Dorian I — gyr

The Great Mire stretched for weeks around Seton in all directions, a sea of mud and reeds with no ends and no beginnings. The Evangelium Mountains shed its waters into the mire so incessantly that even in the summers when no rain would fall for months, the mire would not shrink; there remained those phantom lakes, deeper than ten men and wider than hundreds; mud so loose that it sucked hungrily at the feet and would not let go. A hydrous mud which undisturbed was indistinguishable from the ground: they were called fennswice, and for an ordinary man they were a promise of death. But Dorian stood on one now, as easily as though it were made of stone.

No matter how wide it was there was still dirt beneath his feet, and the silt and sediment of all the rivers born and parched on the mire. Below that were the roots of the Mabbastree that spanned the world, and the souls of all its living things. He heard them at night when the churning of the mire was at its loudest. Sometimes it was as gentle as a woodland stream, and at others it was a cacophonous roar he felt not in his ears, but in his bones, or as shivers in the tips of his fingers and the hairs on his skin.

A great river flowing somewhere—daedd, he thought.

Their expedition was not so far, although Dorian did not know where it was that that that meant. It was enough for him that he was on the mire at all; it was the first time that his father had allowed him further than Copernicus, under the supervision of the Seton rangers.

He was their guide, but the nature of his work did not involve their maps or knowledge of the land. He was to walk ahead and warn of any fennswice. For Dorian, they were as walkable as solid ground and posed no danger to him. With his help, they travelled as far in four days as they had in the two weeks before.

First ranger Deily Aul stood almost 150 yards from him on the edge of this fennswice. Her hand rested on the hilt of her sword. She was the only member of the rangers who carried a sword, for there were no dangers on the mire that a sword could kill.

"You've a bird from your father" she said. She did not shout, but the mire carried her voice so that Dorian could hear her as if she were next to him.

"I've one more spot," called Dorian. "I'll be over in a few minutes."

Dorian cast his gaze across the fennswice for a final time. He loved the solitude. He wondered what it would be like to walk on, to keep walking until fiorns meant nothing but the next step. He could do it too. The others couldn't follow him. He knew that well. But he did not know how to find food, for food was almost impossibly scarce on the mire. It seemed nonsensical to Dorian that such a wide expanse of wilderness would be almost entirely devoid of life, but the only creature he had seen in four days was a rat scurrying across a fennswice some hundred yards away. Rats, he figured, were too light to sink, but they were fast and would be impossible to catch.

They called him 'mudwalker' for his ability to walk on even the softest mud with ease, leaving not so much as a footprint. He could not remember when or where this talent came from, or if it had been his since he was born, but he had never grown used to how it felt, especially on the fennswice. The ripples caused by his shoes disturbed the surface and revealed the black gyr beneath like planes of crystal glass, and it looked as if he were standing in the air.

They it Dorianza in honour of his first expedition. It was smaller than the others they had encountered, even shallow at its edge. Dorian sat on his haunches and ran a hand through the ground. His fingers passed through with ease. The gyr was cold, like ice. He always hated this part.

He slid his knees out from underneath him and lay flat on his chest. The surface held, but Dorian's heart was pounding. He imagined falling below, how easily the gyr would fill his mouth and then his throat, and how he might drown. Then he thrust his hand down, into the nothingness, and for but a brief demand it gave. He felt around beneath the fennswice until his fingers grew numb and he was forced to retrieve it.

He groaned and fell back into a sitting position. He had been searching Dorianza for an hour and inspected thirteen different places, but he had found nothing. Was it still too deep?

His instructor Galen had thought he might find something in its depths, some animal, a deer or a fenelk that might have wandered in and drowned. Dorian had almost believed him. But he remembered now how in all his years playing at the borders of the mire, by the Road and the stone fortress of Copernicus, he had never once seen a deer, and the fenelk knew better than to stray far from the safety of the King's Wood. He struggled to his feet, his hands finding purchase in the gyr again, and he returned to the others.

He found them sheltered in Dorianza's boarder mound, a long depression in the earth shaped like that made by a thumb pressed through clay. Boarder mounds accompanied fennswice on their daegmael side without fail. They were how the rangers identified them without Dorian, and why all travels fiorns strayed hamcyme, leftward turning from The Road.

"All hail the river king," cried Rupert, the quartermaster's apprentice despite his age. Thirty-eight, and thrice of wit, or so he claimed.

"Sorry lads," Dorian said, taking a seat beside him. "Nothing today."

"All this and for what? What's it matter if we starve before we can drown?" complained Auster. His voice was low; it rattled around Dorian's skull. He was their mule, a colossal man capable of carrying thrice Dorian's weight.

"Come now dear," said Rupert. "It's not like we'd do better alone."

The two reeds, apprentices of the rangers, looked dejected at the news. Like Dorian, it was their first time out on the mire, but the mire would kill them like any other man. Benson knew this well and was constantly alert. Even now his eyes shifted nervously. His friend Georgie didn't seem to care and he was almost asleep when Dorian returned.

