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Chapter Two - Well, it wasn't going to get better

Under the immense, overwhelming skies of Malfeas, there is a stretch of ground baked harshly by Darac, The Drought of Flame, defining soul of The Green Sun. The nearly limitless waste of dried mud flakes and roils; boiling out of the soil are his children, the Nuroten, birthed from Malfean vitriol and his light, who crack and collapse, baked into nothingness by their beloved master's desert sight. There is no name for this place, and none will miss it when it is gone. The days were not counted in that wasteland when a waxen ulcer grew in the soil, a chancre on the flesh of Malfeas, which burst outwards, opening a calcite tunnel downwards and spewing out rivers of primordial pus that wound themselves in whatever directions they pleased. The Nuroten knew, at the most basic level of their hollow minds, that they must flee, but their minimal consciousness allowed an image – climb into the cavern that had opened, escape the baking heat of the master, so that they could continue to worship him. Downwards, cool moistness, rest. They climbed into the vein of Zuratha, and were lost forever. Some time afterwards, perhaps a minute or a hundred lives of men, something came curdling through the air, a writhing mass of flesh that floated uncertainly through the Malfean air, as if a weighted fish or a man in struggling in tar. It found itself at the mouth of the endless swallowing cave, and eagerly dove downwards. In a winding tunnel of waxy white stone the thing moved surely, its fleshy bulk filling the whole cavern, muscles springing from its body tipped with claws that let it haul itself obscenely down the caverns like an earthworm. It traveled for a time, before finding an opening into an endless cavern that filled no space, was twisted about and through with tunnels that wound and pulsed like veins, that shrieked always and howled with the braying of infinite hounds. The atrocity against biology clambered into the atrocity against geography, and they communed for a time, sharing their news.

The barriers of Nexus stood tall and proud, the statues of the Emissary ringed with the bones of those who had broken the laws of the city. Essisa rode forwards, the sling on his chest holding the young child who gurgled softly to herself, weighing on him like a crippled limb. The road approached the borders, and at the borders there were three statues of that great omnipotent mystery of Nexus, one on each of the great road's flanks, and one standing in the center, and every cart made an eye around the sculpture like around a blind man in a crowd. Essisa felt his breath catch slightly in his throat. Even a child knew the dangers of Nexus. The river whore, he'd heard, where your neighbours will slit your throat for profit or fun, where the air stinks and nobody will ever find you, where if the Emissary notices you, you'd best be... “Ferem Essisa and Ward.” The statue at the center raised a hand as they approached the border, speaking softly with perfect clarity, no sign of motion behind the implacable mask. “Be aware of Civility 19-BTheHoverpope/MeandmyYoziChapterTwo/Ascending Air 6TheHoverpope/MeandmyYoziChapterTwo/RY749: By order of Kratz and with the assent of the full council of Nexus, you are hearby banished preemptively in perpetuity, along with your ward, on penalty of execution by Emissary.” Essisa stared for a moment before wheeling his horse and bearing away from the city as fast as it would take him. Two months they travelled before reaching the hundred kingdoms, and within six years, two of those kingdoms were consumed by flame and beast. Before Aja could read, she had lives under three different names, in three different places. Before she was ten, two more towns in which she lived had been swallowed, the dirt bubbling and boiling, buildings and people alike being dragged under as solid stone turned to consuming tar that gripped like hooks at flesh. Essisa, when Aja was thirteen, took a job as an elite tomb-guard in Sijan; the next year, the ground rejected the dead with a bubbling shriek, and the shambling bodies sloughed off their cocoon of flesh to reveal chitinous, brassen burrowing insects. Half a dozen times, monstrous things found them, caught them, tore apart their homes, destroyed their lives again, and were dispatched by Essisa's sharp eye and quick blade and spear. They used a dozen names all all across the quarter of the world, until there weren't any places in the east left to try to hide, and no new names to use. When Aja was eighteen, they left that whole quarter of the world; Essisa, with his exaltation and his wits about him, set them towards the south. The Lap, at last, accepted them for a time; a man of Essisa's talents could find work there, in his case as a regional magistrate, travelling from city to city, hearing cases, answering fairly, bringing with him at all times a surly, sullen young woman of twenty.

