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CHAPTER TEN

The sun—morning bright—was in Druadaen’s eyes as he completed his step through the Shimmer.

And toppled forward.

Even as he put his hands out to break his fall, he knew it wasn’t the kind that happens when you step wrong descending dark stairs. This was because his own weight had suddenly shifted, just as when a heavy load or pack slips unexpectedly off one’s back.

As he turned his head—not a good time for a broken nose—his hands hit dirt: soft, uneven, faintly wet. It clung lightly to his palms and the rest of his body.

He started: it was not sticking to his clothes, but his naked body.

Druadaen pushed partially up from the ground. Despite a wave of intense curiosity and rising fear, he followed his Outrider training. If one awakes in an unknown place, scan surroundings to locate cover and potential enemies.

But there was only wiry grass and clusters of unfamiliar foliage. He spied a small building across a country lane to his front. The Shimmer was behind him, and although it was the same dimensions and in the same upright position, it wasn’t shimmering. Here, it was akin to a desert heat haze, distorting the objects behind it but without imparting watery waver typical of mirages.

Druadaen’s rehearsed instincts pushed him to seek cover, but in this instance, he had an even more urgent task: to discover what, if anything, had come through the Shimmer with him. He rolled to his knees rapidly, ready to scan for his sword, but before he could, the velene—the only thing left on his body—swirled off his wrist into a dragon shape. It flew straight upward, faster than he had ever seen.

He was not surprised to find his sword close alongside him, but it, too, was naked; neither sheath nor baldric was present. He took it up gratefully, wondered if it had known it would make it through the Shimmer…

Druadaen frowned: if it had known it would make it through? So you really believe it’s conscious? But then again, the Lady had suggested as much…

Unbidden, a memory pushed through that thought; he saw the Lady’s serious eyes and voice as she said, “Evidently, both your sai’niin companions have very strong opinions on your best course of action.” He started at the abrupt intrusion of the recollection—because it actually felt that it had somehow come from some part of his mind that was acting on its own accord. Or maybe—?

Druadaen looked at the sword in his hand. “Was that you, talking to me through my own memories?” His formless hope that there might be some response from the sword was disappointed; the mirror-silver blade remained inert.

Rising, he noted the velene had not returned, which was actually a relief. Prior experience indicated that, if he was in immediate danger, the sai’niin dragonette would be nearby to do something useful. So these might be the safest moments in which to pause and study his surroundings before deciding where and how to move.

The dirt into which he had fallen was part of a shallow ditch that ringed the Shimmer. Both within and beyond that ring, the unruly—and utterly unfamiliar—grass spread in all directions like a rough carpet. It straggled its way down a gentle slope to the road, which ran away to the right and the left.

On the right, the lane dwindled into little more than a cart track. It showed few signs of use, mottled by weeds as it wound up a modest incline that culminated in a hill a mile to the northeast. On the left, the lane cut a straight line toward the western horizon. It was less overgrown and widened into a proper, stone-laid road just before it topped and disappeared behind a distant rise. That certainly looked like the more promising route to an inhabited area, but the hilltop in the other direction offered a vantage point which would help to confirm or disprove that conjecture.

The small building was set back thirty yards from the road, with a stone foundation and narrow lancet windows: a shelter or watch post of some kind. High weeds intruded upon the narrow dirt path that led to it, and at a few points, it was partially obstructed by naked corpses mostly concealed by the undergrowth.

The velene returned to his wrist and became a bracer again, all in the same instant. Druadaen used that hand to wipe his moist brow. The sun wasn’t far above the hill to the northeast, but it was already warm and growing humid. Had he been on Arrdanc, he would have guessed himself to be to be in the southernmost parts of Ar Navir during a hot spell, or the shores of equatorial Mihal’j.

A quick inspection of the plants didn’t reveal any definitive clues as to how close or far a coast might be. The soil was as much sand as loam, and both the grasses and bushes were crabbed and low, with waxy, spatulate leaves: all traits frequently encountered close to the sea. But the rest of the foliage could have been from any temperate region. Crossing the road to both examine and hide behind a small copse, Druadaen discovered that what he had believed were trees was a single large bush with upward shoots resembling saplings. However, they did not evince the single-sided weathering or distinctive lean consistent with strong prevailing winds off a sea or ocean.

But by the time he finished studying the local growth, Druadaen had learned something far more useful—and arresting—than if he were close to a coast; he had never seen any of these plants before, and in his years as a Courier, he’d visited every continent on Arrdanc. So it seemed as if this might indeed be a different world. As the magnitude of that thought struck him, he noticed that even the sun itself seemed different. It was more sharply white, yet smaller in the sky.

