"They call me mad because I keep an eclipse in a birdcage. They do not know that if I let it hatch, the stars will forget how to burn."
—Extract from the Chair of Morbid Xenology & Esoteric Taxonomy, Nxyorian Institute of Magic
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The wind had been dead for three hundred years.
At least, that was what the old stories claimed. They said the world had once known gentle breezes, warm summers, and skies that changed colour without threatening to split open. They spoke of rain that fell cleanly from the heavens and of a sun that had not been reduced to a wounded thing.
The wind blowing across the Wastelands had no interest in such stories.
It swept over a sea of petrified charcoal, lifting black ash into twisting columns that scraped against the horizon. Dunes rose and fell like the backs of enormous buried beasts. Beyond them, clouds of burnt grey smothered what remained of the sky, occasionally illuminated by tendrils of purple lightning that crawled through their depths.
The sun hung low above the desolation.
Or what remained of it.
Its shattered rays spread across the wasteland in pale, uneven fragments, illuminating the ruins without warming them. Nobody knew what had broken the sun. The few scholars who claimed to possess answers tended to die young, disappear mysteriously, or become the subject of increasingly unpleasant rumours.
Most sensible people had stopped asking.
A line of scavengers crossed the ash dunes beneath that broken light.
They moved with the weary determination of people who had learned that stopping was often more dangerous than continuing. Their clothes were patched leather, faded canvas, and whatever scraps of fabric had survived long enough to be useful. Scarves covered their mouths against the dust. Strips of armour protected shoulders and ribs, though some pieces were held together with wire.
Weapons hung from belts and backs. Machetes, crossbows, rusted rifles, and a handful of firearms so old that their owners treated them with the reverence usually reserved for religious relics.
Behind them, a handcart rattled over the uneven ground.
Its contents were an assortment of salvaged machinery, twisted metal, cracked glass, and several grotesque creatures wrapped in tarred cloth. One of the bundles had been moving intermittently since morning.
Nobody had asked about it.
"Captain," a young scavenger called from the rear. "If that thing starts moving again, I'm leaving it here."
An older man walking beside the cart glanced down at the bundle.
"Then you can explain to the settlement why you abandoned something worth more than your miserable life."
The young man considered this.
"What if it eats me first?"
"Then I'll tell them you died doing something useful."
A few muffled laughs travelled through the line.
The young scavenger shook his head. "You know, Captain, most people say something comforting when their men are afraid."
"Most captains have more men to waste."
That earned a louder laugh.
Even the young scavenger smiled behind his scarf.
For a moment, they were merely tired people making jokes to distract themselves from the wasteland. Then the wind rose, and everyone turned their attention back to the horizon.
Ahead, enormous pillars protruded from the dunes.
They stood at irregular angles, some leaning against one another, others disappearing into the ash as though the earth had slowly swallowed them. Steel ribs connected the pillars in a sprawling lattice. Sheets of dark glass hung between the metal frames, their surfaces cracked into intricate patterns.
The ruins might once have been a city.
Or a factory.
Or something for which humanity had never possessed a proper word.
The scavengers did not care what it had been. They cared about what remained beneath it.
Essence Stones.
The settlement needed them for heat, trade, tools, and the countless other necessities that separated survival from a slow, miserable death. Every expedition that returned with a worthwhile haul bought the settlement another few weeks of breathing room.
Every expedition that failed brought the opposite.
The captain raised his fist.
The line stopped.
Behind them, the handcart rolled another half-metre before its driver caught the handles and dragged it to a halt.
"Quiet," the captain ordered.
Nobody complained.
The wind howled through the ruins. Somewhere ahead, metal creaked against metal with a long, mournful groan.
The captain studied the pillars.
He was an old man, though the wasteland made age difficult to measure. His face was pale and weather-beaten, crossed by scars that ran from his temples to the hard lines around his mouth. His left ear was missing its upper half. A healed wound pulled one corner of his lips into something that might have been a permanent sneer.
He removed a folded map from inside his coat.
The paper had been repaired so many times that the original surface was barely visible. He flattened it against the handcart and held one corner down with a gloved thumb.
"Here," he said, tapping a marked section between two collapsed structures. "The last team found a vein running beneath the western foundation. We take what we can reach and leave before the light goes."
A woman beside him leaned over the map.
"Last team said the lower passages were unstable."
"The last team also said they heard singing beneath the ground."
She frowned. "They did."
"They heard their own blood rushing through their ears while they were frightened."
"And the three men who didn't come back?"
The captain looked up at her.
"Did you want their opinion?"
She held his gaze for another moment, then straightened.
"No."
