Sanctuary was collectively preparing for the big blow that was sure to come. The kitchen staff, the volunteers, and Damia were going to and fro, counting supplies, arranging equipment and furniture, putting everything where it needed to be, and just trying to get everything ready for strife of unknown magnitude. And Ana was as usual in the middle of it all, keeping the peace, picking out the details that got overlooked, and being everyone’s anchor.
The news had travelled about like a gust of wind; there was both a gathering storm of public anger, and an unknown but clearly big police operation being prepared. Officers had vanished from their usual stations and patrols, effectively leaving the streets in the hands of the people. Some said it was in preparation for a crackdown of some sort. Others said it had to do with finally bringing down the Green Bomber. Either way, the uncertainty, rumour mongering and lack of visible authority had tensions at a high.
“Damia, did you lay out our dry socks?” she asked, and the woman twirled around like an unskilled dancer.
“No!” she admitted, voice high from nervous energy. “I’ll get right on that!”
She vanished behind the blanket that served as a divider before the clothing room, moving with quick, jerky steps.
With nothing immediately demanding her attention, Ana allowed herself to just stand still and put her hands on her hips.
There would be new faces tonight, now that the police had driven people out of the new homeless camps. There would be people new to this life, ashamed and agonised and angry. There would quite possibly be new cuts and bruises for her to deal with, the results of people fighting over the few tolerable spots on the streets. And it would all continue that way. That was just how the system worked. All else might change, at least on the surface, but society’s underbelly would not. This was the past and the future. This was HER past and future.
Or was it?
Ana had shirked habit this night and kept her coat on. She reached into the large pocket and brought out the book. She leafed through its strange pages yet again, gaining nothing she hadn’t already memorised.
It really did feel like there was some truth hidden in all of that pseudo-poetry. Like there was something she was supposed to glean from it. Was it all a metaphor? Or a mythologised version of a historical period? However much she tried, Ana found her historical learning sadly lacking to answer that.
A field of artists, she thought to herself. Beauty and fragrance.
It really would be an inspiration to any creative soul. A wild place, where one could see far and wide and smell nature. What could she do with her violin in such a place, up to her knees in flowers?
Ana’s mind injured her by creating images of that little fantasy; a beauty and a peace that she was denied. She was caught in a trap of her own conscience.
“What does it mean?” she mouthed, without making much of a sound at all.
A strange determination suddenly hit her. It wasn’t potent; she didn’t have the energy for such things. But it did move her into the clothing room.
“Damia.”
“Working on it! I’m working on it!” the woman replied, bent over her task and as always trying to make her nervousness sound chipper.
“That’s not it. Does this mean anything to you?”
She handed the book over as the woman turned around. Damia looked confused, but dutifully looked through its pages. At first she browsed through at an obvious rush, seeking to finish this odd task in a hurry. But around the page that mentioned the Fields of Parron a certain transformation kicked in. Her pace slowed, and only got slower as she went on. Damia read with a confused fascination, and much like Ana and Petyr she leafed through the empty pages at the back of the book, looking for more information.
“Is... is this what Kylis was so passionate about?”
“It seems so,” Ana told her.
“It’s...”
Damia clearly didn’t know how to go on, caught as she was in a state of confusion that felt familiar to Ana. As the woman looked up Ana made a point of staring silently into her eyes, making it clear without a word that their feelings were parallel.
“It feels familiar, doesn’t it?” Ana said with a quiet intensity that rather surprised her.
“It... it does,” Damia admitted. “Like... I don’t know... like a nursery rhyme I haven’t heard since the nursery.”
“That’s a good comparison, actually,” Ana admitted.
Damia seemed to wait for her to say something more. When nothing more came the woman shrugged meaningfully.
“So what is that? What... what is going on?”
“What IS going on?” Ana said meaningfully. “Haven’t you felt… well… that something is just wrong?”
Damia let out a helpless, desperate chuckle.
“Isn’t everything wrong?” she said through her false smile, before it dropped like a lead weight and Ana saw her pain clearly. “Things shouldn’t be this way. But they are.”
“And why are they?” Ana wondered out loud, then put her hand up as Damia seemed to try to come up with a reply.
