The Wrack

by John Bierce

  Much of Raquella’s stress simply drained out with her next breath. As she thanked the Empress, though, she wondered, deep inside, whether they would be able to win the war at all.

  CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE

  He Who Would Grasp At Mist

  From the Memoirs of Johannes the Wanderer, also known as Johannes of Dannagrad, also known as Johannes the Singer-Friend, also known by half a dozen other names. He was an adventurer and scholar of the highest order, with prodigious interests across numerous fields of study. This entry dates from his travels during the dreadful time of the Wrack, some ten years before his mysterious disappearance in the jungles of central Oyansur. His collection of journals, including his half-written memoir, was found a year ago in a sealed chest washed ashore on the Citrine Isles. Johannes’ fate is unknown.

  There is a tale that is told to children across Galicanta about a man who wished to grasp the fog in his hands. It was one of many tales told in that land, and it was far from the most popular or beloved of tales. Few children demanded it be retold to them, for it was a strange, dissatisfying sort of tale.

  The learned could tell you that it was a tale found across all of Iopis, and it might very well be the oldest tale still told. Most thought it a mere curiosity.

  There were a few who paid the tale closer attention, though. The Radhan, those argumentative and inquisitive nomads, were the one people of Iopis who lacked the tale, and yet they seemed fascinated by it and sought out older and older versions of it when they could. The highest ranks of the Dedicated, that impatient new sect of moon-worshippers, paid close attention to it for reasons of their own, which they held even closer to their hearts than the nomadic Radhan did— and the Radhan were famed for their secrets. The Quae Emperors and Empresses, rulers of the oldest civilization on Iopis, shared a unique version of the tale only with their heirs. Their reasons were the closest-held yet.

  On the eastern coast of Galicanta, far from Ladreis or any other great cities of that arid nation, lay a single small village where that tale was told with especial interest as well. In that village, and that village alone, did children laugh and demand to rehear the tale again and again, and in that village alone was that tale truly beloved.

  It has been a project of some years for me to explore this story, to chip away at it to find its heart. I’ve spent countless hours attempting to pluck out the splinters storytellers have shoved into it over the centuries to put their own twist onto the story, or make it more palatable for their listeners. I’ve systematically compared nine-score and twelve versions of the story from a half-dozen languages— and translations from a half dozen more, seeking out the most common features in all the stories, and weeding out later additions. It was only one of my many interests over the years, but it was a project I always came back to. Though my work is far from done, this is the version of the tale I have distilled so far.

  There was a great man, once, whose ambition drove him ever onwards.

  The boy was born to wealth, but he craved power which could not be bought, and though not born royal, he was a king by manhood.

  He was not satisfied.

  The king craved power which could not be inherited, and by the time he had sons of his own, he had conquered the neighboring kingdoms.

  He still was not satisfied.

  The emperor craved power beyond any man before him, and by the time he had grandsons, he had conquered the world.

  He still was not satisfied.

  Now, however, he knew not what he craved. He had more power than any man now alive— any man who had ever been alive. He had a much-beloved wife, loyal sons, and much-indulged grandchildren. He was feared as a conqueror, respected as a just ruler, and loved as a caring judge.

  And yet he still was not satisfied.

  The man began to worry, then, that there was some insatiable hole inside himself that could never be satisfied. That he would die unsatisfied, never knowing what it was that he lacked.

  So the man sent to every corner of the world for the wise, to seek a way to plug a hole in his heart.

  Some of the wise suggested taking more wives, to fill that hole in his heart. The man, knowing that his fleshly lusts were no greater than those of the simplest farmer, sent them away, for he would not dishonor his wife that way.

  Some of the wise suggested that he simply indulge himself more, for the man led a strict lifestyle, seldom eating rich foods or drinking more than a single glass of wine with dinner. The man took their advice for a time, but he found only indigestion and miserable mornings. He sent those wise away, and returned to his strict ways. For their time, however, those wise were not sent away empty-handed, for the man readily forgave honest failure.

  Some of the wise suggested that it was a more spiritual life the man craved, and the man immediately saw the wisdom of this idea, pursuing spiritual contemplation and funding great temples in his domains. And it contented him for a time, but he could feel that hole inside him growing again, unsated by spiritual rewards. He did not send these wise away, for they had served him well, but he sought out others of the wise as well.

  Some of the wise suggested that he feared death and might seek from the alchemists and mages the means of immortality. That, perhaps, he might entreat certain beings with whom a bargain might be struck. At these so-called wise he only laughed, for he had faced death a hundred times in battle, and knew it as an old friend. At these so-called wise he only laughed, for he knew them to be not wise but cowardly, for all men faced death, and if their legacy was strong, they need fear it not. And he stripped the title of wise from them, and he sent them out naked in the world with only his mockery as a reward, bearing less than they had come with.

  Years went by, and a thousand thousands of the wise of the world marched through the man’s court. He was diagnosed with loneliness, and wanderlust, and a hundred other wants, and the claims began to repeat and repeat and repeat, and fewer and fewer of the wise were permitted into the man’s presence. And he grew old, but his mind never faded, and his will never receded, and that hole inside him only grew. So, however, did the conviction that he would never fill that hole. That he was not lacking anything, but was just broken inside.