"Good. Get your tools."
The scavengers unloaded the handcart. Picks, hammers, chisels, and narrow digging bars passed from hand to hand. Several carried canvas sacks for the stones. Others checked ropes, lamps, and the crude respirators they used when digging beneath collapsed structures.
The captain removed his gloves.
Thin markings ran across the backs of his hands.
They resembled veins drawn in silver beneath the skin, dividing and branching toward his fingertips. As he flexed his fingers, the markings brightened. The air around his hands seemed to tighten, as though the world had briefly forgotten how to move naturally.
Nobody stared for long.
They had seen their captain use his Crest before. It was one of the reasons the settlement trusted him to lead expeditions into places where lesser people went to die.
He closed his eyes and stood still.
A few seconds passed.
The wind pushed at his coat.
Then his eyes opened.
"Two passages are safe enough to work," he said. "The third is not."
"How can you tell?" someone asked.
"Because I can."
"That isn't much of an explanation."
"Would you prefer I lie?"
"No, Captain."
"Then stop asking questions you don't need answered."
He pulled his gloves back on.
"Pairs only. Nobody crosses beyond the marked pillars. If you find something you can't identify, you leave it alone and call me. If you hear someone calling your name from somewhere you cannot see, you ignore it."
A scavenger near the cart snorted.
"What if it's actually someone calling for help?"
"Then they'll still be there when you bring someone else."
"And if they aren't?"
The captain looked toward the ruins.
"Then you have just learned something useful."
Nobody laughed at that.
He pointed toward the western foundation.
"Work fast. Keep your partner in sight. And if any of you decide to wander off because you think you've found something valuable enough to make you rich, I'll personally ensure your next expedition is conducted without legs."
The scavengers dispersed.
Steel bit stone.
The sound echoed through the ruins.
Tavin hated mining.
He hated the grit that worked its way between his teeth. He hated the ache in his shoulders and the way his fingers cramped around the handle of his pick. Most of all, he hated that every successful expedition seemed to make the captain more convinced that they could survive another one.
Tavin wanted to return to the settlement with enough Essence Stones to buy a decent meal, a bottle of something stronger than boiled water, and perhaps a new pair of boots.
He did not want glory.
Glory, in his experience, was usually another word for being buried somewhere nobody could afford to retrieve you from.
"Stop hitting it like that," said the woman working beside him.
Tavin wiped sweat from his brow.
"I wasn't aware rocks were sensitive."
"They aren't. Your hands are."
He looked down at his pick. One of its wooden supports had developed a thin crack.
"It's holding."
"So did the last one."
"And that lasted three expeditions."
"Because I repaired it."
"Then repair this one."
She gave him a flat look.
"I'm beginning to understand why nobody wants to marry you."
"That's a strange thing to say to a man who has never asked."
"Keep digging, Tavin."
He grinned beneath his scarf and returned to work.
They had found the vein half an hour earlier. It ran through a fractured section of the foundation, where the surrounding stone had darkened around clusters of dull, crystalline growths. Essence Stones were not beautiful in the way old paintings claimed precious gems should be. Most looked like pieces of frozen smoke trapped inside rough mineral shells.
But when exposed to the right conditions, they glimmered from within.
Tavin pried a small cluster free.
"Three," he announced.
His partner inspected them.
"Two."
"The third is right there."
"That one is ordinary rock."
"It has a shine."
"So does your forehead. We don't sell pieces of that either."
He laughed despite himself.
"Cruel woman."
"Living woman," she corrected. "There's a difference."
She placed the two stones in her sack and moved farther along the foundation.
Tavin followed, muttering about the unfairness of working beside someone who had apparently mistaken cruelty for a personality.
Their passage narrowed between two slabs of metal. Beyond them, the ground dipped into a shallow depression filled with ash and fragments of black glass.
Tavin crouched to clear the debris.
His pick struck something hard.
The sound was wrong.
Not the dull crunch of stone or the sharp ring of metal. It was a delicate, hollow tink, like a spoon touching the rim of a glass.
He paused.
"Found something?" his partner called.
"Maybe."
"Is it an Essence Stone?"
"Unless Essence Stones have learned to sound like dinnerware, no."
He brushed away the ash.
Beneath it lay a small object, half-buried in a layer of compacted dust. He worked his fingers around it and pulled.
A pocket watch emerged from the ground.
Tavin stared at it.
It was remarkably clean.
The casing was a dull, tarnished silver, with a fine chain curled around it. There were scratches along the edges, and a thin line of dark residue had collected near the hinge, but the glass face remained unbroken.
A crescent moon had been engraved into the lid.
