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King Mudt returned from his consultation with the symbologist snarling and spitting, raging at the gods even as his hand sketched fresh designs of power across his own chest.
“Your rancid worm says I’m only the fifth renown!” King Mudt bellowed. “There are many numbers higher but only four lower! How can this be when I stand above so many?”
“No mortal reaches beyond the fifth renown without our intervention,” the ge’ema answered. “You should be proud, King Mudt. We have gazed upon your vast army and found only one other worthy of the fifth renown.”
All had turned to watch King Mudt draw upon his chest and this attention mollified him for a time. Mudt’s hand moved in broad strokes and swipes beneath the blackbird of Orvesis, movements he could barely control. He did not know this language, this writing of the gods, and could hardly even see what he was doing. Yet, he understood. They all understood the meaning of the symbols.
King Mudt had spent his life distrustful of magic and those who could wield it. However, he had to admit that this felt right and good. The Ink spread in great whorls and twists, power like he’d never known before.
He was marked as a Blade Master. The others gathered could read the Ink and they saw the boons Mudt had chosen – strength and endurance beyond human possibility, a body that would heal itself, and a blade that no armor could thwart. King Mudt and his legions already struck fear across the north and south continents. While the legions now seemed useless under the gods’ new laws, King Mudt was more formidable than ever.
“The Ink shows what you are,” the gods said. “And it will aid those who wear it in becoming more.”
More. King Mudt liked the sound of that. He spun to face the King of Infinzel, whose brow was still damp from when Mudt had tried to murder him, and who now studied Mudt’s complicated Ink with something like envy. Mudt stretched out his arms invitingly.
“Come, pig bitch,” said the great King Mudt to his corpulent rival. “Mark yourself as well so we might all see what you’re made of, and so the two of us can one day meet on this game board of the gods.”
And King Hectore cleared his throat, noting how all eyes were now upon him.
“No, thank you,” he said. “I don’t think that I will.”
--Record of the First Granting and Dawning of the Second Age
Lyus Crodd, Scribe of the Dead Kingdom of Orvesis
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—DRAMATIS PERSONAE—
Uicha de Orak, a young man of no renown or loyalty, leaving tomorrow
Battar Crodd, Death Knight of the 13th Renown and Quill of the Orvesian Witnesses, he only wants to help
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8 New Summer, 61 AW.
The village of Ambergran, North Continent
292 days until the next Granting.
Every day for a week, Uicha told himself that he would leave in the morning. And every morning, he found himself unable to make good on his promise from the night before.
The farmhouse still stood. So did the tree that Uicha had buried his parents beneath. The wheat fields were intact, too. Nothing that belonged to Uicha had been annihilated. He'd won every coin flip. Or else, the blank space on his neck that declared him without allegiance had protected his property from the Orvesian wish. It was Ambergran’s destruction they’d wished for, after all, and he was no longer considered part of Ambergran.
Uicha thought that the birds were quieter now. Once upon a time, his father had referred to their land as serene. Now, the silence felt heavy and grim. At night, Uicha found himself flinching when the floorboards creaked under his feet.
How did the gods decide what belonged to him and what belonged to Ambergran? Or had he simply gotten lucky? And why would the gods kill the birds? Surely, the birds couldn't tell the difference between Ambergran and Orvesis. Just like Uicha, they didn’t have any allegiance.
Maybe the birds weren’t dead at all. Maybe, unlike Uicha, they’d simply had the good sense to migrate from this half-dead village.
Uicha pondered these questions as he walked the fields. He wore his mother's sword now, the scimitar sheathed and slung over his shoulder. His ribs were still sore from when Johan had knocked him off his horse, but the bruises were fading.
There was very little green left on the wheat stalks. Brown and dry meant it was time for harvesting.
None of the hands had come back after the wish. Uicha had seen Johan disintegrate up close. He couldn’t be sure if the rest were dead or just run off. Either way, it would be pointless to go looking. There wouldn't be a harvest this year.
Alone on the farm, Uicha could pretend that nothing had even happened. He let himself imagine that his parents had just gone into the village. Everyone would be back soon.
Except they wouldn’t. Reminders of the old Ambergran were carried in on the wind. Bits of particulate that used to be his neighbors. Uicha started to thoroughly brush himself off before going inside. He kept the windows shut at all times.
What was keeping him there? He could pack a small bag and leave with Clipper, follow the river road north to Infinzel or head southeast to Ruchet. He knew where his parents hid their strongbox, behind a false wall in their bedroom closet. He hadn’t been able to bring himself to open it yet. Even though it was his inheritance, doing so felt like robbery.
Uicha understood that he’d been in a bad state after his parents died. A griever’s depression. But the lack of inertia he now felt was different from the dark cloud that had pressed down on him through those months. He felt as if there was something unfinished here in Ambergran. Despite his lack of connection to the town, there was something still that hooked him. Something he needed to witness.
He winced at the word.
