January Breaks

[Ataraxis]

January Breaks




***


[ Dramatis personae ]

Morus
Gypsy
Roan Dahlister, Chief Librarian
Shvara, a Sandman
Sicarius, a Sandman
Saxena, a Sandwoman
Captain Sven Strauss
Adjutant Willem Meraxa-Vogel
Rochelle Elemmiraxa, Janitrix-in-Chief
Members of the Stjarna Expedition
High Shar Soren Berlioz Manifex
Anja Ozenbach, Junior Docent
?
?
?


***




“People commonly travel the world over to see rivers and mountains, new stars, garish birds, freak fish, grotesque breeds of human; they fall into an animal stupor that gapes at existence and they think they have seen something.”

Søren Kierkegaard, in Fear and Trembling

[Ataraxis]

At three bells past dawn, the Asphodelos made its final approach over the Black City.

She breathed deep into the glass, capturing on that film of mist the ephemera of mediocrity in motion. Today’s sun was a sallow red smirch, the slow scorch of tobacco embers burning pale through the smog and dead winds. Rivers and rills of rust-colored smoke spilled from the foundries, terminal coughs that cankered the gondola windows with sores of soot and ashen ulcers. And far below, the dark rush of the populace: workaday masses walking along latticework roads in broken black tides, their collective drip no more swift or lovely than that of slop through old piping.

“Welcome to Ettermire,” the captain announced in a static monotone, over the buzz of a dozen brass horns. “Enjoy if you can. No mas tea, what have you.”

The Belfry Docks came into view, an obelisk of perfect obsidian that would slumber deep even in the brightest of daylight. Once a simple bell tower, it had been retrofitted by the Luftraum Ministerium to double as a high mooring mast, following the recent rise in trans- and international sky traffic. Seven cathode lights set the silver bell afire, flashing a precautionary orange that signaled for a crewman to drop the cables that would anchor to the masthead. Minutes later, they’d reeled in the zeppelin close enough for the gangway to drop and snap onto the platform’s railing. With the aid of liveried attendants, the passengers disembarked at long last, their slow procession a trickle of colors so exotic they came alive against the blacks and grays of tower and city.

A stranger among foreigners, she was a solitary note that defied harmony and dissonance. Such people are seldom glimpsed, presences so unlikely they turn to shouts when all else seems a whisper. By an odd gleam or cloud’s shadow, their eyes become truer than eyes have a right to be: lenses so clear they magnify the world, or wells nebulous enough to even pale reality. They do not hide behind glamour or mirages, they do not flaunt or taunt in plumes of gold, in gems afire. In that brief glance, they are simply undeniable – axioms to all senses, essences without fathom. Then they vanish, becoming naught but the ghosts of a once vivid dream, forever as inexplicable as they are unforgettable.

Her kameez seemed woven from strands of sunset, perched high as she was on the railing of the parapet. The tunic flapped in the rising winds, the rolling motifs embroidered on the fabric shimmering at times like blue scales upon a butterfly’s wings. The dupatta around her neck swayed along, with the hues and nonchalance of sumac fruits under a pomegranate sun. The woman had hair like ink, serpentine down a crystal stream, and a gaze of polished ice that could melt souls, but never thaw.

Someone called out to her, while many others cursed. Oaths laced thick with fear, but the hint of genuine worry tasted rather sweet. They told her to stop, to get away. Told her that it wasn’t safe, and almost certainly illegal. Then they asked what she planned on doing, and her answer was a long look down the tower’s one hundred and eighty feet of matte black stone.

From such great heights, the streets seemed transmuted to her eyes. The cold, hard brick resembled wickerwork of the most delicate kind, and sheer curiosity made her wonder what the coarse weave might feel like against skin and flesh and bones. What she thought was the strangest, however, were the people: so many of them, yet she saw them all. She could count every drop from a dark ocean, could follow the delightful crawl of every black maggot through a blossom of guts in a festering corpse.

“Lovely day for a picnic,” she murmured in the end, a gentle voice with not-so-gentle words. “Not my basket, though. Not yet.”

