by A. L. Brooks
3
Autumn did prove deserted of the living. No matter where he tread or searched, naught but the dead lined its streets and the stench of decay were ripe and raw on the breeze. Yet there were things alive here that brought him no cause for celebration. Enormous violet flowers growing from the dead.
Corpse Flowers, his kind knew them by name. And as he pressed on deeper into the township, their numbers grew, parts of the settlement looking more like forests of violet, with their towering stems soaring above many households and shops, leaves and flowers fluttering and swaying in the breeze.
Gargaron had not seen such numbers of these creatures for many a year, not since the early days of his marriage to his sweetheart Yarniya. He recalled an occasion when he and his father had come across a bloodied battle field and there he had lain his eyes on hundreds of them. Hundreds of Corpse Flowers that had taken root within the dead and were hungrily consuming them. He thought he would never have seen such a show of them again in his life. But here there must’ve been thousands.
Undeterred, he called out in front of the governor’s residence, and searched the hospital. He strolled through the community hall, then the university, hoping he might find survivors holed up against this blight. All the while he gave the flowers a wide berth. But searching the town for survivors made no difference. Autumn proved as dead and silent as Hovel.
At last he stood outside the gates of Autumn’s Watchguard, hoping that at last here would be living folk, members of the Watchguard, surviving against the tide of death. The Watchguard fort were a vast walled complex, for here were the barracks and the primary centre of control of the realm’s mighty protectors. The complex also housed the base of Skysight Tower. Though Gargaron’s hopes were sunk for the gates were cast open, something that would not have been had the Watchguard remained alive and at their post.
He heeled his steed, cautiously pushing through gate and arch, and were met with the sight of a hundred of his own kind, giants, scattered about in various poses of death and decay. Some sprawled across cobbles. Others dangling from rampart and wall. Some still at desks within offices and administration houses, bellies eaten open, innards dragged out and unceremoniously pulled across tiled floor like stuffing from a doll.
And here amidst numerous Corpse Flowers, skorks and greeps hissed at his intrusion, black little devil bugs with beetle eyes and long slurping tongues. He had hoped for life here, sentient life, but alas all that seemed dashed.
4
He took his steed to base of tower. A spot upon which he had never stood. Indeed not being of the Watchguard, he would not have been permitted to otherwise. And never would he have foreseen such a day when he could simply amble up to Watchguard Gate and simply stroll through unchallenged. Now here he stood, marveling at the craftsmanship of the tower, a true engineering wonder, gazing up and up and up… to where Skytower’s upper floors needled the clouds.
He heeled his steed, circled the vast base of the tower; the clip-clop of the great horse’s hooves echoing off the surrounding domed Watchguard buildings and its tall outer walls. Two arched gates, gates too left open and ajar, lead through fifty feet of base wall to an inner courtyard.
He took Grimah through and stood there gazing up into tower’s tall, hollow interior. It were essentially a giant needle, he observed, hollow all the way to its tip, far out of sight above him; it ached his neck to crane back his head to look. He circled about looking for a way up.
There were more Corpse Flowers here too, he observed, growing up the tan stonework.
Gargaron slid down from his steed, but did not tether the beast. He did not want the great destrier hitched if those Dark Ones he had seen suddenly appeared. He would rather the horse bolt and save itself than be cut down defenseless.
He withdrew his great sword and, before further business, strode forward and hacked down the hideous violet flowers where they had embedded themselves within the carcasses of his people. The Flowers mewled horribly in protest as he did so, and spat out clouds of purple spore as they collapsed.
Gargaron stumbled backwards, mindful not to breathe in whilst the spore clouds passed away upon air and breeze. He did not understand enough of their kind to know whether or not this spore could lodge within the lungs of the living and germinate. Some old stories alleged that they could. That they could spread disease such as Crimp Pox, and Creeping Sickness and Wailing Wounds. Gargaron did not wish to find out.
