Kaelen and the City That Paves the Sky

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Beyond the dark opening, the walkway transformed. The black glass became shimmering slabs beneath which clouds drifted like fish. It took Kaelen a few steps to realize she was walking on congealed light. Varaan took each step carefully, the map on his flank glowing only faintly. The gatehouse behind it had no walls—four pillars, a cornice of shadows. Beyond it lay the city: streets made of rectangular pieces of sky, joints like narrow riverbeds. Kaelen asked quietly, "Do you fall into heaven here?" Varaan snorted, his horns brushed a threshold, sparks slid through the moss. There were no houses in the usual sense. Domes arched out of the pavement, objects floating within: books, a boat's hull, a bundle of arrows. Inside one dome, a metal sphere rotated, its lines briefly showing Varaan's map pattern. "It marks paths, not places," Kaelen said. They followed an avenue lined with glass steles, each bearing a symbol. At one with three hooks, the path forked, an echo running invisibly alongside. The city hummed softly, a sound that ebbs and flows. In a square lay maps made of thread and dust, weighted down with animal figures. Kaelen's face was reflected in one, and for a moment she saw lines beneath her skin. Varaan lit a trail on his flank that led into a narrow corridor. He smelled of metal and salt. The slabs narrowed, the joints bore arrows pointing to "later." The passage ended in a courtyard with four dry wells. Above each hung a moving image: forests of gears, the pass without shadows, dunes shifting backward—and the city itself, with a thread of light from Varaan's shoulder to Kaelen's hand. She touched the thread. It pulled gently, and in the distance, a gate opened. Varaan brushed the thread with his horns, the moss glowing briefly. "Until the next question," said Kaelen. The gate led to a bridge without support. The city stretched on to the left and right, but here the plates had cracks in which stardust burned. In the center sat a figure in a wide-brimmed hat. No eyes beneath the hat, only a brass disc with carved furrows. "Welcome to the Surface Archive," said the disc. "Paths record themselves." "I seek no places, only continuation," replied Kaelen. "Continuation is a place," said the voice. "You reach it by not turning back." The disc tilted toward Varaan. "Bearer of the Lines, you know the price." Varaan breathed evenly. "We pay along the way," said Kaelen. The end of the bridge filled with a gate of two posts, above which an open bracket. Kaelen checked Varaan's straps, stroked the moss of his horns. "The city stays," she said, "and we leave." She cast one last glance down: beneath the bridge lay the blue of day. Perhaps the same as over every village she had left. Perhaps new. She didn't have to decide. They stepped through the gate.