When he reached Miren's house, he ran into Garrun again at the door. The old man seemed to be here every spare moment he had.
Yavuz greeted him and went inside.
The moment he stepped in, the foul smell was the first thing he noticed. The Ruined Lands already smelled bad. He'd gotten used to that, but inside was different.
It was as if a corpse were rotting within.
The closer he came to the bedroom, the heavier the smell grew. First he saw Sedef, seated outside the room. She was watching Esen and the others from the side.
Their eyes met, but they didn't speak.
When he entered the room the smell grew stronger still, and at last he understood its source.
Miren lay in the bed, mercilessly unconscious. Her arm — the arm she had reached out that night to trigger the explosion — was pitch black. That blackness moved in tiny motions, as though it were alive.
Yavuz looked at the old woman's arm, all skin and bone. The stench of rotten flesh was unbearable now.
He forced himself, but couldn't hold out long. He barely kept from gagging.
Then he looked at the others. On one side were the innkeeper girls. They were tending to the old woman. On the other side was Esen, trying to help them with a grave expression.
No one was speaking.
The house was silent, and that unsettled him more than the smell.
Yavuz looked first at Esen, then at Sedef watching them from the doorway. None of the three spoke. But as if by agreement, they left the house one by one.
Garrun had already gone.
Ironically, he drew into his lungs the air that now felt clean to him.
"I'm leaving," he said.
Esen turned. His usual smile was on his face.
"We know, big guy." His voice was cheerful, maybe too cheerful. "You'd think you were going off to war. You'll be back in a few days."
Yavuz said nothing. He looked at the smile. A week ago he would have believed it.
The smile was in place. But his eyes, for a moment, just a moment, slid to the door behind them. To Miren's door. Then they came back, as if nothing had happened.
"Bring us back something when you return," he said, wagging his finger. "Whatever you can find now."
"I'll bring something," he said. He said nothing else. A promise was the only honest thing he could manage in that moment.
Esen's smile widened a touch. This time it was a little more real.
Sedef hadn't spoken until then. She stood by the door, hands clasped in front of her. When Yavuz looked at her she didn't look away — which was unexpected from her.
"Come back," she said. It was faint but clear. "Just… come back."
Two words, perhaps, but they landed heavier than all of Esen's sentences.
Yavuz nodded. He wanted to say something, and again couldn't find it. There wasn't a right thing to say anyway.
He started walking, but after a few steps he paused. He turned around again and looked at them.
Esen was grinning wide, mouth open. A few seconds later Sedef smiled too. Not as wide as Esen's, but as warm as his.
Two warm, heartfelt smiles. In that moment Yavuz made a decision of his own.
At the very least, at the very least, he wanted to protect these two warm smiles.
That was enough for him.
Poyraz looked back one last time before they left.
Those who stayed in the village had returned to their work after a brief farewell. Everyone had important tasks to do.
The bustle faded from sight, the shouts from hearing.
They had now officially left the village.
The expedition had begun.
He turned to face forward. Erlin was at the very front, Yalaz behind him, and the five at the rear.
Their journey began with the sodden bondage of swamps hidden in the mist. Poyraz was grateful Garrun had given them boots. Crossing these swamps without a pair of boots would have been all but impossible.
When they got past the swamps, merciless slopes met them — slopes they had to climb by clawing at the earth with their fingernails. Fortunately, they had gained some experience in climbing on their very first day in this world.
At last they crossed the sharp gray crags that made the soles of their feet ache; these seven had bent the harsh terrain to their will in spite of their exhaustion.
But night was about to fall over the steppes of the Ruined Lands, and night on these steppes was deadly.
When Yalaz finally said, "Let's make camp," Poyraz wanted to throw himself to the ground, but couldn't. Each of them had been given a task.
He and Hak were to pitch the tents. These tents didn't much resemble the ones back on Earth, but they were functional enough. The only problem was that they had no idea how to set them up. Fortunately, Erlin helped them.
