Teller of Fate

Fourth Movement: Custodians of the Incunabulum

Chapter Thirty-Four

* * *

Erahndira’s weeping woke the Thief sometime during that first darkless night in the ghetto. Again, she wept for her daughter Zilonen, murdered on the wall.

She told him of her daughter as he held her, offering the mute comfort of his body. Caresses turned into embraces; words into kisses and soon they were entangled in passion again.

Twice more before the coming day with its surfeit of event and revelation, her pain woke them both, clinging to each other. Twice more, the Thief offered carnal comfort.

Finally, the Thief woke alone. He sat up, the sheet of the bed dropping from him, and looked around. Erahndira was sitting at the table in the small kitchen leafing through the Incunabulum!

Wildly, he looked around. A small window, high in the wall to his left, let in the red light of the perpetual evening. It didn’t seem to be changing. Nor did anything else. He reminded himself that the changes could be affecting anything, anywhere. His lover could innocently be collapsing entire Aions.

No point panicking her. ‘In fact, best if she doesn’t know what the Book is,’ he told himself. The guilt she felt would surely add more misery than she could bear in her state. “Erahn?”

She looked up, the distracted look she bore melting into a smile, “Mornin’ lover! There’s coffee on, ya.”

That derailed him, “Coffee? Where in hell’d you get coffee?”

After her delightful, hiccupy laugh. “Hinglish brought it from Glyph a long time ago, ya. We grow it now. Can I get you some?”

“Sure. Uhm…what do you think of that book?”

The Thief winced as she looked down at it, “I hope you don’t mind, ya. I picked it up this mornin’ and I thought I’d give it a look. Funny letters they are. What language is it?”

“I don’t know,” he was almost honest about that, at least. “Anything…strange about them?”

“They’re funny-shaped, ya.”

“So, they’re not moving, or anything?” 

She him an old-fashioned look, “Moving?”

His relief was mingled with wonder, “Sorry.” He tried a sheepish grin on for size, “Just kidding.”

Casually, she closed the book and went through a doorway on her right. The sound of mugs being placed on a counter and filled with liquid echoed slightly into the room. “What d’ya take in your coffee, ya?”

“I take it black.”

They sat at the table over breakfast: a kind of vegetable hash that was spicy and quite filling.

The coffee was divine. He asked her where they grew it and was told about the underground farms.

As they shared a shower, he learned about the efforts taken to keep the inhabited parts of the ghetto functioning by stripping empty buildings to replace worn fixtures and plumbing.

Most of the buildings had power, she told him, though the power grid was not great. That’s why lighting was used so sparingly. Heat wasn’t a problem, given the climate.

Jane’s black leathers were all the Thief had. Erahn offered him the leather shorts and laced vest she herself wore, but he felt more comfortable wearing something that offered better protection.

Afterward, they headed out.

The Thief asked what the plan was.

“Depends on what the scouts say, ya.” She seemed in a grim mood, though she again held his hand gently. She gave it a squeeze and smiled for him.

They followed a similar route to the one they took the last time but ended up in a much larger space underground. He estimated that they must have knocked out many walls to make the cavernous room so big.

Pillars and beams of wood, steel, or rough concrete in no regular pattern interrupted the floor space. It was already more than half full.

As they descended a metal staircase to the floor some four stories below, she told him that it wouldn’t hold more than a quarter of the people living in the ghetto. Only those chosen to speak for their clans would be here.

Few looked up as they reached the floor and those noted his presence.

Some looked as if they wanted to speak to her about him but thought better of it when they saw that she held his hand. The last time he was among them, he’d thought the hand holding was merely comfort seeking.

Now it seemed to him that it had some formal meaning among them. She was extending a kind of protection to him. It occurred to the Thief that Erahndira was well-respected in this community and might even be a leader of sorts.

They wound their way through a crowd that got denser as they approached a dais at the right end of the room.

Already there were four other cat-people on it. The only woman was an ancient mostly pie-bald figure and the only one seated.

Erahndira left him at the right edge of the dais.

She turned and gave him a long, firm kiss and let go his hand. For all the affection was real, he knew it was a gesture meant to convey meaning to those watching as well.

She stepped up and began talking quietly with the others as the room continued to fill. None of the cat people around him so much as glanced his way.

The Thief began to feel slightly uncomfortable. His status among these people was uncertain and they all felt it. The Thief tried to ignore them and concentrated on the stage.

Over the next few minutes more people joined the group on the dais until there were a dozen or so.

The last to ascend, a huge male of middle years, raised a hand and faced the throng. The low babble of talk quickly quieted.

The hand descended. He spoke. Of course, the Thief understood none of the growling, hissing language.

