City of Bones

Laeo crept as silently as his plate armour would allow. He'd left the men of his travels, his household guard, and the various mercenaries, pirates, and adventure-minded folk that had pledged fealty to his grand tour of the world, hidden in nearby spots for their safety as much as his. This was, of course, one of the most dangerous places in the world.

Ahead, he saw the soil bowl of the Amacarth Crater. Left behind as the stain of a titanic object. Something the sun Aeris had cowered behind, they said. Something enough to level one of the great civilisations of Primordial Time and keep the land dead long since. The edges of great cities leaned in, crumbling towers and suggestions of homes peering into the abyssal basin, itself a true and terrifying wonder of the world, before him, Laeo, Prince of Pearls. Brown, arid, desperate, a crater stretching the width of a continent, almost coast-to-coast. The northern horizon, was shielded only by the surviving peaks of the otherwise crumbling Copperpoint Mountains, levelled irreparably.

It was said the Amari people had been silenced from the world with all their innovations and techniques lost. All techniques but the few that still haunted their cities of bones, a dead magic that flowed in their dead blood, one practised in sacrifice at grand temples, by their clergymen and scholars, that was said to keep them from even the axiom of death.

Thrill-seeking, Prince Laeo had seen incredible things since he began his journey. Hunting lindwyrms in the Drakemarshes, slaying Narcugan wyverns, riding with the nomads of the Yelling Steppe and The Naked Jungle, forging historic alliances between the Abendlandasque men and the Ettish peoples and Okzidentite cousins of Satyrs, and swindling himself into the hearts of pirate republics in the Gryphon Isles to play cards and dice, but where he stood now was quite different. Amacarth was a place of pilgrimage, the purest example of hubris, a scavenger's most profitable venture, and most deadly. A place of heritage unparalleled, of the devastation of nature or the wrath of gods. Yet none came to stay. None came to stay. Laeo knew why, and each careful step was taken knowing why. His father had once told him that those that cannot sleep are conscripted into the legions of the Amari, doomed never to sleep again.

Still, Laeo had not expected to marvel as he had at mere remnants. Stonework incinerated so fast that it still bore the shadow of its former glory. Melted monuments, frozen since into nature's perversions of Amari architecture. The scale of it all humbled Laeo's enthusiasm in silent appreciation, for even as heir to the Land of Pearls, one of the premier powers in all the Charted Lands, did Laeo here, alone, feel small. For the carrion breath of a wyvern in his face had he not felt so insignificant as here. When faced with the steel of twenty cutlasses at his neck had he not felt so insignificant. In all the world, was nothing more significant than here, in the trembling decay of Amacarth.

Laeo shuddered, his spine ever tingling, as he walked through what once was a street. One side was at the lip of the crater, the other: masses of timbers and glass and stone amalgamated into ashes of nothing. He imagined the living markets of the world around him, unable to shirk the image of yelling tradesmen or the squeaking of wagons or the repugnant smell of urban detritus. Here there was no smell, save a stale discomfort. There was no noise, save the infrequent gusting of a squall that carried dust and ash. But even the allusion forced his mind to fill in the blanks.

'Jate!' Laeo shouted. Jate was always good at elevating a mood.

Jate rushed to Prince Laeo's side, crouching just the same, jingling with earrings, studded gambeson, an ornate fur cloak, and enough bangles to make a Razi temple-whore jealous. 'What's it Laeo?'

'Nothing, I just--'

'Scared? Fair enough. Place gives me the jitters too. Just as well it should, eh? Cradle of civilisation, a dust bowl through and through. Nice thought that ancient humanity's apex amounted to a little ash and melted stone.'

Laeo shot a glare at Jate, expecting to break the veneer of tension by falling onto their backs laughing. But Jate's face was colder than the brisk in the wind. 'You're a strange man, Jate.'

'Way I saw it, back at Port Buvhery, was that men are either strange and comfortable with it, or end up regretting missing out on the strange part when they die uncomfortable and well-conformed.'

Laeo smirked in disbelief. 'You're unbelievable.'

'Gryphon Isles do that to a man.'

'Perhaps you're right there,' Laeo remarked, recalling how it felt not to be seen as even half the strangest man around during his time at Port Buvhery. 'Well, to that I say onward. Onward! To treasures and glory and a good old time!'

'Strangest prince I know,' Jate muttered as they continued forward.

'You don't know any other--'

A geyserlike puff of floating motes of ash shot up ahead, accompanied with a crumpling sound. Laeo and Jate shuffled forward, scarcely sharing but a glance between them.

Laeo stood over the source of the noise, arming sword in hand, ushering Jate to dig around the rubble and dust. Jate begrudgingly obliged, as Laeo watched on, intently squinting at any movement. 'Could've been a rat,' Jate said, 'could've been a snake. Don't want to get bitten by a snake, you know, Laeo...' Jate had something in his grip, and with huffs and jolts, pulled it up.

A branch-like shape of dark, burnt grey, veined with streaks of white and black. Jate rotated it, absorbing all angles, but Laeo knew already what it was. 'You done gawking at that arm?'

