Deviation

I thought I was dead.

Am I dead? Faulkner thought.

Before him was a long tunnel, with a bright, white light at the end of it. As he floated towards it, the tunnel seemed to fade away, dissipating at the edges, blurring until he realised there was no tunnel, no shining light at the end. It was just the fluorescent light above a hospital bed and his eyes adjusting to the sudden change of setting.

Outside his window was the smooth, violet and orange light of twilight, and the soft pitter-patter of newly born rain. Before long, the clouds would converge over what was left of the dusk sky, rain falling torrentially. For now, though, the evening was relatively peaceful, the methodical patter of rain soothing to Faulkner's severely weakened form.

He realised after a few moments that he was not wearing anything besides a hospital robe, but was neither bothered nor strong enough to change. The blankets that covered him to his chest provided some modesty for him.

As he closed his eyes, flashes appeared before him of something that had happened. Something recent.

There had been a splash, and water everywhere. Movement. Endless movement as the current dragged him along, pulling him under and then back to the surface, each rough tumble as dark as the next. Coughing and spluttering beneath the rippling waves, grunts of pain as he slammed into the walls of the canals, and finally, a loud cry as a great, silvery claw emerged from the deep to strike at him. He had managed some kind of block and a strange, dipping maneuverer to avoid the attack. It slashed him across the belly, scoring deep into his skin, drawing blood and stinging like fire in the putrid waters. He had screamed once more, and reached onto a ledge, above which, he could see the firelight of a lamp. The soft light would not completely deter all of the night fiends, but they would cause some to have second thoughts.

Do they even have thoughts?he asked himself, re-emerging in the hospital bed. He had fallen asleep once more, having reminiscent nightmares.

The memory struck him.

“Harriet,”he whispered to himself, the name burning his dry mouth as he remembered her terrified face as the Vindicator had grappled with her struggling body. He could not remember much after falling in the water, dragged by the current into a dark tunnel, but he could remember her expression. His heart burned, and he was not entirely sure it was the scratch across his chest that caused it.

As he looked to the side, fighting the sadness that was welling within him, he saw the newspaper sitting on the bedside table. He reached over to it, his sides aching, and read the date. He had been asleep for almost a day. Perhaps it was the anaesthetic that had caused it, or even the trauma of the events that had forced him to sleep so deeply, but he could remember nothing between the attacks and waking in the hospital bed. Beneath the title of the paper were two small article titles—“Drilling Continues in the Slums”, and, “Conversion to Gas; what will this mean for the LampLighter Guild?”.

Those two titles though were squished onto the cover of the Evening Pundit above a headline, written in massively bold print and the photo of a confused looking girl:


YOUNG LADY SAVES BLUE GUARD

“Oh dear,” Faulkner murmured.

He read on.

In the midday hours of today, the body of a City Guardsman was found washed one the edge of one of the city canals, scratched and bleeding, but alive. No one knows the identity of the man, only that thebrave and proper young woman, Ophelia of Arring Road came across the body while walking along the bridge in question.

“It was there in the corner of my eye, and when I looked, it was a man!” said Ophelia, 20, when asked about her discovery. “When no one reacted to it, I did, so I went down and got him.”

It seems that not only does young Ophelia not know the identity of the man, but no one has come forth to identify him. Police are searching now for reasons behind the man's appearance in the canal. Possible gang-work is believed to be the source.

“What astounds me,” Ophelia continued to explain, “is that people watched on as I risked my life to save another. I think it is time for us to realise that the fiends exist whether we want them to, and the only way to fight the fear is to face it.”

STORY CONTINUED ON PAGE 11.

Faulkner did not read on. He'd had enough information as memories came flooding back. He could remember the girl, and another kind person pulling him in, and then the girl as she had told him that he was going to the hospital. He felt horribly rude, trying to resist, but he did not wish to go anywhere where he could be at the hands of the Architect or the Vindicators. They may have gotten his wife and had her locked in the Architect's own tower doing Lord-knows-what on her, but that did not mean he was safe now. Far from it. If he was to assume, using his present luck as a basis for his theory, then he was bound to be chased until the baby was finally born, and—as Robert had informed him—destroyed.

It was such a horrible word, that Faulkner shivered as he thought of it. He did not want to know what it meant for his unborn child. It had too many possibilities to even begin to consider. He fought away the images, but they refused to abate. Flashes of weighted bags being thrown into canals, bloody knives swiping at soft, fresh skin and fuel being ignited as the maddening cries of a baby began all occurred to him. I do not know what evils the Vindicators are capable of, he thought, but it makes me sick!

