Wayland Priory (Episode 2)

Chapter 1 (Continued)

Ten leagues downrange in the place called Wayland Priory, a middle aged man called Prior stood atop a 400-foot high tower. He scanned the horizon like a hawk. At the base of his tower there was a stable luminous plane of energy being patrolled by slaves who carried massive lightning rods. They looked like an ancient army of hoplites with the long, unwieldy things.

Static electricity brewing about Wayland suddenly raised the hair from the slaves’ scalps. They awkward sight was soon joined by the sound of violent, tumbling thunder in the distance. Wayland’s stormy curtain was up-in-arms.

Prior said, “Be ready, faithful!” and the slaves frantically spaced themselves in loose staggered lines. One slave was struck by a stray bolt from the distant storm. He lay burnt on the ground screaming for several minutes, causing some of the others to buckle at the knees.

Prior said, “If you die, you will die for the Way!” over the growing booms of thunder.

The slaves stood fast.

The storm overtook Wayland.

Dibble was about to retire to his shelter when he noticed a lone, animated shadow in bright sky. It surfed the edge of the thunderous waves artfully. Dibble smiled and said, “It is Ecah.”

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Ecah approached the city, but the storm raged viciously, and it lifted him into the dark sky.

“1 more league or dead in the black...” he whispered to himself.

That's a saying Waylanders used. It meant, Do it or die to them.

Ecah’s board sliced a sparking path up ascending bridges of lightning. The electricity melted the board into a blur of white, orange, red, and yellow. He tipped back and allowed the storm to launch him.

From Wayland he looked like a climbing meteor. He breached the tropopause (the breathable atmosphere’s ceiling). The temperature dropped precipitously, and his board cooled to deep black, and it smoked and smoldered. His melting rubber armor stopped making him sweat; it brought him precious warmth instead.

Ecah decelerated instantly as the energy that had propelled him sputtered and failed. He looked down through the eye of the receding storm, and saw home. There, Wayland’s tower sat atop a semi-solid translucent surface. He allowed himself to fall towards it as he ran out of electric road.

Wayland held its breath as its favorite son fell from heaven. The burnt and scattered slaves who fought the storm wafted like buoys on the electric surface. All the souls in Wayland covered their ears to the sonic boom that accompanied Ecah’s fall, and they awed at the sight of the Aztec plume of color bursting from his shilloette. The static energy resonating from him bent light, mixed colors, and glowed and shined supernaturally.

The reentry was perilous, but it was triumphant.

When Ecah slammed into the Priory grounds, the explosive force rippled away from the point of impact and kneaded the electric plane. The shockwave wobbled the buildings, and it threw the people around like toys.
Ecah listed motionlessly with the bodies of slaves on Wayland’s grounds. Waylanders looked at one another in mass-apathy. No one wanted to check if he was alive. No one wanted to be the one to find out if he were dead.