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 Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:57 pm
The city stood dark before him, and Babylon clicked his tongue against his teeth as he raised his lantern. “Alright,” he said to the howling wind and the shadowed mountain. “I am going to do something about you.”
He started in Menachem’s study, which was dark and cramped without his ancestor’s presence to illuminate it. The cold and low humidity had preserved the room, like it had preserved the rest of the city, but it was all still very, very old, and with only his lantern to guide him, the shadows were long and deep. He remembered that the first time he’d been here with his ancestor, there had been candles burning and sconces on the walls, and it had been warm and brightly lit.
But it had only been the memory of light, and memories alone could not light the lamps.
Babylon set his lamp on the table in the center of the room, letting the blue light dance across the walls. Looking down, he smoothed out one of the scrolls left on the table and tried to make out what was written on it. “No luck there,” he murmured. The alphabet was familiar, but the language wasn’t, and there was no guarantee that the papers were even relevant.
Maybe if there was more light…?
After a bit of fumbling around in the half-light, he found the first wall sconce. Feeling around it, he couldn’t find any kind of switch, and it didn’t need a candle, and though his gloves he thought he felt the slightest crackle of magic, and a divot about the size of his signet ring. This gave him an idea.
Babylon pulled off his gloves and carefully matched the face of the ring to the base. The air pressure in the room changed perceptibly, as all of the sconces ignited at once, filling the room with blue light.
“Okay then,” he said, feeling accomplished. He turned, half expecting Menachem to have appeared in the meanwhile, but to no avail - his ancestor stayed vanished. At least, the knight thought, he could see now. He could only hope that Menachem had been well-organized…
...Not that that would do him any good if he couldn’t find any documents he could actually read. Babylon had come prepared today. He’d given excuses and brought supplies so that he could take a few days handling the issue, and he wasn’t about to admit defeat and head back to Earth after not twenty minutes. But after another hour spent sifting through books and scrolls filled with Menachem’s cramped scrawl, he was having different thoughts; he had no idea what he was reading, or if it was even relevant. For all he knew, it was tax records!
He took a break, had a little bit to eat, and then tried another plan of attack, searching the study itself instead of just the texts within it. If the wick wasn’t here, well… he’d deal with it then, but Babylon would really rather not have to search the entire city on foot looking for an artifact he wasn’t certain still existed.
“A hint,” he said, while carefully opening a cabinet, “Would be nice.” Before him were several faintly-glowing glass globes of blue light, like the one Virgo had shown him, along with several empty vials and what looked like a toolkit. He hummed to himself in approval. “Interesting, but not what I’m looking for.” He’d come back to these later and see if he couldn’t figure out how they worked, though. Legacy, right? Right.
It still wasn’t a hint. Babylon went back to the table where his lantern lay and ran a finger over one of its many sides thoughtfully. It had certainly been a while, but he knew the form his lantern had taken was different from the one his ancestor carried, and for the first time, that worried him. Maybe Menachem was right to call him no true knight of Babylon. Maybe his bloodline had become too diluted and maybe his lantern had evolved wrong because he was wrong. Perhaps the line had been meant to carry through one of those relatives quietly lying in a mass grave in the Polish countryside. Maybe he couldn’t complete the task because he was wrong-
And in that moment, his hand slipped through the glass of the lantern and closed around something solid.
What.
Babylon tightened his grip and pulled, and the action had the unlikely result of producing a long, metal rod from the heart of the lantern. “The wick,” he breathed, as he pulled it free. It had never been lost at all. Babylon gave his lantern a stubborn look, as he turned the wick over in his hands. It was engraved, with long, thin braids embossed all along the body, and ending in the roaring head of a wild cat. “Aren’t you a regular old Sorting Hat ripoff,” he said to the lantern.
The lantern, predictably, said nothing.
He reached down and dragged his fingers along the surface of the lantern again, testing it, but the glass had gone back to being solid. But, as he pulled his fingers away, a ball of light clung to his glove.
“Huh,” said Babylon, and, on a hunch, he touched the light to the mouth of the wick. It took. “Looks like we’re in business.”
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Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:57 pm
Babylon headed back out to the square. It was always cold in his city, but the weather had taken a definite turn for the <******** awful during his search of Menachem’s study. He could see a storm gathering in the distance - it looked like the same kind of blizzard that he and Lina had been caught up in in the high pass almost two years ago, when he’d snatched his knighthood from the weather and just barely teleported them back home before the winds became too great. There’d been a similar blizzard blowing his first time to Babylon, he recalled.
“Did you just ******** put up with these?” he asked his absent ancestor, which was about as helpful as talking to air should have been.
