Cloudfyre Falling - A dark fairy tale

by A. L. Brooks

  Darkfort’s cathedral were a pyramidal structure designed to reflect its immediate surrounds. The only difference being it stood taller and wider than the ones the Juuga had left. And at four hundred years, it were also considerably younger. Also, unlike its neighbours, it did not carry the same mysterious hieroglyphics. Instead it carried depictions of the sand goddess Skalla. And there she stood, carved from a monumental chunk of bleakstone atop the cathedral. So tall and stark were she that folk from Gargaron’s village claimed that on a clear Summer’s day, standing on the escarpment overlooking Hovel, one could spot her.

  Gargaron slowed and hovered there in the air above the settlement. He saw naught but corpses. These included pilgrims, by the looks, for he counted many several species of folk. Darkfort were known for its influx of travelers from realms near and far, from the Outlands, from the sky-cities of Freiyfall and Oppaarra, some even from across the raging seas, a journey made only by the foolhardy or the very brave. Makeshift camps were a common sight on the fringes of Darkfort. Some yurts still stood. Others had been torn away by wind and gale; these flapped and whipped against spinifex or snagged amidst bleakstone or spindle tree.

  The well-worn path, Pilgrim’s Way, meandered through the pyramid hills toward the Gates of Forever, a colossal stone gate guarded by dormant Monyt sentries, etched with the same hieroglyphs that featured on the surrounding structures. Flower offerings and sacrificial corpses hung from pikes around it. Slaughtered squid giants, brought by coastal folk, hung from pegs upon the gate. Before this devastating blight, Gargaron had witnessed such sacrifices swarming with flies and carrion bats. But there were naught of the sort this day. The same went for every corpse his eyes found. And unlike Autumn, there were no corpse flowers here. As there had been none in Horseshoe or Mount Destruction.

  Be this a positive sign? he wondered. He were too perplexed, too jaded to distinguish.

  The Gates of Forever were currently closed. Its strange and unholy breech in the fabric of reality locked away. There, in days before this blight, brave souls―or senseless fools, depending on how you looked at it―would chance their fate and cross into other worlds. Sometimes returning. Sometimes not. Gargaron had once purchased a book said to have been sought from another plane of reality, pulled back into Cloudfyre through the portal. Strangeworld, it were called. An expensive heirloom but oh, how it spoke of strange wonders from a distant garden across Great Nothing.

  11

  Here, Gargaron wondered what he should do next. While he had access to Skysight he thought it would be worthwhile to search much and more. The capitols, for example. Dunforth. Blakanz. And the northlands. Far beyond the mountains. Where Eilophi Swamp and the Deserts of Gahndor met the Jagged Sea. And the westwolds, where folk told tales of ancient lizards that still walked the land, gargantuan beasts that could gobble up a giant in a single bite. And Jade Deep, the Green Sea, a vast ocean of frozen wastes whose depths were unknown to anyone but the green ghost squid who lived to pull down all those who would sail upon her. There were cities in or upon her shores. Cities he had never seen. Never dreamt of seeing. And what of the realms across the waves? Continents and islands beyond count. How far would he need take the Skysight? How far had this blight spread?

  For a long while his sight hovered over Darkfort. Wondering. Wondering what next to do. How long would he need concentrate his thoughts? How long before exhaustion got the better of him and Skysight ate away his untrained mind?

  I must continue my search. I must. If I be sent insane then perhaps that shall be a sweet end to all this.

  So… he concentrated his mind.

  And started with the capitols…

  THE GOAT’S HEAD

  1

  BY the time Gargaron tumbled from Skysight’s pilot chair, star and moon gazed down upon him.

  Death, he thought. All there be, is death unbound.

  He lay there, on his back, arms at his sides. He felt as though he had swum across a wild river, one with raging and twisting torrents, one that had dunked him beneath its frothing rapids, one that had tried its best to ring the breath from him. Now he simply lay there… as if rendered mindless, drained of all feeling, yet unable to find sleep.

