Angels of the Heights

Author's Note: this was something of a freewrite for me, based off some larger ideas that I have had for a while. All advice welcome!

***

Patrons Divided; Angels are Fighting in the Northern Heights

It’s a headline that just didn’t seem right, Tierien thought as he neared the end of the dank tunnel that led out of the chemical refinery, into the very heart of the City. Here, in the City’s Under, far away from the Heights, Tierien saw no immediate signs of some grand celestial battle between the Patrons of the City taking place, yet just to see it as the headline on the news screen as he left the factory was disturbing.

The refineries news screen usually posted news and numbers from the war in the colonies, or the latest in human politics. They would only dare say cryptic things about the business of the Patrons. It is not man’s place to read too deeply into their actions. Something serious must be happening for them to be so open.

Out of the factory and in the streets, at first the City seemed almost as it was when the work day was over, the narrow streets crowded with countless factory workers being relieved from their shift, some making their way to public transportation, while others made their way to the bars and brothels that could be found in abundance in the Under. Yet, it seems that far fewer linger in the corner- everyone is eager to be off. The news of the angels is hardly hours old and yet the whole Under seems aware. News traveled fast in the cramped streets.

On a normal day, Tierien would gladly follow his coworkers down to their favorite jazz stage to get a drink and unwind before heading home and preparing dinner for him and Peter. The Patrons provided the entertainment for free, and the drinks were cheap. Instinctively, however, Tierien could only rush out of the refinery as he saw the news, as had everyone else, it seemed, all in a hurry to get back to their respective dwellings suddenly, for whatever good it would do them.

On the corner, a newsboy held up a paper, yelling in a panicked, hysterical tone. “Angels, warring! Angels, fighting far up in the Heights, in the Northern Heights!” Some risked a moment to exchange a coin for a paper, but Tierien just walked right on past. The Angels were something of a myth around the Under of the City, there were few that Tierien knew that claimed to have seen them. He knew little of their affairs, only that they protected the City. Whatever their business was, it clearly had grown serious enough for the people in the Under to known of it.

He needed to get out of the streets, he knew that much. He didn’t know much about Angel wars, but he did know hundreds of people packed into a space like this was an accident waiting to happen when something as disturbing like this was happening.

Tierien had seen how bad riots in the confining City could be. When it was announced that the first colony had been attacked and overtaken by natives a couple years back and war was declared, hysteria had filled the streets. He had stayed locked up in a neighbor’s basement with Peter, and prayed for his brother’s life- Peter’s father’s life. Tierien’s older brother had been away in the colonies working as a clockwork engineer, and had left Peter with him and his parents till he got back.

I need to get back to the apartment soon… Peter will be there. The thought caused Tierien to quicken his pace. He needed to get to the subways before they overcrowded. Already, Tierien could see that there was some sort of blockage at the gates to the station. Tierien stopped his near jog for a moment to get a better look. It appeared that some sort of fight was breaking out. Police, armored in bronze exoskeletons, were beginning to form a line around the entrance, while people hurled themselves against them and yelled remarks. It has already begun, just after one headline. From above, Tierien could swear that he heard some sort of rumble. Not that way, then.

Tierien looked up at one of the master clocks towering high above, for all to see. It was an impressively large structure, the size of each side being well above that of an airship engine’s diameter. 7:30. If he ran he could be home in a little over an hour, assuming things in the streets did not get worse. Peter would have to be home from the Hall of Knowledge by that point.

Just then, as Tierien was about to look away and start running towards the bridge that would take him across town, the massive clock fell from the sky, disconnected in a heartbeat from its steel cables by a bolt of blinding, sky blue light. Heavenly, celestial light that was gone in a moment. As if on queue, a chunk from the side of a building tumbled down, hitting against several structures before impacting itself onto a mass of people. The rumbles from a moment before deepened with a frightening urgency.

Tierien knew he should run right away, but by instinct he couldn’t help but look all the way up. Suddenly, all that filled the sky was light. The City was as tall as it was wide, going up far beyond Tierien’s understanding. And as far as he looked up all he could see was radiance, and the first dark specks of rubble from the fight descending. Beautiful, mesmerizing light, as if the sky had been distilled into its purest form- blues, grays, whites- they danced back and forth. And destruction rained- for it was killing light as well.