He paused as he thought about his life and his choices. His life as a guard in the Blues was a privileged one, and given the rather subdued nature of those that lived in the city, a quiet one, too. But what was he protecting? Was he protecting a supposedly magical well, meant to draw pure and perfect water from deep below, or was he protecting the Architect, the supposedly Almighty? Was he protecting the lies that their Architect, their God King had created? The Vindicators were meant to exist as a step above the Blues, a Higher Guard, so to speak, and yet that seemed a lie. From what Faulkner could speculate, he managed well enough to work out that the Vindicators existed mainly to hide the lies and holes in the City of Castore from its citizens. No reason had been given to kill an unborn and perfectly innocent baby, and yet the Architect could send the Vindicators out, providing no reason. Were the Vindicators the ones that enforced his iron-grip-like rule, and the Blues just the muscle in this city built on a foundation of lies and secrets?

The possibility seemed less a childish fantasy now, more than ever.
And it terrified him.

What has happened to my life?Faulkner thought, his musings almost like whispers in his own head. What will happen to my child, to my wife? Will it ever be normal again?

He feared for what the answer may be.

A nurse entered his room, a clipboard in hand, scribbling furiously across some sheets. She looked to the bed beside Faulkner's and said, “I'll be with you shortly, Master Douglass.”

A younger boy, of about eighteen with brown hair and a cast about his leg slumped into the pillows he had his back rested upon, appearing quite disgruntled about the state of his leg.

“Don't look so grumpy,” the nurse chided. “The doctor says that even if you complain, he won't let you out until he's sure you won't go kicking that ball around anymore until your leg is fully healed. He knows what you're like, especially when you get bored.” She glanced up to the top of a cupboard where a ball sat, out of his reach. He was a tall boy but even he would not be able to reach it there.

“Now, mystery man,” she said, looking to Faulkner. “I'll need you to fill out this form so that we know who you are.”

“What?” Faulkner gasped. “No, I'm fine. I can go.”

“Well you may think so,” she said, “but the doctor seems to disagree.” She skimmed over the page clipped to the board. “He wants to make sure that you are completely well before releasing you.”

Faulkner rose out of his bed, getting a headspin.

“This is a prison,” the Douglass boy said. “They won't let you out to do anything!”

“Oh don't be so melodramatic,” the nurse retorted. “Now, here's a pencil and a form, I'll come back shortly to take it from you.” She smiled sweetly and left the room.

He looked to the clipboard and began to write his name where it prompted, but stopped.

What am I doing?he thought. My wife has been captured and I'm being admitted to hospital. There is a girl out there who may be brave enough to help me scale the Architect's tower, and I'm here.

He looked over the newspaper once more as the nurse that had tended to him wandered past the doorway once more. The face of the Ophelia girl flashed before him in his thoughts as she stood above him, checking to see that he was not too badly injured. The nurse had told him he was not to leave, but he did not care.

It may have been that revolutionary thoughts were unwise (especially in a city like Castore), but revolutionary thoughts were not the ones that guided him. He had always been told that when someone did you a service, it was only right to thank them. And that was what he would do, which would then lead to a request—not that anyone needed to know that.

Looking about quickly he rose from his bed, looking over to the Douglass boy. “I'd help you out,” he said, “but with your leg like that, it looks like you're stuck. Sorry.” He then flung the curtain around his bed and began his rushed escape.

There came no call from the Douglass boy, who condoned the man's escape with an excited nod. Thankful, Faulkner threw the hospital robe aside and dressed into his guard uniform. It had been washed and pressed for him, and despite a few tears, looked reasonable. He opened up the window noticing his reflection in the glass. There were a pair of deep, heavy bags beneath his eyes, and the short, dark stubble of a man who had not found any time to shave. There was a man who looked troubled, the lines across his face etched deep into the skin, giving him an especially haggard expression.

He opened up the window, sliding the candle sitting there across the windowsill slightly and looked westward at the Architect's flame-peaked tower, the silhouettes of night fiends standing out against the late twilight sky. He felt for a moment that the Architect was staring back, furious at Faulkner’s own defiant stare. Let him see me, he thought. I want him to know who’s coming for him!

He clambered over the windowsill.

“I'll come for you, Harriet,” he promised as he then turned his gaze to below him. He was only on the second floor, so dropping to the ground was a particularly easy task with the help of the creeper lattice.

He landed flat on his feet in a side courtyard, the paths already illuminated by bright lamplight.

He did not look back up to the window. In fact, he did not look back.