Jate raised a bushy eyebrow before bowing. 'I believe, your grace, that I may well be done gawking at said arm.' He knocked Laeo on the cheek with the shoulder end of the arm, instantly shattering it to dust. A clinking sound came off the Prince of Pearls' pauldron, and something chinked onto the ground.

Jate and Laeo shared a glance at each other and then at the glinting jewel. An unscratched, blood-red gemstone, some kind of ruby or crimson diamond, set into a platinum-lined onyx. A fine chain, likely platinum too, probably choker-length on Laeo, snaked from the main pendant in the dusty earth.

'Cinnabar,' Jate murmured, kneeling. 'Cinnabar and coal.'

'You dolt. That's a ruby if not a diamond. And that's onyx.'

'Oh.' Jate tugged at the chain, lifting it as he stood again to face Laeo. 'Llithras chain?'

'They don't get llithras in Amacarth - or any of Servyen - just give it here,' Laeo impatiently snatched the necklace. Immediately he felt a strange tinge emanating in his palm, his heart racing. 'Oh Aeris above! Ha, this is Magickal! A phylactery or charm of some kind, huzzah! The kind of thing we came to Amacarth to see--'

The necklace trembled, shuddering in Laeo's hand, vibrating as though in vain attempt to escape his grip -- Laeo responded, naturally, as he was jumping for joy, to grip tighter; the resultant rubbing motion only stirred on further vibration.

Laeo stood open-eyed at Jate looking back with rolling eyes, until he caught the sheen of fear washing over Laeo, suddenly drained of excitement. 'What is it?' Jate took one step forward and two back.

The necklace, with a final lurch, stopped shuddering. Laeo was still and silent, hoping that his assumption was incorrect, but the more it made sense in his mind, the less likely that seemed. 'I think we should--'

Laeo's hand caught fire, a jet flame sparking up around the necklace, hued in a silver glow. Jate unclasped and flapped his cloak, whilst Laeo, shrieking, realising his arm was now ablaze, took to shaking it wildly. 'Jay-ah-Jate, help, call--'

The flame suddenly perished, for a still moment leaving glowing embers in the air around Laeo's cherry-red gauntlet. A sudden gut-wrenching nausea came over Laeo. The amulet would not be shaken; it was forged into his palm. He mumbled in panic, intermittently retching.

His allies rushed over, a peculiar company of some dozen well-armoured, well-trained Champions of the Pearl, alongside a collection of uniquely dressed mercenaries and rouges of varying colours and cultures, each fumbling over exotic words in their endemic tongues. A large Champion of the Pearl rushed to his liege's side, the others in query to the prince's condition. The prince who was leaning over, choking for his life, hard enough to spew his organs, mumbled back.

A sudden explosion of force threw them all backwards, hard against jagged old walls.

Jate, among them, aching all over, blinked in horror as he saw the demon lingering over Prince Laeo, who was collapsed in a heap below the peacefully floating body of that spectral entity. Unlike anything Jate had seen; shrouded in a deep, translucent, black cloak of flame that radiated a ghostly hue of purple; a horrific creature. Longer than any man, but anthropomorphic all the same, robed in some form of torn clerical raiment, was a skeletal person. Where skin remained, it was stretched taut as a starving man would recoil to see. Where skin was not, as around the jaw and mouth and fingers and toes and arms peering from beneath the raiment, grey, marrow-dry bones were.

One of Laeo's company bellowed his horror, and the creature turned all attention toward her, with a tilted head. 'What am I?' It said, in a hollow, tongueless way. Yet its language was universally understood, as all ears pricked in unison. 'In my mortal years, I called myself Lahamu, Archfocus of the Order of the Foci of Holy Talbyth. Since my... I am known now as Azal Shayatin, the Wiveloss. What are you?' The entity, Azal, took a moment to ponder, raising its eerie, spirit-joined bones, to place a hand to his chin. 'I see. You are the company of...' He looked to the floor, and floated away from exhausted Laeo, 'the company of one Laeo, Prince of Pearls. Surely there is little to prince in the way of pearls? They require little minding, in my experience.'

Suddenly, Laeo's body began to shiver and shift upright, hovering just as Azal did, gliding slowly towards Jate and his personal corner of rubble.

'My apologies Laeo.' Laeo, collapsed beside Jate, grumbled something. 'I did not mean to fatigue you. The ritual for my summoning was devised poorly. I presume you have come to access my knowledge...' Azal turned, slowly gazing over the scarred fields of what was once his home, now reduced to a dusty pit. Jate swore he heard the creature sob.

Now's the time, Jate thought, now we kill him, and he lurched forward from the rubble, short sword held like an ice pick, charging toward Azal, getting no closer than ten strides away. For a moment. As, a moment later, he was ten strides in front of Azal, almost sliding into the crater beyond.

Jate, why do you harbour such intentions?

Jate steadied himself and clambered back up to face the phantasmal form of Azal. Unlike before, Azal’s jaw had not been moving.

