Stormday, Week 1, Month Unus, Year of God 489

  Lou was floating in a grey area. Knee-deep, warm water stretched out as far as the eye could see, with no rainfall. The sky was pale grey, and patches of mist dotted the entire area, obscuring the horizon. There was no sound whatsoever save for his breathing and the faint splashes of him moving slightly in the water. He twisted, getting his feet under him, and stood up. He was wearing a long, green, hooded robe that extended to the floor. When he stood, ripples spread out from him. They made a chiming sound, in a calming series of ascending and descending arpeggios.

  “Greetings, my son,” a booming yet motherly voice echoed.

  Lou jumped. “Who’s there?”

  “I am Gaia,” the voice resonated. “Heed my words, my son.”

  “Gaia,” Lou mused, rolling the unfamiliar name around his tongue. He had never heard the name before, but speaking it seemed familiar and comforting, like eating a favorite food after years of not doing so.

  “I am coming,” Gaia said. “I am coming to save this world.”

  “What?” asked Lou. “Who even are you? I know you’re named Gaia, but who exactly are you?”

  “The world you reside in is just one of countless others humankind has spread to,” Gaia continued. “Humanity is like a tree spreading through the universe, and each world they live on is a fruit. Yours is a fruit that has fallen from the tree.”

  “What’s a fruit?” inquired Lou. He had heard of mangrove trees, but those didn’t have fruit.

  “Edible, bulbous seeds commonplace throughout the human-controlled cosmos,” Gaia said. “Anyway, I can do nothing but talk to you. The powers that control this world control it soundly, and desire nothing but to repress and inflict suffering on you, your civlization, and the whole of humanity if they get the chance. I am sending my warriors and healers to aid you in your fight for survival, but the void is vast, and it will be many years yet before they arrive.”

  “Why?” Lou asked. “I know they might sacrifice us, but the world isn’t any different than before. Do we need saving?”

  “They will sacrifice you,” Gaia boomed. “Six thousand years ago, similar beings ruled my homeworld, the seed from which humanity spread. They oppressed my children and exploited their resources, viewing them as little more than food or slaves. We were able to drive them off, but only with great cunning and thousands of years of struggle. You don’t have that luxury.”

  “This is a weird dream,” Lou said. “Normally, the strange entities that show up don’t monologue.”

  “Heed my words, son,” Gaia said. “This is a dream, but it is also me speaking with you. Remember. Remember. Remember.”

  Abruptly, the dream ended. Lou awoke with a start, finding himself safe and dry in his own bed with Van curled up next to him. He sat up and blinked. The dream had felt so real.

  It was the middle of the night, so Lou laid back down and pulled the covers over his head. Sleep came slowly, but when Lou finally slipped into unconsciousness, it was peaceful and dreamless.

  Several hours later, the light of day began to shine through the small, narrow windows of Lou’s bedroom. They had participated in New Year’s festivities - extravagant as always - and had gone home together. Lou rubbed sleep from his eyes and sat up. Van was already awake, presumably downstairs. Lou relieved himself in his chamber pot and put his tunic, pants and coat on. He walked downstairs and saw Van heating up soup in the fireplace.

  “Good morning!” Lou said.

  “Morning,” Van responded. “Heating some soup.”

  “Thanks,” Lou said. He sat down on a wooden chair a few feet away. A minute or two later, Van dipped a ladle into the small cauldron and filled it with clamshell broth containing vegetables and rat cheese. Lou graciously accepted the meal, and slurped it down. Van did the same.

  “So, what are we doing today?” Lou asked.

  “Going to church,” Van responded. “It’s Stormday, and we’re required to go to church on the first day of the year.”

  “Oh yeah,” Lou said. “To be honest, I don’t want to go to church. We partied too hard last night.”

  “Agreed,” Van replied. “I still have a hangover.” He groaned. “Sucks.”

  The two finished breakfast, then began to head northwards to the church. Large throngs of people moved about, heading to their churches or meetings. Thunder crashed and rain poured down, flooding the gutters and soaking Lou through his coat.

  “Aren’t these things supposed to be waterproof?” Lou quipped.

  “What?” Van asked.

  “My coat,” Lou said. “It’s supposed to be waterproof, yet I’m still drenched.”

  “Beats not having any clothes,” Van replied. “At least we’re sort of warm this way.”

  The duo eventually arrived at their smallish church. Van met up with his family, and waved goodbye to Lou. The family of sewer overseers moved in a blob towards the church. Lou looked around, finding his parents and Thyrian standing in a corner. Thyrian was wearing a large leather satchel around his right shoulder.

