48 – Guilt

The White City, or how some denizens of the high society called it: the City of Light, was the capital of the kingdom of Good. But now, barely a year after Julian’s brief appearance in the city, it was unrecognizable. Its face had been forever changed by the events set in motion by Julian: the king, no longer protected by his shimmering royal field was quickly deposed and for a while, the noble Methias had assumed power. However, the winds of rebellion quickly spread through the whole city, in the noble’s halls and in the houses of the servants, and peace was short lived. Revolution swept the streets, spreading like wildfire that inflamed the hearts of peasants and nobles alike, who after years of oppression found themselves suddenly free and without guidance. A series of events that had culminated shortly before Julian had set foot on the fourth floor of the Atmos Arcadia Tower Complex, that hosted the city.

The self-proclaimed absolute goodness of the city, and of the kingdom, proved to be the lie Julian always thought it was as soon as the power vacuum became too large to be contained. Heads rolled and a series of many short-lived kings succeeded each other on the chipped throne of the white castle. None of which were Methias, who was smart enough to see the danger of the position even if armed with a superior weapon. Not even with its firepower he was sure he could survive, and so, the shortsighted kings each overlooked a city that was increasingly dark and black. It was stained by the smoke of many fires, the ashes of which fell back down on the immaculate rooftops or remained suspended for days in the controlled atmosphere of the small bubble of calm in the middle of the storm. Outside, in fact, a storm raged but it was inside that was most dangerous these days, and some people were beginning to wonder if perhaps they should tempt fate and try to weather the perennial winds that swept the hills that surrounded the capital in search of another safe haven. They weren’t aware, of course, of the decisions of their former king that had put them inside a tower managed by the system. And thus, as voices spread, pain also began to spread. A rumor was circulating, an ominous testimony that the apparent safety of their city was soon bound to suddenly cease.

Outside, alien to all these facts, the one author whose pen had set in motion the whole chain of events regarded the twin white gates of the city. The storm was raging, as it always did between the two lone mountains where the City of White was built, and atop the tall fortifications a series of evanescent lights, torches, fluttered around where sentinels patrolled the one border that the city had been forced to defend. A small group of people, carrying a great many torches moved rapidly across the whole section of the wall. One of the guards seemed to take notice of the commotion behind him and turned around, spinning the torch so fast that it almost went out, and the group stopped. The two parties regarded each other, torches moving around erratically, as if on the verge of exploding in a bout of violence. The lone torch swayed, and then fell to the ground where it disappeared behind the rampart, and the other torches converged on it, overtook it, and then moved on.

Something was happening atop those great walls. Julian found the gate slightly ajar, and a small trickle of people was leaving the city, some scantily clad while others wore armor that was stained with blood, others still were carrying their few possessions in a small bundle strewn across their backs. He slipped in, unnoticed not because of his inconspicuousness but because nobody seemed to pay him any mind, their eyes empty and faces long weathering the strong winds with stoicism, almost with depressed nihilism.

“What the fuck is happening here?” Julian found himself muttering, having arrived at Methias’ mansion and having found it aflame.

The whole city was in upheaval and crossing it on foot had taken a long time. He had resorted to shooting his way through, not killing people but scaring them off, and the few guards that recognized him – even though they were no longer guards but rather seemed lost and betrayed citizens like all others – moved out of the way very quickly, overtaken by a primal fear that they wore with no shame on their bloodied faces. The wind howled, and a cold chill snaked around Julian’s spine, no longer protected by the anti-cold potion. The city was supposedly protected by a weather controlling magic, or device, and even though Julian had no way of knowing that there was something wrong with it he immediately understood that the city was on a death timer.

He looked around. There was a fire resistance potion in his ring, and he drank it, idly wondering how much treasure he was going through just to satisfy his whims. And how much of that treasure had come right from this city. The ash clung to his wet clothes, staining them with the same shade of grey as the skin of the dwindling populace of the city below. Inside the mansion were bodies, charred and long since dead, but none of them was the noble he was looking for. There was another place he could check.

His eyes went to the twin mountain on which slope he could see, through the smoke that rose from the burning city below, the marred sight of the castle. The marble itself, once white like pale snow, was yellow and grey, stained irreparably. Even where it maintained its original color, its luster was gone, and below the grand halls were riddled with holes and crumbling roofs, and the path from the sontuous gates was dark and lifeless. Julian shrugged, descending back down into the city through the private path to Methias’ mansion. A river of people was climbing up, making use of the fact that he had gained entry here by force, destroying the magical spell that had kept the gates sealed shut through the entirety of the rebellion with the detonation of an F+ crystal.

