This Spring weather’s really doing a number on my friend Brant. His cold gets any worse and he may keel right over! He’s real sick; would not recommend a visit right now.
You gotta take care of your health, folks! Take my friend Walter for example. He’s up early and jogs even when it's cold out! Be more like him!
I will too. Starting tomorrow.
Spring 4
An old scoundrel waited at the top of a hillock, resting his bones on the capped well to an abandoned farmstead. Chewing a bit of tobacco, Duncan watched a familiar face tromp along the faded path through fallow fields.
“Surviving?” asked Luther, one ne’er-do-well to another. Both wore the nattered leathers and heavy backpacks of perpetual drifters, their boots well-coated with dirt.
“Well enough. Where you headed?”
Luther smiled under his prickly beard. “Thought I’d have a chat with an old friend. You?”
“Thinking the same. Gotta beat the rush.”
Duncan waited. He wanted to hear the name.
Luther sighed. Both younger and the visitor, he was on the hook. “Just thinking I’d see Walter.”
The older scoundrel nodded, satisfied. “Well, don’t let me hold you up!”
Duncan picked up his pack, and the duo fell into step together. They followed the path past the abandoned homestead, its roof sagging and coop now home to feral chickens that fled at their approach.
“I knew the folks who lived here,” Duncan offered.
“Yeah?”
“Moonshiners. Made an absolute killing when the place just up-road ended up showing Tura’s first movie!”
“They get out alright?”
“Well as anybody. Got picked up in a raid two years ago – father, mother, and son. Nobody’s seen ‘em since.”
There was a lot of that these days.
Keeping their eyes to the horizon, they arrived at and crossed a grass-cracked highway. Once home to the bustle of wagons into Lumia, this highway only hosted the army now. Ruhum’s military patrolled the grey tenements visible in the horizon, hoping to snag a stray scoundrel or two, and any lout with a lick of sense struck the long way.
Keeping the fields between them and the tenements, the duo angled for the forest north of the noble hill.
Not many forests remained in Ruhum these days. Generations of naval expansion had consumed the old growth, and the surge of refugees fifteen years ago had burned half of what remained to stay warm over Winter. What remained were only a few House retreats and hunting grounds…and those woods lingering in the shadow of tragedy.
When they found the foot path, Luther started left.
“Walter’s this way,” Duncan advised, stepping right.
“You sure? I heard further north this year.”
Duncan snorted. “Course you did. This way.”
Luther shrugged and put his faith in his elder.
The path turned at unexpected junctures; traps waited for heavy feet; and scouts accosted them at gunpoint. Despite all this, Duncan and Luther safely entered a clearing still marked by the posts of an old baseball field. Tents littered the former field, and the pitcher’s mound hosted the communal fire.
A crowd of fellow ne’er-do-wells crowded around the fire, chatting as the evening chill set in.
“Busy for being so close to the anniversary,” Luther muttered.
“Trying to get in and out before the city stirs in its sleep,” Duncan shrugged.
Everyone knew better than to try Lumia near the anniversary.
“I’m here on request. You?” Duncan asked.
“Pilgrimage,” admitted Luther.
“Again?”
“Substitute.” The younger scoundrel attempted to maintain his cool, but a note of awe slipped through his beard. “The Tempest herself visited Sevensborough. She promised sight to the blind.”
“And she demanded you march your sorry arse out to Walter?” Duncan laughed. “Being religious sounds like a lot of work.”
Luther shook his head. “We honor her. It is our covenant.”
“Whatever floats your boat. But since you’re headed to the Cathedral…”
The city was safer with someone at one’s back, and the duo had collaborated in the old days. Back before Lumia turned one smuggler into an Azurite and the other into a pauper.
Luther nodded. “Tomorrow then.”
Bargain struck, they split to greet their respective fellows and find bedding for the night.
***
Duncan rose in the bitter cold of predawn to catch up on news around the first fire.
“Brant is getting too big for his breeches. Things are shifting again. Used to be all about the pre-dawn raids with the dogs. Now it's one or two – priests in plain clothes – that pop in to ask questions. They don’t pick you up till later.”
“What a waste. Brant only just got some proper water!”
“That’s how you know Brant’s done for. Momma’s boys can’t stand a little cold!”
Before Brant, it had been Don. Before Don, Trent. Before Trent, Art.
They all got too big for their breeches eventually.
Then, one morning, the dogs started barking, and it was already too late.
Duncan privately thanked his lucky stars that he had wintered in the boroughs despite the expense. Clearing his throat, he asked, “How’s the city?”
