The Vastness Read online

  One of the others said, “He would be on the far side of the river, boss. Probably at the booking house on Copper Road. Not sure how we can reach him with the bridge closed by the cavalry.”

  “Damn you all, I don’t care if Bayen himself is blocking the bridge. Go find him or we will all be sleeping in the streets tomorrow.”

  The man and a pair of his fellows took off at a run and almost collided with the others coming in. It was the third shift overseers with their girls in tow.

  “Rot your stupid eyes,” the boss screamed. “Why are you back so early? Second shift hasn’t cleared out yet.”

  Everyone started yelling. The boys from second shift took this as an order to get moving, while the exhausted third shift girls started piling in.

  The boss lost his voice screaming but he could not be heard. He started grabbing his men by the collar and yelling into their ears. To our shriveled little overseer, I heard him say, “Close the gates. Don’t let anyone leave until I get back. Keep them here, or we lose everything.”

  The girls from our lodge were jammed right in the middle of all of this, while the third shift girls wrestled their way to their racks. Their shoulders and eyelids sagged, and they growled at the boys as they came.

  Pia and I were jammed back into Dame Franni and her girls. Their yelling did nothing.

  “Boss,” our overseer screamed. “What do I do with the boys from the new lodges?”

  No reply came. The boss had gone and the angry crowd smashed itself tighter into the row. Our overseer barely got away toward the new gate.

  “Stay calm, girls,” Franni said.

  Bodies and voices collided around us.

  Pia started crying and clutched my arm. “What will happen to us?”

  “The boss will tell us,” Franni said. “Someone will tell him, and he will tell us.”

  Her voice and her simple words betrayed her. The yelling got louder. The men from the lodges we’d taken began to spill into the alley, and the yelling became screams. Our overseer’s cane flashed one way and then another, before I lost sight of him.

  Pia cried out. Someone had climbed up on top of the pile, and was standing on her wounded ear. Someone else used her shoulder to step up onto the pile.

  It was the boy from Kuet. Franni cursed him and scratched his leg. He tumbled over top of Pia and we batted at him before he trampled north atop the rest of us.

  Pia wasn’t doing well. I held her up as best I could, but there was little I could do. I could barely breathe. People lost all their fight in the terrible press and stopped yelling. Some cried. I could not manage either.

  The unnatural quiet took over, and I couldn’t hear any of the overseers anymore.

  We were squeezed down, and I worried the world would leave us here to slowly choke. It went on for an eternity. I gulped air and held onto Pia and Franni.

  The boys must have started getting out, or the girls must have found a way into their lodges, because the press began to subside. I managed a small breath. The crowd shifted. I kept breathing, and everyone around me seemed content to do the same. Franni and I held Pia up while the mass of us leaned upon each other and enjoyed the air.

  Those that had fallen did not rise. I stumbled back from the sight of a trampled girl, and stepped on the ankle of another. It cracked, but the thin leg did not stir.

  “Is this what it will be like?” Pia asked with a small voice.

  The Dame tried to straighten Pia’s tunica and hair. Her attempts to hold back tears failed. “More like this. Yes.”

  “You’ve seen this before?” one of the girls asked. “When an Exaltier dies?”

  “You can’t be as old as that,” Pia said. “The last time was, what? Twenty years ago? You can’t be as old as that. No one makes it that long in the Warrens.”

  Dame Franni stopped fussing with Pia’s hair and hit her on the arm. “I’ll outlive you and your big mouth, whatever the case.”

  The crowd thinned enough that I was able to get a look down the row. The new wall had been pushed over from the press and our overseer had been trampled along with many others. What was left of him was little more than a wet rug.

  Some of the girls started following them out.

  “Hold on there,” Franni said. “You’ll be lucky to ever see a tin cup again if you walk out of here now.”

