The City of Pan

Everything was dark and smelled of Onions. That’s what I remember the most clearly. I still can’t smell onions without zipping back to that day. The day everything changed.

We lived in the servants quarters of the Moonsen’s enormous estate, and we shared the space with a large and dark root cellar that housed enough onion, potato and carrots to make stews all winter.

My mother was just outside the root cellar doors, and her voice was frantic.

“Please, you must leave. My husband will be back any moment.”

One of the council guards chuckled, “Your husband? You mean the one we’ve got locked up in the spire?”

The other laughed, a mean high pitched squeal, and she said, “She thinks we don’t know who’re husband is.” I heard a slap and my mother cried out. “Course we know ‘im. That’s why we’re here!” The woman shouted.

My body tensed and I hugged my knees to my chest. I was terrified and couldn’t believe these people were here. I wondered what they wanted with us. Wondered if I could get them to leave. But my mother’s voice rang in my ears even as I heard her whimpering a few feet away. Don’t come out no matter what you hear. Don’t make a sound. You have to stay silent. She’d left the cellar and hung the dirty drapes over the door to hide it from view, leaving me in the company of tubers and bulbs while she was beaten bloody.

The intruders struck her again and glass shattered as she was thrown across the table where we’d just finished eating. Looking at it now, that probably saved my life. If they’d had time to count the place settings, they might have looked harder for me.

Instead, they proclaimed my mother under arrest, on orders from the Council. They drug her from our home as she muttered incoherently. I like to think she was saying goodbye, or telling me she loved me. But I couldn’t be sure they were actual words after the beating she had taken.

I sat in that cellar for three days waiting for my mother or father to return. By the time I screwed up enough courage to leave, they’d already been executed.

I didn’t know what to do, and staring at the long line of dead hanging from the city wall wasn’t helping me. My parents died fighting against the council, and from what I saw on the wall, they wouldn’t go easy on me because I was young. There were boys far younger than me swinging up there.

I couldn’t go back to the Moonsen Estate, that’d be the first place they looked. I had to find others who were fighting back against the magic that ruled the city. The council guard was everywhere, and it seemed only a matter of time before they realized I was missing and came for me.

Everything was designed to be easy and comfortable for those with magic in their veins. Doors opened with only a swish of a wrist. Rickshaws floated through the streets without the need of men or horses to pull them. All was lovely for the population that was deemed exceptional. Exception caused by an accident of birth. Their magic was boundless, and getting along in Pan wasn’t easy for non-magic users like me.

Those of us born without magic were set to slavery. A hundred years ago, the founding council built the wall and constructed the magical glass dome that kept Pan safe from the deadly white spores that surrounded us. With this, they set themselves as Gods. Those who couldn’t wear the collars that siphoned off magical energy to maintain the dome were instantly deemed inferior.

I’d wandered the streets, looking to find any of the collarless who would meet my eye, but they all kept their heads down as they swept the streets or ran errands for their masters. They knew where we stood, and the bodies on the wall were the lucky ones. They weren’t sent to harvest crops amongst the spores.

I knew my parents went to meetings, I just needed to remember where they went. My brain moved like molasses and my eyes stung. I wasn’t sure if it was from crying or from all that damned onion in the cellar.

I wandered aimlessly until the sun went down, trying to remember where my parents had always gone off to. After hours passed, I found myself at the foot of the spire, a twisted magenta finger made from steel that jabbed from the city's heart. I stood at its base and stared up at the tower. If not for the matching magenta dome that started at the tower's peak, it looked to me like it could have touched the twinkling pink stars.

“Halt!” a guard yelled at me. “You can’t come any closer!”

I tore my gaze away from the spire and looked at the guard. He had a collar around his stout neck and wasn’t much taller than me.

“What’re you doing out? It’s close to curfew and there’s no collarless homes this close to the spire.” I’m only thirteen, but I’m tall for my age and he seems to think I’m older because of this. To him, older and collarless meant a threat. “There’s no way you’re getting back home to make curfew.” He beckoned the other guard to circle behind me, thinking I didn’t see what was happening. He pointed a stubby finger at me while he touched his collar with his opposite hand, worshiping the thing that kept him connected to the council he served. “I’ve got to take you in for this.” He said. His piggy black eyes glinted and his large fiery mustache quivered with pleasure as he continued to finger his collar.

“No, thank you.” I told him, doing my best to be polite and keeping the fury from creeping up in my voice. This bastard, or his ilk, had hung my family from the city wall. I’d be damned if I was letting him take me anywhere.