“Antsy. Spring’s the worst!”
“Has to be a little antsy if you want the good stuff!”
Of course, somebody had to butt in with superstitions. “Trick is to never cross the streets with red lights. Never use a closed door. Long as the way is open, you’re golden!”
There was always some new rule.
Never helped.
“You just missed the last batch, Duncan. Three morons decided they’d brave the harbor. Told them it wasn’t worth it, but off they went.”
The harbor – home of the Inventors.
The harbor – center of the conflagration.
“It’s the clouds to watch,” a man opined. “Mid-day clouds, thin and high. That’s the time to go. You see low, golden clouds? Get out.”
The group fell into familiar debate: how far to push and how far to stray. A man could make his dinner stripping copper out of the shops and warehouses, but what of the lost Inventions deeper within?
Everyone knows a guy who knows a guy who won that lottery, Duncan shrugged, rising from the group with the sun. The old timers needed hours to work themselves into action, but he wasn’t here to drink at a fire. Half these old timers won’t even step foot past the mansions.
Then again, these old timers were smart enough to sell a night’s sleep in a warm tent, fresh shoes for a man on the go, or a shot of liquid courage before the plunge. All without ever setting foot in the cursed city.
Not a bad gig, long as a man stayed ahead of the dogs.
Duncan crossed the camp, searching for Luther among the Azurites. The pious kept their own, smaller fire, and the scoundrel waited while the erstwhile pilgrims prayed to the ocean before their big day.
What’s the sense praying to the ocean before you walk the land?
Finishing his prayers, Luther jogged over. “Sorry for the wait.”
“Don’t tell me you’re guiding a pack.”
The Azurite shook his head. “Just sharing a prayer.”
The scoundrel sucked his lip. “Think the Tempest can hear you?”
“Of course. She arrives where she is needed.”
“Perks of an incarnate God, I suppose,” he shrugged.
Duncan could hardly dispute that the Tempest existed. That she was a walking force of nature, equal to the Wyrm, was beyond doubt. Hells, maybe she was even divine – whatever that meant.
What he didn’t get, really, was what good praying to her would do.
If she’s that powerful, me kissing her arse isn’t going to make a lick of difference which way she swings.
They gathered their things and struck south. Following deer trails, they skirted past the well-pilfered ruins of the noble hill and emerged at the turn of the brick road that overlooked all of Lumia.
The ruined city waited below, placid at a glance. Merchant manors lined the brick road on its path down the slope, their windows knocked out and doors ajar. Fire-ravaged shops lined the lane further down, and the homes beyond rose in an endless sea of blackened stubs. The broken stump of Visage Tower rose just above a thick mist that clogged the city like clouds in a bowl, and a foolish man would think this just another ruin.
Only the mist squirmed at the edge of Duncan’s vision like a knot of serpents. It swayed and teased, concealing and revealing, offering glimpses that shifted between looks. First a burnt manor; then a gleam of fresh glass to tantalize hungry thieves…
The Cathedral of Fire should have been easily visible from this vantage, nine stories of national pride, but there was nary a golden glimpse.
They descended the hill directly, crossing a muddy construction site still littered with blocks of unused concrete. Scavengers had knocked in the walls to extract the pipes within.
There was a line of boots impressed into the mud – the morning line up before some overbearing foreman for sure – and Duncan shook himself against the sudden impression he had seen that exact same line of boots the last time he walked this way.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
Four years ago.
He made sure to grind his heel into the prints on the way over.
“Think the fuss about the imports will settle down any time soon?” Luther pondered.
“That’d require the Conclave to accomplish something. Anything.”
“So damned dumb though! Wyrm kills Lumia, so the Conclave bans the import of spoons!”
“They had to ban something.” Had to look strong. “Besides, it's good for our business.”
“Suppose so,” Luther mulled. “Time was, I’d have shipped Novian nails in my boots with a smile.”
But you’re too good for that now, the scoundrel finished. Religion and women – both make fools out of men.
“Is that what you’re up to?” Luther asked. “Metal smuggling?”
“Search and rescue,” Duncan evaded.
“For the highest bidder?”
“Who else is there?”
Luther shook his head and muttered into his beard, “Do you believe in anything at all? Or are you too savvy for that?”
“Because I don’t lick the boot?”
“Because you think believing in something is licking a boot.”
Both men began to remember why they had kept prior partnerships brief.
They fell silent, instead focusing on the walk. Soon, they descended into the mist, and the world grew grey and dim. The day fell away, a dim memory, and brief flickers of frigid wind brought the stink of carrion.
