Teller of Fate
Fourth Movement: Custodians of the Incunabulum
Chapter Twenty-Nine
* * *
John Airkhart didn’t know what to expect of his first trip through a Portal, but his intuition told him it should have been something.
But no. No sense of travelling or disorientation; no rushing wind sound; no flashing lights or dark tunnel; no sense of time passing.
There wasn’t even a ping! sound or anything.
John stepped through the black hole onto black sand. He did it just as simply as if he’d entered another room and not, as it appeared, another planet.
He stood transfixed by the sight before him.
The sky was a prismatic green. The clouds, driven to his left at a furious pace, were a pale shade of orange, reflecting perhaps the umber colour of a sun that filled half the sky before him.
The sand, he noticed, wasn’t black but a very dark blue. Highlights of a paler shade sparkled as he shifted his weight. An ocean of something thick and translucent yellow sucked at the sand.
In the distance, sea and sky appeared to blend into each other, denying him a horizon. Whether a brief illusion or a product of the atmosphere itself, he’d never know.
A gust from over the sluggish waves carried an excessively cloying scent to his nostrils.
Besides the waves there was no sound. The creaking of his leathers was loud in John’s ears.
It wasn’t especially cool and a dampness a little too sticky to be that of water forecast much perspiration to come.
He was tempted to shed some of his warmer clothing but reconsidered. This chase had led to another world; it might lead to more whose weather would prove less clement.
He turned to where the hole he’d stepped though was—or had been. There was no hole, nor any surface that it could have been a hole in.
The beach behind him continued a few yards before ending in some purplish scrub brush that climbed a low ridge. Beyond, only sky was visible.
Fighting down a momentary anxiety, John realized that his only course of action was to find which way his quarry had gone and to follow them.
A brief scan showed tracks heading directly away from the beach.
John began hoofing it over the sand. It gave more reluctantly than the type of beach sand he was used to and so supplied firmer footing. A couple more steps and he was forced to conclude that the footprints he was following were of only one person.
Puzzling what that had to mean, John covered the remaining distance in a few strides.
Close to, the leaves on the brush had a deep red tint along their edges. The leaves themselves were long, thin, and saw-edged. They sprang in thick bunches from the very ends of spidery, knobbed branches that grew so close together that he thought the whole patch might be one plant.
He had trouble moving past it. The branches, though thin, were quite resilient and gave only slightly under his weight when he stepped on them. The result was like trying to walk a trampoline while drunk.
Once he tripped. Holding out his uninjured hand to break his fall, he was startled by an intense pain. Regaining his balance as fast as he could, John yanked it up.
It wasn’t cut, but his palm and last two fingers were abraded. Deciding to leave any first aid until he was past the low foliage, he began wobbling and stumbling his way along.
By the time he was past the patch, the Custodian was winded. It was slightly more effort to inhale, and his throat was parched and beginning to ache.
Neither would have been the case on Oerth, he knew. Looking again at the multihued green of the sky, John wondered how the atmosphere here differed in composition from that of his native world.
As he stretched to get the kinks out and tried to catch his breath, John caught his first glimpse past the ridge.
He saw a valley of what looked like stone over a mile deep and several square miles in extent. It held what at first blush, John took to be a colossal sculpture.
Its overall shape was that of an inverted pyramid. The base was less than a fifth the width of the top and the whole looked to be almost as high as the surrounding plateau. Smaller versions of the overall shape made up its substance.
They weren’t exact copies. They also varied significantly in size from one another. The larger pieces were formed of the smaller ones, contributing to the overall fractal nature of the thing. It reminded John of the natural growth of crystals. The Custodian thought it might be just that.
Here and there, John could see well into the superstructure and in a couple of places, clean through it to the valley floor beyond.
The valley itself was composed of irregular steps, an effect of the crystalline nature of the stone. The top of the valley was a border that appeared perfectly flat. Because of this, John could see beyond it.
Other valleys receded into the distance all around. The shapes of them were all irregular but they fit into the shapes of their neighbours making the whole a gigantic jigsaw puzzle; a plain with strange holes in it as far as he could see.
John could have walked all the way to the veiled horizon along natural winding paths, had he had so chosen.
It was the top of the upside-down structure that first gave a clue to its function.
Its top was flat, with minor irregularities resulting from the smaller scale shapes that formed it, and purplish in colour.
This contrasted with the blue that characterized the stone of the valleys.
John realized this change in colouration meant vegetation at the same moment he recognized the shapes poking up out of it as buildings of some sort.
Looking at the other levels, he could see the same patterns repeating.
What he couldn’t make out was any movement. Distance and atmospheric effects likely prevented him from detecting it.
Assuming the Thief and Jane had come this way—it still troubled him that only one person seemed to have preceded him—this settlement would have been the first thing they encountered, too.