Their incessant nattering came as pebbles on a window, trawling her from the shallow waters of her daydreams. After a sigh, she addressed them. “My way might be against the law. Yours, is.” The wave of epiphanies rolled over the crowd before breaking against their heads: the passengers had never seen this woman in seven weeks of flying, and the members of the welcoming party had only been made aware of twenty-two guests to greet. The jig was up, so was the stowaway’s time. “But thank you for the concern.”

Gypsy offered them an apologetic smile, waving her farewells as she relaxed into the void. The sun almost felt warm as it followed her down.

[Ataraxis]

“The Sandmen are here!” whispered a thirty-something cobbler, who’d heard it from his younger, wealthier cousin in air traffic control. “He might be a major git, but he never lies.” Except on his resume, he wanted to add. “What a knobhead,” he did add.

“Sandmen, pah!” an older gent with tiny glasses and a newspaper he held convincingly but never actually bothered to read, well, didn’t whisper. “The only sand they have is in their eyes, and it won’t be long ‘fore they rub it out and see the fuming pile they’ve landed into...”

“They’d need sand in their noses not to notice that,” added a nondescript someone of absolutely no importance whatsoever. His or her comment was never adressed, let alone acknowledged.

“Hey, as long as they leave some of the gold dust lining their pockets… although, I admit we could’ve cleaned the streets up a bit.” The cobbler scratched the bald spot at the back of his head, a reflex of embarrassment that explained both his bald spot and his life. “But knowing the trend of things lately, forcing us to do it is probably next on the government’s list.”

The arrival of the Fallien dignitaries, or Sandmen as it were, had become the buzz around town, just as it’d been the buzz in the uncomfortably narrow corridors of the Asphodelos. In Alerar’s current state of turmoil, they were seen as fateful allies, valuable friendships in the process of being forged. After all, the war on Raiaera had spread their resources thin, the resultant over-industrialization had further darkened brick and sky, but most of the damage done had come from strife within: since the assassination of Queen Valsharess, the weight of law had further shifted from justice to cold control.

The entire public sphere was being militarized, more and more rounds of conscriptions were being imposed, and citizens in possession of any and all potential wartime assets were now required to go through official registration or run the risk of arrest without bail. A class of mage apprentices had even been apprehended earlier in the day, consisting not only of nationals the authorities had been sent to forcefully collect, but also of foreign students that had stepped in to defend their classmates. With all this, the people had been brought to their knees, and they were practically begging for the Sandmen to come and sprinkle that magical dust and bring them the sweet dreams they so craved.

Of course, all this was known to the dignitaries; in fact, that was why they’d rushed here in the first place. Alerar in turmoil was still Alerar, and turmoil was merely a more unwieldy form of opportunity. The truth was that dissension had never been so strong in Fallien, what with the Cult of Mitra redoubling their efforts to sow discord within the people, as well as their attempts on the Jya’s life. The shadow of fear had been laid thickest on the military: many cultists had been found infiltrating their ranks, but many more had not.

Alone, both countries’ powers were dwindling, growing stale; now seemed the ideal time to focus on the beneficial side of war, to focus on ‘synergy’ and ‘paradigm shifts’ and any other meaningless buzzwords that would shock their state of affairs back to the frontlines. The honest truth, however, was that the shorthand for their business double-talk all boiled down to Alerar needing more money and Fallien needing new weapons. Sign, handshake, profit.

At least, this was what she’d heard through the allegorical grapevine, if the grapevine were full of holes or had a parabolic shape or were made of a material with low acoustic impedance and someone smart enough had gotten rid of the grapes and the vines. Intercontinental zeppelin flights could stray on the protracted side, and powerful people kept at an altitude of twenty-one thousand feet for three weeks in the well-off equivalent of a well-furnished but ultimately well-claustrophobic sky cell tended to get bored very, very fast before talking very, very much. Also there was that one case of sky madness, but the captain assured them that no one had ever died of sky madness, only of something entirely different called cabin fever.

