by D M Wozniak
Blythe stays standing as well.
Worchot slaps his palms against his knees, breathes out theatrically, and then begins.
“Worchot was at Farmer Owerjen’s place, as Worchot was saying. Buying some fine, golden honey. Worchot loves his bees, but they do not love Worchot back. See?” He cuffs his white shirt sleeve to reveal a trail of tender, red swelling.
The trader then laughs to himself before his eyes get wide and his hand spreads out, ignoring his unbuttoned shirt sleeve.
“Worchot was there, in the wildflower fields with Owerjen and his two sons, between stacks of bee houses taller than most men, when we saw something black in the sky. And it was growing.”
He looks off to the horizon and points to nothing.
“Just like that, the black spot became larger and larger. Lower in the skies and directly toward us. The young one ran back to the house. He was scared. But the rest of us stayed, and to tell you the truth, Worchot was scared too. Nothing, in all of Worchot’s travels, did this look like. That little master Owerjen had common sense, that he did.”
“Who was in the airship?” I ask levelly, not appreciating his theatrics, although it seems that Chimeline is taken by it. She’s resting her head on her hands, leaning forward.
“An effulgent and his consort.”
Blythe steps forward and interjects before I can.
“Are you sure?”
Worchot nods. “By Temberlain’s Ashes, he was wearing the white robes. And his head was just like yours—bald as a baby’s ass. Not a single hair on his body, not even eyebrows.”
“Did you speak to him?” Blythe replies.
“Yes. But like you, graycloak, he was a man of few words.”
Colu comes near and throws a bag of gold to Worchot.
“Worchot thanks you,” he says, as Colu leans against a wagon wheel.
“Don’t thank me,” Colu says. “Ain’t my fucking gold.”
“The woman,” I say. “Tell me about the woman.”
He whistles. “Good Unnamed. If Worchot were younger and a few more inches, he would have asked that sprightly beauty for a dance, right in the middle of those wildflowers.” He then begins to laugh to himself. “Worchot is speaking about his height, in case you’re all wondering. Worchot’s manhood is not lacking.”
“Did the airship crash?” Chimeline asks, ignoring his crude humor.
He shakes his head. “No, my fine lady from the archipelago. It was not a crash at all, but a soft, delicate landing. Like the swans of Northinglight, landing upon icy waters without even a ripple. The basket came down, and for a while it slid silently across the fields of wildflowers. Eventually, it toppled over, but by then the pair had deftly jumped out, hand in hand. They almost floated out.”
“What did they say?” I ask.
He smiles. “The man wanted to know whose field it was. How far south we were. Owerjen stepped forward and introduced himself.
“Was there a veil surrounding his face?” I continue, motioning with my hand about my head.
His face wrinkles up. “Worchot does not understand.”
“Was the man behind a veil?” I say, raising my voice.
“No,” he answers. “What kind of pig’s ass question is that?”
“Where was he from?” Blythe adds softly before I can rebuke. “Did he mention a temple?”
Worchot shakes his head and spreads out his hands. “No.”
“Do you know anything useful?” I ask.
“Worchot can see that you want this man’s identity, but Worchot cannot give it to you. All Worchot can tell you is what happened next.”
“Which is?”
“The lady wanted to freshen up at Owerjen’s farmhouse, which was nearby, just over the hill. Owerjen rang his bell to call his wife out and she took the golden-haired beauty inside.”
“Where were they headed?” I ask.
“Winter’s Baiou,” he answers while pointing to me. “That much they revealed.”
“But where in Winter’s Baiou? It’s a large city.”
“Worchot does not know, for they did not say.”
I nod slowly, somewhat disappointed.
“The effulgent wouldn’t take gold for the black airship,” he continues. “His revulsion to ownership. And Owerjen had no interest in it.” He clears his throat. “As you say, it is the king’s property. But that airship is right up Worchot’s darkened alley, so we made a trade. The man and woman got Worchot’s horses, which were in much better condition than these two,” he says, a thumb pointed in their direction. “I gave them the horses, along with some goat clippings.” He clears his throat again before continuing. “Worchot got the airship, and Owerjen got the thing off of his property. Owerjen is a very lawful man.”
I raise my head and look at him. “What did he ask for?”
“My good horses—”
“No,” I interject. “The other thing.”
“You mean the goat clippings?”
“Yes. What is that?”
He illustrates by slicing one of his hands with the other, and then doing the same with his nose. “Goat’s clippings. Muzzles and feet.”
“Why would he want such a thing?” Blythe asks.
Worchot shrugs his shoulders. “It’s used for a great many things. Typically, one can make a very strong glue with boiled clippings. Used by painters, mostly. Saddlers and woodworkers, too. Worchot is asked for clippings once in a while. It is not as popular as honey.” He extends his two hands toward us. “By the way, would any of you care to purchase some fresh honey? Only ten gold per bottle.”
“How did the two act together?” I reply, ignoring his question.
“Hmm?”
“The effulgent and the woman. Were they...friendly with one another?”
He takes a deep breath, as he wrings his hands through his beard again. A small piece of rubbish falls out and lands on the sand.