Ana closed her eyes and put her hands on her head. She was being pulled. She didn’t know by what or towards what, but the feeling was constant and unavoidable. And suddenly something just gave.
She slowly lowered her hands before opening her eyes. She found Damia looking intently at her, clearly noticing that something was coming.
“Damia, I need you to handle things for me.”
Ana turned and walked out of the room. She went straight for one of the locked cupboards, opened it, and retrieved her violin case.
“Ana...” Damia said as she hurried up behind her. “W-what are you talking about?”
“I need...” Ana hesitated. “Damia, I need to figure this out. And I won’t manage it here.”
Damia took her arm, gently and pleadingly.
“We need you here,” she said earnestly.
“I know you do,” Ana said flatly, though it hurt. “But I think I’ll do more good elsewhere.”
“I don’t understand!” Damia said as Ana walked off.
“Neither do I.”
She reached the door.
“Where are you going?”
“Out of the city,” Ana replied.
“How far?”
“I don’t know.”
“How long?”
“Until I find it.”
“Find WHAT, Ana??”
“I don’t know!”
She exited and closed the door, and as she stared into the evening gloom it occurred to her that she truly had no idea what she was doing. This felt so utterly wrong, so contrary to her very nature. But there was that pull, and now that she’d taken the step it would not be denied. So she continued on.
# # #
Petyr did feel better after a full day in bed. Strangely so, in fact. His aches had dulled, the scrapes and swellings didn’t seem as bad as he’d first assumed, and even his knee was behaving itself. Much as he didn’t want to give something out there the impression that he was complaining, it all felt downright weird. But then he was leaning more and more into accepting weirdness.
Whatever the cause, he walked with a far greater ease than he had during that evening with Ana. Having gotten a bath and a change of clothes had also done wonders for his spirit, but he was mindful not to get too chipper. There was still danger in the streets, and he kept to public places when he could and darkened ones when he couldn’t. The Hounds seemed to have the hunting acumen of their namesakes, but surely he would spot them if he kept alert enough.
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The rain had faded away into a light drizzle, at least for now. The city was no longer a mess of puddles and small rivers, but still glistened wherever there was light. Some pretentious semi-poetry formed in his mind; dramatic imaginings he would never dare say out loud to another person, about how it all looked like one gigantic mirror, dark and warped like the city’s demons, and here he was, walking between the two on a poorly conceived quest to figure it all out.
Complete bull, of course, but that’s what his imagination made of the sight.
Petyr came to the corner his mind had made a note of during his last visit; the one cast into darkness by a broken streetlight. He started slowing his pace with each step, until his back was up against the wall an arm’s length from the corner itself. He stood still for a little while, straining his ears through the soft din of rainfall. He listened for any noise, and detecting none he eventually peeked around the corner.
It was as he’d hoped. With everything that was going, on the police had been pulling people in from various non-essential duties. It was a delight to find that this included guarding the Woodforth Building.
The two statue-like officers were gone from their posts at the front door. Petyr observed quietly for a little while, and a single officer emerged from the west-side alley. He strolled along the building’s front, with the slow, bored steps of a man doing a tedious duty, and then vanished down the east-side alley.
Petyr continued waiting, counting the seconds until the man emerged again, and then vanished again.
It surprised him slightly just how free of doubt he was in this moment. After all the foot-dragging and attempting to make use of other avenues, here he was. He was nervous, yes, but he had to do this. He had come too far for anything else, and it was damn well time for some actual answers.
The officer emerged again, five seconds earlier than previously. Petyr restrained himself for yet another circle, and this time the man was two seconds slower than the first time. Overall, his pace seemed quite consistent. And why wouldn’t it be? Giving people boring tasks and no oversight didn’t result in vigilance.
As soon as he was out of sight again Petyr stepped out of cover and walked over to the building. He kept his steps measured and careful and quiet, and his eyes on that second-floor window that had been on his mind for a while. The one that seemed reachable.
He didn’t listen or look things over or hesitate at all as he arrived at the first-floor window below it. He simply did as he’d fantasised about so often and put his good foot up on the sill. The cane went between his teeth and he hopped up, gripping the brickwork with his bare fingers. His knee complained only a little; a soft little grumble rather than a disabling punishment. Once he was reasonably confident in his grip he put his good foot on the muntin and continued going up, putting minimal weight on the flimsy bit of wood. It was enough for his long arms to just barely reach the second floor sill, and then he pulled. Breath hissed out past the length of hardwood in his mouth, and for a few seconds he kicked awkwardly at the wall with his feet, seeking purchase.
