THE WEAVERS:
by
Michael Casey
SMASHWORDS EDITION
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PUBLISHED BY:
Michael Casey on Smashwords
The Weavers
Copyright © 2011 by Michael Casey
Smashwords Edition License Notes
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THE WEAVERS
CHAPTER 1
For as long as they could recall, which wasn’t very long, Damon and Krista had lived at the orphanage. They had no memory of their parents or how they had come to be in their circumstances. The most likely explanation that they could think of was that when they were babies, their parents had dropped them through the narrow chute that ran through the wall, next to the main gate; that was usually how children came to be there.
They didn’t enjoy living in the orphanage but it was presumably better than living on the streets. The dorm in which they slept was on the top floor of the tallest building in the compound. It was a small room that they shared with too many children. Krista usually found it difficult to sleep because the beds were hard and uneven and there was always a chorus of snoring. When one child stopped, another would begin; the gaps in between the snorts of one were always filled with the stertorous groans of another.
On restless nights she would sit on the windowsill of her cell and peer out over the city. Like the room in which she slept, the streets were rarely quiet; guttural calls would periodically rise up from the damned creatures below. The city would appear to be deserted but every now and then she would see the silhouettes of figures, human or otherwise, darting across the moonlit roads, from one building to another.
Krista often wondered how the vagrants and vagabonds that roamed the City had come to be in their circumstances. Their lives appeared to be so aimless and miserable and yet, when she thought about it, her life was not all that dissimilar. The only apparent difference was that her mind was reasonably sound, or at least that's what she thought.
Damon rarely watched over the city at night, he was a heavy sleeper and the loudest of all the snorers. He preferred to look over the city at Dawn and at Dusk. He would get up before all of the other children and walk over to the window to peer out over the twilit city. Even from such a high vantage, he couldn’t see where the metropolis ended. In all directions, for as far as his eyes could reach, there were large grey buildings jutting into the sky, like giant stained tombstones, pockmarked with windows.
One evening as he looked out over the city, Damon noticed an old tatterdemalion standing by the main gate of the orphanage. The man had a thick white beard but there were very few hairs on the top of his head. He was staring in to the grounds but when Damon’s eyes fell upon him, he looked up towards the window and beckoned with his left hand.
The children were not allowed to go out in to the courtyard after dusk and they most certainly weren’t advised to talk to people from the streets, but Damon didn’t care, in fact he got a thrill out of doing things that he wasn’t supposed to. It was dinnertime so most of the staff and all of the other children were in the dining hall. He left his cell, went downstairs and then ran out in to the courtyard.
The raindrops falling from the grey clouds overhead were scarce and light but he could sense that a downpour was on the way. He flipped the hood on his big grey coat over his head, pushing his frazzled red hair over his pallid face, in the process. He didn’t like his hair, not because of the colour, just because of the wiry way that it grew; it stuck out all over the place and always got caught in things. He tried to push it down but it always sprang back up. He wished that it would at least compromise some of the time, but it never did. Still, it was better than having no hair at all; some of the other kids in the city were as bald as old men, including some of the girls.
He approached the main gate but didn’t go too near, he didn’t want the tatterdemalion to reach out and grab him.
“This city is collapsing.” said the old man, when Damon was within hearing distance. “The Weavers webs are being torn apart.”
‘Great.’ thought Damon, ‘Another nut to contend with.’ He seemed to be a magnet for oddballs. It was almost as if they actively tried to seek him out. This wasn’t the first time that a crazy person from the street had tried to talk with him about some ridiculous notion. Why they all seemed to gravitate towards him, he didn’t know. Most likely it was just that there were so many oddballs in the city it was hard to avoid them.
The man produced a tattered map, from his raggedy jacket.
“Take this map and use it to navigate your way through the city.” said the man, holding the map through the iron bars of the gate.