Druadaen suppressed a shiver, not of fear so much as profound isolation. The Lady’s explanation of where the Shimmer might lead included such a possibility, but knowing that one might emerge in a “different world” was just words—until it happened. Besides, from childhood, that phrase had signified a metaphysical domain, such as the creedland of a deity or one of many legendary lands of the dead: a void in which physical form was gone and where spirits conversed, contended, or both.

But this was, in the most literal sense, a wholly different world, and it was that utterly mundane tangibility that made it so profoundly unnerving, more so than the place he’d tried to envision: a place that was not physically recognizable, yet had been foreshadowed in legend. Instead, he found himself in a world which, if he were to regard it through a fogged lens, would appear quite similar to his own, but when seen more clearly and closely, announced its arresting differences in every detail.

Advancing to the small building, Druadaen was only mildly surprised that the five bodies to either side of the path were human. He noted their positions, then took a quick peek inside; one additional corpse was sprawled amidst wrecked furnishings. He ducked back out and circled the building twice, first at a distance of ten yards, then thirty. Using his nose as well as his eyes, he found one more body in that final orbit, after which he reentered what had obviously been a watchhouse. Despite the close air of the interior, the shade made it easier to focus on what he had seen and smelled.

Seven bodies in all. All but one lay along the path or in the building. Everything of obvious value had been removed from them, including their clothes. The interior of the watchhouse had been similarly stripped, after which someone had made a hasty attempt to set it afire. The only sign of recent movement were tracks left by whatever small scavengers were still visiting the bodies outside the shelter. Judging from the smell and the state of decay, the bodies were a week old at most. Maybe two. At most.

Druadaen’s thoughts abruptly left this world, and returned to Arrdanc: specifically, to his conversation with the Lady less than an hour earlier. She had explicitly confirmed that almost nine moonphases had passed since the Hidden Archivist’s rescue and, therefore, since the pursuers from the Nidus were diverted through the Shimmer. But if that’s true…

Druadaen glanced at the body lying a yard away from him. The stink of rotting flesh was already fading. Even disregarding how the local heat should have increased the speed at which it decayed and then began to dry out, it was still not more than one moonphase old.

Druadaen frowned. Whatever had killed the seven men had done so long after the Tsost-Dyxoi had passed through the Shimmer. But then why had these men been here? Had the S’Dyxoi killed an earlier set of guards, or perpetrated crimes nearby? Had the locals who had built this structure sent the now-dead men here to watch for the intruders’ return or to pursue them? If so, perhaps the S’Dyxoi discovered or anticipated that and stealthily circled back to ambush this second set of watchmen. But why? Perhaps this locale was the only part of the world with which they had become familiar? Or perhaps there was no connection between the S’Dyxoi and these corpses. Perhaps the small garrison had run afoul of something entirely different.

Correction, he thought. Some one entirely different. Whatever killed the watchmen had also valued their goods. Only a few pieces of well-gnawed clothing remained; almost all their garments had been removed, as well as any tools or weapons. Several were missing one or more of the three middle fingers on one or both hands; typical of how bandits harvested rings from their victims.

Then there was the matter of why the watchhouse was at this location in the first place. Presumably because of the Shimmer, but that only spawned more questions. Perhaps some foolish wayfarers had touched or tried walking through it, and this station had been established to warn them of the consequences of doing so—whatever those might be. But did that really require seven men? Perhaps if the area was dangerous, but then why risk any watchers at all?

Besides, with a regularly trafficked road running through it, the area was unlikely to be very wild. And if a Shimmer could have its connection altered like other osmotia, then the one here might have the traffic of two, twenty, or two hundred other osmotia pouring out of it. But, no: if that were true, there would be more than a small watch post across a small lane, just as the grass around the Shimmer itself would be trampled into bare dirt, not overgrown.

Druadaen stood and shook his head as if that might shake loose some of the burgeoning imponderables roosting there. Maybe it was called the Vortex of Worlds not because of its shape, but because it spawned a whirlpool of uncertainties and mysteries that could easily pull one down into despair, enervated by endlessly swirling questions without answer.

Druadaen stretched to reawaken his muscles. In general, the antidote to enervation was activity, and right now, he had plenty to do, beginning with finding anything that he might salvage. He smiled, thinking how he’d come late to the skill that Ahearn called “scrounging”…

Without warning, the faces of Druadaen’s friends flitted through his mind, and with them, an approaching tide of regret…

He shook his head again, harder, and walked quickly out past the sundered door of the watch post.