He did find it though, and once both his elbows were resting firmly on the sill he risked releasing one hand. He put it on the lower sash and pushed up. It moved with a faint squeak and with some worm-like wriggling against the sill he got his elbows inside. After that it was simply a matter of pulling and pushing as his chest painfully ground against the sill. Finally he could just let himself fall and landed palms-first. He clumsily moved his legs in and then underneath him, and closed the window.
Petyr knelt in darkness, listening intently as the officer lazily walked on by down below. Only after the man had vanished around the corner did he risk bringing out the flashlight.
Why a janitor’s room needed a window, he did not know. But whatever the reason, his first experience of this grand mystery consisted of buckets, cleaning products, brooms, mops and rags. He found the doorknob, then pressed his ear against the door. The thought had occurred that whatever was so secret about this place had to do with some sort of job being carried out within its walls. But there was naught but silence on the other side of that thin, cheap wood, and so he cautiously turned the knob.
He stepped out into a dark hallway, the little circle of electric light his only illumination. It shone on wallpaper, the kind of dull, worn carpet one could expect in a building like this, and on a bathroom door. Not immediately mind-blowing, but then it seemed that only some of the people who worked here had actually witnessed... it.
Petyr opted to go left, nearer to the centre of the building. The carpet muffled his footsteps pretty effectively and the building wasn’t old or shoddy enough to have much in the way of creaks. Unless he knocked over a shelving unit filled with dinner plates or something, the officer was very unlikely to hear anything.
He did his best to remain calm and observant, to be a professional fact-finder. But here he was at last. And even with all the madness that had happened he had no idea what to expect. Absolutely none.
Petyr passed a door he hadn’t seen previously, peeked in to see a boring little office, then continued on and came to a turn into the hallway. The first new sight was a stairwell, and he quickly shone the light up and down, finding nothing. He decided to clear out this floor before checking the others, and tried every doorknob in his path as he went down this second hallway. The first one was locked, the second was some sort of storage room, the third was locked, and the fourth was another office.
He was just about to close that fourth door when he noticed the wallpaper. Petyr stepped into the room, keeping the light on the damage. The wallpaper was hanging off in places, but not due to failure of glue. Someone had clearly been tearing at it, and as he examined it up close he noticed fingermarks.
It was a mess; nothing at all professional or elegant about it. Whoever did this had just been tearing wildly, and his first thought was of an animal trying to escape a trap. His second thought was of the damage Redda had inflicted on her own apartment.
Simply standing around taking it all in provided no further answers, and so he continued on. He’d only gone a few steps before something caught on the edge of his awareness. He tried turning the light off, and found that he could still faintly make out his surroundings. There was a light coming from somewhere.
Petyr did a quick mental orientation, placing himself on an imaginary map of the building. There was no way this was coming from an outside street light.
He left his own light off for the moment and walked on cautiously, straining his eyes to make sense of this. There was no glowing bulb in sight, and no thin line of illumination beneath a door. Somehow he could just see, and more clearly so with each step. He could actually make out the carpet he was walking on, though not the pattern.
What seemed to be a wall on the end of the hallway turned out to be a set of double doors. It seemed like an odd placement for something fancy, but he opened both without giving the matter any further thought. The light was clearer beyond, clear enough that he could now make out shadows. They seemed strange, painted across floor, ceiling and walls in seemingly random directions, adding to the peculiarity of the light.
He was getting closer to something. He knew it, on an instinctual level he would not have been able to explain to anyone with words. There was something in the air; the tension of something preparing to be released.
Finally he did see a crack of light, on the left. It was beneath another set of double doors, but these were very different. They were thick, made of quality wood, lacquered, and bound with metal so finely worked it might as well have been cut from a mirror. Absolutely nothing about them fit their surroundings, and for a few seconds Petyr simply stood there and tried to decide if he was indeed seeing this. Next he touched the wood, and found it to be very much solid. It was even a bit warm to the touch, more so than the chilly air of the hallway.
