"Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run"
Title: Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run
Author: Rissy James
Characters: Cain/DG, Glitch, Raw, Tutor (includes other major and minor characters)
Rating: 14+ (subject to change)
Summary: The fade to black was merely the blink of an eye. Respite for only seconds. After all, the road is long.
Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run
When Last We Met: After weeks of wander and wonder, the group finally stumbles upon a palace gone to ruin at the southernmost tip of the Outer Zone. Here, DG still holds out hope that she will find a way to save her mother, and Cain only hopes he can hold them all together before the end.
Chapter Twenty Six: Shatter Stone
Once upon a time - now, how did that go again? Something about a girl, and something about an evil witch. Fairytales, long ago left behind. Cain had only barest memories of the stories spun for him and his baby sister, too many annuals past when he knew not who he would grow up to be, nor how hard and dangerous the road was yet to become for him. He was safe when those tales had reached his ears. Now, trying to remember it all, it did nothing but make him homesick for a place that no longer existed, made him yearn for people he'd never see again.
Adora had told these children's stories to their son. She'd told it differently. The shoes had been red, the ending prettier, all tied up in a neat little bow. She'd always favoured the happy endings. Would that she'd been so favoured.
Lies, all of it. Myth and history. History is written by the victors. History and myth. Myths are written by the children of the children of those who remember the last living memory. Lies, all of it.
South he'd come, surrounded by those who had claimed him needed, wanted. South, chased by shadows of insurgence, to keep the tenuous peace, to shelter DG from those who might use her to further their cause. A negligible threat, no true lie, but a few grains of truth spread thin to cover the fears of a dying woman. Did Lavender dream, safe and secure, under her threadbare delusions?
As the shadow looming on their horizon grew ever closer, ever larger, he had to wonder if he'd done the right thing.
There was no doubting the resolve of the others, not once their eyes made out the jagged silhouette on the horizon, a bleeding scar at the edge of the world. The suns rose to their left, the stars washed out by the greater light. Their nightly guides disappeared one by one, not even the brightest a match for the far-reaching rays of dawn. No matter, the way was clear to them now; as he watched the ruins seem to grow out of the ground, he knew there was no turning away. For DG, he knew she'd never considered it, though the nagging doubt had plagued her, she had never once faltered, not truly. For himself, well... no reason to start questioning it now.
Slowly, both suns climbed the cloudless sky. Cain watched as the colours of the plain made themselves known to him; his imagination had had it all wrong. There were no wildflowers, no blossoming spring. The monotony of the flat, dull green sea spreading out around him, barely distinguishable from the grey pallor of pre-dawn. Though he could sense the eagerness of the others - DG and Glitch especially - he didn't push their pace. He knew deep inside there was no hurrying. An hour wouldn't make a difference, not now, not so close.
Only a half-mile off, he stopped them. DG was pale as he'd ever seen her, Glitch worrying at his bottom lip so much that it'd turned red; Raw seemed uncomfortable, and Toto was nowhere to be seen, though the wind carried the sound of his barks right to them, ever scouting ahead.
The ground was on a downward slope so gentle it was barely noticeable, but it gave them a decent view of where they were heading toward. Through the past fortnight, he'd wanted to expect nothing but empty plain, and the fabled drop to the restless sands below, but as the days had come up short and the inevitable was suddenly staring him down, he'd known it was a fool's hope. When the first shadow of structure had appeared on the horizon, uncharted, almost a week past the last outpost of the Realm of the Unwanted, something in him had not bothered even feign surprise.
Perhaps in its beauty, it might have been comparable to the majesty of Finaqua, but this was an unkind land, and even from their distance, the crumble and collapse was visible. A great, ruinous palace nested within a walled courtyard, set alone against an empty, pale pink sky, there at the ends of the O.Z. Smaller than the lake palace, with no hint of colour but for what the sunsrise offered. A breached perimeter wall, a northeast corner giving way. What was left to greet him, he held no real expectation. A shell of greatness, turning to dust.
"Now's not the time to be losin' sight of things," he warned his companions. Not a one of them looked at him. Their eyes were drawn to those white walls made orange by the suns. He found he couldn't bear to look at them for cowardice - or perhaps that was just letting himself off easy. What plagued him, he couldn't rightly say. Eager to deflect his thoughts from himself, he looked DG square in the eye. "No running off now."
DG's eyebrows raised ever so slightly. Who, me?
He grit his teeth, and turned away from her innocent little smile. Even now, she tried him. He supposed he ought take that as a good thing.
