Chapter 79: The Travelers

Chapter 79 -079: The Travelers

It took a long while before they could find

a city. The land had stretched on, vast and silent beneath the dark red miasma, and the two travelers had crossed it without hurry or rest until, at last, the shapes of buildings rose out of the haze.

Its streets were narrow and packed close, lit by hanging braziers that burned a sinister yellow-green. The smell of ash and iron and something akin to faintly rotten meat filled the air and hung there heavily, thick enough that a human would have tasted it with every breath.

What struck Aldridge was how almost ordinary it all looked beneath the strangeness. The buildings weren’t carved from bones or grown from stained horns, as most human literature had portrayed them. They were made of stone and timber, patched up here and there. Overhead, washing lines stretched between the upper rooms, hung with pieces of clothing dyed in deep reds and greys, colours apparently favoured by the locals. It was, in every visible way, a city.

Albeit a poor one by the standards of the other races.

No banners hung from the buildings, and no statues stood at the crossings. What little colour there was had been put to use on cloth and carts, and nothing else.

Stalls lined up beside homes for as far as normal vision could see, where vendors haggled fiercely at the top of their voices. Everything here was clearly built or maintained for practicality. Things had functions, and the indigenes did not seem to particularly favour aesthetics. Aldridge noted the cracked stone, the mended beams, and the doors that had been repaired rather than replaced, and understood that very little here was wasted.

A few of the demons had humanoid forms, their major distinguishing features being horns jutting out here and there, along with differences in skin colour, tails, and wings. The others never bothered and maintained their original forms. A little while of observation revealed that the former were part of the lower caste, a situation the travelers had not expected to see. These lower castes seemed to be trying to mimic the stronger caste.

It hadn’t been this way the last time she was here. The Khyron of back then had been so single-hearted and foolish that they would huddle together in truly desperate situations for the most stupid of reasons, usually ending up perishing together.

No one noticed the two cloaked individuals, and no one spared them a glance. Strangers were not a rarity in these parts, and their scents were… non-existent. A sign that only the reckless and foolhardy would go after them. One vendor looked up from his haggling, met the shadow beneath a hood, and quickly looked back down at his goods.

The duo continued inward. Civilization had a tendency to congregate power at the centre, figuratively and literally. Aldridge kept half a step behind his companion and let his eyes move over every doorway and rooftop, though nothing in the city seemed to care to look back.

The Progenitor said nothing as they walked, but her eyes moved over the stalls, the lower caste huddled at the corners, and the washing lines swaying overhead. She was comparing, Aldridge guessed, the city before them with the one she remembered, and she did not seem to like what she found in the difference.

But for a race that had been the cause of quite a number of world wars, they were surprisingly amiable. Loyal, amiable, and minding their own business. Or so the Progenitor thought.

They turned into a dark alley where even the faintest visible shadows felt alive. Though, for the two monsters with impeccable blood-tracking perception, it was as clear as daytime.

The demon dropped from above, landing just before them.

He landed in a low crouch, wings spread wide to intimidate as he drew even closer. His eyes were bright yellow, visible in the near-complete darkness. A rogue, or a robber in more current worldly terms.

“Wrong street, folk,” the scavenger swore in his native tongue. “And this one’s got a toll,” he snarled.

The very next second, Aldridge’s hand had already found his blade, ready to chop off the creature’s head. But…

“Stand down, Aldridge,” the Progenitor ordered. Her tone carried a mix of amusement and annoyance.

Aldridge stopped.

The demon’s grin began to falter at being so plainly dismissed by two unarmed-looking strangers who should have been afraid of him by any measure. Except, he knew not that he was the one who should have been afraid.

He tried to move, but his body failed him completely. A faint tremor ran through his limbs, and he instinctively sensed its fatality. His eyes widened, and his mouth opened to speak, to scream or roar, but no sound came at all.

The Progenitor had not raised a hand. She had not even changed her posture or bothered to shift her weight. The only thing that changed was the look on her face, which now clearly showed her disgust at an insect inconveniencing her.

Veins began to surface and bulge as his blood flowed backwards. The demon fixed his bright eyes on her in desperation, pleading with the incomprehension of a misguided creature!

“That’s the part that always surprised them, Aldridge,” she said to her companion, completely turning away from her victim. “The realization.”

The veins bulged taut. Too taut.

And his whole body simply came apart, splattering everywhere except around the Progenitor and her companion. Most of the blood gathered into a single pillar, which she gazed at with some disgust before letting it fall to the ground, painting it black.

The dark stain spread slowly across the stones. Aldridge looked at it, then at the spot where the demon had stood, and found that he felt nothing about it at all. It was, after all, only a toll collected.

“I could have handled it for you, Progenitor.”

“I know. I just wanted to do it.”

For one unguarded moment, her usually apathetic expression softened, and her cheeks flushed red. It was the particular, private, inward pleasure of someone who enjoyed something immensely and cared not to offer an explanation to anybody.

Aldridge, perceptive as he was, knew that the Progenitor was anything but normal, so he did not care to question the expression, lest he suffer a similar fate.

“Now, come, boy. Let us complete our survey and plan what we’ll do next,” she said, setting off. “This could also have been handled by any right-thinking youngling, though. Did you have to come by yourself?”

“That throne of bones is distasteful, gloomy, and unentertaining. Not to mention the all-year snow nonsense. Who even made all those things and kept them there?”

Aldridge stifled his chuckle. “You did, Progenitor. According to our lore and history,” he replied with as straight a face as he could manage.

“Oh. Are you mocking me, boy?”

“Au contraire. Shall we continue, then?”

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It was almost mid-afternoon when Mikael awoke.

He was atop a not-so-comfortable bed, with clothes occupying a good half of it. For a moment, he did not know where he was, only that the ceiling above him was low and the light through the window was the wrong colour for dusk.

His body ached, and his stomach grumbled too loudly. Notwithstanding, he lay still for a few minutes, recollecting his memories and thoughts. The city. The door. The gold he had promised.

He took stock of himself the way he had trained himself to. His soul was still raw in places where the strands had been drawn out, but it was quieter than it had been in the wilderness. Whatever else the days had cost him, the silence of the converted strands remained, a faint stillness beneath the ache.

“The need to find the Old Gods’ relics and fully unlock Ragnarok, so I can carry out my soul conversion completely and escape Heaven’s prying eyes.” He could never be completely grateful for Aurora’s non-interference when it came to most matters, especially when he himself was, well, part of such matters.

It was the only road forward, and he knew it came with no map.

“But food first.”

He looked at the door, where Ragnarok, his trusty scythe, stood at attention, keeping guard. It looked completely fine, but he noted its dim pulsing.

It had given him everything it had to bring him back, and it was only fair that it should rest, too.

He ran a hand along the shaft as he passed, and the runes answered with the faintest flicker, like a sleeper acknowledging a voice.

With the tavern set as his destination, he got to his feet once more. His legs held, though not happily.

Food, a little information, and the sound of other people talking were the cheapest resources in any city, and he intended to spend them wisely.

Phase two of his plans, which had come up as an unexpected necessity, was urgent: securing about four to five relics in a world with a population of more than ten billion inhabitants and little divine power left to him, despite all he had sacrificed. The number sounded small until he set it beside the size of the world.

“All in a lifetime’s work for you, isn’t it, Mikael?” he muttered as he left the room.

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