by Darius Hinks
Isten stepped slowly forwards, eying the piles of rubbish for anything that might be a trap.
There was nothing and, after an agonizing few seconds, she reached the crate.
It was definitely a recent arrival. It still smelt of the river and the wood was sturdy and securely nailed.
Isten waved Lorinc over and nodded to the crate. He took out his crowbar and slowly, carefully, began to lever the lid off.
The planks were cold and firmly nailed shut. As Lorinc worked at them they protested with a series of petulant shrieks.
He hesitated, giving her a questioning look.
There was still no movement in the darkness, so she nodded for him to continue.
After another shrill creak, the lid opened far enough for Lorinc to slide his fingers underneath and pull it free.
Isten looked inside and grinned.
Amoria hissed with disbelief and Lorinc shook his head.
The crate was crammed with bulging parcels of waxed paper.
Isten grabbed one and pulled back the corner. The heady, sweet smell hit her immediately.
“Red,” whispered Lorinc.
Isten frowned, taking another sniff. “But mixed with something else. It smells strange. Good, but strange.”
Lorinc shrugged. “Maybe it’s come from wherever the city has landed this time? Maybe it’s cut with something new?”
Isten shook her head, troubled by the odd aroma, remembering Colcrow’s warning. “I can’t ever remember–”
“Isten,” interrupted Puthnok. She was standing a few feet behind her and made no effort to lower her voice, speaking in an oddly loud, flat tone.
Isten turned, battling a rush of panic.
Puthnok was staring at one of the four columns that held up the roof. She looked terrified.
Isten followed her gaze and saw that the column was moving.
For a moment, she thought it was falling, but then she saw the truth – the strands were curling and reforming, sprouting limbs and fingers. As the column moved slowly into the moonlight, Isten staggered back against the crate, shaking her head and whispering a prayer.
Even before it had left the shadows, Isten knew what it was: an Ignorant Man. It was nearly thirty feet tall and every inch of it was wrought of gleaming, twisted metal. It was roughly human in shape, but draped in a confusing mesh of glinting coils. Only its face was smooth, like a polished tribal mask. It had a wide, horizontal slot for a mouth, a smaller, vertical slot for a nose and two empty, perfect circles for eyes, both set on the same side of the nose, one above the other. As it stepped towards Isten, she heard a furnace, roaring deep inside its chest.
It must have weighed several tonnes but it moved with an eerie, fluid grace. Isten was so horrified that it took her a moment to realize that it was holding out its hand towards her, fingers splayed. There was a glowing circle engraved into its palm, trailing tendrils of smoke.
“Isten!” howled Amoria, sprinting forwards and shoving her aside.
Something flashed, silently, in the dark.
Amoria screamed. Her pain was terrible to hear and it sliced through the quiet of the warehouse. Then it stopped, abruptly silenced.
Amoria had pushed Isten with such force that Isten fell to the ground, rolling through shards of broken wood and landing a few feet away.
Isten leapt to her feet and saw Amoria standing motionless in front of the crate, frozen in an unnatural pose. She was balanced on one leg, her hands outstretched. Her mouth open in a silent scream. Then she fell forwards, still locked in the same pose, hitting the floor with a muffled clang. Rather than slumping onto the floor, she bounced and clattered, still frozen in the same position, like a toppled statue.
“Isten!” cried Lorinc as the towering shape turned to face her and slowly extended its hand.
Isten jumped aside as the giant’s palm flashed.
There was no explosion. No impact. And she felt no pain, so she sprinted in the opposite direction, back past the giant towards the front doors of the warehouse.
The metal giant transformed again, spiralling and tumbling down to human proportions, as though it were melting. Freed from its monstrous bulk, it raced after Isten, moving with sickening speed, holding its palm towards her.
She weaved and ducked, threw a feint, then barrelled through the locked door, smashing easily through the rotten wood and the rusted lock.
She heard the clang of metal footfalls behind her and ran on, hoping that the others would be safe if she led the Ignorant Man away.
