by D M Wozniak
Which must be why I am still here.
A road stretches between me and redemption, laid with bricks of gold. And each brick matters. Fiscarlo is one of them.
“Master voider,” says Yerla.
Tearing my gaze from the night sky, I look back down at the two sisters.
“Tell him,” she whispers to her younger sister, poking her in the arm.
Yisla looks up at me before dropping her gaze to the ground as she talks.
“I did not get the water from town,” Yisla says.
I frown. “You didn’t?”
“No.”
“From a nearby stream, then?”
She shakes her head, her lips pressed tightly together.
“Tell the master voider,” whispers Yerla again.
“There is another well,” offers Yisla. “It is much closer than the one in the center of the village. I went to it because it is easier for me to carry.”
I look back to Yerla. “Then why did I see you at the village well when I was locked up in my cage?”
“I was curious about you. And I am stronger and can carry the water easier than Yisla. So I don’t mind going into the village. The other well is far closer, but it is boarded up. The effulgent told us not to use it, ever since the voider left town. So what Yisla was doing was disobeying—”
“What?” I stoop down to be at an even height with Yerla. “What about the voider?”
“There was another voider here. He left some time ago.”
“I thought he fell...”
My mouth hangs open. The effulgent admitted that my student fell to his death, here in Fiscarlo. Leaving town was probably a lie that he spread to cover up what really happened.
I gently grab Yerla by her shoulders. “What has he to do with this other well?”
“The voider was building it. He had built his own house just down the road, further from the village. A very nice house. He was digging his own well there, too. Not with his hands or tools but with black arcana. Just like you can do. It is just down the path a ways.”
I let go of Yerla and turn back to the younger sister. “You were taking water from this well?”
Yisla nods. “One of the boards is loose.”
Running my hand over my short hair, I turn to the older sister. “But you drank from this water too, did you not?”
She nods. “And the chickens too.”
“Did you boil it?”
She nods.
“Yisla,” I say, “Did you drink directly from the well? Before bringing it back here to boil?”
She stares at the ground for a moment, drawing a line in the dirt with her bare foot.
“Yisla?” I ask gently. “This is very important, and I won’t be angry with you if the answer is true. Did you drink the water directly from the well?”
After a moment, she nods.
I stand back up. “That’s it,” I say quietly, turning to Chimeline. “That’s the reason. She drank directly from a tainted well.”
Chimeline has no reply. She only looks down at the white book in her hands, but she seems to be clutching it tighter than necessary.
“There’s something in the water,” I say. “And I have an idea of what it is.”
Anaxarchis' Camp
It may be the middle of the night, but it doesn’t matter to anyone. The sisters can’t sleep. After being so close to death, Yisla clings to the exuberance of waking life, and Yerla is content to be with her. As for Chimeline and myself, after languishing in our cells for days, a night walk through a bamboo forest brings a most welcome change. Besides, pink flecks the edge of the horizon. Sunrise is not too far away.
We head toward Anaxarchis’ camp.
I never noticed it before, but the slender trail that I took here from the village cuts through the girls’ dirt clearing, and continues on. It’s this path that we follow.
We climb over a gentle hill and cross a creek. The bridge is nothing more than three downed trunks laid together and bound with rope. Yerla leads the four of us across it barefoot, a lit torch in her hand.
We reach another clearing, and immediately I understand why Yisla preferred this place. It’s at least half the distance compared to the village well.
“It’s over there,” Yerla says, gesturing to the right with her torch.
“Where’s his house?” I ask.
She points to what looks like a dirt hill on the left. In the predawn light, it’s impossible to discern what it is.
“I don’t understand.”
“He burnt it to the ground.”
“Who—the effulgent?”
“Yes.”
“Why in Temberlain’s Ashes did he do that?” I yell angrily.
“You should not swear, nor should you jump to conclusions,” answers the effulgent.
The pale, bald man walks out of the forest, clothed in white that reflects the moonlight.
I hear both of the children and Chimeline inhale in surprise.
“You were waiting for us?” Chimeline asks.
The effulgent nods, slowly walking into the clearing. “I always wake before sunrise, and I heard you at the sisters’ camp,” he says calmly. “So I knew that you would be coming here.” He clears his throat and extends both of his hands at his sides in invitation, palms upward. “In many ways, the moment I heard of your crash, I knew that you would be coming here.”
Instead of replying to the man, I ignore him and walk up to the ruins of the house.
The mound is not made out of dirt, as I had previously thought, but ash. I also find some charred logs and iron hardware—the latter presumably for the doors and windows.
I turn in place and address the effulgent. “If you didn’t burn it down, who did?”
He doesn’t answer.
“It appears as if it were a perfectly good structure,” I continue. “Made of timber and iron. Certainly more sound than any of the huts in your village.”
The effulgent again stays silent.
Stooping down, I pick up a handful of white ash and let it fall through my fingers to the ground. “Who would have something to gain by burning down a voider's house?” I ask.
“I assure you, it wasn't me,” The effulgent says. “I do not own the dark.”
