Dawn Blossom

John Eckelkamp

The hilt of the miranth dagger was heavy in my right hand, its green-tinged blade between me and the half-lit room, the tip twitching in time with my hammering heartbeat. The room was empty. Gradually, I became more aware of my surroundings. I was sitting up in bed, sheets tumbled in my lap, the white stone of my left arm stark against the dark ochre skin of my bare torso. So suddenly had I jerked awake, that the charm necklace Suria had given me last Fireday was still swaying between my breasts. I had no memory of waking, or of drawing the blade from beneath my pillow. Suria herself snored beside me, undisturbed by whatever had startled me from sleep. Then I heard it again, someone jangling the copper halla bells at the door.

It was nearly midnight, but light from the Terraces above still blazed around the edges of the drawn shades, giving the room a golden-tinged glow. Keeping hold of the dagger, I slipped out of the sheets and padded to the doorway. Peeking through the crystal eyes of the thrassa spirit carved into the door, I saw a masked dar-caste standing just outside. The figure drew a slender rod wrapped in red paper from its left sleeve and used it to jangle the bells hanging just beside the door again before dropping the disposable purification stick to the ground.

A formal visitor from the Terraces, down here in the Steps? That meant either money or trouble. Given the time of night and that the figure was alone, it was hopefully the former; otherwise my blade and the door charms stood little chance against the ill wind the Terraces could send my way. I grabbed Suria’s robe from the floor and made myself at least moderately presentable. Closing the inner curtain that separated the rest of our one-room dwelling from the entryway, I slid aside the door just as the figure was drawing another purity rod to jangle the bells again.

“What honor is mine this night?” I asked, concealing the dagger behind the half-opened door.

“You are Nor binda Nasra, finder and maker of ways among the earth-bound?” it asked.

The carved mask that the dar-caste wore completely enclosed its face and muffled its voice. Even listening carefully, I couldn’t discern its gender. Well trained then. I tightened my grip on the dagger’s hilt.

“Yes, I am she,” I answered.

The figure tucked a card into the spiraling crimson strip binding the purity rod and extended it to me. With the dagger in my right hand, I was forced to use my left to pluck the card from the rod. The dar-caste showed no reaction at the sight of my alabaster fingers, though once I accepted the card, it dropped the purity rod to join its discarded brethren on the ground.

“You are summoned to the service of House Thularin. You will depart immediately as the exalted are waiting.”

TRUTH
I felt the sincerity of the dar-caste’s words resonate within my left arm. No deception then. Not a trap. The stone’s curse would kill me eventually, but until then, the touch of divine trapped within my transmuted arm had its usefulness, like the ability to sense truth and deception.

With its message delivered, the figure left in a swirl of embroidered silk and scented treakon oil. Once the dar-caste had disappeared around a corner, I examined the card. It was an Ascension Lift pass, granting Terrace access to the bearer until dawn. Written in gold ink upon the back was an address in the lower Terraces. I could have sold the pass for enough to keep the rentmaster away for an entire month. The situation reeked of money and risk.

I managed to dress myself in the dark without disturbing Suria’s slumber. There were still several fingers of dreamcense left on the stick smoldering above the forest of stubs in the sand bowl on the bedside table. The smoke didn’t work on me thanks to the kell, but Suria would likely be out until morning. I borrowed her best bintu and belted it over my templeday pants. Hopefully Suria’s finery would distract from my boots. I wouldn’t trust my footing to court slippers, even if it meant losing a client. I tucked the blade back under my pillow, as there was no point in even trying to bring it up to the Terraces. I couldn’t find Suria’s gloves so I grabbed my own, stuffing the ragged hems under the bintu’s sleeves. My would-be patron might know about my deformity, but the attention it would bring higher up was best avoided if possible.

 

 

Less than twenty minutes from the jangling of my threshold bells, I found myself in the Discretion Hall of House Thularin. The journey up the Lift had been a wonder. The enchanted cage of rose-gold and sapphire was as big as my home, but I was the only passenger. The shadow-caste operative did his best to ignore the affront of my presence as we ascended silently up the carved limestone cliff into the golden brilliance of the Terraces at midnight. For my part, I did my best to refrain from gawking at the view. The flickering lights of the night fishermen surrounding the island blended with the distant celestial stars and the far more mundane lanterns of the earthly city below.