She dashed into the network of alleyways leading down to the docks. She had navigated those steep, winding lanes in various mental states and knew them as well as anyone in the city.
The footfalls came closer but she dared not look back. She cursed Colcrow one last time and leapt over a low wall, tumbling headlong into the void.
The streets that snaked down to the docks were cut into the side of a steep hill and she had thrown herself down a forty-foot drop, easily enough to kill her if she had misjudged the fall.
She landed with a resonant splat in a fast-flowing open sewer. Then she lay back in the filth and looked up at the distant silhouette of the Ignorant Man. It watched her in silence from the road above, its metal frame seething with fine, tumbling strands. Then it turned and walked away, vanishing into the night.
Isten closed her eyes, sank back into the faeces, and hurtled away, carried on towards the blessed waters of the Saraca.
4
Before the towers and the roads, the gold and the mystery, there was the Lamp of Trismegistus, the cradle of Astral Flame, the font of all power and the seed of the city. But even as the lamp did its work, severing the bonds of time and nature, the first Curious Man felt a shadow of doubt. What had he plucked from the crucible? What was this ember he had cast into the stars? What had he willed on his sons?
As Rasnik approached the end of his life, he began to dream of the beginning. He ran towards a mountain of winding, resplendent spires, his parents chasing after him, confused and afraid, calling him back, dazed by pulses of light, witnessing the arrival of paradise. Wherever he had been born, wherever he was running from, he was one of the lucky few, summoned into the city by the Elect and offered a new life. He opened his eyes and stared at the low, smoke-stained ceiling of his room, followed by echoes of the dream. He remembered the look of wonder in his mother’s eyes during their first days in the city, surrounded by fly-harried crowds and serpentine walkways, tumbling ever deeper into the labyrinth.
He smiled, forgetting his ravaged flesh as delirium painted his childhood across the mouldering walls. Dawn seeped through the window, gilding the cracked paint and igniting dust motes, and he murmured to himself, reciting the names of childhood friends. He spent his last morning feeling happier than he had done for months, and when the landlady tapped at the door, he managed to invite her in with a clear voice.
Abdua’s face was hidden behind a leather bag, her eyes peering out through two crudely stitched holes. The old fool still thought she might escape the plague, even though it had taken everyone else on the street. “You have a visitor,” she said, bustling over to the window and looking down into the street.
“A visitor?” Rasnik laughed. “No one knows I’m here.”
“Not just any visitor,” whispered Abdua, and he noticed how odd her voice sounded. She was shaking. “A Curious Man.”
Rasnik was so shocked he sat up. “What are you talking about? You old idiot. The Elect would never come here, not to this pit. And what would they want with me if they did.” His anger grew as he realized she had robbed him of the first pleasant thoughts to visit him in months.
“Idiot, am I?” she snapped, clearly in a state of panic. She forgot her fear of the plague and waved him over to the window. “Come and look. See for yourself.”
He was so irritated with her that he managed to haul his wasted legs off the bed and place his feet on the rug. His legs tr
embled as he rose, but managed to hold him, and he staggered over to the filthy window, peering out into the sun-drenched dust. His rooms were in the northern reaches of the Azorus, on Barduli Street, where the slums sloped down towards the wealthier quarters of the city, looming over their affluent neighbours like a warning. It was one of the most plague-ravaged areas in Athanor. Nobody came to Barduli Street and yet, swarming beneath his window, there was a crowd – hundreds of beggars and traders, jostling each other, climbing onto door frames and walls, trying to get a better glimpse of the incredible vision approaching Rasnik’s lodgings. It was a wire-framed dome, an egg-shaped confection of golden threads, a palankeen, flashing and glinting as it swayed and lurched down the street. Rather than being pulled by horses or carried by slaves, it was carried on a nest of spindle-thin limbs, glinting, jointed needles, forged of the same golden alloy as the cage, not welded to the dome but juggling it, tossing and catching the carriage as they scuttled through the crowds. Rasnik felt as though he were slipping back into his dream. The palankeen looked like a gilded insect, approaching him with a series of slow, drunken lunges. Through the slender bars he saw a nobleman dressed more richly than anyone he had ever seen in Athanor. He was enveloped in voluminous, full-length robes, the cloth dyed a vivid, wonderful yellow and glittering with ceremonial chains. He held a short staff in one hand, a filigreed, golden sceptre worked to resemble a serpent wrapped around a sword, and he wore an equally beautiful crown, a single sheet of gold, tall and twisted, hammered into the shape of a flame. The crown enveloped his entire head and was fronted with a mask of flat, polished metal. The mask’s design was simpler than the rest of his finery – just thin, rectangular holes for the mouth and nose and two circles for eyes, both on the same side of the mask.
