Original Fiction -- Dust and Water, Part II
Story Master Post is Here
Art by skylar0grace is Here
Mix by pekori is Here
Type: Gen with undertones of femslash
Word Count: 25,000
Rating: R
Warnings: strong language, violence, character death, "offstage" M/M noncon sex
Part I // Part II // Part III // Part IV
Part 4
The sun was almost a physical presence as it pressed down upon him, and already the heat from the sand was making little shimmers in the air on the horizon. It seemed most of the camp was in the fields, wielding buckets and cups of various materials and sizes. Everyone was standing in water up to their knees, pants and skirts rolled up or tucked into waistbands. They appeared to be washing the plants, dipping water from the paddy and pouring it down on each plant in turn.
The character of the air seemed to change here; the smell of fertile mud and the scent of water hung heavily in the air. It felt richer than the arid sand around it, and the sound of the plants’ leaves rustling in the remnants of the morning breeze were a faint echo of the field noises he remembered from his father’s farm.
The person closest to him turned at the sound of his shuffling footsteps. It was Marit. She looked tired and drawn, much as Ailith had earlier in the barracks, and she sighed and slowly straightened up as he approached. “Good. You brought a pitcher. Wash the dust off of the plants. Enough gets over the river during the night so that if we leave it, it will kill them, and then we won’t eat.”
He carefully bent to fill the jug and tried unsucessfully to ignore his aches and pains as he rose to pour the water over the plants closest to him. “But the prison authorities sent you supplies,” he protested. “There were some in the cart with me when I was brought here.”
“Do you really think that’s enough?”
He had to admit that it probably wasn’t. A quick glance showed that all of the other prisoners were gaunt and thin. It would make sense that they would try to grow what food they could. It was nothing short of miraculous that they had gotten anything to grow here at all, let alone a water-based crop like teero.
“How did you get the tubers to start with?” he asked, but her only response was a wink and a silent shake of her head.
“How are you feeling?” she asked as she returned to her work next to him, stooping and rising to pour water over the crops, pausing sometimes to wipe a larger chunk of dirt off with her fingers. “I imagine your head is still ringing.” Aren looked up at her sharply, wondering how much she knew about what had happened last night. He supposed his raw face was a giveaway. If his his eyes looked anything like Ailith’s did from exposure to the sand and winds, there would be no hiding his attempt at escape short of keeping his eyes closed and his face wrapped.
“Don’t be too proud to ask for help if you need it,” she added, and with one more uncomfortable knowing look at him, took her jug and moved over to the far side of the field to speak to the other people working there.
The sun was growing hotter, and he wiped his forehead, wishing he had at least some shade to rest in. The other workers had hats woven from teero leaves, tied under their chins with strings fashioned from the tough fibers that ran down the middle of each stem. “Who do I have to threaten around here to get a hat?” he muttered absently, shifting to put the sun at his back and rubbing at his forehead to try and relieve some of the ache from squinting for so long.
“Threaten anyone here, and I’ll take it out of your ass.” It was Gervais, speaking with vitriolic intensity from behind him. “So powerful and strong, you are, it would be such a such a victory to take a hat from a starving prisoner.” Aren straightened up quickly, turning to face the man. This put Aren facing directly into the sun, and he threw a hand up to shade his eyes.
Aren’s eyes narrowed. “Yeah, dishing it out instead of taking it would be a nice change for you, wouldn’t it?”
Gervais paused in mid-stoop, his battered pot dipped half-way into the water. Under his scruffy stubble and the shaggy, dusty hair that fell over his eyes, his face twisted in hatred. “We should have taken out more of you at Festival time.”
Aren took a step back in the knee-deep water, wobbling as his foot landed in an unseen dip in the muddy bottom. Before his could regain his balance, Gervais leaped at him, sending them both plunging into the water and mud. Grinning wildly, Gervais grabbed Aren’s throat with one hand and slowly forced his head underwater. As the warm, muddy water closed around his face, Aren swung the pitcher at where he guessed Gervais’s head to be. He felt the pitcher shatter, and the pressure on his throat lessened, but did not disappear.
He struggled to get his head out of the water and saw blood streaming down the side of Gervais’s face. Aren took advantage of Gervais’s disorientation to jab a fist into his gut, drawing a breathless grunt from the angry man. It was Aren’s turn to seize Gervais’ throat and press his fingers cruelly into his windpipe. “I thought I recognized you. Your trial was a farce. You should have been executed on the spot.” he snarled. “Let go of me or I crush your throat.” Aren squeezed harder to punctuate his threat.
