Daedalus

A setting sun painted the town with a red glow, the sky clear of clouds, birds and even dragons as it had been for days. Only silence prevailed, from the once fortified northern wall - now lying in ruins – to the southern temple desecrated by battle, not a whisper to be heard within its confines nor for miles beyond. Except one sound, one lone figure trudging with ever fleeting hope in search of life – battered, burned, broken. This was Thaerun. His eyes were sunken with exhaustion, his face pale from lack of sustenance and his body quivering with every step from his sustained wounds.

Blood flew into the air from his feet as he suddenly jolted into a run, rushing towards the source of the sound. There, half-buried, a woman who had just coughed.

           Alive. Breathing.

           He was not alone.

           She wore a long silk dress, bejewelled sandals on her feet. Whereas he only adorned a few strips of tattered clothing, half-torn, half-burned and only barely serviceable, his own bare feet bleeding from his laboured steps across the cobblestones.

           Her skin was smooth, tanned, only a few cuts and scrapes despite this abundance of wood and straw on top of her. He had avoided the brunt of the attack though still his skin matched his clothes, torn and burnt.

The initial wonder was immediately followed by confusion – how was she here? How has she survived? Everyone had died to the hands of the demons, their bodies sucked down to the underworld for the infernal bastards to feast on. He froze, the sounds coming back to him first and as much as he tried to shake it away the visions surfaced.

***

The screams came first, somewhere near the town square. It sounded desperate but Master Agreus told him to stay put, heading out to investigate alone. Thaerun did as he was instructed, continuing to fletch arrows with an expertise only attainable from years of practice. The screaming intensified and more voices joined the first but he kept at his work, only daring to look up when the smell of smoke drifted into the shop.

***

‘No!’ he grunted aloud, unwilling to see that which followed.

He gazed down at the unconscious woman and listened to her gentle breaths. Man and woman, breathing, the only sound in an otherwise silent world. No birdsong, no chatter, no street performers.

If it were not for the silence, he would never have found her, off on a side street. Or, rather, what once was a side street, the narrow pathways which had once marked the streets now splintered wood and scattered straw from buildings which had once stood, but nothing else. Just as the bodies had been dragged down to a pit of eternal torment, so seemingly had everything else bar the architecture. His search for clothes was what had revealed this, and it still perplexed him even now.

He tried to lift the wood from her but it was heavy and he felt too weak. She coughed again, clouds of ash and foulness ejecting from her body – he had inhaled it too and for days his chest had convulsed. The memory of the pain was almost as agonizing as the pain itself; he had passed out a few times. Was this what happened here? Did she pass out under this rubble? Perhaps, perhaps not – maybe her eyes had not yet beheld this apocalypse.

***

           He scrambled away from the falling buildings, the flames and smoke everywhere he looked. All that had driven him to survive was hope, hope he would see his wife and children again, hope that this was all a bad dream and if he ran fast enough, he would wake up.

***

           ‘Hello?’ he said, softly at first as he could barely get the word out.

He doubled over, heaving as yet more black bile was expelled from his lungs. A tearing sensation pulled at his stomach as it had done since his first day without eating – this was day four.

***

Water. He needed water, something to sooth his throat and keep him hydrated after the terrible heat. It was the second day since…the incident…and he’d been without it since. His eyes turned wide as he saw it, a well, still standing amongst this abundance of ruin. He ran for the first time since it happened, craving sweet relief. His toes broke when he kicked the stone exterior in fury, finding that the water had turned to sand in the same absurd way that all clothes had disappeared. The demons hadn’t gotten him but it felt like they were still torturing him.

***

The plants had survived, well, not survived exactly but at least not been stolen away. They were dead but only by a few days, even now a handful was tucked into Thaerun’s rags, the moisture within his only source of liquid for the last four days.

Upon the body of the miraculously unscarred woman was a canteen. Within seconds the delicious, refreshing contents were gone, the man gasping and his stomach seizing with pain at the sudden influx. Dropping the container, he couldn’t help but feel an overwhelming guilt – this lone act might have just killed this woman. But she should be dead anyway, shouldn’t she? She’s been crushed under part of a building and her skin is unscathed, she hasn’t drunk a drop in four days yet still she breathes.

‘Hello,’ he tried again, louder. ‘Miss?’

She stirred a little, her brow furrowed, but it was more like she was having a nightmare. For a moment he hesitated, knowing whatever nightmare she might be having would be nothing compared to reality.

***

The hope disappeared on the third day. There was nobody and nothing, only him moving forward without direction or cause.

He coughed twice, the emptiness unbearable as the sound echoed out briefly and then disappeared. He stopped breathing for a moment, the stillness from him – potentially the last living thing in this abundance of destruction – making the quiet unbearable.

***

‘Fuck off!’ he spat.

The memories were too much but played on repeat behind his eyes. Disregarding them, he knelt before her and shook her arm. The motion became more vigorous after a few moments when she still didn’t wake, then more so.

