The chair engulfed her. It turned out that holding on tight was only a figure of speech, one of the many that Anki had in store. It was the goliath that held, wrapping her limbs and body with stretchy, fluffy stuff that wasn’t quite cloth and in more than one way resembled tuber starch pudding. Nua felt betrayed by her senses. It should be gross, but it wasn’t. The only things this soft and pleasant to touch in the Bottoms were kittens.

And warm bath, but that happened once a year, when she was younger and was accompanied by Hala scrubbing her skin red with a loofah.

Nua didn’t have more time to think about it, because all around her a terrible noise roared like a thousand claps of thunder rolling, and an enormous force pressed her further into the chair. Her bones felt like they were bending, almost breaking. Her head hurt, nearly squished by the helmet. She tasted salt but was that blood running from her nose, or just snot, it was impossible to tell. She wanted to shout, but she couldn’t open her mouth.

Next thing she knew, the pressure disappeared and she floated. The chair did not let her go – she was still gently wrapped, but her back was barely touching the mattress. Nua realized that the goliath stopped roaring. In her ears, the silence was ringing.

A window opened before her and she saw the night sky.

As expected at this time of the year, Trickster Sun has already set, his red presence enriching barely a quarter of the night. Three Sister Moons hung directly above her, in the distinct shades of silver, yellow, and peach. One could not see all the stars in the Overlord Mercy, but the junkyard was different – far from the sources of the city light. The constellations were bright and clear, all the ancient, nameless gods watching her from afar.

Spurred by an unknown impulse, Nua reached for the stars. Her fingers touched the smooth glass surface. Then she looked down. Many feet underneath, the junkyard’s valleys and ridges awaited.

“Anki.”, she cleared her throat. “I’m flying.”

“No, you’re not”, stated the ghost matter-of-factly. “You’re falling.”

Nua noticed that the ground is drawing near at an alarming speed. That was when she started to scream.

The goliath landed. Cushioned by the fluffy substance, she barely felt it. There was no mistake, though, that the machine made an impact when thick clouds of dust obscured the window. Then, something happened. Perhaps it was the helmet that shifted to the correct position by chance. Or maybe the prolonged contact with the chair stirred latent etheric talents that she was supposed to have. For a moment, long enough to catch her breath, Nua was the goliath.

She knew exactly how tall the giant stands. She was aware of its limbs and their position. She wasn’t controlling them – as she was told before, goliath was only supposed to execute orders of the king and his helpers. That was probably for the best, because her first reflex, when confronted with the unfamiliar, was to run if she could. She observed herself sitting comfortably on the rubble, brushing off the surroundings to even them out.

Then the vision stopped.

“…finally out”, she heard. “Pull the lever.”

She shook her head.

“Which lever?”

“Nua. Were you paying attention at all?”

“I kind of spaced out in there”, she said. “I think I was in the giant’s head. Or something.” Now fully aware of the vision, she started to tremble.

“Ah.” Anki whirled around. “Incidental synchronization. I haven’t expected that. Now, that is not a bad thing. It means you’re trainable. Sadly, we won’t have this opportunity for a long time now. Have you recognized the area we’re in?”

“No”, Nua said, frantically trying not to think that Anki expects her to ride in goliaths someday. “I was… I wasn’t… I was flying! And falling! It’s too much!” She waved her arms. Only then she noticed that the stretchy stuff had retracted and now the chair appeared pretty much normal. Still, it was very comfortable. Despite everything, she entertained a thought of a nap.

If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation.

Anki sighed.

“Never mind. I can scout for you, as I said, and tell you the landmarks. We cannot stay here any longer. Pull the emergency exit lever – the green one - and let’s go. We have a quarter of an hour until Sapphire Leopard returns to the temple.”

She found the green stick and pulled it. The cabin opened as before, with a hiss and release of thick fog. Nua looked around – she was still high up, on the same level as most of the garbage mountains. She recognized a familiar shape in the distance – the Lonely Guy, a scrapped goliath. It was far away, but at least she did not have to spend time looking for the landmarks.

Anki floated in the front of the cabin, pointing at something. Nua found a thick bundle of a rope ladder.

