The Etra Anthology

75th of Nemulum, 313 EA

Peyr Myarsa

Leça stood at the lowest edge of the city of Peyr, their dutiful vigilance a bastion against the cruel and tempestuous swamp they dared not tread.

They were alone in their alertness, if not in their duty, as from their periphery a figure approached on return from patrol of the docks. He was a younger man, shabby and scruffy, dressed in weathered green homespun. The only thing of any value on him was his wedding band, a single ring of solid iron. He nodded promptly to Leça, settling himself with his back against a crate and his cap pulled low to shade him.

“Eyes to the swamp, Gavril.” Leça intoned with an tactful sort of lilt, one that conveyed a reproach but spared the sting of judgement. “We’re meant to be on watch.”

“Abbot’s grace, Leça, it’s broad daylight. You’re watching, half the bloody city is watching. All those sorry folk down on the ground, they’re all watching I’m sure. What use is it having both of us up here on watch? And besides, how long has it been since the last attack from the fen? A year? More? We don’t both need to be on bloody watch.” Despite his constant grumbling, Gavril lifted himself up from his seat to stand beside.

Leça glanced back over their shoulder and up, their view of the ziggurat form of civilization unobscured from their post. They could see from the wide base that stilted the entire structure up out of the muck all the way up to the city’s glorious peak where the high abbots resided, and across every incumbent level between.

“I understand, Gavril. It would be nice to rest, for me as well.” Leça continued their sweep across the great city, and as they did their eyes crinkled in a gentle smile. “But we have a responsibility, here. All the people, the people of Peyr, we depend on each other. We all fill our roles, we do as we are meant to do, and in that way we thrive. Others grow food, or weave clothes, or keep off the swamp. You and I, we watch. There is a great beauty in getting to watch, I think.”

Gavril looked at the city with Leça, really saw it for a moment, and in doing so he stood up a little straighter.

Peyr was sloped and edged, stacked and staircased, its wood was constantly rotting out and needing to be replaced, and to Leça the mundanity of it was wholly deserving of a reverential awe. “This city is the last of all cities. It’s people are the last of all peoples. You’d do well to remember that.”