Herjha, the breadmaker, counts his money and thinks about his future.
He has worked at this little bakery, tucked away in one of the many streets that criss-cross this corner of City, for his entire life. It is a family business: Herjha's grandfather established the shop many years ago; his father oversees the yearly harvests of the lakeside fields, about two City-lengths away, that supply the wheat; his mother is in charge of the great halls, buried deep in the surrounding mountains, where the harvested grain is stored; his brother helps promote their wares, painting ornate advertisements on the walls of buildings elsewhere in City. It is his brother's entrepeneurial spirit, in fact, that has rewarded the bakery with a sacred patronage; Herjha now has the honour of supplying all manner of baked goods to Elder Cathedral, for use in its many yearly feasts and rituals.
A complicated and multi-faceted enterprise, but for what purpose?
He finishes tallying this morning's earnings – thirty-seven thick clay tokens, more than enough to keep him going for the following week - and stashes them away in a small drawstring bag. It is lunchtime, and he can afford to relax now; he can even afford, if he so desires, to take the rest of the day off. Not that his grandfather would have approved of such idleness, though. He never missed a singe hour of work all those years ago, when he was the shopkeeper and Herjha was just a young scamp. Not even sickness would stop him – a long-lost memory returns to Herjha's mind, of his grandfather hobbling around the shop on crutches, still doing his duty despite a broken leg.
"Down from there!" granddad wheezes in the older Herjha's memory, as his younger equivalent clambers up onto the countertop and laughs mischevously. His brother chortles too, chewing fruit as he watches from the back of the shop, and it is only his mother's anxious glances that prompt him to return to the ground. She always was a bit overprotective of the family back then, he muses; but she has softened with age, and mostly saves her watchful eyes for the grain stores now.
But Herjha's nostalgic smile soon fades, his remniscience giving way to a less comfortable mood: malaise. He has been feeling increasingly disillusioned these past few years, and this brief memory of a time gone by has only exacerbated this feeling. Of course, pragmatically speaking, he has no real reason to complain about his lot in life; for all he knows, it could be far worse. His family and friends are kindhearted and supportive, his business provides him with a steady income, and life within City's walls is, for the most part, easy.
Easy and uneventful and boring.
Looking over the shelves at the back of the bakery reminds him of just how repetituous his life has become. Each small nook is adorned with a hand-written label, denoting whose daily orders are to be stored in each crevice; most of the labels for the regulars have remained the same for decades. And it would be a lie for Herjha to say he feels any sense of duty providing the people of City with their daily bread, or that he enjoys the work he puts into it every day; it is by no means the most arduous of careers, sure, but provides no true satisfaction, none beyond the tiniest slivers of approval when his products are used for Elder ceremonies (themselves ossified and almost unchanged for thousands of years).
He remembers, as an impressionable teenager, visiting Elder Cathedral and being amazed by the stories the Elders would recount: tales of those lucky few who were allowed to live in Cathedral and journey to the stars, to travel to different worlds, to experiment with the raw building blocks of life itself. He remembers staring in bewilderment at the scale models of bonecrafts, remembers running his hand up the ribs of one of the trunked lifesuits, remembers the smile of one of the Elders when he asked her if he could ever join their ranks. She had laughed kindly, and simply replied with a coy "maybe one day", before resuming with her own duties.
Now, in his 72nd year, Herjha feels like that one day may never come. He is no longer a young man, and whilst the decrepitude of old age is still some way from enveloping him completely, he is already painfully aware of the wrinkles around his eyes and the gravel in his voice. Another memory of granddad, this time of his sunken eyesockets and hollow cheeks in his last weeks of life, lingers in his head. It is a shame that the journey to Dyeva must end in so much decay and rot, so much weakening of the body; he envies the people who get to cruise through the heavens, whose bodies are so technologically augmented and fault-free that they invariably depart this life looking like living gods themselves. But he is kidding no-one by imagining himself amongst their ranks. He knows he has denied himself entry to this lifestyle by leaving it all too late, by wasting away his days toiling in this most basic of professions.
But if his future does not lie next to the roaring flames of the oven and the omnipresent smell of fresh dough, and does not lie in a snout-faced lifesuit traversing those unknowable fields of stars up above, then just where does it lie?
The answer comes in the form of a deafening crack, thundering through the warm air and shocking Herjha out of his reverie once and for all.
Instinctively he stands, strides through the fabric curtain that seperates shop from street, and steps out onto the sun-baked pavement. Already faces are looking out of windows, muttering amongst themselves, pointing to the sky. In the distance, rising behind the forests on the far side of City, is Paradise's largest bonecraft; a vast floating construct, shaped like a broken hoop, with various protruberances and bulges on its surface. But this particular craft, a diplomatic security station, is no unfamiliar sight to the people of City; Herjha estimates it takes to the air at least once every month, usually to welcome vessels returning from short trips. And the few sounds it makes are nothing like the thunderous noise that nearly burst his eardrums just now. What on earth had caused that?