“It’s completely non-etheric”, she remarked, untangling and tossing the rope down.

“It is an emergency exit.”, Anki answered. “It wouldn’t do much good if it required ether, eh?”

Nua was already climbing down, glad that she was doing something normal for a change. Her pockets were clunking with spools of copper wire. In the night sky, the stars were gleaming and she had her own ghost to scout the road for her and take her home safely. Yes, she hurt, she was covered with soot and hungry, but she survived. She had an incredible adventure she would take in fully, bit by bit, over the course of the next weeks, months, or years. Anki would teach her some sorcery, so she could be set for life together with Auntie Hala and all the siblings. Then he would find a better person to act out his ambitions. Someone like Flavius. As for the deadly weapons and ancient goliaths he meant to unleash on the world, she had probably overreacted. They needed a lot of ether, probably much more than even a prince can buy. Anki was smart. It wouldn’t take him a lot of time to figure out how much the world had changed in a thousand years.

Anki urged her to get away from the giant as fast as possible, so she run through the baked, flattened-out earth to hide behind the nearest garbage mound. She figured that anything alive – and dangerous – ran away when the Cat had landed. Then she sat down on a broken, partially rotten wooden crate and sighed.

“We’re in the clear.”, Anki confirmed.

Nua nodded.

“Let me rest a while”, she said. “And watch him go back. One last look.”

“It’s a magnificent sight, isn’t it?”, Anki settled on a crate beside her. He was right. Sitting there in the middle of the junkyard, the Sapphire Cat seemed like a celestial being, without any doubt from another era. Even though it was now coated with dust, the metallic blue hues of its armor were strikingly different from the grim and rusty reality around it. In the daylight, it would look like a true god, shining amidst the rubble.

“It is. I’m glad it’s true night already. And that it’s soon going back.”, said Nua. “If any of the mage-engineers from the city above would see it, they would lose their shit. There would be… well, probably a lot of huge important shit over it.”

“Don’t they have their own ushumgars? Or how you call them now, goliaths?”

“I think there might be two or three in Overlord’s Mercy, but not like that. I saw one at a parade. Smaller. Uglier. Clunkier. It was still awesome to me. Now I wouldn’t care.”, she smiled. “Oh, he’s moving! He’s standing up! Is he going to jump?”

The Sapphire Leopard rose and shifted position to face the temple. Etheric light beamed from its eyes. Its posture indicated tension, like that of a real predator’s just before it leaps. The goliath lowered its hips and legs, then straightened its arms along the torso.

Then the lights died out. The giant lost balance and fell facing the ground. The earth shook, and a great dust cloud has risen once more.

“Ouch”, said Anki.

Nua was lying prone, covering her head with her hands.

“What happened? Did it break?”

“I think I might have miscalculated. It’s out of ether. That fall is not enough to harm it, though.”, Anki chuckled. “And it is… laying low. It’s probably not visible from afar, obscured by the mountains of trash. You said nobody comes into this part of the junkyard, correct?”

Nua scrambled to her feet and cautiously looked at the ancient giant’s divine metallic butt. Then she glanced at the city above.

“Well, nope.”

“You look concerned.”

“Eh, yes, that’s because I am.”

“Do you think that the Sapphire Leopard might be noticed from a tower?”, Anki asked. “Given the distance, the observation post should have been even taller than the ushumgar itself. I understood that the Azurians do not fly. What are you looking at? What are those lights up there, far away?”

“Uh, Anki. Did I ever tell you why the Bottoms are called the Bottoms? It’s not because of the smell. Well, that too.”

“You mean…”

“Did I tell you how the Overlord’s Mercy was built?”

They both looked in the same direction. The uppermost districts were famous for their nightlife. Rich people lived there. Mage-engineers among many others. Generals. Perhaps even a prince or two.

There was a long, awkward moment of silence.

“So…”, The little blue flame seemed mortified. “You, eh, know the place. Eh, I’m afraid, that it’s time for me to ask for your guidance - what is the usual procedure for such an occasion? I mean – what do we do now?”

Nua gave him a dour look.

“We scram”, she stated. “And pretend that nothing has ever happened!”

And so they did.