Chasing Sunlight

“Can you do anything about this, Mister Heights?” Montgomery gestured to the compass and triskolabe. The former spun with languid ease, while in the latter Zumar’s Bones joined the compass in aimless meander. Only the inverted zint, which showed no path but the way back, still burned with a consistent light. Jonathan frowned at it, then glanced out the bridge windows.

The spotlights illuminated a slope rising in every direction, thick with diseased briar that curled and curdled in a nauseating spectrum. Despite the power of the engines and the visible movement of the blighted vegetation below them, the Endeavor never seemed to move from the depression, as if the very land was bent by the weight of the ship’s presence. The ship’s instruments showed there was not a single stirring of the air, yet a malodorous draft seemed to force itself through the vents regardless.

Jonathan’s maps were of little help, for the treacherous terrain did not match the ridgeline that was supposed to be east of the zint vein — or Terminus, if that place still existed. Or had existed to begin with. The doldrums the Endeavor found herself in were something entirely different, some place or time or mechanism Jonathan had not before encountered.

“I believe I can, captain,” Jonathan said, examining the triskolabe before replacing it on the navigator’s console. “One does not get far into the east without preparing for incidents like this. You may halt the engines, at least for now. I have certain preparations to make.”

“Hopefully ones that won’t take too long,” Montgomery said, glowering out the window. He gave the appropriate orders, and the slow slide of the sickly briar below came to a halt. If anything, the rising slopes were even more vertiginous at a standstill, the thorny brush exhibiting a slow and insectile movement as if trying to crawl out of the basin that marked the Endeavor’s presence. Jonathan didn’t suggest trying to tether; the foliage below writhed in such virulent and unwholesome shades that he had no doubt any who touched it would soon regret it.

He returned to the upper deck to gather materials from his cabin and passed by the small galley, where Eleanor’s maids were making breakfast. The frying meat and baking bread should have produced an appetizing smell despite the ventilation, yet the sickly and corrupt atmosphere seemed to have tainted that as well. The smell turned even Jonathan’s stomach, and the disgusted exclamations that came suddenly from the canteen compelled him to stop.

“I advise you to wait until I remove us from this place to attempt anything other than water and dried rations,” Jonathan told them, opening the canteen door enough to glimpse the disgusting mess that the meal had become. Marie and Sarah both turned to regard him with suspicion. He didn’t offer further explanation, as he had none — save that very little in the east was safe and most of the rest malevolent.

“How do you intend to do that?” Antomine asked the question from the hall, likely emerging due to the smell. His nose was wrinkled, but his attention was on Jonathan rather than the polluted air.

“First, I shall see if I can find some navigational heading.” Jonathan replied, letting the canteen door swing closed and proceeding on toward his cabin. “Should that fail, we burn that briar and see what may be revealed.”

“That seems like it might be excessive,” Antomine said, trailing along and waiting outside as Jonathan sorted through his supplies. He had no handy artifacts for this contingency, no constructed tools to lead them from the diseased trap upon which they had blindly stumbled. His long experience with occult vagaries and the notes and records he had brought with him would have to do.

“We need only worry about excess if it wastes valuable resources,” Jonathan replied. He set out several journals on his desk, some his, others older and more worn. “I suggest—” Jonathan began, then arrested his unthinking words. It would not do to offer insult where none was necessary. “It might be best if you ensure that none are falling ill due to this atmosphere,” he suggested, knowing that Antomine was better situated than most to hold off any unnatural effects. “And that nobody do any cooking, just in case.”

“Ha!” Antomine barked a laugh without much humor. “The men won’t be happy with nothing in their belly, but if they smell too much of this they’ll be unhappier still.”

“What is that, anyway?” Eleanor asked, finally emerging from her cabin to join the conversation. “Did something die out there?”

“It’s quite likely,” Jonathan admitted, her question inspiring him to turn back for one more reference. “And out here, dead things are no less dangerous than living ones.”

“Now that’s a trick,” Eleanor muttered, and withdrew with her sleeve over her nose. Antomine followed her example a moment later, leaving Jonathan in peace to ruminate over his books.

The accounts that Jonathan perused were those of ships beset by strange weathers or likewise pervasive phenomena, ones where the unfortunate airship seemed trapped or becalmed — a situation which was hardly common, but not unheard of. For some the circumstance simply passed of its own accord, but those were of little interest. The more esoteric methods of escape ranged from blindfolding all aboard, to a chaplain conducting a particular song — the details of which had been redacted with great prejudice.

