Tale of 2 Cities: Guesswork and ignorance
Everyone woke up and contributed to the confusion.
The story so far…
It’s been an eventful few days. Jem, Lilian and Kinley crossed the bridge from their city, Alinakard, to Aeon on the other side of the river. So far they have encountered ghosts, ghouls, demons, philosophers and an active citizenry who enjoy living in a giant time loop.
Because the one thing everyone knows is that you can’t leave Aeon. Even when your body dies, you linger on.
It’s a problem. Especially since Jem and Kinley have blown up Gowan’s Tower and Lilian is with a squad of soldiers who are marked for arrest.
You can read last week’s post here, or start from the beginning with The City On The Other Side. There are links at the bottom of each post that will jump you straight to the next chapter.
Lilian’s nose twitched. Someone had brewed coffee, which was the first sign of civilisation in her mind. She didn’t open her eyes, though. She kept them closed, allowing her mind to wake up slowly through sound, scent and touch. She could hear the buzz of conversation - Kinley’s voice dominating the room - and Afizere’s raspy chuckle. Her feet wiggled under the blanket, flexing the woollen fibres. There was the clink of the clay water jars, the shuffle of feet and the rustle of leaves from their arboreal roof. The conversation rose and fell. Then someone thumped onto the mat beside her with a grunt.
“Waken up, river pearl, the dey is wastin’” Jem drawled, in a horrible imitation of Kinley’s accent. She jabbed Lilian’s side to emphasise the point.
Lilian sat up with a sigh. The previous day and all its problems rushed in, although she was glad to see Jem was smiling at her, a coffee mug in hand. Lilian reached out, reflexively, to grab it.
“Aaa-aa-ah! Not a chance,” Jem proclaimed, rocking back on her heels. “I brought it here and no one else has any. It’s more precious than gold.”
Kinley spun around at Jem’s voice and gave Lilian a lackadaisical salute. “Mornin’ Pearl. We’re tradin’ knowledge an’ I don’t believe half of what they are jabbering about.”
Lilian wrapped her blanket around her body and shuffled forward to join the circle of men sitting on boxes, or sleeping mats. Afizere courteously slid to one side, to give her some space next to him. Everyone was still dressed for sleep, in loose clothing or blankets. Jem perched on the nearest vacant box.
Kinley cleared his throat officiously.
“We’re together in a strange place, with bugger-all resources and a ton of people after us. I reckon we need to pool our knowledge and plans whilst the rest of the city’s wakin’ up.” He jerked his chin at Liliam.
“I was danced across the bridge with this fair lass, in search of that orney lady” - he pointed at Jem - “thanks to her irate father an’ the fact I was a Padfoot tracker. Lilian ended up with your squad an’ I was taken by the city ghosts. Thousand year old ghosts.”
“To their graveyard,” Jem interrupted.
“Yeah. Turns out, they’re the ones whispering in ya dreams, m’lady. They want a descendant of Gowan to stop the madness of this city an’ bring death back. They led me to the Tower, to you - an’ that machine.”
“Machine?” Liliam asked, surprised.
Jem shot her a glance. “Gowan built a Perpetual Machine in the cellars. It’s the reason, I think, why no one can leave this place.”
Liliam nodded, still a little confused. “I thought they were theoretical because no one can capture the essence of time. It’s how all the alchemists got banned in Alinakard after that eternal life scam.”
Jem shrugged. “He did it,” she said simply.
Lilian leaned back on her elbows “So you exploded the machine?” she asked. That was the sort of thing she expected Jem to do, who now was staring down at her coffee cup with a mournful, fixed expression.
“Nah. Jem said it was too dangerous,” Kinley chimed in. “We just blew up the main doors ‘cause we couldn’t unlock them. Gowan had some odd ideas about locks. The door looked like a child’s puzzle.”
“A child’s puzzle?” Lilian asked intently. She glanced at Afizere who looked intrigued, but not surprised. Sergeant Jere who was stretched out like a taciturn log at the far end of the room rumbled to life. “Sounds like the same thing we had at the fight court.”
“Yes,” Afizere replied casually. “That is odd.”
Eoin, sitting on the other side of Afizere, rang his fingers through his beard as his brain whirred to life. “Captain, the two must be connected. If it weren’t for Lilian here figuring out the riddles, we’d still be there. Sounds like the Tower is another riddle.”
