Starless

by Jacqueline Carey

  I had no excuses. All I could do was bow my head in acquiescence.

  It made for a tense mood aboard the ship for the next few days, and Zariya’s coolness toward me made my heart ache. I should have entrusted her with the knowledge from the beginning; trusted her to be strong and clever enough to ensure no whisper of it passed her lips. But that had been a different time, when talk of darkness rising in the west was a pure abstraction and talk of prophecy an idle daydream, far from the increasingly grim reality we faced.

  That reality was brought home to us when we reached the shores of Yaltha.

  There had been fierce debate about the wisdom of making landfall there. Jahno had unlocked another piece of the prophecy and was afire with eagerness to pursue it—we knew now how we were meant to seek Miasmus and what we were to do. Tarrok, mired in hopelessness, agreed for his own reasons. Evene was adamantly in favor of anything that delayed the inevitable confrontation, and I was equally insistent in my desire to locate Vironesh and get his counsel.

  “I understand that this man was your mentor, but he’s just one man,” Tarrok said to me in a tone that bordered on dismissive. “What difference can one man’s counsel make?”

  “Vironesh is the greatest warrior of his generation; one of the greatest warriors of any generation,” I pointed out. “And he’s actually spent these past months fighting the armies of Miasmus. If these risen creatures have weaknesses I may exploit, he will know them. His counsel may prove invaluable.”

  “I agree with Khai,” Zariya said unexpectedly; I would have thought she would side with Jahno. She gave me a sidelong glance. “Khai is the only one among us who has trained from birth to fight this battle.”

  Yaltha was a small island with a single large settlement on a good-sized harbor. We had passed refugees on our journey there and more were amassing. Later, we would learn that these were the inland dwellers from small-holds and hamlets, the last to be evacuated. The harbormaster ordered us to turn back, disgusted by our presumed purpose and so harried he couldn’t even summon fear at the sight of the sea-wyrms.

  “Are you fools?” he shouted at us. “We’re fleeing for our lives here! Don’t waste our time!”

  “We mean no harm,” I assured him. “We are not pirates come to prey on refugees. We come seeking the coursers of Obid and a warrior who fights among them; Vironesh, the purple man.”

  “Why?” The harbormaster paused and shook his head. “You know, I don’t care. Dock on the northern quay and stay out of my way.” He pointed toward the west. “The city’s on the verge of falling. You’ll find the allied forces fighting to hold a trench beyond the outer wall.”

  We docked the ship and disembarked. Although I had it in mind to go alone, Zariya insisted on accompanying me. “I know it will slow our progress, but I must see these creatures for myself.” She touched the pouch of rhamanthus seeds that now hung from her waist; not the whole of our remaining store, but a goodly arsenal. “And remember, I may be our greatest weapon against them.”

  Mindful of my recent betrayal, I did not attempt to dissuade her. Once that was determined, nothing would do but that Lirios come, too. The others chose to remain with the ship. Tarrok’s thunderclap was a formidable weapon in its own right, but in a pitched battle, it would harm friend as well as foe.

  The city was largely deserted, shops and inns and trade-stalls stripped of goods. A thin stream of refugees trickled through the streets toward the harbor, all of them looking stunned and numb, clutching their worldly goods. Here and there, abandoned livestock and livery-horses wandered. I caught the bridle of a placid cart-horse, procuring transportation for Zariya. She accepted it without comment, refusing assistance to clamber awkwardly into the cart. The horse plodded through the city with the same numb obedience as in the faces of the fleeing refugees.

  Outside the western gates of the city walls, we could hear the sound of battle raging, but not a battle such as I had ever imagined. In addition to the shouting and clashing of weapons, there were inhuman sounds—deep roars, high-pitched squeals, and unholy gnashing and clicking sounds.

  At the gates, a pair of soldiers so filthy I couldn’t begin to guess their origin were urging refugees to pass through swiftly and continue to the harbor. They looked at us in disbelief as we approached and sought passage toward the battleground.

  “Are you out of your fucking minds?” one shouted at us. “Get out of here!”

