The Final Life

  ***

  “There it is,” said Vladimir, pointing at a cluster of houses and workshops spouting smoke out of their chimneys not too far off in the distance. In excitement, Glint enhanced his eyesight in order to better see.

  The town was larger than anywhere else Glint had ever been before, and he was surprised at the rectangular shape of dark grey brick buildings, set more for height than width. Mekh was a proper town with windmills and multiple smithies. Within the town’s walls, people could be seen bustling about in activity, buying and selling, shouting and laughing. It was glorious to the young warrior, more so than he’d ever seen, and instantly recognizable from the environments he was used to. It was as if the winter didn’t mean anything to those people, despite how cold it felt to him. Everyone was dressed strangely, some wearing goggles, others hats that were a dark brown and slumped over the front of their heads, like an extended brow. Others were dressed in buttoned shirts and large thick gloves or thick fur coats. But something else grabbed Glint’s attention. He pointed at a building which was... no, it couldn’t be. Is that building turning? It boasted in fact an enormous bronze gear right in the middle of it, which was rotating along with the whole building’s top half slowly with a low roar.

  He asked the question silently, but Azrael had noticed the astonishment on his face. “This, Glint, is a fast growing culture in Krava. Those are makinas, devices that are based around the concept of changing one form of energy to another. And no, not like Ability users do,” he said quickly when Glint opened his mouth to ask, with annoyance apparent on his face. “I’ve taught this to you before, it’s like when you boil water and let the steam turn a turbine.” He looked exasperated.

  Glint, however, was not taking any of it. “You said nothing about turning buildings, Michael!” He exclaimed, “This is nothing short of magical!”

  “No, young Glint” Vladimir put in, “It’s quite the opposite. Makinas are used in places where Ability based devices are rare. It’s the Normal’s solution for the simple problems. Although it is true that some make use of a tool or device that is created by an Ability user to power them. That, for instance, is called a mekanic mill. It contains a tool that breathes out air, and then ....” he kept explaining the functions of various makinas as the three made their way to the town carefully across the thick slippery ice. Despite the path being well used and people entering the town from four separate gates, it still carried the hazard of slipping and making a fool of oneself. Glint was silent with eyes wide the whole time, noting all the differences in clothing, speech, technology, weather and even building materials. In Mekh everything, even the high wall around the town, was made of neatly stacked grey bricks instead of clay blocks or logs. This was proving to be a bit more than he had even dared imagine. How could there be places this different from what he was used to?

  When they got to the edge of town, Vladimir was waved in by strangely dressed guards in a chest plate and fur armour, carrying crossbows. When the man pulled a bit ahead of them in his excitement to get home again, Glint leaned in closer to Azrael in his saddle, whispering so as not to attract attention. “You’re not well liked here, right?” he asked.

  “That’s why I’ve been keeping a fake name with the bard all this time,” the man retorted, his lips going almost blue in the cold, breath fogging up. The necromancer had snowflakes sticking to his hair, face, and heavy fur jacket, making him look quite comical.

  Glint furrowed his eyebrows. “Then, isn’t it a problem if the guards see us? Shouldn’t you be wearing a cowl or something to hide your face?” The warrior was a little worried about it, considering how well armed these people were.

  “Oh, that’s no problem,” the necromancer said, “I’m older than I look.” After pondering it for a second, the answer made sense to Glint, and he straightened himself on his mount. Ability users lived far longer than Normals, so it would be reasonable to assume that no one would be looking for a man of Azrael’s description. Worse still, the necromancer may be old enough that no one alive would remember what he looked like. Still, what had the man done, so that the mere mention of his name could cause so many problems?

  All around them, people were speaking in a strange tongue that Glint did not understand, yet all of a sudden he saw Azrael jerk and look around him with interest in his pitch black eyes. Brightness made the man squint and the snow reflected light all around them, yet Azrael’s scowl was deeper still. He said to Glint, “I think we should hurry after Vladimir,” and pointed him in the direction the bard was heading in.

  “What’s wrong?” the warrior inquired, worrying for a second that someone had in fact recognised Azrael and that alarms were going to sound any minute.

  “I don’t understand the language here perfectly, but the townsfolk are saying something about a disaster that has struck. They’re afraid of something. Also, they keep murmuring something about a treasure. I think we should stick to Vladimir just in case.”

  Looking around, Glint could see that the townsfolk were indeed looking quite worried. There were fewer people laughing than he had earlier thought, and most of the coated citizens were talking to each other in hushed voices. Glint knew that whatever had happened here to frighten people used to fighting against winter’s harsh bite couldn’t be trivial.

  Side by side, the duo trotted along the winding cobbled streets after their friend, horse’s hooves clacking loudly against the floor yet eliciting no attention from those around, until he stopped by a door with a woman standing right outside, fiddling with a lantern set atop a long metal pole. Glint wondered what lanterns could be needed for in the sunlit town as the bard jumped down from his mount and she called out his name the same way that Azrael pronounced it, with “a” as in “art” as well as a trilled, “r.” The two embraced, and Glint assumed she was the man’s wife or lover, but then Vladimir spoke to the blonde woman urgently and she let out a stream of words, obviously in an alarmed manner. He asked her a question and she gave a curt response, ignoring the two onlookers completely. The bard then turned around, put his hands on the nearby railing of a metal step ladder to steady himself, and said, “Mister Michael, mister Glint, I think I’ll be needing your help once more, it’s urgent.”