Gone
Fallen leaves, turned from pale yellow to deep gold in the bizarre evening light, collect around Berend’s feet as he crosses the wide, central thoroughfare. On either side, the buildings loom tall and shadowed, and a thin green-black sliver of the vertical forest in the south cuts a dark line through the red-tinted sky. It’s shorter than it used to be, and something flickers in and out of view at the top, jutting out at different sharp angles whenever it appears. Berend tries not to look at it. His eye still aches from the last time he tried.
It’s quiet here, and all the windows up and down the street are shuttered. So lights, not even a burning scarlet reflection, shine out from amongst the dark wood casements and between climbing vines. If any of the wealthy citizens who live in this district are at home, they’re hiding very well. Berend hopes—because he’s less inclined than usual to pray, given that the gods are either dead or about to be—that Lady Breckenridge is among them.
The strange, not-quite night turns her purple daisies dull and almost black. Berend tries the wrought-iron gate set into the low garden wall. It swings open with a creak and only the barest resistance. The latch is broken.
He passes through slowly, looking for more signs of violence. The daisies droop like they haven’t been watered enough, but they’re still standing, and even the little patch of lawn between the path and the huge ceramic pots has been protected from trampling. There must have been guards here, at least for a while.
The front door is shut. He knocks three times, each impossibly loud in the oppressive stillness of the empty street, and waits. It isn’t until his chest begins to hurt that he realizes he’s holding his breath. A wind picks up, stirring his tangled hair and the feather on his hat and making the dry leaves whisper softly across the pavement.
He knocks again. This time, the sound of slow footsteps coming down the stairs answers him. They stop on the other side of the door.
“Hello?” Berend says. His voice is strained and hoarse—he doesn’t want to think about what he’s breathed in recently—but it’s still much too loud. He looks over his shoulder, expecting a watchman with a rifle to emerge from the deep shadows between buildings and under garden walls, but no one comes.
The lock disengages with a heavy thump, and the door opens a crack. One dark eye, holding a pinpoint of scarlet light like a burning ember, and one apple cheek appear in the gap.
Berend knows this face. “Essie?” he says. “You’re Essie Medberg, the lady’s maid. Do you remember me?”
The eye looks down at his feet and slowly rises back to his face. He suspects it’s the hat that finally identifies him.
“Mr. Horst,” she says, barely above a whisper. “What are you doing here?”
“I’m looking for Lady Breckenridge. Is she here?”
Essie considers him, studying the disparity between his dirty clothes, dusty but serviceable boots, and fine hat, and looks over his shoulder toward the street. “No,” she says. “She left for the estate three days ago, before the dead bodies—”
She doesn’t finish the sentence, nor does she need to. Berend has all he needs to know, and all that he can know. Sophia was safe, and now she’s gone, possibly forever. He feels as though he’s swallowed a stone, and his head spins as his eye tries to focus. She was the only reason he kept coming to this city—her and Mikhail, and Berend’s impotent and ultimately futile efforts to keep his former comrade alive another year. There’s a chance she’s still alive, still in the world somehow, but any means by which he could find her are all gone, swallowed up by the thing beyond the wall.
The image of the watchman turning inside-out appears, unbidden, in his mind’s eye. Berend tries to push it aside, but that only summons the accompanying sound of wet flesh tearing and strangled, gurgling breaths.
Berend swallows down his rising nausea and takes a steadying breath. If he lives, he promises, he’ll find Lady Breckenridge. For now, he’s in a place he isn’t allowed to be, the city is being devoured by countless chittering mouths, and he has an appointment at the Temple of Isra to keep—he hopes—even though he’s lost all of Isabel’s things. “I have to go back to the Temple District,” he says. “Are you here alone?”
Essie shakes her head. “It’s just me and Caddis, the doorman. We were here when the watch closed the city center, and we didn’t have anywhere else to go.” She glances left and right again, scanning the street. “Have you heard from the other districts? I have to make sure my mother’s all right, and the little ones, but I’ve been too scared to leave.”
“I don’t know,” says Berend. The university is still more or less standing, as is the majority of the Temple District, but the chances that Essie’s family could afford a house in either of those places is slim. They’re almost certainly gone, and whether that means far away or turned into bloody red paste, he can’t say.
Before Essie can ask where he’s been and how he’s missed everything that’s been happening, and thus come to the obvious conclusion that he’s lying about not knowing, Berend says, “I have to get back to the Temple District. I can’t promise it’s safer than here, but it’s been holding so far. I can take you there, if you want.”
“I thought the Temple District was rioting,” Essie says, drawing her thick, dark brows into a doubtful frown.
“So is the city center,” Berend replies with a shrug.
Essie opens the door a little wider, mostly so she can put her hand on her hip and give Berend and his surrounding environs a better look. “Is there a fire?” she asks.
“I don’t think so.” Not yet. I’m sure we’re getting to it.