  His eyes gazed out at the Great Nothing. A strange name for it, he found himself thinking distantly, and not for the first time. For it were obviously filled with countless cosmic night fires. Such peace though, he thought. Such silence it is filled with. As silent as all the gods of Cloudfyre, it would seem.

  Death Unbound.

  Has this blight come from out there? Has it been visited upon us by one of those mysterious starmen?

  Another thought occurred to him then. Has this blight spread beyond Cloudfyre? He half expected to see the fires out there begin blinking out one by one, then two by two, and three by three and in ever increasing number until noting but the endless, eternal void looked back.

  Then it would be called Great Nothing.

  He felt now he were looking down rather than up. That the deck at his back were a ceiling upon which he were somehow suspended. That at any moment his body might peel from skytower and he would simply fall away into the universe. He felt like there were naught to stop his fall should that occur. The blue sky, the clouds, all had vanished with the setting of the suns. It seemed there were now clear passage down into the Great Nothing if he wanted it.

  He felt his eyes closing…

  He forced them open.

  And they shut again.

  At last his body peeled away…and he fell…

  2

  He recalled no dreams but a dream of bringing his daughter to life, her eyes snapping open. And then he remembered Yarniya sitting beside him remarking on morning’s sunrise and Veleyal, alive and breathing, over by a low hedgerow of Brawny Twisters, gazing west, holding her plaited pigtails out of her face as the gentle wind tugged at them.

  You have work here yet.

  Curiously, he looked across at his wife as she spoke these words and he asked her this time, ‘What do you mean by this, my sweet?’

  She smiled as Veleyal called to them both. ‘Melus follows Gohor,’ their daughter called. ‘Come look. It is beautiful.’

  ‘Yarniya,’ he said as she rose and strolled to Veleyal’s side. ‘Yarniya, what do you mean, pray tell.’

  ‘Dada,’ Veleyal implored him, ‘come look. You must.’

  He walked to their sides and beheld a sight he had never imagined. The two suns occupied the same hemisphere. It had never been known. They were closer than he had ever seen them. Aye, it were beautiful, the colours they sent out across the haze and mist of morning were but a radiant rainbow, but alas it were also somehow frightening.

  He turned to his wife, this time to ask her if she thought it strange, the positioning of the suns, but she stood there no more. And Veleyal too had gone.

  Cassahndia, the mischievous Goddess of Dreams, were teasing him now he knew. The ruse though were like nails in his heart.

  3

  He were still atop Skysight. And as he had observed in his dream, sun fires of morning were lighting the heavens. And not only that but his great, two-headed steed, were standing there at down-ramp to lower deck, watching him curiously as if enquiring, Are we vacating this wretched spot yet or no?

  It took Gargaron time gathering himself that morning. He sat there at first staring at the etched portrait of he and Veleyal and Yarniya. He touched the fine grooves in the stone with his fingertips. Tear drops spilt from his eyes, splashing against the likenesses of his dear girls, teardrops that converted instantly to glowing wisps that flurried away on the breeze. He watched them go and it brought his gaze to the sunrise. Here he blinked as he peered out across the eastwun sky. The two suns did look awkwardly close, he thought. It looked wrong. He would have paid it more scrutiny yet he found his mind still distracted by all he had seen through Skysight.

  When he finally pulled himself to his weary feet, he did so with all the pain and feebleness of a giant a hundre
d years his senior. He strolled to the down-ramp. Without any word or enthusiasm he took the horse’s reins. He climbed up into the saddle and without care, let the steed take him where it would.

  4

  It were with indifference that he descended Skytower. Deflated and without care. Unlike his ascent, he cared not for the sheer drop-offs. For all he had seen, Godrik’s Vale had fallen to this blight. All he had seen were death. Why then did he need live? If the steed stumbled and took them both out into freefall, then what did he care? Death would rush up to welcome him. And he would welcome it.

  5

  Morning’s shadows were still cast long and slim when he and steed reached ground and made their way from the Watchguard fort and out into the street. He took a breath and looked about as if he had just awoken, surprised somehow that he had actually reached ground safely.