“Maybe,” Afizere conceded. “And I want to destroy that Tower, but only with a plan in place. If we go in half-cocked, we won’t succeed. At best, the City Guard will arrest us. At worst, we dismantle the machine and everyone dies. I’m not ready for that option, just yet.”
Jem sniffed dismissively. “If they throw us in jail, we break out,” she declared. “It won’t be the first place I’ve escaped from.”
“No jails in Aeon,” the sergeant warned her. “It’s the stocks - which is painful enough - or they weight your ankles and throw you in the river.”
Lilian swallowed. “That’s harsh,” she remarked around the small anxious bubble in her throat.
“When you’re all stuck together like rats in a sack, you haveta be harsh,” Kinley pointed out. “Tell me more ‘bout these riddles, Pearl. They might help us with the Tower.”
Lilian held up her fingers. “There were three, like you get in fairytales,” she explained. “I had to prove my judgement, with that rabbit, my intelligence with the puzzle cube and my courage by going back into the arena to unlock the gates with it. What I don’t understand is how the Tower and the Fight Arena are connected.”
Jem sighed. “Well, who built it? Gowan?” She looked around at the blank faces. “Why don’t we ask him? If Kinley can have a conversation with a thousand-year-old ghost, we should be able to find a dead philosopher. Where’s his grave?”
“No idea,” Kinley said glumly. “The ghost folk said he didn’t have a body left to bury. They scraped his blood off the walls. But I can tell ya for free that the two are connected. The fight courts I found in the desert were all about debts an’ killing. Tryin’ to test people’s qualities never entered their heads. That’s a philosophy thing.”
Jere rolled onto his knees and started to rummage through his knapsack. “That’s not the only place where I’ve seen puzzle pieces,” he remarked. He brought out a worn notebook and a stubby pencil. “I made notes when we planned that river assault a few months back, Captain, and the same markings were on the underside of the bridge and on the capstones of their road gates.”
“And the old hostelry,” Eoin chimed in.
Jere was flicking through the notebook now. It was full of sketches and notations that only made sense to him, in chicken scratch across the page. “Yeh,” he said absently. “The tower, bridge, gates - and at least two other places, like the travellers inn…it’s a bloody giant compass!”
“Where does the fight court fit in?” Lilian asked.
Jere shrugged. “It doesn’t,” he admitted. “If you accept Gowan’s Tower as the centre point, it doesn’t conform to the pattern at all.”
Jem closed her eyes in concentration. “If that's the case, then fight court was a mistake,” she said slowly. “which means it probably happened after the Tower was in place.” She opened her eyes and gazed at Kinley. “You need to go back to your graveyard ghosts and find out when and why it was built. Figure that out and we've got a chance of beating the puzzle.”
Finley groaned. “Why me?” he asked the ceiling. “ I never asked to nec’romance bones in the bloody graveyard. Their Legata gives me the creeps.”
Lilian sighed. She didn't want to say it, but someone had to. “What about the archives? It's a city, they have to have records.”
Finley swung towards her, hope dawning on his face. So did everyone else.
‘Thank you, Lilian.” Afizere boomed out. “You can be our backup plan.”
*
“Why the hell am I here?” Jem grumbled for the fourth time.
“You're ma alibi,” Kinley retorted. The graveyard looked exactly as tranquil and creepy as the first time. “If anyone asks, it’s you, the heir to Gowan, who blew the bloody doors off his hut.”
“Tower.”
“Nah. A death-hut with pretensions. I've wandered taller stairwells that haven't tried to murder me.”
As they squabbled, the pair strolled over to the central mound where Legata Martia should be resting. The last time Kinley had been here, the inhabitants had crawled out of their burial chambers to greet him. Now, it was as silent as a graveyard back in the ‘real world’, as he’d started to think of Alinakard.
Jem bobbed along the path, under an enormous straw hat, stiff woven skirt and flax jacket that the river women used when fishing for mussels. It did a good job of eliminating her features. Kinley wore a simple white robe, favoured by the temple servants. Sergeant Jere had insisted he shave too. His cheeks and chin felt oddly exposed. So far, they had not been stopped or arrested in the street, as most people glossed over servants’ features as soon as they noticed the clothes. He wondered how Lilian was getting on, with her disguise.
“Where was she?” Jem called out, ahead.
“That large mound…right there - ah.”
The mound had been defiled. Instead of a neat burial chamber, it was a mudpile with a gaping entrance, the dirt scattered carelessly about with the imprint of boots and scraped shovels.
