The Rot's War

by Michael John Grist

  "Hello!" he called into the white, advancing carefully. "Freemantle?"

  The crying grew closer. He turned through the mist to seek it out, sending wreaths of white trailing over his shoulders. Soon the crying grew loud, and the white unfolded to reveal a naked female figure kneeling on the floor, hunched over something shrouded by her long dark hair. Her shoulders kneaded up and down like strange lumps under the pale skin of her back.

  "Mother?" he asked, and approached cautiously. "Avia, is that you?"

  She didn't reply, so he laid his hand gently on her shoulder. At his touch she shifted to the side, revealing what she had been working on; a thin, gray-faced baby, covered in long wounds that seeped a slow, dark blood. In the woman's hand was a bloodstained knife. The baby was struggling feebly, held down by her hand.

  "My son," the woman whispered. Avia. Her mad dark eyes bored into his. "My son, where have your scars gone? Will I have to carve them all again?"

  Before he could pull away she clutched him by the throat and pulled him in toward the knife. He tried to break free but her grip was like a Balast's. She pressed the blade into his cheek and began carving again the first of his lines.

  FREEMANTLE II

  He jerked awake with a start, gasping in the cell. Freemantle was sitting by his side watching him closely.

  "What happened?" he asked eagerly. "Did you reach the veil?"

  Sen shuddered, disoriented by the speed of the transition from that white space to this one, still feeling the sharp pain in his cheek. He reached up to touch it, but there was no sign of blood on his fingers.

  Had it really happened? His eyes fixed on Freemantle's concerned eyes, urging him to explain.

  "I don't know," he said, trying to put words to the strangeness. "It was awful. I was in the same white mists, and I saw my mother carving my scars. Except it wasn't me, it was a baby on the floor, but it was me." The thought of that still shook him. "She was naked, and the baby was just..." He trailed off. "Bleeding. I spoke to her, and she reached up to start carving me too." He pointed to his cheek. "There's no mark?"

  Freemantle peered closer, paling now, but did not speak for a long moment.

  "Is there?" Sen pressed. "Was that even the veil?"

  Freemantle shook his head. "There's no mark. At least, I think so. Perhaps the skin is red, I can't be sure. But that is not the normal veil, Sen." He paused for a moment, wavering on the verge of an old, hidden memory. "I did have a vision like that once, though."

  Sen sat up straighter. His head throbbed as if he'd drunk too much amaranth wine. "What vision?"

  "It wasn't the same," Freemantle said, then stood, and went to collect another book from his shelf. "But similar enough."

  He sat again, with the white book resting tenderly across his knees, and ran his fingers over the plain cover. "I haven't read this entry for a long time."

  "How long is long?"

  "Centuries," he said wistfully. "I mostly stopped writing them after Kelly died."

  Sen looked at the book. Freemantle held it tightly shut, as if the contents would be dangerous if allowed out.

  "It's what you saw after she died," Sen guessed. "You said there was something, but you didn't say what."

  Freemantle lifted the book, then paused, clearly struggling, before he held it out. "Here."

  Sen took the book reverently and opened it.

  "I even remember the date," said Freemantle, his eyes losing focus as if he was gazing back into the past. "There was a terrible ague that year, brought on by cross-caste relations between Unforgiven."

  "You mean the Red Ague?" Sen asked. Freemantle nodded. "I've heard of it. It's why the Unforgiven were hunted down. You mean you witnessed that happen?"

  "Yes," said Freemantle dreamily, "and the genocides that followed. My line had not so widely diversified then; there were only twenty or so of my descendants in the city. All but one of them died in the sickness."

  Sen tried to picture how that must have felt, watching helplessly as his grandchildren died one by one. "Your descendants almost died out."

  Freemantle went on, seemingly not hearing anything Sen said. "I saw the vision as the last, a young Scarabite named Heckled Marcy, lay on her deathbed."

  "And what did you see?"

  Freemantle shuddered. "I don't like to think of it. It's in the diary, you can read it. The final entry."

