Steam | Chapter Two | Departures
Snow drifted in fat flakes from the sky, gathering into soft, cold piles that they marched through in lines. A geomagus led the procession slowly through the hip high drifts, holding his metal gloved hand out before him to feel for fissures beneath the endless field of white. The falling powder built up atop the shoulders and heads of the men and women in the formation, sometimes falling off in thick, soundless chunks and leaving depressions beside the trench they marched through. Sylvia had no idea where they were going, and nobody was going to bother telling her.
She had been trussed up together with six other prisoners, six other sad faced survivors of the Lady Turandot, with a dirty bit of cord some red-cloaked soldier had pulled from the wreckage. It chaffed at her wrists, but they had been bound loosely enough to rub warmth into themselves as they walked the top of the Granger Pass to some unknown destination.
Nobody spoke. The only sound beside the constant soft rush of the cold wind was the crunches of snow compacting beneath heavy boots. On the occasions when they stopped, Sylvia could hear the steady beat of her pulse in her ears. She latched onto the sound, trying to imagine the steaming heat of her blood, and the constant mechanical pounding of her heart. Humanity had its own clockwork. She tried to remember warmth and failed.
One of the other prisoners, a man, yelped and fell to his knees in the snow, jerking painfully against their tether and forcing the other five to stop. He moaned feebly as one of the guards pulled him back to his feet. Sylvia kept her eyes forward, like the other prisoners. There had been eight of them when the group had left the site of the crash. Trying to help would be pointless. They began to walk again.
Sylvia couldn't see much of the range around her, buried as it was in the snow and fog that poured down from the high peaks around them. The raiding party walked in three lines across the flank of some high ridge. She estimated their number at around 80, perhaps more, though even with their red cloaks they were hard to pick out in all the blinding whiteness. None of them had talked since Foucault had waved her away, passing orders between each other by snapping their fingers and waving their arms and hands about. The last of the prisoners that had spoke was slowly being buried by the falling flakes a mile back, her glass eyes fixed on the dusky mountain sky. Sylvia shuddered.
The woman had broke formation to pick up her friend, the first of the prisoners to fall. His leg had been broken in the crash and fitted with a makeshift splint. She refused to move without him, so the guards had killed them both, dragging their bodies out of the trench so the soldiers behind them wouldn't trip. The woman never took her eyes off her dying friend, lying on his chest as they both bled to death in the snow. The slack went out of the cord wrapped around Sylvia's wrists, nearly dragging her down.
One of the guards brushed by her and pulled the man on the ground to his feet. His lolled forward and then back, his eyes staring madly out of his head at nothing. The man's face was completely colorless. The guard slapped his cheek, a single loud crack that made a few of the other prisoners jump. The guard looked back up the formation and shook his head. Another soldier responded with a quick hand gesture and turned to keep walking. The guard nodded, hoisted the prisoner onto the snow bank beside the trench and then shot him once in the temple, cutting the cord off his wrists and returning to formation.
They pressed on.
Sylvia tried not to think about the blood running in a heavy, black stream out of the side of the man's head, and the sad, confused look in his eyes as his brain bled to death. She did anyway, and had to force herself not to throw up.
They pressed on.
Hours passed, and the weak light of the day gave way to the glowing moonlight of the night. The snowfall petered out shortly after nightfall, and she could soon see the jagged outline of the mountains around her. In particular, she could Mount Granger, carving it's twisted, spindling path through the fat ball of the rising moon. One of the prisoners behind her started sobbing. Another one of them tried to console her with quiet shushes. She could hear the soft pat of a gloved hand on a shoulder.
They pressed on.
Something deep, deep inside her was beginning to give out. The pace of the march had made her start sweating hours ago, but she was not sweating anymore. Her tongue stuck to the dry roof of her mouth, and every attempt to swallow became more difficult. Her feet were numb. She forced herself not to cry.
They pressed on.
Their number had dwindled down to four. Sylvia didn't even bother looking back, instead using the distraction to try snagging a mouthful of snow from the side of the trench. The binds on her wrists were too taut to for her to use her hands, so she leaned to the side and tried to bit into the drift with her mouth. The cold of night had frozen the snow into ice. She nearly wept from frustration.
They pressed on.
Sylvia could feel herself dying. There was no more warmth in the world, and there never had been. Heat was lie, like mercy and fresh water. Her knees buckled with every other step and still the silent march across the mountain continued. The moon had crossed the sky, and now she could see the back of Mount Granger in greater detail.
