Tuesday, August 25, 2009

10: The Southlands

Autumn heat lay heavy on the Southlands, a vast expanse of grass and heather that exhaled dust. The lack of landmarks unnerved Tad, who had spent his entire life in places from which he could see other places. Towns, farms, distant hills, stands of trees had always been his guides. The endless plain capped by the endless sky left him feeling lost and very, very small. This is what sailors must feel like, he thought, surrounded by water everywhere and nothing to steer by.

He was usually last in line, leading the packhorse, squinting and choking on the debris of everyone else’s passing, trying to follow without getting lost in the cloud. The road was hardly any different from the rest of the landscape, except that it was raised up a few feet and banked on either side with stone. Over a century of neglect hadn’t yet broken the foundations of the highway, but the surface was waist-high in vegetation.

In better times, when Aspera had been bigger, there had been farms and hamlets along this road. Smaller roads had branched off from the highway to lead travelers to yet more towns and more farms. According to Geranicus, the Southlands had never been prosperous, yet over a hundred thousand people had lived here, mostly scattered in small settlements. In the 990’s, a decade of drought, disease, and civil war had broken the kingdom, leaving it vulnerable to raiders and monsters. King Tygar had put the realm back together though drastic measures, including forcing people to move from the periphery to the inner duchies. He was unpopular for it, but time had proved him right. His actions made the kingdom defensible again, and the kingdom began to recover.

At night the party made camp, usually in the ruins of a village or a farmhouse that had a working well. Basil was tasked with finding these, and Tad liked going with him just to get away from the choking dust he usually rode in. The elf had a surprising knack for finding good camp sites. He could spot the remains of a stone dwelling from hundreds of yards away, solely from some imperceptible (to Tad) differences in the grass. When they found a possible camp site, Tad and Basil would search systematically for a well. If they didn’t find one they would move on. Once, Tad had discovered a well by falling into it, and Basil had found him hanging onto the edge with his fingertips. That was how Tad learned the proper use of the ten-foot pole.

In their camp sites, there were enough loose stones to make a decent fire pit, but it was seldom necessary to build one. It was more typical to find a circular paved area surrounding a built-up hearth, laid down without mortar. Basil said the hearths were left by elves, who went through the Southlands in early Winter to hunt elk for meat and skins. Before the snows became too deep, his people would head West towards their desert home and dwell there until Spring.

In the fading evening sun, Tad would have lessons with weapons, during which Aidan would take care not to fracture his skull again. Some nights, during the first watch, Minzerec would teach him Astronomy. The arcanist had a magic circle of glass which made things far away seem close. He mounted this on a clever little stand that let it turn and tilt to look at any part of the sky, and Tad would spend hours peering through it under his direction. The dwarf smoked his pipe and lectured him about how stars were born and died, and Tad learned to read star charts and find any body in the sky that was visible. What he missed from the daytime sky, the night sky had in abundance: features and guideposts by the thousands.

On the nights he didn’t study the stars, Tad shared the third watch with Basil. The elf tried to teach him how to meditate. If he could learn to do it properly, Basil claimed that “the world will open to you”. Tad didn’t think he was making much progress in these lessons: mostly, he seemed to struggle against boredom and sleep.

In his bedroll at night Tad’s dreams took a turn away from long-clawed monsters in the night. Instead, he dreamt of a night sky that wheeled and rippled like a strange sea, and his world was a ship that sailed on it. Near the big wheel that turned the ship there were people fighting, and he could hear shouting, and metal ringing against metal. A blackness moved against the stars, in which Tad thought he could make out the shape of a giant raven, it’s wingtips shimmering bronze in the starlight. He thought something had caught fire, because smoke was stinging his eyes. But when he woke, it was just the breakfast fire.

Riding through the lost duchy, farther from home than he thought possible, next to the strange little man who had plucked him out of a ditch last winter, looking at the distant peaks of mountains he hadn’t even known existed, Tad felt a little sick to his stomach. There were things bothering him he didn’t know how to say. “Mister Brightstar, I’ve been thinking.”

“A dangerous pastime, my boy.” Tad’s master took a deep breath, as if steeling himself for some complex task. “What has been on your mind?”

“Father Ambrose and Earkey can heal with the Gods’ power. How many people can do that?”

“In Aspera? Besides our friends here, only the Heirophant and his champion. If there are others then they’re hiding it.”

