Nine Ashen Hearts

A barely noticeable ripple in the purity of the wall hid the dungeon behind Cates. He stared at it for a long time, witnessing its slightest changes. When he touched it again, his hand seeped inside, and the ripple on the surface of the stone intensified. The sensation caused discomfort only when he looked at the missing hand. He was interested in the purpose of such a secret room, but the only witnesses stood silent in stone and could not reveal the secret presence of the new shadow.

Under the high ceiling, a series of narrow windows let in the moonlight, and Cates was drawn by the new feeling of freedom: all of this was his to explore. The possibilities and hidden secrets of this place intrigued and tickled his mind. There were no signs of life, not even of pariahs who would surely have taken a liking to this place. No one was here, not a soul! And it was so quiet that he could hear the beating of his own heart. Indeed, maybe it wasn't so bad here after all.

Above the statues, stone hands protruded from the walls, holding extinguished lanterns. Cates angrily noted their presence and considered taking one—the quiln could have awakened their warmth—but he decided against it. There were too many questions ahead, and extra light could prove deadly for a shadow.

Judging by the location of the windows, Cates was on the lower levels. After his first acquaintance with the fortress, he couldn't wait to climb higher and examine everything properly. Both outside and inside, the fortress remained unfinished and noble, but looked aged because of dust and ash. This age could easily be reversed with a good cleaning. But what had been built would stand for hundreds more cycles in the company of the statues left behind by their creator.

Old thoughts imbued the walls and visited every passing soul, sharing their eerie delight. Cates put the flask back in his pocket and decided to move forward in one of two possible directions. His courage would guide him under the moon's watch, and the night would hide him from prying eyes. What should he start with here?

The first thing Cates noted was the various doors. There were many, and most of them were open, but almost all led to empty rooms, often without ether. There were no treasures, relics, or quilns to be found yet.

The darkness still lingered nearby: in the corners and behind the carved columns, under the wide arches, and everywhere the moonlight lacked the strength to reach. Without a clear idea of where to go, Cates simply continued in the chosen direction, ready to change it if his first choice led nowhere. The moon flickered through the narrow windows, guiding him to places rich in ether.

Entering one of the rooms, he found tools for butchering carcasses and bones on the shelves—apparently of animals. Had hunters used this place to store their catch? Maybe vivisectors? Desert wolf pelts hung on hooks and seemed perfect for wrapping up snugly on the cold nights of the coming month. Among the broken lamps, right next to the pelts, gleamed silver cylinders. Quilns! Cates picked up a couple and twirled them… There wasn't a single emerald drop inside, not even a dried one. However, the mere presence of quilns, even empty ones, promised the presence of something useful left behind, forgotten, or hidden in dark corners. Cates was now fully confident that his search would bear fruit…

Could these walls protect against the coming storms? With willing and capable people to address the necessary needs, it seemed manageable, but who would leave the city when everything needed was already there (even if in meager amounts)? Cates wanted to somehow bring this place to order, but a closer examination of the room yielded nothing valuable; the pelts turned out to be moth-eaten, and the tools crumbled from corrosion.

Other rooms were even less interesting, except for the dining hall, where stone statues were seated at a long table in warlike poses. Cates examined the table more closely: before the statues' fake interest were glass bowls and plates, holding a whole lot of nothing covered in storm-tossed salt, garnished (for taste) with a layer of dust. A feast indeed. The place at the head of the table was unoccupied, but Cates had no desire to taste the dusty nothingness or participate in the conversations of the sleeping statues. His eye caught one valuable thing—a decorated box stood at the edge of the table. Something inside it rattled—not food, not quilns. Despite the shadows robbing the box of almost all its colors, its sides depicted a familiar and timeless story from his childhood:

