Heaven in Cilifus

The Tower of Cilifus

Seventy years ago, in the fragile peace of the Age of Six Tribes, the Tormenta came to wash us all away!

It was the first of five great Catastrophes that decimated the mightiest clans and strongest empires in our continent of Levelas! Even our connection to the Pure Ones, the great gods who gave birth to us Folks, was cut like worn thread, leaving us to drown in floods of warm rain!

Then came the sickness, the hunger, nature twisted into abominations, and finally, them: the monsters from another world, the Dwellers, dressed in brass and the skins of the innocent, vicious and invincible!

We hoped for salvation, but who could help us? The foxes who conquered the north were broken, the huge weapons that poisoned the very land to the west became nothing but junk, and even the Old Ways our heroes and saints relied on to maintain balance couldn't match the danger! No, those tragedies would only gather beneath our feet, then germinated like a seed into—

The shittiest game of dice in the history of the world.

The fly hovering over Francies' grog could tell where this farce led. Guffawing so loud it rivaled a thunderstorm in sheer painful might beckoned the three unfortunate victims of the evening to follow suit.

After all, so long as the center of the whole world itself was happy, everything would be okay, right? He cackled, he slapped the only good table at the only tavern left in the village like it had been made for a spanking, and he bagged Francies' supper for the third time this week. He never ate the meals warm, if he ate them at all.

"And that's a wrap up, me thinks!" the tyrant Édipos said, tossing tampered dice up and again, "Can't lose one! Lucky day if I've ever had any."

From the farthest end of the table, ever squinting Anton giggled a hollow sound like he had bet his entire livelihood, despite being the best off loser today, the bastard. "C-can't really compete, can we? Yar' the champion at Liars."

Besides him, Mina, the single huntress who could bear the tyrant's stench from closer than a yard gave a crooked smile. "B-but did we really need to go so high stakes again? Little Francies is going to bed with his stomach gurgling again."

She had a heart of gold, that woman, but sincere pleas mattered little to the Amazing Eddy whose cheer thrive on misery. He stood up, chugged down his drink in one turn of the cup, and tossed a handful of her own green coppers at the conspicuously demure tavern keeper.

"Oh, but what's fun without loss? Besides, Little Francies here ain't so little anymore, is he? He can play with his buddies." Édipos slapped his shoulder with the same cajoling friendliness of a solid branch falling from ten meters above. At least today he didn't dislocate it.

"Y-yah, I ain't so little anymore." Francies' tasted bile, but what other options did he have? "Just gonna to have to dine on mice and weeds again, nothing new!"

"Atta boy! That's why I love ya!" He laughed. "Ya other folks oughta learn from him!"

No goodbyes, not an inkling of shame on his square face, nor any acknowledgment for the silence that always followed his wake. Édipos walked off with the same smug ignorance he arrived with, leaving the other peons around them to lick their wounds with self-pitying glances and glares at Francies, as if he had fault.

Not that they needed to wait. Eddy made for a merciful "commander of the guard" so long as he was in a good mood. What did he have to fear, after all? At first look, somebody who didn't know him might say everything. He wasn't tall, he wasn't muscular, he wasn't smart, he was only skilled enough to know which end of a stick was the stabby one. To borrow old parlance, he was no tree among the reeds, and on top of everything his reputation made the bottom of a latrine shine like silver.

But in the village of South Lateno, everyone knew everyone, so everyone knew Édipos Ponte. He was special. Untouchable.

A truth as simple and easy to swallow as life itself. With maybe three bent coins shared between them now, the three poor suckers did the only thing they could: drank their last drops in silence then went home.

The final irony is that they would have a very pleasant evening today.

Above them, a sky of golden and muddy gray roiled like a sheet full of snakes, but decades of experience had taught Francies that was just what calm looked to the Tormenta. With no signs of rain to come, they were left with a fresh breeze and spectacularly bright night to enjoy.

