“It has happened before, and it will happen again. Round and round in a never-ending circle; until the light fades and the stars fall from the sky. It would be madness to deny such inevitability. It would be madness to attempt to break the chains that bind us to this fate.”

First Technologist Arniel Sin, The Time Before

*

It all started with the apple.

Roe first caught sight of it as he was weaving his way through the tightly packed market stalls, shadowing a potential mark. It drew his gaze like a glittering jewel, a splash of bright red against the muddy hues of brown and grey. Roe sensed a wetness on the tip of his tongue. He imagined what it would feel like to bite deep into that crimson-tinted flesh. To feel those sweet, sticky juices dribble down his throat.

Swallowing a mouthful of saliva, Roe abandoned his victim to the bustling crowds and took a tentative step towards the ramshackle stall.

“What are you doing?”

He felt spindly fingers wrap around his arm and turned to see Ant staring at him in panic. The young boy’s eyes were bulging so far from their sockets that Roe half-expected them to pop out of his friend’s grubby face and spatter all over his battered leather shoes.

“It’s an apple, Ant. And not one of the maggot-infested, half-rotten husks that sometimes find their way down here from the upper levels. It’s … red and ripe. Mother’s Grace, I’ve never seen anything so perfect.”

“Aye, I’m not blind. Nor am I an idiot. I recognise that stall. It’s one of Pearlton’s.”

“That crusty old dandy? He wears more makeup than half the poxes! Strutting around the Slums like he owns the place, trying to convince anyone who’ll listen that he shares blood ties with one of the Noble Houses. He’s harmless.”

Ant sniffed and released his grip. The crowd around them was thinning as the light dimmed, and late afternoon became dusk.

“He’s anything but. Under that perfumed veneer and all those frilly cuffs hides a cold-hearted bastard. He’d have never survived down here otherwise. Slit plenty of throats in his time, I’d wager. Or had them slit, so as not to dirty those dainty little hands.”

“That doesn’t sound so bad,” Roe replied absently, brushing a lock of curly black hair from his face. He looked beyond the jumble of stalls towards the towering city wall that loomed over the market like a gargantuan cliff face. “We could wait until dark. Avoid the patrols. If we managed to get up onto the roof of one of those houses there, we’d only have eight or nine feet to climb up to the ramparts, then all we’d need to do is—”

“We? You have got to be joking. There’s no way I’m taking part in any of this.” Ant gestured skywards with a skinny arm. “Sun’s nearly gone. That means Krabbon will be expecting us back soon. With tribute. You know what’ll happen if we return empty-handed. The birchwood kiss. Do you really want to eat standing up for a week?”

“Suit yourself. It’ll be harder without a lure, but I can make it work.”

“You’re mad,” Ant murmured, shaking his head. “All this for an apple. Why do you always have to be so reckless?”

“Why do you always have to be such a coward?”

“It’s not cowardice. It’s plain good sense. I—” he stopped. “I’m not going to lose any more of my sanity arguing with you. Do as you please. As for me, the chapel of the Mother will be opening for evening mass. I’ll try my luck there. Just … just be careful, will you?”

“Of course.” Roe pointed to the mouth of a nearby alleyway. “That’s where you’ll find me if you change your mind.”

“I won’t. And you can expect me to laugh each and every time Krabbon’s stick hits your scrawny buttocks.”

Roe flashed an easy smile that split his broad face. “My arse will be raw, but my lips will have tasted paradise.”

Ant sighed and turned away. Roe watched his friend leave for a moment, then entered the dingy alley, found a spot between two mouldering sacks of refuse, and settled down to wait. He rubbed the worst of the dirt off his flat nose, tilted his head back, and stared up at the colossal, man-made mountain that was the city of Keselgraad.

Over half-a-mile high from the tip of the jewelled steeple of the Church of the Mother to the mud-clogged streets of the Slums, Keselgraad resembled an impossibly large termite hill; its grimy, weathered walls bristling with balconies, gantries, spires, and towers. Narrow alleyways wormed through its various levels, forming a labyrinthian network that culminated in a spiralling central staircase and wrought-iron elevator so prohibitively expensive that it was only ever used by members of the Noble Houses or their proxies.

There was money to be made taking messages up and down those vertiginous stairs; missives and deliveries sent from the sweltering workshops and forges of the lower levels to the bakeries, inns, slaughterhouses, and shops above. From there, the staircase climbed ever higher, past fields of wheat and orchards of fruit, twisting like a corkscrew, round and round until it reached the fortified mansions of the Noble Quarters.