It wasn't so very much later that they were riding again, the decline making the going all the easier. Behind them, the silvery trail of trampled grass showed just how straight their way had been. By that path they'd made, they would return. How soon, he didn't know, and that troubled him most of all.
It was on this final stretch that Cain got his first good look at the deteriorating husk of a once great palace. It was no fortress, no stronghold. The outer walls measured twelve-feet high by his best estimation, covered in tangled masses of flowering ivy. The single entry point - as far as he could see - was a great archway. There was no gate that could be seen, only that open, inviting arch. He swallowed back his common sense, and his pride, and made straight for it. They'd come this far. No use tiptoeing around the obvious.
Closer still, he could see into the courtyard, though there wasn't much to tell of. A collapsed fountain, rotting wood, and the same explosive overgrowth of flora that climbed the outer walls. Finally, a stone's throw away, he pulled to a stop and dismounted once again. The others were slow in following suit, all eyes soaking in the sight before them, a palace smaller than Finaqua, so fragile it seemed a good wind would topple her off the cliff to the restless sands below.
Just beyond the arch, they took care of their horses. Cain just didn't feel right taking them into that courtyard. With no place to tether them, the only option left to them was to let them wander and graze. He didn't unburden them, though the poor beasts deserved the respite. He had no worry they'd go too far.
The damage was worse up close; the greyish-white plaster was crumbling from the walls, showing red wounds of bare brick underneath. Everywhere, sections of wall had cracked and fallen, the ground littered with chips of mortar and fragments of weathered brick.
This place was dead, forgotten by men; only the suns and wind remembered, and only in their relentless pursuit to return each beam and brick to the earth. Ashes and dust. Gods, for DG's sake he hoped there was someone, something here, even if in the end the answer was not what she'd been seeking, thank you kindly all the same.
As if reading his thoughts, which he wasn't wholly certain was beyond her realm of ability, DG spoke up. "I don't want to go in there alone."
"We won't let you," Glitch reassured her - at least, that seemed to be his intent, but in the next moment, he was the one looking for reassurance. "Right, Cain?"
Cain bit back a growl, and was slow to answer. "We've come this far, I don't see what another few feet is gonna hurt."
The small amount of relief in DG's eyes was enough to reinforce the decision, and he glanced at each of his companions in turn. He wanted nothing more than to turn tail and get them all out of there, Lavender and the Zone be damned. Only, however much it pained him to admit, none would follow him. Their purpose was here, and that was the cold, dark reality of his heart.
He looked last at DG, and she offered him some semblance of a smile. He nodded at her, the barest decline of his chin, but it was enough for her. Truer became her smile, and then she turned away from him, and walked through the archway into the shattered courtyard. Raw followed first, and then Glitch. The damn mutt came tearing out of the long grass and raced after them. With a sigh, Cain reached down to his side and unbuttoned his holster - and then followed them within.
In the shadows of early morning, the courtyard was cold. It would be hours yet before the suns peeked over the high walls to warm the stones under his feet. Once, the paved yard might have been a sight to behold, the stones running outward from the central fountain in an array of greys, pinks, and blues. Now, there was no order, no meaning, just a jumble of broken slabs, overturned and half-covered in spiny, colourless lichen. The fountain was cracked, it's carved figures tumbled into the basin, features as crumbled as the rest of this gods-forsaken place. The water had long since drained away, leaving behind nothing but snarls of decaying reeds.
Beyond the fountain, the great house itself loomed, a pale reminder of a different time. There was no whimsy here, no prosperity. The two pillars that flanked the massive doors were cylindrical and draped in more choking ivy. The doors were naked wood, stained a deep red from the paint that had long since flaked away, heavy wrought-iron handles going to rust. The high windows overlooking the courtyard were all empty of glass, long rectangles of gaping darkness.
Once the eerie lull had passed, DG and Glitch broke off from the group to explore the courtyard. The air was so still that Cain could hear the brittle grass between paving stones crackle beneath the weight of their steps. DG went straight for the fountain, hands on the edge of the basin to lean in and examine the fragmented statue at the centre. Glitch wandered to a section of the crumbling wall, hunkered down and picked something up out of the rubble. He dusted it off, blew on it, then smiled. This he did twice more, and never once did Cain get a good look at whatever debris was so fascinating before it was pocketed away.
"It must have been so pretty here," DG said in a slow, sad voice.
"Still is," Raw said, lifting his face to the expanse of sky gradually fading to pale blue.
