A snaking, winding trail of hoofprints led through the middle of the Eastern Mudflats and into the wastelands between them and Reville. The black horse welcomed the change in location warmly, for it hated muddy, wet areas. Mud and grime would dirty its raven sheen.
Ma’at rode across the barren dirt and past sizable hills and rocks. Shoulder height trees with jagged, skinny limbs could be seen all around. They grew no leaves, but strange fruits hung from them like great bulbous sacks. Chromatically, they ranged from green to blue to purple. A great urge to pluck them and eat them then and there tugged at the merc, but she stifled the feeling for fear of the fruits harboring parasitic life or poisonous seeds.
The sun had lazily risen to a low point in the sky, creating a beautiful gradient of colors that rippled among the gathering sheep-clouds. The white tufts crawled across it from the Void Sea in the far east and made their way west to recycle themselves and repeat the aerial marathon evermore.
With only a few bumps along the way, Ma’at felt good about getting to Reville on time. She carried a standard pocketwatch with her in her sling pouch that also relayed the month and day: August 25th. And not a day too soon nor a day too late. Her client loved for things to be just on time.
Up ahead, a small cabin came into view made out of dark oak logs. Its two square windows were shadowy and the one door at the front was swung wide open. A wizened man sat in a wooden rocking chair on the front porch beside a young girl who stood next to him holding a large book. Its pages sat open in her tiny palms like a viridescent bird spreading its parchment wings.
The girl set the book down and pointed as the mercenary woman approached. Her mouth jabbered up and down, a sure sign that she was exclaiming something to the old man. The man, upon hearing her, stopped rocking and gazed gravely into nothingness.
Ma’at rode on, ignoring the two, but was stopped by the girl’s sudden voice. “Hi, miss…!” She spoke shyly, yet it seemed that her curiosity had burned most of the shyness barring her from speaking. “Are you one of those… missionary folks?”
“Mercenary,” the old man grumbled. It was clear he wasn’t enthused about the girl’s sudden questioning of Ma’at.
“That’s what I said!”
“No, you said…” The man’s sentence faded into oblivion. Clearly it was a conversation they’d had many times in the past.
Ma’at nodded while looking the girl dead in the eyes. She was very frail and wore a white dress with black buttons at the collar, as well as a white sun hat that cast a cool shadow across her face.
“Really?” The girl stared in awe, her beady eyes full of wonder.
“Manners,” the old man grumbled.
“Oh! Sorry, ma’am. My name is Lucy. And this is my grandfather.” She gestured with two hands to the old man. He was mostly bald and featured a medium-length beard grayed by age. Half of it still held some youthful black hairs, however. The man’s eyes were just as grayed, if not more so.
“William is my name.”
Ma’at looked the man dead in the eyes as well. A question rose in her throat which she did not subdue. “Are you blind?”
William continued to stare into nothingness, but his gaze met Ma’at’s coincidentally. He nodded.
“He is. But he can still work with or without my help. All I do is read him stories every day,” Lucy said, giggling lightly.
“Farming?” Ma’at asked.
William nodded again. “Hypnophage. The only thing that grows out here.”
“Those are the weird fruits that hang from the trees here,” his granddaughter added.
Hypnophage. The word itself was concerning, nevermind the alien appearance of the plants.
“Only people who come out here are lookin’ to escape reality. Or run from their own minds. They’re our only buyers. Them and quacks. You one of those, mercenary?” A cold silence followed the old man’s question. His voice was hoarse and gruff.
“No. As a matter of fact, I need to get going. I have somewhere to be.”
“Where’s that?” Lucy asked, oblivious to the mercenary’s urgency.
“Reville.”
“Fancytown, Lucy.” William patted her on the shoulder with a rough, callused hand. Years and years of hard labor hung from his digits. “No place for the weak and the poor. You go on your way, mercenary. We common folk want nothin’ to do with Fancytown.”