When the sun was almost directly overhead, Druadaen returned and sat to survey the fruits of his grim harvest.

Clothing had been a challenge. He’d found rags in the watch post; they’d do for patches or even a head cover if the sun proved unexpectedly strong. What meager coverings he now wore had come from the still-clothed body behind the shelter. Druadaen wondered at the decision to leave the body unstripped, concluded that they had deemed his garments too bloody and torn to be worth taking. Due to the rent shirt, scavengers had no trouble getting directly at the remains, and insects and worms had only recently infested what was left. The pants were mostly intact and the blouse was somewhat serviceable, but anyone seeing Druadaen wearing them would surely presume him to be a pauper—and a desperate one, at that. His greatest—and most worrisome—disappointment was the lack of shoes. Not surprising, really—even shabby sandals had value—but proceeding in bare feet did not bode well for either swift or safe movement.

The attackers’ indifferent attempt at arson had spared a stout table with an intact leg; it was now a reasonable club. With patient labor and the aid of a nail, Druadaen also removed the door’s crude iron hinges: flat and thin, they could be used as anything from small prybars to scrapers. He had just concluded that tedious process, however, when the most serious insufficiency of all announced itself with a low animal growl. That was his stomach’s reminder that while gathering tools was all well and good, their usefulness would be short-lived if he didn’t find food and water.

Unfortunately, foraging—always questionable in unfamiliar regions—was an incalculable risk in an unknown world; he had no way to distinguish what he could eat from that which would kill him. But first, he had to find something—anything—that looked like food. That need propelled him to the roof for a better look at his surroundings.

The results were not promising; there were no signs of farmlands. Worse still, the Shimmer appeared to be at the center of a shallow declivity; in almost every direction, a low-rise blocked his view of what lay beyond. The one direction in which that lip was not present was where the northeast road followed a low slope that rose toward the hill he’d seen earlier and which he now studied in earnest.

That careful survey kindled the first spark of hope he’d felt since coming through the Shimmer: halfway up the slope, the road briefly disappeared into a ragged array of trees that was probably a long-untended orchard. Further study revealed a small but decidedly polyglot cluster of ruins on the crest of the hill. Druadaen could make out squat—or half-tumbled—towers and low, angled surfaces that might be small pyramids. The road ran directly past it, only slightly downhill. Although he could see no sign that it was occupied, it was so distant that Druadaen doubted he could have spotted the presence of a modest camp, much less individuals.

Which left him with an unpleasant choice: prudence suggested that the road to the west would be the one most likely to lead to a settled area. But there was no guessing how far might that journey be, and therefore, if his present lack of water, food, and footwear would prevent him from completing it.

On the other hand, the old orchard and hilltop ruins held out the promise of food and, possibly, more productive scavenging for needful items such as clothes, weapons, and tools. But if such potential resources were there, they would also be likely to attract both two-legged and four-legged dangers. He might have a sai’niin sword in one hand and a club in the other, but with no armor for protection, and no shoes to ensure swift movement upon the rough hill, choosing that destination was a desperate gamble in the face of unquantifiable risks. After all, what if that’s where the murderers of the watchmen were hiding, lurking in wait for unsuspecting arrivals from the Shimmer?

Such as himself.

Druadaen glanced through the empty doorway at the corpse he’d dragged outside. Whoever had murdered the fellow had tortured him first. It hadn’t been the simple pummeling of soldiers or the crushed bones and split joints often used by brutish bandits. They had teased apart nerves without severing the arteries or veins that nourished them, had used a knife-point on gums and other sensitive areas, and ended with unspeakable yet precise removals of body parts. Whoever had perpetrated these horrors was well versed in the malign arts of inflicting a maximum amount of pain for a maximum amount of time. A skill possessed by far too many S’Dyxoi.

Druadaen frowned: it made no sense that the S’Dyxoi would still be in the area—if they ever had been. Assuming that several of them had come through the Shimmer, they would have had even more mouths to feed, which would have necessitated moving to find a much larger food source, much more quickly. The only reason they might have been willing to remain in such a remote region would be to return through the Shimmer—but even if that were possible, doing so would have put them back in the Lady’s Tower, surrounded by mortal enemies.

No, it made no sense that the S’Dyxoi were nearby, or even behind what happened at the watch post. His only nagging worry was the lack of any other reasonable explanation.

Druadaen stood. Either way, there was no benefit in waiting. He was still well slept, but he’d only get water by seeking it, and finding food was likely to be even more challenging. So every minute he waited was a minute during which he became weaker.

He walked out the yawning doorway, careful to give the corpse a wide berth as he started for the distant hilltop.


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