"Did you see it?" enquires a voice from behind. Herjha turns to look, and sees the face of his friend Salyi approaching through the rapidly forming crowds. He has a reputation within his particular circle of friends as being a rather solemn character, but today his face is beaming, with a particular radiance Herjha has never seen on it before.
"See what?" Herjha replies.
"A lost vessel! It's back!"
Those words hit Herjha with the force of a thunderstorm.
The lost vessels have, as their name suggested, been considered missing in action for generations; with all traces of the things gone, only the names of their crews and their missions have survived, passed down and distorted over the millennia until they have reached near-mythical status. The current incarnation of the tales suggest that the vessels were used to enact some kind of punishment, eradicating an evil people from an unimaginably distant world; whether or not they were successful, though, was lost in the telling. Herjha has always suspected that the Elders know the fate of the lost pilots, but if they do, then they have let not a single trace of the facts escape Cathedral's hallowed walls in his lifetime.
Now, though, maybe he and his fellow City-people will find out the truth.
By now Herjha has arrived at Forum, the grand open ground in the very heart of City. Thousands of people are here already, with more likely to come – from the looks of things, the entire population of City could very well turn out for the spectacle today. The ones who have already arrived are crowding around the center of the plaza; Herjha knows this is the location of that vast ground-set aperture, flanked by four colossal sculptures of tribunes kneeling in prayer, which will invariably open to welcome the returning bonecraft.
"Let us welcome them!" one voice in the crowd cries, just as hands start pointing and the chatter intensifies -
- and it appears, cresting over the horizon, between mountain walls and above the trees. The hulk that time forgot.
It is slightly smaller than Herjha expected, and its surface is the same recognisable texture as the diplomatic craft; but there is no mistaking the relatively thick body, the horizontal orientation, the circular hatch on the underside. This bonecraft is a bomber, of the kind that has remained undeployed and unmanufactured on this world for untold centuries. If there was any doubt in his mind that this truly was the fabled ship of old, then its revelation has eradicated those thoughts entirely. The prodigal sons have returned, and brought their chariot back with them.
"Blessed be you!"
Ecstasy gives way to reverence gives way to reverie. The crowds wave dreamily at the two docking vessels and excitement reaches fever pitch. Even the Raija of Paradise, shuffling down the steps of Cathedral in his opulent white robes, has raised his hand to the sky, as if he were trying to pull down the bomber and bring it into the heart of Cathedral itself. The regal horns and pounding drums emenating from behind him only intensify the mood.
"Blessed be you! Blessed be you!"
The repeated slogan, spoken not as a chant but as an intermittent outcry, sums up the mood of the crowd far better than Herjha ever could, being the unpoetic sort he is. But he can still appreciate beauty. In fact he could stand here, watching the titanic ring-shaped forms dancing their beautiful dance in the air, for the rest of his days. Which, he reminds himself, is not an unreasonable idea – the bomber does seem to be taking an unusually long time to dock. Probably just making final checks with the Ambassadors, he reasons – all the more time for him and his fellow City-people to pay tribute to the returning heroes. Herjha inhales, lifts his hand in a triumphant wave, and shouts with the same passion that once gripped him as a curious teenager -
"Blessed be -"
The bomber's hatch opens.
The tone of the chatter around Herjha slowly shifts from excitement to bewilderment, and he too is confused. Why would a long-lost bomber be opening its hatch now, when it should be engaging in docking procedures or descending into the underground hangar? The only possible explanation is that they have recovered some artifact of note, some icon or relic from a now-cleansed world, that they wish to present publicly in Forum. Herjha squints, trying to catch a glimpse of what might have prompted this unexpected opening. And after a few seconds adjusting to the sunlight, his eyes meet the metallic shimmer of what looks like -
- they drop -
- falling -
- oxidising -
- spreading -
- thoughts muddled - he knows what happens now - how could they let this happen - what did they call it again? - struggles to remember the name from his youth - yes - that's it – Oil of Meritta -
"RUN!"
- he screams before he knows he's screaming and runs before he knows he's running – one glimpse back at the dark clouds before his legs carry him across open ground again – towards Cathedral – the only truly safe place he knows now – Salyi trips and screams at the very fringes of his visual field - he'll get inside and find a little room and seal its door very very tight and pray -
- and pray -
- and pray -
Herjha's entry into Dyeva is not the peaceful and unconscious departure he always hoped it would be. It is violent and acrid and nauseating. The sting of ten thousand wasps strikes every part of his failing nervous system; black bile forces its way out of his mouth faster than he can open it; his jaw seperates from the rest of his skull and falls to the ground with a nauseating crunch. The last thing he sees before his eyeballs burst is a kneeling mother, trying to shield her child from the chaos as everyone cries and decays and rots.
Dimly, as consciousness departs his decomposing body forever, Herjha finally realises: this is where his future lies. Not as a humble baker or a wandering starsailor, but as one of half a million charred innocents, forever rendered in black pyroclast.
Some blessing.