Ma’at narrowed her shadowed eyes. “I don’t bring trouble. If anything, I cleared it out for you. A band of murderers and thieves named the Gunblades were prowling the outskirts of the city. They might’ve come for you and your granddaughter next if I didn’t put them in their place.”
“Hmph.” The old man scoffed and shook his head. “No bandits want hypnophage. Destroys the mind. Kills the id and blooms the ego.”
“He means,” Lily added, “that it causes halluco-notions.”
“Hallucinations,” William grumbled.
“That’s what I said!”
William put his head in his hands, then gazed greyly at the merc again. “Pardon her. I try to teach ‘er, but nothin’ stays in that brain of hers.”
Lucy punched the man in the shoulder, blushing. She pouted and gazed back at Ma’at with a curious look.
“What is it?”
“Well, you never told us your name, miss.”
“It’s Ma’at.”
“Ma’at,” the girl said slowly, enunciating the T with a loud ‘tuh’ sound. “Never heard it before.”
“She a dark-skin, Lucy?” the man asked in a flat tone. He scratched his beard with one hand.
“Mhm. A real pretty one.”
“You Sirithisian, mercenary?”
Ma’at didn’t answer at first, something that made the old man think she’d gone and left without him noticing. After a while, she responded. “Not anymore.”
William sat in silence and nodded sagely.
“What does she-”
He placed a hand on Lucy’s shoulder again, this time as a way to quell her voice. “I understand. My son, he fought in the war. Came back changed. Told me lots of things. Things I’m grateful I didn’t get to see with my own eyes.” A grim aura wreathed the man. The sun drifting slowly above them all became partly covered by a wayward cloud. They all sunk into a sea of silence for a moment as the cloud passed.
“He have a name?” Lucy asked, pointing at the black horse.
“No.”
“Huh? You gotta name your horse, ma’am!”
“Do I?”
“Yeah! How about…” Her voice rang like a pleasant windchime in the air as it drifted off, her thoughts colliding into one idea. “Deimos?”
“Deimos?”
“It’s the name of the hero’s horse in this storybook. Here.” Lucy held the book out to Ma’at.
She leaned over and carefully took it into her own hands. She flipped through it until the striking image of a huge, muscular man riding a black horse came into view. The man held two flaming spears and was using them to fight an armada of ghoulish creatures while on horseback. Ma’at turned the book over and studied its cover. In bold golden letters on green fabric, it read: ‘Furio: Battle of the Dreaded Scourge’.
“Well? What do you think?”
Ma’at’s eyes darted across the book as she skimmed the worn pages. “It’s… certainly interesting. I’m not much of a reader, though.”
“No, the name! What do you think of the name?”
She looked down at the horse’s head in front of her and gently stroked its mane. “Deimos. Do you like it?”
The horse whinnied in reply.
A very small smile crept onto the merc’s face for a moment, but it faded in the dusty wind. “Alright. He seems to like it,” she said as she handed the book back over to Lucy. “Thank you.”
“No problem.” Lucy smiled gleefully. “A name’s free, after all. Everything deserves a name.”
William nodded and closed his eyes briefly.
“Did you need anything else, miss Ma’at?”
She was about to shake her head, but as she looked at the man and his granddaughter one last time, she changed her mind. “How much for a fruit?”
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“Hmph. 10 Kin.”
She placed two bronze coins in the old man’s veiny hands. After feeling them for a few seconds, William nodded to Lucy and Lucy went and fetched the fruit for her.
“One hypnophage for you, ma’am.” The little girl handed her a pear-sized fruit that glowed with a mixture of swirling colors. Blue, green and purple pressed against its gelatinous flesh.
She slipped it into her sling pouch and thanked them again, gazing at their situation with mild pity. “Are you sure you’d rather live out here in the dust than in the city? You could even move west.”
“We’re content, mercenary. I hope you find a place to settle down, too. A nomad may never be bored, but he’s always lonely.”
Ma’at thought for a moment, checked her pocketwatch, then waved them farewell. “Goodbye. It was… nice to meet you both.”