A twilight-caste had been waiting for my arrival when I entered the hall. It was difficult to tell its gender as the figure stood behind an ornate discretion screen that separated the highborn from the worldliness of sorts like me. Layers of red silk obscured its features, and gilded rectangular face panels floated in the air in front of its veils, opening and closing to some inscrutable social rhythm a no-caste like me could never fathom. But when the twilight-caste spoke, its affected celestial accent still held traces of male tones. A lesser servant then.
He addressed me without looking at me, instead ostensibly examining an arrangement of pakra blooms in a bronze tray while speaking to the “empty” room beyond the screen.

“There is a task for someone of your skills,” he said. “You are privileged to be alive at this moment. The heavens have blessed us, graced us with their gift. A Celestial Blossom has fallen.”

TRUTH
The boundary between my stone arm and the flesh of my left shoulder was starting to itch madly, like dozens of crawling centipedes digging their talons in a ring from collarbone to armpit. It’d been too long since my last dose of kell and the withdrawal was kicking in. I wanted to rip off my bintu and scratch at the skin with my nails, but the terrace-born’s words snapped me back. A Celestial Blossom?

“As even the lowborn know, the heavens grace our world but once a generation with their divinity, letting fall from their gardens a single flower containing the faintest reflection of their light. The seers have ascertained that this night a Blossom has fallen. Not only that, but it is our humble city, Banquor, city of enlightenment and prosperity, that has been chosen to receive this gift. We are truly blessed.”

truth
He was holding something back, but not outright lying. Not surprising given the situation. So, the Blossom had fallen here. The Terraces must be overturning themselves as the highborn fought to claim such a prize. Twenty years ago, an Afternoon Blossom had fallen. The gift of wealth it contained had shot the Pinab dynasty to unquestioned dominance in the south. Before that had been a Sunset Blossom. Its golden petals and their gift of influence had elevated the Gupta family to high rule from which they had yet to be dislodged.

But why summon me? Surely a lowborn investigator would not be allowed to stalk the gemstone-lined paths of the upper Terraces.
“In their wisdom, the divines have chosen to place their gift among more humble settings, reminding us that grace can be found in all places. The seers have pinpointed its fall to the Clay.”

truth
The Clay. Home to the invisible and the fallen. Dumping ground for the Terraces and the endless alchemical wastes from their arcanum-fueled opulence. The Clay, where magical birth defects and countless addictions vied with poverty and pirate gangs to see which could inflict the greatest misery on the unfortunates cursed to live there.

I’d managed to pull myself up out of the Clay to the Steps as a late teen. One of the rare fortune-touched successes, though the Clay did leave its mark. That explained the ringing of my bells. The mere thought of an untouchable getting their hands on a Blossom must make highborn blood curdle.

“Those in whose shadow I tread are prepared to offer you a great sum for the timely acquisition of this treasure. A ten-year supply of kell and such coin as suits your needs.”

TRUTH
I flexed the fingers of my left hand. I could still feel the cool smoothness of the ivory stone fragment all those years ago. A beacon of purity among the muck of the Clay sewers that drew my twelve-year old self like a moth to a lantern, hunting for anything I could sell. I’d paid a steep price for daring to touch that blighted artifact, for trying, however briefly and unknowingly, to ascend beyond my station. My every waking moment from that day has been focused on hindering the spread of the curse. Would that I’d had the strength of will to cut off my finger when that was all that was afflicted. Now the stone has spread too far. Cutting it free now would kill me, though when the transformation reaches my heart that’ll happen anyway.

Kell. The centipedes writhed at the mention of it. The essence of power trapped within the ground bark of the sacred enab tree has been the only thing capable of slowing the stone’s spread. I’ve spent a fortune on samoth witches and mackshra-seekers looking for cures, but only that bitter wood has given me any relief. A ten-year supply would free me. Give me a life of choice I’ve never had. That the highborn knew to offer it to me said much about their informants, and their desperation.