Cain looked up as well, but his gaze lingered on the great house; it filled his mind and his focus. The windows on ground level were shuttered and barred; there were deep cracks in the planks that had weathered silver over the annuals. The door looked solid, and he didn't fancy the idea of breaking it down - but then it occurred to him that doors had a way of opening themselves for the girl, and he put the worry out of his head.
"What do you think?" he asked her. From the beginning of this entire mess, Tutor had always proclaimed that DG would lead the way as she had on her search for the emerald, that she had a certain knowing of the world in a way that none of them would ever understand. But now, it didn't seem DG had the slightest idea what she was doing or what she expected to happen. When she shrugged her shoulders, the tension in her was clear.
"Should we knock?" Glitch asked, joining her at the fountain, where she seemed skittish to make a decision.
"No," DG said. "Or, maybe. I don't know. I'm kind of beyond being polite at this point."
Cain watched her carefully. "But are you prepared if you end up causin' some trouble?"
She took a deep breath, and nodded. "Yeah, I am." And with no further compunction, she marched toward the door. Toto chased after her, jumping up at the door and scratching furiously at the wood even before she had touched upon the rusted handle. Cain could hear the scrape of the metal even from across the courtyard, the sound grating through him right to his bones. It sent his blood to quickening, and his feet followed as she pushed the door open and stood on the threshold, staring into the gloom within. Even the dog hesitated at her feet, whimpering.
DG closed her eyes, and again took a breath that shook her. "I really hope this wasn't about payback, Az." She stepped through the doorway.
Cain was last to follow her through. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, the murky shadows that filled the corners began to dissipate, and he found he was standing in a ruined, circular hall. The others were already spreading out, their feet leaving streaks in the layered drifts of silt on the floor. Along the south wall, five tall windows tipped with pointed arches faced out to the sandsea. Time out of mind, this place had been exposed to the elements, filled with the odour of age and decay.
"Hello!"
DG's voice bounced off the high, vaulted ceiling. The echo sent his eyes upward, landing on the stone balcony that circled the entire upper level of the hall, following through the haze of stirred dust and weak light to the curved staircases that flanked the row of arched windows at the far end.
"Kiddo, I don't think you need to shout." Though truth be told, he'd prefer anything to the silence that fell once the chorus of voices had died away. Too still, much too still in this untouched place for his liking.
"It doesn't look like there's anyone to hear us, Cain," Glitch said, his eyes on the floor. Casually, he swept a foot across the sand that carpeted the floor. Underneath, the glossy mosaic tiles refracted even the faint light, gleaming pure white and blood red. The sense of the layout was lost beneath the grit. "It's hard to tell," his headcased friend continued, "but I think this architecture is pre-Pastorian."
DG, kneeling down, gave the floor a swipe with her hand, showing more crimson tiles. "And that means what?"
"It means I don't think I can tell you how old this place is. There are no records that pre-date the Pastorian dynasty."
There was a ghost of a smile on DG's lips as she stood, brushing her hands against her already dirty slacks. "Then I guess we really are in the right place."
Raw, coming forward from the door only mere inches, nodded. Cain was the only one who noticed. "You always know the way."
DG turned around, surprised the Viewer had spoken. Her smile was shy. "I guess I do." She glanced up and around, but Cain had to wonder what she was actually seeing. Did she just see the balcony, or did she see the crumbling columns barely supporting it? Did she see the debris on the floor, or just the tile underneath? He wondered if rekindled hope coloured her perspective - and if he was any better off with his bleak, grey outlook.
When her gaze finally settled on him, she found him watching her. There was nothing but resolution on her face, and that eased his mind, and he was too glad for it to be annoyed with himself just then.
"I guess we should look around," she said. "We stick together."
Glitch gave a nervous chuckle, the closest thing to a real laugh Cain had heard in too long. "Sounds like a plan."
Together, they walked the length of the hall, uncovering more of the tiles beneath their feet as they went. He could almost swear that Glitch and DG were dragging their feet on purpose, just to see more glimpses of red and white. The tall lancet windows gave a view of nothing but blue sky. DG chose the staircase to the left, and as they climbed to the balcony, they could see out of the windows the true endlessness of the sandsea. As clear as the morning was, there was no shadow on the distant horizon. There was a world beyond the O.Z. but even Bur'zae was too far for the naked eye to see. So much for what they say.
The balcony was mostly clear of the grit below; the scrape of sand beneath him was replaced by the familiar, gentle press of his boots on smooth stone. His heartache for Central City overwhelmed him. He'd never thought to miss that city of broken dreams, let alone so much. It near stopped him in his tracks. Only Raw gave a curious glance in his directions, the others blissfully distracted. He reminded himself he had a home to get back to, somewhere far from the cobblestone streets of Central, but for the first time, he found his heart just wasn't convinced.
