Wicked Little Town

Ding-ding.

The bells of Inferno called to him from the next room. A thin insistent ringing sound that pierced the shadows, that scraped along the back of his skull like steel threatening to cut through bone. He didn’t need the bell to tell him what time it was; his body already knew the rhythm, for it was the same every day, a clock regulated by survival.

Crowe rolled stubbornly onto his side. He clenched his eyes shut against the bone-deep cold that permeated the drafty bedroom. Already he could sense his body’s impulse to carry out a duty he’d carried out a thousand times before, at war with a heaviness so complete it weighed him down like an anchor. He suspected the weight he carried wasn’t just exhaustion but something borrowed–a small, steady drain of his own vitality that Petras required to live another suffocating day.

Hunger gnawed at his belly, a slow, grinding pain that kept sleep’s sweet relief at bay. The larder held the promise of a stale loaf of bread and a ration of salted pork. He would have to go hunting in the woods for game; there were still plenty of deer and rabbits in these parts of the mountains. The thought that going to the village might be quicker crossed his mind, but he bulked at the thought of bumping into anyone. Better to avoid the stares and the whispers that followed on his heels.

He listened to the wind buffet the house, stirring it into creaky lethargic life. Above his head a spider worked meticulously, spinning web into shape. He imagined the walls of the house folding beneath the weight of winter’s relentless onslaught, crashing down on top of him. Will it hurt? he wondered. Will I be free?

Crowe needed fire. He needed warmth.

He reached out tentatively with his mind, seeking the familiar current of mana - the fragment of Monad’s divine light each practitioner was born with. He pushed a meager thought towards the kindling piled beside the cold hearth. The energy, usually a predictable stream that came with ease - the time it takes for a thought to pass through the human brain - felt thick, sluggish, and resistant towards his will. A faint painful strike shot behind his eye. Not today, the hearth seemed to whisper. You will work for your warmth. The practitioner knew the attempt was futile. Any attempt to channel energy in this place seemed to fall into a pit, consumed by the oppressive atmosphere of the house.

The bell’s call cut through his thoughts, more insistent this time, a frantic jangle that demanded surrender. He wanted to scream–anything to block out the sound. Reluctantly Crowe dragged his body out of bed. The thin wooden floorboards felt like ice beneath his bare soles. He let out a deep shuddering breath. The threat of angry tears stung his eyes. He ran his fingers absently around the trinket dangling around his neck, shaped into a serpent with a lion’s head. Monad forgive me. I can’t do this anymore.

Floorboards groaned and squeaked beneath his heels as he entered the corridor - a sound so familiar it was inseparable from the guilt of his resentment. Each step was tribute to a duty he could no longer bear. Now outside of Petras’ bedroom, he slowly pushed the door open, a frown screwed on his lean face. The chill inside the room was arctic, turning Crowe’s breath into clouds of white mist that immediately vanished in the frigid air.

Petras watched him from the bed. Today the old man wasn’t screaming and thrashing about as he did when the fits - the random, agonizing flashes of lucid memory - took him. Petras was merely a wilted husk, a ghost of his former self. His eyes were blank and unrecognizing, milky white-disks in a face that was all pale angles and starved bone. His once-sharp mind was now dulled by insanity: a victim of the same spiritual decay that plagued all practitioners in their final days. The small brass bell rested innocently on the bedside table.

Crowe crossed the room to the bed, moving with the efficiency of someone who has spent a lifetime caring for others. Conversation was useless; in a fashion Petras had died long ago, his mind having left long before his heart would give out. The practitioner averted his gaze from the man’s exposed, crippled legs - a sign of the same systemic decay.

The bed pan was full. Crowe gripped the cold metal handles. The stench, sharp and ammoniac, immediately stung his sinuses. This was the true nature of his service: not just mere devotion, but the repetition of physical filth. He carried the pan down the long staircase to the ground floor. He had to yank hard to open the door which had been frozen shut. Each movement preordained, the echo of an action from the past. He threw the filth out into the driving wind before kicking the door shut. He entered the kitchen, moving towards the hearth. The only sound louder than his rumbling stomach was the rhythmic creak of the house contracting in the cold.

