Myrlin 1 :: 4

Aether’s lantern swings even without the presence of wind, and Myrlin nearly raises an eyebrow at it. The boy sighs as if bothered by it and crosses his arms. 

‘The Twoup thing helped, so thanks.’ One of his fingers twist through his hair, twirling the small braid on his left shoulder around. ‘Now we can focus on finding whatever that is making the air so damn awful. Do you have any ideas?’

A finger raises for each point Myrlin lists. ‘One, it could be just bad air quality, but the Breach would’ve cleaned itself out by now. Two, there’s trash around. Three, someone is brewing something, and it’s probably forbidden.’ 

‘And harmful,’ Aether adds. ‘That seems the most probable, but if you can’t smell anything and can only see the disturbances in the air, that means...’ 

‘It hasn’t been brewed yet, but someone is planning to make it.’ Aether nods in approval at Emrys’s point. ‘Myrlin, do you think we can pinpoint the location?’

A tentative nod. ’With Aether’s help, yes. I’m not a dog, so just relying on my nose is a bad idea.’ 

‘Emrys is a puppy, though,’ he comments, 'but sure, I’ll see where it’s moving from. And when we get close, Myrlin can determine its exact position. Sounds good?’ 

Two heads nod in agreement. Aether sends them a sly smile and taps his wheelchair handles, a faint green glowing around the vehicle as its wheels lift off the ground. It dips and wobbles a bit too violently to their concern, but Aether beckons them forward with the flick of his hand. 

‘Grab onto the push handles and step on the base in the back,' he instructs, and they stumble onto the attached platform and grasp at the handles, as the wheelchair floats higher and higher until it reaches an approximate of three stories. And without further time for them to secure their footing, the flying vehicle zooms through the air at the speed of wind, specks of emerald outlining their trail high up in the sky. Myrlin’s hands clutch onto the handles for dear life, but as they travel without bumps and jolts and the ride starts to seem safer than what they gave it credit for, he finds himself relaxing against the leather back instead. The metal stave and lantern rattle and shake, crashing against the back of the wheelchair in noisy clangs, and Myrlin has the urge to pull it out of its strap and fling it into the streets below them. 

Aether's ash brown hair is disheveled and swept back when they land, forehead exposed to the cool evening air, and his tiny braid is coming off in multiple loops. He takes the tie out to run his fingers through the tangles, then threads the strands together once again in neat patterns. The place they’ve arrived at is a good thousand meters from where they started, but after the flight and over the fright Myrlin can confirm that roughly half of the sector was covered in the stagnant air. 

His first breath taken ends in a fit of coughs, and Emrys pats his back sympathetically while covering his nose with the other hand. Aether seems to be faring well, or at least taking it in better, but his nose is scrunched up and he groans in disgust. ‘Have to get used to it,' he can hear the hint of a whine in his voice, 'since we kinda need your nose right now.’

Myrlin flaps a hand in his direction and tries to breathe in once again. Deer heart, banana flowers. Snakeroot and... wheat? 

Reaching for the stave behind him, Aether gives the pole a slight swing before setting it horizontally across his lap. ’Doesn’t matter what you smell, your job is just to lead us there.’

He complies. The freshest scent is a thin, stretching line, braided from whiffs of papyrus, blood and weed, entwined and spun into the loops of landmarks and pales. The streets are near deserted save for a few lone figures returning home after a long day of work, the deathly silence eerie and uncanny. A single carriage passes them by on their way, the shadow of a horse animata trotting down pavements of setts, with a horseman in black swiping at the mount's side with the heel of a heavy, dark boot. 

At some point Aether’s fingertips start to shine bright, verdant spots and spheres incandescing across his fingertips as the streetlights around them lour in a diminuendo. Hints of amethyst and aqua spark against his collar, the vitreous lustre of the pinned, bejewelled brooch dancing against the background of his dark grey cost. The sky had fallen as well, dark painted eyelids sleepily blinking away the last remaining rays of the twilight sun, dust-like stars sprinkled across velvety curtains. 

Eventually they reach a clearing of some sort, black and white marble ridged in ripples under their feet. The trail ends abrupt as they approach the spiralling columns, flat surfaces reflecting nothing but the pale glow of the moon. Emrys tries his foot on one of the shorter ones, and after a nod of confirmation, pulls Myrlin up with him. Aether, the stubborn brat, rolls his wheelchair on the ground alongside them as they hop from column to column of monochrome circles, spiralling higher and higher into the air. 

'Wait,' Aether suddenly says from below, broken voice barely audible to them at their position. His eyes are narrowed as he jabs at the floor with his stave. ‘The ground�"‘

The warning comes a bit too late, as the ground starts to grumble, and the stones under their feet start to shift and break. Myrlin hears Aether shout a chant from somewhere below, and a rush of wind carries them up and away from the crumbling structures. Another tap at his wheelchair anchors them back to the earth, a few meters away from where the crater had snacked on the columns like carrot sticks. 

Emrys finds his footing first. ‘What on earth�"‘ 

His hand is out and finger pointing before he even realises it. Two pairs of eyes follow in the same direction, and Myrlin sniffs the air again. 

‘He’s there.’