And yet, the mansion was on fire, his mind told him. But the gate was intact, as were the service buildings.

There were no soldiers keeping watch over the crumbled bricks of the caste gates, leading to the garden and to the snaking path that led up the mountain. Only a group of people, holding torches and setting trees on fire, passed by Julian. As soon as they saw his gun, shining in the dark with its sinister inner blue light, they steered clear of him, giving him a wide berth. Voice had spread about what he did in the castle, of course, but despite the rumors one of the people dared yell something at him.

“Traitor!” he shouted, before he could be silenced by the rest of the crowd.

Everybody froze before Julian could even turn to face the direction the voice was coming from. He regarded them: the crowd was of twenty or more young men and women, some staring at him with terrified faces, others shuffling to keep the offender silent and inert even at the cost of beating him up, and Julian was torn inside by two opposing forces. On one hand he felt anger, repulsion at these people so shortsighted and ignorant to blame him for all that was wrong with their city. Yes, he might have been the spark that set the forest on fire, but the whole city was a catastrophe about to happen long before he had come along. How dare they blame him? It was just too easy to blame it all on one man, one action when in reality the flows of history were not dictated by the actions of a man but by the people.

On the other hand, he did feel guilty. He knew that his anger and resentment were only a smokescreen he had cast to protect himself. His rash actions had, like with Cal’s death, once again demanded a price paid in blood. And the blood was of the people of this city, doomed to live in the aftermath of his temper. Because it was true, yes, that he thought that history was not made by a man but by the people. However, that was only true when magic was not a factor in the equation, and when there was no system giving a single man the powers of a god. In cases like this, things were different, and he wasn’t so arrogant to think that he wasn’t guilty of his actions. It was just that he had hoped to put it all behind him, never to come back here again. He hoped he could see these people as collaterals, meaningless nobodies whose suffering had no place in the grand scheme of things.

For a moment he considered killing them, murdering them all to make the living proof of his mistakes disappear forever. He saw in their eyes the terror of death as they stared at his finger subconsciously caressing the exquisite brass work of the handle of his gun, a handle that he made with so much love and care while Cal watched and kept him company. They held their breath, and he deflated. When his hand moved away from the gun, only then did the crowd release their prisoner, the one who had dared to speak against him.

“I am a traitor. You are right.” Julian said. “And I am sorry.”

The man pushed aside the stunned crowd and stomped all the way to Julian, stopping when it was almost in his face. Despite being the same height, Julian felt small and insignificant in front of this broken man, who had nothing to lose and had decided to stand up to injustice despite knowing full well that his life was in Julian’s hands, as had been ever since Julian set foot in this city.

“You are sorry?” he boomed. “Look at what you did to this magnificent city. Sorry will not give me back my family! Sorry will not bring back the fallen soldiers, our fellow brothers, our king!”

Julian looked down. “You are right. It won’t. I acted selfishly, giving in to anger…”

He then thought about explaining the circumstances that had led to him doing what he did with the king, the matter with Cal, everything. But he didn’t. Those matters were trivial compared to the suffering of these people, his motives insignificant compared to the consequences of his actions. What good was telling them all these things going to do now? Would it bring back their dead? And, in the end, Julian thought that he was indeed a monster because he knew that it would all have been acceptable if Cal had survived. Hell, he would butcher these people personally, one by one, right now if it could somehow bring him back.

He only looked up at the pale, ashen man who was almost white in the moonlight and nodded. Then, saying nothing, he turned around and walked away. He had done enough damage already, and there was nothing he could say or do or give to these people to fix that. They didn’t need the items he had, nor the crystals. They needed their city back.

High above the clouds, at the edge of the protective dome that kept the city safe from the unforgiving hostile elements of the Fourth Floor of the tower, something was changing. Cold air was seeping in, bringing with it the snow and rain of the outside, telltale sign that the shield was failing, weakening at an alarming rate. The protective treasure that the king was given to shield his city when he accepted to become a Contractor, and which he had bound to his soul to guarantee that nobody would ever make an attempt to his life, had not protected him. And now, because of a choice just as shortsighted as Julian’s own choices, the city was about to die, swept away by the storm. Two people who were all too similar making the same mistake had doomed it.

Julian disabled the skill that allowed him to see the cracks in the sky and pushed the heavy metal doors open with a sigh. A quest had popped up during the ascent on the lonely path to the castle, and he was more determined than ever to complete it. And, he thought with a wry smile, if he completed it then he could fit the minigate inside his rings. Was this who he was now? Or was this who he had always been, even before the System when he was head of the biggest megacorporation Earth had ever seen?