Bloodfire (The Sojourns of Rebirth) (50 page)

Ortis thought about what he had just done, revealing his
secret to the girl. To Catelyn. He reminded himself that he needed
to stop thinking of her as “the girl”. That was one of the mind
games that the Emperor had used, and Ortis had adopted,
referring to others with an impersonal description, to distance
himself from the individuality of others.

Even between the Emperor and himself, they had never
spoken of Ortis’ gift for any length of time. Uriel knew of it, of
course, and had taken full advantage of that fact but it had never
been acknowledged in conversation. Ortis revealed his gift in
battle, and it was plain to anyone who faced him in combat, and to
the men who fought by his side. The nicknames he had earned
throughout the Sojourns were all attributable to his gift. The
Emperor had been all too willing to exploit Ortis’ natural talent
and press him into service.

In turn, as sojourns passed and Ortis watched the
Emperor bend the world to his whims, he had witnessed Uriel’s
gift. His Will, as he often called it. It was a palpable thing, like
Ortis’ storm or, as Ortis had observed on more than one occasion,
Catelyn’s incredible senses. She hadn’t told him outright about her
gift, but it was plain to see if one was paying attention. Similarly,
Uriel’s Will was visible to him now, even more so now that he’d
distanced himself from the man.

The Emperor Uriel the Third of His Name had not simply
taken power through guile and force of arms. He had also had a
distinct advantage. Ortis had watched strong men, men who held
great power of their own, become convinced that they must bend
their knee and support the cause of Uriel. Ortis knew that it was
not that Uriel could control the will of others. Such stories
belonged in the fantasy tales his wet nurse used to tell him as a
babe.

Uriel’s talent was quite mundane actually, but immensely
powerful. He possessed the uncanny ability to so beguile others
that they willingly set aside their own desires in favor of His own.
Uriel was charismatic, almost hypnotically so, and even men who
were accustomed to ruling their own will were subject to his
charms in the early days of the Empire.

Only after firmly establishing himself in his Seat of power
did anyone suspect how truly mad he was. Even after he himself
had come to that realization, Ortis had felt unable to tear away
from the man or his dream of a perfect Empire. Uriel was like a
force of nature, pulling everyone toward him.

Ortis was no scholar, and had never held any sort of belief
in the supernatural, but he reasoned that such abilities had to be
inherent in some people. He presumed, from the history that his
father had taught him back in Pyrus, that such qualities were likely
a relic of ancient traits, a stain in the blood from the earlier days of
humankind.

What the people of Exeter now referred to as “The Before”
was merely a reference to the dark times before the rise of the
nations like Exeter and Pyrus, when humankind had risen from
the ashes of some great catastrophe and ending with the formation
of the Empire. For over a thousand sojourns, human beings had
lived in the dust of a world beset by some great tragedy, nearly
forgetting themselves, and certainly forgetting where they had
come from.

But even the most comprehensive of history books hadn’t
been written until hundreds of sojourns after that event.
Eventually, humankind reclaimed their place in the world, and
now and then found relics of the past buried in the rubble and the
ashes, and they rebuilt their world. But much that had once been
known was lost forever.

Ortis could only assume that some of those ancient things,
like the bloodfire perhaps, were responsible for the abilities he
possessed. Just as Catelyn had her enhanced senses and Uriel’s
Will. All three of their abilities, while not unnatural, so far
outstripped those of anyone else that Ortis concluded that they
had to be different for some reason. Ortis knew that such power
didn’t come from the bloodfire directly. He and Uriel had both
experimented with it, based on Uriel’s belief that it contained
immense power. It turned out not to have done more than
influence some of their own natural talents, however. But he had
never confessed this fact to anyone besides Uriel.

It had seemed appropriate to trust her with his ability.
And fair. Two things which Ortis had rarely experienced before
meeting Catelyn. But if he was going to use his talent to get them
through the Grand Gate, every one of the people in their small
group would find out about his unique skill soon enough anyway.

Ortis knew that they were closing in on the sewer’s
pumping station. At least, that was what it had been described as
by the Imperial scholar who had researched it for him, and shown
to him on the maps of Belkyn last sojourn. He’d looked into it for
his own personal reasons then, but his prior scouting was coming
in handy now.

From the pumping station, the map simply showed an
entry into a building that resembled a building Ortis had seen just
a few short spans ago, right in the heart of Belkyn.

As soon as they came up out into the city proper though,
Ortis knew things would change. When he had last left Belkyn, he
had been watching whole blocks of the city burn, exhilaration plain
on his face, a quality he was sure that any number of Belkyn’s
citizens would remember for as long as they lived.

