2.3 - The Miscreant
A wooden tower stood between the coast and the city known as Obelis. The tower had no defining marks, or characteristics. No flags swearing allegiance to any king or queen. No cottage home next to it. All it had was a reputation. The resting place for a devil named Impel. A creature made of blue crystal, that knew nothing but mischief and deceit. It was not feared, so much as it was shamed. Children would throw rocks at the tower in the hopes that it would emerge and shout at them, in its half comprehensible language. A jumble of words that, in certain circumstances, lined up beautifully. More often than not, however, it shouted with no real force behind its words, and no sensible course for them to follow. There were rumors of its unholy birth, stories of the demon’s womb it came from. Pieces of its crystal hide were sold to princes for more than the worth of all of Obelis. Chunks were gathered by chipping a piece off of its body as it slept. Crystal farming started as a drunken wager one unseasonably warm night but had become a city pastime of layabouts and reprobates. Only once had it backfired. A man whose blood had turned cold from the volume of ale he had drained, crawled through the tower window and stumbled forward with broken breaths and a handaxe strapped to his belt. The creature tried to disarm him as the handaxe swung wildly at its neck, but there was no strength being held back. Everything the drunkard had, he committed. The creature had no choice. It shouted one word and the man’s ribs cracked as he was pulled back through the window, plummeting to his death. Impel mustered what bravery it had and carried the man’s broken body back to Obelis, prepared to lose its life in exchange. Many called for it, and not for the first time. Only two stood between Impel and the masses. They were the city’s best woodworkers and the builders of Impel’s tower. When it had first arrived outside the gates of Obelis the city called for its execution, proclaiming it an affront to the gods. But back then, Chima and Tamrat stood with it. They convinced the city to allow a tower to be built, outside of town for the creature to reside in. Once again, as it held the crushed body of the drunkard, they begged for forgiveness on its behalf. The rabble wasn’t easily dissuaded this time, and a pyre was being prepared in the city square. Only when the widow of the drunkard came forward and explained the man’s plight was the city’s bloodlust pacified. He was in deep with a foul gambler from the south, and even a king’s ransom wouldn’t relieve his debts. In a foolish, hopeless act, the man promised the head of a devil to a back alley alchemist, who could in turn, sell it for the gold needed.
“Let us not take more lives for this debt. Let me bury my husband with the quiet of the morning, and not to the sounds of oil burning and wrath and whatever sound the poor beast would make in the face of its demise.”
After that, the harassment and abuse of Impel lessened for a time, before gradually becoming worse than before. Pieces of its tower were torn away, and wild animals were let loose through its windows. Rattling chains were hung from the railings and pots and pans were latched to them, making a horrid clanging in the night. Every night, Impel would detach the chains, and yet the following evening, they would be reattached by oafish city dwellers with no aspirations beyond the inane torment of a creature who wanted nothing more than to be left alone. Chima and Tamrat visited Impel one morning, for fear of the worst after a particularly rambunctious night from the ruffians. It was alive, and sitting with its legs dangling off the tower’s edge, watching the waves splash against the coast in the distance.
“Why do you stay?” they asked it. “Why do you suffer so for such a meager existence? Could you not find more where you are from?”
It stumbled on its words for a moment before composing itself.
“I cannot return to where I am from. Not yet. I hope to one day, but to remember the path, I must have something worthwhile to offer.”
“Where is your home? Why can you not remember the way?”
Impel pointed towards the sea.
“It is out there, but it has been so long that the beauty of the waves has washed away my footprints. I no longer see the channels through which I was guided by my mother. Instead, I only see an endless blue colossus that carries life and death with it like the sky carries night and day. Obelis is having a strange effect on me. Being subject to such reckless hate has birthed in me a determination that used to be nothing more than a resting fog atop a riverbed, patiently waiting for time to pass. I am struck with something. A blueprint for a gift that I could never hope to precisely complete, but one that even in an imperfect state, may be enough to earn me a place with my mother once more, across the water. It will only require two ingredients, but one I do not know how to acquire and I fear it is out of my reach.”
“We will bring it to you,” Tamrat said without hesitation. “We cannot bear to watch your persecution any longer.”
“What is it that you need?” Chima asked.
“An anvil.” Impel said. “Large, and sturdy, and as old as you can find.”
As the two began to descend the tower, Tamrat turned back.
“What of the other ingredient, Impel? What is it?”
“I do not wish to frighten you.” Impel said. “All I will say is that it is a building block.”
