here, in this haven, miles from any infernal, they feel the quake. Even here, behind walls of denial and power, platinum and energy, the shift in earth and essence stirs them.
Alpha of The Seven is the first to wake. His eyes open, matchless orbs, sparkling with the wisdom of his maker and a thousand years’ experience. They sweep across five other alcoves, each a home, a tomb for the immortal within.
Heads turn slowly, moving to meet his gaze. Stone flakes fall from faces as they emerge once more, tentative.
No words are spoken, no songs are sung, not yet. Their power is there, waiting to be called but there lacks the will to call it.
Alpha feels the question in the eyes of his brothers and sisters. A new trouble has presented itself. They want to see his response. He flexes fingers, freeing them from their stony prison, and looks towards his sword. It is buried, a barely discernible lump, shrouded in grey rock. His siblings’ swords are no better, covered in tears of stone, wept in the years of grief.
It is time to take them up again.
Alpha lifts his hand and the others inhale together. Five hands tense, ready to take action.
An invisible force draws Alpha’s eyes to the third alcove, the empty one. Once their sister, Gamma, resided there. Now there is nothing.
She is lost to them.
Lost.
That which they thought immutable was brought low, broken by the Usurper’s power. If they go to war, will this new threat claim another? Even the idea is too much to bear.
Alpha stills his hand, lowers his head.
Five other hands relax and six minds retreat, returning to darkness and sweet oblivion.
A few miles away, hidden in darkness, wrapped in cloth, wrapped in wood, wrapped in dust, an eye opens.
*
A bird drifts in the sky, lazy. A worm dangles from its beak, frantic, hopeless. With a flap of wings, it ascends, riding the currents, spiralling around a great pillar. At the top sits a gleaming sky-ship and cradled within its turrets are a number of nests.
The nests should not be there. The workers should have scrubbed them away but there have been no inspections, not this year, nor the four before that. Nobody can see the top of the sky-ship from below, so the workers don’t clean them. An indulgence that goes unnoticed. There are others. Tiny flaws in the slowly rotting Empire of the Winged Eye.
Shrill voices penetrate the air, begging for food. The bird ignores them, moving towards its own offspring, letting the worm fall towards a trio of gaping beaks before diving away, carried by currents to new adventures.
Far below and several miles distant, a girl watches the bird through an old, battered scope. Her name is Vesper and her feet itch to travel to the pillar, her hands to climb it. But the pillar, along with everything else around the Shining City, is forbidden. They are but images, only dimly understood, no more real to her than Uncle Harm’s stories.
She tucks the scope into a pocket and looks around, seeking inspiration. None comes and her eyes go back to find the bird, staring enviously until the curved line becomes a black dot. Soon even this is gone. Without it, the sky appears blank, uninteresting.
Because she is young, because she is sheltered, because she is different, Vesper plays. She spreads her arms and runs, flapping them like a bird. Enthusiasm cannot defeat physics however and she remains earth bound, an amusement for the goats that crowd the fields.
She arrives at the border of her world, panting. No energy field prevents further travel, just a simple fence and the endless warnings of her family.
Vesper takes a step towards it. She does not need to fly to cross this obstacle. A glance over her shoulder stops the plan before it can form. Her father stands outside the house, amber eyes searching her out. Feigning innocence, Vesper raises her hand, waves. Her father’s hand calls her back towards home.
She loves her father and her Uncle more than words but sometimes she wishes they weren’t there. Not forever. Just for an hour, or an afternoon. As she trudges back up the hill, she imagines the glories such an afternoon might bring.
Before she gets back, however, an angry bleating demands her attention.
‘Here we go,’ mutters Vesper and starts to run.
The male goats follow her a few paces, then stop, knowing their place well.
At the top of the hill, next to her house is another, smaller one. Inside, offerings litter the floor, some barely recognizable remnants, others only half chewed. A mutigel cube has been spread thin across the floor, like a translucent pancake. A blanket partly covers it. The goat stands on top, unsteady, her belly swollen with young. Dark eyes regard Vesper bleakly as she arrives. The goat is old now, too old for such nonsense, yet it keeps happening. The goat is not sure who needs to be punished for the latest in a long line of pregnancies and so tends to bite at anybody stupid enough to get close.
Vesper has learnt this the hard way. She stops at the doorway, absently rubbing the old scar on her hand. ‘Don’t look at me. It’s not my fault.’
The birth is quick and blunt, a few moments of sweat and struggle. A newborn slides into being, deadly still, wearing its membrane suit like a shroud.
The goat eyes the bundle disapprovingly, and waits. During the early pregnancies, she tended her young but she too has learnt.
‘Go on!’ Vesper urges.
The goat ignores her.
‘Quickly!’
The goat ignores her.
With a curse, Vesper pulls a rag from her pocket and starts to wipe the mucus from the newborn’s head. Practiced hands find their way into the kid’s mouth and nostrils, unplugging goo. Vesper curses again, borrowing words overheard, exotic, adult. Slowly, the gunk is removed, some of it finding its way to the floor, much of it adhering to Vesper’s trousers.
The goat’s eyes glint, victorious, and she begins to pick at some stray tufts of grass by the door.
Still, the kid does not move, a damp lump, not quite dead but not fully alive either. Vesper strokes the little animal’s side.
‘Come on, you can do it. Breathe for me.’
Vesper keeps stroking, keeps talking. She doesn’t know if the kid can hear her, or if it helps but she does it anyway.
The goat flicks the stump of her tail in irritation and trots over. She gives her child a quick inspection, flicks her tail again, then kicks out.
The kid judders into life, gulps down air, whimpers a little.
Vesper scowls at the goat. ‘Was that really necessary?’
The goat ignores her.
Injury forgotten in sudden hunger, the kid looks between the two figures, mouth open and eager.
‘I take it you’re not going to feed him?’ Vesper rolls up her sleeves. ‘Didn’t think so.’ Alert for retaliation,