Their sixth member, first ranger Deily Aul, leader of the Seton rangers and captain of the expedition, sat opposite him. She wore a stony gaze and betrayed no emotion.

"And?" she said. Dorian shivered.

"It's wide but empty, and too deep. Even if I did find something it'd be too deep to get it out. Not that far down anyway. I suppose we could use a hook but, we don't have the strength. Least not for anything worth the pull."

"I say we go back," said Auster.

"Lazy bastard," Rupert replied, but Dorian thought that this was being harsh. Auster's bag was twice the size of theirs and he carried their heaviest gear: tents, stoves, and climbing gear, though he struggled to find the use in that, for the mire was infamously flat, with its greatest slopes nothing more than hills and valley walls. He mumbled an apology.

Auster looked away, disinterested. "I said it was a shit idea."

"Let him be, you square," Rupert barked, and aimed a kick at Auster's leg. It didn't budge. "You'd drown better with a whore than you would the fenn you fat fuck."

In a startling display of quickness, Auster's fist lurched forward, but the smaller man fell backwards out of the way and danced off laughing.

"Another day without food then," Aul said simply, and tonelessly. She withdrew a roll of parchment from her pocket and tossed it to him. "Your letter."

Dorian twisted his head and saw a small black crow perched patiently atop the back of the boarder mound. One of Gwent's birds. His mouth moistened. He imagined tearing into its breast, how the blood would taste on his tongue and the oil on his lips. His stomach moaned, and he turned away again. They were forbidden from eating the crows. He cleared his mind and read the letter quietly.

"Murder," he muttered.

"Say that again?" said Rupert. "Ain't no way lad."

"Father says there's been a murder. Thomas Allwright—it's, you know, the party man of the lower village. He's dead! Seems you might get your wish, Auster, Father says we're to return immediately." Dorian paused and looked at Aul. She was watching him patiently. "He wants you, Lady First, to look into it."

Georgie cried out and rose to his feet. "Tommy? Bastards, I'll kill them myself!"

Benson flung a hand around the boy's neck. "Quiet," he hissed. "You know what they'll do to you."

"I'm afraid Elathan's been at you again," Rupert said. He grinned at them. "An' I was wondering why you were both so quiet."

Benson looked relieved that they were not in trouble, but Georgie's rage was not quelled. He didn't even seem to hear Rupert. He stormed over to Dorian and shook him by his collar. "Who was it? Who killed him?" he shouted. He was crying, and his voice shook dangerously. "Tell me it isn't true man, it can't be." He broke into a sob.

Dorian looked away. "My father wouldn't lie," he said, but even he scarcely believed it.

"Fuck," Georgie cursed. He released Dorian and slumped back down next to Benson. An awkward silence descended.

"You're not Aul." Auster asked after a while. "Why is this letter addressed to you?"

"It's from Gwent," Dorian said.

"And what's ol' ashy knees want from you then?" asked Rupert.

Deily Aul answered before Dorian could. "Guyun," she said. "But Dorian will be refusing."

"I didn't say that."

"But you will." Her eyes were wide and intense. There was nothing in Guyun, only stone trees and stone dirt. There had been nothing in Guyun since the days of the first people of the mire. It would only be sensible if he refused.

"You know, maybe Friga's wanting for death and that," Benson offered. Everybody looked at him. He hurriedly added, "Old that he is and that... you know. Whatselse in them woods but the pale kings?"

"Stone," said Georgie. "Where'd you think the town's stone came from? Sure as hell not these wastes."

"You can't make a wall out'ta bark," Benson objected.

Dorian stood and left them to their debate.

Father had always found Gwent's incessant botherings irritating, but Dorian respected the man. He may well be old but he knew all that happened in Seton, and he was not wrong—the Blue was late. Too late. It was now Brodmath and summer should have long since ended. But the days had not shortened and the evenings were yet warm with no signs of a frost beyond the usual mire chill.

He stood on the edge of the fennswice and stared into the crisp noon air. A gentle breeze broke across it, bringing with it the smell of brush and faecal waste.

"Bloody place," Dorian muttered, mostly to himself. "Can't make up its mind."

"Well it's always wet," Rupert offered, appearing behind him. "Except for you, mudwalker."

Dorian stifled a smile, but not well enough.

"Oh you like that one huh?" teased Rupert.

"Reminds me of a friend is all," Dorian said. It had only been four days, but he had seldom felt happier to be going home.

Rupert slapped him on the back. "Well then, pack up, we'll be off in a minute."

The return journey was much slower.

For whatever reason, boarder mounds did not form on the hamcyme side of a fennswice and so in their place, the rangers built 'fennstones', large piles of stone and wood that served as surrogate mounds to mark the few safe paths through. But these were often unreliable and shifted with the rains. They required constant maintenance. Within days fiorns of Seton they were unlikely to find one broken, but any number of things could ruin those built further out: flooding, fenelks, and strong winds, but the majority fell victim to time; time and mud. The dirt around a fennswice was soft all year round and if you stood still for too long it would devour even your boots. A pile of stones didn't fare much better.