Little knowledge is gained from seeking hurt. 'In fact, you seem the decent sort that might explain to me what has become of the city of Amar.'

Jate raised an eyebrow and swallowed. 'Well...'

'City of bones?' Azal said, reading from Jate's thoughts before he even realised he had thought them, gliding suddenly close. 'What do you mean? Where... Where is Puabi? Inana? My family... Where is Nasha! Please,' and Azal suddenly shot his focus to the sky, 'please, don't. Don't do it to her! I will -- do not do this, I beg of you, I beg...' Azal's attention fell back to Jate, with a ferocious intention that weighed upon him as immense guilt once did. 'You. You are with them? Fallen to the ill intentions of space stones? You have doomed me to wander! To rot? I care not for your Dominion! I will have you all burnt...' Azal trailed again, the fiery pits of his eyes setting towards the distant Copperpoints. 'I see,' he finished with deep sorrow, descending to the ground, skeletal feet falling softly. 'Then I am confined to know this and yet forget it still, to remember it all as I am woken from sleep and see my home in the dust from whence it once came. At least, return me to my daughter... Where you found the charm... Alas, no, for I cannot touch it, but do not think yourselves exempt from me compelling you to...'

'What are you on about?' Jate said. 'What happened to you?'

Azal Shayatin rocked his head with something like shame. 'I committed misdeeds against mortality in my time, in the name of a deity that condemned us. As you might presume, that was a time quite different from this...'

Jate found himself able to approach Azal, closer, though no more than three strides, no matter how wilfully he tried. Behind, the rest of the company were also as close. 'You are Amari then?'

'Amari? I suppose that is the demonym history has given us. A single word, no doubt used to condense hundreds of cultures and ethnicities over thousands of moons further.'

'Well, whatever. Azal?'

'Yes, Jate of Buvhery?'

'Please do not know more about me than I already know. Surprise is meant to be my weapon -- little Prince Laeo will have you replace me at this rate.'

Azal sighed. 'Your Prince... will soon return to a healthy state. I doubt, anyway, that he would want a wraith in allegiance. It is of my nature to be shunned as it is of my nature to store knowledge...'

'Well, he does have a fondness for the shunned... You store knowledge?'

'It is my purpose, as... this.'

'So you're a... well, living isn't... but... you're a book?'

Azal shrugged, cross-legged. 'If a book hosts knowledge then I suppose you may call me a book as you call me Amari.'

'I see how that might be a generalisation.'

A grey-black staff, chains and metallic rings hanging from it, shimmered into Azal's hand. He pulled his bony weight up with it to stand almost twice Jate's height. 'Could you do me a kindness, Jate of Buvhery?'

Jate's hand was sweating as he released the grip of his knife. 'Perhaps, Azal Shayatin the Wiveloss.'

'You harm me. My wives... They...' Fiery eyes had never looked so broken. 'I did it to protect their own sanctity, please understand.'

Jate raised an eyebrow. 'Oh, of course, well, between you and me, I understand.' Azal bore a horrific smile. '...So what did you want?'

'I had a daughter once.' He glode toward the company of Laeo's men. 'A daughter called Nasha. It would have been pleasant to see her, though I'm sure she...' Azal leant on his staff, as if it was itself leaning on solid ground, despite him hovering a stride above any. 'I made arrangements to remain with Nasha, despite all that happened. And still, despite what has happened, I wish to be returned to her, as flesh or as ash. I cannot move my talisman, so I would ask you find her body and lay me back to rest.'

Laeo was up, finally, and appeared from between his men bearing his sword. 'Ha! Here, demon, feel the zeal of my blade!' Before Laeo's thrust was even started, his body was flung at breakneck speed against a wall.

'What would be in it for us?' Jate asked, watching Laeo.

Azal turned back to Jate. 'Is it not enough that I do not set you alight where you stand?'

Jate sighed. 'Books aren't supposed to play with fire.'

'My ignorance gives me immunity to your offence.'

'Even hoarders of knowledge are fond of that excuse. You're unbelievable... Alright. So where is Nasha?'

'Where did you find me? Previous robbers of this burial ground, of a Dominion I imagine is extinct in memory as much as Amar is, placed my talisman back where it was found. After some encouragement.'

Jate nodded. 'I'll do that then.'

'You are a good man, Jate of Buvhery.'

'I'm not really. I'm a pirate, a scoundrel, a thief, and worse. I'm just a man.'

'Then, as just a man, I thank you. I believe I was once just a man the same.'

Jate shrugged, and picked up the talisman, at the feet of where Laeo had attempted to charge Azal. The rubble and ash of Nasha was across the road, and there, Jate dropped the amulet. Surreal if nothing else in this day had been, the amulet, almost alive, snaked away, likely to the husk of Nasha. Jate watched it with a raised eyebrow.

'Farewell, company of Laeo, Prince of Pearls. May your adventures be fulfilling,' and Azal was dragged towards the rubble as a lilac breeze, leaving behind a smouldering black flame.

The company was silent until Laeo appeared. 'Come then! To slay yet more primaeval spectres! Onward!'

And onward they went.