“If you don’t mind Worchot saying,” he says, “effulgents and graycloaks have always been a little strange to Worchot. Not very clear with their emotions. A tight lid over an empty jar is what Worchot says.”
Blythe says nothing, and the trader laughs as he looks at me. “See what Worchot means?”
“Answer the question, please.”
He grunts and shrugs his shoulders. “Worchot couldn’t tell by the man. He was a statue. Like Worchot said before, a tight lid. But he held the woman’s hand when they landed. And she put her arms around his chest. In a certain way, if you know what Worchot means.”
I am silent as he adds, “Maybe she is going to bear him a graycloak. Gotta hand it to those effulgents. They get to pick the—”
“Is that all?” I say, cutting him off.
Worchot purses his lips. “That’s about it. She paid ten gold to Owerjen’s wife before leaving, for the use of their wash basin and also fresh honeybread. Worchot can’t think of anything else.”
“Then we’re done here,” I say, turning away from him.
I hear him groan as he gets up from his built-in ladder-seat, kicking it back into place.
“Ah, master voider, there is one more thing that Worchot forgot.”
I turn back over my shoulder to face him.
He taps his chest. “The effulgent had one of those, except it might have been bigger than yours.”
I look down momentarily and then face him completely.
“A voidstone?”
He nods.
“That’s impossible.”
He shrugs his shoulders. “Worchot says what Worchot saw.”
I flash Blythe a worried glance.
“Tell us exactly what you saw,” Blythe says.
“Worchot did not see the black stone as they landed. The effulgent had it in his fist. But after they floated down, he tucked it into an inner pocket of his white cloak. Worchot has a quick eye for things like that, and Worchot saw the stone. Golden haired beauty had one as well.”
I bring my hand up to my temple, squeezing hard.<
br />
“Now Worchot has finished his story. Honest as mother’s milk.”
He wipes his hands across his vest again as he surveys the others. “Are you sure you don’t want any honey?” He looks at Colu. “Worchot also has some fine weapons—and a kind warning. In the bay city, you will have a hard time finding an interested merchant. You being Xian and all. But me? Worchort’s Wares is open to all.”
Leaving the chuckling trader, I briskly walk away from the wagon and head back to our horses, waving Blythe over.
“A voider-effulgent?” I whisper to him. “I’ve never heard of such a thing.”
He stays silent, a hand to his chin.
“But the trader’s story matches what Colu saw in the hilma field,” I add.
Blythe nods.
“Do you believe it?” I ask him.
He brings a finger to his lips in thought. “The woman is a voider?”
I shake my head while darkly smiling. Blythe’s thoughts are overlapping with mine.
“Not really.”
“I thought you said she had—”
“Actually, yes,” I say, interrupting. “She’s technically a voider, but she’s weak. There is no way she could power the airship all the way from the citadel.”
Blythe narrows his eyes. “Are you sure?”
“Yes. I saved her from voideath years ago. She entered it just by touching my stone. It had to have been powered by him. The effulgent.”
After a moment of silence, he adds, “Do you know what this means?”
“We’re dealing with a paradox,” I say under my breath.
“More than that. We’re dealing with an empowered.”
We both come to a halt.
He closes his eyes and takes a deep breath. Meanwhile, I look to the others by the wagon. We’re clearly out of earshot.
He looks up and swallows. “Which is impossible.”
“Tell me why.”
“All the empowered died in the crash.”
“Which happened...When? A thousand years ago?”
Blythe extends a hand. “Please. I am thinking, master voider.”
I sigh, looking back to Colu and Chimeline, who are still talking to Worchot. He’s brought out the honey and some other items as well. Chimeline holds up a bracelet that glitters in the mid-day sun. Colu inspects a dagger. Blood, the palehound, has left the wagon, and relieves himself in the brush with a trail of pink urine. And far away, the clouds begin to darken.
“It is written that eleutheria was the goal of the mutiny.”
“Eleutheria?”
“The process of releasing souls from axion.”
I give a hesitant nod. I don’t understand, but I don’t want to interrupt either.
“But they were not completely successful,” he adds. “The continued existence of voidstones is proof enough of this.”
“So, your forefathers meant to free the trapped souls in the Axiondrive,” I surmise darkly, “but they failed. And the result was the crash.”
He nods. “And now I wonder, if they failed at that, perhaps they failed at something else.”
I wait for him to continue.
“The enervated who survived proclaimed in their first writings that this world was a fresh start. Without the blemish of the empowered. But maybe one survived within our ranks. Maybe the empowered bloodline was carried forward to this time.”
“Your people...the enervated...they became who we know as the effulgency today.”
He nods.
“And an empowered among you would look no different.”
“Correct.”
“Then this man must have been an effulgent at the citadel,” I say. “Which is why he sometimes hid his identity with a veil.” I raise my hands and lower them against my sides. “Out here, there is no need to conceal oneself.”
“Yes, yes,” Blythe replies, finally looking up at me.
“How many effulgents are there in the citadel?” I ask. “I only know of the head effulgent and a few others.”
