NEAR THE MAELSTROM
Sitting within a collapsible frame affixed to the first supragant’s back, Druadaen turned to stare over its immense, rolling haunches. As he had seen many times since leaving the Armory a week before, Ancrushav was facing that direction, even though the tip of that granite horn had long since dipped below the horizon.
Druadaen cleared his throat. “I have seen that look on other faces. Many times.”
“What faces?” Ancrushav asked absently.
“Leaders who’d been forced to make the hardest choice of all.”
“What leaders were these?” Ancrushav asked, interest creeping into his tone. “And what choices?”
Druadaen shrugged. “Senior Outriders racing to leave a foreign land who had no way to take the bodies of the fallen with them. Ship captains who had to weigh anchor and sail out of hostile waters, some of their crew still missing on dangerous coasts or in unfriendly ports.”
Ancrushav nodded but did not take his eyes away from the notional location of the Armory. “I swore a silent oath that I would never leave them, the Children and the others, not so long as they needed me. Yet here I am, far away and without surety of when—or even if—I shall return.”
“You left to save them,” Aleasha added, shifting so that she, too, was looking back along their wake of flattened grass.
“I did not adequately prepare for this, for being either slain or absent.” His voice lowered in anger. “I made many mistakes, the worst of which I did not even realize until this day: that I did not make myself replaceable. In that way, they would have been better off without me.”
Aleasha huffed in disdain. “That is a half-lie founded upon a full-lie.”
Ancrushav turned toward her, his eyes wide at her flippant insult.
“The half-lie,” she explained blithely, “is your claim of having made ‘many mistakes.’”
“I made more than I can count.”
“And for every one of those, you made a thousand decisions that were right, many of which, to my mind, border on brilliant. To ignore those is to tell us—but more importantly, yourself—an untruth about what you accomplished.
“Which brings us to your full-lie: that the Armory would have been better off without you. Steward is an excellent lieutenant, but you had the vision and the will to build what you did. And the part of you that knows the truth of what I say, of what you accomplished, will naturally insist otherwise.”
“I do not labor under the onus of false humility,” Ancrushav muttered, eyes still wide to the point of distension.
“Oh, no, not false humility,” Aleasha agreed archly. “Nothing so noble as that! You will insist that you are not a worthy architect of that unique refuge so that you will not be consumed by guilt for leaving it. Or by the grief of parting from those you know there.” She stared back into his wide eyes. “I would say ‘those you love there’ but then I would have to hear you insist that as a serratus, you are incapable of such feelings—and I have neither the interest nor the patience to debate with someone who makes a steady habit of telling lies to avoid facing the truth.”
Ancrushav’s eyes opened even wider—much wider than was possible for a human; they looked more like those of a great cat ready to pounce. “I… How do you know this? I know you are a wyldwyrd, but—”
Aleasha shook her head. “Those arts did not give me these insights. Tosh, they haven’t the power to do so! Shall I tell you the only reason it is so simple for me to see this so clearly?” She leaned so far forward that her nose almost touched his. “I see it easily because I am not you.”
He leaned back slightly, his formal demeanor forgotten. “I do not understand what you mean by that.”
“I mean that because you refuse to make yourself a king among those who wish you to be exactly that, and because you counsel against their adulation and worship, you cannot allow yourself to realize that without you, they would all have slipped into the abyss of madness and savagery just that much faster.”
He looked away. “That is not… I have no such—”
Druadaen tilted toward him. “I suspect you prefer a hard truth to a pleasant lie?”
His eyes flashed at Druadaen. “Of course!”
“Then do not deny the hard truths spoken by Aleasha. It is a lie to deny what you are to them. Or that you are the reason the Armory became a place of refuge, of hope. Since the moment we arrived, we saw signs of your care and canniness at every turn. No, it is not perfect, but it is a miracle that it exists at all. And your part in it may be the hardest truth you will ever have to accept: that you are worthy of the honor they do you.”
Ancrushav looked from one to the other, his eyes appearing human again. “Whether or not I agree with you, I shall admit this much: you are a most congenial pair. I am… unaccustomed to conversation of this type. But understand: though you both perceive much, you do not understand that my battle with pride is far greater than any you have known.”
Aleasha cocked her head. “Why?”
Ancrushav shrugged. “I am serratae. It is in our nature to be extremely—dangerously—prideful.”
Druadaen shook his head. “Then here is another hard truth. If the only way one can temper their pride is by insisting that they have no valid reason to feel any pride at all… well, then your fear of pride is still controlling you, isn’t it?”
Ancrushav’s red eyes narrowed. “Young warrior, I find it disturbing when you sound like an old sage.” He almost smiled. “Useful, perhaps… but still disturbing.”
