Only after firmly establishing himself in his Seat of power did anyone suspect how truly mad he was. Even after he himself had come to that realization, Ortis had felt unable to tear away from the man or his dream of a perfect Empire. Uriel was like a force of nature, pulling everyone toward him.
Ortis was no scholar, and had never held any sort of belief in the supernatural, but he reasoned that such abilities had to be inherent in some people. He presumed, from the history that his father had taught him back in Pyrus, that such qualities were likely a relic of ancient traits, a stain in the blood from the earlier days of humankind.
What the people of Exeter now referred to as “The Before” was merely a reference to the dark times before the rise of the nations like Exeter and Pyrus, when humankind had risen from the ashes of some great catastrophe and ending with the formation of the Empire. For over a thousand sojourns, human beings had lived in the dust of a world beset by some great tragedy, nearly forgetting themselves, and certainly forgetting where they had come from.
But even the most comprehensive of history books hadn’t been written until hundreds of sojourns after that event. Eventually, humankind reclaimed their place in the world, and now and then found relics of the past buried in the rubble and the ashes, and they rebuilt their world. But much that had once been known was lost forever.
Ortis could only assume that some of those ancient things, like the bloodfire perhaps, were responsible for the abilities he possessed. Just as Catelyn had her enhanced senses and Uriel’s Will. All three of their abilities, while not unnatural, so far outstripped those of anyone else that Ortis concluded that they had to be different for some reason. Ortis knew that such power didn’t come from the bloodfire directly. He and Uriel had both experimented with it, based on Uriel’s belief that it contained immense power. It turned out not to have done more than influence some of their own natural talents, however. But he had never confessed this fact to anyone besides Uriel.
It had seemed appropriate to trust her with his ability. And fair. Two things which Ortis had rarely experienced before meeting Catelyn. But if he was going to use his talent to get them through the Grand Gate, every one of the people in their small group would find out about his unique skill soon enough anyway.
Ortis knew that they were closing in on the sewer’s pumping station. At least, that was what it had been described as by the Imperial scholar who had researched it for him, and shown to him on the maps of Belkyn last sojourn. He’d looked into it for his own personal reasons then, but his prior scouting was coming in handy now.
From the pumping station, the map simply showed an entry into a building that resembled a building Ortis had seen just a few short spans ago, right in the heart of Belkyn.
As soon as they came up out into the city proper though, Ortis knew things would change. When he had last left Belkyn, he had been watching whole blocks of the city burn, exhilaration plain on his face, a quality he was sure that any number of Belkyn’s citizens would remember for as long as they lived.
But Ortis had never been one to dwell on the variables and what they all meant. So he forged ahead. As they approached the pumping station Ortis began to see signs of occupation, and he held up his fist, and stopped the group. He had considered a number of alternatives for getting from the building on the surface to the Grand Gate, but none of those scenarios had included dealing with citizens living underground.
Ortis drew his sword. Catelyn heard Ortis stop and heard his weapon being unsheathed, and her heart raced. She wondered what could have alerted the man down here in this abandoned sewer, and none of the possibilities she could conceive were good news for their group.
“What’s going on?” Silena whispered.
“Ortis stopped,” Erich said.
“Girls, come to me,” Silena said, and the twins obeyed,
huddling together and holding onto Silena. Catelyn walked ahead, smiling at the three of them as she passed, though she did not truly feel happy and approached Ortis, who was standing with shoulders set and his sword drawn and ready. Catelyn surrounded him with her bubble, and could sense his readiness for battle. She tensed her own body, ready to flee if this was some sort of trap. She stopped a pace away and called quietly to him.
“What is it?” In lieu of replying, he simply pointed the tip of his sword forward, toward the end of the tunnel they were in. She looked beyond him, and the sight took her breath away.
Five paces beyond where Ortis stood, the tunnel opened up to a wide open space, with all types of massive machines covered in rust and grime from sojourns of disrepair, the purpose of which Catelyn could only guess at. But what had stopped Ortis in his tracks was not the sight of the behemoths of some ancient industry, but what lay between and among them.
Tents and tarps were strung between the machines in every possible configuration, and bedding lay strewn on the floor of the massive room, as well as tables, chairs, shelves full of items and a hundred other signs that there were people living here, or had been at one time. Even at first glance it appeared to Catelyn as though whoever had built this place was no longer here now.
She approached Ortis cautiously, and looked up at him. He turned to look down at her and she felt that she could read the thought in his eyes.
Use your gift.
She turned and pulsed her bubble out into the open space. She took in the entirety of the room, first focusing her senses towards discovering signs of life: a heartbeat, breathing, movement, conversation. She heard nothing, smelled nothing, tasted nothing in the air, beyond the mildew and rust she had been tasting since they’d entered the sewer system. She saw more with her eyes, even with a simple cursory glance; everything was covered in layers of dirt and dust, seemingly undisturbed for sojourns. Catelyn relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief and raised her arm to sweep across the whole of the “camp” sprawled out before them.