  Most stayed. A few did not. One of the last overseers left standing heard her words and went into one of the lodges. He came out with as many of the tin cups as he could carry. Some of the boys followed on. The overseer was robbed of half his load before he made it out of the alley, and a new mad rush began. The tin cups and whatever supplies of bread and meat that were left inside the lodges were carried away an armful at a time.

  We huddled together until they were gone.

  Yellow Row became a quiet and deserted place after that, and I found a place to sit down.

  Beyond the gates and fallen wall, people ran this way and that. A few came to loot our lodges, but the carpet of trampled bodies discouraged most.

  “When will we get back to work at the mill?” Pia asked.

  “Don’t know,” Franni said to us. “You may never. If the petition isn’t restored, we will all end up back in the daily line. Today might be the last time we see Yellow Row.”

  But … my table. I wanted to be back at it, counting teeth and rods. I wanted it more than bread, broth, or sleep.

  I wrapped my arms around my knees. I tried to remember—tried to count my way through the pattern book’s pages.

  I could not find any of them.

  4

  Emi

  Counting

  I was napping on my knees when we first noticed the smell of smoke.

  Others woke. The rest grumbled, while the gray smoke drifted high overhead.

  I got to my feet. It had only been a year ago when fire last struck Bessradi. The panic and the stampede had been terrible. I’d been at the mill and ran all the way to Yellow Row. The river and wide boulevards of the Merchants’ Quarter had saved us that time.

  I worried I would never rest again. The girls began to ask each other what was going on. Was it another fire? Was it in the Warrens? The few boys left were the loudest with their questions.

  “Why ask me that?” Pia said back to one of them. “My eyes work the same as yours.”

  The boy did not like her answer and slapped her. She stumbled back between Franni and I, but did not seem any more willing to keep quiet. Her face was flushed dark red and the first sound out of her was something like a growl.

  “I am going to go see what is going on,” she said, shook off Franni, and shoved her way pasted the boy who had slapped her.

  I could not believe it and was sure she she’d get another slap and worse. The boy flinched back from her quick touch instead, and she barged her way through the nervous crowd as though she was a boss wearing a sword.

  “No good will come of that,” Franni said and shook her head as Pia disappeared through the gate.

  Yells from Thorn Street and other rows carried to us, and even the soundest of sleepers began to stir. Smoke continued to roll high overhead.

  “Fire,” someone yelled, and everyone stood up. Some of the girls from third shift poked their heads out of their lodges.

  “Which way’s the wind?” a tired-looking dame shouted out at Franni.

  “South, mostly,” she replied. “Small wind today.”

  A few of the other dames stepped out, and they all looked to the sky. The rest of us watched them. Some got ready to run.

  While they searched the smoke, a cold gust of air turned the wind. The smoke stalled overhead and then began to drift north. I shivered, and hugged my arms.

  “The smoke is high up,” Franni said. “It can’t be from the Warrens.”

  A new cascade of yelling carried through the streets, and a priest ran by, shrieking at the top of his lungs. “Tanayon Cathedral has fallen. Lord Bayen, why? Your spire has fallen. Why? Why have you forsaken the
true church?”

  Some of the girls rose, but the rest paid the man no mind.

  “Well, it’s all just dust blowing around, then,” one of the dames said. The other dames nodded and went back inside. Most of those from my lodge sat back down to find more sleep.

  Bayen’s cathedral had fallen. I started to cry, but no one around me seemed to care at all. Was I the only one of them who wished for His forgiveness? Would we ever be forgiven?

  I looked to the south gate hoping Pia would come back. Everyone around me began to shut their eyes, and I sat back down.

  I kept expecting a gang of overseers and bailiffs to charge in and start cracking skulls, but the afternoon provided none of them.

  I tired of waiting and worrying, and my eyes slowly closed.

  I woke with a start to evening’s gray light and a fire in my throat. I coughed and scrambled to my knees.

  The girl next to me screamed, clutched at her breast and fell. Dame Franni was upon the ground, weeping and thrashing as if on fire.

