We are pleased to announce the appointment of a new broadcaster today. This channel will be held to appropriate standards from this day forth.
As our first order of business, we welcome all our youth to adulthood who today reach the age of sixteen. You who were born in the wake of our most terrible tragedy are our greatest hope.
May you walk ever in God’s light.
Spring 45 (Side A)
The communal birthday was a day of celebration for those commoners too plebian to register an individual birthday. Those who turned sixteen embraced their adulthood by chugging pale ale in the fields outside their schools, and the parks of Mel rang with the shouts of inebriated young men.
In Moros, the farmers took a break from their fields to welcome their new men to adulthood by drubbing the ever-living hells out of them in a game of baseball.
On the Plateau, the day itself meant nothing. They received the first rain in seven months today, and the clans broke the bread of truce at the watering holes.
In the Jungle, the youth competed for the honor of elemental beasts their own. This year marked a monumental event: the first bonding between children of Father Panther and men. All wondered what this this binding would bring.
In the Bones, the drunken disorder continued. Most of the inebriates could barely tell the season, much less the day.
In the far east, tribes warred because of the stray word of a single young man. They spared no attention for the calendar of the west or its problems.
On and on the world spun, and alone the Maiden stared into the cheerful sky.
“Ali…when are you coming home?”
***
Mid-day, the constables received news of the fire in Sevensborough. Shocking images of charred bones hit the desks of the borough chiefs, and Margaret asked them a simple question.
“Will you support what needs to be done?”
Mid-afternoon, facing pressure from the Inquisition, Mel’s Electrician Guild cut the power to Sevensborough.
Truthfully, the borough barely noticed. Most of its power was syphoned illegally from Sixborough or powered by rumbling generators anyways.
The warehouse managers might have complained to their masters in Firstborough, but they faced bigger problems: sixty percent of their workforce skipping on the same day! Shipments were already clogged all the way to Main Street, and most these managers worried for how to hide this latest disaster.
In truth, the warehouse managers were only a meager step above the rabble they whipped. Sensing the precarity of their superiority, they hurried to pay the truck drivers to make a few extra rounds out to the highway and back lest someone notice the brewing crisis.
Thus began the very first trickle of a swelling wave.
But, for the most part, Mel still slept.
***
Azure men hurried to spread the word to their friends and family, trusting nothing to radio.
You must choose
As we have chosen
The call is upon us
Will you come?
Boucher approached Betha to break the news, braced for a dressing down like a schoolboy that muddied his new school finery.
Instead, she listened to his story with a strange set to her jaw.
“Always knew Lee would be the ruin of this damned place,” she said at last.
“Not much for it now,” Boucher coughed.
“The hells there isn’t!” the crone snapped. “A Penitent procession waltzed into our borough, and you hadn’t the wherewithal to stop them?!”
The aldersman winced. “We’ve always left well enough alone on that front. Long as the holy men stayed in their lane…”
“Summoning the thrice-damned Wyrm, Henri!”
Boucher sucked in a breath. “Dammit, Betha, I’m not a Seer! You want me to have Aure’s clergy slain at the border? I’ll give the word! Because that’s the only way to be sure about things!”
This was the first time he had offered such strong words to Betha, and she stared at him intently.
“We’ve no time for this,” he grunted. “I’m headed out to the farms to round up any who will come.”
He imagined he took his leave, but both knew he fled her rebuttal.
In his wake, Betha suppressed a smile. “So that’s how far you gotta push that boy to show his spine, huh? Better late than never.”
Little Lethe peeked into the cramped room, frowning. “Mister Boucha yelled at you.”
“I suppose he did at that.”
“And that’s good?”
“A boy that can’t tell off an old woman like me won’t get far.”
Lethe’s frown deepened. “…why?”
“You’ll understand when you’re grown, sweetie.”
“No, I won’t,” the little girl instantly answered. “When I’m big I’ll…”
“Be a wonderful woman,” Betha replied firmly. “And you’ll understand why I’m sometimes hard on them. Someone must be.”
The child’s frown deepened into a proper sulk.
No I won’t!
You don’t have to be hard to be strong
The white feather told me
“You’ll be going south to see your Daddy soon,” Betha cajoled.
