Valiant: The Covenant Chronicles

[Covenant #31: The Old City]

Log Date: [date/timestampcorrupted]

Data Sources: Jayta Jaskolka

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 8

Grey.

Everything is grey.

Maybe not completely grey, but everything has a shade of grey to it. Every color is muted, like it’s being run through a filter. The buildings, the ground, the sky, the foliage. Near or far, big or small, high and low, everything here is dull and grey.

It’s like traveling through an old, faded, washed-out picture.

Everything is frozen in time, caught in a singular moment. There are no seasons, no night and day, no weather, and without these things, there is no change. Without change, there can be no passage of time. Whether it is the forests, or the plains, or the mountains, or the cities, or the towns, they all remain the same. As they were in the time of their remembrance, but empty and silent, void of the wildlife and people that otherwise filled them when they were on the mortal plane.

Here, in the Old City, there is only the infinite grey twilight of a world that once was.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 13

The days, even though they are not really days, are long.

Most times we are walking for ten, eleven, twelve hours. We take breaks for lunch, but otherwise we travel uninterrupted. In the first few days it was difficult; I am used to short bursts of activity, like combat and violence, and I’m accustomed to long, hard labor, like when I was chopping wood during my probation. But this is a different kind of labor and strain. It is the long, mind-numbing endurance of an incomprehensibly long hike. Of walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, and walking, until all thoughts have been pounded away and all you see is the ground beneath your feet, watching and planning where you’ll put your next step, while all too easily losing track of everything else around you.

Blisters came within the first few days, even though I was wearing my boots. I had a feeling they were just unavoidable. And when I couldn’t walk because of them, Raikaron carried me for a couple days until I was able to walk again. Afterwards came the calluses, with my feet toughening up and starting to adjust to the long shifts of walking. The rest of me soon adapted to the strain as well, legs growing more accustomed to the continuous rigor of walking, and walking, and walking. I could go for longer and longer without my legs feeling like a wobbly gelatin when we stopped to rest, and I learned how to set a moderate, sustainable pace that would last me most of the day. Uphill and downhill slopes were still a challenge, but on flat ground or lightly-graded ground, I could set and stick to a steady pace.

The end of our day, when it comes, is always a relief. There is no night and day in the Old City, since it lingers permanently in a state of grey twilight, but Raikaron is able to keep track of time using his pocketwatch, the one that has too many arms. I take my measure of time by how tired I feel, so whenever Raikaron declares that we’re stopping for rest, it’s such a relief.

We usually find a safe place — somewhere that is out of the way and inconspicuous, and he pulls the tesseract from his pocket. It is small, no larger than a marble, but once he sets it in the air above our heads, the puzzleblocks that make it up shift and slide and twist and turn, always moving outwards, and allowing progressively larger puzzleblocks to exit through the gaps and join the shifting maze of stone until the tesseract has reached its full size. The whole process takes about five minutes or so, and having a giant stone tesseract shifting in the air seems rather conspicuous to me, but Raikaron says that after we enter the tesseract, it begins to collapse to its travel size once more. That brings me some comfort, since it’s far less likely that a marble-sized puzzleblock hanging high in the air will be noticed among the grey twilight of the Old City.

We have not yet used my hammerspace case, because we have not yet needed to, despite what Trinity told us. While it normally wouldn’t be a burden, cases like that were not meant to be carried by hand on such long trips. I tried switching it from hand to hand to trade off the burden of carrying it, but when Raikaron noticed I was struggling with it, he took it from me, shrunk it down so that it was small enough to fit in a pocket, and tucked it into one of the pockets on the inside of his coat. It would return to its proper size in a time of need, he said, and hopefully that would not be anytime soon.

And while I agreed, all that mattered in that moment is that I’d no longer be wearing out my arms with a leather briefcase weighing me down on one side or the other.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 17

He tells me stories as we walk.

It’s a way to pass the time, to fill the long and monotonous twelve-hour trudges. With no people, no weather, no wildlife to fill in the background with noise, everything and everywhere we go is deafeningly silent. There is only the sound of our own footsteps, steady and dull, thumping over grass, or pounded dirt, or asphalt, or concrete. The silence of a dead world, destroyed ten thousand times over, fills every single day for us.

The stories help keep the silence at bay. Hearing his voice helps break up the monotony, and keeps my brain from descending into mindless trudging. It’s too easy, when you’re walking for hours and hours and miles upon miles, to just lose yourself in it. To turn off your brain, stare at the ground beneath your feet, and get lost in the rhythm of step after step, foot by foot, moving forward without actually knowing where you’re going or what you’re heading towards. With him talking, I can drag my mind out of that dull, pounding haze, and actually exercise my thinking skills.

The stories he tells, and the things he talks about, will vary. Sometimes it is stories about himself. Things he has done, places he has been. Sometimes it is stories about the Old City — not really stories, persay, but recitations of the history and mythology of the Old City. Things that help me understand the twilight purgatory we now travel in. And sometimes, it will be discussions of entirely random things. Sometimes he will tell me to ask him a question, and I will think of something to ask him, so he can answer it, and perhaps start a conversation or begin another story.

Right now is one such time, as we walk through what looks like a small town, abandoned and dusty, power lines sagging and poles leaning as we walk down the empty street. “Why is it called the Old City?” I ask, my voice quickly swallowed up by the silence.

Raikaron looks over his shoulder. “You ask because we have spent most of our time walking through country and woods, rather than developed areas.” he surmises.

I nod.

“And also, I suppose, because this afterlife is clearly much bigger than a single city.” he says, looking forward again. “The question is fair enough. The answer is that I’m not entirely sure, and I don’t believe there are many that could answer with surety. There are older creatures than me who may know the definitive answer, but of my own knowledge, I can give you the conjecture that has been offered by those that study the Aurescuran afterlife.”

“What’s their conjecture?” I ask.

“That calling the Aurescuran afterlife ‘the Old City’ is metaphorical, figurative, symbolic, if you will.” he explains. “Linguistically, there are references to old cities and old lands in ancient Aurescuran texts, and always framed in the sense of places that exist only in the past, places that one cannot return to, or that returning to them would be akin to death. That is how the term ‘the Old City’ came to be synonymous with the Aurescuran afterlife, because the afterlife for your people is exactly that: ten thousand iterations of a destroyed world. Places that exist, quite literally, only in the past; places you cannot return to without first dying.” He motions to the abandoned small town that we’re walking through. “The Old City is not a reference to a particular city, or even a city at all — it is a reference to a period of time, to a past that your people cannot reach, but which they eventually return to every time they die.”

“So the afterlife for my people, it is… the past?” I ask, trying to get my head around the metaphors and semi-religious abstractions.

“I suppose it is, isn’t it?” he muses in return. “It’s a very strange thing, as eschatology goes… most afterlives are not fixated on time periods. They typically don’t focus on time at all, outside of how long the damned are punished. But the Old City… it is a product of the trauma of your people, the suffering they went through over and over and over again. That period of time in the history of Aurescura continues to define everything about your people, even after they have broken free of the Cycle.” He falls silent for a moment, then says “I wonder if it’s designed this way on purpose. Intended to prevent your people from forgetting their past by returning them to it every time they die. To ensure that they never forget the atrocities that they endured.”

