The Vastness

by Hausladen, Blake;

  Our destination was a large wooden warehouse protected by a high wall of mud bricks. Its wooden gates faced a narrow courtyard surrounded by tall estates made of more brick and wood. They shared a road made of stout gray stone—

  The tithe road.

  My heart began to pound. The dark stones were from Enhedu and that road was my route home. My soul thrashed as I stepped upon the familiar stone. The longing for Enhedu caused nausea worse than any morning sickness, and I had to stop there. I closed my eyes and willed Clever to rise from his grave and bear us away.

  The dull clunk and squeak of a heavy lock summoned me back from my foolishness. Ghemma had opened the tall doors of a warehouse and motioned me inside. She was trembling as I entered, and the reason why was plain. The space was an armory and its contents were a rusted mess. Breastplates, gauntlets, and all the rest lined rack after rack. The metal was heavy and well-made, but in tatters. It was as if the collection had been scavenged from a battlefield and been left to rot. Some of it looked like Hemari gear but much of it was heavier and covered in etching I’d not seen before.

  I turned on the nearest priest. “What battlefield did you loot this from?”

  He took two steps back from me and collided with another.

  “Answer me,” I said and raised the club with both hands.

  “It belonged to the Hemari 5th and the Hurdu that fell in Havish, Priestess. We tried to buy the best of it, but were outbid by a collector in Bessradi. All we could get was what you see here.”

  I did not need Ghemma’s dark expression to tell me he was lying. They’d pocketed much of the gold for themselves and brought back garbage.

  I leaned into the advantage this gave me and said, “If this is the best you can do, we will all be burned to ash when our master arrives. Where are the nearest smithies that can fix this mess?” I asked.

  The priests were white-faced and useless. Ghemma had no answer for me either.

  Harmond begged forgiveness to speak. He still had Clea clutched to his breast as though she were a sack full of eggs.

  “Speak, sir. You are trusted.”

  He shifted Clea into one arm and tapped on a breastplate. Rust fell from it like crumbs from a dry pastry. He looked straight into my eyes. “The smiths in Pashwarmuth could fix these up easy enough—Bermish smiths that I trust.”

  He looked around to judge how many of them saw through his lie. None of the priests seemed to know that there was no such thing as a Bermish smithy or that the collection was far beyond repair.

  “But it’s supposed to be three hundred suits,” Ghemma said, “We are seventy short, and none of them—”

  “Hush,” I said and stroked her soft cheek. “We must do as we can with what we have. Can you make all of this ready to move by day’s end?”

  She aimed her eyes at the priests. One of them flinched and the rest turned toward the man. “Ahh ... I suppose, perhaps, your Grace—your Priestessness. I mean ... I’ll get the straight to it. We’ll have carts and horses assembled at once. Won’t we?”

  They began to squabble, and I turned to Harmond. “It would be best for everyone if your men took over here.”

  He nodded and motioned a dozen of his club-wielding brutes forward. The priests looked around as if expecting their mercenaries to save them. Alone, they fell silent.

  The rapid slapping of bare feet upon the cobblestones turned our attention. The naked prelate pushed his way into the warehouse and almost slipped as he came to a halt. His small cock was shriveled down to a nub as small as his frozen balls. He shivered and searched the warehouse for allies but found none.

  “You are just in time, sir,” I said. “We depart for Pashwarmuth in the morning. I will need a bath and a meal. Which estate was yours?”

  51

  Envoy Evand Grano

  Natan’s and half his men stood at attention along the foot of the Alsonelm visitor’s dock when Emilia and Liv led me and Ellyon toward the group assembled before the city’s gates. The trip upriver had been as fast as Rahan’s move against Alsonvale, but Alsonelm’s reception seemed less hospitable than the hornet’s nest of war galleys Admiral Sewin had battled.

