The Chronicle of My Earldom
I warn you now that I am not known for my modesty, for my tale begins with an act of heroism that I shall not humbly circumvent. To begin at the beginning, I had been wandering a neighbourhood of urban homes for a short few weeks. I recall little before this, and as such, I had been looking for a purpose—an identity to crown myself with. Others roamed this place with me, but I do not believe any faced my exact predicament. There were similarly fresh faces amongst the crowd, but they seemed full of life and personality, straining to find something I was not aware of. The empty ones made up the vast majority, but they seemed old beyond belief, having been sanded down by time until they could do little but sway on the spot, or walk with no hope of destination. I somehow managed to have the energy of the first group, but the blank-slate memory of the second.
Amidst my new existence and search for meaning, I found a fire. One of the houses along the street was ablaze, likely an out of control attempt of some poor fellow to keep warm. Standing there, I contemplated it, likely indistinguishable from the blank-eyed passives surrounding me. My mind, raw and inexperienced though it was, flashed with connotations of the most ancient of human companions. The fire represented new beginnings and cleansed lands ready for regrowth. The last meaning my mind could conjure up was confirmed soon after the thought flashed across my inner eye in red letters of warning: danger.
The noise that broke through the fire was loud and low - more like a gurgle, but as desperate and pained as a scream. It sent ripples of fear and sympathy down my spine and goosebumps rippling along my arms, and yet I was thankful for it. This call of utter distress had awakened an instinct in me I had not felt prior: I had to help. Storming out of the swaying crowd, I reached the open doorway and plunged into the grey air of the house's interior. Three indistinct forms were scattered throughout the rooms, one still upright, and two splayed across the floor. The despairing cry had come from the first of these prostrate people, his ragged clothing had caught aflame and I could see his flesh beginning to blacken. I hurriedly ripped off the flaming rags, then dragged him out of the building. Then I was straight back in and out with the second prone individual, before going back in for the last. As I crouched below the smoke, he was still standing tall, and I could hear him start to splutter as his lungs reminded him that he needed clean air to breathe. His staring eyes were red-rimmed and dripping with tears as I shoved him step by step, finally getting out of the reach of the smoke and flames.
By this time I had stumbled out behind the hapless fellow, I was doubled over and gasping with exertion. I had learned the hard way that a human being can be very heavy, especially when in a state of complete apathy. The crowd encircling the house was as impassive as ever, and yet once I had recovered to a degree, I began to hear a noise. Through blurry eyes I looked up as I heard a strange slow rhythm. The faint yet regular slapping of flesh upon flesh. It left me confused as my addled brain searched for a word and matching meaning until all at once it hit me. A single soul was clapping. I must have looked quite a sight in my sooty rags, hunched over as if in mock bow, after such a feat of strength. I swelled with happiness, standing up straight and taller than I had before; pride lending a perpendicularity to my posture. Between my blurred eyes and the mass of swaying spectators I couldn't trace the applause, but it felt right. I felt needed, like I had fulfilled a responsibility set for me. However, this feeling was soon thrust from centre stage as a terrible realisation hit me.
I had seen a ladder.
There was a level to the building I had not explored.
I turned to stare back at the house in horror as flames licked up from under the eaves. Even the possibility of more victims on the second fiery floor was too much for me to bear. My feet began moving independent of me, before I exerted conscious control and ran headlong back into the inferno. The wooden ladder was blackened, and yet as I reached the top, I realised there was little fire, just smoke. The wall of darkness hit me as I ascended to the top rung, looking so solid that I flinched as if about to hit my head. The smoke below had merely been a smidgeon of dirty air compared to the true sea of toxicity that flowed throughout the attic. I couldn't see, couldn't breathe, and barely kept panic from breaking into the fragile house of my wits. I forced myself to search as best I could, tracing my hands quickly over each surface to get an idea of the room. I ran along all four walls and encountered nobody, before I involuntarily inhaled and all sense left me. The insidious black gas filled my lungs and I finally sprinted for the exit. In my blind madness I tripped and went sprawling, and came upon something unexpected. What I landed on was not hard wood, nor the asphalt of the infinite suburbia, but a soft and forgiving dirt spiked with grass. Still half blind and breathing black air I again launched forward, and broke out into blessedly clean air.
