Right and wrong do not exist. The world is all grey and each person must strive to determine what is fair and what is not, however, sometimes choices are not made by individuals and that is not their choice.
My people absconded to the cliffs' zenith and built a city that took full advantage of the control we have over the infinite links. We fabricated a new culture: pursuing philosophy, ethics, the mystical sciences, reasoning and the arts. A 'utopian' society of presumed equals, we worked to become a separate and self-sustaining civilisation. Our leisurely pursuit of excellence made us all but forget the Nadir, as it became known, which sprawled so far below.
My memory of the segregation is as slippery as the mucus that cloaks a fish's egg. Floundering slivers remain: terrors stark in the light of day, fear, abominations of people. And the ascent. The Nadir was never my home and I've never loved it, as a child I knew of it through whispered speculations. Later I gained a more realistic but no less unsettling insight through observation and research. The degenerative disease passed through blood of Nadirans has caused them to be increasingly deformed and dim witted. We could only assume the creatures would eventually die out as they slowly lost the ability to move and thus procreate. Debates started on the ethics of allowing this to happen, the prolonged suffering was cruel yet we could see no way to ease it. So the council decided that we should put an end to it instead. Efficient and easy. I and a few others did not agree and whilst my comrades campaigned I left the Zenith to participate in a simpler form of protest. I descended into the abyss.
~~~
At some point during the blinding hours of day I must have made the transition from stretched out on my right side to a foetal position on my left. I don't remember when. Breathing in, I look around, sensing the dawning of darkfall. The strains of the wind chimes through the great halls of the Zenith gave this precipice of time the name evensong. My eyelids droop and oblivion is temptingly close. No, I must get up! I have a duty to observe and what if something were to change?
I creep from under my covers and call the candles. They sputter and grudgingly flare into life at the heat of my thoughts. Smoke drifts up my nostrils. My lungs expand as I inhale the wisps. The flames jiggle effervescent and eager to gorge themselves...
"Fire would be most efficient," Silehjon acknowledged her wrinkles folding into deeper waves as she drew her eyebrows together. "It would also cause prolonged agony," argued an anonymous voice.
"Perhaps but in their state can we be sure that they feel anything, the facts of how far they've declined are yet unknown. This way we could be sure every one of the carriers is wiped out."
The smoke turns to ash and thickens in my throat as the callous debates of the Zenith haunt my mind. Even without clinical testing it is apparent Nadirans feel far more than we are apparently capable of.
The air is solid with filaments of skin and dust; each breath is a struggle against asphyxiation and grime coats nearly every surface. The only exceptions are the often used bookcase and the sizeable pile of cushions and blankets, now in disarray after my uneasy sleep. These and some other furnishings are fitted neatly into the claustrophobic space where I am currently in residence. It's probably one of the best-kept dwellings in the area. Candles, stuck to surfaces by precipitous castles of melted wax, are littered throughout the room casting grotesque shadows across the walls. Their flames edge ever closer to the wood and fabric on which they rest, stretching to ignite a solid surface. Just as they seem to succeed, with a fizzle the spark is quenched in a puddle of tallow. They destroy themselves, just as the creatures outside only accomplish their species' degeneration as they attempt to preserve it. It is possible that the persistent lack of hygiene could cause disease to claim the Nadirans even before the degeneration does.
The stone water system, a relic from before the segregation, houses a growing population of assorted fungi and provides 'water' via a complex scheme of channels. A continuous stream of the acrid liquid has worn a hole in the floor. Its dilapidated state is just another symbol of the slow degeneration of this society. Their culture is a ghost built on the bones of a stolen corpse and as it continues to rot. Perhaps by being here I prolong a tortured existence but morality will not allow my departure.
The stagnant air shifts over my skin and I feel the fingers of miasma stroking me but unable to gain hold. I have lost so much coming here and I know not whether it is company or cleanliness I miss more. Certainly aesthetics have taken a second seat to practicality. I wrap my chest and secure my trousers with a length of chord that gets longer every day. Perhaps I should settle on cleanliness, I do not think I would make for pleasant company. I have probably become to stagnant, my immediate past and future a haze of repetition and mundane routine.
I grasp my mottled coat, once fine now thread bare with wear, it swallows my much reduced frame. Its absence reveals an ornately carved chest. The finely crafted latch opens easily despite its age and my fingers reach to caress a forest dappled dress. Memories flutter out entangling with the motes of dust. Music with melodies like wild vines. Dances so fast the fantastic artworks surrounding you become a creative blur. Elihjon. I taste a ghost of ambrosia taunting my tongue. There is no food in the Nadir only substances, some edible some not. The gown smells like must mingled with the fresher scent of wood. Loneliness briefly claws at my stomach. I shut the lid and flick the curtains aside.