But Ortis had never been one to dwell on the variables and
what they all meant. So he forged ahead. As they approached the
pumping station Ortis began to see signs of occupation, and he
held up his fist, and stopped the group. He had considered a
number of alternatives for getting from the building on the surface
to the Grand Gate, but none of those scenarios had included
dealing with citizens living underground.

Catelyn heard Ortis stop and heard his weapon being
unsheathed, and her heart raced. She wondered what could have
alerted the man down here in this abandoned sewer, and none of
the possibilities she could conceive were good news for their
group.

“What’s going on?” Silena whispered.
“Ortis stopped,” Erich said.
“Girls, come to me,” Silena said, and the twins obeyed,

huddling together and holding onto Silena. Catelyn walked ahead,
smiling at the three of them as she passed, though she did not truly
feel happy and approached Ortis, who was standing with shoulders
set and his sword drawn and ready. Catelyn surrounded him with
her bubble, and could sense his readiness for battle. She tensed
her own body, ready to flee if this was some sort of trap. She
stopped a pace away and called quietly to him.

In lieu of replying, he simply pointed the tip of his sword
forward, toward the end of the tunnel they were in. She looked
beyond him, and the sight took her breath away.

Five paces beyond where Ortis stood, the tunnel opened
up to a wide open space, with all types of massive machines
covered in rust and grime from sojourns of disrepair, the purpose
of which Catelyn could only guess at. But what had stopped Ortis
in his tracks was not the sight of the behemoths of some ancient
industry, but what lay between and among them.

Tents and tarps were strung between the machines in
every possible configuration, and bedding lay strewn on the floor
of the massive room, as well as tables, chairs, shelves full of items
and a hundred other signs that there were people living here, or
had been at one time. Even at first glance it appeared to Catelyn as
though whoever had built this place was no longer here now.

She approached Ortis cautiously, and looked up at him.
He turned to look down at her and she felt that she could read the
thought in his eyes.

