Of course, there were other worlds, other stars they could find if they wanted to expend the effort. To Ariah’s way of thinking the gods had long grown old and lazy, which was why he and his brethren made their own plans.
The Iron Mothers gathered the seeds and took them into their bodies. Some of them were still intact, had remained uninjured by their exploits, but others were scarred and battered and barely had the strength to move on.
Though it cost the demon greatly, Ariah offered his essence to the weakest among them, giving them life when death would surely have claimed them. To all of the Iron Mothers he gave his essence, strengthening them for what came next.
All of them moved together. Some ran on two feet, others ran on four limbs. It did not matter so long as they worked together to reach their destination.
As they ran, their skin hardened like a crust of bread. Under that flesh their new forms would fester, changing as a caterpillar changes. The metamorphosis would be slow, but it would take place. Transformation is often painful.
Still, as has been said before, the demons could not create life, they could only alter it.
Ariah stayed locked in his prison for now. Around him his plants grew, his vines moved, and the dead remained dead. Seeds, once planted, needed time to grow. Soon enough it would be harvest time.
Interlude: Daivem Murdrow
Daivem eyed the caravan coming toward her and let out a soft sigh. The wagons and banners bore the royal colors of Giddenland, which she only knew because she had studied a scroll in her brother’s offices. Giddenland was the very place she had just traveled through as she walked north and west, following the call.
It was seldom she walked so far to follow a summons, but in this case the source of the call had soared through the air, carried by winds and worse, until it fell like a star.
Now, nearly close enough to see her target, there was this to consider.
The driver of the first wagon called out to a man next to him, who in turn used a horn to call out to the next in line even as the first pulled to a halt before her.
Daivem Murdrow looked around. There was little to see here but snow and ice, and yet here they were, stopping as if she might be some vast, insurmountable obstacle.
“What happened here?” the driver demanded of her.
Daivem looked around again. There was snow, more snow and something else. She frowned as she squinted against the white glare.
There were drifts in the pure field of white, but she’d barely seen them. Still, had she been paying attention she would have heard the sounds, otherworldly though they might be. That was the nature of the Louron. They heard and they felt what others did not. She had been so focused on the one voice that called to her that she ignored the softer, more plentiful voices.
The closest drift was far enough away that she barely paid it any mind. Still, she looked at it now and understood.
“Bodies have been burned, I think.”
“Not the bodies!” the man’s voice broke with growing tension. “What happened to the walls? What happened to the whole city?”
“City?” Daivem frowned and went over the map she’d tried to memorize on the way. There was something here, perhaps. Or there should have been. There was no terrain to study, only the endless snow. Still, she looked carefully and realized that there were more drifts of snow collecting against mounds of bodies than she had realized.
The dead did not frighten her. She was from Louron. She traveled between worlds, often on a search for the spirits that cried out the most. The dead held no secrets from her. They could not.
Still, this was different from most cases. The dead seldom spoke unless they had something to say. Mostly the spirits moved on unless there was violence. There had been violence here. There had been great violence. She frowned as she studied the dead. They had not moved on. They had been stolen away.
The dead here were gone, imprisoned.
“Where did Edinrun go?” the man yelled now, speaking slowly as if to a fool. Perhaps she was a fool. She should have noticed. She should have known, but someone was stealing the dead away from their ruined bodies.
Edinrun. She shook her head and pressed her lips together. What was wrong with her? How could she not see?
“The people of the city. They are dead.”
She frowned and looked to the man who spoke to her. He was hard, a soldier, well trained and well seasoned like hard wood. He would fight and try to kill her if the command was given. He was not alone. At least a hundred more rode with him.
“I’m not from here,” she said. “I have been on the Kaer-ru Islands. I’m from Louron.”
That stopped him. Her people had a well-cultivated history of mysticism. It often did them well to be feared instead of only respected. Respect could be pushed aside more readily than fear.
The man nodded and, through the snow, she saw another man approach the driver.
After ten minutes of conversation the man who’d walked up vanished back onto the caravan and the rider turned to her again just as she was getting ready to walk on.
“King Opar would speak with you.”
Opar, she knew, was the king of Giddenland. If he wished to speak there was little she could do except agree or run away. So far she had no reason to run. Her hand squeezed the wood of her walking stick and she nodded.
“I will answer any questions that I can.”
The rider sighed and climbed down from his wagon and gestured for her to follow. He did not wait to see if she did so. That was always the way with armies. They assumed everyone would obey, especially any who were afraid to die.
Daivem was not afraid to die. It was not the way of her people.
The cold was harsh, but she was well bundled and had grown accustomed. The wagon she was led to, and allowed to enter, was wonderfully warm, and she sighed as she stepped inside.
It was not overly ornate, but the wagon was sturdy and comfortable. There was a small stove for burning wood and it kept the air as warm as the tropical islands where she was born and raised.
