The Wrack

by John Bierce

  And Pietro, whose gaze always met your eyes, said, in a quiet voice that carried across the fishing ship in the sudden silence, “Does that not make me brave?”

  And Alphonse the brute snarled. “Sailing out past the gaze of the ancestors makes you foolish, not brave.”

  That little half-smile came onto Pietro’s face then, which was not a beautiful face as the faces in a painting might be, but one which lingered in your memory nonetheless.

  “It was not sailing out to sea which I claimed made me brave,” Pietro said.

  And Illana, so swift to take offense and so swift to give challenge, pealed out laughter like bells, and suddenly the whole crew was laughing, and the other fishermen on the other boats all strained to hear.

  And with that laughter, it was decided, and they sailed out to the Radhan ship.

  And the rest of the fishing fleet, so as not to show themselves cowards, followed.

  And for the first time in all their lives, save that of old Enanda, they sailed out past the sight of land, and past the watchful gaze of their ancestors.

  The Radhan ship was battered worse than they had seen from afar, as though it had sailed through a storm untended. As they drew close, none hailed them, and they smelled the stench of death, and they knew it for a ghost ship.

  The fishermen would have fled, but Illana who feared nothing, Illana who lived life only by full measure— leapt from the prow, and seizing a dangling rope, she scrambled to the deck of the Radhan ship, which bore the name Dawn Eagle.

  Behind her followed Pietro, who could swim the harbor three times over, and Alphonse of the jealous and cruel gaze.

  And the rest of the sailors followed, so as not to be shown cowards.

  Aboard the Dawn Eagle, they found far more bodies than should be on a ship this size, all bearing blackened fingers and toes, and everywhere rats nibbled on the corpses, and showed no fear of the fisherfolk. The ship’s boats were all gone, taken by any survivors. And the sailors of Apiela knew the Wrack had been to this ship, and the sailors quailed, for they rightfully feared the awful plague that their village had thus been spared. There was no shame in fearing the Wrack.

  But Illana, who never hesitated to reach for what she desired, laughed at those cowardly enough to flee.

  “Surely,” Illana said, “there are no cowards here.”

  And behold, there were not.

  “This ship is adrift, and salvage,” Illana said. “The sea has given this ship to us, which surely has many fine things aboard. We should not spurn the gift of the sea, for the sea is even quicker to take offense than I.”

  And the eyes of the sailors brightened with greed, but another voice stayed them.

  “No,” was all it said, and all the sailors turned, and there they saw Pietro, who never spoke an unneeded word.

  “No,” he said again. “Though Galicantan they were not, all sailors are our brothers and sisters, and I say we should honor their dead in their way, by sinking the Dawn Eagle and giving them to the sea. For our ancestors’ home is of the land, but the ancestors of the Radhan belong to the sea, and I would give them to their ancestors.”

  And the men and women all looked at Pietro, who had never spoken so many words at once, and then at Illana. And those with a bit of wisdom might have seen a flash of shame across Illana’s face— Illana who had oft before been led astray by her passions.

  And those wise might suspect that the flood of anger on her face then was at herself, for letting her greed overcome her, but the rest, those men and women who loved and drank and laughed without needing the curse of wisdom, saw only the anger, not the shame, and they knew it to be aimed at Pietro.

  “Pretty words,” Illana said, glaring at Pietro, “from a coward.”

  And the sailors went silent, for all knew what came after that.

  Old Enanda, who bore her share of knife scars and more, stepped forwards, having just made it to the deck of the Dawn Eagle.

  “We lie out of sight of the land,” she said. “If you must fight, let it wait until land.”

  And Pietro, who did bear the curse of wisdom, but perhaps was not yet ready for its burdens, shook his head.

  “And let Illana dishonor our salt-kin?” he said. “That I shall not stand for.”

  For he was right, that they must not steal from the dead of the sea, but like so many of the young, he let being right go to his head.

