“AWAKEN.”

David’s eyes flashed open. Kleymon was an excellent alarm clock.

“Musta’ smelled the Tunk stew. That’ll wake ya right up.” 

Now that Tunk mentioned it, there was an extremely pungent smell wading into his senses, it was like a combination of ginger and sour milk.

The smell wafted closer as Tunk set down a large wooden bowl on the table. 

“Have the rest. It’ll keep ya goin’ till we git ta’ town.”

David sat down on the stool and looked at the contents of the bowl. There were chunks of pinkish brown meat and miscellaneous vegetables in a thick creamy yellow soup base. All in all, it didn’t look terrible and he was quite hungry. Tentatively, he tried it. The soup base was a bit sour tasting, but the meat was lean and seasoned well. He scarfed it down in 2 minutes. Once again, he thanked his parents for not allowing him to be a picky eater. 

“Thanks, Tunk. That’s the first real meal I’ve had here.” He really was grateful. A diet of beans and granola can only get you so far. 

Tunk grinned, showing yellowed teeth with thin meat slivers still stuck in between. 

“Ha, always knew my cookin’ was good. We’ll leave for town in a heartbeat, just needa git mah sack for the Tunks.”

David was very bad at confrontation. So bad, he would go as far as changing his entire routine if it meant he could avoid someone he didn’t want to see. But, he might lose his arm if he didn’t ask this. That was enough motivation for even him. 

“Tunk, I…uh…I know you killed them, but I was going to use the tunks to pay for a heal…uh, a white robe, to fix my arm.”

Tunk stared at him, chilling David to his core. For a moment, he felt like prey, like Tunk was sizing him up, determining where he could most efficiently strike to eliminate him. If looks could kill, blood would be gushing from his neck. 

“AH, ITS FINALLY DAWNED ON YOU. HOW UTTERLY WEAK YOU ARE. HOW DANGEROUS THIS MAN IS. WHEN COMPANIONSHIP BEGINS TO BLOSSOM IN YOUR TENDER LITTLE HEART, REMEMBER THIS FEELING. REMEMBER THAT YOU ARE A BUG THAT THOSE OF THIS WORLD COULD CRUSH AT ANY MOMENT.” 

Tunk scratched his chin aggressively, not taking his eyes off David.

“Ya did play yer part in the hunt, I must admit. How bout’ this. You take the Tunks. Git yer arm restored. After that, come back here. You’ll be mah bait, bringin’ the Tunks out into the open for me. We’ll split the coin we git from sellin’ the Tunks, and in a few days ya can go ta’ a tavern in town.”

David smiled mechanically. It was the type of smile he gave to his boss at work. 

“Thank you, Tunk. Let’s do that.” The words were hollow, chiseled out from the inside. 

“Let's git goin then. Best to be there ‘fore the White Robe’s too busy.”  

Before Tunk climbed the ladder. he picked up a sack likely made of Tunk skin and slathered some red paste from a jar onto his wrist. The glowing bugs still scattered around the room gathered to him and followed his ascent. 

Once they reached the chamber of the crystal, Tunk dropped the three dead tunks in his sack, then scraped the paste off with his sloth-like fingernails, causing the bugs to fly back down the hole. David considered taking his pack, but he knew it would attract too much attention. 

When they walked through the glowing crystal door, the sun had yet to rise, and the hills were cast in a cold silver light. The tunic given to him was made of a thick coarse material that kept the chill at bay, at least for his upper body. 

Their journey began quietly. Only the solemn crunch of their feet over the morning dew grass escaped the silence of the first two hours. The landscape they traversed remained unchanging, green hill after green hill after green hill. After what David estimated to be hour three of their journey, crystals of a lighter blue hue than Tunk’s home appeared, stuck into the earth like gigantic arrowheads. As the sun reached greater heights, David found himself mesmerized by the way they shone in the light.

“None of ‘em are like mah stone. Bet some coin mine was at the top of the Great Stairs.” Tunk said with pride. 

“The Great Stairs?”

“Oh, ya don’t know ‘bout them, huh? It's a story that gits told to every babe here. Can’t tell it as good as my Momma, but I’ll try.”

And so, Tunk began his tale.

“‘Fore towns, ‘fore humans, ‘fore even the Niven, long ‘fore any of that, this land was a wild place. The forests were ne’er cleared, so the trees and brush tangled all across the land and dark creatures ya couldn’t imagine roamed in the shadows. ‘Cause it was a time of darkness and death, some call it the Shadowtime. Not sure why they gotta make the distinction, when it ain't much different now.”