“And Nadia and Aidan, they’re famous fighters. And the duke himself sent them.” Mr. Brightstart nodded, as if seeing where Tad was going with all of this. “And I think Minzerec works for the Arcane Council.”

“Now what makes you say that?”

Tad shrugged, “I don’t have any proof. But sometimes, when he talks about arcane things or about the Academy, he acts like he’s in charge. He thinks people should just do what he says, and trust him that he knows best.”

Mr. Brightstar nodded several times. “Minzerek Granitehelm is an enforcer for the Academy. It’s a little like being a rider or a peacekeepr: if someone breaks the rules about using magic, then it is his job to catch them.” Tad thought about what the rules about using magic might be, and set those questions aside for the moment.

“And I don’t know anything about Mister Basil, but he’s probably important too. I mean, he’s always drunk, but his armor is good and he has enough money for wine, so he’s not nobody.” Tad waited for some response or encouragement from Nolan, but it didn’t seem to be forthcoming so he continued. “And that spell on the sisters, I heard Minzerec say it was really big magic. The Harrels and the Hemmets had a contract, and the Harrel family is being called to do whatever it is they’re supposed to do, and the magic called the sisters.” Tad’s mouth was picking up speed now, like it sometimes did. “So that means the sisters are related to the Duke of Corak, only they’re not in the geneology. So they’re like those unrecognized kin that Lady Calanth was talking about, right?”

“Is that all that’s on your mind?” Nolan asked him wrily.

“Yes sir. And the thing about one of Sammit’s relics. Can you imagine holding one in your hands? Except for the throne. I guess you’d have to sit on that. And it can’t just be lying around somewhere. It’s been gone for hundreds of years. It has to be hidden, and guarded somehow, with enchantments and stuff, like that shrine we did over the summer, but bigger?”

“And your point, apprentice Thaddius?”

“Well, it’s all pretty big isn’t it?”

Nolan looked at the boy’s eyes, wide and shining, and sighed. He had utterly ruined the child for a simple trade like weaving. Whatever happened now, there was little hope for the simple, quiet life for Thaddius. “Might be nothing,” he offered, “but it could be big. Very big indeed.”

On the featureless terrain, which Tad came to think of as the Sea of Brown, days passed like weeks. It seemed like the longest ride of Tad’s life, but it was only eleven days until a line of hills could just be seen in the south. Somewhere in those hills, he knew, lay Stamfield, once the seat of the southern duchy of Aspera, and ancestral home of the Hemmet family.

Two days after the hills first came into view, their road took a gentle turn to the southwest, to angle into them. The hills had grown, an beyond them were the dim blue shapes of mountains. According to Lady Calanth’s map, the road would wend its way through the valleys to take travelers to whatever remained of the city of Stamfield.

People used to live around the bend of the road, at least according to the stone marker engraved with the words “Hemmet’s Bend”. But whether that was the name of a large road house, a nobleman’s estate, or a hamlet was unclear. All that remained was a tall squarish building, maybe the ruins of a tower, with no roof, and a lot of tumbled-down masonry all around it. Not even elves made camp here, at least not often enough to build a hearth. Basil built a fire-ring in the shadow of the ruins, and the party made camp around it.

The next morning, when dawn should have touched their camp at the bend in the road, there was only a diffuse illumination. The very tips of the hills to the Southwest shone bright with sunlight, but the rest of the world remained in twilight.

Turning East, all Tad could see was was an impenetrable grayness. It was as if a mist hung there, unmoving, shading them from the rising sun. To the north and the south, it stretched like a barrier, a wall miles high. Tad let his eyes follow the mist to the ground, and then tried to measure the distance from it to his own feet. With a shock, he realized that he was only a few hundred feet away from it. His eyes returned to the wall and tried to scaled its heights: Tad’s mind stuttered to a stop, confronted by something so vast that it couldn’t be grasped.

Thaddius had once seen a potter, working at her wheel with a lump of wet clay, press her thumbs into it and suddenly draw it up and out into a new shape. That’s what he felt like when this new Idea, unformed and frightening, too powerful to resist, disordered everything he thought he knew.

For days, he had just ignored that part of the horizon while this thing had grown. There must be some magic at work that made people look the other way, but from this close it wasn’t working. Tad was breathing heavily, and his fists were clenching and unclenching. Excitement and confusion assaulted him at the same time: here was something so profound, nobody wanted to look at it.

