Ashtium: City of Sun

GRETA

I can feel the animal’s heart against my legs. My fingers curl into its hair as it races in a beeline toward a destination unknown. I doubt it knows where it’s going. We’re not going anywhere I know, that is for certain.

The dark sand below looks the same as it did miles ago from where we abandoned my cave. This weapon is heavy to carry and there is nowhere for me to store it while on the creature.

We’ve been traveling for over an hour. I crane my neck up seeing the clouds have yet to move.

The beast slows down in its rampage. It walks for some time as I squint against the sand blowing around and against us. Then I press my face back into the animal’s neck again when the wind gets stronger.

I don’t know how much time has passed, but the animal comes to a stop.

When I look up, I see a large mass standing in front of us. It is solid black, telling me it is not alive. Two silver shapes, humans, walk out in front of me pointing the same type of weapon in my hand at the creature and I. One of them uses the sharp edge of the weapon to cut into my arm.

I cry out in pain watching as my newly claimed weapon clatters to the floor of the desert by the feet of the beast.

One of the humans holds their torch up to my face while I clutch my newly wounded arm. My collarbone still aches too. The other human tears me off the back of the creature and throws me onto the ground violently. The creature makes a loud noise as the other human holding the torch takes hold of the rope and pulls it away from me.

One of the men kneels down beside me. “Who are you? State your purpose for trespassing on the empirical lands of the Ashtium empire.”

The tip of his sharp weapon rests against my chin and for the first time in years I speak.

“Greta,” I bite back and take hold of his sharp weapon.

It cuts into my hand and I kick at his torch. It lands on the ground and I remove my hand from the hilt of his weapon feeling blood spill from my palm. I am safe now in the darkness. The two men make angry noises and pull a lever behind them while barking out orders as more guards spill out into the desert.

“A spy! May even be a Krexbin!”

“Did you see her teeth?”

“No! Too dark out!”

“Where is she?”

My eyes bulge seeing the lively place behind them. Giant fancy caves made of sculpted stone make a mockery of my small, unruly cave home. There are so many people! There must be hundreds maybe even thousands of them. Smells wash over me, ones I’m unable to identify as flying silver creatures with wings flutter by the guards pouring out of the gate.

Could this be...

It’s only natural they are disgusted by me and wish to keep me out, but I can’t fight off the feeling this is the home of the god of the sun. There’s so much life inside. Life I’ve never seen before and so much of it all in one place too.

I still can’t see in color though. It’s a disappointment, but I think this may be the place my parents sought to find. I just have to be sure. I use the dark to my advantage and sneak around the guards into the big enclosed space behind them.

When I look up though, fear consumes me. The sky is blocked out by a similar dark grey stone that composes the walls I stepped through to enter the large building. I’ve never seen so much grey though, there must be light in here, but unlike outside, it is not coming from the moon.

How can there be so much light? I do not see the sun. Yet, things are so much less dim in here than out in the desert.

A man pulling a cart nearby me crashes into a building and a bunch of angry people storm out of it yelling. People point at me and I bite my lip, covering my ears to block out their overwhelming voices.

I run off to a more secluded place with strange tall things growing by the base of a very large fancy stone cave like the ones I just saw when I entered this place. I don’t think they are caves anymore though. They look way more stronger and stable than anything I’ve ever seen.

I don’t see any sand anywhere. The ground is much flatter and cool to the touch.

It’s quieter back here, but there’s a bunch of people working. They kind of look like they are dressed in clothes similar to mine and rag-like. I quietly walk over to them wondering what they are doing. Some of them are hunched over hitting the stone ground. Others are using strange tools and hitting them against rocks taller than me.

“Excuse me? Where am I?” I ask the closest person.

Their head turns toward me in slow motion as if the movement is painful. “Get back to work dear, ’fore ya get caught,” their voice croaks out.

I think it’s an older woman and she hands me a heavy metallic tool from a pile of identical ones behind her. I take it from her carefully, unsure of what to do. I already drew enough attention earlier. It’s calmer back here. These people don’t seem afraid of me like the others.

I have to really focus on the giant rock in front of her to make out its shape against the endless other dark grey objects around us. It’s still overwhelming to see so many things all in one place. The desert was fairly empty, but here it is so crowded.