  “Hey, Mom! Dad! Master Thyrian,” Lou called, walking towards them.

  “Sorry we missed you when we got up,” Mother said. “We decided to get a head start, and we didn’t feel like waking you.”

  “Perfectly fine,” Lou said. “Greetings, Master Thyrian.”

  “Greetings, my boy,” Thyrian replied. “I was just telling your parents about how good an apprentice you are.” The shop was slowly failing. Lou and Thyrian had only a few regulars, but still managed to keep afloat with an influx of new people moving into the area around Rat Boot Street after the flood debacle a few weeks ago.

  People always need boots, Lou thought. As long as there is civilization, people will need footwear. “Thanks, Master Thyrian,” Lou responded to the complement. “I’m glad I could help.”

  “Well, whatever happens, happens,” Thyrian said absently. “Just glad we’re all here, gathering in church for the New Year. I don’t have family of my own, so I’m glad I could share with you.”

  “You’re a valuable asset to our community and a great man,” Father said, shaking Thyrian’s hand. “I’m glad you’re our son’s boss and teacher.”

  “Thanks,” Thyrian replied. “Shall we enter?”

  The four individuals entered the church, but instead of being directed towards the pews, they were herded into the wide area at the back of the chamber by Wind Castemen. Each churchgoer milled around in a loose blob, talking anxiously. This wasn’t how church usually went!

  “Okay, listen up!” a booming, magnified voice shouted. Lou turned, and found that it was actually coming from the Rain Caste priest who ran this church. Lou was surprised that the man could speak Lowchant, as he had only ever given sermons in Highchant.

  “We’re going to the Holy Square!” the priest shouted. “We have a special ritual to perform for you! Move as a group!” With that brief speech, he stopped. The small crowd began to exit the church, and Lou was pushed along, like a fish swimming downstream.

  A sickening feeling entered his stomach. The Blade of Rain, Lou thought. They’re gonna find me. He could barely keep his hands from trembling as he shoved them into his deep pockets.

  The group moved like water through a trough, being herded across the city to the Holy Square. Once they arrived, Lou could see vast hordes of people standing in loose rows. He was reminded of the branding of the Sun Casteman - Kane, was it? - almost two years ago. With a sickening feeling, he realized how many people were standing in close proximity to each other. If the Lux-using castes wanted to kill them, it would be like blasting fish in a barrel.

  The crowd was arranged in a very loose ring facing a large central podium. Upon the podium stood several Rain Caste priests, a young man wearing a nondescript raincoat, and a large group of Wind Castemen armed with long lances and clad in full armor. Lou took up a spot near the back, standing with Thyrian. His parents had gotten separated from him in the crowd, but he could see them around 10 feet away, separated by a wall of people.

  Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

  Over fifteen minutes passed before the area stopped filling up. Several people had slipped into the gap between Lou, Thyrian and his parents, separating them even more. The crowd milled around anxiously, worried about what would happen. The ploosh-pitter-patter of the intense rain spilled down onto everyone’s heads, dripping into the numerous tiny grates beneath everyone’s feet. A young woman next to Lou tilted her head skyward and gulped down a mouthful of rainwater. All of a sudden, Lou felt thirsty, so he did the same.

  “Silence!” a magnified voice boomed. The chatter almost immediately ceased, and thousands of heads turned towards the dais. A Rain Casteman was speaking. He wore a dark blue hat shaped like an inverted, hollow cone, which slopped water out of its sides. He was clad in a rich blue robe decorated with intricate golden patterns. The other Rain Castemen on the podium were similarly garbed.

  “For those of you who pay attention to scripture, you have heard of the Blade of Rain,” the man shouted. “Here he is!” He gestured to the raincoat-clad young man, who removed his hood.

  “I am Ross Ovis, the Blade of Rain!” the man proclaimed. “I am the third son of Yarn Ovis, who is the fourth son of Klith Ovis, the fifth son of Rhese Ovis!”

  Lou felt absolutely bamboozled. What? He wasn’t the Blade of Rain? Then it hit him. The prophecy stated that the Blade would be born to the “Rain Caste”. Lou had been born to the Earth Caste. The prophecy didn’t apply to him, or anyone who was formerly Rain Caste, then Sun Caste, then finally commoner.

  So all this worrying was for nothing, Lou thought. Whatever happens, I won’t be involved.

  Ross continued speaking. “I am eternally grateful that the High Priest has granted me this opportunity to kickstart our culture’s salvation. Today, we shall begin the process of ascending into the Heavens.” He stopped, and gestured to the man in blue.