Gervais shifted his weight suddenly and flung Aren back into the water, reasserting his hold on Aren’s throat and using his full weight to hold him down. Aren’s grip tightened in turn, and time seemed to stop, each of them poised at each other’s throats. It had become a waiting game to see which man would succumb first.
Just as the blood began to pound loudly in Aren’s ears, the weight above him lifted suddenly and he was pulled by his hair out of the water. He gasped and choked, water streaming from his nose and mouth to dribble down his chin and shirt.
“If you’re going to fight, don’t you dare do it in the middle of our crops.” Ailith’s voice was low and angry as she released his hair. He looked past her to see Gervais several feet away, sitting up to his waist in the water, broken stalks and leaves poking up around him. The boy, Shay, was crouched next to Gervais, not touching or holding him back, but speaking to him in a low, earnest voice. Marit, too, had joined them, and was also speaking quietly to Gervais.
Aren, too was sitting on fallen teero plants, and he shifted uncomfortably as the woody, knobby stems drove into his backside. Ailith still stood in front of him, white-faced, her lips pressed together in a thin line. “Replant any stalks that aren’t broken. Sometimes they reroot.” Without helping him up, she stiffly walked away, her back tense and upright as she chose her steps through the water with care.
Marit waded over to Aren. “Reroot the the plants,” she echoed Ailith, “then go and get your morning meal.”
The prospect of food made him less likely to protest the way he was being ordered around. He rolled up his sleeves and began to feel around in the mud with his hands and feet, placing stalks in the mud and tamping them down. By the time he was done, his back ached even more, and it felt like permanent lines had been engraved into his forehead from all the squinting against the sun. Still, there was something soothing about encouraging something to grow, about fighting against the destruction and decay that ultimately caught up to anything living, even something so trivial as a stupid teero plant.
* * *
As soon as Aren stepped out of the water, he wasn’t sure what was worse on the bottom of his bare feet - the heat of the sand or the searing magic that rose up from the ground to stab at him. It took a few tries before he got the sand completely off of his feet. He learned the hard way that having the contaminated grains between his skin and his boot hurt even worse than walking on the sand itself.
Now that the day was in full force, the winds of the night and early morning had died down completely, leaving only a hot, oppressive stillness in the air. With no wind to carry the scent of breakfast to him, it took him a moment of exploration to find where his meal was to be had. At last he caught the aroma and followed it through the decaying outbuildings. It was the smell of a different sort of heat - a rich, promising smell. He heard the low murmur of voices as he turned the corner and came upon the rest of the group, sitting in the shade cast by a makeshift ramada. It had been made from a barracks, with the sides pulled out to allow the air to move and more people to fit in the patch of shade that the roof cast.
The smell itself was newly baked bread. Behind the ramada stood several assemblies of polished metal, their curved openings turned to face the sun. They had been cobbled together out of scraps and pieces, and bore obvious signs of hammering and bending. Raised on a makeshift stand in the center of each was a baking flatbread, the outsides brown and crisp from the heat of the sun. He stared hungrily at the breads, his mouth watering and stomach tightening. He was tempted to snatch the nearest and stuff it whole into his mouth, but the sudden silence that fell upon the group as they turned as one to stare at him stopped him and made him shift uncomfortably under their scrutiny.
He looked down in surprise as three old women seated on the sand in front of him cleared their throats in unison. They had the same dark eyes, the same snub noses, and the same white curls that peeked out from the rough cloth that covered their heads. One was grinding teero flour in a makeshift handmill, rubbing the granules of dried tubers against a large rock until they were crushed to powder under the heavy iron bar she used. The second was making dough, flour dusting her arms up to the elbows as she turned and kneaded. The third was shaping and baking the dough, pinching off little balls, patting them out and leaning over to drop them into the bright oven next to her.
“Do you remember the story of the Breadmakers?” Aren jumped at the sudden voice behind him. It was Marit, speaking low in his ear. He hadn’t heard her approach behind him, her bare feet nearly noiseless on the packed dirt of the encampment.
“It’s said that when a man dies,” he said carefully, memories of his grandmother’s tales slowly returning to him as he spoke, “he goes before the Breadmakers for judgment. They take his soul, grind it with the flour, and if he is deemed worthy is given the bread, allowed to devour his own soul and be its keeper for eternity.”
“Very good,” Marit murmured approvingly. “Now, take your breakfast.”
The old woman who baked the breads smiled up at him as she handed him a thin, round loaf. He released the breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding, took the bread with shaking fingers and sat alone in the first patch of shade he could find. He tentatively bit into it, remembering the first piece of bread he had eaten only the day before, and how it had burned like fire in his stomach. This bread, though uncomfortable, did not cause the agony that the first one had.