Damon snatched the curled up piece of paper and unrolled it. The parchment was mottled and the scent that it gave off seemed to stem from many a bygone era. Printed upon its surface was an intricate ink drawing of what appeared to be a spiraling gossamer web. The ink had seeped through the paper, Damon couldn’t tell which side he was supposed to be looking at. He couldn’t even tell which way was up and which was down; there was no legend, there was only the web.
"The lines represent the streets and the spaces in between represent the buildings.” aided the old man.
Damon looked at both sides of the parchment. As with the city itself, there were no street names printed along any of the lines.
"Where are we on the map?" he asked, looking up at the old man.
The tatterdemalion didn’t reply, instead he burst into a cloud of miniscule spheres that were too small for Damon’s eyes to see.
*****
When Damon was younger, the older kids had tried to scare him by saying that if he didn’t do what they wanted him to, the weavers would come and get him. What the weavers were exactly, he didn’t know; he would ask the older kids and all that they would tell him was that he didn’t want to know.
Damon couldn’t figure out where the orphanage was located on the map; all of the streets and junctions looked the same when reduced to lines on paper. Over dinner, he showed the map to Krista and told her about what had happened.
“He vanished?” replied Krista, once Damon had finished.
“Right before my eyes.” said Damon.
Krista continued to eat her stew.
“You’re either lying or you’re crazy.” Said Krista, her mouth half full of near rotten vegetables. “If you’re crazy, then it’s both.”
“I can prove it to you.” He said indignantly. “I’ll show you after dinner.”
After dinner they snuck out to the main gate. It was no longer raining, it had started to snow.
“Those are his clothes,” said Damon, pointing to a bundle of rags on the footpath. “That’s where they landed after he vanished.”
It was dark but Krista could still make out the pile of clothes.
“Well that’s proof enough for me.” She said, sarcastically.
Damon turned to face her, a serious expression spread across his face.
“I’m going to escape.” He said in an earnest tone. “I’m going to escape the orphanage and then I’m going to escape the city.”
“What, now?” replied Dawn, mockingly.
Damon nodded.
“Look, the city isn’t going to collapse.” said Krista, shaking her head in dismay. “You have everything that you need here, why would you want to leave?”
“Even if the city doesn’t collapse, I want to know what’s beyond.” said Damon. “And besides, we won’t be able to stay here much longer, we’re both almost 12.”
Very few people came to adopt older children and when they did, they usually weren’t the types that made for decent, loving parents; they were usually people who wanted to gain cheap labor. The policy was that if a child had not been adopted by their 12th birthday, they were to be turfed out on to the streets.
“Well can’t you wait until morning?”
“No.” said Damon, as he walked towards the chute in the wall. “I want to go now.”
Damon opened the chute door and then climbed through. Krista jumped from one foot to the other as she weighed up her options. She soon decided to follow.
*****
When the sun took its rays from the sky most of the City’s occupants would follow its lead and retreat from the streets. All across the city, doors were being locked and window shutters were being drawn. The buildings were going to sleep for the night, or at least that’s how Krista imagined it as she ran along the footpath. She glanced up at a clock tower to see that the long hand was on 12 and the short hand was reaching out to the number 1. ‘Another broken clock’, she thought, ‘the city was running out of time.’
The street lanterns that were still working seemed to flicker off intentionally whenever Krista and Damon neared them and then flicker back on after they had passed by. Very few provided enough visibility for them to see the nooks and crannies where robbers might be waiting in ambush.
They ran into the subway, it seemed as good a place as any to take shelter from the snow. When they came to the bottom of the narrow stairwell they found themselves before a row of turnstiles. Unsurprisingly they were unmanned. Even during the day, ticket inspectors were rarely ever around; the subways had become too dangerous to venture into at any hour, not just at night.
A battered brass ticket machine was lying upturned in one of the corners. Krista walked over and tilted her head to see how much she would have had to pay for a ticket, had there been anyone around to make her buy one. The torn, stained placard above the sphere slot stated that a daily train pass could be purchased for one red orb or two green orbs or three blue ones.