It is misting outside, the droplets not large enough to qualify as rain. In the light of the lanterns still lit by dregs of magic the cobblestones have a sheen of silvery gold. I'm going to need my cloak. Running my fingers through my hair, I catch a sliver and gaze at the amber pigments. The shards of glass still stuck to the window frame reflect distorted images of my face. I look like one of the Nadirans. I tie my cloak and lift the hood just as I duck through the doorway and out into the soaking fog. A labyrinth unrolls before me, ten different streets leading from my threshold into the darkness.
The moon is full but wrapped tightly in a coat of clouds; no one but those with unnaturally perceptive eyes would notice it. The cobblestones gleam, inviting the unwary foot to skid on their perilous surface and the alleys twist in ornate patterns and spirals. I now know these streets but I've watched the creatures, born and bred in this labyrinth, wander confused and dazed before dying from dehydration. There are myths, tales of a brilliant engineer who designed these paths with a fantastic purpose, the details of which have been lost to speculation. Historical records suggest these tales are nothing but fancy and that this city simply sprang from the ground, disorderly and perilous. Devised by thieves and larcenous nobles. The hideaways and grottos now spawn a number of horrid individuals who habitually form packs. After we left, the judicial system crumbled; as people stopped thinking, they stopped caring. Most things that can move represent a threat. A person would be extremely foolish to walk these streets unaccompanied or unprotected.
I move through the streets, footsteps echoing against the crumbling walls. My feet follow the meandering path, settling confidently on the uneven stones. The dreary weather appears to have driven most of the usual streetlighters into whatever hole they call an abode. Only the hardy and extremely desperate are out. I can hear them shuffling their vermin eaten boots as they scurry from the street into deeper shadow. The creatures intuit danger in my presence despite my efforts to not appear as a threat. Only once have I been accosted. One brute in a moment of stupidity sauntered from the shadows. Saliva dribbled in a continuous stream from his gaping maw and formed a pungent puddle at his feet. A hand with scabbed sockets where fingers should have been swung towards my temple. His eyes barely widened as I mentally unpicked the seams of his being. The only sign of his shredded entrails as he crumpled to the floor was a single trickle of scarlet from his mouth. In his accelerated state a quick death was a kindness. It was still sickening.
Scuffled footsteps, barely audible over my own, halt as I do. The street twists, on branching into a multitude of alleyways but my interests lie behind the door to my right. I tilt my head slightly but my pursuer wears a hood of shadows. I wonder if he'll still be there when I come out. I push the rotting door inwards.
Alcohol and intoxicants wash over me as I step across the threshold and into the tavern. The already dull thoughts of these people are pickled in a lifetime of bad habits, the distasteful remnants of a rotting culture. No one new is in residence and the blood plague is exhibited by everyone. This area of commune allows me to observe a large number of the population at once, gauging the decline. They generally ignore me until I hang up my coat and pick up a bottle. Their minds do not seem distinguish me from one of their own.
"Good evening everyone. Shall I pour you some drinks?" I line up the glasses not expecting an answer. Bottles dance in the lights as I juggle them with practiced ease. I've tried time and again to recreate the ambrosial drinks of the Zenith but every attempt is a failure and the taste lingers like salt coating my taste buds. I suspect that our distillers, with their conspiracies and paranoia, must have a special method for manufacturing their liquors. It isn't surprising that they're so suspicious, such knowledge has considerable political influence. Up there erudition is power. It is a perpetual cold war, each person silently striving to be superior to the other and more endowed in any and every way. We are a 'utopia' whose occupants can't help but squabble amongst ourselves like a rabble of children, incapable of sharing.
It was our council that demanded the segregation. Its members argued that the deformities and slow degradation of the mind should not be allowed to congeal in our blood. That we, who were pure, would surely be corrupted if we continued to mix with these mutants. So the population was divided. The Nadirans stayed in the old city and the Zenthian started anew as a sign of generosity and compassion.
Justifying the segregation was easy. Without it our people would have regressed, our culture and quality of life deteriorating with each generation. I watched as it happened to those unlucky enough to be 'infected'. This way no one was being harmed. Quarantining allowed us to prevent dispersion and monitor the effects. When our inaction became cruel the council chose the easiest route but my presence here means they can not act. Our laws prevent them from knowingly harming another Zenthian and so there will be no murders until I leave. It is a game of hide and seek with extreme stakes.