They might still be there. Considering that getting to the city looked to be a depressingly long and dangerous undertaking, they might still be on their way.
John decided to walk the perimeter of the valley and see if he could spot them either struggling down or climbing up the city.
He turned to his right and began a slow walk, scanning the valley below him and the community beyond. The structure of the lower plateau revealed itself to his wondering gaze as his view of it slowly changed.
Looked at from one angle, it still seemed something grown rather than built. Walking a few more steps, though, and its synthetic nature became plain.
John made out details he had initially missed.
By the way they grew, the purplish flora was deliberately planted. That meant crops. Several of the fields were laid out in a checkerboard fashion.
Many of the structures seemed to be associated with agriculture as well, though John could identify nothing that might have been stables or corrals. Come to think, he’d seen no signs of animal life at all. Either such things were buried within the inverted pyramid, or this was strictly a crop based settlement.
The blue crystalline rock on the valley gave off occasional dull flashes from the sun, which was now sinking slowly into the sea.
There was no sign of his twin or her abductor.
The air began to darken when he was little more than a third of the way around. Half of the reddish-brown disk of the sun was below the horizon now.
John knew his chances of finding those he chased in the dark would be nil. He quickened his pace. That almost cost him his chance to find an easier way to the village.
Between one step and the next, a bright flash in the air. It passed so quickly he had to stop and backtrack to verify that it hadn’t been an illusion.
Back.
Back.
Slowly…
There! Connecting the ridge and the city. It looked like a ribbon of light. A reflection, it appeared to be but off no visible surface.
The reflection arced up and out from the town, ending at the plateau about a fifth of the way down from the top of the valley.
John took half a step further back and saw another ribbon become visible, just after the first one disappeared. It looked the same, only slightly dimmer. John crouched and was rewarded with a narrow reflection, far out over the valley that looked like a bar connecting the other two.
The Custodian realized he was looking at a crystalline bridge, one that was visible only because its planes reflected light.
Getting down to the near end of that bridge twice almost cost John his life.
The rock was solid and even broken up enough to offer foot and handholds that resembled ladders and stairways.
As crystals often do, however, it tended to fracture along those very cleavage planes that made it so stair-like. Twice when John put his weight on one, it did exactly that.
The Custodian avoided injury, but only just.
Walking carefully, he approached the spot where the foot of the bridge should be.
Purplish scrub grew in patches along this stretch of the ridge. Some of it was flattened in a rectangular pattern.
John reached out his hand and met resistance just before he could touch the crushed foliage. Something was there. Except for the pressure of a smooth solid surface, it spoke nothing to his questing fingertips.
John smiled. Whatever this bridge was made of it was made recently. The flattened, though still living plants, proved it.
It could only have been the work of the Incunabulum and the Thief who stole it. John was on the right track.
He was bothered slightly by its precision. Jane, as the only person other than John who was literate in the language of the Book, must have been coerced somehow into cooperating with her captor. She must still be alive, then. More good news.
John relaxed his back and shoulder muscles. He had been tensing them unconsciously since his arrival.
He stood and reached both hands out and down, fumbling slightly until he contacted the railings on either side. The bridge was just wide enough for him to pass.
His hands never leaving the rails, John slid his feet along, inching his way over the gently arching span. Despite what had to be a mirror smooth surface, the path was not the least bit slippery.
The distance to the settlement hadn’t seemed that long when he began, but halfway through, arms and fingers aching from the intensity of his grip, John realized that the footbridge spanned almost half a mile.
Between his feet was nothing visible to block his view of a long drop to the ground below.
After what seemed like hours, but had been only about fifteen minutes, John stepped gratefully onto the purple turf of the plateau.
Massaging some life back into his shoulders and wrists, the Custodian took his first good look at the settlement. Fields at different heights stretched away in three directions. Buildings in small clusters dotted the landscape.
No sign of movement, no sign of anything living.
The ridge he’d crossed to get his first glimpse of the valley was a secant to the umber sun, now descending fast enough that John could see its movement. He had only minutes of daylight left.
Coincident with this, he heard the first natural noise in this place since he’d left the beach; it was the sound of wind.
Twenty yards away to his left was a barn made of, for want of a better word, wood. It might have been the same colour as all the other flora, but in the fading light the whole thing looked black.
A breeze tugged at his hair, momentarily obscuring his already dim vision of the barn; the wind was rising as the sun set.
A feeling of dread settled over John Airkhart.
Night on a strange world in a dead city with a storm coming; his only means of retreat an exposed, invisible bridge half a mile long.
A strong urge to get out of sight sent him trotting toward the barn.
His destination had large double doors that slid on railed tracks above. With a hard shove, one of them gave just enough for him to squeeze inside.
