by Garon Whited
“Hang on!” I shouted back, and opened the rear door again. The top guard wasn’t back at his post, but the driver’s mate had taken over. He was lying on the roof, looking down, sword in one hand, lantern in the other. I jumped out, turned around, and looked up. We regarded each other for a second or so while his eyes went round.
I whiplashed one arm at him, directing a seething tentacle of psychic tendrils up and around his neck. This jerked him cleanly off the wagon and into my arms. I grinned at him, mouth slightly open, at point-blank range. He soiled himself. Things didn’t end well for him, but they did end quickly.
I righted the lantern—it was a metal thing and still lit. With it on one side of the wagon, I went around the other side, jerked the wounded guard down—he was on that side, nursing his face and moaning until I sent him headfirst into the road. I hopped up next to the driver and put my foot on the reins.
I’m not sure who was more surprised. He saw a shifting, shadowy thing with teeth. I saw what was basically a human being, dark-skinned, broad-shouldered, wide mouth, lots of sadness lines on his face. The outstanding features were his eyes. Both sets. If you moved a normal person’s eyes down a half-inch or so and put another set just above the new eyebrow line, you’d have it. Forget binocular vision. He had quad-ocular vision. His eyes were also all different colors. Starting in the upper left and going clockwise, they were yellow, green, orange, and blue.
I saw he was chained to the wagon by one ankle. Interesting.
“Hi!” I greeted him. “Did you know Zirafel is haunted?” I used the oldest Imperial dialect I knew.
Give him credit. He didn’t have a weapon in hand, so he dropped the reins and tried to punch me. I caught his fist and squeezed sharply. A bone popped as he screamed and clutched his wrist with the other hand. He blinked in sequence, rather than all at once. I ignored this, mostly. It was a little unnerving. To be fair, I must have been pretty unnerving to him, as well.
“Look,” I began, shifting to the dialect I heard them using and trying to sound reasonable, “you have a very slim chance to survive. Answer my questions or I’ll kill you and interrogate your ghost. What’ll it be?” I let go his hand and he cradled it, gritting his teeth. Those, at least, seemed normal.
“So, you’re collecting slaves?” I prompted, once the silence grew awkward. He kept staring at me. He was excellent at staring.
“Uh…”
Well, he was a having a very bad night.
“Use your words,” I suggested.
“Slaves? Yeah. Slaves. Yeah.”
I didn’t like the way the lights of his spirit shimmered, nor the colors.
“If they’re not slaves,” I said, slowly, “then what are they?”
“Prisoners?”
“Let me try this another way. Where are you taking them?”
“Back to H’zhad’Eyn. The capitol, Zhadivos.”
“Oh? All right. And why are they going to Zhadivos?”
“We was told there was infidels, building a thing, you know, a village or something.”
“I see. Who told you this?”
“Lord Golor.”
“And who is he?”
“He’s the High Priest of the Church of Light in Zhadivos. The Patriarch to H’zhad’Eyn, I guess.”
My comment was not directed at him, but flinching wasn’t an inappropriate response. I mean, consider his position.
“Fine. And what does he want with these people?”
My conversationalist did not answer.
“I said you had a slim chance to survive, didn’t I?”
“Yes?”
“You’re slimming it down by the second. What does Lord Golor, High Priest of the Church of Light in Zhadivos, want with these captives?”
“I… that is, I don’t know, really, for sure,” he stammered. I gave him my best black-eyed, unblinking stare. I even conjured a faint witch-light to hover over us so he could see me better. My stare is probably as disturbing as his, although for different reasons.
“But I hear rumors?” he suggested, and licked his lips. I gestured him to continue, not wavering in my stare. I stroked the side of his face with the cold, life-drinking touch of invisible tendrils. He flinched again.
“They says the Church of Light sacrifices infidels on their altars,” he suggested. “I’m not one of them blank-eyed worshippers of the Light, so I dunno, but that’s what they says.”
“Human sacrifice.”
