Mazelton left the bank in a bit of a fog, one entirely of his own making. He was surrounded by the mists of Old Radler. Others might see a beautiful, hot summer’s day, but he saw the end of summer, the cool mists rolling down the hills and through the streets, shrouding the people in muslin. They were such a fixture that people used them as part of their play. Kids would dress as mist-wraiths and zoom about, before their parents called them in to dinner. Lovers would “meet in the mists” for a secret tryst, counting on the gentle blurring to hide them from intruders in their loving little world. The mists of Old Radler, coming from the peak of the chimneys at the top of the city, and rolling down. Cooling the city. Sweeping up all the harmful dust, and the day’s pains.

Until Grandmother, Matriarch, The Hag Malima, ran the filters in reverse, pumping out concentrated metal dust and intense radiation, slaughtering the city. He couldn’t tell which mists he was wandering through.

He had other grandparents. Mazelton could remember them in a hazy way. They were around. He saw them every few weeks. Of course, for Malima’s husband, it was only “seeing” him. He had no right to actually speak to the man, unless invited. The difference in status was just too great. His other grandparents were… fine? He could put names to faces. They were ordinary folk. A little disappointed, perhaps, that their child and grandchild were unhappy. But to the best of his recollection, they led ordinary lives in the Clan house, and were content. Until Malima decided it was better that they died.

Mazelton tried to follow Grandmother’s logic. The city went up in flames all over, all at once. Reports would have come in fast. The Clan House permitted no outsiders, but the businesses and the warehouses would have had traitors and saboteurs hidden within. In the big dust filtration plant deep underground. They always had a lot of disposable proles working there. Short life expectancy. Put a few Ma supervisors in there to keep things running, and make do with high turnover.

So assume that the proles turned as one, let in the Cabells and soldiers, lynched their supervisors… then what? Grandmother would have found out about it fast, probably faster than the poor damned supervisors. She was widely acknowledged as the continent’s leading expert on stone calling. It wouldn’t be any surprise at all that she could control the plant remotely. And not tell anyone about the contingency. But why do it? Why not fort up, give up the businesses and the warehouses, evacuate those that could be evacuated, and cut a deal? Surely they were worth more alive than dead. And it’s not like they were independent to the point of suicide. The Ma had worked under countless local despots. Knowing when to bow your head was also a survival strategy.

So why this time? What about this attack was so bad that Malima was prepared to kill her children, grandchildren, even great-grandchildren, along with everyone else in the city?

He couldn’t figure it out. He looked in a window, generously covered in rippling glass.

“I had hoped the poison was enough. You weren’t bad company, for a parasite.”

He could hear the Jasmine speaking in his ear. Their voice was always seductive, a breathy sound. Even when they laughed or shouted, it stroked you.

“Why?” Mazelton whispered, not seeing the street in front of him. He was back in the garret, tasting the poison and too shocked to feel the betrayal yet.

“Time for a change. Goodbye, Mazelton.”

But why? He would have gone with them. He was already seduced. He was the perfect potential turncoat- a young, unmarried man with limited prospects but deep connections, a history of rebellious behavior and hedonism, someone… unloved. It would have been so easy for them. Surely he would have been more valuable alive?

Mazelton started to have trouble breathing. His heart trembled, it could no longer keep a calm rhythm. For the first time since he awoke in Humble Iolan’s bed in South Bay, he acknowledged the truth- Both his Grandmother, and the person he loved, thought their world would be better without him in it. His existence was so unnecessary to them, in fact, that he wasn’t worth turning into someone useful. Not bad company, for a parasite.

He could see his thoughts going around in circles, trapped in the mist. The sun was two fingers above the horizon and sinking fast by the time he pulled himself together. He was lost as hell, and hadn’t even started his shopping.

First things first- he had to resupply on food and seasonings. Next, socks. Also boots, if there were some available in his size. He didn’t have time to wait for a cobbler to make some. Perhaps his could be resoled fast, if he tipped well? Polishing supplies too- he was painfully low on material for heat sponges, all the cores he had were tiny, misshapen things, and he was far too low on core dust for comfort. And he needed to get the materials for his new weapon. It wouldn’t kill a god, but he was fairly confident he could give it heartache. If he could build the blasted thing.