Damn me, he thought with an upward glance, damn me before I damn myself.
Without remorse, he immersed himself in the task at hand. It was the only way.
There were no halls, only a series of marble archways that led into rooms sectioned off by walls of iron latticework. Slowly, they worked their way around the circular balcony toward the north wall, where four floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the courtyard, two near the east corner and two near the west. The large expanse of wall between was mottled with decay, visible even at the opposite end of the hall.
For his part, Cain did little more than peek into each room; he waited on the balcony while the others explored. What he saw did not impress him, instead only reinforcing the feeling in his gut that they were wasting their time. Each room was empty of furniture, the floors coated with mouldering plaster and centuries worth of dust and sand. In more than one room, the roof had collapsed, littering the floor with broken clay roof tiles; splintered beams leaned at drunken angles against the walls. These rooms along the east wall were caught in the radiance of the morning suns, light spilling in the narrow, glassless windows. Even on the balcony, out in the vast hall, the light was growing brighter, but it still did nothing to cast off the dismal pallor of the place.
Eventually, the balcony curved around to the front of the great house where there were no rooms, only an empty wall framed to left and right with windows. That spark in DG's eyes had begun to dim, though her face piqued with interest as they approached the north wall. As with the rest of the walls, the plaster was grey with annuals of grime, but soon his eyes began to make out veins of discolouration underneath the thick dust. What had, from afar, seemed only to be mould damage, was in fact -
"There's a fresco under here," DG said, her hand hesitating a mere inch away from touching the wall. Her fingertips twitched. Her eyes travelled up to the ceiling, and she slowly backed up to the balustrade; Cain was relieved she had the common sense not to put her weight on it.
"A what?" he asked, looking up at the wall, though he figured he knew.
"It's a mural, painted on plaster, like this," she said, nodding toward the wall. "There's so much gunk on this wall, it's almost impossible to tell it's there."
"No one touch it," Glitch said, though Cain didn't see how any one of them would've had that thought; maybe Glitch was really reminding himself. "Even the slightest pressure could cause it to flake." He reversed until he was standing next to DG; when his backside touched the rail, he jumped a little, just an inch of so away. "It's amazingly well-preserved, isn't it?" he said, giving DG a conferring look. "The rest of this place is falling apart."
DG tore her eyes away, shaking her head. To Cain, it was almost as if she were berating herself for becoming distracted. Surely enough -
"We need to check the rest of this place. Now." She marched off, and he was first behind her.
West mirrored east. A long row of arches, empty rooms, walls of rusted iron lattice. These rooms were dark, or rather, darker than those on the opposite side favoured by the morning suns. Cooler, too, though maybe the shiver that was working its way up his spine had more to do with the inevitability he could see barrelling towards them, like a black beast of a steam train and they were all caught on the tracks. Past the point of running. At the end of the world.
Cain sighed to himself, emptying his lungs of breath before he drew another. His calm came slow, but it did come. His eyes went down over the balcony, homing in on the mutt as he nosed his way around below. The sight cinched his throat and he forced himself to look elsewhere; he'd do his best to help DG and Glitch face their reality when this was all said and done, but if the old man thought he was getting out of this without getting his hands dirty - by way of not having any, as it were -
"There's no one here."
Cain was jolted out of his thoughts not by the words, but by the break in her voice, that waver of abject disappointment. He looked up to see she'd passed him, gone on to the rooms closest to the end of the hall, where the twenty-foot-high arched windows gave him more than enough light to see clear into her eyes and know her heart wasn't breaking just yet. She might see, but she didn't believe. It would come. For that moment, all he could do was concede with a nod. She was right. The place was empty.
Author's Note: Hang in there. You guys are awesome. Such patience ought be rewarded. *hearts*
Table Of Contents
One - Two - Three - Four - Five
Six - Seven - Eight - Nine - Ten
Eleven - Twelve - Thirteen - Fourteen - Fifteen
Sixteen - Seventeen - Eighteen - Nineteen - Twenty
Twenty One - Twenty Two - Twenty Three - Twenty Four - Twenty Five
Twenty Six - Twenty Seven - Twenty Eight - Twenty Nine - Thirty
Thirty One - Thirty Two - Thirty Three - Thirty Four - Thirty Five
Thirty Six - Thirty Seven - Thirty Eight - Thirty Nine - Forty
Author: Rissy James
Characters: Cain/DG, Glitch, Raw, Tutor (includes other major and minor characters)
Rating: 14+ (subject to change)
Summary: The fade to black was merely the blink of an eye. Respite for only seconds. After all, the road is long.
