Chapter 55 – Teller of Fate

Teller of Fate

Sixth Movement: The Fate of Stars

Chapter Fifty-Five

* * *

‘It should be cold here,’ Jane thought. The squared turret top of the Magsmens Guild was easily a mile above the Plaza of Dying Suns. The air should’ve been thinner; a stiff, bitter wind should’ve been blowing.

Perhaps the sky was throwing off her instinct. The spheres were huge just now; or just close. Jane honestly couldn’t define a difference.

They were pinkish white with shades of dark grey. Streaks of livid violet and leprous spots of deep red marked many of them.

It had the feel of an overcast sky back home if one ignored the fact of the spheres themselves.

A mild breeze, quite pleasant, occasionally ruffled her hair.

The air was clear as crystal.

She could see the Plaza in the city’s center with perfect clarity, even though it was over seven miles distant from her perch.

It was a scene of furious activity as dozens of the strangely dressed mages called Hermetists bustled around, chalking marks on the stones, and moving interesting bits of arcana around.

The rest of Glyph looked like a Færie tale city.

Buildings of multi-coloured stone and masonry, wood and metal descended in grand sweeps from the corners anchored by the guild buildings. The whole was shaped like a sheet held at the corners. The buildings’ forms and designs ranged from the stern and imposing to the whimsical and bizarre.

At the lowest points along the four walls that girded the city, stood huge gates as tall as the level of the walls that flanked them. Now closed, they were the visible focus of all Jane’s worry.

The two wide straight roads cut Glyph into quarters and descended with the landscape to ground level as they approached the Plaza.

The cityscape consumed her for more than the obvious reasons; the view over beyond the walls was more than a little unsettling.

Jane turned a glance over her shoulders.

The dwarf, Elian Kneecapper, was standing at the corner farthest from the Plaza, at the very corner of the city itself, looking out.

She wondered what he was thinking that made staring at infinity possible for so long.

When they had arrived here, their assigned spot for the Working, they had both moved to the outer wall; she eagerly, having never seen beyond it, he rather more reluctantly as if he wanted, yet dreaded the sight.

Despite what she’d been told about the position of the city, Jane had instinctively expected ground, earth, a horizon. There was only more sphere-filled sky, stretching away and down.

Down.

The city itself overhung the edge of the Spire all around and the turret was farther out than that.

One had to lean out to spot the Spire dropping down until it was obscured by the spheres.

Jane wasn’t an acrophobe but looking out had meant not seeing any referents at all to mentally position herself in space.

One just saw the spheres, drifting infinities of them.

A sense of vertigo came, so intense it was almost physical. Jane had staggered and caught herself against the parapet.

Quickly, she had closed her eyes and turned around. Opening them to see the grey flagstone of the roof. The swirling in her head then subsided quickly.

Jane had paced to the corner diagonal opposite and had marvelled at the saner glories of the city itself.

She checked again to find that the dwarf was coming toward her.

Elian stood beside her and shared her view of the city for a while.

He was dressed in leather and chain, a steel helmet covered black severely short hair. The mace he had slung over his shoulder looked like malevolence incarnate and stood almost a foot above his head, the latter just short of her shoulder.

“The city seems quiet,” Jane ventured.

“As the grave,” Elian rumbled. His basso voice sent thousands of tiny insects crawling up her spine and over her scalp.

“Do you think this will work?” She held the Syrat cards they’d been given tightly in her hands. They glittered in the neutral light, looking like the deadly cards of legend.

He looked up at her. His beard made his expression uncertain, though his brows had descended. “I do. Glyph may not survive it but now that they’re here, the Hermetists will trap the White God, I am sure.”

“I’m…I’m surprised you were able to look out at—” Jane gestured toward the outer battlement—“for so long. It nearly made me sick.” She made her voice light.

Elian caught the question she hadn’t voiced. “I was remembering a companion. Long ago he…” the dwarf’s voice caught. Jane realized with some shock that the normally taciturn dwarf was on the verge of tears.

“You were close?”

He nodded. “Lovers since adolescence. I’ve never loved anyone else.”

“How did he die? Accident? Or—”

“Executed by the Garda for the crime of trying to dig into the Spire. They threw him from the wall.” He went on to describe the incident.

“Gods of my fathers! That must have been a horrible thing to witness.”

“I didn’t. I was elsewhere.” Elian was back in control of himself again, though anger seemed to colour his voice. “It should have been stopped; could have been, if this city’s citizens had objected.”

“I didn’t think it was possible to communicate, much less influence the Garda.”

His head jerked toward her again and he gave her a diamond hard stare. His words, when they emerged, were milder than she expected them to be. “That’s always been assumed.” He shrugged and looked down. “I wonder what would have happened had someone tried, though.” Elian turned back to his study of the silent city-state.

Jane placed a companionable hand on his shoulder. He sighed deeply and seemed to relax a little.

Staring across at the tower kitty-corner to hers, Jane imagined she could see the others or rather, the one other that she was missing. Over fourteen miles of perfectly clear air could not even give her a glimpse of people she knew were there.

— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, August 2026

© Gideon Jagged
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