The Fallen City

|Chapter XXI: Song of The Heart

The stars suddenly gave way for dark clouds, and the air became instantly breathable once again. They flew up the eye of an unfathomable storm, yet the twisted tunnel of clouds were still. Ahead of them at the end of the clouds was nothing but flame-shrouded light, and behind nothing but darkness. Its true nature was unknown, it was merely just a gateway. A gateway that should never have been reachable.

For mile after mile the clouds turned from dark grey into a muted silver. The world around them eventually grew brighter, dyed a more vibrant orange hue with every minute that came by.

It still only grew brighter, and it burned. They both shielded the eyes as much as possible, the heat began to rise, the burning light hurt.

Yet as quickly as this luminescence came upon them it too vanished...

Their eyes weren't open when the city's Skyline appeared before them. When they finally looked upon it the dawning sun hung behind them. The glorious skyscape of the long Fallen City rose from afore them. They were both in silent awe as they descended slow upon it. The rising spires were like shards of brilliant crystal, reflecting amuted light in rays as if through a thin fog. Their shadow ran across the towers and boulevards, across the rippling ocean and eventually faded to as another within the mighty City.

"That's the..." Carola had tears in her eyes, as Gale himself was still speechless. His eyes cast themselves upon the Spires once more as if for the first time.

They couldn't hear the song of the City, yet they felt its emotion. It welcomed those that fought for it with a view that would stain their vision forever.

Even the sight of it looked new. The vessel curved down, flying between the broken tips of many towers, and the remaining tops of others. Each of them was ensnared and encompassed with a tranquil mist, one only viewable by earthly eyes. The decay was ever retreating, the cracked and desolated ruins, the corpses of Humanity's imagination had regained a spark of life. The towers' silent flatlined beat reached that of a faint pulse, one marked by the flow of faded colour through its flesh and bone. As aliens in this world, it was only amongst them he could hear them.

Each spire sang a different song, they hummed with the radiance of a thousand solos, each one that passed by sang to them. Even after every day that he slept and walked the City, Gale had never heard such a resonance before. This song was sung from the City's will or power, but the wind echoing through the empty halls. It resonated up each spire and reverberated down the causeways. It was a song born of pure nature.

"It's beautiful... How could we ever make this?" Carola dried the tears on her shirt, Gale turned his head back to her, he had tears too.

"We all did." His eyes never left the cityscape. "How could they ever abandon it? Who could ever, either willingly or unwillingly, destroy this place..."

Now that they were here the whole experience was different. The towering spires of the City's heart fell away behind them, casting them across the crystal clear ocean. The water shimmered anew, even as it hung low and drained. The seabed breaking its surface glimmered with the sparkling light of a distant prism, a distant light. The sea radiated it upwards, its surface like a deep sapphire. it was without a ripple. It too was now pure.

As they made headway for the City's distant edge they came across it through good fortune alone. Like a tour of the City's greatest landmarks...

He had to see it once more.

And he could on the horizon, The Tree rose like a lump on the water. Its lower canopy glistened even from this distance, sparkling in the light of the perpetual dawn. The ShardShip skimmed the water's surface, kicking up a long trail of spray once more, marking a path like a pen with foam.