Though he spoke only a single statement, it excited a renewed babble among the throng. It took a long while for it to die down.

Finally raising a hand again, the leader spoke for some minutes into the renewed quiet. Finally, he appeared to ask a question. The audience responded loudly and at length.

Again, the speaker made no attempt to quiet the babble, which lasted longer this time. The tenor of the response seemed to satisfy most on the dais; the Thief saw grim smiles on several of them.

Once the noise had subsided, another of the leaders on the podium spoke, ending with another question. This elicited a forest of raised hands.

After a few seconds’ thought, the speaker pointed out someone and a host of people headed for various exits. The speaker descended from the stage and left as well.

The process was repeated until there remained only the leader, the elderly cat and Erahndira on stage and the group around it, now reduced to a few dozen in all.

His lover beckoned the Thief up. He mounted the three creaky steps and, moccasins muffling his steps, trod the boards to the group.

She introduced him to the others and briefly told him what was happening. The clans had decided to stage a fighting withdrawal into secret places far underground prepared during the earliest years of the ghetto’s existence.

Younger adults unencumbered with young ones or the elderly to care for, volunteered to fight the expected invasion, giving the rest time to abandon the ghetto and get to safety.

The Thief was left with many questions and no time to ask them. As the leader helped the elderly cat off the dais, Erahndira led him back toward her quarters.

“What’s our role in all this?” he asked her when they were again alone.

“I volunteered to fight, ya.”

The Thief nodded; he’d expected no less. “Where do we make our stand?”

She stopped short and gave him an intense stare, “We?”

He confirmed the hope in her eyes, “Yes. I’m in this with you.” She took his hand, and they hurried back to her place.

Once there, Erahndira stuffed a satchel full of things from the bedroom and the lavatory.

The Thief was already carrying everything he intended to take with him; the Book went into a borrowed satchel he slung across his shoulder.

Erahn gave the place not a backward glance, though she might never see it again. Sentiment didn’t seem to be a part of her nature.

They headed toward the wall, which surprised him. “Isn’t this kind of dangerous?” he asked.

She nodded. “No choice really, ya. It’d take too long to get to the gate otherwise. Besides, we’ve been patrollin’ since the” —she waved vaguely at the spot where her daughter died and said no more.

He placed a comforting arm around her waist and together they walked the plank to the wall.

There were many following the same route and more who seemed to be just standing at the outer edge of the wall, watching.

The Thief began to feel a bit safer. The ghetto itself showed considerable activity as people began to gather what they could and fled to the lower levels.

There was no change in the sky, the sun exactly where it had been when he’d arrived on this world.

Overhead the crisscrossing wires continued to rust quietly, and the massive winding snake of the overhead rail still hugged the coastline of the weird-looking blue sea.

Occasionally, the multiple bangs from the sky would foretell the flashing lights whizzing overhead.

Twice during the march, hissed warnings from the guards along the edge of the wall sent them diving onto their bellies while patrols of preests on dog-back went by.

By the time they reached journey’s end, there were several hundred people with them, and concealment was no longer possible.

Just before a sharp left bend, most everyone left the wall.

All along the corner was a concrete fortification. Cat-people sat or crouched behind a low barricade armed, the Thief was surprised to see, with automatic weapons not unlike the ones carried by their foes.

The occasional hiss, sounding like a taunt to the Thief, floated over the wall and was returned in kind.

He and Erahn followed most of the throng along an actual concrete bridge to the roof of a building that looked like its original purpose had been military. A high brick wall surrounded the open space that topped off the structure.

The Thief had noticed as he crossed that the windows on the nearest buildings here were narrow and barred. Neat rows of stacked weaponry practically filled the roof. They included bows and swords as well firearms, everything from muskets to what he suspected were plasma throwers. Some exiles from Glyph, it seemed, had arrived carrying serious hardware. A gap in the far wall indicated another bridge, this one walled as well.

The pair followed this through to a lower floor of another bunker-like building. They continued for another twenty minutes, past more armed and armoured cat-women and men. Most people they passed were tense, speaking in whispers and looking nervously around, waiting.

Finally, they emerged from a building onto ground level.

The Thief was surprised to see open sky. He’d had the impression there wasn’t much uncovered space to be found in the ghetto.

A wide parade ground was surrounded on three sides by buildings reinforced with concrete, bricked up windows, and concrete barriers hindering access to the very few ground-level entrances. All the latter were heavily guarded. Unlike the buildings he had seen thus far, the Thief noted that all the ones fronting the square did not narrow near the ground. There were no covered avenues through which to flee.

To their right was the wall, in which was centered a gate obviously not built by the residents.