"…And the stars watched every night as the beast flew down from the mountain and swallowed children awakened by the flapping of its wings. When the stars could no longer bear to watch, they asked the moon to illuminate the night to calm the beast, and so the moon did. But the light only angered the beast. So with great effort, it leaped onto the moon and bit it fiercely, trying to swallow it whole. Alas, the moon was too big and too bitter for the beast, and the children in its belly disliked the salt so much that they cried out together and tore the beast apart from within. As it fell from the moon, salt poured from its belly and covered all our lands. Finally, the beast dried out, bitter and useless—its hide decayed, its bones turned into mountains, its tears filled the sea, and the freed children returned to their joy…"

Cates brought the box closer to the falling moonlight to inspect it better and accidentally opened it. Music began to play. Instantly slamming the lid shut, he cowered, cursing his carelessness, but didn't attempt to catch the escaping notes, allowing them to break the silence of the corridors. The box returned to its place, and the shadow left the hall with ringing in his ears and a storm in his chest. No one responded to the melody.

The returning silence calmed Cates, and soon, as he continued exploring the corridors, he stumbled upon a gallery with moonlit frescoes. They depicted events that had occurred long before the formation of the links when the city was still whole. Mostly, they focused on a tall wanderer who walked through the ashen deserts, leading faceless people to the edge of the world. Together they began to build walls and towers, resembling the outlines of the city. Sun motifs symbolized the rebirth of life in the heart of the city, and its influence spread through the circles of Sol…

Cates began to understand that this fortress was not a dungeon, but a palace—forgotten and abandoned.

The ashes of the lands became fertile, and the city flourished, giving life to trees that grew to the sky and held back the ashen storms. Then people simply lived, and everything was as it should be. It was hard to say what disrupted the usual course of things. Cates' suspicions fell on the days of Decay. As he continued to examine the frescoes, he wondered whether those figures could depict the future, or if it deliberately would not be as predicted…

Further along, the moonlit drawings became ghostly, blurry, and finally ceased altogether, leaving the story unfinished. Thus, the palace turned into a tomb, defiled by oblivion and left to the mercy of the ashen storms. Now only silence remained a faithful companion to these memories and ruled the calm of these impregnable walls, with its sole guest, albeit uninvited, being Cates…

A noise appeared from the distance.

Loneliness melted with disappointment, fueled by burning pricks all over Cates' body. He wasn't alone here after all, and the owner of this place might be dozing in their quarters… or hiding in fear… or waiting in ambush. Just in case, Cates prepared to pretend to be a hungry outcast seeking refuge. He resisted the obvious, hoping that it wasn't the music box that had given him away, and retraced his steps back to the ripple.

The thought was interrupted by a new presence in the corridor—a steady and rhythmic knock… Only now did Cates realize how deep he had ventured. The sound of the sea had completely disappeared, and no thoughts could be heard—so quiet and still was this place. But from that void, a heartbeat emerged and intensified, along with the approaching knocking on the stone floor. Footsteps. They grew louder, closer. Cates instantly pressed himself to the shadows behind the column and began to wait. To his surprise, he didn't have to wait long, for the source of those footsteps was right in front of him. A feminine figure briskly walked past the shadow that had merged with Cates. He thought that she wouldn't have noticed him, even if he was standing in her way.

A black-and-purple dress flowed in sharp waves from her shoulders, a veil concealed her face, and long sleeves held her crossed arms. This lady was too clean for a pariah and too elegant for the faceless. The links also rarely wore dresses and certainly not in the center of who-knows-what; in short, no one in the city resembled her. The firm step of the lady indicated her familiarity with the fortress, and moreover, many doors opened right before her. Before she could get too far away, Cates decided to follow her and, trying not to reveal his presence, became her shadow. He needed to keep her in sight, not fall behind, and not get caught—false excuses would definitely not work on her. The main thing was to be mindful of every move. Always.

This proved to be no easy task. Many corners of the palace were indistinguishable from one another, but the statues served as good waypoints due to their uniqueness. The lady walked quickly and somewhat chaotically: she often entered random rooms for a few seconds and then came out again. Cates hoped she wasn't searching for him because of that noisy music box. He began to get distracted by possible outcomes again; it even seemed to him that the lady, having entered one door, came out of a completely different one. Despite the strange routes, she mostly went up to the upper levels, and following her, Cates realized he could explore this enormous fortress for hours until dawn. Such long stays were not part of his plans, and he had not dismissed the idea of returning safely to his attic, but what he would bring back with him remained unknown.

