The Wrack

by John Bierce

  Even as slow as that night dragged on, it somehow ended.

  But at the very end of night, just before the sky began to lighten, someone in Ladreis shouted, for there was a light visible in the harbor.

  And the whole city was silent then, all watching the little light in the harbor.

  It was a small light, and it bobbed up and down, as though carried in the waves. It was some time before anyone could even say for sure whether it was drawing close, but no-one shouted again. Even the Wrack seemed to have quieted at the approach of the little light.

  Dawn always took its time coming to Ladreis. Long before light shone down into the city, it would crest above the palace, giving the pink marble an unearthly glow. It was one of the most magnificent sights that one of the most magnificent cities on all of Iopis had to offer, and yet none of its inhabitants saw it that day, for every single eye was fixed on the little light in the harbor.

  As it often did, the light of the sun rose over Ladreis in a great rush, as though a dam had been broken, and the little light in the harbor was revealed to be a lantern, hung from the prow of a little rowboat, which contained only a single man. He rowed slowly between the sunken hulks of the scuttled ships, but he rowed steadily.

  Any curiosity about what threats and demands of surrender that man might bear were quickly overwhelmed, however, with shock at something else.

  The fleet did not sail under the yellow and red pennants of the Sunsworn. They were obviously Sunsworn ships, but they sailed under an unfamiliar blue and silver pennant.

  And none save the Moonsworn recognized them at first, but they said nothing at first, out of fear and uncertainty at what they saw.

  But the light grew, and they realized that they weren’t dreaming, and the word began to spread in wonder among the Moonsworn, and others began to recognize the blue and silver pennants as well, for they were the pennants that hung over the great Temple of the Moon, in the nameless holy city of the Moonsworn, which lay distant from the Sunsworn holy city exactly halfway around the nameless holy mountain where the Goddesses had left Iopis.

  And there were some that would turn on the Moonsworn in their midst, for there were always those, but their compatriots quickly hushed them, for none knew what this turn of events meant.

  The little rowboat pulled up to the docks. Not to one of the great docks where war galleys or the deep-keeled ocean vessels of the Radhan might tie up. Nor to one of the more modest docks used by the coastal traders.

  No, it docked at the humblest of fishermen’s docks, and even still looked small.

  And the man clambered out of the boat and tied it to the dock, and none approached him.

  He was a tall, thin man, finely dressed but unarmed, with a great shock of black hair over skin nearly so dark.

  He clasped his hands behind his back and strode down to the end of the docks. And he strode up to the barricades, and he politely asked the soldiers if he might be escorted to see the Empress.

  Messengers were sent up to the palace, and the man waited patiently at the barricades. Of all things, he pulled a little book from his pocket and began to read.

  Finally, the messenger returned to the docks, and the barricades were pulled aside enough that the man might be led through.

  He was not bound, nor threatened with weapons, because even at a time like this, the Galicantans were fond of the polite lie, and there was no politer lie than treating an invader as an honored guest. His face was young and unlined, yet had eyes that belonged in a much older face. He walked with great dignity, but not arrogance, for he openly and frankly observed the Galicantans with the same curiosity they showed him.

  No one spoke, but a few nodded to the man, and he always nodded back politely.

  And the man was led up into the palace, and the waiting began once more.

  When the man stepped into the palace, the city seemed to find its voice once more, and whispered rumors and speculation began, and even the Wrack seemed to stop holding its breath, and the screaming began again. Or perhaps it had never stopped, for this was one of those moments that afterward grew so confused with the stories about it, until those who weren’t there remembered it nearly so clearly as those who were, and the latter would think themselves misremembering if their memories challenged the stories.

  Morning dragged on and on, as the hours had seemed to since the last morning, and no one spoke more loudly than could be heard a few strides away. The Moonsworn tended to the screamers, and the soldiers and citizens of Ladreis watched the sun rise above the palace.

  And then a noise shocked them all, and every citizen of Ladreis turned to face the palace.

  They all knew that noise. Some had only heard it for the first time in the days before the Wrack arrived in the city. Some had heard it much more, but even a visitor to the city who had never heard it before should know that noise.

