The Fire and the Fog

by David Alloggia

  He was still Mayor.

  ***

  Ragn spoke to the Meiter in his dreams. Robed and resplendent in flame, shining like the light of a thousand suns, Ragn looked down on him.

  ‘You are doing well, my son,’ his God told him.

  And the Meiter was pleased.

  ‘Control them all,’ Ragn’s booming voice shook the heavens, ‘Rule them all,’ Ragn’s fiery arms raised towards the black night sky, set it afire, ‘Use them all,’ Ragn said, and His fiery eyes looked deep into the Meiter, burnt him from the inside out. He felt himself disintegrate, and be made anew by Ragn’s will.

  ‘Yes, my God.’ He wanted to say, but he had no voice.

  ‘Bring them together,’ Ragn said, as he reached out over Dohm, as he set the hills and the valleys, the fields and the lakes aflame. ‘Bring them together, and your path shall reveal itself,’ and Ragn’s fire reached across the ocean, set the whole earth on fire.

  ‘Do this for me, my son,’ Ragn’s voice boomed, loud and soft at the same time, ‘Do this for me and you shall be set above all others.’

  And the Meiter was pleased.

  II

  The next morning dawned late, as if the sky above was still fighting itself, and Erris woke late. Dan’r and Gel were already up, taking down what little camp they had made. She unraveled herself from Gel’s jacket and handed it back with a quickly muttered thanks before being handed a plate of breakfast by Dan’r. She ate, washed quickly with some of the water Dan’r had conjured out of thin air, and then the three were off on the road. The three spoke little that morning as they travelled; Gel and Erris sat in the wagon bed, Gel playing idly with his lute, and Erris reading from her diminishing stack of books. Dan’r sat on the bench at the front, cursing under his breath each time the wagon shook or bumped, jostling his hand as he sketched rapidly. The morning seemed tense, anticipatory, as if it were waiting for something to explode. It felt nothing like the calm peace that the night before had offered.

  Erris and Gel spent most of the morning avoiding looking at each other, or at least avoiding being seen to do so. Erris kept wondering what he would have looked like without the scar; how he’d gotten it, and how he could play so well without all his fingers. Her glances between sentences of her book kept distracting her, and she found herself having to re-read portions of her book, found herself going entire pages without actually taking in a single word. It had never happened to her before.

  Gel, on the other hand, kept glancing at her because, well, pretty girls frequently have that effect. He kept trying to figure out why she was pretty; she didn’t look quite like Sheane or Mae had; she looked almost boyish, staring so intently at her books. But then she’d brush aside a strand of hair that had fallen in front of her eyes, and Gel would forget his complaints, would forget that she was tall, or thin, or that she had red hair, rather than soft blonde.

  It almost became a battle between the two, to look so absorbed in their thoughts and then look up, to try to catch the other staring. Gel kept losing at the game, though he couldn’t quite tell why.

  Around midday, when the sun sat directly overhead, when its heat beat down the hardest, as if it was trying to set the world on fire with nothing but its baleful glare, they stopped. Dan’r handed around some food, and they ate in silence while Marmot grazed, freed from the harness for a time.

  Then, fed, watered, and lightly rested, they set off once more.

  A few hours later, the sun still high overhead, the sound of Marmot’s hooves hitting the ground changed once more to claps of steel-shod hooves on cobblestone, and Erris and Gel looked up quickly, eager for something new to distract them from their awkward, yet irresistible, game.

  To Gel, the houses rising in the distance looked vaguely familiar. To Erris…

  ‘This is…,’ she said, looking sharply at Dan’r, who still sat on the wagon bench, one knee up, his pad of parchment propped against it, ‘Where are you taking us?’

  ‘Don’t worry,’ he said, not looking up from his drawing, ‘We’re just passing through.’

  ‘That doesn’t matter! This is Oortain’s Copse, isn’t it? Why are we here? It was evacuated because of the fog, and now you’re bringing me, us, back? Why?’ It was as if a day without conversation had unleashed a flood of questions.

  Gel stayed silent as Dan’r looked up, frowned at Erris’ outburst, then shrugged.

