City of the Automatons

by Francesco Bertolino

  They awoke at sunset after an undisturbed half-day rest. The turmoil of the recent battle was already beginning to fade in their memories, one more dark and hazy recollection amidst the many that formed the history of the Wayfarer’s Company.

  They gathered in the same room as they had done for the morning meal. Sitting around a large table, they were served with courtesy, but little warmth. Seras did not appear. The conversation was more animated than it had been that morning, touching on various topics, from concerns over the impending war between the Princedoms, to the battle of the night before.

  “They were so many” said one of the warriors, a large man with cropped gray hair “So many women and children, far more than the other times.” He didn’t look up from his bowl as he spoke.

  “Yes” another agreed “It wasn’t easy. The situation is getting worse and worse, I fear. Are we really changing things? I am no longer sure...”

  “Well, I am!” said a woman, looking askance at him “Why did we come here otherwise? I am surprised to hear such things!”

  “Sure, sure” the other replied, putting his hands forward “But allow me my doubts...”

  “I agree” said the gray-haired man “It pains me to admit it, but I feel it too: we are doing nothing more than delaying the worst. Maybe he had something else in mind, but at this point I doubt we will ever find out.”

  “Not to mention that with the war and everything, things will only get worse! I wonder if we can remain neutral... Otherwise, our mission is as good as over.”

  The woman shook her head in disbelief at the pessimism of her companions. But there was no use in insisting. With a grimace, she turned her attention to the insipid soup in her bowl.

  Dorian, sitting at the head of the table between Raduan and Kyra, took no part in any conversation, and just listened to snippets from nearby tables. He wasn’t surprised to hear the lack of optimism in their tone, and nor that the morale of his men seemed at rock bottom.

  Raduan, who had so far been more intent on feeding himself than on exchanging words with his neighbors, noticed his anxiety.

  “It is not your fault, Dorian” he said, with a half-smile.

  Dorian looked at him. How was he always able to guess the course of his thoughts?

  “If the fault is not mine, whose is it then?”

  “You cannot take responsibility for everything!” said Raduan “We each came here of our own free will, or have you forgotten?”

  Dorian snorted. The subject had been discussed many a time, without ever having reached a conclusion.

  “This is the way things are, whether you like it or not” continued Raduan. “You are our commander on the battlefield, but other than that you have no obligation towards us.”

  “Do you really think so?” Dorian sighed “And yet, I feel I must do more. Especially now.”

  “Now that he has forsaken us?” Kyra interrupted, with her usual irritating sense of timing. She had kept her silence until then, fiddling with the cutlery, perhaps waiting for the right moment to provoke them. She had succeeded: the words died on Dorian’s lips, and Raduan’s eyebrows met in a frown.

  “Some things should not be said aloud” said Dorian, in the kind of patient tone usually reserved for children.

  “Yes, you should learn how to keep that big mouth of yours shut!” said Raduan, bluntly “He does not leave anyone. Ever. You know that.”

  Kyra twisted her lips.

  “Oh, is that really so? Then why did he vanish into thin air? And what about that message he left us?” There was no more trace of amusement in her voice. “And in the meantime we continue to follow his orders like puppets. We put our lives at risk every single day, and we give him thanks for the wonderful mission he has left us! It is sheer madness!”

  Raduan leant over the table to retort, but Dorian was first:

  “My child” he said “I can understand your doubts, but you are not looking at things from the right perspective. He is no longer with us, true. It is also true this has never happened before. Yet nothing has changed.”

  He paused to make sure that Kyra was really listening.

  “The mission entrusted to us is too important, don’t you understand? We have to go on whatever the cost, even if we have only our own forces to rely on. And even if he never returns!”

  He caught Raduan’s disapproving look, but ignored it.

  “It may be as you say” Kyra snapped, standing up “But I shall not be kept ignorant of the truth, nor be used as a living weapon against my will! I am not a warrior doll, and I won’t be treated as such. Not anymore. Even if he himself ordered it!”

  There was sadness in her eyes, and Dorian did not know what to say.

  “I almost hope he never comes back...” she whispered. Then she stood up and walked away.

  “Silly girl!” said Raduan, shaking his head.

  “But I cannot blame her” said Dorian, still distressed by his daughter’s words “He was important to us all. Why did he leave? Who are we without him?”

  Him, always him...

  Abel, the White Wayfarer.

  Abel had fallen into his life like a bolt from the blue many years ago, and since then everything had changed. Dorian thought of the days before their meeting, and saw himself as he had been: a man without a future, a miserable wretch with his back pinned against the wall.

  Then Abel had come, to him first. He had given him comfort and hope, he had granted him a new life and a mission to accomplish.

  From Raduan’s melancholy smile, he realized that his friend was reliving similar experiences within himself, probing his memories to find something true, something that could revive even the smallest fragment of the wisdom and strength their savior had given them.

  He had been with them for many years, he had guided them with a sure hand, and he had protected them as a father would do with his own children. His power was special, hitting straight to the heart, and opening minds. In his presence their will could not falter.