5
The going were slow. Not because of the horse. The great beast proved eager enough, indeed the steed actually seemed quite at ease, as if it had climbed this ramp before, for it showed no fear with the heights they gained as they ascended the tower, nor did it seem to mind those terrible wind gusts that wailed through the open walls, biting and tearing at Gargaron’s cotton shirts and clawing at his hair.
Gargaron, on the other hand, did not feel its ease. From a distance the Skysight Tower appeared a formidable piece of engineering, always imposing, magnificent, portraying the idea that nothing could shift it, move it, that it would stand until the last stars in the Great Nothing winked out. But here as Gargaron climbed it, the building felt suddenly imperfect, inadequate, compromised by his weight. As if it might begin to sway, and without warning, topple.
Why, it holds a hundred Watchguard giants at once, he reminded himself. And their steeds.
But that were not all. Both inner and outer walls of this tower had been constructed at regular intervals with gaping floor-to-ceiling arched openings to allow a through-hole for buffeting gales, and there remained no railing to prevent one falling out of the tower if one slipped or tripped. And nothing to prevent one’s steed from charging out into open space if one’s steed suddenly found itself spooked.
Gargaron had himself alternatively hauling Grimah left as one of these gaps came up on his right, or pulled his steed right as one emerged on his left. The steed however did its best to fight this pattern, pulling back as much as it could to the centre of the corridor as the floor (or skyramp as Gargaron had heard it named) wound up and up and up around the central well.
Ultimately it were the two-headed steed that won out.
‘I feel you have done this before,’ Gargaron said, to the horse. ‘You must indeed be a steed of the Watchguard. Right then, I put my trust in you. But here be my proposal: you get me to the top and down again without falling out and the next load of apples we find I shall give you the king’s share.’
And so on they went, guided by steed.
6
Gargaron tried his best not looking down. But mounted on Grimah, regardless of whether the horse were a trained mount of the Watchguard or not, eventually became too much. The skyramp would have been thirty or forty feet across, but from his vantage atop the horse it felt as though they were traversing naught but a narrow beam. Aye, Grimah seemed more than sure of himself upon that ramp, at those tall, tall reaches of the tower, but that dizzying height ate at Gargaron’s waning confidence. So, finally, feeling vulnerable, unsafe, rocking there side to side on that great mount, gripping the reins till his knuckles hurt, he dismounted and chose to climb the remaining reaches on foot.
That felt somewhat safer. Slower aye, but safer. Though the winds seemed to buffet him with greater fervour now, as if angered by his decision to leave his mount, and they seemed to grow more and more frantic the higher he climbed. He hunched his shoulders and where he could he clasped the wall for support. And where the walls opened on either side presenting him with giddy views on either side of the ground far, far below he slowed to a crawl.
He would not now ever believe those stories he had heard of seasoned Watchguard members racing each other to the top of this tower on backs of gallant twin-headed steeds. ‘Pure folly, if ever there were!’ Gargaron hissed under his breath. And every now and then, his horse, who strolled casually ahead, apparently unafraid, would stop and peer about and Gargaron could have sworn it looked amused.
‘Aye, if you could talk,’ he sa
id, ‘you might be of a mind to let me know how silly I look. But laugh all you like. Just do not forget to ask yourself who shall be laughing more the harder once your eagerness takes you tumbling out over this treacherous edge?’
Frustrated, Gargaron crawled on belly to tower’s inner edge and without meaning it he gazed down into the “well”. The diametre of this “well” had been a hundred feet at ground level, and were growing steadily narrower the higher they went. But it made no difference to the level of his fear. It were still a mighty drop. The Corpse Flowers he had slain what felt like hours earlier still lay there but so far away did they appear that they looked no more than a smudge of violet against the ground. Of course, his intention here had been not to look down but to try and search upwards, to gauge how far he yet had to climb. From where he lay, flat on his belly, this were a much harder action to conduct, to crane his chin and neck upwards, to strain his eyes in search of the pinnacle. The effect made it feel as though he were suddenly leaning precariously out over the vast drop below him, that the demon force that hauled all things to ground would grip him and pull him from the ledge. How he had ever stood with his toes over the edge of the Great Precipice were beyond him.
