The Woad to Wuin

by Peter David

  I heard angry howling behind us, and risked a glance. I saw them, the shades, an assortment of them upon the low wall that divided the two sections of the city. They were pointing at me, and laughing and howling and screaming all with one voice. It was a formidable, and most terrifying, combination.

  And then we were out the front gate, which had been left wide open. The horse’s hooves moved with phenomenal speed as we thundered down the main highway, bound and determined to put as much distance between ourselves and the fallen Golden City as we possibly could.

  The darkness was a formidable opponent as I rode, and I forced the horse to slow up lest we trip over something along the way. Since we had put some distance between ourselves and the slaughter, though, the horse seemed to be a bit calmer about the entire situation. I wondered where Mordant was, and how Meander had fared against his otherworldly opponents. I wondered if Meander even knew they were otherworldly, or if he had just been pleased to have the opportunity to go down fighting.

  I had absolutely no idea where to go to. Returning to Dreadnaught seemed out of the question. The ruler of that place had been the bloodthirsty, invincible Apropos … not the lame of leg, doubt-ridden creature into which I had reverted. The path of my future was as impenetrable to me as the road I was traveling. I had only recently come to a full understanding of where I had been, and hadn’t the slightest clue of where I was going to go.

  Suddenly the horse started making noises of concern, and began to buck against the casual pace I had set. I wondered just what might be bothering the animal … and then I felt it before I actually saw it. The road beneath us was starting to vibrate, as if something huge was in pursuit of us.

  I wheeled my mount around and tried to get a visual feel for what it was that was after us. “What in—?” I gasped, and then my breath caught in my throat as I saw, dimly, what was coming.

  It was the shades. All of them, near as I could tell, and they appeared to be on horseback. But it was not horses of our world; instead they were great, black shadow beasts, as unnatural as the riders themselves and just as effective in terms of pursuit.

  My horse let out a panicked cry. I did as well. I guided the horse in a turn, but that was certainly no effort because my ride was more than anxious to get the hell out of there. Despite the difficulty in seeing, I did not hold us back at all as the horse barreled down the road, giving it everything it had.

  Panic surged through my veins as I desperately held on. It’s not fair, it’s not fair, it’s enough already kept going through my mind as I did everything I could to distance us from our pursuers. It seemed, though, that everything wasn’t going to be nearly enough. I had no idea how long I rode. All I knew was two things: that I was trying to get away from them, and that I was failing utterly. They were drawing closer and closer to us, and the same panicked thoughts speared through my mind: I’m going to die, after all this, I’m going to die, please, no, gods, no …

  Praying. Praying to gods who had ill considerations toward us. Praying to avoid death that had come to so many save me … and I, who had killed so many and would have seemed therefore a logical target for retribution.

  And running, running … always running. Because of the gap in my memory, my fleeing at Sharee’s side from Lord Beliquose—across the Finger and into the Tragic Waste—seemed extremely recent, rather than months ago.

  Foam was flecking my beast’s mouth. The poor thing was terrified beyond imagining, its great heart thudding against its chest with such ferocity I thought it would explode. Its legs scissored beneath it, chewing up dirt, and suddenly, incredibly, the shades were coming from the other direction. I had no idea how they managed to get around, although I should not have been surprised. After all, we were talking about manifestations of otherworldly creatures. Certainly they were not bound by trivialities such as the laws of nature.

  My horse veered off the main road, and we kept going, riding as hard and fast as I could. It seemed as if I had been pursued forever, that this was some sort of eternal punishment inflicted upon me for my many crimes. Behind me the shades were laughing, howling their contempt and scorn and loathing for me … which was, ultimately, loathing for myself.

  And my horse went down.

  I never knew for sure what it was that had caused it to take a spill. Whether there had been some sort of hole in the ground, or it had tripped over its own feet, or what. All I knew was that one moment we were riding along, and the next the horse was tumbling forward. And unlike when I’d been astride Entipy and that great beast had been cut down, this time I was not invulnerable to harm. If the horse landed atop me, I’d be crushed. Not that it’s going to matter; what difference does it make whether or not you’re intact when the shadow creatures tear you to shreds?