Then the source of the light appeared, descending with a slow, unearthly grace. It towered at least eight feet tall, armored in slate grey armor that seemed to be it’s very flesh. Wings crafted out of what looked to be the most pure, unearthly metal spread out from behind it, beating in soft strokes. Its face was set in stone, expressionless and flawlessly symmetrical, as if a marble stature had been given wings. Its skin was a soft grey color that Tierien had seen on no human, its eyes pulsing golden light.

An Angel, a Patron of the City. In one hand it held a staff of what seemed to be pure blue light, the other held a sword slick with red and gold blood. Now, it’s time to run.

***

By the time that Tierien had the apartment in sight, he knew it was well past the hour he had thought it was going to take him to make it back home. Well past two hours. The trip home had been rigorous, and far too many times he had to stow away to wait for the bombardments to pass. He had paid little heed to his fellow citizens, and luckily they paid little notice to him. The whole time he had been solely focused on getting back, for what good it did him, the thought of Peter in his mind the one thing that kept him running through the streets, even as the Angels flew through them.

Tierien had never cared much for the boy, before when his brother had been away, and after when he had been Tierien’s responsibility. Tierien had plans, wanted to do great things like his brother had been able to do, and the boy helped none of that particularly. But, could I live with myself if I am the one responsible for his death in all of this?

Tierien shook his head, and picked up his pace towards the apartment. No, after all of my time keeping him safe I could not be the one to let him be hurt. He arrived at the door of the apartment in a sweat, and shoved the door open.

Inside, all was still, silent. Good, that means that the boy has had the common sense to hide and wait for me.

“Pete? It’s me, Tierien,” he said, pausing for a response. “You there?”

Total silence- is he afraid?

Tierien walked through the kitchen, as silently as possible.

“Peter, it’s Tierien. Is everything alright?”

Tierien crept in the next room, and the next, seeing no signs of anyone. The bedroom, that’s where he would go. Yet that was empty as well. Tierien allowed himself to sit for a moment. This was not good. Nothing about this day had been good, but Peter not being home was the worst. Everything Tierien had done had been with the thought of finding Peter safe in mind. If there had been nothing to strive for other than my own survival than who knows what I would be doing right now. But I have a goal. Find the boy.

Outside, the sound of another chunk of building falling down through the depths of the city thundered. This one seemed very close. With that, Tierien got up. Putting on a coat, and stashing a pack with a pair of cloths for the both of them, along with few things that he could think of off the top of his head- money, watch, bottle, knife- Tierien ran out of his home. If I am not to try to save this boy who I have been entrusted with, Tierien thought, then what purpose do I have, but to forget who I am in order to survive?

***

Tierien found him the Hall of Learning, burned and scarred. He had been searching through the building for the boy for hours now, well into the night. It was the only place that he could think of going to. The Under’s Hall of Learning was a massive place, practically a self contained town, taking up at least 6 City blocks. Tierien had searched and searched through the wreckage, until he finally found Peter, trapped under a metal beam. They boy was sleeping silently, or at least Tierien hoped he was.

“Peter?” Tierien said, softly holding the boys hand. A pulse! “Peter! Its me, Tierien.”

Peter’s eyes flickered open for a moment, then shut again. The boy likely is not in the mood to talk, thought Tierien, then set about prying Peter free. He was already exhausted from the long night, having not yet rested in the eight hours since he had exited the factory, yet after a few attempts he managed to lift it up just enough to get Peter out.

Lifting the boy up and holding him in his arms, not an easy feat given his fatigue, Tierien slowly began the trek through the eerily silent Hall of Learning. He was already beginning to form a notion of where they might go, but he was going to need to find a better way to get there than on foot.

He was walking through the sprawling courtyard that led out of the Hall when out of the corner of his eye, Tierien spotted an unnatural blue light, nothing like the flickering yellow of the light still on in some parts of the Hall, accompanied by a hum. Angels? No, that sound is something different- a hoverbike? Realizing he was relatively exposed, Tierien looked for a place to hide him and Peter. Anything else that was unknown that was moving was a danger to him. Those trees over there… could I get there before the bike and its rider could notice me? Just as Tierien was about to begin making his way over, a second bike appeared in the distance, then another, then a fourth, a fifth, until 8 of the vehicles were rapidly approaching him, 16 floating disks of blue or green light in the night. Beautiful any other time, but Tierien had never had such a bad feeling. He held Peter a little closer. Finally, the bike closest to him came to a halt, the two vivid blue roterwheels dimming and the hum lessening. Gradually, all of the bikes did the same, until they formed a neat little half circle around Tierien. The rider of the first bike to stop dismounted, and began to stride toward him. While the darkness had concealed the riders fairly well, the collective light from the roterwheels pooled around the rider, leaving nothing to the imagination about them. They were a tall, hulking man, with half of their face covered in rusted metalflesh, the other half fully bearded, with gnarled dreadlocks dyed neon yellow cascading down on the human side of his body. And he was holding a weapon, an ugly weapon with countless barrels protruding from it, a weapon that had seen time in the world.