“There is an element of urgency in your task. The seers have discerned that we have been gifted with a Dawn Blossom. When the celestial sun’s first light falls upon the city, the Blossom’s power will fade. It must be claimed before then. A Dawn Blossom has not fallen for more than four centuries. It is vital that its gift of Beauty not be lost.”

truth
Beauty? I hadn’t heard of a Dawn Blossom’s gifts, and now I knew why. What power was there to be gained from beauty? But even so, the highborn would have it. Even if that meant dealing with the likes of me.
“You have until dawn to attain your reward. Return with the Blossom untouched, or not at all.”

deception
The twilight-caste was lying, but only partially. What wasn’t he telling me?
No matter. Only a few hours to track down a divine Blossom in the worst cesspit this side of the heavens, and I certainly wasn’t the only one looking. I knew just where to start.

 

I slipped back home to change into more appropriate attire. Suria was still snoring, twisted up in the sheets with her head buried in my abandoned pillow. With luck, I’d finish before she woke. Just before heading out the door, I carefully slipped my hand under Suria’s cascading hair and pulled my dagger from beneath the pillow. I tucked it into the small of my back under my bintu. The bulge was unobtrusive enough to not cause a fuss while still letting those that mattered know I wasn’t to be messed with. At least that was the theory. In truth, the junkies and professionals wouldn’t care, but it should deter the middling opportunists.

 

While nothing could compare to the brilliant hive of activity that was the Terraces at night, the bamboo walkways of the Steps lashed to the sides of the highborn’s cliffs had their own brand of nocturnal restlessness. Like the highborn above, the rooftop paths of the Steps never slept. Paper lanterns of all colors illuminated half-curtained mecorah stalls, and jars of flame beetles anchored street sellers’ carpets at every crossing. The press of people winding their way along the switchback paths of the Steps seemed even more claustrophobic after sunset. It was a different sort that walked the night streets. Fabrics were more garish and outbursts of voices were louder, though the general overall murmur was quieter than the daylight din. The crowd seemed more agitated than normal tonight, as if they subconsciously sensed the stirrings from on high. People were more cautious. Eyes darted over shoulders during conversations. Hagglers leaned in more closely. I only had to dislocate the fingers of two would-be pickpockets over the entire spiraling length of the Steps. I joined the flow heading downhill until I reached the Edge, where the overlapping stairstep houses of the Steps gave way to the lifts and ladders that descended to the Clay.

I paid the ropemaster three rintas for the basket ride to the bottom: two rintas for the trip, and a third to ensure the strength of his grip. I could have used the official path, but I wanted to slip below with discretion. The bottom of the basket was damp and beginning to rot. I kept my feet near the sides where the fibers were a little less suspect and gripped the support rope with my left hand after removing my glove. My stone limb might mark me as un-casted up above, but it would only help me blend in below, and the surety of its augmented strength made me feel better about the decaying reeds beneath my boots.

As the basket descended, the light dimmed and the murmur of the crowds faded. There was life in the Clay, even in the depth of the night, but it was quieter, more furtive. The basket touched down on a low pile of something soft that smelled of overripe bassa melons. I doubted it was anything so benign. I stepped out of the basket and gave the rope four tugs, then watched as it disappeared back up into the darkness. I’d need a different means of returning.

My eyes had adjusted on the way down such that the more widely scattered lanterns of the Clay were sufficient to show my path. Adjusting to the smell took more effort. It hammered at me with old memories that I firmly pushed aside. No time for that now. Childhood instincts kicked in, guiding my steps over oily rainbow streams meandering along the edges of the muck-filled alleys. Wavering hand-high twists of vapor floated over the draining chemicals, proto-sylphs that clutched ineffectually at my heels as I passed, desperate for any thread of will to give them form before they dissolved back into nothingness again. There were many reasons not to look down while treading through the Clay.