Eleanor’s comment had led him to another account, one of a battle between titans, far to the south beyond the great lavafall of the Godforge. One where the corpse of the loser had been completely unapproachable, as every speck and scintilla of blood and viscera had been quite as dangerous as if it were alive. It had oozed with malign intent, despite being no more than the detritus of a former life.

That led him to open more crates and extract more books, some of which were forbidden in Beacon simply by virtue of nonhuman authorship. The actual contents were often more mundane; histories of places that no longer existed or never had, journeys to places no human could ever live. Yet there were flashes of things truly dangerous within, words and phrases and stories that could twist both the gut and the mind. It was the sort of study he would hesitate to undertake before, but with sunlight buoying his mind and grounding his soul, he did not fear the risks.

He pored over the accounts, pen scratching on spare paper as he translated specific passages and puzzled out cryptic references. The clock ticked as he unwound ciphers, sketched webs of references, and correlated depictions between one language and another. Jonathan lost himself in his work, leafing through old, discolored pages of paper and vellum.

Then he found it. One telling detail, one illuminating passage that set him on the right path. He flipped to certain pages in three separate books, his hand moving of its own accord as he translated the obscure symbols therein. Smoke curled up from where the ink touched parchment, sizzling as the very temerity of the words threatened to set the page alight. Then he blinked at what he had written, awakened from the fugue of research by the abrupt end of his inquiry.

Jonathan tore a page from his notebook and upon it wrote a name in bold strokes. It took both hands to lift the paper from his desk, and he hooked his cane on his arm before carried the heavy burden down the stairs to the next deck, finding Antomine and Eleanor both in the canteen discussing things with the crew. Everyone turned to look at him when he entered, and Eleanor took a long drag on her cigarette.

“There you are. Thought you’d be stuck in your cabin forever,” she said. Jonathan glanced at the clock in the canteen, finding that it was some hours earlier than when he’d entered his cabin. Or rather, sometime early into the next day, which explained the stiffness in his joints. He dismissed it as a necessary expenditure and held out the paper to Antomine.

“Eleanor was right. Something did die, and it lingers here still. This is its name; I need you to lay it to rest.”

Antomine blinked.

“I beg your pardon,” he said after a moment, his youthful face torn between incredulity and amusement. “You wish me to administer final rites for some rotting heathen demigod?”

“Yes,” Jonathan said, with no amusement whatsoever. “Surely you recognize the power inherent in such a ritual. I will take one of our cannisters of fire dust and spread it in our wake for the pyre.”

“A full cannister?” Eleanor asked incredulously. “That is a lot of fire.”

“There is a lot to burn,” Jonathan replied. His studies and the revelations they had supplied had not included the magnitude or the nature of the thing, only the name. His conclusions were drawn from the sheer effect, the insatiable hunger and putrescence, that were not something that could be borne by something of ordinary scale and scope.

“Very well,” Antomine said, still hesitant, and reached out for the paper. Jonathan delivered it into his hands, and Antomine nearly dropped it in surprise at the weight of the name. Eleanor glanced over Antomine’s shoulder, then flinched, looking away and scrubbing at her eyes as they watered from the sting of the name’s impact.

“I shall go inform Montgomery,” Jonathan said, grasping his cane once again and glancing around at the airmen who filled the canteen. “We shall be out of this soon,” he told them, conscious of the necessity of garnering a somewhat more positive perception from the crew. The current situation was, he granted, not calculated to improve morale. Nearly everyone looked uncomfortable with the noisome odors that pervaded the ship.

There weren’t exactly cheers at his pronouncement, but at least some measure of hope spread through the listeners. Satisfied with that much progress, he swept out of the canteen and to the bridge, his cane tapping upon the deck in precise, calm monotone. Montgomery looked over sharply at his entrance, and beckoned him onto the bridge.

“You’ve got something for us, Mister Heights?”

“Yes, captain. Mister Antomine will be performing the rites for this grave we find ourselves atop, and I shall be creating the pyre. I believe any heading will do for now; when that changes I believe it will be obvious.” Jonathan did not know, precisely, how it would manifest, but he had been out in the dark long enough to be certain Antomine’s ritual would have clear effect.

Leaving Antomine to his preparations, Jonathan descended to the hold on the third deck, where the two cannisters of fire dust were each packed inside their own well-padded crate, the black casks sealed with a thick coating of wax. He pried open the crate with his bare hands, neither needing nor trusting a prybar for the task, and cleared away the bundled cloth to lift out a container of heavy stone.