“That’s what they says.”
“And what do you get out of this if you’re not a worshipper? No, let me guess. Gold?”
“No.” He rattled the chain on his ankle.
“Ah. You do as your told or they beat you.”
“Pretty much… yeah.”
“But there’s more to it than that,” I observed, watching the flickering lights of his spirit. “What’s the deal?”
“Deal?”
“Let me start with this. Why are you a wagon driver?”
“I see in the dark.”
“That makes sense,” I agreed, nodding. “Okay. Is that why you’re a slave?”
“I’m a slave because I’m from southern H’zhad’Eyn, in Ecsuleyn.”
“Forgive my ignorance, but I’ve never heard of the place. Why does that make you a slave?”
“We live down near the Curséd Mountains, close to where the burning orb vanishes in the dark.”
“For clarity, I’m going to repeat my question. Why does that make you a slave?”
He gestured in a circle around his eyes.
“There’s lots of us down there. They don’t want us around normal folks.”
“Who doesn’t? Remember, I’m not from here. I’ve never heard of these places until tonight.”
He pursed his lips and considered. It took him a minute to think of how to explain.
“Normal folks don’t got four eyes. Or four arms. Or a face on the back of their head. Or stuff. They’re normal. Sometimes they have kids who aren’t normal. They got something. If it’s not something they can see, they keep the kid. They become vehemanis or, if they’re lucky, gelid cor. Us who got funny shapes or parts? We’re spat on, driven out, given away. Sometimes,” he added, rattling his chain again, “slavers come south for easy pickings, sometimes for women.
“This raid?” he asked, gesturing with his good hand back at the slave-chain. “They’ve been putting all us bellua in the Crucible. They’re running out, so they’re roasting heretics. I’m useful, so I’m still alive, but when they run out of sacrifices, I’ll be one of the first they cook.”
“Got it,” I agreed. “Three things. What are a bellua, a vehemani, and a gelid cor?”
He rolled his eyes. Impressive.
“Bellua are like me,” he said, gesturing at his face. “They got something strange.”
“Ah.”
“Vehemani got something strange inside. They got a power. They make things cold or hot, sing in many voices, move things by staring. Magic stuff. And the gelid cor are the ones who learn the discipline of the gelid, the way to control their power, make it do what they want. They do lots of things, not just the one trick they were born with. That’s all I know about that. I’m a bellua, not a vehemani, so I can’t be a gelid cor.”
“Fair enough. Okay. You’ve been mostly cooperative, so I have two things to say.
“First, since you’re a slave, you may not be aware of a place called Karvalen. It’s a kingdom across the sea, ruled by the Bright Queen and the Demon King. Slavery is illegal there. There are no slaves. They may not like you for your eyes—people are the same all over—but you cannot be a slave. If you have a chance to get away and go there, it might be a better place for you and for any other… uh, bellua.
“Second,” I continued, reaching down and snapping the manacle off his ankle, “you’re free. Any questions?”
He got down from the wagon carefully, favoring his wounded hand, and started walking down the road. I guess he didn’t have any questions. Ma
ybe he just didn’t want to be near me anymore. I have days like that, myself.
I checked the handbrake and made sure the horses weren’t too upset. With the personnel wagon parked, I went back, snapped some links in the slave-chain, and sent people to recover keys, take charge of wagons, all that sort of thing. As I kept freeing people, more and more of them wanted to cluster around me. I’d have thought the guy wearing magical camo patterns and snapping iron links with his fingers would be less popular, but apparently being un-enslaved promotes a load of goodwill.
“Thank you! Thank you so—”
“Stuff it,” I snapped. “You’re living in the City of Bones and people are being sent to drag you off for human sacrifice on the altars of the Lord of Light. This is not a good place for you to be. Go back, find any survivors, pack up, and leave.”
“But you don’t understand! The fiery signs in the heavens have shown us the path to Zirafel! This is the promised city of the ancients, where we will found a new empire!”