  Like Alsonvale and Bessradi, the Kaaryon’s northern gateway city was split by the river. Its northern section was more of a giant barbican serving to protect the city from provincial threats and segregate its thralls. A wide harbor along the south bank kept up a constant flow of barge traffic but we were not welcome to put in there. A squadron of Corneth ships delivered us instead to the city’s eastern-most point and that thin dock. The collection of senior Corneth, Grano, and church men gathered before us were grim and disinterested, while above, several troops of 4th division Hemari and a gaggle of trumpeter had their backs to us as they chatted amongst themselves. Behind us, our fast galley had only two small craft as company. Alsonelm received few visitors via the river.

  “They dressed nice for us at least,” Emilia said as we strolled toward them. “They look ready for parade.”

  “Not at all,” Ellyon said. “Alsonelm is as rich as its families are proud. Those are everyday garments by their standards.”

  “We will fit right in then,” Liv said and winked at me as she saw my darkening expression, but she was not wrong. She and Emilia looked fit for a throne room. I was not sure where all the clothes had come from, but it was clear that Liv and Dame Franni had done more with the long winter than reading and cooking.

  Liv’s blouse and trousers were made of slate gray Ludoq linen sewn with their pattern of ferns and serpents, and she wore over it the exquisite leather armor and white sash that marked her as a royal Ludoq. She’d gone so far as to include a vest of fine mail and a dozen long daggers tucked into her boots and belt. Her only deviation from the Ludoq state dress, a black velvet cap adorned with white egret feathers that drew the eye as much as the sway of her hips.

  Emilia was a regal, her dress a sleek white wool sheath and a purple shawl scarf that tied at her waist that made her skin glow like the boulder opals inlaid in her necklace and bracelets. The heavy silver circlet that dived into her thick black curls would be described as a crown by any person who grew up in the Kaaryon, and it was by far the most daring of all our ostentations. She loved the jewelry Liv has found for her, though her favorite accessory was the Hemari scout’s map case doubled-belted around her waist.

  Ellyon and I were as plain as could be in uniform Hemari bluecoats. The only thing that marked us as fit to be in their company was the delicate embroidery of green mate leaves sew into our collars and cuffs—a nod to our Grano heritage. The insignia upon our sleeve would catch the eyes of some—a square of the same silvery-green covered by a new patch meant for a new division. It was a white triangle, edged black and sewn with ropes that combined into solid knot. The design was Liv’s and I was still unclear how she’d managed to have so many thousands of them made. When she’d sewed them on our shoulders, her cheeks blazed so red her freckled disappeared. I suspected that she had designed it all those days ago upon Ash Row while I’d mourned the loss of the 5th and had set the Natan’s idle men to work during the winter producing them, but did not questions her. Making clothes and such fit into her heart the most special of ways—a part of her history from before Dagoda that she shared with no one.

  She looked back at us as we walked, and I tapped the patch to tell her I loved her. She rolled her eyes at this, but could not keep a way a small twist of smile and a warming of her eyes.

  “Has anything changed?” she asked Emilia. We’d been discussing the threads of the city’s people since Emilia was first able see the city. The notes included upon the fresh-drawn map in her case were many.

  “No. Evand’s uncle Phost is still anxious to meet us. The rest remain disinterested or divided against us. The note you sent ahead about Rahan’s victory against Yarik’s fleet has not moved them.”

  “Which of them are the Corneth?” Liv asked.

  “The six really old ones left of center,” Emilia said. �
��The man in front is the one we are after.”

  He was a priest adorned in a golden dalmatic and a red hat banded with six white stripes that marked him as the city’s senior prelate and archivist. His long white beard was immaculate and his wooden shoes were as etched as Hessier plate. The lesser priests and Sermod lined to his left were as dour and manicured as their superior.

  “Did your father ever visit Alsonelm this way?” Liv asked as we started down the last section of pier.

  “Never. The closest he ever got to the river was to take a piss in it. He would have travelled here in a gilded carriage, and the Corneth would have had every soul in the city lining the road with their foreheads pressed into the cobblestones.”

  A blast of horns from the trumpeters upon the wall startled us. The fanfare had a light melody but pricked at our ears, and was repeated as though they were calling us to hurry forward. By the end of the third play through, it became clear that that was exactly what it was meant to encourage.