“It’s abandoned,” she said to Ortis.
He nodded and lowered his sword arm, but did not sheathe the blade. She supposed she didn’t blame him for wanting to play it safe. They walked forward together out of the tunnel and into the cavernous room. The sound of Ortis’ boots echoed off the walls all around her and she took in the nearest grouping of tents.
Immediately she determined that this was something unlike anything she had ever known before. The first thing that stood out to her was the tent itself, which was made from some type of durable blue material, not from leather or other animal hide. Catelyn had never seen anything like it before, and she walked quickly over to feel it with her fingers. It was smooth and slick, and it crinkled under her fingertips.
She opened the tent flap and looked inside, to find a pile of discarded and shredded clothing, from which she could smell the unmistakable stench of rats. No doubt they had been making a habit of tearing off strips of the rotting clothing for their nests, and she couldn’t tell much more from the pile of clothing other than the fact that she could see a number of vibrant colors in the pile. She closed the tent flap and looked around the outside of the structure.
A pile of ash and a few small blackened sticks rested in a ring of bricks, the remnants of a cooking pit from the look of it. Two more tents encircled the large open floor, and Catelyn moved to check each of them while Ortis secured the perimeter and Erich, Silena and the girls entered the open space and began to search through the outer edges of the camp.
Neither of the other tents contained anything of use, consisting of little more than damp, rotten smelling bedding. She moved to check the nearest of the shelves, and was not surprised to find that anything of value had long been stripped away. All that remained were some scraps of metal and strips of leather and cloth. Many of the things in this space felt foreign to her, and Catelyn could only assume they served no purpose, or if they served one, it was one she was unfamiliar with.
Catelyn’s instincts were telling her that something was strange about the camp. It appeared to be deserted, as though whomever had been living
in this camp, had simply picked up and walked away. However, only parts of the camp fit that narrative. Catelyn couldn’t understand what kind of people would clear everything from their shelves while leaving perfectly functional tents and bedding behind to rot.
She widened her bubble to cover more of the open space, and that’s when she saw the bones sticking out from a corner of the room, partially hidden behind a tarp that had been strung up with a thin length of twine. She looked for the others, about to call them over, but they were all engaged in their own tasks, so Catelyn approached the corner by herself, her bare feet leaving behind a trail of her distinctive footprints in the dust-covered floor.
When she reached the tarp, she tugged at the corner, noting that it was made of the same crinkly blue material as the tents. As the tarp slid aside along the length of twine, Catelyn felt her face grow flushed and her pulse began to quicken.
Sitting propped up against the wall , and covered in numerous layers of blankets and bedding, and clothed in heavy clothing, lay the desiccated remains of a person long dead. The skeleton was visibly white where it peeked out here and there between the blankets. Surrounding the body were a number of items, most of which Catelyn could not recognize.
It looked to Catelyn like someone, maybe even the person the remains belonged to, had taken all of the items off of the shelf outside the tarp and had brought them over, seemingly so that they could be surrounded by them while they died. The body was positioned with one arm to the body’s side, skeletal palm facing up, and the other resting on the lap, clutching a sharpened piece of rusted metal. Around and beneath the body, the blankets and floor were stained black, obviously signs of a blood pool long dried up.
Catelyn knelt down near the remains and looked through the twelve items surrounding the body. All of them caught her eye to one degree or another, and her curiosity prompted her to reach out for the things to inspect them closer. The first one that grabbed her eye was an image, upturned on the skeleton’s chest as though it had been the last thing the dead person had looked at. She grabbed it gently by the edge, and her breath caught.
The image was a faded, lifelike rendering of another person, a young woman not that much older than herself, smiling brightly and looking so healthy and happy. The image was cropped in so that all Catelyn could see was her face and shoulders, but the thing that had taken her breath away had been the colors, even as faded as they were by time. The young woman was blonde-haired, with blue eyes and she was wearing a bright yellow top, and her face was painted beautifully. Behind her, she could see a plethora of lights in the background in every color imaginable. The lights appeared to be entwined against a darker, blurred object, which she could not make out, but it was roughly a conical shape.
Catelyn had seen paintings of others before, but nothing like this. She had heard stories told by her parents about how people had once been able to capture moments of time this way, but such things were lost long ago, and well beyond Catelyn’s experience. Seeing this picture made her marvel at what had been lost that had once been commonplace to humankind.
She stared at the woman’s face for a whisper before turning the picture over. The back of the picture was blank and yellowing and almost bare, but for a few words written in someone’s flowing hand. The language was strange; composed of words and letter shapes, some of which were recognizable and others that were familiar and yet not quite legible. She turned the picture back over and looked at the smiling woman again, then down at the body.
She could see that whoever the young woman in the picture had been, it seemed readily apparent that she was loved. Her smiling face had accompanied this person into death; had provided them comfort as they had bled out from what appeared to be a self inflicted wound.