  ‘We’ll stop in town,’ he said, putting down the parchment he had been working on, ‘I guess I should explain my plan anyway. And then you can decide if you want to come or not.’

  Erris looked around anxiously as they trundled through the houses on either side, shuttered and abandoned, wondering if the fog would come spilling over the houses, crashing like a wave with no warning over them.

  But it didn’t. Dan’r stopped the wagon in the center of town, and Erris looked over the deserted streets, her eyes lingering on the bookstore she had loved so much.

  ‘I think I know what the Fog is,’ Dan’r said, jumping down from the wagon and looking up the street, tapping one foot impatiently while he searched for the words to explain himself. Even as the leader of their ragtag company, he seemed awkward, seemed to never know quite what to say, or how to say it. ‘I think, no, I know how to stop it. But I need Gel’s help to do it.’

  ‘And me?’ Erris said from the wagon as Dan’r turned and looked in its direction; Erris and Gel leaned over the edge of the wagon to watch Dan’r.

  ‘You’re an extra,’ he said, his face impassive, ‘you can come if you want, but I don’t need you.’

  Erris was crestfallen. She had no-one, belonged nowhere, and now the only person she even kind of knew told her she meant nothing. She stared blankly at the distance as Gel started asking questions. She should have been angry, but…he was right. She was useless.

  ‘Where are we going? And why do you need me with you? And how do we stop the fog?’ Gel’s questions tumbled out of his mouth, unleashed from the same dam of silence that had held Erris’ questions stoppered up.

  ‘Slow down boy, I’ll explain,’

  It wasn’t fair. The old man and the boy had magical powers, and she had nothing.

  Gel jumped off the wagon and moved closer to the old man as the two kept talking.

  ‘The Fog is…well, it’s what happens when someone tries to do something that’s not allowed.’

  ‘What do you mean not allowed?’ Gel asked, interrupting.

  She was going to be left alone again. Maybe she could walk to Wraegn, and try to live in the city, but…she knew nothing about the city. She had no money, no place to go…

  ‘Don’t interrupt, let me talk,’ Dan’r continued. ‘The Fog, it’s what those Watchers I told you about are supposed to stop. One of the things they’re supposed to stop, I suppose. I don’t know why they didn’t, but…if we go through the Fog, and find where it’s coming from, then we can stop it.’

  ‘I thought the Fog ate everyone that touched it?’

  Erris couldn’t go to the city, she knew that. She’d never survive. Maybe she could find a farmer somewhere willing to take her in? She was good at working.

  ‘It does, but if we surround ourselves with light, with fire, we should be able to keep it away from us. We can’t stop it that way, we’d never be able to get enough torches, put them out on that large a scale, but…well, we should be able to keep the Fog far enough away from us on all sides to get through it.

  She could try to find someone to marry; she was old enough, but…no. That wouldn’t work either. Maybe she could head up to Heyle, live of the land…

  It wouldn’t work. None of it would. She had nowhere to go.

  ‘We take the cart, fix torches all around it, and we shouldn’t have a problem riding through the Fog, all the way to the sea.’

  And now they were going to take Marmot? It just wasn’t fair, at all.

  ‘We’re going to the sea?’ Gel asked, excitement clearly palpable in his voice.

  ‘Yes, and t
hat’s where I need you,’ Dan’r continued, putting a hand on Gel’s shoulder, ‘We take a boat to Kol, which has a great lighthouse; it shouldn’t be too hard to find, but to get there you need to play to the Ocean, to calm it; make sure no storms come through and wreck us. The storms and the currents, they’re…well, they’re why our continents don’t know we each exist. No-one gets across the sea. But you’ll be able to play them down, and we can cross. We can get back to Alta, stop the Fog…’ Dan’r stopped, his eyes going distant.

  Erris wouldn’t stand for it.

  ‘I’m coming too,’ she said defiantly, stepping down from the wagon and drawing herself to her full height. She would argue if she had to, and wouldn’t back down.

  Dan’r looked back at her, ‘I know,’ he said, as if it had already been decided, and Erris felt the wind of any anger fall quickly.