What felt like an eternity of eye-rubbing and hacking coughs later, I was finally able to pull myself together. I had emerged into a strange landscape, far different to the greys and browns of the populated villages. A desolate landscape stretched out before me, and there I sat to puzzle out the significance behind my strange transportation. The tide of pride washed back over me as I remembered my actions, and a piece of the puzzle slotted together. I had done good, so good must have been done to me. Had I been rescued somehow? Perhaps, although I would likely have found the room's exit well enough. The clapping sounded in my head, that was a monument to mark the deeds done was it not? I had charged back inside heedless of danger each time, and surely I deserved some recognition or… reward. That was it. Reward. Standing up I admired my surroundings and basked in the beautiful evening light. Evening. Vespertine. That seemed the spirit of this place, and thus its name was born. I had been bestowed lands for my valiant acts by some greater power. There is a word for that too, I thought. My recovered brain offered it up after a moment. Earl.
With nobody to countermand my decrees, I declared myself to be the First Earl of Vespertine.
The Vespertine wastes are an extensive yet barren affair. Pitiful shrubs dot windswept slopes, and tangled groves of trees huddle close in each chilly dale. The hills dip and roll like waves without crests, cast into greyscale by the usual half-light. Stiff grasses puncture the hillsides like drowning fingers reaching out of a rippling pond, but they neither grow nor decay. Upon reaching one of the taller summits, one may gaze into the far distance and notice the silhouettes that push upwards from the horizon. In every direction, a range of titanic peaks rip through the skyline to claw at equally faraway clouds. The weather has not changed in the years I have spent wandering these hills, but who knows? Maybe the clouds creep over from their rocky homes when I leave to wend my way elsewhere, and they save the downpours for the absence of their Earl.
The day and the night do not chase each other slowly across the sky, as one might expect, but establish themselves without fanfare or even movement. The best part of a Vespertine day is taken up by a twilight sky. The day starts with morning softly gleaming from behind the mountain ridges and stars still studding the dark blue sky. Here these celestial bodies rest for about six hours (if my scavenged watch is to be believed, the four stages of the day segment nicely into quarters). Then, abruptly, the sun will appear in its midday position, staring down from the perfect centre of the sky. About thirty minutes after the sun's arrival, a heavy smoke will blot out every hill and valley below a certain height.
This smoke establishes itself within an instant, just as the rest of Vespertine's queer phenomena do, lingering for about five hours before disappearing with just as much haste. It is easy to blink during a transitional instant and believe oneself to have fallen asleep. My pocketwatch, though the glass face is cracked and the metal is corroded, still works, and has proved invaluable in confirming time intervals in these otherwise timeless planes. The smoke also proves a useful asset, as it connects my land with others and provides a means of transport between them. The blackened air congregates around the copse at the centre of each dell, getting thicker as one progresses down towards the trees. The method of travel involves closing one's eyes and inhaling as deeply as possible while in the midst of the trees, where the fumes blind you most. You will immediately find yourself in a different area, one that, without fail, always contains smoke of some sort. I have had to explain to many a traveller why I have stumbled out of their campfire coughing and have found myself in various forests or houses set ablaze.
These noxious gases also work in reverse as well, sometimes summoning unaware souls out of the clutches of an inferno or even a lucky smoker who has chanced upon a pack of cigarettes. Though one must be careful when nearing the smoke-covered valleys, as humans are not the only creatures with lungs to fill. On a few occasions, I have glimpsed dark forms in the darker smogs, lurching, twisting, and stalking, but never coming beyond the smoke.
However, briefly braving the blaze's breath brings benefits as well as the accompanying dangers. I have scavenged many a grove of trees braced against the vaporous soot, and I oft chance upon trinkets left in the dirt or the crook of a branch. These curiosities are more than welcome, although most are fire-blackened or riddled with age. I keep a great many of them about my person, of which my pocket-watch is my most prized possession.
One can avoid the smoke with relative ease by following the ridges of the highest hills as they meander through the lonely landscape. I do so myself most of the time, slowly curving my way sunward across Vespertine. I follow the static glow of evening and the path the sun would take if it were mobile. The mountains never seem to grow larger, so perspective dictates they must be huge indeed.
They look so heavenly when they catch the light of evening and are cast in shades of purple and gold.
I do hope to reach them one day.
