To Fly the Soaring Tides

“Heal! Greater Heal! Sacred Heal!” Cira pummeled the old timer with healing spell after healing spell. If she ever had to kill a man, this was not how she wanted it to go. “Extra heal! Oh, great one beyond the sky, heal this man!”

Many people in the back had not noticed any of this and were fighting their way to the front for a blessing. The fervent strobing of holy light, they took to be her throwing out blessings like hot wormcakes. Nanri was panicking, holding her hands out to signify she had no idea what to do.

Suddenly, a beautiful and bodacious young woman with dark hair emerged from the crowd, “Wha-what did you do to him?! Uncle, no!”

Luckily for Cira, the old man had stopped convulsing and now just lay on the ground, the red in his face slowly dissipating. She used a spell to confirm with certainty that his heart was indeed beating, “I-it wasn’t on purpose. I healed him!” She desperately waved her arms in innocence.

The old man’s eyes shot open, “Delilah… Is that you?”

“It’s me! I’m here, Uncle!” She grabbed his hand and glared at Cira.

“Please… Take these witches away from me. Quick—” He coughed, and his voice was weak, “The… Take them to the plague ward…”

The old man looked at Cira for a brief moment then yelped before passing out.

“Uncle!” She turned back to the dubious witches, “What have you done?!”

“I just wanted directions…”

Nanri’s explanation was able to calm the woman down, who explained that her uncle had a bad heart, and was always getting himself worked up. “It could have happened to anyone,” the woman said in the end.

Cira spouted off a few more spells on the old man and his niece, Delilah, convinced some folk from the crowd to carry him home. They all knew each other here and where they lived. It was one of those places.

Cira had to shill out a couple blessings for the ones who carried him, but it came down to asking the mysterious creature beyond the sky to grant them wealth and women respectively. Whether or not it granted such ambiguous requests, was outside of Cira’s power.

Soon the crowd had cleared up after they finished gawking, most were disappointed they missed out on a blessing. Unlike Nymphus below or Uren above, these streets were carved into the salt. The buildings were still made of steel or something similar, but they seemed to keep up on maintenance. Not a lot of rust showing. For a giant salt cave with only a single river running through the middle, Cira was surprised that the air wasn’t too dry.

Finally, the two witches were back in the air with a new guide. A striking beauty with absolutely zero resemblance to her decrepit uncle. Cira sighed and shook her head, “I can’t believe that guy… He’s worse than Pappy.”

“Oh, you know my dad?”

“Huh?!” Cira was shocked, “Not even your grandfather…? Your dad?!”

“I’ve got tons of siblings across the rock. That’s just how old men are, isn’t it? I think he’s on his fourteenth wife now.” She chuckled.

“…” Cira fell deep into thought.

“Dad, why do so many women recognize you? I thought we were exploring new lands.” He was drinking wine from an expensive goblet, I recall. Both were a gift.

“The sky is vast, Cira. Any great sorcerer knows a great many women across the—wait, no they don’t. Forget everything I just said and go to bed.”

Cira’s eyes refocused on the city, “Huh…”

Nanri nudged her, “What is it?”

“Oh, nothing. So which way to the plague ward?” They’d already filled Delilah in on their mission for the day as well.

“We’ll have to enter from above unless you can do something about that,” Delilah gestured at the cloud following them. “And I’d rather stay behind if that’s okay.”

“That’s probably for the best, but are you sure you don’t want us to drop you off down below?”

She refused with a smile, “No, that’s alright, I’ve got business up the way. I appreciate the lift.”

The entrance was far above in the outer ring that circled the city. Almost opposite from where they entered before. The little skiff tugged along and soon they had landed at the mouth of yet another cave. Cira thanked the girl for her time, and she gingerly stepped out of the boat.

“It was nice meeting you witches! And if you’re ever back in town come find me, Cira. I can show you around!” She offered a warm smile before turning her back to leave.