The deck surged as the engines engaged, and Jonathan carefully carried the cask to the rear of the ship. He opened the door there to the outside railing and set the container down, still finding no wind despite Endeavor’s movement. Wax cracked as he broke the seal on the container and he lifted the lid to expose the glittering orange-red substance.

The powdered flame blazed with a heat that didn’t just touch the skin, but also something deeper in. A calefaction of mind, of spirit, of some deep and abiding inferno distilled from whatever heretical god the Cult of Flame worshipped. It invited any who beheld it to dive into the fire and revel in the flames, but Jonathan shoved aside that temptation with contempt. Simple burning was nothing next to the purity of sunlight.

Very, very carefully he tilted the cask over the side, letting the powder sift out into the dead air. It spread out below them in a long trail as the only evidence of the Endeavor’s motion, visible even as it settled over the endless diseased briar the frothed below them. Jonathan ensured no speck of it remained on either the ship or himself, for under its touch steel and carisium and flesh all burned just the same.

The cask seemed to have no bottom, but that was merely an illusion brought on by the fineness of the powder and how it saturated the air. The glimmering stuff spread out from its own heat, turning into a great cape trailing the Endeavor to swathe the awful briar in a warm glow beyond the Endeavor’s own lights. The long luminescent trail hinted at a massive looming shape, more complicated than a simple slope, with enormous limbs and alien protuberances. Yet within the Endeavor’s own illumination, it was merely a writhing briar climbing in every direction.

It didn’t ignite, not yet; even fire dust required some spark. Setting landscape alight would require only the most cursory of effort, but one that needed to wait for the proper time. Jonathan didn’t know what time that would be, but he was confident it would present itself as the surroundings finally started to change.

He knew not what ritual Antomine had decided to perform on the bridge, but it was clear that it had begun to bear fruit as landmarks appeared from the surrounding sameness: unidentifiable corrugations, nauseating wounds weeping ichor, stumps of limbs long since rotted. Great and terrible spans of bone gaped suddenly below, hinting at enormous caverns into which the fire dust fell. If anything, he hoped that a single cask would be enough.

Finally a huge and hollow eye appeared below, the dead regard no less piercing than were the thing alive. A fetid attention fell upon him, upon the Endeavor as they dared to break from the endless grasping rot of the decaying titan. The entire scope of the corpse, now outlined with wandering trails of flame dust, was an ungraspable contortion of land and space, and some of the paths seemed to imply the Endeavor had been flying as much through it as above.

The last of the fire dust left the cask and Jonathan replaced the lid, stepping back onto the third deck to drop it into its crate before hurrying to the bridge. There was a sudden sense of urgency from the corpse’s regard, and Jonathan did not wish to be caught unready. He opened the door to find Antomine facing out the window, overseeing the massive body of the dead thing, while the ship’s cat stood imperiously on Antomine’s shoulder. Penelope seemed to understand the solemnity of the moment and presided over it with dignity, her wings partly spread with one paw on the missal Antomine held.

“—From dust ye were made and dust ye shall be.” Antomine’s voice sounded through the bridge, resonant and formal. Everyone there was sober and somber, respectful of the ceremony and the being it was for, however ancient and alien it might be. Antomine closed his missal and glanced at Jonathan, then at Montgomery.

“I believe it is time to light the pyre, Captain,” he said, and Jonathan nodded agreement. On this, if nothing else, he and Antomine were of one accord.

“Will zint do?” Montgomery asked, but Jonathan shook his head.

“It must be ordinary fire,” he said. “Zint does not exactly set things aflame.”

“Right,” Montgomery said, and reached for his pipe pouch, extracting a match and looking around for something to burn. Unbidden, Antomine offered the paper upon which the name was written, and Montgomery took it carefully, stepping out onto the rail and lighting it.

The paper burst into a more intense flame than it should have, as Montgomery dropped it over the side. The burning brand fell slowly in the dead air, growing smaller and yet brighter as it neared the surface of the corpse. All at once the fire dust ignited, a joyous roar of conflagration and consumption that bit deep into the land below, swallowing it in a violent convulsion of hungry flame.

Normal fire would have simply subsisted on the briar, if it could have burned anything at all, but that which was wrought from gods could burn gods. In moments flesh and bone and even air caught as the fire purified all, pluming upward to form into flickering patterns of dire import. Antomine barked a warning that any god-fearing man would heed, and airmen looked away so as not to risk whatever terrors that alien symbology held behind it. Jonathan refused to avert his gaze, knowing that nothing he found there would be more profound than the sunlight that drove him.