So here was the puzzle: he could go back inside and wait out the storm like a reasonable person, for who knew how long, or he could walk up the ******** mountain and try to get this done. (He remembered that Menachem always worked from the top down, that the lantern in the Knight’s Square at the base of the mountain always had to be the last lit.)
Never one to give up easily, he climbed up to the top of the city, keeping an eye on the approaching storm. It wasn’t yet on him by the time he reached the first lamp, and if he knew anything about weather on Mercury he’d guess it would be another few hours before it hit. These things tended to be intense but slow moving.
Babylon dragged his hand across the surface of the lantern, gathering light, and fed it into the wick. “So, uh, here this goes,” he said hopefully, raising it to the lamp. The light caught. He breathed a sigh of relief. And then he looked down the street.
“Did you do this every ******** night?” he asked, and continued to the second lamp, which was followed by the third, and the fourth, and the fifth, and he’d never really considered before exactly how many lamps there were in the city, but there were probably a couple hundred and around lamp twenty the prospect of finishing them all in one go was starting to seem pretty impossible - but those were the rules, right? And maybe it would be easier without the weather bearing down on him - but it wasn’t like he could predict that, and if he went home then he’d have to wait a week and try again, and that was a big risk. The weather might not improve, after all.
So he kept going, and although his feet ached and his shoulders burned by the time he’d finished just three streets, the glowing lamps behind him made him double his resolve. He could do this! Babylon thought, glancing towards the storm. It was closer, but he still felt like he had time - although he’d noticed the wind picking up. “Time to put up or shut up,” he told himself.
He finished the next three streets, and looking down, estimated he was about halfway down the mountain. The storm had churned even closer - it was starting to snow. Just a few stray flakes here and there, sticking in his hair and melting against the front of his visor, but - snow. Time to keep going.
From there, the storm blew in faster than he’d expected it to. There was a lot Babylon still needed to learn about Mercury’s weather. “s**t,” he breathed, hands shaking as he raised the wick. He still had another two streets to finish, maybe another forty lamps, and then the last one in the square - and if he’d missed any, well, Babylon didn’t know what would happen then, but it didn’t seem like it could possibly be good. He glanced up the mountainside, where his work blazed blue through the snow.
“Look how far you’ve come,” he told himself. Maybe he could will himself to believe it. “Look how much you’ve already done. It’s just a little further, and you can do it.” But the further he got, and the more lamps he lit, the harder the storm blew, until his cape was dragging behind him and every step was a fight until, finally, the street was lit.
Babylon stared down the staircase before him, down to the knight’s square. He curled his toes apprehensively inside his boots, took a bracing breath of frigid air, and trudged down, taking his time, because the treads were slick with ice. “Just fifty feet,” he said at the bottom, fixing his gaze on the lamppost. Three years ago almost, he’d reached inside that lamp and plucked out his signet ring. Now, as he approached, he brushed his fingers over the surface of his lamp, pulling light from it.
“Last one,” he said, raising the lit wick. The light caught, and suddenly, the wind around him calmed. Babylon looked up, and could faintly make out a crackling blue dome curving around the hillside, and the snow swirling gently inside the perimeter while it whipped around outside. Closer, he thought his lantern felt strange in his hand. Radioactive. Like there was something changing about its very chemistry - but there was no time to try figuring that out now.
“About time you did something about that,” said a grizzled voice behind him. Babylon spun on his heels to face his ancestor.
“And where the ******** have you been?” he demanded.
Menachem raised his eyebrows, unimpressed. Profanity would get the knight nowhere.
“I’ve, uh, I’ve never seen the lamps do that before,” said Babylon, gesturing to the barrier.
“You’ve never lit them before,” he replied.
“Could’ve used your help three hours ago,” said Babylon.
“It doesn’t work like that,” said Menachem, beckoning. “Come on. Let’s head indoors. We have much to discuss.”
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Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:58 pm
Babylon followed his ancestor deep into the mountain. “So, uh,” he ventured as they walked, “Am I a proper knight of Babylon yet? Or…”
“You are the only knight of Babylon,” said Menachem ahead of him, “So we had both best hope that you are a proper one.” Which was sort of, well, he’d been hoping for something a bit more affirmative, but it wasn’t worth getting torn up over. He’d never had his ancestor’s approval before and he had no reason to expect it now.
“So, what’s the deal with the barrier thing?” he asked. It felt like floundering small talk. He fidgeted with the wick, tapping it against his lantern until it slipped back through the glass. “You never said anything about it.”
