The Vastness

by Hausladen, Blake;

  “He better not have them.”

  “He would not keep them from you,” Evela said. “His son and I are in your care.”

  “How many wives does he have now?” I asked.

  “Do not be cruel to me. He will arrive here momentarily, and you will hear what he has to say.”

  The rest gathered with us remained still as statues, every pair of eyes searching, every bow and spear ready.

  The greencoats working to make camp behind us had one eye on the banners held aloft around me. They’d managed the force march through the night without complaint, and if Rahan had crossed me, those banners would go down and the men of Edonia were ready to do to Bessradi what they’d done to Alsonvale.

  The first to move down through the gates of the Arsenal Fortress was a phalanx of priests and Sermod followed by Avinda. He did not look well and was wise to move with his magical brethren along the wall to the corner of the park.

  Rahan was next, followed by a cohort of officers and nobles. I knew none of the men with him. He and I crossed alone into the center of the park, each carrying a roll of vellum circled with the same silver-green ribbon Evand had use to tie his correspondence.

  He eyed my soul-irons while I eyed his priests.

  “We are supposed to be civil,” I said.

  “Bit different than the last time we met here.”

  “You have a lake now.”

  “Not much to look at. Stinks as bad as river did, too.”

  “Just as many things rotting things at the bottom,” I supposed.

  He laughed, but it was the kind I’d last seen on the Deyalu. “Do you remember the races father used to have across the river?

  “I don’t. Perhaps before my time?”

  “Perhaps. He would offer a hundred pieces of fresh minted Urmandish gold to any man who could leap into the river below the Chancellery and managed to swim across before being swept out of the city.”

  “Oh, yes. The stopped doing it right about the time I started studying for the academy exams. Did anyone ever win?”

  “None that I recall. The bet on the Deyalu was always on how many would survive.”

  We looked out across Lake Rahan for a moment.

  “Brother,” I asked. “Where are my children?”

  “I don’t have them,” he replied and offered me the roll he carried. “I learned of her from Evand, same as you.”

  “He said they were somewhere between you and Yarik. Our many magics tell me they are very close. Your wife has asked that I listen to you before I loose my ghosts upon the city.”

  “I have every man and ship out searching. Last night there were several rumblings of nouns deep inside Yarik’s camp and a series of explosions—the last of them on the far side of the lake. My ships are scouring the shoreline now and searching every outcropping of ruins poking through its surface. There are thousands of them, Barok. I do not have enough ships on the lake to search them quickly.”

  “Admiral Mercanfur has arrived? Where are his ships?”

  “Barok, I say this with all respect, but brother please calm down enough to remember our calendar. He is not due to arrive for two days.”

  “I am about done with fucking calendars, timelines, and the rest, Rahan. Tell me something I can trust.”

  “Soma ship has been sighted,” he said quickly, and fumbled with the roll as if hoping to think of something else to add. “She should arrive later this evening depending on how fast she dares to sail through the wreckage of flooding that chokes the river.”

  “Is Evand with her?”

  “I do not know what Evand does. He has declared himself King of the Kaaryon. I think he means to set us both aside.”

  “You pushed him too far. I would never have agreed to the abduction of his wife and child. Explain this action to me.”

  “Avinda was supposed to bring them back. His actions were—he. Damn it, Barok, he is barely sane. Same as the rest who have the constant tapping of magic and dark whispers in their ears. We lost those we sent to Alsonvale—as you may know. How bad was it there? You took the city?”

  “Alsonvale and everyone who lived there is dead, including the men of the Hemari 2nd.”

  I expected this new to wash over him like water across a rock. He leaned upon his knees instead and seemed somewhere between throwing up and crying. “We may regret our Preservatory. Sikhek’s methods for controlling magic were more successful.”

  “You recommend a return to relentless murder?”