  Holding to the cart’s railing with her left hand, Zariya had her head high. “We are the defenders of the four quarters,” she announced, a claim that would have sounded ridiculous had she not reached into her pouch and drawn forth a rhamanthus seed. The golden traceries on her right hand and arm flamed to life as she held it aloft, and lightning crackled around her fist. “And we are here to fight against the darkness that rises in the west.”

  The soldiers stared, mouths agape.

  “We seek Vironesh,” I added. “Let us pass. We can aid you in this battle.”

  They did.

  Beyond the gates was a scene out of a nightmare. A vast trench had been dug before the wall, spanned by a lone bridge of knotted rope. The last handful of refugees struggled to cross it, and a line of defenders fought to allow them the chance to do so. The army against which they fought …

  Tarrok’s secondhand description had not done justice to the army of the risen and returned. At first glance, it seemed a vast sea of darkness pressing forward. My mind refused to see its parts; then it began to pick out details, and I nearly wished it hadn’t. There were things that had been men, once; blackened, leathery, skeletal things with greenish corpse-light glowing in the empty sockets of their eyes, obsidian blades clutched in their hands. There were things that had swum in the sea—fish, eels, dolphins—that had sprouted segmented legs; there were enormous crabs and lobsters scuttling across the ground and waving calcified black pincers.

  There were things I could not name, things from the deepest trenches of the ocean, things with round, grasping mouths frilled with feelers. There was a winged shark that waddled on thickset legs, a gleaming black carapace armoring its torso. It stood taller than a grown man, its maw lashing from side to side, its teeth red with blood.

  “Oh, dear gods,” Zariya whispered in horror.

  It seemed impossible that a mortal army could stand against these creatures; and yet they were attempting it, holding a line of defense that the last of the refugees might cross the trench.

  Although the defenders had their backs to us, I could pick out Vironesh by his bulk and his fighting style; unhurried, deliberate, and deceptively deadly. He stood before the rope bridge, his swirling blade carving out a space around him.

  The last of the refugees scrambled across the wavering bridge on wobbling legs, a mother dragging a child by the arm.

  “Fall back!” a commander on the far side of the trench shouted. “Yalthans, fall back and flee!”

  They tried.

  The undead army of Miasmus surged forward. I saw the legged and winged shark-thing making for Vironesh, and my palms itched; I longed to race across the bridge and join the fray, to fight alongside my mentor. But no, I did not feel the rush of Pahrkun’s wind rising in me.

  This was not my fight, not yet.

  “Khai!” Lirios cried, his wings humming. “What do we do, Khai? How do we aid them?”

  I looked up at Zariya in the cart. “Unleash the lightning. Let us see if it will kill these undead creatures.”

  She opened her clenched fist.

  Blue-white lightning crackled forth, arcing across the trench, arcing across the heads of the mortal soldiers. Shrieks and groans and wails of fury arose from the vanguard of the army of Miasmus.

  Shouting wildly, the mortal soldiers rushed across the swaying rope bridge. The soldiers at the gate hustled the refugees through, clearing a path for the retreating army. On the far side of the trench, Vironesh stood his ground, the strokes of his weapons slowing. He was growing weary.

  The armies of M
iasmus plowed forward with the legged and winged shark-thing leading the charge.

  “Again,” I murmured to Zariya.

  She nodded without looking at me. Again and again and again, Zariya rained lightning down upon the armies of the risen and returned, leaving the smallest of them scorched and dead and stinking, and the larger injured and held in abeyance. It was not enough to defeat them—no, nowhere near—but it was enough to safeguard a retreat. Spent rhamanthus seeds dropped like pebbles from her hand, rattling against the bottom of the cart.

  On the far side of the trench, Vironesh fought his way backward on the rope bridge, the last man standing. Once the bridge was clear, with two deft strokes of his yakhan, he cut through the support lines.

  Lirios gasped.

  The rope bridge gave way, swinging violently across the deep trench. His sword in his right hand, Vironesh clung to the bridge with his left, holding on for dear life as it struck the near side of the trench. I heard my mentor grunt at the impact, then begin the difficult task of dragging his exhausted body up the length of knotted net.