“You’re lying,” I answer, flicking the remaining ash to the ground as I stand again. “Anaxarchis’ work was a threat to you, wasn’t it?”
“A lie is just another form of ownership,” he says without moving from his place.
Chimeline turns to me and says, “Dem, I don’t think—”
“You don’t understand how far this goes back,” I say, cutting her off. I quickly walk past all of them, heading toward the well, which is situated more in the forest than the clearing. If Anaxarchis had cut a path through these woods while he was still alive, it’s overgrown now. I navigate around weeds, saplings and downed twigs that snap in the faint, pink light.
“You don’t want to talk about who burnt down Anaxarchis’ home? Fine. Let’s talk about his death.”
I reach the well.
It is far smaller than the one in the village, and simpler too. Anaxarchis used no stone, relying instead on a wooden canopy above to house the rope and crank. It’s fairly new—the wood has not even grayed with age. Someone had shuttered the horizontal, circular entrance with flat boards, just like the girls had said.
I turn back to the others. The effulgent looks at me, his furrowed gaze a mixture of defiance and sadness.
I tap the shuttered boards with my palm. “What I want to know is, how did my trusted student end up at the bottom of this well?”
“What?” Chimeline says, though the word comes out as more of a gasp.
The effulgent says nothing, responding instead with an infuriating silence that only confirms my suspicions.
Turning back around, I touch my voidstone and shatter the boards to pieces.
And immediately, I have to back away due to the stench.
A horrendous rotting smell wafts over all of u
s.
Yisla says mutedly behind a hand, “It was not like this before.”
“There is something dead in there,” Yerla adds.
I turn to the two sisters. “Go now and wake the graycloak, and bring her back here.”
They alternate looking between me and the effulgent with wide eyes.
“You are worried that she will be angry at you for waking her,” I surmise. “Don’t be. Tell her that I sent you. Tell her that I am at the voider’s well with her father, and that we’re about to discover his little secret, together.”
“Master voider, you don’t have to do this,” the effulgent utters.
“Oh, I think I do. This is part of the lesson.”
The children both nod and begin to scamper away, carrying the torch with them.
“Tell her to bring a shovel from the smithy,” I call out.
They shout out confirmations and continue on. I watch the ring of flickering orange disappear into the shadows of the forest where the dawn has not yet reached.
“I freely admit it,” the effulgent finally says, his voice louder and more full of emotion than I have heard thus far. “As I have admitted to you in the past. There is no reason to bring up the dead. That is why I shuttered the well. To protect everyone.”
“You mean, to protect yourself.”
He shakes his head. “There is no crime here, despite what you think. I did not murder him. He fell in accidentally.”
“Of course,” I say, my voice spilling over with sarcasm. “How clumsy of him.”
“I do not lie, master voider! Lies are just another form of ownership. But, then again, I hardly expect someone lost within black arcana to understand such things!”
The hypocrisy of this man is more than I can handle.
I lunge toward him, grabbing a fistful of his white, silken robes, and pull him back with me to the edge of the well. In our twisted embrace, we lean precariously over the low, thin boards. They groan as I force him to stare into the blackness with me.
And see what he has done.
I had envisioned my student’s body lying upright, staring back at us with a final look of betrayal. But all I see is a darkened crumpled body on its side, barely recognizable. It bisects the moon’s distant reflection in the water.
“Tell me,” I say through clenched teeth with his head by my side. “How exactly did this accident happen?”
He swallows nervously. “We were having a quarrel. It became heated. He lost his reason and lunged at me—much like you are doing now—and we grappled. He slipped and fell in this hole. I give you my word. I shuttered it only to prevent others—”
“That is what was killing Yisla!” I shout, pulling both of us back up to safety. “She was drinking from this well, because she doesn’t know any better! She’s just a child! She was drinking corpse water!”
His wide eyes dart to Chimeline and then back to me. “But I never meant—”
“These people trusted you,” I say, cutting him off while pushing him away. “Instead, your secrets are killing the very people you claim to protect. And all you have to say for yourself is that your Unnamed wills it.”
“The Unnamed has willed all—”
“That’s horse shit!” I shout. “You’re nothing more than a common peddler. You should be ashamed of yourself.”
The effulgent closes his eyes and takes a deep breath, and then begins coughing uncontrollably with the stench.
I can see my words sink in, so I walk back to the ash hill, regaining some much-needed composure and fresh air. The effulgent rushes toward the opposite side of the clearing, puts his hands on his knees, and retches into the dirt.
“It was the house, wasn’t it?” I ask after a while, staring into the ruins. “That is what the fight was all about.”
My voice comes out in not much more than a whisper. The rage has drained everything else out of me, much the same way this fire has left only ashes behind. The predawn forest is so calm that I know he can hear me.
“It was because Anaxarchis could easily build solid structures for every man, woman, and child in this village,” I add. “That was a threat to you. Homes that could be considered luxurious. Structures, so well-built, they would be points of pride. Possessions, even. And if they started feeling good about their homes, who knows what else they’d feel good about. They might even feel good enough to not need you anymore.”
