To Your New Era

Excala's rooftops greeted a morning growing tardier by the day as, with each orange, wilted leaf, another piece of autumn ticked over into winter. Clouds greeted dawn eagerly, soaking up its colour for themselves as light rain from the night before trickled between seams in the cobblestone.

Sidewalks untouched as of the small hours of last night, morning stillness clear of sputtering engines, chiming street-trams or even the simplest words. Unperturbed, as though the city had fallen silent, its inhabitants evaporated with the sun like morning dew.

If, by some miracle of telepathy or a Spirit's Aether intuition, one could read the underlying buzz about the city streets, of the many thousands of people still in their homes, with little mind to continue about their morning routine as the minutes to rush-hour slipped by them, the nature of the silence became clearer; a product of shock. The moment a collective consciousness shared by an entire city, or rather nation, was rattled so profoundly that the system crawled to a stand-still, like a Draxyl, or perhaps a deer in headlights.

The office-men and women, their hands still around their neckties, didn't know if they were to go to work without the precedence of a public holiday or emergency procedure. Schools with no mourning rites, nor with ever the thought of entertaining such rituals, hesitated on ringing their bells, lest the gesture be considered insensitive.

Time carried on, the beating hearts and silent bodies of the populous continued as normal, but life didn't. Like the clear mark of a chapter, a page fit for a bookmark, to stop the night's reading.

The pages of history turned as indomitable as the march of time. Inscribed on those harrowing pages so storied with death and despair, only ever recording the most powerful, yet fleeting good, was written its latest line in radio frequencies.

"It is eight in the morning on September the 23rd. We come to you with breaking news…"

Mystery unravelled with time, as wounds healed with it, seasons changed with it, and flesh rot with it. Marching time dispelled mystique like headwinds through fog, and that headwind pushed Colte through the halls of what was once a building drowned in mist.

Behind the first spruce door was a study, the second a conference room, the third an incinerator and so on, so forth, until the long, arduous hallway terminated in that domed library which in itself, was slowly clearing of fog, one shelf at a time.

Fog that clouded around faces, around figures so thoroughly it had once rendered entire people as nothing but footsteps on the edge of earshot, had all but disappeared. Gentile faces of gentry—posed and well-groomed—mixed with those whose ragged nature clung to them even as their pockets ballooned with contract money. Wizards, Witches, their profiles of varying make eventually found a place somewhere in the annals of Colte's memory, tucked in a far corner where familiarity didn't yet become friendliness.

Three years, and that was all the interaction Colte was comfortable with, yet that didn't make him much of an outsider either. Originally his imaginings painted the place the lair of a cult, but that impression had soon faded. Those who knew came and went, those who needed work stopped by, and those who devoted themselves to scripture stayed.

As if by some divine understanding, they stood confident that those in need, driven to death's door by the fate thrust upon them, would come to their's instead.

And they would. Time and time again.

And there, Reverence would stand, offering a smile so sly and untrustworthy only the truly desperate would ever consider accepting.

But they would. Time and time again.

Such dire straits didn't bless Colte with immunity to that man's demeanour, and so with every visit, he suffered it diligently. But that, too, dispelled like mysticism, now only a dull itch in his side, telling him that's where he'd be stabbed when Reverence finally found him out.

He stepped out of the heavy rain into the shelter of the building's awnings, having taken three detours to avoid the seasonal flooding. By his third Autumn spent in Trepedite, he'd gathered it was not only seasonal, but the slums most susceptible, the least nailed down, had long since learnt to adapt. For how large a presence the skyscrapers commanded, for how much of the sky they blotched out with brick, mortar and glass, they could not be further from their natural, leafy counterparts. As the concrete monoliths funnelled water down into the smallest streets, entire markets moved with the swelling fronts, finding new real estate a few blocks away, perched on the pinnacle of a gentle slope.

He shook the excess rain off his coat, the consequence of leaving his umbrella unattended while ordering a coffee earlier that morning. Riddled with holes, he doubted it was worth the energy used to steal it. An act of instinct, most likely, the life Iris might've led had the world turned a little different that day.

Although an abrupt parting, he didn't miss his umbrella, knowing that the person on the other end of the crime was just that desperate. Instead, what bothered him more was the voice in the back of his head, the little Reverent sitting in the folds of his brain, kicking his feet as he explained away the morning's inconvenience.

That is how the world is meant to be, he would say. It is wrong. From the ground up, the world is wrong.

Colte pushed open the door—and crossing the thin, invisible threshold—the rain outside ceased to be. The slums, the flooding, the umbrella missing from his left hand, all gone.

The warm crackle of a fire, solemn conversation wafting from a few doors down. Standing on the braided doormat, eavesdropping on the ebbs and flows of the late morning felt like standing in a home's foyer, moments before announcing his presence to the family inside. Nothing more sinister than that.