Twenty feet high and fifteen broad, the gates were rusted iron, reinforced and riveted. They looked capable of withstanding massive explosions.

Together Erahndira and the Thief peeked from the door, past the three heavily armed cat-men.

The square was empty; last-day-of-school empty.

“What now?” the Thief asked.

“Scouts say many riders comin,’ ya. Maybe an hour ‘til they get here.” She leaned in and hugged him sideways, resting her head against his shoulder for a moment. She was trembling.

The red light of the perpetual day still made everything look like blood. Erahndira’s shudders subsided as fear exhausted itself.

The Thief retreated into himself, looking for courage.

There had been a reason he was here. He had the Incunabulum. He felt the comforting bulge of it in the satchel hanging at his waist.

Erahn was willing to show him the gate to Glyph. His long-sought payday was almost upon him. He could begin the Working soon after.

The Working. The plan to trap the White God.

The Thief remembered his mission now! What was different?

Erahndira distracted him from further speculation. She twitched her mouth; whiskers brushed his cheek, tickling. An overwhelming surge of affection and protectiveness for this fuzzy woman under his arm filled him.

He’d only ever loved once. He’d banished all other affection from his psyche until now.

Several fruitless internal arguments later—movement.

A gang of brawny cats began dismantling the barricade that blocked the gates from swinging inward.

As soon as she realized what they were doing, Erahndira hissed and sprinted toward them. The Thief followed a bit more reluctantly.

He arrived in time for the screaming match between Erahn and the cat he thought was the leader to really kick into high gear.

The removal of the barrier continued, meanwhile.

It ended when the large cat backhanded Erahn sending her sprawling at the Thief’s feet.

The Thief sprang for her attacker’s throat. That, at least, had been the plan. Something grabbed his feet, and he was eating a mouthful of pale dirt with a bum on his back before he knew what happened.

A hand grabbed his hair; whiskers tickled his ear. “Lay still, lover.” She was up and standing in front of the leader before the Thief could raise his head.

A brief, civil dialogue ensued. At its end, a formal-looking exchange involving the touching of foreheads and the placing of hands on the others’ hearts and backs of necks ended the exchange.

Erahndira returned to his side and helped him to his feet. A look answered his questions about the incident. Instead, “What’s happening?”

“There are only a dozen riders on the other side, ya. When the preests outside the wall saw them comin’, they ran.” She indicated the gate. “They asked for a truce to speak with us.” So, that was the problem. Erahndira was ill-disposed to trust those she thought complicit in her daughter’s murder.

Behind them, troops were forming up, heavily armed. She took his hand and moved them both to one side as the soldiers advanced to within a few paces of the gates.

The two of them ended up standing with the leader. He gave the Thief a careful look then, to the Thief’s surprise, placed a hand on his shoulder and muttered, “Sorry for your distress. We have a different way, sometimes, ya.”

He had less of an accent than Erahndira, who watched her lover’s face carefully.

Not trusting his voice, the Thief only nodded. That seemed to satisfy.

The leader turned his attention back to the gates, behind which clanking noises foretelling their opening could be heard.

Erahn held his hand again, giving it a squeeze. Gratefully, he returned it, took a deep breath, and let it out slowly.

With a cracking boom that echoed twice around the parade ground, the two halves of the gate parted, puffs of rust flying off, and an ear bleeding grinding and squeaking accompanied the slow movement of both gates inward.

The first row of cats waited; readying their weapons, but not aiming them.

When the gap was big enough for one person to walk through, they continued opening. The Thief cursed them under his breath, though he could have shouted and been unheard amid the din.

He finally broke down and put his hands over his ears, wondering why no one else was doing the same. Then he looked at Erahndira’s right ear. The collapsible earflap evidently served as a cover as well. It probably blocked more of the sound than the heels of his hands did.

Eventually, the gates stood wide. A row of doggy-horsey-thingy-women and men advanced in a row, smartly, until they were just clear of the gates.

They were unarmed and dressed quite differently than the only other outsiders the Thief had seen. He noted the surprise of the cats to their appearance as well.

The mounted cats wore simple leathers; much like the ones worn by the inmates of the ghetto, except they seemed better made. No boots, helmets, or armour were in evidence.

At a signal from the leader, he and three other cats, including Erahndira advanced to the mounted group. The Thief hung back at Erahn’s request.

When the leader got as far as the front row of guards, he grabbed the nearest gun barrel and gently lifted it. All the others followed suit, putting their weapons up and slinging them across their shoulders.

When the outsider cats arrived, one of them dismounted. A brief dialogue ensued.

Judging by the mutters of the guards, something significant was being said. At one point, a brief cheer was immediately smothered by the leader’s scowl.