The man that faced her was handsome, and while his smile was friendly, his eyes bore the haunted look of someone well out of his depth.
“I am Opar. I am king here. Thank you for talking to me.” He seemed genuine enough in his words, as if he did not know she had been given no options in the matter. Perhaps he did not. Perhaps she had made assumptions because she faced soldiers. In reality they had offered her no sign of hostility.
“I will offer any help I can, King Opar, but I am not from here.”
“You are from Louron, yes?”
She nodded.
“Louron is not like other islands. I have visited the islands, but I could not visit Louron. It was gone the day I went to visit.”
“We are protected.” She did not clarify. Louron, the people of that place, her people, they were not anchored to one world. They moved between worlds as the Shimmer saw fit. The Shimmer was the gift that protected them and it also protected the lands where they lived. While there was a connection to the world of the Five Kingdoms, it was not as strong as it was with many other places. Likely because the gods here were so temperamental.
“I am trying very hard not to, well, not to panic. But my capital city is gone.”
Daivem nodded again, studying the man’s face. He seemed like he was close to panicking and she could understand that.
“If this is where it is supposed to be, then yes.” What else could she say?
“How could that happen?” He stared hard at her. “How can a city disappear? I was told when we looked for Louron that the weather was wrong, but I just thought the boat’s captain was a fool. But now this. I don’t understand.”
She did not want to do these things. She did not want this conversation, but she was here and the man was lost in dread over his people and his country.
“I cannot tell you what has happened, but I can try to find out.”
“Can you? I thought to find a scr
yer or possibly a Galean.”
“They would indeed be better equipped to help you, I think.”
He leaned forward and stared into her eyes. He was handsome, but he was also the sort that seemed too intent on having his way to be worthwhile.
“I must ask this of you. Please.”
She stared for a long time and finally nodded. “I will do this.”
His smile was genuine enough. The relief in his eyes was likely true. Still, his eyes lied when he offered his thanks. There were hidden things that, she supposed, weighed on the shoulders of a monarch.
Without another word she rose into a crouch and let herself out of the coach. The man who had led her there began to follow and she looked over her shoulder at him. “You may follow me, but you cannot go where I am going.”
“Where are you going?”
“To find your king’s city.”
He started to say something, but by the time words would have been heard, she was gone.
She had seen people taken by the Shimmer, of course. It was as common as a breeze where she was from, but it took effort so far away from home. She had to ask the universe itself for help. Happily, the universe was kind. It looked like a person simply fading away as they moved. It felt like waves of water rippling across the body, but there was no moisture and those waves were exactly the same temperature as the traveler.
There wasn’t far to go. She stepped onto the Shimmer and saw the city. It still existed, but it was locked away. She could not say what exactly surrounded the city, but she knew that to touch it would be bad. If the Shimmer seemed, to her mind, like water, then what her mind told her about the barrier around Edinrun was closer to a wall of burning thorns. Nothing burned. Nothing was stabbed by the sharp edges, but her mind told her it would feel like flame and hooked points.
Would she be able to walk away if she risked contact? Probably. A short walk brought her to one of the gates; she could not have said which one. All she knew was that the gate was open and that the living and the dead alike pushed at that entrance and had no success moving it. They felt no pain as they tried to break through, but the energies were there and held them back.
The living wore armor different from the soldiers that she’d already seen. The dead were different. Most wore only what they believed they should be wearing. In most cases that meant the very things they had died wearing.
One last look at the barrier. Like the Shimmer, the power was pervasive. It was everywhere and had no flaws. That told her all that she needed to know.
Stepping back to the Five Kingdoms was as easy as exhaling. A momentary sensation of waves without water and she was there. Daivem had walked only a few yards, but now her distance was several hundred feet from where she had been. A dozen soldiers had gathered and were looking for her.
Daivem allowed herself a smile. Let them call and look. She walked to the king’s wagon and opened the door.
He looked relieved to see her. “We thought you taken.”
“I had to travel a distance.” She did not clarify. “The gods have taken your city. It still exists, but it is no longer here. They have removed it and sealed it as one might seal a clay jar with wax.”
Opar shook his head, eyes wide and mouth pressed into a tight line.
“Can you take me there?”
She shook her head and lied. “No.” She could have taken him there. The Shimmer would likely permit it. But once most people traveled that way they came to expect it. She would not be in service to this man. She had offered him information and had granted it. There would be nothing else.
“I do not think the gods want you to go there. I do not think they would let you come back, even if you could travel to that place.” She closed her eyes. “The people I saw within the city wore the colors of another land. The dead… the dead outnumbered the living by many. Your city is gone. If you have access to the gods, they alone could help you retrieve it.”
