The wind
sang and Rockspark listened. It was a
strange melody: sad and low, yet interspersed with energetic trills; equal
parts raw, howling fury and long, mournful sighs. No two notes followed the same pattern, and
in that sense it was chaotic, yet it seemed more the song of a disquiet soul
than the cold music of a dispassionate and cruel universe.
The sun was
setting, and as it did so the light was transformed to match the melody;
refracted and diffracted, reflected and diffused to pierce the eye with spears
of gold, yet drown the landscape in muted colours: jade, amber, violet.
The district
of Purefeather. It was once a paradise
of crystalline towers and glass bridges soaring over canals of the clearest
water, and yet there had been nothing sterile about it. Instead it had been verdant, with shaded
gardens on every rooftop, each pulsing with colour, so overflowing with life
that more often than not it spilled over the sides to trail fluted flowers down
towards the canal. Dew-gemmed petals
kissing shimmering glass, mirrored in waters mountain fresh: that was the
Purefeather of Legend.
But no
longer, indeed, Purefeather, like Blackfeather, Ashfeather and Frostfeather
before it, had been a deserted district for several millennia. Now its towers stood only as pinnacles of
shattered glass, its gardens rotted away to nothing or desiccated into friable
memories of their former selves. The
waterways had dried up, or become clogged with silt and debris and all that was
left of the once-majestic district was a wasteland of crystal and dust.
And yet, it
was still so beautiful. Rockspark could
not take his eyes off it from the moment he had crested the mountains that had
hidden it from view. The people who
lived atop those peaks had eyed him with not-unexpected suspicion, but, as he
gazed out across the glittering emptiness beneath, one had stood beside him for
a time: an older man whose work-callused hands rubbed the small of his back as
he took it all in.
“I never
tire of it,” was all he had said, but it was enough. Rockspark understood completely.
And, as the
afternoon had worn on and Rockspark and taken the lonely path into the
abandoned district, even then he could not but stop and gaze upon the vistas
before him, listening, as he did now, to the sad song of the wind.
But the day
could not last forever and the light was fading fast. The Spiketail shaman hadn’t come to
Purefeather for the view and there was things to do before he could rest for
the night.
Ancient
streets remained as fragments, shards of memory, reflections and Rockspark
followed them where he could. Sometimes
they dead-ended in crystal debris, drifts of diamond dust, whole storeys of
fallen tower, and he had to clamber over or find another way around. The going was slow and he had progressed less
than a mile towards the centre of the district - his intended destination - by
the time darkness wrapped its chill cloak around him. His red eyes glowed like burning coals in the
night and he continued on, unperturbed.
Sometimes
the only way around an obstruction was through the lonely halls of some nearby
edifice. Sometimes the buildings were
gutted, hollow shells and sometimes there were surprising vestiges of the human
families who had last lived there.
Rotted furniture lay at odd angles where their panels had fallen
through, or their fixings had corroded beyond the point that they could hold
them together. The bindings of books
remained where the pages had rotted away.
Marks remained on a piece of ancient plasterwork to show where a picture
had hung before. Decor peeled away,
however, and lives were fleeting compared to the elder crystal and, more often
than not, even the plaster lining the interiors had fallen away, leaving
nothing but dusty glass. Rockspark felt
the sense of absence as if it were a tangible weight, a pressure in the air:
both potent and yet potential.
At the
centre of there district there had once stood a great dome of faceted crystal,
refracting the light of dawn and dusk into rainbow colours across the
city. When the Stoneskin people had
first occupied the district, finding it waiting for them in vacant perfection,
the dome had become their temple. Later,
after the humans invaded and turned this holy place into one of profane
delights, the temple had been gutted and in its place a bazaar had grown
up. It had been famous the world over
for its exotic variety, its lush opulence.
Now even this dome had fallen. A
great hole, jagged around the edge like someone had taken a bite out of it, let
the first light of the moon shine on Rockspark's face as he approached.
The interior
of the dome was peppered as much with the shards of glass which had fallen from
the ceiling as with the remains of the last bazaar to be held there. Dessicated fabrics and tarnished trinkets lay
in piles behind overturned tables, themselves rotted and sliced open by the
falling glass. Something like diamond
dust coated every surface. It glistened
like frost.
Rockspark
made his way into the very centre of the dome, clearing a space amidst the
detritus to lay out his things: his bedroll as a mat to sit on; a few candles
arranged according to ancient ritual, each burning a different colour; a number
of intricate bone talismans, unnatural configurations representing different
aspects of life and death, and a scroll.
He made himself comfortable on the mat, lit the candles and then,
slowly, unrolled the scroll and began to read out loud in a low, rumbling
monotone.
"Light
that falls as rain,
Whiteness
without stain,
Lightning
flash at night,
Brightest of
the bright,
Hope within
the heart
And muse of
all the arts:
Purest one
of all,
Please
listen to my call.
"Pinions
ever white,
Glowing in
the night,
Illuminating
guide
To pathways
far and wide,
Corrector of
our ways
And
architect of days:
The one we
call by name,
Please
answer to the same:
Purefeather."
There was a
moment of deepest silence, the only motion that of violet moonlight refracting
across the floor, slicing shadows like a stealthy assassin, then Rockspark
began again.
"Light
that falls as rain,
Whiteness
without stain..."
On and on
the mantra droned. Repetition after
repetition after repetition, until the words lost meaning, until the sounds ran
together like ink in the endless rain of their vocalisation, until the stream
ran dry on Rockspark's tongue, the muscle tired, his throat cracking, yet the
words still came. Night wore on,
tireless, and the moon arced overhead, it's light dancing through every
configuration of the shards within the dome, lines of pale violet that traced
the Spiketail's scales as if they sought to know him.
"The
one we call by name,
Please
answer to the same:
Purefeather."
"He
will not come."
Rockspark
blinked, the russet flames of his eyes snuffing out for just a moment in shere
surprise. He glanced around, taking in
every inch of the dome that surrounded him, searching, but to no avail. The voice - old and young, rough and smooth,
echoing and flat - had come from nowhere, yet seemed as if it had spoken right
into his ear.
"Who's
there?" he rasped, only now realising the wear in his voice.
"One -
and many - who would not wish to see one so dedicated as yourself waste your
time. Purefeather left a long, long time
ago. You will not find him here, nor
does he hear you."
Still the
dome was empty of all save the Spiketail shaman himself, and still the voice
sounded impossibly close. Rockspark
dimmed the orbs of his eyes, the Stoneskin equivalent to a squint, and, peering
into the lambent gloom, gasped. For just
a second the air had seemed to shimmer, a blue-white glow in the outline of a
creature, a being like himself and yet not with a head like living coral and a
mouth trapped in an endless scream.
"Who
are you?"
"None
of the children now recognise us, you squabble amongst yourselves but you do
not know that which came before you, that which was greater than you ever could
be and which will be again."
"Stop
speaking in riddles! If you think it
makes you seem grand and wonderful, then you are very much mistaken. It is a child's game, and one you delight in
for childish reasons. If you claim to be
greater than me then speak clearly so that I might understand."
"You
are wise, brief one, but I cannot explain who we are for your kind has never
named us, save in the vaguest terms.
Some have called us ancients, though
that does not suit, for we are ever young."
"Ah,"
Rockspark replied, "you're them." And with that he rolled up his scroll, blew
out his, now greatly diminished candles, picked up his talismans and rose to
go.
"You
won't find them," the voice said and, as Rockspark turned to face it it
seemed the figure had become more substantial, "they were never designed
to last this long."
"I have
faith," the shaman lied and turned and left and put the district of
Purefeather behind him.
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