Roe had never seen those lofty peaks, but he had heard the rumours. There were said to be buildings the size of warehouses used only for theatre and dancing. Gas lamps that functioned day and night, bathing the wide avenues in perpetual light. Unsalted meat and fresh vegetables, unrationed. Brightly coloured robes and dresses, worn once or twice and then discarded. And, perhaps most importantly, access to the Church of the Mother, the capstone that held the entire city together; an architectural masterpiece of sculpted columns, stained-glass windows, and marble floors. It was the Church and the shining amethysts of its steeple that kept them all safe from harm.

It was the Church that protected them from the Mists.

Roe suppressed a shudder. Thinking of the Mists always sent a shiver down his spine. He pushed the nightmarish images from his mind, exhaled slowly to calm his beating heart, and peered out from his hiding spot. The sun had disappeared behind the colossal city wall that encircled the lower levels of Keselgraad in its cold embrace, abandoning the marketplace to the encroaching darkness. Shadows writhed among the rickety stalls, twisting the tattered awnings into sinister shapes.

“Mother keep me,” Roe whispered. Perhaps Ant was right. Perhaps he was being a tad too reckless.

A rusty pot clanged onto the cobbles behind him, making him squeak in panic. He spun on his heel, his dark brown eyes straining to pierce the gloom at the far end of the alley.

“Who … who’s there?” he challenged, fighting to keep the fear from his voice. “St … stay back. Don’t come any closer! I … I have a knife!”

“No, you don’t.”

Ant dropped down from the window ledge, a wide grin stretching his dirty cheeks.

“That must have been the most pathetic thing I’ve seen all day.”

“Ant! I knew you’d come back to help me.”

“Actually, I was hoping to talk you out of it. Krabbon was furious to learn you were out after curfew. That vein on his forehead was throbbing so much that I thought it was going to burst.”

“Maybe I should save him a piece of the apple.”

“Roe …”

“A small piece, mind you. We’re the ones who’ll be doing all the work.”

“I’m not going to be able to dissuade you from this, am I?”

Roe sucked his lower lip, wondering how he could explain to his friend what he felt. “It’s …” he began. “It’s not just about the apple. It’s about what it represents. It’s about … experiencing another life – a better life – even if it’s only for the slimmest of moments. When I bite down on that piece of fruit, I’m going to close my eyes and imagine myself in one of those verdant green parks far above our heads. Sitting on a marble bench, looking out over the Mists, my ears filled with birdsong and the bubbling of the crystalline fountains. I won’t be down here in the Slums with holes in my boots and Krabbon’s foul breath on my back. I’ll have escaped. Escaped this terrible place. That’s what’ll make it worth it. Even if it’s only for a single breath.”

Ant’s grin slipped. “Aye,” he answered with a touch of sadness. “I understand. Tell me what you want me to do.”

Roe cleared his throat. “The stall will be guarded, I’m sure of it. No way will Pearlton leave it unprotected. You’ll have to cause a distraction.”

“Oh, I’m good at that. Which one do you want? The abandoned orphan? The drunken rich boy? The seductive gigolo?”

“I don’t care.”

“Right.” Ant straightened his tattered tunic and patted down his greasy hair. “Lead on.”

They crept out of the alley into the soft stillness of the market, past tarpaulin-covered boxes and large chests wrapped in corroded chains. A trio of rats scampered across their path, the leader holding a chunk of mouldy rye bread in its jaws. Old wooden posts creaked. Pearlton’s stall was less than fifteen feet away, a squat black square near the base of the city wall.

Roe frowned. “Where are they?”

“Hmmm?”

“The guards. The patrols. It looks empty.”

“Must have gone for a piss,” Ant smirked. “Lucky for us. And that perfumed pamperer hasn’t even chained the place up.”

“I don’t know. Something doesn’t feel right.”

“Mists, you’re the one who pulled me into this, remember? You can’t be getting cold feet now!”

Roe could feel a dryness in his mouth. His tongue was heavy and swollen against his cheek. “I’ll … I’ll go and scout it out. You stay here.”

He edged forwards, his head whipping left and right like a snake, his eyes roaming the rows of silent stalls. He was so intent on searching the shadows for the missing watchmen that he failed to see the crumpled burlap sack blocking his path and leaking liquid onto the cobbles. Roe cursed as his shoes landed in the small glistening puddle with a soft squelch. He looked down to see that the leather was spattered with something red. Blood.

