The Sightless City

by Noah Lemelson

  “It’s the only thing keeping the man pinned,” the officer protested.

  “For now,” Namter said. “But I know this criminal. He does not care for his life, your men do. There is a better than not chance he will outwait them, find a chance to get the jump on them. Then we will not have a madman with a sword, but a madman with a Shiftsworth, or whatever it was you called it.”

  Namter gestured toward Brother Tullius, who unfastened his orb of Oathblood and handed it to him. It was warm in Namter’s grasp, and the man cracked the rarest of his expressions, a smile.

  “Keep your men steady at the exits. I will remove this madman.”

  * * *

  The inside of the workshop was darkened. The lines of hanging light bulbs had been smashed, likely by some thrown lug nut, their shards decorating the floor. The only source of light came from a few hazy, yellowed windows, behind which Namter could just make out the silhouettes of the policemen outside. He positioned himself between two of these windows, so that the light behind him might blind the monk who was skulking in the dark.

  Namter stood at the end of small clearing, beyond which sat a jungle of darkened crates, conveyer belts, and inert machines, many riddled with bullet holes. In a dim crack between machinework he could spy the corpse of Brother Valens, left arm a metre separate from his torso, head completely missing. Somewhere in there hid the errant anchorite, the last, grief-maddened remnant of a past expedition.

  The policemen groaned as they lifted away the interwoven mess of brass cylinders that was apparently a motorgun. They had trouble at first believing their orders to move, and by their glance alone declared the butler insane, but it when all was cleared up they were more than happy to exit.

  As soon as they closed the giant doors, Namter removed his right glove. He took out the orb of Oathblood in his deeply scarred hand. He breathed in and tightened his grasp in a sudden motion. The vial shattered instantly, glass jabbing and cutting, piercing into his palm and fingers. It stung a glorious kaleidoscope of pain, the Oathblood mixing with his own. He felt divine life shudder through his pitifully mortal frame, a shock of agony and ecstasy.

  Namter lifted his lacerated hand, and with a silent prayer a burst of black flame materialized from his open wounds. He kept himself from marveling at the pulsating fire, which flickered like a chained beast, this wondrous boon of pain and fury blessed by hidden divinities. The fleeting thought that such a gift as Oathblood was used to fuel autocars and form slickdust, that idiots gave the holy substance a name as crude as sangleum, nearly brought Namter down from his exalted euphoria, but even the sins of mankind seemed pitiful in the presence of hallowed grace.

  He stopped his demonstration there; it was enough. He must not let himself get carried away, make the first move. He had displayed control of his territory, but Kayip still stalked, confident, beyond its edges. Namter knew, even with this gift, that if he allowed himself to wander within lunging range the monk would quickly take his revenge. This was a game of spikefowl. The first one to move lost.

  Namter clicked a hidden button on the back of his cane and started to pace small circles between the blinding safety of the window light.

  “This is what you wanted, Kayip? Just you and I alone.” Namter laughed. “Very well, I know it, I am not your main prize. I would have thought the wise thing would have been to stay in Huile, but instead you followed us all the way here. Perhaps you finally learned that you have no voice in that town. Well, you are just as mute here, you will find no more allies, no more idiots for you to condemn to death in your crusade. The ferral rightly thinks you mad, and a deranged hermit like yourself will get no attention from men of good standing. This city, too, has no use for you.”

  He smirked and did his best to appear at ease. An overconfident foe was easy prey, and if he could convince Kayip he was that, perhaps he could lure him to make the first strike. He tapped his cane on the floor, as if to accentuate each point. Oathblood ink, oozing from a secret nib embedded in the cane’s bottom tip, dried into invisible runes on the workshop floor.

  “Then again, perhaps staying in Huile would have been too painful for you. A wiser man would have given in after their first failure. All your advocating, your warnings, your troublemaking, and what did you leave the world with? Two dead armies. Too many corpses to count. I’m sure you would say that the souls would live again, born back into our world, fresh lives to toil anew, but we both know the truth. They suffered for your failure.”