  Liv brought us to a halt. “No point hurrying now.”

  “How do you mean?” I asked, as she pointed west up the long slope of the city’s hill at the massive archive building at the center of the city and then at the Corneth keep behind it as though we were planning an assault.

  “If they mean to be rude, there is no reward for us to allow it,” she said.

  Then she kissed me, and a proper kiss it was. I gathered her in and our metal skins clanged together as her feathered hat shaded our lips. Her mouth opened as her hands stroked my neck and cheek.

  It was not clear to me how many times the trumpeters had repeated the fanfare when the first of them began to falter. And thus encouraged, we kept at it until the last of them surrendered with a gargled bleat.

  Liv let me go, Emilia stepped in beside her, and they crossed toward our hosts, leaving Ellyon and me behind.

  Rahan and every Yentif before him would have been aghast, but he’d left the impossible task of securing the archives to me, so I’d not give their notions of decorum another thought. We also had a chest full of gold and another of legal documents along, but I counted neither as assets. A season of Rahan’s bribes and Avin’s arguments had done nothing to move the Corneth.

  Emi’s map and understanding of the city’s people were our weapons, and we’d had ample time to practice this first encounter.

  Emilia and my wild-eyes Ludoq Queen came to a halt and bowed to our hosts. The archivist peered around Liv at me, and gestured for me to approach.

  My heart skipped a beat. Had I been a fool? Where had it ever happened that a woman walked into a place and took charge?

  Dia in Enhedu.

  Soma in Bessradi.

  Liv in Havish.

  Emilia in the Warrens.

  I tried not to smile. We had a plan, and my part was to attend.

  Liv said to him, “Evand is but another noble Grano now and you will address him as such. The Goddess Emilia is senior amongst us. You will address yourself to her alone.”

  Then Liv stepped back, leaving the shocked prelate to face Emilia.

  “This is her? Rahan’s dream witch?” he said as she stepped toward him. “Don’t come any closer. What do you wish of me?”

  I eyed the Hemari upon the wall above, fearful of an archer, but they did nothing, rendered helpless by generations of Conservancy abuse and tales of witches and magical beasts. It was the first time I could recall being glad for how the red hats and Hessier had treated us.

  “I would visit your archives,” Emilia said, “If you would be kind enough to give me a tour.”

  The shocked crowd hushed, and the cry of river birds was the only sound as Emilia offered him her hand. He folded onto his knees. The rest, save the Corneth men, followed him down. She touched his cheek, and he all but laid himself down upon the dusty cobblestone as though she were my father.

  “Don’t burn me, little Goddess,” he whispered. “I beg you.”

  Emilia turned toward the reluctant Corneth while the priest cried at her feet, and as she frowned at them, my skin scorched as if lit by a blazing summer sun. The Corneth yelped, dived to the ground, and pressed their foreheads into the stone.

  Using her magic was not part of our plan, nor had she practiced it during the voyage. I was perfectly terrified until she turned and looked back at me with the same calm I’d seen during all her days of letters and etchings.

  Liv hefted up the languishing archivist by the arm and Emilia took hold of his hand.

  “Shall we take that tour?” Emilia asked and led him toward the gates.

  “You’re coming, too,” Liv said to the Corneth. They rose, reluctant as the rest, but did not resist. All of them were touching their necks and forearms as the heat subsided.

  The gates opened for the archivist and Emilia chatted with him as she led him into the city. The well-groomed boulevard Emilia turned us onto moved through a second larger gate and curved up the south side of city’s slow hill through a collection of forested estates tucked between the city’s walls. The route through the secluded neighborhood was not meant for visitors, and all along it, groups of stone-faced people watched us march up toward the city’s core. My unease grew as their eyes tracked us.