Not many of the Steps were willing to work down in the Clay, yet another reason I was able to keep the rentmaster at bay. While I’d been born here, the slumping shanties and bobbing houseboats were no longer my home. I needed a local, someone in tune with the pulse of the misery around them. Someone at the tidal point between the desperation of the Clay and the illusory hope of the Steps.

Madame Raku’s Tea House was less than a stone’s throw from the base of the cliff and the Twelve Hundred Steps that formed the only official path from the Clay to the world above. It was also upwind of the Scales, the great cargo nets that lifted the fishermen’s catch to the waiting mouths up high. It was busy here, even at night, as cartloads of squillback and suckered hepfins were hauled up to the Scales by rail-thin laborers, their eyes red with junta weed. The tea house was at the center of a lantern-lit market that serviced visitors from the Steps and the better class of untouchables. At the edge of the illumination were those who would beg, proposition, or waylay those attracted to the lure of the light. I paused at the edge myself, to get a feel for the currents before entering.

“A charm for the lady?” a young voice asked.

Looking down, I saw her. Even through the rags she’d wrapped herself in, I could see the Clay’s mark upon her. Four eyes looked up at me, two of hopeful brown in their usual places, and two of milky gray closer together on her forehead. Whatever arachnid-infused curse that had twisted her flesh had not stopped with her face, as shrunken arms with too many articulations flexed mindlessly in and out of her robe beneath her more normal limbs. Her outstretched hand held a tiny cuttlebone crudely carved into a sun threaded onto a course string. There were fresh burn marks on her palm.

“They’re real, my lady,” she continued eagerly when I didn’t hurry on. “Keep you safe from the dark and your dreams. My aunt makes them, and I do the string.”

TRUTH
There were too many fingers on her hand, but I touched the charm anyway. It felt warm, warmer than her skin. She couldn’t be more than six or so, though it was always hard to tell in the Clay.

“How much?” I asked.

“For you, lady, two halves.”

Two half tespas. Enough for a meal, if you were careful, and not too picky. I handed her four. Any more, and she’d be a target. Her eyes lit up at the windfall.

She started to hand me the charm, then she stopped and said, “It’s better luck if another puts it on you. I could do it for you, if you don’t have someone.”

TRUTH
She would do this for a stranger, twist her fate strands with mine simply because I looked like someone who might not have anyone. I looked at her fully for the first time since stopping.

This was me. I had been on this corner, wrapped in rags, selling anything I could find in hopes of a meal and avoiding a beating on returning home. I’d been lucky. My mother’s addictions hadn’t taken hold until after I’d come to term, so I’d been born untwisted and whole. My deformity came later. But looking at her, I didn’t see the despair that filled my own memories. She held a peace, an acceptance of fate, that eluded me still.

I squatted down, careful to keep my back to the wall and my knees above the filth. She placed the coarse charm around my neck. The thread was surprisingly soft. Her fingers trailed down the side of my throat, arranging the pendant just so.

“It’s not so pretty as your other one,” she said as I stood up.

I felt the two charms hanging around my neck with the fingers of my right hand. The one Suria had bought for me felt cold and dead next to hers.
“May the winds bring you home,” she said to me as I walked away. The oft-heard parting seemed sincere on her lips.

Pulling myself back from my childhood, I made my way across the market to Madame Raku’s. I ducked under the dangling banners at the threshold, their wards plucking at my exposed skin like limp suckerfins. The interior was even brighter than the market, with crimson lanterns and crystal jars of shimmer eels giving a healthy rosy glow to all within, no matter their true natures. Madame Raku was enthroned on a sea of low cushions piled upon a raised platform in the corner where she could keep an eye on the patrons, the front door, and the stairs leading to the rooms above. She was surrounded by joy-boys and dream-girls, pouring tea for select clients. As I watched, one of the painted boys dragged a willing patron upstairs for a private tea ceremony. I knew from experience that the walls above would not be as discreet as the client might hope.

Madame Raku saw me enter. She whispered to a dream-girl with a streak of silver spiraling from her hair down one arm, who rose and came to me. The girl, whose silver streak extended beneath her artfully loose robes, took my arm and led me to a private room near the base of the stairs.