Only Cowards Stay While Traitors Run
When Last We Met: After weeks of wander and wonder, the group finally stumbles upon a palace gone to ruin at the southernmost tip of the Outer Zone. Here, DG still holds out hope that she will find a way to save her mother, and Cain only hopes he can hold them all together before the end.
Chapter Twenty Six: Shatter Stone
Once upon a time - now, how did that go again? Something about a girl, and something about an evil witch. Fairytales, long ago left behind. Cain had only barest memories of the stories spun for him and his baby sister, too many annuals past when he knew not who he would grow up to be, nor how hard and dangerous the road was yet to become for him. He was safe when those tales had reached his ears. Now, trying to remember it all, it did nothing but make him homesick for a place that no longer existed, made him yearn for people he'd never see again.
Adora had told these children's stories to their son. She'd told it differently. The shoes had been red, the ending prettier, all tied up in a neat little bow. She'd always favoured the happy endings. Would that she'd been so favoured.
Lies, all of it. Myth and history. History is written by the victors. History and myth. Myths are written by the children of the children of those who remember the last living memory. Lies, all of it.
South he'd come, surrounded by those who had claimed him needed, wanted. South, chased by shadows of insurgence, to keep the tenuous peace, to shelter DG from those who might use her to further their cause. A negligible threat, no true lie, but a few grains of truth spread thin to cover the fears of a dying woman. Did Lavender dream, safe and secure, under her threadbare delusions?
As the shadow looming on their horizon grew ever closer, ever larger, he had to wonder if he'd done the right thing.
There was no doubting the resolve of the others, not once their eyes made out the jagged silhouette on the horizon, a bleeding scar at the edge of the world. The suns rose to their left, the stars washed out by the greater light. Their nightly guides disappeared one by one, not even the brightest a match for the far-reaching rays of dawn. No matter, the way was clear to them now; as he watched the ruins seem to grow out of the ground, he knew there was no turning away. For DG, he knew she'd never considered it, though the nagging doubt had plagued her, she had never once faltered, not truly. For himself, well... no reason to start questioning it now.
Slowly, both suns climbed the cloudless sky. Cain watched as the colours of the plain made themselves known to him; his imagination had had it all wrong. There were no wildflowers, no blossoming spring. The monotony of the flat, dull green sea spreading out around him, barely distinguishable from the grey pallor of pre-dawn. Though he could sense the eagerness of the others - DG and Glitch especially - he didn't push their pace. He knew deep inside there was no hurrying. An hour wouldn't make a difference, not now, not so close.
Only a half-mile off, he stopped them. DG was pale as he'd ever seen her, Glitch worrying at his bottom lip so much that it'd turned red; Raw seemed uncomfortable, and Toto was nowhere to be seen, though the wind carried the sound of his barks right to them, ever scouting ahead.
The ground was on a downward slope so gentle it was barely noticeable, but it gave them a decent view of where they were heading toward. Through the past fortnight, he'd wanted to expect nothing but empty plain, and the fabled drop to the restless sands below, but as the days had come up short and the inevitable was suddenly staring him down, he'd known it was a fool's hope. When the first shadow of structure had appeared on the horizon, uncharted, almost a week past the last outpost of the Realm of the Unwanted, something in him had not bothered even feign surprise.
Perhaps in its beauty, it might have been comparable to the majesty of Finaqua, but this was an unkind land, and even from their distance, the crumble and collapse was visible. A great, ruinous palace nested within a walled courtyard, set alone against an empty, pale pink sky, there at the ends of the O.Z. Smaller than the lake palace, with no hint of colour but for what the sunsrise offered. A breached perimeter wall, a northeast corner giving way. What was left to greet him, he held no real expectation. A shell of greatness, turning to dust.
"Now's not the time to be losin' sight of things," he warned his companions. Not a one of them looked at him. Their eyes were drawn to those white walls made orange by the suns. He found he couldn't bear to look at them for cowardice - or perhaps that was just letting himself off easy. What plagued him, he couldn't rightly say. Eager to deflect his thoughts from himself, he looked DG square in the eye. "No running off now."
DG's eyebrows raised ever so slightly. Who, me?
He grit his teeth, and turned away from her innocent little smile. Even now, she tried him. He supposed he ought take that as a good thing.