“But why? Shouldn’t we be allowed to move forward, to leave behind our past and create a new future for ourselves?” I ask. “The whole point of the Witchling breaking the profane Cycle was so that we could finally escape Aurescura’s judgement. So that we could finally move forward; so that those of us that were tired of being reincarnated could finally find peace. What’s the point of bringing us back to our past every time we die? I sure wouldn’t want to return to this, to the years of the Cycle. I’d want to look forward, to the future where we don’t have to live in fear of Aurescura’s disdain.”

“Mm. Indeed; placing myself in similar shoes, I expect I would want the same.” Raikaron says, stepping off a curb and crossing the street. “Perhaps the Old City is designed specifically to provoke that response. To remind Aurescuran souls of the past, and so motivate them to move forward. The Witchling does not want souls to linger here, the way they do in other heavens and hells. The Old City is meant to be a bridge where you reflect on your previous lives while you are moving to your next. And for those who have paid their debts and are ready to rest, it is the final journey before the end.”

“The end, meaning…”

“Reaching the Weir of the Witchling, walking the pier, and crossing over.” he says, stepping back up on the sidewalk on the other side of the street. “Stepping through and returning to the aether from which you were formed. The Church of Aurescura taught you about it, correct? Or the witches, since you were raised in a coven?”

“Sort of. I remember it, kind of.” I say, trailing close at his heels. “It’s the final end, the last death, right? Like achieving absolute peace. You let go of everything, and your soul turns to dust and disappears. Or something like that.”

“No, no, it doesn’t disappear. Nothing ever disappears, unless Eraser destroys it.” he says, raising a hand and moving it back and forth. “The rules of the universe must hold; matter and energy can neither be created nor destroyed, but only converted. A soul is something, perhaps a little bit of both matter and energy. What happens to a soul at the end of the pier is that it returns to the constituent parts that form it, that make it up. Your soul is broken down into memories; memories are broken down into thoughts; thoughts are broken down into feelings; and feelings are broken down into inklings, the very smallest unit of what makes all of those things I just mentioned. Those inklings drift back out into the universe, scattering far and wide, mingling back into the background noise that permeates the creation, and becomes the building blocks for dreams, emotions, perhaps even new souls. Your identity dies, certainly, but all the bits and pieces that made you up are still there. Just in different places, different people…” He slows a little to turn and smile at me. “Nobody ever really dies, Jayta. We’re all ripples in a pond; we bounce around for a little bit, and then fade away, but all the water is still there. You and me, and every other thing in the universe — we’re just shapes that the water takes, and holds for a little while before letting go and forming other shapes.”

I slow to a stop, staring at him. It’s a lot to absorb, but the way he says it is serendipitous, and calming, and serene. Like it’s not something to be sad about, or afraid of; but something that’s beautiful — and maybe a little melancholy, but still beautiful. “Is that… really true?” I ask softly. “Everything that you just told me?”

“Yes. It is really true.” he smiles kindly. “Not just for Aurescurans, but for Anayans, and Christlings, and creatures of the Waking and of the Dreaming, the good and evil, whether you believe in a deity or nothing at all — we are all ripples that move through the universe, and when our time is done, we fade away. But everything that made us up is still there, it just… becomes part of other ripples. Nobody ever really dies. They just become other things, other people.”

I stare at him for a moment more, then look down at my hands, my body. “And I… I’m the bits and pieces of other people that used to exist?”

“Well yes. More or less.” he says, an arm lifted like he was offering me to walk alongside him. I move forward again, falling in step with him as he explains. “Like a song. The notes are all arranged in a particular way, and that arrangement is what gives each song a unique identity. But those individual notes can be used in many different songs. Sometimes even small groupings of notes are used in multiple songs. And when the song is over, it falls apart into bits and pieces, which are then used to make new songs.”

My mouth twitches into a smile at that. “I… I like that.” I say softly, leaning my shoulder against him. “We’re all songs, and when we reach our end, we just get recycled into new songs. Different songs.” I let my hands drop. “I guess some songs are shorter, and some are longer?”

“Oh yes.” he says, slipping an arm around me as I lean into him. “Some songs go on for quite a long time. Hypernaturals — those beings which are thought of as deities and gods — their songs can go on for aeons. They tend to evolve over time, growing into rich and majestic symphonies. And when a symphony like that finally ends, it gives birth to millions, sometimes billions of other songs.”

“So even the gods die?” I ask.

“Of course they do. Usually they fade away slowly, giving birth to numberless new songs over the stretch of centuries and millennia.” he says. Our hiking pace has slowed to something more leisurely now, as if we were out for an evening stroll, instead of trying to walk the length of three worlds. “They are as much a part of the universe as you and I are. Made of the same music that you and I are made of. Their song just happens to be a lot longer, with a lot more movements and parts.”

We walk in silence for a bit, before I speak up again. “If you’d been around when I was younger, maybe I would’ve been a witch, instead of trying to become a scientist.”

He glances down at me. “How do you mean?”

“With religion, whether it was the Church or the coven, there was all this dogma, these traditions, this complicated, warped tangle of rules.” I explain. “Always trying to justify this or that, something or another. But you explain things so simply, and you make them sound so beautiful. It makes sense when you explain them to me. Maybe if you’d been there when I was younger…”

He tilts his head at that, and then returns his gaze to the nearing edge of town. “Things would be very different between you and I, had I been in your life when you were younger.”

“Yeah? How so?”

“Well, I still would’ve been a teacher. And probably a guardian. But in a far different context, I would imagine.” he says. From the lilt of his words, it sounds like he’s searching for the right words to use.

“I would’ve been your student and your ward, but not your lover.” I guess.

“Well. In as many words, yes.” he admits. “Had I known you when you were younger, been there to watch you grow up, our relationship would’ve been much different. More… parental, probably, or familial. I imagine the frame of reference would’ve been the same for you as well, in such a scenario. We would not be as we are today.” After a moment of mulling that over, he looks to me. “Would you have preferred that I had been there in your childhood, if it came at the cost of what we are now?”

I look up at him, those bright green eyes behind those glasses, that neatly-tucked crimson hair that sticks out at the back just a little. I realize that he would’ve been an excellent father figure, because that’s what he is to the harpies. Patient, yet firm and consistent; commanding, yet doting and nurturing when he needs to be. He’s that paternal presence that I’d never had in my childhood — not that my mother did a bad job, but she was a mother, not a father.

In that instant I realize I’m drawn to Raikaron precisely because he embodies the paternal presence that was missing in my childhood, and I also realize I’ve got a textbook case of daddy issues.

