NOVEL NEXT 53 – Relics of History
A few minutes of walking, and it was already clear that something was brewing. Not just the everpresent civil unrest, but something foreign. They kept seeing foreigners that didn’t belong, wearing foreign clothes, acting so inconspicuous it looped back around to being conspicuous if one looked for it. Many weren’t trying to hide at all, just casually walking around, shopping, one even had a carriage food stall set up. Zef dragged Zel over to it, bringing up how she’d bought a kind of Kargarian sweet from here yesterday and how she was certain Zel would like it. According to Zef, he had moved up the promenade from his yesterday spot.
They bought three skewers of four to share, and with the first bite Zel conceded that Zef had been right. The curious springy mouthfeel, the overall chewy texture, the dominant sweetness accented by a subtle rice flavor. One was pink, and flavored with rose water. Another was green, and had tiny little chunks of apple in it. A brown one contained finely-ground hazelnut, while the white one had no additional flavoring. The price lists claimed this confection to be called “mochi”.
Leisurely and without any hurry did they make their way through the city and to the bridge, toward the very spot where Zef claimed to have encountered that failure of a sleeper agent, where she had called him out and ended him before he could carry out his geas-bound mission. Zelsys found the mochi-merchant’s appearance curious, but somehow familiar. She recognized that silver coin plugging the hole in his head, even the design of his carriage.
It became a mental itch that wouldn’t stop until she figured out what it was that was eluding her, and she soon swallowed the first of her mochi balls and asked: “Was that merchant a Fog-sailor?”
“Mmmhm…” Zef nodded, chewing. Well, there was another thing she hadn’t remembered until it came up. She had to admit that it was a little annoying that she didn’t know just how much she knew.
They continued on, and across the bridge’s great length saw a gathering of people on the same crossroad where the incident had occurred. It wasn’t a crowd, more of just a small congregation of gawkers that slowly milled their way around the spot as whoever was guarding it thunderously ordered them to let the investigation carry on undisturbed.
“Let’s go the long way round,” Zef suggested, and Zel agreed.
She’d never really thought about Willowdale’s layout at large, but she supposed a city this size would have more than two bridges across the river that otherwise split it down the middle - it was just that she’d never really gone down this way on the promenade. The river grew noticeably wider the further to the city’s north-eastern end they came, the architecture somehow even older and more iconic. Mostly statues, gargoyles, elaborate stone-carved facades. Some of the street lamps were just solid stone pillars that had been co opted with a lightgem mount at the top. A few of the houses had tiny spires built onto them, and one even had an actual, full battlement at the edge of its balcony, machicolations and all.
At points, there would be a pristine, white stone statue just in the middle of the sidewalk, attached to the last stones of an ancient wall that had long been replaced. Zel found it strange, but not strange enough to ask about it. Fortunately for her curiosity, a conspicuously-dressed balding Kargarian man that walked nearby seemed to have a similar idea, calling out to a tired-looking guardsman on the street corner.
Before the question could be said, the guardsman opened with, “Yes, yes. Are you lost, or is it about the statues?”
“...Oh, do people ask about the statues often?” the Kargarian asked apologetically. The guard let out a tired sigh, nodded, and answered, “It’s no wonder, but it gets tiresome after the fiftieth time. They’ve always been around, we don’t maintain them, and the constitution forbids the city to tamper with them or their foundations. So they just sit there, and we build around them. Much less noticeable on the bridges.”
“And why-” the older man began.
“Fuck if I know, I’m just a guard,” the guard interrupted. “Could be a superstition, could be some legal safety against defacement.”
“What of the golem story? Do you think there might be some kernel of truth to that?” the Kargarian poked again, much to the guard’s theatrical exhaustion. Another heavy sigh and a reluctant answer: “They’d be sorely overdue to wake up, then.”
They were getting out of earshot of the two by this point, and Zel could barely follow the exchange. Yet again did the Kargarian try to ask something, but the guard’s annoyance bled to the surface and he curtly said, “If you have more questions about the city, try...”
At that point, the ambient noise drowned them out. The hazelnut-flavored mochi was nice - its texture had this additional layer of slight grittiness. A few more minutes of walking passed and they reached another bridge across the river, one which stood upon stone pillars and arches that were visibly of a different era than its top layer. It was quite narrow, just wide enough for two carriages to pass side by side, and its pillars were somehow pristine - perhaps because of the gold-inlaid runes on the layer of blocks that sat right above the water’s surface.
They crossed the bridge, and as they neared the other side they saw a group of burly-looking men next to the edge of the promenade, an open spot with no railings and a pair of bollards, one of which had a rope tied to it. Closer to the other side yet, and they saw the boat which that rope belonged to - a strange combination of two smaller vessels, with a steam-spitting engine in the back.
They were five men in total, three of which looked old and two young, four Ikesian and the oldest Grekurian - two in the boat taking crates and small barrels of cargo from the vessel, three at the edge reaching down to grab it. The river water sprayed, they emitted beastly grunts as they heaved their cargo, and the oldest among them sprayed Fog from his nostrils as he heaved a barrel onto the edge with a single motion.