  With the sunlight against his face Gargaron gazed up and up and up. The top of Skysight seemed impossibly far away, and impossibly small and impossibly fragile. The horse came to a standstill and it were a few moments before Gargaron realised they were no longer moving. He drew in a long breath and looked about. Empty streets abounded, overlapped by silence. Nothing stirred but for lonely breezes sifting through loose refuse tipping along the cobblestones. Corpse Flowers remained in abundance. Gargaron believed he could hear them murmuring to each other. An ugly sound, he thought, the sounds of death, of scheming, of conspiracy. An odour wafted on the cool, dry air, an odour of spoilt meat. Many bodies were bloated or bloating, causing limbs to defy gravity, poking out parallel to the roadway. It were a depressing sight. Gargaron would not allow his gaze to linger upon them. In the end, the presence of Corpse Flowers almost proved a godsend, for their black roots and violet petals did well enough to wrap and conceal the carcasses.

  Gargaron breathed in. And out. The air were laced with the foul reek of rot. Yet he were conscious of the sounds of his respiration. I am all that breathes.

  He felt at a loss about what to do, where to go. There seemed little point to anything.

  ‘I should have thrown myself down to Endworld when I had the chance,’ he murmured.

  You have work here first.

  ‘I hardly care,’ he heard himself reply.

  Something squeaked momentarily in the wind. He spied a swaying pub sign. The Goat’s Head. A wine sink he had visited once or twice in younger days. Its sign swung in gentle breeze, again squeaking, whining, before falling silent once more. It were like a voice in the dark. What else to do, but drown your grief, it seemed to say.

  Outside the Inn, Gargaron left Grimah unhitched. He pushed his way inside and found the steed trailing him. He cared not. The stench in there were foul with the reek of deceased patrons. Undeterred he pushed on to cellar.

  He found a number of kilderkins of strong Easthills Ale and grabbed a stoneware masskrug from the bar as he passed by, stepping around bodies, simultaneously hacking back Corpse Flowers, the way a farmer might scythe corn stalks. The horse followed him outside where the air were marginally fresher. Gargaron plonked himself at table in the beer garden. The horse stood nearby.

  Gargaron tapped the kil and filled his masskrug and closing his eyes, took a long, long draught. Emptying the mug in one, he let out a long satisfied breath. And burped. Loud. He opened his eyes and filled his mug again and took another slug.

  Within three or four helpings the world already seemed far rosier. He gazed around the beer garden. A handful of dead patrons were scattered about. Some Giants, some Ghisshas from the Overhills, some Storkmen from yonder Foggdam. Their bodies lay in the grass. Or were still seated at table, variously slumped forward or slumped back. Each of them attached to a Corpse Flower.

  After his fifth drink Gargaron burped, stood, and, strolling about with masskrug in one hand, and greatsword in the other, he casually and carelessly, and mindlessly it must be said, executed each Flower with a single blow to their stem, minding the eruption of spores. When the air had cleared and the Corpse Flowers lay squirming, dying, he casually returned to his seat, sat down, took a guzzle, and gazed down the street with the satisfaction of someone having just yanked a great number of particularly stubborn weeds from their garden.

  Hunger eventually caused him to rummage through his pack to see what he might find. Hardened rye bread and salted wrasse. His tongue almost blistered at the thought of more of that river fish. He closed up his bag and looked about. And recalled a butcher nearby.

  6

  Soon he were back at table with a smoked cured breast of moorhen. He unwrapped it and employed his knife to cut off a hearty slab. Moorhen juice dribbled down his chin as he munched into moist smoky meat, washing it down with great draughts of ale. He found pears for his steed inside the Goat’s Head. And he even let is horse drink some ale; both thick-lipped mouths slurping up the ale thirstily.

  This is how they saw out the morning. Drinking, eating. Until, after his third kilderkin, Gargaron slumped forward against the wooden table and slept.

