Chapter 21: Into the desert

Wirrin stayed the night at a little inn by the name of Itavat. The bed was comfortable, the food was pleasantly spicy. The people were mostly locals. Wirrin double-checked that her memory hadn’t failed her and introduced herself to several of her fellow guests, holding out her left palm to them. All of them responded with their own left palm.

As she was buying rice and chilli at the morning market, Wirrin was accosted by Ketla, who was without Baras for the first time in Wirrin’s memory. Ketla was buying herself breakfast and having a look around the town.

‘I’m about to head into the desert,’ Wirrin said, by way of agreeing to sit down with Ketla for breakfast. ‘But I have a diagnosis for you, if you’d like.’

Ketla snorted and took a bite of her, chilli-less breakfast. ‘Certainly, Wirrin. What is your diagnosis? Are we being too pushy again?’

‘You noticed it too, did you?’ Wirrin nodded. ‘The disrespect is palpable.’

Ketla frowned through her mouthful. ‘Disrespect? Aulk was nothing but pleasant to you, as I recall.’

Wirrin smiled. ‘You ought to talk to the locals, in that case.’

‘Just tell me what he did wrong, so I know where to start.’

‘Hello, my name is Wirrin.’ Wirrin held out her left palm to Ketla.

‘And what should I do in response?’ Ketla asked, putting down her food.

‘You put your left palm on mine. To show that you don’t think you’re better than me.’

Ketla snorted again. ‘He’s a mage.’ But she did it.

‘Doesn’t matter, does it?’ Wirrin said. ‘That’s the trouble. No one’s better than anyone around here. Only exception is if you’re missing your left arm.’

Ketla nodded. ‘The Church does have a hierarchy, Wirrin.’

‘Still doesn’t matter,’ Wirrin said. ‘The most respected elder will still respond with their left palm. And still hold out their left palm. It’s just the way it’s done.’

Ketla sighed. ‘Fine. I’ll bear it in mind.’

‘No one I’ve met around the desert cares much for hierarchy,’ Wirrin said. ‘Society is a thing we all participate in, you know?’

‘I know you’ve spent time with the dirge singers, lamenting their fallen empire,’ Ketla said. ‘You think we all get to participate in a society ruled by an emperor?’

Wirrin tapped her right temple. ‘Like I said, I liked it better when I couldn’t understand them. Why do you think I’m spending the winter here?’

Ketla sighed again and picked up her food. ‘Like I said, I’ll bear it in mind.’

‘Good.’ Wirrin nodded seriously. ‘In that case, I’m off to be cold in the desert.’

‘Enjoy yourself, Wirrin,’ Ketla said, then took a small bite of her cornbread, specifically so that she could speak through it. ‘It was nice meeting you.’

‘And you. Good luck with your retention.’

The other way in which Hekaulseg reminded Wirrin of Esbolva was that there was a lot of nodding and waving to strangers as she wandered her way out of town to the shyavat. It was already empty, barely more than a week into the start of winter.

A shyavat was unlike a caravanserai anywhere else in Nesalan. Instead of a cluster of warehouses and stables, and a constant stream of people, it was a large area of compacted sand with two, large, wheel-operated well pumps.

Vanishingly little freight made its way across the desert. Everything the ektshyolg bought here was for themselves, for their travels into the desert and for selling to the shyolg clans that refused to leave the desert or interact with the rest of Nesalan.

Wirrin had expected the shyavat to be empty. In her time in the desert, she’d never heard of even the ektshyolg visiting the towns during winter. By now, most of the shyolg clans would be congregating for the yearly winter gathering at Fauvat Faulget, or camping out in the forests in the centre of the desert, if they were less social.

Vaguely, Wirrin regretted getting herself involved in all this. If she hadn’t had to go to the swamp on her way here, she’d probably have been in time to meet up with whichever ektshyolg clan was doing their last minute shopping in Hekaulseg and she’d have company on the walk up to the hetavatok.

On the other hand, the only reason she was going there at all, rather than spending the winter alone in the mountains or something was because she was involved in all this.

Wirrin smiled to herself on her walk out of Hekaulseg, imagining how excited Yolget would be when he found out she had found the Fiends. There was no question in Wirrin’s mind that she would tell most of the shyolg about finding the Fiends.