“I know. He’s gonna show me his boat, and we’ll watch the dancers on the big river!”
Betha stared out the window, caught in her memories of the hovel she had called home for over a decade. “Are you going to miss your room?”
“I’m gonna take Mister Bean and Mister Sprout so they won’t be lonely!”
Marveling at the resiliency of children, Betha laughed. “You’re right, sweetie. We wouldn’t want them to be lonely.”
“But Miss Apple is for you,” Lethe stated somberly.
Cause you aren’t coming
And it’ll be lonely
“You lost Miss Apple last winter,” the old woman chided.
“I didn’t!”
Shaking her head, Betha smiled. “Do you want to bake a cake? Today is a special day, you know.”
Lethe gasped at the prospect. “With the good frostin’?!”
“Yep, and the proper sugar!”
The little girl bolted for the kitchen.
Lingering, Betha’s hands trembled a moment. One part her old age, admittedly, but another part dread.
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She laid her hand upon her dresser – one of the few mementos they had managed to claim in the chaos after Lumia. Thugs and vandals had claimed the rest.
“They’ll return to finish the job,” the crone sighed. “Always knew this borough was our holding pen before the final slaughter.”
Before those fire-addled lunatics finish what they started
“But we have some tricks up our sleeves, don’t we?” she asked the silent wood.
Finding no answer, of course, Betha headed for the kitchen.
And the last cake she would ever bake.
***
As the sun began to sink, Sebastian entered Sevensborough. He carried his satchel, mail mostly dispensed, and a long cardboard box tucked under his elbow.
He set bills in the burned-out mailbox outside the Mayor’s Den; slipped the last payments laborers would ever receive from Mel masters under their doors; and finally came to the hovel with the gazebo where Betha waited.
Glancing at the window, he spotted Lethe watching even though Betha had put her to bed just a few minutes before.
Saw Lethe seeing him seeing Lethe seeing him seeing…
But turned his attention to Betha at the gazebo.
“Took you long enough,” the old woman groused.
“How long should I have taken?” he asked.
“Is there even time enough for me to reach the Conclave?”
“There is. Catch the last wagon inwards from Woodhaven.”
Sebastian offered the long box to Betha.
She accepted, testing its heft. “Used to be lighter.”
“We all used to be younger.”
“No time like the present, eh?”
“Indeed, it is the only Time,” he agreed.
Though Betha prepared to set out on a journey, she carried no provisions; no clothes; only enough money for a few incidentals.
She slung the cardboard box under her elbow. “Right.”
As she stepped past, Sebastian bowed for her as though she were the lost queen.
“Thank you,” he stated.
“Oh, don’t give me that,” she snorted. “I’m just doing what must be done.”
Exactly, he agreed.
“And that is why I thank you. For all you have given. For what you prepare to give.”
Betha pressed her lips together. “Our hopes hinge on the Valkyrie, butler. I’ve barely a part in it.”
But a part all the same.
Little Lethe in the window gasped. The poor child – her Sight was so young – she caught only glimpses.
He that walked a road straight and sign-posted envied her the limitations of myopia.
Lethe began to scream, pounding on the windows with both hands. “Betha! Betha! You can’t go!”
Wet tears coursing down her cheeks, the open weeping of the young.
But Betha only adjusted her box, waved to the child, and walked away.
Sebastian turned his gaze to the window and the screaming toddler.
“If it is any consolation, when you have grown, and your Sight evaporated into the fancy of childhood, you will not remember her.”
But you will live in utopia the likes of which she has never known
The blossomed fruit of her sacrifice and a thousand more besides
As for Sebastian?
Three more letters and another rendezvous in Sevensborough. Then off to Mel for the next convergence of destiny.
***
Around dinner that day, a line of beat-up trucks rumbled in the shade of a few struggling trees along the northernmost edge of Sevensborough. These seven vehicles represented the sum total of the borough fleet; they idled in a cloud of black smog and rumbled with an alarming number of engine coughs.