He began with the first task of starting a fire.. He laid the last of the dried kindling and wood scavenged from weeks ago. He resisted the urge to use his fading mana; the simple action of friction and flame felt like a necessary penance. Once the fire had risen into a blaze, he set a pot of water on the hook to boil, casting weak, dancing shadows on the walls.

Crowe’s ration was waiting for him: a slice of buttered bread gone stale and a sliver of salted pork. It was a meal that promised more disappointment than sustenance, making a trip through the woods paramount. The practitioner didn’t chew; he simply gulped down the meager meal, his throat tight with resentment, tasting only the salt that did nothing to quench his thirst. Only when he was finished with the meal did he allow himself a moment’s relief: he retrieved a tightly rolled paper from a tin - the sacred economy of his isolation. He lit the end with a coal pulled from the fire, watching the tip glow an ember red. He inhaled deeply, drawing the sweet, piney smoke deep into his lungs.

He closed his eyes. The euphoria was immediate, a wave of temporary warmth and lightness that momentarily lifted the anchor of duty from his soul. He imagined going to places he would never see - beyond the confines of Annesville, which was a prison of its own, beyond The Sepulchre Peaks. In his mind he pored over a map of the Kenoma, running a finger along the vein - the Stauros Highway - that connected the frozen peaks of the North to the Southern continent of Pleroma. He imagined going to a warm place where the walls didn’t close in, where people didn’t know him. Free of Petras. Even now the old man waited for him, depended on him, tethered together until that final moment when Crowe’s mentor took his last breath.

The practitioner swallowed the last bite of stale bread, the fleeting comfort of the joint already fading, leaving behind only a dull ache. The duty remained.

It was time to steep the tea. He used the last of the medicinal herbs - not aether, but a harsh, bitter blend meant to soothe the old man’s constant tremors. He heated up the last dregs of remaining broth, stretching the thin liquid as far as it would go. Crowe placed the dishes on a tray. It was a heavy thing, scarred and warped by years of heat and careless use. He paused, looking at his reflection on the dark, still surface of the broth: a narrow, pale face, a long slightly hooked nose; shoulder-length black hair tangled and greasy from unwash; though he was only a fledgling practitioner, nineteen cycles into his life, his eyes were haunted, belonging to a world that was rotten to its core. This, he thought, is the face of one who has been condemned to the Kenoma.

Crowe hauled the tray up the steps. Each step felt heavier than the last, leading him towards another confrontation with Petras’ dull gaze. He entered the room, pulling up a rickety chair beside the bed. He patiently spoon fed the mad man every drop until the bowl was empty. Petras offered no sign of thanks, no flicker of recognition - only the mechanical process of swallowing. It was a ritual of empty gestures, repeated day after day, until the days turned into weeks, the weeks into months, the months into the change of seasons.

He listened to the house shudder, to the wet rattle of Petras’ breath, to the screams within his own mind. Once he was finished feeding his mentor, Crowe deposited the dirty dishes in the kitchen.

When he stepped back into the upstairs hallway, Crowe paused, sensing a shift in the air. A shift felt rather than witnessed. He paused in the doorway and peered cautiously into Petras’ room - ready to duck should the old man fling something at him or do something unexpected. Instead he was met with an oppressive silence. It was a silence that threatened to repel him; he had to cling to the doorknob to remain where he stood; to keep from retreating. And still that oppressive silence lingered. It swelled, filling the hallway.

“Petras?” he croaked, voice dusty from misuse.

The man stared up at the ceiling. Unmoving. Unblinking.

Crowe drifted towards the chair on legs that felt as if they were made of wood. He watched the old man, his face remote. In the few minutes since he’d left his bed Petras had passed away. The practitioner touched the trinket at his neck with buzzing fingers.

“May you find splendor in the Eternal City,” he whispered.

