Nine Ashen Hearts

As he approached the southern sections of the Fires, he circled around them along empty alleys of the unchained. He ran past scorched earth, past the remains of days gone by—traces of conflicts that few could remember. The Fires were united tribes and echoes of the old world. It was said that once they were scattered across the desert and eventually gathered under a white banner of a queen known as the Drawing-Thread. When she disappeared in the days of Decay, her followers grew embittered and gathered under the red banner of the Fires. Now they, like the Ashes, were the lord's followers. Their fanaticism, however, rarely went beyond the limits of what was permitted. Usually, they made noise and burned marks on their skin, but tonight, instead of the usual screams, they were silent.

Cates warned Vish to stay away from them, but she always did the opposite. Despite the little irritations, eventually every shadow had to resort to contracts from the lower links, since all the links were interconnected. At least the inquisitors were nowhere to be seen, but it was better not to catch their eye at all, with or without a contract.

One of the places on the shadow's path bore traces of the days of Decay—the confrontation that broke the integrity of the city. Histories of those days flashed through Cates' mind, but their reasons were unknown to him. The consequences of those days divided everyone into links, faceless, and unchained, and the burned sections of the city were left untouched as a reminder. Dying and murder were the most terrible taboos. The punishment was banishment without drops. Cates did not carry a weapon and could agree with this taboo because it was the basis for protecting shadows. A hook with a rope, however, when used correctly, always pulled him out of slippery situations, while only the inquisitors were allowed to carry weapons.

Cates lost something here many cycles ago, when he was not yet a shadow, and the Fires pulled him into their games. He could have lost more if the big shadow of little Vish had not driven them away. She didn't prance around back then:

"Pyromaniacs are easy to scare off, but getting rid of the fire is rather difficult. Let's hurry… Cates, isn't it? I've heard about you—that situation with the glass house of the Ashes—it turned out well. Don't be surprised; you can't hide such things from the shadows… I want to help you, because no one like us should be left alone… Believe me, for that manner of action, one can obtain permission, and I suggest you become one of us. Your knowledge of the faceless builders will give us an advantage, and the contracts will provide protection"

A secret can only be revealed once. Why was he thinking about her right now? Their previous contracts flashed before his eyes. How he led the shadows to hidden places, how he often watched over them or distracted the guards and made sure that Vish had an exit point. She always tried to be independent and took those contracts that dripped the most emerald drops. Did the quilns lead her to the Fires? Could she have done something different? Did all this matter to Cates? No, but that was how his world looked, and he was a part of it.

Block these thoughts out, focus! The fog in his head was dulling his perception, he was whispering something under his breath, his breathing was getting heavier. He needed to be focused, and now she was distracting him at the most inopportune moment. Maybe the sea would clear his mind before he changed his mind and turned back. The other side held the point of no return. The sounds of the waves touched Cates. He was getting close.

The stone staircase underfoot led down in a smooth serpentine, cutting through rough boulders along a gray cliff that took ultramarine onto itself and hid under the white splashes. The emerald sea of Emir was shedding the sapphire hues of its waves, preparing to accept the starry mantle of the sky. Cates stopped halfway down the stairs to catch his breath. Last time, invisible chains held him in place. He was forced to return to the warmth of pillows and tasty pieces of shark at the top of his tower. The sky was about to leave its last faded stroke to allow the wolven sun to appear, and the cold would pour from its pale scars.

The darkest moment—the most terrible, trembling, but painfully familiar—gripped Cates. It was not from fear, he told himself. The quiln would soon warm him; he had only to climb to the other side of the bone-colored wall. The pier awaited him there. The stars above Cates lit themselves one by one. Among them, the noble and not-at-all-wolfish grandeur of the moon appeared: its light reflected from the sea, slowly penetrating the ether-saturated air and concentrating in clouds of bright fog. Etheric particles—another consequence of the Cataclysm—held back the light and drove out weak shadows even from the darkest places. Cates continued to descend to the sea. This time the dark loosened its grip, and he did not experience much resistance. His attention hid entirely in memory, sending into oblivion everything that was good in the city and everything that was bad.

