The Severaine

Chapter Four The First Piece of the Puzzle-3

Acha offered prayers to the Gods as Eiji saw to the task of burial. His elemental skills creating some majesty from tragedy as the bodies of those lost were slowly taken into the warm embrace of the earth.

Eiji froze. He felt the touch of echoes, of voices needing to be heard, history wanting to be remembered. His master warned of such powerful manifestations, but he had been unprepared…

…Images raced by, the only consistency the town hall, the town growing and changing in flashes of light and darkness, seasons passing in the blink of an eye. Until there was one moment of clarity, an image which drew him into the building which had stood as long as the town. Chairs had been placed and the elders of the village filled them, their hands each wielding knitting needles. The echoing of the knitting was almost in unison as metal and wood touched and passed over each other. The hall was filled with laughter. The older generations shared their news of family, whilst also complaining about the way the village was heading. The image was almost still, like an artist's canvas, yet the noise and voices filled his head like thunder, with deafening clarity as it demanded to be heard.

Nausea filled him as he felt himself wrenched from the building and once more seasons passed at a disorientating rate. Another image, this holding more momentum than the last, but still in slow motion. Spinning wheels lined the town square, the cobbled paths had started to surface, and a wall was in construction around the further expanded town. The air was different, traders filled the streets, carrying their wares on vending trays, others pushed larger items in small carts, mingling between the patrons who had come to watch the festivities. The rhythm of spinning wheels was in unison.

The wool threaded and weaved while visitors would pay for lessons, in either spinning or flax breaking. The town held competitions, charging for entry to see who could cut the most flax, a small prize given to the winner, whilst the town stored the wares for further profit.

The image released again, the cobblestones complete in the blink of an eye. The town hall was repurposed as a banquet hall, surrounded by market carts and covered to protect their wares from the elements as they peddled clothes, flax string, linen, wool, and trinkets. Although export of wares had once been their main source of revenue visitors now flocked to see the cobbled streets and protected village. Any wishing to move here had to apply by way of council registration and provide the necessary fees for processing their request. Only those who could bring wealth to the town were admitted, be it wealth of pocket or skill.

Eiji felt his physical body stagger as his head spun once more with the images. Fleshmongers in both animal and people became abundant. The once quiet village now sold the flesh of older beasts who were no longer deemed worth the grain and supplied a steady stream of business to slavers as those entering debt were forced to sell their sons and daughters to settle the due monies in the new town hall. No longer a place of elderly gossip, or a homely establishment to fill the belly. The town hall was converted to a gambling den, and in that very same place the lives of those lost by bet were auctioned to the highest bidder.

Money became paramount, all now became measured in value. Daughters and sons forced into paying work in brothels, and should they not earn enough, they were sold to the market. Few now worked the fields, the spinning wheels gathered dust, the knitting needles replaced by branding tools. Their main revenue once more becoming export.

The houses on the outer part still belonged to the farmers, flax breakers, and weavers. Their own homes reflected their place in this new order. The collapsing timber and leaking roofs were hidden within the shadow of the temple. Their houses were on the brink of collapse, more repair and patching than original structure. But despite their struggles they needed to maintain just some weak memory of what the town had been. These families worked the lands, refusing to sign the mandate to have their children enter the new trade and line their pockets when they came of age. These families were shunned, kept in depravity in hope to break their spirits, their wares fetching less than the asking price causing some to seek to sell elsewhere.

Husbands sought to find alternative means to support their family and here, in this derelict place, all those who refused the 'step into the new age' became a family, sharing what little they had. Those who could attempted to join a Plexus, seeking to support their family by way of trade or bounty. If not for doing so these people would have long been lost to the Underworld. The coin that those successful in the Plexus trials earned was evenly split. Each house saving what they could in order to escape, to leave this corruption behind. And they had nearly done it too. They had been set to leave when disaster struck.

The skies grew dark, lightning relentlessly striking all it could touch in terrifying succession. The screams drowned out as it struck building and person alike, without mercy. Hail stones, the size of a child, plummeted from the sky. Their impact as deadly and devastating as any trebuchet siege. Terror filled the streets, the attack so sudden and efficient all was laid to waste in a matter of minutes. The growling thunder almost bestial as the skies were filled with sounds of its fury…

…Eiji's head pounded, his sight blurred as he staggered slightly under the force of the vision releasing him. His master had spoken in depth to him about the strange phenomena known as echoes. Traces left behind of strong emotions, and those who had suffered before death. It was something normally only Elementalists were aware of, something the world allowed them to see. They could be anything, from the kind he had just experienced, to an individual person, an echo of their presence still walking the world. Some were violent, dangerous to people, threatening the very lives of those who saw them. There were some Elementalists who would dedicate their lives to travelling the world in order to help to disperse the more troublesome ones, those which were so powerful it was not only their kind who could see them. It was said long ago Elementalists, like sorcerers, could command the legions of the dead in their own form of necromancy, but such dark artes were a practise long forgotten.