He briefly considered rock climbing supplies, and swiftly discarded it. He was good at climbing, and he already had rope. At this point, nothing else was going to be of much use. He rapped his knuckles against his head a touch more firmly than he ought to have. Saddle. All kinds of tack for the cheve. Fodder. Beans? Did cheve like beans? He couldn’t remember. Sweet roots like carrots were good, but they hardly kept in the heat. Rubbing the sore spot, he made his way to a grocery store.

The grocery was an interesting place. They didn’t let you look around. Rather, you went to the clerk at the desk and told them what you wanted, and they told you if they had it and how much it would cost. If you came to terms, then they would go get it. And not a moment before. It took a small age for them to put his order together. On the other hand, they did have a fellow out front selling food made with their ingredients, and it smelled incredible.

Mazelton would not have considered himself a foodie before going on this journey. He still didn’t really think of himself that way. But starving a few times in a year has a way of elevating the place food has in your heart.

The cook looked like a collection of tidy little balls, stacked and glued into the shape of a human. An almost perfectly round, neatly shaved head, eyes almost invisible behind squirted lids and a constant little smile. A little round neck, on a little round torso, and so on down to the meaty fingers at the end of the tubular arms. They weren’t obese, exactly, just… very round. And charming. Mazleton could have watched them for hours. They radiated a kind of peace and enthusiasm that was easy to love. So he watched them for a bit.

People would come up and order, the cook would reach into their various buckets and trays for ingredients, assemble them, slop some sauce over it, and hand it over on thin bark plates. The rads went into another bucket waiting for collection and counting later.

“Bang Bang, Bang Bang!” A couple of kids ran up and started chanting. The cook laughed and started putting the plate together. Finger long sticks of cucumber and some green onion went down first. Then they reached into their bucket and pulled out something pale and sickly white. With a thrill of horror, Mazelton realized it was flesh. The cook put the flesh on the table, pulled out a thick dowel, and started smashing it.

Bang bang. Bang bang. Bang bang.

When it had been brutalized enough, they started shredding the flesh with their fingers. Little bits went directly on the cucumber, long strands of muscle on top of the short strands. They then ladled brown sauce over the chicken, to appreciative “oohs” and “aaahs.” The kids couldn’t wait to take it home, they ate it sitting in the dirt not ten feet from the cook. The look of sheer joy as these kids tore into the food messed Mazelton up. They were so, so happy. Their faces were a gorey mess of brown sauce, their hands and clothes stained with even more of it. A local auntie came out and scolded them for not using a fork or a bread wrap. They laughed and said it was too good to wait.

As they indulged in flesh. As they most assuredly committed the sin of Toa and Cass. They weren’t starving. They had the money for food. They chose this, and everyone thought it was just fine. The smiling cook, the local auntie, the smiling pedestrians. This was… fine. Mazelton felt light headed. He was still reeling from his emotional storm, and this blow came too unexpectedly. He felt untethered, like the world around him wasn’t real, and he wasn’t real either. He stumbled over to the smiling cook.

“I don’t eat… flesh. Is the dish you made for the children edible without it?”

The cook’s eyes opened wide, two perfectly round marbles looking shocked out of a perfectly round head.

“Of course! The cucumber and scallions are the garnish, the chicken is texture and a little flavor, but the soul of the dish is in the sauce. And we can put that sauce on whatever we want, right? How about some bean curd?”

“The children were eating chicken. I see. Yes. Please put the sauce on bean curd for me.”

"Coming up!"

The cook fished up another plate, laid out his garnishes and scattered finger sized sticks of bean curd atop them. The sauce came next, ladled generously so that every nook and cranny was coated. Last, as a special service, a sprinkle of pale yellow seeds went over the top. It was presented with a bamboo fork.

“One rad, please.”

“So little?”

“You are a guest in our city, right?”

“Yes, I came in on the caravan today.”

The cook nodded their head.

“Restaurants, especially downtown, always overcharge visitors. Once you get out of that mess, into the neighborhoods, you start getting local prices, and people who actually remember hospitality. To call people into the Joyful Throng. Welcome, friend, to our city. Whether you stay for an hour or a lifetime, you are welcome.”

Mazelton couldn’t speak. Too many emotions blocked his throat, and his eyes blurred. He lifted his fork and tried the food. It made his head snap back in shock.

The cool watery crunch of the cucumber was livened by the slightly sharp bite of the spring onion. The bean curd was mellow and savory- just gently salted and perhaps given a touch of wood smoke. But the sauce. The sauce.

