by John Bierce
He’d felt no honor or glory in pushing around the dazed survivors of the Wrack, just a growing sense of shame. The living victims of the contagion moved as though fighting against a powerful river current, their fingers and toes burnt until they were nearly useless. Those who had avoided infection entirely weren’t much better, and they spent their time either tending to the victims or frantically preparing for winter.
He’d always held visions of battling other noblemen in glorious combat, but the nobility of Lothain had been reaped like the harvest by the plague. That fact left many of the Geredaini nobility nervous and twitchy, to say the least, but Albrecht proclaimed it merely proved that the ancestors were on their side, and the Lothaini nobles were being punished for siding with the Usurper’s family.
The first time Ulric encountered screamers had left him badly shaken. They were few in number, though— the Wrack had already mostly burnt itself out in Lothain.
By the time the winds of winter had started blowing, they’d seized most of eastern Lothain. Albrecht, of course, took the occasion to make a speech claiming the Wrack was on their side, insisting they’d retake his ancestral throne by the Midwinter fast.
A poet would have had the first Geredaini screamers interrupt the speech, or better yet have Albrecht be its first victim, but the Wrack broke out in their camp two days later, among the soldiers, leaving the nobility nearly untouched, reversing its usual pattern.
The army had just… crumbled. The soldiers, already wildly on edge, had fled in huge numbers, leaving only a small, loyal core. The King’s Eye, which Albrecht had foolishly brought with him into Lothain, went missing along with the deserting troops.
The raging king had insisted that they press on, that the Wrack had already conquered Lothain for them.
News reached them that the Wrack had broken out in Geredain over a week ago. It had broken out all along the border with Lothain, and had followed the Rhost deep into the heart of the kingdom. On top of that, the kingdoms to Geredain’s east had closed off their borders entirely.
More soldiers, and even some nobles, deserted.
They’d pressed on towards the capital, only to meet with a Lothaini army. It was a battered, mismatched thing, of city guards, the house guards of the nobility, and massed civilians, but it had dwarfed their demoralized remnant of an army.
Albrecht had demanded they attack. His army, Ulric included, had simply surrendered on the spot.
Ulric stood in the snow and watched the Resolute Line of Kings of Geredain come to an end. It wasn’t a good end, and it wasn’t the sort of end he’d ever anticipated for Albrecht or himself.
At least the Lothaini had promised to preserve their names, that they might not be lost from the ancestors. Ulric took a little comfort from that kindness.
As his guards walked him to the gallows, he idly turned his head to one of the guards.
“I should have been a poet,” Ulric said.
The guard chuckled at that.
CHAPTER THIRTEEN
A Galicantan Propensity for Polite Lies
The polite lie was considered something of an art form in Galicanta, at least amongst the nobility. The Galicantan commoners were considerably blunter, and Raquella was far more comfortable among them than the nobility.
The key to the whole endeavor of the polite lie was ensuring the other party knew it was a lie, which Raquella had always thought defeated the whole point of lying. They’d developed ninescore and more subtle tells and rituals to ensure the other party knew it was a lie as well.
The fact that there were significant numbers of Moonsworn in Galicanta, despite the supposed ban, was one such polite lie. The nobility— and the Empress— merely referred to Galicanta’s Moonsworn as “southern provincials”, which not only served the lie that the ban was total but also bore the barb of claiming they’d conquer the Sunsworn Empire someday.
The Galicantan nobles were ever fond of layering their meanings. They were obsessed with elegance, subtlety, and delicate maneuverings, and Raquella had to admit, despite herself, that they excelled at all three. Their art and music were sublime, their architecture was ornate and daring, and their poetry was comparable to the best of what was on offer in the Sunsworn Empire.
It was just too damn bad that the Galicantans were also the most bloody-minded, vicious people on the Teringian continent.
