CHAPTER 1 - Untitled Chapter

“I told you we shouldn’t have killed him.”

I fight the ache in my weary neck to look up, checking over my shoulder, my ragged breath giving up on a wry chuckle as it leaves. “Why, think they know? He slipped without any help from us anyway.”

“I’m positive that distinction won't matter to them,” my companion emphasizes.

Gradually growing on the horizon we left behind, a vigil train rumbles down the rails after us. Or at least, in the same direction as us. It sounds its usual, howling horn, not the battle siren that so often roars from other trains bound for the southern coast. All the same, we’re going to have to get out of its way if it doesn’t divert.

As long as my head is up, I take stock of where we’ve come to by now. In the distance, a pillar of light rises from an open, concrete pit, like a golden stem holding onto the edge of our scab-red sun as it tries to sink from the sky. Huddled around the light, a city skyline also rises, all tapered towers and gray pyramids, their climbing mats of boreal kudzu inextricable from the molded shells and brickwork. This is Nerua, the Nayre Dominion’s gateway into Central Rashuwa.

But we’re not going there so that’s all you’re getting. Sorry.

To the tune of squeaky machinery moving in time with our tireless pumping, forking rails guide our handcar. Hopefully, they’ll get us out of the way of the train gaining on us. Occasionally we spare a glance to our surroundings, but we’ve been at this for hours, just like all of the past several days. Except to crane our necks at the sound of anything else on the track, our heads mostly remain bowed in each other’s direction, ahead and behind. 

Let me introduce ourselves. Ahead of me is my traveling companion, Yhana Iyalesh. A jackal morph, like myself, though quite a bit taller. However tall you’re picturing now it’s actually just a little more than that. Her red hair, tied up neat at the start of the day, now hangs disorderly around her pointed face, canine ears drooping in kind. We’re nearing our limit, but I couldn’t have made it this far without her, though as far as I can tell, she’s got nothing to gain from the journey aside from fulfilling her sense of compassion.

When we first met, she actually tried to eat me within seconds of becoming aware of me; only slightly more extreme than the standard Paliputran hello, so we moved past it quickly and by now we’ve been through a lot together.

Ahead of her is myself, a nondescript heap of mismatched shawls and scarves and so on, hiding nearly all my features from those who might see us. Officially I’m a missing person, and I’m trying to stay that way. I’ve become the container for a rare and valuable contraption that just so happens to be dissolving me into hallucinogenic tar from the inside and there’s no cure. But the people I’m running from could at least treat it.

The sensible thing to do then, would have been to turn myself over and let them do that, except a voice in my head told me not to. If that sounds a little concerning, then good, because it really should, but not for the reasons you think. I’m still trying to find the owner of that voice.

The one time my old handlers came close to actually acquiring me, our hesitation to comply brought out the hostile edge in the lone vigilant on us. Everyone regretted the outcome, none more than him I’m sure. If there had been any tasteless comedic value in the sheer absurdity of his unfortunate fall, then it had thoroughly lapsed and allowed horror to take its place by the time he stopped bouncing off the rocks and hit the water. The weight of his own chains and copper tiles will let the river’s silt bury him in short order.

All this will make more sense when I get where I’m going. That’s what I’m telling myself, anyway. At least putting my thoughts into words has killed plenty of time.

The caster on board the vigil’s train adjusts the switch without ever needing to touch it, diverting to pass us at the last possible fork. Up until now, it’s been following our route with a disconcerting similarity, but I don’t think we’ve been found out.

“Stop here,” Yhana eventually speaks up, prompting me to lift my head again. 

We roll for a bit, gradually slowing to a crawl, when she jumps down from the handcar to throw a switch the normal way. “We’ll rest up ahead,” she says. She points down the track, still a fair distance away, to a railyard where crates and cars rest in stacks, light glowing from their windows like those in the city.

“Is it safe?” I ask, lifting my hood to get a better look.

“Maybe,” she shrugs, climbing back on board. “But I’ll take that risk. You look exhausted too, we need a break for the evening.”

She’s right, so we divert once more. The ebb and flow of the haphazard switching of tracks left that way by so many past arrivals and departures carry us into the railyard without further adjustment. As we approach, the scent of spices mixes with harsh chemicals in a way that dares stoke our hunger but prevents us from truly indulging in the thought. The little railway village, despite its circumstances, charms in a way I can only imagine a Nerua local might find rustic. Some of these structures probably haven’t rolled in a long time. Electric cables, clotheslines, and little artistic flourishes from all over the region reach overhead from car to car in a zigzagging but uninterrupted flow. There are even some designs from as far east as Elengyit, a little island nation under Dominion rule. Even if never in any official capacity, I know that feeling. Recently I’ve only gotten more familiar with it, to my great resentment.