“Arring Road,” he murmured to himself, grabbing his bearings from the location of the Architect's tower to the west, and the city's clock tower which lay at the city's centre, near the well depicting Castoro's discovery of the Tyndibar Well. Arring Road lay in the north east of the city, making the passage to the girl's house a relatively straightforward one. He would have to avoid the city's centre, as it was one of the more highly guarded sites in the city, but besides that, traversing the city ought to be easy enough.

I need my rifle,he thought, resolving to stop home—or what had once been his home—one last time before leaving to get his wife.

His pace was quick, his legs used to running in the heavy, leather boots of a Blue Guard, generally burdened by the weight of the rifle normally strung over his back. He was a fit man, fitter even than many of the other Blue Guards.

As he stole down the streets leading to his home, he could not help but glance occasionally at the Architect's tower, and the five towers of the Vindicators that surrounded it. As night fell, more and more fiends climbed up the tower, never able to enter due to the firelight from the Architect's cauldron and the candles that rested on every windowsill, protected from the breeze by tightly-closed windows. In one of those towers was Harriet, perhaps imprisoned, perhaps being tortured, perhaps—heaven knew—being cared for as she deserved. But either way, she was not safe until he had her in his arms once more.

A young LampLighter ignited one of the lamps up ahead, completing the path to the city centre, allowing him through to his street. He dashed to his house, passing houses where families sat for the evening meal, or where couples dined, whispering every day statements as though they were secrets over a table lit with candlelight, or where babies were being put to sleep, every one of them ignorant to the man's plight as he ran down the street, almost maddened by the pain of loss.

He paused as his home came into view, resisting the need to scream, to swear, to punch at the nearest wall.

His front door had been knocked down during the Vindicator attack, the candle over the lintel now lay smashed on the road. No one had lit the candle in the window, either—as it was considered bad luck—which appeared to have been smashed in as well, the cobbles covered in shards of glass and the dark blood of what must surely have been a night fiend.

Rrain fell on him like darts of ice against his hot face, as Faulkner fought his sadness. He and his wife had worked hard for that home, for what they had been given, and now all had been destroyed, ruined by the Architect he had once served unwaveringly. It did not make sense, even though the truth and the proof sat before him, as clear and definite as his hand before his face or the cuts that covered his body. He grabbed his stomach as the pain in his gash peaked, the painkillers surely beginning to wear.

“Why us?” he whispered to himself in astonished horror. He took his first few terrified and hesitant steps towards his home, picking up the candle from amongst the shards of broken glass. He cut his hand in the process, but he felt nothing. He was numb.

He found the box of water proof matches in his pocket, lighting the candle, its soft, tear-drop-shaped flame flickering as his hand shook.

He stepped over the door, wooden floorboards creaking beneath his feet and held the light up to the dining room.

The table had been snapped in two, the glass from the window glittering on top, shimmering beneath candlelight. The fiend must have lunged through the window and landed on the table with the full force of its weight. The question remained, though: was it still hiding in his house.

“I have the candlelight,” he thought aloud, assuring himself. “I'm safe.”

His hand continued to shake, though Faulkner was not sure if it was from fear or pain. Perhaps it was both.

He made his way up the stairwell, taking each step slowly. He tried the light switch at the top of the stairs, but it did not work, looters already having gone through and taken every light bulb from within. He would not be surprised if he found all their valuables from their room missing.

Sure enough, he opened the door, the candlelight spilling onto the floor, and he found the room in a mess. The bedside table had been flipped over, and the mirror from their washbasin smashed. Faulkner approached the washbasin slowly, and looked down into the water. Staring back at him were a hundred faces of a man, troubled and tired, looking up through the water.

“What am I doing,” Faulkner and his hundred reflections said at once. There was no reply.

A quick inspection of his and Harriet's room revealed that the looters had found Harriet's jewellery box and Faulkner's tin of small change. They had not, thankfully, seen the rifle hiding in the cupboard or the safe beneath the floorboards, in which lay some money, a handful of photos and a number of other personal items.

Faulkner lifted up the floorboards, reaching inside to open the safe. He took the money from it, pocketing it—perhaps it would buy him a room at an inn—and drew out the photographs. There were three.

One had been taken on his and Harriet's wedding day, the pair standing side-by-side before the camera man, their carefree smiles a very wrong foretelling of what their life together would be like.

The second photo had been one of Faulkner's own parents. They had died some time ago, but he kept their memory close. Harriet had photographs of her own parents, both dead as well, but she kept her photos elsewhere.