  Emilia held the archivist’s hand the entire way, and Liv kept the Corneth close with the occasional glance. We reached the inner wall and a gate garrisoned by church soldiers that opened onto a massive circular plaza and the monstrous archive building. It was the largest structure in the city—the largest in Zoviya—a cone of masonry encircled by several dozen flying buttresses. Like the fallen Tanayon it had supplanted, every dark gray surface was covered in jagged sculptures. Its countless windows were stained dark purple and red. Its reaching spires leapt up from the white granite plaza like a splash of black water frozen in time.

  The wooden shoes of the priests clopped in a halting rhythm that betrayed their panic as we crossed the plaza. The sound summoned many guards and citizens. They engulfed us with a forest of pikes and confused chatter.

  I’d not expected us to get so close to our goal, and the wall of guards made it clear that we had come far enough. On Emilia marched, though, hand in hand with the archivist. The unsure soldiers stepped out of their way.

  The move into the archives wide foyer was as jarring to the senses as the move into my father’s throne room had been. The ancient mahogany of its walls, ceiling, and furniture stunned the eyes, a floor covered in thick burgundy carpets ate up all the sounds outside, and the scents of so much vellum and lacquered wood filled the nose. The red and purple of the stained-glass half dome that covered the foyer added odd color to every surface, face, and speck of dust that drifted that through the colored beams. A long desk faced us, and behind it, hallways extended deep into places unknown.

  The archivist managed to let go of Emilia’s hand and step away from her. His wives did not make the same escape, standing as flatfooted as the rest of us. They had never seen it either.

  “Here we are,” he said to us just above a whisper, “the foyer of the grand archive. Shall we withdraw to a place more suitable?”

  Behind his fear the man’s unbridled pride revealed itself in a broad smile. He loved the look of awe upon our faces. He loved his work. Emilia did not miss it. Our plans had not included the archives themselves, our first goal to get close to the archivist and stay there. Emi needed no encouragement to press her advantage.

  “Marvelous,” she said. “I’d not gotten a chance to see the galleries of the Tanayon before it fell, but this must eclipse it in every way.”

  “Most assuredly. The masons and artisans who built it have continued through the generations to refine and perfect its patterns. I’ve had a hand myself in the work done on the stained glass.”

  “Does it keep the vellum in better condition?” she asked.

  “Why yes, yes it does. The direct sunlight is very harmful. How did you come to know of such things?”

  “I grew up a weaver’s patternmaker in Bessradi. The y
arns and pattern tiles were kept in the shade as much as possible for the same reason. What are these hallways?”

  “The outer rings are lined with private carols—studies for returning archivists and domos to reside in while they make their submissions to the collection. The inner circles are for the writing rooms and studies of those who author histories. The galleries below are for those who have successfully petitioned to review a document in the collection. The tiers of treasuries above house the collection, organized by topic and year. Not even Minister Sikhek has seen those spaces.”

  “Well, he was a villain and a Hessier. You were right to keep him out of such a saintly space. Surely you can make an exception for a young god?”

  Again, my skin warmed and the many people in attendance squirmed from the sudden and inescapable grip of her magic.

  The archivist stood his ground despite the heat. He was searched for words. He was about to tell her no.

  “Oh, very well,” Emilia said and took fresh hold of his hand as the heat subsided. “Which of the studies is empty?”

  “You have an archivist in your company?” he asked with great alarm, “What history would he deliver?”

  “Well, mine of course. We have no archivist, but perhaps you could assign someone suitable? That is, if the archives would like to include the story of my magic?”

  He looked straight at me then—the glare of a politician who’d survived may challenges. All he had to do was throw us out. Emilia’s physical threat has won us a glimpse of the place, but it would get us no farther without bloodshed. The promise of being the first to hear Emilia’s history held him in check.

  “Perhaps you could author her history?” I said.

  “We’re not equipped to host women and children.”

  “A goddess and queen,” Liv said.

  “Quite,” he said while folding and unfolding his hands. Then he ushered us around the desk and down a hallway lined with latticed doors. The space behind each was a diminutive closet with a thin desk, chair, and bed. It was lunch time, their small boards including rough hunks of cheese, dry bread, and water. They were in proper priest’s robes.