  Namter heard a small creak of movement off behind a bulbous machine in the shadows. He tried not to react to it, hoping his smile was bait enough, though he did move himself to the opposite side of the summoning circle, finishing the last touches on the Truespeech written along its edges.

  “Why don’t we have a practical theological debate, right here, right now?” Namter said. “Two thousand years your Church has poisoned the minds of men, hiding the truth by murdering those who discover it. Yet your supposed authority is your powers, is it not? Those blessings imbued into ancient metal, handed down by your Demiurge. Well, you’ve seen what I can do, without the need for holy gadgets and doodads, so why don’t you try out some of these so-called miracles?” He paused. “Nothing? Has your Demiurge finally given up on you? Your all-powerful creator abandoning you in your time of need?”

  Kayip had not moved. Six years could teach a man patience, and it had been amusing to watch a cocky young monk devolve into a worn-out fugitive.

  Namter turned his head suddenly, in a direction orthogonal to the last sound that Kayip had made, as if he had focused in on a mistaken position. He muttered prayers, and black fire formed around his hand. His eyes stared forward, but his ears tuned to the side, where he could hear the smallest scuff of movement, and the slight, almost inaudible clinks as Kayip’s sword formed itself.

  “Let me see you burn, coward,” he shouted, towards the empty shadow.

  Kayip did not scream when he charged, but he could not hide his attack. He ran the metres separating them in a second, rags fluttering behind him, sweat streaming off past his faceplate and behind him in glistening drops, his sword forward in one hand, stripes of reflected light rushing up its blade.

  Namter tapped his cane onto the floor, activating the trap. The circle screamed to life.

  Kayip tossed something from behind him. A sphere flew through the air. A head. Valen’s head. It soared in an arc, over the circle, which burst into life, a shout beyond human lungs.

  Instantly a dozen elongated shadow-shaded arms writhed up from the floor, grasping up, grabbing the head where the man was supposed to be. Namter swore, a rare transgression for him, and jumped backwards, as the divine ink-black arms tore at flesh, ripping it from bone, grabbing at the bait and pulling Valen’s remains back down with them.

  Kayip dove and rolled around the twitching mass, jumping at Namter. The flame in Namter’s hand was meant only to be a bluff, but now he tossed it out in a panic at the crazed monk, falling back to avoid the blade. The black fire blew a wall of smoke, and Namter, with both adrenaline and Oathblood running through his veins, pushed himself back, readying for Kayip’s next vengeance-fueled strike.

  It didn’t come. As soon as he swung his first, Kayip switched directions, leaping towards the light of the window. Namter understood now the man’s plan, and threw flame with a shout, but the warmonk was already through the glass.

  Light burst in, blinding. Men screamed outside; gunshots went off. Namter pulled himself up and staggered out the front door. As he pushed through, he saw several police standing over a corpse, and the others, as well as his Unblind Brothers, leaning over the railing at the end of Icaria.

  “Kayip!” Namter shouted.

  “He jumped over!” Avitus said. “Ran into the Underburg or somewhere.”

  Namter slumped against the railing; searching the web of darkened scaffolding that hung above the cliff face. No sign of the monk. The monk who had had him at sword length, but
who had run instead.

  Ewald dashed towards him, face white. “Dear Demiurge, that man’s a demon.”

  Namter scowled at the twin blasphemies and straightened himself. Kauf glanced at his hand.

  “Are you all right?”

  “Get your men down there now!” Namter shouted. Pain rang though his palm, and he now noticed that he had left a trail of blood, and a few shards of red-stained glass. “And get me some damned tweezers and a bandage.”