He was standing on the very edge of the world. It shouldn’t be possible, but there it was right in front of him. It shouldn’t be there. Worlds were supposed to be spheres. He should be able to walk forever, and come back to the same spot. Minzerek had explained it to him. Yet here, it all just dissolved into nothingness.

“I said, come back to the fire, boy.” Mr. Brightstar’s hands were turning him around and leading him to the camp, then pushing a hot cup into his hands. “Drink. It’ll take your mind off of ... things for a minute.” Thaddius allowed this, but without particularly caring about it. What was tea, when compared with the vast emptiness of the end of the world?

“Why isn’t he talking?” It was Aidan. She sounded alarmed. She cupped his face in her hands, none too gently, and forced him to look at her. His cheeks flushed so hot he thought the skin would burn, then cooled just as quickly. “Father, come look at him.” From this close, Tad could see her dark eyes were rimmed with a miniscule fringe of gold.

“Just sit him down over there,” Ambrose pointed with the spoon he was using to stir a pot of beans. Once Tad was settled, facing the fire and with his back to the end of the world, the Bishop started tearing dried meat into small bits and adding them to the pot. “He’ll come around, he just needs a few minutes.” Minzerek came to look at him briefly, but didn’t say anything. He just peered at Tad with eyes like polished orbs of stone.

The party gathered around and sat, some on fallen debris from the tower above them, and others on the bare ground, so that Tad found himself part of a circle. They talked of inconsequential things, like how much longer it would take to reach Stamfield, and whether they would need to hunt to replenish their supplies. Bishop Ambrose dished out the beans into bowls to be passed around, and Tad discovered he was famished. He gulped down his tea with a grimace and ate furiously.

A fine song this would make: They were a band of famous heroes, breakfasting on beans around a tiny fire at the end of the world. The humor in that idea did as much to bring him back to near normal as tea and breakfast had. Apparently, the antidote for mind-shattering news was the mundane.

“How come nobody knows about ...,” Tad waved his hand ineffectually towards the thing at his back, “... that.” They all just looked at each other, for so long that Tad began to wonder if anyone was going to answer.

It was Earkey who took up the question, at the same time pouring himself a generous measure of the bitter tea. “What makes you think they don’t?” Tad tried to think of any time he had ever heard that the world suddenly came to an end, just two weeks ride from the kingdom, but he could remember nothing of the sort.

“Thaddius,” said Mr. Brightstar, gently, “do you remember when we took the boat up from Reeland? They taught you a song about the Great River.”

Tad thought hard: it had been just a few weeks after Mr. Brightstar had taken him on, and he hadn’t yet learned to commit everything to memory. They hired passage on a barge, pulled upriver by giant horses that plod along the right-hand bank. They slept on top of bales of wool, because the only cabin was taken. It was dark, and winter, and very cold. The wind that came from downriver iced painfully through his blankets and made him whimper.

To ease him, the bargemen sang him a song. It was a simple learning song, full of bad grammar, which told the settlements along the western shore. But of the Eastern shore, there was just one verse:
The Eastern shore none may see,
Cloaked in mist it always be,
Hidden by her sorcerous hand,
The queen of faeries holds that land.
“This is the same mist that always sits on the other side of the river?”

“The very same,” said Earkey, but he did not elaborate. They were going to make him work it out on his own.

“Rivermen see a fairy mist. Ocean maps show monsters breathing smoke, or the seas spilling over in giants waterfalls. I see the end of the world. People make up their own explanations, but it’s all the same thing.” For some reason, Tad’s eyes landed on Minzerek. “So what is it, really?”

“Yes Minzerek,” echoed Earkey, “what is it, really?”

The dwarf had his wizard face on. Tad knew they would receive only partial truths. Minzerek would tell them only as much as he thought they should know, or as much as the Academy would allow. “In the vernacular of Aspera, it is the Veil.”

“I thought the veil was the separation between life and death, this life and the hereafter given by the gods.” Tad looked at Bishop Ambrose for confirmation, but Ambrose was watching Minzerek.

The dwarf stroked the braids of his beard, several times, before answering. “A linguistic confusion. A not entirely accidental one.” He poured himself the dregs of the tea, no doubt wishing for a good beer instead. “What do you know about the third Emperor?”

