A Dream of the Heaven

Chapter 20 (Part 1 of 2)

Chapter 20

Isendrin

*

Hardly a minute later, Isendrin lost all sense of direction. 

“They say bits of the city go missing at night,” said Menentor as he led them on.  “The streets reshape themselves as the mist comes in.  If you let your house out of sight, it will move, and you’ll never find it again.”

Isendrin wrapped a scarf over his nose, but the smog still stung his eyes.  He could hardly see twenty feet before him.  Narrow streets hemmed them in on either side, wooden planks above completing the trap.  There was another street above his head, above that, another, and a fourth in some places.  Pekderzhun was not a city, it was a hive.

“What’s to say your house hasn’t vanished?” he said.

“Nothing,” replied Menentor, “But in two years it hasn’t run away yet.”

“I fear this city is built on such nonsense,” said Temith.  “Backward superstition only harms a people.”

Menentor came to a halt, glancing around.  “I don’t mean this as a rebuke to you, friend Caphro,” he muttered, leaning in close.  “You should all listen.  Don’t speak ill of the Pekderzhi or their ways.  We’re only here for a night, and I’d rather not have the Temple peering at us.  Yes?”

Isendrin nodded, staring at Temith.  The Erluethan looked affronted.  He wasn’t a scholar, thought Isendrin.  He was a street preacher, a firebrand puritan masquerading as something better.  Imlon was a scholar.  Temith was a snake.

The street widened until they came to what Isendrin assumed to be a square: he could not see the buildings on either side.  Great braziers intended to dispel the mist only served to singe it.  The slick air clung to the exile’s unshaved cheeks.

“Side ‘way!  Side ‘way!  Give room!”

A commotion came over the square at the shout, people dashing away from the noise.  A hand fell on his shoulder.

“Come away, come!”

Menentor pulled him back just in time: horses came cantering out of the mist, a sizeable train of them, ridden by black-cloaked ghosts.  Even in the mist, they looked out of place.  Isendrin caught a flash of silver needlework in the clothing and the horses were big plains animals, not the ponies and mules of the marsh.  The people around them cowered away.

“Temple men?” he said as the horsemen receded.

“No,” said Menentor.  “Anthornadians.  They’ve had an embassy here for a few weeks now.”

“Arcani,” said Temith through gritted teeth.

“Say nothing against the Pekderzhi,” said Menentor, “But you can defame the Anthornadians as much as you wish.  There is no love for them here, especially not in these last weeks.  Some speak of war.”

“There is no love for arcani anywhere,” said Temith.

Isendrin had to stop himself from replying.  True, Emmaressians had no liking of Anthornadians, but through ignorance, not knowledge.  Temith probably knew just as little of them as he did, but at least Isendrin knew when to stop his mouth.

Menentor hurried them onward.  After trudging through the darkening streets for twenty minutes or more, he led them through a tiny dripping passageway and into a little yard.  A dead brazier stood in the centre; the clothes strung above from the three tiers of dwellings were still visibly damp.  The pathfinder led them up the stairs to the top, opened an unassuming door, and led them inside.  A few gloomy shapes, faces perhaps, observed from behind as they entered.  Isendrin was glad to shut the door on them, despite the pitch black of the room.