He spent the rest of the journey without meeting a single soul, and then the docks appeared before him: a shell of piled-up walls of bent metal separated him from the way to the other shore. Cates approached the lowest wall, untouched by the ether, and threw the hook over the cornice. A few minutes later, he was descending on the rope on the other side of the wall. No one was watching what was happening in the docks, since nothing was really happening down there. The hangars and warehouses were empty, the rusting metal of abandoned boats and ships was of little interest to anyone, and even the faceless could cope with the sea during storms, not to mention that nobody was willing to risk the priceless quilns for a simple fish.

It seemed that not so long ago there were several sailors for each boat, each with a full quiln, but over time the city's resources began to dwindle, and emerald drops became rare. Most of the boats and skiffs were left unusable due to the decay and destruction brought on by unsinkable (unlike them) time. Now only whalers and the lord's ships remained to plow the sea. Cates, however, had long ago noticed one vessel that should be able to deliver him to the other side of the bay.

The docks held a jumble of ships of all sorts with rusty chains, and a small skiff hid among them. Cates approached the skiff and inspected its reliability. There was a time when he returned similar vessels from the other shore—those who did not return no longer needed them. Patina patterns covered the metal of the mechanisms, the portholes were mottled with dirty gold hues, hollow bones framed it for support, and beneath them were embossed the letters that made up its name: Kinitat. The time-worn sides of the skiff bore crude drawings of fish, symbols for good luck and calm waves, and beneath the helm sat a dormant engine. Seashells jingled on the transparent bottom of laminated glass.

The quiln compartment was empty, as expected. Cates desperately wanted to wake the skiff and cut the ferocity of the wave with its sharp nose. The lock on the chain yielded to a simple picking of the hook, without even having to use the needles. The emerald glow of the quiln reflected on the mechanisms and was ready to share its power.

The wind raised a wave that shook the skiff, but Cates paid no attention. The electric threads in his brain burned with the torment of invisible fears. What if this vessel sank? Would he be able to swim? Would there be a way back? He stared at the light of the quiln in his hand, guiding it into the appropriate slot. Even partially submerged, the quiln managed to stir the engine, and a warm, barely noticeable purr ran along the entire mechanism. Although Cates felt uneasy using this quiln, the corners of his mouth curled from the feeling of control at the tips of his fingers and the smooth vibrations emanating from the engine. Aiming the skiff's nose at the opposite side of the bay, Cates pressed the quiln deeper in and, as if invited by the night itself, silently rushed away from the harbor, following the reflections of the moon on the calm waves.

He no longer thought of Vish—or he thought that he no longer thought of Vish—as he looked through the transparent parts of the skiff into the water at the myriad lights that gave the sea of Emir its emerald shades. Singing phosphorus illuminated the seabed, resembling the dormant light of a quiln, interrupted from time to time by rapidly moving fish and other sea creatures. These underwater stars intertwined with the stars of the night sky and danced around the full moon, whose noble face was visible even through its scars. Cates had heard histories about the moon being whole and pure before the Cataclysm, but now its crude appearance could scare many. It didn't scare or bother Cates; in fact, he was glad that the moon would accompany him tonight.

He couldn't put together a single reason for what lured him to the other side. Instead, he simply felt that courage was leading him in the right direction. The mysteries that troubled his mind, inspired by the shadows, would receive their share of light. The promises of histories would be fulfilled. He wanted to check everything on his own.

His fears and desires had the same roots. He didn't like the alternatives. He would find what he was searching for, even if he didn't know what it was.

The warm rumble of the skiff's engine sounded like a farewell prayer for the doomed, but Cates continued to hold the steering wheel tightly. He wanted to dissolve the anxiety that had seized him by choosing the unknown instead of the familiar fear. Soon, however, the intoxicating feeling of a new discovery awoke and pleasantly pinched his chest with fleeting confidence. It seemed that the skiff stood still, and the sea rushed past it, racing with the rest of the world. Thus, the shadow's destination was approaching—its ragged reflection appeared first. There it was, already visible far on the horizon…

The-fortress-of-no-return.