  He stood up and asked, “Which is better, before they learn the songs or after they lose control? After only a season of the latter we are required to burn great cities to the ground. The former makes us the murderer of children. When this is over, if it will ever be over, I do not know how King or Exaltier could ever come to write a single just law while magic swirl unbidden and uncontrolled. Tell me you do not trust the same to be true.”

  I could not disagree, despite all wants to the contrary.

  A commotion drew our attention northwest. The sails of the Kingfisher had come into view on the far side of the lake. She was flying full sails, leaning hard, and smashed a great wake before her as she started across the lake toward us.

  “Shall we go out to meet her?” he asked.

  Before I could answer, the great ship brought her sails around and turned. She rolled all the way over, and she was left to use the current to move south into the stiff northerly. Her new line was taking in very close along the shore toward one of Yarik’s large watch camps.

  “Where is she going?” I asked. Her turn made no sense, and I was no longer sure it could be Soma in command or who, if anyone, I could trust. I took a step back from Rahan, and he from me.

  72

  Queen Dia Vesteal

  My Prince

  “We shouldn’t have let the boat go,” Burhn said as he and I peered around the blackened remains of a ship’s hull at the patrol not a stone’s throw away. His wounded face was starting to fester and Ghemma was still unconscious from her songs.

  Lake Rahan had proved as deceptive as the man. We tried to row across, but our tired limbs and makeshift oars were no match for the river current along the lake’s eastern shore. It swept us along toward a narrowing funnel between wall and shore toward a rapid of broken rocks and twists flotsam. It was a miracle that we managed to make it back east and beach the small boat in time. The shore there was cluttered with blackened bits of ships, and the patrols were getting more and more frantic. They avoided the ship graveyard as though it was cursed, and I guessed they’d suffered a bad beating there.

  “Stay down,” I whispered and he did not make me say it again.

  “We can’t stay here.”

  “We will. Their activity will draw attention. We only need Rahan’s men to take a look this way, and we’ll signal them.”

  All we’d seen so far were the patrols moving along the shore and a couple unfriendly-looking galleys on the far side of the sunken wall that flew black and purple checkered pennants.

  “That will stir things up,” Burhn said, and pointed up the tumbling current.

  The masts and majestic sails of a great ship had cut is way south through the lake’s wide river entrance. Its bow frothed white, and its rail and yards were dotted bright yellow. I’d dreamt of such a sight so long I was not certain I was awake. On and on it came.

  “The Kingfisher,” I gasped as the ship tacked its sail and dove south toward us.

  “They’re coming fast,” Burhn said.

  They could not come fast enough. Stern Enhedu voices carried over the tumbling water, and longbows barked at the patrol chasing them down the shore. A longboat was hoisted up amidships, as the Kingfisher began a hard turn in the narrowing channel above the rapid.

  “Much too fast,” Burhn said.

  The distance closed and I spotted Soma upon the aft deck. Her voice rang out and an anchor fell free. The turning ship lurched as the anchor chain went taut, and like the long swing of a dancer’s arms,
the great ship swung all the way around, sending a wake of water across the top of the rapids. The longboat dropped free and twenty men dressed down to their britches leapt over the rails and dashed the water as they swam for the boat and for us. Arrows and quarrels darted back and forth. Horns blasted again and again and Hurdu by the thousands began to gallop toward us across the immense fields east of the lake. Sun-baked bodies surged out of the water and enveloped us.

  “My Queen,” said the first, and we were hurried into the longboat and covered with shirts of chainmail and shields. They barked in unison as they stabbed the river with their oars, and slowly we struggled up the angry current, while the steady growl of yew bows became the only other sound.

  We got beneath the Kingfisher, and I swung Clea and Cavim’s wraps onto my back. Burhn shouldered Ghemma’s weight, and we started up the side as soon as the longboat nosed into the great ship. The ropes of the ladder we climbed were as stout as tree branches, and ten pairs of hands took hold of me as I reached the rail. The shoreline was littered with the unfortunate patrol and arriving Hurdu. Riderless horses moved in all directions. The urgent yellowcoats hurried me below as the cool winds filled the great sails and the anchor chain began to clank its way home.