  On Designations of Heresy and Their Evolution

  Though the word “Heresy” may, to enlightened readers of the United Confederacy of the Citizens’ Resurgence, invoke gruesome memories of the Church Wars, or the fraught Schisms that decorate our history books, the concept itself is one that defies easy definition. Indeed, when the early Church was a mere cult of the Imperial House of Diedrev, it had no concept of “Internal Heresy” (Falsis Internum), that is, heterodox beliefs and practices within the Church of the Ascended. Instead it was focused on the eradication of rival religious systems (Falsis Externum), primarily the pre-Imperium animistic practices common in Vastium, Kaimark, and other recently united regions. However, it was the practice of “gods worship,” which seemed to be the focus of the early priesthood’s greatest ire, in particular those polytheistic faiths that held as dogma that ætheric aberrations were, in fact, agents of divine will. Church efforts in this front were clearly comprehensive, as these particular religious practices seemed to have all but died out by the time of the conquest of Irissia. Even so, paranoia about the return of such “demonic cults” was a key contributor to the later expulsion of the tribes of Kort and Malva, and the accusations of “demon worship” exacerbated the violent struggles of the Schisms. It could be argued, then, that fears of external religious competition in fact created the entire concept of Internal Heresy in the first place.

  Now before I continue on about modern conceptions of “Heresy,” I must waste some ink on that interminable academic debate about the so-called “neo-cults of the gods.” Despite claims made by some academics, priests, and members of this new and violent theology, there is no evidence to support the notion that these indeed represent a revival of the pre-imperial “gods cults.” Certainly these modern belief systems share with the older an emphasis on the divinity of ætheric aberrations, but there is no historical through line to connect these two movements. These new cults are, at best, a loose attempt to reconstruct ancient beliefs, but are not a direct continuation of them. These recent movements can be understood as a manifestation of the societal chaos created by the Severing War and the Calamity. Their focus on ætheric aberrations and their supposed “divine powers” must be seen only as a response to the increasing prevalence of ætheric aberrations in the inner Wastes as a result of the Calamity. Though occasionally violent, the threat posed by these cults is almost assuredly exaggerated due to their association with ætheric aberrations. Any caravan-lord worth their frascs will spend days preparing for the possibility of raider attacks before wasting a minute worrying about “gods cultists.” Unfortunately, research into the beliefs and practices of these religious movements have been hampered both by the secrecy of its practitioners, as well as the militant stance taken by the Church of the Ascended itself.

  As for post-Calamity notions of “Heresy,” the most in-depth exploration was laid out by Professor Asara Maturo in her 1729 essay…

  —Excerpt of the dissertation of Hasim Bisett, entitled “The Church of the Ascended and Post-Calamity Theology.” Accepted and published by Phenia University.

  Chapter 14

  Life had become better than all but the most ludicrous of Sylvaine’s fantasies. Under Lazarus’s eye and Gath’s tutelage, she had pushed herself to the very limits of her skills, practicing mechanicurgy, æther-circuit programming, mid-distance metal manipulation, and just good old-fashioned engineering. Whenever she would reach a wall (metaphorical, or in one test of her advanced metal-warping techniques, literal) Lazarus would pull out a vial of slickdust, and she would break through. Once or twice she had asked if it was safe to up the dose so. Lazarus would say, with his words grabbing her like gloved hands, that of course it was safe, that he knew what to do, and she should trust him completely.

  So she did.

  She kept on with her studies, her experiments, and her late-night practice sessions. At times she wasn’t sure what it was she was even practicing for, just that she needed to do better, be better, that she needed to hone her skills, to take more slickdust. Lazarus’s words were true; with each sniff or drink she felt stronger, her mind honed scalpel-sharp.

  She was not only shaping herself into the engineer, the woman, that she always fantasized she would be, but something more, something grander. She would not just become the first ferral to graduate as an ætheric engineer, but also the greatest engineer that had ever lived, or would ever live. The stares of others meant nothing to her anymore, the prejudices of an insipid civilization were to be discarded, their norms pitiful words. The laws of physics were now just mere suggestions, tools to be bent, or simple distractions, for even the sky might quake if Sylvaine should decide to tame it. Amidst her manic frenzies of genius, she knew now there could be no more limits for her potential!

  Then the slickdust ran out.

  “My supplier hit a snag,” Lazarus said, “but it should be no worry, I’ll find some in the city.”