The inevitable wave of panic crashed down on top of Crowe with apocalyptic force. Before he could prepare himself every nerve and muscle in his body seemed to seize up. He fell out of the chair onto the dusty floor, flopping onto his side like a fish. It was all the movement he could manage. He wasn’t sure how much time passed before he managed to crawl across the room until his back was pressed up against the peeling wood of the door. Crowe had been seized by such fits of inexplicable panic before; fear was a beast that lingered on the edge of his periphery. The solution was not to fight the panic, but to let it engulf him completely until he resurfaced.

When the spell passed, Crowe staggered to his feet. It was impossible to lift Petras out of bed in his weakened state. The old man would be heavier in death than he had ever been in life. There has to be another way. He bit his lip, filing through the first ideas that flashed through his mind. Desperation drove him to use his mana in the end. He closed his eyes and channeled his manna, frantically seeking that fragment of divine light within. He focused on the corpse and imagined a flat glass surface lifting Petras into the air - strong and unyielding enough to support his weight. The practitioner pushed his will outward, praying for a moment’s grace.

The energy that responded was sick and sputtering, like a dying flame. The corpse strained upwards - a single agonizing foot of lift. A raw, blinding spike of pain shot through Crowe’s temple. The spiritual oppression of the house fought back, draining the power in an instant. The dead weight dropped with a sickening thud, the sound sharper than the initial fall. The practitioner wavered on the spot. A thin trickle of blood warmed his upper lip. His body had rebelled, punishing him for his attempt to break the cycle of his servitude.

The practitioner had no choice but to rely on other means. He glanced out the window to gauge the dwindling light. If he was to bury Petras before dark he would have to hurry. He moved with a focused, frantic energy that belied his exhaustion. Crowe stripped the door from its hinges, using the flat heavy slab as a makeshift sled. Ripping a length of thick, stiff rope from the bed frame - the same rope he’d used to bind Petras to the bed during the most violent of his fits - he secured the corpse to the door.

Even with the benefit of the sled and the leverage it provided, hauling the dead weight was a back-breaking ordeal. His breath came out in harsh, whistling gasps. Cold sweat dripped down in between his shoulder blades, fusing his robes to his flesh. Keep going. Don’t stop. Can’t stop. Under the exhaustion was a raw, defiant relief to be done with this part of his cycle. What came after was a blank canvas. What would he paint on it?

Each jarring scraping descent of the wooden sled on the stairs made something inside him break, until once more, the tears broke forth like a flooded dam. He fought through the tears. The freedom was so close he could taste it. He kicked the door open. The wind whipped at him with razor sharp blades, carrying the scent of pine and ice. He dragged the sled across the unforgiving, frozen soil towards the shed. Beyond the wooden fence that marked the edge of the property the Stauros Highway was a long dark scar cut into the land - the dividing line between his isolation and active war. The thought of stepping onto the path, even in death, carried the weight of a monumental crossing.

Inside the shed Crowe found a shovel. He picked a spot beneath the skeleton of an old apple tree. He pushed the curved edge of the spade into the earth. For hours the practitioner toiled away, forcing his way into the bowels of the earth. He worked with the desperate haste of a man who knows his tenure is almost at an end. When the practitioner was done digging he turned to face the corpse, still secure to the sled. For the final time he stopped, pushing until it felt as if his heart might explode from the effort. At last the corpse rolled off the sled into the grave.

By the time Crowe finished shoveling snow back into the grave, night had fallen, as inky and absolute as the Void. He raised his head towards the star-dappled sky, letting a gust of wind blow a lock of raven-black hair from his forehead. He returned to the shed to rid himself of the shovel and grabbed the two remaining cans of lamp oil and a box of matches.

The practitioner ventured back into the house for the final time. A house that was now rightfully his if he wanted it. He didn’t. For too long he’d been boxed in by its moldering walls. . He packed what provisions he could into a large duffel bag. There wasn’t much to pack. He’d run out of provisions borne from the harvest weeks ago, living off of what he could forage from the woods. The last thing he needed was his staff. It leaned against the door, five feet in length, carved from the sturdy but pliant wood of an aether tree. The sigils carved into the wood glowed with a faint inner light. He strapped it to his back with a leather holster.