  When I hit the ground, the natural momentum from the fall kept me rolling, and all I had to do was go along with it to be carried out of immediate danger. My horse stumbled about for a moment …

  … and then righted itself. It shook its head violently as if clearing its mind, and then it took one look at me … and bolted.

  “Get back here!” I shouted, but it did no good. It wasn’t as if the animal had any particular loyalty to me. Desperately I added, “I freed your friends! Doesn’t that count for something?!”

  Apparently it did not, for without the slightest hesitation the horse turned and ran, leaving me alone in the desert. Well … as alone as someone who had about a hundred or so ghosts bearing down on him could possibly be.

  Chapter 11

  Fearsome Things

  I was dead. That was all there was to it. I was dead.

  They couldn’t have been more than a mile or two behind me. The ground was continuing to shake as they drew closer, ever closer across the vast plains, and I …

  I looked around.

  I was standing there on a wide, empty plain, as flat and uninviting and unappealing as any I’d been on. I was not in the Tragic Waste, I was reasonably sure of that. But it was as flat as that distasteful place, and although there was no moon, there was enough starlight for me to get a feel for what the area was like. So wide open, so … so replete with nothingness was this nameless desert. Well, it probably had a name, but I had gotten myself very well and truly lost, and therefore didn’t know what it might be.

  The thing was, my awareness of how much time has passed was so battered, that it seemed like only yesterday that I had been utterly paralyzed by the desert. I had looked around me and been frozen by the wide-open surroundings. I had literally been scared … of nothing.

  Now I found myself looking at my environs and feeling as if I was truly seeing them for the first time. There was … there was a beauty to it. A sort of natural wonder that I had not remotely appreciated when I had first seen it. Instead I had shrunk away in terror, allowed myself to be overwhelmed by it. It seemed patently absurd that I had done so. It might well have been that it was no longer having the same impact upon me simply because of everything that I had seen and been exposed to since then. Ultimately, it didn’t matter. All it did manage to do was put my fears into their proper perspective.

  How many things had I been afraid of in my life … really? How many things had held me in coils of mortal terror, and had driven me in directions that I might not necessarily have gone if left to my own devices?

  How much had I let it rule me?

  I mean, here I had spent such an inordinate amount of time allowing concerns over destiny and the intents of the gods to motivate me, without realizing that so much of what I had done had stemmed from sheer, stinking fear. Then again, it might be argued that fear was how the gods kept us in line. That fear was the direct opposition to free will. All things have two sides, after all. So on the one hand we had free will to allow us to do as we wished … and fear of the consequences serving to immobilize us.

  It seemed a rather dreary way to live, really.

  And yet that was how I had lived it. Fear, and anger, and resentment.

  Was it w
orth it?

  I didn’t know.

  I, who had never doubted the efficacy of the resentment I bore for the world, had no idea whether I had made a single worthwhile decision in my life. Not if it all stemmed from fear, certainly. Fear of … of nothing. Just like the desert. Nothing.

  I hadn’t moved from the spot when the shades arrived. I was just sitting there, staring out at the nothingness while holding my walking staff. The shades looked most puzzled at my lack of reaction. It was understandable that they would be bemused. They, after all, were me. They knew my weaknesses, knew my fears. Knew that I would unquestionably be as terrified of them as anyone else had been; perhaps even more so. Knew that at this point I should be begging for my life, or trying to fight a final, desperate battle while sobbing the entire time because I knew it was hopeless.

  Meander … he hadn’t been afraid. Of all the people in that courtyard, he had been the only one utterly unfazed by the situation in which he’d found himself … and the shades, why, they hadn’t known what to do with him.

  They began to surround me, riding their great ghost horses, but when some of them started to move around front of me, I said sharply, “Stop right there. You’re blocking the view.”