“Yes,” Aleasha put in with a crooked smile, “he gets like that, sometimes. Now, these supragants are starting to get lazy.” She thumped the back of the one they were riding. “Without regular reminders, they begin dragging their feet, and we still have a way to go.”
Once the supragants had been settled and the wolves set out from the camp ring at three points of a triangle, Aleasha approached Druadaen with the bag of tingle pods that she set out every night and then collected every morning.
“You are good to travel with,” she started without preamble. “You have always taken on more than your share of every task. So I am puzzled why, of all activities, you have not offered to help me with these.” She lifted the bag of tingle pods.
He shrugged. “When you first showed them to me, you spoke of them as being one of the ways that your wyldwyrding could protect us at night.”
She frowned. “If I said that—or if it is what you believe you heard—then your fears have been unfounded.” She raised an eyebrow. “But even if you believed that somehow I have altered them with wyrding before or after harvesting them, why would you avoid merely handling them?”
“Surely you have noticed I always stand at a distance when you are readying an effect of wyldwyrding?”
Her frown deepened. “Now that you mention it, yes, I have. But why?”
Druadaen synopsized what he knew of the strange way in which his mere presence could prevent a mantic construct from completing or even disrupt an active one. “I suspected this was the case here, as well. It seemed to disrupt the efforts of the sorcerers who attempted to waylay me. It may also have frustrated the Vizierate’s attempt to determine if I was telling them the truth. But there are other instances when I have been less certain that it functions here exactly as it does on Arrdanc.”
Aleasha stared at him. “And you never thought to tell me?”
Druadaen shook his head. “I presumed you knew. When we first met, you recall what occurred when you attempted to reach out to my mind? You said you could not ‘reach’ me. As the first mantic—well, wyrd—that I met here, I had not yet considered that such powers could differ so greatly from world to world. So, I presumed that you would understand what that signified, and that I had to stand back when you were creating your effects.”
Aleasha’s frown had grown deeper. He could not tell if it was at him or herself. Or, most likely, both. “Well,” she grumbled, “I see it well enough, now.” She blinked, looked up at him in surprise. “But you—you haven’t realized how early others clearly knew that about you.”
“What do you mean?”
“The animals that destroyed your childhood home, that orphaned you: whoever sent them knew.”
Druadaen’s stomach plummeted as vertigo threatened to rise up… but he refused to let it show in his face.
Lost in her own unfolding of those horrible events, Aleasha pushed on. “The attackers didn’t use the animals simply because it allowed them to remain anonymous. It was also because, if they came too close to you, they would be rendered powerless. So they had to addle the wits of those creatures that were beyond the reach of whatever disruption you project.”
Druadaen swallowed, light-headedness giving way to his focused recollection of those events. “That’s why they had to kill Shoulders and Grip.”
“What? Who?”
“Our horse and our dog.” He nodded. “It’s as you said just after saving me from the Touched: if you press an animal to act against its own intents or instincts, that weakens your ability to influence them. So if the assassins had come closer, the animals who loved us best would have been free to fight alongside us. And if they were too far away, maybe that’s why their control wasn’t complete. That would explain why Shoulders threw himself off the river-cliff: so he couldn’t be forced to harm us. And it’s why Grip moved as if every limb was weighted: because he was still determined to protect us.”
Aleasha was looking into his face with almost doe-like eyes. “I am sorry. I should have thought… ” She turned away. “I made you relive that terrible day.”
Druadaen grasped her hand. “But you also helped me understand it. For which I am very, very grateful. I only wish I had some way to show how much I—” Come to think of it, I do have a way. He dug down into his rucksack, produced a handful of vials, and held them out toward her. “I have not thought of these since leaving the Fur-Drake’s Oath, when I presumed that they would not be useful to a wyldwyrd. I should have remembered and given them to you sooner.”
Aleasha frowned as she took them. “You have a strange way of reacting to those who cause you to relive grief.”
He smiled. The pain of recollection was ebbing. In its place, his new understanding of that day seemed to be dissolving a measure of the helplessness that had persisted in its aftermath. He’d come to accept his inability to stop the attack—he was too young—but he’d continued to wrestle with the gnawing mystery of why it had occurred at all—a mystery he might now be able to solve. Assuming he ever returned.
“It’s not such a grand gift,” he told her, gesturing toward the vials. “Some, or maybe all, of them would be useless around me.”
“I am aware of that,” she murmured inspecting the labels. “But many of these have… considerable value.” She looked at him questioningly. “In coin, I mean.”
Druadaen scanned the horizon. “I do not see any likely purchasers nearby.”
Her smile told him she knew that he would have done no different had they been surrounded by crowds clamoring to buy them. “And these were all spoils from defeating the three agents of Pagudon?” When he nodded, she studied the vials again and raised appreciative eyebrows. Noticing his attention, she lowered them into a frown of disappointment. “And these are all you have to give me? There are no more?” she complained.
