the river as efficiently as a long rapier running out a thread.

  A great cheer rose, but all the many sounds upon the bridge fell away as clarity came to my visions.

  Every living being around me was a small point of light in a vast darkness. Thin threads extended from each, entwined with those they shared purpose, and divided against those with whom they struggled. The last of the bosses became solitary points surrounded by thick braids of happy light.

  But as each boss died and their light was extinguished, their threads disintegrated into an ugly fog. It painted all those nearby and dimmed them. Some were nearly as black as the unending vastness that surrounded them.

  A few were bright despite the clinging fog. One was so brilliant it was a struggle to follow its threads as they wrapped their way through the many thousands. I traced this bejeweled slice of the sun until my vision spun around upon itself like I was turning in a circle.