  It was only when that conviction had grown so large that it began to turn into despair that the shepherd came to the man’s palace. None knew exactly how he earned an audience with the man, but the two spoke for hours and hours. They found a curious sort of kinship, the two of them— though the shepherd’s kingdom had only been a small flock of sheep and a few pastures, it was a kingdom nonetheless. They spoke of this kinship, and of other topics, but most of all what they spoke of was fog.

  For the shepherd lived upon the moors, and the fog frequently hid the sharp boulders, crevasses, and pits upon the moor, and herding his sheep was a more dangerous endeavor than one might expect, and one which eventually took his whole herd from him.

  The shepherd had followed his lost herd into the fog. He tracked them deep, deep into the fog. Deeper than he’d ever dared go before, for many before him had been lost deep in the fog on the moors. The shepherd kept going until he could no longer see the sun itself through the fog, and he could no longer even see his own feet.

  And then he left the fog, and found himself in a new land. A hot land, with cedars taller than the tallest palace, where lumps of gold littered the stream bottoms like pebbles, where great gems protruded from the stones like moss, and where great shaggy beasts with pelts of silk roamed freely.

  The shepherd had stumbled back through the fog, and wandered for what seemed like days. He never found his herd, but he somehow managed to find his way home again, and he collapsed to the ground, and slept like the dead on the moor for many hours.

  When he woke, he began his journey of many months towards the palace of the great man, for all the world knew of the hole inside the great man that all the wise of the world could not fill.

  And the shepherd was no wise man, but he thought, perhaps, that since conquest h
ad once filled the great man’s heart, perhaps it could do so again.

  At this, the man laughed, and he knew himself again for the conqueror he was, for none of the wise had ever suggested it, for the wise all knew there was no more of the world to be conquered.

  He bade the shepherd to lead him to this fog, and the conqueror and his armies followed the shepherd to the quietest, remotest, least important part of the world. And there, on the moor, the shepherd showed the conqueror the fog.

  The conqueror sent thousands into the fog. Few returned, but those who did spoke of countless new lands, all hidden behind the fog.

  When he asked the shepherd what reward he would ask of the conqueror, the shepherd declared himself a simple man, with simple desires. Which was to say, of course, wealth, power, women, and indolence. The conqueror laughed and granted it, and if he felt a twinge of jealousy that the shepherd’s desires were so easily fulfilled, he showed it not, for the conqueror was a gracious man.

  Years went by, and the conqueror grew ancient indeed, but his will and his mind never flagged, and even ruling from this remote part of the world, none dared rebel. His armies learned the ways of the fog, and began to bring back endless treasures to the conqueror. He toured a hundred lands, each more strange and wondrous than the last.

  And that hole inside the conqueror filled once more. For conquest, not power, not dominion, had always been what he had craved.

  At least, it filled for a time. As his limbs became frail and the end of his life approached, he came to realize there was one thing he had not conquered.

  The fog itself.

  Even as the conqueror’s death slowly crept towards him, he set all his alchemists, all his scholars, all his mages, and all the wise upon the project of conquering the fog, of forcing it to take him where he wished, of barring passage save to those he chose.

  And all those alchemists, scholars, mages, and wise ones all failed, again and again.

  The conqueror still feared death not, for he was confident in his legacy and had in that way conquered death. He was, however, impatient, for he knew death was coming.

  And the conqueror, in his impatience, turned to those once called wise who he had turned away in mockery, and he spoke to them of making bargains with those who might help him. Those cold, hungry beings which men spoke of only if they must, and only in whispers.

  And the conqueror, in his impatience, called to those beings for their aid. He called to those beings to help him grasp the fog that so eluded him.

  But the instant those beings came to the conqueror, the mists shut their ways and dissipated.

  The conqueror, furious, commanded those ancient, slow beings to leave him, for there would be no bargains, and he would pay them no price.

  In a quiet, unconcerned voice, the beings told him that their price was not for a bargain fulfilled, or even a bargain made. Their price was merely for being called.

  And the conqueror paid that price unwillingly, and the fog slid through his grasp, as even the most common fog would slip from the grasp of the most common man, for that was the nature of fog.

  Some storytellers try to impart some great lesson onto the tale, some moral of humility, of not letting ambition rule you, of knowing your place. A thousand different lessons have been attached to it— half of them contradicting the others— but somehow, every child knows that none of them fit. It is a disquieting tale that most would rather forget but end up telling their own children anyway.

  Most of those that pay the story special interest— the Radhan, the Dedicated, the Quae Imperial family— know not to try and find simple morals in the story.

  The little village on the southeast coast of Galicanta is the exception. They are the one group who has stuck a moral onto the tale and made it stick. Not thanks to any secret knowledge or great wisdom, though.

  No, simply because they’re over-proud and, to be frank, a bit thick.

  Their moral isn’t even particularly good. It simply consists of a single line tacked onto the end of the story.

