Colin Tabor - The Fall of Ossard

Sef and I swapped glances – he could feel it too.

In the celestial, the eye above the city watched, and as it did a single tear formed within it to drop free. It glowed like a lit crystal, but in the real world remained unseen. It came towards us falling faster and faster.

The seed of a miracle…

It landed in the street behind the gathering.

At the same instant, the sky erupted with the chorus of a sea gull flock, they’d come from nowhere to break the silence, and then as quickly moved on.

Nervous laughter peppered the crowd.

And then, above it all, a weak voice cried, “Help!”

The crowd turned towards the sound.

The Heletite smiled.

The old woman clutched the amulet tightly as she got to her feet, her eyes sparkling with hope.

Where the divine tear had landed lay an iron grate.

None in the crowd moved.

And then the manhole cap, a grill of bars, rose up and slid free.

A dirt-stained boy struggled weakly to lift himself out of the sewer as he gasped, “Help me! Help me please!”

Some of the crowd rushed forward and grabbed for him before he could slip back down.

His mother’s eyes flooded with tears as she croaked, “Stefan?”

The boy’s head jerked up. “Mama!”

She called out with joy, “Stefan! Oh sweet Rabisto, thank you!” And she hurried from the stage towards him.

Stefan lurched forward on unsteady legs, until they came together in a tear-filled embrace.

The crowd cheered, while above it all the Heletite cried, “Witness the compassion of Saint Rabisto, the bringer of comfort!”

I looked to Sef.

He asked, “Was that staged?”

I shrugged. “Not by the woman.”

He shook his head in disbelief, yet still managed to balance his surprise with a practical suggestion. “This’ll be a good time for us to look around, while they’re distracted.” He reached over and passed me a plain robe. “Put this on with its hood up to hide your blonde hair. Hopefully they won’t recognise you, but if they do let’s be ready to get back to the coach and out of here.”

“Yes.”

Sef opened the door and jumped down to the cobbles, using the coach to hide us from the crowd. He helped me down and said to Kurt, “Wait for a while. When we’re well on our way, I want you to go over by those buildings and keep an eye on us. Watch me for signals, and the crowd for trouble, otherwise meet us when we reach the other side.”

Kurt nodded, but looked nervous. He’d only served my household for a season, and by the look of him I wondered if he’d still be in my pay by dusk.

I turned to face the warehouse’s ruin, a black and grey wasted mess. Taking a deep breath, I took my first step.

Sef whispered, “We must be quick, the crowd will grow with news of the boy’s return.”

He was right.

Not long after, as we made our way into the charred ruin, Kurt moved the coach to where Sef had instructed. While I concentrated on the search, I could see Sef glancing back. He whispered, “Already some watch us.”

I wasn’t sure if I’d be recognised, but as the Forsaken Lady I seemed as well known as the Benefice or poor Lord Liberigo. Still, there was nothing for it, but to try and do what we’d come here to do.

Step after step, nothing much remained. What had once been a sprawling warehouse, and the site of powerful ritual magic, now lay as a field of charred posts, charcoal, and ash.

Up ahead, a cluster of shoulder-high lumps rose blackened and lopsided – the remains of the ritual’s victims.

Approaching them chilled me even though they’d lost all their features. Now they loomed like a set of fire-scorched monoliths.

The wind picked up, the gust lifting the ash as a fine dark haze. Amidst its bluster, I could hear the moans of the dead coming from the celestial to haunt this terrible place.

My steps became slower and my breathing deeper, but I continued on as I neared the mounds. On reaching the nearest, I saw that just past it opened the great hole that sank down into the blackened ground. It lay between the three monoliths, yawning wide and now plugged with rubble and ruin.

Sef followed, but slowed. He had no wish to come any closer.

I took a few more steps, absorbing the bleak and soot-covered scene.

What a waste…

Coming to a stop, I braced myself, and then let my vision drift into the celestial.

The bright sparks of energy that had flared here two nights before as the ritual’s residue were now gone. I looked closer to find that something subtler remained.

Shadows hung about me in that other world. Dark and insubstantial, they seemed lost and incomplete. They didn’t react to me, or each other, instead they just moved about senselessly.

They were something left over from the victims, perhaps their last gasps or thoughts. Sadly there was so little left that these Shades had no sense, no knowing, and certainly no chance at rebirth.

They were chilling, so much so that I had to pull away. With relief I returned my perception to the real world.

What power had been unleashed here?

Back in the real world, most of their bodies were also gone, taken by the ravages of the fire. The macabre towers in front of me were barely distinguishable from the slumped piles of charred timber that had been packed about their ruined forms. It was sickening.

I tried to sense if anything of interest lay nearby. It seemed like a good idea, but my mind became stabbed in a thousand places by the feelings, thoughts, and other sensations emanating from the crowd. The overwhelming force of it saw me stumble.

Sef asked, “Are you alright?”

“Yes,” I said as I gathered myself.

He nodded and turned back to check on the crowd.

Shaken as I was, I noticed sweat on his face and that he’d paled. “Sef, are you well?”

He turned to me and said, “I’ll manage, but it’s so uncomfortable.” After a moment, he added, “Can’t you feel it?”

“Yes,” I said, but answered too quickly. I wasn’t exactly sure what he meant – there was just so much to take in.

He realised. “Look at the ground, at the focus!”

My gaze fell down to the ash at our feet.

Dust rose from the charred soil, black and grey, it drifting across my boots to pass by. I followed a particular wisp of it as it climbed and tumbled, and after a moment realised that it wasn’t following a straight line. It travelled slowly along the edge of a circle, a wide circle, and that circle centred on the heart of the ritual.

I asked, “What is it?”

Sef was checking on the crowd. “I was hoping you’d know.”

Me?

He went on, “My guess is that it’s the seed of something, the seed of the ritual, perhaps the seed of power for all their rituals to come.”

I hated this, it all being such a mystery. Everybody else seemed to know so much more about what was going on.

I tried to settle down and focus myself. More than anything I’d come here looking for something that might indicate where Maria and Pedro were being held. That’s what I needed to worry about, nothing else.

Again I opened up to the celestial, but this time I listened specifically for Maria. I couldn’t be sure, but seeing as I hadn’t heard from her since her kidnapping, I assumed that my talent for it was quite limited. If she was close, maybe I’d hear something. For long moments I stood there, my perception half in the celestial world and half in the real.

Nothing…

I kept trying, listening, and sensing.

Nothing…

Searching and seeking, desperately straining.

Nothing…

Sef’s voice made me jump, “We should go.”

I followed his gaze; a growing number of the crowd were watching us. I nodded. Sef signalled to Kurt, and he in turn started to take the coach around to the far side of the ruin.