“Okay. I’ve rescued you once and warned you. It does no good to argue with stupid. I’ve done all I can do. If you won’t listen, it’s your responsibility, not mine. Go live in Zirafel until someone else comes to enslave you or kill you. Sorry to have met you. Goodbye.”
“Wait! Who are you?”
“When you’re being collared and chained up again, just remember me as the person you didn’t listen to.” I went to a supply wagon, ignoring further comments and pleas, and rooted around in it. Two waterskins, some bread, some dried meat—dazhu, if my nose was correct—and a small bag of some local roots reminiscent of a carrot. I took my loot and vanished northward.
Then I conjured a light, resumed my human disguise, and approached the hole with the children in it. It’s important to do these things in the right order.
“Hello!” I called. The two older children glared out at me with fear and… well, okay, only with fear. I can’t say I blame them. “I hear the crying baby. I have food and water. Okay?”
They didn’t say anything, so I approached. Maybe it’s my charming smile. Maybe it’s the peculiar way children generally trust me. Maybe they had nowhere to run. Whatever the reason, they remained in their little cave of ruins as I came up to them.
“Here you go,” I said, and handed them the supplies. I asked the girl, “Is the little one able to eat solid food?”
“I don’t know.”
“Does it—he or she?”
“She. Samarra.”
“Lovely name. Does Samarra have any teeth?”
“I don’t know.”
I sighed.
“All right. Wait a second.” I gathered some wood, built a fire, and sat down. “Now, you two eat and drink. Let me hold Samarra for a minute.”
The girl wasn’t best pleased at the arrangement, but from the way she gulped down water, thirst had a lot to do with her agreement. Samarra quieted down while I held her, staring at me with big, blue eyes. That suited me. I examined her mouth with one finger, discovering at least four teeth when she chewed on it.
I don’t know if doctors think that qualifies her for solid food, but I thought it worth a shot. I’ve played mama-bird before. It may be weird to use an undead monster as a food processor, but at least I’m effective.
I chewed up some of the carrot-like thing and found it reminiscent of yams with a hint of squash. Revolting beyond my feeble powers of description. I hurriedly damped down my sense of taste. Once I finished chewing the vegetable into paste, I offered Samarra some on the tip of a finger. She took it readily, grasping my finger and chewing on it some more. I kept feeding her until my cheeked supply of goo ran out.
By then, the other two were done chomping and gulping. They sat and watched me for the last few baby-mouthfuls.
“See how that worked?” I asked. The girl nodded. “Good. Here, take her.” I handed off the little responsibility. “Now, in case you’re wondering, the slavers are gone, the survivors are coming back, and you should hear them before morning, I think. Just stay where you are and wait. When they find you, tell them I said it would be a good idea to leave this city. Can you do that for me?”
“Yes.”
“Thank you. Goodnight.”
“Short roads and happy days.”
I went back to my bridges to nowhere. I sat down at the end of one, regarded the infinite void, and tried a little Zen meditation.
What was the wizard’s first rule? People are stupid? They believe what they want to believe? Something like that. And because they’re stupid, they’re going to stay here and get themselves killed, kidnapped, or otherwise drastically reduced in circumstances.
It’s hard to meditate when the only mantra I can think of is, “Not my circus, not my monkeys, not my problem.”
One good thing about being dead is the fact I don’t need to breathe. While meditating, there are usually distractions—breathing, heartbeat, muscle cramps, whatever. Not for me, not at night. There’s nothing quite like being dead for achieving a perfection of stillness, a complete quiet of heart and mind, body and spirit.
My first Zen teacher was highly disturbed by a meditating corpse. My presence was a distraction after that, and he didn’t manage to teach very well. I had to find a new one.
I like the meditation. It helps me let go of emotional things and achieve a better state of calm. Normally, I’d still be seething about the pile of burned bodies and dead children. But they’re dead. I can’t fix it. I killed most of the people who did it, but the people responsible are the Church of Light—again.