  Sylvaine nodded, trying to take his words to heart and to avoid the pangs of panic as she noted silently that the Academy Exhibition loomed a mere four days away. Still, Lazarus was an intelligent man, a dependable man. He knew people, knew how to get things done, there was nothing to worry about.

  She continued to work, but her confidence started to lag, her focused wavered. Her machines would break down suddenly, or melt in a shower of æther-sparks. Worse still, at times her glove would lay inert on her hand, limp and disinterested in her orders, the deep fire inside her extinguished as if she were back in the damp pit of despair Roache had pulled her out from.

  She kept asking the man if he had found a supplier yet, but Lazarus simply said to trust her, that the slickdust would be coming any hour now.

  Those hours became days, and her mediocre performances collapsed into complete failure, and then into a nauseating withdrawal. Sylvaine dragged herself around Lazarus’s apartment, without even the energy to make the arduous trip one floor down to her own room.

  “You said there were no ill effects,” she moaned, lying from leather arm to leather arm on Roache’s large armchair, watching the ceiling spin.

  “Hmm?” the man said, looking up from a pile of paperwork. “Oh, well you have been using a very large amount of the stuff. Don’t worry, it’ll pass.”

  “When?” she asked. “Will my engineering be affected?”

  “No need for so many questions,” Lazarus tutted. “Just calm yourself. Namter, some water for our guest?”

  Roache’s butler would tend to her from time to time, when he wasn’t busy doing whatever it was that man did, and Sylvaine ended up spending most of her hours groaning on Lazarus’s couch. She’d ask how long it was until the Exhibition, each answer somehow surprising her by being both too short and too long. It seemed an eternity had passed in her sickened stupor, yet it also felt as if the Exhibition date was running up to her at lightning speed. It didn’t make any sense, she didn’t have the energy left for sense. All she had was the gut-churning nausea, the aching muscles, the pounding headaches, and the horrible, growing fear that all she had built would now collapse.

  It was the early afternoon of the very day of the Exhibition when Lazarus finally strolled through his front door and opened his briefcase to reveal a sloshing bottle of red. The smell hit Sylvaine instantly, and for a brief moment she felt alive again, just enough to pull herself up.

  Lazarus pulled out a syringe and filled it with the crimson fluid.

  “It’s… slickdust?” Sylvaine asked.

  “Yes,” Lazarus
said.

  “It’s a liquid?” Her vision was too blurry to even be sure of that.

  “At this point an oral dose might reduce withdrawal symptoms but it won’t be nearly enough to get you to your Exhibition. This should jumpstart your Knack, and keep it going strong, for weeks, months, maybe indefinitely. You’ll be a true-blooded engineer, through and through. But if you’re uncomfortable with the idea, we can wait and miss the Exhibition.”

  “No, no,” she tried to stand, and fell back down. “Anything.”

  She thought she caught the ghost of a smile, but it was difficult to see through the haze.

  “Very well, we’ll have to do this intravenously. Don’t worry,” he winked, possibly, “it will all be okay.”

  Sylvaine nodded and held out her arm. Lazarus took it, a gesture of skin against skin that might have once excited her, but the most titillating thing in that room now was the red liquid.

  Lazarus grasped tight, and Sylvaine felt a pinch. Then suddenly, a burst of life. The room leapt into sharp, vivid color, the drone in the back of her mind silenced. She nearly jumped up, but instead slowly helped herself to her feet with Lazarus’s guidance. Her heart raced against itself, she could feel her cheeks blush bright. She wanted to grab her glove, as she was as sure as anything that her powers had returned.

  “Well look at you!” Lazarus laughed and slapped her back, “ready for your show?”

  Sylvaine nodded vigorously and had to catch her breath for a few seconds before she could speak. “More than ready!”

  She ran out of his grasp into his bedroom, where Namter had already set up her dress. She was in it in seconds, and after a minute of frenzied work at the washbasin she looked as good as she ever had—better in fact by her own estimate. As she dashed towards the door, Lazarus grabbed her by the shoulder.

  “A word of advice,” he said.