Crowe pulled out the book of matches from the pocket of his robes. TANNHAUS INDUSTRIES loomed at him from the side of the box in black blocky letters, an insidious reminder of the system that controlled everything. For the first time in days, the house was completely still, as silent as an indrawn breath. “May you find splendor in the Eternal City,” he whispered, addressing the house for the last time.

Flames sprouted into life the moment the match struck the puddle of oil. Crowe exited the house in a stream of thick smoke.

Crowe lit a second joint, rewarding himself with another long drag. He’d earned it. Tendrils of black smoke rolled out from the house’s gaping door and windows, carrying the scent of ash and finality. He cried hot tears, feeling the closest to happiness he could recall feeling in a long time. Too long. It was not meant to be. His happiness was short-lived, the cruel punchline delivered like a fatal gunshot wound.

A deep cataclysmic roar drew his eyes skyward.

A storm cloud manifested directly over the house, blooming into being like a tumor. It swelled, its pregnant underbelly lit by blue flashes of thunder. Never before had Crowe seen a cloud so magnificent or ominous. The rational part of his mind that remained after months of isolation told him this was not natural phenomena. Thunder clouds did not form this quickly. He knew he should move, but his feet were rooted to the ground. Once more he was paralyzed.

It spread like a cancer over the trees, sweeping them back with a bale of wind that threatened to knock Crowe off his feet. In the howling wind he heard phantom voices raised in symphonic harmony. They soared over the shriek of the wind, over the clash of lightning that threatened to scorch the earth below. A vortex formed at the center of the cloud. A dark tunnel yawned open like a hungry mouth at the tunnel’s center. Crowe could only gape at it in horrified fascination and somehow knew that if he were to be sucked into its maw he would plummet through endless darkness. And yet somehow his feet remained anchored to the ground even as the earth around him was whipped into a frenzy. And still the house burned, flames billowing out through the windows as if through the hollow sockets of a skull.

A pinprick of light appeared at the center of the vortex. It grew larger, shooting towards the opening like a comet, the tunnel widening in anticipation of its arrival. Through the rent a city appeared in a halo of celestial light that bathed the ground below in a heavenly shimmer.

Metropolis! The Eternal City The city from which my people fell, exiled to a life of slavery in The Kenoma…

The holy city balanced on atop jagged mountains of ancient black rock: a jumbled sprawl of labyrinthine streets and monuments that towered beneath the brim of an alien skyline. Smoky tendrils of fog slivered over bridges and temples in an effort to swallow them whole. A nameless dot rose above the city’s spires, slowly taking shape. First the arms and then the torso, then the white feathers of its expansive wings. The figure dropped through the rent, its descent slowing. Just when it seemed its feet would hit the ground, it stopped, its feet hovering several inches above the snowy ground.

Delicate features studied the practitioner from behind a veil of silver hair that trickled past the visitor’s shoulders like flowing water - long lashes, soft almond-shaped eyes, full lips - gave the creature an androgynous look. Neither male nor female but both at the same time. This was a creature who had existed before a time when mortals were defined by such limits, its smooth skin unblemished by age or war. It was adorned in heavy battle armor made out of a golden alloy. Crowe suspected no mortal blade could pierce its outer shell. A great sword was sheathed at its hip.

The practitioner knew of only one word for the creature that had graced him from the heavens: “Seraphim.”

Angel. Messenger of Monad. Warrior. Servant. Messenger. A being who carried out the will of a greater far more powerful being. And yet even beneath its impenetrable gaze, Crowe regained function of his limbs and did the only thing he could think of to do: he stooped into a low bow.

Still airborne, the Seraphim raised a hand. “Rise to your feet,” the angel said in a voice that echoed with waves of power. Crowe rose to his full height. The angel reached out to him, slowly drifting closer. The practitioner sensed no malevolence in this gesture; if the Seraphim meant to destroy him, it didn’t need its broad sword to do so. Its wings were thirty hands wide and appeared to be powerfully built. The practitioner’s feet moved of their own accord, separate from his mind’s control. He hesitated only briefly before taking the offered hand.

