Hands in his pockets, he turned back to the Spenecia fields. The ramships still battered each other as buffers; and both tornados were sheathed, clearing the overcast skies. The big tanks and gunships were largely retreated by this point. Just looking at it, there was a feel of gloom and importance, that the one chance the world had to finish something with precision and be done with it one way or the other had slipped, leaving grudges and vengeance smoking. It felt like a morning rain over a failed wedding.
He looked at Fantine one last time before leaving, his voice cracking again in its weariness, “You can’t always fix things and work from what you have. Sometimes, you just have to break it.”
27 HE GAVE ME A NAME
Early morning, Misling was swirling the last of cold coffee and sitting alone slumped low in the chair. His hair was cowlicked grossly, with a fat lump on one side; and he looked lost. The celebrants from the day before were gone.
“Sleep okay?” Cristoffel faded into existence from the dimmer hallway, barefoot and with her dark hair tied back again.
“No. Bad dreams.”
She yawned at him, “I know what you mean.” Now that she was closer, there was a scent of vanilla. He sniffed softly, trying not to let her notice though she did. “Did Grebel leave yet?”
Misling nodded, “Not long ago.”
When Cristoffel sat across from him, she was a comfortable and simple sort of pretty he might have said reminded him of home. Her arms were folded. There was still a smear of blue-gray Balcister dust in a cirrus cloud shape over her right eye; and when he was noticing that, he saw she was staring at him, like she was awaiting an answer. His hesitation may have been a quick check to see whether she’d asked something; but no, she was just watching him with a little dimple of flesh between her eyes.
He understood her and nodded, “I have to.”
She nodded too, not disagreeing with him. “I’ll go with you.”
He rose an eyebrow to ask why, considering the perils he’d brought her in a very short time and only the promise of worse to offer. She glanced at him, “Because ‘Hauna will go with you; and she’s an idiot. And those two things are related. Should be safe at the Augur, right? Sacred ground?”
The Recorder only looked at his dusty boots in answer. After a pause, he looked back at her sadly, “In the Plaza, when the carbine overheated…I let you down. I let you down and had no way out, no brave stand to make. I offered you an apology, a poor exchange for your trust. I led you to slaughter for nothing.”
“Nothing?” Cristoffel pursed her lips, “If you were me, would you walk away from this…to caretake for Lennox? I don’t think it’s for nothing.”
She inhaled deeply, closing her eyes softly, then opening again to look directly at him,“From what I’ve heard, it’s for everything.”
“A surprise! Marvelous, isn’t it?” Farmilion’s voice boomed like a thunderclap and joyous. He rushed in, his belly wobbling. His face was pink as ever; and he was grinning. “Such wonders! Like an architect crafted every turn of the events!”
Misling stood from the chair, wondering at the old man’s thrill. Farmilion’s smile was full, almost driving his tiny eyes shut with the wrinkles it made on his big face. It caught Cristoffel as funny; and she chuckled at the sight.
“Only the beginning, my marvelous sprout! My sturdy sapling, digging roots deep and spreading your long branches…” He grabbed Misling’s arm and lifted it up, forming it into something like a treebranch. “…defying the thundering storm that would strip him bare, saying, ‘I have a name; and you will say it!’”
Cristoffel laughed fully, though Misling was lost in this. “Are you drunk?”
The old man chuckled, “A little, if I’m honest. Yet totally beside the point. Come and see!” He gripped their shoulders and drove them like cattle to the corridor opening into the atrium. With no explanation and no pause for it, Farmilion pushed them gently along to the museum entrance in the light of the morning and gestured forward like a showman. It was his dirigible, brass-colored balloons shining, with Sylhauna waving from in front of it. Ring was seated inside the railings, leaned forward.
Sylhauna hugged Cristoffel, “You did great!”
“Where’s Lennox?”
“He’s okay.” Sylhauna left it at that, with a glance that maybe Cristoffel would need to question later.
The Recorder smiled at Sylhauna in thanks, though she hugged him rather than letting that be all. She gripped his shoulder and whispered, “We’re all going.”
When Misling started for the dirigible, the others saw a bit of drama in it and went quiet, stepping back to see what the two would make of their reunion. Inside the rover, drained of energy and wheezing with every breath, Ring was slumped and pale. Most of the swelling of his jaw had eased, though purple streaks still colored his chin back to his left ear. The back of his neck was cherry red and puffed; and his smile was thin and fake. He propped himself up with the black wood cane he’d taken from Lennox. Misling grimaced at what he saw in Ring just then.
“Feels like a long time.” Ring’s voice was weak.
“How long for you?”
He shrugged rather than answer it.
“You did say parts of this would be bloody.”
Ring thought about this, then tried to chuckle though it hurt him. “Yeah. I did. That came a little quick though.”
They looked at one another then, perhaps trying to see past the bluster and pretentions and how men were supposed to see each other. Perhaps what was most clear on their faces just then in the ruined plaza and with the old man and the ladies watching them cautiously was pride of each other that they’d come this far and done what they’d done.