Three months later, Tamrat and Chima returned with an anvil so weathered and ancient it could have only come from one place. Underneath Obelis was an elaborate set of waterways, built inside of the bones of what was once an underground city. At one point, long ago, Obelis and its subterranean counterpart Follis lived peacefully with one another. Disputes began to spark between the two, as they often do between civilizations separated by so little. Obelis was the younger of the two and was often subject to the whims of its elder. Follis commanded the stronger military force, but more importantly, employed a wide array of spies to infiltrate Obelis and keep each facet of the city in check. Trade shipments would mysteriously go missing, promising leaders would relinquish their authority, and the infrastructure of the city would require twice the maintenance it once did. Roads were damaged, holes were bored into chimneys, and waste receptacles were jammed. All to keep Obelis in its place as the inferior city. As for the fall of Follis, not a soul in Obelis will confess to the crime of diverting the nearby river into the tunnels. Each and every one of them will instead insist on the natural decay of the stone and an unfortunately timed rainy season. And so Follis ceased to exist, instead serving as the waterways and storage space of an entire city that turned a blind eye to its destruction. It was an example of a strange trait that Impel had studied in humans. One that was evident in their treatment of it as well. When told by a few, lies were vilified, but told by many, and they were canonized. To Impel, a lie was a lie. To the humans of Obelis, a lie could be a different way to serve their own collective needs.
“Will this do?” Chima asked. It was chipped and covered in algae, but otherwise showed very little signs of deterioration.
“Yes. It will do.”
Chima and Tamrat left the tower with the praises of Impel, and the prideful swell of an act done for nothing other than kindness. They would never see Impel again. No one in Obelis would. It cleaned the anvil and retrieved a wooden box from the corner of the tower. It had been locked away since the drunkard’s death. Before Impel carried his body back to the city, it found something. On the bloodsoaked grass at the foot of its tower, ripped from his skin like a chicken bone, was a rib from the drunkard. Impel had pulled too hard as it threw the man from the tower, and dislodged one entirely. It cleaned the bone and hid it away, then carried his body to the city. It was unsure if it would ever return, but at that moment, a relentless curiosity had sparked in it. The urge to create from what it had destroyed. To replace that which it had so greedily taken in exchange for its own pitiful life. A way to repent. A way to inspire.
The anvil rested in the center of the tower. Impel stood in front of it and felt itself rise from its body. It was still there, but it could also see something else. A lush, muddy landscape, and a form, waiting. A faint voice bubbled to the surface.
“I am waiting to welcome you home.”
The anvil hummed, quietly, patiently. Impel gently placed the drunkard’s rib in the center of it. Doubt was sinking deep into Impel like a stone sinks in the water. What could it do? With all of its erratic thoughts, its mindless behavior, its brutish hands like the broken stone of a cave wall. The rib crackled. It could hope beyond hope that something meaningful would come from all of its longings, but what was hope? Years of regret and longing had beaten such things out of it. The rib shimmered, ever so slightly. Even if its mother could bring it home, what would it find there? Would it be among its peers, and ashamed by years of idling? A fool who forgot the road home and couldn’t be bothered to work its way back until the twilight of its time. The rib split in half, and a dozen bones sprouted from the shards. Perhaps it wasn’t meant to bring an offering in the first place. Perhaps this was all an aimless endeavor, or worse yet, the birth of something that would bring hurt. An irredeemable creature that roams the land, looking for thralls to serve its twisted means. A dozen bones split and became three dozen, then four dozen. Was Impel simply mimicking its mother? A child playing at what it imagined it could be, but not what it is capable of? It would be better if the sun did not rise for a beast playing God. The bones shook violently before beginning to arrange themselves in a pattern. But Impel was not a beast. It was called that so often it had forgotten. It was more than that. The surface of the anvil cracked, and from beneath it, a thin layer of skin unrolled like parchment. Impel was the offspring of something wondrous. It was flawed, certainly, but there was a light in it. Buried deep. A gurgling noise echoed out from the core of the anvil, as blood began to trickle upward like a spring. Even in the shadow of its mother’s grandeur, Impel could bring a form to the spark of light it retained. The shred that had persisted. The lone wayward gull, fluttering without its colony. The voice of a child cried out, and a path across the ocean revealed itself. Impel could see, only for a moment, what had arisen from the anvil. They looked nothing alike, but it was beautiful in its own way; in the way a breath of wind is beautiful.