  I raced to aid him, leaning over to grab his wrists, bracing myself and pulling hard. Vironesh grunted his thanks, not glancing at me until I’d succeeded in hauling him to safety. His eyes widened and he covered his mouth with his free hand. “Khai!” Tears glistened in his eyes, something I’d never thought to see. “By all the fallen stars! Is it true?”

  I saluted him. “Yes, brother.”

  Vironesh’s gaze moved to Zariya, still standing in the cart, lightning wreathing her upraised fist as she kept a watchful eye on the forces arrayed on the far side of the trench. She looked at once terribly young, and yet ageless. Vironesh approached her and dropped heavily to one knee. “Your Highness,” he said humbly. “I know now that you are the Sun-Blessed warrior who was foretold. Forgive me my disbelief.”

  Not taking her gaze from the army of the risen dead, Zariya inclined her head to him. “Thank you, my darling. I can’t honestly say I blame you for it.”

  FIFTY-FOUR

  We stayed outside the city gates long enough for the mortal army to make their retreat. The risen dead amassed at a distance, wary of Zariya’s lightning.

  “They are relentless,” Vironesh warned us. “The trench will not stop them for long once we cease to guard it. If we took the battle to them, do you have the capacity to destroy them, Your Highness?”

  “I fear not,” Zariya said with regret. “There are not sufficient rhamanthus seeds to destroy an army this vast; and that is not the task with which the defenders of the four quarters are charged by the Scattered Prophecy.”

  “Our quarry is Miasmus itself,” I added. “But I seek your counsel in killing the risen dead, for the prophecy tells us that we shall have to fight our way through those left behind to guard their creator.”

  “Then I will come with you,” Vironesh said simply.

  “What of the coursers of Obid?” I inquired.

  “They are doing their part to stem the tide,” he said. “But they are fighting a losing battle. Trask has fallen. Kerreman has fallen. Yaltha will fall before Zar the Sun sets on this day, for once the armies of Miasmus cross the trench, the wall will not hold them. And then they will move onward to the next isle, and the next and the next, until there is nothing left.” He shook his head. “No. I will accompany you. I should have kept my word and returned to Zarkhoum as soon as I learned what was happening.”

  If this, then that, but if this, then that.

  “You would have found us long gone,” I said. “Fighting alongside the coursers was the right choice.”

  We retreated through the city, the streets empty save for the wandering livestock, sheep and cattle lowing plaintively. In the harbor, human refugees were crowding onto ships and rowboats that wallowed low in the water. I helped Zariya descend from the cart and unhitched the horse from its traces. It gazed at us with pricked ears and plaintive eyes.

  “It’s going to die, isn’t it?” Zariya murmured. “Like every living creature left behind here.”

  I nodded. “I’m afraid so. Those not slain will starve.”

  “Oh, Khai!” Her eyes were bright with tears. “It’s so very terrible. How are we supposed to bear this?”

  “I don’t know,” I admitted.

  She took a deep, shuddering breath. “Well, we must try.”

  There in the harbor, Vironesh parted ways with the coursers of Obid. While the coursers regretted the loss of his fighting skills, his addition to our company was not met with universal acclaim.

  Jahno in particular was troubled. “Nothing in the Scattered Prophecy speaks of two shadows,” he said fretfully.

  “Nothing speaks against it, either,” Zariya reminded him.

  “Yah, but—”

  Essee whistled forcefully, her fingers signing.

  I watched her carefully, translating for Vironesh’s benefit. “She says that there is nothing in the prophecy that speaks of numbers. Six of the Elehuddin set forth on this quest; four remain. I do not expect to survive. None of us should. Who are we to refuse this warrior who seeks to aid us?”

  The Seeker sighed, relented, and saluted her with respect. “As you say, nest-mother. Let it be so.”

  By the time we set sail, Yaltha had fallen; the armies of the risen and returned had swarmed over the walls. We heard the brief screams or lowing cries of abandoned livestock slaughtered in their path. We saw the vast army of undead creatures pour into the harbor, plunging into its waters in pursuit of the refugee fleet, the rising dark spreading ever eastward.

