The Red Sea

by Edward W. Robertson

  "Throw them out."

  "Seems like a waste. We went through so much for them."

  "Plant them if you want. They'll die. They can't survive away from the Bloodfalls."

  After a minute of uncomfortable silence, Dante went inside and got his box of cuttings. Thinking the mist blowing in from the sea might remind the cuttings of their home in the falls, he brought them near the edge of the cliffs and planted them into the soil. He was still tamping the dirt around their edges when Blays walked up to him.

  "So have they decided on your punishment?" Dante said.

  "Punishment?" Blays nudged a cutting with the toe of his boot, testing its hold. It listed to the side and toppled. "For what?"

  "For bringing back a baby enemy."

  "They should be hailing me. I captured a prisoner of war. One you don't even have to lock up."

  "Are they going to care for it?"

  "I'm not sure." Blays wandered toward the edges of the cliffs. "If they won't, do you suppose Captain Twill will charge us more for a third passenger?"

  Dante shaded his eyes against the sun. "You can't possibly be thinking of taking it back to Pocket Cove."

  "Of course not. They'd never go for that. I'd have to bring it to Narashtovik."

  "Bad news: henceforth, all babies are banished from the city."

  "Winden is not happy with me. You'd think the kid was prophesied to plunge the island into eternal darkness. Oh well. Another three days and we'll never have to see these people again." He lowered himself to the grass. "Think he'll make it? Your dad?"

  "There's no telling." Dante righted the cutting Blays had knocked over, planting it more securely. "What if he does?"

  "That's a bad thing? If so, I'd like to have the last ten days of my life back."

  "But what happens then? Am I supposed to write letters? Come visit him?"

  "This presumes you saved his life. So if he turns out to be a huge pain, you'd be within your rights to rescind his life." Blays picked up a pebble dislodged by Dante's excavations, cocked his arm, and slung it off the cliff. "You didn't have to come here in the first place. You've already exceeded your filial responsibilities tenfold. If he survives, wherever you go next is your decision."

  Blays hung around a minute more, decided he had more important things to do than watch Dante tend a doomed garden, and wandered off. Dante remained there for some time.

  That night, it took him a long time to sleep. When he woke, he was still tired, but the sun was already up. Early morning was his favorite time of the island's day: neither hot nor cold, with a calm offshore breeze importing the smell of the sea. He forced himself to get up and walk outside. A person stood in the grass with his back to the temple, obscured by the long shadows cast from the trees on the east side of the clearing. At first he thought it was Blays, but then his father turned and smiled.

  9

  Larsin walked toward him, stirring the tall grass. "You're awake."

  "A reluctant daily habit." Dante stayed where he was. "Are you…well?"

  "Aye." The older man grinned. He looked tired but relaxed, like a man waking from a nap after a long day of travel. "I feel like I could run all the way to Kandak. Don't worry, I won't try. Too lazy. But I feel like I could."

  "I'm glad. That's what we came here for."

  "I can't believe you did. After all this time, I think I would have wiped my ass with that letter."

  "I might have if not for Blays."

  Larsin reached out and put a hand on his shoulder. "While I was sick, I had a lot of time to think. And I'm sorry. I should never have left."

  Dante's jaw tightened. "You had time to think during the few weeks you were in bed. But not during the eighteen years prior to that."

  "I've thought about it every day since then."

  "I'll nominate you for sainthood as soon as I'm home."

  Larsin got a good laugh out of that. "You're a tough one, aren't you? Maybe it means nothing to you. But if that's true, why did you come here in the first place?"

  "I don't know." Dante stuck out his hand. "I'm glad you're better."

  The older man considered Dante's outstretched hand. "Your trip to the Bloodfalls. Any roughness?"

  "I almost died crossing the Broken Valley. Once we started to tangle with the Tauren, I found myself wishing I had."

  "You knocked antlers with them? What happened?"