After another five minutes of talk, the doggy-thingies moved aside to make way for a covered wooden cart drawn by two more of them.

It made a right turn before reaching the mounted line and advanced until its rear was almost clear of it.

Two cats opened the back of the cart and began hauling bodies out and onto the ground. They were, the Thief guessed, the armed preests who had committed murder less than two days previously.

Erahndira caught his eye and beckoned him over.

The Thief went, walking stiffly and feeling more than a bit like a tasty mouse. Erahn spoke when he arrived. “Are these the Miu you saw the day you arrived?”

She pointed to the seven figures lying on the dirt.

They certainly looked like them. He still couldn’t tell one face from another, but the Thief was sure only a token affirmation was required, so, “Yes, I’m certain. They are the ones who I saw shoot at the top of the wall that day.”

She repeated in Miu(?) what he had said. That seemed to satisfy everyone. The leaders continued to confer.

The Thief whispered in Erahn’s ear “There were more. We saw them on the way here.”

The Miu whispered back, “They said there were only about two hundred of them, ya. They scattered when the delegation from the southern cities—” she indicated the mounted Miu in front of them—“arrived. Soldiers will be huntin’ them down, ya.”

He nodded.

Just then the leader of the ghetto turned and addressed the cats waiting in the square. In a loud voice, he declaimed a short sentence.

A deafening roar filled the air. Miu came out from the buildings jumping, fists raised and chanting and singing.

And Erahn was in his arms, laughing. It was too loud to ask for specifics, but the battle wasn’t going to happen, it seemed.

In minutes, he heard music rise through the laughter and cheers: drums and some stringed instrument he couldn’t identify.

Erahn broke the embrace and pulled him toward a space clearing in the middle of the parade ground. She began a frenetic jiggling dance that he had no hope of matching; he tried anyway.

Soon they were joined by many others including the first Miu children he’d ever had a good look at. Perfect miniatures of their elders they were, except for the bits where the adults were bare of fur, the children were thickly furred in white.

A claw tapped his shoulder, and a clay jug was pushed into his hand. Fumes coming from the wide lip stung the Thief’s sinuses and made his tongue stutter in the back of his throat. He took a swig.

It tasted like molten pickles and whooshed straight to his middle ear, making him stagger. A laughing Erahndira took the jug as she steadied him. She took a longer pull than he did and passed it along. This party was just getting started.

* * *

The Thief had no idea how long the celebration lasted. In between dances and breaks for food and drink, Erahn had told him that the preests had been overthrown in a civil war that had ended nearly two centuries before.

She was right that no one had known that this ghetto, or any of the other four, was still inhabited. The small group of preest soldiers were disaffected persons from rural areas far to the south with a few escapees from prison thrown in; preest sympathizers who sought to revive the madness of their reign.

Those who tracked them now were thief-takers. Riders were headed for the other ghettos to see if any others had survived. The best news was that provision would be made for any who wished to return to the south to reclaim their ancient lands.

Many, she predicted, would wish to stay, but others would go. When he asked her if she would go, she smiled and wink at him and said, “That depends, ya.”

After a lot of dancing, feasting, and drink, they staggered arm-in-arm back to her place, swapping an increasingly empty jug back and forth as they did so.

The gloinging of the liquor competed occasionally with the sounds of merriment coming from random directions.

They arrived home and made drunken-awkward love, laughter bubbling up at their own clumsiness, until orgasm and fatigue muted it. As he spooned Erahn and drifted off, the Thief had no thoughts except how happy he was.

Morning, shower, coffee.

As they sat across from each other, still naked and damp, he asked her again if she was staying. Instead of answering she asked, “What’re your plans, ya?”

He’d been thinking of that on and off, this morning. He let go the mug and a laid his hand over her furry one. “I must be getting on. That Book—” he nodded toward the satchel hanging over the back of an empty chair—“must go to my buyer.”

A Teller of Fate, Dævara. He could remember nothing more about her. “She’ll be getting anxious.”

Erahndira’s eyes asked the question her mouth refused to. He’d never seen her look nervous. It didn’t suit her.

So the Thief asked, “I could use company on the journey. Would you come with me?”

She tried—and failed—to hide her smile. “Well,” with forced nonchalance, “wouldn’t want you gettin’ lost lookin’ for the Portal, ya. I better come along of ya.”

Erahndira ducked her eyes and grabbed his cup. As she fled to the kitchen, “I’ll get us a refill.” There was a full minute of silence before he heard coffee spilling into cups. She emerged damped-eyed and happy. “Here you are, ya.” She sat and gripped his hand tightly in hers.

---

— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, August 2026

© Gideon Jagged
All Rights Reserved