The Wound of the World

by Edward W. Robertson

"You've heard of the Cycle of Arawn?"

  "I heard of rain, too. Ignorant me even heard of dirt and fish and wind."

  "There's a copy in every temple in the city," Raxa said. "But rumor has it that when Galand came to Narashtovik, he brought the original copy with him."

  "Think it'll fetch a pretty good price, huh?"

  "Think bigger. Rumor has it that, when someone with the talent reads the original copy, it unlocks the nether within you."

  Vess thrust out her jaw and beetled her brow. "You believe it?"

  "I don't believe it," Raxa said. "I know it."

  "You want to put an end to their monopoly. This is how you mean to take revenge, ain't it? And you don't care if it takes ten years."

  "As long as they can wield the nether and we can't, we'll always be vulnerable to them." Raxa stared into Vess' eyes. "This is about more than revenge—it's about survival."

  The stout woman thought a moment, then chuckled slowly. "I would ask what they'd do to us when they learned we was playing with shadows. But they already tried to kill us all, eh? What we got to lose? Let's steal ourselves a book."

  ~

  He left Collen behind him like the hive that it was.

  For hours, he was incapable of sustaining a thought for more than a few seconds at a time. Walking in the guise of a common soldier, trudging through dust and sagebrush and yellow grass that flung its unwanted seeds at his trousers like a mother delivering her tenth child to the steps of a monastery, he grew worried about his mind's lack of command. He had donned the look of a common man. Had he donned the wits of a common man as well? With sunset coming, and no report of pursuit from the scouts, Gladdic dropped his disguise.

  Instantly, he felt better. Of course, much remained wrong. Disaster had unfolded in Collen. One that ran as deep as any of the fears he harbored in the midnight hours. Not only had he lost the city, and the entire basin with it, but he'd lost the only tool he had to recapture these places: the Andrac.

  It felt impossible. It was impossible. This had to be a fever dream—a test laid upon him by Taim. Yes: he was lost in the throes of a vision. One of utter disaster. If his faith faltered, it would prove that he was not worthy to lead Taim's banners across Collen.

  Yet the ground beneath his feet felt real. The night smelled of the desert. The men around him looked weary, their gear clunking in the most mundane rhythms. His defeat was real.

  His duties rabbled before him like a legion of devils. There seemed no way past them. His failure ran so deep it was possible the king might see fit to execute him. The thought gave him a horrible thrill. To have it done with!

  Yet to end one's life—even to wish for death—was a crime against Taim's law. With a shudder, he imagined a boot. Then, he pictured the boot stamping the thought of suicide to a bloody smear.

  He had many tasks, but his first was to ensure his survival.

  "Horstad," he said to the stocky young man who moved to attend him. "Prepare to take a letter."

  "My name is Liam, Ordon," said the man. His eyes shifted. "Horstad never returned from the city."

  Gladdic jolted with discombobulation. Had he known that? "Does it matter who records the words I speak? Fetch parchment, man!"

  Liam's eyes widened. He retrieved writing implements from his saddlebags, including a board to back the parchment. Gladdic cleared his throat and began a missive to the Eldor.

  By the time he concluded his speech, he couldn't remember more than a fraction of what he'd said. It was as if Gladdic's memories belonged to someone else. Panic seared through his veins—and then he remembered that he was a lord, and simply ordered Liam to repeat what he'd just transcribed. Gladdic feared his words would be babbling madness, but they sounded like every other report of a sudden defeat: surprise; dismay; anger at one's foe; but mostly, the conviction that one had only lost the day due to a stroke of poor fate. One that could be overturned by a second effort.

  For there would be a second attack. Wouldn't there? Hadn't everyone in the palace doubted his ability to take Collen in the first place? His initial success had been nothing short of a miracle. Undeniable proof that he bore the will of the gods with him.

  Yet what could it mean that he had now lost the basin? Did that mean he had lost Taim's favor as well?