They had a few rivals for that title on Oyansur, though— Raquella was loyal enough to her Sunsworn kin, but she knew that there were quite a few Sunsworn nearly as bad as the Galicantans. The current emperor was as belligerent as they came, and far less fond of learning, culture, and beauty than the Galicantan Empress.
Raquella had high hopes that the Emperor’s heir, Amazahd, might be a man of rather more refinement.
For all her frequent irritation with the Galicantan polite lie, she’d learned to live with it over her nearly forty years living in the Galicantan capital of Ladreis, and it seldom roused her ire anymore. She’d come here not yet twenty, and oh, it had infuriated her at first, but while tempers burned fiercely in Galicanta, the weather was too hot to let them burn long.
Today, however, was an exception. Today, she was quite willing to sustain her temper over the trouble the polite lie could cause.
“How long ago?” Raquella demanded.
“At least three weeks,” one of her healers gathered in her office said.
“So it could already be in Ladreis for all we know,” Raquella said. “And just because they wanted to preserve their pride or some such nonsense, the Galicantans hid it from us. Or more likely don’t want it getting back to the Sunsworn through us. And now we’re going to have to scramble to prepare for the Wrack’s arrival.”
“I mean, there aren’t any rivers running from the Lothaini border to here,” another healer offered.
Raquella glared at him. “It’s not waterborne, idiot.”
“It followed the Rhost in Geredain, though!” he offered weakly.
Raquella sighed. “Fine. It might be partially waterborne, if the month-old reports we’ve been getting through an elaborate chain of semaphore relays running from Geredain over the Krannenbergs, through Singer territories, then carried by ship to the Fractured Duchies, and then via poorly hidden and encoded semaphore messages to our Vowless contacts here in Ladreis are correct— which is entirely too long a chain of relays for me to trust without a hefty serving of skepticism alongside it. Based on the reports we have from the Lothaini Moonsworn, only a small part of the Wrack spread along the path of Lothain’s rivers. In addition, even if the Wrack did spread along the Rhost, who knows— perhaps it was actually spread by boatmen on the river.”
She grimaced, saying the harsh word Wrack. Daugthan, the language of Lothain and Geredain, was a guttural, rough tongue— nothing like the more graceful languages spoken in Galicanta or the Sunsworn Empire.
There was a direct translation of the word in Galicantan, but it was almost too graceful to use to describe the plague. And she still didn’t understand why the plague was named after washed-up seaweed.
“What if the Masquerade theory is correct?” one of the younger healers asked nervously.
Raquella just ignored the question. The Goddesses would not allow a disease like the Wrack to spread through their Sea. The nameless third sister simply could not be that close to freedom.
“What are the odds the Empress will let us use her emerald?” another healer asked.
Raquella sighed. “Practically nonexistent,” she admitted. “She’d need to acknowledge that we exist first, and she’s never even spoken directly to any of us southern provincials.”
A few of the assembled healers let out bitter laughs at that.
The rest of the meeting was taken up by Raquella ordering the preparations for her healers and the small Moonsworn community in Ladreis— mostly scholars and seers. There was always the risk the Empress would turn against them at little provocation, so the Moonsworn allowed relatively few families here, compare
d to their larger communities in the other Teringian nations.
The Moon had commanded they heal the sick and tend to the wounded of all peoples, but that certainly didn’t mean all peoples wanted their help, nor did the Goddess go out of their way to ease their task. All lands had their challenges.
The Eidola nations south of the Krannenbergs all feared they were Sunsworn spies, and greatly distrusted them.
The Eidola nations north of the Krannenbergs, the fearsome peoples known as the Singers, greatly respected the Moonsworn, but they didn’t hesitate to exile or execute them if they violated any one of the Singers’ twelve-score and twelve laws. Though the Singers may be violent and warlike, none loved law the way they did. But then, nowhere else were the laws things of beauty, sung by judges and guards.
The Sei hated everyone who didn’t worship their mournful, bad-tempered god of cold and silence.