Sharp teeth of its black walls, tormented by storms, protruded from the ashen earth, and among them, two long fangs—the silhouettes of towers—aimed at the shining moon and grew with each passing second. Like rods, they supported the heavy sky, which seemed to be ready to collapse and hide this nightmare. The worries, mixed within a cacophony of the splashing water, irritated Cates.

Cutting through the bay, Cates seemed to be in a waking dream, and the skiff separated him from the raging waves, like a message in a bottle. Empty. Hopeless. About nothing. Through the waves, on the waves, under pressure, at the bottom… not at the bottom. In his head, Cates envisioned a plan for arrival: he would land among the rocks so that their shadows would hide the skiff. Then there was the question of getting inside—here he could only hope for his hook and rope. Another important thing: he must remember to pull the quiln out of the engine.

The attention of Cates shifted from the wheel to the fortress in the distance. Many histories and even more lies had been told about it. Almost everyone agreed that it had once been the seat of the lord before the city was built. Many saw in its shape a huge throne; many simply considered the place dangerous due to the weakness of the old structures. It was said that some other lord had once ruled Sol, but such stories were now taboo. Cates remembered them, as they promised relics, knowledge, and danger. Unthinkable devices and artifacts lurked in the dungeons underneath the ash. How could this fortress be abandoned? Who allowed it to descend to empty ruins?

Was Sol going to suffer the same fate of oblivion? What if the fortress was filled with ghosts? Or even wolves? Was it best for Cates to turn back? He recalled the histories of the shadows that brought him here. One in particular told of the lord's beating heart that held incredible power in the farthest, lowest chambers. It was said that the lord had cut out the heart because of love for his lost queen, whom he was trying to find in the ashen desert. Cates wondered about the reason for such histories—what gave them their beginning and meaning?

It's all fiction, most likely. Only figments, conjured by the shadows out of boredom. There's nothing there. The sea freshened Cates up, but the thoughts of return that clouded his mind were soon dispelled by the sound of the skiff hitting the shore. Cates didn't even notice how quickly he crossed the bay, and he hoped he'd enjoy it more on his way back. The important thing now was to return.

There was no pier in front of the fortress, only a deserted beach between jagged rocks, where the wrecks of ships and boats, washed aground by the storm, lay surrounded by the bones of strange sea creatures. The white shades of these bones formed strange symbols, the meaning of which could only be read by those who saw their fate on the face of the moon. Cates was not one of them. He dropped the anchor, did not forget to pull out the quiln, and jumped from the skiff into the rough sand.

A wolf's howl could be heard above the sounds of the waves. Cates was definitely not welcome here, nor was anyone else, for that matter. He gazed with eerie interest at the fortress towering over the shore: built of dark stone, covered with a layer of burnt salt, it seemed abandoned, gnawed on by hungry time. The patterns of the stonework of the impregnable walls imitated the night sky, golden lines outlined its sides and curves, and its jagged corners silently wailed as a constant reminder of its unfinished construction. Refined silvery bars protected the high windows from simple intrusion.

Two tall towers stood above these walls. They were similar to the central spire of Sol, and one of them was slightly taller than the other. On the left side of the fortress was a third tower, if you could call it that. It was much shorter than the other two, and its top was supported by a network of silvery wires, akin to a spider's web. Cates could not discern more details from his position, and the high walls cared little for him or his intentions. The hostility emanating from the fortress was almost completely opposed to the city, although it was similar to shields in that it protected something. Only what is required in defense usually has value.

Standing at the base of the walls, Cates began to realize just how high they were. The salt from past storms, like scales, coated the entire fortress. It had settled into the crevices, clogging and smoothing the sharp edges. Cates tried to grapple the old stones with his hook, but the salt chipped off in chunks, making the climb too precarious. Claws would have come in handy here. Some of the ledges were cracked or had been torn off entirely by previous visitors' attempts to climb. There was no other visible way in. Cates had to find another approach.