  And that was it. They rested for a while longer, but all of them, even Erris, were eager to go on. Within minutes, they were back on the road, leaving Oortain’s Copse, and heading towards the Fog.

  ***

  They had been travelling without a care in the world since the fight with the church soldiers at the village the day before. They never noticed the Sergeant and two of the soldiers from that same fight, all relieved of their bright red coats and dressed in simpler, drabber greens and grays, watching them, following them, listening to their conversations. They had no idea that one of the three soldiers was sent to report on the conversation that had happened at Oortain’s Copse, or that a fourth one was sent before, to report on the impossible feats the old man had performed during their fight.

  They had no idea that two were still following them, shadowing their every move from the sides of the road, following them towards the Fog, and the sea.

  ***

  Erris stayed silent as they continued towards the Fog, ignoring her books, and losing herself in the endless flow of questions and comments that came from Gel, and the curt, single-syllable answers that came from Dan’r.

  ‘Why didn’t the Watchers stop the Fog?’

  ‘Don’t know.’

  ‘What do I have to play?’

  ‘Just feel it. You’ll know.’

  ‘What if I don’t do it right?’

  ‘We die.’

  That last chilled Erris, but Gel just continued with the questions, and Erris stared out blankly at the rolling fields on either side of the wagon, focusing on nothing; thinking of nothing.

  Dan’r sketched constantly as they rode, laying parchment piece after parchment piece beside him as he finished his drawings. Something was wrong with him. It was visible in his shoulders, and in the terse responses to Gel’s questions, that he was starting to tire.

  And then the wall of Fog was in front of them, rising high above them, stretching out on either side of the wagon as far as the eye could see.

  ‘Hop down, help me get the wagon set.’ Dan’r told Gel and Erris as the wagon stopped, and they both did as they were told. There was no more camaraderie, no more awkwardness or humour in his voice. Just fierce resignation.

  For the next hour, Dan’r turned art into torches, and leather strips to bind the torches to the wagon, with Gel and Erris to find ways to fasten them to the sides. They fixed four torches to either side of the wagon, and another two at the front, close to Marmot. As Gel and Erris fixed the torches, Dan’r stood in the back of the wagon, breathing more heavily and sweating more profusely as torch after torch dropped with a dull thud onto the wooden wagon bed.

  ‘Have to have…spares…’ he panted between laboured breaths, one of the times he stopped for a break. He did not look at either Gel or Erris as he spoke, but seemed to be talking to himself without knowing.

  When the torches were fixed in place all around the wagon, and Dan’r had rested, he lit a spare torch with a piece of art from his cloak, albeit with difficulty, and then lit the torches around the wagon with the spare.

  ‘Let’s get…a little closer’ he said, walking to the front of the wagon and grabbing Marmot’s reins.

  Gel and Erris followed close behind as the trio, and Marmot, walked to the Fog bank. As they got closer, they could make out that it was more than a giant, solid grey wall. It…billowed, moved in and out on its own, completely independently of the wind. Erris watched as little tendrils of the fog reached out towards the tip of each blade of grass, clapped on, and then…pulled…the rest of the Fog bank after it, sending a ripple of waves up the length of the wall. It had done the same with the soldier that had attacked her, she knew, but she quickly pushed that thought away.

  The wall was huge, covering thousands of leagues, but as scary as it was, it was also…fascinating. It was like a living thing, slowly creeping forward, slowly covering the world.

  ***

  Dan’r walked right up to the Fog, the children and the horse coming along behind him. He was exhausted. Creating that much Art…It had taken a lot out of him, and even now, he had to pull down slightly on the reins to keep himself straight. The lit torch in his right hand felt like it weighed a ton; felt like he may drop it at any second. But he had to go on. He was so close. So close.

  When he was two meters from the Fog, the light from the torch hit the wall, and the wall…retreated. It was like it fell away from the torch, as if the light hurt it. He waved the torch, and the Fog retreated instantly as the light hit it, then crept back into place slowly, after the light was gone.