The road, at least, remained a reassuring river of concrete, its banks the empty storefronts and its song utter silence. As long as a man kept his eyes down, he could pretend he walked solid ground.
“Follow the roads,” Duncan warned.
“Follow the signs,” Luther corrected, pointing to a dim splash of blue paint across a street sign.
“Paint won’t hold.” Any fool knew that the city ate what it didn’t like, else this place would have been truly looted a decade ago.
“Our paint does.”
Duncan started to scoff, but Luther pointed to another blue smear near the edge of their misty world.
“There is a river beneath our feet. If you ride the river, you’ll be safe.”
The old scoundrel wondered how many faithful disappeared in Lumia believing that. Aloud, he asked, “So…how far does it go?”
“To the Cathedral,” Luther answered. “Any further is on your own.”
Duncan scowled. Good to find a path, but…
“Don’t tell me you’re going to the harbor.”
“Hardly!” Though it would still be the furthest into Lumia that he had ever dared. The desperation of age; he knew he didn’t have too many more trips like this left in his bones before he ended up another wizened bastard shuffling along a bread line.
Duncan needed to reach Visage tower, just past the Cathedral. Then into the basement and the vault…
If there was nothing left, there was nothing left. He was savvy enough to take his scouting fee up front.
If, however, a certain set of papers remained. Say, a handful of liens against House Erudite that had languished, unenforced, for over a decade since the Lady Visage died…
Well, that might keep an old scoundrel out of the bread lines.
Luther suddenly stopped. “Men ahead.”
The duo retreated to an alley, backs pressed to the wall, and watched the men approach. Smugglers, same as them, in heavy jackets and lugging heavy tools. The last men dragged a shanty wagon piled high with salvaged metals, including a chunk of Novian car.
Luther could have let them have me, Duncan thought, regretting his snippy attitude a little.
The wind whispered otherwise. He’s just waiting ‘til you have something proper valuable.
“Clear,” Luther said, motioning him out.
For just a moment, Luther vanished in the mist…
Hells! Don’t break line of sight!
Duncan leaped after into the mists. Instead of hitting the road, though, he tumbled into the bomb crater of a blasted and blackened city. The reek of freshly charred meat rose, and he pushed to his feet among untended corpses.
“Oh, Stormmother’s tit,” whimpered the scoundrel.
The clouds above squirmed, rippling outwards in great waves like the wake of titanic beasts…
Then a black shadow blasted overhead, hurling Duncan to the stones.
On to the next lesson! Make sure you’re keeping score!
Duncan scrambled to his feet, dreading his own end…
And then Luther grasped him firmly and pulled him onto the empty road of dead and sleeping Lumia.
“You okay?” the Azurite asked. “You went thin as a ghost! I could see the sign through you!”
Panting, Duncan shook his head. “L-let’s get to the damn Cathedral already!”
“No argument.”
They broke into a jog, and Duncan let Luther lead by his Azure signs.
Finally, they caught a glimpse of the pride of Lumia, that indestructible fortress, the Cathedral planted firm amidst the pot-marked square. It had been transfigured on that day fifteen years ago, its minarets turned slim and arched. Stained glass windows gleamed with memories of the ancient covenant between the rock, jungle, and ocean; and the grand doors welcomed all.
Veins of discolored pavement ran from the old church, shooting east for the harbor, west towards Mel, and straight down Main where the duo walked.
Duncan stared a moment and belatedly realized: weathering. The pavement along the Azure way had weathered with fifteen years.
The rest of the square remained untouched – scars that would never heal.
“Hells…”
“Last year a guy managed to get as far as the empty lots,” Luther said. “Half-mad with the visions of it by the time he stumbled back. Titans that break the sky; a woman singing the dawn as the wheel of the world splinters …”
Thirty seconds at a decent run would take him to Visage’s front door.
Thirty seconds across the mists.
“Lee can fetch his damn papers himself,” Duncan muttered.
“Good choice,” Luther agreed.
“Does the Cathedral stock booze by any chance?”
***
Other than some rearranged furniture and the new deity, the Cathedral interior much resembled Duncan’s childhood memories. A small village now lived in the embrace of the goddess; some of them had been inside the Cathedral since the day Lumia fell!
He wondered how they provisioned, but the faithful only spouted pablum about the grace of the goddess.
Luther joined the other pilgrims before the altar to pray and socialize, but Duncan retired for a meal to recover his strength.