Once the rumbling in his stomach had eased, he began to look around at the people about him. For the most part they were quiet, passing around packets of food from the supplies that had arrived the previous day and listening to the young man he had seen earlier with Gervais.
An old man next to him leaned over, squinting through old spectacles fogged by scratches. Aren took the food he offered and studied it. It looked like a piece of jerky, stale and drier than usual, and he sucked on it to soften it. “What’s he saying?” Aren asked the old man, gesturing to the boy.
“Hm?” the man answered absently. “Oh, Shay is telling the latest news. We got a delivery yesterday, you know.”
“But he’s not reading.”
“Oh, paper never lasts long here. He reads them and remembers them. He’s very good at remembering.” The old man gummed at his food with renewed effort.
Aren nodded, and tuned out Shay’s murmuring. The last thing he wanted was to hear second-hand news about things he had experienced firsthand. His eyes wandered around the rest of the assembly, and met Gervais’s stare from the other end of the open-air kitchen. The look of venom that the the man shot at him was enough to make him resolve to sleep lightly tonight.
After they had eaten and Shay finished reciting, there seemed to be little else to do. The three old women continued to shape and bake their bread, and others broke off into little groups, talking and murmuring among themselves. Bored, he began to explore the little knot of buildings and fields.
On the side of the compound that was nearest to the city, low sand dunes had built up, and a trail of undefined, sagging footprints led through a dip between two of them, grains of sand falling slowly back into the impressions with little sparkles of sunlight and magic. Ahead of him was a pole of wood with a scrap of cloth tied to the top, stuck into the sand between two small rises. The footsteps continued past the pole, and he followed them.
He peered over the next dune, and the distinctive signatures of Marit’s and Ailith’s presences hit him, though with less intensity than before. At first he thought it was because of his growing acclimatization, but then he saw that they were submerged in a pool that had been shaped out of the river. They were up to their necks in the cool water with their backs to him, shoulders touching, looking out over the water toward the ruins of the city.
He dropped to his stomach to watch, ignoring the discomfort of the sand through his clothes. Scattered words floated back to him, and he saw Ailith lean her head against Marit’s. ”Damn it, I think he cracked a rib.” Ailith sighed and stretched, pressing a hand to her side as she shifted.
“I’m sorry that I can’t heal you as much as I would like.” Marit’s arm wrapped carefully around Ailith’s waist, face nuzzling into the crook of her neck. “Even in the river, there’s too much interference to do much. And I’m still tired from last night,” she apologized.
“It’s fine. He was worse than I was, anyway. Be careful, though. You might want to back off for a few days. I’m still all jangled up.”
“And burning from your latest trip.” Marit replied, laying her hand on the other woman’s forehead. “It’s been harder for you to decontaminate lately, hasn’t it?”
“A little,” was the reluctant response. “I can still manage the objects, but by the time I’m done with that, I don’t have much left for myself.” Ailith submerged her cupped hand, lifted out a palm full of water and let it dribble through her fingers, watching the light shatter off the drops.
“It’s hard for people to be around you, now.”
“I don’t care.” Aren could see her shoulders stiffen.
“Of course you do. Why have you started going to Dracia so much? What are you looking for?” Marit stroked Ailith's damp hair. There was no response, and she was forced to duck her head lower to try and catch AIlith’s eye. “Not all of my visions come true, you know. Sometimes they are vague, and sometimes I misinterpret them. And in the midst of all this,” she waved her hand at the ruins, and the enkava, and the harsh sands about them, “I may even be completely wrong. I can only work with what the Goddesses choose to share with me.”
“Goddesses,” Ailith scoffed.
Marit smiled at the token blasphemy and settled comfortably against Ailith’s side. After a moment, Ailith spoke again. “So, why did you want me to look after him? Is it your visions again?”
Marit laughed, though Aren thought he could hear an edge to her voice. “We’ve already established my visions are unreliable, and probably not of divine origin, according to you. And anyway, you began to look after him before I even talked to you.”
“I’ll think about it later.” Ailith sagged further into the water, only the back of her head visible now. “I’m too tired. The nightwinds are stronger than they used to be.”
Marit placed a light kiss on the top of Ailith’s head. “No, love. You’re just wearing out.”
The other woman snorted something incomprehensible in reply, and Aren began to back away slowly, but not before Marit’s head turned slightly and her knowing eye met his. He jumped in mortification, slithering back down the dune.
Before he got back to the pole and rag stuck into the sand, he heard other voices from in front of him. “Oh, dear. Someone’s there already.”
He waited until the voices died away, then slunk back into camp, seeking a patch of shade in which to sit and and brood. It was a good thing Gervais was hiding somewhere, or else he might pick a fight with him just to have something to do.
