The Wrack

by John Bierce

  So the fact that her instincts were going off now, while the villagers around her just seemed excited and interested in the man, was quite worrying to Verna, and she couldn’t help but think that perhaps the ancestors were trying to warn her of something.

  “A half-dozen cities now,” the man said, in a deep, rich, voice, like butter across fresh bread. “It’s killing nine of every ten, and rendering the tenth speechless, broken, empty husks. No shadow of their former selves left, to the point their own ancestors don’t recognize them.”

  There were gasps and murmurs from the crowd as the man spoke. As he turned, his eyes fell on Verna, and a flicker of surprise ran through them— it seemed he wasn’t expecting a full Eidolon priestess in a little mountain village like this.

  Several villagers called out questions about the Wrack, but the man waved them off.

  “We’re safe up here for now,” he said. “It’s been a long trip, and I’d wet my throat and rest my feet. I can share news with the whole village later.”

  Verna just watched as the villagers bustled about, preparing a place to stay for the man— likely a spare mat in front of someone’s fireplace, as Cloudholt was too small for an inn.

  Though some would call it too small for a Repository, for that matter, or even a name. Verna had been in plenty of larger villages that had lacked them.

  Still, as small and out of the way as Cloudholt was, they’d heard the news of the Wrack, of its brutal ways and the screams of its victims. It hadn’t sounded so bad as their visitor made it out to be, but… perhaps the Wrack’s dangers were what the ancestors were warning her of.

  Verna said nothing as the crowd dispersed.

  “We were told the last days would come many millennia hence,” the man, Olefs, said. “We were told they would come when the ancestors outnumbered the living so many times over that even with their minuscule hunger in the spirit realm, we could not feed them on fast days. They would eat the world out of house and home, and the living would starve. They would die with their names unrecorded by any, and be lost in crossing the spirit realm, while the ancestors would be left maddened by hunger for eternity.”

  Verna leaned forwards towards the fire pit a little more, watching him from over the flames in the afternoon light.

  “We were wrong,” Olefs said. “The end times come swiftly, and they come now. The Wrack will break all of mankind’s cities, all of mankind’s kingdoms, and even the heretics will fall like wildfire.”

  There were gasps and murmurs from the collected villagers, and a babe in arms started fussing.

  Verna felt as though she should stand, yell that Olefs was a heretic, but doubt stayed her voice. The teachings on the Last Days, the Hungry Days, were the strangest in the Lays of the Eidolon. The Book of Hungry Days was arrhythmic and jarring, unlike the flowing verse of the other books, and it went on and on with no allowance for breath in a way that simply seemed to demand it be spoken faster and faster without end or pause. It lacked the clarity of the rest of the Lays, and theological arguments about it were more common than agreements— though most preferred to avoid speaking of it entirely.

  Olefs spoke for hours then, of the nightmares he had seen in the lowlands, of the way the fingers and toes of those struck down by the Wrack simply rotted and fell off, and how their screams would render their loved ones deaf, their eardrums burst. He spoke of the way the Eidolon priests and priestesses abandoned their duties and left the victims to be lost forever in the spirit realm.

  Verna once more almost shouted, but doubt grew in her again as the villagers around her shot her suspicious, angry, and scared looks, as though she were the one to have abandoned her duties.

  Olefs spoke of the dawn of the Hungry Days and of a winter that no matter how mild, would kill more than any winter before, and of a spring that would stay hungry no matter how warm it grew.

  He spoke until it grew dark, long after most of the villagers would normally have retired for the night. It grew chilly as the day’s heat vanished, but the villagers only clustered closer to the fire and to one another. It seemed they felt not the chill of a late summer night atop the mountain, but instead the chill of winter.

  And then— only then— did he spring his trap and offer a way out. Verna didn’t even speak out against it at first, wrestling so mightily with doubt in her heart as she did. He spoke of a vision brought to him by the ancestors, of a way that some faithful might be saved.

