The Great Rift

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Get back!" Dante said. "Get to the keep! Get away from the gates!"

  Some paused, confused to see a Council priest ordering them away from the battle. Others went on as if they hadn't noticed, pressing toward the gates in a last effort to repel the invaders. Dante wanted to scream again.

  Olivander ran down the Citadel steps, sword in hand, his expression as hard and flat as his shield. Dante threw himself in the man's way.

  "Pull back as many troops from the gates as you can!"

  "They'd be on us in seconds!" Olivander said.

  Dante met the older man's eyes. "That's what I'm counting on."

  Olivander's gaze was weary, but there was still steel in it. "What do you have planned?"

  "Leave just enough of our men to slow them down. Then get back and stay back."

  Olivander's jaw worked, as if he were ready to spit out fresh arguments, but he laughed instead. "Good enough. If we're to die today, let it end with one last act of your madness."

  He strode across the courtyard toward the crush of men. Dante turned and walked toward the keep. Olivander hollered orders in a ragged bass. Three-quarters of the way to the keep's steps, Dante knelt and faced the battle.

  Olivander gave a final shout. Narashtovik's soldiers scattered from the fight, leaving a handful behind. Dante called out to the nether. He sang to it. He cursed at it. He pleaded with it and commanded it. Rivers of shadows flowed from the dead mounded around the gates. It pooled from the ground and came to him in huge gobs. It condensed from the air, clinging to his skin.

  At the gates, knots of redshirts broke from the scrum to chase down the fleeing soldiers. Most raced straight ahead. Toward the keep. Toward Dante. Dante shaped the nether, reaching down into the stone floor, the dirt beneath it, the bedrock beneath the dirt. How old was it? As old as Arawn? Shadows circled him like a plague, so dense he could hardly see the army closing on him. He took the nether in his fist and drew it to the ground.

  Ethereal white flashed from the coming crowd. Cassinder ran ahead of the soldiers, face locked in a fish's grin. So focused on the nether, Dante caught the bolt at the last second, knocking it away in a spray of twinkling sparks. The excess energy slammed into his ribs, flattening him into the cobbles.

  "You were right to kneel!" Cassinder shouted. "You'll all kneel! Until you've forgotten how it felt to stand!"

  Silver winked in the air. A knife slapped into Cassinder's chest, staggering him. Lira sprinted past Dante, sword in hand.

  "No!" Dante screamed. "Lira, stop!"

  The enemy soldiers hurtled forward. Cassinder raised a hand. Lira threw another knife. Another second, and the soldiers would be on him. In horror, Dante brought the nether back to him in an angry stormcloud, a swirling mass that blotted out the sky.

  He touched his finger to the ground.

  29

  Beneath his finger, the stone was dusty. Still warm from a long day spent beneath the ceaseless sun. Beneath his finger, the stone cracked.

  A black line raced toward the charging army. With a deafening roar, the soil wrenched apart, cobbles and dust spilling into the expanding crevice. A great rift opened in the earth, growing wider and wider as it tracked away from his finger, thundering ahead; nether surged through his body, far more than he'd ever channeled at once, perhaps more than he'd commanded across the course of his entire life, a searing, crackling, ice-cold force that yanked the bedrock apart at the seams.

  The soldiers froze. Cassinder's face contorted in terror. Fear flashed across Lira's face. Then she met his eyes and smiled gently.

  The rift swallowed them all.

  In an instant, a thousand men tumbled away with a single scream. The crack hurtled outward. Huge slabs of stone creaked and fell into the bottomless depths. As it reached the gates, the devouring hole swallowed the king's men and Narashtovik's soldiers alike. It gobbled the ground beneath the gates. The wall splintered, crumbling, raining rubble into the gap. The rift swept past into the plaza. Thousands of soldiers in red shirts wailed and disappeared into nothing.

  Dante collapsed. Cheers of disbelief surged from the norren and black-clad soldiers who'd fled the gates in time. Dante tried to rise, but his arms and legs lay still. He tried to blink against the dust sifting into his eyes, but his eyelids wouldn't twitch.