Unfortunately, Gypsy had a complicated relationship with going stark-raving mad, and as such could only contract boredom. Stowaways being stowaways, she couldn’t quite chat with the scullions and scullery maids, so she settled for eavesdropping on major political figures from not one, but two dominant countries. While generally entertaining, she still regretted her discovery of the four-mile-high club.

“Well I’m glad you haven’t changed, Ankhas.” Cut from the same black stone as the Belfry Docks and the Dark Palace, the Library of Ettermire slept in beams of sunlight without a care in the world. The guards at each cardinal entrance were more numerous than she ever remembered, but some were familiar faces: Gerold and Herold, wonderful twins with eyes like barrels, sharing between them a bulletstorm stare… Yet every time she came through the northern stairs, those eyes would do the equivalent of putting the safety on, and to Gypsy this was worth a thousand smiles. Even though they couldn’t recognized her anymore, they hadn’t changed either.

Musty fresh, a hint of sweaty, and the incipient scent of dankness. The spokes of Ankhas had not turned, endless rows of vellums and covers and spines, perused by a constant stream of scholars and travelers from seven worlds over. Through the alchemical glass, the sunlight was brighter yet softer, allowing for easy reading with minimal damage to the fragile works, and she found a familiar comfort in the sight of flameless lanterns levitating above every table like guardian angels.

She attracted as much attention in Ankhas as she did in the thoroughfare of Ettermire, what with her southern garments, thick black stockings and continued lack of footwear, but there lay the greatness of the Library: they were used to being constantly surprised by new discoveries. It was a wholesome feeling, being here, and she could almost feel her old self coming back to life, like finding the pieces of a puzzle inside a dusty old box. A pity, that a lone piece cannot make a whole picture.

“What’s… this?” She recognized the rosewood, the fine grain and the deep varnish. She also recognized the books laid upon it, every single one of them, perfectly stacked one atop another in seven ziggurats of leathery knowledge: several volumes of the Tacky Tales of Tom Tabletop, copies of A Country Claimed and Vicious Beasts or Misunderstood Critters: a Bestiary of Althanas, bound transcripts from the fabled Akashic Records… all books she’d read in her time here, and rare books, lost books she’d always wanted to read.

“It’s a memorial.” A grandfatherly dwarf had walked up to to her, having noticed on her face the dismay she hadn’t. “Sweetest girl you’d ever met, this one, and sharper than a tack. She’d help visitors better than any o’ us could, taught us things ‘bout this Library you wouldn’t believe. Even saved the place a couple o’ times: cause o’ that she inadvertently became our mascot, the Plucky Little Heroine o’ Ankhas, they called her. She hated it, ha… and we loved her for it.” The chortle was genuine, but so was the knotting sorrow that strangled it.

“It was six months ago when we learned what happened to her. Went to deal with some unfinished business in Fallien, with all the friends she’d ever made – and that meant an army, believe you me.” He looked rustled in that pause, as if that should have been the be-all end-all of this story... as if betrayed. “But no army could protect her from that… nothing on this world could. Didn’t leave a trace, not even enough to bless an ashtray.”

He swiped his nose with a knuckle, the motion practiced and silent. He’d seen many loved ones die, and had sat at every funeral. “Was one o’ her wizard pals broke the news, a Cohen or somesuch. He left the first book, then the others came with their own. A handful are so rare, even for Ankhas, that we had thieves try to filch them… but we look after our own.”

For a long time, Gypsy could say nothing. “My… condolences. For what it’s worth, I’m sure this reached her, somehwere… somehow. She must feel very loved.”

“A nice thought,” he said feebly, with the sad smile of one who wished he believed an afterlife existed. Unfortunately, she knew it did, and knew the truth of it would not please him anymore than oblivion had.

“This... this might sound odd or inappropriate, but has… has anyone read these?”

“Of course. Miss Sesthal would never suffer hoarders of knowledge. Preventing pure, curious minds from browsing her collection would be the greatest insult to her memory.” With a flourish of his hand, he extended a finger: any one, it said, but only one at a time.

“I am certain she agrees,” Gypsy answered, bowing to the monument before gently removing the topmost article. When the elderly dwarf wandered slightly out of earshot, she whispered.

“And she thanks you, Dahl.”