  They stopped where they were. They looked at each other, their bewilderment increasing. Clearly they were waiting for one of their number to make the first move. But since they were all of a kind, nobody was the natural leader.

  I stared at them disdainfully. “You don’t even know where you are, do you. Look around. Look around and see the nothingness that surrounds you.”

  The shades resolutely stared at one another, no one wanting to lift their eyes from me. They had been so focused upon the chase that they had paid no attention at all to where it had brought them.

  “Look!” I shouted with such command in my voice that they could not help but comply.

  They stared around at the nothingness of the desert, the empty openness, and the horses bucked slightly under them. Clearly the beasts were influenced by the concerns of their masters.

  On every level, what they were seeing was daunting to them. To the Rockmunchers, it was an endless vista of above-ground, which was certainly terrifying to beings who had lived their lives in even more closed an environment than I ever had. To the pathetic wretch known as Apropos, whose bitter dreams and frustrations comprised a part of their essence, the sheer vastness of what was before them still had enough terror packed into it to take him aback. And to the dark cloud of pure power that was Hecate, well … the pure force of her essence might have been energizing them, but I didn’t think her perceptions had all that much to do with them.

  And when I saw the fear reflected in their faces, all I could think about was how I must have appeared. I was filled with utter humiliation over how I must have seemed to Sharee, and how I had allowed myself to be so shaken. Long had I known the sting of self-loathing, but never had I felt such abiding contempt for my limitations. It was as if I was truly seeing myself for the first time, and I have to say, I was not impressed by the spectacle.

  Abruptly I pointed to the east. “And over there!” I called out to them. “In that direction! The sun will be up before too long!” The horses reacted even more strongly to that, and now I rose and strode toward them. The horses stumbled back, and the shades held on tightly, looking as if they were worried they’d be thrown off.

  “Yes, that’s right! The sun! You don’t like the sun, do you, you bastards! You don’t like the pure light that shines upon you and reveals you for the shallow, wretched things you are! Can you feel it? Look!” and I indicated the horizon. “Look, the rays will be creeping across the distant plain just about any time! But you don’t like the plains any more than the sun! Because you detest openness since you yourself are so secretive and petty and closed! You detest light because it shines upon the darkest reaches of your contemptible schemes! You detest heat because you are so cold and heartless! Am I supposed to be afraid of you? Is that it?!” I limped forward determinedly and slapped at the nearest horse. It bobbed away from me. “Look at you! You’re useless and pathetic! You induce fear in others because you’re hoping their screams will drown out the howls of fear in your own miserable little souls! Well, you don’t fool me! You can’t fool me! I’m the one creature who walks this earth who knows you for what you are, you worms! You nothings! Come! Let us face the sun together! Let us have the heat and light wash over us, let the vast plains upon which we stand be fully illuminated! You want to prove to me that you have the slightest worth? Stand here and do what every creature, from the greatest to the smallest, of this world does every single day! Greet the sun! Greet it, I say!”

  The shades screamed in a voice that was startlingly, depressingly familiar, and backed farther off, totally disconcerted. I yanked out my sword and shouted, “Come on, pitiful bullying fools! Let’s see what you’re made of!”

  And as if they were one great black wave, they swung their steeds about and galloped off. I stood there and watched them go as they turned tail and ran, ran back in the direction of the Golden City. Watched them until they were no more than specks in the distance.

  Then I sank to the ground, and started to laugh, and then the laughter mixed with tears until I felt utterly spent.

  The sun did not come up immediately, which didn’t surprise me. I knew that I had been riding a while, but I didn’t think it was all night. It didn’t matter, though. The shades had no idea when the sun would rise, but they were so terrified of the notion that they had opted to make themselves scarce before the great burning orb made its daily appearance. I just sat there, facing the east, and waiting. I realized that east was the direction of the Golden City, and for no particular reason I found that vaguely amusing.