  Sen flipped through the pages, past hundreds of entries written out in a neat hand that grew more disjointed as he neared the end, until he found the last entry and began to read.

  Today I saw something that terrified me. I closed my eyes to this cell and opened them in the veil, but the world did not appear. Instead I saw only white, and standing before me was my Kelly, sobbing. She didn't say it, but I knew from looking at her that our two sons had died. She was distraught, and even though I knew both Kelly and our sons had died many years ago, it terrified me to the core. I went to Kelly and embraced her, but I could not console her. She didn't notice me or hear my words, and nothing I did could ease her pain. She was alone, because I had abandoned her. All those years ago I abandoned her, and now I saw that the hurt had never stopped, not even after she died, and she would never forgive me for what I'd done.

  I woke in the chair. There was no sign of her.

  I know I abandoned her. Now she has abandoned me too. Have I been forsaken for the things I've done? It's so hard to know. I thought I did everything I could. Now I daren't go to her again.

  Sen touched the last letters, sprawled untidily and difficult to read, then closed the book. He looked at Freemantle, feeling his pain reach its rawest point. This was the point from which the deep, slow shame welled up.

  "What happened next?" he asked.

  Freemantle took the book back and laid it gently on the desk. "Nothing happened next."

  "But you did not write again."

  "Not in that book. I wrote in others. I wrote of the wonders in the world."

  Sen cocked his head slightly. "So you went back to the veil. Of course you did. But you never saw Kelly again?"

  Freemantle shook his head, offering nothing, but Sen read more into it. There were depths here he didn't understand, and perhaps they were important. He didn't want to pry into Freemantle's pain, but he had to know what the true costs of the veil were.

  "There's something you're not telling me."

  Freemantle stood and returned the diary to the shelf. He didn't turn back.

  "What happened next?" Sen pressed. "What did you do after you saw Kelly? You wrote 'I daren't go to her again', but you did, didn't you? What made that change?"

  "Nothing," said Freemantle, his voice blank. "I stayed in the cell for a week, and I didn't try to return to the world, until finally I did."

  Sen stood up. "There's something more. What did you do for all that time, Freemantle, only lie on the bed? There's nothing else to do here."

  Freemantle turned back to Sen. His eyes were weary.

  "I tried to escape," he said.

  "Like I tried? Smashing things?"

  "I tried everything you tried," Freemantle said, "everything I could think of, but nothing worked, and I could not escape."

  Sen's eyes narrowed. "So…?"

  Freemantle let out a long sigh. "It's one memory I wish I could forget. Here. This will be easier."

  He strode over and touched Sen's cheek. Memories poured across the contact, thrusting Sen back in time.

  * * *

  He was inside Freemantle's past, putting the diary down after writing the last entry. The vision of Kelly was still devastating, running through his thoughts endlessly. He couldn't see anything else, no matter how hard he tried. He paced the white room with his knuckles clenching and unclenching, his jaw working in fits and grinding his teeth, but there was no way to escape from this feeling.

  Abandoned.

  He sat on the bed and suffered the pain eating at him. Crying was useless; he'd learned that a long time ago. Screaming brought no relief. He
felt both urges raging behind the mask of his face, his lantern jaw churning, as the image of Kelly so alone wormed within his mind; Kelly ignoring him like he was nothing, because he was nothing. Nearly fifty years had gone by and he'd turned into a small hole in history, with no one left alive who remembered him.

  His arms trembled. His legs began to shake. He pulled the white sheet from beneath him and held it against his eyes, taut like a blindfold. His knuckles whitened over its white edges, and he pulled so hard it hurt, not because it meant anything to do that but because it meant nothing, and no one was watching, and nothing he did had any consequence.

  For minutes he pressed the sheet to his face with all his strength, until his arms quivered with the tension and his breaths came in gasps. Then he lurched to his feet and attacked the bed in a frenzy. He tore away the bedding and the mattress, then upended the smooth frame. He yanked on one of the bedposts until it cracked, splintering like no wood or metal he'd known before. He ripped the post free, shredding a cut into his left palm which he ignored.