Abdua gave Rasnik a triumphant glare. “What is that,” she said, “if not a Curious Man?”
Rasnik shook his head, unable to answer. He had lived in Athanor for eighty years without seeing one of its rulers, without even meeting someone who had seen one of its rulers. And now he was faced with this incredible vision. “Why did you say he was looking for me?” The anger was gone from his voice, replaced with shock and fear.
The Curious Man’s carriage halted in the middle of the street. Its bowl of needle limbs gently lowered the domed cage to the ground and yellow-robed attendants bustled around it, driving back the crowds to clear a space.
“He’s been visiting everyone who’s dying,” whispered Abdua, still staring through the window. “Everyone took by the plague but not yet dead. He’s been tending to them. Praying with them. Easing their passing.”
“Dying?” snapped Rasnik, as he watched the cage unfurl its strands. It looked like a metal bud opening its petals, revealing the regal figure sitting inside. “I’m not dying.”
Abdua gave him an incredulous look. “I’m amazed you’ve lasted this long.” She nodded at the window. “But not many of us will speak to one of the Elect before we pass.”
Rasnik stared in amazement as the Curious Man stepped from his mechanical carriage and nodded at the crowds. The morning light seemed to be radiating from him rather than the sun, burning in his lemon robes, shimmering across his crown, spinning in his wake like the tail of a comet.
His attendants gripped the knives at their belts and scowled, and the crowd fell to its knees, staring at the road as the glorious figure strode past, heading for Rasnik’s lodgings.
“He is coming here,” whispered Rasnik. He reeled from the window, falling, but managing to direct his fall so he landed on the bed. A violent cough ripped through his scrawny chest, painting strands of crimson across the sheets.
Abdua backed away, pressing her hands to her mask.
“I’ll send him up,” she said, heading for the door, her voice muffled.
Rasnik wiped his face on the sheets, scrubbing at the blood and pus and running his fingers through his hair. A Curious Man. From their first days in Athanor, his parents had told him tales of the Elect – visionary seers, ruling the city from the hidden vaults of their temples, nurturing it like gardeners, creating power and growth and light with their secret arts. Fusing the force of the sun with the power of the elements. Never, in all those years, had his parents dreamt that their son would meet one of them.
A few minutes later there was a polite knock at his door.
“Come in,” gasped Rasnik, “please”.
And there he was, the Curious Man, sweeping into Rasnik’s lodgings on a shimmer of flame-bright robes, illuminating the room like a saint in a fresco. He removed his helmet and his face was shockingly human – kind, smiling and careworn, clean-shaven and framed by blond, shoulder-length hair. He rushed to the bedside and gently took Rasnik’s hand, showing no fear or revulsion, only concern.
“Forgive me for arriving unannounced.” His voice was soft and full of good humour. “I’m Phrater Alzen.”
“Rasnik,” he replied, trying to rise so he could bow.
“Please,” said Alzen, shaking his head. “Save your strength. You are about to become a traveller. You have a journey ahead of you.”
He turned to Abdua who was loitering in the doorway, her mask removed and her hair greased back. She clutched her hands together and rushed forwards, an eager expression on her face.
“Please take a message to my servants,” he said. “No one is to enter the building while we are praying. I sense the moment is close and I intend to stay with Rasnik until the end.”
She nodded and was about to rush from the room when he held up a hand and smiled. “If you could wait downstairs too, please, Abdua. Rasnik and I have much to discuss. We will need complete privacy.”