Tired of cat and mouse, the fire stache nodded to his comrade. I side-stepped in time to avoid the brute and sent him stumbling into his comrade. Seizing the opportunity I ran from the tower as fast as I could, not looking back and hoping the guards would be too lazy to give chase.

They were lazy, but wanted to seem diligent, so they fired off magenta energy blasts from their staffs as I sprinted towards the nearest street. The tower was designed with defense in mind, and they left a wide swath around its base to make sure no one could sneak up to it without being seen. I nearly made it across the stretch of open cobbles. Nearly.

In hindsight, I should have zigged or at the very least zagged when they started firing at my tail. Even the worst shot could get lucky, and one of them did.

I was hit between the shoulder blades with an energy blast that should’ve turned me into a pile of dust. Instead, I was hurled forward and all the air was forced from my lungs.

“He’s an abhorrent!” fire stache shouted after me. “A bleeding, abhorrent!”

I got to my feet, my lungs still screaming, and stumbled out of view of the tower before I felt a pair of gloved hands pull me into an alley.

If there’d been air in my lungs, I would’ve screamed. I don’t mind admitting that. I thought I was a goner as the shadowy figure pulled me to the ground and dragged me through a hole in the ground and into the sewer.

“Don’t speak.” They whispered in my ear, and I didn’t try to respond. My lungs were coming back to themselves and all I could do was suck air.

The cloaked figure reached back up to the opening and pulled the grate back into place as I heard the guards run by, their armour clanking and cursing all the while.

The sound of their pursuit faded and the shadow in the cloak turned back to me, pulling the hood down from their face.

“I’ve been looking for you all over the city, Falon.” She said,

“Who’re you?” I asked.

“Tristan Violet Moonsen.” She did a mock bow and her auburn curls bounced forward to cover her face. “You can call me Tris.” She said. She stood and flashed me a brilliant smile, her blue eyes twinkling.

“Moonsen? I’ve never seen you around the estate.” I said.

“Sure you have. You’re just never allowed to look up from your shoes on the estate.” She smiled again. “We’ve practically grown up together…but we’re worlds apart.”

She grabbed me by the wrist and pulled me further into the sewers as more guards thundered by outside. I felt a rush as the threat of imminent capture and imprisonment slipped away, leaving me with the new and unfamiliar hole in my chest.

“You’re like them, right?” Tris said. “Like your parents?”

“I don’t know what–”

She stopped in her tracks and I bumped into her.

“Immune,” She said. “Immune to magic.”

I thought of the punch in the back and how I wasn’t dead and realized she must be right. But what would that mean?

“That’s why–” she looked at the ground and her eyes became watery. “why they took your parents. They were immune to the council’s magic, and they can’t have that, can they?”

I felt bile rise up in my throat at the thought of the council passing judgment on my parents. They had to have total dominion. Total control. It wasn’t enough that they already took away all our chances to be anything but their servants. Their slaves.

“At the wall…” I mustered my courage as I felt my heart flutter at the very thought. “There were signs that said my parents and the others were traitors. That they were hung for treason against the Council. Is that true?”

Tris wiped her eyes and steadied her gaze, looking me in the eyes. “Absolutely.” she whispered.

“So you’re part of it? Part of the treason? But you’re collared…”

“That doesn’t mean I think it’s right.” she said, shifting the cloak around to make sure the collar was hidden in its folds. “And I would appreciate it if you didn’t tell anyone that either, hmm? Keep that our secret.”

I nodded, and pointed at her neck, “I can see how wearing one of those would be seen as bad form amongst the treacherous.”

She smiled. “You could say that.” she said.

We resumed down the sewer, Tris leading me away from the tower and through the maze of disgusting sludge. We walked for what felt like hours before coming to a grate with a star scratched beside it. Tris jumped up on an old crate that sat under the opening and peered out, looking side to side for any would-be observers.

“I think we’re in the clear.” she said, and pulled the grate to the side. The rusted metal groaned and I thought they could surely hear it at the spire, but we crawled from the sewers and no one came rushing after us.

My stomach was in knots and I longed for a bed, but when I caught the smell of stew and warmed pies floating through the air, I forgot all about my exhaustion. My stomach growled louder than the creaking metal gate and Tris looked at me with a twinkling eye.

“Good thing we’re here. Smells like Lucien has some supper on for us.”

Instead of walking to the street, she doubled back into the alley, careful to do several loops around the block to lose any tails. We came to a large black door at the back of the tavern just outside the sewer we’d come from. Tris knocked in a series of openhanded slaps and sharp knuckled raps to beat out some code I found impossible to follow.