A realization like that should probably have me concerned about my romantic decisions and my mental health generally. Instead, what happens is that I snort and giggle a little bit, covering my mouth to try and muffle it. I don’t know why, but it strikes me as funny: I’m suddenly realizing that I’m pretty messed up, and I’m laughing about it because I know it’s beyond fixing, so I might as well turn it into a joke.

Of course, I have explained none of this to Raikaron, which leaves him rather confused as to why I am answering his question with giggling.

“Did I miss something?” he says, sounding perplexed. “Did I say something that amused you?”

“Yes, though not on purpose.” I say as I get through the last of my chuckles. “To answer your question: it would’ve been nice to have you in my childhood. But I think I prefer what we are right now.” I reach up, resting a hand on his chest. “I am yours, my Lord. And I would not trade that.”

“Your humor escapes me, but perhaps that is for the best.” he smiles, resting a hand over mine as we reach the edge of town. “Let’s pick up the pace. We have many miles to go before we can rest for this cycle.”

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 23

We follow the rivers, for in the Old City, all rivers lead to the Ocean of Souls.

Rivers wander, and so following their twists and turns is not always exact. We try to take the paths which are most expedient, and will reduce our travel time. If we had our way, we would travel in a straight line directly to the Ocean of Souls; but the surface of a planet is not designed on a grid, nor is it uniformly flat. It is mountains and valleys, hills and plains, tundras and deserts. The paths are sometimes straightforward, but other times they wind and twist in a necessary evasion of impassable or difficult terrain.

That is why we most often travel by the rivers, because rivers often carve a path through land and terrain that are otherwise difficult to traverse. Roads, or foot paths, are often established along their sides, and even when they’re not, the foliage is usually loose enough that we can wind our way through it without having to fight the underbrush. We never cross the rivers without a bridge, though, even at the parts of the river where the water would be shallow enough to wade through, and today I ask him about it.

“Pardon?” he says, glancing back at me as we walk along a foot path beside the river. It seems like he was lost in his thoughts, and didn’t quite catch my question.

“Why don’t we ever cross the river without a bridge?” I ask, motioning down the riverbank to the water. This section of the river is shallow, and the water ripples along a stony, rocky bottom that surfaces in some areas to form pebbly islands. “There’s been multiple places where we could’ve crossed, but we never do unless there’s a bridge.”

“Ah. Yes, I suppose I hadn’t explained that.” he says, studying the river. “There is a reason. The rivers in the Old City will lead you to the Ocean of Souls, but they are also dangerous. The Ocean of Souls, as you’re aware, contains all the Aurescuran souls that are currently between lives; each soul with over a million reincarnations, multiplied by billions of souls, and each reincarnation having hundreds or thousands of memories. The number of memories is truly beyond comprehension, and those memories manifest as the liquid that forms the Ocean. And that Ocean is fed by…” He motions a hand, inviting me to finish the sentence.

“…the rivers.” I say, glancing again to the shallow rapids beside us. “So this isn’t actually water in the rivers? It’s… what, liquid memories?”

“Precisely. That is why we do not go near the river, or step into it, or touch it — for the same reason I told you not to touch any of the plushes in the Mirage Mansion.” Raikaron says, ducking around a branch. “Contact alone is enough to experience the memory, and unlike memories contained within plush toys, liquid memories are far more dangerous, because liquid will soak right through fabric. If you fell into the river, you would immediately be plunged into a deluge of memories that are not your own, and would probably drown before you were able to fight your way back to the surface. Even if you were able to claw your way back out of the river, you would need to strip your clothes, and wait until they were dry before you put them back on — wearing clothes that are soaking wet with memories means you would constantly be experiencing flashes of those memories.”

“I hadn’t realized it could be so dangerous.” I say, moving a little more to the center of the path. “So is it possible to die here, like it is in Sjelefengsel?”

“If the living wander into the Old City, is possible for them to die while here, yes.” he says, slowing a little so I can walk beside him. “But the Old City will keep them. As such, it is important that you do not die while we are here, because the Old City will lay claim to you.”

“But not to you?” I ask. The phrasing of his answer hadn’t escaped me.

“If I die, the Old City will try. Whether or not it succeeds is up for debate.” he says, his hand wandering towards one of the pockets of his jacket, then falling away again. “But I would rather not test that question, for either of us. Dying is manifestly unpleasant, and I intend to steer us well clear of any scenarios where it is a possibility.” He smiles aside at me. “Thus we follow the rivers, but at a respectful distance.”

“Yeah, I’ll keep that in mind.” I say, staring at the river with new eyes now. “Honestly, you should’ve told me earlier. Every time I’ve seen a river, I’ll admit I’ve wanted to go wade around in it a bit.”

“An understandable temptation. Living things love to play with water. And fire, for that matter, which reminds me another danger.” he says. “Unless I tell you to do so, at no point are you to do anything that will create or involve fire. Before you ask, the reason is that—”

“The Old Ones are drawn to fire.” I finish for him. “I do remember that part.”

“Ah, good, you know, then.” he says. “I take it the book that Mek gave you has been educational reading?”

“It’s been a tough read, but I’m trying.” I admit. “There’s a lot of anachronisms in it. It’s kinda like reading scriptures, and I always hated doing that.”

“Perhaps it would be easier it we read it together? I am familiar with the study of ancient texts, and anachronisms are a second language of mine.” he offers.

My heart warms a little. “I would like that.”

He nods. “We’ll do that tonight then, after dinner.” And with that, he returns his attention to the path as it winds along before us. “Let’s hope that the road ahead remains level and flat as it’s been so far. I’ve been much preferring this over the hills we were traveling earlier…”

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 34

The days are long, and when we take our rest in the evening, the miles traveled always make it feel well deserved.

My first instinct is always to fall upon a soft surface in the tesseract — a couch or a rug — and just sprawl out there, basking in the sweet relief of simply doing nothing, of being motionless. I only indulge that instinct half the time, because there are still things to do; dinner has to be made, showers have to be taken, clothes have to be washed, and not necessarily in that order. Unless it’s been a really hard day, I don’t settle and sleep until later in the evening. Most the time, my hunger is stronger than my exhaustion, and keeps me going long enough to get other things done.

Raikaron is the one that always makes dinner for us, and he handles all the prep work. Though I knew he was a good cook, it’d slipped my mind — the last time he actually cooked something, at least that I remember, was back when I first arrived in Sjelefengsel, and he was taking me to get registered, which was a three-day ordeal on account of how long the lines were at central intake and processing. Outside of that, the kitchen staff in the House of Regret usually prepared his meals, presumably because he was too busy to do it himself.

But here, without staff to make the food for him and without paperwork and bureaucracy to keep him busy, he has both the time and need to cook for us. And he does; he is handy in the kitchen, and rarely needs my help. I still try to help anyway, because it’s the considerate thing to do, and it’s what I’d want him to do if our positions were reversed. Usually he has me handling the simple task, like chopping vegetables or stirring things, while he works on the more complex parts of a given recipe, like making sauces or cooking the meats to perfection. Occasionally, on days where the hiking has been more strenuous and he can see that I’m running ragged, he tells me to go relax while he handles dinner. I usually go take a shower, and return to find dinner waiting for me, nice and warm after a long day spent hiking.