It was like his taste buds were getting jumped from every direction. Sweet, some sort of sugar, along with some sweet and savory vinegar. Acid from the vinegar and something else. Some dark, rich salty flavor he couldn’t put his finger on. Then bringing it together was the roasted, nutty savory flavor. Some ground nuts or seeds? Then heat, starting mild and fruity but growing steadily until the sweat started to bead on his forehead. He had never tasted anything quite like this. At the end, creeping in like an assassin through the layers of flavor was a twisting hint of citrus, almost floral, perfumed. It was the final voice in the chorus of flavor and texture, and it rocked him.

“My lips are numb. Why…”

“Haha! The signature ingredient of Cold Garden food. Prickly Ash berry. They grow wild around here, and we cultivate them too. Pain in the neck to pick, I don’t mind telling you, but so worth it. Good for you too.

“Can I buy some here?”

“Of course you can. We sell them dried, so they keep longer. Is that ok?”

“Yes, thank you.”

Mazelton bought a big tin from the cook, and started to walk back towards the caravansary. He took about two steps and stopped, looking back at the cook.

“Your kindness means a lot to me. Thank you. I will kill for you, by word, blade or heat. My oath on it.” He then walked away from the shocked cook, vanishing quickly into the city.

Mazelton tossed and turned in his bed. The cucumber dish had filled him up nicely, but in an effort to combat the steady weight loss, he got himself a second dinner. This was some kind of ground beans, seasoned with herbs and salt, then fried and served in some sort of tangy sauce. He didn’t know what they made it out of, but something in it was tearing his guts up. His little rented stall of a room had turned from a precious luxury into a coffin lined with farts. He was spinning around in his bed, forming a brief tunnel of air in the ever growing cloud of sulfur and methane. He had the horrible image of binding himself up in farts like a particularly smelly spiderweb. A fly that was universally believed to be better off dead.

He couldn’t take it. He got up, pulled on his worn boots and headed out into the city. Cold Garden was pretty safe, compared to, say, Old Radler. Generally people stayed in their neighborhoods and everyone knew everyone. The areas near the gates, where you got visiting tribes, merchants and caravans, well, that was a lot less safe. People forgot how to live together on the road, or had decided that the best way to resolve a problem was a fist or a boot. Everything was “friendly” until the knives came out.

He wandered back towards the bars. Most were still open, it seems he had fallen into the habit of going to bed early while on the trail. He had the urge to dance. His guts told him that he would be doing no such thing, but he truly wanted to. To go listen to some music, catch the spirit in his body, and move with the music, with the other people listening and moving with the music. To forget everything and just be, a flickering existence kept alive by the beat.

The first bar had a lady playing some manner of bellows powered instrument, compressing her hands and letting her fingers seal valves as the air tried to escape. She was singing some sort of dirge, a song of misery, lost love, and the tragedy of existence. At one point the pretty young man in the song drowned himself. There was not a dry eye in the house, and people kept throwing her money. It was like an anti-bar, where fun went to die. How dare the patrons look like they were enjoying it. Malzelton pressed on.

He drifted from bar to bar, never staying very long. He didn’t recognize the music. It didn’t move him. People weren’t dancing, they were just sitting and listening, or chatting with each other. He gave up. This last bar was sketchily lit and he wouldn’t swear the mugs were perfectly clean, but it had the advantage of he was standing in it already. So he went to the barman and got himself a mug of… something. Some kind of honey wine-fermented grain beverage the barman called a braggot. It was nice, expensive and good for sipping slowly. Which suited him just fine at the moment. His guts had more or less settled too, which helped the mood.

The singer was at least a bit upbeat, twanging away at some stringed instrument he didn’t recognize. It sounded like a rusted hinge trying to whistle, and Mazelton couldn’t decide if it was meant to sound that way, or if the performer had just lost their damn mind.

Ah well. It’s Cold Garden. It might be both.

He couldn’t sort it all out. How could a stranger be so welcoming, but his “Do anything, eat carrion, be a slave, do anything to survive and reproduce” Grandmother sentence him to death so casually? The Jasmine who at least kind of liked him, and whom he loved, was willing to kill him rather than bring him in. Why? Why? It made no sense. He sipped his drink and looked around the room. The alcohol practically bounced off his kidneys, was abolished by his liver, and what remained was sent directly to the bladder for disposal. The rest of the drink was actually pretty nice.