  And Old Enanda, who bore the greatest curse of wisdom in Apiela, sighed, for she knew there was no stopping this now. There might have been once— divide the two on different ships, let tempers cool, and perhaps an apology might be forthcoming. She would have forbid the looting of the ship herself, had she boarded soon enough to stop this foolishness. Perhaps both might have survived the duel, because in truth, few duels were to the death these days. At the very least, the duel would be on land, where the ancestors might guide the loser home.

  But now one party stood accused of cowardice, and one of dishonor, and Old Enanda knew better than to fight the tide.

  And on that deck, filled with corpses and neglect, circled Illana the beautiful and Pietro the quiet, and part of each regretted every word that had been said, and part of each desperately hoped that something might stop this, but both of them knew nothing would, and that chain of pride they’d thrown around one another drew tighter and tighter, until two knives flashed.

  And Pietro lay on the deck and bled, and Illana would bear a new scar across her collarbone, and not an eye in the crowd was dry.

  For the men and women of Apiela were not afraid to show their hearts, and something beautiful had been stillborn this day.

  And Illana wept quietly for Pietro, who she might have let steal her heart someday. She wept quietly for Pietro, who had fallen to her pride.

  And for the first time in Illana’s life, in the depths of her heart, she cursed her pride.

  And a crack formed in that pride, and the seed of the curse of wisdom was planted inside it that day.

  Old Enanda stepped forward then, and looked carefully at Pietro the quiet, whose quiet came not by choice now.

  “He’s not dead yet,” she said simply and bent to look closer.

  For a moment none spoke, and hope began to rise in many hearts.

  Enanda sighed then, and dashed those hopes against the rocks. “But it won’t be long,” she said. “He’ll make it not to sight of land.”

  And Illana’s quiet tears turned to loud sobs, and among the shriveled corpses of the Wrack, she embraced Pietro, who was soon to join them.

  And the sailors all touched their lips, and then their hearts, for Pietro’s soul was soon to be lost, here out of sight of land.

  And they turned towards their boats, to sail back to their own waters.

  But a sound stayed their feet, and they all turned back.

  For Illana, whose wit was so swift, had slung Pietro over her shoulder, and begun to climb the rigging. And for a moment none understood.

  And then, like a crack of thunder, understanding spread between them, and they began to cheer and shout, and the Dawn Eagle knew joy for the first time in many weeks.

  And Illana the swift flew up that rigging like none had ever seen anyone climb rigging before, not even unencumbered by any burdens, and they were amazed.

  For Illana was encumbered by not just by Pietro the dying, but by her own pride, for pride does not die in a day, and hers was a heavy burden indeed.

  And perhaps the burden of pride was too much, for a rope broke, and Illana slipped.

  And the sailors gasped, for Illana now hung from the broken rope with one hand, and held Pietro’s wrist with the other.

  And they knew she wouldn’t make it in time.

  But another hand reached out and seized Pietro’s other wrist, and together, Illana and Alphonse carried Pietro upwards.

  For even a brute like Alphonse may still have honor, and weep at such a tragedy.

  And together they brought Pietro to the crow’s nest, on the top of t
he tallest mast, atop a truly great ship indeed.

  And Illana gently kissed the crown of Pietro’s head as they settled him into the crow’s nest.

  And that mast was just tall enough that when Pietro opened his eyes for the final time, he could see, at the far edges of his dying vision, just barely cresting the horizon, the smallest speck of land.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Her Dedication Lacking

  “She’s not even a seer!” Yersina insisted.

  “No, but she’s still a widely respected scholar with years of field experience who has studied under some of the greatest Moonsworn administrators, city planners, and healers,” Yakob replied.

  “How are you supposed to even properly understand healing with two living eyes?” Yersina continued.

  “Weren’t you literally just complaining yesterday about how the Patient vastly overemphasize scrying when diagnosing illness?” Sariah asked.

  “Only when it’s at the unnecessary expense of other clues!” Yersina said. “Scrying is still by far the most effective tool. If we didn’t have seers, the healing arts would be literally impossible to practice. It’s dishonest to ever count a non-seer as a true healer.”