The moment flesh made contact with flesh, a violent, blinding surge of energy ripped through Crowe. It was not the sick, sputtering magic of the house, but a pure, unadulterated divine current. A fire - hotter than the burning house and yet completely cold - seared his veins. He felt the long dormant sigils on his aether staff flair into brilliant light and the scar on his wrist from a broken promise burn white-hot beneath the angel’s touch. His meager reserves of mana were replaced by a deep, terrifying well of power.

A hole opened up inside the practitioner’s mind. A hole into which a flood of phantom images, sensations, and sound fell through like a barrage of cannon blasts. Explosions of gunfire; the earth-shaking detonations of cannons; the hiss of bayonets slicing through the air, through human flesh. He saw men and women dying in the fields by the thousands; dying in puddles of their own blood, their own shit. Men who turned back into little boys before the curtains closed. Women who were forced to step into the boots of men in the wake of their absence. The lives of children who were snuffed out before they could ever truly begin to bloom. It shocked him to his core like white hot needles stabbing into his soul. He tried to yank his hand away but of course the Seraphim did not let go. Would not let go.

The Seraphim’s voice cut through the cacophony like a knife: “Once your people walked the streets of Metropolis, kings and queens and gods. Divine in your own right. They looked down upon the cosmos atop towers made of diamond, made of pearl. For many eons this was so until they were banished from the material universe, The Kenoma, where their power wilted over time.”

In his mind Crowe saw the statues of revered deities crumble to dust, saw blood so red it was almost black flood the streets and gutters of Metropolis.

The angel continued: “For a time they flourished in this new world, but the world you call home is not meant to be. Monad’s people have been mocked, beaten, raped, and enslaved…” The Seraphim’s voice trembled with such anger - sudden and ice-cold - Crowe almost cried out in fear. “Worry not, for the suffering of Monad’s people have not been in vain. Though he still sleeps, the time for Monad’s awakening draws nigh. Upon his awakening this world - this mistake - will cease to exist. In its place Monad will build a new world. A better world. You will lead his people back to the Eternal City.”

“I don’t understand!” Crowe sobbed. Hot tears streamed down his face. “What is it you want me to do?”

The Seraphim’s eyes bore into his like burning embers. “You are the herald, the mouth through which Monad shall one day speak. The flaming sword that breaks chains and delivers swift justice. You are the beacon that will lead Monad’s people out of exile. So it has been decreed.”

An invisible cord pulled at Crowe. He soared over a long winding road - the Stauros Highway - that linked the Sepulchre Peaks to Pleroma. He saw a small town gripped in the shadow of a beast; somehow he knew the name of the town was Timberford. Further North, on the outer edge of the Mirror Expanse, he saw the ruins of a dead city whose name he did not know. He glimpsed the inside of a chamber where a woman, her face hidden beneath the shadow of a cowl, waited for him. “Your path has been set for you. Your pilgrimage begins now.”

At last the Seraphim released the practitioner. Crowe fell to his knees at the messenger’s feet, weeping fresh tears of pain and shock. The angel merely watched him, indifferent to his fear and suffering in the decree of this impossible task.

The practitioner could only watch as the Seraphim spread its wings and took flight, soaring back towards the vortex. Once the angel breached through to the other side, Crowe was rewarded with a final glimpse of Metropolis’ pearly streets. It shrank, receding back into the Void. Celestial light flickered as if Monad’s divine hand had snuffed it out. With a final pop of air the vortex at the center of the cloud fold in on itself before blinking out of existence.

By the time awareness returned to Crowe the house that had once contained his life had burned down to cinders. It wouldn’t be long before rain and snow swept what was left away.

The momentary freedom he’d found was gone, snatched out of his hands by Monad himself. Petras is in his newly dug grave, laughing at me right now, the practitioner thought gravely. A far greater burden than caring for another had been placed on his shoulders. He felt the terrifying, amplified current of mana roaring within his veins, a power he knew he couldn’t control.

Again he could hear the bells of Inferno calling for him.