Dorian headed the party by ten paces, prodding at the ground as he went to test its firmness. Clouds were sparse and the sun loomed over them, descending on the horizon slowly. The light was well, and they continued in this manner for several hours through the nameless pools and streams that scarred the mire, past the Blaysbane and Balor's Breach fennswice, and the Lonely Tree. They stopped only twice: once for rest, though there was no food to eat, and another time to bandage Benson's feet, which were covered by bloodied blisters and a bruise the size of his fist. They crossed the River Dar by a shoddy bridge on the upper banks and climbed the highlands when they could, where the fennswice did not form but the grass was thick and grew in many clumps. They grew in pools which reached their knees, so pure that even Dorian could not walk across them, but the water cooled their burning calves, and was at least a brief reprieve from the fear of a single misstep.

There were no familiar roads or trails, for the grasses grew quickly on the mire. Never was that truer in the lowland peat, where each step plunged deep into the dirt but by the next left no mark at all, and the grasses were thin and tall and were unbothered by their feet. Dorian preferred the lowlands, for the peat was thick and did not part under his weight, and he walked atop it as if it were The Road. The reeds complained, but when they passed the Raybarrow pool it was Dorian who swam across to reach the midderlands, and it was he who picked the cranberry vines submerged beneath the water, which would have been impossible for any others.

"Like watching a man walk on coals," said Rupert cheerily as they ate.

"And what is that supposed to mean?" asked Aul.

Rupert shrugged and dipped his boots into the pool to wash off the dirt. "You never seen it before? Heats em up they do, gets the coal real hot. That's the trick see, if they aren't hot then it's just walking on rocks and there's nothing great about that. When I was a kid I saw a man do it, scared me so much I cried thinking the poor sod's feet would be burnt and he'd never get to walk."

"How sweet," Auster mocked.

"Aye, I'm an angel. Thing is though, it was only scary because I didn't know how it worked an' all."

"The coals aren't hot?" offered Benson.

Georgie smacked him around the head. "He just said they were, you idiot."

"Scorching," Rupert said. He leant in conspiratorially. "It's just, it really ain't that hard to do. No matter how hot a bed of coals gets if you walk quick-like you'll quite alright. Now I'm not saying our fine young river king here is a fast walker, but there's a reason for everything, and if we don't have it, it's probably just because we ain't thinking right."

Dorian smiled. "I didn't take you for someone so thoughtful," he teased. He was beginning to grow very fond of the apprentice, old that he was. "You sure you never went to the college?"

Rupert and Auster snorted in symphony. "This oaf hardly knows his letters," said the mule.

"You flatter me," laughed Rupert. "I've no interest in books and stuffy hair, Dorian. Don't give me that look, George, you know well as I the hair's ridiculous."

Georgie flushed bright red. "I think it looks noble," he muttered.

"Oh aye is that so? Well, whilst we're here, what's your noble teachers say of the mire?"

"That it's empty," Dorian said. "That there's nothing 'till the end of the world."

"True enough. I wonder why we're all here then eh? For nothing but dirt and mud?"

Dorian did not have an answer for that.

"The dead, then," Benson told Rupert. "They say that life is made from the Mabbastree, and that when we die our bones are scattered across the world. When the Blue comes and the mire freezes over, and the pale kings collect all the bones and take them back to their forest of stone. But gods know what they'd want with this godforsaken place."

"I hate it," said Georgie. His fists were clenched at his sides. "I've not seen a single thing, not no fish or bird or rat, it's bloody barren. Maybe we're in hell already. And you," he thrust a finger at Dorian. "the kindly ferryman, have you found your thirst for coin?"

"It's not the boy's fault that man is dead," interrupted Auster; his deep voice was soft. Dorian looked at him in surprise. He had been certain that he was a man who was incapable of tenderness.

Rupert nodded along. "Aye, and 'cause of Dorian here you'll make it in time to show your respects. In't that great? You'd be out here anyway man, there's no running from the order. Be thankful you get to see..."

"Thomas," Georgie finished. "Mr Allwright. He looked after us orphans, never asked for a single penny. He was a good man. Good..."

Dorian looked over to Aul who stood several yards away atop a rock, enshrined in the waning light. Her white-straw hair shone with a lustre thrice its usual strength. She did not look back.

"Aye," said Dorian, before he knew what he was doing. He looked Georgie in the eye and saw his grief. It stained his face; it was in the folds of his skin and the curl of his lips. "The old words be with you, Georgie. You know 'em well, as do you, Benson."

"To be left behind..." Benson started.

"...is all that we can ask."

Their muted chorus echoed into the mire, joined by a woman's voice murmured at a depth that only Dorian could hear.