  He had chosen the men and women who now formed the Company one by one. The world had never before seen a group of fighters more diverse or united. None of them followed the Wayfarer for money, glory, or lust for battle. They followed him because he had saved them from lives of misery. They followed him because he had made them part of something great.

  They followed him because he had joined them all as one family.

  “Follow me!” he had said to everyone, welcoming them under his wing “Be my arm and my strength. Together we will dispel the darkness from this world!”

  “Our sense of purpose was so strong...” thought Dorian “The importance of our fight so clear!”

  Today, months after Abel’s disappearance, nothing seemed as obvious anymore.

  All that was left of him had been a confused farewell letter, scrawled in a hurry. Dorian had read and reread it hundreds of times in the vain hope of finding a hidden message between the lines or at least a clue that would allow him to find the Wayfarer’s trail. But so far the answer had eluded him.

  He could easily recite the message from memory:

  Friends, brothers,

  I must leave you.

  I cannot tell you where I am going, or why, but I do it for your sake only.

  Carry on our mission in my absence, I beg you! It is of the utmost importance...

  I have faith in you and in your hearts.

  Do not try to follow me: you will not be able to go where my path leads.

  Please do not hate me. I will explain everything to you one day.

  From the gray morning they had found the message in Abel’s tent, things had gone from bad to worse. The men were losing their conviction in the cause, and Dorian himself was feeling lost, although he was now their reference point.

  He watched Kyra leaning against a wall: she was drinking beer from a mug, laughing at something with a man she had just met, engaged in one of her usual seduction games. As if the previous discussion had had no effect on her. From the
corner of his eye, he saw that Raduan was staring at her too, frowning. He wondered what was going on in his head. The gap between those two was deep, yet it had not always been so.

  Kyra had changed, for the worse. For months she had suffered from Abel’s absence. She reflected her discomfort in whoever approached her, and she tried to keep her distance from her old friends as much as possible, creating around herself a bubble of indifference, if not outright hostility. Dorian remembered with nostalgia the days when he and his daughter were still close. Before the accident that had cost her an eye and much of her faith. That day, something had snapped inside her, giving birth to an ever-growing emptiness. Abel’s departure had made things worse.

  He knew there was little he could do to make things between them the same as they had been before. Maybe, if she would only just lower her guard for a moment... Yet he could not imagine that happening, not in the immediate future. He rubbed his eyes. It was useless to mull the same thoughts over a thousand times. Better to take a breath of fresh air.

  He got up and went towards the exit. He was one step away from the doorway when the door flew open and a man rushed inside, collapsing into his arms like a dead weight.

  He was filthy, covered in bruises, and so emaciated that he looked like a scarecrow. His clothes hung off him in shreds, and his body gave off an acrid stench. Stammering something unintelligible, the man rolled his eyes from side to side, his head lolling back like a weight too great to bear.

  The men of the Company ran to their leader, arranging themselves in a circle around him. Dorian, paralyzed by surprise, studied the dirty, bearded face of the dying man, whose two misty eyes rolled in the constant search for a fixed point. Finally, they settled on the commander.

  “Dorian...” he hissed, his voice as faint as a whisper “It is you, Dorian, is it not?”

  Dorian looked at him, stunned: who was this man? How did he know his name?

  The man, shaken by strong convulsions, moved a trembling hand towards his face. Dorian drew back, distraught, and tried to calm him:

  “Do not fret, you need rest!”

  The man ignored him:

  “Dorian! It is you, I feel it! I have found you at last!”

  Something in his voice, perhaps a detail of his appearance, ignited a spark of recognition in Raduan:

  “Iarmin!” he exclaimed, grabbing his shoulder.

  Then Dorian saw it too, and let out an exclamation of surprise: this man in such a miserable state in his arms was none other than Iarmin, one of their own, a Company warrior! How could he have not recognized him? Iarmin had left them shortly after Abel’s parting without any warning... How much time had passed since then?

  A thick beard and a clump of matted hair hid his face, but it was in the rest of his body that the warrior had undergone the most radical transformation. Nothing remained in his appearance of the indomitable force that all had known so well.

  “What happened to you?” asked Dorian, astonished.

  Iarmin seemed to smile for a moment before sagging in Dorian’s arms, his eyes half closed, his breath heavy. He snatched at the hem of the commander’s jacket and turned his head far enough to stare into his face.

  “Find him!” he said in a gasp “The Valley of the Moon!”

  Dorian shook his head, discomforted. Raduan, at his side, clenched his fists. He was bothered by what those words may entail.

  “Find him! He needs you!” said Iarmin, his swollen face just a span from Dorian’s. He coughed, and a trickle of blood ran from his lips. He slumped in the commander’s arms, as inert as a puppet. Dorian shook him, fearing the worst, but there was no response. He laid the body on the ground and put an ear to his chest. An expression of relief crossed his face.

  “He’s unconscious” he declared “A healer, quickly!”

  They carefully placed Iarmin’s unconscious body on a woolen mantle. Dorian knelt beside him and shook his head in disbelief.

