Surviving Arkadia

Asser Motram and I ran towards the horrible sound. It was deafeningly loud and only got louder as we neared the Citadel. It was one of those sounds that you feel in your body as much as you hear. By the time we got to the plaza the vibrations underfoot were bad enough that I began to worry that we’d have to crawl back to the Citadel.

At last we turned the final corner and saw the Citadel descending away from us. I sprinted to the edge of the cliff and looked down at the familiar buildings and the ground they stood on, grinding their way down the flat cliff face. I felt a dizzying burst of sympathetic deja vu. This must have been how Jethro felt, watching the Citadel drop away from the carcass of Moonstone without him.

Since my last conversation with Gertrude I’d been expecting the Citadel to move again soon. I had not been expecting it to move in this direction.

At my side Asser Motram said, “What did we ever do to deserve this?”

“Well you used to fix military jets but all I ever did was to be disabled and read a lot,” I said, then a couple of more recent memories swam to the surface of my mind. “But since I got here I did kill a couple of guys and help kill another guy. They were all very bad guys though…”

“I would hope so,” said Amris, who was standing at my shoulder and who I had not heard arrive. “Would it really be better if bad things only happened to people who deserved them?” he said.

“Well, yes,” said Asser.

“Nobody would accept it though,” I said. “Think how it was back home. Even when people were brought low directly by their own actions they would act like it was totally unjustified. Some guy would spend money he couldn’t afford on a stupidly powerful car that he didn’t really need, charge down the road going well over the speed limit, get stopped by the cops and say…”

“Why aren’t you out chasing real criminals?” said Asser and Amris in near unison.

We stood in silence for a couple of minutes, watching the Citadel slowly dropping away from us.

“So what are we going to do?” said Asser.

I reached into my pack for the coil of rope that I always kept there since Jethro taught me how to rappel. It probably wasn’t long enough on its own. I looked around at the solemn crowd of Scavengers, Foragers, Scholars, Artificers and assorted others that had gathered on the lip of the cliff.

“Anyone got any rope?” I said.

###

It turned out that several people had rope. Enough that I could get down to the Citadel and leave a simple route up and down for anyone with the rope skills to use it. Amris was one of the first to follow me down. Asser stayed at the top to improvise some sort of pulley system to make it easier for everyone else.

When we got to the Council Room there was a meeting in progress that was even more chaotic than the usual Emergency Council meetings. I arrived just as Gertrude rose to speak and some dingbat actually tried to throw a punch at her. Unfortunately for him he was trying it right as Amris entered the room behind him so his arm didn’t get very far. He continued to struggle against Amris until Gertrude pulled her wand out of her hair and looked at him like she was calculating his body weight in her head. Then he stopped fighting.

“Sit down,” said the Mayor, glaring at the dingbat.

Amris dragged him to the nearest chair and pushed him down into it.

“I will not have violence in the Council Room,” said the Mayor. “Anyone who cannot abide by that rule can leave. You can leave, now, by the door, or you can break that rule and leave by the window. Does anyone have a problem with that rule?”

Nobody left. The Dingbat seemed to calm down. Gertrude sat back down but kept her wand out, twisting it in both hands, each hand working against the other, as if trying to wring out a cloth.

“As I was saying,” said Gertrude, “The Forecast group is now confident that we know what the Citadel will do next. It will continue to descend at the same speed until it punches through the ground into what we assume to be a cavern system. It then seems likely that it will remain in the system. Our predictive models show a slow movement along a complicated path. We think this may be a pre-set route through the cavern system, created by the founders.”

“Through a cavern system?” said Amris. He didn’t look pale, he couldn’t look pale because his face was covered by thick black fur, but it was clear to me from the look in his eyes that if it had been possible for the blood to drain from his face leaving him looking pale and ghostly then it absolutely would have.

Amris was not the only person who absolutely did not want to remain on the Citadel if it was going underground. There was quite a lot of shouting about it.

###

I won’t go into the chaos of the meeting. It was fraught and tense at the time but boring in retrospect. The important thing is the decisions that were made.

The majority of the population of the Citadel would transfer to the train, assuming that Asser Motram really could get it moving. A small group of the most capable survivor apprentices would stay in the ruined town. A skeleton crew would stay with the Citadel wherever it went. That would include the children in the Fever Wards who still needed magical cooling, since they couldn’t be moved.

Amris would go on the train, since he refused to remain with the Citadel. Asser Motram would go, though he would have preferred to stay with Master Armstrong to learn more from her; he was the only person who understood the train engine. I also wanted to remain on the Citadel. My instinct was that the people who had built it had known what they were doing, but as the only SURVIVOR type on the Citadel it was my duty to go with the largest group.

Gertrude would go with the Citadel, so would the rest of the research group. They were too engaged with their puzzle to think of leaving. Ursula, Gertrude’s secretary, would be coming on the train. I’d come to rely on her ability to wrangle numbers to make sense of my rationing plans.

Many of the medical staff chose to remain at their posts in the Hospital. They said they would remain with the patients who couldn’t be moved. Nurse Trudy, much to my surprise, decided to join the train. She said that the children who’d survived the worst of the Fever but still weren’t well yet needed her more. Dr Roly Henning chose to stay with the Citadel, which surprised many, but probably shouldn’t have, given his misspent dungeon delving youth.

I checked on the rest of the Outlanders. Akira chose to stay on the Citadel, saying that it was only fitting that a SHADOW WALKER go into the dark. Varma, the LIVING WEAPON, also chose to stay on the Citadel. Sarah Eden, the huge Orc JUGGERNAUT chose to come on the train, saying that she’d always wanted to punch someone off a moving vehicle and this was her best chance.

Saleh Naji the ALCHEMIST chose to stay on the Citadel, with the Alchemy books. Izaak Antos, the ARCANE WIZARD chose to join the small crew in the ruined town. That seemed odd until he explained that he was researching the origin of the Source.

Izaak had been researching something else. He asked me to gather all the Outlanders so he could show us something he’d made.

We met in Amris’ office inside the Library. Amris was hurriedly sorting through his things trying to fit everything he wanted to take with him into a single backpack. I thought he would be distressed by having to leave his fine porcelain tea sets behind but it turned out that he was content with his travel tea set. The real problem was his stash of various teas.

I offered to fit a couple of packets of tea, plus his stash of coffee in with my stuff. Asser offered to take some more. Even Sarah said she could find some space for tea. That did seem to calm Amris down a bit and make it easier for him to pick the teas that he really couldn’t live without.

When Izaak arrived he came bearing gifts. Really boring gifts. He’d brought a smooth and nondescript pebble for each of us.

“You shouldn’t have,” I said.

“You really shouldn’t have,” said Sarah.

“Stop taking the piss,” said Amris, “Let the man speak.”

“I’ve been studying touchstones,” said Izaak. “And reading up about them. I call these tapstones. They transmit vibrations. I’m hoping that one of you knows Morse code well enough to teach the rest of us. That way we can stay in touch, no matter how far apart.”