“Can you get this thing onto a side rail so it’s out of the way?” Yhana asks, taking her hands off and assessing the area. “I’ll see if I can get us some supplies and then I’ll meet you there.” She gestures at a trio of double-decker passenger cars, remade into an inn.

“That works for me,” I agree; it’s all the confirmation she needs to bound off again and leave me to it. I should have asked her to change the next switch for me. I could probably do it from here, but casting leaves traces and I’m not trying to be easy to follow. Everyone hits those switches though, it’s not like they can identify an individual from the residue. Still, I climb down, conceding victory to my nerves.

It doesn’t take long doing it alone, though I feel significantly more vulnerable on my own. But as self-conscious as I am, I’m the only one paying attention. As long as I stay covered, I’ll be far from the oddest sight here. The vehicle I creak to a halt next to is partly alive, its leathered muscle twitching with a hint of something chemically resembling agitation. On the other side of the main set of tracks, a four-meter tall squirrel morph purchases loose bronze teeth from a human with a porcelain face in his mobile dental clinic. On my way to the inn, a three-armed busker playing a double-necked instrument extends a taloned foot to pull their hat closer and assess the dead battery another passerby dropped into it.

The permanent aftertaste of oil on the air outside is thankfully cut through by the aroma of sweet smoke as I enter the traincar. The interior is nice, even cozy. The bar saves a long oval-shaped tract of floorspace for itself flush with the far wall, sacrificing some seating, but they’re not terribly busy. Lively, but not packed. Cozy. I even blend right in; plenty of people are all covered up anyway, some as part of a custom, others simply because it’s a cold day. Most days on Paliputra are cold, even toward the equator. We don’t really have seasons here, and the incandescent ball of rotting radiance that takes up our sky doesn’t provide much in the way of warmth or light.

I’ve arrived before Yhana, so I end up standing awkwardly near the entryway for a little while. Nobody minds, everyone is involved enough in their own part of the low-energy clamor, enough to almost completely drown out the sound of the performer just outside. One of the corner booths hosts a small shrine burning incense. Amid the votive candles, figurines, filigrees, and clipped obituaries, there’s a little portrait set up on a pedestal. I guess the subject before I even get a clear view of her. But there she is, tapered snout, grayscale fur, blind eyes to match. Warden Samsara, protector and friend. News of her death traveled quickly. She gave her life and more to prolong mine; I’m still learning the full extent of what it actually cost her, in the end. For now, it seems her reputation hasn’t suffered. Whatever she was trying to do before we left the city on that train, it’ll certainly count as treason if the vigil ever figure it out. And I’m the evidence, aren’t I? I wish I had something to leave in offering, but in lieu of that, I’ll do all I can to see to it that her sacrifice wasn’t in vain.

The shrine shares space with a radio, relaying an impassioned bulletin covering the damage report of yet another bombing far in the east, on the other side of the gorge that splits the continent in two. Hardly anyone is paying attention to it. It’s become a constant part of daily life here. All you can do is hope the warkites aren’t over your head when the sirens go off. Or at least, hope that it’s only warkites. I think back to a time not so long ago at all during my stay in the capital when something worse did arrive. It was the driving incident that put me all the way out here instead, where I learned who my allies are, and where I lost one of them. I hope whomever she tried to get me in contact with can actually help, when we find them.

If we find them.

My body jerks as Yhana’s hand settles onto my shoulder, pulling me back into the moment, but I relax upon realizing that it’s her. 

“All taken care of?” I ask.

She nods, and leads the way to seats at the bar. “I rifted enough to last us a few days at least.”

That’s good, a void coordinate is more secure than any pack, though she carries one anyway. Some cargo doesn’t translate between here and the great nothing that exists below our reality. It would be dangerous to even try.

She gets into her seat easily, she’s of a much more common stature around here, but I have to use the accessibility rungs intended for humans and local Nayrean morphs, but the Dominion is so cosmopolitan it’s better to make everything big. That said, the rungs are a little bit small for me, which makes getting up to the bar even more of an ordeal under the layers of cloth. There was a time Yhana would have absolutely taken the opportunity to tease me about it, but we’re both so tired.

Her, more so than me, despite her earlier urging. Only one of us is undead; she still tires out just like any living person might after five days traveling rails on our own muscle. When the bartender comes by, she’s quick to order something strong to pick us up.

Taking the edge off is the last thing we need, better to have some clarity. A few minutes later, we’ve got a nice big kettle of sunset-purple tea to share.

“Have you gotten anything else from your guide out west?” she asks in between blowing off steam from her cup.

I shake my head. “I haven’t stopped taking coagulant long enough to check,” I reply. “But if I do, I’ll be too weak to help you pump.”