It was a cool morning, dew frosting softly on the canvas of a lonely tent. A woman stepped out with the first twilight, the rays of the sun just breaking the horizon. The air had a sweet smell of cold and nothing, and Aja breathed deep. The perfect weather, the perfect morning. Time to revel in the cold, even as it chilled her fingers, made them ache to bend. The cold hardened everything, and she loved it. But hunger had a place too, and so she collected the firewood they had gathered the night before. She thought on it, placing each piece as carefully as a surgeon. Smallest shards in the center on the tuft of cotton-moss, surrounded by larger pieces, surmounted by a tepee of thick branches. She clicked the flint and steel together, quick and regular, trying to coax a spark out of the rhythm. She clicked for minutes, managing only a few short-lived flaring embers. Her fingers ached, the cold invading her bones so that every little bump felt like a hammer blow. The rhythm lost its flow, syncopated, then became irregular, as the cold burned into the flesh of her lungs. She missed her stroke, grinding her knuckles along the steel. She grunted in shock at the pain, and then again as the small pile of wet wood bust into flames, spraying out away from her, flaming twigs cast out in a massive cone on the snow. She turned and looked at her brother, smiling a little as he held a small ball of flame in his hand, trying not to laugh. “You'll never light it like that, you know. You should try sulfur sticks or just, you know, exalt or something.” She just glared in response as he snuffed out his toy fire, sauntered over, piled the burning wood together and had a bonfire in seconds. She glared as she warmed her hands. Setting the kettle in the flame, her brother stood. “I'm going to go see if I can hunt us anything tasty nearby. I'm tired of this salted pork shit. I'll be back in an hour, max. Usual deal and all, don't get eaten.” She didn't say anything as he fastened on his belt of knives and walked utterly silently into the forest, the frozen leaves, adoring him, refusing to make a noise.

The fire had died down twice, and she had refueled it, cold logs snapping loudly over the thin southern snow. She watched the flames start to buck and twist, and realized. She hadn't felt any wind, hadn't noticed a touch of it on her cold cheeks. The morning was still. But the trees waved, leaves whipping about, and snow blew itself into the fire which reared away as if caught in some gust. She stood, turning from the flames, and saw a thing, a creature, like a fleshy chariot drawing itself on broad, black metal wheels. It roared towards her silently, a hundred yards and charging, streaking towards her. She stood transfixed, frozen as it charged. As it closed on her, a roaring came from the woods as a bonfire, and looking she saw a tree kindle, flame. Her brother streaked from the woods, his footsteps melting the snow, blackening the dead grass below. His head was down as he ran, and his arms were stretched behind him, each holding a blade; one of steel and one of fire. He passed swiftly under the bridge of meat that connected the horse and chariot, all of one flesh, and they collapsed to the ground, their skidding mass separated into chunks by flaming slashes. They tumbled to a halt, spraying dirt filthy with their blood, and stopped in front of Aja.

Essisa stepped up onto the carcass of the thing and sunk his fiery blade deep into it; letting go, the blade vanished in a swirling hum of released essence. “It's all right,” he said, stepping to his sister and hugging her tight. “It's all right. There were only two of them. It's all right, they're gone.” He calmed his nerves with the reassurances, and she looked dispassionately past his shoulder at the smoking mass of demon flesh. Behind her, the fire had guttered out and she could feel the cold between her brother's arms.