Although he felt stupid doing it, Uicha started practicing with his mother's sword in the yard. He'd never had any lessons in swordsmanship. Uicha tried to imitate the slashes and footwork he'd caught glimpses of over the years. Some of it he'd picked up from watching the champions of Ambergran train. Other maneuvers he copied from the stage-fighting of an acting troupe that came through town every Harvesend. He gritted his teeth through the jangling pain in his ribs. He dueled invisible enemies until his back was damp with sweat and his arms were sore. If the wind picked up and the air began to taste bitter and burnt, he hustled inside.
It passed the time, at least.
At night, by candlelight, he began to go through his parents' papers. He found the deed to the land and the records of the last two decades of harvests. The farm was quite profitable, it turned out. More profitable than Uicha thought possible, actually, even after accounting for the inflated salaries his father paid Johan and the other hands. Uicha suspected that overpaying had been his father’s way of taking the sting off working for a family from the Flamingo Islands.
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Amongst the papers, Uicha found maps. So many maps. Some of them were fine things that depicted the entirety of Emza, and Uicha wondered whether his parents had commissioned these or stolen them. Others were maps drawn in his father's own steady hand. A hobby that he'd taken up and set aside. It appeared he'd been halfway through an overly detailed survey of their farmland. Circles marked the map, like his father had been planning to dig a well but couldn’t settle on the right location.
And then there were the letters. Although he wanted to read them all at once, Uicha forced himself to go through them slowly. They were his only window into his parents’ lives. Most of them were addressed to Uicha's father, sent all the way from the Flamingo Islands by a man named Bric. There were references to Uicha in the letters.
Uicha sounds like a promising boy, said one.
Tell him to keep his chin up, said another.
Uicha wished that he could've known what his father had written about him to this stranger.
I would welcome the three of you back, said another letter. I would love to go sailing with my grandson, before I'm too old to work the knots.
Bric de Orak of the Flamingo Islands. His father's father. A man who had never been mentioned, but existed here in ink and parchment.
Uicha sat back, his heart beating faster. He had a grandfather. Perhaps this was the discovery he’d been waiting around for.
He returned to the maps. What was the quickest way to the Flamingo Islands? He could travel to Ruchet and find a ship to take him, although he’d heard the town was rough and the waters troubled by dangers born from the ruins of Orvesis.
There were dangers born from Orvesis here, though. How bad could Ruchet really be?
Uicha had never even been outside of Ambergran. It was a plan, at least. Somewhere to go.
The night he settled on finding his grandfather, Uicha at last rifled through his parents’ strongbox. A small fortune in standard gold, some of it in the triangular tokens of Infinzel, some in the round coins favored in the Merchant Cities. Jewels and trinkets. A few pieces probably of value, the rest sentimental. Receipts of deposit at Ambergran’s local vault. Large sums socked away, earning interest. There would be no one to honor those certificates now, if the vault even still stood. But the rest…
Uicha found himself suddenly quite rich.
And then there was the key. Cold, sturdy chromium, with a dozen grooved teeth, a grooved shaft, and a head shaped with spiky flourishes. A key to what must have been a very complex lock. The key was stamped with the gear-shaped symbol of Beacon’s Gadgeteers. That meant it was a masterwork, incredibly expensive. Uicha had no idea what the key might open. His parents had left no explanation behind. Had they found this key during their pirating days and held onto it, in hopes of one day discovering the lock? Another story of theirs that he’d never know.
Uicha put that melancholy thought aside. He was bound for the Flamingo Islands. He would need supplies for the journey, though. In his week of isolation, Uicha had eaten his way through what little food remained. He’d raided the bunkhouse, abandoned by the hands, and gathered up their leftover provisions. But that wouldn’t be enough for the ride south.
The next day, Uicha finally ventured into town. He rode Clipper, who balked and tossed his head every few yards, unused to the strange scenery. Farmsteads that he'd once used as landmarks were gone. Fields that should've been as ripe as Uicha’s own were flattened, so that the horizon seemed wider and empty. A landscape of arbitrary destruction. Carts blocked the road in places, loaded with possessions, but with only piles of ash for passengers. Whole families gone just like that, all their things left untouched in the road as if they might return to claim them.
Uicha wondered when someone might get around to clearing the roads. Would it be the survivors of Ambergran? Or would it be the others?
Like carrion birds, Orvesian Witnesses dotted the ruined landscape. They stooped in the remnants of fields or in the remains of farmsteads, scooping shovels of ash into pouches. Collecting the disintegrated dead so that they could mix the ash with water and their strange chemicals, creating the paint for the stripes they wore across their faces. Some of them stopped what they were doing when Uicha passed. They stood up and waved.
Uicha had to stop himself from waving back. His instinctive politeness was a hazard.
Were these freaks his neighbors now? When did this land stop belonging to Ambergran and become part of Orvesis? Had it already happened?
Uicha breathed a sigh of relief when he reached the town center. Here were faces he actually recognized. The survivors of Ambergran were attempting to rebuild. They were carting lumber from abandoned farmsteads into town, then distributing it to the families who had lost their homes. Men and women worked in teams, loading and unloading wagons. The busy plaza reminded Uicha of shipment days in the late summer, when their harvested crops would be carted out and sold. He remembered the festive busyness of those days, even if he spent most of them simply trying to stay out of the way.