  I remained where I was, and after a time I saw the first beginnings of the sunrise creeping up over the horizon. I also became aware that someone was coming up behind me. I was alerted by the steady clip-clop of horse’s hooves, but it was a different tread than any of the beasts ridden by the shades. This had weight and substance to it. This was real.

  I glanced behind myself and saw a rider approaching upon a pale horse. The rider sported a dark cloak draped around it, and its hood was pulled up. It drew closer and closer, and I tilted my head slightly, watching it get near. “Hello?” I said finally.

  The rider brought the horse to a halt several feet away, and then swung one leg off and dismounted expertly. Oddly enough, I knew who it was the moment she got off the horse.

  “Oh. It’s you,” I commented.

  The hood fell back to reveal the face and piercing eyes of Sharee. She stared at me, and I studied her critically.

  “Are you quite all right?” I asked. “You look a bit glassy-eyed.”

  “No. No, I’m not all right,” she said. “You’ve no clue what I’ve been through. None at all. Ohhhh,” and her voice broke in a slight cackle, “you’re going to find out. Oh, yes … you’re going to find out.”

  “Am I?” I asked mildly.

  She nodded and, reaching into the folds of her cloak, she withdrew a dagger. It was, I have to say, a formidable-looking weapon. The hilt was a rather unique carving of a skeleton warrior, molded from what appeared to be genuine bone (although whether it was human bone, I could not have said). The blade was long, tapering, and curved, and there appeared to be runic lettering along the edge. “Do you know what this is?” she demanded, and I noticed that her voice sounded rather raspy.

  I hazarded a guess. “A knife?”

  “Not just any knife,” she said with a sort of demented pride. “This … this is the dagger of Vishina. It is the only weapon in existence which can kill that which is unkillable.” She turned it around, allowing the blade to glint in the early morning light. The sun had not yet fully risen, though. “Ohhhh, I admit,” she continued, “you fooled me at first. When I speared you, and you yet lived. I couldn’t believe it. And then, to display your contempt for me, you released me …”

  “T
hat wasn’t to show contempt,” I started to say.

  “Quiet!” she bellowed, and I fell contritely silent. There was delirious joy in her eyes now. “But then … then I learned of the dagger of Vishina. And I knew that it could be mine … if I was willing to embark upon a dangerous and treacherous quest. Oh,” she said sarcastically, “but I don’t suppose you’d want to hear about it.”

  I gave it some thought.

  “Yes,” I said finally. “Yes, I would.”

  She blinked in surprise. “Wh-what?”

  “I’d like you to tell me about it.”

  She licked her dry lips, steadied herself. Truthfully, she looked as if she was going to fall over. “I get it. This is a trick. A stunt to try and forestall your doom.”

  “No.” I thought I was sounding perfectly reasonable. “I’m genuinely interested. I mean, if you really went to all that trouble just to try and kill me, I think the very least I can do is attend to how you went about it.”

  “But …” She stammered. “But … you never want to hear about such tales!”

  “They’re never about me. This one is.”

  Sharee swayed slightly where she was standing, and then slowly walked toward me. She dropped down to the ground next to me, still clutching the knife tightly and watching me with care, obviously wanting to make certain that I wasn’t going to try and snatch the weapon from her.

  This, of course, I had no intention of doing. It was far too nice a day to engage in such shenanigans.

  And she proceeded to lay out in detail everything that had happened to her in her lengthy, and considerably perilous, quest to find the dagger she was holding. Every so often I interjected a question, and she answered it with reasonable patience. Indeed, she seemed pleased, since my questions were evidence that I was genuinely paying attention. She only interrupted her narrative at one point, at my request, when the sun truly began to encroach upon the horizon. We sat there in silence, watching it go up, up, its rays stealing across the plains and caressing them like a tentative lover. The ground was parched and cracked, and I said idly, “You know … your puissance should be returning to you about now. You may want to think about utilizing your weaving skills to bring some rain to this territory. They could certainly use it.”