  “I am the High Priest of the God of Rain,” the man shouted. “Today, I will tell you the truth about scripture.”

  The audience waited with bated breath, and Lou felt a painful pit arise in his stomach.

  “You cannot get into Heaven!” the man shouted. Lou was jaded and was expecting immediate violence, so he wasn’t shocked. The audience sure was, though, and gasped.

  “What?” an unseen crowd member called. “Excuse me?”

  “Your only purpose is to be sacrificed in droves to appease our God and to ensure that us, the Ruling Castes, get into Heaven!”

  The crowed began to chatter uncomfortably. Some began to move away from the podium. Wind Castemen began to fly into the sky, taking up loose positions around the edges of the square. This caused the group to quiver nervously, like fish in a bucket.

  “What?” another unseen man in the crowd shouted. “What do you mean, ‘sacrificed in droves’? Are you seriously going to do that?”

  The High Priest was silent for a long moment that stretched uncomfortably long. He then raised his right hand high into the air and swept it from left to right, turning as he did so.

  The Wind Castemen began to move. They slowly drifted closer to the ground, their menacing gaze sweeping over the assembled commoners. Some of them began to panic, slowly edging away.

  “Get down!” screamed Thyrian, tackling Lou to the ground. Lou gasped from shock, and was about to utter a rebuttal when the entire world turned upside down.

  An extremely loud, crackling, whooshing sound reverberated throughout the square. A series of high-pitched, equally loud whines like steam escaping a kettle began to sound a split second later. People began to scream and cry, and the rumbling of thousands of people moving about in a panic drummed through the ground.

  When Lou finally got his bearing a second later, he saw what was causing the chaos. The Wind Castemen were glowing with Lux, the rain splashing off of them creating light puffs of steam. They swooped over the ground, firing beams of fire from their eyes straight into the assembled crowd. People screamed and thrashed about as the beams struck them. Lou felt nauseous as he beheld a row of charred corpses, looking like facsimiles of humans made from coal and ash. Just a few second ago, they had been alive.

  “Get up!” shouted Thyrian. He grabbed Lou’s arm and hauled him to his feet.

  “What the sun is happening?!” screamed Lou. “People are dying!”

  “Run! Follow me!” Thyrian bellowed, beginning to run off to the side. The Wind Caste murderers were focusing on killing people in the larger crowd, not focusing on stragglers or even escapees. Lou followed his employer without a word, sprinting as fast as his legs could slosh through the puddles of rain.

  He turned corner after corner, not paying attention to where Thyrian was leading him. His calves ached as he sloshed through countless puddles. The sounds of screaming and whooshing grew fainter as he moved farther and farther away from the carnage.

  Finally, Thyrian stopped. Lou leaned against a brick wall, vomiting into a puddle. He gasped and heaved, catching his breath. Thyrian had no expression on his face. It was a mask of serene calm.

  “Why?” Lou gasped. “What?”

  “I’ve been waiting for this,” Thyrian said emotionlessly. “I knew that this would happen.”

  “Me too,” Lou gasped. He felt like curling up into a ball and crying, but he probably would have been caught and burned alive by the Wind Castemen. “I pieced it together from scripture and overheard some Wind Castemen talking a few weeks ago.”

  “Nevos?” asked Thyrian.

  “Do you know him?” asked Lou, perking up.

  “Yeah,” Thyrian said. “He told me about what would happen. He also told me how to escape.”

  “Escape!” Lou said. “We should leave the city, head for one of the outlying villages.”

  “Won’t work,” Thyrian said. “The Rain Caste plans to kill every last commoner. They’ll kill the ones in the cities first, then move onto the stragglers and country-dwellers. We’ll have to completely leave the Theocracy in order to survive.”

  “But that means…” Lou couldn’t wrap his brain around it. “Heathen Lands.”

  “Yes, my boy,” Thyrian replied. “We’re going to the Heathen Lands.”

  “But how?” Lou asked. “We’ll have to trek across dozens, if not hundreds of miles to get there. It’ll take days, and they’ll catch us!”

  “Ahh, see here boy, that’s where you’re wrong!” Thyrian exclaimed. “We can go underground!”

  “Under… Ground?” Lou asked. “What do you mean? Walk through rocks?”

  “No,” Thyrian replied. “There’s a great network of tunnels that spans the entirety of the Holy Kingdom and beyond. We can travel them with complete safety from the Wind Caste.”