Today, however, the people of Ambergran worked in steely silence. Some of them wore cloth bandanas tied over their noses and mouths. Off to the side, a few wide-eyed children sullenly jumped rope.
As Uicha rode closer, he felt cold eyes upon him. His neighbors didn't say anything, but he could see the resentment in their hard looks. One farmhand spit in the dirt as he passed.
They eyed the blank space on his neck. The wheat-stalk tattoo was all he’d ever had in common with these people and even that was gone now.
Uicha gently coaxed Clipper past the wagons of timber and approached the town's bulletin board. There was an informal census taking place there. His neighbors had signed their names and written in what supplies they could spare. There were also descriptions of the missing. There was some mystery about who had disintegrated and who had simply run off. Uicha debated adding the names of his farmhands, but decided he didn’t much care if they were found or not.
"Excuse me," a voice said from behind him.
Uicha turned to find an Orvesian Witness holding a basket of blankets. He shuddered involuntarily. She was actually pretty, despite her shaved head and ash markings, with round blue eyes and dimples.
"Do you need anything?" the Witness asked him.
The question baffled him. "Do I…?"
"Food? Blankets? I have both."
"No, thank you," Uicha said, and then cringed. He’d spoken too kindly and hoped no one overheard.
The Orvesian flashed him a smile. “Are you sure? You’re very skinny.”
Looking over the girl’s shoulder, Uicha noticed several other Witnesses circulating with baskets, making similar offers to the shocked survivors of Ambergran. The Orvesians appeared to have taken over the town’s meeting hall and were now distributing charity from there.
Charity that was not well-received.
Shoving and shouting broke out near the timber. A farmer ripped a basket away from an Orvesian and chucked it across the road. Loaves of bread scattered in the dirt.
The Orvesian in front of him paid this no heed. “My name is Petra,” she said. “What’s yours?”
“Uicha,” he replied distractedly.
“I have never heard that name before,” she said. “Would you like me to witness for you, Uicha?”
He blinked. “What?”
Petra tilted her head back and her eyes started to glaze over. Her voice grew throatier. “There are memories in the ash. Perhaps I have someone who knew you…”
“Memories…?” Uicha stared at the stripes of ash smeared across the girl’s face. He took a halting step back. “No. No, thank you. I—”
Something hot and wet splattered across Uicha’s face.
Blood.
Uicha hadn’t seen who threw the rock, but it had struck Petra in the side of the head and opened up a gash in her scalp. She pitched forward and Uicha reflexively caught her in his arms. There were more rocks being thrown across the square by the locals with some of the Orvesians scuttling back for the safety of the meeting hall.
“Oh, thank you,” Petra said to him, sounding dazed. “It’s all right. They can’t hurt me.”
“They already hurt you,” Uicha said.
Petra giggled in a way that sounded mad to Uicha. “Well, they can’t kill me, anyway.”
She straightened up, dabbing at the wound on her head with her fingers. Noticing the girl begin to wobble at the sight of her own blood, Uicha steadied her.
“We see whose side you’ve chosen, de Orak!” someone shouted. “We see you, boy!”
Uicha scanned the angry crowd of his neighbors, though he couldn’t pick out which had singled him out. A second rock whistled by his ear and ricocheted off the bulletin board behind him. Uicha clumsily groped for the hilt of his mother’s scimitar.
And then, the smell came.
At first, Uicha thought a skunk had gotten loose in the square. But the stench quickly curdled into something much, much worse. Rotting meat, the grave, death itself. The smell felt like an icy grip around Uicha’s throat. His eyes watered and his tongue rolled to the back of his mouth. Blinking through the tears, Uicha saw his neighbors doubled over and scattering.
Petra wasn’t affected at all. She rubbed Uicha’s back. “There, there.”
“Save your anger for the gods, my friends!” A voice boomed across the square. “Save your stones for the day when you might make them count!”
Battar Crodd strode out from the meeting hall, the black feathers of his caftan shining in the midday sun. There could be no doubt that the choking miasma emanated from him. The Orvesian Quill swept the crowd with his gaze. He briefly paused on Uicha, saw how the boy was still gently holding Petra’s arm, and nodded.
All at once, the cloud lifted and Uicha could breathe again. He straightened, sucking in fresh air. Looking around, he realized that his neighbors weren’t so lucky. Those who hadn’t managed to flee had mostly tumbled into the dirt, rasping and gagging, the bandanas over their faces offering no protection from Crodd’s sorcery.
“Who better than Orvesians to understand the rage of a conquered people?” Crodd continued, addressing the crowd. He picked up a blanket that one of his people had dropped. “We will tolerate these outbursts and wrap you up in the warmth of our charity…”
Uicha did not stick around to listen to the rest. He pushed away from Petra and grabbed for Clipper’s reins. The horse hadn’t seemed perturbed by any of these goings-on, but he shied at the force Uicha used digging in with his heels.
“To the ashes with all of you,” Uicha muttered. “I’m done with this place.”
Uicha rode hard for home, leaving his neighbors old and new in the dust.
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