Part 5
The night was not kind to Aren. He had used the remaining daylight hours to patch up and fortify an empty barracks against the nightwinds. Some of the other prisoners passed by and watched curiously, but he refused their offers of help, preferring to work off his anger and frustration through effort and perspiration. All he had to work with was a cracked hammer and some bent and corroded nails that he scavenged from other empty buildings. Still, enough dust made it through the remaining cracks to prevent him from sleeping well. When the early dawn began to lighten the gaps in his walls and the winds turned into sporadic gusts, he threw off the borrowed linen cover and stumbled down the stairs into the morning.
Ailith was already standing in the pale, colorless dawn, facing the east, wearing no wrap. She appeared to be performing a private act of of endurance, or perhaps self-punishment. The sound of his feet disturbing the sand, with it myriad little noises and puffs of magic, alerted her to his approach, and she shook herself from her reverie to face him. “Ah. You’re awake. Are you always an early riser?”
“Only when I can’t sleep.”
Moving stiffly, she reached for the dilapidated backpack at her feet and slung it onto her back. “I’m going into Dracia again. Are you going to stay here and antagonize Gervais all day, or do you want to come with me? It won’t be easy,” she added quickly, bending to readjust the strips of cloth wrapped around her legs.
“All right.” Aren fought to stay calm and keep his face neutral. There had to be a way out through the City. It seemed to be his only chance, since he knew he wouldn’t survive another exposed night on the sands. And experiencing the strength of yesterday’s sun reinforced the folly of a daytime crossing, even if he could find a way to cover himself and carry water with him.
She looked at him closely, and snorted cynically. “Don’t you think if there was a way out, I would have found it by now? We’re going to scavenge, or loot, or treasure-seek, whatever phrase suits your fancy. We need a new oven, since young men’s appetites are notorious, and I don’t think we can keep up with you otherwise. You’ll have to work extra hard to keep up in the fields, if you want to grow your share to eat.”
Aren tuned out most of what she said. They were going to the city, and he knew if there was a way of escape, he would find it. And the thought of scavenging sounded promising. Many things could be used as weapons. “Right, let’s go.” He walked past her, heading for the river.
“Not so fast, soldier.” She walked back to her own barracks, motioning him to follow. He waited in the doorway, peering into the room that he had spent his first night in. Rickety as it was, it was still better-built than his own. She must have put a lot of work into it, over a long time, in order to make it a useful protection against the nightwinds. Time, he supposed, was the one thing they had in abundance here.
She came out from her private room, bearing an armful of roughly woven linen cloth. “Here.” She began to wrap them around Aren, ignoring his protests. “They’re not sewn into any shape yet, but even so, they’ll protect you. A little.” He suddenly didn’t care for the blunt, acid way she spoke those words.
“I’m getting used to things here,” he shot back.
“Only because you’re in an area protected by water.” She slapped his hand as he tried to pull a length of fabric from his head. “Now, as we cross, dunk down and get thoroughly wet. It’ll help for a while, until you dry.”
When she finished, he felt like a parody of a nomadic Jaheen, with his flowing “robes” and makeshift turban, complete with hanging flap to pass over his face. Ailith, in contrast, wore little. Her head was bare, and a only a ragged-edged scrap of cloth covered her nose and mouth.
“Shouldn’t things be a little more even, here?” Aren shook a flap of cloth.
“Unlike you, I am used to it,” she replied shortly. “And I have ways of dealing with it. Now come on, we need to get moving.” Her eyes above the frayed cloth were tired and worried, and - hopeless? It was hard for him to tell, since she turned quickly and began walking to the river without waiting to see if he followed.
They stepped into the sluggishly flowing water, and she signaled him to dunk. The bottom was lower in one spot, and he knelt in it, submerging himself as best he could. He fought to stand up, swearing at the weight of his wet wraps. She was down and up quickly, more nimble in her lighter garments. She offered him her hand, but he ignored her offer and stood, grumpy and dripping, waiting for her. Annoyed, he pulled the cloth from his face as water from the cloth threatened to go up his nose with every breath.
Sweeping the wet hair from her forehead, Ailith shook water from her plait and proceeded up the far bank. Aren followed, but as soon as he left the water he stopped, stunned, completely unprepared for the stifling, crippling pressure of the magic radiating from the city. He felt as if he were suffocating, the air so thick it was like drowning in syrup. Ailith must have seen the panic rising in his face, for she walked back to him, her motions sluggish and labored.