  It was the Voice of the Empire.

  You could not understand the wire-carried voice outside the palace— it became a discordant ringing, like the strings of a harp struck at random. Yet, inside it, all could hear the cadences of a conversation. There gaps in the ringing of the throne where the tall man with the black hair spoke to the Empress.

  And as that conversation carried on, sometimes the discordant ringing of that wire throne bore anger that could not be mistaken, but those moments grew fewer and fewer.

  When, finally, the conversation ended, the tension in the city grew to a fever pitch, for all knew that their destinies had been decided, but to what end, they did not know.

  Midmorning arrived, and the front gates of the palace opened, and out came the palace guards, surrounding the emissary of the fleet and a little palanquin, borne by palace servants.

  And as that palanquin and that emissary strode down the switchbacking road that led from the palace to the docks, the soldiers ahead of them cleared the barricades so that they might pass easily. And that palanquin bore the Empress, and more rumors flew than there were people in Ladreis.

  And the palanquin and the emissary came to the docks, and servants set up a great parasol, and a pair of comfortable chairs, and a little table for tea. But the emissary and the empress did not go to that table immediately.

  Instead, the Empress spoke to her people.

  She told them of the Sunsworn Emperor, who craved conquest and dominion. A man who, when he heard of the misfortune of his neighbors, let his greed drive him to war. A man who was willing to take whatever measures to get what he wanted. A man who cared little for the demands of his own religion, and visibly resented even the smallest of religious duties.

  A man who wouldn’t even keep to the dietary laws of his people.

  A man who, on the brink of launching his fleet, collapsed to the ground screaming. The first man in all of Oyansur felled by the Wrack.

  And he screamed himself to death in front of ten thousand of his soldiers, for his heart, weakened by years of rich living, could not survive the strain.

  The Empress told the crowd that the son of the Emperor, Amazahd, a youth little thought of in court politics, stepped forwards and was crowned immediately.

  But not as the Sunsworn Emperor.

  No, as the first-ever Moonsworn Emperor.

  Instead of soldiers, he filled the fleet with healers, seers, food, and medicine, and sailed north on a mission of mercy.

  And he stood beside her, having braved alone a city filled with his enemies, with no thought to his own safety.

  And Empress Phillipa and Emperor Amazahd went to that little table, drank tea, and talked of matters that only they would ever know. And the rowboats and fishing vessels and pleasure craft of Ladreis went out to sea, and they met the Moonsworn fleet, and they began to ferry in the seers and healers of the Moonsworn fleet.

  It was a beautiful morning, marred only by the screams that still rose from the city.

  ———————————————————————

  Author’s Note on Epidemiology in the
Wrack

  This section discusses the Wrack and other diseases of Iopis in terms of real world epidemiology.

  A few notes on the Wrack:

  The Wrack is a parasite— a microscopic multicellular animal— not a virus or bacteria. Like many parasites, it’s a zoonotic disease, one transmitted between animals and people. In this case, between cattle and humans. The parasite is largely harmless to cattle, residing in their blood, with the only notable shift being slightly more skittish behavior than usual. The parasite is spread between cattle via fecal contamination of grasses being grazed and of drinking water. The Wrack parasite’s method of entering the bovine digestive tract to spread via stool is currently unknown, but hardly unprecedented.

  Zoonotic diseases, it should be noted, make up the majority of contagious diseases that infect humans on Earth.

  The Wrack gets passed to humans via consuming beef— the Wrack parasite is incredibly temperature resistant, and anything less than a near-charred lump of meat will likely have the Wrack still present in it. It survives temperature extremes by producing massive quantities of a temperature-resistant protein and dehydrating itself, similar to how tardigrades survive extreme conditions. (The Wrack is a much smaller and simpler creature than tardigrades— parasite evolution often tends to reduce biological complexity over time.) Somewhat ironically, though the parasite can survive extreme temperatures, it starves quite easily— turning the meat to jerky, or merely letting it sit long enough before cooking it, will kill the parasite before long.

