The Ravienna Renaissance

[VictorK]

This is a piece I prepared back at the beginning of April for the Olde World Chronicles easter writing contest. That contest has gone overlong in its judging, and though it is still underway I have been aching to share this piece. I'm not sure if it will ever be concluded, and as the contest doesn't rely on anonymity and this is the 'extended version' that had to be cut down to fit the length requirements I don't feel so bad about posting it at this late date.

This is in a way a companion piece to my Scrivener's Contest entry, Leuchtend. It's a piece of the life of the person who in that story had passed on, a moment where that life intersected with the ongoing story of one of my oldest and favorite characters. I've been wanting to get back to Tydas Erikson for some time now. I started writing for him when I was younger and it shows, he was in every way over the top, the sort of thing a teenager would invent. I wanted to rehabilitate him in some ways so that he could actually be a viable character. We'll see if I was successful.

The Ravienna Renaissance

Tydas Erikson stood under the great red sandstone arch at the heart of Ravienna, transfixed by the first blooms of the purple hyacinths that decorated the entrance to the museum. The miracle of their rebirth stung his eyes, recalling the withered husks that he had seen in the dead of winter, far to the south. It was a winter he had thought was behind him, until the juvenile buds of the hyacinth flower tore the memories from his mind without grace or gentleness. Though these hyacinths were embraced by the dirt, cared for by the aged hands of old men tasked with their maintenance, they recalled the slender hand that had held the dying flowers, her own blood mixing into the snow. He resisted the urge to stomp the flowers out of existence, to grind them back into the black earth.

The spell the flowers cast was broken by the screeching laughter of a child as he tore through the lightly crowded streets. Tydas looked up in time to catch sight of the flowing amber ribbon that trailed from the child’s hand and cut a path through the people of the city. He announced with his carefree step and the decoration that he carried that winter was dead. Carnival had come to Tilea, and for the first time Tydas lifted the brim of his wide hat and beheld the dressings that festooned the ancient stone buildings and storefronts. Even the city’s signature red sandstone arch, erected centuries ago, was wrapped in ribbons, as if its bloody hue was not enough to attract attention to it. It was fitting that the ancient, broken arch that had once carried water to the heart of the city from the snowmelt in the mountains lorded over the museum devoted to similarly broken and ancient things. Most of the city was preparing for carnival, but a few stragglers found their way to the open maw of the dark museum.

Tydas had not come to Ravienna to see what was inside its only house of antiquities. He stood still because he was tired. None of the faces in the crowd would lift so that their eyes could meet his. An old woman, the charms of the healing goddess Shallya wrapped in one of her gnarled fist, crossed herself as she passed him. She, like the others, did it unconsciously. They would brighten once their steps carried them past the man in the dark cloak with the hat that hid his eyes. It was as if he was invisible, a stone that while casting eddies through the crowd was quickly subsumed beneath the surface of the water. Tydas was caught in the movement of the crowd and obediently turned towards the museum. One of his hands came up to his hat and pulled it down, as if he really did want to retreat from the world and drown on a river bottom. He felt no warmth from the oncoming spring.

Fingertips trailed over the edge of his black cloak, just heavy enough to make the flesh beneath it prickle with goose bumps. Tydas looked up with a start while his hand went instinctively to his hip where it closed around the familiar shape of one of his guns. The white fingers trailed in the air after they passed him and beckoned his eyes to the body that owned them. Tydas wondered how he could possibly have missed her. The rest of the crowd, for all of its festive wear, could not compete with the woman’s immaculate white robes, so clean that they seemed to glow with a light all their own. He recognized the costume immediately, and did not need to see the staff that she held casually in her other hand to know that she was a wizard. But what drew his attention more than anything was the contrast between her robes and the midnight darkness of her hair, each strand held perfectly in place even as the tresses spilled over her shoulders and down her back. She was moving too fast for him. He lengthened his paces to keep up, though as he passed beneath the entrance to the museum Tydas couldn’t help but feel that the sound of his boots striking the cobblestones was vulgar compared to the whisper of the wizard’s slippers.

Townsfolk from Ravienna milled between the slender pillars of the great hall while a man’s voice, deep and accustomed to speaking to crowds, resonated through the marble enclosure. Tydas paid him no mind; he was intent on tracking the white wizard and she navigated through the crowd. He was the storm cloud that followed her sunshine, the respect and unconscious deference that greeted her was immediately closed off to the dark man. He was convinced, as he often was when he returned to the city, that what the people could never grasp in their minds their souls instinctively knew. They made a path for the wizard because it was the right thing to do; they kept the path open for him because they were afraid to close it. Eventually she stopped and her fingers caressed the side of a smooth marble pillar as she turned to regard the speaker. Tydas caught a glimpse of her face as he came to stand just behind her shoulder. Her green eyes sparkled in the dim light.