‘Wake up! Please wake the fuck up, please…’

Stillness.

A few tears streaked down his cheeks, beading on his chin before finally dripping onto her unmoving body. There was no coughing from her now and even her breathing was failing. All he wanted was something.

***

It was all he craved, no longer for riches nor love nor even a conversation, for he dared not reach for the sun. All he wanted was something; gravity shifting the stones, or a fly buzzing around his head to show him he was not alone, or even a spot of rain. The sky was spotless however, the flies were all dead and it seemed unlikely the rocks would move as the town had fallen days ago and the rubble now rested where it would always rest until the end of time.

***

She gasped suddenly. Her eyes surged open, wide and frightened.

‘Shh, it’s okay,’ he muttered, trying to sooth her as she looked around frantically.

‘Where…what…’

Her eyes were filling with tears and he could only imagine the terror she faced but couldn’t help from crying himself. Here it was! Something! She was alive and he no longer had to face this apocalypse alone.

He gulped, the words difficult for him to even say aloud. ‘The town fell – the demons came and…we’re the only survivors.’

She fixed him with a glare, unblinking. She was still quivering but the intensity of her sky-blue eyes gave her the façade of a woman with an unflinching resolve.

‘What of the angels?’ she asked.

***

There they were, a magnificent sight. Coming down from the heavens like a beacon of hope. Their numbers were great, their wings white and gold, just as the preachers had foretold. Thaerun had always been a sceptic but marvelled in this undebatable proof of their existence. They descended and the demons prepared to meet them in combat.

***

‘All dead,’ he sighed. ‘The battle surged on for hours but finally the last angel fell to those…those monsters.’

‘Impossible!’ she growled, throwing the wood from her body with immaculate strength and standing over Thaerun. ‘The forces of the celestial planes could never lose to those ghastly, inferior beasts!’

Her words were strange, her accent likewise, she spoke with an almost songlike tone but also as if she’d never interacted with anyone in her life.

‘It’s unfortunately true,’ Thaerun pressed. ‘Like I said…’

‘Just be quiet for a moment!’ she snapped, pacing back and forth. ‘I have to contact home.’

He wanted to ask more, to find out why they were the sole two survivors but she looked so agitated already he dared not press her further. She’s taking the news surprisingly well, he thought. She topped moving and her eyes fell to the discarded canteen.

‘Is that mine?’

He stared at the discarded container and felt her own gaze burning into him, unable to face her.

‘I’m sorry,’ he sobbed, his chest convulsing but no more tears emerging as he had already cried himself dry.

Then, amongst his suffering, a singular warmth spread through him. It began on his arm and seeped through his cold, trembling body, almost erasing the pain of the last few days…almost. Thaerun’s eyes moved to the source and saw the woman’s hand there, comforting him.

‘It’s okay,’ her radiant voice cooed. ‘You needed it, and you clearly feel remorse for your sin of theft.’

‘Are you a preacher?’ he questioned. ‘Definitely from the temple, right?’

Her words had such an olden quality about them, and her accent was so strange that Thaerun could only imagine she had been born into the temple and lived there her whole life. Where she lay, in this near-indistinguishable rubble, he was sure had been roughly where the temple once stood – not that he had been a particularly virtuous man and had only entered once in his life.

‘In a way, I suppose I am.’

She smiled at him, and her beautiful, grinning face warmed him to his core. He found himself chuckling weakly.

‘I don’t understand how you can be so gleeful amongst so much destruction.’

‘And I don’t understand how you can be so gloomy and pessimistic when the two of us still live.’

Thaerun sighed, allowing himself to glance away from the beautiful woman and back to the endless ruins of a now-desolate wasteland. ‘It’s not that simple. That canteen; I believe it held the last water in the entire city. We’ll die of thirst before too long.’

‘If we stay here, perhaps, but I have no intention on remaining in this miserable place.’

She turned back to where he had found her rummaging through the wood, stray and few stones that were what made him initially think this building had been the temple. Then, with a familiar sound of metal scraping against stone, she pulled forth a shining blade. Thaerun recoiled in amazement, having not seen any weapons from the siege over the last few days, no, they had disappeared with just about everything else. But here, in this woman’s grip as naturally as if it had been made for her, was the finest sword he’d ever seen.

‘What’s that for?’

‘Trust me, where we’re going I’m sure we’ll need it,’ she offered out her free hand. ‘Are you coming? Or are you going to sit and rot like everything else around here?’

Her question had a taunting tone that felt against her nature, and he couldn’t help but smile at the jibe. He took her hand and smiled.

‘I’m Thaerun.’

‘Ikirya,’ she replied.

And so, with a beautiful woman’s hand in his own, Thaerun left behind the wreckage of his former home and travelled eastwards. Little did he know, the next few weeks alone would be not only the most fearsome and dangerous but also the most exhilarating of his life. He would discover secrets, adventure, magic and even love – but that’s getting ahead of ourselves.