Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (13 page)

I must continue my search. I must.
If I be sent insane then perhaps that shall be a sweet end to all
this.

So… he concentrated his
mind.

And started with the
capitols…

1

BY the time Gargaron tumbled from
Skysight’s pilot chair, star and moon gazed down upon
him.

Death
, he thought.
All there be, is death unbound
.

He lay there, on his back, arms at
his sides. He felt as though he had swum across a wild river, one
with raging and twisting torrents, one that had dunked him beneath
its frothing rapids, one that had tried its best to ring the breath
from him. Now he simply lay there… as if rendered mindless, drained
of all feeling, yet unable to find sleep.

His eyes gazed
out at the Great Nothing.
A strange name
for it
, he found himself thinking
distantly, and not for the first time. For it were obviously filled
with countless cosmic night fires.
Such
peace though
, he thought.
Such silence it is filled with. As silent as all
the gods of Cloudfyre, it would seem
.

Death Unbound.

Has this blight come from out
there? Has it been visited upon us by one of those mysterious
starmen?

Another
thought occurred to him
then.
Has this blight spread beyond
Cloudfyre?
He half expected to see the
fires out there begin blinking out one by one, then two by two, and
three by three and in ever increasing number until noting but the
endless, eternal void looked back.

Then it would be
called Great Nothing
.

He felt now he
were looking down rather than up. That the deck at his back were a
ceiling upon which he were somehow suspended. That at any moment
his body might peel from skytower and he would simply fall away
into the universe. He felt like there were naught to stop his fall
should that occur. The blue sky, the clouds, all had vanished with
the setting of the suns. It
seemed there
were now clear
passage down into the Great Nothing if he wanted
it.

He felt his eyes closing…

He forced them open.

And they shut again.

A
t
last his body peeled away…and he fell…

2

He recalled no
dreams but a dream of bringing his daughter to life, her eyes
snapping open. And then he remembered
Yarniya sitting beside him remarking on morning’s sunrise and
Veleyal, alive and breathing, over by a low hedgerow of Brawny
Twisters, gazing west, holding her plaited pigtails out of her face
as the gentle wind tugged at them.

You have work here yet.

Curiously, he looked across at his
wife as she spoke these words and he asked her this time, ‘What do
you mean by this, my sweet?’

She smiled as Veleyal called to
them both. ‘Melus follows Gohor,’ their daughter called. ‘Come
look. It is beautiful.’

‘
Yarniya,’ he said as she rose and
strolled to Veleyal’s side. ‘Yarniya, what do you mean, pray
tell.’

‘
Dada,’ Veleyal implored him,
‘come look. You must.’

He walked to
their sides and beheld a sight he had never imagined. The two suns
occupied the same hemisphere. It had never been known. They were
closer than he had ever seen them. Aye, it were beautiful, the
colours they sent out across the haze and mist of morning were but
a radiant rainbow, but alas
it
were also somehow
frightening.

He turned to his
wife, this time to ask her if she thought it
strang
e,
the positioning of the suns, but she stood there no more. And
Veleyal too had gone.

Cassahndia, the mischievous
Goddess of Dreams, were teasing him now he knew. The ruse though
were like nails in his heart.

3

He were still
atop Skysight. And as he had observed in his dream, sun fires of
morning were lighting the heavens. And not only that but his great,
two-headed steed, were standing there at down-ramp to lower deck,
watching him curiously as if enquiring,
Are we vacating this wretched spot yet or
no?

It took Gargaron
time gathering himself that morning. He sat there at first staring
at the etched portrait of he and Veleyal and Yarniya. He touched
the fine grooves in the stone with his fingertips. Tear drops spilt
from his eyes, splashing against the likenesses of his dear girls,
teardrops that converted instantly to glowing wisps that flurried
away on the breeze. He watched them go and it brought his gaze to
the sunrise. Here he blinked as he peered out across the eastwun
sky. The two suns did look awkwardly close, he thought. It looked
wrong
. He would have paid it
more scrutiny yet he found
his mind still
distracted by all he had seen through Skysight.

When he finally
pulled himself to his weary feet, he did so with all the pain and
feebleness of a giant a hundred years his senior. He strolled to
the down-ramp. Without any word or enthusiasm he took the
horse
’s
reins. He climbed up into the saddle and without care, let
the steed take him where it would.

4

It were with indifference that he
descended Skytower. Deflated and without care. Unlike his ascent,
he cared not for the sheer drop-offs. For all he had seen, Godrik’s
Vale had fallen to this blight. All he had seen were death. Why
then did he need live? If the steed stumbled and took them both out
into freefall, then what did he care? Death would rush up to
welcome him. And he would welcome it.

5

Morning’s shadows
were still cast long and slim when he and steed reached ground and
made their way from the Watchguard fort and out into the
street
.
He took a breath and looked about as if he had just awoken,
surprised
somehow
that he had
actually reached ground safely
.

With the sunlight against his face
Gargaron gazed up and up and up. The top of Skysight seemed
impossibly far away, and impossibly small and impossibly fragile.
The horse came to a standstill and it were a few moments before
Gargaron realised they were no longer moving. He drew in a long
breath and looked about. Empty streets abounded, overlapped by
silence. Nothing stirred but for lonely breezes sifting through
loose refuse tipping along the cobblestones. Corpse Flowers
remained in abundance. Gargaron believed he could hear them
murmuring to each other. An ugly sound, he thought, the sounds of
death, of scheming, of conspiracy. An odour wafted on the cool, dry
air, an odour of spoilt meat. Many bodies were bloated or bloating,
causing limbs to defy gravity, poking out parallel to the roadway.
It were a depressing sight. Gargaron would not allow his gaze to
linger upon them. In the end, the presence of Corpse Flowers almost
proved a godsend, for their black roots and violet petals did well
enough to wrap and conceal the carcasses.