Druadaen happily played along. “In fact, there are more. But I had to leave the rest behind when I came ashore at Agpetkop, including a considerable mass of tomes, papers, and maps of places of which I have no knowledge. Although they seem useless at the moment, perhaps they shall prove to have some value later on.”
Aleasha stared at him in wonder. “And where is all this hidden?”
“It is not hidden but in storage, under the care of captain Lorgan R’Mura of the Fur-Drake’s Oath.”
Aleasha gaped, then cried out, “It exists?”
Druadaen recoiled from her sudden outburst. “What do you mean? The ship? Is there word that it sank?”
Ancrushav had evidently overheard; he’d approached and was now studying Druadaen with the practiced gaze of a person who assesses sane people for signs of impending madness. “The ship you name—Aleasha apparently harbors hope that it is the one out of legend.”
“What do you mean?”
“Are my words unclear? There is a legend of a ship by that name. It was the hull of heroes and carried them on many great deeds, journeys, and quests.” He shook his head. “But it is just a legend.”
“And how do you know that?” Aleasha retorted, almost poking her finger into Ancrushav’s massive and strangely angular chest. “Were you there? And besides”—she rotated so that her finger was now aimed at Druadaen—“legend or not, if the present owner of the Fur-Drake’s Oath is not a liar, I will take the time—and risk—of seeking him out.” She frowned. “I knew you liked him and felt he was honorable… but I did not know you had put so much of your fortune—and future—in his hands. It sounds like you would trust him with your life.”
“I would. Without question. But why are you so determined to meet him?”
She sent a fierce glare southward. “Because if he’s not a liar, that means that he was the one who destroyed Tharn’s fleet, eliminated Kaande’s mad prince, and slowed the civil war in that land. And so, he might have deeper knowledge about how and why the Temple of Disfa, the mad death-vowed sfadulm of its Nightfall cult, the throne of Tharn, and Pagudon are coordinating apparently separate efforts to crush the Shield of Morba.”
She stored the vials in her own rucksack and caught up the bag with which she’d approached him in the first place. “Now, help me with the rest of these tingle pods; they won’t place themselves!”
Druadaen stared at the fire, wondered if he should add another brick of peat: the Godbarrows’ answer to wood. He’d need it—for light, if not warmth—if he meant to complete his journal entry.
But tonight, for whatever reason, the words that usually flowed so swiftly from his pen—or here, a graphite stylus—were dripping as slowly as syrup in winter. He had the early watch, and for the first night since setting out for the Mael, he welcomed the fire’s glow as well as its warmth. No amount of assurance quelled his concern about attracting predators with the light, even though Aleasha offered a very convincing report from her wolves. In short, the closer they came to their destination, the less wildlife they encountered. Which was to be expected, Druadaen mused, since wild animals are too smart to remain near the lairs of murderous monsters. That is the sole province of we “intelligent” species.
But the wolves’ noses and eyes had not misled them yet, and judging from the past two nights, the lands about them were as still and silent as a tomb. Again, not a particularly reassuring image, so Druadaen elected to review what he’d written. Perhaps that would decide him on whether there was reason enough to struggle to commit more unwilling words to the page.
He read:
I am mindful that this may be my final entry. Thinking back, I cannot recall if I have ever written that sentence before. The journal of my travels on Arrdanc was left with those who remain there. And who I dearly miss.
As we journey to confront a scourge that my world unwittingly sent to this one, I find myself contemplating threads that seem to join the two. Elements in each that initially seemed unconnected are beginning to weave together into an elusive pattern, a shared tapestry. Or perhaps it is not a tapestry, but a noose that—while certainly sufficient for my neck—could still prove large enough to encompass this whole world. And maybe others as well.
But just as there is a vague, linked menace winding through much of what I have encountered here, I also reflect on the many mysteries that seem not merely benign, but possibly revealing. For instance, I wonder what the Lady would say about the serendipity(?) of my meeting both Lorgan and Ancrushav: two clear connections between our worlds through the medium of the Tualarans. And so I must wonder: is it chance that Corum, her lieutenant (if that’s what he is), is also a Tualaran? Is the echo of that people on Hystzos an indicator that they have an understanding of portals that is even greater than—
A loud snort and a louder sneeze erupted well beyond the camp circle. Druadaen dropped his journal, grabbed his sword, kicked waiting dirt onto the peat, and swerved after the youngest of the wolves. It had already disappeared into the tall grass; the rest were hard behind it.
As Druadaen followed their swift, ghostly shadows into the brush, growls and snarls rose along with a deep roar. Dim in the light of the tiny moons, a patch of the otherwise motionless sward surged and thrashed with violent movement. Druadaen angled toward it, sword in one hand, the other out to recover balance in the event of rough footing he wouldn’t discover until he was about to fall.
