…This land the Children of Tem called Atem, or the Land of Tem, and that outside they named the Poison Land, for no one could live there.
—Unknown, from The Book of Atem
…The land of Atem is evidently a roughly circular area about two hundred miles in diameter surrounded by an infinite lifeless and poisonous ring. But as I shall argue in this treatise, the evidence of our senses is misleading. I will endeavor to demonstrate that Atem in fact rests upon a gigantic sphere, a reality which in turn suggests the possibility of other islands of life like our own, but out of our sight.
—Errik of Imlyn, from On the Shape of the World, which resulted in the author’s conviction and subsequent execution for heresy.
1.
Ruwen of Erin’s Well
The Waste
Mother was talking in her sleep.
“… thunder and wind and oxen and flowers and …”
Ruwen wouldn’t be able to rest, so he rolled out of bed, wrapped himself in his robe, and ducked out of the one-room cottage he shared with his mother. It was cold for the first day of Spring, and a chill wind blew scattered clouds across the sky. The little moon Té Larem, named for the god of death, was high above, its light cold and blue.
And when will you come down from the sky and visit us, Larem?
He walked to keep warm. He passed several houses indistinguishable from his own, little wattle-and-daub structures built for shelter and not luxury. Most of the houses in the village of Erin’s Well were the same—only the mayor’s house was more than two rooms.
A pinpoint glow ahead of him flared brighter and then faded. A shadow leaned against one of the cottages. “Hey, Doran,” said Ruwen.
“Good evening, my friend Ruwen,” replied the shadow; as Ruwen approached, it resolved by moonlight into a young man smoking a wooden pipe. “Want a bit of the ol’ ’wort?”
“Just a puff. Just to keep warm.” Ruwen took the pipe and pulled briefly at it. Pigwort. It didn’t taste too bad, and it did help with sleep.
“How’s your mum?” asked Doran as he reclaimed the pipe.
“Talking in her sleep again. Only reason to be out here when it’s this cold. Why are you out here?”
“I like to look at the stars. And Father’s convinced I’ll burn down the house if I smoke inside. Which in fact I almost did yesterday. So here I am. But you avoided my question.”
Ruwen sighed. “As if you need to ask. She’s no better. Maybe worse, I dunno.”
“I’m so sorry,” said Doran.
For gods’ sake, no more concern. “Thanks.”
“What does she say? When she’s talking in her sleep?”
“Nonsense. Nightmares. Nothing of consequence.”
“You should talk to Nessy about Robert. He’s just as sick as your mother. There’s no point in you two suffering alone.”
“Maybe, maybe. Look, I should keep walking. It’s too cold. Thanks for the smoke.”
Doran gripped Ruwen’s shoulder. “I think this is where I’m supposed to say ‘Take heart, for Am is watching over you.’”
Ruwen said, “I guess. If he even cares.” He freed himself from Doran’s grasp and walked on.
At the eastern point of the village stood the well that gave the place its name. Facing it were the common building, where the people gathered, and a small prayer house. The far side of the well looked out on a desolate heath. That way lay the end of the world.
The wind shifted direction, and the little moon took on a purplish tinge as the vapors from the poison lands blew in high above. They never threatened the village, but they were never far away.
A couple of miles off, at the top of a ridge, was the unmistakable glow of a campfire. Ruwen gasped. The fools. Anyone camped so near the poison lands was in mortal danger on a windy night. He stood for a while and wondered at the recklessness.
Suddenly the light winked out. Ruwen bowed his head and sighed. Likely the poison vapor had suffocated the fire and the campers. Too late. Tomorrow a party would go out and retrieve the bodies.
#
Mercifully, Mother was quiet the rest of the night. Ruwen woke before her and dressed. He ate a little leftover bread and cheese and saved the rest for her.
He woke his mother and offered her the food with a little watered ale. She took the ale but refused the food.
Ruwen brushed her hair back from her face. She’s still so young, too young to be sick like this. “Mother, how are you feeling?”
“My fingers hurt this morning. Yesterday it felt so good when you brought the bread home, the warmth in my fingers. Can you do that again today?”
So little. “I’ll see if I can get some more bread today. I’ll ask Peggy specially for you.”