King Opar slumped in his seat and nodded his head. “I am lost. I have no way of saving my people.”
Once again Daivem rose from her seat. She stared at the man and wished she could help him, but her plans did not involve retrieving lost cities.
“I wish you well, King Opar. Seek the Galeans. They have many secrets.”
The king nodded. “There is nothing for it. I must go to Torema.”
If he was expecting a response, he was disappointed. Daivem slipped away into the snow and resumed her solitary trek, lamenting only that she could not take the warmth of the coach with her on her travels. The king and his retinue moved on, and she went in the opposite direction.
Twenty minutes after she’d left the caravan she cursed silently and turned back. The dead called. There were some among her people who could ignore that, but she was trained to listen and to give aid when she could.
At least the place where Edinrun rested was not quite as cold. Daivem walked a long, slow perimeter of the gate, studying the signs that made themselves available. The spirits of the dead were not completely locked away. She watched one move and writhe and push against the barrier until it slid free.
“How are you here?” The man’s voice carried a note of desperation. “Can you help me find my way back?”
Well, that was the question, wasn’t it?
“I do not know. Tell me what happened?”
“The Undying came. They brought madness with them. I could not see. I could not think, not in the right ways. All I could do was, well, go mad.”
“How?”
“How did I go mad? I couldn’t think.” The man shook his head and his bald scalp shone in the spectral light of a nonexistent sun. “I saw my wife. I couldn’t speak her name. I could not touch her, I ran away from her and… I feasted.” He wept and she understood. He’d been taken by unnatural hungers. She had seen it before in different places.
“How did you get past the wall?”
“I only had to think about it hard enough.” He frowned “And push very hard.”
“Can you bring others, show them how? If I am to try to help you, I should try to help as many as I can, for I will not be this way again.”
The man nodded and worked his way back through the barrier at the gate. The living did not notice him. That was not surprising.
While he went on his mission, she prepared herself, sitting on the ground and muttering. The walking stick was key, of course. For as long as she had been practicing she had worked on that hardwood shaft, carving the designs that the wood said should be there and imbuing the deep mahogany with power.
Her hands moved through her pockets, rooted in the bag she carried at her side, and finally found the right collection of ingredients. This place was not filled with the ambient remains of endless lives passed. If she were in the area where the wretched dead had ended, she would have been able to use that to her advantage. Necromancy was always easier where the dead had been. Without that benefit she had to use the herbs and powders she had collected over the years.
They came to her. Only a few at first, but more and more as the dead realized they could get through the barrier and possibly find a way back home.
Daivem had known to expect many, but the sheer magnitude of the dead was unsettling. So many had been slaughtered in the city. Very possibly all of the city. It might well be that none had escaped the slaughter.
She looked at the gate, saw the living still trying to press through the invisible blockade to their freedom and felt a dark satisfaction. Let them suffer if they had done this thing.
When she was surrounded by the dead, Daivem stood and held her walking stick high over her head. The mutterings of the dead stopped immediately and they looked at her with a combination of awe and fear and, yes, hope.
“I am Daivem Murdrow. I come from Louron. I have been trained to walk the world and to deal with the dead. I am here to try to help you, but I can make no promises. Do you understand?”
The man who had spoken to her earlier nodded on behalf of them all
. “We understand.”
Her dance was not necessary. It did not change the magic, but it helped her calm herself and remember all the details of the ritual. Ritual helped, sometimes, and they were taught all they learned with dance and with words alike.
The Shimmer did not approve of unknown travelers. The dead were known to the Shimmer and always had been; that was an advantage.
The wood in her hand glowed softly, and the air hummed with power as she worked her will on the Shimmer, asking for help and giving direction when the help was offered. The rift she tore between the worlds was a dozen times her size. The air rippled where the opening existed, and a sickly light flickered along the edges, sometimes silvery and others a pale green that hurt her eyes.
Without words she told them to move and the dead listened. The pretense of human form fell away from them as they moved, swimming the ethereal currents as they reached for the realms beyond their temporary prison.
Daivem freed them, but she exacted a price. The cost of opening the barriers between the worlds was heavy and if she had paid it herself she would likely have killed herself. Instead she took from each of the spirits. A small bit, effectively the equivalent of a hank of hair, but that energy would never come back to them.
As the last of the dead moved through the tear in the universes, Daivem joined them, stepping back into the bitter cold of the apocalypse in the Five Kingdoms.
They were still there. She could feel them as they began to disperse.
“Will the gods be angry with you?” It was the same spirit, the one who’d been trying the hardest to escape and had succeeded better than most.
Daivem looked around and gestured to the north and east, where the clouds towered the highest and where the winds sent ice shivers across every part of her skin that was exposed.
“They are already angry. What else can they do? Destroy the world a second time?”
He said nothing else, but she sensed his gratitude before he drifted away.
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