The Etra Anthology

157th of Nemulum, 313 EA

Peyr Myarsa

Leça was drawn through the swamp, under shamed sunset light.

“The temple isn’t so bad.” The conservator set to escort them to their penance had introduced himself as Irec. His robes were well cared for, though they fit a bit too snugly, and he wore his axe over his back rather than gripping it in his hand. He was a clean-cut man, and in his voice he carried a stone steadiness. “It’s a place to reflect, to stay close to what conservatorship is meant to protect.”

“I’m sure it is,” Leça replied with an unpracticed disingenuity.

Looking back over their shoulder, they could see Peyr in the middle distance.

It had been so long since they had left the city they had almost forgotten the shape of it. Square corners, rising up irrefutably high from the ground below. Ziggurat layers stacked on layers, each pressing down on those below. A peak, gilded by sunlight, which was kept a great distance out of reach from the base that they had known so intimately.

Leça had spent much time watching from Peyr, but it was only now that they had been forced to it’s exterior that they could recognize the daunting form of it’s fullness.

And yet, when they looked at the whole they could not help but recognize something else as well. There was movement, mass movement, along the ground and on the platforms of the lowest level of the city. They saw the people of the understreets, their people, as they gathered and conversed and cared for one another. Last of all, they saw watchers on towers that they themselves had tread, shouldering responsibility for the protection of their family from the dangers that they were now exposed to.

“The people at the temple, what are they like?” They asked suddenly, after a long beat of silence.

Irec seemed surprised by the question. “Most are from the understreets. They seem to stick together, to get through their time there. They’re much like you, I’d expect.”

“These people are the last of all peoples.” Leça remembered, as the sunset expired behind them and they made their way through cool night towards this new community of penitents, “And to endure this life, one must hold on to a love for one’s own.”