“Keep your face covered.” She pulled the wet cloth back over his nose and mouth, her voice coming to him muffled and distorted. “Keep calm, move slowly, save as much of your energy as you can. When the pain gets to be too much, let me know, we can head back.”
Aren nodded, following her slowly. The same burning that he had felt from her when they first met was all about him now. He could feel it drifting into his lungs, searing his eyes, sifting deep into his bones. When he realized how far they were from the City, his spirit sank at how much pain and effort it would take to get there.
“Not far now. Keep behind me” Her words hung in the dense air as he blinked furiously against the distortion around him, focusing only on the back of the woman moving with patient slowness ahead of him. She began to draw away, and he hurried to keep up with her. It was easier if he kept directly behind her; she seemed to break the stillness as she moved, and it took a few moments for the disturbance of the air to settle again.
He couldn’t think what she meant by not far now, until the back ahead of him slowed and relaxed. He took another step toward her and felt his body lurch unexpectedly, like missing the last step on a staircase. She grabbed him before he could fall out again, the two of them steadying each other until they could relax and stand upright. He looked about him with dull surprise. There was a clear area around the two of them where the thickness had been pushed away. He was able to move and breathe freely, and the burning, though still present, was far less painful - nearly tolerable, in fact.
“Are you all right?” She looked at him curiously, taking his chin in her hand, pulling his head down and searching his eyes. The scrutiny made him uncomfortable, and he pulled away from her touch. His heart was racing, and he bent, lowering his head and placing his hands on his knees, gulping at the relatively clear, though still stagnant air around them. When he felt a little calmer, he straightened up. She was still staring at him. “Catch your breath. Get your strength back, then we’ll move on.”
He studied the little clearing they were in. If he squinted, he could just pick out the edges; a near-cylinder about as wide as he could spread his arms, and a scant inch taller than his head. Ailith, being a little shorter than him, had more clearance.
“Did you do this?” he asked. It was a crude nullification, but it seemed to be stable. “Where’s the anchor?”
She half-turned to show a pole stuck into the sand behind her, a scrap of cloth tied to the top. “Are you rested?” she asked. “Then let’s press on. Don’t forget to tell me when you’ve had enough. Or half of enough.” A smile ghosted across her face. “You need enough energy to get back, after all.”
He nodded, his strength coming back rapidly. It felt good to be doing something physical, it was the way he had always burned off doubt in the past. When a problem was plaguing him, he knew that the inevitable drills would be ordered, and he could get sweaty and tired and ignore his problems for a while. So for now, he put the problem of escape into the back of his head and continued to follow her, trying not to focus on the distorted, undulating image of the sands around him. If he paid too much attention to it, his eyes led his feet astray, and he stumbled. It was better if he let his feet do their own thing.
After about two hours, they had nearly reached the city wall and its main gate. They had paused in several rough “shelters”, each anchored with some scavenged item that must have come from the camp; mostly wood poles, but also worn clothing, rope, and even an old boot. The last twenty minutes of their walk toward the gate had been on what was once the main road, and through the blown sand he could feel the pavement under his feet. It made walking easier.
A few bleached, twisted skeletons of trees poked up through the sand on either side of them, the remnants of what must have once been a lovely tree-lined road. The last shelter before the gate was one of these gnarled relics, and Ailith leaned tiredly against it. “Better rest for a few minutes here.” She pulled off her backpack, hitting him with it in the confined space. “It’ll get harder on the other side of the walls.”
“Do you always do this alone?” He asked as he leaned against the other side of the sand-scoured trunk.
She looked at him from under lowered eyelids. “Who else is going to come with me? The old women?”
“What about Gervais?”
“Gervais has his own agenda,” she replied, obviously struggling to keep her voice neutral.
“And what’s yours?” he asked, suddenly curious.
“Oh,” she shrugged, he voice distant as she looked at the gate ahead of them. “To stay alive, mostly. Maybe if I’m lucky, I’ll be able to hold out until the balance of power shifts, and we’re liberated.”
“Why are you here?” The question slipped out before he could stop himself.
She met his eyes squarely, her expression suddenly remote and shuttered. “None of your business, soldier,” she snapped, and turned her back on him to put her pack back on. Without speaking further, she left the shelter, her back bent as she walked with inexorable purpose to the gate.
She did not speak to him again until they were standing in front of the enormous metal doors, one slightly ajar. “Be careful,” she warned and she turned sideways to slip through the narrow gap. “Don’t touch the metal.”
He regarded the doors warily, feeling the accumulated power that radiated from them. He followed, but being larger than her, he accidentally brushed against the edge of the door. Even through his clothing, the shock jolted him and he cried out, clutching at his chest.
