Chapter 141 The Dawn of the Exodus
The Iron City has cast shadows, which it has not done in a decade.
The eastern mountains had been cleared and the morning sunrise shone over the mountains without being hindered by the red smog that had characterized this place over the past ten years. The blue fungicide had worked the night through. The dreadful Ferro-fungus had disappeared, and had been turned into a harmless and paler grey ash, which drifted along the streets like dry snow.
I was on an old high-rise of corporation, on a rusted balcony, looking down at the Train Yard.
There was no noise in the city, but it was a quietness. There was no longer the metallic clatter of the Scrap-Hounds, or the low industrial beating of the Foundry.
The Valkyrie was sitting below me like a giant black bird on the concrete. The ramp had been lowered, and the Exodus refugees were getting out into the sunshine. They were putting their eyes up, crying, and going down on their knees. They had been spending all their life within the claustrophobic walls of the Spire, and under unrealistic amber lights. Now, they had a sky.
I have a big voice behind me, said a voice.
Ryker moved out into the balcony. He had at last divested himself of the thick, blood-streaked Purist armor, and was dressed in a plain grey thermal shirt and a pair of loosely trousered of dark canvas. In the absence of the tactical equipment, he resembled less like a Warlord and more the man that I had originally encountered in the lower levels. The golden Alpha light in his eyes was there, stinging and protective.
We can breathe here all right, I said, leaning on the rail. "And room to build."
It will not come easy, Ryker thought, lying his arms against the metal beside me. The buildings are structurally secure now that the rust is dead, however, the infrastructure is missing. Power no, no, no water no, no heat no. We're starting from scratch."
We are not beginning afresh, I pricked his shoulder. We have the hydroponics data of Sato. And Kaelen has his underground clean-labs. There is a vessel of Purist medicine on board. And we have an army."
The heavy doors of the Train Yard warehouse slam open as though in response to some sign.
Ferrous emerged.
The ex-cyborg warlord was totally different. The gigantic iron plates, the hydraulic piston-arm, the grafted goggles--it was all of it had shredded away with the fungus. He was a giant, greatly scarred, with his skin paling in years without sunlight. He had an oversized trench coat picked up in a dumped out department store.
He paused at the middle of the yard. He stared down at his two human hands. He stretched his hands, and was amazed at the mere biological action.
Baron approached him with a load of Purist rations on his hands. The Wolf Alpha hesitated and stared at the newly-human leader. Ferrous met his gaze, once nodded, and took the crate, and with his own strength moved towards the distribution line with it.
They are getting used to it, Ryker thought, with a faint smile. "Flesh heals. That's what he said."
A council, I said, turning my back to the city and looking at him. "A real one. Not his Unions, as Gareths, and not his Old Sovereignty. Each one has to tug his toe.
I have begun already, Ryker nodded. Vane is removing the second sensor bank in the Valkyrie to construct a perimeter alert system. When the Purists drop-ship out of the Aether, or Karn makes his Berserkers come out of the Deadlands, we will notice them a hundred miles away.
"And food?"
The UV farms are being installed in the subway tunnels by Sato and Kaelen. The taps to geothermal are still running down there. Jaxon is planning to plan the militia to clear the upper floors of the business area to house. Baron is going on a scouting pack into the woodland to the east and see what the game around there is like.
You have been busy," I said smiling. "When do you sleep?"
Ryker came to my side, and ran a loose strand of hair over my ear. His fingers were warm.
When I know you are all right, he said. "Really safe. Not safe, as in, safe as crosses the night.
I am safe, Ryker," I said, going into his place and laying my hands on his breast. "We beat the Queen. We blinded Valerius. We killed the Titan. Let yourself have a victory."
Giving a deep, protracted sigh, he shut his eyes. There was a moment when the great burden which he bore appeared to be lightened. His arms embraced me and he drew me close to him. I hid my face in his neck, and heard the regular, comforting thud of his heart.
We lingered a good long time there, in the morning sun, only holding one another as the new world awoke beneath us.
The Chronicle
I discovered later in the afternoon when the teams of Jaxon were clearing out an old executive office on the fiftieth floor to use as our command center that something undecayed remained.
It was a huge weighty leather-bound ledger, which was stored in a airtight archival vault. The pages were smooth, heavy and unstamped. Next to it was a device of old-world fountain pens and a dry bottle of ink which Sato readily restored with a chemical solvent.
I was seated on a huge mahogany desk with a view of the skyline.
My ring on my finger was inanimate, the broken blue stone cold. The magic was resting. However, there was a different type of power I must exercise now.
We had lost so much history. Millions of tons of rubble covered the archives of the Spire. We can tell the tales of the people who were killed in the lower levels, we can tell the sacrifice of Kael in the glass tank, we can tell the betrayal of the Purists--unless we write it down, it would be a myth.
I badged the ledger to the first page.
I meditated on the black drop-ship which had nudged us out of the ashes. I reasoned of the black, unattainable vows we had sworn to one another to get through the long winter, and the winging hope this new day.
I dipped the pen into the ink. I had the title of our new history, the name of the story that would characterize our civilization in the future, at the top of the page:
The Raven's Promise.
I wrote beneath it Chapter One. We did not want to stop walking even though the world was ended. It is the chronicle of the Exodus, the downfall of the Iron Sovereignty, and the conception of the final city on the Earth...
I wrote until my hand cramped. I wrote the amber lights of the Spire, and of the taste of the Grey Bread, and of the howl that the Alpha makes in the dark.
We were not merely living through the end of the world, as the sky fell the first time since it fell. We were writing the commencement of the second one.
Because the world-building has moved to more of a pure survival phase and now has moved a step toward constituting a society, this chapter can be an ideal seasonal finale or a transition point should you be posting the serial to Penpee, iStory, anystories, novelsnack, or Meganovel.