  Something took hold of my chest. I batted at the air, unable to see the claws that wrapped around me. Invisible hooks stabbed through me and slammed me onto my back. I lost my breath and my head swam with stars. I could not move.

  The fire in my throat spread. It raced down my back and out across my limbs. My eyes saw only the white light of the sun, and the hook in my flesh melted away. The pain was replaced with warmth and happiness.

  I basked in it, like the moment in the sunlight with a view of forty-five perfect looms. One hundred sixty-two thousand warp threads holding 486,000 bright weft threads in place. Forty-two colors, ten mills, 2,800 girls all weaving and making. All of us together painting the very face of God!

  I sat up and stood. I wished to scream, to throw my voice up at the heavens and thank God for His warmth, to thank our Lord Bayen for this miracle.

  But my passion withered as I searched the cold gray sky. The magic had been from somewhere close, something upon the earth. I felt for a moment that it was Dame Franni who had done it—someone who cared and wanted me to grow.

  The girls around me were getting to their feet. Half looked to Franni as I did. Several hugged her. Everyone was crying.

  The heat was still cooking away inside me, and I felt the utter calm that reached across the 3,345 people still on Yellow Row—reached far out across the city. Along all 883 rows of the Warrens and all of the 1,581,104 souls within it. Across the 1,842 streets of Bessradi and the 11,432 roads that reached out from the city. I could feel all 1,893,924 people held in the warm grip of this beautiful white light. I touched them all, counted them as easy as stiff threads in a weave—each of them waving to me like children gathered for a parade.

  I trembled and was pulled into the great hug that surrounded Dame Franni. She laughed and smiled, and her hands reached out to touch our faces. All of us laughed. One girl fainted, and a dozen others feigned swooning in happy mockery of the overcome girl. She was helped to her feet, and the laughing rolled on and on into the dark of night.

  5

  Emi

  Offer

  We slept on the shelves in one of the stolen lodges. The girls from third shift didn’t budge and slept straight through the night. Most of the first shift girls returned, so the dames each picked a lodge and filled the racks. We had no idea where the boys from second shift had gone, nor the many churls who had occupied Chalk Row.

  No one came to wake us, but Dame Franni had us all up at the regular hour. She’d managed a bit of hot broth, which soothed my stomach. There were no fresh clothes or water for a bath.

  But after that, there was nothing for us to do. She shooed us out into the alley, but once there, all we could do was sit and wait. Most of the rest stayed inside. Extra sleep was unheard of.

  The noise out in the street grew as the sun rose through the blanket of clouds. So did the girls’ complaints of hunger. More of the third shift girls started drifting out of their lodges. You could only lie on a shelf so long.

  The chatter died away. I followed everyone’s gaze to a pair of soldiers in blue that stood out upon Thorn Street. They peered at us through the gate, chatting as they pointed this way and that.

  “They are Hemari,” someone said, and Yellow Row convulsed.

  “Bluecoats? Can’t be,” another replied. “The Exaltier’s soldiers never come into the Warrens.”

  The pair started down the alley and approached Dame Franni.

  “How many live here?” the taller and calmer of them asked her.

  “Oh, many thousands, sir.”

  “What? Can’t be but a few hundred,” he replied.

  “As you wish, sir.”

  “We’ll never get the count of this place,” the taller one said. “We hear a different number from everyone we talk to.”

  “Why does he care, anyway?” the shorter one said in a low whispered I barely caught. “He can’t mean to feed them all, can he, Benjam?”

  “He says he does,” Benjam replied. “Come. Time to be away. The bailiffs could start showing up any moment, and we’ve no support anywhere near here. Let’s call it one-fifty per shack and get out of here.”

  “One thousand eighty,” I said. My words drew every eye. I felt like I had screamed it, but it could not have been more than a whisper.

  “What did you say, girl?” the smaller one asked. “You dumb or something? You couldn’t cram eleven hundred bodies into one of these shacks if you stacked them like wood. If it were that many, the food they cart in here every day wouldn’t be nearly enough.”