  It would work. He’d remembered right, from the Academy all those years ago. He could get them through the Fog, to the sea, and they could cross it, and…

  Dan’r shook himself, rolled his shoulders.

  ‘Get in the wagon,’ he said, hefting the torch, then lobbing it into the fog. It retreated as the torch flew, then slowly closed the hole that had been made, ‘It’s time we were off.’

  Gel and Erris climbed into the wagon quickly, silently, and Dan’r was glad. He had to pull himself onto the wagon bench, and even that was exhausting. If the boy had continued to ask questions…

  It took Dan’r a few minutes of cajoling and soothing to get the horse to step forward; it seemed afraid of the fog, but when it finally stepped up, and the fog retreated in front of it, it seemed to gain more confidence.

  Dan’r looked back at the fields behind them one last time, looked at the ten torches around the wagon that would keep the fog at bay, looked at the children in the wagon bed. With the wall of Fog beside them, the sun overhead seemed weaker, the world around them less vibrant. It was as if the Fog had stolen the colour from the world around it. Gel looked a mixture of fear and excitement; Erris simply looked determined.

  Dan’r nodded to the children, in what he hoped was a reassuring manner, and they nodded back. With that, he pushed the horse onwards, and the wagon breached the fog.

  For a second, the light of day followed them. Then the fog closed tight the gaping wound that had rent its surface, and the trio was alone, a tiny island of light and safety in a giant, incomprehensibly large mass of deadly Fog.

  ***

  Staen finally had news. More subjects were on their way. The news almost made him forget the disappointments of the previous days. He had been unable to replicate the results of that one woman, the one whom the Fog seemed to almost ignore.

  But he had not had many women to test with. He knew that was the key, somehow. When more came, well…

  Staen would use them efficiently.

  Before the Fog, Staen would have balked at using women and children for his experiments. Before the Fog he would have balked at using any humans, really. But then, before the Fog, Staen had only worked on inventing locomotives.

  Nothing he had done before had nearly the import of what he did now. He would not fail, could not fail, even if it hurt to continue.

  As he wrote of his latest experiments, alone in his tent, he silently hoped that no-one in the future would read his notes, would flip through the tear-stained pages.

  He silently hoped that there would be a future. />
  ***

  Gel wasn’t sure what to think of this new world they had entered. First off, it was completely grey. Only the wagon and its occupants held any colour. Everything else around them, except for the few meters of ground uncovered by the torches, everything else was grey. Gel couldn’t think of anything more mournful, more depressing. The Fog took away…it took away everything. It was like life and light and colour didn’t exist in its broad expanse.

  ‘It’s…it’s kind of scary,’ Erris said, looking around, and Gel couldn’t help but agree.

  He couldn’t help himself. He felt his fingers itching, begging him to play, and as he picked up his lute, he knew he had to play something that matched the Fog. It was so effervescent, so…everywhere.

  He began slow, a few minor notes at a time, letting them ring out into the fog, letting them signify the ethereal expanse that surrounded them, and then he added small, short, flat notes, all just almost off key, as the little grasping arms of the fog that moved it along. He was getting into the song, getting into the feel of the fog, the feel of everything around him, when Dan’r yelled out.

  ‘Gel! Stop, stop playing!’ Gel looked at Dan’r, not understanding, as Erris jumped at him, and put her hands over the strings of the lute.

  ‘Wha…’ he began, then he noticed the Fog. While he had been playing, it had started reaching for them, started coming closer.

  ‘You can’t play for the fog, Gel,’ Dan’r admonished, fear tingeing his eyes, ‘we’re surrounded by it. Don’t make it stronger.’

  Erris was looking at him as if he were an idiot, and Gel flushed with embarrassment.

  ‘If you must play, play something alive, something colourful. Play something that the fog isn’t,’ Dan’r said, and that’s what Gel did. As they travelled, he played the happiest things he could think of. His notes sang of birds flying through the air on a sunny day, of babbling brooks, and great elms; of red, and blue, and all the colours of the rainbow. It was hard to play for beauty when surrounded by its opposite, but still he played. And as he played, the fog retreated.