He stretched out a trembling hand and lifted a corner of the sack. Pearlton’s dead face stared back at him with glazed eyes, pasty-white cheeks stark in the twilight, and his thin lips pulled tight in a final rictus. His throat had been expertly cut; a line of bright crimson from which trickled a dozen gory rivulets, dribbling down his wrinkled neck to stain his frilly ruff.

Like pearlescent drops of water on the skin of an apple.

“Unfortunate.”

The voice was slightly muffled, calm and monotone.

Roe rose in time to see a tall figure emerge from behind the stall. It wore waxed linen robes, a flat wide-brimmed leather hat and long gloves that reached from fingertip to elbow. The face was completely covered by an ivory-coloured mask shaped like a bird, with circular, glass-filled eyelets and a viciously hooked beak.

A warden. A custodian of Keselgraad, charged with protecting the city from threats both without and within. They were the only ones who could leave the sanctity of the Mother’s light and venture forth into the Mists. The only ones who had any knowledge of what lay beyond the walls. The wardens were one of the richest and most powerful guilds in all of Keselgraad, answering only to the Keeper of the Peace himself. So, what was one of them doing down here in the dirt and muck of the Slums?

The man cocked his head, a gesture made all the more avian by his beaked mask. “You were not meant to see this.”

Roe scrambled backwards, dragging his rump through the pool of blood. The warden stalked after him, slow and methodical.

“I cannot let you live, I’m afraid. It will lead to rumours. And rumours lead to questions. Unwanted questions.” He drew a dagger from his belt, its tapering blade needle-thin. “You will not feel any pain. I am very good at what I do.”

A shape bounded out of the darkness and slammed into the arm holding the weapon. Both figures tumbled to the ground in a maelstrom of flailing limbs. Ant was first to emerge, his face flushed red.

“RUN!” he screamed just as a gloved hand snaked out and tried to grab him. He dodged away, catching himself on the edge of a nearby stall. His cry of pain cut through Roe’s panicked mind.

“The wall!” he shouted to Ant, springing to his feet. “Get to the wall!”

The warden was rising, his ivory mask askew, his wide-brimmed hat scuffed and dented. He jerked the hooked beak back into place.

“Troublesome.”

He bent to pick up his dagger, its silvery surface gleaming in the twilight. Behind him, Ant and Roe had reached the base of the wall.

“There!”

A two-wheeled rickshaw loaded with crates had been left next to one of the many buildings pressed up against the stone facade. Roe used the spokes and stacked boxes to reach the tiled roof then held out a sweaty hand to drag Ant up there with him.

“Why isn’t he following us?” the boy asked, risking a glance back over his shoulder.

“I’m not sure, maybe—”

Roe heard the unmistakable twang of a string releasing and threw himself flat. Something buzzed angrily overhead and ricocheted off the roof, inches from his face.

“Crossbow,” Ant gasped. “We’re finished.”

“He has to reload. Up onto the ramparts. Quickly!”

Roe studied the massive slabs of worn granite that made up the wall. Keselgraad’s protective barrier was supposedly the oldest structure in the city, its venerable sides cracked and marked from centuries of enduring vigilance. Pockmarks dotted its surface like miniature craters. Crumbling mortar revealed finger-wide gaps. Handholds too small for a fully grown man, perhaps, but for two boys …

He began to climb, trying to push all other thoughts from his mind.

Damn the Mists, what an idiot he had been. All of this for an apple.

A second bolt thunked into a moss-covered chunk of stone near his hand, sending up a shower of razor-sharp shards. One cut through the flesh of his right cheek. Blood dribbled down his face into his mouth. He could taste its salty tang on his tongue.

With a cry of desperation, Roe quickened his pace, covering the last few feet in a matter of moments before hauling himself up onto the ramparts. He lay there, panting, the slick paving digging into his back, the hive-shaped monstrosity that was Keselgraad rising above him like a claw reaching from the earth to grasp at the stars.

Ant collapsed beside him in a trembling bundle of sweat and fear, his breath escaping from his body in short, rattling gasps. “I … I don’t think he’s following us.”

Roe waited for the pounding in his chest to slow before replying. “I scraped the skin off my knuckles trying to fit my hand into some of those holds. He’ll have to find another way up.” He struggled into a sitting position, wrapping his arms around his knees, and looked out beyond the wall, feeling a familiar tingling in his spine as he did so. “Mother’s Grace,” he breathed. “Have you ever been this close?”

“Close to what?”