“They dug her up,” Jem breathed.
“Yeah,” Kinley agreed, his heart beating fast. Legata was one of the city’s ancestors. If they had gone after her, what would they do to him and Jem? “Anyone here?!” he called out, twisting around.
No-one answered. Kinley ran around each of the mounds, noting the neatly sealed entrances and stone barriers. His foot kicked something in the long grass.
“Soccus!” something hissed. Kinley jumped back, then picked up a stick and carefully prodded the thicket. He unearthed a skull. If death could sneer, this one had contempt down to the bone. It was missing two front teeth, with a flared nasal hole and a slightly flattered jaw. Grimacing, Finley picked the remains up.
"I was sunning myself,” the skull remarked petulantly.
“An’ you can go back to decayin’ after my questions,” Finley retorted. “What happened to the Legata?”
The skull started laughing, which sounded like a broken reed pipe.
“River exile,” it said. “Cursed busybody. She should’ve left the living alone. You were the last straw. After you broke into the tower, they broke into our resting places. They’ve taken her. They’ve taken everyone. Stupid, scared little mortals.”
Jem ran up to join them, taking the macabre scene into her stride. “Does it know about the fight court?” she asked Kinley.
“Everyone knows about the fight court,” the skull answered. “Unless you are an outsider, of course.”
“Where did it come from? Who built it?” Jem rapped out.
“It was a law court, as ordered by the city’s founder. First, she built a house for shelter, then a vineyard for the house, then a tavern for the fruits of the vineyard and a court for the fruits of the drunkenness,” the skull recited in a falsetto voice. “You could easily sleep off your hangover in the colonnades.”
“When did the demon show up?” Kinley enquired.
“No idea. It was around in my father’s time and he said it appeared in the chaos following Gowan’s death. I had to listen to that old bugger every octo, but did any of my progeny visit me? Hah! That pack of brainless wastrels couldn’t even make it out of the tavern maiden’s skirts long enough to puke.”
“Toss it away,” Jem said tiredly to Kinley. He hefted it in his hands, ready to throw…
“Wait!” the skull yelped. “We can help each other.”
“How?” Kinley asked. He scanned the surrounding grassland, looking for a muddy puddle to drop it in.
“I can be your guide. You’re going to need all the help you can get since the citizen militia are looking for you. I know it’s streets and secrets.”
Jem turned around to gaze at the distant entrance, her back stiff.
“Yup. Me gabbin’ with a skull will be perfectly normal,” Kinley retorted.
“Kinley…” Jem warned, her voice rising.
“Suit yourself.” the skull sniffed. “You’ll be drowned before sundown.”
“Kinley, we need to move!”
For the first time, Kinley looked up and saw the oncoming mob. It looked like a mix of stallholders with semi-professional soldiery. Their weapons ranged from meat cleavers to wooden staves, all worn with use.
“Crap. Fine, you bone blub-hole, you can hitch a lift in my bag. Know another way out of here?”
*
Lilian was not having much better luck with her quest. Whilst she was not marked for arrest like the others, few people in Aeon had her fair colouring, causing her to stand out. Several people had tried to pat her hair as she navigated the marketplace. On top of that problem, Afizere had insisted she dressed like a scholar, which meant a soft bamboo tabard that acted like underclothes, then a long, colourful piece of cloth, wrapped and tied in an intricate fashion around her body. The heavy knotwork was supposed to show her level of knowledge, but Afizere had been hazy on details. So far she had been addressed as a ‘gnarus’, ‘discipli’ and ‘peritus’. By the time she had found the records cavern, she was sweating badly.
The guardian at the small desk flicked a glance over her. “Visitor, please record your name and purpose here.”
“Scribe Lilian. I’m here for historical research.”
He raised his eyebrows. Despite his authority, he reminded her of a swaddled baby, thanks to his unruly mop of hair and the pinned shawl around his shoulders. She stifled a grin. “Enter your details on the register and I will assign a searcher to help you. Who is your research sponsor?”
She wasn’t expecting this and gabbled out the first name she could think of.
“Legata Martia.”
He nodded, a small frown puckering his forehead and pushed over the entry book to her. Lilian picked up the quill and got her second shock of the day.
There, scratched in the column from the month before, was Sergeant Jere’s name.
It’s not the truth that will hurt you. It’s the lies. What will Lilian and Finley do?