That young couple next to the door looked kind of familiar. He didn’t know them, but something about them had the hair on his arm rising up. Mazelton fell back on his training as a Hurricane Lily. He glanced once at them, fixing their features in his mind, then turned away, focusing on his drink.

He let his mind pick apart the faces. Young men. Twenties, or late teens. Fit. Almost no earlobe. Similar-ish features. Cousins? Slight concavity to the ridge of the nose, with wide nostrils. Strong brow line. Startlingly fast, the young men’s form was picked apart, the anatomy of their skulls and hands picked apart with a coroner’s care. A conclusion was quickly reached.

They were Cabells. The symbol of Clan Cabell was a dandelion blowing away in the wind. Symbolizing that they got everywhere and were impossible to eradicate. It seems that, like him, some had blown up against the Ramparts.

They were cute together. A little low key display of affection. Still a bit shy, they must not be from the Eastern Edge, and they definitely weren’t local boys. They hadn’t noticed him. They only had eyes for each other.

Mazelton waited until they left the bar, then trailed behind them. They had a few drinks, but were hardly falling down. The night was too young, and they had far too much to do for that. They nipped into an ally and started making out. Mazelton went around the block, came up the alley in the dark. He could see them just fine. Without really thinking about it, he pulled out his belt knife. He lay the blade flat against the back of his leg as he stole closer, making sure that no shine could catch their eye.

Mazelton rushed in, catching the first by his hair, yanking the neck back, and stabbing down and in. Three stabs, chunk, chunk, chunk, then kick the soon to be corpse into his lover. The second tried to shout, more fear and surprise than understanding. Mazelton didn't let him, punching his knife through the open mouth and tearing it up. Before the second one could scream, he buried his knife in their throat. Stabbed by a blade that came over the shoulder of his dying lover. The two died in each other’s arms. Mazelton couldn’t imagine it comforted them much.

There was nowhere to hide the bodies in this alley, certainly no way to clean up the blood. The bodies would be found by morning at the latest. And here he was, a stranger, holding a bloody knife, covered in blood.

The clues were subtle, but to a trained investigator, damning.

He dragged the bodies deeper into the alley. No need to make it easier than it was already going to be. They weren't quite dead yet. He widened the holes to speed up the process.

Oh, whoops. They had already died. That was just the blood leaking out when he lifted up their legs.

He hadn’t processed any of this yet. He had no real motive to kill the poor bastards, beyond clan vendetta, and since when did he care about that? He was nobody to them, he could have passed by their life without the slightest friction. But he stalked and killed them.

“Time for a change.”

Oh. That was it. The North Sea Confederation and the Cabells didn’t just want to win the game, they wanted to smash the board when they were done. They wanted to break the Great Clans, do what a dozen empires had failed to do, and sever the lineages. Grandmother would have had reports, intelligence about what the Confeds were up to. She would know that there was no reconciling or living with them. So she decided to change the rules. You want to feed on us? Good luck. I hope you enjoy carrion, because that’s all we’ll leave you.

He looked down at the two young men, who he had murdered out of spite. He didn’t even search their pockets. On his journey so far, he had mostly been Polisher Mazelton. He had never been very good at being Polisher Mazelton. It was like a new pair of shoes that needed breaking in, and then you discover they didn’t fit right to begin with. He had been much better at being the Hurricane Lily Mazelton. The only thing was, there was no need for such a person on the trail.

He grinned at the corpses. They were in a big city now. The Lily could blossom and cast its spells. He couldn't fight the dry mind. Wouldn’t even know where to begin. Best case scenario, he might be able to drive away the Stone God. Briefly. Once. But screwing over the Cabells, and by extension the Confeds? That, Mazelton could do. He made his way back silently, over rooftops, though back yards, taking the opportunity to wash at a well and steal a robe from a clothesline. He threw the bloody clothes in the trash. By the time he returned to his bed, he looked clean, tidy and refreshed. His sleep was deep and gentle.

In the morning, he found Duane.

“Duane, are you free today?”

The big man shrugged.

“I have to do something, and it’s going to take me most of the day. Would you mind running through my shopping list? I’ll give you the rads, and pay you for your time.”

Duane thought about it, shrugged again, and nodded.

Mazelton sat at his little travel desk, and started writing:

The Murder of Old Radler by the Coward Cabell- The True Testimony of Mazelton, Polisher and Last Son of Old Radler.