The Radhan were, quite possibly, friendlier to the Moonsworn than any other people— often remarking they felt a kinship to the Moonsworn— but even they never allowed any Moonsworn to stay on their ship more than a few months. It was rumored that there was some sort of secret Radhan homeland, outside their enclaves throughout Teringia and Oyansur, but none knew for sure. The Radhan also regularly tried to seduce unwed— and sometimes even wed— Moonsworn, which had caused more than its share of problems.
The kingdoms and empires to the south, well… that was another story. The Sunsworn Empire was mighty, but there were those it walked lightly around. Still, by and large, their attitudes tended towards benign dismissal of the Moonsworn, which they could certainly deal with.
In recent years, one of the most troublesome kingdoms had, surprisingly, been the Sunsworn Empire itself. The current Emperor was making complaints bordering on that old heresy claiming that it was wrong for the Moonsworn to treat the enemies of the Sunsworn Empire. But, of course, when the Emperor says something, it is a truly brave— and truly foolish— person who accuses him of heresy.
In Galicanta, the problem was straightforward. There were no fiercer enemies than Galicanta and the Sunsworn Empire, constantly battling over the narrow isthmus between the two continents and launching fleets to battle in the seas to either side of it. The Galicantans had long distrusted the Moonsworn, considering them spies of the Sunsworn. And, of course, there wasn’t a people more violent and prone to challenge you to a duel or a war than the Galicantans.
They weren’t, Raquella reflected, always wrong to do so. The Sunsworn regularly tried to slip spies into the Moonsworn ranks these days. A few decades ago, under the reign of the current Emperor’s father, that would have been unthinkable, but…
She turned her thoughts away from those cynical thoughts, and finished giving out orders. Her last one was that Blind Sherra be briefed on everything they knew of the Wrack. She’d likely turned her interest to the plague already, but Raquella needed to be sure.
When the others had all left, Raquella idly pushed through the reports on her desk. Several had blocky, unsightly letters, each the same as the last. Raquella hated the new… printing press, they called it. It was hideous, ungraceful, and far slower than writing, save for if you wish to make dozens of copies of something.
Some of the younger Moonsworn scholars claimed it would change the world, but a report of supply shortages bore the same details in proper handwriting or in that blocky nonsense.
Raquella sighed, and stood up, her knees creaking only a little. She was old, yes, but her family aged gracefully, and she took far better care of herself than many did. Plus, not only was Galicantan cuisine delicious, Raquella was entirely convinced that it was excellent for one’s health— at least, minus all the meat of furred beasts the Galicantans ate. That the Eidola ate the meat of furred beasts was truly vile, but she’d learned to live with it. Raquella was quite happy sticking to the region’s lighter fare. The Galicantans could do absolute wonders with fish and vegetables and olives.
She poured herself a glass of pale wine, made from grapes grown just a day’s ride outside Ladreis, and strode over to the open balcony.
The day was drawing to a close, and Raquella made a point of watching the sunset from her office whenever she could.
She could see the brilliant, sapphire-blue ocean from her window, so high up on one of Ladreis’ countless hills. There were few steeper cities in the world, hence the old joke that even the elderly and children in Ladreis had the legs of warriors. Ladreis sloped down the steep hills down to the seashore, through countless winding alleyways and twisting narrow stairwells. Between them were numerous terraced plazas and fountains. The whole city was built of the local sandstone, ranging from purest white to bright yellow to a deep sunset orange. The rooftop gardens were shocking bursts of green, with flowers of nearly as many colors as the Galicantans wore on their persons. The Galicantans had more names for colors than any people she’d ever known.
In the distance, she could hear the faint crash of waves in the harbor below, and above it, the voices of a city of a million souls, all laughing, arguing, fighting, and singing. In the little plaza with the fountain directly below her, children yelled and screamed as they chased a ball around, while their mothers gossiped around the fountain. She could smell a thousand heavily spiced dinners being cooked by the fathers and grandfathers of the city, and she knew from experience that if she spent a few hours walking through the city, the scent would slowly shift and change, for every neighborhood and family in the city had its own spice blends, culinary traditions, and secret recipes that the men of the city had been known to literally kill to protect.