  “That’s a bold claim,” Sariah said.

  “I think she’s right about that, even if her other complaints about Raquella are unfounded,” Yakob said.

  “Look,” Yersina said. “I genuinely think that Raquella is a terrible choice to lead Ladreis’ Moonsworn during a plague. She’s fine as an administrator in normal times, but with the Wrack approaching?”

  “You’re saying that having her in charge will lead to more deaths in the city when the Wrack arrives,” Haim said.

  “She’s not a seer, which fundamentally limits her understanding of medicine,” Yersina said. “She’s more concerned with not irritating the Empress and her court than actually saving lives. And she’s a hard-line believer in Patient methods, which have utterly failed to stop the Wrack so far. We need to attempt Dedicated methods now. This is no time to be conservative and avoid risks— that, in and of itself, is an unnecessary risk.”

  “So, what then?” Yakob asked. “We try to get her replaced?”

  Yersina shook her head. “Even if we could get a message to the holy city in time— which we can’t, thanks to the prohibitions on us sending messages south via semaphore— they almost certainly wouldn’t see things our way.”

  “So, what then?” Haim asked. “Are you suggesting we convince Ladreis’ Moonsworn to mutiny against Raquella just weeks before a plague arrives?”

  Yersina shook her head. “You know what I’m suggesting,” she said.

  No one spoke for a moment. The fifth person in the room, however, had to struggle not to curse out loud as she realized what was being proposed.

  Of course, the reason she was staying quiet mostly had to do with the fact that she was spying on the four young Moonsworn healers from the rafters.

  Joanna was in a state of borderline panic as she listened to the four young Moonsworn argue fiercely below here.

  The Galicantan throne had a surprising number of spies monitoring the Ladreis Moonsworn population. The Empress and her ancestors, though they’d publicly forbidden the presence of the Moonsworn, fully understood the need for the healing cult. While Eidola healers had improved drastically over the years, they were still far from the skill and knowledge of the Moonsworn. If you needed anything more complex than a bone set, it was foolish to go to anyone other than one of the Moonsworn healers. Not to mention, having Moonsworn around kept cities remarkably healthier— and actually listening to them about city design cut down on death by disease to an absurd extent.

  It had been claimed that living in a city that forbid Moonsworn entirely took a decade off your life, and Joanna suspected there was a lot of truth to that.

  There were also definite dangers to having Moonsworn around. For all the Moonsworn denials otherwise, Sunsworn did sneak into the Moonsworn ranks— usually as spies among the non-healer Moonsworn, but on occasion as an actual healer. That last was terrifying, given the possibilities of healers acting as assassins.

  There was another downside to having Moonsworn about, and it all revolved around a very particular passage from their holy book, which commanded them to ‘slay the false healer to save the innocent life’. Compared to some passages from the Sunsworn holy book, that was incredibly tame, but the Moonsworn could be distressingly creative with who they chose to apply the label ‘false healer’ to. They’d assassinated bureaucrats simply for interfering with their duties before, referring to that as false healing through a chain of theological contortions. Terrifyingly, the Moonsworn had absolutely no compunctions about honor or killing cleanly. Poison was their preferred method, and it was seldom a gentle poison.

  Some of the Empress’s spies had noticed these four sneaking about, and Joanna had been assigned to follow them, because there was absolutely no worse possible time for there to be a Sunsworn infiltration. In the midst of open warfare would be better than this.

  Members of the Dedicated sect of the Moonsworn plotting to kill the leader of the Ladreis Moonsworn community, who happened to be a member of the Patient?

  That would almost certainly erupt into further violence among the Moonsworn, something all of Galicanta could ill afford right now.

  Joanna badly wished that Galicanta understood the schism between the Patient and Dedicated better. The Dedicated had simply arrived seemingly out of nowhere a few decades ago, pushing a number of new treatments and diagnoses. Moonsworn schisms usually ended violently, but this one had remained mostly stable for decades, with few murders and assaults— largely due to the fact that neither side could reasonably label the other false healers.