  Dante still felt irritated by his father's blitheness, but he found himself relating the story of their trip with something like enthusiasm. Halfway through, they relocated to the shade of the temple porch. Dante explained how the Tauren had chased them for a day without stopping, only to be defeated by his flooding of the bridge.

  "I'd heard stories of what you can do," Larsin said softly. "I thought they had to be exaggerated. After hearing this, though, I have to think they were downplaying it. How did you learn to do this?"

  "Years of almost getting killed can be very educational."

  "When did you learn you had this talent? How did it begin?"

  "With a wounded dog," Dante said. "I saw a man heal it. Or maybe it was dead and he only reanimated it. Whatever he did, it was as easy for him as the rest of us breathe. Seeing that power, I knew I had to have it. How can this be so strange to you? You used to perform tricks with the ether yourself."

  "Aye, that's all they were," Larsin said. "Parlor tricks. I gave that up a long time ago. How did you wind up all the way in Narashtovik?"

  Prompted by a steady flow of inquiries, Dante found himself relating his entire adult life. How he'd found himself in possession of the original copy of The Cycle of Arawn, and through it, had learned to harness the nether. How he and Blays had been recruited to travel to Narashtovik to assassinate the former head of the Council of Arawn. How Dante had subsequently found himself named to that council.

  This was followed, of course, by a detailed recap of the Chainbreakers' War that had freed the norren tribes, Gallador Rift, and Narashtovik from the Gaskan Empire. And following that, Dante related how he'd learned of the impending arrival of Cellen, a concentration of nether capable of changing the face of the world. His pursuit of it had taken him into forbidden lands far stranger than he could have imagined.

  When he finished, Larsin gazed at him in bemusement. "Are you screwing with me?"

  "Screwing with you?"

  "After hearing all that, I'm starting to wonder if I had forgotten I was a god. If I had your power, the Tauren would all be in a mass grave."

  "Don't be so sure," Dante said. "Vordon is very skilled. Though perhaps that's just the shaden."

  Larsin raised his brows. "You know about them?"

  "I exhausted myself trying to escape the Tauren. Winden had to give me a shell to deal with them at the bridge. Are shaden common? The right people would pay a fortune for them."

  "They're very rare. Our Harvesters used to use them on sicknesses, injuries, and larger projects. Since the Tauren started their raids, we've had to search for them full-time just to find enough to make quota."

  "Years ago, you defeated them once. What do you intend to do now?"

  "Talk you into staying a few more months?"

  "Can't. I have people who depend on me back home."

  Larsin chuckled wryly. "Couldn't hurt to ask. During the last war, we won the day by wrecking their boats. When they sailed into the bay, our Harvesters snarled them with seaweed and dragged them down."

  "I thought the Currents were too strong to sail north from their city."

  "They portaged their boats across the Peaks, then took them north down the rivers to the Joladi Coast. Sailed south to Kandak from there. This time, they've changed tactics. They're landing further upshore. We can't patrol all of it. The Tauren have better weapons now, too. That armor. Running around like crabs with swords."

  "You could try relocating," Dante said. "It would hardly take twenty people to defend the Dreaming Peaks."

  "Our people would sooner see themselves wiped out than to bring w
ar to the Dreamers."

  "Do you have more Harvesters? Or is Winden the only one?"

  "Two others. But she's our best."

  Dante gazed out at the fine blue sea. "When we took on the Gaskan Empire, we didn't do it alone. We formed an alliance. Brought in everyone we could. You need to do the same. Or move to another island."

  He smiled thinly. "If only it was that easy."

  Dante realized he'd been lost in stories and strategy for over an hour. Feeling duped, he stood from the porch, brushing dust from his pants. "Glad to see the molbry worked. I'm going for a walk."

  Larsin looked like he might ask to join him, but Dante jogged down the stairs before he could speak, heading straight into the jungle. He needed to clear his head. He had so few memories of the man. What remained was more impressionistic than specific: that he'd been carefree, hard to rile, a fan of roughhousing and exploring. A great dad for a young boy.