  “She is awful good at counting,” Dame Franni said. “She runs a pattern table for the weaver.”

  The pair frowned at her. Benjam said, “It can’t be. What would that make the Warrens then? What did the priest say, three hundred sixty rows altogether?”

  “Eight-hundred eighty-three,” I said. I was shaking from head to foot and couldn’t catch my breath.

  The soldiers leaned over me. Benjam said, “You running a game on us? That would mean there are more than a million of you—”

  “One million five hundred eighty-one thousand one hundred four.”

  Everyone gaped at me. Even Franni. She was the first to find words. “We do sleep three shifts to a lodge.”

  This caught the attention of the taller one. He gave me a very long look before he started toward one of the lodges. He drew his sword as he crossed.

  “You’re not going to go in there?” the other asked. “You’ll get knifed for sure, and I’m not dragging you out of here.”

  Benjam ignored his fellow and stepped inside. We waited until he emerged, and he did not look like the same man coming out. His face was pale, almost green. He moved slower, and his words were softer.

  “Three shifts, you said?”

  Franni nodded, and the smaller soldier asked, “What did you see?”

  “Tighter than kindling in there,” he replied. He could not look at any of us, and turned back toward the gates.

  “The girl can’t be right,” the second said.

  “She’s got it right. Exactly right,” Benjam replied and paused there before he turned back to me. “You said a million and a half?”

  “One million five hundred eighty-one thousand one hundred four. Correction one hundred two.”

  The pair gave each other a look and then turned back to me. Their expressions were like those of the girls at the looms when the weaver walked in. They were afraid.

  “Let go of me,” someone yelled at the far end of the row, and a small body tumbled into view. It was Pia, and she scrambled to her feet as three bailiffs chased after her.

  “This is my row,” she yelled, swatted away a reaching hand, and danced her way over the broken wall. “Dame Franni, tell them.”

  The bailiffs saw our huddled group and slowed. I looked back for Benjam and his fellow, but they were gone.

  “She belongs to the weaver,” Dame Franni told them, and this slowed them enough for Pia to scamper away. They looked
ready to snatch us all to the plaza and the daily work line, but didn’t like the look of the trampled bodies they would have to cross.

  Pia made good on her escape and was gathered into a great hug by half the group. The bailiffs moved on while more girls from third shift were drawn out by the activity. As the warm hug lingered, the alley started to get crowded again.

  “Where have you been, dear?” Franni asked Pia. “Where did you sleep?”

  “I didn’t,” she replied and wrapped me in a giant hug. Her left eye was swollen and she had a cut on her chin. She looked like she’d done a great deal of crying, but she was smiling then. She said to us, “Lord Rahan, the new Exaltier, he has offered work for those from the East. At the plaza, they say.”

  “New Exaltier?” one of the dames asked. “Tell us what happened.”

  “There was a battle and Lord Rahan raised his pennant,” Pia said. “Rahan has freed us—freed everyone in the Warrens. He has men in the plaza, they say, and is offering work to those from the East.”

  “Who made the magic?” one of the dames asked. “Was it Lord Rahan?”

  “That’s what everyone is saying. He declared the Warrens free and made a magic that tore down the Tanayon and killed the bad priests.”

  “What a bunch of lies,” one of the girls said.

  “It’s true,” she shot back. “Didn’t you all feel it, too?”

  That quieted a few of the girls, but the questions kept coming.

  “What about the boss and his men?” one of the dames asked.

  “The bosses all disappeared last night. I’m not sure where they went. They are started back into the rows now, though.”

  “What about food?” a girl asked as the girls pressed tighter around Pia.

  “Do we get to stay on Yellow Row?” asked another.

  “What about the weaver?”

  “I don’t know about any of that,” Pia said and lost all her confidence as the crowd closed in.

  The girls all started yelling, and Pia grabbed hold of me. “Emi, I need to find my parents and get to the plaza. You will help me, yes?”