  They marched on into the darkness. As the night deepened, the soldiers diverted from the road to make camp in the cover to be found between two hills. Gladdic's mind and body were exhausted, but after an hour in his bedroll, even the common victory of sleep still eluded him. His teeth had been clenched for so long his jaw was stiff. He removed himself from his tent, ignoring the glances of the sentries as he walked into the brisk desert night.

  Thousands of stars shined down from above. The air was so still he felt sure he could hear a whisper from ten miles away. There were crickets, yes, and the furtive rustling of mice in the green grass that had sprouted here and there since the rains.

  He breathed the cold air through his nose. Sage. Dew. Dust. If the desert was a temple, then these scents were its incense. The constellations were the murals of its ceiling. Gladdic had no love for the voluptuous lushness of the woods. Nor the inconstancy of the sea. The severity of the high mountains carried an austere appeal, but their size and height seemed to embody a form of immodesty.

  The desert, however, claimed to be no more than it was. And while it could be every bit as harsh as the mountains, those who devoted themselves to its ways could find revelations beyond mortal knowing.

  He walked for some time. With each ridge he crested, he grew angrier that the Colleners, blessed with this landscape, had allowed themselves to grow so twisted and foul. He had thought he'd found the answer to their profanity, yet his efforts had evaporated like all water that fell on the desert.

  So many others had found visions in lands such as this. He knew many in Bressel itself who claimed to have heard the voice of Taim, or the other, lesser gods. Gladdic suspected they were lying—he himself had never heard a clear word from those above—but the idea these people were telling the truth gnawed him to the bone. At last, surrounded by nothing, miles from the next living soul, he stopped in a field and tipped back his head to the stars.

  "Father Taim," he whispered. A breeze hissed through the thorns of the tumbleweeds. "I am your servant. Your dog. Your hand and your blade. I beg you: put me to use."

  For a moment, he felt as though a hand was reaching down from the sky, as if to touch his face. He closed his eyes. Then, for feelings were traitors, the sensation passed, as did they all.

  He opened his eyes. Lowered his head. He wept. His tears fell to the greedy dust, absorbed without a trace. So even this was taken from him. Why had the gods let this happen? How could it be just? Was it proof that they weren't? He looked up again. The stars twinkled on, but there was nothing else there. What if there were no gods?

  The same thrill shot through his spine that he'd felt on thinking about an end to his life. He gazed on the idea with a raptness that was, ironically, almost holy.

  Yet just as it had been before, that thrill was a sign of wrongness. A physical pleasure meant to distract his mind from identifying the lies before it. He backed away from the godless thought as if it was a sucking vortex.

  There were plain truths: the gods were real, and Taim was just. Therefore, if Gladdic had won Collen because of his own righteousness, his own virtue, his loss of the basin could only be due to the fact that he had stepped off from the path.

  "Tell me what I have done wrong!" He thrust his fists to the side. "Help me, Father! Help me return to your light!"

  His voice died in the desert. The stars gave no answer.

  Was he beyond all use? Nothing more than the dried husk of a fruit that had no sweetness left to it? Shakily, he drew his dagger and placed its blade against his neck. If he was of no more use to this world, then let him join the gods.

  The knife parted his skin. He gasped at the pain. His eyes stung with tears, then cleared. And so did his m
ind. Taim couldn't give him the answer. To do so would be to strip mortals of all agency. If the gods merely handed you what you needed to correct your errors, then the journey back to the path was over before it began.

  He dug his fingers into the dust. He had lost himself. In order to be filled with holiness, one first had to make of oneself a worthy container.

  Feeling like a child, he cried again. This time, in joy. For he knew what he must do.

  There were greater horrors in the world than what he had seen in the Collen Basin. He would stand against them. He would defeat them. He would save a people who had been damned for centuries.

  And he would become pure.

  4

  Senator Alder gawked at him. The older man staggered back from the desk, arms bowed from his sides. Blood pumped from the hole Dante had cut into his heart. The senator blinked once, then twice, then collapsed on the floor.