“Thank you, dear. You take care of me so well. You deserve better. Your own house and a wife, no old mother bothering you. But I’m sure it won’t be much longer.”
“Don’t say that. I’ll take care of you as long as it takes. Don’t worry about me, I’ll be fine. Just you get better.”
“You know that doesn’t happen.”
He knew. The Waste didn’t leave survivors.
#
Ruwen hated leaving his mother alone during the day, but the village ran on work. Besides, she would spend most of the day sleeping, and he would stop in at midday and late afternoon to check on her.
And there was an exciting job to do.
The morning was warm and sunny, and the wind of the night before had died. Perfect weather for going on a hike into the shadow of the poison lands. Ruwen tracked down Schiele, the village work boss, to ask for the task of retrieving the unlucky campers.
Schiele shook her head. “No. I have no problem with Doran going, but not you.”
Ruwen gritted his teeth. “Because of the leg, right? I could outrun Doran on a bad day.”
Ruwen had limped since he was seven years old, and some people could just not forget about it.
“What if you broke your leg again? What would I tell your mother?”
“I’m no more likely to break my leg than Doran is. And let me deal with my own mother.”
Half an hour later, he and Doran, with Schiele’s blessing, were on their way out of the village to the campsite. Ruwen carried a simple hand litter, enough to bring back a body at a time. Doran had food and water and, as always, a pocket of pigwort.
“What in the name of Am were these people doing all the way out there anyway?” said Doran. The rocky terrain covered with scrub made it slow going. “Look at this place, there’s nothing out here! Why come here?”
“So Doran…” Ruwen started.
“Eh? You want a smoke break already? So soon? I think I can help you out with that,” said Doran, reaching for his pocket.
“No, that’s not it,” Ruwen replied, turning to face Doran, who had stopped. “C’mon, I’d rather not be out here all day. We’ll have a smoke break when we get there.” He started walking again.
“Well, it’s your loss. And mine, too, I suppose. But other than not smoking, what’s on your mind?”
“Yeah, um. Well.” Ruwen coughed, then started again. “What do you think of Reina?”
Doran scrunched his face up. “What do I think? I’m not sure I understand what you’re asking.”
“Yes, you do. What about Reina?”
“Ah yes, Reina. Uh huh, yes she is, she sure is,” said Doran, grinning.
“For gods’ sake, Doran, you know exactly what I’m talking about. Do you think Reina might like me?”
“Finally we get to the point.” Doran looked serious for a moment. “Yeah, she likes you fine. But she doesn’t know how to treat you when your mother’s so sick. You need to show her some interest.”
“Huh, really.” Ruwen stopped next to a boulder and sat down. “Okay, let’s have that smoke break now.”
“Aha! Thought you’d never ask.” Doran sat next to Ruwen and in a few moments was puffing on a pipeful of pigwort. He offered it to Ruwen.
Ruwen took a puff while studying his feet. “She’s very pretty, don’t you think?”
Doran snorted. “Prettier than you. Give me that pipe back.”
Ruwen handed it over. Its smoke rose straight up. “Better hurry up, who knows how long the wind will stay still.”
Fifteen minutes later, they were walking again, when Doran slipped on a loose rock and fell. When he tried to stand, his right ankle wouldn’t take his weight. He went down again with a moan.
“I think I’ve broken my—ow—ankle. Oh cruel gods, why do you tor—ow—torment me so with this pain?”
Ruwen crouched beside him and examined his ankle. “Tell me where it hurts.” He poked at the ankle.
“Ow! Sorry, no, not there, just anticipating.” Doran grinned weakly. “Ow! Yes, there! There!”
Ruwen stood. “Good news. It’s just a sprain. But you better stay here while I go on and investigate. Here.” He untied two strips of fabric from the litter and handed them to Doran. “Tie these around your ankle tight. Don’t try to walk. I’ll be back in a little while.”
“Excellent, I was getting tired of walking anyway. You be careful—don’t die. If you die, I’ll be stuck out here alone.”
“Good gods, you can still see the village from here. Someone would come and get you.”
Doran wiped his brow. “You’re right, of course. Okay then, go ahead and die if you want. I’ll be fine.”