“I told you to be careful,” she sighed as she grabbed his arm to keep him from falling back into the door again. “It was a challenge getting that open,” she added before she began to walk again.
When he felt like he could breathe, he hurried to catch up with her. The winds apparently did not cross the wall, for the sand was shallower here, only a light dusting. If the trees that had lined the main road from the gate had continued down either side, they had been completely obliterated, for no skeletons or stumps remained. There were lamp posts, however, set at regular intervals, and every fourth one anchored another shelter.
They pushed on in silence, Aren’s hopes to get away from her and escape through the City falling by the minute. He was young and fit, yet he was already worn out by the arduous effort needed to travel through this place. Ailith, though her back was still tense and upright, was obviously tiring fast. He scowled in frustration. It would be easy to overpower her in her weakened state, but to to what end, if there was no way to get out of here? He felt as if the noose was tightening around him as the reality of his imprisonment began to sink in further.
He caught up to Ailith as she waited for him in the next shelter. “Better get something to eat and drink here,” she announced as she sank to the ground, her back against the lamp post. This shelter was bigger than the others, and he was able to sit also, leaning against the other side of the concrete pedestal. He rubbed at the tight and hot skin on the exposed parts of his face. The skin beneath his clothes felt nearly as bad.
Ailith’s face looked raw and abraded as well as she took a couple of flatbreads from her pack and handed him one. It was as painful to eat as the first bread he had eaten upon his arrival here, even after only a few hours of exposure. He was too hungry to care, and wolfed it in four large bites. Only the water was still sweet and clear, but she allowed them each only a few swallows. “We’ll need it more on the way back.”
Aren looked around at the destroyed city. The lamp post they were resting against was at the corner of a major intersection, where the main entryway they were on ended to join with a cobbled road running at right angles to it. At least, he supposed it should have been a right angle, but the distortions around them skewed the angles, making him queasy if he studied it too closely.
On the other side of the main road stood the remains of what once had been a park. Anything living had long since been destroyed, with bare, melted sand where the grass had been, and no sign of what trees had undoubtedly been there. Twisted and ruined metal skeletons poked up from the bare dirt, remnants of playground equipment. The buildings that stretched down the main road to his left and right were similarly dilapidated, many with empty windows where the glazing had given way, the broken panes lying in shattered pieces underneath.
Most disturbing and oppressive was the unnatural silence that lay over the ruins. No sign of insects, or birds, or anything living at all broke the eerie deadness of the place. Even the wind was reluctant to move here, and the still, heavy air continued to hang oppressively over them.
All too soon, she waved him to stand, and led him across the street toward the ruined park, stopping in front of a large sign. Being metal, it radiated the same destructive magic the gates had, and he had to grit his teeth to approach close enough to see it. The area around them must have been the main tourist district, for the sign was a map of the surroundings, pointing out hostels, restaurants, shopping areas, and historical sites of interest, each little destination neatly indexed and labeled underneath.
Careful not to touch the sign, she pointed at an area on the far side of the park, further toward the center of town. The map indicated this was an industrial and artisanal area. “We’ll take the shortcut and pass over the promenade.” She turned to him and gave him a sharp look. “I don’t suppose you are a sensitive man by nature,” she stated, not exactly a question.
“Sensitive?” He moved his head quickly to look back at her, wishing he hadn’t as the thick atmosphere sloshed around him. “I’m a trained soldier, a member of a crack fighting team, and part of the Imperium’s elite fighting force.” He loomed over her, not threatening, merely forceful. He spoke with more honesty than he meant to when he added, “I had the sensitivity ripped from me long ago.”
She grunted, unimpressed. “Fine. But you may still want to look at your feet on the way over. It always upsets me to see it.” And with no other clarification, she led him to the beginning of an aerial promenade which ramped up gradually in front of them. It led over the park, supported by stone pillars and ornamented by filigreed metal scroll work. Before the city’s destruction, it would have afforded a lovely view of the park and the tourist districts around it. “Halfway, we’ll switch, and I’ll draft off of you.”
Aren kept close behind her to take advantage of her wake, his attention taken up with watching her back and trying to keep pace with her without running into her. At the top of the arch, she stopped and moved to the side. “Your turn.”
He nodded, and pushed past her to the front. He was surprised there wasn’t a shelter here. It would have been a good place, at the halfway mark. Now that his view of the promenade was unobstructed, the first thing to catch his eye was the crumbling stonework of the edges. The surface they were on looked solid enough, but the sides were weathered and eroded where chunks of stone had fallen away. Ahead of them, visible from the height they were at, was what had once been the city’s vibrant center. Tall mountains rose off to the left, and from them, traveling at a slight downward angle, a structure composed mostly of elegant arches drew a line to the center of the city.