  Swords rang on swords. Through the haze of dust and pain and nether, he watched, paralyzed, as the soldiers of Narashtovik closed on the few of the king's men who'd escaped plunging into the abyss. Steel clashed. Men in red ran for the gates, but found them obliterated, the way out demolished by a pit with no bottom. Some dropped their swords and threw up their hands. Others ran along the walls in confusion, searching for doors that weren't there. Others yet fought and died.

  Crushing hands grasped Dante's shoulders. Mourn's face swam into view. One of his eyes was swollen shut, blood crusting his split eyebrow. He picked Dante up and set him gently on the steps of the Citadel.

  "Are you all right?" Mourn said. "Dante?"

  Dante's throat wouldn't work. Voiceless, he gazed back at Mourn. Mourn rose, knees cracking.

  "I'm going for help. Stay here. And please don't die as you are staying."

  The norren swung from sight. Dante knew that time was passing—people were moving in the courtyard, and people only moved over time—but had no sense of how much. After some more time, Olivander appeared with Somburr. They spoke his name. They tried to reach him with the nether, to soothe his wounds, but there were no wounds to soothe, and when the nether touched him it slid right off, hissing angrily, dispersing back to the cracks within the stones. Mourn stood a short ways off, watching. Blays staggered outside, holding a bloody bandage at his side. He grinned in naked disbelief at the hole punched through the world. When he saw Dante, he swallowed his grin as quickly as the earth had gulped down the soldiers.

  "Dante?" he said. "You all right in there? Just stunned at your own magnificence, are you?" He slapped Dante's cheek lightly. "Hey. You all right? Where's Lira?"

  Mourn moved in and pulled Blays aside. They spoke in low tones on the fringe of Dante's dotty vision. Mourn pointed to the rift. Blays' chin jerked. He shook his head like a wolf with a rabbit, like a dog that's been stung. Mourn reached for his shoulder.

  "No!" Blays yanked himself away. He ran to Dante, leaning close to his face. "Where did she go? Dante, what did you do to her?"

  Dante struggled to move. To blink. to speak.

  "Did you take her?" Blays' voice went soft. "No one matters to you, do they? Not when they get in the way of something you want. Is that what happened? You saw your chance, so you took it, no matter the cost?" He turned to the rift. Lying on his back, Dante couldn't see it. Blays' eyes went bright. He swung back to Dante, face contorted. "What did you do to her? Did you kill her? Answer me!"

  But he couldn't. He could barely think. Blays cocked his fist and swung. Dante's head snapped back, giving him an upside-down view of the keep's steep walls. He didn't feel a thing. His head lolled forward. Blays struck his face again.

  "Did you kill her? Did you drop her down that hole? Did you even hesitate before you did it?" Tears streaked Blays' face. Sunset flashed from the blade in his hand. It angled toward Dante's neck, a silvery road to oblivion. Mourn loomed behind Blays' shoulder, eyes bulging above the thicket of his beard. The sword wavered.

  Dante's throat clicked. "She—"

  The world went black.

  * * *

  He saw stars.

  Silver on black. Points against a field. A forever of stars. The most beautiful sight in the world. Some danced, some twitched, some swam in slow and mysterious circles. But there was a pattern to all of it, a cycle, and if you watched those swirls close enough and long enough, maybe you could understand...

  Someone coughed.

  He couldn't open his eyes. At first he thought he was still paralyzed, but his lids were gummed shut, crusty and dry. He picked at them with his right hand. His fingers were chilly. He pried the seal from his right eye.
Light sliced his vision.

  "You're awake!" a familiar voice said from beside his bed.

  Dante's throat was too dry to reply. He swabbed awkwardly at his left eye. Sunlight glared from everything, dazzling him. He slitted his eyes. A plump, robed man stood over him.

  "Nak," Dante said. "Do you have any water?"

  "Let me check my pockets." The monk grinned, as much at seeing Dante conscious as at his own joke. He turned to a dresser where a pitcher of water stood ready. The water was as lukewarm as the room, but Dante drank it down without stopping. He belched, eyes trying and failing to water.

  "Where am I?"

  "The monastery. We've been tending to you since you fell unconscious."