The heat from the titanic inferno caught the Endeavor, a sudden scorching wind lofting it upward as the engines found purchase that they had heretofore lacked, and the ship surged forward with sudden haste. Fresh air flooded through the vents in a wave that drove out the fetor, carrying with it the sweltering proof of the that great deific pyre.

The flickering firelight cast illumination for miles around, revealing a lush landscape of blues and greens scarred by sharp-edged canyons. It was if enormous claws had raked across the earth, perhaps hinting at the conflict that had resulted in the gargantuan corpse that now burned behind them. Far away to the north it even flickered off Widow’s Peak, outlining suggestions of a face and hands that could normally only be seen piecemeal.

Everyone aboard breathed easier as they fled further east. By the expressions of those on the bridge, ending the interregnum was a vast relief, and even Jonathan had to admit fresh air was better than foul. It was Montgomery who broke the moment, staring out at the scablands below them.

“Everyone, get your bearings while we have the light,” he barked, stirring the bridge from its reverie and sending them into a hive of activity. “There’s no telling where we ended up after all that.” Jameson, the navigator, plied the now-functional triskolabe as lookouts frantically tried to match map markings with visible landmarks.

“Finally, we can breathe,” Eleanor muttered, leaning against the wall by the door, out of the way of the bridge crew. “Didn’t it bother you, Jonathan? Do you even have a nose?”

“I have a nose,” Jonathan said patiently. “Certain things simply took precedence.” The demands of the body were somewhat distant from him at times, as obsession and focus on esoteric matters drove him forward. He couldn’t quite shirk the demands of the corporeal form, and he could tell that he would be paying for the past few days soon enough.

“Speaking of which, I believe I will retire for now, since this is resolved,” Jonathan said, glancing out at the fire-lit landscape. Despite the striking scene of so much being so visible, nothing was revealed that would require his immediate attention. Here were outlines of ancient walls, crumbled and torn, and there was some rotted port, with rusted metal spires from the masts of sunken ships protruding above still waters, but none of it was worth their time.

“Aye, Mister Heights. Let us hope there will be some time before another emergency.” Montgomery nodded at him, and Jonathan took his leave from the bridge. He only made it up one flight, to the central hall of the passenger’s deck, when a sudden chill swept over him. Vapor puffed into the air from his breath and frost sent runners along the metal of the walls.

Beyond the observation window at the end of the hall Jonathan saw the reflection of the burning titan behind them in what seemed to be a pane of glass floating midair. Then it blinked, and resolved itself into a single gargantuan eye set into an icy bulk, the being looming suddenly in front of them. It looked like nothing so much as a glacilium, one of those motile icebergs that heralded winter, but writ far larger and more aware.

The ship slewed as whoever was at the helm steered away from the glacilium, though it was miles away. If it was moving, the vast size of the thing rendered it impossible to tell, its scale so out of proportion that no human intuition functioned. Jonathan found himself descending again with haste, muttering imprecations under his breath about the timing of the thing, and his own idiocy for not expecting it. Of course such a profound shift in the local power would draw attention.

He was nearly to the bridge when the first of the words hammered into the Endeavor, each of them as weighty as the name he had divined and in no language fit for human tongue. Every syllable made the ship ring like a bell, battering and bruising those within, yet still somehow comprehensible to the mind if not the ear.

Who. Disturbs. The. Dead.

“How hell are we supposed to respond to that?” Eleanor’s voice drifted out of the bridge door, incredulous and perhaps a touch shrill.

“Politely, I would think,” Jonathan said, stepping through the door and leaning on his cane. Neither Antomine nor Eleanor looked surprised to see him return.

“Do you know how to deal with this?” Antomine said, more controlled than Eleanor but still a touch wild around the eyes.

“With tact and professionalism,” Jonathan replied, running his hands over his suit by reflex, even if it was still clean and unwrinkled. “Be clear, concise, and honest. Do not joke to or about it.” Most people had little experience dealing with anything that wasn’t human, but even Jonathan had a limited exposure to truly vast and alien beings. Those places where such things existed tended to be blanks on the map, places where those that ventured did not return.

“I am Jonathan Heights,” he said, stepping up to the front of the bridge and considering the creature, whose vast eye was fixed on them. Despite the distance he didn’t bother to raise his voice, trusting that whatever senses it had were sufficient to the task of interpreting his words. “We have laid to rest that which was already disturbed.” He paused, and then spoke the name, which fell into the air with dreadful finality like a coffin lid being closed.

By. What. Right.