Its curve was narrow and elegant, the tips almost touching. Beneath it, the metal was darker than the surrounding surface, as if the emblem had been cut into something that had never reflected light properly.
Tavin turned it over.
No maker's mark. No serial number. No writing.
"That's not bad," he murmured.
His partner appeared beside him.
"What is it?"
"An antique watch."
She crouched, brushing ash from her knees.
"Does it work?"
"Does anything in this miserable place work?"
"Your mouth, unfortunately."
He pressed the catch.
The lid opened with a soft click.
Inside, delicate hands rested against a pale face. The markings around the dial were strange: thin black strokes that looked almost like numbers, though the longer Tavin examined them, the less certain he became.
The second hand did not move.
He tilted the watch toward the light.
For a moment, he thought the glass was cloudy. Then the sun caught its surface, and the dial appeared perfectly clear.
"Probably worth something," he said.
"Probably cursed."
He glanced at her.
"You think everything is cursed."
"Last month, you brought home a lamp that screamed when we lit it."
"It screamed once."
"It screamed every time someone entered the room."
"Perhaps it disliked visitors."
She reached for the watch.
Tavin closed his fingers around it.
"What are you doing?"
"Looking at it."
"Use your eyes from over there."
Her expression hardened.
"Tavin."
He sighed and opened his hand.
She examined the casing without touching the face.
The crescent moon seemed to swallow the pale light around it. She frowned, turned the watch sideways, and looked toward the captain's position.
"Call him."
"For a watch?"
"For an unknown object in a ruin that has been abandoned longer than either of us has been alive."
"It's a watch, not a severed head."
"You don't know that."
He looked at the watch again.
"I know what a watch looks like."
"And I know what a fool looks like. Unfortunately, the two are often found together."
She stood and began walking toward the captain.
Tavin watched her go.
Then he looked down at the watch.
He could call the captain. He could hand it over, listen to a lecture about discipline, and perhaps receive a fraction of whatever the object fetched when they returned to the settlement.
Or he could keep it.
He imagined the look on the captain's face when he discovered Tavin had found something valuable without immediately surrendering it. He imagined the argument, the confiscation, the inevitable threat about losing his legs.
He slipped the watch into his inner coat pocket.
The metal felt cold against his chest.
Colder than it should have.
Tavin rubbed his hands together and returned to the excavation.
He did not notice that, for a brief moment, he had forgotten what he had been looking for.
The expedition ended before the sun sank behind the burnt clouds.
They returned to the handcart with sacks of Essence Stones, salvaged machinery, and enough usable metal to justify the journey. The captain inspected their haul personally, separating the valuable pieces from the useless debris.
He paused when he reached Tavin's sack.
"Only this?"
Tavin shrugged.
"The vein narrowed."
"Your partner brought back twice as much."
"She has a personal grudge against the ground."
His partner folded her arms.
"I work with what I find."
"And I work with what I can carry."
"You're carrying a great deal of excuses."
The captain looked between them.
"Wonderful. If either of you discovers a way to sell those, the settlement will never want for money again."
Tavin lowered his head to hide his smile.
The captain continued inspecting the stones.
"Did anyone find anything unusual?"
Tavin's fingers brushed the pocket inside his coat.
For an instant, he considered telling the truth.
He imagined the captain removing the watch from its chain, turning it over in those scarred hands, and ordering someone to carry it back to the settlement for examination. He imagined never seeing it again.
"No," Tavin said.
The answer came easily.
Too easily, perhaps, but the captain had already turned away.
"Then we're finished here. Keep the cart moving. I want us behind the outer barricades before dark."
Nobody argued.
They began the journey home.
The Wastelands darkened around them, the dunes merging into an endless field of black. The wind grew sharper, carrying fine grains of ash that hissed against their clothing. Behind the clouds, purple lightning flashed without thunder.
Tavin walked near the rear of the group.
Every few minutes, he felt the watch through his coat.
He told himself he was checking that it had not fallen out.
After the third time, he stopped pretending.
He wanted to see it again.
He waited until the others were occupied with the cart, then drew the watch from his pocket. Its chain slipped over his fingers. The crescent moon caught the dim light.
He opened the lid.
The hands remained still.
"Worthless piece of junk," he whispered.
He snapped it shut.
Something about the sound bothered him.
He could not explain why. It was an ordinary sound, a small mechanical click, yet it seemed to linger in his ears long after the lid had closed.
He shook his head and returned the watch to his pocket.
Ahead, the captain was speaking to the woman who had worked beside him.
Tavin heard his name.
He looked up.
"Rusk!"
He hurried forward.
