Teller of Fate
Sixth Movement: The Fate of Stars
Chapter Sixty
* * *
Think they’re here for us, ya?”
Erahn saw John, still lounging on the pile of their shed clothing, shake his head. “I don’t know. They’ve stopped their approach to the city if that tells us anything.”
Erahndira was sitting with him in the middle of the tower top, looking up. Horses, John had called them; they looked like silver horses. He’d explained that horses had long hairy tails, and something called a mane as well; things which these lacked.
They resembled the iwiw of her own world in shape, but they had hard flat things called hooves instead of paws and their heads looked different.
When she’d tried to describe the iwiw, John had laughed. He’d said they sounded like an Oerth animal called a ‘dog’. She asked why he thought it funny, and he’d gone on to say that she looked very much like still another Oerth animal, a ‘cat’.
Trying to decide if she should be insulted or not, she’d asked why that was funny. His explanation did little to enlighten her, though it did reassure her that she was not being made fun of. Probably.
After a while, Erahndira became tired of looking at the never changing dance. Standing, she walked naked to see what news the Plaza of Dying Suns had to offer.
There seemed to have been a calming of the situation. The motion of people was now ordered, and a pattern of sorts was taking shape.
Though people were just fuzzy blobs at this distance, Erahn made out the forms of the Hermetists because of those ridiculous hats they wore.
Most of the plaza was empty. Only seven figures could she see in the middle, now. “John! You better come see this, ya!”
A few moments later, still naked, John was at her side. “I think it’ll soon be time to start.”
Before Erahn could reply, she heard a noise; a tumbling, rolling, grinding, grating sound. Faint vibrations came up from the stone through her feet.
Then the tower lurched sideways!
She gripped the stone just as John fell into her and had trouble righting himself. The tower was swaying out outward at a noticeable rate.
No, not the tower—the whole city.
It was just possible to make out the movement of those in the square: they were standing up after having been knocked down. Over the rumbling came shouts from the refugee-packed streets below.
Erahndira’s thoughts were a scream, ‘The Spire is falling!’
— Gideon Jagged
Innsmouth, August 2026
© Gideon Jagged
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