But what was impossible to ignore were the glowing human silhouettes on the sides of the promenade. The light they gave off was dim, tickling on the edge of his sight, just as the lights of the nightwinds had been. The figures were contorted, some with arms thrown over their heads, others crouched as if shielding others with their bodies. The longer he stared at them, the more transfixed he became. They seemed to pulse and ripple as half-murmurs and accusatory whispers rose up to surround him. Unable to pinpoint where the voices were coming from, or what they were saying, he threw his hands over his ears, trying without success to tear his eyes from the grotesque vestiges of people etched into the walls.
“You are Sensitive, aren’t you?” Ailith muttered close to his ear, and Aren realized that he’d missed her meaning earlier. He felt rough cloth brush his face as Ailith pulled some of the linen wraps around his head down over his eyes. Unable to see the silhouettes, the whispers faded, along with his panic, though it took a few moments longer before his shaking stopped.
“Though perhaps I should leave you here at their mercy, given what your regime has done to them.” She spoke with an intensity he’d not heard from her before, and his panic returned. If she left him here, he would be at the mercy of the echoes and the madness. “People in the heart of the City had no chance to escape from the attack. They were destroyed instantly, and all that remains are the shadows that their bodies cast on the walls. They’re all over the City, but it’s worst here.”
He fought to keep his voice steady as he replied. “It wasn’t my fault. I wasn’t even in the Guard when this happened. I was only a boy.”
“True. But by joining them, you endorsed what they stand for.”
“I joined because I had to stay alive!” His entire body tensed with anger.
“You’re part Itavan, anyone from your tribe would have taken you in and cared for you.”
“But they didn’t! I starved in the streets of Orence after my grandmother died.” His voice grew louder as he argued with her, though it still fell flat in the heavy stillness. “A Tyrunian couple took me in and raised me. They’re my real parents.” His jaw clenched. “And where would I be if I had been raised Itavan? Dead in a ghetto? At least in in the service of the Imperium I get fed and clothed. And I’m alive.”
“What of the people you killed? Do they haunt your dreams?”
He started slightly, trying to hide the unconscious jerk of his shoulders. “I ignore them. I’m not responsible. I’m a soldier. I was only following orders.”
There was a long, heavy silence, in which not even the sound of their breathing could be heard. “And you think that absolves you from your actions.”
“Yes.”
Another pause. He stood in his linen shroud, ears straining for any hint of what she was doing behind him. He was at her mercy now. He knew he would be unable to make it back to camp, or even off the promenade, without going mad.
At last, firm hands on his shoulders urged him forward She walked behind him, using him to break the intensity around them, guiding him with pressure on his shoulders. The slope beneath his feet began to lead downward, and he knew they were nearly to the other side.
When he felt dirt under his shoes again, she released him and pulled the cloth from his eyes. “The dead are everywhere. You may wish to take care.” She urged him forward again with a push between his shoulder blades. “You’re still in the lead. Every fourth lamp post.” He began walking again, Ailith so close behind him that she clipped his heels a few times. “Sorry,” she mumbled after the third time, but she did not back off.
They rested briefly at every shelter, though she seemed eager to press on as quickly as possible. “We don’t have much time. There are only so many hours in the day.” They were heading toward the center of town, where the distorted harshness of the weapon’s aftermath was increasing. The atmosphere around them grew thicker, and the air was hotter and more painful to breathe.
After several blocks of labored effort, she pointed to a side street on their left. “There are no shelters. So wait here.” She left him to cross the street, the folds of her linen wrap swirling about her in slow motion. He watched as she walked down the line of posts paralleling the street, selected one, and knelt beside it. At first, he could not make out what she was doing, for she appeared to be doing nothing but resting quietly, arms wrapped around the metal pole in what must have been a painful embrace.
Disregarding her order to remain where he was, he crossed the street as well, pausing next to the post before hers. She was silent, eyes closed and head bowed. He saw that she was nullifying - consuming in a way - the residue around her. She was reaching out with one arm, the other holding tight to the post, drawing in the miasma where it slowly vanished. Once it was clear to her arm’s length, she slowly began to rotate around the post, clearing a circle with it as the anchor. Then she rose slowly, muttering and smoothing the invisible walls with her hand. Her face, when he was able to see it, was gray and slick with pink-tinged sweat and tears.
“I told you to stay over there.” She gasped at last when the little clearing was complete, sagging to the ground to rest with her back against the metal pole. He wondered how she was able to endure the touch of the metal, until he came closer and felt the painful heat coming from her, as well. Obviously, the addition of pain from a pole was little compared to what she was feeling now from having absorbed the volume of the shelter she had just created.