She didn’t have any marbles of any colour in any of her pockets and even if she did, she probably wouldn’t have bothered to purchase a ticket. ‘What was the point’, she thought, ‘when you could get away with traveling around for free?’
They climbed over a turnstile and walked through the concourse. It felt as though they were in a palace, rather than a subway train station. Marble columns supported the coffered ceiling and inlaid display cabinets lined the intricately designed friezes. On the wooden shelves within the cabinets there were golden goblets, rusty nails, translucent vases, maple leaves, cuckoo clocks, small vials containing dark liquids, as well as the pale skulls of indistinct creatures. Why these things were there, they couldn’t figure out, it was all very odd.
They walked onto the long curved platform and took a seat on a bench. After a short while, the sound of a horn came echoing along the tunnel. The click clacking of the wheels along the tracks gradually became louder until a large locomotive lugging three rustic coaches came bursting into the station.
Krista got up from her seat and walked over to the edge of the platform. Damon followed and stood close by her side, too close for her liking. She hated it when people didn’t give her room, especially when there was plenty of it around.
The train eased to a halt. They walked over to the middle door of the middle carriage. The coach appeared to be empty so they decided to step inside. The door snapped shut as soon as they passed the threshold, making them feel as though they’d just been caught in a snare.
The train departed from the station. They took a seat opposite one another by the window. Krista’s attention went back and forth from Damon’s reflection to the darkness of the tunnel. Damon sneezed without covering his mouth and nostrils, much to the annoyance of Krista. He tried to restrain another sneeze but couldn’t. It burst forward violently, more so because he had tried to hold it back.
The train emerged onto the surface of the city, like a needle being thread through the street. Most of the main roads in the city were incredibly wide, especially considering that vehicles rarely ever traveled along them; some of them were nearly as wide as they were long.
The one that the train was traveling along was uncommonly narrow. The facades on either side were so close to the tracks that the children could reach out the window and touch them, not that they wanted to; they preferred to keep their hands where they were.
Most of the window shutters on the façades were closed, but there were a few higher up that had been left open, the odd face popped through them, curious residents who wanted to watch the train go by and see if there was any excitement on the streets.
The train slipped under the skin of the city once more. When it came to the next station the driver noticed a gang of unruly looking men, waiting on the platform. There were five in total, all clad in heavy black attire; Black boots, black jeans, black vests and black coats. Their faces were ashen and their hair was blood red, though most of it had been pulled out.
The train was scheduled to stop at the station but the driver thought better of it. He was secure in his fortified cabin but he didn’t want the gang vandalizing the other carriages or causing any harm to the passengers. The train slowed, almost to a halt, but then kept on going. The gang members yelled curses at the driver when they realized that he wasn’t going to stop for them. A few kicked and punched the carriages as they passed by. Damon jumped with a start as a fist pounded into the window by his side. The impact spread a web of cracks in the pane that bore a striking resemblance to the map in his pocket.
*****
The sky was a bit lighter, when the train finally reemerged onto the surface of the city; the children could make out the forms of the swirling clouds above. The snowflakes had stopped falling but the streets were still blanketed. There was a lull in rainfall but the nimbi were threatening another downpour, with rumbling thunder.
Damon kept nodding off. His eyelids would start to slide shut and his head would start to loll. As the awareness of the world around him dissolved, his thoughts became less wordy and more visual, almost corporeal. He would catch himself just as he was about to drift off and his head and eyelids would suddenly jerk back, before starting their slow descent all over again.
The train did not reach the end of the line nor did it pass through the same station twice, it weaved throughout a series of winding roads, narrowly missing the buildings that stood slumped by the side of the tracks. Every now and then Krista saw deranged people staggering around the streets. She felt reasonably secure in the train but it still gave her chills to think that just outside her immediate realm was a vast world filled with beings that would gladly cause her harm, given the chance.
