THE REFORGED TRILOGY: BOOK 2 — SWORD OF DREAMS
Chapter 8: Ruins
“It’s easy to die for your people, Consul Varrin. But can you kill for them? Harder still, can you live for them?”
– Julius Ferro, Prian consul (109 PA)
Gavriel stood at the edge of the shattered floor. One of the frequent groundquakes had torn the building open like an oversized paper sack, spilling out everything inside. Concrete and rusting reinforcement bars lay scattered all around. Linoleum curled in discolored strips at the base of cracked and uneven walls. Every window gaped emptily, glass long ago reduced to sharpened shards that gleamed dully among the refuse. Bent and groaning iron beams ran through the walls, the last failing bones in the sagging slab.
Someone lived here once. The building used to be one of the ubiquitous residence blocks, a termite mound of cheap apartments. A framed photograph still clung crookedly to one of the walls and fading silhouettes clustered in the middle of the picture. They posed with comically flailing limbs in a campsite of tall, thin trees and triangular tents. Their faces were all long gone, bleached into ghostly emptiness by the colorless sunlight streaming in through the torn and broken walls.
A cold, biting wind tugged at Gavriel’s black robe. The orange setting sun haloed him in celestial fire and turned him into a dark silhouette, an eclipse forced unnaturally into the shape of a man.
The city below was a tiny, crowded thing, pressed uncomfortably close into the valley between steep, rocky mountain spires. The buildings were all ugly and too narrow, each squashed tightly between their neighbors. A million crooked chimneys covered the city in a dirty shroud of gray smoke. Dim car tail lights choked the crowded streets and even from his high vantage point, the honking horns and angry, shouting voices floated up to Gavriel’s ears.
Every line of the city was jagged, cut and torn by the unsettled centuries. No one repaired them. There was no money. Even the mountains were broken, settled and then sundered once more.
“Anaa’ma vanii.”
At Gavriel’s command, a glimmering splinter of glass flung itself off through the wide crack and out into the city. It shone in the sun for a fraction of a second and then vanished into the distance.
Gavriel tucked his arms into his sleeves. He was stronger now, his magic more powerful than ever, but his body was still old — over a century old — and frustratingly frail. Gavriel had no intention of letting an errant chill kill him yet. There was far too much to do.
A soft fluttering behind him made Gavriel turn around. Xartasia stood behind him, perfect and lovely as an angel, even surrounded in ruin. Her white dress and wings seemed untouchable by the grime. Only her long, inky black hair had anything like color. And, of course, her beautiful violet eyes. The Arcadian princess curtsied deeply to Gavriel.
“You wished to see me?” she asked.
Gavriel looked outside again. “I can’t believe I’m back here.”
Xartasia stepped up beside him and followed his gaze. “Does it not remind you of your own homeworld?”
“Zeos was a paradise compared to this cesspool.” He swept his age-spotted hand across the cityscape outside. “This is the problem, princess. Do you know what the death rate is on this planet? One in four by age forty. One in three by sixty years. A quarter will die in accidents. A fifth in assorted criminal acts or their ridiculous duels. Almost a third will die of disease.”
“They are suffering,” Xartasia agreed. “It seems a poetic home for you and your followers, Gavriel.”
“I thought so, too, the first time I came to Prianus,” he said, shaking his head. The wind changed direction, carrying the sounds of the city away. Suddenly, all Gavriel could hear was the creaking of fir trees and the lonely calls of hunting birds. “There are two kinds of Prians: the desperate and the noble. It’s the second that causes me no end of trouble.”
Xartasia pursed her lips and said nothing.
“Staying here is going to be difficult,” Gavriel said. “But it is only a temporary home, a moment to stop and prepare ourselves before we take to the stars one last time. Even this broken ruin still has something to offer us. How many Arcadians are there on Prianus?”
“We are still receiving numbers,” Xartasia answered. “But about two hundred thousand. Surely, one of those will suit our needs.”
“Yes. We just need to find them.”