  Dante moved into the nether within his body, confirming he was dead. He turned to the desk, grabbed one of the ink-stained knives used to trim quills and cut coins of sealing wax from larger cylinders, and jammed the blade into the hole in the senator's chest. Blood washed over the knife.

  Dante rifled through the pages on the desk until he found one bearing the senator's signature. The handwriting matched. He seated himself, took up a quill, and unstoppered a bottle of ink.

  Years of scholarship had left him with keen penmanship. Additionally, in his early years in Narashtovik, he'd often been assigned the duty of copying manuscripts. In a sign of respect, he'd done his best to match the handwriting of the original author.

  Within a few minutes, he had a passable imitation of the senator's hand. He composed a note, matching its rhythms to the man's speech and the writing to the letters on the desk. He signed the man's name, stepped into the brightly lit viewing room, and checked himself for blood. He didn't see so much as a drop, but summoned the nether to him to ensure he hadn't missed any. It floated around him in disinterest.

  There were a few blots of ink on his right hand, however, which he wiped clean on his cloak. After a moment of thought, he entered the study and dabbed ink on the senator's hand.

  This done, he flung open the outside door of the viewing room. "Help! The senator's hurt!"

  Doors creaked open. Voices and footsteps rang through the stone corridors. Dante returned to the study and kneeled over Alder's body, drawing a wash of shadows to him and rendering them starkly visible. As three servants piled into the room, he poured the nether over the man's chest, making it writhe and flow.

  A man in a blue vest made a choking noise, circling around the body. "What has happened?"

  Dante didn't answer. Instead, he grimaced, summoning a second flock of shadows to join the first. The blood oozing from the wound came to a stop, but Alder remained as motionless as a fallen log. Dante crouched next to the senator, putting his hands on the man's chest. He summoned a third wave of shadows that soon disappeared.

  "It's no use." Dante moved away and sat heavily in a chair, cradling his sweaty face in his now-bloody palms. "I'm sorry."

  "Sire." The servant's voice was shaky. "Can you tell us what happened here?"

  "We were discussing the war. After a while, he excused himself to his study and closed the door. He was in here for close to ten minutes when I heard a thud. When I called the senator's name, he didn't answer. I found him like this. I thought I could revive him."

  The servants exchanged looks. One jogged from the room. The man in the blue vest made a search of the room, soon finding the letter. He read it, whispering the words out loud to himself.

  "Sire," he said. "Have you read this?"

  Dante swung up his head, frowning. "Read what?"

  The letter was steeped in regret. The senator, as it turned out, had been bought off by Gladdic, the very man waging war on the basin. Dante's visit implied that the Colleners had discovered his treasonous pledge. Alder's suspicions had been confirmed when Dante made mention of their interrogations of Mallish prisoners of war.

  Senator Alder had only seen one way out.

  ~

  "Do you really think they believed it?"

  Dante shrugged. "They let us leave, didn't they?"

  Blays snorted. "Because they bought the story? Or because they feared that if they tried to hold you captive, you'd turn them into toads? And then turn their families into flies and make them eat the flies?"

  "They don't know what to think, so they let us walk away. Over time, they'll convince themselves he was a traitor, and that I tried to undo his death. That's the only way they'll be able to absolve themselves of their guilt."

  Blays considered the dusty horizon. "I think I'd feel better about humanity if it was because of the toads."

  A day and a half later, they were back in Collen. Dante washed off the dust, ate a hot meal, then met with the Keeper. He laid out what he'd done, making no attempt to lie, minimize, or rationalize his actions.

  Her jaw quivered with anger. "You were sent to convince the senator of his duty. Not to murder him!"

  "I wasn't sent," Dante said. "I went. My job was to unite the basin. Now that he can't extort the other senators into withholding their votes, they'll pledge for war."

  "He was an elected leader. There were other ways!"

  "I know exactly who he was. The other senators wouldn't support us because Alder owned the farmland around the canals. I could have promised them that I'd dredge them canals of their own. That would have allowed them to vote for war, cementing their allegiance to Collen."

  "Then why did you kill him?"