  "Fell unconscious?" Dante sat up dizzily. His bladder ached. He gestured toward his waist. "I need—"

  Nak nodded, went for a pot, and turned his back. Dante shrieked. Nak rushed back to the bed. "What is it?"

  "My hand!" Dante held up his right hand. The first two fingers, the tip of his thumb, and half his palm were as black as the space between the stars. "Was I burnt?"

  "Sort of."

  "What do you mean, sort of'? How can I be sort of burnt?"

  "It's nethereal in nature. We think. We don't think it's harmful, but it may be permanent."

  "Permanent?" Dante waved his hand around. "It looks like I've been eating coal with my bare hands!"

  "With the amount of nether you channeled, you're lucky your whole body doesn't look that way." Nak pursed his lips. "You're lucky you have a body."

  Dante turned his hand front to back and back to front. The stained skin was matte and abrupt, with no transition between the blackness and the normal skin around it. It felt slightly cool, like a rock left in the shade, but it otherwise felt normal to the touch. Still, he reached under the covers with his left hand. Nak turned his back. By the time Dante finished with the chamber pot, his memory had clarified. The battle. The rift. Something more.

  "What happened, Nak?"

  "Well, that was it!" The balding monk grinned. "A few hundred redshirts escaped the city alive and uncaptured. They headed west at humorously high speed. We're already hearing that the norren have driven the occupiers from the eastern half of the Territories."

  "They have?" Dante sat up. He managed to stay up. "How long has it been?"

  "A week? Make it six days. The first day just felt like two."

  "I meant since I fell asleep."

  Nak gave him a sidelong look. "It's been six days."

  "That's not possible."

  "I suppose it is possible that it has only been one day, and the sun has ambitiously decided to cross the sky six times instead of once. But I've been sitting here myself every day."

  Dante gazed blankly. Six days. Then again, what did it matter? The Citadel stood intact. Narashtovik stood free until the king's next move. What else could—?

  He whipped to face Nak. "Where's Blays?"

  Nak frowned down at his hands, twisting them in his lap. "We don't know."

  "Is he off getting drunk somewhere? Is he all right?"

  "He left in the night," Nak said softly. "The same day you fell asleep. We haven't seen him since."

  "What? Where did he go?" Dante struggled to swing his feet off the bed. His limbs moved as clumsily as if he were trying to drag a door through water, broad side first.

  "He didn't say a word." Nak scowled, pushing Dante back into the covers. "Stop that, you fool. You haven't eaten in days."

  "I have to find him."

  "You have to do as I say. Eat something. Then we'll see about Blays."

  Dante didn't have the strength to protest. He'd need Nak's help just to get out of bed. The monk padded off for several minutes, returning with a plate of oven-blackened toast and cold, boiled chicken. Dante gulped it down, spilling crumbs over the sheets.

  "Okay," he said. "Help me up."

  "I don't think that's a good idea," Nak said. "Why don't you eat and drink a bit more and then we'll see."

  "You just said that. Now help me out of this bed before I drag myself over there and strangle you."

  "Food first. Your nonsense can come later."

  Nak took the plate and left again. Dante scowled at his useless legs. Well, he knew how to bring them back to order. He beckoned to the nether. It hesitated, flicking along the base of the walls, then rushed to his hands. He sent it coursing through his veins.

  He seized. The nether's touch was icy, stinging, hungry. Dante shrieked. Nak rushed through the doorway, robes flapping, eyes wide. The world collapsed to a silver pinhole, then went dark.

  When he awoke, the sun was brighter. Nak was gone. Dante propped himself on an elbow and reached for a glass of water waiting on the bedside table. It tasted dusty. The plate of bread and salami beside it tasted good enough. Nak crept through the door, saw he was awake, and gave him a frowning smile.

  "Well, look who isn't dead after all."

  "The nether stung me," Dante said, picking a bit of anise-flavored salami from between his teeth. "Like a hive of liquid bees."

  Nak nodded. "Shadow sickness."

  "What, you have a word for it?"

  "We've been studying these things for centuries, you know. The condition's not unheard-of. It should fade within another few days." Nak glowered down at him as sternly as the pudgy monk could manage. "In the meantime, would you leave the gods damned nether alone already?"