*****
When Damon and Krista got off the train, a ticket inspector confronted them.
“What are your names?” he demanded, when they told him that they didn’t have tickets.
“We don’t have names.” replied Damon.
The ticket inspector glared down at him.
“Don’t lie to me boy, what’s your name and where do you live?”
“We live everywhere that we go.” said Damon.
It was clear that the two children standing before the ticket inspector were homeless but it didn’t seem to matter; he was the type who never let a bit of compassion and understanding get in the way of rules and regulation.
He tried to grab their arms but they ducked and ran by him.
“Hey!” he yelled out. “Come back here.”
‘Sure’ thought Damon, ‘that’s going to happen.’
CHAPTER 2
Damon and Krista trekked through the city for many days, living off the discarded food that they found in the street as well as the bottles of milk and loaves of bread that they sometimes discovered in the doorways of bakeries during the predawn hours of the morning. They didn’t come to the edge of the city and they couldn’t figure out where they were on the map. They came across very few people on the streets; those they approached were of no help.
One morning, as the sun was slowly peeping over the buildings on the horizon, Damon heard the voice of a young girl. He had been whistling an atonal tune as they walked along one of the many desolate streets, that the city had on offer.
"Hello." came the girl’s voice, interrupting his thoughts. "Is anybody there?"
He stopped whistling. Someone must have crept up behind him. He turned around. There was no one there.
"Who said that?" he said, trying to hide the quiver
in his voice. "Where are you?"
Krista turned and looked at him with a befuddled expression spread across her face.
"I'm right here." said girl. "Where are you?"
"I'm right here too." said Damon, looking around the street for anyone that might be hiding. "But I can't see you."
"I can't see you either." said the voice angrily. "What's going on?" said Damon.
No response came.
“So you are crazy.” said Krista, raising her right eyebrow. “I knew it.”
*****
The girl whose voice Damon had heard was that of Aja, the princess who lived with no one but her guards and servants in a palace in the middle of the city. She had been standing on her balcony when she heard his whistling and had spun around three times to see who was there.
"Hello." She said. "Is anybody there?"
The whistling stopped.
"Who said that?" came the voice of an alarmed boy. "Where are you?"
"I'm right here." She replied, angry rather than worried at not being able to tell where the voice was coming from. "Where are you?"
"I'm right here too." said the boy. "But I can't see you."
“I can’t see you either.” said Aja. “What’s going on?”
She waited for a reply, none came. She returned her attention to the horizon to see that the sun was no longer behind the buildings; it was the dawn of one day and the dusk of another.
*****
Three days after Damon had heard the voice of Aja, both he and Krista came across her palace. It was situated in the middle of a wide circular road, one of the widest in the city; it took several minutes to cross from one side to the other. The palace consisted of three towers, each with a large translucent orb atop the spire; one was red, one was green and the other was blue. They were set up in a triangular formation, linked by above ground walkways at the sixth level. The tower with the red orb was the one closest to the entrance to the grounds.
A large circular wall, with only one entrance, surrounded the palace. Both Krista and Damon were surprised to see that there was no gate in the archway. It seemed that anyone was able to enter. What they didn’t realize was that the large shield hanging above the entrance to the grounds was a talisman designed to ward off anyone who wished to cause the palace and its occupants any type of harm.
The shield was circular with three translucent orbs imbedded upon the plate in a triangular formation; the red orb was at the apex with the green to its left and the blue to its right, just like the towers. Encircling the orbs was a golden ring referred to, by those in the know, as the Omnigram. Krista had noticed similar shields above the entrances to other sanctuaries in the city but knew nothing of their purpose; to her they were just pointless ornaments, cheap trinkets that the ugly buildings wore to make themselves look a little bit nicer.