  "He was trying to extort you while you're in the middle of a war for your survival. He was a snake, Keeper. Did Kaline deserve to be ruled by a man like that?"

  The Keeper spoke through gritted teeth. "No. He abused his power. He served himself rather than his people."

  "Then I did you a favor."

  "They'll suspect it was you."

  "Big deal. He was the type of person who would sell himself out to Gladdic. When we win the war against Mallon, and your people are delirious with freedom, you'll see how fast they forget their petty old grudges."

  Dante believed his words, but he left the briefing feeling uneasy. To himself, he'd admit that he'd brought a barrel of anger into his dealings with Alder. Was that anger providing clarity of action? Or a reckless lack of regard for morals? Had he killed the senator to strengthen the basin? Or to punish the Keeper?

  The evening of that same day, a rider arrived from Kaline. The senate had met. They would honor the Code of the Wasp. The towns were united.

  The scouts confirmed the defeated Mallish army had crossed the border into their own land. Dante tried to send undead moths and rabbits to confirm their return to Bressel, but much as the loons had broken when they'd been brought too far away from each other, there were limits to how far his spies could roam. At twenty miles, their vision and hearing grew spotty. At forty, his connection to them was lost.

  To ensure they weren't in danger of an immediate sneak attack, he spent two days on the border, moths flapping this way and that. He didn't spy any massed Mallish soldiers, but he did get a feel for the hills, plains, and dotty pine forests between the two lands.

  The king's road was the simplest path across the space, but an army could take any number of routes. There wasn't much favorable terrain for Colleners to make a strong stand on, either. Seeing it from above, Dante better understood why the basin had had such a hard time defending itself.

  There were no armies, but he did find a walled fort a few miles across the border. Hidden in Londren Forest, it was practically big enough to be a castle—presumably, it stood as the first line of defense against Collenese attacks—but at the moment, it was staffed by no more than a few score soldiers. They weren't a threat to anything beyond the local highwaymen.

  Needing eyes in Bressel, Naran used the loon to order his crew in the city to make a regular circuit of the pubs, ears sharp for news. At Collen, soldiers from th
e six towns arrived in droves, training and maneuvering on the plains below the butte. Hunting parties brought back deer and rabbits. Dante grew a new crop each day. They managed to set aside a fraction of the food, but if it came to a siege, they wouldn't last more than a week.

  Other than growing food and consulting with Cord, Boggs, and the Keeper, Dante found himself with a good deal of free time. He spent some of it exploring the caverns where Gladdic had been sacrificing Colleners to his demons. Dante found little of physical interest, but it did provide him with plenty of traces, the stains of death left deep inside the nether.

  To see them, he first had to get Blays to walk into the shadows and illuminate them with the light of Dante's torchstone. For whatever reason, exposing them to ether from inside the netherworld made them visible in the physical world.

  If normal nether flitted around like songbirds, the traces sat about like stones. But they were drawn madly to blood. Dante spent hours watching them move. If you combined enough of them together—for Dante, it had taken as few as six—they would become a tiny Andrac. A demon thirsty for human blood.

  What did that imply about the traces? Their nature and origin? Did everyone have a little bit of demon in them? Is that why, when you gathered people into a mob or a tribe where all those little bits came together, they were capable of pushing each other into horrendous acts?

  Or was he confusing cause and effect? What if committing an evil act caused the body to produce a drop of tainted nether? It seemed possible to test the theory by killing a few evil men and comparing the size and density of their traces to those left by good-hearted people. The outcome of such a test could answer many questions about human nature.

  Yet the test itself would be evil, depending on murder as it did. Dante had to content himself with writing down his theories and observations, along with his questions. If he couldn't answer them in his lifetime, perhaps later generations could build on his writings to reach answers of their own.

  He was in the caverns meditating on these matters when he was summoned to the butte to meet with the Hand, the nickname Boggs had bestowed on the five-person governing council of Collen. Their meeting that day was held on the balcony of the shrine where Cord had received her warrior training.