Catelyn took the image and tucked it into one of the pockets she had sewn into her pant legs and moved onto the next item. It was a small, rectangular black and grey object with no discernible purpose. The front was covered with a thin piece of glass, which was cracked in several places, creating a spider web of lines across its face. The back side was a featureless matte green material. Catelyn turned it over in her hands a number of times, but could see nothing to indicate what it was or what it did. Even as cracked as it was, Catelyn could only gape with wonder at how smooth and flawless the glass still was in places.
She decided to reckon with the object later and set it aside.
The next thing that she examined was a book wedged in between the body’s leg and arm. She extricated the book carefully, trying not to disturb the remains too much. Unlike books she was familiar with, which were bound with hard covers and written on rough, light brown pages, this book was smaller, and made entirely of paper, even the cover.
But what astonished her the most was the printing. Catelyn’s books growing up had all been stamped with inks, or embossed. This book, like the image of the young woman, was covered with a light paper binding, and on the front was a flawless rendering of a city scene, but unlike any city Catelyn could have imagined; with tall, majestic buildings lit up like fireflies. She knew that humans in ancient times had been different, and she’d heard rumors about their technology and developments, but she couldn’t fathom how they had been able to build such exquisitely tall buildings made of metal and glass!
The cover was also covered with words she couldn’t understand, and as she thumbed through the book, she was amazed to discover the same neat script used throughout. It was not written by any person’s hand, for the letters were too distinct, too uniform. She wished more than anything that she could read this book, to see if maybe the words inside could be used to puzzle out the meaning of it all. But although a letter here or there stood out as familiar, the larger meaning of the words was lost to her.
She placed the book down on the lap of the skeletal remains and picked up a small leather case. It was a simple bi-fold design and when Catelyn opened it, inside were two small cards, made of a thick, shiny material. They were both marked with a series of silver lines of varying thickness, and on one of them, another image, this time of a young man. He looked out at Catelyn from the card with a serious expression, and she wondered if this image of the young man was the face that belonged to the corpse here under the blankets, dead for who knows how many sojourns. She put the small case back down.
The last object she examined was a small black booklet, bound in what appeared to be leather. It was about the size of her hand, and was lying partially obscured by the blankets surrounding the body. She fished it out with a hand, and opened it. Inside, the pages were yellowed and wrinkled, and many of them were dark with bloodstains. She could make out some scribbled notes and doodles, all using the same familiar but illegible letters as the other books she had found. This appeared to be a journal of some kind, possibly written by this person; perhaps an account of their time in this camp.
Catelyn was intensely curious to know what the story of this place was. She knew as soon as she’d discovered the tents that whatever had happened here, it was ancient; from prior to the Before even. There were all manner of stories about ancient humans, but so little remained of that time, and though she imagined how invaluable this place was, it did nothing to illuminate that mystery for her. She had spent more than a few hot summer days on the roofs of the Seat, staring up into the charcoal sky, wondering about those times, but finding these remains had led to her ask more mundane questions, such as why the people had come down here to live, and why all but one of them had seemingly abandoned the camp.
But without the ability to read the words of the book or the journal, she could only guess. All she knew for sure was that this person, the last member of whatever group had taken up residence here underground, had remained behind or been the last one standing, and had then presumably taken their own life. Catelyn felt the sadness and the loneliness of what this person must have felt, and she imagined the conflicting battle of emotions, between courage and the hopelessness, battling it out inside of that person until finally t
he latter won the day.
None of the other objects were particularly helpful, most of them seeming to have some obscure purpose or other that she could only guess at. She took the journal and pocketed it, as well as the black rectangular object to fiddle with later, stood and pulled the blankets up over the skeletal remains. She stepped outside the tarp, slid it back into place, and looked around for the rest of her motley band.
Silena was watching over the two girls, who were playing a hiding game among the tents and tarps. Catelyn thought about warning them away from the remains, but she was afraid drawing attention to it would only exacerbate the potential problem and opted to just let the remains go undisturbed for now. Erich and Ortis were still looking through the remains of the camp, the former with a mixture of curiosity and vigilance, the latter purely on guard against any threats they might find.
As she returned to the group, she began to formulate a plan in her head, and when she was among them again, she called them over to tell them her thoughts.
When she was done, they all agreed that it was a solid plan. Catelyn had actually expected Ortis, as a former Imperial officer, to take the lead and tell her how unsound her idea was, but instead he nodded, and turned away to find a place to climb up to the street.
Catelyn knew that it was just a couple of prayers after midday. One of the first changes she had learned to adapt to after losing her eyesight had been to develop and hone her own internal clock to be able to tell day from night when both were shrouded in total darkness. Her plan was going to call for them to come up into Belkyn in the middle of the night. They had already walked through the previous night and most of the day before, and so they now had a number of prayers in which to rest.
Bloodfire (The Sojourns of Rebirth) Page 45