  The easiest solution here would be to have the four conspirators killed, but Joanna desperately wanted to avoid that if possible, and she suspected the Empress’s secretive, anonymous spymaster would agree. Even ignoring the fact that they wanted as many healers alive as possible for the Wrack’s arrival— which was closer than the public realized— there were often unintended consequences for killing Moonsworn.

  For one, the Moonsworn could not be underestimated. They were excellent at figuring out who had killed one of their members, at least in the general sort of way, and there were certainly awkward political pressures they could apply, even as marginalized as the Empress kept them. For another, Moonsworn being murdered tended to embolden anti-Sunsworn zealots, and often led to further Moonsworn being murdered.

  And, of course, there was always the risk that the Moonsworn would decide whoever was killing them were acting as false healers.

  Anti-Sunsworn zealots striking at the Moonsworn was a major risk right now, especially if word got out about the incredibly low rates of Wrack infection among the Moonsworn. All their intelligence so far implied that the Wrack had nothing to do with the Moonsworn, at least. They were hardly only the benevolent healers they presented themselves as, but for all their scheming and questionable loyalties, they would never deliberately spread a contagion.

  Haim glanced upwards as he stretched in his seat, but Joanna barely even tensed. She was well-concealed among the rafters, and she had no worries about the seer spotting her with his gemstone eye— she was entirely concealed in Quae jewel-silk, even having a veil of it over her eyes.

  Quae jewel-silk was known for four things: its unparalleled ability to take dye, its unusual strength, its extreme comfort, and, most importantly, the fact that it couldn’t be seen in the spirit realm. Seer-sight seemed to simply slip right over it. It didn’t show up as an absence or void in the spirit realm, either— seers were simply unable to perceive it. In addition, the undyed silk was a curious dark grey, rather than the white of other silks. It was unknown why that grey didn’t interfere with jewel-silk’s ability to take dye.

  But, as a curious consequence of that series of facts, the undyed silk was far more expensive than the dyed silk. The silk itself might not be visible in the spiri
t realm, but the dye was, and the bright colors made sneaking impossible to the naked eye. Quae was more than aware of those uses, and as a consequence, the only undyed jewel-silk to be found had to be purchased for exorbitant prices on the black market.

  Haim looked back down to the others as they argued, but the tension didn’t leave Joanna’s shoulders as she contemplated the risk the four young healers posed to the stability of Ladreis.

  Something needed to be done.

  Raquella tried not to gawk around her as she and the other Moonsworn were led through the Imperial court. In all her decades in Ladreis, she’d never once seriously imagined coming here. She didn’t know of any Moonsworn who’d ever been openly invited into the palace. Whenever a noble wanted to consult with a Moonsworn, it almost always happened outside the palace. In emergencies, Moonsworn healers were sometimes smuggled in at night, but they never got to see more than a few servant’s hallways.

  She was fairly sure she was gawking as much as any peasant. The Imperial Palace was magnificent.

  The palace, unlike so many of the larger Galicantan constructions, was not built for war. It was an immense, graceful expanse of minarets, cupolas, archways, raised bridges, and balconies, all fashioned from a delicate-looking pink marble quarried half a hundred leagues away. The ceilings were high, breezy affairs, and the whole palace was meant to keep its occupants cool in the often brutal heat of Ladreis.

  Inside the palace, there was not a single inch of undecorated space. The walls, floor, and ceiling were filled with mosaics, murals, tapestries, and paintings. All of them depicted scenes from life— everything from lavish masquerades to scenes of war, from fishermen at sea to farmers in their fields, from market scenes to merchants crossing the great deserts. Many of the murals and mosaics looked as though they dated back all those centuries ago to when Galicanta had ruled all of Teringia, and much of northern Oyansur. Their great empire had declined immensely over the centuries, but it had never fallen.