Tunay and Aylin had lit a fire. They were cooking. Poyraz was surprised Tunay had volunteered to cook. He hadn't thought the mischievous man could cook.
Meanwhile Yalaz had taken Yavuz off somewhere. He didn't know what they were doing, but he wasn't worried.
Once the tents were up and the food prepared, the remaining five sat down around the fire.
As Poyraz ate, he leaned his back against a rock and began watching the sky.
"Seems you can't sit still without leaning on something," said Tunay with a smirk.
Startled by the voice, Poyraz involuntarily straightened and shifted his position.
"I was joking, man, relax."
"It's not that," said Poyraz, rubbing his shoulders. "These rocks aren't as comfortable as trees. It's hurting my back."
Tunay chuckled. The crackle of the fire was, for a moment, the only sound between them.
"What do you think is waiting for us in the Floating City?" asked Aylin.
Her gaze had drifted off into the flames, and there was a tension in her voice she was trying to hide.
Tunay spread his hands. "How should we know?"
Aylin didn't answer him. Instead, Erlin's timid voice broke the silence.
"What kinds of creatures are there — believe me, I have no idea either."
Every gaze around the fire turned instantly to the boy. Erlin swallowed and went on.
"But there are some things I've heard from my master. Rocks, buildings, trees, even some living creatures... whatever there might be in a city, all of it hangs suspended in the air."
"What do you mean?"
Tunay leaned toward Erlin, curious. The boy was a little startled by the unexpected closeness.
"They're literally just hanging in the air," said Erlin, pulling himself together.
"And you can't budge a single one of them from its place. According to what my master told me, they've been frozen like that for thousands of years, maybe longer. That's the very reason it's called the Floating City."
Aylin slowly set the bowl in her hand down on the ground, her brows knit.
"If everything's frozen in the air and we can't touch any of it... then what could we even get from there?"
"Not all of the city floats," Erlin corrected hastily. "There are ordinary places too, where time and gravity flow normally."
While they talked, a shadow whose three wounds were now nearly closed stood at the summit of one of the mountain ranges of the Ruined Lands. Three of its wounds had healed, but the other two, instead of healing, had grown larger and begun to spew that familiar black smoke again.
The climb had been hard on the shadow.
When the shadow finally reached the peak, it sat down on one of the rocks. It turned its head up to the sky. It saw the two stars and the countless Moons, but it wasn't looking at them.
Far away, very far away, a star was winking at it. A star that felt warm.
After a while the shadow rose to its feet again. From the peak it had climbed, a good portion of the steppes of the Ruined Lands was visible.
It saw the swamps, the ancient ruins, the enormous floating rocks. And one more place, full of life.
The shadow had fixed on the place full of life when another point broke its focus. A point a little way off from the place full of life.
A fragment of flame too small to be seen out on the steppe.
The shadow looked first at that area where humans sheltered, then at the small flame. For a few minutes it didn't move. It only watched these two lights.
When it finally moved, it turned not toward the place where life stirred, but toward the small flame.
Its descent from the peak had begun.
At that same moment, strange things were happening in a cave that had witnessed first a great explosion and then a bloody battle.
After the many battles fought one after another, this cave — once a beautiful grove — had now become a graveyard and a place of mourning for the bloody trees.
A few lucky trees that had survived wandered about. But for even them, luck was about to turn.
These handful of trees were fighting other trees, ones that had once been their comrades. The only difference between them was that insect limbs sprouted from the bodies of their comrades.
Those that bore these insect limbs, as one might expect, stank worse than the foulest carrion, and fouled still further the soil already fouled by the endless procession of battles.
The trees fought. They won, they lost. Their numbers dwindled.
When the last tree fell as well, the cave sank into silence for a time.
Until a small spider crawled across the soil and appeared upon the corpse of an ancient tree.
The little spider climbed onto the ancient tree. It made its way across the enormous body and at last reached the place where the shattered core lay.
It entered the core, laid a small egg, and died.
A few days later this egg cracked, and the corpse of the ancient tree stirred back into motion.