A wide corridor adorned with golden patterns led the lady to two parallel staircases. Most likely, their winding steps belonged to tall towers. Having climbed up the left staircase, the lady disappeared behind one of the identical doors. Cates waited a couple of minutes, assuming she would soon return. She did not. Tired of waiting, he opened the closest door with a tense hand, trying not to make the slightest creak, and went in. A cracked reflection of Cates welcomed him inside: a large mirror in a silver frame played with the features of his face through its broken glass, changing and hiding them like a bad liar. The lady, however, was nowhere to be seen! Moving further into the room, Cates turned his gaze to the tapestries, where marvelous floral patterns rhymed with the gentle waves of sands under the rule of an embroidered sun, opposite motifs of the sea, moon, and stars. There were no other doors in the room, only two tall windows. Perhaps he had entered the wrong room.

No, he had never been so wrong. There were no wings behind the lady's back, and she most probably disappeared behind a different, hidden door—it wasn't as if she had jumped out the window. To test this possibility, Cates wanted to lift the tapestry but noticed a cobweb on it and abandoned the idea, proceeding to examine the room. Near the windows, vases held large swaying feathers of unknown birds. Thick books with cracked spines were neatly lined up under a long, low slab that extended from the wall to the center of the room. One half of the slab formed a bed with large pillows and silk sheets, while the other half served as a table. Above it, a basket of white branches with a veiled stone head hung from the ceiling.

On the "table" part of the slab, Cates found a thin bone for writing and a scratched envelope with an equally scratched letter inside. At the untouched corner, he could discern only two letters: Od. Not recognizing the signature, Cates approached the windows to examine the envelope further. The paper's material differed from all other messages he had seen during the contracts, and he'd seen many, including those intended for the ruling links in the city—even once he held an envelope addressed to the lord. But on this paper, he could find no codes, no hidden marks, except for a couple of red threads and sharp marks on the smooth fiber. Despite the crumbling paper in his hands, Cates attempted to read it:

"– 946, PC. 89, Harvest Month. The priestess is alive. Time will heal the bones, but won't remove the scars. Additionally, her memory remains in the dark. It seems she has forgotten everything that can be forgotten; she doesn't even remember her name…

…The grace is running out. A drop here, a drop there. If only there was enough of it for the defender…

…How could they let this happen? The heart shattered for the second time and the pieces scattered everywhere. How can we find the lost…

…They call the tragedy Decay. Regrettable, unimaginable…

…The cataclysm is forgotten now, how many cycles did it take? Even I don't remember much. My tomes hold the reflections…

…We haven't even grown; we are just the last ones left. The followers and the remained. I see the priestess is right. The worm spares not even the smallest of apples…

…We will sift through every grain of sand in the desert, we will find, restore, and save what was taken from us. For now, I need to seclude myself; it's becoming too noisy here.

– G."

A response appeared on the second sheet, in neater handwriting:

"…I received your notes. They are insufficient. I understand that you were not a witness to that day and your knowledge is limited to what was reported to you, but the recorded chronicles should be at your disposal. Check them, surely…

…For the love of the lord, if you suggest questioning the martyr again…

…Your so-called 'transmitter' remains silent. I don't know what you expected from this endeavor, but I see no sense in it…

…I am starting to look for other ways out. The city will collapse in a few cycles. Will it all come at the last moment? I am returning records with the defender. Don't forget to burn them.

– Od."