“We can scarcely fathom the world that now lies slumbering beneath those endless sands.” Tydas’ eyes were drawn to the voice that he truly heard for the first time. A large man, his brawn overcome by his girth, stood on a small stage. One of his hands rested heavily on the fragment of a statue pockmarked by age and relentless grains of sand. “It is well known that in the ancient land of Khemri a whole family of gods reigned over the desert people.” His flabby hand shifted and gripped a stone horn that protruded from the head of the statue. He was nearly bald, and his face contorted into a frown as if it was difficult to make the words come. “They were overthrown, of course, these gods. What you see before you is all that remains. Take heed, good people of Ravienna. History informs us to the follies of the present. Though it may seem at times that the gods are silent, or that our prayers fall on deaf ears…” His grip tightened noticeably and caused the veins in his hand to become visible. The speaker’s dark, bulging eyes were turned down. “In their quest for freedom from such petty struggles the people of Khemri turned to Nagash, and he overthrew their gods. But what did this sacrilege buy them? Not a rebirth. An endless, waking death. Take heed of the words that this statue would tell, if he could force his lips to move. He would warn us against Sigmar, against other pretenders to heaven.” Finally he looked up, a smile on his face. “History teaches us the glory of piety. There was never a more pious and loyal city than the great Ravienna. Take to the streets for your carnival, knowing that the protection of the gods flows to they who honor them.”

“The antiquarian, Aneas.” The wizard spoke, her soft tones cutting through the applause and shouts of praise delivered to the noted historian. “Have you heard of him, Tydas Erikson?” For the first time she looked at his face, her eyes meeting his.

Tydas’ face choked any surprise he might have felt as she used his name. “No.” He replied honestly before he broke her gaze and looked back at the man.

“They say that he is an adventurer of sorts…though I don’t think he quite looks the part.” She smiled, the more guttural tones of her Riekspiel accent cutting through the lyrical tongue of Tilea.

“Some men shape the part that they want to play.” Tydas replied as he drew his cloak closer about himself.

“You certainly are not the visage of death that most would have in mind, no.” She seemed to sense the chill that Tydas warded against, and adjusted her own robes accordingly. “I know that I don’t misjudge.”

Tydas’ reply was immediate and irrelevant to the point she was trying to make. “What business does a wizard of the Imperial Light Order have in Ravienna?” He turned to her for the answer.

The wizard smiled and turned around to walk towards the exit of the museum. Her finger gestured for him to follow, which he did after only a moment’s hesitation. Tydas’ strides quickly caught the wizard’s even though he was not especially taller than her. “I am Hannah von Leuchtend.” She finally replied as the two stepped out in the cool morning. The sun was shining, though its light was weak due to a light cloud cover. Still, to the denizens of Ravienna the first signs of good weather were like a shot of life. In just the few minutes Tydas had spent in the museum the streets had become so crowded as to be nearly overflowing. Yet Hannah still cut an effortless path through the masses. “Do you need to repeat your name to me? It is known in every corner of the Old World, after all. Where were you over the winter? It became nearly impossible to track you.”

Tydas pulled the brim of his hat down low to deflect the wandering attentions of the townsfolk. “The winter is behind us.” He murmured in reply. “Are you saying you came here to meet me?”

“No.” Hannah replied. “But I did want to meet you. Is it true what they say, that you have lived three times the life of one man? That you hold the favor of the gods?” One twinkling green eye appeared over her shoulder to gauge his reaction even as she steered her feet towards a narrow cleft between row houses.

“Their scorn, perhaps.” Tydas replied, meeting her eye but only because the situation demanded it. He quickly looked away and caught sight of a group of children playing on an unoccupied street corner. They wore their carnival masks, howling and laughing as they tried to tag one another. It was a game he didn’t understand, and even the echo of childhood whimsy that allowed even the barest understanding at all was growing dim. He hated these conversations, yet they repeated over and over again. Everything repeated.

