A Tainted Story

19: Memory

Silva rose at the break of dawn. She looked around at the cramped room they had rented for the night. Murky light oozed into the tavern windows, forcing its way through the dense glass.

Groaning as she pushed Silva away, Hannah rolled out from under the thin sheets. She slowly joined the others as they bustled about in the midst of their morning routines. Minutes dragged by before they were all ready. They gathered in the hallway, then headed downstairs.

Silva sat them at a table piled high with eggs and toast, steaming-hot. Breakfast was eaten in a drowsy silence. They were the only travelers in residence at the moment, and the tavern floor was expectedly empty.

Silva dragged over a nearby table to create more space. She pulled out the map they'd been using to navigate, pushing her half-finished meal out of the way.

"We're past the mountains, now," she said. "It should only take about two more days to get to the Lord Shin's estate." She paused for a moment to roll her eyes. "It's an island that they refer to as Mechademia. It's an awful pun." Neither of her companions knew what to make of the name.

Silva rolled the map back up, and they quickly finished their meal, settled the tab, and hurried to the strider.

Before hoisting herself onto the vehicle, Silva pulled a large canister from one of her packs. She had Hannah pour the potencia it contained into the strider's fuselage. "I siphoned the potencia out of the strider last night." She explained. "Worried about theft and all, considering what we know now. Who knows how desperate people are these days, considering- we should stay alert."

Hannah nodded in agreement. She didn't like the idea of strangers going through their stuff. In Valle, where potencia wellsprings criss-crossed the land like a grid, the idea of its value being so high was odd. But she wasn't in familiar territory anymore. It both thrilled and scared her in a constantly shifting ratio.

Now that they knew striders were a rare sight, and prone to attract attention, they left the town as quickly as possible. Hannah turned to look at this small, nameless place as they left, taking in the dust-strewn street, the empty buildings, the hint of wariness in the air. She wondered if the place had always looked so ramshackle, or if the droughts had taken their toll. There was a lot they didn't understand, Silva included- who knows what state the world she remembered would be in?

They followed the road as it led them away from the mountains. In steady increments the earth began to bottom out, their ride smoothing over. Without the tough terrain, the quality of the road increased. The vegetation that lined their trail grew thick and lush, able to flourish with greater vitality. Signs of habitation appeared every few miles, houses ringed by vineyards and terraces that fought against the forest for space. Besides grapes and olives, few other crops could be grown in the area, the mountain climate and soil still too much to handle without spiritual intervention.

Silva insisted that they took their meals in the strider as it continued to travel- they only stopped to relieve themselves. Eventually though, they would have to find a place to spend the night. It was too dangerous to drive a strider in the dark, for fear of collision- not to mention, there was a new sense of trepidation after their run-in with the mountain wreck.

Still, some of these fears seemed unfounded.

"We haven't seen a single strider all day," Basil remarked as they lounged in the late afternoon heat. Earlier, they had passed a pair walking along the road that they had assumed to be travelers, but watched as the man and woman turned and followed a narrow lane cut into the forest. Likely, they were instead farmers who lived in the area.

"Barely anyone, really," Hannah said. "It must be pretty tough to get out this far when you gotta do it on your own two-feet." She yawned, rolling across the cockpit. "How did people get anywhere before striders?"

Silva glanced at her, reclining in the back of the vehicle.

"You know, Hannah, Valle's changed a lot over the years- especially recently. When I first came to the mountains, Mechademia was the only place in the country that was tinkering with mechanations.

Still, Valle was different, stood out to me..." When Hannah looked at her, Silva continued. "The land in the mountains is bad for horses. You could only support a few, and they were expensive to manage. But hiring a spirit who was strong enough to lift a wagon, or fast enough to deliver a letter to the next town over in only a day- well, it was a good system. Especially if you lived in that rare community of human-spirit relations. Valle could thrive because of that collaboration.

Your sister would have done well for herself before the age of machines- only the rich could have afforded one of the elite, someone who could control the elements. Imagine being carried for miles by the wind itself, passing over mountains and rivers like it was nothing at all."

"But then the striders arrived," Basil said. He'd heard this lecture before.

Silva grinned. "Yes, the striders arrived, machinations at their finest. I brought it to Valle, and back then I was a mere apprentice. I'm sure others left Mechademia after me, spreading the strider to every part of the country. People didn't need the help of spirits to move things around anymore. The protection was still reason enough to hire spiritual escorts, but people- humans- really could move around faster than ever before."

Silva sighed. "The thing is, with the striders gone, humans are probably turning back to the spirits for help. But who knows how relations are out there?"

She looked at her daughter; saw the worry lines, the confusion. Not for the first time, Silva wondered if she gave her children more responsibility, more exposure than what they were ready for. Reaching out, she gripped Hannah's shoulder, holding her.

"I wouldn't worry about it. We're mechanics, aren't we? If there's a problem, it's in our nature to fix it. And that's what we'll do."

Basil and Hannah nodded numbly, looking away, at the landscape.