by Ren Cummins
“I know, Rom, I know,” he said. “I’m merely making a suggestion.”
He examined the curving wall and thought through a few calculations in his head. “One moment,” he said, hopping down to the rooftop. There was just enough of a layer of dust for him to scratch out some diagrams and numbers with a single paw.
Shaking his head, he drew a simplified map; tracing a large circular arc, he made two points on opposing ends of the arc.
“Okay, as far as I can tell,” he explained, pointing to the top point, “this is the clock tower.” Then, pointing to the other dot, said, “And this is where we are now.”
“Wow. We’re really far,” she said.
“Yes,” Mulligan agreed dryly, hopping back up to her shoulder. “In fact, if we go too much further, we’ll probably be about as far from home no matter which way we go after that point.”
“So if we keep going that way,” she said, pointing ahead of them, “then we might as well just keep going all the way around?”
Mulligan nodded, resigned. “Might as well.”
“Okay, then, let’s not waste any more time,” Rom said, tensing up.
“I know, I know,” Mulligan muttered. “’Hold on’.”
* * * * *
She didn’t slow as they continued on, and Rom noticed that the buildings she now jumped across were substantially smaller and more dilapidated. One particularly long jump took her completely through the roof of one structure, and the force of the impact brought it and two other adjoining buildings to the ground in a remarkably impermeable cloud of grey dust.
Kicking some of the bricks and rotted boards off them, Rom rolled to her feet, coughing the dust from her throat.
“Hang it,” she muttered between coughs.
“Language,” Mulligan admonished.
Ignoring his rebuke, she stood and brushed herself and Mulligan off, grateful to see that neither of them were seriously injured.
Mulligan looked at the ground. “No foundations here – no pavestones, either. I’d say we’re standing around some of the earliest settlements outside the wall.”
The buildings didn’t look like much from the ground level. Not incredibly sturdy construction; no bricks or forged metal; it didn’t look like the original inhabitants had much of a plan to remain here long-term.
They walked for a short ways on foot, eventually leaving the last of the buildings behind. Ahead of them was a sort of grove – many trees within a short fence, and thicker undergrowth than in the area outside of it.
“That’s strange,” Rom said. “What an odd little garden they were growing.” They entered the copse of trees, Rom’s hands outstretched to touch the soft petals and leaves. Her foot collided with something hard which nearly tripped her. She crouched down to push aside the branches and grass with both hands to get a better look.
“This isn’t a garden,” Mulligan said, looking more closely at the weather worn stone marker. “This is a graveyard.”
“A graveyard?” she said, standing up and stepping back. “What is that?” The skin of her face paled; something about it all felt sinister and horrible.
“Let’s keep walking,” he said. “I’ll tell you.”
She nodded, and took another last look at the strange markings engraved into the stone. “Those looked like words, but I don’t recognize them.”
“It looks like a much older language; the original form of what you use now. I recognize it from the thoughts Memory gave me.”
“What did that say?”
“It was the person’s name who was buried there.”
Rom nearly stumbled. “Buried? In the ground?” Her mouth hung open. “Why would they put someone in the ground?”
“It was probably before the animals came - - they didn’t think about animals digging up the bodies of the dead.”
Rom stopped and looked at the graveyard for several minutes before turning around. Her eyes went from the approaching horizon back to the great wall on her right. Vines and trees had grown over the base of the wall, and were winding their way up, as if clawing their way towards the top.
“I wonder what they’re like in there,” she wondered aloud.
“It doesn’t matter,” Mulligan said. “The life that matters is here.”
She’d never heard him sound so sad, so bitter. She wondered what other memories he had inside his mind that he wasn’t sharing. Rom decided that it wasn’t the right time to ask, so she just softly stroked his fur and asked him to hold on.
For the next hour they made good time across the relatively flat plains, but, ahead on their path, trees dominated the view. Unlike the previously tamed land they had crossed until now, it was all wild here; reaching all the way to the wall. Many of the trunks were as thick as Rom was tall, some even larger. But the animals she sensed here were small, tranquil creatures, vastly distinct from the wild beasts that occasionally made their way to prey upon Oldtown.
“Too many trees to jump,” she observed. “I guess we’ll walk from here.”
Mulligan pointed to her right. “Just keep the wall in your sight, it curves slowly, but it keeps wanting to turn away from you.”
They walked for several more hours, nearly losing the chalk-white of the wall many times due to the thick growth of moss and mold which grew up its surface. Mulligan at one point noticed Rom smiling.
“What is it?”
She laughed softly, shaking her head. “I was just thinking about how quiet it is, here. I guess I’m just really used to all the pipes and the hissing.”
“The orphanage was quiet, too,” he observed.
Rom stopped, squinting her face as she thought back. “Yes, but it’s not like that. I mean, it’s loud here too, I guess, but it’s all sounds of birds and insects and things.”
She ruffled the fur behind his horns. “It’s loud, but it sounds like life. Does that make sense?”
He nodded. It did make sense to him, and more than his own memories suggested.
A little further on, however, the trees diminished and were replaced by deep grass in an open field, blowing in a strong wind. Ahead of her, a second wall, shorter than the main wall, but apparently crafted from the same materials, jutted perpendicularly to their left, tapering off perhaps a quarter mile to her left.