Hannah smiled and ducked into the shadows. She turned with the grace of a girl, her black hair swaying heavily about her shoulders as she reached out and snagged Tydas’ cloak and hauled in him after her. His blue eyes widened in surprise as suddenly, hidden from the street, he was pressed against the wizard. She looked up at him, and he looked down at her. She was leaning against the wall, one hand on her forgotten staff while the other held his black cloak so tightly her knuckles turned white. “I’m here to warn you.” She said softly, and in such an inviting tone that Tydas could guess at a double meaning to her words. “I am here to investigate the Cult of Perdurabo which the Guardian Council has been tracking for some time. It would be to my greatest…pleasure if we were to work together, hmm?” She released his cloak and put a hand on his chest. Her eyes fell. “I can feel your heart.” She murmured. “So steady. To think that it has been beating since the time of Magnus in this same rhythm…” Hannah looked up again. “Have you ever loved anyone, Tydas Erikson? Or have you grown so distant from us on your lonely road that your heart cannot be moved by anything, fear or a friendly touch?”

Tydas kept her eyes in his hold. She was against the brick wall and eagerly awaited his reply, the cool countenance bestowed on her by years of rigorous magical study barely cracking at all given her proposition. Slowly, and carefully, he reached up and took hold of her wrist to gently guide it away from him. “We’re not so distant.” He concluded while leading that hand back to her side. “But that doesn’t mean that we are close.” Her brow knit at these words while Tydas took a step back. “I don’t know what it was that stripped you bare inside. But you won’t find what you’re looking for with me, if you can find it at all.” Without another word he turned and walked down the alley. He heard the tap of her staff behind him as she turned to watch him go. He hunched his shoulders and withdrew some tobacco from a pouch at his belt. Something to keep him occupied while he crossed the stones.

“At least think of the cult!” Hannah shouted after him. He couldn’t tell if her voice sounded hurt or not, if she was merely reasserting her mission to cover the wound he had opened in her or if she was sincere. “Their sign is the Eye of Phakth bound in a crimson triangle!”

Tydas kept walking.

***

He really did try to sleep, but the city wouldn’t allow it. Carnival thrummed in the streets outside the inn where he made his bed. Tydas sat up, his homespun sheets pooling in his lap as he hunched over. A cold sweat clung to his bare torso, the result of the images that accosted him when he was all alone in the darkness. The winter continued to haunt him even though spring had come, the smell of drying hyacinths stung his nostrils. He rubbed his dry eyes that had long since given up on tears for what his hands were forced to do. Tydas swung his legs over the side of the bed and rose. The first thing he grabbed was his gun belt and after that the scabbard for his sword. His shirt and cloak followed, and then the hat on his head. The streets were preferable to the darkness, the revelry of carefree people a better illusion than the dreams he was sure would come that night.

Ravienna was alive. Carnival was the apotheosis of the winter’s repression and sacrifice, when all that had been pent up within the city’s denizens burst forth onto the street. It was not Tydas’ first carnival, but even he had to look on in awe as he walked down the packed streets. Everything was bright and colorful, from the fires that illuminated the streets to the elaborate costumes that seemed to hide the human within. Laughing, jeering and drunk faces rushed past him, some leaning in close enough that he could smell the wine on their breath before the current of the crowd swept them away. A dozen different songs were being sung at any given time, the words and tunes slurred and mixed until a universal song of carnival issued from the entire city’s lips.

Carnival was also the time of inversion. The poorest in the city were dressed up as nobles, carried along the main streets on high backed chairs as they issued their fool’s decrees. A prostitute, deeply drunk, pressed herself against Tydas as he tried to slip past the court of jesters that had assumed control of the city for this one night. She stared up at him with unfocused eyes, lewd words spilling from her mouth like the wine that splashed onto his boots. She was asking if he had money, if there was something he wanted to see, as if simply looking down didn’t reveal everything about her. She was wrapped in the robes of the Shallyan sisterhood, the immaculate goddess of healing represented for this night only by whores. Even the drunk woman could sense that she would get nowhere with Tydas and her expression soured. She struck his chest with a flat palm before calling his manhood into question and leaving to join the rest of her sisters. Tydas turned to watch her go, and could not help but find the entire scene very sad, even if everyone around him was laughing.