Calm and centered. There we go. And we’re back in the now.
Then there’s the group of idiots who insist on living in the City of Bones despite being attacked by slavers. Like I told the man, you can’t argue with stupid.
I keep coming back to that mantra: “Not my circus, not my monkeys, not my problem.”
It helps to be able to let go and recognize when things aren’t my problem. I can interfere in anything from earthworms rising during the rain to the rise and fall of empires—but is it my responsibility to do any of it? Is it my right? Or am I interfering with the natural course of human events? Am I playing god?
Nope. I’m sitting here in the stillness, acknowledging I exist and that I am myself, nothing more.
It helps. Not a lot, but it helps.
Once I did my mental housekeeping—I’ve learned not to simply sweep things under the trapdoor, but to sweep them up and throw them out—I conjured an overhead light and turned my attention back to the void.
A Thing was just outside, trying to look in at me. It’s not a clear view, from what I’ve seen; the Firmament distorts and dims everything inside it. Nonetheless, being so close to the edge of the universe, so to speak, made me more visible than most of the rest.
If I open a wormhole from Earth to the edge of the universe, is there an edge? Is there a firmament like this one, only billions of light-years across? There are several theories about the architecture of the universe… but could I go there and look? Physical distance isn’t much of a factor, at least as far as I’ve been able to tell. The farthest I’ve gone within a universe is to Mars. It’s the geek in me; I couldn’t resist. I wore an environment suit, packed along a portable gate, and watched the two moons race each other across the cold, dark sky of what should have been Barsoom.
The gate may still be there, if the sandstorms haven’t worn it away to nothing. It was only some braided wire, after all.
The trip was many millions of miles, but spitting distance compared to the supposed edge of the universe. How does the width of the universe compare to punching a hole in it and reaching another universe entirely?
I’ll save it for some other time.
The Thing outside reminded me of an eel, long and wriggly, with a line of small wings down each side. The mouth was funnel-shaped, lined with teeth, and put me in mind of some types of parasites. All around the mouth were small stalks, maybe two dozen, their ends alternating with fishhook-sh
aped claws or tiny, blinking eyes. The whole creature was about three feet long.
Some Thing considerably bigger whisked past, soundlessly, snatching the eel-like Thing as it shot by. Apparently, one damned Thing after another. Story of my life.
My examination of the void was otherwise undisturbed. I learned a lot.
Let’s see… I already mentioned the fact it’s not actually a void, but it bears repeating. It’s highly-energetic chaos.
How to explain this? Here, inside a universe, ordered patterns tend to decay into disordered array. Stack blocks on top of each other and they will all fall down to roughly the same level. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow, but eventually. This is the lowest-energy configuration of the blocks. That tendency toward decay into a lower-energy, more-disordered state is called entropy.
Out there, on the other hand, I’m looking at the space—let it go; I’m just calling it “space.” I don’t know what else to call it, at the moment—the space between universes. Here in Karvalen (or Zirafel, or Rethven—this world), the Firmament marks the edge of the universe. Back in my home universe, the edge of the universe is considerably farther away, on the order of fifteen billion light-years or some such. But it’s possible at the edge of every universe, there’s a border between order and chaos, and on the outside, different laws apply.
Assuming, of course, a chaos void has laws.
For example, as I watched and evaluated the realm beyond, full of Things Man Was Not Meant To Know, a fuzzy, pulsing area attracted my attention. It grew larger as I watched. Without some reference, it was impossible to tell its actual size, but I could see it growing larger. Perspective, perhaps, as it grew closer? I thought so, since it was taking on more definite shape. Within the last few hundred feet, it had a definite form, albeit an alien one. It reminded me of a jellyfish, only with a spiked, armored dome instead of a jelly body. I didn’t like the look of the curling tentacles emerging from the flat side. I liked it even less when it plastered itself to the Firmament, tentacles radiating outward from the body in all directions, and started crawling along the outer surface.