Colte brushed his shoes against the doormat, drying rather than cleaning them, before he stepped foot on the ever-polished floorboards. He looked up above his head, watching the chandelier rock back and forth, waiting for him to make a move. He headed down the hallway, and it obediently trailed him.

He passed the study, the conference room, the incinerator and so on, so forth, dipping his fingers into a bowl of plastic-wrapped toffees and pocketing a handful for later. Reverence had told him months ago that his footsteps were distinct; a fun fact he didn't find quite flattering, considering his line of work.

He changed his cadence, perverted his rhythm until the soft clack of his heels felt unnatural and alien.

The final door in the sequence loomed, a striking resemblance to the shape Iris's mind had assumed, and far too poetic for his liking. Considering what she had told him years prior, how she treated her past now that the last door was open, his venture into her past held little import to her.

It didn't matter, apparently. What was done was done. As soon as the final door had crumbled before her, the story of her first death was the subject of a mere curiosity: the cult itself and its connections and grown to become his primary concern.

She was sixteen years old now, talking as though she really was six thousand.

This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.

Colte opened the last door—a much less daunting task than his imagination made it out to be—and stepped inside.

"I thought it might be you," Reverence said, turning to greet Colte from his study, tucked away into the most corner-like area of the circular library.

"What gave it away?" Colte asked, out of morbid curiosity.

"The footsteps," Reverence smiled, putting Colte's hopes to rest. He shook his head, closing the door behind him.

"I thought I might get you this time."

"Ah, but it's not your walk, my friend, it's your shoes."

The sentence made Reverence's feat more confusing and impressive in one fell swoop, but he was long past sense anyhow. As polite as he was, as polite as many of the real believers were, they weren't any less insane than their more boisterous counterparts out leading the world by iron fists and brutal example.

"Good hunt?" the polite, insane man asked. "I trust you've returned with another head."

"Androl Tarapskis. He's dead."

"Good. Good. Should be the last of them. Our great unifier now has a clear path to victory, assuming he doesn't trip over his own laces."

"And this union will hold?" Colte asked.

"Five different countries they may be, but they're culturally similar. We have people in place, we've learnt from our past. A new superpower a decade down the line is worth our effort."

He nodded along with Reverence's words, justifying his work to himself with the people a unified Tarangof valley would help, assuming it held out.

"Vesmos will have another hound gnashing at its heels," Reverence said, standing from his office chair. He spoke of the evening playing field, where the more players with teeth big enough to chew pieces out of each other, the better.

Some believed peace was achievable through equal armament. Reverence seemed certain it was only a road to quicker destruction.

"Coffee? Tea?"

"No, but thank you."

"It's gotten colder again," Reverence said, his sunken eyes and deadened body not expressing a modicum of bother with it. "I dislike this time of year. Nonetheless, your reward?"

"If the library wills it."

Reverence could only give a thin smile in place of a chuckle. He stepped around his chair and led Colte across the library, following its radius to the centre.

"Quite a large job today," the ringleader said, precious few words of genuine praise amongst an otherwise honeyed demeanour. "I'll let you have the pick today."

"You will?" Colte asked, crossing his arms. "Unusually generous."

"It is your payment, after all. After three years, I don't see why not. They're not particularly…secrets, anyhow."

Colte nodded along as his eyes began wandering the room, unimpeded by Reverence's most likely arbitrary selection. Five books for every completed job, writing and documents painting a storied history and extensive lineage. From diaries to dossiers, the little outpost of fanatics—once nothing but a mere sect—had long since grown alongside high society rather than infiltrate it.

People and their connections, places and their once and future importance, all so specific and dated to the point of uselessness until placed in the right hands with the right context. All fascinating, but nothing yet mission critical; two magical words that Marie repeated like a broken record, more fed up with Reverence's random payment method by then than he was.

He paced around the room, finding books dated in the past ten years at worst, past year at best, until a collection of four leather-bound books—two diaries and two dossiers—rested against his chest.

"Good taste," Reverence said, side-eyeing Colte's selection. "An eye for power."

"I already know what the grunts do," Colte chuckled, his eyes wafting to an all-too-familiar corner. Reverence took notice.

"You've had your eyes on them for a while now, haven't you?"

"You indulged me briefly once, with the start of the opening verses."

"Because you look so longingly to them," he said. "It is our founding myth, but the resonances are precious to us. We don't hand them out lightly."

Five thin, faded-blue books blended in with those around it. Untitled, unmarked, unremarkable if Colte had never asked for them specifically.

"May I?" he asked, prodding the beehive.

"You may," it said, offering another honeyed show of generosity. Colte capitalised on it before Reverence could change his mind, and plucked the first book off the shelf, if only to satisfy his own curiosity.

Reverence smiled at him.