All had happened so quickly, it appeared his friends had been unaware of the images which had taken him. He rubbed his temples, his thoughts returning to the sights he had beheld, and not only the destruction, but the tale of an innocent town turned corrupt. As Eiji stood staring at the ground, trying to rein in the complex emotions coursing through him. Acha busied herself fashioning a marker for the graves. She had carefully carved the number of recovered dead, and the town name upon the surface of the wood before compiling a tally on parchment scoring a mark in a separate area for each man, woman, and child.

Eiji approached her quietly, lifting the paper from her hands, writing the names of those he now knew. All offered a prayer to those who had lost their lives here and their families. As they stood in silence Daniel heard the cry once more.

“Did you hear that?” His question was met with the deafening roar of thunder as its force seemed to shake the ground beneath them. It was only seconds before the squall struck, obscuring their vision with sheets of water. Eiji, having nodded in response to Daniel's query, now dashed between the rubble. The rain hammered on the fallen buildings and debris with such force the downpour seemed to bounce back from the ground. He could feel it now, the tiny life-force previously masked by the energy from the stranded dead and power of the echo. He was certain it came from one of the least damaged structures. His pace slowed as he peered through the debris in hope to locate its source.

“Over here!” he called over the crashing of thunder. Lightning illuminated the sky, causing deformed shadows to stretch into the crumbled remains of the house he stood at. He peered through the warped and twisted wood in hope to catch sight of the voice's owner. When Daniel and Acha approached they carefully began to move some of the splintered beams until the opening inside was large enough for Acha's slender frame. Securing a rope around her waist she struggled into the hole.

The makeshift supports, caused by the falling of the structure, seemed to bend under the weight of the debris above. Wind whipped through the tiny fissures in the twisted construct causing the already overburdened wood to creak and groan as she fought her way through the angled, narrowing gaps.

Acha strained her vision, her hands a guide more than her sight as light almost failed to penetrate the narrowing crawlspace. The heavy rain from outside fell softer. Its drips echoing throughout the silence which was broken only by her slow progress.

Acha attentively made each step, feeling the unstable structure move beneath her feet. The sodden wood was swollen from water exceeding that which now fell. The settled silt combined with mud saw her fighting to walk, the floor sucking at her boots, threatening to pull them from her feet with each measured step.

An upturned bed was pinned beneath a large broken beam. The child, her back pressed towards the mattress, lay huddled within the small gap between wood and bed, watching in fear. Her hands tightened around a battered, water-soaked teddy bear.

Slowly Acha began to move what debris she could. Her hand extending towards the child as she spoke gentle words of encouragement. She was aware of the building noise from outside, of Eiji's words lost on the wind and through the storm.

Hesitantly the child reached out, allowing Acha to pull her close. Looking for something to assist her, Acha seized the sodden blanket from the bed, using it to secure the child to her chest. The child clung to her tightly, her tiny frame trembling uncontrollably. Her small whimpers calming slightly.

Flashes of lightning cast their illumination through tiny fissures, revealing the interior with more clarity than Acha would have liked. The brief insight serving only to remind Acha how precarious the walk she made was. Above her the straining of wood could be heard, the thundering of rain adding to the already overburdened timbers that allowed them this passage.

The shrill sound of Eiji's voice carried on the wind, his words drowned out by the crackling of lightning as it shook the very foundations of the building, igniting the wood it struck. Acha braced herself between two larger beams as the shifting debris tumbled down around her. By the time they stilled, the air had grown heavy with smoke. The flickering of firelight clear as it devoured the furthest reaches of this house. But spurred by hope, by the illumination of shadows cast by her friends above, she once more continued her perilous journey.

Eiji's cries, still unclear, seemed more desperate. A tone which involuntarily caused her pace to quicken. Acha felt herself lurch forwards as the earth seemed to tremble. The fractured timbers shifted beneath her feet, forcing her off balance, as her hands further secured the child as she fell. Moving quickly, she backtracked, returning to the larger beams as the quaking earth dislodged the already delicate balance of the structure above.

Acha cried out breathlessly as her body was thrust forward by the tumbling debris. Rafters groaned and cracked, splitting under the shifting burden causing a downpour of rubble, filling the thick smoky air with dust. Her visibility poor, she pressed on solely to evade the collapsing beams, hoping she was still heading towards the exit. All the time, crouching over the child, protecting her. Acha coughed uncontrollably. Her hands pulling her through the gaps until she found a small shelter. The licking of orange flames flickered as the extra wood fuelled the fire, its distance obscured by smoke and dust. Her panting breaths grew more laboured with each choking gasp. She could feel the warmth from the fire, it showed no compassion to those hindered.