One of the bottles, slick with perspiration, slips from my hand. Instinct takes over. Intangible strings and loops make up everything in this world and if you possess the discipline of mind you can influence them. Invisible centipedes scurry over every inch of my body, a burning flush runs from my head down and I try not to shiver. The bottle halts on its destructive trajectory and thumps gently onto the counter. The world stretches out then contracts into miniscule detail. I don't break my rhythm in that small infinity; liquid continues to dance into glasses. They noticed. Now no amount of drugs can prevent them from sensing the danger I present. Their instincts will kick in soon. My abdomen drops and squeezes. Loop theory and manipulation is a knowledge unique and fundamental to Zenthians. I acted unconciously. My hands continue their routine: splash some liquids, throw in some condiments, slide the cup to its receiver. It tips over the edge, clay splintering on impact, piercing the silence. No one caught it. I don't wish to fight.
A large leathery man rises. This could become unpleasant. Engulfing his son's hand he drags the child towards the door. The boy's face is turned towards me, jaw slightly ajar, and displaying ragged teeth, his eyes lack any perception. The small hand not confined in the groping limb of his father is a landscape of scars, putrefying blisters and bruises. It won't be long before he starts losing fingers. His father pushes him through the door then, hunching considerably to get his own mass of blubber and muscle out, shuts the door with a force that makes the frame shiver. That was unexpected and uncharacteristic behaviour. This could suggest a higher intelligence than I had anticipated?
A group of men and women growing vibrant fungi in the dirt coating their skin, are next to depart. They come almost every night. Usually they leave in the late hours inebriated and struggling not to kiss the floor. I do not know where they go. Now they scuttle out bumping and pushing in their haste. It becomes a race, rats scurrying for the door pushing it open before it has a chance to swing shut. The only people left are the ones without the capacity to move, though they make a reluctant effort. The hideous things look like wobbling piles of jelly. I turn away and grab my cloak then walk through the door, now swinging absently on its hinges.
Time is an abstract concept in the Nadir. Most are completely unaware of its existence let alone its passing. The ability to acknowledge and measure it requires an intelligence that they are incapable of cultivating. I'm mildly curious as to whether my stalker is even aware of how long they have been standing there. It is surprising that the substantial crowd brought on by the abrupt evacuation did not spook him, her or it. Perhaps the disease causes different amounts of retardation. His life is probably a haze of confusing occurrences. Days pass, his body rots and the only thing driving him is an instinct to survive. Perhaps death would be a mercy but I do not relish having his blood on my conscience.
"Leave me be you wretched thing! I am not a pleasant appetizer."
He releases a guttural sound akin to unoiled hinges. An uneven scuffle fades as he moves on. Loops and threads dance outward from everything in a complex web and I sense everything they touch. I don't want anything following me in case the Nadirans decide to form a mob. My cloak billows and my hair streams out behind me as I race with sound. My feet barely brush the cobblestones.
The prospect of sleep and relative safety bring me back to the hovel where my possessions are kept. I open the door and step inside. A ripple runs through the ravaged wood as I press my hand to it. The particles meld with the wall sealing the entrance. One foot winds around the other as I turn to face the room. Sprawled on the pillows, giving every appearance of amicability,"Elihjon," air barely vibrates my vocal chords.
His honey tinted irises glow with mirth, "I must agree, as an appetizer you are definitely subpar. I much prefer you as a main course." He watched me trap myself. Keeping my eyes focused on the obsidian hair curling around his studiously innocent face I inch into the room, towards the window.
"How long have you known my location? Who sent you? What..." I pace forward with each question trying not to appear intent on my exit. Half of a heart beat then his hands are cupping my cheeks, I can feel the warmth emanating from his body uncomfortably close to mine.
"Such a waste," he mutters. "My dearest little moth you always were so attracted to the light."
This cluttered room has never seemed so large. I am three steps from the window, yet might as well be a universe away. My head is caught in a vice and my gaze has no option but to return his unsettling stare.
My nose prickles under the stream of warm air sighing from his mouth. "You always were the best of us Syelja but be careful not to burn yourself with those ideals of yours." Hysteria bubbles inside my chest and my teeth ache as I clench my jaw. "The council have lost their patience. We tried but you can only debate a lost cause for so long. Should we not end it now before they suffer further?"