Tydas was not the only one who had tried and failed to get to sleep. Across the city Hannah paced through the room paid for by the seemingly endless resources possessed by an Imperial College of Magic. She could not settle, the vital pulse of carnival could be felt even on the winds of magic that fed her powers, and something about it unsettled her. She looked out her window onto the well lit street below. Her room was dark, and it seemed that the shadows that had been dispelled from the street had fled into her chambers. Something was different about this celebration. In her time at Altdorf she had seen this sort of revelry before, but this time her heart was pounding and there was a sheen of sweat on her brow. The question was why. Her racing thoughts made sleep impossible more than the noise outside. She folding her arms and bit down lightly on her thumb, a thoughtfully expression she had had since she was a girl. Perdurabo was on her mind. The eye of Phakth was staring into her thoughts.

The door behind her creaked as it was slowly pushed open. The wizard remained calm and kept her eyes focused on the street below. A pair of men in masks, the kind that could be found endlessly reproduced in the crowd below, stepped into the room. They weren’t creeping, they stood up straight. Painted on the white part of the mask that covered their forehead was a weeping eye looking to their left. Hannah could feel those eyes boring into her back, no mere painted symbols but the eye of Phakth imbued with a distant gaze. “You will regret coming to see me tonight.” The wizard said as the two reached the center of the room. Hannah seemed to glow, that inner light that Tydas had detected at the museum now springing to life as she drew the winds of magic to her. “I am Hannah von Leuchtend. Hierophant of the Second Order. Did Perdurabo send you?”

The two remained silent.

“Very well.” Hannah took a step and turned while thrusting out her right hand. She didn’t need an incantation or extensive preparation for the spell of blinding light that she unleashed on the two servants of the cult. This minor exercise of power was like a reflex to her. She finally saw the masks just before they disappeared in a bloom of white light. They were laughing.

By the time a premature dawn bloomed on the third floor of an inn frequented by traveling nobles on the other side of Ravienna Tydas had worked his way through several cups of wine. It flowed endlessly on these streets, and once it touched him he could feel that he was a part of the celebration. A smile was even workings its way onto his lips. As soon as he finished his latest drink another had found its way into his hands. He raised it up as he heard another song form in the crowd and did his best to sing along, though his thick accent ruined most of his attempts at the Tilean dialect. But song was universal, and so was dancing. A little girl grabbed the edge of his cloak and began to twirl it, laughing in her small giggling way when Tydas responded and started to move with her. His deadly feet were put to a better use as they navigated the cobblestone. The entire crowd no longer flowed it danced, the infectious music spilling from the windows and the crowded bars inciting the mob to stay and find a partner for a while. Even Tydas laughed in between drinks, the girl’s face smiling up at him from behind her half-mask. But she had better things to do and soon let him go to find her mother or another partner. Without a partner he continued to dance, snagging another drink as he stumbled towards a wall and, upon striking it firmly with his shoulder, slumped to a stone bench.

“You stick out like a sore thumb, son!” An old man was sitting next to him, smiling even though doing so revealed the gaps in his teeth.

Tydas turned and looked at the old man. He had to lift the brim of his hat to see him properly; it had fallen down during the dance. “Why is that?” He got out before sucking down more of the burning wine.

“Let me pour you another drink!” The old man laughed and refilled Tydas’ cup from the flagon at his side. “You don’t have any colors! So pale, and so dark! You’d best be careful.”

The wine was gone in an instant and Tydas wanted more. While he was being obliged he responded, though his eyes were firmly on the crimson liquid cascading down into the earthenware cup. “Why…why do you say that, my friend?” His accent should have been almost unintelligible, but the old man seemed to pick up on his words without any trouble.

“You’re not used to it.” The old man replied, taking a half-hearted draw from his own drink. “Like a girl whose tasted wine for the first time, you’ll be overwhelmed. And then they’ll be all over you…”

“Not the first time I’ve gotten drunk, old man.” Tydas replied as he looked out on the crowd.

“It’s not the drink.” The old man smiled as he watched the crowd too. “It’s the revelry.”

“Huh.” Tydas shrugged his shoulder and drank, not thinking much of it. The man poured him a final drink.

“More than one way to get drunk, Tydas Erikson. Be careful.” The old man rose and departed, and when Tydas looked to try to find him he was gone. He shrugged again and drank. He was used to people knowing his name.

The premature dawn had come and gone when the two cultists threw themselves at Hannah. She stumbled back against the wall and reached for her staff but it was tossed aside. When they drew close she could see that cloth covered the eyes of these cultists, and while such flimsy fabric could not confound her magic it hinted that they saw through other means. The smell of burning clothing filled the room where her flare had singed their robes, but even that had not stopped them. She ducked the first blow from a club that surely would have sent her to the floor. Her heavier robes had been put away and now in her sleeping garments she was quick enough to move on par with her assailants. She could not fight them with her fists, but even if they could not see they were hardly immune to her magic.