She plucked a delicate teapot from among dozens that waited ready on shelves along the walls. She poured me a cup of lavender-tinted tea and then departed, never saying a word.

I didn’t touch the tea.

Madame Raku joined me soon after. Her eyes noted the untouched cup, but she said nothing of it.

“Nor, dear, it’s been too long. What brings you to my humble house?” she asked as she arranged herself on the cushions opposite. The whites of her eyes were tinged the faintest yellow, the only sign of the Clay’s mark upon her. She’d looked the same as the day I’d first met her just after my encounter with the artifact in the sewers. Later, I’d been part of her house for a while, not as one of the painted tea servers, but as a bouncer, then as a truth-seeker. I eyed the tea in its cup. We’d parted ways as amicably as the Clay allowed, but she was always ready to bind me to her service again.

“I’m looking for something,” I answered. “Something that would have made itself known tonight. Something small and out of place. Something that doesn’t belong here.”

“Or anywhere in this earthly realm,” she continued. “You’re not the only one digging among the refuse tonight, my love, nor are you the only one with the intelligence to seek my counsel. I can tell you more, but there will be a price.”

TRUTH
I eyed the cup again. Some prices weren’t worth the cost, no matter what might be gained.

“Oh, nothing like that, I assure you,” she said. “No, I have something that needs opening. A simple matter for one with your… gifts.”

truth
She trailed her fingers through a discreet wall harp and the door curtains parted. A joy-boy, still in training by the look of his downcast eyes, placed a plain wooden box on the table, then bowed his way out backwards.

Once we were alone again, Madame Raku continued, “Open this for me, and I will tell you what I know.”

TRUTH
The box was simple, unadorned. There were water stains along the bottom, like it had sat in a puddle for a long time, or in the bottom of a boat. There was no clasp, or even visible hinges. It appeared in all ways to be a simple storage box the likes of which might be found in any hovel or boat holding a family’s few precious keepsakes. I looked at Madame Raku’s eyes.

“It will not kill you,” she said. “It simply requires the proper persuasion to open. I don’t have the time or the resources at the moment to encourage it discreetly. With your brute force at hand, as it were, I find I don’t have to.”

TRUTH
Madame Raku didn’t lie once the deal was on the table, and besides, she knew better than to try to deceive me. I placed the fingertips of my left hand on the top of the box. I had only a distant sense of touch through the stone, and no sense of warmth or cold, but neither could I feel pain. The wood felt normal. I gripped its top and pulled upward. It didn’t move. It was as if the box had become fused to the table and the table had become part of the bones of the earth.

“If it were easy,” Madame Raku said, “it would not cost you.”

TRUTH
The stone of my arm was nearly immune to damage and possessed remarkable strength, but every time I drew on its power, it extended its hold on my flesh. In my time in Madame Raku’s service, the transformation had progressed across my hand and up to my elbow. It was part of why I’d left.
I gritted my teeth and pulled. I could actually feel the stone of my arm creak beneath the strain as the power bound within the wood resisted. A line of fire burned around my shoulder, as if the centipedes had burst into acidic flame. Slowly, the lid of the box released its hold, until suddenly it pulled free.

Madame Raku swooped forward to claim whatever was in the box before I could see it. I dropped the lid on the table and slipped my right hand through the neck hole of my bintu to feel for the edge of the stone. It had progressed to the top of my breast, less than four fingers from my heart. I laced my bintu higher to cover the transition as Madame Raku wrapped whatever she’d acquired in purple silk and tucked it away.

“There is a fisherman named Feng,” she said as if nothing had happened. “You will find him along the Hassran mooring to the east. It is said that he returned to his family early tonight, having drawn up something extraordinary in his nets. Some say it is a wish-granting fish. Others a murkling that swallowed a golden ring fallen from the Terraces. But I believe you will find it to be what you seek. I would hurry if I were you. There are others ahead of you in this race.”

I left the tea house slightly out of breath. The left side of my chest felt heavier, making it harder to breath. I’d adjust, at least that’s what I told myself, but for now it was a distraction.