Dinner is often a quiet affair, not for lack of things to say, but simply because I’m tired. As the evening wears on and I start to settle and relax more, I grow more talkative, and we enjoy our small little conversations. After we finish cleaning up and washing dishes, he goes to take his shower, and I settle into one of the couches around the great firepit, usually reading the Aurescuran tome that Mek gave to me before we left.

Raikaron typically joins me after his shower, dressed in his nightclothes and usually ready to settle down for the night. We’ll sit together onto the couch, or cozy up to each other on one of the recliners, and I’ll ask him questions about the things I’ve read, or he’ll take the book and read one of its stories to me. The firepit, despite its size, usually doesn’t have an active fire going; instead, it’s a bed of coals that lets off a low, drowsy heat. The result is a comfortable warmth, made even more cozy by a soft couch and a smooth, silky voice speaking to me in quiet tones. All too often, I find myself drifting off to sleep while he reads the myths of my people to me, and I only wake up when he picks me up and carries me to the room and bed that we share. Sometimes we don’t even get that far; we spend the night on the couch or in the recliner, sleeping under a blanket pulled over the both of us, lulled to sleep by the warm glow and the intermittent plinking from the firepit’s coals. Cinder, who apparently managed to sneak into Raikaron’s tesseract, will often curl up atop us, further limiting our ability to leave the  couch.

And even though the days are hard, these evenings, so warm and comforting, fill a void in my soul that I didn’t even know was there.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 40

It’s more than a month into our travels before we see the Old Ones.

It happens one day as we are passing through a decently-sized town. We have not said anything for a while; the travel has been grey and dull, as usual. This is probably the fourth or fifth town we have passed through, and though I paid attention to all of them at first, they are starting to blur together to me. They are always empty, always abandoned, and we never stop to investigate any of their buildings. With how far we have to go, we don’t have time to dally and sightsee. It’s just another town in a string of such towns we’ll be passing through.

But something happens in this town. I don’t know what triggers it, but I suddenly find myself bumping into Raikaron, who’s stopped dead on the sidewalk — and when I look up at him, he is staring over his shoulder, back the way we came. There is a silent alertness to his posture, like a stag that heard a rustle in the bushes and is ready to bolt.

“Raikaron?” I ask quietly, glancing back over my shoulder and down the street running through the center of town. I don’t see anything, but something’s got him on guard.

He doesn’t answer, but after a moment, his head turns, and he starts sizing up the building around us. Eventually he settles on one a little further up the street, and motions for me to follow as he begins striding towards it. Once we’re there, he tries the door, and upon finding it unlocked, steps inside and beckons me with him. Once we’re inside, he closes the door behind us.

“What’s going on?” I ask as he locks the door behind us.

“There are Old Ones coming.” he answers, looking around the building we’ve stepped into. It looks like a legal practice, with a reception desk, a couple of desks off to the side, and a set of stairs leading up to the second floor. Moving to one of the desks, he grabs the chair, returns to the door, and lodges it up underneath the doorknob. “Let’s get upstairs. We’ll need to remain quiet and out of sight when they pass through.”

“Old Ones?” I repeat, following him to the stairs and giving a nervous glance over my shoulder at the door. “Like the ones we’ve been reading about in the book? I didn’t hear or see anything while we were walking…”

“You would not have seen or heard them; I sensed them afar off. Outside the town, but they will be within it shortly.” he says, starting up the stairs. “Once they have passed through, we can continue on our way.”

“Will they be looking for us?” I ask as we emerge into the second-floor hallway, which has doors leading to various offices.

“It’s entirely possible. We are not dead, like most other souls in the Old City. We carry the scent of the living on us, and the Old Ones are drawn unto such odors.” he says, checking the doors along the hallway before settling on one. “In here. We will be able to keep an eye on the street as they pass through.”

I slip into the office, which has a large desk with a leather chair behind it, and additional chairs sat off to the side of the room. There’s a window at the back that overlooks the street below; once Raikaron has closed and locked the door behind us, he moves over to the window and drops the blinds, adjusting their angle so that the slits allow us to look down into the street below. After that, he grabs one of the chairs on the side of the room, and moves it over to the window, sitting down and motioning for me to take the leather swivel chair behind the desk.

“They can smell that we’re living?” I ask, settling into the leather chair. It’s a nice one, cushy and pliant, broken in over many long years of use. One of the few nice things I’ve encountered here in the Old City.

“Indeed. Living things have a unique smell, something that supernatural creatures can often pick out.” he says, settling into his own chair — it looks far more rigid and uncomfortable than the one I’m sitting in. “The hound demons of Sjelefengsel have this capacity, among other things; it is one of the few reasons why I tolerate Harro. Here in the Old City, the more animalistic of the Old Ones can smell the living, and hunt them down. They crave the taste of life, a privilege which they have never known, and hope that by killing and consuming the living, they will get to experience what they have never had.”

I press my folded arms against myself. “So they will be hunting us for as long as we’re here in the Old City?”

“They will, yes. From the lesser Old Ones to the greater Old Ones, they all crave the taste of lives they will never have.” he says, using a hand to nudge and adjust the window blinds ever so slightly. “We will avoid them where we can. Confront them only when necessary. It is my hope that our encounters with them remain few, because the more of a commotion we raise, the more likely it will attract the attention of other Old Ones.”

“You’ll be able to fend them off if they do catch us out, right?” I ask.

“The smaller ones, the less intelligent ones, yes. I am a demon Lord; I have the power of Sjelefengsel at my beck and call. But it is by no means a guarantee of safety.” he says, settling in his chair to watch the street below through the blinds. “There are some Old Ones which were given great intelligence by Aurescura, meant to be her sentient creations until she decided they were not fit for purpose. Those Old Ones understand philosophy, culture, ethics… and emotion. They know ambition; they know resentment. And they know sorrow, and grief.”

There is a caution in Raikaron’s voice, but also an undercurrent of pity. “You feel sorry for them?” I ask, unsure of where his sympathy is coming from.

“Of course I do. Don’t you?” he says, looking at me. “You remember how you felt when you found out your friends had moved on from you, set your memory aside to get on with their lives? Now instead of your friends, imagine that it was your creator that cast you aside like a toy she no longer wanted to play with, or a past work that she was ashamed of. To be abandoned and put away in the depths of the earth because she could not bear the work of her own hands.”

My brow furrows, and I look back to the slanted blinds of the window. “I thought the Old Ones were just demons; that Aurescura created them as manifestations of our vices, our fears, our emotions.”

“That is what they are now, but it is not what she originally intended them to be.” Raikaron says, lacing his fingers together in his lap. “They are called the Old Ones because they were her first creations upon the original world of Aurescura. They preceded both mortals and angels; in the family of Aurescura’s creations, the Old Ones are her eldest children, her firstborn. Mortal Aurescuran souls are her middle children, her concession to the viability of the humanoid form; and angels are the youngest children, her final product and refinement upon the humanoid form. And she treasured her angels above all, for they were beautiful in her eyes.”

