Cloudfyre Falling - a dark fairy tale (14 page)

Gargaron stumbled back into beer
garden. Apparently the dead had no interest in worldly possessions
for there his bag lay on the bench where he had left it, Hor the
Cutter’s old hammer poking out the top, and the remainder of his
provisions spilling forth. Gargaron fished out the gourd and drank…
though two gulps later the vessel were dry.

He held it curiously at arm’s
length, scrutinising it for some time, as if the thing had betrayed
him.

Grimah in turn watched
him.

‘
Blast,’ he said irritably. He
stared back at his horse, as if the beast might offer some
solution. But the steed simply watched him
indifferently.

Eventually
Gargaron considered Autumn’s water reservoir. ‘
A mission then
,’ Gargaron croaked,
holding the gourd aloft victoriously. ‘
To
the town supply! For the sake of all the kingdom we shall fill our
canisters!
’

Both faces of the horse looked at
him, ears flicking. Neither appeared amused.

Gargaron dropped his arm, stared at his steed
for a more positive, sympathetic response. He got none. Gargaron
shrugged.

‘
Come
then
,’ he said flatly as he picked up his
pack and slung it over his shoulder. ‘
Quest or no, we do require water
.’

1

THE centre of Autumn were much
like other giant settlements. Its animist cathedral lay on the
northern edge of a large rounded clearing where towering central
posts hung with animal sacrifices and the cobbles around these
posts stained a deep crimson by centuries of blood spillage. Stone
gutters, five here in Autumn (the number varied from region to
region), ran out several metres to where a shallow pond lay. Of
course, it currently lay empty of blood, though it too were well
stained. The five Faces Of Autumn rested there; heads sculpted from
blood stone, with mouths gaping wide, always thirsty, drinking down
blood whenever it were offered. During ritual sacrifice the gutters
gushed and the pool would brim and the Faces Of Autumn would take
their fill and if the great spirits were appeased the eyes in each
Face would come open and glow white.

Today, as Gargaron passed by, animal remains
(mostly bone and flaky skin) hung from the sacrificial posts and
the pool lay empty and the Faces Of Autumn slept, their stone eyes
shut. For all Gargaron knew they would now likely sleep
forever.

A network of aqueducts and pipes
crisscrossed Autumn’s airspace; the town planners had come up with
the novel and very modern method of supplying all abodes with
running water. All pipes met at a confluence near the reservoir.
The junction of each ceramic pipe were a sculpted form, a torso
with a shapely leg, or a chest with an arm, or a head with its
mouth gaped. And the entire network were fed from the
reservoir.

The reservoir were presided over
by Watchguard. Or at least were, before this blight. It consisted
of three colossal spiral shells that once belonged to the three
feared Viper Squid that had terrorised the aqua-ships on Deepsound.
Their squid shells had been collected from the Skeleton Coast a
hundred years gone. The shells’ original inhabitants had long since
been slaughtered and diced up and cooked. And the shells a gift to
the old giant ruler, Meycheren IV. They were said to be of a
magical property, that any water poured into them, no matter how
brackish or rancid, would be made instantly fresh and clean and
pure.

Here the shells were perched on
enormous granite plinths on the south’n’eastwun district of Autumn.
Their enormous mouths yawned open at the heavens, beckoning rain;
of course this were primarily how water came to be stored within
them. At their spiral centre a large brass tap had long ago been
installed and a large pipe ran down from each to the confluence of
feeder pipes that served the city. An ingenious set up.

2

Gargaron pushed into the abandoned
compound through the large iron gate. As he were filling his last
gourd with water and allowing his horse a drink, he gazed idly into
the street, lost in his thoughts, when he imagined he spied
someone.

It were so fleeting he wondered if
he had simply imagined it.

But as he watched, he were given a
fright when some humanoid figure simply and casually strolled past
the gate.

He stopped what he were doing. Not
believing what he had seen.

He climbed down from the granite
and strode out into the street.

There were no-one to be
seen.

He stood looking about. He would
have sworn that someone had walked by. But the street lay empty.
Perhaps he were so starved of conversation and suitable
companionship that his mind were here conjuring phantoms. Unless
the after effects of the three kilderkins of Easthills Ale he had
poured down his throat were playing with him.

And yet…

His eyes narrowed as he spotted
something. A shape. A swish of peculiar colour.

The more he looked the more he
realised that a figure were standing in the shade of a mash-smoke
parlour. Poised by the wall, its body mysteriously taking on the
characteristics of what it were stood against: wood grain, metal
window frames, glass that reflected the sunny street.

A mirror
man?
he thought.
Is that what it be? By Mahis, is it so?

Gargaron were not sure what he
ought to do. The thing did not move. It made Gargaron uneasy,
cautious, wary.

He approached slowly the parlour
and then stopped. ‘I see you,’ he declared gently. ‘I see you
there. Come out now. I mean you no harm.’

It were its eyes that betrayed it. Blue, blue
like Helfire.

‘
I am friend not foe,’ Gargaron
offered it genially. ‘Please, I’ll not hurt you. Come out from
there. I wish to talk. I have been somewhat starved of company of
late. Please. I promise you, I be a friend.’

He could appreciate its reticence.
It were said that mirror men were extremely shy by nature. Folk
claimed they were the ancestors of the first peoples, the first
men, and none too many were left in the world, and the ones that
were, remained elusive, not wishing to be discovered for fear of
being hunted and their skin harvested; their skin being said to be
enchanted, that it could render its wearer invisible. Yet many folk
proclaimed mirror men were naught but fantasies of over active
imaginations.