The wind of Hysh the serpent heeded her call as she spoke a few fragmentary words of power, just enough to string the spell together while not compromising herself in these close quarters. A stave of light appearing in her hand and burned the cultists as it swept them aside. “Sing, Hysh!” She commanded, pointing the rod of light at the cultists. She finally got one of them to scream as the burning light cut through his robes to his chest, charring the flesh that covered his ribs. She could wipe them out with a single word, but right now they were her only links to the greater cult. The cultist’s companion rose and she realized that she had misjudged his mask. Only the man now writhing in pain had worn a laughing mask. This one was screaming in anguish. They were so close that she had not noticed at first.

The screamer drew a knife and charged the wizard. Hannah contemptuously swung the staff at his arm to knock the weapon aside. The room exploded in a second dawn as the blade connected with the magical construct, forcing it to shatter. Hannah gasped in surprise as she was thrown back; her robes at her arm tattered and charred by the force of the explosion. She fell against the bed just as the screamer was preparing to leap on top of her. At last, her fingers found her staff. “Enough!” She commanded. The tip of the staff was brought up with a practiced ease. Both her eyes and the staff disappeared in white light as a burst of concussive power filled the room, throwing the screamer back to his companion.

The battle wizard rose, her eyes crackling with the power that she was now fully in command of. Her slippers whispered against the floorboards as they had against the stones in the museum, but her steps now contained a vengeful anger so that they seemed to hiss like the serpent Hysh himself. “A Hierophant cannot be overcome by thugs.” She warned the two squirming cultists. She reached with her free hand for the screamer’s head and found it. “Now. Let’s see what you know…”

As Hannah attempted to bring the plot seething in Ravienna into focus Tydas lost that focus on the city’s streets. He was just another member of the crowd, now. While Hannah had battled against the cultists a jester covered from head to toe in colorful rags and with his face completely painted over had shoved a white mask into Tydas’ face. He had laughed and held it there even after the gesture left, but it took a passing woman who had just recently joined the carnival to help him tie it in place. He had leaned on her, feeling her skin and smelling her hair. She had then politely pushed him away and gone on down the street, leaving his blue eyes to blink in confusion after she had gone.

Tydas no longer walked so much as stumbled. He slurred more than he sang, but that was the nature of the carnival. He could hear his own breathing against the unyielding surface of the mask. It was a wall between him and the world, on the one side he was still Tydas Erikson, but on the other he was anything. He was no longer a person when he put on that mask; he was part of the greater beast that prowled the streets of the great city. When he saw another reveler behind another mask he saw himself, he was capable of everything that they did, and felt compelled to mimic any move they made. He could no longer be recognized, so he was no one. Tydas Erikson was safe and secure, the images that had assaulted him in the darkness not hours ago were held at bay by a simple, cheap mask and a few glasses of wine. That was life, and Ravienna was living it to the fullest.

He danced past an open doorway to some noble’s house that had been thrown open for the celebration. A strong hand grabbed his cloak at the shoulder and hauled him. Despite stumbling for a few moments the protest forming on his lips was mollified when a cup of wine found its way into his hand. The protest turned into a cheer, and Tydas began to wander the hallways. Every room was packed with the more well to do of Ravienna society, eating, drinking, some few heavily into their partners. He wandered through these scenes as if in a daze, viewing them from the other side of a porcelain mask with eyeholes that were too small to accommodate his full, piercing vision. The scenes weren’t real, they couldn’t be. They were just visions, dreams viewed through the similarly constricted consciousness of sleep. Fantastic things might appear, but they were always limited in scope and soon passed out of vision and memory. So it was with this house.

Tydas thought he heard a scream from a darkened room that he passed. Not a scream of pleasure such as many that might result from this night, but the cry of terror that he was so familiar with. He tried to turn and see what was the matter. That primal sound cut through the haze and the mask, but a hand soon grabbed him and pulled him away. He was happy to go as he soon given another drink. He laughed when his faceless companion laughed, not know that the subject of the joke was a man bleeding from a fall down the steep stairs of the house. There was another scream, just at the edge of his senses, but he shrugged it off. Tydas followed his host in stepping over the man that had fallen and ascending the stairs that had been his ruin. The true party was on this floor, an endless tangle of men and women in costumes and masks and deeply drunk off of the barrels of wine at the far end of the room.