“Of course, Your Holiness.” She looked horrified by the suggestion she might interrupt anything. “I’ll wait downstairs until you ask for me.” She hesitated at the threshold, looking at Rasnik with almost as much awe as she had looked at the Curious Man, then she hurried away.
Alzen crossed to the door, closed it and turned the lock. Then he pulled the shutters and plunged the room into darkness. The darkness was only brief. There was a rustling sound as he took something from his robes, then a warm glow flooded from his hand, splaying golden beams between his fingers and making the room feel as though it were lit by a flickering fire.
He walked back to the bed and placed the source of the light on the sheets. It was a silver egg, about the size of a man’s fist and covered in golden filigree. The filigree was formed into a fine, winding network, designed to resemble hairline cracks. Light was bleeding through the metal coils. Mandrel-fire. Undying Light. The magic of the Elect.
Rasnik stared at the egg. It was probably more valuable than anything he had ever seen in his life.
“Beautiful, isn’t it?” said Alzen. “Alchymia of the purest, most ancient kind. The Old King gave it to me as gift, many years ago.”
“Is it my time, Your Holiness?” asked Rasnik, ashamed to think how terrible he must look to this noble being.
Alzen nodded. “Indeed. Time to rejoin the Prima Materia. Time to let the cosmos conceive of you again.” He picked up the egg and examined its filigreed cracks, as though looking for something. “You will see wonders that even the most devout seeker has never glimpsed.”
Rasnik noticed something new in Alzen’s voice. Something just beneath his genial tone.
“This will ease your pain,” said Alzen, taking a small pipe from his robes and blowing into it, filling the air with sweet-smelling spices.
Rasnik took a deep breath and his pain did indeed fade. He lay back on the bed with a sigh of relief. He tried to thank Alzen, but he found that his muscles had relaxed to such an extent that he could not move his tongue. All that emerged was a faint groan.
Alzen smiled and held a finger to his lips, shushing him like a restless baby.
As Alzen shuffled closer, Rasnik realized what Alzen’s tone of voice reminded him of. It was like the eager hunger of a cinnabar addict. After years of addiction, Rasn
ik could recognize the sound of desperation. His awe began to be replaced by fear. Why had Alzen sedated him?
Rasnik tried to move away from him, but the strength had completely gone from his limbs. His fear grew.
“Time is of the essence,” said Alzen, sounding less cheerful, “so I’ve had to find ways to expedite my work.” He stopped fiddling with the egg to give Rasnik a gentle pat on the arm. “I’m sure you would have died soon, old friend, whether I arrived or not. Very few people survive the later stages of the plague.” Something clicked and he looked back at the egg. “Ah, found it.” He rose from the bed and returned to the door, checking it was still locked, then came back towards Rasnik, light spilling from his hands and flashing in his eyes.
“You’re destined for something greater, Rasnik,” he whispered, gazing at the metal egg. He was talking to himself now, seeming to have forgotten Rasnik. “Phrater Ostan guesses the truth, perhaps, maybe even Phrater Zimos, but none of the others. There’s only one true catalyst. They struggle with their petty acts of transfiguration, dreaming that they could regain the powers we lost, but they don’t know where to start. They have no idea.” He sat next to Rasnik again. “They see me getting closer, but they think my success stems only from the purity of my spirit.”
Rasnik watched with a mixture of horror and fascination as the egg began to change. The golden cracks parted, fracturing its surface and revealing something inside.
“Coagulus,” said Alzen, his voice full of pride.
The egg folded itself away with the same, jerky, clockwork movements as Alzen’s palankeen, revealing a neat, square piece of cloth. It was folded carefully and patterned with a tracery of faint blue lines.
“The Old King didn’t understand the gift he was giving me,” said Alzen, gently stroking the folded sheet. “And, even if he had, he would never have dared use it. As desperate as my brethren are to revive the glories of the past, they would place your life above the requirements of the Art. I understand, of course, but that’s why we’ve been growing weaker, century after century.”