  When the contaminated cow meat is eaten, the human body does, in fact, attempt to filter out the Wrack, recognizing it as a contaminant, but the Wrack finds the human liver to be an extremely hospitable place to live and hide itself from the human immune system. (This is similar to Plasmodium, the parasite that causes malaria, which lurks in the human liver during part of its life-cycle. Plasmodium is plant descended, however, not animal descended.) The Wrack parasite, when awakened from its dormancy, tends to be far more aggressive than usual, and begins reproducing at a wild rate inside the liver. It usually reaches a critical mass within two weeks. When that happens, the parasite then begins actively producing a neurotoxin as a stress reaction. This can be provoked by stress reactions within the human body as well. (A parasite producing a neurotoxin sounds weird, but it’s not unprecedented— the botulism bacteria, Clostridium botulinum, produces the most poisonous substance on Earth, the botulinum neurotoxin. Botulinum toxin is also known as botox, which in small doses has both cosmetic applications and medical ones. Given that one of the main ones is treating muscle spasticity, botox would actually make for a potentially viable treatment for the Wrack!)

  The Wrack neurotoxin isn’t usually fatal on its own, and it’s something of a distant relative to more typical terrestrial neurotoxins. The primary symptom is the characteristic triggering of skeletal muscle nerves, causing full-body convulsions. This in turn can cause other nasty symptoms, such as heart failure, fatal throat spasms (fatal laryngospasm), and rhabdomyolysis— a condition caused by the breakdown of muscle tissue, which can poison the kidneys. (Which, in turn, causes the dark urine.) The other major symptoms of the Wrack neurotoxin include severe damage to the nerves and tissues in the extremities, as well as long-lasting neurological damage leading to reduction of color vision, memory troubles, sexual dysfunction, etc. (Loss of part of the ability to see color was a symptom of the Spanish Flu as well.)

  In over half of the victims of the Wrack, the neurotoxin production phase gets skipped entirely.

  After the neurotoxin phase (or skipping it), the Wrack parasite floods the body, resulting in a mild to moderate fever, light fatigue, and long-lasting diarrhea. The parasite is usually fought off by the body after this point. Rarely, it can stay and recolonize the liver, starting the cycle over again, but only in perhaps one of a thousand cases. Once the parasite has left the liver, it’s quite easy for the body to fight it off over time. Though it’s highly resistant to fever, it’s quite easy for the body’s other defenses to wipe the parasite out.

  The primary way the Wrack spreads other than through eating contaminated meat is either from humans drinking contaminated water— or cows drinking it, then infecting people. Given the highly unusual attention Iopans pay to drinking water quality, thanks to the Moonsworn, the cattle vector was much more prevalent. On any other world, it would likely be reversed.

  The targets of the Wrack tended to be the wealthy first, who, as they could afford to eat beef far more frequently than anyone else, were far more likely to be infected. The Moonsworn, who don’t eat the meat of mammals and were scrupulous about clean drinking water, rarely caught the disease at all.

  A few notes on non-Wrack Iopan contagions:

  Some of the diseases mentioned in this book are fictional, but others are real-world diseases.

  Foul Gases from a Galicantan Lake: Some lakes in warm regions can build up massive amounts of carbon dioxide and methane in their depths produced by volcanic gases vented into the lake. This occurs when there are strong temperature differentials in layers of the lake. When an event occurs that mixes the layers, this can cause a massive outgassing, known as a limnic eruption. In 1986, Lake Nyos, in the African nation of Cameroon, had a massive CO2 limnic eruption that killed 1,746 people and over 3,500 head of livestock via suffocation. In The Wrack, the Moonsworn are correct in attributing it to volcanic gases, despite their internal conflict over it.

  Mudpox: Childhood disease similar to measles, produces huge pus-filled blisters across the body, especially on the back. Can be fatal if untreated. Spreads via coughing and sneezing.