It might have been a beautiful room once, but now its ornaments were toppled or torn down. There were deep rents in the plaster where fingernails had clawed through it. The room was oppressively hot from the cluster of bodies and all the shutters having been drawn closed. To Tydas, covered as he was by his cloak, it was unbearable. He broke from his guide and stumbled towards a balcony where he threw open the shutter and breathed deeply of the night air. It was sobering refreshment, and he thought that he heard more screams echoing from the street below. His brow knit, but he couldn’t focus. He didn’t hear all the feet in the room turn towards him. “To our guest of honor, Tydas Erikson!” A big man’s voice boomed out his name, a name he thought had been hidden by his mask. Like a man who had been struck Tydas turned around in surprise. His host was standing in front of him, and through wide eyes Tydas could see the crimson eye that looked to the east, bound in the crimson triangle.

“The…the eye of…” He couldn’t say the last, difficult to word. The cultist stepped forward and gave Tydas a rough shove. He stumbled back, tripped over his own feet and struck the railing of the balcony. He fell with a fluttering of his cloak in the night air into the dark garden blow. His head struck the stonework wall of the garden and split open. The thorns of a bush ravaged his flesh, and he retreated into the darkness he had tried to escape.

The healing light of Hysh glowed around Hannah’s hand as she tried to peer into the cultist’s mind, unaware that across the city Tydas had taken a fatal plunge at the hands of the same cult. She focused so intently on the screamer that she didn’t see the laughing man rise up behind him. He reached into a pouch on his belt and withdrew a handful of dust. As he brought his open palm to his mouth Hannah continued to apply her magic, trying to heal the cultist’s damaged mind and compel from him the truth of Perdurabo and his cult. “Speak to me!” She hissed through clenched teeth. The only response she got was the gentle puff of air from his companion as he scattered the dust in her face.

Hannah drew a breath in surprise and the burning dust invaded her lungs. She screamed, dropping the cultist as she fell to her knees. The winds of magic fled from her as the dust caused her to cough and wheeze. She felt as if she were drowning in the air, unable to take a breath. Her magic was gone in an instant, the wizard nothing more than a woman who soon slumped to the floor and joined Tydas in darkness.

***

A falcon wheeled in an endless circle under the cruel desert sun. Someone was shouting in the distance but it continued to turn, exhausting itself with each widening revolution. Finally the falcon plummeted from the blue sky, falling towards the endless desert sands below. It struck a stone and broke its neck. The cobblestones of Ravienna, a city removed from the Tilean peninsula to rest in the vast deserts of Khemri, soaked up the falcon’s blood. It began to bubble up from the city’s many fountains, unleashing a red tide that drowned the streets and swept the bird’s corpse away. Things fell apart. The center of the city could no longer hold as the swirling tide carried its buildings away. The wing beats of a thousand buzzards disturbed the calming surface of the tide, the shadows of their passing sending the city into darkness. As the center collapsed Ravienna’s red sandstone arch rose from beneath the waves, dripping in blood.

The eye of Phakth was carved into the side of the arch. The body of Hannah von Leuchtend, her robes died a deep crimson, swung by a rope over the blood stained streets. She held a hyacinth, dried out and aged, in her hand. Something horrible slouched towards the city, waiting to be reborn.

***

Tydas opened his eyes. His head was finally clear. He started to sit up, struggling against the thorns that dug into his clothing and scratched his skin. He left his dried blood behind on the ground but had no wounds on his body. He craned his neck towards the balcony above to judge his fall. His eyes narrowed when he saw the body draped over its edge, a pool of blood forming on the garden path in front of him. The screams had just been a premonition before his fall had now replaced the boisterous singing of carnival. He wasn’t surprised; the dream had foretold what had happened to the city while he slept. Tydas didn’t bother to remove his mask but he did grab his hat from it hung from the branch of a tree. He replaced it on his head and walked back towards the street. The red sandstone arch loomed in the distance.

The house that Tydas had entered before falling was now on fire. Flames licked at its upper levels while corpses choked its entryway. He paid them no heed as he crossed to the center of the streets. They were not deserted, but the crowds had dispersed. Blood from dozens of corpses drained into the city’s gutters, mixing with all manner of filth. A woman fled onto the main way from an alley. She was pursued by a group of young men, their intentions towards her clear even behind their masks. She tripped and fell, breaking her ankle as she tumbled to the ground. They were on her in an instant, tearing at her dress. She wailed, screaming and thrashing and spitting blood from where her mouth had hit the street. Yet she embraced the closest man and began to kiss him deeply before she was pulled away by another. She screamed in indignation, but was soon overpowered.