A priestess stopped by with fresh eggs and bacon in an overwrought, golden bowl, and the scoundrel arched his eyebrows at both the bounty and the plate!
“Used to belong to the Keeper,” the woman explained, smirking. “I’m sure a couple deacons would kill to own it now.”
Duncan sucked his lip. “Up for sell? I can pay.”
She shook her head. “You would never make it out. What is in this temple must remain. The city still hungers for everything withheld from the Serpent’s grasp.”
“Does that include you?” he mocked.
“Yes,” the woman answered, hand to her breast. “My name is Aaliyah, and my life belongs to my Goddess. She came to me and whispered in my dream. She asked me to care for this place, and for all who would come, and to pray every day that the two who sacrificed themselves upon the altar with her would wake.”
“The two who…?” he frowned. Just what we need. More gods.
“Ah, pay me no mind. I speak only for myself!”
“Doesn’t that make you apostate?”
Aaliyah chuckled. “The Tempest does not seem to mind.”
How magnanimous of the divine.
“Luther tells me you decided against scavenging?” she mused, fingering the lavish bowl.
“I was paid in advance to look. I looked.” And no amount of money is gonna fix what this city will do to me.
“Stay as long as you like,” she invited. “Despite the neighborhood, this is a place of reprieve.”
He chewed her offer. “…when’s the best time to leave this damned city?”
“Just after the Tempest sings the dawn,” she answered.
The Tempest returned every morning to sing the dawn? She has more free time than I thought.
“I’ll stay the night then.”
***
“If you’ll wait another day, I’ll return with you,” Luther said the next morning.
“I’ll not linger,” Duncan stated. He had tossed and turned all night with foul dreams, and he longed for a solid world.
The younger smuggler shrugged. “If you insist. I will pray for you.”
“If you want.”
The faithful gathered with the murky dawn on the step, silent.
Duncan waited, uncomfortable, as the minutes stretched silently onwards.
Finally, Aaliyah clapped her hands. “We are not graced with the song this morning. To your duties, everyone.”
That’s it?
Luther sighed. “I’ve yet to hear her. They say the mourning in her voice would break a grown man.”
Then why is Luther so keen to hear it?
Catching Duncan’s incredulous expression, the smuggler shook his head. “I just figured if I can be part of her song, then maybe she can be part of mine. You know? I think about my brother, and his wife, and their daughter, and I feel like she’s singing for them too.”
Like she’s really singing for all of us
“So that’s why you risk your hide to pilgrimage over and over?”
“Pretty much.” Luther laughed. “Sure you won’t wait?”
“I’m sure.”
“Then good luck to you.”
Hefting his pack, Duncan set out straight along the western road. The Cathedral villagers had shared all they knew on the army’s movements, and he was confident in his skills against the milksops that ran the infantry.
He hurried through the blasted streets, always one eye on the next blue splash of paint.
As a smuggler, he appreciated these new guideposts. Individually, scattered on windows, doors, street signs, and lamps, the dots could be mistaken as grit, graffiti, or coincidence. Seen from the major roads, they were a dot or two. Only by following them from the Cathedral did the chaos of a broken city resolve into a true road.
Safe passage through the hungry mists – Duncan the curmudgeon converted into a pilgrim of sorts.
Reaching the tenements, he encountered his first problem, and it was a doozy.
Two army trucks pulled up to a blasted building. Grunts surrounded the rubble, nervously picking at the bits of concrete, neatly blocking the Azure way.
“Why the hells does the mist leave them alone?” Duncan wondered, crouching down the street to watch.
Oh, you’ll see, laughed the mists in his ear, and the scoundrel shivered.
Half the grunts hauled fragments of silver metal out of the rubble, and the other half carried a search outward towards the smuggler’s position.
His way back to the Cathedral passed too much open ground, and a knot in the scoundrel’s stomach whispered that somehow Lumia would betray him if he turned his back.
Instead, he waited for his moment and darted into the ruined building.
He spared little wonder for its alien interior: strange screens flashing with alien patterns, workshops half-pillaged of their secrets, and a line of white sheets covering still bodies with jointed fingers peeking out from the cloth.
Duncan knew the quiet way, dodging between the grunts at their sordid work, halfway through the building without a soul the wiser.
The mists laughed.
He darted into the last hallway, the other half of the Azure way just beyond. His boots landed on what should have been solid floor, but instead the concrete rippled like clouds. Swearing sharp, he plunged into mist.