Vertigo swam through him and his fingers clamped against the edge of the skyramp, fingernails bending backwards with strain and effort.
Slowly he wriggled away from the edge, catching his breath. When he looked up he saw both faces of Grimah watching him.
‘Laugh but once,’ he told it, ‘and I shall throw you from this infernal place myself!’
It did no laugh of course but Gargaron were certain it smiled.
7
It took Gargaron and steed another hour of slow, careful, plodding to reach the top. And it were with momentous relief that the skyramp finally came to end as the tower tapered to a point where a circular floor sat atop the well. Here the ramp culminated and Gargaron lead his steed onto the landing and tethered it to a hitching rail on a central column; here Grimah drank heavily from a trough filled with water.
‘Is that why you felt the need for haste?’ Gargaron said good naturedly, scratching it behind one set of ears and then the next. ‘To reach water?’
He took his gourd from his belt and quenched his own thirst.
From there he took a few moments to catch his breath and take in his surroundings. He knew he were not yet at tower’s roof. At least a level above him it were, he judged. The platform on which he currently stood lay perhaps fifty feet across. There were no outer barrier, no wall nor rampart, nothing to prevent the hapless from tripping and falling out; just a series of eight columns supporting the higher deck. And a stairwell leading upwards.
‘Stay here,’ he ordered his horse. And wandered off toward the stairs.
8
Above he emerged onto another circular platform, the sky fine and high above him. The winds were chilly and bit at him and blustered his hair and ragged his clothing. At ground level such wind would not have concerned him. He may have declared it a mere breeze if someone had commented on it, but otherwise he would have paid it no mind. Up here, at what felt the top of the world, it felt as though it worked at pushing him to the edge of the platform and over it if it could. Though the edge of the platform had a low rampart around it for which he were grateful.
He turned his attention to the Skysight. It consisted of a brass mast protruding from the centre of the platform, jutting straight up into the heavens for another three hundred feet or so. He had never used the Skysight, obviously, but had heard many times of its make-up and usage. Within the mast there were said to be a pipe of polished Lhulic, steel made from metals mined on sites out near Graveston, and hidden within this pipe lay an intricate conglomeration of mirrors and copper tubing which worked in conjunction with an enchanted Eye of Moonglass that could scour the Vale thousands of leagues in any direction. The contraption had been designed, engineered, constructed, and erected entirely by giant magers.
The base of it hung suspended from a steel basket whose struts ran down diagonally into the stonework of the platform. The space beneath the basket were large enough to permit someone of Gargaron’s size, as it had been designed.
On a circular dais beneath the brass Skysight mast sat a large metal seat. Above the seat, suspended from the base of the mast, were a sight-helmet with a flexible brass hose hanging down that attached to a wide cup which enveloped the entire forward part of the helmet. Gargaron fitted himself into the seat. He found it rather comfortable, leather bound and padded beneath. He reclined. He took hold of the helmet and without further hesitation pulled it down over his head.
SKYSIGHT
1
FOR a long while it were dark. He saw nothing. He sat a few moments, waiting for something to happen. He had heard the Skysight tapped into electrical impulses within the brain. So he were happy to wait.
Soon… he saw light.
Blurred, indistinct light.
And then…a sensation of movement, of rushing toward something at tremendous speed and then halting abruptly, and instantaneously the blurred light coalesced into mountains so close before him he felt as though he truly hovered in the air before them.
The effect were dizzying, nauseating. And so unsettling Gargaron went to remove his helmet. He gripped the mechanism encasing his head. But hesitated… For his giddiness were beginning to subside. And he began to feel something else.
Awe.
He felt bird-like, hovering there, staring at the mountains. He looked down. And saw ground far, far below him: rain swept fields and glacial valleys, and the meandering grey course of some cold trickling brook. Somehow he did not fear the height. He felt free, and were almost convinced that he could not possibly be seated in some chair at the top of Skysight Tower, that he must have fallen asleep in that chair and carried away on some dream.