The captain glanced at him. "Where did you disappear to?"
Tavin frowned.
"I was right behind you."
"For the last few minutes, I haven't seen you."
"You were looking at the cart."
The captain studied him for a moment, then gestured impatiently toward the road.
"Stay where I can see you."
Tavin nodded.
The captain turned away.
It was nothing. A moment of distraction. The wasteland played tricks on the eyes, and exhaustion made people irritable.
Tavin had heard the captain call his name. The captain had looked directly at him. There was no reason to dwell on it.
Still, as he returned to the rear of the group, he found himself trying to remember what the captain had called him.
The name was there.
He knew it was.
But for one uncomfortable moment, he could not quite hear it in his mind.
The settlement appeared near dusk.
Its outer barricades rose from the ash like the ribs of a buried giant. Steel sheets, salvaged concrete, and the remains of ancient machinery had been welded together into a wall that was ugly, uneven, and strong enough to keep most things outside.
Smoke drifted from the chimneys.
Figures moved along the ramparts, their weapons silhouetted against the dying light. At the main gate, two guards watched the scavengers approach. One raised a hand in greeting.
"Back already?"
"Unless this is somewhere else," the captain called.
"Thought you'd be staying out there forever."
"Considered it. The company was unbearable."
The guard laughed and ordered the gate opened.
The cart rattled through.
Tavin looked at the settlement beyond the barricades: the crowded buildings, the market stalls closing for the evening, the children running between adults who shouted at them to keep out of the way.
It was not much of a home.
The roofs leaked. The streets stank when the wind changed direction. People fought over water, fuel, food, and every other thing that could be measured and divided. Beyond the walls, the world waited to swallow anyone foolish enough to wander into it unprepared.
But the settlement was alive.
People recognized one another here. They argued because they remembered old insults. They laughed because they shared jokes. They made room for familiar faces, complained about familiar voices, and carried the weight of years spent living beside one another.
Tavin had never thought much about it.
He was thinking about it now, though he could not have explained why.
The scavengers unloaded their haul near the storage building. The captain began assigning the Essence Stones for counting and inspection. Someone called for a healer. Someone else complained that the cart had brought back more scrap than stone.
Ordinary noise filled the yard.
Tavin slipped away before anyone could ask about his share of the work.
He wanted a drink. He wanted food. He wanted to sit somewhere warm and examine his new possession without a dozen exhausted scavengers watching him.
He crossed the narrow street toward the room he rented near the eastern wall.
Halfway there, a woman carrying a basket stepped into his path.
"Excuse me," he said.
She moved aside without looking at him.
Tavin continued walking.
Behind him, the woman stopped.
She turned her head slightly, as though she had heard something from far away. Her brows drew together. For a moment, she stared at the empty space where Tavin had passed.
Then someone called to her from the market, and she continued on her way.
By the time Tavin reached his room, he had forgotten the encounter.
He bolted the door, lit his lamp, and sat on the edge of his narrow bed. After removing his boots, he drew the pocket watch from his coat.
The room fell quiet around him.
He opened the lid.
The crescent moon gleamed faintly in the lamplight.
Tavin turned the watch over, searching again for a maker's mark. He rubbed the casing with his thumb, then held it close to his ear.
Nothing.
No ticking. No movement.
He should have been disappointed.
Instead, he felt a strange reluctance to close it.
He stared at the unmoving hands until his eyes began to ache.
Then, without understanding why, he whispered, "Who were you made for?"
The watch offered no answer.
Tavin shut the lid and placed it on the bedside table.
He lay down, pulled his blanket over himself, and tried to sleep.
Outside, the settlement settled into its nightly rhythms. Doors closed. Fires dimmed. Guards exchanged shifts along the walls. Somewhere in the distance, a child cried and was comforted.
Life continued.
In the small room, the pocket watch lay motionless beside the lamp.
Its silver casing reflected the fractured light. The crescent moon remained dark, its two sharp tips almost touching.
For a fleeting instant, the shadow beneath the watch seemed deeper than the shadow cast by anything else in the room.
Then the lamp flickered.
The darkness returned to normal.
And far beyond the barricades, beneath the ruins where Tavin had found it, the ash shifted over the place where the watch had lain for countless forgotten years.
Nothing emerged from the ground.
Nothing called his name.
Nothing followed him home.
Yet the first thing the watch had taken from Tavin was so small that he would not have known to mourn it.
It had taken the certainty that the world would remember he was there.
He slept, unaware.
And somewhere between the broken sky and the blind earth, something remained attentive to the little settlement that had welcomed him home.
In the darkness, they watch.