The palace stood out amongst the other dreary buildings in the city. The facades were reflective; it was as if the buildings had been wrapped in large broken mirrors. Damon and Krista were curious to see what was inside but Krista was a little hesitant to disturb the occupants. Damon convinced her that it would probably be safe. They approached the large oak door at the entrance to the closest tower. Damon knocked three times and waited for a response.
The large oak door creaked open. An old man, clad in a long grey coat and top hat, ushered them inside without querying why they were there. His hair was grey and his face was ashen; he resembled a concrete statue.
The old man closed the large oak door and then directed the two children down the hallway. The place reminded them both of the subway station that they had gone to on the night that they left the orphanage. When they reached the other end they came to an elevator door with a wooden cuckoo clock perched above it. The short hand was on 1 and the long hand was on 2.
“Press the button.” bellowed the old man who was standing motionless by the entrance.
A golden triangular button was in the wall to the right of the door. Damon pressed it. A whirring came from above them. They looked up at the Cuckoo clock to see that the long hand was slowly moving anti clockwise. Upon reaching the number 1 it stopped. The elevator door and the door on the cuckoo clock slid open simultaneously. A wooden bird popped out of the cuckoo clock, bobbed its
head and twittered once before being jerked back in.
“Enter the elevator and press button number 2.”
bellowed the man, from the other end of the passage.
The two children entered the elevator. On a silver plaque to the right of the door were 12 bronze buttons set out in the formation of a circle, each with a number from 1 to 12 engraved upon it; it reminded both Damon and Krista of a clock with no hands. Damon did as the old man said and pressed button number 2.
The door slid shut and the elevator ascended. When it reached the next level the door reopened. The children peered out to see a large circular hall, lined with rose tinted windows. At the other end was a balcony and in the middle of the room was a large crystalline throne, padded with red velvet cushions.
The throne was facing the elevator, a long red carpet led up to it. A young girl, not much older than themselves, was sitting on the throne with her left elbow resting on the armrest and her chin resting on the palm of her left hand. Her gown was covered in reflective shards. As with the towers, it appeared as though she were wrapped in a shattered mirror.
“What can you do for me?” she drawled, in a bored tone that Damon did not recognize.
“We were wondering where we are.” said Damon, after a moment.
Aja didn’t recognize Damon’s voice either.
“And why were you wondering that?” she asked.
“Because we’re trying to find a way out of the city, I have a map and I don’t know where I am on it.”
Aja grinned slightly. There was nothing that she enjoyed more than messing with the minds of others.
“Show me this map.” She demanded.
Damon approached the throne and held out the map for the girl to take. She took a cursory glance and then handed it back.
"It doesn’t matter where you are on that map.” She said dismissively “No matter where you are in the City, you are always in the middle of it."
"What do you mean?" said Damon.
Aja stood up and stepped down from the throne.
"This map needs to be wrapped around an orb for it
to be accurately understood." She said as she walked towards the elevator. “Come, I will show you.”
Aja walked by Krista and pressed the button that was on the wall next to the elevator. The cuckoo clock above the elevator had both of its hands on the number 2; its door opened simultaneously with the elevator door and the wooden bird inside popped out and tweeted twice. Aja entered the elevator and the children followed. She pressed button number 12 and they began to slowly ascend.
“What are your names?” asked Aja.
“I’m Glitch.” lied Damon.
“I’m Krista.” said Krista.
The elevator stopped at Level 12. The door slid open to reveal a large room filled with brass orreries of various sizes, rotating at varying speeds. Most of their glass orbs were tinted red, green or blue but there were some that were transparent.
Aja walked out of the elevator. She beckoned the children to follow her as she glided towards a stationary tellurion in the centre of the room. Upon reaching it she took the map that Damon had given her and wrapped it around one of the smaller blue spheres, causing the paper to crinkle.
“This is a model of our planet and as you can see,
the map covers the entire surface.” She said, smirking. “So the only way to escape from the city would be to either go down to join the rest of the vermin or to go up.”