The creature’s reply shuddered through the ship from stem to stern, though it was impossible to tell what emotion lay behind them. The words themselves were powerful enough to batter the mind and body, and discerning any subtleties therein was beyond any of those present. Jonathan winced, leaning on his cane, and turned to Antomine. The inquisitor was certain to have a more appropriate response to that than Jonathan.

“It is the role of the chaplain to ease the suffering of any they may encounter,” Antomine said, after a pause to gather his thoughts. The intense regard of the massive creature was an almost visible radiation, flooding the bridge of the ship and swirling around Antomine as he spoke. “The dead should not linger in this world; it is not for them. This is ancient knowledge, from even before civilization. From the lowliest insect to the gods, we know this to be true.”

Antomine spoke in a voice of conviction that served to straighten the back and stiffen the spines of the men on the bridge, bent as they were under the inscrutable regard of the creature. Jonathan found himself as unaffected by Antomine’s resonant strength as he was by the inquisitor’s righteous anger, leaving him to face the suffocating reality of the creature on his own. Jonathan gripped his cane and let the sunlight in his soul buoy him against the buffets and blows of the thing’s words, clinging to the transcendent sight of perfect light.

You. Serve. Mysteries.

It was an observation, without condemnation or even an intimation who it was talking to. Or which secrets it meant, as Jonathan was hardly the only one bearing the mark of esoteric obsession. Even Antomine’s religious convictions bore the imprimatur of the Illuminated King.

“They are our secrets,” Jonathan said, looking out at the enormous eye. “We do not seek yours, nor even those of your fallen brethren. We wish only to continue east.”

One enormous eye swiveled east, which seemed impossible given the icy bulk whose presence continued to reduce the temperature within the Endeavor. Both Eleanor and Montgomery had their hands tucked inside their coats and some of the bridge crew were quietly working to keep creeping ice from solidifying on sensitive controls. Jonathan considered whether the remaining fire dust would be enough to hold the thing off, or perhaps one of the remaining amphoras of unflame would be better given its clear affinity for the cold. Perhaps even an enhanced volley from the zint artillery, though he suspected none of those options would be sufficient given the bulk of the floating mountain ahead of them.

Westward. Mysteries.

It seemed to contemplate the idea for a timeless time, still as a frozen corpse. Antomine’s eyes burned white as he fought against the creeping cold, stepping forward to the window in defiance of that frigid gaze. Even if Antomine was the barest reflection of the Illuminated King, possessing a mere fragment of whatever luminant knowledge the King had made his own, he still had the wherewithal to contest the ancient and enormous creature.

“Human secrets. Nothing for you, nothing for one who dwells so far east. We are of different worlds, and we are only traveling through here. Let us pass each other by, strangers in the dark.”

Once. Met. Never. Strangers.

With that ominous statement the being vanished from sight, a movement that defied comprehension and was only visible as a gut-wrenching flicker. Nevertheless, it was gone, and the frost began to evaporate as heat returned to the ship. With disconcerting speed, the ice that had rimed metal and glass vanished as if it had never been.

“Exactly how often are we going to run into things like that?” Eleanor demanded of the air, as everyone caught their breaths. Most of the bridge crew were visibly bruised from the onslaught of the thing’s words, Montgomery sporting a very obvious black eye, but nobody paid attention to their new wounds as they hastily sent the Endeavor north.

“More than we’d like,” Jonathan said, even if the question was rhetorical. “These wild places are not empty. There are relics and remnants of civilizations and races long since passed, but even the remains are something to be cautious of.”

“I don’t like the idea of it heading west,” Antomine said with a frown. “Even if it’s unlikely to stumble across human civilization.”

“I am certain the Illuminated King will have no issues dealing with it, should it cause trouble,” Jonathan said, not particularly concerned with any potential conflict between Beacon and the behemoth. It was no longer the Endeavor’s problem, so he had no interest in it. “Captain, do we have a bearing?”

“Aye,” Montgomery said, looking back from the large map. “Should be able to get past Widow’s Peak in a couple days, then to...” he squinted at the notation. “Angkor Leng.”

“We’ll need the circle guide for that one,” Jonathan said, indicating the instrument he had created at Tor Ilek. “Angkor Leng has certain facilities we will need to make use of.”

“So long as it’s not like Tor Ilek,” Montgomery said.

“It should not be,” Jonathan agreed. “But it is also far more intact. It may be the first place to find some real treasure.”

“I’m for that,” Eleanor said, suddenly in a much better mood. “Let’s get going.”