A response came from the inside, equally intricate but very different, and Tris responded with two loud thumps. The door creaked open and Tris pulled me inside by the elbow and past the old woman who nodded and smiled a toothless grin.

Tris didn’t lead me to the kitchens, or out to the front of the tavern, but down a sharp set of stairs and into the cellars.

The smell of the onions hanging on the wall made me forget my growling stomach and it was all I could do to keep from racing back up the stairs and into the fresh air. I kept myself together and we came to a long narrow room lined with stone. Candles flickered in the darkness and the smell of the burning wax mingled with the onion and made it slightly more bearable.

Two men sat at a long table and were in the middle of a heated discussion conducted in frantic whispers. I couldn’t make out what was being said, and given the clandestine nature of the cellar of treason, I suppose that was the point.

They stopped short, noticing they had company, and the man with long hair and a bald pate looked over at us and interrupted his partner.

“Tris! You found him, thank Ptuck!” He said and touched the amulet around his neck.

“Lucien,” Tris said, smiling fondly at the older man. “It was a close thing. He was wandering around the spire and some guards came after him.”

“Oh my.” Lucien clutched his chest. “That wouldn’t have been good. You may be our last hope, young man. It wouldn’t do to have you hanging from the wall with the others.”

I looked at the floor. My face flushed and my eyes stung. He hadn’t said it to be cruel, but reminders of my lost parents wasn’t an easy weight to bear. Especially not with the hunger and exhaustion that weighed on me.

“I– I’m so sorry about your parents.” he added, his voice trembling slightly. “Frederick, be a dear and go grab him some stew and a couple of the pies. He must be absolutely famished.”

Frederick whispered something in Lucien’s ear and he nodded in agreement, giving him a peck on the cheek. “Yes, we’ll finish our discussion later. Don’t worry.” he said and gave him a reassuring smile. “Come, sit with me.” he said and pointed to the chair across from him where Frederick had sat.

I sat in the old chair and Tris sat beside me. The seat was worn smooth and it wobbled like a three legged calf.

“So, Falon. How much had your parents told you about us?”

My parents hadn’t said much, but, “They told me that you were going to save us. Save Pan.”

Lucien smiled and nodded, looking at the table in an effort to hide his misty eyes.

“Well, Falon…I hope so.” he looked me in the eye and I could see the pain stretched across his face. He’d lost my parents too, and all the others that were hung from the wall. “We had a plan; your parents and I. It involved the others too.”

Frederick came down the stairs with a steaming bowl and a plate of pies and set them in front of me. He pulled a set of cutlery from the leather half-apron now hung from his waist and said, “you can just leave it all here when you’re done. I’ll see it’s dealt with.” The floorboards squawked overhead and he rushed back upstairs to deal with the customers.

I looked over to Lucien and waited for him to resume his story. It felt like my navel was going to punch through my backbone and that feeling must have come across my face as Lucien said, with a smile, “Go ahead and eat, my boy. This can wait a few minutes.”

I scarfed down the stew first, scalding my tongue in the process and slopping the delicious gravy onto my chin. I would’ve earned a smack upside the head for eating like this at home, but when you haven’t eaten a proper meal in three days, you tend to forget your manners.

I finished the last pie as Tris lit a new candle, the last one having begun to wane. Lucien sat in silence, happy to watch me eat and enjoy his cooking.

“Feel better?” He asked as I stuffed the last bit of crust into my mouth.

“Mmmm-hmmm.” I managed around the delicate pastry.

“It’s my mother’s recipe.” He nodded. “She’s still keeping this place open after all these years. I swear people only come for the pies.”

“I know I would.” I said.

“Right.” He placed his hands on the table. “Back to business then.

Your parents, and all the other poor souls along the wall, were the last known abhorrence in Pan. We’d devised a plan for stopping the Council and regaining control of the city. Returning the city to the people.” he shook his head. “Somehow they found out and put an end to that.”

I looked at the table, feeling the pies fighting with the butterflies in my guts, and did my best to keep a level head. Tris moved closer and put her hand on mine. I looked to her and to Lucien, and I could see there was concern there. They cared about our future. About me, even though we’d just met, they’d known me for ages.

“Our plan hinged on having an abhorrent present. I believe, given your lineage, that you might be the last abhorrent in Pan.”

I looked up at Tris and she squeezed my hand. She knew I was an abhorrent, but her thin lips were drawn tight, and I knew she wouldn’t tell Lucien.

“I– I am.” I said, and fixed my gaze on Lucien.

“You’re sure?” He said, looking at Tris.