"Happy reading, and until utopia begins, my friend."

"Hello dear, I uh…I'm at the grocer and I forgot what colour apple you wanted me to buy. Red or green?"

"I asked for peaches," Elvera said with a smile, picking up the phone and trailing its wire behind her to the table. "I was beginning to wonder when you'd call."

"The jobs are getting tougher," Colte moaned into the receiver. "Comes with a pay rise, but the infrequency balances it out."

"Anything good this time?"

"Yes, frankly. Quite proud of myself. I can't confirm myself, but the people mentioned are probably still alive and kicking, and you can find all the events without trawling through a history book."

"Good start. Gives us something more concrete to work with," Elvera said, hoping the days of piecing together a network based on hundred-year-old information were behind her. Many of those mentioned in Colte's findings carried hereditary bloodlines to the present, often through aristocracy. Days of kings and queens were waning, but wealth and power seldom changed hands, and even rarer did the ethos of those who owned it.

And there stood Colte's little weekend society, waiting with open arms with promise of more. Their ideology didn't suit the greedy, but their methods certainly did the short-sighted.

"I'd hope so," Colte said. "And…while I was there, I indulged myself a little. Do you remember the beginning of that fairytale? The one about the Spirit of Creation and—"

"And Destruction; yeah, I remember," Elvera said, the small spark disrupting routine rousing her from her slouch. "What? Did you find the next part?"

"I did. The first book opens with the fairytale. I know we don't need it anymore, but…"

"No, no," Elvera said, grabbing a pen and notepad. "You included this, right?"

"Yes, but separately. Addressed for you, but it's running along the same Aether line. Hold on, let me get it."

A tense few moments of rustling later, with a grunt, Colte sat back down with a creak from either the chair or his bones. He flipped through the pages, one soft scrape after another.

"Are you writing this down?"

"Yes, get on with it."

"All right, all right. I'll try to keep it short. Ahem…"

Elvera rolled her eyes, exasperated, but welcoming the feeling. She sank into her chair as Colte's grumbles soon transitioned into intelligible speech.

"The Spirit of Destruction broke free of the eternal dance with Creation and first sought the corruption's offspring; for where there was smoke, there would also be fire. Watching the world from above, it crossed the oceans and sailed over mountains to where humans first grew from villages into cities. It gazed upon the settlement's great walls, and ventured inside. There, in the city's heart, lay a brave Princess, strong of will and of mighty character.

"The Spirit of Destruction asked the Princess why her walls were built so high, and she pointed to the hills on the horizon, where on the other side, barbarians lay in camps by day, and raided her town by night. Her people lived in fear, clutching to their loved ones as the sun set on the horizon. The Spirit of Destruction, believing it found a purpose, waited for the sun to set.

"The barbarians came, knocking on the city walls with arrows and siege engines. By the sun's return to the sky, not a single was left. As though a silent wind had carried them, they were gone. The city rejoiced, and the Princess thanked the Spirit, asking it to continue with her, as she knew of the next barbarian camp. The Spirit agreed. Again and again. One after another, until camps turned into settlements, settlements into towns. Only on the Princess's deathbed did the Spirit of Destruction look back on the empire it had made, the people it had slain to create it.

"Its Princess, until her last breath, insisted it was for the good of her people; people who still starved on the streets as the borders of their empire grew. With her last wisp of life, the Princess gave the Spirit a name of her own: Tetrica. Once the Princess, now Empress, died, that empire crumbled into nothing. Empires into towns, towns into settlements, settlements into camps."

Colte's voice trailed off, and the spine creaked as he closed the book. Elvera listened to the silence for a moment, waiting for Colte's quip to end it, however it didn't.

"It's not a…stunning story," he finally said. "But—"

"To know it might be somewhere in Iris's memory. Poor girl."

Archaeology may have uncovered the remnants of the unnamed Princess and her empire, but the Spirit's story itself may have been lost to time, cannibalised by fictions of gods and a divine monarch, leaving one, weakly bound book as its last resting place.

"The forward says that it's the thirty-third copy, each one surviving a few hundred years. There's five in total."

"Get me more of them. I'll talk to Elliot about it; he'll be able to ask her if she wants to know."

"Yes, ma'am," Colte said, regaining a modicum of his earlier spark. "I'll let you know how things go on my end. How is Iris doing? While I'm still here."

"Well," Elvera started, resting her legs on the dining table. "I'd rather you ask her that yourself next time you come home, but she's doing good. I heard she's going on an excursion tomorrow into the catacombs."

"Catacombs? That tuition fee isn't all for show, I guess."

"And neither is your pay. Make it worthwhile and come back with a bottle of something nice, copy?"

Colte chuckled, once more exasperated, and Elvera had to admit she had forced it out of him that time for her own enjoyment.

"Copy that," he said.