Anyhow, wasn’t a place most could call home. But, up in the Skies, was a different story. Those Shadebringers we dread so much now, they flew freely and nested in the Ash Mountains. ‘Course they weren’t called Shadebringers back then. Wasn’t noone to call ‘em that. Noone on the land, at least. High in the clouds, higher than even the Shadebringers flew, was a city colored the milky blue of the sky. The buildin’s, the streets, the trees, they were all glass, and trapped the blue emptiness ‘round ‘em. This glass city, it was huge. A single building was twice the size of a Shadebringer. The things that musta lived there…makes me scratchy just thinkin’ ‘bout it.

Whatever they were, they got bored up there, wanted some company I s’ppose. It’s said they gave the smallest of ‘em, just a child, the task of buildin’ stairs that stretched from their city all the way to the land here. The kid made quick work of it, usin’ the stones ya see now for the whole thing. Where he got ‘em, nobody knows.

Once he finished, they waited. Waited for somethin’ to come up these stairs. In the time they waited, rivers cut through the Ash Mountains and changed their shape. The land itself broke and reformed. The dark creatures that hunted in this land, each and every one of ‘em, tried climbin’ up these stairs. None made it ta the top. The steps became littered with their rottin’ corpses. ‘Ventually those corpses became bones, and the bones were carried by the wind into the westward sea. That sea, we call it the Bone Sea now.

‘Round this time, past the Ash, a girl was born.  A human girl. Well, maybe human. As a babe, she never cried. She was born without a single hair on her head. None ever grew. The day she first spoke, a plague swept through her town, killing everyone but her. A group of nomads found her, took her up as their own. Named her Yersinia.

When Yersinia could walk, she spoke her second word. For 2 days, the sky turned black. The nomad’s entire pack escaped in the darkness, leavin’ ‘em with nothin’.  When the sun returned, the nomads brought her to the highest peak of the Ash and pushed her off. She tumbled downward, smashin’ against jagged cliffs and whippin through the forest below. When she finally hit the ground, it only took her a heartbeat to git up and start walkin’. This land of darkness became her home. Three-headed creatures with eyes on their hands and hands on their heads, she made her pets. As she grew, so did her control over the land. By the time girls here look ta’ couple, Yersinia dominated this land and all the creatures of it. Yet, like those of the glass city, she too grew bored. 

Her creatures had long steered her away from the Great Stairs, a place they knew held only death. Nevertheless, she mounted the largest of them to begin her journey, so their warnings fell on deaf ears. Halfway to the top, the creature she rode, a monstrous thing with coilin’ muscles as thick as a trunk, collapsed, dead from exhaustion. With its severed claws, she climbed up the giant steps. As she climbed higher, her flesh withered away and only her pearl white skeleton marched onward. On a day when the sun was blocked by shadow, she arrived at the end. Beyond the steps was the bridge to the glass city, now colored black from the lightless sky. The child who built the Great Stairs, now grown himself, stood on the bridge to the city. Yersinia opened her mouth but before she could utter a word, he struck the bridge, shattering it and the steps. The fractured steps crumbled back down to the land along with Yersinia.”

“ASTOUNDING THE TALES HUMANS WILL CRAFT TO EXPLAIN WHAT THEY CANNOT.” 

“So these blue cryst…er, stones, are the remnants of the steps?” David asked.

“That they are.” Tunk answered matter-of-factly.

“And what about Yersinia? Did she live?” He hoped she did. The story, fake or real, was a tragedy. 

“Well, seein’ as we have arrived, that would be a story for another time.”

Tunk had paused a few feet ahead of him at the crest of the hill they were walking up.

At the sight of the town, David’s breath stopped in his chest- it must have been as wonderstruck as he was, as it made no effort to continue. 

Circling around the perimeter of the town, a 30-foot high wall sculpted from the Great Stairs’ shimmering blue crystals first caught his eye. Beyond the wall, white plaster buildings were condensed upon each other tightly in an organized manner that bespoke a rushed but efficient architect. Capping many roofs were lush green gardens, devoid of any flowers. The town was built on a large hill, and towering over everything at the hill's peak, was a second crystal wall. This much smaller wall circuited magnificent white stone palaces that competed with each other to see which could more deeply impale the sky. A domed palace with a hexagonal crystal window at the top was narrowly winning. 

David had expected something much more…dismal.

“Don't gape too stupidly. Guards’ll see that and know you ain't from here.”

“...right.” David muttered.

“Don't say nothin’ either. Just stand and look at the ground.”

David’s stomach contorted itself in whirlwinds as they walked the final distance to the town’s first wall.