  “Put me down you great bear,” Ghemma shouted at Burhn as she came awake. He struggled down the last of the stairs before putting her down, and she swatted him for good measure as she rubbed her bruised ribs.

  Soma was the next down, followed by her officers, a Chaukai colonel, and a young Kuetish girl as regal as the ship’s dashing figurehead. She and all the rest were overcome with emotions sweet and bitter. Soma removed her hat, revealing a silver crown.

  The sight of them held me up. We had many tales to tell.

  I took Soma’s arm as she sought words. “I failed you,” she said. “I got within sight of the shores of Priests’ Home, but no closer. Forgive me, Dia.”

  “No, madam. The path I traveled served its own purpose. I would not have it differently. You were here for me today and that was rescue enough. Say hello to the children.”

  I pulled my darlings free of their wraps and handed them to her. The crew of gnarled sailors took a knee and began to weep.

  “Oh, mother,” an officer said—Pikailia, I realized, though she looked nothing like the girl I’d remembered. She took her mother’s other arm and we looked down at the pair. Soma kissed each upon the forehead, and I began to trust her until I caught in her eye a brief glimmer of the hunger. She fled the feeling, and began to feel all the eyes upon her, but I’d seen all I needed to.

  She turned on them. “Get us out of range of that shore, and get the men aloft looking for flotsam in the current. Find the river’s old course, and take us around to the park where Emilia saw Barok and the rest.”

  “He’s here?” I asked.

  “He is, Dia,” the Kuetish girl said. “Everyone is coming here. Barok and Rahan are in the park, about to kill each other. Evand is right behind us upon the river. All of Zoviya is here.”

  What filled the terrible wait that followed was a back and forth of introductions and storytelling that left us all dizzy and exhausted. Soma, Evand, and Emilia’s story pulled at my heart and made Burhn back away from the girl, but she seemed quite used to the reaction. She knew many of the details of my flight from Berm, but none of its supporting cast. Pikailia and Ghemma made fast friends, and when Colonel Graves offered Burhn a bit of Chaukai magic to cure his wounds, the old priest wept.

  “I’ve been watching your children for a long time,” Emi whispered to me while the crowd enjoyed the touch of the blue. “They are connected to everyone and everyone to them. They are not safe around men or anyone who sings. When Geart comes, you will not be able to trust anyone.”

  “Even you?”

  “A god has hold of me, same as Soma. We would kill them, but we don’t know how. Keep them safe, Dia. Without them, I think the dark one would kill us all.”

  I’d known I could not trust any of them for some time, but her earnestness got hold of me, and I told her that I would try.

  “We need to talk about Geart,” Soma said as the crew began to call out that we were about to put in.

  “Hold that thought,” I said, took back my children, and ran up to urge the crew to hurry as they cast line and hoisted out a gangway.

  Greencoats faced Hemari across the wide park as though they considered coming to blows. Behind the men from Enhedu I could see the faces of friends, enemies, and Kyoden-like apparitions that had not been included in any of Emi or Soma’s tales. Avin stood behind the Hemari but looked more like a poorly-made Hessier. The man next to him had to be Rahan, but the mischievous grin of a scribe had become a Yentif scowl. Noblemen and hangers-on of all kind crowded around him in the clothes of Bessradi fops and functionaries. The sight put me back to a time before everything—before I met Barok, before my mother died and my father was lost to sorrow. A sleek gray fox I had been, dodging the hands of men and avoiding the revenge of envious women. How had I survived in this place?

  No one is safe in Bessradi. Never had I felt safe there, and as I searched the crowd, the same unease chilled my bones.

  The gangway fell into place, and I hurried down and across the open lawn in search of Barok despite the protest of those hurrying down behind me.

