They avoided the other path and continued across. The trees grew shorter and into stumps. David coughed as smoke filled his lungs, and the stink of mud entered his mind. They spotted more people, and David smiled, their was people and food. Pepper, herbs, bread, steam, and much more. David spotted the village as they headed toward the bustling market.
The village crowded around him. People bumped and strode past him, but all to Pnoaphales, all seeking the Prophet. A trail of footprints formed along the trail, and the crowds followed it upwards. Many dragged rags and carts with them. Oxen huffed and stomped past others, and the fastest horses galloped past them all. David looked away, and up into the sky..
A bird flew overhead. A swallow, with tail feathers that glowed as it flew. It glided above him, a great bird. His eyes filled with thought, and he saw the kite. Leather, cut and sewn, and stitched together. An octagon, and spinning with red and gold.
He blinked. He shook his head and stopped. Above him, light glowed. A telluride, enveloped in yellow, flew above the sky. In its hands, a staff wavered. It glided above, and dipped above the clouds, then appeared as it descended. The telluride's face glanced down. Age made rings around the telluride's eyes, and grey covered its forehead. The telluride hovered over them. What did it see up there? Going above the sky, like a bird, flying and flying, above the clouds... Going above the world.... Yes, he remembered one of them.
An old telluride lived in his village... He'd spat and grumbled many times... Long shawl... He didn't like to fly, but sat thinking... An old, old telluride, with a staff just like this one, but small and wizened.... A fine telluride.... After the Callous War, he disappeared along with all of the other things.... Men of Deer and Laphanists...
The telluride looked down again. It flew down and reached the ground.
Osmond walked away from them, and went to the telluride. David heard word fragments as Osmond talked to the telluride. They discussed, nodding their heads, tapping chins, while Darrell went off to buy more food, and him and Bernard sat on the bricks.
Then, Osmond walked back, and away from the telluride. Bernard stood up.
"What did you talk to him about?"
"It was a story about a Men of Deer. Something about flying above. I can recall it still: 'The deerman had sat there thinking, and he told me about the sky. The deerman was curious about what was above. So, I told him that I would fly to the sky to see what was there. I flew up. The houses grew small, and the clouds grew in size. I could see the infinity tower from there, I was flying taller than even that. The first minutes were full of thick fog. Then the valley of clouds parted and up into the sky, I went. The copper disc of the sun began to burn me a little. But I went further up and into the blue sky. And, as I went further, I realized that only darkness surrounded the world. I went up and up. When I stopped, I saw whorling chaos and a large glowing sphere. An blue sphere, thin, covered everything. But, when I reached out to touch one. I fell into the ocean. When I woke up, the deerman was gone'"
"That's fine", Bernard walked towards the market, "Let's get some food."
They passed the walls of the village, past the Tellurides tower. Bernard and Darrell ran behind him. Osmond followed him. When they went further into the city's center, the crowds thickened. At times, he saw nothing but people. They seemed to be from everywhere.
Flies formed a hazy fog overhead, and smoke and steam mixed to form dark clouds. David ran past creaky shacks and weak houses. They got some food and filled their bags again. The tight alleyways of the village provided them with a spot for lunch. They chewed and ate near the sewers, where fleas bit at their knees. David gobbled his food down, and drank the water to wash it down to quench his thirst. It wasn't good food, not the stuff he had eaten at home. But it acted as a filler for his empty stomach.
Osmond bought two small birds from a shop. The birds were tiny creatures. They twittered with birdsong, with no care in the world. They chirped when silence filled the air, and quieted afterward. David watched them hop around in the cage during the day. They bore thin beaks and wings painted with yellow flecks. Afternoon came, and they went into the center of the village.
A smell wavered above his nose, he followed it, and stared at the pile of bodies, of plague bodies. All piled above each other like worms, wriggling over one another, grey, empty of life. Everything was a corpse, all with the smell of rot and decay, all dead from the Plague. He looked away and held his nose. Below, wood, all piled around, ready for burning. He tasted something insipid that rose in his throat, but he bent backwards, and closed his eyes.
People bumped past him, in ignorance of the mountain of bodies.
David walked around it, and into a baker's shop, loaves of wheat and barley bread, all of them roasting in a clay oven. They bought a few loaves, and split one between them on the street. They followed the crowds as they ate bread. People yelled and shouted, they chanted, and, when they cleared, he saw criminals.
People in wooden stocks and bronze manacles. In their for pushing boulders upon Prophenist temples, but they hadn't succeeded.
People yelled and jeered. They spilled wine upon their faces, and they threw things at them. Bread crusts, stones, and sewer water. It shot onto them and ricocheted off them. They lay silently, witnessing the crowd. Their faces were stained with grime and they wore indignant looks upon their faces.
"Laphanist! Laphanist! Laphanist!", the terms jumped out at David, and his eyes widened. Laphanists, Laphanists.... These weren't Laphanists, not Laphanists no... He was a Laphanist once, with the Men of Deer, traveling the world, but then the Callous War and the Plague.... But Laphanists.. Why this? Why this?.... What were they doing now? Hitting Laphanists, punishing them.... Punishing them.... Yet.... Yet.... They'd done something horrible, gotten the punishment, but yet.... Yet.....
"C'mon, let's go", Bernard beckoned him forward. Darrell had a pebble in his hand, but Bernard picked it out of his grasp. David turned away. Osmond only drew. He drew and drew and drew, nothing else, but drawing.
They all hated Laphanists, all of them, all of them.... They'd sent all the Laphanists away to Pnoaphales, away from all, away from everything. But, boulders... His mind thought and thought, but no solution came to his head.
They walked past the telluride in the sky and the people bustling about. More and more footprints crowded the path. People walked and talked. They traded and debated. They did this with chaos and thrill. Motivation had increased. They continued their way across the village. Not crowd-free, but many people. In the center of the village, people amassed to watch the Laphanists lose their dignity. The smells of food, people, and grease wavered above him. Smoggy warmth covered him, and wrapped him in pigskins and dry steam.
They rested and Osmond waved at the telluride. While it ate an orange, it looked down from the top of a tower. It wiped some juice off its chin and flew down. The telluride stared at Osmond. Disheveled eyes. Slack jaw. A small smile. It nodded to them as they strolled past.
They refilled their packs with olives and some round flat-cakes. He'd bought some rabbit meat to enjoy if they'd ever ran out of food. Some of the food bags had gotten lost because of Denton. Maybe he'd gotten lost and into the Abyss, where the overturning waves continued to push them deeper into it. Into a whirlpool, and then a red-skied world with a gibbering creature. Although, he'd never seen the Abyss, but his imagination did the rest.
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