Gargaron breathed
in. And out. The air were laced with the foul reek of rot. Yet he
were conscious of the sounds of his respiration.
I am all that breathes.

He felt at a loss about what to
do, where to go. There seemed little point to anything.

‘
I should have thrown myself down
to Endworld when I had the chance,’ he murmured.

You have work here
first.

‘
I hardly care,’ he heard himself
reply.

Something
squeaked momentarily in the wind. He spied a swaying pub sign. The
Goat’s Head. A wine sink he had visited once or twice in younger
days. Its sign swung in gentle breeze, again squeaking, whining,
before falling silent once more. It were like a voice in the
dark.
What else to do, but drown your
grief
, it seemed to say.

Outside the Inn, Gargaron left
Grimah unhitched. He pushed his way inside and found the steed
trailing him. He cared not. The stench in there were foul with the
reek of deceased patrons. Undeterred he pushed on to
cellar.

He found a number of kilderkins of
strong Easthills Ale and grabbed a stoneware masskrug from the bar
as he passed by, stepping around bodies, simultaneously hacking
back Corpse Flowers, the way a farmer might scythe corn stalks. The
horse followed him outside where the air were marginally fresher.
Gargaron plonked himself at table in the beer garden. The horse
stood nearby.

Gargaron tapped the kil and filled
his masskrug and closing his eyes, took a long, long draught.
Emptying the mug in one, he let out a long satisfied breath. And
burped. Loud. He opened his eyes and filled his mug again and took
another slug.

Within three or four helpings the
world already seemed far rosier. He gazed around the beer garden. A
handful of dead patrons were scattered about. Some Giants, some
Ghisshas from the Overhills, some Storkmen from yonder Foggdam.
Their bodies lay in the grass. Or were still seated at table,
variously slumped forward or slumped back. Each of them attached to
a Corpse Flower.

After his fifth drink Gargaron
burped, stood, and, strolling about with masskrug in one hand, and
greatsword in the other, he casually and carelessly, and mindlessly
it must be said, executed each Flower with a single blow to their
stem, minding the eruption of spores. When the air had cleared and
the Corpse Flowers lay squirming, dying, he casually returned to
his seat, sat down, took a guzzle, and gazed down the street with
the satisfaction of someone having just yanked a great number of
particularly stubborn weeds from their garden.

Hunger eventually caused him to
rummage through his pack to see what he might find. Hardened rye
bread and salted wrasse. His tongue almost blistered at the thought
of more of that river fish. He closed up his bag and looked about.
And recalled a butcher nearby.

6

Soon he were back at table with a
smoked cured breast of moorhen. He unwrapped it and employed his
knife to cut off a hearty slab. Moorhen juice dribbled down his
chin as he munched into moist smoky meat, washing it down with
great draughts of ale. He found pears for his steed inside the
Goat’s Head. And he even let is horse drink some ale; both
thick-lipped mouths slurping up the ale thirstily.

This is how they saw out the
morning. Drinking, eating. Until, after his third kilderkin,
Gargaron slumped forward against the wooden table and
slept.

7

He dreamt of an A7-VRIT zeppelin
airship floating serenely over the street. He lay there upon the
cobblestones gazing up at its ridged underside, thinking how
graceful it looked, drifting silently on a current of soft breezes.
He dreamt that airmen from Carpscoum or Rarean-On-Torr had launched
reconnaissance missions into territories struck down by this
blight. That they had come searching for survivors. It were almost
out of his sight eastways before he thought he might do well to
alert them to his presence. But his attempts to move, wave his
arms, kick his legs, bellow out, were somewhat restricted it
seemed, entwined in the blackest roots of a Corpse
Flower.

He lifted his head from the
cobbles and gazed along his body. He found he were wrapped up, like
spider prey in web; he could not even howl for help for the roots
had coiled about his mouth and face and were slowly squeezing the
air from him.

8

He awoke with a
start, grunting, calling out. He sat up in haste, disoriented,
looking about, a dull ache besieging the innards of his skull. He
saw first his steed standing there, looking around at him, as if to
say
Oh, so you are
alive
. As if it had been standing guard.
Or eager to push off. He saw next the street in which he lay,
cobbled and dusty, and buildings on either side as if they were
creatures escaped from his dreams regarding him, and empty carts,
and carcasses being slowly sucked dry by Corpse Flowers. He saw
thirdly the Goat’s Head Inn. Or more correctly he caught sight of
its pub sign squeaking in the wind.

He breathed in and out calmly, his
head thumping. He gazed into the immediate skies above Autumn.
Cloud and blue sky prevailed, and, from different points, Gohor and
Melus burned down at him. Alas, there were no airship. Just the one
fading in his dream, and his futile hopes of rescue simmering in
his mind.

9

A foul taste coated the insides of
his mouth. The raw flavour of too much ale. A dry, bitter taste. He
rubbed his eyes before hoisting himself to his rump and he sat
there, yawning, shading his face from the suns.

He craved water. He looked around
for his bag. It were not on his person, nor, as far as he could
see, were it lying anywhere in his vicinity. Unsteady he pushed
himself to his feet, yawning again, his temples pounding. He sifted
through his Nightface’s immediate memories but a Nightface were
never less reliable than after a bout of its hosts heavy
drinking—especially if its master had fallen asleep face-up and its
own eyes privy to nothing but dusty cobblestones.