With some effort, John managed to get the door closed again. The squeal of metal grinding against rusted metal drowned out the sound of the approaching storm.
There was no bar or latch to secure the doors.
Now that he was in dubious safety, John took note of the light. Above him, a vertical beam supported the edge of a loft that crossed the width of the barn. A hurricane lamp hung from a nail just below the edge of the latter.
It was lit. That could mean his quarry had been here.
If so, Jane and her abductor might still be here.
Too late for silence.
Unless they were dead or unconscious, they’d have had to have heard him come in. Taking care to minimize his movements, John scanned the barn.
The ground level was one big space. It seemed odd until he realized that what was missing were stalls where one would normally keep cattle or horses on Oerth. Scattered over a floor of blue flagstones were bits of reddish-purple straw.
Beside the lamp was a crude wooden ladder built right into the structure. It was a pastel violet, almost mauve.
Above, the loft was in deep shadow. Anyone could be hiding up there, watching.
The wind became a gale, rattling the boards of the barn. Waiting served no purpose. He’d have to ascend and take his chances.
Moving slowly, in case they were up there and, by some stroke of luck, had not heard him, he advanced to the ladder and began to climb.
For all it looked to have been carelessly assembled, the ladder was sturdy, easily taking his weight. The injury to his hands, not properly treated yet, made the climb awkward; the wood was worn in the middle of each step, making for a slightly slippery grip.
The hurricane lamp looked to be made of a kind of ceramic, painted blue. The light burned blue with a bright actinic light, yet the lamp was cool to the touch. He could not figure out what fuel it was using. After a moment, John decided against taking it with him on his climb. If chance allowed, he could just grab it after he attained the loft.
Having reached the last rung before having to reveal himself to any waiting above, John hesitated.
The Thief could be lying in wait; planning to attack from cover the moment John revealed himself. Worse, he could be planning to harm Jane. He made his decision.
John crouched on the ladder, climbing two more rungs. He was now hanging just below visible range, knees under his chin. The lamp, within arm’s reach, was almost blinding in his right eye.
He braced himself and, in one convulsive movement, sprang upward. Arching over the end of the ladder, arms outstretched, John flew over remnants of hay bales. He landed and rolled upright. Spinning around, he scanned the loft quickly.
No movement. No people.
The light was too dim to make much out; just mounds and stacks of what he took to be more hay bales. He wondered briefly why, if there were no animals, the residents bothered to grow, much less bale, hay.
He went back to the edge of the loft and, crouching, reached down and took the lantern off the nail. The beam of the lantern fell first on what John thought was a large stack of bales. It turned out to be shack of sorts. The first thing he noticed, even in the pale blue light of the lamp, was that the planks were of blonde wood. The wood for this hadn’t come from nearby; possibly not from this world at all.
John slowly circled the shack, trying to ignore the gusts of the storm outside rattling the rafters of the barn. He was torn between worry that the Thief might be behind the shack and that the wind would shake the barn apart.
One slow circuit later, John knew two things. No one else was in the barn and the shack had no visible entrance. Thinking he might find Jane and her abductor somehow in the structure despite no visible means of ingress, John shone the lantern between two ill-fitting slats and peered inside.
The room was devoid of any contents, like people. Moving the lantern about to try to illuminate different parts of the space, he looked for a hidden entrance in the floor. The only thing he saw were swirls and mounds of sand. ‘Where’d that come from?’ he thought.
His musings were interrupted by the end of the world.
The sound of the metal roof tearing away from the heavy wooden rafters anchoring it to the barn was a scream of tortured metal. For a moment, it drowned out the shriek of the wind, which then became louder for the roof’s absence.
When he saw the sky, the Custodian’s gaze became one of ecstatic terror.
Shredded pieces of the roof were sucked up into a vortex of deep red light that filled the hole where the roof had been.
Billowing clouds streamed across its face, seemingly immune to its pull.
Not so the immediate landscape.
The wreckage of buildings and even whole chunks of the inverted mountain itself were leaping into John’s vision as they flew into its maw.
Black specks swirled around the edge of the tornado of fire, spiraling into it.
Much more than just the city was vanishing. This phenomenon, colossal in size and astronomical in distance, might very well be eating this entire world.
There was nothing to be done. Whether a natural event or a force unleashed by the Incunabulum, John was as helpless to determine his fate as any of the inanimate bits of junk hurling upward.
The barn began disintegrating as he felt his weight lessen. It was a sickening sensation.
The lantern was torn from his hand. He avoided panic, remembering he had faced death many times in his life.
John of Clan Airkhart would do as he had always done. He would stare it down.
The Custodian wrapped his cloak tightly around him and looked into the eye of hell. Making no protest, he was pulled from his feet and drawn into its gaze.
— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, August 2026
© Gideon Jagged
All Rights Reserved