He entered the new shelter. “Did you make all of these?” She looked so drained that he doubted that she could make more than one per trip, and he had seen the network of them trailing off and following streets they had passed as they walked.
“Who else?” she retorted, holding up an arm. “Help me up.” He took her arm and pulled her to her feet. “Tinsmith’s shop,” she said without further elaboration, and left the shelter to enter through the shattered glass door.
Aren followed and glanced around the destroyed shop, looking quickly away from the luminescent silhouettes before the whispers could start again. “Come here, pack mule.” Ailith’s voice was muffled and dim in the close air of the shop. She quickly stacked several unworked sheets of tin, handling them carefully with covered hands. Wrapping them in extra linen, she fashioned a rough harness from the rope and held it up. “Carry these.”
“You’re very good at ordering me around,” he snapped, nevertheless coming closer and turning his back.
“Let me know if it’s too much for you,” she retorted. “We can always leave it partway and come back for it later.” He ignored her, wriggling his back under the discomfort of the metal.
Ailith, meanwhile, loaded tools into her pack, and spent the next several minutes rifling through drawers and cupboards. She found some old-fashioned dip pens and a couple of bottles of ink that sloshed when she shook them, and they went into the pack as well. She opened the cash register. “Looks like the owner was doing a good business. Too bad this currency isn’t accepted in the Imperium anymore.”
She slammed the cash drawer closed and exited the shop without looking to see if Aren was behind her. He followed awkwardly, the sheets of tin on his back making him clumsy. He caught up to her in the new shelter. “That’s all for now, I think,” she said. “I had wanted to go into the houses, and look for valuables. But another time, perhaps. I’m just too tired.”
She looked up into the hazy sky. The sun was past its zenith, and she shook her head. “We took longer than I had planned on. Come on. It’ll be a push to get back before sundown. And we really don’t want to be out at night.”
The trip back was as hellish as the journey in. Ailith drove him mercilessly, and once more pushed him in front of her, blindfolded and stumbling, over the promenade. To get past the gates, Aren slipped through after she untied the metal from his back and passed it through to him, remounting it after she had come though herself.
The sun was low in the sky as they approached the shelters on the open sands outside the city. Their only relief was that it grew easier to move the further they got from the city, though the heavy, thick breezes that began to sluggishly blow caught the metal sheets like a sail, making him stagger drunkenly.
“Almost there.” Ailith was leading now, and he followed closely, paying scant attention to where he was going until her back disappeared, and they both fell headlong into the shock of the river. She remained submerged for several seconds, until he began to wonder if she were ever going to rise. Just as he was about to grab at her collar, she brought her head up, gasping for air, then began to untie the sheets from his back.
Once free of the weight, he gratefully submerged himself, and rose to see her pushing the tin sheets under the water, weighting down the glowing metal with stones to keep it from being swept away by the water. In the relative heaven of the river, he could feel how much fallout they had absorbed.
Ailith was suffering terribly, her lips drawn back in a grimace of pain, clutching at herself and holding back sobs as she began to move downriver from him. “Get back to your barracks before the winds start. You may want to come back to the river tomorrow. Oh, and tell the old man that we got his tin.”
Dripping, Aren hauled himself out of the river, his lip curling in disgust at the downriver sounds of weeping and vomiting - and his nose told him worse. Either the river was drawing out what she had taken in to make the shelter earlier, or she was deliberately releasing it where it would do no harm.
He was unprepared to see Marit on the other side of the dune ridge. In his state of heightened awareness, his nerves tingling and on edge, he could feel how exposed and unprotected she was, how vulnerable she was to the waves of shattered magic coming from him. She held her ground, even when he deliberately moved a step closer to her, feeling petty satisfaction at the flicker of discomfort in her eyes.
“Ailith’s still in the river,” he said unnecessarily as the uncensored sounds of physical illness were plainly audible.
“Did you get everything you needed?” Marit asked, her eyes distant, as if she were trying to peer through the sand to the river.
“I don’t know. Tin, and tools. She said we needed to get valuables, but she was too tired.”
“Ah.” Marit was silent, lost in thought, then added to herself, “I think we have enough for now, at any rate.” At last she looked at him directly, and he squirmed uncomfortably. “Thank you for going with her. I…We, that is, all worry when she goes out alone. Although I suspect you might have left her behind, had there been any place to go…”
“Well,” he ground out. “Why shouldn’t I want to escape? Doesn’t everybody?”
“Indeed.” She turned partly away from him in a gesture of dismissal, and with a little huff he slogged back through the sand to the completely inadequate shelter of his decrepit barracks.
Continue to Part III