“Bye-bye!” Lucy waved energetically. “Have fun in Fancytown!”
“Goodbye, mercenary. May you find your star.” The old man waved blissfully, his cracked skin pale underneath the rising sun.
Finally, Ma’at rode past the cabin and the two farmers. It was 7 o’clock on the dot. She had to ride, and fast, if she wanted to make it on time. But for some odd reason, she didn’t feel like the encounter had been a waste of time. She didn’t care much for the hypnophage or for the money she’d given away. What was it he said?
“May you find your star,” she repeated to herself. She pondered the phrase as she gently rubbed her horse’s velvety ears. They glistened like her own hair in the dry heat. “Good boy, Deimos.”
Deimos whinnied and tossed his head happily.
A small smile graced the mercenary’s face again before fading away in the howling wind.
She came upon a rocky mound and climbed it to a small ridge. Atop it, she could clearly see her goal. The city of Reville sat closer than ever, a gleaming metropolis of steel, brick, steam, brass and smoke. Titanic airships hovered in the sky above it, projecting the city’s military might and wondrous construction across the landscape. Soon, she would be home. She could finally rest.
Surrounding the city were more muddy paths, though they were much drier than the western reaches Ma’at had rode in from. Lined up in front of the city’s strong bronze gates were rows and rows of people of all shapes and sizes. Tourists, mercs, soldiers, delivery men and the like were waiting to enter Reville with growing fatigue. Some waited patiently, though their disdain born of the time wasted was perfectly clear on their faces. Others were not so quiet, hollering at the dazzlingly-dressed and armored soldiers atop the steel turrets above them. The faint rumble of airship rotors and the lulling sound of propellers in the sky managed to deafen the cries to some extent, though the people’s outrage was still very much known.
Ma’at rode to the far back of the line behind two disgruntled men. Their suits were brown and rugged, and they held canes crafted out of false gold.
“Preposterous, I say! What a backup! This city has gone downhill, as I keep telling people. Look at this line. What can possibly be taking them so damn long?”
The other man by his side sighed and rubbed the back of his neck in exhaustion. He was awfully sore from standing for hours on end. “I dunno! But yellin’ ain’t gonna fix anythin’ ya blighter. Doin’ nothing but gettin’ on my nerves, better yet.”
“Hush, boy. How are they to know our anger if we do not make it known all the more? This is the third time! The third! Must they check every person who enters this damn city? At the cost of our valuable time, no less!?”
The other man scowled in frustration. “We’re at the back, dimwit. They CAN’T hear you! Even if they did, they wouldn’t give a rat’s arse. We ain’t noble folk. We can’t cut in line. We can’t do shite but wait and follow ‘em.” He jutted a thumb at the people in front of them for emphasis.
“Excuse me, but what’s the commotion about?” Ma’at asked, staring intently at the two men. They whipped around in surprise. Apparently, they hadn’t noticed her riding up behind them.
“Tommy,” the eloquent one whispered, “that’s a merc. Don’t be rude, old chap.”
“Wasn’t gonna, ol’ coot.” He turned and met Ma’at’s gaze. He was a slightly rotund man. A pocketwatch dangled haphazardly from his right chest pocket. “Sorry, miss. My buddy ‘ere likes to hoot and holler like a goddamn owl. Or maybe like a rooster. Damn annoyin’, even to me,” he said with an odd grin. He coughed awkwardly and straightened up. “And, umm… to answer your question. There’s been a lotta crime recently, so Reville’s searching each and every person coming through. Pain in the arse…”
“A lot of crime?”
“Mhm, that’s right.” The polite, skinny man held his pointer finger up as if he were exclaiming something profound. “Many do-badders out and about. I would watch out, my lady. Though you appear to know your way around a blade, there is no telling what evil men inside these walls would do to kidnap an exotic woman such as yourself.”
The orbicular gentleman eyed his fellow with a cocked eyebrow.