  The Conclave Eidola taught that they were all prophets, to some extent— the ancestors spoke to all of them, and they had but to learn to listen. True prophets, however, were rare— there had only been nine and twenty of them ever recorded. True prophets were spoken to not just by their own ancestors, but by the ancestors of an entire city, or an entire kingdom. Some said the last prophet would bear a message from all the ancestors someday, though that was mere folk superstition, to Verna’s mind.

  Olefs spoke humbly, and that stayed Verna’s hand until it was too late. He claimed only a vision from the ancestors of Frostford, where an impassable stretch of river froze over every summer. He claimed that they’d sent him here in a vision, and that they’d told him how he— and a few of the true faithful of Cloudholt— might yet be saved.

  Part of her knew Olefs must be lying, knew he was a conman, knew that this is what the ancestors had tried to warn her of, but her fear and her doubts put a crack in her faith, and Olefs’ words had crept into her and stayed her tongue too long.

  Olefs told the villagers how the lowlanders had lost their faith, and he talked of how they paid only lip service to the ancestors, and offered them only rotten offerings of food on fast days. He spoke of the mountain folk’s steadfast virtue and strength against temptation, and the villagers all nodded, because he said what they already knew.

  Verna said nothing, though she knew those allegations untrue.

  Olefs told the villagers they must seal off the trail, and to lay snares for those unfaithful of the lowlands who would try to force the Wrack upon them as well.

  Verna said nothing, though innocent peddlers might be hurt by the snares.

  Olefs pulled back his eyepatch, revealing a sphere of opal, and he spoke of its powers to see into the hearts of men and see their faith— powers known only and revealed only to him alone by the ancestors.

  Verna said nothing, though she knew opal to be nothing more than a pretty stone, no more spiritual than glass.

  Olefs told them that they must carve their own names in the living trees around the village, that the ancestors know these living might still be faithful.

  Verna, at last, found her voice. She cried out against the heresy of carving the names of the living for the ancestors, of lying to them, of trying to cheat one’s way into their arms.

  Her pleas fell on deaf ears, for she’d been silent too long.

  The villagers did everything Olefs said over the next few days, and hardly even looked at Verna. They tolerated her presence, but no more. The once ample tithe of food the villagers gave her became a thin, paltry thing indeed, and no one set foot in the Repository to pray or ask wisdom of the ancestors.

  No one spoke up against Olefs, for fear he’d see weakness or evil in their hearts with his glimmering eye of a dozen colors, that glittering sphere of frozen fire. Most seemed not to want to speak up at all. None saw aught wrong with Olefs getting the first share of food, a tithe of garnets, or moving in unwed with the pretty young widow who lived near the bottom of Cloudholt.

  At least that last kept him away from Verna. She’d been halfway convinced he’d try to steal the Repository from her as well.

  Olefs made no moves at all against her, in fact. When asked, he merely told others that her heart was still faithful, even though she couldn’t hear the ancestors, and resisted their truth.

  Verna felt only shame at that, for while the ancestors had spoken to her, it was true she’d resisted their truth when they’d tried to warn her about Olefs.

  Autumn arrived like a lan
dslide, and the first snows arrived just eight days after Olefs’ arrival. Calling it autumn was, in truth, a little disingenuous— up in the mountains, there were essentially only two seasons— a short summer, then winter the rest of the year.

  She tended to her obelisks. She prayed. She watched the clouds drift through the village, and she waited for another message from the ancestors. An omen. Anything.

  She was not expecting it to come in the form of screams. To come as the Wrack.

  The villagers had already formed a mob around the widow’s house when she arrived, Olefs’ screams echoing out of it. They held torches and axes and mining picks, and they nervously shuffled around, steeling themselves for the next step.

  When Verna set foot among them, none of them would meet her eyes, save for the young widow and her two children, who stared at her pleadingly.