The sorcerer returned the smile and waved, “Well she was nice. Nothing like her father.”

Another twenty minutes of starlit tunnels later, they emerged over a slightly smaller cave of similar shape to Uru. That aside, it was completely different. Water still flowed from the ceiling and across the floor through a few main channels. Every structure was raised on platforms like the surface but every building looked temporary. Only a few artifacts scattered across the boardwalks provided light for everyone.

Contrary to the infirmary above, this place was incredibly humid. Cira brought the boat down towards the closest platform where they seemed to have some sort of station set up guarding the entrance. Cira saw men with guns drawn as they descended.

“Stop! This area is off limits!” This man had a much nicer gun than the scrap some of Pappy’s men carried.

“Just us witches!” Nanri cheered.

The guards looked at each other confused before one official looking man got up from his desk, “Witches? Nanri, who is this woman?”

This guy must be Earth Vein. Is this their attempt to keep a lid on it all? Keeping people out with force?

Before Cira could come up with a reasonable line to fool him, the real witch stepped in. She put her fists on her hips and puffed her chest out, her voice doing a haughty impression, “If you know not her identity nor purpose, perhaps that is for good reason!”

Cira watched with a smile on her face until she realized the baffled man had turned to her, at which point her countenance turned serious and she gave him a nod.

“That’s just for your own safety. I’ll tell you why I’m here though…” Cira said softly and winked, “But only because it’s you asking.”

“Er- okay then…” He shuffled awkwardly.

“I have come to grant relief to the plague victims while I search for the cure.” His eyes grew wide, but she saw him glance nervously at Nanri, “Is something wrong?”

He fidgeted for a minute and then approached Cira, whispering to her, “I was told, uh, specifically not to let Nanri enter…”

“Nonsense. You don’t have to worry about that anymore,” Cira declared, “I’m here now.”

He put a hand on his chest and looked thoroughly relieved, “Oh thank the clouds… Please, come on in then.” The guards all lowered their weapons and shrugged, going back to their seats.

“What was that about?” Nanri asked.

She didn’t want to lie, but she didn’t want to be blunt either, “I… believe your mother was trying to protect you from surface fever.”

Nanri was sharper than you’d think, and it put a damper on her mood. She remembered when she tried to get admitted to the academy back home. After getting rejected she was accepted to the one in Port Gandeux, where her mother convinced her to apply, then proceeded to pass the practical exam. A year into her studies she found out she hadn’t even been accepted there—the Silver Witch paid them off. It was the first academy back home that she was really accepted into.

She was upset but after her mother—her master explained the mix up and how she did everything she could to fix it once she found out, Nanri let it go.

They left the boat out front, and Cira threw a few more stars up as they walked through the plague ward, lighting up the whole cave with a pleasant, dim glow. The buildings were all on their own platform, and some were no more than stakes and tarps tied to the railing. Each one was stuffed with patients in various stages of the plague. She noticed most of them looked free of desiccation, likely owing to the wet surroundings.

There were a surprisingly large number of people wearing mining masks and Earth Vein symbols treating the patients. Giving them water or dressing wounds. With them and the kind man she just fooled, her anger towards Earth Vein was quelled to degrees she never thought possible. That said, the outcome for the patients didn’t look any more promising than up top.

She cast her one-two punch of, “Area Heal! Area Cure!” to each platform they passed. Almost as if she were necromancing the dead, sickly men and women would slowly sit up, snapping out of a daze and looking over at her with unfocused eyes after every healing repetition.

Each platform was just about the perfect size for this method, and Cira breezed through the first fifty some-odd platforms by more-or-less walking by. The plague ward was bright, and she could hear chatter in her wake of patients returning from the brink of death or their half-vegetative states.

That’s how she knew what to expect at the end. The last ten platforms had another guard stationed in front, but before Cira could say anything she heard a commotion from the front. “Do you hear yelling?” She asked Nanri.