Ring stiffened, “One question, Recorder. One straight and direct answer. I never really gave you that. No more cheats this time. I’ll tell you anything.” He beckoned towards himself with curled fingers, “Hit me with it. You deserve it.”
Misling raised his eyebrows, glanced to those watching, then up to the morning sky to consider what he’d been offered again. When he put his eyes on Ring again, frail and small and clutching the cane and looking so much older than when they met in the airpark, he knew what he would do.
“Do you need help?”
Ring recovered himself, like he’d dodged a heavyweight punch. His eyes widened; and he grinned. It was the grin from the first day, the one in the market alive and sparkling, with magic and cheer full of promise and secrets.
“That’s your question?”
The Recorder smiled, then turned, amused with himself. Farmilion thought this was hilarious and laughed as he passed. Sylhauna chuckled as well, but stopped him to ask quickly.
“You’re going to ask him more than that, right?”
“It will be a long trip; and he is uncomfortable with silence.”
“You seem really happy with yourself right now. I didn’t know what to expect when we came to get you. Have you figured him out, then?”
Misling glanced back to the rover, “He gave me a name. That is the only thing I know that is certain of him. And it is enough.”
EPILOGUE
Stendahl looked out over the stairway railings as he descended from the zeppelin to the Augur courtyard. There were Salt Mystic runes and etchings on the cobblestone, puddled here and there with cold autumn rainwater. The little city that had centuries before spilled over and swelled from the temple was still and quiet around him, though he could just see the occasional market vendor sweeping his stalls or the odd innkeeper shaking out rugs from open windows. The paraball fields were soggy, though a lone man was out there among its hills inspecting the ground and plucking weeds.
Tallest among all was the eerie temple itself, shining even in the daylight and fronted by the gargantuan white fountains enshrouding the Salt Mystic statue nestled inside and submerged to her knees. Children quickly found on pilgrimages here that if they stood in just the right place before her, the Salt Mystic’s gaze directly into their eyes was chilli
ng and frightening and not easily forgotten.
A short squat fellow was awaiting him at the landing, holding a massively tall hat in his hands respectfully, “Stendahl Talgo, welcome to you!”
Stendahl frowned, not knowing he’d been expected. “Who are you?”
“Name’s, Onyx. Sexton here. Somebody’s got to be, don’t they? ‘Why not me’, I said, years ago when I still had red hair and a lift to my step. Hungry?”
Velo Boneghost was in armor, illuminated in places and jeweled much as the Chaselord’s himself. He was just stepping from the dirigible and had to lean way over to avoid hitting his head. He was probably the ugliest man Onyx had ever seen; and Onyx didn’t quite hide he felt so.
“Plenty of lunch to go around. As long as you don’t mind pickled meats. Everything’s pickled here, who knows why! Lick your lips all you like, never rid yourself of the tingle. Any bags?”
Stendahl stepped directly up to the strange greeter as if he was going to eat the man’s nose from his face, “Why am I expected?”
Eyes widened, “Loads of you are! Goodness, yes! Think of where you’re standing. What’s inside that over there. Of course, you’re expected. What comes here that isn’t?”
“Who else?” His voice was just different from before, darker and less fragile.
Onyx coughed nervously, still holding his ridiculous hat and glancing to Boneghost, “Well, your uncle, Cassian only arrived hours ago. Long enough to dry his boots maybe, not much more. That horrible woman from Denai came yesterday, the one without a name but they call something anyway. The Lord Recorder, though he’s a bit standoffish if you know what I mean. The duke of the Fountain City is here since last week, eating everything in sight. Fog Men showed up this morning – not sure what to do about that.”
Boneghost flinched at that, frowning harshly. Stendahl understood none of this.
“Loads of people! I told you. More coming soon. In just a blink. More here before you know it. Then we’ll get started.”
Boneghost gripped Onyx by his shirt, practically lifting the poor fellow from the ground, “Get started with what?”
Onyx answered, his voice rising an octave and speaking quicker, “The audience, Velo! The audience! We’re all going to see the Augur. What else would you come here for?”
Stendahl tapped Boneghost’s arm to signal him to release Onyx, then started for the entrance to the temple. Flickering lights cast upon him as he began down the rock stairway, descending into the earth and entering the temple of the Augur, as old as known civilization and with the feel of all that is evil and all that is good mortared into its walls.
“That’s right, Onyx. What else?”
“Poverty and ignorance bred a tramp called, Blame; and she keeps her young close. Fear her. Because the life’s blood of a nation is the character of its people, and because the neglect of souls is the needle that poisons it, I have left you wonders in the Record. The fault and the regret are yours if they must arise.”
-The Salt Mystic
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Brian Bennudriti has taken a nuclear reactor critical, piloted a destroyer, negotiated multi-million dollar acquisitions and traveled around the world in every hemisphere. He’s a Plankowner on the aircraft carrier, USS Harry S Truman; and his initials are probably still scratched in a few places there. He lives in Kansas City with his wife, two kids and two dogs because you can never have enough chaos in your life. Brian wishes he could write Gormenghast’s characters with M. John Harrison’s words and Harlan Ellison’s adrenalin, stealing everything else from Hemingway and Stephen King just because they’re awesome.
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