“Up to where?” asked krista.
“Up into the heavens.” said Aja. “up amongst the spheres.”
Aja unwrapped the orb and handed the map back to Damon.
“Though I doubt that you’ll be able to.” she said as she made her way back to the elevator. “And even if you did manage to find a way, I don’t think that you’d be able to survive up there for very long.”
Aja stepped inside the elevator, the children followed. She pressed button number 1, the door slid shut with a snap. When the elevator reached the ground floor she ordered them to leave. She had had her fun misleading the two children; they no longer served a purpose.
CHAPTER 3
As Damon and Krista crossed over the near deserted road outside the Palace walls they noticed a young man on horseback, riding in their direction. The man was the outrider of a vardo that could be seen approaching from the distance. He was wearing a long black cloak that flailed behind him as he rode. When he neared the children he pulled on the reigns so that his stallion stopped.
“And what are such young souls doing out on the streets at such a late hour in the day?” he said, peering down at Krista and Damon.
“We’re looking for a way out of the city.” said Damon. “We have a map but we don’t know where we are on it.”
“We were just told that it’s useless.” chimed in Krista. “A woman in that Palace told us that the city goes on forever.”
“May I see this map?” asked the outrider.
Damon took the map from his coat pocket and handed it to the horseman.
“This map is accurate.” said the outrider, after a quick examination of the parchment. “And there’s definitely a way to go beyond it. We’re in the middle of the city. You can see the circular road that we’re on, right here.”
The outrider handed the map back to Damon. Sure enough there was a circle in the middle, with eight lines leading away from it at even intervals, just like the circular road that they were currently on.
“We’re heading near the border of the city, as it happens.” said the outrider. “If you would like a ride, hail the coachman when he comes by.”
“Thank you.” said Krista. “We will.”
The outrider flicked the reigns and continued along the road.
*****
The coachman was happy to allow Krista and Damon to travel in the wagon. They moved through the streets until a little while after sunset and then spent the night by the side of the road. They were all safe inside the vardo; a talisman was above the door at the back. The horses were also protected, as they were attached to the wagon.
There was plenty of room inside the Vardo for all four to be comfortable. When the others had fallen asleep Krista went over to the window and peered out at the eerily quiet street. The rain was so gentle that it floated with the wind. Maple leaves lay still on the ground. A few lanterns kept portions of the road visible, whenever she saw someone scurry by she watched them until they were out of sight. Most of the people didn’t notice her but a few looked over and snarled before disappearing into the darkness.
Around midnight an old lady hobbled by the vardo, her back was hunched over and she had a web like shawl wrapped around her shoulders. Krista had once heard a tale about a twisted old lady who emerged from the sewers at night. Legend had it that she would lure the children in with her sweet, nurturing appearance and then, when their guards were down, would cover their mouths and nostrils with a handkerchief that had been soaked in a sleep inducing liquid. She would then drag the children back down to her lair, where she would chain them up for the rest of their lives, which usually wasn’t for much longer.
Apparently the old lady thought that if she drank the blood of children, it would prevent her from getting older. During the witching hour of every night she would return to her lair to engorge. She took the blood via an antiquated, steel syringe that she used on all of the captured children without ever sterilizing. She would then empty the syringe into a golden goblet from which she would imbibe.
The children who had heard this story very rarely approached old ladies because of it, even during the day. They avoided coming into close contact with any woman who had even the slightest trace of wrinkles on her face, especially if she smiled. It was a shame really, as most of the elderly women in the city were very kind hearted and enjoyed nothing more than to be in the company of young people.
The old lady crossed through the light of the street lantern and then disappeared in to the darkness. Krista went back to her bench to get some sleep. She awoke during the hour of the wolf to find that the caravan was moving. Her eyelids retracted slightly, revealing only slivers of her emerald iris. She couldn’t see anything clearly at first. Like the spouts lining the rooftops, her dreams were overflowing; their images and sounds merged with those in her supposed surroundings.