Or turn back.

Or turn around the corner.

He moved clockwise around the fortress to where the wall met the sea and sank deep into it, leaving the safety of the shore. A rhythm of black metal bars and thin spaces between them was carved high into the wall, while stones, honed by the relentless waves, hid and protected the paths to the secrets within.

Cates climbed onto the treacherously slippery surface of the stone defenders and, carefully maintaining his balance with measured steps, climbed as high and as close to the wall as he could. The thrown hook caught on one of the bars and connected the seeker with the other side across the roar of the surf. Gripping the rope tightly, he pushed off from the slippery stones and jumped, meeting the approaching wall with his leg. He could hear the waves crashing beneath him, the cold of the spray driving him upward. What if there was only pitch black and no ether? This doubt almost threw him off his vertical balance, but his hands rushed forward, pulling him higher and higher. The rope passed over his elbows, segment by segment, and gathered, wrapping around his waist. Only barely noticeable wet spots from his boots remained on the cold wall.

Finding himself at a row of thin windows, Cates grabbed the bar and looked back. The invisible point of no return was there, right above the waves crashing against the rocks. On the other side of the bay, Cates could see the white petals of the city, their warm and false promise of protection reflected in his eyes. He turned away and looked inside the fortress. The light-devouring darkness spread its arms before him—there was no bottom to be seen, no trace of ether, nothing at all. Only a bold reflex of the moon peeked through the bars and pointed the way for the invaders. The hook was securely fixed to the window, and one end of the rope fell into the abyss. The rod at its end made no sound, so the height on the other side raised more questions. Cates switched hope for courage, and after filling his chest with sea air, he adjusted the needles under the hood and began to count the seconds until his long-awaited meeting with new torments and, possibly, the answers.

Episode II – The Meetings

Cates' thoughts curled up into a ball and mingled with the sounds of the sea. Only one action separated him from the answers, and perhaps even from salvation. He gripped the rope tighter and took a step into the void, his body plunging downward with awkward heaviness. So far, nothing was as Cates had envisioned in his mind.

Quickly, segment by segment, the gloved hands did their job of lowering him toward an invisible bottom that seemed as though it would touch his toes at any moment… The descent, however, turned out to be much longer than that. His expectations began to peel away like flakes, falling down without the slightest idea of how deep they would fall. The moonlight faded away from Cates, and doubts returned with a new wave. At first, they were silent, but the thickening darkness around strengthened them. The rope in front of Cates' nose was his only link to the outside, yet he continued his descent, worrying that the hook might slip and detach, that there might be no bottom at all, and that he would have to take even more risks with unknown mistakes.

The vertical wall had become an entire kingdom to him, where, in the shapes of stone cracks, he saw mountains and lakes, roads and cities, and also faces and images of people—unkind, unnerving, spelling out warnings. They disappeared as quickly as they had appeared. With the fading light and every new segment passed, Cates stopped noticing them altogether, and the depth of the room posed different, more pressing questions. He didn't want to answer them because the number of options was overwhelming. Yet, as he pondered each one, the sequences in his mind crumbled like sandcastles, only to be meticulously rebuilt, grain by grain.

The light was completely gone by that point, and still, there was no end to the descent.

The sounds of the sea on the other side of the wall began to beckon Cates to return. The waves would have taken him without question and washed away all traces of anxiety. Even the abandoned skiff began to take shape before his eyes, and a faint hope glimmered that he could simply return. Cates did not stop. Soon, when the rope was almost at its end, he found a foothold under his heels on uneven stones that surrounded the newly discovered island of darkness.

The moon illuminated Cates' path even on the darkest nights, but now he was completely lost. The unnatural blackness filling the space relentlessly consumed the invading light. There was nothing else. Cates needed something, anything he could cling to. If he had known it would be so dark here, he would have turned all the warehouses upside down to find a lamp. Maybe he'd even risk venturing into the quarters of the links. But now he had to use what he had brought with him. He took out the quiln. Sometimes a single insignificant item is enough to find much.