  Sailor’s Pox: The common Iopan name for syphilis. Syphilis, though fairly easy to treat today, is a nasty piece of work. It’s challenging to diagnose, often being referred to as the Great Imitator, due to its symptoms frequently resembling other diseases and health conditions. This bacterial disease can lie apparently dormant for as much as a quarter century after the initial stages of the disease, until kicking off the truly horrific third stage, which can vary in form wildly, from gross disfiguration to complete mental breakdown and insanity. (Quite a few historical figures have been speculated to have died or been driven to suicide by the latter version, known as neurosyphilis, including Friedrich Nietzsche, Leo Tolstoy, Vladimir Lenin, Al Capone, and Adolf Hitler.) Pregnant mothers can also pass it to their children, leading (tragically) to congenital syphilis. The fight against syphilis is ongoing, though far from won. As of this writing, Cuba is the only nation to have eliminated congenital syphilis.

  Horsepox: Fictional disease. While there is a real-world disease known as horsepox, it’s a disease of horses, not humans. Iopan horsepox is a blood-borne disease characterized by huge, painful sores on the torso and limbs in humans. It’s seldom fatal, though it usually leaves distinctive, ugly scars. While most Iopans think it comes from horses, humans actually act as its main carriers, spreading it to horses, among whom it is extremely lethal. It most often spreads via contaminated water.

  Bride’s Blush: Fictional. Sexually transmitted disease that results in a full-body rash that makes it look like the victim is blushing. While the rash goes away after a couple of weeks, the victim remains a carrier for the rest of their life. It’s quite common among newly married people, and is a sure sign about their new bride or groom’s past.

  Flux: Dysentery. Not precisely glamorous by epidemiological standards, but there’ve been few more reliable killers in human history, even today.

  Appendix A: Galvachren’s Guide to Iopis

  Iopis is far more important to multiversal politics than any aether-poor world such as itself should be. This is, in great part, thanks to its seers.

  There are only four known labyrinths on Iopis, though all of them are growing in junction mana wells. Counterintuitively, linear mana wells are more often found on high-aether density worlds. Three of the four labyrinths are mist-formed labyrinths. The debate on whether mist-form or tunnel-form labyrinth worlds are more common do
es, as usual, rage on, but, as usual, I remain convinced mist-form labyrinths are more common. The original forms of the labyrinths are now so rare as to be nearly extinct, and the other types that have evolved are quite uncommon as well, though marine labyrinths are theorized to be fairly common.

  Physical Overview: Iopis is an old, small world. Earthquakes and volcanic eruptions are rare, and much of the world’s geological activity has ended. Traces of past activity are everywhere, though, and the frequency of gemstones to be found on Iopis is, in part, a relic of its highly volcanic past.

  Despite its small size— only about three-fourths of multiversal standard— gravity is actually a little bit higher than the multiversal average. Not so much that you’d notice easily, but enough that it can be measured.

  Iopis has two major continents, connected by a thin isthmus, and a number of archipelagos of varying size, many uninhabited, though the largest of those is a stronghold of the Radhan.

  Aetheric Overview:

  The classification of aether is an easy enough task on most worlds, but not on Iopis. Iopan aether strenuously avoids easy classification. There’s quite a bit of debate whether it’s gas analogue aether or liquid analogue aether. I tend to favor the latter classification, though if grease analogue aether were an accepted part of the aetheric taxonomy, I might switch my vote.

  Regardless, the aether of Iopis is near impossible to manipulate magically, and a mage filling their mana reservoir will take far, far longer than on even other comparably low aether density worlds— and, to be sure, Iopis’ aether density is as low as it goes without being an aether desert.

  While the aether of Iopis is notably thin and difficult to work with, this hasn’t prevented a quite interesting form of local magic from arising— a form of scrying that allows one to see directly into the aether, a task usually only accomplished by the most skilled of mages on most worlds, though many of the [redacted] have developed a crude form of aether-sense that allows them to crudely perceive the aether around them. ([Redacted])’s note: I hate praising those pompous self-proclaimed godlings, but their aether sense is, though crude, damnably effective. One should never underestimate efforts that sacrifice elegance for effectiveness. Perfection is ever the enemy of success.)