Black Mould - Twenty-Two - Wading Through the Sea of Graves

Stew led Debra and I across the city, or at least across our corner of it. He seemed to know where he was going, and so I didn’t worry overly much about getting lost. We actually headed back towards my home for a little ways, then veered off in the same direction as the grocer’s Mom preferred.

That’s when the path changed. Stew climbed up a ramp with some difficulty, Debra lending him her shoulder, then we stuck to the second level for a bit. The catwalks up here overlooked a slightly wider street than those around my house. It just meant that more light reached the ground floor where detritus and dirt clogged up the gutter in the middle of the roadway.

People were out and about, just normal folk minding their own, though a few were blocking the path as they gossiped and idled around. The city was lively this afternoon. I saw flocks of pigeons swooping down to attack some trash someone tossed out of a window, and a scream of “Watch out below!” echoes across the tin streets a moment before someone flung a basin full of water down onto the streets.

Someone below started swearing, and I heard cackles and laughter from those who witnessed the scene.

This place was no richer than the neighbourhood where my farm was, it was only a bit more alive. There were just as many beggars, but they were singing songs and tapping away on homemade drums for attention and coin.

Stew led us past all of that, then across a rickety bridge and through the inside of a large warehouse turned indoor market.

I stared down at the stalls below. People were selling little things. Trinkets, knit clothes and even a bit of produce. “Can I get a stall here?” I asked my two… friends? Were they friends? The age gap was a bit much, at least with this body.

I decided that they were close enough to friends that it didn’t matter.

“Sure,” Stew said.

“If you can afford it,” Debra said atop him. “The better markets require that you pay a fee upfront. Keeps just anyone from trying to sell just anything, and it works to keep the Bullies close.”

Stew chuckled. “You can’t see it, but under those tall hats of theirs are little piggy banks for all their bribe money.”

I giggled at the mental image of a cop removing his hat to reveal a box with “Bribe Here” written across it.

We left out the other side of the market, then veered off to the left. I was more or less aware of which direction home was in. That, and the shadows across the buildings was letting me keep aware of where North was.

We dropped down a level, then crossed a spot filled with big warehouses. We had to pause as a horse-drawn cart was pulled into one of them, the back of it filled with crates onto which a few kids only a few years my senior hung on to straps.

I glanced in the warehouse as we passed. Lots of folk worked to unload stuff, but not one clue as to what that stuff was.

Finally, we left the slums.

For the first time in my life, I was somewhere that didn’t have ten homes packed into the space of one. The buildings here weren’t significantly better. Big tenements, with alleys between them and even a few little play spaces for kids or some benches on the sides of the roads.

The people here weren’t dressed much better, but there was a difference. The main road was busy with carts pulled along by horses and donkeys. I stopped to stare as a loud, puttering machine rolled by. It had a man in a leather coat and mask at the front, behind a large steering wheel and an assembly of pedals that he was jamming his foot onto in an incomprehensible order.

A car. A big one, at that, with a stove-pipe above its boiler that tossed a plume of brackish smoke into the air.

“Hey, kid, let’s move on, yeah?” Stew asked.

“Okay,” I said. “What’s the name of this place?”

“This? This is still the Clearford District,” Debra said.

“The Clearford District?” I repeated.

She glanced down to me, then nodded. “Same as where you live. The district covers both sides of the Gutter. Stops near Gutter’s End. This is the centre of City Nineteen.”

Stew pointed out ahead, and I noticed that there was a wall, a big old thing, with metal plates bolted into its stone surface. “Other side of that’s the Grove. That’s where we’re heading to.”

I nodded along and kept pace.

The wall had a few Bullies next to it, idly checking the carts as they passed through a break in the defences. The other side of it marked a clear difference in class. Not an enormous improvement, but a lot of the buildings were offices and shops, with thin apartments wedged in wherever they could fit.

The land started to climb here, and some of the sidewalks were outright steps. I glanced up as a cablecar rumbled past overhead, destination unknown.

“See that road there,” Stew said. He pointed to an intersection way ahead of us. “Take a right and pay to cross the ferry and you’ll be in Pearl Alley. That’s where I used to live. Good place. Bullies all over, but they keep things quiet. Not as packed in. Work hard, and maybe one day you’ll have a place for yourself over there.”

“Okay,” I muttered. So, that was where the rich lived? Or maybe just the middle-class.

Stew followed the edge of the wall for a ways, then we came upon a plain grey building.

No, not a building, a wall.

An archway at the front allowed people in, not that there was much traffic coming in and out. A sign above the arch announced the place’s purpose. City Nineteen - Districts 1, 2, 3, 8, 10, 12, 13 - Resting Place. A pair of bronze tombstones stood on either side of the sign, each decorated with a stylized symbol that looked like a vulture.

Inside was bizarre. The entire place was buried into the ground, so that on entering we were greeted by a ramp leading down. Large cement blocks, each the size of a small building filled the space. Initially in neat rows, but those further out zigged and zagged a lot. Some were much taller than others.

“This is the cemetery?” I asked.

“It is,” Stew said. “Ditz’ dungeon is just across the wall from here. You can feel it, if you know what to look for.”

I tasted the air. There was a sense of… quiet to it? Like the sounds of the busy city were muffled. More than that, though, there was a sort of… gnawing feeling. It wasn’t too dissimilar to hunger, but it was something else.

“How does this place work?” I asked.

Stew pointed to the nearest grey wall. “See those boxes, with the plaques? Open one up, and you’ll find a surprise.”

“A corpse is hardly a nice surprise,” Debra said. “Don’t open the boxes,” she warned me.

I nodded. So it was a mass grave, of sorts. If an organised one.

“So, kid, what did you need for your plants again?” Stew asked.

I took in the cemetery. It was certainly not a terrible spot. Low to the ground, shaded in. There was a bit of dampness to the air, and I noticed some mould on the lower end of the nearest grave walls. “Somewhere with less traffic than the entrance,” I said. “But this place is nice, yeah.”

“Told ya that Stew knew what he was on about. Far from the Gremlins too. They won’t come here. Different, bigger gangs.”

“It’s a long ways from our end of the city,” Debra said.

The walk had taken maybe twenty minutes? And that was at Stew’s pace. Really, this wasn’t too far at all. If the wall wasn’t in the way, then the trip would be even shorter. It was in the opposite direction from the farm though, at least if I started from home.

“Let’s find a quiet place,” I said.

I’d see what there was to be seen, then figure things out from there.

As we started walking down the alleys and roads of the cemetery, I noticed that a lot of the graves had markings on them. Small plaques decorated most of the boxes, but sometimes an entire grave block would have designs carved into its corners. Some had pillars, others simple images. A few were even painted, though the paint was often flaking off.

“Why are they all so different?” I asked.

“Different gods,” Stew said. “Depending on who you worship, you’ll be stuffed in a different box, ya know? Cept for those plain ones. That’s for the godless or those who died without a name.”

“Oh,” I said.

We continued in, quietly avoiding the few people we met who seemed keen on doing the same for us. It was a humbling, quiet place.

“Is there a grave spot for Feronie?” I asked.

Stew shrugged. “There should be,” he said.

“Let’s go there, then,” I said.

***