Many of the notes mentioned past events in a similarly fragmented manner, but Cates couldn't find much of use in them:

"…The reasons for the Cataclysm are unknown to us. We can invent them, and we might even guess them correctly, but we are powerless to prevent them. We can only change the consequences, or rather, redirect them. The death of a star (or its birth, who knows) marked the beginning of the Cataclysm, and tears flowed in rivers, blood boiled the oceans, and then there was nothing, except for the murmur of a newborn day in an unseeing world. Not everything was lost, because people continued to breathe this still, lifeless air. Alone in their mass, left with nothing, they began to lose themselves, their petty unity shattered, and they wandered in oblivion, scattering the last grains of what made them who they were…"

After putting the notes back where he found them, Cates couldn't find anything noteworthy in the room. He was, however, extremely interested in exploring the towers. He stuck his head out of the high open windows and examined the intricate layout of the fortress: its rectangular base was surrounded by the raging sea from the west and north. The walls stood in layers, connecting halls and corridors in unusual combinations. Above them, windows extended to the roofs, letting in the moon's gaze, while in some places, the stonework transitioned into terraces covered with metal plates.

On the far edge of the elongated roof planes was a rough semblance of greenhouses and gardens, separating a leaning tower enveloped in a web of stretched-out wires that kept it from falling. The top of the tower was crowned by a crude wooden roof with tiny windows, each more crooked than the other. It seemed to Cates that a greenish spark flickered in one of them, but after waiting a few minutes and seeing no repeats, he turned his gaze to the horizon. There, on the other side of the bay, amidst the salty desert, was Sol. The white shell of the city's closed shields shone like a pearl dropped to the bottomless depth. It could fit in Cates' palm, and he would trade it for a journey to the stars. The links wouldn't like such tricks, but they were not visible from here, and the city didn't seem so bad. Perhaps that's how Vish imagines the outer circles and their safety.

Cates, however, returned to where he was and looked at the largest dome with numerous spires in the middle of the palace. Through the open gaps in the roofs and tall stained-glass windows, he could see parts of the mirrored hall with obelisks that led to huge black-and-gold gates. What was beyond them remained a mystery, but a little further, on the side hidden from the sea, there was a vast space surrounded by sharp walls and parts of construction catwalks. Like artificial barriers, they held back the edges of the dark abyss. A platform, like an outstretched hand, extended from the hall with the obelisks over the hungry maw. A beautiful silver pedestal stood near the platform's edge…

A shriek of metal sounded somewhere far below, and Cates pressed against the wall. Lost in guessing, he decided it would be best to remain unnoticed and returned to the stairs leading to the towers. Possibilities began to torment him and tickle his heart. He felt he was so close to uncovering the mysteries and quickly ascended the winding wide steps. However, the staircase led not to the top, but to a strange, crooked corridor, which presented the shadow with the first truly impossible challenge.

One. Closed. Door. Without a handle or keyhole. Cates couldn't open it, no matter how hard he tried! Intuition told him not to try but to act, or at least do what was within his abilities. He carefully studied the curves and patterns of the door but found no hidden switches or mechanisms. Absolutely no way to open that door presented itself, even the eager needles that held his hood were of no use. Forced to leave the door, Cates wanted to kick it but remembered how he once stubbed his toe on a doorstep in his tower. It was painful.

The contracts of links seemed like a silly, carefree endeavor compared to this fortress because here it was like another world to Cates. A world where all his knowledge proved a lot less useful than he had anticipated. He had to rely on adaptation and intuition and his trusty rope with a hook. He decided to leave that cursed door until he found a way to open it and searched for other opportunities below. In his mind, he planned to move from one tower to another using the wires he had seen earlier, but the staircase leading to the second tower presented Cates with the same corridor and the same problem. He then decided it might be a good idea to check the crooked and smaller (compared to the others) tower near the greenhouses. After all, the green light in that window could indicate drops for the quiln. Cates formed a rough plan of the palace in his mind, and the crooked tower became his new and achievable goal. The path to the gardens had to go through the hall with the obelisks, which was somewhere deep inside. It shouldn't have been too hard to find it since it probably wouldn't disappear like the lady.