It wasn't so very much later that they were riding again, the decline making the going all the easier. Behind them, the silvery trail of trampled grass showed just how straight their way had been. By that path they'd made, they would return. How soon, he didn't know, and that troubled him most of all.
It was on this final stretch that Cain got his first good look at the deteriorating husk of a once great palace. It was no fortress, no stronghold. The outer walls measured twelve-feet high by his best estimation, covered in tangled masses of flowering ivy. The single entry point - as far as he could see - was a great archway. There was no gate that could be seen, only that open, inviting arch. He swallowed back his common sense, and his pride, and made straight for it. They'd come this far. No use tiptoeing around the obvious.
Closer still, he could see into the courtyard, though there wasn't much to tell of. A collapsed fountain, rotting wood, and the same explosive overgrowth of flora that climbed the outer walls. Finally, a stone's throw away, he pulled to a stop and dismounted once again. The others were slow in following suit, all eyes soaking in the sight before them, a palace smaller than Finaqua, so fragile it seemed a good wind would topple her off the cliff to the restless sands below.
Just beyond the arch, they took care of their horses. Cain just didn't feel right taking them into that courtyard. With no place to tether them, the only option left to them was to let them wander and graze. He didn't unburden them, though the poor beasts deserved the respite. He had no worry they'd go too far.
The damage was worse up close; the greyish-white plaster was crumbling from the walls, showing red wounds of bare brick underneath. Everywhere, sections of wall had cracked and fallen, the ground littered with chips of mortar and fragments of weathered brick.
This place was dead, forgotten by men; only the suns and wind remembered, and only in their relentless pursuit to return each beam and brick to the earth. Ashes and dust. Gods, for DG's sake he hoped there was someone, something here, even if in the end the answer was not what she'd been seeking, thank you kindly all the same.
As if reading his thoughts, which he wasn't wholly certain was beyond her realm of ability, DG spoke up. "I don't want to go in there alone."
"We won't let you," Glitch reassured her - at least, that seemed to be his intent, but in the next moment, he was the one looking for reassurance. "Right, Cain?"
Cain bit back a growl, and was slow to answer. "We've come this far, I don't see what another few feet is gonna hurt."
The small amount of relief in DG's eyes was enough to reinforce the decision, and he glanced at each of his companions in turn. He wanted nothing more than to turn tail and get them all out of there, Lavender and the Zone be damned. Only, however much it pained him to admit, none would follow him. Their purpose was here, and that was the cold, dark reality of his heart.
He looked last at DG, and she offered him some semblance of a smile. He nodded at her, the barest decline of his chin, but it was enough for her. Truer became her smile, and then she turned away from him, and walked through the archway into the shattered courtyard. Raw followed first, and then Glitch. The damn mutt came tearing out of the long grass and raced after them. With a sigh, Cain reached down to his side and unbuttoned his holster - and then followed them within.
In the shadows of early morning, the courtyard was cold. It would be hours yet before the suns peeked over the high walls to warm the stones under his feet. Once, the paved yard might have been a sight to behold, the stones running outward from the central fountain in an array of greys, pinks, and blues. Now, there was no order, no meaning, just a jumble of broken slabs, overturned and half-covered in spiny, colourless lichen. The fountain was cracked, it's carved figures tumbled into the basin, features as crumbled as the rest of this gods-forsaken place. The water had long since drained away, leaving behind nothing but snarls of decaying reeds.
Beyond the fountain, the great house itself loomed, a pale reminder of a different time. There was no whimsy here, no prosperity. The two pillars that flanked the massive doors were cylindrical and draped in more choking ivy. The doors were naked wood, stained a deep red from the paint that had long since flaked away, heavy wrought-iron handles going to rust. The high windows overlooking the courtyard were all empty of glass, long rectangles of gaping darkness.
Once the eerie lull had passed, DG and Glitch broke off from the group to explore the courtyard. The air was so still that Cain could hear the brittle grass between paving stones crackle beneath the weight of their steps. DG went straight for the fountain, hands on the edge of the basin to lean in and examine the fragmented statue at the centre. Glitch wandered to a section of the crumbling wall, hunkered down and picked something up out of the rubble. He dusted it off, blew on it, then smiled. This he did twice more, and never once did Cain get a good look at whatever debris was so fascinating before it was pocketed away.
"It must have been so pretty here," DG said in a slow, sad voice.
"Still is," Raw said, lifting his face to the expanse of sky gradually fading to pale blue.