Ruwen shook his head and turned away.
He faced the poison lands alone for the first time in his life. He checked the wind again—calm—and limped on.
#
The campsite was in the shelter of a stand of scrub at the top of a hill. There were no threats out here to speak of, so there was no reason to hide a fire. That is, no threats other than the great grey-purple wall of vapor about two miles to the southeast. This close, it loomed like a great angry thundercloud come to earth. It made Ruwen nervous to be this close. He continually monitored the breeze. It was still.
There were two bodies by the cold campfire. Two men sprawled on the ground, their faces mottled purple, the telltale sign of vapor poisoning.
Why were these two out here? How did they not know not to camp so close?
Ruwen went through their packs. Among the mundane things—a change of clothing, road rations, a spare wineskin—were more curious items. A couple of notebooks full of an indecipherable scrawl. A map. A flat bronze plate covered with engraved patterns and symbols, overlaid with two intricately cut rotating plates and a narrow rotating pointer. Some kind of round device with a needle that always pointed the same way no matter how Ruwen rotated it. And a cubical box about four inches on a side, made of a strange, dense, papery material.
The box separated into two halves. Ruwen carefully pulled one half from the other. The interior was made of a soft cushioned material like silk. In a depression was a disk. It looked like polished silver, only it had a subtle orange tinge.
Ruwen lifted it from the box. It was three inches in diameter, covered in an intricate raised design, lines upon lines curving in intricate patterns too complex for the eye to entirely understand. When Ruwen looked closer, the pattern seemed to repeat and grow in complexity at smaller and smaller scales. In the middle of the pattern was a symbol he didn’t recognize: ※.
He ran his fingers along the edge of the disk, exploring it, and then across the intricate pattern on the front. It felt good, like a light tingle.
A breeze ruffled Ruwen’s hair as he sat.
Breeze? Shit shit shit!
He leapt to his feet and hastily packed up the strangers’ belongings in one of the packs, pocketing the disk and discarding the box.
Storm clouds were rapidly forming over the poison lands to the southeast. But it wasn’t the rain or the lightning that immediately worried him, it was the poison vapor the storm would blow before it. If he could outrun that, then he’d worry about the lightning.
He ran back towards Doran.
It’s about a mile to get to Doran. That’s probably far enough to be safe from the poison. But we’ll never make it back to the village before the storm hits.
The storm was creeping across the morning sun, creating an eerie half-light. Ruwen looked back at the wall of grey-purple vapor billowing ahead of the storm. Looks like I’m outrun—
Suddenly his feet slipped out from under, and he slid on his back down a short slope of loose pebbles and dirt. When he came to a stop, he examined himself. Apart from some scraped elbows and a sore tailbone, he was okay. No broken leg, Schiele.
As he sat for a second to catch his breath, thunder rang out behind him. He sprang up and ran once more.
Doran was sitting in the dirt where Ruwen had left him, looking scared. Ruwen gasped for breath. “We have to go. The poison can’t reach us here, but the storm is still coming.”
Doran yelled, “Dammit, what are we going to do? I can’t walk. I just tried. My damn ankle is broken.”
“Sprained. Calm down. We’re going to walk as fast as we can with you leaning on me. Now c’mon, put your arm over my shoulders.”
Doran complied, and the two of them limped towards home.
Doran couldn’t hang on to Ruwen. “You’ve got to get rid of the pack—it’s in the way.”
Ruwen reluctantly agreed. “Hold on. I think I can transfer some stuff to my pockets.” He unslung the pack from his shoulders and opened it, but Doran interrupted.
“We don’t have time!” A thunderclap.
“Fine. I’ll leave the rest here and we’ll get it later.”
They started limping again.
Doran was getting frantic. “Can’t you make me walk faster? The storm is gaining on us.” Thunder. “See? I mean, ‘Hear?’”
“Don’t look back—it’ll just slow us down. Just concentrate on the ground in front of us. We don’t want you hurting your other ankle.”
The village was so tantalizingly close. They were about half a mile out, and they could see the well and the surrounding buildings. At a full-on run, even with his limp Ruwen knew he could get there in a few minutes. At the pace he and Doran were going, though, it might take them twenty minutes or more.