She’d met quite a lot of people in passing in her time in the desert and, though she didn’t much like the desert itself, the people had impressed her. It was the only place in Nesalan where everyone seemed to speak their own language most of the time, and Wirrin had quite liked the word they used for the Church.

‘You were very nice to that young woman from the Church,’ Mkaer rumbled.

‘And see how alive I am?’ Wirrin thought.

‘Would you have killed her if you needed to?’ Mkaer rumbled.

‘Of course. See how alive I am?’ Wirrin thought.

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The Fiends hadn’t talked to her very much over the last week that she’d been travelling with Ketla. They’d talked to each other from time to time but, for the most part, they’d been quiet.

‘Would you have preferred I not be nice to her?’ Wirrin thought.

‘Before the Gods’ War, we would ask our mages to talk to each other, to communicate with the other Outsiders,’ Naertral burbled. ‘I cannot imagine that that practice has changed.’

‘Is that the purpose of mages, then?’ Wirrin wondered. ‘To talk to each other?’

‘As much as we had a purpose for our mages, it was to experience the world,’ Naertral burbled. ‘Without them, we are banished. Lost in the void.’

‘Senseless and unable to think,’ Mkaer crashed.

‘Is that all it takes to banish you, then?’

The Fiends took a moment to consider it.

‘It must be,’ Naertral burbled.

‘We thought, when Haerst was banished, that it must have been more than that,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘We could not see each other’s mages, of course. Haerst was most widespread of us, we did not consider that all of its mages must have gone to defend it.’

‘Our mages feared the consequences of being elsewhere when we were banished,’ Naertral burbled. ‘They congregated to defend us.’

‘You figured it had to be more complicated than simply killing?’ Wirrin wondered. ‘Why?’

‘All of us Outsiders had been present in Nesalan for a very long time,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘I think none of us could remember the void, anymore. We had been awake long enough to forget a time when we weren’t.’

‘And now you remember?’ Wirrin asked.

‘It’s not so much a matter of remembering, as a matter of knowing that this must have happened before,’ Naertral burbled. ‘Over decades, and certainly not by the same person. But we must have been awoken before. There was a time when no people dwelt on Nesalan.’

‘And what use were the people?’ Wirrin asked. ‘Aside from being mages?’

‘They weren’t any use, really,’ Naertral burbled. ‘I never had any interest in worship, or in followers. Though it was hard to stop them.’

‘For most of us, it was unintentional,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘Mages are very useful, and their power comes from us. In the early days, we swiftly became important parts of society. Over time, respect turned to deference, turned to worship.’

‘I cannot speak for all of us Outsiders, but I certainly did my best to discourage it,’ Naertral burbled. ‘Most of us were very clear that nothing came from us. We did not create the world, and we offered no relief from death.’

Wirrin had never thought of it. ‘Did people think that?’

‘Some speculated, jumped to conclusions,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘These statues of ours, they were there before people arrived in Nesalan. It seems they cannot be moved or destroyed, or I expect the so-called-Gods would have done so.’

‘Naertral would not have been found in a temple, before there were people to make one,’ Wirrin said.

‘I do recall the temple being built around me,’ Naertral burbled. ‘It is not a singular memory, mixed with other temples and shrines being built over the millennia.’

‘You remember from the perspective of the statues?’ Wirrin asked.

‘They are false memories,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘Constructed by time and repetition and stories. We must have experienced them from the perspectives of our mages.’

‘What’s the use of all these extra statues, then?’ Wirrin asked. ‘Did they only exist to be worshipped?’

‘Through many we could be contacted,’ Naertral burbled. ‘As we all spread throughout Nesalan, our people didn’t need to find our statues to speak to us, or to become mages.’

Wirrin stopped in her tracks, alone in the green desert near Hekaulseg. Wasn’t that interesting? ‘Did the Gods have statues like that all through Nesalan, too?’ she asked.

‘We all did, with the exception of the desert,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘The tolg did not settle. They carried images with them, but those were decorative.’

Wirrin got back to walking. ‘Then why bother with the whole war?’