“We’ll just keep doing what we’re doing I suppose. But what happens when we run out of river to follow like they said?”

“Then I stop for a bit and reassess.” I leave it at that for a moment, taking a long, slow sip of the astringent tea, but I feel the need to add, “You don’t have to keep going with me if that happens. You’ve already done a lot.”

“I needed a vacation anyway,” she says with a casual handwave.

“This is a vacation?”

“Well, you saw how bad privateering can go, firsthand,” she reminds me, reflecting on the day we met. “And it’s not like the actual navy where they’ll find me a new crew, I have to do that work myself. So far, I like this better than standing in line to fill out a bunch of forms to then go stand in another line, so on and so forth.”

“I guess I can’t argue with that.”

“I guess you can’t,” she agrees.

I shrug, but I’m reassured. She’s good at that. Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think it’s the full story, but I take comfort in her conviction.

We have a nice little quiet moment of rest for a while, largely ignoring the sounds of other customers. After a time, during a light meal of some sort of river mollusk on a half shell and some spongy bread to go with it, our ears perk at the sound of something else coming down the tracks. The sound builds into more than a noise, it’s a rumbling that sets the glassware on the shelves shaking. A low, discordant, familiar note joins it in short blasts, signalling a stop.

Through the windows, I watch a familiar short train divide the yard in two, a wall of black and red and gold. Unmistakably, it’s the one that had been tailing us; an official Dominion vehicle and not something this community is accustomed to, if everyone else’s raised attention is anything to go by.

Momentarily, I’m overcome with a flash of “oh fucking Lurrah they’re here for me” but I shake it off and clear my throat, getting the equine bartender’s attention once more. “Could I get a sleeping compartment?”

“Just the one?” she and Yhana ask in unison.

I nod, my battery already in hand, clamps grasped by a finger and thumb to pay up. He takes the requisite charge out of it and hands it back to me along with a notched paper card.

I don’t even have to say anything, Yhana gets the idea. The back edge of the card unlocks the rampwell at the far end of the car, the other is for the designated compartment. I won’t be needing it.

“They’re probably going to check the beds too, you know,” she points out.

“I know that, we just need an exit that they won’t be trying to enter through.”

The next door slides open onto a short connecting bridge, mostly enclosed by guardrails, but there’s enough space between the highest one and the roof to squeeze through. Checking the train, four vigilants disembark. Their rune-etched, oxidized copper tiles jingle softly as the wind whips at the long black veils they weigh down to obscure their faces below an inverted triangular veneer. Grandiose tryhards, all of them.

It does, however, make it difficult to tell where their eyes are, or if they even have them, but they’ve made no indication they’ve seen us. The moment they disappear under the awning, I start climbing, clawtips searching for something to grip on top of the roof. 

“Just gapwalk out, it’ll be less work,” she insists.

“They’ll be checking for casting residue,” I decline.

“Nobody checks for casting residue!” she groans.

Despite my stubbornness, it doesn’t pan out. I almost end up slipping back down with a frankly embarrassing amount of noise, but from above me and to the side, Yhana takes my hand, pulling me out and for a moment, I’m swinging backwards away from the walkway, at an angle toward the main car. With a sudden lurch, she pulls me up and falls backward with me, landing softly on the roof.

“…Gapwalked?” I ask, feeling her nod in reply. 

“You really should trust me,” she follows up, letting me go. The better plan, obviously, is to simply not give them a chance to catch us. I’m coming around to it. “They’re not gonna check the roof anyway. Where to?”

“That way,” I say, pointing across the open space between our car and one behind it. “We can climb down out of sight and come back for our handcar when they come up.”

As I propose that, a shout carries up from downstairs, followed by a heavy crash. The vigil and clientele observe a second or two of silence before erupting into vicious physical disagreement.

“Sounds like they were here for someone else,” Yhana suggests, getting ready to make the leap.

“Lucky us.” I roll my mechanical spine as I ready myself to follow her.

The performer outside has scurried off, and the dentist rattles down the tracks in the general direction we came from. It must be getting ugly down there. We’ll know soon. We hurl ourselves out into the open air, but we come up short. It’s fine though; Yhana thinks quickly. In my peripheral vision I watch the light bend around her as she folds up into nothingness. At the same time, she starts to unfold at the edge of the roof ahead of me, like an octopus squeezing out of a crevice in thin air. It takes less than a second, and once again, my hand is in hers as she hoists me up with a grunt of exertion.

“Have you ever been told you’re heavier than you look?” she asks through her teeth.

“I had to regrow an entire leg not even a week ago,” I say, batting my ears in derision. “All that mass has to come from somewhere.”

“Just eat right before healing like a regular person.”