“When he was escaping the council guard at the spire, he was hit with a magical attack from a staff. It knocked the wind out of him, but nothing more.”

Lucien’s shoulders slumped and he put a hand to his forehead. He sighed and a weight seemed lifted. “Bless us, Ptuck. You are all.” he said while rubbing his amulet. “If that’s the case, then you’re a very strong abhorrent indeed. I suspect even stronger than your parents.”

“My parents?” I looked up at Tris. “They were going to help with this plan?”

Tris nodded, her lips drawn tight again.

“Will it end the council’s control over Pan? Will the collarless be free again?”

Lucien nodded. “I believe so.”

I looked down at the table, clenching and unclenching my fists, and thought of all I had to lose. A life under the thumb of the council. A council that collared their elite and left those without magic as servants and slaves to the cruel and the wicked. A council that killed my parents for wanting to change the status quo and rise against them.

I caught a whiff of onion and closed my eyes as I envisioned my time in the cellar at home. Thought of the bastards that came for my mother and dragged her to her death.

I released a breath I didn’t know I was holding and answered, “I’ll do it.”

A smirk sprang across Lucien’s lips and his eyes flashed to Tris and then back at me, filling up with fear. As quickly as the weight was removed, it had returned. The fate of Pan rested on his shoulders. The fate of myself, and of Tris, were in his hands.

“We’ll go first thing in the morning. We need to rest and I have arrangements to make.” He rose from his seat and limped towards the stairs. His left leg ticked on the stone floor as he went, drawing my eyes to the wooden shaft that protruded from his trousers. “You and Tris should stay down here for the night. I’ll send Frederick with more candles and some blankets. Tris can fill you in on all the details while I prepare above.” He began to head up the stairs, but turned back as he remembered something and said, “I just want you to know, Falon. If this goes according to plan…you’ll always have a home here with me and Frederick; if you choose.”

I nodded and said, “Thank you, Lucien.” He smiled and headed up the stairs with his awkward, clicking gait.

****

Dawn broke and a cool breeze shifted on the wind. I pulled the oversized black coat Frederick leant me tighter and did my best to follow Tris without raising my head.

The Council guard had been busy last night with their press, the only press in the city, and now my face was strung up on every post, shop window and tavern door in Pan. I even saw one tied around a dog's neck as it hurried after a garbage collector looking for its next big prize.

We made it to the spire with no trouble and Lucien met with a collared guard before motioning for us to follow.

Lucien led the way into the keep and down a short flight of steps into the bowels of the spire. Servants bustled around to help with all the things the council needed that magic couldn’t provide. We passed the kitchen and the smell made my mouth water. Fresh loaves steamed on a rack and pies were being shoved into the roaring ovens.

We scurried through the halls like beetles. Soon we found a staircase and ascended the crooked steps leading to the top of the spire and the magenta orb that held the dome in place.

The higher we climbed, the more moths fluttered in my guts and I broke my silence to whisper to Tris, “You’re sure the spores are harmless?”

She shot me a look that I don’t think I deserved (we weren’t exactly quiet going up the stairs, especially Lucien with his wooden leg) and said, “Mostly sure.”

“How do you know?”

We didn’t slow as she answered, “We’ve had reports from the gatherers. Collarless have had their masks slip…have been exposed to massive amounts of spores. They always end up dead the next morning.”

“That sounds like the spores are still dangerous, not harmless.”

“Death by slit throats or smashed skulls. Not death by spores.” She sighed. “They need to keep them quiet to keep us under control. The spores have existed for a hundred years. The council is maintaining their lethalness, but they also maintain that the magic users are superior to the mundane. They shouldn’t get to decide anymore.”

I clenched my jaw and remembered my mother being dragged away only four days ago. “No. They shouldn’t.”

We made it to the landing leading to the roof. Lucien shoved the door, but it held fast. He shoved it again and rattled the handle trying to shake it loose.

He threw himself against the door and it swung inwards, sending him sprawling to the floor.

Tris and I ran in after him, kneeling at his side, not noticing the slim man dressed in white and holding the door open.

The man slammed the door behind us and flicked his wrist to send a bolt of white energy into the steel frame of the door. It groaned as it shrunk, sealing us on the roof.

“We thought you might try again, Lucien…” the man in white said.

“Bartok…You can go to hell.” Lucien groaned as he stood up and held his arm to his chest, wincing in pain when he moved it.

“The little birdie injured its wing?” A honied voice said from the air behind us.

“You might as well show yourselves, council.” Lucien snarled. “If Bartok's here then so are the rest of you.”