No reason to lower their guard regardless. As they used to say, treachery always caught you with your pants down. Each of the three departed with a torch in hand, quiet as graves until the weather worn houses of the village began to disperse into small farms of withering vegetables. Another year of declining, unhealthy crops, apparently.

Mina kept alert, ears perked high above her brunette bun. In a place like South Lateno everyone knew everyone, in no small part thanks to the blessings of their kind.

"I can't believe Eddy just walked away like that! Gorged on our hard earned coin and left!" She said, ears punctuating every other word with anxious twitches. "Aren't we all hares here?! Where's the consideration on that animal?!"

Indeed, folks here were mostly all Long Ear, the three of them included, with their furry namesakes ready to catch gossip and their large feet ready to run free and spread it far.

Hopping to the front, Francies said: "Don't know why you still bother showing up, Mina, he never goes looking for you."

"He's been pesterin' Len so often da' poor thing nearly scrambled for 'er things in the dark of dawn! Can ya believe it?! Thought he wanted some attention, but I guess he has a keen nose for wealth, that's all."

Anton, thin and pasty Anton, looked positively furious. "H-he has a wife! We were guests at his wedding above the spine of holy Apodon, may their children walk the path always, he wouldn't dare covet another!"

"If only! What a poor, sweet thing she is, getting saddled with that filth!" Mina said. "If only she could rail her husband in like yours railed ya, eh Ants?"

They stopped at a crossroads. Francies looked around himself, noting how few flames he saw in the distance. They had barely ten militia guards and only half of them bothered working anymore with Eddy in command. Dangerous.

"I-I hope she doesn't. I-I already had enough with her almost starting a fight with Édipos in broad daylight." Anton swallowed out loud.

"Somebody has to." Mina said. "Better be smart about it, eh? He's a little tough, yeah, but he's folk like any other! with two arms that bend, two legs that break, and a soft face to crunch. What does he have that we don't?"

He fixed his round spectacles. "An Invitation."

Silence.

Seconds later, Mina sighed. "Welp, better head home, before the wifey becomes your living nightmare again."

"Y-yah, good idea." Anton bower once to each of them. "Sorry Mina, Francies, have a restful night. Times been strange, we might not have many of those left."

They watched his torch diminish south, to a quaint cottage with a picket fence all the way down on the swell of a hillock, no crops of their own but they did tend to their neighbors'. Sweet nothings and reassurances reached them with the wind as he was tucked in nice and cozy between four solid walls.

"Man, what a downer," Mina said.

"If he doesn't watch out, he's going to end up just like us." He agreed, and both turned the opposite way.

There was a solid walk from the main village to its more isolated, clustered half, the rickety commune where the hunters, the lumberers, the butchers, and the drifters gathered, but if he could make the journey dragging carcasses half his weight he could do it tipsy and melancholic too.

Some would say sleeping in the woods was roughly as bad as sleeping on the street, but there was safety here. People rested late and light, lost in the haze of buzzes and calls from the curling, spiraling trees and thirsting, thorn ridden bushes. If somebody was in danger, they only needed to scream; there were always five or six others willing to bust down their doors, axes in hand.

They reached the line of the trees, the point where the path narrowed to guesswork and was covered in grasping roots, when Mina cleaned her throat. "What about you, Francies? Something has to be done about it, agreed?"

"What about me?" Francies shrugged. "Pardon, but I don't think we can do anything about it right now, can we?"

Soon, they would be within hearing range of others. Mina knew, but she kept talking like it didn't matter. "There 'as to be somethin'! Did ya hear about Petron, the farmer?"

Took him a moment of mulling to remember. "Oh, the one who got nearly beaten to death?"

She nodded. "For tellin' 'im to fuck off and go do 'is job when he was in a funk! Might never tend well to 'is land again. An' Loon before that, who got stripped naked an' prostrated in front of 'is family for spitting near 'is foot! That's not the Eddy we knew back when we were kids."

