Elephantom
Chicken Broth Paragon
A Prelude To Events
I
I
Piracus strode down to the outer atrium of his father's manor, a day after arriving in Calun. He regretted spending last night downing shots of brandy, the alcohol's after-effects raging within his head. Tired from the journey, and weary from the liquor, he had skipped formalities and went to bed straightaway. The place had reeked of age and negligence, and still did, what with the coat of dust and detritus covering everything, but he was too disoriented to care. Now, not so much.
He looked at the building now, noticing the callous shots of vine which had proliferated on the marble floor and the garden fences, emerging from cracks in the wall and the tiles, circulating around yellowing columns. The ivory of dust was present everywhere. Piracus frowned. “Well, it's my fault. I shouldn't have trusted the neighbours to keep this place,” he mumbled to himself, mouth dry. He sounded weak, his voice shaking. He had a weak stomach and a weaker head, he admitted, and there was no use going around that.
Egarus of House Targa, otherwise known as the eldest son of Galius and father of Piracus, had ordered the house's construction when Piracus was only a fledgling student of the Scholarium back in the capital of Tharin. The old man wanted to celebrate his recent success in the elections of the Labour Party, his party, and bought a good share of the valley lands as an investment to splurge his money on— yet, even in his recklessness, his instinct had proved correct. The city of Calun had risen amongst the other conquered cities, by the hands of controversial governor Arraye and the funding of Egarus.
Piracus peeked outside the window beside him. The sun arching from the horizon illuminated the city in a sierra shade, setting the flying birds and the sparse clouds above with shadowy contours. A bitter grin split his lips, the least he could muster his with the soreness of his head. A beautiful sight, if one could ignore the maze of flesh scuttling beneath, committing whatever hideous crimes they can do. It did little to lift his darkening mood.
Piracus exhaled, his smile fading, and inched closer to the window. Sequestered below the New City, the hills containing most of the upper estates and noble demesne, was a level of flat buildings which made up the lower district of Calun. The occasional peak of a belfry or a sloped roof broke the monotony, along with the hills of Shrinemont and the sloped roads of Gem Ave. The domes of the city's guardhouses, shrouded in familiar black, were interspersed between them, holding points of interests and serving only to catch stray eyes. The criminals owned the Old City, that much everybody knew, and most of the guards were under their payroll.
The streets were hidden by the multi-tiered apartments, revealing the thin cracks of alleyways and the main roads, chaotic shadows casted by a parade of clotheslines, long stretches of wire and hemp joined from building to building. The better part of the Old City, on the north-most sides and excepting the flourishing economy of the riverside merchant areas, was a dark squalid place hidden from the sun and the law, chock full of crime and poverty. Its counterpart— built upon the valley hills of Calun, overshadowing its port brethren, and bridged by the forested hills of Shrinemont— prided itself for being a paragon opposite of the Old City. However, the contrast was superficial, not beyond the skinny crust level. As it was, crime existed in both sectors, one done with knives, the other done with pens.
Calun's other points of interest, aside from the Targasi Hills, included the Trade Wharves beside the Kalt river, where merchants docked to resupply and occasionally sell or buy, and the valley mines and acreage beyond the city's walls which bore a yearly harvest from tenant farmers— the grains were sold to the merchants, and a fraction of the money received given to the landowners.
“A fool I am, to let my thoughts wander,” he said to himself. “I should relax.” His lips twisted with a downward tilt, his eyes following afterwards as he turned to examine the mess of the manor again.
At the entrance to the gardens— and, in extension, the outer atrium— two dry lamps, its contents black with age and its wick withered beyond use, hung from either sides of the hallway. The corridor led to an adjacent courtyard, six pillars of marble and mosaic tiles scattering into a delta from the hallway's linearity into the expanse of the yard, where, snuggled in a corner near the opening chambers and the corridor, was the alcove leading to his father's garden.
Piracus' shoes strewed dust as he walked to the feet of the enclosure. The bushel of leaves, with undesired fungi sprouting from the soil and cracks in the wall, were cultivated by his father out of some petty spite towards an agrarian law was ratified by the Empress a few years ago, just as Piracus graduated from the Egean Scholarium; the greenery had nothing of exceptional beauty to it, bearing only nostalgia and fading sentiments.
Piracus paused for a while. He backed away and strolled along the hallway, his steps creating a steady rhythm on the ground. Clip, clop. The sound was deafening in the quiet. He climbed the short stairs to the waiting room and the exit of the building. The solitude of his manor, which was situated on the rightmost end of Egarii's Cross, kept it isolated from the rows of apartments which made the bulk of the buildings on the Targasi Flats, situated in the New City.
Piracus shook his head and descended down the porch. He really needed to stop thinking too much.
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A statue of General Marsius, famed for heading the then-popular 1st during the Kalt campaign, stood at the centre of the Cross, flanked on all sides by a canopy of stores coloured with bright awnings and inviting light. The avenue broke into four lanes each going outwards, in individual directions, giving the location its name— those paths were crowded with pedestrians, some haggling with the peddlers, a few pausing to view the goods but making scarce an advance to buy, while others were idly going their own way. The smell of incense, from a nearby hawker showing samples of his wares, and sweat from the people created a heady, nauseous stench.
Hidden away from the main street in an alleyway, Piracus fumbled for the letter pocketed away inside his waistcoat, which he had found stashed inside his estate's mailbox. The letter was innocuous in appearance, painted lavender and smelling like that too, containing no return address nor any names of sort— to inattentive eyes, it may as well have been a lover's dispatch. Piracus knew otherwise, and scowling, he cursed his lack of ignorance. He glanced at his surroundings, beheld the envelope with a stare, and then opened the lid.
He glossed his eyes over the message, which read:
Piracus
Lykos's shop, row of penance, urgent
Lykos's shop, row of penance, urgent
He groaned, contemplated his predicament, and went back to the pedestrian path, intermingling with the moving crowd.
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