“The Mists.”

The top of the wall was lacking any sort of defensive structure. No parapets or crenellations. No towers, bulwarks, arrow slits, or machicolations. All would be useless against the enemy that it had been built to keep out.

The Mists.

They filled Roe’s vision; a rolling, boiling sea of milky-white, as if the clouds had fallen from the heavens to smother the lands below. They stretched as far as the distant horizon, dense and opaque, completely obscuring whatever might lie beneath their pallid veil.

The wind buffeted the rippling surface, creating waves and currents, tugging at loose tendrils to send them writhing upwards like smoke from a cooking fire. Roe knew that he could walk the entire length of the wall without seeing any change. The Mists encircled Keselgraad in their crushing embrace.

And their touch was death.

“There is a sort of beauty to them, don’t you think?” Ant asked softly, his gaze following the hypnotic swirls. “They look so … peaceful.”

“Dangerous, you mean,” Roe corrected. The air was chill and damp on top of the wall. Goosebumps prickled along his bare forearms. “Come on. Let’s find a place to climb back down.”

“Have you ever seen anyone taken by the Mists?”

“What? No, but Krabben told us of a—”

“I’m not talking about rumours and hearsay; I’m talking about witnessing something with your own two eyes.”

“I …”

“Exactly.” Ant half-nodded. He rose to his feet and took a step towards the edge of the paved walkway. “Maybe it’s just falsehoods spread by the wardens to keep us all imprisoned here in the Slums. A cage. A cage of lies.”

Another step.

“Ant, we can’t stay here …”

“Wait. Listen. What if that’s all it is? A deception? We scaled the outside of the wall easily enough so what’s to stop us from climbing down the other side? Away from the stinging kiss of Krabbon’s stick and that piss-soaked pile of straw we call a bed. Together, we could—”

The stone had been worn smooth by erosion. Made slippery and wet by its proximity to the Mists. Ant’s shoe skidded, his ankle cracked, and suddenly he was tumbling off the edge of the walkway.

Roe leapt after him with a shout, catching hold of his friend’s wrist just as it was about to disappear from sight.

“Mother keep me!” he cried as fresh agony exploded along his lower back. “Ant. ANT!”

“P … pull me back up!”

“I can’t do it by myself, Ant. You’re too heavy. Help me! Look for a handhold.”

“My ankle. My Mist-spawned ankle. It’s twisted or broken or something. The pain … it’s … it’s as if my whole leg is on fire!”

Roe felt his grip loosening, weakened by his own sweat and moisture from the Mists. He risked a glance over the edge and saw Ant dangling from his arm, his eyes filled with tears.

“I’m sorry,” the boy moaned. “I’m sorry, all right? I should never have doubted anything. Don’t leave me! Please!”

Roe cursed and pulled as hard as he dared, feeling his spine tremble from the effort. “It’s no use. You have to find a way to push yourself up. Hurry! I don’t know how much longer I can hold you!”

Ant wailed back at him, his feet scrabbling uselessly against the wall. A tentacular strand brushed against his thigh; a slow, languid motion. A caress.

Ant screamed.

More semi-transparent tendrils wrapped around the boy’s legs, spiralling around and around the naked flesh, creeping steadily upwards like vines. The skin beneath began to bubble and redden. It appeared to stretch, becoming smooth and shiny.

Like an apple.

Then, with a sickening tearing sound, it ruptured, revealing a ruin of bloody muscle and pulsing veins. Yellowish tendons wriggled helplessly. Pockets of glistening fat steamed and popped.

Ant had fallen silent, his mouth still cranked open in a silent cry of terror, his slowly dissolving cheeks wet with tears. The Mists wormed up his dying body to pour over his lips and down into his throat.

Roe watched in horror, unable to avert his gaze, as his friend was turned into an unrecognisable mess of red meat, twitching and jittering as his dying muscles spasmed one last time.

But the Mists were not yet sated. An inquisitive thread slithered unhurriedly up the remains of Ant’s left arm. Towards the top of the wall.

Towards Roe.

He stared at it in morbid fascination.

Let go.

His fingers refused to obey. The Mists were inches from his skin, leaving a trail of slimy red in their wake.

Let go!

His thumb trembled, then his forefinger, until finally, his grip loosened enough for Ant’s dead hand to slip through the gap.

The corpse fell without a sound, swallowed by the boiling sea of white and grey.

Roe howled in frustration and grief.

And, far above, the amethysts of the Church of the Mother twinkled like frozen tears.