I’m quiet at that. The stories of my childhood, of the Cursed Cycle, are starting to come into focus now, provided with context I had never considered before. “That is why she called the angels back to her before she sealed the heavens. She wanted to keep her favorite creations with her, and cleanse the evidence of her past failures.”

“Indeed. But there were some angels that knew what she was doing was wrong. They stayed below when the heavens were sealed, and became the Exiles.” Raikaron continues. “Most of Aurescura’s creations have good reason to resent her. To resent all that was done to them. But of all of them, that resentment is most bitter for the Old Ones: the first to be created, the first to be abandoned.”

Another moment of quiet as the gears turn in my head. “Is that why…?”

“Yes. That is the reason the Witchling employs them in the Old City. The resentment that the Old Ones have for Aurescuran mortals can be put towards tormenting the souls of those Aurescurans who were evil, cruel, or otherwise deserving of punishment for their works during their mortal tenures.” he confirms. “All things have their place in the Witchling’s design. Even suffering and sorrow may serve a greater end in helping to balance the scales of an unfair universe.”

I don’t respond to that right away. My eyes wander to the muted colors of the buildings outside; the eternal grey twilight on the horizon beyond, and I feel my soul rebelling at how dead and grey and depressing it all is.

“Is it sacrilegious to say that I hate this?” I eventually ask. “All of this. The history of my people, what our afterlife looks like, what it feels like, what it is… there’s so much misery and sorrow. So much dysfunction. There’s no heaven for us, just… this. A stopover between lives before we’re reincarnated, or dissolved back into the aether of the universe. At least with other religions, you get to have heaven, even if the requirements for getting into it are kinda stupid sometimes. But this, it’s just… there’s nothing to look forward to here, even if you aren’t slated for punishment.”

Raikaron glances at me, then away again. He doesn’t say anything right away, as if he was mulling that over in his head. Weighing it and thinking about his response. But he does eventually answer.

“I suppose it isn’t fair, no.” he concedes. “In death, one desires rest, solace, and closure. Heavens grant that for those that have been good people; hells deprive it for those who have been bad people. But the Old City… as you said, it’s merely a stopover between lives for Aurescurans. A fast stopover for those coasting on their good works, and a long, arduous stopover for those weighed down by their sins. It is neither heaven nor hell, but a bridge between lives.” He allows a moment for that to sink in, then goes on. “Heaven is meant to reward. Hell is meant to punish. The Old City is not intended for the former, and only passively performs the latter. But its primary function is not to reward, or punish, like other afterlives are. It is intended to make a soul reflect, which is why it is so quiet and still. In reflection, to find peace; and in peace, to be ready to let go of oneself, and return to the aether from which we are formed.”

I relax a little bit at that. “Yeah.” I say softly. “Hearing you explain it that way makes me feel a little better about it. I still don’t like it, but at least it makes sense.”

“You are well within your rights not to like it.” he says, staring through the blinds. “Placing myself in your shoes, if this was what I had to look forward to after death, I would hate it too. There are so many other heavens and hells out there, but this one, the Old City… having spent over a month traveling through it, I see how it could hollow a person out. There is a great emptiness here, a terrible loneliness that lingers in the stillness and silence. You and I have the benefit of traveling together, and being able to retreat to the comfort of more homely environs every twelve hours to rest and recuperate. I can only imagine what it’s like for the souls here that do not have those privileges…”

He trails off at the end, and I follow his gaze to see he’s intently staring through the blinds now. I lean forward a little, and down on the street, I can see movement. His eyes flick to me, and he raises a finger to his lips, indicating for me to remain silent and still. I nod, and return to watching the arrivals down below.

At the front of the group are things that I can only describe as snakes. That’s what they look like from up here; long, sinuous bodies that are several feet long, slithering along the street. The head shows off that they’re not quite snakes, because it has a long, narrow beak, like a heron or a crane might have. The end of the body looks finned, as if it was made for moving through water, but doesn’t seem to impact its ability to move along land.

Next after them are larger creatures that travel on all fours; it looks like the top half of a praying mantis fused onto the spot on a wolf where the head would be. Like some sort of strange, insectoid centaur; the head is angular and the torso is narrow, with two sets of spiked forelimbs hinged to the sides of it. Even from here, the compound eyes are visible, and the way they’re mounted on the head seem to preclude the need to move it around much, given the creature’s extensive field of vision.

Moving through the middle of the pack is what looks like a biped of some sort, wearing a ragged dress about its waist, and its torso left bare. It has four arms, one set lower down than the ones at the shoulder, and the lower set of hands are laced together before it, while the upper set of arms are folded behind its back. Though it has a head, it has no eyes, instead having a series of holes in its cranium that appear to be webbed over with some kind of filament.

Curiously, each of the creatures are grey and colorless, or severely muted in their color tones. And I had not expected so many different ones to be moving in a pack together like this; different species tended to keep to themselves, but this didn’t appear to be the case for the Old Ones. There seemed to be a level of communality to their interaction and movement; the beaked snakes, going ahead and clearing the way forward, while the mantis wolves follow along behind them, with two of them staying close to the four-armed biped in the middle of the pack.

“They’re not mindless animals.” I murmur, keeping my voice low. “There’s coordination, intent here. They form groups and work together, but… why?”

“It is easier to hunt souls together than it is to do so alone.” Raikaron answers, watching as two of the beaksnakes start straying towards our side of the street. “Predators that work together have greater success, even if they vary in appearance or capabilities.”

“Rai, I think they know we’re here.” I point out nervously, watching as two of the mantis wolves break off to follow the beaksnakes to the door of the building we’re in.

“I presumed they would.” He still sounds calm, so that’s some comfort — he knew this might happen, which probably means that he has something planned for it. “Hopefully they will lose interest and pass by. If they do not, then I will give them a reason to pass by.”

I shift uneasily at that, and in doing so, the swivel chair I’m sitting in creaks; the sharp creak of unoiled metal. It doesn’t strike me as a particularly loud noise, but down in the street, the four-armed biped turns its head towards our window, then starts moving towards our building, with the rest of the pack shifting in that direction.

Raikaron reaches up, pulling the cord that adjusts the slant of the blinds, and fully blocks out the view from the street, but it seems like the damage is done. I can hear muted, dull thumping from the floor below, where beaks are pecking at the door we’d barricaded behind us, and it’s soon followed by the scraping of claws pawing against wood.

“How could they hear something like that?” I ask, looking to Raikaron in alarm. “It wasn’t that loud, and we’re across the street inside a building…”

“The Old One that walks on two legs has no eyes. The holes in its head have a thin filament within them that are sensitive to vibrations, mostly of the sort that are carried through the air. It ‘sees’ by listening, in much the manner that a bat echolocates.” he explains as he leans back from the window. “I am about to do something that may feel unsettling to you; just remember that it is intended for the creatures outside, and it’s not directed at you. You’re safe here with me.”