Use your gift.
She turned and pulsed her bubble out into the open space.
She took in the entirety of the room, first focusing her senses
towards discovering signs of life: a heartbeat, breathing,
movement, conversation. She heard nothing, smelled nothing,
tasted nothing in the air, beyond the mildew and rust she had been
tasting since they’d entered the sewer system. She saw more with
her eyes, even with a simple cursory glance; everything was
covered in layers of dirt and dust, seemingly undisturbed for
sojourns. Catelyn relaxed and breathed a sigh of relief and raised
her arm to sweep across the whole of the “camp” sprawled out
before them.
“It’s abandoned,” she said to Ortis.
He nodded and lowered his sword arm, but did not
sheathe the blade. She supposed she didn’t blame him for wanting
to play it safe. They walked forward together out of the tunnel and
into the cavernous room. The sound of Ortis’ boots echoed off the
walls all around her and she took in the nearest grouping of tents.
Immediately she determined that this was something
unlike anything she had ever known before. The first thing that
stood out to her was the tent itself, which was made from some
type of durable blue material, not from leather or other animal
hide. Catelyn had never seen anything like it before, and she
walked quickly over to feel it with her fingers. It was smooth and
slick, and it crinkled under her fingertips.
She opened the tent flap and looked inside, to find a pile of
discarded and shredded clothing, from which she could smell the
unmistakable stench of rats. No doubt they had been making a
habit of tearing off strips of the rotting clothing for their nests, and
she couldn’t tell much more from the pile of clothing other than
the fact that she could see a number of vibrant colors in the pile.
She closed the tent flap and looked around the outside of the
structure.
A pile of ash and a few small blackened sticks rested in a
ring of bricks, the remnants of a cooking pit from the look of it.
Two more tents encircled the large open floor, and Catelyn moved
to check each of them while Ortis secured the perimeter and Erich,
Silena and the girls entered the open space and began to search
through the outer edges of the camp.
Neither of the other tents contained anything of use,
consisting of little more than damp, rotten smelling bedding. She
moved to check the nearest of the shelves, and was not surprised
to find that anything of value had long been stripped away. All that
remained were some scraps of metal and strips of leather and
cloth. Many of the things in this space felt foreign to her, and
Catelyn could only assume they served no purpose, or if they
served one, it was one she was unfamiliar with.
Catelyn’s instincts were telling her that something was
strange about the camp. It appeared to be deserted, as though
whomever had been living in this camp, had simply picked up and
walked away. However, only parts of the camp fit that narrative.
Catelyn couldn’t understand what kind of people would clear
everything from their shelves while leaving perfectly functional
tents and bedding behind to rot.
She widened her bubble to cover more of the open space,
and that’s when she saw the bones sticking out from a corner of
the room, partially hidden behind a tarp that had been strung up
with a thin length of twine. She looked for the others, about to call
them over, but they were all engaged in their own tasks, so Catelyn
approached the corner by herself, her bare feet leaving behind a
trail of her distinctive footprints in the dust-covered floor.
When she reached the tarp, she tugged at the corner,
noting that it was made of the same crinkly blue material as the
tents. As the tarp slid aside along the length of twine, Catelyn felt
her face grow flushed and her pulse began to quicken.
Sitting propped up against the wall , and covered in
numerous layers of blankets and bedding, and clothed in heavy
clothing, lay the desiccated remains of a person long dead. The
skeleton was visibly white where it peeked out here and there
between the blankets. Surrounding the body were a number of
items, most of which Catelyn could not recognize.
It looked to Catelyn like someone, maybe even the person
the remains belonged to, had taken all of the items off of the shelf
outside the tarp and had brought them over, seemingly so that
they could be surrounded by them while they died. The body was
positioned with one arm to the body’s side, skeletal palm facing
up, and the other resting on the lap, clutching a sharpened piece of
rusted metal. Around and beneath the body, the blankets and floor
were stained black, obviously signs of a blood pool long dried up.
Catelyn knelt down near the remains and looked through
the twelve items surrounding the body. All of them caught her eye
to one degree or another, and her curiosity prompted her to reach
out for the things to inspect them closer. The first one that grabbed
her eye was an image, upturned on the skeleton’s chest as though
it had been the last thing the dead person had looked at. She
grabbed it gently by the edge, and her breath caught.
The image was a faded, lifelike rendering of another
person, a young woman not that much older than herself, smiling
brightly and looking so healthy and happy. The image was cropped
in so that all Catelyn could see was her face and shoulders, but the
thing that had taken her breath away had been the colors, even as
faded as they were by time. The young woman was blonde-haired,
with blue eyes and she was wearing a bright yellow top, and her
face was painted beautifully. Behind her, she could see a plethora
of lights in the background in every color imaginable. The lights
appeared to be entwined against a darker, blurred object, which
she could not make out, but it was roughly a conical shape.
Catelyn had seen paintings of others before, but nothing
like this. She had heard stories told by her parents about how
people had once been able to capture moments of time this way,
but such things were lost long ago, and well beyond Catelyn’s
experience. Seeing this picture made her marvel at what had been
lost that had once been commonplace to humankind.
She stared at the woman’s face for a whisper before
turning the picture over. The back of the picture was blank and
yellowing and almost bare, but for a few words written in
someone’s flowing hand. The language was strange; composed of
words and letter shapes, some of which were recognizable and
others that were familiar and yet not quite legible. She turned the
picture back over and looked at the smiling woman again, then
down at the body.
She could see that whoever the young woman in the
picture had been, it seemed readily apparent that she was loved.
Her smiling face had accompanied this person into death; had
provided them comfort as they had bled out from what appeared
to be a self inflicted wound.
Catelyn took the image and tucked it into one of the
pockets she had sewn into her pant legs and moved onto the next