“Hmm…” She squinted, “It looks like the guards are moving. This could be trouble.”

Cira gasped and broke into a run, the witch hot on her tail. They ran through a frail parade of gratitude calling out to them from little shacks as they finally made it back to see that Earth Vein guy arguing with a short man drenched in sweat. The guards surrounded him with guns drawn.

“I work for the goddamn overseer!” He paused to catch his breath. “Now, I know she’s here. I see the friggin’ cloud!”

The two ran out into the open, Cira waving her arms around, “Everybody calm down! What the hell are you doing?” She asked the official.

He looked thoroughly confused “We were told the overseer would never send his men here and that anyone claiming to work for him would definitely be a spy.”

Now she looked over at the spy. It was a thoroughly ragged man, red in the face and wobbling like a leaf trying to catch his breath. Sweat pooled at his feet and he looked like he had just ran all the way here from Nymphus. He was Lomp, of course.

“You!” He pointed at the sorcerer, “What is wrong with you?!”

“Looking at you now, Lomp, I’m not so upset about yesterday. Why didn’t you just wait? Should have taken the day off.”

He looked at her like she was causing his brain to deteriorate, “And how many more old men would you kill while I’m gone? How many more would be blessed by the heavens?” He was right behind them since they left the balcony—as much as someone on foot could be. If he had the foresight to take the elevators a lot of his stress could have been avoided, but he thought the risk of them getting sidetracked was not to be discounted.

The runaway witches looked at each other and their hearts dropped, “He… He died?!” They both turned to Lomp for answers with shocked expressions.

“Well, uh, no… he’s fine. Said his knee hasn’t felt better in decades… But that’s not the point!” he shouted, “You can’t just run off!”

“Some servant.” Nanri offhandedly said. “That’s what you get for hurting a lady’s feelings.”

“Wha—” He was dumbstruck.

Cira was flustered, “He—he did not!”

But Nanri wasn’t done being cheeky, “Don’t worry Cira, I’ve got your back—”

“Enough. Oh, great one beyond the sky! Grant this fool protections quite similar to my own! Let us be off.” She slapped Lomp with a spell and turned her back on the cackling witch, returning to the plague ward. They headed all the way down the boardwalk again past everybody she healed, Cira in front not saying much, “Did you really run all the way here?”

“No… If I didn’t take a break in Uru I’d be dead. And I took the time to ask around about the plague ward, not that you seem to appreciate my help all too much.”

The group was approaching the last ten platforms again. Where all the most critical patients would be. Some of them, she knew, she would be incapable of bringing back from the brink of death. Cira saw a few passageways lining the wall behind, but there were no further platforms. This was the end of the line.

“And what did you find out?” She asked, disregarding his snark.

“Since the plague hit, they’ve taken to calling it Uru of the endless night. It’s where most people below the spring go to draw their last breath now.”

“Okay… where are you going with this?”

“You see… We thought the salt nymphs, floods, and famine were cause for a spike in missing persons over the last few years. Hmm… You know why bright lights aren’t allowed in Uru anymore?”

Nanri was thinking about it, but Cira just shrugged, “I didn’t know it was new. What’s that have to do with anything?”

Lomp had caught his breath by now and taken on a sullen tone, “It’s respect for the dead and dying. The plague can’t be cured so when they make it here, they know there’s no hope. They’re sent here to await the end in peace. When the time comes, they’re given a sky burial so the night can bring them rest at the end. A glorious dawn awaits them once they reach the final sky, as it goes.”

“A sky burial?”

“That’s right, I guess the church has a presence in Uru. We’re not far from the edge of the island here… A few minutes through those doors,” He pointed to the back wall, “That’s why this place was designated for the plague ward.”

“So, the missing persons…” She trailed off.

Lomp nodded gravely, “Yeah. Our number of dead from the plague is... at the very least double what we thought. Tossed to the cloudy abyss below and forgotten.”