Cain looked up as well, but his gaze lingered on the great house; it filled his mind and his focus. The windows on ground level were shuttered and barred; there were deep cracks in the planks that had weathered silver over the annuals. The door looked solid, and he didn't fancy the idea of breaking it down - but then it occurred to him that doors had a way of opening themselves for the girl, and he put the worry out of his head.
"What do you think?" he asked her. From the beginning of this entire mess, Tutor had always proclaimed that DG would lead the way as she had on her search for the emerald, that she had a certain knowing of the world in a way that none of them would ever understand. But now, it didn't seem DG had the slightest idea what she was doing or what she expected to happen. When she shrugged her shoulders, the tension in her was clear.
"Should we knock?" Glitch asked, joining her at the fountain, where she seemed skittish to make a decision.
"No," DG said. "Or, maybe. I don't know. I'm kind of beyond being polite at this point."
Cain watched her carefully. "But are you prepared if you end up causin' some trouble?"
She took a deep breath, and nodded. "Yeah, I am." And with no further compunction, she marched toward the door. Toto chased after her, jumping up at the door and scratching furiously at the wood even before she had touched upon the rusted handle. Cain could hear the scrape of the metal even from across the courtyard, the sound grating through him right to his bones. It sent his blood to quickening, and his feet followed as she pushed the door open and stood on the threshold, staring into the gloom within. Even the dog hesitated at her feet, whimpering.
DG closed her eyes, and again took a breath that shook her. "I really hope this wasn't about payback, Az." She stepped through the doorway.
Cain was last to follow her through. As his eyes adjusted to the dimness, the murky shadows that filled the corners began to dissipate, and he found he was standing in a ruined, circular hall. The others were already spreading out, their feet leaving streaks in the layered drifts of silt on the floor. Along the south wall, five tall windows tipped with pointed arches faced out to the sandsea. Time out of mind, this place had been exposed to the elements, filled with the odour of age and decay.
"Hello!"
DG's voice bounced off the high, vaulted ceiling. The echo sent his eyes upward, landing on the stone balcony that circled the entire upper level of the hall, following through the haze of stirred dust and weak light to the curved staircases that flanked the row of arched windows at the far end.
"Kiddo, I don't think you need to shout." Though truth be told, he'd prefer anything to the silence that fell once the chorus of voices had died away. Too still, much too still in this untouched place for his liking.
"It doesn't look like there's anyone to hear us, Cain," Glitch said, his eyes on the floor. Casually, he swept a foot across the sand that carpeted the floor. Underneath, the glossy mosaic tiles refracted even the faint light, gleaming pure white and blood red. The sense of the layout was lost beneath the grit. "It's hard to tell," his headcased friend continued, "but I think this architecture is pre-Pastorian."
DG, kneeling down, gave the floor a swipe with her hand, showing more crimson tiles. "And that means what?"
"It means I don't think I can tell you how old this place is. There are no records that pre-date the Pastorian dynasty."
There was a ghost of a smile on DG's lips as she stood, brushing her hands against her already dirty slacks. "Then I guess we really are in the right place."
Raw, coming forward from the door only mere inches, nodded. Cain was the only one who noticed. "You always know the way."
DG turned around, surprised the Viewer had spoken. Her smile was shy. "I guess I do." She glanced up and around, but Cain had to wonder what she was actually seeing. Did she just see the balcony, or did she see the crumbling columns barely supporting it? Did she see the debris on the floor, or just the tile underneath? He wondered if rekindled hope coloured her perspective - and if he was any better off with his bleak, grey outlook.
When her gaze finally settled on him, she found him watching her. There was nothing but resolution on her face, and that eased his mind, and he was too glad for it to be annoyed with himself just then.
"I guess we should look around," she said. "We stick together."
Glitch gave a nervous chuckle, the closest thing to a real laugh Cain had heard in too long. "Sounds like a plan."
Together, they walked the length of the hall, uncovering more of the tiles beneath their feet as they went. He could almost swear that Glitch and DG were dragging their feet on purpose, just to see more glimpses of red and white. The tall lancet windows gave a view of nothing but blue sky. DG chose the staircase to the left, and as they climbed to the balcony, they could see out of the windows the true endlessness of the sandsea. As clear as the morning was, there was no shadow on the distant horizon. There was a world beyond the O.Z. but even Bur'zae was too far for the naked eye to see. So much for what they say.
The balcony was mostly clear of the grit below; the scrape of sand beneath him was replaced by the familiar, gentle press of his boots on smooth stone. His heartache for Central City overwhelmed him. He'd never thought to miss that city of broken dreams, let alone so much. It near stopped him in his tracks. Only Raw gave a curious glance in his directions, the others blissfully distracted. He reminded himself he had a home to get back to, somewhere far from the cobblestone streets of Central, but for the first time, he found his heart just wasn't convinced.