Gargaron himself may have believed
as much if he had not witnessed a mirror man as a boy. His father
had taken him to a place where he had chanced upon a nomadic tribe
who kept one. They were seeking a buyer. They wanted to sell him.
They held him captive within a cramped cage of bones. When Gargaron
were shown him he could not see him at first, for the mirror man
had taken on all the colours and patterns and textures of the cage
about him. But amidst a peculiar blur of light Gargaron had seen
its sapphire blue eyes. For years afterwards his father had berated
himself for not having the asking price for the poor soul, for not
bartering harder, for not having the means of taking that sad
looking mirror man away from those wretched nomads and setting him
free.

Gargaron meant to take a step backwards to
demonstrate he meant no harm, but to his surprise, the thing moved
from its hiding place.

3

At first Gargaron felt heartened,
even excited at the prospect of perhaps befriending this soul, of
having someone at last to talk to. But as the being stepped into
the sunshine he grew wary and confused.

The thing that came away from the
wall looked not organic at all, but metallic. When it stepped out
into sunlight parts of it gave off intermittent sparks, like embers
teased by wind gusts. It approached Gargaron. And Gargaron took a
step backwards, not out of courtesy this time, but out of
caution.

It were no mirror man, he knew
now. This were, as far as he knew, one of the metal abominations
built by a sorcerer known as Hawkmoth. Gargaron gripped the hilt of
his greatsword and took another step back, and then another. ‘Come
no closer,’ he warned.

The thing stopped
and cocked its head. ‘
Oh?
’ it said, its voice like someone
talking through tin, as if some thin film of metal were vibrating.
‘
Oh? But I a-ammm friend
n-n-not foe. I
’ll not hurt yooooo. Come
out from there. Come out from there. Come out from… I wish to talk.
I have been somewhat starved, starved, staaaarrved… of company.
Please. I promise you, I am, I am, your friend. I mean you no harm.
I mean you no harm. I mean you no harm. I mean you no
haaaaaaarrrghhh…
’

Another flash of
burning red sparks burst from its peculiar neck joints. Its head
turned leftways, and kept turning, rotating entirely. Gargaron
noticed four sets of strange glowing eyes as it went, spaced about
its cranial band. He also noticed now it had lost one of its arms.
Its head kept rotating, at the same rate, not speeding nor slowing.
Gargaron saw a series of numbers engraved into one of its shoulder
panels. In harsh block letters it read
UJIK-L78 54XX
. Were this its
designation?

When its head continued to turn
without any sign of letting up, Gargaron withdrew his sword.
Gargaron had heard too many troubling tales about these metal men
than to feel undisturbed in its presence. He were well aware that
in the past year one of them had lost its reasoning in the lake
village of Froghopper. It had lain waste to the entire population
with what folk claimed were searing beams of fire before
incinerating its own metallic head and whatever served as its
brain.

Gargaron stood
there watching this
mekanik
, as some called them. This
Ujik. The two heads of Grimah watching it keenly. Gargaron were
close now to striding forward and having the damn thing’s head off.
He would not end up like those poor sods from
Froghopper.

Its metal skull
at last stopped rotating. And it regarded Gargaron for a hefty
length of time, before, again, it spoke. ‘
I have come in search… I haaaaaave come in search of
you
,’ it said. ‘
A
quest q-q-quest set for me by Mastaer Hawkmoth. A quest to fetch
the giant he said, the g-giant that wand-wand, that wanders the
Steppe, the giant who moves towaaaaaard
Aaaautumn.
’

It watched Gargaron, its arm
twitching.

‘
There be no-no
otheeeeerrrrrs… no giants left to be found aliiive. None but you…
you… you… you… you… you… yooooooooou…
’

It stared at Gargaron. Its arm
stopped twitching. It did not move. The lights in each of its eyes
faded out.

4

Gargaron stood there regarding it,
curious, fist poised around the hilt of his greatsword. The mekanik
remained still. Were this some ploy? Or were this thing unwell? Had
it passed on—in whatever way a mechanical creature might indeed
pass on? Gargaron felt a peculiar mix of emotions at this thought.
This were the first entity to speak to him, the first words he had
heard other than his own, in almost eight rotations of Melus. If he
believed the tales to come out of Froghopper, this were certainly a
creature to fear… But if the Froghopper killer had been naught but
a rogue individual? What if, against everything Gargaron had heard
or believed, these mekaniks were actually a peaceful entity? If so,
here were one such anomaly potentially dying before Gargaron’s
eyes. He pitied it all of a sudden. A selfish part of him wanted to
prevent it dying, he craved friendship, company, conversation, if
that came from something constructed out of enchanted metal and
chemicals then what of it?

He were about to
step forward when the lights glowed again in the mekanik’s head and
it straightened. ‘
Behold, a
com-communication fraaa from Mastaer Haaaawkmoth
.’ And when next it spoke the voice that came forth were
booming and deep, as if from the throat of a grizzled old man.
‘
This message be for the ears of the giant
I have spied traipsing across Chandry’s Steppe. We do not know each
other, yet it seems circumstances might be set to change that. I
have dispatched this droyd to track you down. I hope you forgive me
if your intention were to remain alone for I appreciate that in
this decimated world we now find ourselves that there may be
certain benefits to roaming about it and taking what you want when
it pleases you. Alas I have sent more like it to other survivors
like yourself that I have managed to locate. I make a plea for your
assistance as I believe I understand what has caused this Doom. I
also believe I know how to overturn it. If you wish to aid me in a
quest of great importance, allow this droyd to escort you to my
humble abode and I shall divulge further details. Travel safe my
friend.
’

With that, the
mekanik, or
droyd
, as the voice had stated,
strode purposefully away. Gargaron watched it momentarily,
pondering what he had heard and what it were doing. It did not turn
back to him but perhaps it viewed him from the blue eyes in the
rear of its head.