The last one was Faulkner's service photograph for the Blue Guard. In it, he wore his uniform proudly, his rifle shined and the bayonet at its end sharp, tip glinting from the photographer’s flash. His expression was stoic, his face rather youthful and untroubled—almost a perfect juxtaposition of how he felt now. He glanced to the photo of he and his wife and kissed it, fighting tears. “I love you,” he whispered, hoping that she could hear him.

He took the candle that he had sat on his bedside table and used it to light the candle on the window, noticing his ragged reflection once more. The candlelight swept long shadows across his face, beneath his heavy eyes, against the wall behind him—the figure of a broken man.

I've slept for nearly a day and I still look like I have not rested in years.

The trouble Harriet was in continued to harry him as he took the photographs, stowing them away in a pack, into which he also placed bullets for his rifle, now slung over his shoulder, more matches, the money he had kept hidden. He found another jacket in his cupboard,untouched by the looters, and threw it over his shoulders as the biting cold infiltrated the walls, down to his heart.

He stepped away from the cupboard, sitting on the bed, the mattress bouncing beneath him. In the candlelight, he could imagine Harriet walking in. He could almost hear her steps now, soft and steady, like a heartbeat. She would stand in the doorway, dressed in her nightie, slippers flicked off with a kick of her feet. There would be the smell of perfume, fragrant and delicious, probably floral, as he sat there, more than likely still in his uniform. She would say something quietly, stepping across the space between the door and the bed, as he would begin to remove his coat. He would say something nice in reply, probably about her perfume or her hair or her eyes. That nearly always got a giggle. She would sit herself across his lap, wrap her arms around him, and sometimes lift his own arms about her. There would be warmth and peace and nothing to worry about. No Vindicators bashing down the door, no Architect threatening the death of their child. It would just be them, alone. He would kiss her first, breathing in her scent, the taste of her lips. He could almost feel it as he ran his hand over where she would lay down. “I love you,” he would say, and there would be a reply, but in the excitement he would not hear her. What would she have said? He wanted to know.

He emerged from the vision, its clarity frightening. It was like she was dead already, unreachable no matter how he struggled. He wiped away tears and rose from the bed.

He look one last look at the room, leaving the candle lit on the windowsill, a small piece of golden hope that they would return to this place, together. With the second candle in his hand, and left his old life behind.

*

Nataniel had his first night of untroubled sleep in what seemed like forever, when in truth it had really been only a night. Perhaps it felt longer due to the unwavering fever, his deliriousness stretching out the pain and sickness. It was really quite astonishing to discover how real some dreams could seem, and how greatly they could affect the real world.

Because of these fever nightmares, he had not seen Elenor in a while, and it was beginning to worry him. What was she doing? Where was she? Was she all right? Did she not want to see him? Had he done something wrong?...

Any number of these thoughts rushed through his mind, though he prayed tonight might be the exception to the last set of dreams he had had. He wanted to see her again—no—needed to see her.

Do I even have a chance with her? he thought. She exists only in my dreams, and yet can touch me so deeply. Surely she must exist...somewhere.

What was he thinking? He shook himself from his feverish stupidity. He was coming close to fourteen and already thinking of marriage and everything that followed. I'm still a child, he assured himself. I have plenty of time to think of this. For now, I should be asleep.

It was true; he did need to rest, rather desperately too. He was exhausted.
Finally gaining some semblance of consciousness, of the pain he felt and the sickness that caused him so much fatigue. He rolled over and nodded off to sleep.

Before him was Castoro's tower, peaked by a cauldron of illuminating fire. It was night, and so hundreds of fiends had climbed up its walls, scaling with claws or paws or talons. Once again, Nataniel was in the rain, the water freezing against his skin, the wind billowing against him, blustering against his pyjamas.

He shot through the air, as if propelled by an invisible catapult, and found himself staring through one of the top windows of the tower, to a room. At the window was a candle, its soft light shining against the frosted glass. There were shapes moving behind, but he could not see for the frosting. It seemed to clear as Nataniel desired to see what lay inside.

Inside was a woman, youngish—probably in her late twenties—her face red and streaked with tears, her eyes red with sadness too painful for words. She held her hand over her belly, where a lump lay, hinting at the existence of a baby beneath there. As she wiped away a tear, she rose from the bed and came to the window, touching the glass, looking right into Nataniel's eyes as though she could see him.

She couldn't, of course. He could tell that by the way her gaze seemed to shoot right through him.

What's wrong? Nataniel thought, reaching out for the woman. But he could not touch her. The glass was like an impenetrable barrier. He watched her, as through her sobs, she mouthed a name. A single, painful, but loving name.

“Faulkner.”