  He beat the bed's leg against the wall until his hands and shoulders ached, but it made no dent in the perfect surface. He turned to the desk and upended it, scattering all his notes. He knocked down his shelves and his books, spreading half a century of accumulated notes across the floor. He exulted when one book split at the spine and the pages fluttered out.

  Panting, he noticed the faint pinkish blood from his palm staining the walls. He stabbed his other palm with the bed leg and watched the pink bubble up. He flicked it at the walls and watched the spray patterns it made. He slapped it palm-first onto the sheet, onto the desk underside, over his face. For a long moment he looked at the faint blood, and the sharp edge, then decided.

  He ground the sharp edge deeper into his wrist, cutting a furrow in the smooth white skin so more pink flowed out. This was a victory, and he cried it out. He tossed the bed leg away and dropped down beside the white chair, now daubed pink. He felt dizzy. He slumped there watching fake blood come out of this body that wasn't his. It wasn't a real body, and he wasn't a real person.

  His vision blurred. He curled up on the floor. He'd watched so many, many people die, and now he was one of them, and would join them. He'd go to Kelly again, and hold her this time, and she'd know he was there, and maybe she'd finally forgive him for what he'd done.

  He closed his eyes and his breathing grew shallow. His skin paled. Finally, he died. The room lay in tatters about him, until the light went out and hid its wreckage from sight.

  He woke again on the floor by the wall, in a white room that was undamaged, in a body that was just as perfect as before. He looked at his hands and laughed. He opened his mind to the veil, ready to attack anything he saw in that white space. Instead the world came. The Red Plague was over, and Heckled Marcy had survived. The helplessness fell from him. Somehow this was real again, and he had a duty to do.

  * * *

  Sen shuddered up from the vision, eyes blazing at Freemantle, who was now sitting meekly again.

  "I'm sorry," Freemantle said. "I thought it might be easier if I showed you…" he trailed off.

  "It's all right," said Sen, getting his breathing under control. The images were shocking, but he'd seen stranger things before. Seem in the ruin of Aradabar had committed countless atrocities. Alam's torments had gone on and on. "I understand. What you did, what happened to you. It was terrible, but I would've done the same."

  Freemantle looked up, the shame billowing off him. "Would you? I abandoned my duty. You haven't."

  "I'm just getting started," said Sen. He meant it as a joke, but it didn't sound funny even to him. "Listen. I understand. Did you see King Seem's memory, in me? Did you see the atrocities he did, when he went mad? Three thousand years he was alone, in the ruins of Aradabar. He murdered countless people. He enslaved Dark Giants and tortured them for a distraction. Anyone would go mad given that much pain."

  "I don't like to think about it. I did see King Seem. I saw what you've been through." Now there was sympathy in his eyes. "Your life hasn't been easy, either. When you beat Sharachus…"

  He trailed off, and Sen laughed, a sharp sound in the silent cell; more grief than humor. "Neither of us is perfect. But we keep trying. You're still here, watching over us all."

  Freemantle straightened up. "I'm still here."

  For a time they were silent. Sen squeezed his fists in their bandaging. Perhaps the next time he emerged from the veil, these would be healed, just like Freemantle's.

  "And you couldn't die," he said, after a time.

  Freemantle looked up. "No. After that, I realized there was no way out, bar handing the duty over. I could have done that many times, I think, in the years that followed. There were times when I felt the Darkness gathering, when the distance between myself and the world grew thin, but I didn't want to put this burden upon another. As time went by, I realized I didn't even really want to die. I just didn't want to be alone."

  Sen nodded. Nobody wanted that. Neither did they want to shirk their duty. That was always the choice. Responsibility was a solitary thing.

  "You're going back in, aren't you?" asked Freemantle.

  "I have to." Sen said. "I saw my mother, so maybe I can go wherever she went; perhaps another white cell, with another clocksman to watch over it." He smiled. "I have to try. Will you come with me?"

  Freemantle shook his head. "I've already tried everything I could think of. When you were gone I tried again, but there's nothing left for me in the veil. Perhaps there's something left for you, though."