  7

  He dreamt of an A7-VRIT zeppelin airship floating serenely over the street. He lay there upon the cobblestones gazing up at its ridged underside, thinking how graceful it looked, drifting silently on a current of soft breezes. He dreamt that airmen from Carpscoum or Rarean-On-Torr had launched reconnaissance missions into territories struck down by this blight. That they had come searching for survivors. It were almost out of his sight eastways before he thought he might do well to alert them to his presence. But his attempts to move, wave his arms, kick his legs, bellow out, were somewhat restricted it seemed, entwined in the blackest roots of a Corpse Flower.

  He lifted his head from the cobbles and gazed along his body. He found he were wrapped up, like spider prey in web; he could not even howl for help for the roots had coiled about his mouth and face and were slowly squeezing the air from him.

  8

  He awoke with a start, grunting, calling out. He sat up in haste, disoriented, looking about, a dull ache besieging the innards of his skull. He saw first his steed standing there, looking around at him, as if to say Oh, so you are alive. As if it had been standing guard. Or eager to push off. He saw next the street in which he lay, cobbled and dusty, and buildings on either side as if they were creatures escaped from his dreams regarding him, and empty carts, and carcasses being slowly sucked dry by Corpse Flowers. He saw thirdly the Goat’s Head Inn. Or more correctly he caught sight of its pub sign squeaking in the wind.

  He breathed in and out calmly, his head thumping. He gazed into the immediate skies above Autumn. Cloud and blue sky prevailed, and, from different points, Gohor and Melus burned down at him. Alas, there were no airship. Just the one fading in his dream, and his futile hopes of rescue simmering in his mind.

  9

  A foul taste coated the insides of his mouth. The raw flavour of too much ale. A dry, bitter taste. He rubbed his eyes before hoisting himself to his rump and he sat there, yawning, shading his face from the suns.

  He craved water. He looked around for his bag. It were not on his person, nor, as far as he could see, were it lying anywhere in his vicinity. Unsteady he pushed himself to his feet, yawning again, his temples pounding. He sifted through his Nightface’s immediate memories but a Nightface were never less reliable than after a bout of its hosts heavy drinking—especially if its master had fallen asleep face-up and its own eyes privy to nothing but dusty cobblestones.

  Gargaron stumbled back into beer garden. Apparently the dead had no interest in worldly possessions for there his bag lay on the bench where he had left it, Hor the Cutter’s old hammer poking out the top, and the remainder of his provisions spilling forth. Gargaron fished out the gourd and drank… though two gulps later the vessel were dry.

  He held it curiously at arm’s length, scrutinising it for some time, as if the thing had betrayed him.

  Grimah in turn watched him.

  ‘Blast,’ he said irritably. He stared back at his horse, as if the beast might offer some solution. But t
he steed simply watched him indifferently.

  Eventually Gargaron considered Autumn’s water reservoir. ‘A mission then,’ Gargaron croaked, holding the gourd aloft victoriously. ‘To the town supply! For the sake of all the kingdom we shall fill our canisters!’

  Both faces of the horse looked at him, ears flicking. Neither appeared amused.

  Gargaron dropped his arm, stared at his steed for a more positive, sympathetic response. He got none. Gargaron shrugged.

  ‘Come then,’ he said flatly as he picked up his pack and slung it over his shoulder. ‘Quest or no, we do require water.’

  UJIK-L78

  1

  THE centre of Autumn were much like other giant settlements. Its animist cathedral lay on the northern edge of a large rounded clearing where towering central posts hung with animal sacrifices and the cobbles around these posts stained a deep crimson by centuries of blood spillage. Stone gutters, five here in Autumn (the number varied from region to region), ran out several metres to where a shallow pond lay. Of course, it currently lay empty of blood, though it too were well stained. The five Faces Of Autumn rested there; heads sculpted from blood stone, with mouths gaping wide, always thirsty, drinking down blood whenever it were offered. During ritual sacrifice the gutters gushed and the pool would brim and the Faces Of Autumn would take their fill and if the great spirits were appeased the eyes in each Face would come open and glow white.

  Today, as Gargaron passed by, animal remains (mostly bone and flaky skin) hung from the sacrificial posts and the pool lay empty and the Faces Of Autumn slept, their stone eyes shut. For all Gargaron knew they would now likely sleep forever.