The Calamity
When I was young my son was taken from me and left in the Tazal Terminals, to live or die as the gods decreed. His mother, my wife, had succumbed to plague and I was called into the service of the Ul'mat, the secretive guardians of our people. I never saw the boy again.
The air stank of rotting wood. Two of my Ul'mat stood near the stairwell leading up to our makeshift headquarters, swords drawn and cloth masks covering their faces. A cut in the ceiling leaked water, the methodical drip puncturing the silence that otherwise engulfed the room. We waited.
I heard the door creak open downstairs, followed by the soft padded rush of footsteps - three people. I rose from the floor where I sat, my robe never catching on the splintered wood, the sword strapped to my waist noiseless. As my guest finally finished his ascent up the stairs, I turned to face him.
The years had not been kind to Venn. Flanked by two more Ul'mat, their weapons concealed beneath their robes, his hunched form and dark eyes betrayed a weakness I had never seen in him before. As if they, the Caelondians, had finally defeated him.
"Venn," I began. "It is good that you have come, we were beginning to worry that-"
The man started at some noise only he perceived. His eyes darted around the room, pits so black I could barely believe they held life. "Do you hear it, Zel?" His whisper was barely audible.
"Hear what, Venn?" I asked. My body had begun to stiffen, as if I were in the Wilds again, preparing for battle.
The man continued to glance about him; my words fell on deaf ears. "They're screaming, Zel," he said. His voice had risen, a desperation filling it. Within the darkness of that room, with only starlight to fill it, he seemed like a man shattered and reassembled from the shards. "They're screaming at me."
I looked him up and down, and it was then I saw it - there was a madness growing in him. Maybe it had already taken hold. "What do they say?" I motioned to my men beside him, barely perceptible movements with my shoulders, motions only the Ul'mat knew. One turned, made his way back down the stairs, his sword appearing in his hand without sound. The other moved to block Venn's path back down the stairway.
The Venn I knew would have chuckled at my boorish attempts to corrall him. He would have even humored me, before ordering me to release him. But the man in front of me was not the friend I had once known. This broken thing was a shadow. "Venn?" I took a step towards him, knew even as I did that it was the wrong thing to do.
He recoiled at my approach, his hands rising in front of him. His whisper turned to a frantic shout, "Forgive me! Forgive me!"
I rushed forward, the Ul'mat blocking the stairway doing the same, and in an instant we had Venn pinned on the ground, a piece of cloth wrapped round his head to stifle the screams that threatened to reveal us to all of Caelondia. When he finally ceased his vain struggling, and his screams reduced to whimpers, I let the gag fall. "Venn, what do you hear? Why do you hear it?"
The man's eyes, dark and lifeless, filled with tears. "They made me, Zel. I couldn't stop them. They took my hands, and made me do it." He looked down at his hands, and buried his face in them.
Realization struck me, and I trembled. "The machine - they wouldn't...how..." Words refused to form on my tongue.
"I tried to stop it Zel. I tried to be strong, but my daughter, they had her, and..." The old Venn was coming back, or trying to, at least. I saw some of the former brilliance of my friend cutting through the darkness that clouded his vision. "But I couldn't. I am too weak, old friend. Too weak, and selfish."
"How long do we have? Can we stop it?" I grasped for hope.
"It will activate at sunrise," Venn replied, lifting his gaze from the floor. "There is no time to stop it."
"Then we warn the Terminals, at least let them know what-"
"I did not design the machine to destroy the Terminals, Zel," he said. And I saw in his eyes that Venn, the man who had designed the greatest wonders of the age. "It will destroy Caelondia - you, and I, and the millions who call this place home." And then that man was gone again, and the darkness filled him once more.
I walked through the Hanging Gardens, my eyes turned skyward as I traced the patterns of the stars. Perhaps if I had been younger, I would have bravely ordered my men to follow me into the heart of the Mancers' lair, swords in hand to make one final, desperate attempt to save the city. As it was I had left to wait out the last fleeting minutes of my life in the gardens. Surrounded by this beauty, that was better than dying in some doomed attempt at heroism.
"Zulf!" I heard a man shout. The voice had come from behind me and, even in my despair, curiosity beckoned me to turn.
The man I beheld wore the traditional garb of the Ura with the customary bright swathes of color striped along the outer garments. Behind him, a pair of Caelondian youths staggered drunkenly along the pathway, bottles of whiskey in hand. One of the pair waved his bottle wildly in the air, gesturing down another path. "Come on Zulf, we're hitting the Wharf District next!"
The Ura named Zulf turned to face his two friends, and shook his head adamantly. "I couldn't stand another drink tonight - go on without me. I'll see you both bright and early tomorrow!" The Caelondians cheered raucously in response, before turning off towards the Wharf.
As his friends disappeared from view, Zulf glanced over at me. His features, still so vibrant, lit up in recognition at my Ura garb. He walked over, his movements so deliberately normal in spite of his obvious intoxication. "Unusual to find another Ura in the Gardens, especially at this hour," he said as he approached, the smell of spirits strongly in tow.
I nodded. "The Gardens were the most peaceful place I could think to come, at this time of night."
Zulf shook his head solemnly in reply, though I could see the joy shining bright in his eyes. "The Gardens are a wonderful place. And made more wonderful because soon I will wed here."
"Out celebrating, then?" I asked, but my attention was on the distant mountains, and the sun that threatened soon to crest their peaks.
He yawned, fatigue wearing upon him. "She said yes...I've never been so happy...that she said yes..." His words faded, and before I could reply the man had slumped against the railing and fallen fast asleep.
I turned back to regard the mountains in the distance, awaiting the first glimpse of the sun over their distant peaks that would signal the end of my life. Not long now. Despair overwhelmed me, its tendrils snaking over my body, infecting every last part of my being.
I had always given what was asked. I had submitted when the Council decreed that I was to join the Ul'mat, and let my son be taken from me to die. I had submitted when they forced us into the Wilds to counter the Caelondian incursions, leaving behind the only other woman I had ever loved. And now, I submitted to this inevitable death, which would take the last thing from me - my life.
I looked down at the young man, Zulf. My son would have been his age, if he had lived. Perhaps he had, and he was alive in the Terminals, living out a life bereft of purpose. Perhaps...
I reached down and took hold of the young man, hefting him up in my arms. The Gardens were silent in the pre-dawn gloom, except for my labored breathing and heavy footsteps as I carried him along the path. The moments crawled by in agony as I searched for the right place, the one I knew of in only my vaguest of memories. When I found it, I saw that I was right. I placed him within, taking care not to waken him in my haste.
When I was done, I came back up to the Gardens, just in time to see the first golden glow of the sun light up the sky. It was beautiful, but then the sunrise always was. Dawn signaled new beginnings. That was what my people believed, at least. There would be no more beginnings for this tired old man, though. Nor for this city's people. Those had been taken from us. But, at least for one young man, there might be hope.
Day broke, and I was gone.
The End