The Philosopher's Coprolite, part 002

The clouds and the shafts of the high towers against them were turning brown, like an old painting in oil, the color of a fading masterpiece. Long streaks of grime ran from under the pinnacles down the slender, soot-eaten walls. High on the side of a tower there was a crack in the shape of a motionless lightning, the length of ten stories. A jagged object cut the sky above the roofs; it was half a spire, still holding the glow of the sunset; the gold leaf had long since peeled off the other half. The glow was red and still, like the reflection of a fire: not an active fire, but a dying one which it is too late to stop.

No, thought Edwil, there was nothing disturbing in the sight of the city. It looked as it had always looked.

He walked on, reminding himself that he was late in returning to his chambers. He did not like the task which he had to perform on his return, but it had to be done. So he did not attempt to delay it, but made himself walk faster.

He turned a corner. In the narrow space between the dark silhouettes of two towers, as in the crack of a door, he saw the turning arms of the Great Astrolabe suspended in the sky. This was a device that the Duke of Nuork had erected last year on the top of a mighty tower, so that citizens might tell the day or the month as they told the hours or the day, by glancing up at a public tower. A complex set of turning, intertwined arms hung over the city, imparting the date to men and goblins alike in the streets below. In the rusty light of this evening's sunset, the configuration was clear: this was the second day of Last Seed.

Edwil looked away. He had never liked sight of that device. It disturbed him, in a manner he could not explain or define. The feeling seemed to blend with his sense of uneasiness; it had the same quality.

He thought suddenly that there was some phrase, a kind of quotation, that expressed what the astrolabe seemed to suggest. But he could not recall it. He walked, groping for a sentence that hung in his mind as an empty shape. He could neither fill it nor dismiss it. He glanced back. The Great Astrolabe spread its arms above the roofs, saying in immovable finality: Last Seed, day two.

Edwil shifted his glance down to the street, to a vegetable pushcart at the stoop of a merchant’s house. He saw a pile of bright gold carrots and the fresh green of onions. He saw a clean white curtain blowing at an open window. He saw a carriage turning a corner, expertly steered. He wondered why he felt reassured -- and then, why he felt the sudden, inexplicable wish that these things were not left in the open, unprotected against the empty space above.

The Philosopher's Coprolite, part 001

See if you can spot this one...

"Who is Jongalt?"

The light was ebbing, and Edwil could not distinguish the beggar's face. The beggar had said it simply, without expression. But from the sunset far at the end of the street, yellow glints caught his eyes, and the eyes looked straight at Edwil, mocking and still -- as if the question had been addressed to the causeless uneasiness within him.

"Why did you say that?" asked Edwil, his voice tense.

The beggar leaned against the side of the doorway; a wedge of broken glass behind him reflected the metal yellow of the sky.

"Why does it bother you?" he asked.

"It doesn't," snapped Edwil.

He reached hastily into his purse. The beggar had stopped him and asked for a copper, then had gone on talking, as if to kill that moment and postpone the problem of the next. Pleas for coppers were so frequent in the streets these days that it was not necessary to listen to explanations, and he had no desire to hear the details of this beggar's particular despair.

"Go get your cup of grog," he said, handing the copper to the shadow that had no face.

"Thank you, sir," said the voice, without interest, and the face leaned forward for a moment: a goblin. The greenish skin was wind-browned, cut by lines of weariness and cynical resignation; the eyes were intelligent.

Edwil walked on, wondering why he always felt it at this time of day, this sense of dread without reason. No, he thought, not dread, there's nothing to fear: just an immense, diffused apprehension, with no source or object. He bad become accustomed to the feeling, but he could find no explanation for it; yet the goblin had spoken as if he knew that Edwil felt it, as if he thought that one should feel it, and more: as if he knew the reason.

Edwil pulled his shoulders straight, in conscientious self-discipline. He had to stop this, he thought; he was beginning to imagine things. And yet… Had he always felt it? He was thirty-two years old. He tried to think back. No. He hadn't; but he could not remember when it had started. The feeling came to him suddenly, at random intervals, and now it was coming more often than ever. It's not a foretelling, he thought; it’s the twilight. I hate the twilight.