Five more people appeared around us, each of them clad in a monochrome outfit of yellow, orange, green, blue , and purple. The squat man in purple said in a high pitched lilt, “You know, Lucien. You really should’ve stayed in the hole you crawled into after you left the council.” He giggled. “Did you come looking for Mommie’s magical teat to suckle?”

“No, damn you.” Lucien said and clutched his amulet. “You’ve lied for too long. I’ve come to end this madness!”

“Oh, Red, dear.” The woman in green said, pursing her lips. “You’d best control yourself. I wouldn’t want to take your other leg.” She licked her teeth and smiled.

Lucien’s eyes lit up and I thought he was going to say something, but he turned away from the Green woman and clenched his jaw tight.

I looked at Tris, and her eyes were filled with tears. She held herself as straight as a board as Lucien whispered, “Plan B.” then turned back to the half circle of colours.

Bartok the White had just joined the semi-circle beside Orange as Lucien let loose a geyser of fire at him, hitting him directly and engulfing him in flames.

Tris grabbed my wrist and pulled me to the right of Bertok who dropped to his knees, screaming in agony. The other colours fired at Lucien.

I turned back without slowing, letting Tris pull me along, and saw Lucien counter the yellow sparks and blue ice before a pillar of jade erupted from beneath his feet and swallowed his body up to his waist.

Two more pillars sprang from the side and encapsulated his hands as he tried to hurl more fire at the green woman.

“The orb!” he screamed as the jade began to creak, tightening around his body. “Remove the orb, Falon!”

The other colors turned as we reached the center of the platform. I froze as Lucien gave a final cry of anguish and the jade screeched one final time, crushing him to death.

A bolt of lightning shot from the woman in yellow and hit me squarely on the shoulder. I spun around to receive a blast of ice to my chest that disintegrated on impact. It left me icy and sore, but unharmed.

“Get the orb!” Tris shouted, and I launched myself towards the magenta sphere sitting on a cradle that looked like it was made from human bones. I reached my fingers out and the light surrounding the orb parted to allow my hand entrance.

“No! It’s not possible!” The purple man shrieked.

Another lightning bolt shot at me, deflecting off and nearly hitting Tris. I put my hand on top of the orb and it trembled under my palm, shriveling as the council dropped to their knees, clutching at their throats.

“No! You can’t do this to us!” Yellow screamed.

“You’re nothing! Worthless!” Orange choked out as skin wrinkled and sloughed off his cheek.

“This is the end.” I said. I pulled the orb from its cradle and threw it to the ground, smashing it to a thousand pieces.

The magenta light flickered and disappeared. A monsterous wind howled across the top of the spire. It put out the last of the flames that smoldered on Bertok the White and threw the man in orange from the top of the spire and to the streets below.

My feet slid and the spire began to tilt as the wind continued to blow. I grabbed Tris by the hand and pulled her close, wrapping my arms around the pedestal of bones that the orb had sat in.

The spire began to twist under us and the remaining colors were thrown from their places and over the railing. We slowly tilted down until the once great tower was nothing but a twisted and broken piece of metal that hovered only a few yards from the cobbled street. The same street I’d run across only the evening before.

The metal groaned as it stopped and Tris said, “I can’t hold on any longer. I’m going to drop down.”

I nodded and she let go. She hit the edge of the platform and tried to keep her balance, but fell down to the ground, landing feet first on the stones below and shouting in pain.

“Tris!” I shouted. “Are you alright!”

“No,” she said, gasping. “I think I broke my ankle.”

I had to help her, and decided to drop down too. I looked over and saw Lucien’s body encased in jade and fused to the platform. It made me sick and I smelled onions, saw my parents' bodies swinging from the wall. I shut my eyes tight and willed the images away before dropping to the platform edge. I kept my balance and then hung from the side to drop into the street below.

I landed in a crouch and a shock shot through my ankles, knees and hips, but I was no worse for wear.

I helped Tris to her feet and looked around at what had been the bodies of the Council members laying in puddles on the ground.

A light wind pushed Tris’s hair across her face and strands stuck to the tears that ran down her cheeks. “Do you think it was worth it?” She whispered.

White spores started to fall around us, and I looked to the sky. I breathed in deep, and the air smelled fresh. Clean.

I didn’t cough or sputter as the spores continued to fall. Harmless.

“Yes,” I said and people were rushing up the streets towards us and the debris that was strewn everywhere. “I think Lucien was right. It’s time. It’s over now.”

Tris wiped her eyes and nodded. I put her arm around my shoulder and we began our long trek back to Lucien’s tavern one hobbled step at a time.