Blythe exhales sharply through dry lips. “The citadel is one of the largest cities in the Northern Kingdom. It has over a dozen temples across the first and second rings, and probably over a hundred effulgents combined.”
I utter a curse, kicking a loose red cobblestone that has found its way to the side of the road. “I thought that we were onto something.”
But then my foot goes still.
“I never taught him,” I say slowly.
“What?”
I shake my head quickly, back and forth, as if trying to dislodge my prior notions. “All this time, I had thought that I was dealing with someone trained at the university.”
“Why the university?”
“The man veiled his face. That’s dynamic voidance. He designed a laboratory devoted to war. He powered an airship across the Northern Kingdom. All of these things require advanced knowledge of voidance. It’s just not reasonable to assume one learns these things on their own.”
“I would not know, but trust that you are correct.”
“This is why I had assumed that the man was a former student of mine. That would explain how Marine met him. But now, all of that’s fallen into ruin.”
“Because you don’t educate effulgents.”
I let out single dark laugh. “No. I doubt that an effulgent has ever dared stepped through our front door. And if they ever did, I’m not sure we’d let them in.”
Another span of silence ensues, until Blythe speaks up again. “Was the woman on the way of unwanting?”
“No, Blythe. Quite the contrary.”
“How do you mean?”
I shrug my shoulders. “She came from a wealthy Giriyan family, which was then dwarfed by the life of luxury I gave her. I think she owned more shoes than all the residents of Fiscarlo.”
He groans. “I hope you are exaggerating.”
“I’m not.”
The bright, tumbling sound of gold coins causes me to turn toward the wagon. They’re wrapping up.
“Master voider,” Blythe says. “I have an idea.”
I look back to him.
“I’d like to speak to them again.” He nods at my stone.
“When?”
“As soon as possible,” he says. “They may know about this empowered. If he is working alone, or if there are more of them out there. May the Good Unnamed help us all, if the latter is true.”
I feel my brow furrow. “How would the trapped souls in my stone know what this empowered is doing with his?”
Blythe presses his lips together tightly. “They are all connected, somehow.”
“How do you know that?”
“They knew about the others.”
“Others?”
“The enervated trapped in your stone knew of the other fragments of axion, all across this land. Somehow, they are one.”
I open my mouth, but he extends his hand to silence me. “Understanding the extent of this evil is our first step. After that, I must get the word out, immediately. It is of utmost importance. Greater, I might add, than finding the empowered and the woman.”
I bring a hand to my temple again in frustration. I am so close to Marine, I can feel it. And now, more than ever, I need to know the truth. How could she fall in love with an effulgent, of all people? With a man who doesn’t know the slightest thing about making her happy?
But after all I’ve learned today, it is hard for me to discount Blythe’s words. There are more urgent things in this world than repairing a broken heart.
“How do you plan on accomplishing this?” I ask. “Getting the word out, I mean.”
“There are temples in Winter’s Baiou.”
I look at him inquisitively.
“Every temple raises pigeons trained to fly to nearby temples. It is a network of sorts. I will send a message out in our private language—in all directions. And they will do the same. Within days, it will be carried across the entire land.”
“Fine,” I say, acquiescin
g. “We’ll stop by one of your temples. But as soon as you’re done, I’m going to find Marine and that bastard empowered.”
He winces.
“What?”
“You’re not thinking this through.”
“I am thinking it through perfectly,” I reply curtly. “I help you, and then I’m on my way.”
“That’s not what I meant. An empowered has arisen. He is a voider, but he is also an effulgent. Which means that if he’s headed to Winter’s Baiou, he might be going to the very same temple we intend to visit.”
I see his point.
Blythe bites his lip, looks down, and then back to me. “Don’t underestimate him.”
With his words, an image of the veiled man appears in my mind. Except there is no darkness or blur about him anymore. All of that has blown away, along with my prior ignorance.
He’s gleaming now. A nondescript, smooth face over shining robes. Painful white, like a needle in the eye.
And it makes me wonder: How could a man like this have gone unnoticed? How could a man who shuns attachments steal the greatest of mine out from under my nose?
He’s either brilliant, or I am a fool beyond words.
“I won’t, Blythe.”
But when I look at him, he’s smiling sadly.
“What is it?”
He presses his lips together tightly before answering. “All this time, I have been the one accusing you of seeking out danger. Now, look at me. I fear that I am stepping off of the way of unwanting.”
“Peace never begets peace, Blythe. Only justice does.”
Weeping Willow
Blythe releases my hand, as the storm outside overtakes the one within.
“Good Unnamed,” are his first words after exiting the void. He sits up in the shadowed grasses, a torrent of rain only feet away.
He’s whiter than a palehound.
The four of us have taken shelter underneath a weeping willow. It is so large and dense that it’s almost enough to keep us completely dry. But every so often, the wind picks up and the rain goes sideways, finding its way in.
“What did they say?” I ask Blythe, sitting up straight.
Out of the corner of my eye, Colu and Chimeline lean in, captivated by our sudden awakening. Chimeline stretches and touches her toes. We’ve all taken off our boots to air our tired feet.