Falling the ten feet into the basement, he barely managed to roll so that he landed on his pack and not his shoulder. Even so, the impact drove all sense from his head, and he lay for long moments as stunned as a deer.
Too cool for school, aren’t we? whispered the mists, nibbling at him. Hey, me too!
Duncan groaned, flexing his fingers. They still worked.
No use for gods and masters? I couldn’t agree more.
So why don’t I show you something neat?
Tendrils of mists rose from the shadowed corners, carrying a little sliver of darker shadow.
A scale that rippled with malice and promise.
Don’t worry. These little peons won’t bother you. And the Cathedral gate won’t either. Walk right in and take everything.
Show those bootlickers what their prayer really buys them
But Duncan recognized the edge in that laugh. He’d heard it when some over-clever noble proposed a scheme with every intent of leaving the scoundrels with the bill; heard it when Reed said he was gathering a few good men; and now he heard it from malicious mists with no intent of giving him a choice.
“Oldest trick in the book,” he wheezed, forcing his numb body to its knees. “Ya always tell your mark…they’re in on it…”
To which the mists only laughed.
On the other end of the room, the wall shimmered.
No, a metal pipe like a vein, Azure blue and gently pulsing.
Salvation – maybe – and Duncan wasn’t picky. He lunged.
The scale coiled like a snake ready to bite…and stopped.
Hmm.
Not yet.
Gotta wait for the fruit to ripen in the Spring!
Instead, a tendril lashed out, caught him by the back, and added its own twist to his lunge.
Duncan caught the Azure pipe with both hands, the world rang, and he tumbled through endless miles of sutures to the rushing of ocean water…
Then he erupted atop a geyser of cold water onto the hard ground of a dark plain.
For a moment, he feared the mists had consumed him. Then, rising on shaky knees, he spotted the moon through the clouds.
Night? Duncan wondered, reeling. The air was muggy, hot with Summer even in the dark, and the soil wet with fresh rain. Despite that, the moonlight revealed a vast expanse of dirt, tinged by only a few hardy weeds.
“Where in the icy hells…?”
Bending, he tugged at one of the weeds, and its crumbling roots came completely free. It dissolved in his hand to a wad of nettles, just a leeched memory of life.
As the clouds tossed in their bed, the moon revealed streaks of Azure blue here and there across the plain.
Sutures indeed.
Duncan grimaced. He had food for a day and water for two, and this dead plain would swallow him if he stood here gawking!
Instead, he hefted his pack and walked the mile to the Azure suture.
A mile of thin dirt and dead scrub. Sometimes he spotted standing water, black as pitch and still; others he crossed the withered remains of wildlife.
It was only when he came across a petrified tree that he realized this was once a forest.
Reaching the Azure suture, he laid both hands across the metal and plead, “Where the hells is this?!”
What the hells happened here?!
It wasn’t prayer.
He just needed a bit of help.
The pipe rang with his need, amplifying his plea, and someone answered.
With a bolt of thunder, the Tempest blew apart the cloud cover. Framed by the moon as she stood upon the sky, she tilted her head and asked, “How in the world did you arrive here?”
Swallowing, Duncan answered, “Pipes.”
Her eyebrow raised. “Odd.”
Staring up at her, the old scoundrel was struck by how young the Tempest looked. A young woman, maybe twenty-five, firm with the prime of life. If not for the whirling halo like a crown above her head and the fact she stood on thin air, he’d have thought her a noble brat!
“…don’t suppose I could trouble you for a ride?” he asked.
“As you will starve here, I would oblige,” she answered.
She walked down the air like a flight of stairs, approaching him.
“What even happened here?”
The Tempest shook her head. “A necessary sacrifice.”
The part for the greater whole
“I guess you’d know a thing or two about that,” he demurred.
Ignoring the jape, she picked him up like a sack of grain, chucked him over her shoulder, and stepped east.
Again, the world stretched into a tunnel: moonlight, dark plains, dead lands, deserts, fading greenery, grey peaks, and then the ocean on and on for horizon after horizon…
They burst into the sky above Waves and descended swiftly to the Tempest’s landing pad.
A priestess rushed forward to help the unsteady scoundrel off her shoulder and to his feet.
Head still swimming, he turned to the Tempest with one last question.
“Are…you divine?”
The incarnation of the furious seas smiled. “If I was, would it matter? Pray if you wish.”
Then she was gone.
The priestess saw Duncan from the temple complex with a minimum of fuss.
On the way out, Duncan left the first tithe of his life.
It wasn’t prayer.
He just figured that even an old scoundrel should pay his debts.