  But he'd also been prone to drinking. And disappearing on sudden jaunts and voyages. To the point when, even as a child, Dante hadn't been that surprised to hear he wasn't coming back. Hurt? That went without saying. But Dante had transitioned to his new life with the monk with little difficulty. As if he'd known the day was coming. That it had only been a matter of when.

  So while Dante surged with anger at Larsin's verbal missteps, he also found it easy to forget the man was his father. From there, he felt no compunction against blathering on as if the man were a harmless but not particularly close friend. That, in turn, made Dante feel as if he were discussing matters the man had no right to hear.

  He was still dwelling on these thoughts when steps rustled to his left. Winden made her way toward him. She owned a full wardrobe of somber, thoughtful, judgy looks, but he wasn't sure he'd seen the model she was donning now.

  "You've seen him?" she said.

  "I have. Remarkable recovery."

  "Your help. I want to thank you again. You didn't have to do this."

  "Trust me, on the list of most ridiculous ventures I've been party to, this venture is several pages down. I just hope Blays didn't offend you."

  "With his tongue? He means nothing by it."

  "Not that," Dante said. "I mean by bringing back the Tauren infant."

  "He doesn't understand," she said. "But when I dwell on it, I wonder if I would have respected him if he hadn't done something."

  "Have you discussed what's to be done about it?"

  "He offered to take it home with him. But that can't be done. In Kandak, Stav has pledged to care for it. He's a good man. I think he misses when his grandchildren were young."

  "Glad to hear it's worked out. For the record, I'm not one to leave an infant on a slope, either. It's your fault for making such a convincing case."

  Winden cracked a smile. "Feel no shame. You both did what you thought right. The stories about you, they're wrong."

  He cocked an eyebrow. "What stories are these?"

  "When Larsin first heard of you. They said you were a butcher. That you cut a swath through Mallon. You were chased from the country, only to flee to the north, where you killed a woman of great power so you could take her place."

  "Let me guess. These stories came from Mallon?"

  "Are they true?"

  "Do you have a word for sour lies?"

  "Lanen," she said.

  "And what about a story that contains true facts, but which presents them in the most warped way possible?"

  "Rolanen."

  "This is getting disturbing."

  "You have to give words to things. How else can you know they exist?" Winden regarded him, serious once more. "The stories said you'd do anything to gain more power. That honor meant nothing to you. But the stories were wrong. You came here to do good. You haven't asked for anything in return."

  "I can think of one way for you to repay me."

  The corner of her mouth twitched. "That being?"

  "Teach me to harvest."

  "Impossible. This is a thing that takes years."

  "And I have two days," Dante said. "I know it's not enough. But if you show me the foundation, I can build on it when I get home."

  "I used time as a polite way to tell you no. The truth? The Harvest is for us." She gestured to take in the island. "Not for you."

  "You said I came here to do good. If you give me this knowledge, do you fear I'll use it to do wrong?"

  "That is not the point."

  "Larsin is one of you, isn't he? And I am his son. So then I must be one of you, too."

  Winden sputtered with laughter. "This argument is good enough for me. We will go to Kandak."

  "What, right now?"

  "As you said. You only have two days."

  He gestured toward town. She led the way down the path, which was muddy as always; it rained once or twice a day here and nothing ever truly dried out.

  "To harvest." Winden's voice was distant, as if talking to herself. "In one way, very easy. Convince the plants to do what they do by themselves. In another way? Very difficult. Plants don't eat the shadows. They eat air. Water. Light."

  "But nether can't be turned into any of those things. It strengthens or weakens. Brings you further or closer to death. You can't, say, conjure a house out of it."

  "When a ship comes to our shores, it doesn't conjure up the steel it brings us. It's a vessel, nothing more. And so is the nether."

  "This sounds like something I'm going to need to see in practice," Dante said.

  She smiled. "You're going to be very bad at this."

  "What on earth makes you say that? There may not be a more talented nethermancer on the continent."