  Sen nodded, and offered his hand. "Wish me luck then."

  Freemantle clasped Sen's hand between his own. "Good luck, Sen."

  He closed his eyes, and thought of Avia.

  THE VEIL I

  The white space appeared around him again, but it was different this time. The mist was cold now, and moved on a light wind, carrying flakes of white with it. Sen caught one on his palm; a perfect crystal that melted against the warmth of his skin. Snow. He turned and now there was snow falling everywhere, settling in a thick white layer over the grass. For a moment his breath caught, as he realized where he was.

  The Abbey.

  The sound of the Sisters singing a chorister hymn carried through the heavy, muting silence of the mist. Snow rustled as it trickled through branches in the graveyard. Down beyond the Abbey gates, distant figures moved on the Haversham.

  For a moment Sen just stood, absorbing this vision of a wintry world.

  It had been summer when he left the city. Snow hadn't fallen in months. Did that mean this was the veil, or was it real? In either case, it was beautiful; a world he'd lived in for most of his life. Standing there in the grounds, he realized how much he'd missed it. These had been simple days, spent with his friends in the Abbey. Even with the Adjunc to worry about, and his mother, and the dark circle of the Rot in the sky, it had been good; perhaps the best days of his life.

  Home.

  He started along the grass to the cloister, where he followed a path along the ancient flagstones that he'd walked many times before. The cold tingled in his fingers and toes, but didn't grow uncomfortable. Ahead the cathedral tower loomed like a ghost, its white spire appearing and disappearing through the mists and snow.

  At the habitry's edge he stopped, and looked into the schoolroom where they'd all once studied. It didn't surprise him to see them in there even now. Alam, Feyon, Daveron, Gellick and Mare sat at their long benches, working shapes into clay as they had on a day many years ago. For a long moment he watched them; all so young, so small.

  This was the veil, then. This wasn't real, but still he allowed himself a smile. He remembered this day, not long after the first time they'd shared their stories with each other in the night. The next day they'd worked on fashioning figures of their heroes from clay. For Sen that had meant a miniature of Saint Ignifer.

  His gaze now was drawn to Gellick, and he pressed his face to the glass to see better. He remembered
that for Gellick, this day had been different. The Balast had focused on his clay sculpture harder than any of them, and stayed long after the others had left to finish it. Sen had stayed with him. It was a happy memory, but sad as well.

  A breeze picked up around him, flurrying snow across the window and blocking Gellick from his view. Sen pressed his face closer to the glass to see, and when the flurry cleared he found he was no longer outside the glass, but inside, sitting at the bench with Gellick by his side. They were both modeling clay into the forms of their heroes.

  Sen looked around the room. At another bench Alam was sitting with Feyon, attempting to impress her with permutations of a long-necked Wyvern from one of his father's tall tales of King Seem's Yoked Empire, making it clown around and bite at its own wings. She laughed haughtily from time to time, when she was not examining her long black and silver nails. She didn't touch the clay at all. In the corner Mare shaped her clay into a powerful Cray atop a wing-sailed ship; the Albatross pirate king. Daveron sat with his lump of clay stretched into a long oval, depicting Awa Babo the Moleman god.

  Sen looked down at the clay beneath his fingers. He had child's hands, but more scar line than plain skin. The clay was hard and cold. He pushed a nut-brown finger into it, tanned from the last long summer in the grounds before he left, and tried to angle out a misericorde spike, sculpt a shield; the armament of the Saint, but each stroke in the gray lump only made it less lifelike.

  He turned to see Gellick's work. The Balast smiled when he saw Sen watching him.

  "It's Lord Quill," he said, his voice only faintly gravelly, like a patter of light rain on the Abbey roof. He held up the figure for Sen to see. To Sen's eye it was perfect, a replication of the last Man of Quartz so lifelike that he might leap into his chariot and burst into flight at any moment, carrying his eight wives and all the Drazi infection away from the city. His skin seemed to shine from within, as if afire.