“Have anything for me, boy?” The bandit looked him straight in the eye, the man’s piercing blue eyes boring into him. The eyes flickered for the briefest moment. Uncertain? They don’t have a lot of time. The situation in the City is deteriorating rapid…they don’t have as much time as they want me to believe. Tierien inhaled deeply. Bandits taking advantage of the chaos while they can. What do I say that will not get me killed?

“No, sir, I do not, but…” Tierien stuttered. He needed to say something that would not get him shot, not give them a reason. “But…” A distant rumbling sounded, distracting Tierien from his thoughts.

The biker grinned. “Glad you been honest with me, boy,” he quipped, then reached down to activate his weapon. As he raised it, the rumbling grew more persistent. The man paused, looking up towards the Upper levels of the City. The rumbling became a thunder, and then the first chunk of an airship hit the ground- an enormous engine the size of a house- and erupted into a brilliant, blinding storm of blue flame. A second object hit, an entire passenger deck, feeding the already spectacular fire that was starting in the buildings. Above, the once dark was suddenly filled with spectacularly brilliant light.

Tierien stood, paralyzed. There was nowhere to go. How am I to outrun this? There is nowhere to go. He looked down to Peter. The child had awoken at some point during the confrontation, and now his youthful face was affixed to the sky, enamored by the spectacle form above. It was beautiful; Tierien did have to admit that. All of it had been beautiful, from the first Angel. All things are, and yet they still are horrifying. Can anything be only beauty and perfection, nothing else?

Tierien looked up from Peter to the bandit. The bandit grinned at him, then looked up at the sky with a certain resignation. The bandit was horrifying, had meant to end Tierien’s life and that of a child without a thought a moment ago, and yet they now stood here, watching as a airship disassembled in midair, knowing that they had nowhere to run. And then, just as naturally as rain fell and bees buzzed, an enormous torn fragment of metal landed on the ground in front of Tierien. The bandit was not standing anymore. Neither were the 7 other hoverbikes- their riders must have ridden off the moment the airship started falling. The only thing left in from of Tierien was the leader’s bike, still untouched by the debris- hovering calmly like a fragile garden ignoring a vicious downpour simply by ignoring it. A miracle! Not the Celestial kind, granted by angels, but one of luck.

Tierien dashed to the vehicle with Peter under his arm, not daring to think twice as he mounted the beast like machine as one would mount a horse. “Uncle Tierien,” Peter croaked softly for the first time, hardly audible under sound of the sky falling, “is this yours?”

“Mine?” Tierien laughed as he put his hands on the handles and began to accelerate the craft’s rear hoverwheel. “Not exactly, Pete.”

In mere moments, the hoverbike’s engines had propelled them well out of the courtyard- no wonder the rest of the bikers had gotten away so fast when the engine exploded. Tierien counted the seconds – fifteen, sixteen, seventeen – and looked up to see that the sky was dark again. In the distance the Hall of Knowledge was only a bright blue bonfire.

***

It was near dawn when they found the naval shipyard- on the other side of the City. The shipyard was a strange sight when they arrived, while normally it was calm and lazy in the mornings as they prepared some ship to go off and trade or reinforce the war in the colonies. Now it was a bustle of activity as what seemed like hundreds of refugees were funneled through a massive gate, with the remaining soldiers of the City maintaining a perimeter. At the end of the ship yard, where the City ended and the sky began, Tierien could see dozens of airships lined up and tethered. They were chrome and shiny in the early morning, with massive engines riveted to the sides that were already warming up for their month long journey, spewing soft rivers of blue energy. They were headed towards the colonies, but instead of troops marching up the ramps, it was downtrodden men and women in everyday wear.

“Where are we going?” Peter asked softly. The boy’s injuries were not as bad as they had seemed in the dark, but they were still going to have to find some aid aboard one of the ships. “To where your parents are Pete, we’re going home.”