Even now, in the depths of winter, Ladreis never knew frost, and even its coldest nights only compared to a cool autumn night in Lothain.
As the sun slowly sank in the sky, the city came ablaze with the fires of twilight, and the night lanterns would be lit throughout the city, until someone looking down upon the city would gain the impression of standing above the stars themselves.
Though this was the city of those who proclaimed themselves her enemies, she had spent her life tending to them. She was no seer, but she followed the path of the healer nonetheless. She had no children, no family. She’d dedicated her life to Ladreis instead. Raquella loved this city, and she prayed to the Moon to spare it in the weeks to come.
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
A Duel at Sea
The day dawned clear and bright, and the fishermen of Apiela had sailed as far as they dared, until land was but a speck on the horizon. They were brave sailors and would take their knives to any who suggested otherwise, but they were no Radhan, to sail beyond the gaze of the ancestors.
The priests said that the ancestors saw everywhere, but the sailors knew this to be the posturing of uncallused hands that it was. The land was the domain of the ancestors, and if a man or woman were to die at sea out of the sight of the land, the ancestors would be unable to guide them to their arms, even with their name recorded. The sea kept what it took.
It was Illana who saw the Radhan ship coming into sight over the horizon first. Illana of the fierce smile, Illana of the hair like beaten copper, Illana the sharp-witted and sharper tongued, Illana who every fisherman and many of the fisherwomen secretly or not so secretly loved, Illana of the green eyes that could see farther than any of them.
The fishermen of Apiela cheered, for it was always a good day when the Radhan came to trade. They laughed, joked, and insisted that they would be chaste, and stand firm against the advances of the sea traders, whose appetites were famous. And all laughed at their outrageous lies, for the Radhan were nearly so charming as Galicantans themselves, not to mention less likely to take offense and a knife to them as another Galicantan would, and few there would turn down their advances if offered.
Pietro the quiet— that lean and thoughtful lad who so few noticed, that straight-backed uncomplaining worker, when it was his turn to boast, only smiled faintly.
“I might resist if I had reason,” Pietro said.
And the
sailors saw that he smiled at Illana the fierce, who should have been born a noble, so she might earn her spurs and fight against the heathens, for any life less was a waste of fire. Illana made a rude gesture, and fingered her belt knife ostentatiously, but Pietro’s smile stayed, and as the sailors jeered, only Pietro— Pietro the thoughtful, Pietro who walked like a dancer— saw the faint blush come to her cheeks.
It was again Illana who called out to the fishing fleet some time later— Illana of the voice like a babbling brook, Illana of the voice like a shepherd’s flute. Illana who let them know that there was something wrong with the Radhan ship.
And as the fishermen watched, they too saw that something was wrong with the great Radhan ship. It listed to one side, ropes lay tangled, and sails hung a-tatter off its tall masts.
Finally, the oldest of them, the fleetmother, old Enanda the salt-scarred, declared the ship lost to them, for it was caught in the great southerly current.
And the sailors all touched their lips and then their hearts in prayer as the word was passed between the fishing boats, and they were all quiet for a moment.
Until Illana the brave— Illana the foolhardy— spoke.
“We should sail out to it.”
At those words, a great hue and cry went up, each man and woman more ready than the last to call foolishness, to protest, for none of them save old Enanda had ever sailed out that far. Yet all knew it was fear that stayed them, and the protests were weak from shame.
“I agree with Illana,” a voice called out.
And the sailors looked, and saw that it was Pietro whose arms bore beautiful inked birds.
“Of course you want to sail out beyond the ancestor’s gaze, you fool. You want to sleep with Illana,” a sailor called out.
Pietro turned to face the sailor— Alphonse, of the ready fists and the crude temper. Alphonse the giant of a man, who in Apiela, only the blacksmith stood over.