  “What does it mean?” he wondered.

  “There is no way of knowing” said Raduan.

  “He was delirious” someone said with a shrug.

  Dorian was not convinced. He could still feel the pleading eyes of his friend on him; still sense the force of his despair. It didn’t seem possible that his words had been dictated by frenzy. He could not find an answer to his sense of doubt, but the important thing was that Iarmin was still alive. Maybe, thanks to the healers’ skill, the worst could be avoided.

  Lying on the ground, Iarmin was still unconscious. A healer cautiously felt his battered body, looking for possible fractures or other internal wounds. He pulled back the flaps of his jacket: a large stain of blood soaked the shirt over the warrior’s chest.

  “Great Abidan, let us pray it is not too late” said Raduan, bringing his hands together in prayer.

  Kyra’s head popped above the cordon of men.

  “How could he have ended up this way?” she asked in surprise.

  “It looks as if he has faced a horde of Demons alone!” said another.

  “Perhaps you are not far from the truth...” said Raduan.

  Dorian looked at him inquiringly.

  Raduan went on, stroking his shaggy black beard.

  “We all remember how Iarmin was bound to Abel, and how he changed after his parting. I believe that both his sudden departure and his return under these conditions have something to do with the Wayfarer.”

  He raised a hand to his mouth, thinking.

  “Find him, he said. I have a feeling he was speaking of Abel. I think there is something of importance behind this. Do not ask me why, but I have a bad premonition.”

  Dorian heard him with a frown. His reply was convinced:

  “I share your thoughts. Iarmin has something important to say, and I hope he will be able to do so without delay.”

  An exclamation of surprise broke off the conversation. The healer jumped to his feet, staring in disbelief at his hands, smeared with fresh blood.

  “Impossible...” he murmured “But I have checked several times!”

  He turned his eyes to Dorian, with a pale face.

  “Commander, Iarmin bears no wounds!”

  He looked back at his hands.

  “This blood does not belong to him!”

  Raduan and Dorian exchanged tense looks.

  “Something is very wrong...” their eyes said.

  It happened all at once.

  With a sudden burst, Iarmin sat bolt upright – like a marionette tugged by invisible strings. His face, deformed by an implacable hatred, was Iarmin’s no more. His eyes, bloodshot, were those of a Demon.

  Before anyone could move, his shirt was torn from the inside by two foul tentacles. One wrapped round the healer’s legs, snapping them, while the other whipped the air in search of prey.

  “Demon!” shouted Raduan, the first to recover from the shock.

  He sprang forward, his face contracted into a mask of rage, as he raised the hunter’s knife he carried at his belt. A tentacle shot towards him: Raduan sheared it clean off with a flick of his wrist, jumping forward for the final blow. But something held him back, maybe the sight of his old friend’s face, tragically mutated and yet still familiar...

  That moment of hesitation would have proven fatal to him, had it not been for the intervention of Kyra: quick as a cat, clutching a curved dagger in each hand, she reached Raduan in a few strides and stood between him and the monster. Before it could fight back, she dug her blades into the second tentacle, over and over again, so fast it was almost impossible to make out her movements.

  The Demon screamed in pain. It tried to get up from the floor, furiously flailing its mutilated stumps. It moved jerkily, crawling and throwing its weight against the legs of the men around it. Its head lolled to one side, indifferent to the movements of the body, tongue dangling and eyes lit by a faint reddish glow. The warriors retreated by a step, while Kyra and Raduan covered them with their blades drawn. They all faced the horrible sight, unable to respond,
numbed by horror.

  Then the commander emerged from the group and stood in front of them all. The Demon stopped twitching. Perhaps it realised the fate that awaited it. Dorian looked at it with eyes full of sadness, ready to perform the duty that part of him loathed so much.

  He took a step forward, and stretched his white gloved right hand before the face of the Demon that was once called Iarmin. The monster was paralyzed; a low growl came from its deformed mouth. Dorian put his hand on the Demon’s forehead, and pressed his palm between those eyes full of hatred. On contact, the glove released a halo of warm, glowing light.

  The creature moaned piteously on its knees, arms hanging at its sides. Dorian hesitated when his eyes met those of Iarmin

  (Demon! It is only a Demon!)

  but his heart did not yield.

  “Kalarti ka zvendàri!” he uttered in a quick breath.

  The sentence hung in the air for a moment. Then, a blinding flash of light enveloped Dorian’s body, springing from his chest and moving along his arm, to emerge from the palm of his hand onto the deformed face of the creature.

  There was a prolonged scream, followed by the thud of the body collapsing to the floor. A translucent specter rose from the lifeless limbs and floated in midair. The warriors widened their circle. The ghost looked at them without seeing them, with eyes of pure light, projected at the afterlife. Then he shot upwards toward the ceiling, and disappeared.

  When the light from the glove faded, everyone saw Iarmin’s broken lifeless body lying on the ground, staring at the ceiling with faded eyes.

  “Human eyes” thought Dorian “The eyes of a friend...”

  III - Clouds on the Horizon