‘Great’ she thought ironically, when everything came flooding back to her. ‘I’m still here.’
She rose from the bench, rubbed her eyes, flipped the hood on her gray coat over her long silky red hair and then walked over to the window on the right side of the wagon. Waterfalls were cascading down from the eaves of the buildings, splashing onto the pavement with loud thwacks. The gutters were flooded and the drains regurgitated water back on to the street; maple leaves flowed gracefully along the streams, the trees from which they had fallen nowhere to be seen.
The clouds spat raindrops against the window and taunted her with thunder. Through the gusts she saw tiny points of light, flickering in the distance. Those who were fortunate enough to live in residential buildings that still had electricity running through the veins would often send warnings out into the night. Usually it was only the elderly citizens who cared enough to bother. When they saw gangs roaming around the street below they would flick their light globes on and off in rapid succession so that people in search of sanctuary would know not to go near that particular area.
Krista got up and walked over to the window at the front of the wagon. She opened it and stuck her head out, to talk to the coachman.
“Are we near the edge of the city yet?” she said, leaning on the windowsill.
“We’re still in zone 1.” replied the coachman, “We won’t reach zone 2 until dusk and we won’t reach zone 3 until late tomorrow. It will take the sunlit portion of the day to cross zone 3, the outer perimeter is where the city ends.”
A rumble of thunder came from somewhere far away. Krista went back inside the vardo and closed the window.
*****
Damon awoke to find that there was a large blowfly buzzing around his face. He brushed it away but it returned to annoy him a few moments later. After realizing that he wouldn’t be able to fall asleep again anytime soon, he rolled off the tattered couch and traipsed languidly across to the window at the back of the wagon.
The fly followed him. It buzzed frantically around the pane, unable to comprehend why it couldn’t get outside. ‘I know how you feel.’ thought Damon as he peered out at the early morning sky.
Vendors were setting up on the streets. Very few of them sold food or anything practical, most sold silly little trinkets that were of no real use and yet still maintained a market. There were very few people on the street and most of them had gormless expressions hanging from their faces. They seemed to be entranced, lost in a collective fugue. At a time when they should have been paying the most attention to the world around them, they were blocking it out with whatever distractions they could find.
Damon suddenly felt nauseous; he had gotten up too quickly. It felt as though his whole body was going to swirl apart. He sat down and tried to remain as still as possible. The nausea soon eased into relief, the world seemed to settle.
He got back up and went over to the window at the front of the wagon.
“Can I ask you a question?” He said to the coachman, as he popped his head out of the window.
“You may.” replied the coachman.
“Have you ever heard of the weavers?”
“The ghost tale?” replied the coachman.
“Yes.” said Damon.
“I have.” replied the coachman. “Why do you ask?”
“The man who gave me the map mentioned them.” said Damon. “He said that their webs were being torn apart, but I don’t know what he means; no one ever told me what the weavers actually are.”
“Well according to the tales that I’ve heard, they’re miniscule spheres that weave illusions.” said the coachman. “They’re the constituents of everything around us and within us. They make up the illusion of matter and movement as well as the appearance of both light and darkness. They’re the webs that they weave.”
Damon tried to wrap his mind around what the coachman had said.
“So they are everything and they control everything?” He replied, after a moment.
“According to the tales.” said the Coachman.
“But why would they do the things that they do?” asked Damon.
“I don’t know.” said the coachman. “I don’t believe in them, but then again I have heard that the Weavers greatest trick was that they convinced the world that they didn’t exist. Personally I think that their greatest trick was to make the world believe that they did exist. I think that the idea that they’re creating illusions is the illusion.”
Damon thought about it some more.
“But they couldn’t be everything.” He said, after giving the matter a small amount of thought. “They couldn’t be our feelings and thoughts.”
The coachman nodded.