He urged Doran on. “C’mon, faster!”
“Going as fast as I can!”
They trudged in silence for a while. The heath dimmed to a false twilight broken by flashes of lightning, still behind them, but ever closer. Doran hummed tunelessly.
“You okay?” Ruwen asked.
“Mm-hmm.” Some more humming. “You ever want to leave?”
“Leave?”
“Erin’s Well.” More thunder.
“Not really.”
“Huh.” Doran started humming again.
“What?”
“Just thinking, if we get out of this alive, which I highly doubt, I’d like to go traveling, and not just across the damnable heath into certain death, but somewhere interesting, like Ensor.”
“Um, you know that’s not a real place, right?”
“’Course I do. Doesn’t mean I don’t want to go there. But Three Streams, maybe, or even Wood’s End, that’d be fine.”
“If you’ll shut up and walk faster, I’ll take you there myself.”
“Deal,” said Doran. “I’ll hold you to it.”
Just then the rain reached them, and it came on quickly. Within seconds they were drenched. Lightning flashed, far too close.
“Faster!” shouted Ruwen, barely audible above the crack of thunder. “We’re almost there!”
It was only a couple hundred feet to the well. Doran was struggling forward heroically, groaning as he limped. Slowly, so slowly, they closed the gap.
“Doran, we’re going to—”
BOOM. All at once the stormy dark dissolved in blinding light. Ruwen’s words were swallowed up by a titanic roar from all around them. They were thrown sprawling.
“What in all the gods’ names just happened?” demanded Doran. “I can’t see.”
“Neither can I. I think we were hit by lightning.”
“Do you think we’re dead?”
“No, I can still hear the thunder and feel the rain.”
“You know there’s a lot of debate on the exact nature of the afterlife. Maybe it’s exactly like regular life.”
“Except you’re blind.”
“Precisely. Pretty crappy deal, if you ask me. Oh wait, my vision’s coming back.”
Ruwen’s sight came back within seconds of Doran’s. Doran lay in a heap a few feet from Ruwen. Gingerly the two of them sat up and assessed their injuries.
Ruwen felt something warm against his leg. Reaching into his pocket, he felt for the disk and burned his thumb. It was hot. Did it—?
“Doran, I think I was struck by lightning.”
Doran crawled over and whistled. “By the great bulbous nose of Am, you do look kind of singed.”
“Time to gawk later. Let’s get going. We might not be so lucky a second time.”
The storm continued to howl about them as they limped the last hundred feet to the well and then to Doran’s house.
Doran’s mum was at the door as the two young men entered. “Doran! What in all of Atem were you doing out there? You could have been killed! And you, Ruwen, with your mother—”
“Ma!” said Doran. “I sprained my ankle out on the wasteland and got caught in the storm. Ruwen helped me get back. And Ma! He was struck by lightning. He’s a living miracle! Even though he looks awful.”
His mother breathed deeply. “Doran, you do get excited sometimes. Thank you, Ruwen, for helping Doran. You two dry off; Ruwen, you can wait out the storm here. Why are you sucking your thumb?”
Ruwen held up his thumb. “Um, I seem to have burned it.”
“Let me look at that,” she said, taking his hand in hers. “Well, by the gods, how did you burn your thumb in the middle of a rainstorm?”
Doran interrupted. “It must have been the lightning!”
His mother shook her head.
Ruwen stayed quiet. I’ll tell him tomorrow.
#
When the storm had abated, Ruwen left Doran’s to hurry to his mother’s side, late for his midday promise. But first, he stopped at Peggy’s for some bread, fresh from the oven and warm.
He entered his home, its single room darkened.
“Mother?” he called softly. “I’m here.”
No reply. He kneeled by the bed and said, “I brought some bread.”
Still no reply. He put his hand on her shoulder and gave her a gentle shake.
Nothing. He listened. Everything was quiet.
He waited a moment, watching her. She was too still.
He tried calling again, “Mother, I brought bread.” Still nothing. He put his hand on her cheek. She felt cool. No. He put his hand on her back. She wasn’t moving. Oh no.
“I brought bread, Ma.” Please. “I brought bread.”
“Ma?” Then he slumped forward and cried.