“I don’t need your flattery,” Ma’at replied. “I know too well the evil that takes root in every city. Reville is no different. But it’s my home. I won’t have you slander it in front of me.” Ma’at’s fierce eyes tore the prideful man into pieces.
“Pardon me, ma’am. I did not mean to belittle Reville in any way. I simply-”
“Should’a listened to your own advice,” the rotund man spat, then punched his colleague in the shoulder. “As I was sayin’, everybody’s in an uproar ‘bout how long the searches are taking. We probably won’t get into the city for another few hours at least.”
“A few hours, huh?” After thinking for a moment, an idea formed in Ma’at’s brain. She treaded off toward the end of the line, leaving the weary men in the dust. Their embarrassing squabble continued behind her, fading into white noise, then nothing. Nothing but the hum above and the countless other complaints polluting the busy air.
A gathering of soldiers were busy searching a wagon just before the city gates. One of them, holding a clipboard and a black quill pen, looked up to see a mercenary riding straight toward them on a black horse. As she approached, he held up a palm to stop her. “Halt. What is your business? Why are you cutting in line, merc?”
“I hear you have a crime problem,” she responded.
“Yes, what of it? Come to puke your complaints and critiques all over me and my men? We’ve had enough of that, thank you.”
“No. I came to show you this.” Ma’at plucked the Gunblades ring from her bag and held it up in the dawning sunlight. Its silvery metal twinkled and made the guard squint his eyes.
“What’s that?”
“Just a ring. A ring once owned by the head of the Gunblades, who I killed on a job last night.”
“The head…” The guard’s repetitious sentence trailed off as he stared into space. Coming back to himself, he blinked three times and met Ma’at’s attention again. “I see. Who gave you such a job?” The man wrote something with the quill pen, listening intently.
“A merc doesn’t give up her clients. Surely you should know that.”
“Fine, fine. Is that why you've come to Reville today? To turn it in?”
“Yes.”
“And… what is your name and class?”
“Ma’at. Class B.”
“Hm,” the man took a deep breath and thought pensively. Then he turned to a soldier near him and whispered a conversation for a moment.
Ma’at tapped her right sheath in a steady beat, most likely out of habit rather than impatience.
The guard returned to speak with her. “Alright, we’ll let you in. Just let me examine the ring closely.” He did so, turning it up and down. “Okay. Seems real. Keep in mind, merc, that if you’re lying we’ll either arrest you or ban you from entering the city outright. Understand?”
“No lies,” Ma’at replied with a nod.
“Okay. Let her in,” he said to the others. He turned back to Ma’at and pointed through the gates. “Ride in through that tunnel and you’ll come to the central district. You can get anywhere you need to go from there.” As the man spoke, he slowly realized that she had likely been to Reville before, and that the information was redundant.
Ma’at nodded again, and as she did so, the great gates rose to finally let her inside the city. She rode into the shadow of the wall, then the structure itself. A refreshing coolness fell upon her skin in absence of the beaming sun. She moved forward into the darkness of the tunnel ahead, the gates creaking to a close behind her.
The tunnel had rows of silent soldiers against its walls standing perfectly still. No sound but Deimos’s hooves clacking against the cracked cobblestone filled the dark space. At the very end, the golden light of dawn shone through as if to welcome the mercenary woman back home. It pulled her out from the shadowy, dank tunnel and out into a sprawling city crawling with humanoids of many races. Beastmen, vulpats, illum, demonites and more walked along the beautiful streets. Many wore armor and weapons, as well as backpacks and cooking supplies. Others, unarmed citizens, passed by in a hurry on their way to their jobs or whatever else was on their minds. An almost overwhelming feeling of sonder swept over Ma’at like a coastal wave. A shiver ran up her spine.