The people of the town were hungry. The people of the town were tired. They had suffered all of the depredations of a terrible world, and their burdens overwhelmed them. This was not a fault; they knew their place and their purpose, and they lived by those precepts. The world was broken, and they were just a bent cog in the damaged machine. A man came to the town, and he didn't say a thing to anyone in that town; not one thing. He just walked straight to the town square, that little bit of flat ground near the well, and he stood there. And he stood there for a little while, and then he started building. He built with purpose, and he was proud of that. He had a purpose in his art, and his art had a purpose in serving him, and so it was right. After a time, he finished that arch, a standing arch of green and black stones. And the people of the village gathered around, and he spoke to them for the first time. And his voice had the sadness and beauty of everything that had ever been lost to the world. He said, “My people, I know you have suffered at the hands of creation, I know you have lived hard lives, and you have lived them well. Your fields are full from your works, your houses will be rebuilt no matter how many times harsh fates knock them to the ground. My people, your purpose is in your life, it is in your living. Let me take you somewhere to live, somewhere the grain is sweet and the soil deep, where there's no perfect or prefect, no despot or emperor or monster to hurt you. Let me show you the reward for your goodness and your understanding of purpose.” And he touched the arch, and it showed them a path, a way onwards. So they all followed him, walking on and on, and they were tired and they were hungry, but they kept walking. The man walked in front of them, and it was his purpose to lead them, and he knew that; it was good and right. And their purpose was to follow him, and they knew that, and it was right. And they walked on until the man came at last to a door in the tunnels, in the path, and he opened it, and they walked through. And all the people knew they had found their home. It was a gift of the greatest, that place, with its plains of grain and fruit as far as they could see, and the walls of their home that glowed warmly by day and twinkled with nacreous light by night. The man left, because his purpose here was done, but they stayed and they lived in new homes and they ate their new grain. And their grain was air, and the soil sand, and their houses shadows, but they didn't know. And they lived happily and died happily of starvation on a full stomach. And that was the gift of Zuratha, the gift of purpose. Because they have died for something greater than themselves, and that is the greater than anything they were themselves. The gift of the Harbinger is the gift of purpose, and that is the greatest gift of all.

The two riders reached a small town with no particular name on their route, one of the farther Lap protectorates, nearly as far west as Zeretan. It was quiet, nobody working the fields outside of town, no smoke rising. Essisa saw all of this at a glance, and loosened his blades in their sheathes, put his bow on the pommel of his saddle. They rode quietly, hoof falls cracking gravel underfoot. It was a small town, a few dozen houses, a few stores. The ground was dirt and gravel, the houses roughly cut wood, the well in the town square unadorned. Next to the well, an arch of black marble chased with cold obsidian stood. Essisa dismounted, his bow in hand, and stalked close and careful around the square, hunched for cover and with eyes tracing every windowsill. Aja didn't wait long; her horse was calm and steady, and therefore. She hopped off, went to the largest building on the square and kicked the door, hard at the knob. The poorly made door shed its hasp and swung inwards, revealing a house completely intact and untouched. She pocketed small objects as she wandered about, reaching the kitchen to find food with only a very light dusting of mold, a couple of days at most. Jogging out to the square to share her information, she saw her brother start and look into the archway – there was a man there, tall and majestic, with brassy white robes. “Hold where you are and identify yourself, in the name of the magistracy of the Lap!” yelled Essisa, his bow snapping to point at the man's heart. He opened his mouth and his voice sounded across the square, powerful and resonating, that made you weep to hear it. Aja could not make out his words but fell to the ground, crying happily. Essisa started to lower his bow, but snapped it back up through sheer force of will and loosed an arrow, slamming home into the man's gut. The voice cut out like an avalanche reversing in its tracks, fading to an memory of its power. He turned and stumbled back through the arch, and Essisa roared and chased after, his bow firing arrow after arrow at the retreating man; as he passed through the archway, Aja lost sight of him, and a loud rumbling came from the earth, a rumbling that grew into the grinding screech of stone on metal, as each block of stone in the arch cracked and shattered, collapsing into a pile of rubble, the gateway gone. Aja just looked on in shock, and turned, leaping on her horse, to run.

The Harbinger Expentant for Glory held his stomach as he ran down the tunnel, the ground churning behind him as he willed it. His pursuer sprang from tip to trough of roiling calcite, and fired bolt after bolt of burning essence, flaming streaks of light that cut past him as he narrowly dodged them, watching them light his way as he sprinted through the underbellies of Zuratha. He screamed in his mind for aid, screamed for assistance, and as he heard a whisper of response from his lord, felt an arrow pierce his spine, severing it cleanly and sharply, fire essence cauterizing his wound instantly. As he fell he saw a flaming shaft fly through the front of his chest and onwards, and he came to rest next to it, staring at the charred piece of wood, strips of his flesh trailing from the fletchings like strings from a tangled and broken kite. A foot stepped in front of his face, grinding the arrow into the stone. He felt the sharp tip of a blade pressing at his temple, and felt the ground rumbling with the approach of something mighty. At least, he thought, time for last words. “You've done well, but it's far too late for you, dragon.” There was no sound, his mouth moved but no lungs powered his voice. Essisa finished him, and then the ground screamed with the arrival of its lord.