“Then why’s the sky all red?”
Berend opens his mouth, but he finds he has nothing to say. The sky is red because the world is ending, and it’s the same reason why there’s a whole swathe of forest sticking up out of the University District, and why most of the city is covered in fog, and why there’s a wall of thousands upon thousands of bones inching ever closer to the point at which the two of them currently stand.
It’s also why there are ghosts materializing out of the darkened alleyways, drifting toward the center of the street. Essie’s eyes go wide, and Berend turns around, his hand flying toward his sword.
They’re only ghosts. They’re coming from the University District, as far as he can tell, which is not a good sign of the university’s continued existence. Only two or three are young men in ill-fitting brocade waistcoats, though, as Berend has come to expect from university students. The others are townsfolk, in plain linen dresses and patched coats; a few are wearing doublets and tall boots or ladies’ walking gowns and wide hats. Ten, twenty, fifty different faces carved out of thick, white mist, and not one that Berend recognizes.
That is, until Hybrook Belisia steps out of this new, ghostly fog.
He’s alive. He doesn’t glow pale or trail streams of mist behind him as he walks, and his polished boots tap a precise rhythm on the cobblestones. He carries a pistol on one hip and a swept-hilt rapier on the other, both bright as silver and reflecting the red sky with a fiery sheen. He is perhaps the only person in what’s left of this city concerned with his own grooming, as his black hair is oiled and he’s freshly shaved. His doublet is black silk, and his shirt is a spotless white. He cuts quite the figure, and Berend is sure that it’s all deliberate and planned out for precisely this encounter. It’s ridiculous and almost flattering.
“Close the door, Essie,” Berend says. He adjusts his hat and wishes he had his good cloak. It really isn’t fair that Belisia looks better than him right now, but there’s nothing he can do about it.
The door shuts behind him. He hears the lock turn. Good.
“Evening, Horst,” Hybrook Belisia calls out. He stops in the middle of the street, surrounded by ghosts. There’s a practiced, unnatural air about him, as though he’s rehearsed this encounter a hundred times. He shifts his weight between his feet and crosses his arms over his chest, eyeing Berend from behind one shiny curl that falls over his eyes.
Berend touches the brim of his hat and does his best to stalk down the stairs with a matching debonair charm. The cuts on his chest hurt, and his legs still feel unsteady. “Evening,” he says. “I thought you and your family would have been out of the city by now.”
Hybrook shrugs. “No need. Our apartments are secure. I just noticed that ridiculous hat of yours wandering the streets and thought I’d stop by and say hello.”
The statement is so baffling that Berend almost doesn’t notice the insult to his hat. Secure? What does that even mean when the many-eyed thing has broken through the wall? One touch from one of its horrible appendages would turn the Belisias’ city apartments into masonry dust and splinters, and all of its inhabitants into—
Berend clenches his jaw. He isn’t going to think about that now. As much as he hates this smarmy prick who has never had to face a single consequence for his actions in all his twenty-something years of life, Berend can’t wish that fate on Hybrook.
“It’s not going to last, you know,” he says. He could waste his breath explaining things, but if the Belisias still believe that hired guards can protect them from the end of the world, Berend isn’t going to be the one to convince them. Mondirra’s bank, where a good portion of the Belisias’ wealth undoubtedly lies, has probably been swallowed up already. Either they’ll figure it out, or they’ll disappear like everything else.
Hybrook snorts. “Don’t worry about me. All my problems are about to be resolved.” His smile is gleaming white and reminds Berend of a wolf baring its teeth.
“I met the nice young man you hired,” Berend says. He’s stalling for time he doesn’t have, mostly because he knows his luck isn’t going to let him dodge a second pistol shot today. “A fine fellow. He’s wasted on this line of work, though. You’re going to have to do better next time.”
Hybrook’s wolfish smile only stretches wider. “You know, I was thinking the same thing.”
“So, what?” Berend asks. “You’re here to finish the job yourself? I suppose there’s a shortage of murderers for hire, these days, but don’t you have anything better to do?”
“I’m just seeing personally to my family’s future,” Hybrook says, and quick as lightning, he draws his pistol and pulls the trigger.
Berend hears the shot first. It echoes through the empty street and fills the whole district with noise. He missed, he says to himself. Maybe there’s still a god or two looking out for me.
Then he feels it. The bullet slams into his side like a hammer blow, pain shooting up his chest and down both his legs. He stumbles backward. His feet find the bottom step leading up to Lady Breckenridge’s apartment, and it’s all he can do to stay upright.
Berend presses one hand to his side. It’s wet and feverishly hot. He’s going to die here, he’s certain, but maybe he can take Hybrook Belisia with him.
He draws his saber.
So, Part Three will be the most different in the published version, but this duel will definitely take place. I hope you’re enjoying this version! Thanks for reading.
Space Whales Press 
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