Rom paused, listening. “What’s that sound, Mully?” she asked. It was a flat, recurring noise, like wind or rain against the windows during a storm. She looked up, and held her breath. The air tasted funny here, like salt.
“I think it’s the ocean,” he said.
“What’s that?”
“I can’t really describe it effectively,” he said. “You really would have to see it for yourself.”
She looked up again, to the side, and then behind her. “Should we go around?” she asked.
The grass and trees were thinner here than in the previous few miles along the Wall, and she could see a large splash of color. She reached up and pulled a few of the concealing branches out of the way.
“What do you think that means?” she asked him. “It looks like the Atmology seal.” The symbol itself was a large stylized lightning bolt, but there was no hand holding it as on the college herald, however. The large red-backed symbol was bolted to the wall, and mostly covered by a thick layer of rust; but the bolt was still visible in the center.
“I think it’s a warning,” Mulligan said. “Most red signs are.”
Rom frowned. “Let’s go around,” she said. She found a better clearing several feet further from the wall and jumped again. A few minutes later, she came abruptly to a halt – the ground at the end of the wall fell away into a sheer cliff. The Wall, too, appeared to have crumbled here, rather than simply tapering away as she had originally thought. But below her on her right, she saw a marvelous thing.
Against the base of the cliff, extending outwards all the way to the horizon, was a field of deep blue. It lightened in color as it approached the land, curling up in white rolls as it crashed into the rocks
below her.
“Is that…the ocean?” she asked. “What is it made of?”
“It’s water - - not the kind you drink; this is thick and filled with salt and sand and large fish.”
“Water,” she breathed, amazed. “Does it go on forever?”
Mulligan laughed gently. “No, it curves around and ends on the land on the other side. Memory has been there before.”
“She has?”
He nodded. “She is from a long time ago – thousands of years ago, before even this city was built – before the builders of this city came across the ocean to this place.”
“Wow,” she breathed, amazed as much from Mulligan’s statement as from the view of the ocean. There was a short ledge beneath the base of the Wall, and Rom could not resist the opportunity. She leaned close to the wall and edged along the ledge, to come at last behind the wall itself.
Behind the wall, there was a solid base structure which extended for an additional ten or twelve feet until it dropped along the natural cliff face down to the ocean. The Wall also looked much different from here – ladders and access points crisscrossed the wall at regular intervals, spaced between a series of support columns which appeared to shore up the wall every twenty or thirty feet. She walked closer to the nearest ladder – it was made of metal, but was covered in rust. When she grabbed the lowest rung, the entire piece fell apart under her hand.
“I don’t like this, Rom,” Mulligan whispered. “I don’t think anyone’s been here in a long time. It’s not safe here.”
She ignored him, and kept walking along the support foundation, choosing not to jump for fear that doing so might cause more parts to collapse. Additionally, the ground here was slick with some kind of green mold and slime, making footing treacherous.
Looking up to see how much further she had ahead of her, she gasped. Ahead of her, she had her first look of the city inside the wall.
“Mully!” she pointed ahead.
The bone-white Wall with all its support structures and access ladders, extended on until it met with the main core wall, revealing a tremendous expanse of verdant rolling fields and random growths of trees. Far off in the distance, the sunlight glinted and sparkled.
Rom squinted. “So that’s Aesirium, huh?” she whispered. She’d always wondered what it might look like, but her imagination had failed her utterly in this regard.
She had imagined it looked like a forest of silver trees – countless spires and shining tall structures, some almost as tall as the main Wall itself, filling the great expanse within the wall. But from here, it was barely visible.
On this side of the wall, the sun could no longer be seen in the light blue sky, having already passed its daily apex. Rom was brought back to a realization of this a sudden shiver that shook her entire body.
Mulligan’s ears flicked nervously. “We should head back,” he said, more urgently.
Rom disagreed, pointing straight across the concave curve of the cliff towards the far edge, barely visible in the distance. “We should go straight across.”
Mulligan shook his head. “Forget what I said earlier about distance. It’s too cold, and this area is too dangerous.”
Touching one of the two gems on her forehead, a purple flash of light heralded the appearance of the mundaline, Yu.
“There aren’t people here to scare,” she smiled. “If we stay low by the water’s surface, no one would see us.” She scratched Yu’s mane. “Want to go for a flight?” she asked.
Yu nodded his great head, and lowered his shoulders and one wing. “It is a pleasant change to assist you in a manner which does not involve other creatures,” he said in his thick baritone voice.
Rom climbed on, and Mulligan increased his grip on her shoulder. “I take it all back,” he whimpered. “It’s a wonderful day for a walk.”
If Yu heard, he ignored the comment, extending his considerable wings and leaping down towards the ocean waves. Rom held tightly to his mane, reaching from behind his wings and leaning low towards his neck. She could feel the thick muscles below the short fur over his ribs bunching and flexing as his wings cut through the air and pulled them along. As the wind screamed past them, he straightened his wings further, curving them back to level their descent and speed them from the ledge.