  Verna stood by the door and listened to the screaming inside and felt doubt again. She felt anger. She felt hurt by Olefs and betrayed by the village. She felt a profound and shameful relief at Olefs being stricken down. Most of all, though, she felt fear. Fear that Olefs had been right about the Hungry Days coming, and that they’d arrived at Cloudholt.

  She rested her hand on the stout door, closed her eyes, and prayed.

  And the ancestors responded, and this time, she doubted them not.

  “Go home, everyone,” Verna said.

  No one said anything or moved, just shuffled awkwardly behind her.

  Verna turned and faced the crowd.

  “Go home. There’s nothing else to be done here.”

  She gestured to the widow and her children. “Take yourselves up to the temple until it is done. You may rest in my quarters.”

  The widow looked at her nervously, then nodded and guided her children out of the crowd and upward toward the Repository.

  “You and you,” Verna said. “Go fetch an extra barrel of water and gather what herbs for pain you can. You two big fellows, you stay here with me. I’ll need you to hold him down— if the tales of victims hurting themselves are true. The rest of you, go home.”

  “Ma’am,” one of the villagers said, “he’s got the Wrack. He brought it with him. His heart’s impure!”

  “Of course his heart’s impure!” Verna snapped at the unlucky man. “He conned all you fools into thinking he was a prophet, didn’t he?”

  Several of the villagers looked angry at that, others ashamed, but none spoke.

  “I gave orders, didn’t I?” Verna snapped, and stepped forwards.

  Always before, Verna had been the retiring priestess. Always before, she’d sought the ancestors’ company over the living. Always before, she’d been the kindly adviser, the patient listener.

  When she stepped forward now, she could feel the ancestors step forward with her, and the whole village took a step back.

  “His heart might be impure, but that’s no excuse for ours to be as well,” Verna said. “We must be better than those who hurt and lie to us. Only time will tell if the Hungry Days are upon us or not, but even if they are, we shall not fail our duties to our ancestors. And I promise you this: If they are upon us, not one of you will go with your name uncarved in my obelisks. If the Wrack breaks this whole village, not one of you will go with your name uncarved. The ancestors will protect me long enough to make sure you join them.”

  Verna turned away from the crowd and opened the door.

  “What about you, Priestess?” a child’s voice said. “Who will carve your name?”

  Verna looked back at the crowd.

  “I have a sick man to tend to,” she said, raising her voice to be heard over the screams let loose when she opened the door. “And I gave you all orders.”

  Verna turned back and stepped into the house.

  CHAPTER EIGHT

  More Tales Of This Night Than Any Other

  Carlan picked uncomfortably at his costume, glaring out at the ball. The king had followed through on his threat of making Carlan wear a hen costume. It was tasteful and reserved, of course— a feathered white silk half-mask over his eyes, and a yellow silk beak over his nose. White and red robes with feathers sewn in. Bright yellow boots.

  He honestly wouldn’t take a clipped copper about the costume either way. It was annoying, but it paled next to the sheer amount of work he had to do tonight. It was just a matter of time until he could get to it— he need only wait until Sigis was well and truly drunk, then he could slip back to the mountain of paperwork building up in his office. It felt like everything that could possibly go wrong was going wrong. Thanks to the reduced number of patrols, hunters, and shepherds, even the wolves had moved down out of the mountains and forests early this year.

  Carlan pretended to sip at his wine and strode through the party.

  The palace staff had built a great fountain in the center of the ballroom in a matter of days, with a waist-high basin stretching twenty paces across, with living fish swimming about in it. Catfish from the palace grounds’ fishing pond, it looked like— hardly the most ornamental fish, like you’d find in the ponds of Galicanta, but ornamental fish did badly in Lothain’s harsh winters. The fountain’s structure was water-sealed wood, not stone or metal, and it was meant to be taken back down again after the party. The actual fountain mechanism was a great clockwork thing, and there was a chamber hidden within it where a servant continually worked the pump that sent water spraying up from the brass pipes.

  The king’s adviser would wager money there would be drunk nobles swimming in it before the night was up.