Tydas hand inched towards the butt of one of his guns as he watched the scene from behind his mask. The men seemed to sense his gaze because they looked up from the now naked woman, and, howling their challenge charged him. He abandoned the hold on his pistol. Their clothes were marked with the blood of other victims and each carried a crude killed implement like a chair leg or even a brick pried from a wall. Tydas found the hilt of his sword and drew with lightning speed as their leader closed with him. He took the man’s throat and then stepped into the second, running him through. A quick step and the third man was sent tumbling to the stones where he broke his nose. He was the last to die with the sword plunged through his heart after taking the lives of the rest of his fellows. The small gang was dispatched in moments, leaving Tydas to clean the blood from his sword and keep walking. The woman looked at him with fearful eyes and cried at him with a feral yelp before scurrying for the shadows. The fires that were growing around Ravienna were reflected in Tydas’ silver sword as he kept walking towards the arch.

As he neared the city center the extent to which Ravienna fell became clear. Gangs of men roamed the streets, killing other men and hunting down the women they could find. As long as Tydas kept his gaze forward his mask seemed to keep him safe. He was just another one of them, the blood still on the edge of the blade attested to that. Every now and then he couldn’t resist the urge to look upon the scenes around him. The dead were piling up, stacked next to the soon to be dead. Carnival ribbons hung like entrails off of those buildings that weren’t burning. The city was gone.

Something crunched beneath Tydas’ boot as he took another step. He lifted it, and realized he had crushed the hand of the girl who had danced with him at the beginning of carnival. Her head was split open and her hair and matted mass of blood. His grip on his sword tightening. The familiar sense of rage welled up in his chest and for a moment he wanted to clear out the city, to kill every last person and then move on. It was within his power. He would fight until morning, and then on through the daylight hours until his task was finished. He had done it before. A chill wind blew down the street in spite for the fires. It was a gust from the past winter, rushing to join him in the slaughter he was about to embark upon. Instead he sheathed his sword and stepped over the girl’s body. He didn’t have it in him just now.

Three of the cultists of Perdurabo, each marked with the eye of Phakth contained in a crimson triangle, stood over the entrance to the museum as Ravienna consumed itself around them. As Tydas stepped into the square all three knelt before him. He furrowed his brow at the gesture but kept moving. He could kill them later if they tried anything. There was never any doubt of that in his mind as he passed beneath the arch that led to the museum’s interior. A familiar voice was echoing from the nearly empty chamber, chanting in a deep voice. The interior of the museum was lit up by numerous torches, filling it with ample light. Still, Tydas found a shadow to cling to while he watched the proceedings.

Hannah knelt at the heart of the room, chained to the floor by a collar around her neck. A group of cultists ringed her, chanting away in a dialect that not even Tydas could recognize. Strange curved designs punctuated by some of the hieroglyphs that he had seen at Aneas’ presentation were painted onto her body. She swayed, as if not aware of where she was. Tydas thought that was a mercy. A cultist stepped forward from the circle and prepared to touch his thumb against her forehead. Tydas was faster. He drew, fired, and killed the man before he could bridge the gap. The chanting stopped as his body struck the floor with a wet smack, his brains and skull spilling out.

Tydas stepped into the shadows, his shadow rising to greet him as he leveled the barrel of his gun at the cultists. “Step away from her.” He commanded, his cold blue eyes hidden beneath the brim of his hat.

“It is too late, Tydas Erikson.” The voice that had led the chant called out to him. Tydas spared a look towards the back of the room, where Aneas the Antiquarian stood wearing a tabard marked with the sigil of the cult of Perdurabo. “You have seen what happens outside these walls. The city is lost.”

“Is Perdurabo the god you serve or the name you call yourself?” Tydas called to him.

“I am Perdurabo.” The antiquarian replied. The statue of the dead god he had displayed early was in two pieces at either side of him. “And now, Tydas Erikson, I will show you fear in a handful of dust.” He reached into the statue that Tydas now recognized as a reliquary and withdrew a jar of sand which he poured out onto the floor below him. Only did Tydas perceive the faint, silvery lines that connected the dust site to the ritual surrounding Hannah. “Warpstone. Very, very faint. The essence of a god once overthrown by the powers of man. This is all that remains.”

“You will not reawaken him.” Tydas raised his pistol to aim at Perdurabo. The cultist moved to protect him.