Cates was guided by his inner compass and went in silence, alone, wondering if that dark dress had really appeared, just like in a dream. It was as if he were walking through a land of dreams, where everyone was asleep. The walls slept. The statues slept. Was he asleep? Was this another dream? One thought replaced another, and each previous one was lost in oblivion. Logic couldn't cope with the feelings. Possible explanations tore at him.

The intertwining corridors were more complex than he had anticipated, and the number of paths that opened up only began to confuse his direction.

Having decided to leave the corridors, he entered spacious halls where many doors appeared before him. Some, as expected, were jammed shut or had stone walls behind them, while others led to small rooms filled with dusty clutter. Cates could never predict what awaited him behind each door and became interested in the mechanisms that opened doors for the lady and what powered their movement. Perhaps it was the quilns? In some ways, this fortress reminded him of the city with all its automatic systems. But the city drew energy from wind and sea, while the fortress stood alone and motionless… Cates continued exploring the rooms and saw thin openings in the wall where the cool night air roamed freely like a familiar and welcome guest. Taking a glance through the openings, he saw the sea and the moon, as well as the shore where he could barely make out the shape of his skiff among the rocks. If he didn't know it was there, he would never have found it.

In the next hall, the doors were taller and decorated with carvings, and one of them was secured with a bolt and lock. Cates almost passed by it but became curious—he hadn't opened such doors in a long time. Nowadays, no one in the city uses locks, as shadows would either break or jam them with clumsy hands. Bells and sentries were a more reliable replacement for simple mechanisms. Cates squinted, took a needle from his hood support, and began to pick the lock with it. His lack of practice showed. It wasn't easy, but it wasn't too difficult either. He could have used quiln drops to heat the needle, but the lock finally gave way with a click.

The bolt ceased to hold the door, and the shadow slipped into the room with cracked enamel walls that had turned gray from cobwebs. Behind the glass on the shelves, among empty jars, were hidden silver and sharp instruments. Cates examined them and tried to figure out their use, putting the needle back into his hood.

The smell of stale water lingered over the metal tables with traces of red rust. It looked like a healer's office… Sealed vials with black tinctures stood among stacks of faded papers. Most of the records were dated to the early cycles after the Cataclysm and described the step-by-step construction of the fortress. Some contained myths about the lone lord and prayers. Myths were taboo.

Cates picked up two torn sheets and read:

"– 891, PC. 9, Rain Month. I will make copies from the old archives. They are many, I am alone. Help is needed. I will turn to the lord. He knows the value of stories… The Scarlet Queen ruled the desert tribes until she met the seeker. She is the reason that never stops, illusory, always the cause of motion. The beginning of the end and the end of the beginning. She's two for when there's one. Sleep for the awakened. She is the plague, the rot for the ripe. She is darkness for light, including the lord's very own. Like a red shore for the blue wave and the sorrow of your joy. Her time has come, and her time will pass. How blessed and cursed we are, witnessing this…"

– A. G."

"– 971, PC. 1, Harvest Month. After going through the books, it became clear just how old I have become. The queen, how the rusted fool was wrong! Am I to blame too?

She is not evil, she is simply different. But, having taken shape, she poses a danger to many.

Our lord sought a way for all of us to salvation long before her appearance. Nothing is reliably known about his findings. And now that he is dead, how are we to know…"

"– 972, PC. 21, Rain Month. Thank you for the trinket, lady, its design is so wondrous! And useful, believe me! I will return it to you once I am done calibrating the etheric waves. As per your request: the chronicles of those days. Also attached are excerpts on the topic you specified. Apologies for the incompleteness, but many records are missing. Partly because of you, although my fault is there too, as my memory sometimes fails me. Please, don't get lost in the past. In some sense, you are the one causing pain to yourself. This silent agreement, the pact, part of our vow, but you must remain yourself for the sake of what remains.

– G."

"– 946, PC. 53, Harvest Month. Nor has returned. Partially, however. His gift is already saving him, unlike the priestess. There was no living place on her, but she is here, where I am with my instruments and the lord's grace. The worst is behind her. I have done everything within my power and the power of my gift. I redirected the path…"