  Evela stood with Fana behind the greencoats, looking desperately toward Rahan. Sermod were gathered inexplicable around her, the oldest of them stood on her tip-toes searching the faces of those with me in the same way I was searching for Barok. A blue glow began to shimmer upon Evela and then Fana, and one of the black forms turned. It reminded me of Kyoden and its smoldering black brow was creased. It was Gern, and as she looked back at what remained of him, the blue glow upon her faded and both lowered their heads in sadness.

  Behind him was my friend and fellow horse-trainer Fleur, her eyes upon a line of Chaukai approaching from the rear upon horses I could not understand. They could only be the progeny of the Fell and Akal-Tak I’d trained, but were many years too old for that to be possible.

  A quick flash pinched my skin and soul, and everyone who knew the feeling turned to Soma. It had been a long time since she’d asked permission to mend our souls.

  Selt—Rahan’s angry voice drew my eyes to his priests. Several had fallen, and the way those around them behaved, I guess the trio was dead.

  Voices rose all around me as the commotion multiplied the collective unease.

  “Soma, get out of the way,” Emilia called over the growing furor. The Admiral hurried along the rail so that the uncommon girl could reach the top of the gangway.

  “He is there, Dia,” she said and pointed at the approaching line of horses.

  Emi’s appearance hushed the hosts and the line of greencoats opened to let riders through. Each steel-clad Chaukai that galloped through had their weapons at the ready and was covered in colorful streamers. More and more appeared until a savage man with an arm wrapped in bright flame appeared. He and a ghostly rider and horse followed. The ghosts were too familiar. A magnificent Akal-Tak and an old Hemari sergeant they seemed, their flesh and blood replaced with soot and flames.

  “Leger? Clever?”

  Leger growled and Clever shriek loud and long as the savage man continued forward.

  The world stopped as he leapt free of his horse and stood with burning arm and ready rapier before me.

  “Put those away, my prince, and come here.”

  He dropped the sword, batted out the flaming stump of his arm, and dashed toward me. I met them in the middle of an untrammeled expanse of yellow flowers and gathered him into my arm. His face was too different to understand, but his embrace was the same. I leaned my head upon his shoulder and he leaned his upon mine to the hiss of flames and stubborn grumblings of an impatient horse. I wanted that moment to last forever—for the illusion of safety to be real. I wanted him to kiss me and for us to be upon the battlements of Urnedi overlooking a vast and peaceful forest.

  Th
e air filled instead with the unwelcome scents of honey and fresh turned earth, and I looked at his sizzling stump while he searched my rounded faces.

  “Say hello to Cavim and Clea,” I said and eased the sleeping pair around.

  “So small,” he said. He had a sheaf of letters sprouting from his inside vest pocket, all addressed to me. I took his arm and read one after another while he made faces at his children. All his sad, desperate words, triumphs, and terrors were there. He was the same man. I kissed him despite the growling world that waited on us, and there upon soft lips we stole all the love and calm that could be found.

  The eyes upon us shifted about as their impatience grew. My uneasiness multiplied and overcame the last of my comfort.

  “Everyone has changed as much as we have,” he said.

  “You haven’t changed at all,” I said.

  “Not for trying.”

  “No, my love. I wouldn’t have it any other way,” I said and whispered into his ear, “Who here do you trust to save our children?”

  He looked slowly around, searching faces. A hard calm settled across his face as though he knew well the thousand daggers aimed at us. “Only Leger.”

  I waved our dear old friend and his borrowed horse to join us. Clever rumbled at me as though I’d abandon him. I would have given him all the time in the world if I could have. I could spare only enough to nicker to him softly as they approached.

  To Leger I said, “You’ve looked worse.”

  “Only a couple of times.”

  “Tell me it doesn’t hurt.”

  “I suffer when I am far away from Barok, but being here next to the children, I have never felt better, alive or dead. What are we plotting this time? This crowd will not sit still much longer.”

  “I mean to kill three gods without letting anyone use our children as ingredients,” I said.