The waves were close enough beneath them that Rom imagined she could lean down and touch them – but, beneath the deep blue rolling water, she could see darker shapes moving about - - many of them much larger than they were. The spray from the water filled her mouth as she breathed it all in; it tasted like salt.
She patted Yu on the neck. “Let’s go just a little higher,” she cautioned. “I can feel things down there!” she yelled above the rush of air.
Mulligan howled in her ear. “Let’s go much higher!” he pleaded. “And maybe a little slower?”
No sooner had he said that as the water erupted behind them; a tremendous flash of grey filled with jagged teeth broke the surface and missed them by only a dozen feet.
“Faster, I meant! Faster!”
Yu flapped his wings with a powerful and steady rhythm, forcing Rom to hold even more tightly to his mane. He brought them higher, yet still low enough that they were kept from the likely view of the people within Aesirium.
The wind blew harshly against her face, forcing her to blink her eyes and turn towards her shoulder, giving her quite by accident her first clear and close look at the city itself. And, in the very center – built right up against the shore – stood the tallest structure of all within a central wall. Between many of the spires were laced interconnecting supports, making the entire city appear from this distance like an impossibly enormous latticework crafted out of ice crystals.
“That must be a whole mile high,” she whispered. Mulligan nodded, notably troubled, but said nothing.
“And look! There’re things moving in there!” Sure enough, even as they watched, movement was plainly visible among the portions of city that could be seen beyond the interior wall. “They look like little bugs,” she breathed.
“They’re not bugs, though,” he corrected her. “They’re people, just far, far away.”
Her eyes followed the gleaming columns down to their base; running right up to the edge of the massive cliff face that disappeared into the depths of the water below them.
“That’s a silly place to build a city,” she said, momentarily ignoring the reverence in which the Matrons held the people who lived in Aesirium. “Aren’t they afraid it’s going to fall in?”
Mully nodded towards the ends of the wall, both of which were visible now at the edges of the slight inward curve of the sheer rock face. “It wasn’t always at the edge of the ocean,” he explained. “But something must have happened; something made it fall down.”
“What could have done that?”
“I don’t know, Rom,” Mully replied, lowering his head beneath her hair. “Can you ask me when we’re back on safe ground? I don’t feel good about this.”
“Why not? Yu can fly for hours, and I don’t think those things down in the water can reach us up here.” She patted Yu’s powerful shoulders beneath his bright blue fur.
“It’s not that I’m concerned about,” Mulligan said, adding, “At least not primarily. But we must be careful. If we can see movement within the city – even so small as we see them – then they might be able to see us, also.”
“We could go lower,” Rom suggested.
Mulligan’s only answer was to tighten his grip on Rom’s shoulder.
“Ouch!”
“Exactly,” he muttered.
After another half hour of flight, they came to the wall extension on the opposite end of the city and Yu flew back up to the ground level, landing just past the far end of the Wall.
At this end, however, the Wall curved down along the cliff – which was much less severe than on the other side – and disappeared into the water. Buildings came right up to the Wall, here, but most looked shabby and dilapidated,
obviously having been abandoned a very long time ago.
Rom slid from Yu’s back onto the ground. “I’ve never been to this end of Oldtown, Mully,” she said, pointing far towards the skyline. “I know there’s a large fence somewhere up there that sections Oldtown off, but it’s got to be way over that direction. At least, it’s far enough away that you can’t see this end of the Wall.”
She knelt to put one hand against the ground. Nature was well on its way to reclaiming this area, with thick grass and young trees bursting through the worn structures. “The Matrons say that the people here got sick with something really bad, so they closed everything up a long time ago. Then, everyone just moved far away from the area.”
“We should stay outside the buildings, then, until we get past that fence - - just to be safe,” Mulligan advised. Rom and Yu agreed, and walked along through the old fields.
After a short while of walking, Rom looked back the way they had come, and noticed that the shorter section of the Wall which went down into the ocean could no longer be seen, while the old buildings stretched on ahead of them.
“There were a lot of people here, once,” Mulligan explained, seeing her expression. “A lot more than those that live in Oldtown, now.”
“What do you think happened to them?”
He shrugged his small shoulders. “I think a lot of things happened,” he said honestly. “Sickness, starvation, injuries; a lot of things can happen when you don’t know how to take care of yourself. Maybe they were just too used to things being easier inside the Wall, and when everyone was sent out here, it just took them a long time to remember how to do all the simple things, like cooking and growing food and using clean drinking water, or treating themselves when they were sick.”
Rom frowned. “Why would they send everyone out here, if they knew so many people were going to die? That’s terrible!”
Mully couldn’t think of a better answer, so he simply said, “Sometimes, people do terrible things, Rom.”
Rom noticed that the fields had not only not been tended to in a very long time, but that the former presence of the machines was still far more evident than in the fields nearer to the still-inhabited sections of Oldtown. The fields themselves were only recognizable as such because of their relative flatness and the occasional processing buildings and barns which dotted the perimeter between the buildings and the open land. She counted thirty of the large, squat agricultural machines – Kari called them drones – although many were greatly overgrown by weeds and brush, their simple geometric exteriors were instantly recognizable beneath the resurgence of the wild.