I’d almost argue I heal better than most, at this point, though this regenerative ability of mine is a somewhat recent development. But so’s the melting.  Don’t steal transfigurative blessings from gods, it’ll rot you from the inside out. It feels like something out of a cautionary tale, but if all this is recap to you, you definitely know better by now. No crossing active war zones, no evil radioactive bones, and definitely no creepy, secretive, moody, cursed, person-sized dolls. Fuck him especially.

Scaling down from here isn’t hard. The leftover residue of dampening pressure waves to constrain the sound of our landing on a lower roof will be less noticeable than the noise would have been. I’m not as acrobatic as I could be, wearing so many folds of cloth I have to consider their weight, but I get by, especially with Yhana supporting me. We make our way all the way down to the ground and trace a wide circle around a few of the cars on our path across several sets of tracks. Our departure has grown a bit clumsy as it’s dragged on, but it doesn’t matter now, we’re back at our handcar. 

Yhana climbs on and starts pumping even before I’m fully on board, rolling us around back of the inn. “Cutting it a little close, aren’t we?” she asks with a breathless chuckle.

The sound of a small indoor explosion answers her, and through a couple of the open windows, dense arcs of smoky gray particulate break out. Itching powder, standard crowd control and worse than it sounds; usually they airdrop the stuff so as not to be anywhere near it. 

“Faster,” I grunt, trying to turn my oncoming panic into productivity as I work the handle. 

“Don’t say it, just do it!” Yhana urges back, picking up speed with me. Spinal implant or not, my back is going to hate me after this.

As people crowd for the door, one of the other customers opens a window and actually flings herself out to get away from the powder, but it’s already in her fur. I yelp and flinch away as the bear woman lands in a heap on our platform with force sufficient to rock it like a raft on a stormy sea. She flips onto her back, trying to wipe the dust from her eyes, but only succeeds in spreading a thin coating of it everywhere, including in our general vicinity as well on her way onto the ground. The wind will scatter it soon enough but it only takes a moment’s exposure to feel the effects. Yhana keeps us going for a bit but her hindclaws scratch the floor in irritated unrest as the powder affects her as well. With similar urgency, I’m scrambling to remove a few layers of capes and cloaks, touching as little as possible though the pricking burn has made itself at home in my palms, emulating parasites searching for a way out of my skin. It’s a small mercy that none got in my eyes.

“What do I do with these?!” I ask, balling them up to try to contain the particles.

“Just t-toss them!” she urges, trying to hold it together. Her teeth clench. There are tears in her eyes. But she’s trying. “D-don’t ssssstep in it, fuck!…”

I do just that; It’s a shame, but she’s got so many more than are even on me. They flutter away, deceptively cozy-looking but they’ll give anyone who makes the mistake of putting them on a very bad day if they’re touched dry. I don’t even watch where they blow off to, more concerned with the scene behind us. That train isn’t moving yet and it’s faced the wrong way anyway.

Aside from the persistent, crawling sting in our extremities, it’s about as smooth an escape as we could have hoped for, under the circumstances. Being far enough away now to cast with a bit less restraint, Yhana fishes some water out of her coordinate, quickly tending to herself and washing away the sensation of standing on needles before handing the bottle over. I empty the rest onto my palms, feeling the powder dissolve and lessen its assault on my skin. The lingering effects will wear off over the course of hours. The body still has a histamine response to see through, dulled as it is in me. I feel bad for Yhana; her nerve endings are healthy and alive, and all the worse off for it.

As relief wells over us, so does a shared, uneven, almost manic giggle of tired triumph.

“Goddddds, I’m exhausted!” My cackling fit breaks into a frustrated yowl.

“I’m about to fall apart!” Yhana wails, her shoulders just as shaky with the aftershocks of her involuntary laughter.

We laugh until our throats dry from it. It doesn’t dawn on me immediately, but I think again of the vigilant who fell. All things about our situation considered, sheer absurdity is the aspect that outlives all others. After some time, we come back to our senses, settling back into grim focus on our journey. We leave the railway community behind, and with it, any promise of rest for the evening. The badlands roll out ahead of us, sparse and scrubby, cast in dull purple. Even this far out west, the five distant suns of the Ravel hang low over the horizon this time of year, crowning the sunset.

“It’s so far,” I say. The quiver in my voice now is almost tearful. “It’s too far.”

“Hey, hey, we’re almost there, aren’t we?” Yhana asks. It’s a question for herself as much as it is for me.

I nod a couple of times, meeting her gaze. “Then we tough it out. We can’t turn back now,” she says. “For Samsara.”

“For Samsara,” I agree. She gave everything to get us this far. We have to finish this. “One more sleepless night won’t hurt us, right?”

Yhana nods too, feeling our collective resolve mend itself. “It’ll take more than that to stop us now.”