“Well...” he whispered to himself as he took hold of each doorknob.
He swung the doors open. His immediate reaction was to squint in the sudden light.
There was a tree. It stood in a hall far larger than anything else he’d seen in the building so far. The tree seemed to reach higher than the roof itself, and its branches stood out in elegant curves, forming a whole with the perfection of an artist’s work. And the light seemed to be coming off of it.
Petyr stood in a brief daze, trying to make sense of things. This hall couldn’t be as big as it seemed. The Woodforth Building itself wasn’t that large. And when he finally took his eyes off the magnificent tree before him he could indeed see the walls one would have expected within an office space, and a ceiling. But only barely. He could only barely see them, as if the light was cutting through them like a searchlight through thin paper. And when he turned his gaze back upon the tree it all seemed to vanish from his sight, like an optical illusion that changed depending on how one chose to look.
It was when he was looking straight at the impossible sight before him that he thought he could see something beyond it, beyond the semi-visible walls. They were towers... no... spires. The gorgeous spires of an age of wonder. Except they vanished when he tried to look directly at them.
He took the first hesitant step towards the tree. It didn’t vanish like some mythical pile of gold. A feeling began building in his breast as he took the next one, or rather became clear enough to be recognised.
He knew this tree. He had seen it before. He had felt this light caress his skin. He knew those distant spires. He knew all of this, but simply couldn’t put the feeling into context. There was a block, a veil, stopping him from just reaching out and seizing the knowledge he’d been seeking, and Petyr felt like he would go mad right there and then from the frustration.
“How do I know you?” he muttered out loud, in soft awe. “Where is the... where is...”
He reached the low-hanging branches well before he reached the trunk. Peaches grew on them, every bit as perfect and glorious as the tree itself. Petyr was entranced enough to ignore the sounds on the edge of his awareness, and reached up to take one.
The peach was real enough in his hand, and just the right amount of firm and soft. He could smell it too, and hear it rolling around in his palm, and that left only one sense. He put the fruit between his teeth and took a careful little bite.
There was a screech. Petyr whirled around and brought his cane up. It was the shadows. The strange shadows that had played on the edge of the light. Now they were moving, changing, taking on forms against the phantom walls. There was anger in the jerky movements of their half-formed limbs, and the rumbling voices he recognised from the Jungle. Anger, and perhaps a bit of panic. There was no hint of a plan or any kind of coordination or leadership. The shadows simply coalesced into roughly man-shaped figures as fast as they could, seeming to stumble over one another.
They were angry at him being here, that he had found this strange secret. And the one directly in front of him... Petyr couldn’t see its eyes, if it even had any, but he felt it glaring at the peach.
A shadow on his left took an aggressive step forward, but shrank back as it got closer to the glowing tree. Another one on the right was bolder, and got closer before retreating like a nervous cat.
There were more of them by the moment, and nothing gave one courage like numbers.
Petyr took a huge, greedy bite out of the fruit, almost choking even as his tongue sang with ecstasy at the flavour and his mind sang with something else entirely. There was only one sane solution to their growing numbers.
He felt no pain at all as he charged straight ahead. He didn’t understand the war cry that issued from his lips, but he understood its importance. He swung his weapon, and it struck one of the shadows with a crackling, blue flash. His target shrieked and came apart, returning to the bits of actual shadows it had emerged from.
Its comrades went on the attack, but he gave them no time to swarm him. Honed instincts picked the best next target and he went for it. The shadow managed a dodge, but he followed with a quick two-step and destroyed it with another blow. A couple were nearly on him from behind, but he kept on going, slashing through a third shadow in his path. One close to it took a swipe but he parried easily enough. Another came at him before he could retaliate but he lashed out with a powerful kick, then sundered his original target in yet another blue flash.
A swipe from behind into his upper arm. He did a pirouette and struck back, heedless of pain or injury. They kept on coming, getting more desperate to stop him, to silence him, with every moment and every gap he cut into their ranks.
Petyr swung and swung and swung, dancing about the phantom space, cramped and vast, darkened and lit, evil and good, all at the same time. With every strike he brought the blue power to bear, and the shadows could only yield to it.