“Of course now.” Perdurabo replied, chuckling lightly. “Who has any use for a god who could be overthrown by mere men?” He laughed. “No, Tydas. It’s you I want.”

Tydas narrowed his eyes but his pistol didn’t waver.

“Nagash is a failed god, who tried to live forever without ascension. Now he is a withered husk. Sigmar took the essence of Ulric within himself and transcended his old patron to gain the pre-eminent seat in the heavens for all men. Two hundred years ago, Tydas Erikson, you donned the amulet of Morr and became the champion of his house. Verena, Shallya, Myrmidia…They strive within you. You live forever to dispense death, which is your justice. How much longer do you intend to wander this word, immortal, spreading murder?”

“I simply live. The same as anyone else.”

“Oh?” Perdurabo asked, a smile crossing his fat lips. “Is that why no one can look at you? Why you are haunted in ways that men are not? You can already feel it happening, can’t you?”

Tydas’ free hand reached up behind his head and started to undo his mask. “I live in the mind of generations.” He admitted. “Sometimes I can feel them asking me for help, instead of their gods.”

“And what is a human soul to you, Tydas? You have yet to see value in it, from the way you dispense the death. Take the essence of this god and complete the ascension that will come about sooner or later. Do it on your own terms. There is no reason to fear becoming a god.”

Tydas cradled the now loose mask in his hand, close to his face. He wasn’t looking at Perdurabo, but his gun was trained straight at him. “And what will you gain?”

“The entry of a new god will sunder the heavens. I alone will know the truth. To be the head servant of the newest, most powerful god…That is all a man can aspire to. I know you are weary, Tydas, I know that your travels have been long and hard. Rest. Remove the human mask and let your true face show.”

Tydas let the mask fall to the floor. The blast from his gun was synchronized with the shattering of the porcelain. Perdurabo cried out as the bullet found his chest. He clutched at wound and fell to the floor, disturbing the dust. He hadn’t even struck the stones before Tydas had drawn his other gun. In a few seconds the entire cult surrounding Hannah had been cut down effortlessly. The reports from the gun blasts still reverberated through the room as Tydas strode towards Hannah.

She started to scream, writhing in her chains. “You fool!” Perdurabo choked. He tried to push himself up but his hand just smeared the blood. “She was the locus!” The room began to shake as Hannah wailed ever louder. The silvery lines that connected her to the dust glowed faintly. “The suffering of this city…the souls that were to fuel your rebirth….They were funneled through her!” Tear stained the antiquarian’s cheeks. “You insect! You coward! I offered you godhood!”

Tydas wasn’t listening. He was reloading his guns and pausing to carefully aim. He fired four more times, shattering the chairs that held Hannah to the ground. She toppled over; wailing and twisting like her insides were on fire. “You offered me an eternity of the same hell I’ve lived in for two hundred years.” He bent to pick up Hannah and broke her connection to the network. Tydas threw the sobbing wizard over his shoulder as he turned to leave the museum. He never looked back.

A pulse of the energy that Hannah had channeled went through the silvery veins and reached Perdurabo. He cried out as if struck, then fell silent in wonder as the pile of dust before him burst into a pale blue flame. It reflected off the sweat on his brow, generated by the horrific pain in his stomach. Panting, Perdurabo pulled himself closer to the dust. “I am Perdurabo.” He whispered, eyes focused on the flame as his hand reached out to cup it. It didn’t burn him. “I will endure to the end.” He brought the burning mass to his mouth, and consumed it.

A great conflagration rose up from the center of Ravienna as its famed arch collapsed. The fire consumed the entire city, born on fell winds and the shrieks of tormented souls. Those few who survived managed to flee the flames, because by morning nothing remained of the city but the burned out husks of buildings and charred corpses. It was left to the survivors to wonder what had happened, how a great city could be consumed by one night of carnival.

***

It was past noon when Hannah von Leuchtend awoke. She was propped up in the shade beneath a tree that was just beginning to put on its buds. Ravienna smoldered in the distance and she could smell the cinders on the air. She was alone, but when she reached up to feel her head she felt the soft petals of a blue hyacinth tucked into her hair.

[Madeline Merri]

I love it! It's always good to see more fluff that doesn't involve pointy-ears! If this were to be entered in a Scrivener's contest, it'd be a hard-fought decision to put it up at the elite level that this website can reach. I particularly like how you work your dialogue sections, something I struggle with, they work so fluidly. I hope to hear more!

-Maddo