  “And that, child, is how we know Antegada is the greatest village in all Galicanta, all Teringia, and even all of Iopis— we have surpassed even the conqueror, for we alone can grasp the fog.”

  As I believe I mentioned, the villagers of Antegada are most certainly over-proud.

  Antegada was a young village, as these things went. It was only a few generations old— not even a century, though the over-proud Antegadans always claimed a century for it.

  The village was founded by, of all things, shipwrecked Galicantan sailors. Their captain— like his descendants, over-proud and a bit thick— had sailed down the east coast of Oyansur towards Quae, despite the fact that the Sunsworn and Galicanta were actively warring at the time— and despite the fact that the Quae were, by all accounts, in the middle of their own civil war.

  The captain might have been over-proud and a bit thick, but he was also unquestionably lucky. Not a single Sunsworn ship came close enough to stop him, and he arrived at Quae only days after the end of their civil war. Their merchants, having lost immense sums during the war, loaded his ship with the finest of silks at shockingly low prices.

  No jewel-silk, of course. That was too dear to part with cheaply even in their desperation.

  The captain, because he was over-proud and a bit thick, decided to skip the long, coast-hugging voyage back to Galicanta, and instead, he decided to sail straight north back, venturing far out to sea like a Radhan. This wasn’t an entirely foolish decision, in some regards— no other captains knew the civil war had ended, so if he hurried, he might beat the news back and even sail south once more. This was in the days before the semaphore network extended across the world, of course— such a feat would be impossible today.

  And, to my great shock, he appears to have succeeded perfectly. One can draw a perfectly straight line due north from Quae to what is now Antegada.

  Of course, the location that is now Antegada was dead center in the harsh coastal desert of that part of Galicanta, the place known as the Barren Coast. Though right along the sea, many claim it to be the driest desert on all Iopis. There were no other settlements for a hundred leagues in either direction, and no sources of drinking water along that entire coast. There wasn’t even any plant life, save for moss that lived off the sea-fogs, for that coast had never seen rain in the recorded history.

  And, of course, that over-proud and slightly thick captain crashed his vessel right in the middle of the Barren Coast at top speed. Broke his vessel right up on the shore.

  The captain and crew rescued as much of the cargo as they could, and they spent their evening arguing over which way they should go. It didn’t matter much, for they had too little water remaining to take them safely in either direction along the coast, and inland was even worse.

  Their arguing went on well into the night until fatigue claimed them.

  It was, according to Antegada’s mayor, the captain himself who woke early and made the crucial discovery. According to the mayor’s wife and several other women I spoke to, it was the ship’s navigator, a woman of skill and wisdom, and the captain merely claimed the credit for himself.

  I’m prone to mostly trust the women here, for a pompous ship’s captain claiming undue credit is a common enough story. The one thing I distrust in their story is the claim to wisdom on the part of the navigator, because I’m ill-inclined to believe that virtue of anyone in this ancestor-forsaken village.

  Regardless of who made it, the discovery was simple enough. They strode out among the wreckage, and found the morning fog settling into droplets on a swatch of silk hanging from the wreckage.

  It was, I have to admit, a truly ancestor-inspired idea that occurred next. When the others awoke, the discoverer had planted timber from the wreck up and down the beach, draping bolts of silk across them. The morning fog was collecting upon all of them.

  The history that followed was long-winded, self-serving, and nearly worthless— and certainly not worth
repeating here. The shipwrecked men and women built a village on that brutal coast and constructed great fog-catchers for water. One would think the returns on water from fog a paltry thing, but it is not uncommon for a poorly built fog-catcher to collapse under the weight of its captured water. Antegada is truly flush with water, to the point where they have quite ostentatious town baths, and their farms and vineyards and orchards are lavishly watered. It is positively shocking to sail across the coast and then see the great shock of green surrounding the stone buildings of Antegada.

  As the only habitation along that barren coast, Antegada had become quite a major stopping point for traveling ships. The beach is long, shallow, and ill-suited for any sort of pier, but ships may safely anchor offshore, where they may row their own boats in or be met by the little fishing coracles of Antegada.

  In the early days of the village, the Antegadans were desperately poor for some resources, most notably wood and metal. Still, they made do during the decade it took for their new village to be discovered— in those days, few ships traversed the Barren Coast, and those that did so usually did at some remove.

  My personal theory is that they were just too foolish to build any sort of signaling mechanism, but it’s not one I’ve seen fit to share with my hosts.

  As with any destination, I had many reasons to visit Antegada. First and foremost, of course, was my unending wanderlust. I’d never seen the Barren Coast, and the stories of Antegada’s fog-catchers interested me. My pursuit of the tale of the conqueror drove me there as well, for I had heard mention of the village’s peculiar interest in the tale, though no particulars of their interest. That part of my visit turned out to be a miserable failure, to say the least— they only retell the tale for their own self-glorification.

  I had not heard any word of the Wrack yet in my travels, and for those weeks I spent in Antegada collecting their tales, exploring their farms, fishing alongside the villagers, and documenting the strange, hardscrabble creatures of the Barren Coast, I found myself content, knowing another ship would be along soon enough, and I could bargain for passage on it.