I want to ask what it is he’s about to do, but I know better than that by now. Instead I just nod, and he closes his eyes, and takes a deep breath.

For a long moment, nothing happens, and the scraping and clawing at the door below is painfully apparent. But then I start to feel a pull — something like a presence, an inexplicable draw towards it. It expands into more than that; it feels like a looming, hovering entity, a black hole that you stand on the edge of, inexorably drawing you in towards it. Like staring into the abyss, and feeling a paralyzing sense of dread and foreboding welling up out of it, threatening to consume you if you stay too long on the edge of this presence.

It’s only a feeling, nothing more, but it’s everywhere, and I have to fight the urge to bolt out of the chair and run for the door, to get away from it by any means necessary. It’s not fear; it’s not terror; it’s dread, the fear of something you know, and can see coming a long way off, but knowing you can do nothing to stop it.

Down below, the scratching and pecking at the door slows down, and eases off. Silence fills the air once more; I don’t know what’s happening outside on the street because the blinds are blocking the view, but I can only hope that the Old Ones are backing away from the building, discomforted by the silent foreboding emanating from the building. My hands stay hooked around the arms of the swivel chair, squeezing into the leather as I press my back against it, and it’s a few minutes before the overpowering sense of dread slowly starts to ease off. My breathing, which had been shallow and constricted over the last few minutes, eventually gets faster and more rapid as the tightness in my chest lets up.

Raikaron eventually opens his eyes again, the last of the dread fading from the air as he does so. He glances to me, notices how tightly I’m clinging to the arms of the chair; I realize it as well, and let go of the leather. Stretching my fingers, I try to calm down, but my heart’s still tremoring in my chest. After a second, I push out of my chair and into his, climbing into his lap and pressing against him as I seek a familiar, comforting shape to hold onto.

“Are they gone?” I whisper, my fingers curling around the neck of his shirt.

He wraps an arm around me, keeping me held close. “They are gone.” he murmurs softly into my hair.

I relax a little more at that and close my eyes, letting go of my thoughts and basking in the comfort of the only safe place I know here in the Old City.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 51

Encounters with the Old Ones start happening more often after that.

They are not frequent encounters. Perhaps once a week or so; in every instance, Raikaron has been able to sense them ahead of time, allowing us to to move to a place where we can be out of their way, or where we can hide from them. Every time it happens, we bunker down until they have passed, and do not break cover until an hour afterwards. It’s to give them time to be well on their way, and reduce the likelihood that we might accidentally catch up to them if we are moving faster than they do.

Old Ones are not the only creatures we are seeing more of. The other day, we saw Aurescuran souls for the first time. There was nothing strange about them, aside from being slightly transparent; they looked like normal people, trudging along the same paths that we were trudging along, making their way ever onwards towards the Ocean of Souls. While we did not stop for them, neither did we come near them, keeping our distance. When I asked Raikaron if it would be dangerous to be near them, he told me that it was unlikely — but for now, it was a risk he did not want to take. Eventually, though, we would be seeing more such souls, and it would get to a point where we would not be able to avoid traveling alongside them. 

Sometimes, when we stop for rest, we do not have to bother with cooking dinner since we have leftovers in the fridge that we can warm up. Nights like these are welcoming, in their own way; it’s nice when you only have to throw a dish on the oven and let it warm up, and it takes far less thought and effort than preparing a fresh meal. For Raikaron and I, it allows us to take care of our showers and laundry early, and leaves us with more time after we’re done eating and cleaning up dishes.

That extra time and energy lets us pursue other activities, things to help break up the daily monotony of trudging across the Old City. Of the recent nights where we’ve had that extra time, we’ve played a game of chess; we’ve danced to slow music; taken a bubble bath together; he’s played me a few songs on the piano he keeps in the tesseract. And on some of these nights, I’ll steal kisses from his lips, again and again and again, until we find ourselves tangled together on the floor beside the firepit, drowning in blankets and making love by the soft red glow of the coals.

I hadn’t thought this trip would be all too kind to us in that regard, but here in the Old City, it’s just the two of us. There’s no bureaucratic work to be done, no reports to file, no paperwork to catch up, no staff or coworkers or higher-ups demanding our time and attention. It’s just the two of us, and I can lose myself in him for hours at a time, knowing that the only obligation we have is waking up in the morning, and continuing our long, grey journey. Perhaps, precisely because the journey is so dull and grey and lifeless, I find myself burrowing into his arms again and again and again, listening to his heartbeat, soaking in the steady warmth he radiates, murmuring soft little profanities as he explores my body. In a place so dead as the Old City, these little fits of passion, and longer hours of affection and adoration, help remind me that I’m alive. And that being alive is an incomparable thrill, and comes with the joy and privilege of sensation; feeling; of being able to express one’s love, and being part of another person.

And that being alive is not a thing one should take for granted.

Event Log: Jayta Jaskolka

The Old City

Day 58

It happens when we are passing through one of the cities.

The cities are often just as empty as the towns, though Raikaron is always more alert when we are passing through the cities. He says there are more places for the Old Ones to hide within the cities, and that souls naturally gravitate towards cities, since they usually serve as hubs connected by primary highways. It is easier to find shelter in the cities, as well — not that you really need shelter, since there is no weather in the Old City, and the eternal twilight means the temperature is always something halfway between cool and warm. But they do offer places to lay your head that aren’t the cold hard ground, or exposed to the elements. It doesn’t much matter to Raikaron and I, since we have his tesseract to retreat to whenever we want to rest at the end of the day, but for the dead souls that wander the Old City, they have no such luxury. Cities and towns provide them a chance to rest in closed environs, instead of out in the wild.

Still, even the cities are abandoned the majority of the time we pass through them. Towering skyscrapers and business districts, silent and tall; eerie, discompassionate monoliths passing by on either side of us. At least, they’re always empty from what I can tell; it’s entirely possible that there are other souls in the cities we pass through, but we never see them because they’re in other parts of the city. Usually Raikaron and I take the most direct route through the cities, following arterial highways and not straying far from the main road. Having been here for almost two months now, there’s an unspoken agreement that there’s no time for sightseeing or tourism — we would never be able to explore it all in a hundred lifetimes. We are here to make restitution to the Witchling, and that already promises to be a long journey, one that neither of us wants to make any longer than it has to be.

So it is that we find ourselves trekking through one of these cities. While the sidewalks are easier to follow than the winding paths of the wilds, the unyielding concrete and asphalt are hard on the feet, and leave you sore after walking over them for too long. As usual, Raikaron has taken the lead while I follow along behind him, making sure that if we come across anything dangerous, he is the first to weather its brunt. We’ve not gotten in any fights so far, but after the encounter with the Old Ones over two weeks ago, it’s not something we want to risk.

This time, when Raikaron stops walking, I see it ahead of time and don’t collide with him. I can recognize the posture, the way he goes completely dead still, like a wild animal that’s heard a branch snap in the underbrush, and I know that he’s sensed something. I stop walking as well, turning around and studying the streets before and ahead of us. “What is it? More Old Ones?” I ask.