‘We do not know,’ Mkaer rumbled.

‘We assumed that they had discovered something, in Keredin,’ Naertral burbled. ‘This method of theirs to empower their mages. We assumed they had discovered something else to motivate them in this war.’

‘You weren’t considered evil back then? Before the War?’ Wirrin asked, frowning to herself as she walked. It felt like she was staring at a puzzle, trying to make sure she had all the pieces.

‘Even Ulvaer wasn’t considered evil,’ Naertral hissed. ‘Unpleasant, certainly, but not evil.’

‘Isolated,’ Wirrin said.

‘We mostly left it alone, yes,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘But our mages were here. We did not shun any tolg who came to us. They were fewer, perhaps, but so were the people here.’

This wasn’t a piece of the puzzle, Wirrin was sure. ‘When people say that they can hear the Gods’ when they worship, I assumed it was hyperbole. Whatever fervour motivated them to worship acting on their minds.’

‘Perhaps you were right,’ Naertral shushed.

‘I’ll assume I wasn’t entirely right,’ Wirrin said. Then, a thought. ‘Did you talk to everyone who touched these altars and statues?’

‘At least the majority of them,’ Mkaer rumbled.

‘Sometimes a person simply needs to express their thoughts to someone,’ Naertral burbled. ‘Not all of them need a response.’

‘This rumbling and burbling of your powers that I feel when you speak, though? You were present for everyone?’ Wirrin asked.

‘We did not have to be,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘But we were.’

An unrelated thought. ‘How many mages did you have? How many people speaking to these altars and statues?’

‘Having only your singular perspective is odd,’ Naertral burbled. ‘We were not limited by concentration. By the start of the war, I had thousands of mages, enough that I could not count them all for sure.’

‘Haerst and Gnaer must have had tens of thousands,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘They were always most popular.’

‘Not by a wide enough margin, clearly.’ Wirrin frowned to herself. She couldn’t even conceptualise it. The idea of having more than one set of eyes was appealing, certainly, but it was beyond her imagination.

‘As we have told you, the so-called-Gods could empower their mages far more than we could,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘Iltavaer and Raerna were not far behind Haerst and Gnaer in their popularity.’

‘Health and Growth? That would make sense.’

‘Iltavaer was Flesh, back then,’ Naertral burbled. ‘Gnaer was Health.’

‘Iltavaer was, what? Fixing wounds? Compared to dealing with disease?’

‘There was more to it than that, but that is the shape of it,’ Mkaer rumbled.

‘If you weren’t considered evil, did the Gods hate you all, before the War?’ Wirrin asked.

‘I would say we all got along well enough,’ Naertral burbled. ‘Perhaps I would have disagreements with Raerna from time to time. So, too, did Vonaer, who became one of these so-called-Gods.’

‘Which one is Vonaer?’ Wirrin asked.

‘It was called Shelter, before the War,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘I expect that now it is Labour.’

‘Disagreements between building and growing things?’ Wirrin mused.

‘We all had disagreements,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘We all got along well enough, and not simply for the sake of the people. Our disagreements were not so substantial, and it was always best for all of us to be able to work together.’

‘Except for Ulvaer?’

‘Ulvaer didn’t spread, like the rest of us did,’ Naertral shushed. ‘Its people stayed in the desert, for the most part.’

That still wasn’t a piece of the puzzle. ‘Why, then, did they so want to erase you all?’ Wirrin wondered. ‘What did they get out of it?’

‘We have been contemplating it since you woke me,’ Naertral shushed. ‘We have just as little idea as we did when the War first started.’

‘You couldn’t talk to each other directly before now, right? Only through your mages?’ Wirrin asked. ‘No shared altars where more than one of you could be found?’

‘We could only speak to each other through people,’ Mkaer rumbled. ‘We could not be reached through shared altars and statues, though shared temples were not so uncommon.’

Wirrin hated not to have all the information she needed. Part of her wanted to go back to Hekaulseg and interrogate Aulk and Baras until their Gods told her what the point of all this was. But she’d had that feeling for a very long time. The only solution was to keep wandering, keep going to new places and learning new things. Even if she didn’t learn what she wanted to know, she was sure to learn something interesting.