The mountain rose, tall and impossibly twisted, into the sky, like a bent grey nail. Her tombstone, a tombstone for the world. The sun would rise behind it soon, but she didn't expect to see it. Sylvia would die with the moon in the hills. She thought she could smell fire on the wind.
The procession came to a halt. Her vision swam and she stumbled, and then fell to the side. Her brain didn't even process the pain of having her arms jerked to the side. The others made no move to help her, and she laid there, her face in the ice, and prepared to die.
The guard cut the cord around her wrists and hoisted her onto his back. She felt infinitely heavy, like a great boulder of lead, but he moved her onto his back with hands of granite and steel. She closed her eyes and let the man spirit her off. When he set her down the snow felt hard, flat and warm. I must be going into shock, she thought, wondering if she would feel the bullet hitting her. If should hear the gunshot. If it would hurt.
"Stand Sylvia Messerschmitt, and behold your salvation."
Sylvia opened her eyes to see a massive fire burning in front of her. It cast light and long shadows away from it. She crawled toward the heat, letting her affinity fill her with warmth. The red-cloaked Caanish soldiers stood in wide rings around the flames, their eyes hidden by shadow. The ground beneath her was clean, dry stone, carved with intricate patterns and worn smooth by age. She stood and rubbed the raw skin of her wrists.
"Sylvia Messerschmitt," said the voice. She turned around saw Foucault standing opposite the fire with his arms crossed. An enormous stone staircase, lined with burning braziers, rose behind him. An old, graying man sat in the carved throne at the top of the stairs, flanked on either side by spear bearers. He sat casually in the chair, propping his head on his fist and regarding Sylvia with a casual smirk.
"We offer you the Embrace of Caan," Foucault said. He held his arms out wide and the soldiers roared in response, slapping their gloved fists against their chests three times. The sound was deafening. Sylvia looked around, confused. Foucault approached her. His face was unknowable. She flinched when he raised his hand and set it on her shoulder. It was heavy, but warm.
"I don't understand," she said. Her eyes met his, and she saw nothing in them.
"You are being given a chance," he said, softer than before, "to survive this ordeal. Cast aside your old life, become a daughter of Caan, and you will live. You will find purpose in our cause. You will march with us, to purge this land of its mad, tyrannical oppressors."
"Join you?" She asked, looking around. She clutched her arms, remembering the cold. "You killed those people on the train, executed prisoners. We... we were on a peaceful transit mission. You people are..."
"Evil?" He asked bluntly. "No, there is no such thing. We are at war. Unforgivable decisions are made every day. As for your train and its occupants..." He paused, searching her eyes for something. "...there is much you don't know. That four of you live now is a miracle, though you may not see it for what it is for some time." She shook her head again, dropping her gaze.
"I'm no traitor..." She said softly, her words trailing off into the wind. Foucault narrowed his gaze and set his left hand on her other shoulder. She felt small in his grasp.
"The Imperium is a heresy," he said. His eyes glinted when the name rolled off his tongue in Caanish. Plazekt. Imperium. "It cannot be betrayed, only destroyed."
"I...I can't ever go home," she said. Her lip quivered. This was entirely too much.
"No," he replied. "All that you are and have been will die tonight." He lifted her chin with his finger. "But you will become kin, and all that Caan is or ever will be will be yours, just as it is ours. You will find purpose in us, Sylvia. You will find your name." He stepped back from her, placing his arms behind his back. "But first, you must accept our Embrace." She paused.
"Ok," she said, rubbing her arm nervously just above the elbow.
"You accept?"
"Yes," she said, a bit louder. "I... I accept."
"Then strip off the vestiges of your old life," he replied. "Take off your clothes, cast them into the fire and stand before Caan, reborn." She looked around nervously, and then bent down to untie her boots. They were slippery, cold and awkward, and she had to sit down to pry them from her feet. Then came her socks, the heavy canvas uniform shorts and shirt, and, finally, the black thermal singlet. She stood to remove it, pulling at the wet hem of the elastic neckline. The ring of soldiers stood, watching stoically, if they were looking at all. She caught Foucault's eye and he gave her the slightest of nods.
Sylvia pulled the elastic over one shoulder, and then the other, relishing in the feel of the fire wicking the moisture off of her exposed skin. Her thermals had been holding in the cold, not repelling it. Blood rushed to her cheeks as she pushed the black cloth past her breasts, down the taut line of her stomach to her hips. She paused to roll up the cloth, and then rolled it down over her legs, her knees, and then her ankles. She stood naked, her newly thawed hair dripping water down her back.