“No. Something greater still.” he murmurs, turning and walking quickly for the end of the street, which opens up into a plaza. “We should conceal ourselves. It looks like there is a bank up there on the corner of the street; let us hide there.”

I want to ask what it is he’s sensed that’s greater than the Old Ones — he has a penchant for being maddeningly vague in these situations — but I hold it in for now, knowing I can ask once we’ve taken shelter and hidden ourselves. Though he’s not running, the pace he sets is rapid and urgent, and leaves me half-jogging after his long-legged stride. He doesn’t slow until he reaches the bank on the corner, moving through the pillars to the glass doors, and pulling them open so we can step inside.

“Upstairs again?” I ask as the doors drift shut behind us.

It’s a moment before he answers; he’s looking around the lobby, assessing it before he replies. “No. Physical walls and barriers are no object to a Watcher. We merely need to make sure we are out of its way; it will be safe to watch it pass through, so long as we do not inhibit it.”

“Wait, a Watcher? One of the twelve?” I ask, my voice hushed as I follow him over to one of the couches beneath the windows of the bank. “They’re real? I mean, I know that’s a stupid question, since we’re clearly in the Old City and all that, but I never thought…”

“A Watcher, yes. One of the twelve overseers of the Aurescuran people.” he says, brushing dust off the window ledge, and examining the cheap lobby couch just beneath it. “I don’t believe it would have any malediction for us if we encountered it face to face, but one can never be sure, and I do not want to test that theory. So we will remain out of its way, and let it pass by. I know I can defend you against most things here in the Old City, but the Watchers are a power beyond me.”

He sits down on the couch, turned sideways so he can watch through the window, and I move to sit down beside him, facing the other way. “You don’t think a Watcher will mind that there are two living people in a place where there should only be the dead?”

“It will know us. Watchers are tools of the Witchling; they are privy to her agenda.” he answers, blowing dust off the hand that he used to clear the window ledge. “Whichever of the Watchers passes through here, it will know who we are, and what the Witchling has asked us to do. Unless the Witchling has specifically instructed it to trouble us, I believe it will leave us alone since we are performing a task for her.”

“That’s good to know.” I say, settling into a more comfortable position on the couch. “We learned about the Watchers when I was a kid, but we never really… knew much about them, about what they did. They were just kinda there. We knew they were in charge of the Faceless Ones, and watched over things, but… that was it.”

“Understandable. Mortals rarely enjoy a firm grasp on the afterlife and how those within it go about their duties.” he says, lacing his fingers together. “Too often for mortals, heaven and hell are like houses viewed from the outside. You can peek in the windows, get an vague idea of what’s inside, but you don’t truly understand it until you’re allowed to step in and take a look around. The Old City is no different in this regard; the witches and the priests of Aurescura peer through the windows and decipher what they can from the shapes they see moving about inside, but they never quite have the full picture, and are only ever able to report back fragments to their covens and congregations.”

“I know I’ve said it before, but I wish you had been there to explain these kinds of things to me when I was younger.” I say admiringly. “You make it so… accessible. It would’ve made it easier to make sense of my culture and what I was supposed to believe as a witch.”

He studies the fingers he has laced together. “It is not their fault. The priests and witches, that is. Not their fault that they have a limited view into afterlife, and are trying to make sense of it as best they can. As a creature of the Dreaming, I have a mobility among the planes of existence that most mortals do not; and the knowledge that is commensurate with such mobility. I know what most mortals do not, so I think my ability to explain these things to you is a reflection not of my skill as a teacher, but of the privileges I enjoy because of what I am.”

“Even so. I feel like even if the priests and witches knew everything you knew, they would still make a mess of trying to explain it to their covens and congregations.” I insist. “I can’t imagine them explaining it as simply as you have. They would mess it up, twist it, tangle it, get it wrong somehow, make it more than what it actually is.”

“Mm. I suppose you’re not entirely wrong. Mortals do have a penchant for overcomplicating what should be simple concepts, especially when it comes to matters of spirituality.” he admits. “There is something in me that wants to believe that mortals would be satisfied if you gave them the simple, unvarnished truth, but history shows that even when given such a gift by their deity of choice, they will build entire books of scripture around a few lines of revelation, until the simplest truths suffocate under the weight of dogma.”

“Yeah. People need things to be complicated for some reason.” I agree.

“It gives them a sense of fulfillment, I would imagine.” he proposes. “The mortal mind strives to make sense of the universe around it. To find purpose in being. One gains a sense of accomplishment in finding the pattern, connecting the dots, making sense of the chaos. And this sense of fulfillment is gained even when the pattern is false, the connections coincidental, and the grand order is imaginary. The mind seeks to understand the universe around it, even if achieving that understanding requires the creation of a false perception that ties up all the loose ends and squares all the circles.”

I know it seems silly, but I feel my heart swell when I hear those words from him. “You would’ve been a great scientist.” I say, unable to keep the adoration from my voice. “You see things so clearly, and speak them for what they are.”

He smiles a little at that, reaching up to tuck some of my loose hair back behind my ear. “It seems to me that you see in me everything you wished had been present in your life before now. Someone to help you make sense of your religion; and when you turned from your coven, someone to be your intellectual equal in the pursuit of science.”

“Yeah.” I admit a little bashfully. “I suppose it’d be silly to expect you to be both, wouldn’t it. Spiritual guide and scientific colleague.”

“Why would that be silly?” he asks, studying me with sincere green eyes. “Do you subscribe to the notion that religion and science are mutually exclusive and diametrically opposed?”

I know, even as he asks the question, that I had believed exactly that, albeit on a subconscious level — and the moment I brought that belief into the light of conscious thought, the embarrassment I feel is a confirmation that the notion itself is flawed. “You don’t think they are?” I ask. “I mean, most religions…”

“That is a valid point, I suppose.” he says. “Many current religions in the galaxy function as structures of organization, social management, or profit. But religion, practiced for the sake of ideal rather than profit, is a search for meaning and purpose. Just as science seeks to understand and explain the universe around us, religion — or spirituality, I suppose — seeks to explain why we are here, why we exist, and what we should do with that gift for the time that we have been given it. In the end, both of them — spirituality and science — are expressions of the need to understand things. To make sense of them. To know who and what we are, and why we are here, and what we should do about it. Spirituality and science, if handled the way they should be, are siblings in the search for purpose — not enemies.”

“I wish you could tell that to the rest of the galaxy.” I say, reaching up to fold my fingers around the hand he used to tuck my hair behind my ear. “It’s something that so many people need to hear and understand.”

That prompts another smile from him. “Ah, yes. Well, many a deity before me has tried telling mortals as such, and…”

I chuckle a little. “And we ended up with a lot of books of scripture and musty, confusing dogmas?”

“Precisely so.”

“Guess I can just mark it up to people being people, then.” I say as he lowers his hand.