I copy her movements and hit the large rock with her. Eventually, our movements fall into sync with the others taking on the same strange activity. I’m not sure why we are hitting these stones, but maybe we are making more pretty caves like the giant one sitting on top of the leveled structure high up above us.

This isn’t so bad. There’s no sand blowing around or sand beneath my feet. I haven’t seen any bugs though, but I’m sure I’ll find some.

My arms are getting a little sore especially with the new laceration in my right arm, but other than that I feel pretty content. Maybe I could leave here and explore some more. There’s so much more to look at. This has to be the city of the sun, but I have yet to see the praised light source making things so much less dim in here.

If I stay here long enough, I wonder if I might run into the sun god and have my vision restored. This is such a huge place though, I need to keep looking.

Abruptly, the elderly woman elbows me and grips my left wrist. “Ya gonna get in troubles out of yer chain, here dear. Ya tell me how ya got out later, keep quiet ‘bout it now. They watchin’.”

Before I can object, she clasps a strange cold clamp around my wrist. A chain attaches a similar one to her wrist connecting our arms together. When I look down the long row, I see everyone is linked together too. I don’t mind it. I’ll just ask her to take it off later if it gets too uncomfortable.

The same old lady next to me points down at the device around my wrist she put on me. She gestures to her own wrist and squeezes it. I think she’s trying to tell me to tighten it, but when I try to do it on my own, I accidentally squeeze too hard and it snaps off completely falling to the smooth cool ground.

I do quite enjoy the feeling of the cold rock against my feet. Its heavenly compared to the sand of the desert I treaded over for years. Ignoring the broken wrist clasp, I step closer to the rock.

“Oh, have mercy...” her voice trembles as she looks skyward.

She goes back to work and so do I, but I don’t know why she sounds so scared. All of the sudden, everyone starts hammering away much harder at the rocks. I pick up my own pace and copy their jerkier movements trying to keep in sync with them.

Out of the corner of my eye, I see someone walking down the line all the way at the other end. I get back to work thinking their wrist clasp probably broke like mine. It’s much easier to hit the rock without the dumb wrist links though.

Are we supposed to go somewhere to fix it? I don’t know why anyone would want to. I’m certain they make this work harder. This place is so big though, maybe the wrist clamps help them from getting separated or lost.

I know I would.

The next time I look up, I see a very tall human move behind the old lady beside me. Her body stills and her head is downcast as if peering at my freed wrists. Then I hear the person behind her step behind me. She starts shaking my left wrist frantically again and I bend down still confused as I pick up the broken clasp in my hands not knowing what to do. Sensing her fear, I hurry to put on the clasp unsure of why she’s acting so alarmed.

I tense up as rough hands press the pieces I thought were broken together until they form a circle with a click around my left wrist.

Then the person behind me lets go of my wrist and continues walking down the line of other people next to us. I can feel the woman’s stare on me, but I just shrug my shoulders and continue hitting the rock with her.

“Are ya blind?”

I don’t know how to answer her, but I know her vision is better than mine by the way her head moves around. She has much more quicker head movements than me. She can see more than me because she can see in color. It takes longer for me to decipher what things are when all I have to go off of are shades of silver, grey and black.

“No,” I reply simply and she screams pointing at me like the people I previously just ran from.

What is so terrible about me that makes them so afraid? I hoped a place like this would be safer, but clearly, I’m an outsider despite being human.

Giving up on blending in with the workers, I try to take off my dumb wrist clasp. It won’t budge, so I bend down resting my clasped wrist against the floor of the ground. Then I hammer against the clasp like I was doing to the big rock in front of us. It comes off, but something in my hand sears with pain as the wrist links clatter onto the ground again.

“Ya nuts! You done broke your wrist!” the old woman screeches. “Wait! Come back for me,” she yells again, but I don’t want to draw any more attention.

I pump my arms, running as fast as I can up the annoying long slabs of flat stone. I keep going until I reach the top where a row of over twenty columns stands holding up a humongous slate of rock the same rock we were hitting below. Small figurines are carved into the top of it with intricate symbols I can’t make out. I hear yelling down below the way I came. My wrist pulses in pain and I clutch it while dashing under the big fancy structure thinking I may be in trouble.

Someone grabs my shoulder. “You!” a familiar voice yells behind me.

I look over my shoulder hearing the man that cornered me in my home out in the desert. The other men had called him Enoch I think.