Warm, cozy and welcoming would be the best words to describe a city like Reville. Near Valeigh Street, a party of violinists played a colorful melody that seeped into the brittle cracks of the old buildings and their occupants. Passerby stopped to hear them play, clapping as they finished song after song. Dozens of people in suits and dresses sitting at a nearby cafe drank their coffee with glee. Endless babble left their mouths; countless conversations Ma’at was not privy to and could not understand from her distance. The central district was wide and oval-shaped. An array of shops, restaurants, and other establishments lined the curved roads. The mesmerizing smell of freshly baked bread wafted into the mercenary’s nostrils from one of them. A great pale fountain sat in the middle of the district. Refreshing, cold water streamed down its oblique foundation satisfyingly. The calming sound it emanated was overpowered only by the busy talks of the people sitting on its rim chatting. An elderly man nearby flipped through a dirty newspaper, its pages torn and coated with a certain grime. Oil, perhaps from machinery, the same that painted his fingers a deep blue-black hue. Absurd articles lined its every corner. Somewhere else, deep below in the Great Sewers of Cytique, scurrying rats ran miniature marathons in search for fleeting scraps of food. Their mother had long passed, being caught by a stray cat from Halei Street. The cat was owned by a red-headed woman, the same that looked down from a balcony across from the fountain down at the city gates and at Ma’at. Her eyes glowed emerald like two jade stones illuminated by a full moon. Young men in overalls and young girls in frilly clothes ran down the sunlit avenues, the street sides lined with canals featuring more flowing water. The water flowed in and out from the grand Lake of Deceit just outside of Reville, its depths fabled to hold treasures beyond imagination. A man in an auburn suit fitted with a black tie and wearing a top hat smoked a cigar by the street corner. A burly man sat on a wooden crate sharpening a massive sword. Office workers typed away on shoddy metal typewriters in a nearby building. Dogs barked. Back at the city gates, a dark-skinned mercenary woman atop an obsidian steed peered across it all, especially the bustling markets dishing out wondrous snacks and sweets, her black hair painted faintly white by the enrapturing sun climbing the world-cloth beyond. A dark speck on an ever-growing flower. Another shiver ran up her spine in tandem with a cool breeze that passed through her.
She rode through, keeping to the right to avoid oncoming carriages and wagons. Some were pulled by other horses, but others were pulled by creatures that only looked like horses. Some appeared avian, like large ravens with crooked ostrich necks. When stretched out, they looked awfully similar to the rows of black street lights lining most of Reville’s roads. At night, they shone dimly and painted the sleepy city in a nostalgic, almost sad blue.
She passed the fountain and rode down one of the many streets leading out from the circular central district. Valeigh Street, home of artists and enjoyers of art alike. Shop windows held in them canvases painted with a wide assortment of colors. Forest greens, forlorn blues, striking purples, passionate reds. They stole her sight for a moment, then vanished from view when the building she was searching for finally reared around one of the swerving corners. Another old-style building, its paint slightly chipped and rolling down in vibrant swirls. Brown and gold, like shiny coins placed on a fresh corpse before sending it to its final resting place deep below the lake’s surface.
Ma’at rode to the building’s street side and hoisted herself off of Deimos’s back. Realizing she didn’t have a rope to tie him there with, she turned to look into the horse’s face with that same commanding, matriarchal gaze she always wore. “Don’t you run off now, alright? Yell if you need help.” Horse thieves from the past flashed quickly through her mind like a projector switching slides.
Deimos didn’t move a single hoof. He leaned down and smelled the cobblestone wet with dew.
Ma’at looked at him endearingly, then left and took a step up the curb from the busy street. She looked up at a wooden sign dangling from the chipped overhang. Two chains held it in place, though one of them looked badly damaged as if it were about to break and take everything down with it. In bold black serif letters, it read:
SYGGRAFEAS
~Writer Extraordinaire~
A wave of relief passed over her as she read those words. She finally realized that her journey from Reville to the far reaches and back was finally complete. She could finally reap the rewards she was owed. All she had to do was make it through yet another conversation with the Writer, which did make her somewhat anxious.
Summoning what resolve was lost with her tiredness, she stepped forward and opened the door to the quaint building. The scent of dry paper was the first thing she sensed as she went to meet with her client.