“He called himself the Golden Emperor, but he was a madman.”

“He was also astonishingly gifted, what today we would call a divergent talent. To aid in his insane conquests, allied with forces of chaos. Demons that aren’t even from this world, summoned from a place of pure chaos. They would have torn the world apart, so Arcane Council created a barrier to hedge them out. It has been protecting us ever since.” When Minzerek sipped his tea, the beads in his beard clicked against the cup. Tad wondered for about the dozenth time the significance dwarves gave to their facial hair, but again had to leave that for some other time.

“On the other hand,” Earkey offered, “our own lore about the barrier is a little different.”

“I don’t think we should be teaching Thaddius superstitions, do you?” Minzerek appealed to Mr. Brightstar, “He has enough to think about already, without adding folklore.”

“Oh, I think he can handle a little more,” said Mr. Brightstar. “And you should have more respect for Gnomish lore, Minzerek. I’ve seen six-hundred-year-old texts that match their modern copies, perfectly.”

“Well,” continued the gnome, “you might have heard that we come from another continent. Our homeland was invaded by Sidir, your Golden Emperor, and he forced us to worship him as a god. All other religions were banned, and clerics were hunted down and killed. The same was true all over the world, wherever he ruled. He wanted to be immortal. To become a god, he made people treat him like one. Terrible punishments were meted out to anyone who opposed him.”

“So he was talented, and he was crazy.”

“Not as crazy as you might think. Prayer and sacrifice are powerful forces.” Minzerek scoffed audibly, but Earkey pretended not to notice, “All of that directed at someone like Sidir, who knows what he could do with so much devotion?

“In our writings, the Ghaucia and the Arcane Council created the barrier to shut the world off from divine magic. By keeping him from using divine magic, they stopped his ascention. The gods allowed this. What’s more, they were subtly involved, guiding those who made it.”

“So all of that,” Tad waved his hands, “was to keep a man from becoming a god? And the gods planned it?”
“The mortal hands of clay have drawn a line
which gods in secret anger have surveyed
to topple throne of one man's gilded hate
and those who through inaction gods betrayed.”
All eyes were on Aidan, who had spoken those lines. “An oracle said that, when Ghaucia tried to undo the Veil. Or the barrier, or whatever we’re calling it. I think she meant that the Academy was just the hands that built it. The gods inspired it, and the gods will see to it that it comes down. When they’re ready.”

“That’s similar to our lore,” agreed Earkey.

Tad already had more to think about than would fit in his head, but one question begged to be answered. “So what happened to Emperor Sidir?”

“All of the histories agree that Sidir blamed the Fey for his sudden loss of power. He gathered an army, forded it over the Yeron river, and went into the Feywold. His army was turned back by the barrier, of course, but Sidir went right through it and was never seen again. Nobody really knows what happened.”

“Turned back,” whispered Tad. He hazarded a look over his shoulder at the looming barrier. “What happens when an army marches right at it?”

With two clicks of her tongue Nadia summoned Nightbow, and vaulted onto his back. She brought the charger around to Tad, and offered him her hand. “Want to find out?”

Minzerek stood in a sudden fury, “This is irresponsible! You do not toy with the great magics!”

“Oh, go comb your beard! If your Veil is so great, then we’ll be right back.” Tad grabbed Nadia’s proffered hand, and she swung him easily up behind her. “Hold on tight.”

With a light touch, Nadia pointed Nightbow at the gray wall and sent him into a canter. When the barrier loomed over them so hugely that it blocked out the sky, Thaddius had a moment of near panic. He was sure it would swallow them, and never spit them back out. Tad held Nadia as hard as he could, but he refused to close his eyes.

It did swallow them, and within a few seconds Tad felt disappointment: it wasn’t any different at all from being inside a bank of fog. The same tall grass hissed and rustled as they passed through it. The same damp morning air streamed past their faces. The only difference was the fog itself. Nightbow took a stride, then another, then another, and suddenly they were clear of the mist. At first, Tad thought they had gone through it. But the camp site right in front of him told a different story: they had come out right where they had gone in.

“It does that every single time,” said Nadia. “Nobody can get out, and nothing can get in.”

Basil’s voice floated to them from the camp, “If we have educated the boy enough for one morning, perhaps we can move on?”