item. It was a small, rectangular black and grey object with no
discernible purpose. The front was covered with a thin piece of
glass, which was cracked in several places, creating a spider web of
lines across its face. The back side was a featureless matte green
material. Catelyn turned it over in her hands a number of times,
but could see nothing to indicate what it was or what it did. Even
as cracked as it was, Catelyn could only gape with wonder at how
smooth and flawless the glass still was in places.
She decided to reckon with the object later and set it aside.
The next thing that she examined was a book wedged in
between the body’s leg and arm. She extricated the book carefully,
trying not to disturb the remains too much. Unlike books she was
familiar with, which were bound with hard covers and written on
rough, light brown pages, this book was smaller, and made entirely
of paper, even the cover.
But what astonished her the most was the printing.
Catelyn’s books growing up had all been stamped with inks, or
embossed. This book, like the image of the young woman, was
covered with a light paper binding, and on the front was a flawless
rendering of a city scene, but unlike any city Catelyn could have
imagined; with tall, majestic buildings lit up like fireflies. She
knew that humans in ancient times had been different, and she’d
heard rumors about their technology and developments, but she
couldn’t fathom how they had been able to build such exquisitely
tall buildings made of metal and glass!
The cover was also covered with words she couldn’t
understand, and as she thumbed through the book, she was
amazed to discover the same neat script used throughout. It was
not written by any person’s hand, for the letters were too distinct,
too uniform. She wished more than anything that she could read
this book, to see if maybe the words inside could be used to puzzle
out the meaning of it all. But although a letter here or there stood
out as familiar, the larger meaning of the words was lost to her.
She placed the book down on the lap of the skeletal
remains and picked up a small leather case. It was a simple bi-fold
design and when Catelyn opened it, inside were two small cards,
made of a thick, shiny material. They were both marked with a
series of silver lines of varying thickness, and on one of them,
another image, this time of a young man. He looked out at Catelyn
from the card with a serious expression, and she wondered if this
image of the young man was the face that belonged to the corpse
here under the blankets, dead for who knows how many sojourns.
She put the small case back down.
The last object she examined was a small black booklet,
bound in what appeared to be leather. It was about the size of her
hand, and was lying partially obscured by the blankets
surrounding the body. She fished it out with a hand, and opened it.
Inside, the pages were yellowed and wrinkled, and many of them
were dark with bloodstains. She could make out some scribbled
notes and doodles, all using the same familiar but illegible letters
as the other books she had found. This appeared to be a journal of
some kind, possibly written by this person; perhaps an account of
their time in this camp.
Catelyn was intensely curious to know what the story of
this place was. She knew as soon as she’d discovered the tents that
whatever had happened here, it was ancient; from prior to the
Before even. There were all manner of stories about ancient
humans, but so little remained of that time, and though she
imagined how invaluable this place was, it did nothing to
illuminate that mystery for her. She had spent more than a few hot
summer days on the roofs of the Seat, staring up into the charcoal
sky, wondering about those times, but finding these remains had
led to her ask more mundane questions, such as why the people
had come down here to live, and why all but one of them had
seemingly abandoned the camp.
But without the ability to read the words of the book or the
journal, she could only guess. All she knew for sure was that this
person, the last member of whatever group had taken up residence
here underground, had remained behind or been the last one
standing, and had then presumably taken their own life. Catelyn
felt the sadness and the loneliness of what this person must have
felt, and she imagined the conflicting battle of emotions, between
courage and the hopelessness, battling it out inside of that person
until finally the latter won the day.
None of the other objects were particularly helpful, most
of them seeming to have some obscure purpose or other that she
could only guess at. She took the journal and pocketed it, as well as
the black rectangular object to fiddle with later, stood and pulled
the blankets up over the skeletal remains. She stepped outside the
tarp, slid it back into place, and looked around for the rest of her
motley band.
Silena was watching over the two girls, who were playing a
hiding game among the tents and tarps. Catelyn thought about
warning them away from the remains, but she was afraid drawing
attention to it would only exacerbate the potential problem and
opted to just let the remains go undisturbed for now. Erich and
Ortis were still looking through the remains of the camp, the
former with a mixture of curiosity and vigilance, the latter purely
on guard against any threats they might find.
As she returned to the group, she began to formulate a
plan in her head, and when she was among them again, she called
them over to tell them her thoughts.
When she was done, they all agreed that it was a solid
plan. Catelyn had actually expected Ortis, as a former Imperial
officer, to take the lead and tell her how unsound her idea was, but
instead he nodded, and turned away to find a place to climb up to
the street.
Catelyn knew that it was just a couple of prayers after
midday. One of the first changes she had learned to adapt to after
losing her eyesight had been to develop and hone her own internal
clock to be able to tell day from night when both were shrouded in
total darkness. Her plan was going to call for them to come up into
Belkyn in the middle of the night. They had already walked
through the previous night and most of the day before, and so they
now had a number of prayers in which to rest.
Erich and Silena gathered the girls to look for any blankets
and bedding that weren’t too soiled, where they might be able to
spread their own blankets down and catch some sleep. When
Silena approached, Catelyn reached out and squeezed Silena’s
hand.
“There’s a body over there,” she whispered, and Catelyn
angled her head to point in the direction of the tarp. “It’s just
bones, but there’s some...unusual things around it. From before
the Before.”
Catelyn saw Silena’s eyes light up momentarily, the old
antiquities trader in her no doubt tempted to explore the remains,
but then it just as suddenly passed.
“That’s part of my past now,” she said a little sadly. “Time
for me to look ahead to a new future. Still, I’ll make sure the girls
don’t go exploring over there.”