  "Where was Blays treated for his wound? During the battle?"

  "Why in the world would you want to know that?"

  "Because if I can find his blood, I can find him."

  Nak slitted his eyes. "By using the nether. Which I have specifically forbidden you from touching."

  Dante slung one leg out of bed and set to work on the other. "Then you can do it for me. And if you won't, I will. Who knows what'll happen then? I could explode. You'll be scrubbing Dante-pancreas from the walls for weeks. Is that what you want, Nak?"

  The monk slapped his hands to his cheeks. "On the condition that you leave the shadows where they are." He pointed to the shadow of a candelabra painted on the floor by the thick sunlight. "You see that? Don't touch it."

  "Agreed."

  Nak went back out the door, giving him a worried look. Dante eased from bed. Standing made him dizzy. He waited for the rush of spots to fade. Still, he was stronger than the first time he'd woken up, able to walk with minimal support from the chairs and tables around the room.

  Nak came back ten minutes later. "The barber recalls Blays being treated in the Winter Hall. I don't know how much good that will do us. Practically half the city was treated there."

  He moved to lend Dante his shoulder. Together, they shuffled out of the monastery. Heat shimmered from the sun-stoked paving stones. Nak led him into the keep and the Winter Hall, a sprawling, high-ceilinged feast-hall whose southern-facing windows caught whatever sunlight was to be had during the winter's shortest days. The tables and chairs had already been replaced. The rugs, too. Beneath them, the floor was black granite, polished smooth. Any stains had been scrubbed away.

  Dante's heart foundered. His stomach soured. "What about the rags?"

  "What rags?" Nak said.

  "The ones they used to clean this room."

  "Seeing as they were full of blood, they got thrown away."

  "Where?"

  "In the graves with all the bodies, I think."

  Dante turned for the door. "Take me to them."

  "Oh no." Nak grabbed Dante's arm. "You aren't seriously considering rooting around in mass graves for a bloody old rag."

  "I'm not considering that at all."

  "Thank heavens."

  "I've already decided to do it."

  "I won't allow it," Nak said. "The men in those graves have been dead for a week. You'll catch the bad air for certain."

  Dante pulled himself loose from Nak's fleshy fingers. "I have to find him, Nak! I have to tell him what happened! If Lira hadn't stopped Cassinder, we'd all be dead."


  "You aren't going to find him by pawing around at a bunch of dead bodies."

  "Then I'll ask a servant!"

  "Fine." Nak circled in front of him before he reached the door. "Do you want to see the bodies? Do you want to see what there is to find amongst the rot and ruin? Then I'll take you to the dead."

  "Good." Dante let himself be led to the foyer, where Nak ordered for a carriage. As it clopped up outside, Dante frowned at the hole in the ground where the gates had been. A passage had been cleared out of the rubbled stone to one side of the rift. The carriage was shaded but stifling. It bounced across the courtyard, slowing to a crawl as it eased through the gap between the walls and the chasm. Past the screened windows, the broken ground fell away into darkness.

  The streets smelled of death. Not thickly, not of fresh decay, but with a faint insistence Dante soon grew used to. Pedestrians and riders strolled along the streets. Still fewer than before the army had made its march on Narashtovik, but moreso than in the ghostly days leading up to the battle. Hammers squeaked on boards, prying them free from sealed-up windows and doors. Brown blood and twinkling glass lay here and there, but there was shocking little notice that ten thousand hostile soldiers had entered the city just over a week before.

  The carriage rolled under the intact Ingate and through the shattered Pridegate into the low shacks and decades-old ruins of crumbling houses. He could do it. It would be messy, but any rag bearing the blood of a dead person would produce no pressure in Dante's mind at all. Those who were still within the city would pulse strongly. All he had to do was find those that produced a faint pressure and follow them out of town.

  He smelled the grave before he saw it. Thick, rancid, strong enough to purge the salami from his stomach. The carriage swung off the road over sun-hardened soil and yellow grass. Ahead, the ground was bare and deep brown, recently overturned. The carriage rocked to a stop. The horses snorted in dismay as Nak hopped down into the noonday sun and offered Dante a hand.