The natural light of the quiln could illuminate only what was within Cates' reach. He walked along the tangible walls, running the soft emerald light over them, noticing rare specks of salt carried by the wandering wind. The floor beneath his feet consisted of separate stone blocks, each set at different angles, which, combined with the impenetrable darkness, was somewhat disorienting. Cates wanted to let the quiln roll over them, hoping it would lead somewhere, but that was one of the last options in his mind.

He didn't stray far from the rope as he was thinking, waiting, trying, and stumbling. But then, a moment flashed: Cates peered into the depth of the dungeon and noticed a possibility—a barely visible dot. The first good idea was to reach it, and then to catch, capture, and grab onto it…

Like everything else, dots had to have a beginning. Cates turned and looked up to the very top, where a pale spot, divided into two by a post, held the hook. It was from there that a solitary ray fell on the crooked tiles, noticeable only at the very bottom, where it didn't get lost among other similar rays.

The hook, following the impulse of the tugged rope, detached, and the memory of his hands caught it deftly. The sound of waves beyond the wall interrupted the dull thud against the slanted floor as the other end of the rope was thrown across the darkness near the dot to scour the bottom. Finding no tangible dangers, Cates headed with measured steps toward the dot, which trembled as if filled with fear from being inside this dungeon. When he touched the dot, all his last doubts left him, giving way to the light in his hand, connecting him to the moon. Looking at his pale glove, Cates replaced the quiln with a flask from his inner pocket—the mirror-like surface was just what he needed.

It amused him that, being a shadow himself, he intended to challenge the darkness with a mere shred of moonlight. He placed the flask under the ray, and the reflected light ran across the distant walls, slightly clarifying the situation: there were no doors in the dungeon, but there were also no hints of complete abandonment. All around was one black, primordial void, just like an absence craving to cease being as it was. Cates pondered whether the room felt this way or if he did. Could this really be all he could find? Impossible. There had to be a meaning in these walls; otherwise, why would they be here? Only if the unfinished construction of the fortress hadn't cut them off from the possibility of becoming something more.

The patterns of cobwebs reminded Cates of the corners of his own room and of Vish—her ghost pursued his invisible trail this night—yet he understood that, at that moment, something was eluding him. The reflected ray once again scanned the uneven walls, and again, without result. So Cates stopped looking at the walls and shifted his attention to the ray itself as it left a melting trail behind. Uncovering the void of blinding darkness turned out to be an unexpected joy, and Cates began to draw with the ray, watching as the darkness parted before him. He stopped as soon as the ray began to tremble in a certain place on the opposite wall, which he could not reach without letting go of the ray. When he approached as close as possible, he realized that it wasn't the light trembling, but what pretended to be a wall—something ephemeral, reflecting and distorting its surroundings, taking on their appearance.

Having memorized the location of the trembling spot, Cates left the ray and took out the quiln again. It was necessary to take a step back to move forward. He went towards the image in his mind, and as soon as the quiln touched the wall, its glow vanished into a strange ripple. The trembling "wall" stayed in place as Cates' fingers simply passed through its damp-looking surface, feeling a slight tingling. Clutching the quiln tighter, he took several steps through the flickering haze, watching his body completely dissolve into the vibrations. The sensations were similar to submerging underwater… Deeper and further, leaving all rays behind, he followed the echo that emerged from his footsteps. The sounds completely dissolved but soon returned in all their former fullness, shaking off the awkward feeling of dry water…

Cates was free from the illusion and opened his eyes.

The interior of the fortress finally revealed itself: beautiful arches invited Cates into mysterious corridors and galleries, along which ornate columns supported high vaults, and slanting walls astonished with the elegance of the masons' craftsmanship. Marble slabs reflected rare clumps of ether's light, which was more than enough for exploration. The corridors seemed to stretch into infinity, and along them stood many different statues, watching over their nocturnal peace. Some of them wore masks, while on the faces of others, the evolution of apprentice skills could be traced. The statues vaguely resembled the former Sol guards, although their stone forms could only repel, and not stop, intruders.