“…and circle south till you hit the Mishkan estate,” Oliver instructed Boucher at the helm. “There’s a farm road you can take west from the manor gate. After a few miles you can mount the hills and slip back onto the main roads till you hit Oshton. Don’t go to the mayor; he’s a bastard. Ask for Mister Oshton, my father, and tell him that I sent you. Beforehand, stow anything Azure. My father is…well, he’s a good man to anyone whose name he knows, but he listens to the radio too much if you get my drift. Understood?”
“Sure thing, boss,” Boucher teased.
“I’m not your boss,” Oliver sighed.
“Suppose not. I saw you pick up a box earlier.”
Rolling his eyes, Oliver waved the aldersman off.
Six of the seven vehicles rumbled away on the circuitous route to west Ruhum – avoiding Mel, Briarwood, and any number of other troubles for men on a mission.
He spared a moment to crack a yawn and acknowledge the iron weight hanging from his heart.
Fingers tracing the newest burn scars and thoughts tracing the thousand ways maybe he could have avoided…
Enough of that, he admonished himself. If you’d rolled over and showed your belly, that boy would have gutted you. Its human to mourn, but there’s no sense in laying down to die before madness.
Taking a deep breath, he returned to the safety of the tree line.
Belle waited there, Nix on her shoulder and the phoenix chick in the crook of her elbow.
The former mayor dropped to the grass beside her and accepted the two birds.
“I worry for that journey. They can avoid the checkpoints using the farm roads, but who knows if the farmers are any kinder?” he muttered. “And who knows if anyone will come? Spring planting is the biggest cheque of the year for most these folks.”
“At least you think to reach out,” Belle assured him. “Most men would never consider beyond their own borough.”
“Ain’t that a sad statement?” Oliver laughed dourly. “Not sure I can begrudge them if they stay. Hard indeed to convince a man of danger on a peaceful Spring day.”
“What do they have to fear?” the Wavespeaker agreed bitterly. “Even if their lot is meager, their place is known. They work beside the poorest of Aure’s flock, side by side.”
Do they hear their fellows mutter to themselves
Draw the line of piety, a sharp divide?
Pure and impure, both working the same mud
Oliver nodded. “Well familiar with that purity. Got aunts that still send me copies of the Catechism every year!”
“They might as well. Why let the books rot, unread?” Belle giggled.
“Exactly! The Parable of Jonathan makes half-decent insulation anyways.”
They snickered together.
“I need to talk to Lord Erudite next,” the mayor sighed. “He’s good enough, I suppose, for one of the old Lords. Fifty-five years in the Conclave. He’s older than half the Guilds!”
“He’s supported the borough all this time at least.”
“Supported his daughters.” Oliver rubbed Nix with two fingers, watching the horizon. “He would have called us heretics twenty years ago. But then he gifted a harmless favor to his grandchildren: just some elemental beasts for them to play with. One day, sudden as a blink, some servant with loose lips sets the Fire against his own kin! The little girls he’s known since they waddled across the room into his life. Are his own grandchildren heretics?”
“Would you have that he disowned them?”
“Hells no! He saw the wrong of it and threw his House behind the better course! Erudite is the only reason this borough wasn’t bulldozed a decade ago and everyone in it sent to work some ashen mine. I just wish…I just wish it didn’t take the Inquisition coming for flesh and blood for a man to open his eyes, you know?”
Belle smiled in somber agreement.
Then more messengers arrived with more work. One said: the power had been cut intentionally, as suspected, and would not be restored. Another said: Walter could not support an evacuation. A third mentioned: the Conclave would meet tomorrow, unannounced, with no public admittance and no stated topic of debate.
For the first, Belle loaned a few electrician-trained Azure men to help splice new lines. For the second, Oliver rolled his eyes and snapped, “Let’s just cut the round-about. How much do they want?” For the third, neither had a good answer.
An hour later, they rejoined at the hillock, and Belle asked, “Do you know how long the Tempest will be…”
“Afraid not.”
The tragedy of Lumia had only taken a few hours, though it haunted his nightmares like years. Who could say how long the reprise would require?
“Let’s just be thankful she drew him to the stars and do the best we can here.”
“I worry about this surprise Conclave,” the Wavespeaker fretted. “They’re going to declare you an outlaw, aren’t they?”