If he looked left and right he saw the mountain range sweeping away in both directions. He found he could turn fully about and view heather clad hills and a lake to what he guessed lay southways of him. He could hear the lonesome wind rolling out of the mountains. He could feel biting alpine air against his skin, in his hair, burrowing into his clothes; the smell of it proved crisp and fresh, he filled his lungs with it.
At length he hovered there. Looking about. He soon realised, other than turning about, he had not moved from this position.
He turned about again. The mountains swung back into view. He wondered distantly if he had somehow died. Perhaps the Tower had collapsed. Or maybe the Skysight had somehow sapped up his soul and spat it out across the Vale. Now he were but a wandering spirit. No legs below him. No torso. No arms either side of him. He were but a simple consciousness, an entity of pure thought floating somewhere out over Godrik’s Vale’s vast reaches.
If this is death, he thought, then I fear it not.
The notion of his own possible death took his thoughts to the Great Precipice. A pang of sadness, of guilt and anger, hit him. He thought of igniting his girls and watching them trail away with Vurah’s Wraithbirds…
In moments the mountains were rushing from him, hurtling northways’n’west. Fast.
Or, more likely, he were being dragged southways’n’east. A sea-sickness gripped him. The world about him degenerated into a murky blur.
2
He had a sense of turning. Not spinning, but turning, changing directions. Instead of facing northways, he were being reoriented, rotating to face eastways while still being pulled southways’n’east through cloudy skies and patches of rain.
The blur before him soon grew brighter. But there came no refined detail, just a brighter blur, as of a bright light beyond a fog, as opposed to a weak light.
If this is death then perhaps I am now on my way to the Afterworlds.
But just as soon as it had begun, the sensation of movement instantly subsided and his belly stopped lurching.
Again, as before, the light before him started to find shape and form until he realised he hovered high and high
er above a vast, vast valley. Rimming this valley were something of an escarpment wall that dropped away to valley floor beyond sight.
At first he were uncertain as to what he were looking at. Until he recognised certain creatures hanging from caves in the cliff face. Hands of Teyesha. Native to the Great Precipice. Though all dead they were, their huge vacant eyes gazing down into Endworld, their wrists both wrinkled and bloated, while rotting bodily fluids dripped out of them.
It saddened Gargaron, although he had guessed their fate when he had left this place. And now, in some form or other he had returned. It both hurt and warmed his heart. For here he felt close to his girls. Here he knew, to find them, all he need do were step off the rocky lip… and tumble down and down and down…
Considering the Lost Cities of men, he gazed into Endworld’s depths, and before he knew it, he were gliding down past Precipice’s Edge, gliding down and down…
A ringing in his thoughts began to bring everything to blackness. A ringing that burrowed deeper and deeper into his mind the closer to Endworld he drew. Breathing grew difficult. And then he did not breathe at all. He felt he were holding his breath at the bottom of some deep black pond. He needed desperately to swim up for air.
In his mind he clawed against the cliff face, grabbing anything that would gain him purchase. The ringing were now a wail through his skull. And still he could not breathe, could not scream nor roar nor cry. Nothing. Just a simple, awful feeling of suffocation.
If this is death then perhaps I am being delivered to Xahghis. Afterworld Goddess of eternal pain.
The rotting Hands of Teyesha snagged against him, the fingers of rotting meat sliding over him, as if this time they did not wish to aid his rise back up the wall but to hinder it, to push him down.
He not only felt them, he could smell them, the sweet rank odour of death and corruption. It filled his lungs with every inhalation, every intake of breath felt like sucking in hot gummy liquid that left a taste of bad, wormy fruit in the back of his mouth. He heard himself gasping, spluttering, gagging. He saw nothing in front of him but rancid flesh in the empty root-toothed faces as they slowly smothered him.