  Potted plants had been dug from the grounds and moved into the ballroom in huge numbers, giving the whole room the appearance of a manicured jungle. This late in the year, most of the ornamentals had to be dug up and moved into the king’s glasshouses, lest the oncoming cold kill them. Those glasshouses were a monumental expense. Glass was not cheap, even for kings. Carlan distinctly remembered one of the only times the dead Prince Arnulf had gotten in real trouble as a child, when he broke one of the great glass panes.

  He’d been too busy to ever really take the time to mourn the dead prince. He’d known Arnulf the prince’s whole life, and had been quite fond of him. Everyone had been fond of Arnulf. He just had so much life to him. Carlan had never had children of his own, but had never regretted it save when spending time with the king’s children, instructing them in the ways of governance. They’d been a good lot, by and by, but Arnulf had been the most lively and good-humored of them all. And though he was far from the cleverest, he’d still been Carlan’s favorite.

  Carlan sighed, and turned to look at one of the plants.

  A mulberry tree imported all the way from the south of the continent of Oyansur. Radhan ships had sailed it— and many other plants— from the mysterious empires of the far south, past the domains of the Sunsworn Emperor, past the Galicantan Empress’s ports that were both fortresses and works of art, and all the way to Swalben, the grim, stormy port that was Lothain’s one access to the sea.

  They’d made a tidy profit off it, too, like they always did. No one had faster or more reliable ships than the Radhan.

  Carlan made another mental wager that more than a few plants would be knocked over, watered with wine, or even pissed in. Quite a few of them wouldn’t be making it to the glasshouses this year.

  If he actually had someone to wager against, he’d be raking in a lot of coin, but having the king’s chief adviser and seer making cynical bets tended to upset people, for some reason.

  Bored, and needing to stay where the king could see him in attendance, Carlan dodged around a crowd of useless gossiping second and third sons and strode over to the fountain. He pulled his mask up onto his balding head, then carefully popped out his glass eye. He pulled his little belt pouch from his robes and put the glass sphere into its slot, then felt the various compartments. Garnet? No, the fountain was wood and metal. Obviously not amethyst or peridot…

  Citrine.

  He pulled the yellow-orange sphere from its indiv
idual pocket, carefully shined it on his robes, then popped it into his socket and pulled his chicken mask back down.

  Almost before the mask was back down, he’d dropped into the spirit world. He didn’t even need to close his good eye, like many lesser seers did. The reference marks on his eyes were fewer than most other mages, and of his own design. They were harder to use, but if you could handle them, they allowed far swifter focusing.

  Carlan often thought that all this administration business was a waste of his talents, and that he should have stayed a seer.

  Citrine was commonly known as the architect’s left eye— the companion to garnet, the architect’s right eye. The deep amber currents he found himself floating in seemed to react more strongly when they passed through metal or, to a lesser extent, wood. Or, more accurately, the citrine brought out those particular patterns of turbulence more clearly than other gems did.

  There was endless debate about whether it was the color or internal structure of a gem that affected one’s vision into the spirit realm, or an admixture of the two. Perhaps its composition as well. The clarity of a gem, at least, had proven to have nothing to do with it— nephrite jade was completely opaque, yet was more useful to a ship’s seer than any other gem, allowing them to perceive rocks and fish below the waves, as well as the very shapes of the sea currents themselves. Scholars had spent countless hours trying to figure out precisely what combination of traits affected the uses of a gem, even to the point where there were paintings of the amusing scene where one seer spent hours staring at another seer’s eyes from inches away as they worked.

  Carlan ignored the turbulence in the corners of his eyes from where the spirit currents passed through his mask, and focused in on the fountain. He rapidly made himself ignore most of the noise— turbulence carried along the currents from interacting with materials before what one chose to look at. He quickly parsed out the borders of the fountain and began resolving the outlines of its clockwork innards purely from the ripples in the yellow-orange spirit currents.