“I guess.” He replied. “But it can be hard to tell where one thing ends and another begins.”
A jagged streak of lightning tore through the sky and a crack of thunder followed soon after. Damon went back inside the vardo and closed the window.
*****
The clouds told the coachman a lot more than the simple fact that they were threatening a thunderstorm, they were swirling in ways that he had not seen before; they were speaking in a foreign language. He couldn’t understand what they were saying exactly but the omen was clear; they were biding their time before unleashing something other than rain, hail and lightning. What exactly, he would have to wait and see.
The caravan traveled through zone 1 and 2 without any problems. Zone 3 was statistically more violent than the other two but that meant nothing, anything could happen anywhere, it was possible to live in the most dangerous of areas without ever gaining a scratch just as it was possible to be slain in a safe haven.
Hooded sentries stood atop most rooftops in zone 3, their long black cloaks flailing with the wind. They communicated with each other via heliograph, what they were conveying, the coachman didn’t know, hopefully it was just that the caravan was passing through.
A mist crept in as they neared the edge of the city, causing the horses to slow down to a trot. Damon and Krista couldn’t see much of the streets that they traveled along; there wasn’t much that they would have wanted to, the skeletons of buildings and humans, nothing much more.
The caravan stopped suddenly, causing Krista and Damon to stumble around. They walked over to the window at the front of the vardo, they were right in front of the gateway at the city’s perimeter; through the mist they could see a rickety wooden bridge crossing over a large chasm on the other side. Beyond that they could see nothing but more fog.
Krista opened the window and popped her head out to see what was going on.
“This is the end.” said the coachman. “Be careful out there, the forest can be just as dangerous as the city.”
Krista and Damon went to the rear door of the vardo and stepped down on to the road. Howling and snarling came from somewhere nearby; dusk was approaching and the deranged people who lived beneath the city were emerging through the manholes. Damon and Krista couldn’t see the people through the mist. They ran to the front of the wagon.
“Thanks for the ride.” said Krista as they ran by the coachman.
“You’re welcome.” said the coachman, before cracking the reigns and continuing along the road that ran by the great wall, encasing the city.
Above the gateway was a talisman. Damon and Krista ran under it and then across the bridge. Krista looked back to see a horde of deranged men and women, as well as some children, glaring at her like caged animals, unable to pass under the talisman.
*****
The clouds above the forest swirled just as viciously as the ones above the city. Trees with twisted trunks lined the dirt road that connected to the bridge; leaves fell from their branches and spiraled down to the grassy ground. The scent of an imminent rainstorm wafted through the air. There were many pieces of a strange opalescent fruit hanging from the gnarled branches but they were too high up for Krista and Damon to reach, they picked up the fruit that had fallen to the ground.
The path they were on ran down to a bubbling brook; a herd of fallow deer were on the other side, ruminating. A few fawns looked up and froze before pronking over to hide amongst the harts. Krista and Damon walked alongside the brook until they came to a vast lake containing crystal clear water. Tree-pinned mountains surrounded the basin. It was almost too dark to see; the two children couldn’t tell where the mountain peaks ended and the sky began.
They knelt down by the lake and cupped the water into their mouths. It was the freshest liquid that they had ever tasted. As they quenched their thirsts Damon looked up to see a small village on the other side of the lake. Smoke was rising from many of the chimneys. Points of light began to appear here and there.
That was where they would go, thought Damon; that was where they would start their new life.
*****
The streets began to rumble. The buildings began to fall. Cracks appeared in both the ground and the sky. The lightning crisscrossed constantly, like an ever changing web of light. The spires atop the citadels became corposant. The talisman above the entrance to the city fell to the ground. The orbs dislodged but the Omnigram remained in the shield.
Due to a guiding force, coincidence or a mixture of both, halfway across the city another Talisman fell from its perch at exactly the same moment; the one above the entrance to the grounds of Aja’s palace.
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