The shrill crow of a rooster reaches us from the girls’ camp nearby.
“You are very observant, master voider,” he eventually says, still looking down at the ground as his retching stops. “The Unnamed has obviously chosen you, whether you curse him or not.”
I ignore his twisted compliment.
“But it was not I who burned down his house,” he adds.
“Well then, who did?”
“I don’t know!” he answers, his voice loud as he briefly loses his composure. “The truth is, it could've been any of the villagers. The black arcana is frowned upon here, and—”
“It’s frowned upon because of you!”
“The truth is persuasive.”
Before I can respond, he quickly adds, “Your student thought it was me, but it wasn’t. I would never do such a thing. I do not own the dark.”
The effulgent spits one last time into the ground. Then, standing up straight, he stares sadly at me and wipes his mouth with his gleaming sleeve. And for the first time, I think I believe him.
But even so, covering up Anaxarchis’ death is unacceptable.
“When the girls get back,” I say to him, “you are going to admit to what you have done to your daughter. And then, you will dig Anaxarchis’ grave.”
He nods.
Silently, I stumble back to the well. I have nothing left to say, only things left to do.
Grabbing my voidstone, I begin to raise the dead.
Leaving Fiscarlo
As I break from the colorless, wind-swept world of the void, the harsh, morning light hits me. I have to close my eyes and sit down against the flimsy, wooden side of the well. Phantom trails dance in my vision.
While my eyesight adjusts, all I can hear is the sound of shoveling, punctuated by deep breaths, and I wonder who is more exhausted—the effulgent or I?
During my brief time in the void, the girls and the graycloak have returned. The three of them huddle around Chimeline in the distance. They all sit cross-legged upon a rare patch of grass in the sunlight, while the towering bamboo trees surrounding the clearing whisper in the breeze.
Despite being roughly the same age, the differences in the two women’s appearances are profound. Chimeline, with her caramel skin, and black, glossy hair, is juxtaposed against the dark and bald graycloak, whose skin reflects the sun like oiled metal.
Chimeline reads from her copy of The Book of Unwanting, pointing to the words on the page and then looking sideways to the graycloak for approval. The graycloak nods and says something in reply.
Meanwhile, much closer to me, the effulgent has dug an impressive grave. He stands in it now, and all I can see of him is his soiled face and upper chest.
“That’s deep enough,” I say.
He jumps in place and stops working, wiping his brow with his cloak.
“I didn’t realize that you had finished,” he says.
I nod. “I also purified the well. You don’t need to keep it shuttered anymore.”
He tosses the shovel out. “At least Yisla will be pleased,” he says. I detect a trace of annoyance in his voice, as if using voidance to do a good deed invalidates it.
He looks around in all directions while he wipes his hands on his chest. “Can you help me out?”
I slowly stand up and approach the grave, feeling a little lightheaded as I pass by the recently raised body of Anaxarchis.
It no longer resembles my student. It doesn’t even look human. The body is gray and bloated, like some deep-sea creature my submaster Mander discovered in Blackscar. Even the tatters of his cloak resemble stra
nds of seaweed. I would doubt that the body were his, if not for the voidstone still hung around his swollen neck.
Subtly, I rip the necklace off of him, stuffing it in my pocket before walking over to the grave.
With my higher vantage point, I can see that the effulgent is entirely covered in dirt and sweat—pasted on his skin and clothes. He did not remove his formal, pure-white cloak before getting to work. It almost seems to me that this was done on purpose—an outer sign of his inner turmoil.
Kneeling down in the dirt, I grasp his wrist and pull him up, as he gives me an utterance of thanks.
Then, without speaking, we both grab a gray arm and carefully pull the decaying body of my student into the hole. I am worried that the body has decomposed to the point that the arms might rip off in place, but they hold.
The corpse makes a wet sound as it falls.
For a moment, the two of us stand there at the edge of the grave, looking down upon the twisted remains. The effulgent walks around it, picks up the only shovel, and begins filling the hole, using the mound of dirt he recently created.
I sit down in the shade and watch him, feeling vindicated. My fury has burnt itself out.
Halfway through the task, the effulgent stumbles. He catches his footing though, preventing himself from falling into the grave. But this convinces him to take a break. He leans his head and arms on the shovel’s upright handle, his chest heaving.
The daughter sees all of this from the sunlit clearing, stands up, and quickly walks over.
“Your Effulgency,” she says formally, “I have asked you—repeatedly—if I can help, and I am now asking again. Will you relent?”
“No,” he snaps, uncharacteristically. “I committed the offense here, and therefore the sentence is mine to bear.”
“But you are clearly spent.”
He nods in the direction of the others and softens his tone. “I see you teaching the others the way of unwanting. That is the place for you. Not here. Not with me.”
She puts her hand on the shovel. “My place is always with you.”
He wipes his hairless brow with his arm, and then shakes his head. “You do not realize it yet, but the time has come for you to enter the fullness of the effulgency.”