One of the candles hisses and sputters, it must have burnt out. Yes, Nadirans age; the shell that houses what is barely a consciousness falls apart around them. I've seen the piles of meat and bone that sit with barely an awareness of their surroundings but there are others.
Elihjon can't read my mind but he understands it in terrifying depth.
"Syelja, we both know those that still move will only have children who are less lucky. Who will, if they are able, have children that are even more deformed. It's better that we end this now."
My jaw digs into the soft flesh of his palm. His hands slide from my face, fingers feathering over my neck and shoulders before they grasp my hands. I take a step backward but he follows. Air can barely pass between us. It has always been this way in my dealings with him, intense. Uncomfortably so. It's what makes him such an enticing speaker.
"Have there been no signs of adaption or even improvement?"
"Sadly none." The light fabric of his shirt shivers under my sigh, he could be lying. I turn my body to the side trying to make our position less intimate. Could the reaction today simply have been an example of pack mentality?
"They still have the skeleton of a society Elihjon and whilst they can move and communicate with each other I'm not willing to stand aside and watch it all destroyed. No matter that they are little better than mindless beasts now. Would you slaughter your animals in cold blood?"
"Such an unkind comparison, we both know the intellect of my pets puts these creatures to shame." His laughter is an unnerving vibration throughout my body and again I try to put more space between us. He's too close, everything is too close. Smothering.
"This area is functioning at a slightly higher level. The outskirts are particularly degraded. If you wish I can show you, though perhaps it would offend your feminine sensitivities." His full lips part, breaking into a rakish smile. Ignore the sexist remark it is not worth the argument. He has to be lying.
"Enlighten me. My sensitivities, as you call them, are not weak," and also unrelated to my gender.
He rests one of his hands on the wall behind my head and I start at our proximity to it. I feel the loops twist apart and Elihjon pushes open the door. The moon still shines, brighter now having shed its cloak. With a jaunty toss of his head Elihjon steps up off the cobblestones, my hand still caught in his. What will I do if he is telling the truth? Leaving would condemn thousands to death. Could that ever be a kinder fate? My wrist is being drawn above my head as Elihjon continues his ascent into the sky and I feel a strange sense of déjà vu. Should I trust him? Tentatively I lift my foot from the ground and focus on the invisible particles beneath it. My foot presses down on what feels like a solid surface and my thoughts warp reality. I don't want to be wrong.
"And here I thought I might have to carry you." Elihjon grins and through the chaos I'm struck with the memory of childish races across the sky and the perpetual competition. On impulse I start to run, feet pressing on tightly packed particles as quickly as I can manipulate them. It has been so lonely and I had forgotten how much I miss this. He keeps pace darting about. We're children again. Elation beats at my chest aching to break loose and soar into boundless space. Caution and fear are blown away by the intense wind.
I reach the clouds a few seconds after Elijhon but it would be foolish to expect victory after so long without practice. Laughter, so foreign for a moment I don't believe it's mine, breaks free of my lips. It dies.
Dread is a stone. You swallow it and your oesophagus convulses as it pushes it down into your stomach where it sits, cold and heavy.
"No," the word claws its way up my throat and into the air. Gravity triumphs as my naiveté crashes down on me. He catches me just as I sink below the clouds. Beneath us is destruction. Lava oozes through cracks in the earth. Steam and smoke congeal in the air above the city. The council float above manipulating the sulphurous mass as it engulfs the city. I bear witness to the burning deaths of thousands.
"Syelja listen to me I beg of you! I did not lie to you, they were supposed to give me time. There are areas full of people who can no longer move or even speak. Sixty percent of babies are stillbirths and those that are not are barely alive. Their bodies are mangled and covered in bubbling infection, blisters and sores. They were already dying, it was just slower and more painful." His arms tighten around me with every word and his voice is emphatic. "It is not your fault. This destruction was unavoidable, your presence ceased to make a difference."
"This," I cast my arms out forcing him to release his hold on me, "is wrong. There are any number of more humane ways it could have been achieved. No I would not have condoned any of them but I could recommend five better ways to do it. Our council is corrupt, Elihjon, and our philosophies are increasingly questionable. If they truly meant to destroy the city in spite of my presence then they are breaking our laws, which makes them hypocrites as well. When I return to the Zenith there will be an investigation but until then I shall go and ensure those idiots are not torturing any Nadirans for sport or worse yet, keeping some for experimentation." I start my descent into chaos muttering the appropriate farewell.