  "That is why you'll be so bad. You know too much. It will be like trying to write a message on parchment without scraping the old words off."

  "Well, now you've undone your own prediction. The only force stronger than my opinion of my own abilities is my desire to prove others wrong about me."

  She turned away, possibly to try to hide the rolling of her eyes. On the descent to town, she recounted the tale of Yee, the first Harvester. According to their history—which sounded more like myth—Yee had lived alone on the Joladi Coast on the north shore, where the Current was most violent. One day, a storm stripped the trees from the land. At the same time, it drove a boat into the shore. Yee rescued the crew from the sea one by one. The men were starving, but the plants had been blown away and the fish had been killed and swept away. All that remained was a single san root—and Yee herself.

  As the sailors made plans to capture her and carve her up, Kaval, incensed that these men were going to eat her after she'd saved their lives, showed her how to grow the one root she had left into many. When she did so, and fed the crew, they fell to their knees, recognizing she was a miracle-worker. Yee and the few Harvesters she taught had been venerated ever since.

  On their way toward Kandak, Winden stopped a man walking toward them and spoke hurriedly. He nodded and returned to town. Soon after, Winden left the main path, diverting north down a much fainter trail. Just before the trail led to the beach, the trees stopped. Twenty-foot black columns ringed a bowl-shaped depression a hundred yards across. This space was divided radially. Each slice grew a different color of fruits and flowers: one yellow, one red, one purple, and so on.

  "Wait here," Winden said. "We can't be seen practicing. I need to make sure we're alone."

  She made a circuit of the overgrown bowl. As she neared the red section, something ruffled within it. She delved into the foliage, reappearing a minute later and continuing along the circle, making her way back to Dante.

  He nodded at the profusion of shrubs, flowers, vines, trees, and sprouts. "What is this place?"

  "The Basket. It's where we keep everything that will grow here. That way, if something is needed, a Harvester always knows where to find it and make more."

  "That is an amazing idea."

  She brought him to the light green wedge, where clusters of the bamboo-like shoots grew. "This is what I lear
ned on. What we all train with. Watch the shadows."

  She kneeled beside the smallest cluster. He sent his focus into the nether within the shoots. Winden drew a small knife. She owned steel ones, but this one was a sawtooth, attached to a handle of polished red wood. She nicked her palm and squeezed three drops of blood onto the dirt.

  Nether flocked to the roots and wicked up the stems. The plants lurched six inches taller. Dante blinked. "Slower."

  Again, the shadows came and disappeared, stretching the stems.

  "Way slower. Pretend I'm a dog, and not a bright one. And that it isn't strange for you to be teaching a witless dog how to do magic."

  Patiently, she tried again. It took several more slowed-down attempts before he glimpsed it. It wasn't the nether itself feeding the plants. Rather, as she had said, the shadows were serving as a conduit through which other substances (air? water?) were being borne to the plants. It was like a sped-up cycle of all things: through the death held in the nether, inert matter was brought to a living object, allowing it to thrive.

  After observing her a few more times—the plants were now twice as tall as when they'd arrived—Dante cut his arm, dribbled blood onto the soil, and willed the shadows forward. They came, but no matter how forcefully he tried to drive them, or how subtly to coax them, he couldn't get them to bridge the gap.

  Doing his best to keep his frustration in check, he pressed on, alternating his attempts with Winden's to hone his technique. She didn't offer much in the way of advice. He wasn't sure if that was because she wasn't used to teaching, or if her methods simply mirrored her stoic, laconic personality.

  Part of him had hoped to pick it up on the spot, but he wasn't surprised that he was stymied. Different people seemed to excel at different specialties. Though it had taken some time, he'd taught himself to make the earth move, a skill unknown in Narashtovik. Blays, meanwhile, was virtually useless at using the nether to do anything besides shadowalk, yet despite a serious effort, the technique eluded Dante. In Mallon, many of the court ethermancers dabbled in the nether as well, but Dante couldn't so much as get the ether to stir, and struggled whenever it was used against him.