Damn me, he thought with an upward glance, damn me before I damn myself.
Without remorse, he immersed himself in the task at hand. It was the only way.
There were no halls, only a series of marble archways that led into rooms sectioned off by walls of iron latticework. Slowly, they worked their way around the circular balcony toward the north wall, where four floor-to-ceiling windows looked out over the courtyard, two near the east corner and two near the west. The large expanse of wall between was mottled with decay, visible even at the opposite end of the hall.
For his part, Cain did little more than peek into each room; he waited on the balcony while the others explored. What he saw did not impress him, instead only reinforcing the feeling in his gut that they were wasting their time. Each room was empty of furniture, the floors coated with mouldering plaster and centuries worth of dust and sand. In more than one room, the roof had collapsed, littering the floor with broken clay roof tiles; splintered beams leaned at drunken angles against the walls. These rooms along the east wall were caught in the radiance of the morning suns, light spilling in the narrow, glassless windows. Even on the balcony, out in the vast hall, the light was growing brighter, but it still did nothing to cast off the dismal pallor of the place.
Eventually, the balcony curved around to the front of the great house where there were no rooms, only an empty wall framed to left and right with windows. That spark in DG's eyes had begun to dim, though her face piqued with interest as they approached the north wall. As with the rest of the walls, the plaster was grey with annuals of grime, but soon his eyes began to make out veins of discolouration underneath the thick dust. What had, from afar, seemed only to be mould damage, was in fact -
"There's a fresco under here," DG said, her hand hesitating a mere inch away from touching the wall. Her fingertips twitched. Her eyes travelled up to the ceiling, and she slowly backed up to the balustrade; Cain was relieved she had the common sense not to put her weight on it.
"A what?" he asked, looking up at the wall, though he figured he knew.
"It's a mural, painted on plaster, like this," she said, nodding toward the wall. "There's so much gunk on this wall, it's almost impossible to tell it's there."
"No one touch it," Glitch said, though Cain didn't see how any one of them would've had that thought; maybe Glitch was really reminding himself. "Even the slightest pressure could cause it to flake." He reversed until he was standing next to DG; when his backside touched the rail, he jumped a little, just an inch of so away. "It's amazingly well-preserved, isn't it?" he said, giving DG a conferring look. "The rest of this place is falling apart."
DG tore her eyes away, shaking her head. To Cain, it was almost as if she were berating herself for becoming distracted. Surely enough -
"We need to check the rest of this place. Now." She marched off, and he was first behind her.
West mirrored east. A long row of arches, empty rooms, walls of rusted iron lattice. These rooms were dark, or rather, darker than those on the opposite side favoured by the morning suns. Cooler, too, though maybe the shiver that was working its way up his spine had more to do with the inevitability he could see barrelling towards them, like a black beast of a steam train and they were all caught on the tracks. Past the point of running. At the end of the world.
Cain sighed to himself, emptying his lungs of breath before he drew another. His calm came slow, but it did come. His eyes went down over the balcony, homing in on the mutt as he nosed his way around below. The sight cinched his throat and he forced himself to look elsewhere; he'd do his best to help DG and Glitch face their reality when this was all said and done, but if the old man thought he was getting out of this without getting his hands dirty - by way of not having any, as it were -
"There's no one here."
Cain was jolted out of his thoughts not by the words, but by the break in her voice, that waver of abject disappointment. He looked up to see she'd passed him, gone on to the rooms closest to the end of the hall, where the twenty-foot-high arched windows gave him more than enough light to see clear into her eyes and know her heart wasn't breaking just yet. She might see, but she didn't believe. It would come. For that moment, all he could do was concede with a nod. She was right. The place was empty.
Author's Note: Hang in there. You guys are awesome. Such patience ought be rewarded. *hearts*
Table Of Contents
One - Two - Three - Four - Five
Six - Seven - Eight - Nine - Ten
Eleven - Twelve - Thirteen - Fourteen - Fifteen
Sixteen - Seventeen - Eighteen - Nineteen - Twenty
Twenty One - Twenty Two - Twenty Three - Twenty Four - Twenty Five
Twenty Six - Twenty Seven - Twenty Eight - Twenty Nine - Thirty
Thirty One - Thirty Two - Thirty Three - Thirty Four - Thirty Five
Thirty Six - Thirty Seven - Thirty Eight - Thirty Nine - Forty