The centipedes were sleeping, the stone’s advance quieting my addiction. That was the insidious nature of the transformation. It required constant vigilance to willingly poison oneself to halt its progression. The kell kept the stone at bay, but the price of its service was high. I didn’t have time to return home to get another dose, and besides, I needed a clear head to see this through.

Something about my stride kept the way clear before me. No hands reached for me from dark alleyways, no dream-sellers tried to push their wares. I was running out of time. It’d been too long since I’d been this far down in the Clay. The shanty paths and floating moorings shifted constantly. Only those who lived here could keep track of the changes. Disoriented after another false turn, I pulled off my glove and touched the ground with my bare stone fingers, heedless of the filth, and grounded myself.

East was that way, the sun less than six fingers beneath the horizon. Already the stars were fading from the sky. Reoriented, I rose, and headed for Feng.

The houseboat was on fire when I arrived. Neighbors were cutting their moorings and trying to get away, though a selfless few attempted to douse the blaze with pots and buckets. I leapt aboard, ignoring the shouted warnings. I smashed open a smoldering door with my arm and plunged through the smoke. The centipedes began to stir.

There were bodies on the floor. Likely Feng and his family by the poverty of their clothes, though two were strangers tightly wrapped in strips of gray. I bent and tugged at one of the strangers’ wrist wrappings. Scabbed cuts in rough sigils, with older scars trailing up the arm. Rune junkies. A step above the dockside gangs, but not much, certainly not from the Terraces. Likely here for the rumored treasure. A quick glance at the room showed that the junkies had been interrupted while sacking the house. Someone with skill and a blade had ended the scene.

A crash sounded from beyond the boat’s single interior wall. There wasn’t much time left. The ceiling was already starting to sag. More crashing, and a cry of pain through the wall. I raised my left arm, and broke through.

Tongues of flame lashed my exposed flesh, melding with the demonic centipedes writhing across my chest. Another junkie lay on the floor. Blazing walls and furniture filled the tiny space. Then a lance of ice pierced me from behind, just above my right hip. I flung myself away, drawing my blade as I tumbled through burning bedding. I swung wildly at the blur closing on me even as I sprung to the left. My blade struck deep into its side. My feet tangled in the junkie’s legs and I fell to my knees. The twisting shape lunged and only the stone of my forearm saved me. I grabbed the halted blade with my left hand and pulled. The figure cried out in pain and fell.

I finally saw him then. The blood streaming from his side washed away his illusions. He was wrapped in tooled leather, his features honed by hard training. A professional, from one of the Terrace shadow guilds. I’d been incredibly lucky.

He ignored me, instead crawling slowly on his belly toward a parcel tossed near the wall. His blade was a crumpled ruin in my fist. I dropped it and clutched where it had pierced my back. My fingers came back red, but the flow was slow and even. Nothing vital. I strode over to the assassin and stepped on the hand reaching for the bundle.

“You’re beaten,” I said to him. “Bind your wounds and leave. Beauty, no matter how divine, isn’t worth dying for.”

He gurgled up bloody froth in what might have been a laugh, then looked up at me.

“Beauty? I would not spend my life for anything so ephemeral,” he rasped.

TRUTH
“What then?” I asked, pressing down on his hand until the bones creaked.

He ignored the pain, but answered all the same, a nod of respect to one who’d beaten him, perhaps. “The gift of dawn is healing. It cures the bearer of all ills, leaving one divinely whole. I would fail my masters and use the Blossom on myself now, but I see that you will have it for your own.”

TRUTH
He said this last while looking at the white stone of my arm. He died then, his hand beneath my boot, only a finger’s width from the bundle. I picked up the soiled cloth and looked for a way out. The walls were fully consumed with flame now. The doorway was an inferno. The ceiling above me creaked, and I was out of time. I smashed through the exterior wall, the bundle cradled in my left arm, and plunged into the polluted waters of the Clay.