“Indeed. Mortals will be mortals, as much as we may wish that they would not.” he says, his head turning towards the window again as his smile starts to melt away. “It is nearly here. We should be still and quiet as it passes by.”

I nod and turn my attention back to the window, settling into the silence as we wait. It is no more than a couple of minutes before motion captures my attention, movement on the street that we had been on just minutes before. I’m tempted to lean forward and get a better look, but I remember Raikaron’s exhortation and remain where I am as the motion resolves into a shape.

And that shape is not quite what I expected it would be. At first all I can make out is something tall and grey, and as it moves down the street, I realize it is not just tall; it is towering. Ten feet tall, perhaps more; a tall, narrow shape draped in a single piece of featureless grey cloth with no adornment whatsoever. That robe goes all the way to the ground, and there are no ripples in the cloth to indicate the movement of legs, which tracks with the way it moves, gliding slowly and inexorably down the street. There is some sort of body beneath the robe, proved by the fact that one long, gaunt arm is visible in the folds of the robe, wrapped in taut, dark grey skin. There barely appears to be any muscle on the limb, and the thin hand grips a narrow metal staff with a near-complete circle at its top, held close to its side. But aside from the arm, the featureless grey cloth gives no indication of what kind of body lies behind it, no hints at what form it may have, aside from clearly having shoulders upon which the robe can rest.

Yet even for all that, the most jarring detail is the absence of a head and a neck. In its place, there’s a wide circle of stone-carved masks, orbiting the empty space where a head would’ve been. Each one is perfectly spaced at equal distances from each other, giving the Watcher a panoramic vision of everything around it. Or maybe it’s just the illusion of all-seeing vision, since each of the faces are stone-carved masks.

I try to hold back the questions that press upon me, but I cannot hold them in. “Raikaron—” I begin quietly.

Upon hearing my voice, he reaches out and takes my hand, giving it a gentle squeeze. I know it’s an exhortation to remain quiet for now, and though it’s hard, I bite back my questions. It’s just as well, because the Watcher has drawn even with the bank now, slowly drifting to a halt in the street — and turning to face the window that we are staring through.

I recoil on instinct, but Raikaron uses his hold on my hand to pull me closer to himself, folding me into his arms, as if he could shield me from the Watcher’s unseeing, stony eyes. With its attention upon us now, I am realizing how alien and unfathomable it is — whatever this thing is, it is not comprehensible by a mortal mind. Even the demon Lords of Sjelefengsel make an attempt to assume a humanoid, mortal form to better understand those they are tasked with judging and punishing, but not so with the Watchers. There is no empathy, no emotion, no mortal aspect to be found in this thing — it is a manifestation of the unyielding, inexorable power of the Order that the Witchling created after the breaking of the Cycle.

In time — I don’t know how long it takes — the Watcher turns from us again, and continues its procession down the street and into the plaza. Raikaron’s embrace only starts to loosen once it starts to pass from view, though I don’t want to pull away from him quite yet. My questions from before still persist, but I’m not sure I want to ask them after having felt the gaze of the Watcher and its unseeing eyes upon me.

“I had not thought it would acknowledge us.” Raikaron says quietly. “The Watchers only pause for those things which they feel are worth examining. Something about us piqued its interest, though not enough for it to act upon it.”

“The Church and the covens always depicted the Watchers as being cloaked men with multiple heads, each of them different.” I say softly. “I suppose that wasn’t too far from the truth, although it wasn’t quite what I was expecting.”

“Indeed. Some things get lost in translation when you’re looking through the window.” Raikaron say, finally letting go of me. “We can continue on our way. Unlike the Old Ones, the Watcher will not double back for us — it has examined us and decided not to act upon us, and we will remain of no consequence to it unless we try to interact with it.”

“I’m almost insulted, but I suppose being deemed unimportant is preferable sometimes.” I say as he stands, and I stand along with him. “Do you think we’ll encounter any more Watchers before we reach the Ocean of Souls?”

“I doubt it. The Old City is vast, and there are only twelve Watchers.” he says, moving back towards the doors. “If we encountered another one before that point, I would start to suspect that the sightings were not coincidental.”

“Do you think we’ll encounter any other members of the Order?” I ask as we step back out into the empty plaza.

“I would not rule it out. Encountering one of the Faceless Ones is a possibility, and I believe we will come across one, if not multiple, of the Daughters of Maugrimm by the time we reach the Ocean of Souls. I would not be surprised if we saw at least one of the Exiles…” He trails off as he comes to the foot of the stairs, and I follow his gaze to see what has caught his attention — only to realize that the plaza is no longer there. We’re instead standing in a vast, cold desert with long, rolling dunes, and my feet have sunk slightly in the sand underfoot.

“What the—” I twist in place to check and make sure the bank is still behind us, only to be greeted by what looks like a soft grey wall. After a second I realize it’s fabric, and I stagger back, falling on my butt when I realize the Watcher is standing behind us, its cloak billowing in the desert wind. It towers over us, tall and imperial, with the metal staff held beside it and its circle of stony faces orbiting the empty space where its head should be, like some incomprehensible cosmic monolith.

Raikaron himself quickly finds his footing in the sand, but his attention is fully upon the Watcher, and I can’t really blame him. Once we’ve managed to get our wits about us, I can feel reality around us twist and distort, the way it did when the Witchling showed up in the Palace — though nothing is visibly changing, certain facets of reality are being amplified and diminished, with thoughts, facts, and concepts brought to the forefront in a sequence that forms something akin to sentences. It is perhaps the first and best indicator that the Watchers act on the Witchling’s behalf — they, like she, bend and twist reality itself, using its fabric as the parchment on which they communicate.

And from this one, we are given to know that it knows of us, and knows the mandate that the Witchling has given us. It has bent and pinched the fabric of the Old City, so that we are now here in the desert, several thousand miles from the city we were just in, and several thousand miles closer to the Ocean of Souls. Though there are no rivers here to show us which way we must go, there are mountains on the horizon, and it is in that direction that we must travel in order to reach where we are traveling to.

Raikaron releases a breath that it sounds like he’d been holding. “We understand. We will go. We thank you, also, for expediting our journey to the extent that you have.”

If the thanks means anything to the Watcher — and I don’t think it does — then there is no outward indication of it. Instead, it disappears without warning, and both Raikaron and I find ourselves yanked forward a couple feet as air rushes into the spot it had occupied just a moment ago. We are left with nothing more than a fading dust devil where the Watcher once stood, the cold wind soon erasing any indication that it had once stood on the dune with us.

Raikaron makes his way over to me, taking my hand and helping me to my feet. I brush down my clothes, getting the sand out of them as much as I can, then look towards the mountains in the dull grey distance. Between us and the mountains, there’s a sea of cold sand, with endless, pale yellow waves being sculpted and carved by the wind.

“I suppose we better start walking.” I say after a moment.

“Indeed.” Raikaron agrees as he starts to lead the way along the dune’s ridge. “We’ve still got a long way to go.”