City of the Falling Sky

by Joseph Evans

  On Seckramas morning, Seckry woke to find Eiya standing at the bedroom window.

  “Seckry, it’s so beautiful!” she said, gleaming.

  Seckry got up and joined her.

  Outside, Skyfall was covered in a blanket of pure white snow, glistening in the cold, winter sun.

  The monorail whizzed past, sending a flurry of flakes and a wet spray across the sky. The square below was alive with people setting up a long sturdy table and placing heat lamps all around it.

  “Merry Seckramas, loves!” called Seckry’s mum from the kitchen. “Can you kids give me a hand taking this food down there?”

  As soon as Seckry opened the bedroom door, a rich smell of cooking butter and stew filled the room.

  After a quick shower each, they began hauling Coralle’s concoctions down into the open square. It took them three trips up and down the stairs carrying the dishes to the great table, though Leena complained that her back was hurting and let the others carry her last pot of casserole. They were clapped a few times by the neighbours as they brought down the food and Coralle even got a cheer as she plonked her huge ellonberry pie down with a thud.

  “Well done, mum,” Seckry said, staring at her array with awe. He wondered where on earth all the cooking pots, dishes and ladles had come from and was sure the cupboards weren’t even big enough to have been storing them all.

  Over the next half hour, the table filled up with more and more dishes from the people of the square and by the time everyone was ready to eat, it was brimming with mounds of steaming food, and the square was filled with the most wonderful smell of meat, spices, and exotic vegetables.

  Tenk’s mum had been busy cooking as well and had got Tenk and his brother to do the carrying, who didn’t seem too pleased.

  “If she thinks I’m eating any of this, she’s got another thing coming,” Tenk said, heaving a pot of bubbling brown stuff onto the table.

  “Mum will batter you if you eat everyone else’s food and not hers again,” said Longo, dumping down a tray full of marinated fish heads.

  While everyone was getting settled, Seckry heard the sound of snow being crushed and the hum of an engine before Mr Vance’s car pulled slowly into the square.

  Seckry ran to meet him.

  “Merry Seckramas, Seckry,” he said. “To you too, Eiya.” He followed them to the table, where Seckry had saved him a seat.

  When everyone was finally settled, Mr Gibsbottom, of number twenty three, tapped his fork against his glass and stood up.

  “Before we eat, I would just like to give thanks to Seckraman, the son of Gedin, who was sent down to us from the heavens to save us from the destruction of the Great Meteor. When this city, and this entire world was under threat, the Lord Gedin spared us and sent us his greatest gift, his son. So I raise a toast to our Lord and our Saviour. To Seckraman.”

  “To Seckraman,” everyone repeated, and they all toasted each other in one giant clanking of glass and metal.

  Seckry tried to avoid talk of Gedin and the coming of Seckraman in most situations, due to his embarrassment at his name, and he never considered himself to be particularly religious. But Seckry had been taught the legend along with everyone else during his early years at school, and he knew the story well.

  It was said that more than two thousand years ago, before time had even begun to be recorded, a meteor had been on a collision course with the planet, and had almost destroyed everything in existence, and then a miracle happened. A man came down from the heavens and told the people around him that his name was Seckraman, and nobody had to worry any more, as he was the son of Gedin and he had come to save them. Then he raised his arm into the sky and sent out an incredible force of light and goodness, which made the meteor vanish into nothing, saving the world from destruction. What happened to Seckraman after that nobody is sure of. He vanished into thin air, but there were many accounts of him being sighted again in the years to come.

  Seckry couldn’t think about the story of Seckraman for much longer though, as his mouth was salivating from all of the wonderful smells surrounding him. Nearest to him were platters of sausages, trays of boiled fish, pumpkin, multicoloured beans, and what could only be described as a cauldron of mullsquash soup, accompanied by huge, floury loafs of the softest bread Seckry had ever seen.

  Tenk warned them that the fluffy potato dish next to the sausages was his mum’s Skyfall pulp-pot pie, which was, according to her, a traditional Skyfall dish, though Tenk was adamant she’d invented it herself out of smelly leftovers, and which the glowflies seemed to be taking a particular liking to.

  While Seckry and Eiya filled their plates with a scoop of everything, Tenk’s parents began arguing over the fact that his dad had filled his plate to the brim with bloodboar meat, and nothing else. Mr Binko seemed utterly unaware of the problem with it.

  “This is delicious,” Vance said, giving himself a second helping of beet bubblepot. “Though in all honesty I’m just waiting until I can get my hands on a slice of that ellonberry pie of yours, Ms Sevenstars.”

  Coralle blushed.

  After Seckry and Eiya had both finished a delicious helping of steam-marrow, Eiya leaned closer to Seckry and whispered, “Look at Mrs Plum’s plate, it’s completely empty.”

  Mrs Plum was seated opposite them with her hands in her lap, staring blankly at her clean, empty plate as though it was an abyss.

  “Do you think we should do something?” Eiya prompted.

  “Maybe,” Seckry said, feeling a deep sadness for the woman.

  Eiya scooped some pulsepulp into a giant ladle.

  “Would you like some, Mrs Plum,” she said over the din of the party.

  “Oh . . .” Mrs Plum looked disorientated, as though waking up from a dream. “Thank you, dear.” She let Eiya gloop a mound of the stuff onto her plate. She began prodding it with a fork, but didn’t look as though she was in any hurry to eat it.

  Before long, their plates were being whisked away and clean ones were being set down for their puddings. As the cellophane covers were ripped off the desserts, Seckry could smell the sweet, citrus tang of someone’s lemon toppler to his right, and the rich, dairy creaminess of a double dairypie to his left. At the other end of the table, a huge mound of dough balls were dripping in thick chocolate sauce, while underneath lay an array of luminous jellies.