 

 

It’s a difficult thing, swimming with an arm of stone, especially one that has grown to engulf your entire shoulder, your left breast, and a goodly portion of the lung between. My struggle was made all the more difficult by the sodden bundle gripped so tightly in my hand. I fought the water’s grip with thrashing limbs until I made my way to the shore. Exhausted, I dragged myself clear of the water. Behind me, the dying flames of Feng’s home distracted everyone from my passage. I pulled myself to my feet and staggered into the Clay.

Finding a hole of safety between two abandoned shanties, I slumped to the ground, the bundle in my lap. It was a child’s blanket. With shaking hands, I peeled away the layers, careful not to touch what was within. The last corner fell away, and the Dawn Blossom was revealed.

It was a lotus of purest yellow, small as my palm, unsullied by the mud-soaked wrappings. Its petals seemed to catch the light around it and glow from within, like the first rays of the sun over the horizon. I don’t know how long I sat there staring at the spark of divine grace in my lap.

One touch of its petals and the sewage-tainted wound in my back would be healed. The blisters on my skin would disappear. The stone of my arm would become flesh again. All that had harmed and twisted me throughout my life would leave me. I would be whole once more.

My right hand reached for the Blossom, then my fingers halted just out of reach.

How could I do this? How could I claim such a gift as my own? I was a simple broken thing, with no great deeds or purity of heart to commend me. There were countless others who were far more worthy. How could I rob them, how could I rob the world, of this gift, just to ease my own suffering?
The wound in my back burned and the centipedes danced across my flesh. The newly spread stone of my chest was heavy, each breath a labored chore. I could feel the edge of my heart drag against the hardness of it with every beat. I looked up between the scavenged roofs at the glowing Terraces above. There were those in this world who could make better use of such a blessing.

 

She was still where I’d left her, loose cloth draped across her form. I knelt down beside her and she looked up at me. I opened the bundle revealing the Blossom. Her eyes widened as it caught the light.

“It’s so pretty,” she said.

“It’s for you,” I said, gesturing the cloth toward her.

She looked at me to make sure, then she cupped the petals in her many-fingered hands. I watched the burn marks disappear from her palm, saw the hollowness fade from her hunger-tightened features.

“Thank you, lady. It’s beautiful,” the spider girl said.

But something was wrong. The gray eyes on her forehead remained; the extra limbs didn’t disappear from beneath her robes. She should be healed. She should be made whole.

“It feels so wonderful. Thank you, lady,” she said.

Then she hugged me, her spare arms enfolding me completely. My blisters retreated. The burning wound in my back faded to nothing and the centipedes vanished. The weight of stone pressing on my breath fell away. I felt… whole.

I held up my left hand. It still gleamed white in the market lantern light. I touched my stone fingers to the girl’s back and returned her hug. I could feel every worn thread of her cloak and the warmth of her body within, each sensation sharp to my newly awakened senses.

The spider girl released me and thanked me again for the pretty flower, tucking the already fading bloom behind her left ear. The last I saw of her as I walked away was her waving to me, a few shy tendrils of grass beginning to uncurl at her feet. People were already beginning to stare.

I took the Twelve Hundred steps rather than pay for a lift. They wanted to charge me double given my state, and I didn’t have the coin anyway. I was returning home, poorer than when I’d left, sodden and reeking of the Clay. But none of that mattered.

By now, the Terraces would know of my failure, of the failure of all their agents. Petty as they were, they would likely spread their ire widely. I’d have to wake Suria and tell her we needed to move again, grab our stuff and run farther down, nearer the Edge. She wouldn’t like it, but I didn’t think she’d leave me.

The sun rose over the horizon as I climbed, shading all the world in gold.

 

 

Dawn Blossom © John Eckekamp
John Eckelkamp is a Montessori teacher with over twenty years of experience who specializes in teaching science to all ages. Prior to teaching, he worked for the Houston SPCA where he did rescue work and provided exotic animal care, including an African lion and an American cougar. With a father and uncle who worked for NASA and a member of his writing group being an astronaut, his life has been deeply involved with space flight. As a young boy John used to play with the buttons in Mission Control between space flights.