Back when there still were kids around, even. He had always been a bit bossy, willing to throw fists when pissed off, to say things he didn't mean then double down, but there was some level of virtue to him. He chilled out a lot once he wasn't the biggest boy around and didn't have that weight to throw around anymore, as obviously bitter as the loss made him.

The day Eddy disappeared, both Mina and him had been there with the search parties. Most wanted him battered and hung, since he had carried off a lot of good quality gear from the barracks, but the both of them were worried.

Francies had never met the widow, but the idea of leaving her without living family motivated him through long days in the roughest parts of the forest, to go farther then was reasonable for common folk like him.

A couple weeks later, he gave up on finding him alive and hunted for the beast who took him instead. Worse had come to worse, and whatever peace revenge would bring was better than coming home with his hands empty.

A month in, and one morning he saw a brass colored blur slinking through the brush. He turned around and went back home. That was a Dweller, and for all he had done he wasn't a hero.

What a happy ending, then, when the man just swaggered back in like nothing happened.

Except, he came back wrong.

"You ask me what I think, I think you've been having dangerous ideas." Francies whispered.

Mina took a deep breath."I don't wanna go too far. We get a bunch of us, lure him to the woods, give him the what for..."

"You'll end up in the same mess as the last bunch of wannabe soldiers." He shrunk. Silhouettes danced above their heads, clacking fingers in mocking laughter. "Better drop it while you're still ahead."

Incandescent light poured from cracks and window slants ahead. In theory, every house here should be built safer than the village affair, being much closer to where the hypothetical stray beasts are likely to search for food. In practice, who had the money for quality work? It was all plank shacks and raised tents. Rickety was a compliment.

Both of them lived at the edges of this mess, he by necessity, she he had no clue why. She was liked well enough she could make absurd plans in the open with no risk of snitching, she could probably live anywhere she wanted.

"Guess that's where we differ. There has to be enough person there for us to sway." She stretched her back side to side, before glancing his way. "But I guess I ain't have my old ways with you anymore, do I? One last question though."

"Sure. You run faster than me anyway."

"Asshole. In a year or so of Eddy leaving you hungry, you think you'll be more inclined to help?"

The look she gave him was piercing. Nearly made his ears red to the tip, but she wouldn't like to hear the real answer. "Then is then, now is now, and now I think you're gonna get a lot of good folks hurt, or worse."

"Drat, right what I was trying to avoid. Oh well!" She sighed, frolicking over snagging ground like it was a flat meadow in her shack's direction. "Sleep tigh', Francies. Remember what Anton said!"

"Anton is a paranoid coward! Sleep well, you too. Think your plans through!"

"Like a baby!"

She was just too good, that one. To her own demerit, sometimes. Now him, he preferred to keep his head down and his eyes in front, which might be exactly what made him such a good flunky. No back bone meant no spine to break and an endless source of cruel fun.

But not for much longer. Good ol' Eddy would have to go looking for another jester soon.

Smiling, Francies went home.

The shack he had lived in for the past five years was less of a home and more of a shelter. It kept the wind and the rain out, and was a convenient storage for the hides he sold, so what did he care if it stank of death, or if under the light of his torch over a dozen shadows slinked into various crevices?

He set it by a scone near the door, and inspected his belongings. Unsold goods littered the ground along old rags he wore until yesteryear, broken tools he never had the courage to toss away, a bag he didn't know had been chewed full of holes, trash he wouldn't need or want.

Everything with the slightest amount of value he had already packed up in a sack, save provisions and a few other items. His leather hunting gear, for example, which he had no chance of changing from. His precious boar-spear too, resting on his mattress, ready for the coming moment.

"Just a little more," he cooed, caressing its handle.

Leaving completely unnoticed was impossible, so instead he aimed to draw as little interest as possible. People left in the middle of the night all the time, and so long as he didn't make too much of a ruckus he could pass as one of dozens.