  Us, they did not pursue.

  Westward lay our course; westward, ever westward, a lonely ship beating its way against the tide of fate.

  Two days after we departed Yaltha’s shores, a grave new problem arose: The seas were dying. At first, we saw a few dead fish and sea creatures here and there floating atop the ocean, but the farther westward we sailed, the more we saw, until the air stank with their effluence. I suppose it shouldn’t have come as a surprise. If the passage of the armies of Miasmus caused the land to fall barren, it stood to reason that the same would hold true of the sea. It was only that it took longer due to the vastness of the sea and the greater complexity of the system of food and prey; a system that, alas, included all of us. We dared eat nothing save our small store of dried fish. The ooalu vines withered, the fruit rotted and had to be thrown overboard. The fuzzy bodies and pale papery wings of ooalu moths littered the floor of the hold.

  It was the worst for the sea-wyrms, who could not avoid contact with the tainted sea and whose massive bodies and prodigious expenditure of energy required vast amounts of food. Although Eeeio and Aiiiaii carried on valiantly, their strength began to flag visibly as their scales lost their luster, growing dull and flaky. We gave them the last of the dried fish, a paltry amount compared to what they required. Jahno and the Elehuddin consulted maps in the charthouse in low, worried voices.

  If our ship had been an ordinary vessel, we would simply have sent the wyrms back toward unspoiled seas and sailed onward without their aid, but such was the design of the ship that it was dependent on them. Without the sea-wyrms, it sailed poorly and slowly, and Jahno reluctantly concluded that we would starve to death before we reached Miasmus.

  The thought that we could come so close to our goal and fail filled me with helpless anger.

  We had gone two days without food and were not yet in sight of Kerreman, all of us listless and hungry, the sea-wyrms swimming sluggishly through floating shoals of dead fish at a fraction of their usual speed, when Jahno reached a decision.

  “It is time to breach the cask of Ishfahel’s gift,” he announced. “As the Seeker, I say that our hour of greatest need is upon us.”

  A spark of hope kindled in my breast. We hauled the marked water cask from the hold and lashed it in place, prying the lid loose. The water within gleamed in the incongruous sunlight and a sweet, clean odor rose from it, dispelling the omnipresent stink of dead fish.


  Kooie clicked and pointed in the direction of the sea-wyrms. “Yah,” Jahno agreed, whistling them over. “Eeeio and Aiiiaii should drink first.”

  It was painful to see how slowly the sea-wyrms moved through the water, how difficult it was for them to lift their heads to rest their long chins on the ship’s railings, their iridescent eyes filmy.

  “Their courage and determination shames me,” Zariya murmured beside me.

  “It shames us all,” Vironesh said quietly.

  Jahno filled a dipper. Careful not to spill a drop, he approached Aiiiaii, who opened her mighty jaws. He poured the dipperful of water into her mouth, and she tilted her head on her sinuous neck and swallowed. The transformation was instantaneous; Aiiiaii’s blue-green scales turned bright and glistening, and the dim clouds were dispelled from her eyes. She let out a gleeful trill and plunged through the waves, the vast length of her body undulating with exuberant energy.

  I offered a silent salute of thanks to Ishfahel the Gentle Rain.

  Eeeio drank; we all drank. A dipperful for each of the wyrms, a sparing sip for the humans.

  A sip was enough.

  I felt my body come alive, no longer hoarding its resources, renewed strength coursing through my veins; I saw the same restored vibrancy reflected in the bright eyes of my companions.

  We sailed onward through the dying seas, doling out Ishfahel’s water parsimoniously.

  We passed the isle of Kerreman, all barren shores and high cliffs. There Johina the Mirthful had held aegis, and we saw the goddess as we passed, or what the goddess had become in the aftermath of the armies of Miasmus. According to Zariya and Jahno, Liko of Koronis had described her as a joyous figure, always in motion, feet dancing, eyes sparkling, laughter on her lips; her skirts a blanket of flowers, a crown of blossoming branches atop her head, birds nesting and singing amongst them.