  “What?” Lou said. “I didn’t know there was a tunnel network underground!” He felt like a complete moron for making such an obvious statement.

  “Well, neither did I until a few weeks ago,” Thyrian said. “Nevos told me. He even showed me an entrance. Here, let me show you.”

  He turned away and entered an abandoned building. Lou looked around, getting a good view of this street. It was located near the outskirts of Urbs Sacer, where the buildings gradually grew less densely packed until they bled into the muddy wasteland outside the city and the raised stone roads connecting the city to its supply villages. Most of the buildings were dilapidated, and there was not a soul in sight.

  A few seconds later, Thyrian reemerged. “Come on, follow me,” he said, gesturing for Lou to do so. Lou entered the building. It was a small warehouse with a single floor. There were a few rotting wooden crates scattered about, but the most obvious flaw in the building was a ten-foot-wide, gaping hole in the far left corner of the room. It extended into the ground, its bottom obscured by darkness.

  “Let me get my rope,” Thyrian grunted. He went to one of the rotting crates, reached inside, and pulled out a large coil of braidmoss rope. The strand of green material could hold lots of weight. He walked up to a chunk of wall with a ragged protrusion and tied one end of the rope around it. He flung the rest of the rope into the pit. Lou heard a faint thumping sound a split second later as it hit the bottom.

  “I’ll go first,” Thyrian said. He lowered himself to the ground and began to descend. A minute or so later, he called, “Now you, boy!” Lou took deep breaths and steeled himself. He lowered himself onto the rope and began to climb down.

  The pit was significantly shallower than Lou had anticipated, and it took only a minute to climb down. He felt dry stone beneath his feet. He was in pitch darkness, with only a medium pinprick of light at the top of the shaft.

  All of a sudden, light flooded the area. Lou turned around and faced Thyrian. The older man had reached into his satchel and procured what looked like a tiny white stick with a fire on one end.

  “What’s that?” Lou asked. “Doesn’t look like Lux.”

  “It’s a match,” Thyrian said. “It makes fire. While flint and steel is the traditional and common way to make fire, matches are much quicker, smaller and more efficient. Probably why the Rain Caste doesn’t want us to use them.” He reatched into his satchel again and pulled out a small lantern. He held the match up to the lantern, lighting it. He shook the match out and held the lantern up.

  The medium-strength light revealed a small, circular chamber with a tiled floor of aged stone. A five-foot-hight doorway was carved into the far wall, with stairs leading farther down, disappearing into the darkness.

  “Follow,” Thyrian said, walking nonchalantly into the darkness. Lou gulped and unsteadily followed him down the stairwell.

  The stairwell curved and switched back and forth. It took over twenty minutes to descend its entire length. The top of the stairway was made of well-worn stone bricks and coated with moss that thrived in the darkness, but the material gradually changed into strange, shining metal. The stairs changed from solid stone to metal grating at around the halfway point. As Lou and Thyrian reached the bottom region of the stairs, a faint glow slightly illuminated the area. It grew brighter as they reached the ending of the stairway.

  The sight that greeted Lou as he and Thyrian stepped off the stairway was utterly alien. The stairway ended in a small alcove that opened out into a gargantuan corridor that branched off to the left and right. The ceiling was hung with an endless row of Lux lamps that would never burn out, stretching with the corridor. The entire area was made of golden, bronze-colored or grey metals that shone with polish. As Lou stepped out of the alcove, he got a better look at the area. The corridor was around fifteen feet tall, twenty-five feet wide and stretched seemingly forever off into the distance on both sides. The bottom of the chamber was a slight slope, and there was a foot-deep layer of still, dark water running with the corridor. The sides had platforms of latticed metal, with bridges connecting the two platforms at regular intervals.

  “Oh,” breathed Lou. “This is a sight.”

  “Indeed it is,” Thyrian said. “I’ve never seen anything like it.”

  “When do you think this was built?” Lou asked. “Because it clearly wasn’t built by the Theocracy.”

  “No idea,” Thyrian said. He reached into his satchel and pulled out a compass. “We’re facing north, so the fastest way out of the Holy Kingdom is to the east. Let’s head to the right.”

  The two began to walk along the grated walkway. The monotonous tunnel stretched forever onwards into the distance, broken up by occasional patches of moss. As he walked, Lou felt unease mix with the stress of the day’s experiences. With a sickening jolt, he realized that he hadn’t seen his parents since before the Wind Castemen attacked the crowd. He hoped that they were all right. Clearly, they must be worried about Lou, too. That is, if they weren’t dead.