He took dried food from the pots in his pantry, cringing at the clacking of lids. He filled his waterskins with grog and water boiled from the nearby river; he still couldn't handle the rusty tang that never fully left the rain's. He hesitated before retrieving a satchel of red herbs from beneath a loose board, and popping a leaf into his mouth.

People usually drank these as tea when they needed the extra energy, which he hated since he was a kid. Compared to the raw thing, though, that bitter brew was nectar. The plant went down like sticky clumps of paper, leaving the aftertaste of a heel to the nose.

Done, he sat down, and waited. He promised himself he wouldn't fall asleep, but that was moot when anticipation left him feeling like an exposed nerve.

It called for him so loudly it reached into his dreams.

Eddy had been a kid like any of them, long ago. Rough, when he had the size to back his boasting, too fond of calling the shots when nobody liked his ideas, but he was just folk. Somebody others could talk to, could convince, and at worst could coerce.

Time passed, the gap in size closed, and for all he liked to feel powerful the dangers crawling through the woods where too much for his tastes, so he joined the militia. A good life for the sulking brute, Francies always believed, afforded him the respect somebody who sneaked through life with more bad blood from a bad childhood than hairs on his ears didn't usually earn.

When he disappeared, few were surprised, and fewer had the tears to spare. A couple weeks and the bodies of a couple good people later, the chief of the militia called the hunt over and the stolen equipment as good as gone. General sentiment was that the whole event had been a needless, costly sham, so outside those who knew him personally most were relieved.

Less so when the corpse walked back in through the front door. Same square face, same wide eyes, same short feet he was conscious of, but if you knew him it took a glance to tell it wasn't the same person. Forget the armor made of mud colored bone covering him head to toe, the steel hatchet that glimmered even in the dark, the knapbag full of riches, he walked like he had never tumbled a day in his life, always grinned like he was high off his kite, quipped like the world's weariness had run itself dead chasing him down.

Took maybe a week of celebration before good ol' Eddy wanted to call the shots again, and this time he wasn't asking. The wise smelled the foul from afar and stepped away with their heads down. The ones who didn't? Well, Édipos didn't kill them, or even hurt them that bad.

Instead, he humiliated them. Who knew he could now hop faster and farther than all the other hares, or that he could twist and faint with the grace of a dancer, or batter an arrow from midair? They learned it well when they fell on their asses trying to shield a light blow, passed out trying to keep up with his movements, got a decapitating blow to pass so deliberately close they saw the Father-Mother in the beyond between blinks.

Guards tried to show him up, hunters, groups of farmers. Everybody could tell what happened to him, but for some reason so many refused to believe. The challengers only trickled down when he started making himself useful, getting rid of a couple beasts the hunters struggled with or running the occasional Dweller off.

Maybe the idea that such a blessing could reach this far from the bigger, badder kingdoms sounded ludicrous. Maybe the idea that such a curse could hit this close to home was too dreadful.

Either way, Édipos had never hidden where he had gone, nor what he had been given.

"Invitation," Francies whispered, the word so heavy it deafened. His heart raced, eyes darting in search of skulking figures peeking through the gaps in his walls. He just had to see it one more time, make sure it was real.

A square of shadow was soundlessly created in front of his eyes, quickly unfolding into a rectangle, gaining depth, then unrolling like a scroll. White as milk ink blotched the paper, flowing in impossible directions until several words were formed.

Francies was a passable reader, on a good day. These words though, he could read without pause or difficulty.

And at the bottom left corner, tiny in comparison:

He looked to the south. Behind flimsy walls, behind twisted nature, from the depths of the boonies of a ruined kingdom, he could still feel it on the back of his skull, a constant drumming like the rumble of thunder, summoning him at every hour of the day, harder to resist by the second.

Far away, the Tower of Cilifus called its newest Guest, and he knew it would not be denied.