As he reached the edge of the waving grasses, a startled yip became the rapid, desperate cries of a badly wounded canine—and he almost tumbled over the young wolf. It was dragging itself away from the scene of combat, but making little progress; its front left paw was missing and the bone protruding from that leg was splintered and glistening in pulses. A severed artery was coating it in blood, again and again.
Druadaen heard the grunting and roaring sound rotating away from him. Having dispatched the wolf, the enemy was turning toward the others. Meaning that the last thing it would expect is—
Druadaen bounded forward, bringing his sword into a high guard, looking for any moving shadow that wasn’t a wolf. He glimpsed a broad, squat shape, and using the momentum of his charge, drove his sword into it, and quickly sprang to the side.
Which very possibly saved his life. The creature, although heavy, had breathtakingly swift reactions. The jaws—part frog, part baby hippo, but not truly either—snapped down just behind his leg. He took another step, turned to face it—but never got the chance. His thrust had inflicted a deep, gushing wound of putrid ichor, and the wolves wasted no time seizing the advantage. By dodging in, wrenching at its six legs, and then getting clear before the slowing creature could fully turn on them, they reduced it to a stumbling ruin of wounds. By the time Druadaen could be sure of not striking one by mistake, his blade was no longer essential.
The reason for their withdrawal became evident a moment later; Aleasha appeared, waving them off. She studied the creature for a moment, then, with surprising speed, drew her slender sword and drove it into one of its lambent eyes. It shuddered, snapped once at the air and collapsed. She turned, released the wolves with a gesture. Growling and snarling, they leaped back to ensure that if there was any life left in the monster, they’d pull it out with their teeth.
Only one followed her to the dying wolf. She kneeled beside it, held its head. It roused, licked at her hands, whimpered once, sighed, and did not breathe again.
When Aleasha looked up, her eyes were pools of moonlit tears that did not run down her cheeks as she glanced over at the charnel heap the wolves had left behind. “This beast is not a product of Change. It is otherworldly. It’s smell is… very wrong. Too wrong to have come from the breeds of Hystzos. I presume you do not recognize it either?”
Druadaen resisted the urge to hold his nose against the growing stench. “I do not. And I have never seen anything do that.” He pointed; a vapor was rising up from its savaged gut. It wasn’t simply moisture or a release of gases and fluids; it was already beginning to deliquesce, and doing so with extraordinary speed.
Aleasha stood as Ancrushav appeared. “I have the supragants in hand,” he reported. “There are no other attackers nearby.” He looked at the now fuming remains of the monster. “What is that?”
“I was hoping you might know,” Aleasha said.
He shook his head. “I do not. But I suspect I know who does.”
They followed his eyes toward the northern horizon.
A dim red glow limned a small stretch of it. It was so faint that Druadaen could easily have thought he was imagining, rather than seeing it. He wondered if, had they not had the peat fire, they would have seen it before the attack.
“The Mael,” Aleasha whispered, announcing what he had already deduced. “We were closer than we knew.”
“Or we can see it from afar because it is fully aflame,” Ancrushav countered. He glanced at Druadaen. “Either way, we must assume that the priestess might have been looking through its eyes, or at least, will know that this creature is no more.”
“If so,” Druadaen wondered, “would she not have withdrawn it rather than send it to attack? This way, she has shown us she knows of our approach.”
Ancrushav shrugged. “I agree that would be her likely course of action, which in turn suggests that she had only the faintest of mantic ties to this creature, if any. But we cannot afford to presume either is true.”
Druadaen nodded, sheathed his sword. “How many leagues to the Maelstrom, would you guess?”
The serratus’s irises changed shape slightly. “No more than seven. Perhaps as few as four. It is impossible to be more precise without knowing the size of that fire. Either way, we should get as much sleep as we may.”
Aleasha nodded. “Agreed. There is nothing nearby. The wolves have already ranged far and found neither tracks nor spoor. This creature is the first living thing to pass this way in a week.” She looked over her shoulder at the glow. “And it’s simple enough to understand why.”
She turned and walked back to the camp circle, where the supragants were lowing anxiously.
As Druadaen watched her go, the velene pulsed. He expected it to spring up, but it remained in the shape of a bracer. “What?” he muttered. “Are you that eager to get there?”
When it did not respond in any way, he turned back toward the red glow on the horizon. For an instant, he perceived it as a bloody, mostly lidded eye, staring up out of the Vortex of Worlds behind it.
Aware of how ludicrous and pointless it was to return that imaginary stare, Druadaen did so nonetheless. And tomorrow, he thought, we’ll cut straight down into you.
As far as we can go.