  Mr Vance had gone straight for Coralle’s ellonberry pie.

  “I have to say, I think this may be even tastier than the first one,” he said.

  Coralle’s face lit up with pride.

  A few seats away, Tenk had begun tucking into some kind of sticky sponge pudding, which had so much filling inside it was oozing out of his mouth and running down his chin. Eiya opted for a lather of rhuben crumble, which she topped with a generous helping of custard.

  Seckry wasn’t sure where to start, and he didn’t want to miss out on tasting any of the puddings on offer, so he piled his plate high with as many different dollops of desert as he could manage.

  “You’re going to be so sick later on,” Eiya laughed, eyeing his mound of multicoloured mayhem.

  “I reckon it’ll be worth it, though,” Seckry said, picking up an almond coated sugar-apple slice from one side of his plate and dipping it into a dollop of buttercream on the other.

  Across the table, Seckry could hear Henrei’s wife Marbery chatting away to one of the other women.

  “I’m telling you, Winifrill, you’ve got to be strict with them! Henrei used to stuff his face with jam sandwiches all the time. Wouldn’t eat an ounce of vegetables. Now he eats healthily every day.”

  Henrei caught Seckry’s eye and flashed him a quick wink.

  As they delved into their puddings, Coralle popped open the cork of a wine bottle.

  “Here we go, my loves, have a taste of this. It’s Seckramas, I’m sure nobody will mind.”

  She poured them a couple of thin glasses.

  “Mum! You’re supposed to be telling us off for underage dri
nking, not promoting it!”

  “Oh well, a drop of wine with some lemonade in it isn’t going to hurt.”

  The taste of the wine made Seckry and Eiya wince, and Eiya had to dilute hers even more with water before she could drink it, but after a few sips it began to taste sweet and they both felt extra giggly.

  Some of the younger kids were squelching around in the mushy snow that had melted under the warmth of the heatlamps, and were throwing piles of the slush at each other.

  “No snowfights around the table!” yelled Mrs Binko, and then sneakily threw a snowball at the back of one of their heads, shouting, “Got you!”

  When Seckry couldn’t eat another mouthful, he leaned back in his chair, thinking his stomach was going to burst.

  It was only then that he realised the people of the square had brought out paintings of Seckraman from their apartments and hung them on the walls.

  The closest to him was a large painterly one depicting a heroic Seckraman with an inflated chest, a wavy brown beard, and a muscular arm aimed effortlessly at the sky.

  The sight of the man made Seckry feel a little dwarfed. Was this what his mum wanted him to be like when he grew up? She had named him after the greatest man in the world. How could Seckry ever hope to live up to that? How could he live up to the name?

  “You know, not every depiction of Seckraman is so romantic,” Vance said to him, as if he had been reading Seckry’s mind. “Come with me, I want to show you something.”

  Seckry excused himself and followed Vance to the other side of the square, where more paintings had been hung out by the residents.

  “Do you know where the name Skyfall City originates from, Seckry?” Vance asked as they walked.

  Seckry shook his head.

  “It’s all to do with this,” Vance explained. “Seckramas, and the meteor. In ancient times people had no idea what a meteor was. They only knew the sky. When they saw that the sky was becoming grey with rock and craters, they thought the sky was coming crashing down. They literally thought that the sky was falling. When the city was built they named it Skyfall, in remembrance of the event.”

  Seckry widened his eyes. He had never thought about the city’s name before, but now it made sense. Everything had a history.

  “It bothers you sometimes, doesn’t it?” Vance said, stopping. “Your name?”

  “People often say to me that I’m going to grow up to be this great man, like Seckraman himself,” Seckry said. “Like it’s my destiny because I was given his name. But the truth is, the only reason my mum called me Seckraman was because I had one eye slightly greener than the other, like Seckraman did. That’s where the similarities end.”

  “Well, Seckry, take a look at this. I think you’ll find it quite interesting.”

  Standing propped against one wall was a small painting, cracked and worn, with most of its colour de-saturated from age. It was of a boy with sandy coloured hair, just like Seckry’s, clad in white robes and reaching up to the sky.

  “Who is this?” Seckry asked.

  “This is Seckraman,” Vance said simply.

  Seckry frowned.

  “Wasn’t Seckraman about thirty odd when he was sent from Gedin? And didn’t he have a brown beard?”

  “That’s a common misconception, Seckry. Most of the paintings we see of Seckraman were painted in the sixteenth century, such as that one over by the table. Our idea of Seckraman is of the quintessential male of that time period. They often used models to pose for them. The style at the time was to have these muscular frames and big, brown beards and long hair. But look at the date of this particular one.”

  Seckry could just about make out a scrawl of heavily italicised numbers in the bottom right corner.

  12/04/1219

  “The year twelve nineteen?” Seckry said.

  “That’s right. About three hundred years before the sixteenth century artists began painting the iconic, older, bearded figure. The truth is, Seckry, that Seckraman may not have been that different to you at all. I have to say it is hard, being a scientist, to believe that anyone was really sent from Gedin to save us all. Especially when I have trouble believing in Gedin full stop. But . . . maybe somebody saved us that day. And maybe he didn’t look that much different from you.”

  Seckry eyed the painting closer. Had the great Seckraman really looked like this? A boy, just around the same age as him, with similar, sandy coloured hair.

  As he peered closer, his eyes began to widen. There was something painted onto Seckraman’s robes. A small symbol. A symbol that Seckry recognised.

  He blinked and frowned, but there was no mistaking the two wings and its circular centre.

  It was the symbol of Endrin’s Divinita Project.

  Chapter Nineteen

  The Fall