“It is what allowed our city to flourish for centuries, protecting it from cold in the night and heat in the day,” replied the older knight, holding his lantern higher. “Some ancient technology powered by the light. It was instituted long before I took the mantle. I only maintained it.”
“I can only come here once every seven days,” Babylon said. “Will I have to light all the lamps again every time I come back?”
Menachem was silent for a long time as they walked. Finally, he said, “They’ll stay lit now that they are on. You need only maintain. We have arrived.”
The hallway widened suddenly, into a huge, circular chamber with floors sloping gently towards the center. The whole room was lit with the blue glow Babylon had grown accustomed to, and it came from the shallow well at the center of the room. He couldn’t quite focus on what the light source was - it was like staring into the sun.
“I’m confused,” he said.
“Why?” asked his ancestor.
“What is the light of Babylon?” he asked. Menachem sighed.
“I have explained this to you before,” he said. Babylon shook his head.
“No, I mean. Is the light the lantern? Is it that?” He pointed to the well at the center of the room, the blue light that seemed to pulse and spin like a quasar. He also wanted to know what the light was, what it’s origins were - but he’d always thought it existed solely in the lantern. This was just confusing.
“They are both the light,” explained Menachem simply, and began to walk away, towards the far side of the chamber. Babylon followed him, eyes scanning the walls with interest. There were statues set into the recesses of the room, tall men and women in heavy furs, each holding a differently-shaped lantern to their chest.
“Hey, uh, is this a crypt?” he called. Ahead of him, Menachem had stopped directly in front of the last statue in the row, after which the alcoves were empty. “That’s, uh, that’s you, huh?” Babylon asked. Menachem shook his head.
“My father,” he answered. “I was never buried here. I fell with the city.” Looking up, Babylon thought he could see the resemblance - but the lantern was a different style. “This city is yours now. Its secrets are yours to uncover and it is yours to defend and maintain.”
“Are you, um, going somewhere?” Babylon asked, frowning. “Because I still have a lot of questions, and you’re talking like you’re going somewhere.”
“I see no reason to remain,” said Menachem, sitting at the base of the statue. “I cannot light the lamps. I cannot protect the city. My battles were fought and lost long ago. You should explore the city. Make use of it. discover all it has to offer. With the lamps lit, there is much more you can accomplish.”
And the old knight went still at his father’s feet, and said no more.
Babylon turned around, walked to the edge of the well, and stared into the light for a long time.
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Posted: Sun Mar 23, 2014 4:59 pm
When he stepped back outside, the snow was swirling gently through the knight’s square, gathering in high drifts between doorways, and the lamps still blazed bright. They’d continue to blaze, he thought, turning to look up at the hillside. “I’ll do my best,” he said, although he couldn’t be sure what changes having the lamps restored might lead to in the city. It was just too ambitious a project to tackle all on his own.
He headed back into the study, and the lights on the walls rose to meet him. “Clever,” said Babylon, setting his lantern on the table again. He took off his gloves and went over to the cabinet full of the little glass lights, and picked one of the working ones up to investigate. It was, indeed, exactly like the little light Virgo had shown him at her outpost. The one she’d brought from her home in Babylon. He picked up one of the empty globes.
“You can’t be that hard to make,” he said, turning it over in his hands. He scooped up a few more of the globes and took them over to the table.
“Okay,” he said, dragging a finger carefully along the surface of his lantern. He eyed the globe, trying to figure out how much light he ought to put into it. Coming up with a good-sized orb, he tried first to press it directly into the glass.
This worked - for a moment. Then, the glass strained and shattered. Babylon let out the breath he’d been holding. “Too much, maybe,” he said, reaching for a second globe. This one, he tried a much smaller amount of light, and it glowed and he thought that maybe he’d made it work, but after a minute, it went out.
“Too little, maybe,” he said, chewing his lip, and tried a few more times with larger and larger bits of light, until finally, he got the steady glow he was looking for.
“Stay,” said Babylon, like he was talking to a tentatively-behaved dog. He got up from the table, and the room spun. He blinked spots back from his vision. Getting that little globe to work had taken a lot of energy, and on top of that, he was exhausted from the night’s work. “Woah,” he said, leaning against the table to steady himself. “Just about time to head home.”
It wasn’t like he had anything else planned, right?
He tucked the little light into one of his coat’s pockets and put his gloves back on, and then picked up his lantern. As he did so, he was reminded of the peculiar feeling he’d had earlier, of it being changed when he finished with the lamps - but again, he had no clear grasp of how it might have, or how to find out. He’d sort things out later, back on Earth.
And, kneeling on the study floor, lantern clasped in his outstretched hand, he went directly there.
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