“Most likely,” Oliver shrugged. “Best if the Lords and Ladies spend the entire day tutting in outrage. ‘How low the Inventors have fallen’ and all that. We can stall outraged politics from here to Waves.”
He chewed on an apple to quiet his stomach. The phoenix chick stirred, and he fed her fragments.
“Course, Ali’s alliance relies on her for just about everything,” he mused. Much like a baby chick. “We don’t know how long she requires, and I don’t have access to her accounts.”
“But what if she were to…” Belle whispered in dread.
“Then there will be a great deal of suffering for a short amount of time, and then we will no longer worry about any of this.”
Nix nipped at his hand for such a glib response.
The former mayor glared at his bird. “I don’t need that lip from someone who hasn’t got any!”
His bird nipped him again!
Rolling his eyes, he addressed Belle. “The drive to the Erudite estate will take forever in that rust bucket excuse for a truck. I’d better get going.”
“What about Nix and the baby?”
Oliver frowned. “Nix knows how to keep out of sight.”
“And the little one?”
He patted the chick, sleeping in his elbow again. “Well…”
Nix chirped, nudging him a little closer to Belle.
Struck by a sudden thought, Oliver dropped to a knee. He carefully scooped the chick into a hand and proffered the little flame-orange bundle to the Wavespeaker.
On one knee, arm outstretched.
Belle let out a tiny, strangled squeak.
“Take her.”
“I…that…what!”
All the drivers and messengers glancing over curiously.
“Nix and I are bonded, and I’m no witch to manage a menagerie. You deserve some company too.”
“I…but…Wavespeaker! Wave speaker!”
“Oh, who cares?” Oliver laughed.
The chick regarded Belle curiously.
Hands shaking, Belle accepted the young phoenix.
The audience had the audacity to cheer!
“Y-you lot find something to do!” she shouted.
“Yes, ma’am. Right away, ma’am,” came the responses, barely hiding smirks.
She pressed the chick into her bosom, face as red as its plumage.
Satisfied – and oblivious – the former mayor rose to his feet and dusted his knees. “Good. That’s sorted. Keep the fort till Boucher or I get back. Anything else?”
Still swooning, Belle bit her lip and forced herself to meet his eye. “Oliver. Tell me where Valkyrie is.”
He hesitated a moment, ready to dissemble on every point.
Nix bit him. Hard this time.
“Hells, you little henpecker! I get the point!” Oliver rubbed at his arm. “She’s at Woodhaven. Mishkan loft, east building, top floor. Sebastian has a key if she throws a tantrum.”
“Thank you,” Belle whispered.
He nodded. “For what it's worth, I’m sorry.”
For the Ruhum that could have been
For you, for me, for Valkyrie
She nodded. “Me too.”
Oliver hopped in the truck and rumbled off.
***
Heart still racing, Belle cupped the phoenix chick to her bosom.
Saw in the phoenix’ curious eyes a glimmer of a quiet farm in the shadow of the mountains, the smell of Spring flowers, and the creak of familiar floorboards. The menfolk talking of the harvest, children racing around wild and barefoot, and her husband by her side.
Though in that moment, it was not Louise she envisioned.
“Am I unfaithful?” she whispered to the chick as Oliver’s truck faded away.
But the chick only wormed into her blouse, happy with a warm spot against her breast.
“The Care of Creation says that the phoenix bears the fire that burns away falsehood,” the Wavespeaker wondered. “It is the flame of Truth in each of us…”
Isn’t it strange that I – a hick from Osh – would know such things?
And what foolishness could possess the mayor to offer his Truth to me?!
The chick fell asleep.
“Very well,” she murmured. “Let’s go get Valkyrie.”
She turned towards Sixborough, confident in her course at last…
…and found Sebastian waiting for her beneath the trees.
***
Adrift in an airless void
Kept company by the notes of unfamiliar stars
No north, no south, not even the tickle of solar radiation
She stepped from one gem of the heavens to the next
Her bones groaning with the distance
Her mind singing with emptiness, stretched thin
Light-years crossed with nothing to see but a pebble or a grain of dirt or the faintest flicker of hydrogen gas
She crossed the void, leaving bolts of Light in her wake, and came no closer to her destination
She tore through the stars with a scream but heard no answer
Alone in the vastness