Bone Pattern

Wayland and the Shrine- Septemer 13, 2014

Ran into Wayland today.  I had intended to go bother Ellis.  Try to get her to give me another story.  She hasn't given me anything since A Vial of Fallen Teeth, which was excellent but just a short story.  But just as Cheesman came into view, he came walking toward me.  He was so taciturn last time we met, I wasn't sure what to say to him now.  But he smiled as I walked up to him, and let me buy him some tea and follow him as he ran deliveries all day.

I went with him out into the deep, similar to where Fisher and Lydia live.  A different area, though.  Crumbling brick rose up around us, and asphalt peeled back to reveal cobblestones in some places, simple dirt in others.  Dandelions rose up along the edges of the streets to wave their white seed puffs at us.  Wayland took me to that strange parallel city I can only sometimes find.  More often it finds me.  

I was not really sure we were there until we came to a place I have been before.  A lush grassy park, surrounded by a high wall.  There was still green in the grass, in places.  Roses climbed parts of the wall, fought against ivy that surrounded it.  Not far away was a shrine I have visited before.  A piled cairn of stones, stacked one atop another.  Candles sat in pools of wax surrounding it.  Beneath most of the stones, someone had places small slips of paper.  Wind rushed over the grass and fluttered their edges.  Each one was written with someone's name.

"What is this place?" I asked Wayland.

"A fragment of something that could have been, but is not.  Another city, from another place, drifting along near our simple city."

"Where are all the people?  Who built this place?"

"They died.  I'm not sure how.  If you poke into the buildings you can find skeletons, sometimes.  Dried mummified bodes, sometimes.  Or maybe just a brown stain on a mattresss in a human shape."

"I've only been here a few times.  I was too afraid to go too far in."

A rattling tap sounded from behind us.  Metal on stone.  We turned to see a pale shade, a filthy white coat vanishing out of the park.  Bright polished metal sparkled in the sunlight.  Or did I imagine that?

"We had better go," Wayland said.

"Wait, who was that?  I've seen him before," I replied, not moving.

"A ghost.  Someone from the shallow world.  He isn't something we want to see up close.  Come on."

Wayland took my hand then, and led me down a different path.  We passed through a wrought iron gate, standing open, and into a broad avenue.  The city wound away below us.  A place of spires and worn stone.  Of gothic arches, stained glass and shrines left in empty places.  A monument to something unknown.  We walked down the avenue looking into windows blinded by broken glass, or hung over with dusty curtains.  A skeleton key skittered across the paving stones when my boot touched it.  Somewhere in the distance, we could hear the deep voices of ravens talking to each other.

"Carrion birds," he said.

"Why were you so quiet the day we met?  You're much less so today."

"There's just something about Lydia I don't like.  The way she stole her brother away, and keeps him there on that altar.  So far as I know, she hasn't done much to try to reverse his condition."

"Maybe nothing can be done."

"Maybe.  Or maybe not.  The Weaver sent her fiction because that's all she's interested in.  She would have sent texts dealing with void, catalogues of phenomena.  Something to help her learn what happened to Fisher.  But she has made it clear she doesn't want them."

"Are you saying she wants Fisher that way?"

"I don't know.  She certainly doesn't seem to mind hiding away in that house in the grasslands, brooding over him."

"Do you think she had anything to do with what happened to him?"

"I really can't say.  She only ever tells the same story, but that doesn't mean it's true, does it?  I met Fisher before.  He was an odd person.  Distant, and vague.  He never seemed to look right at you.  And Lydia, she watched him like a hawk.  He turned to her to ask what he should order at Strange Grounds, and she ordered for him.  I'm not sure what was happening between them at the time, but it seemed very strange.  But I'm an only child, so I really don't know."

I fell silent, thinking of that perfect, blighted face in the candlelight again.  We walked together down that other avenue as the building grew smaller around us.  Asphalt rose up again to cover old cobbles ad after a time we were back in the shallows.  It was only then that I realized Wayland still held my hand.

We are to meet again, he and I.  Tomorrow or the next day, he will come find me.  

There is so much I can learn from him.

Maybe I can get him to take me back to visit Fisher and Lydia again, despite his feelings.  Or maybe I can learn to get there on my own.  There must be so much that deep.  So much I can bring back for you.  So much to see.