I am the Man, Mazelton, polisher by vocation and Ma by blood, last of the Ma of Old Radler for they were all murdered by the cowards of the Cabell family and their creatures. I was there that fatal day. I did not see everything, but I did see many things, and this is my testimony of that day and the things I saw. Liars have been flapping their rotted lips and heaving stench-breaths for almost a year now, but know this- I will gain nothing by my testimony. Not a single rad, not a scrap of clothing, not a grain of food shall be mine in exchange for speaking my truth. I am a son of the Ma- my patrimony is my blood and the teachings of my clan. Instead, I invite grave risk of retaliation. They will know I live, and hunt for me, to force me to recant. The liars, the lip flappers, want your life, and everything you own, and they will take it if you listen to them. Judge for yourself who is most reliable.

I confess my weakness- I had been seduced by a Jasmine of the Cabell clan. For those of you who are unfamiliar with the flower court system, a Jasmine is a fascinating person, usually a beauty, whose job it is to be beautiful and fascinating in public. They gently influence the public’s opinion, making them more favorable to the Jasmine’s Clan. They are called Jasmine’s, because they bloom at night, and their scent lures people in. I had been lured in. I followed the Jasmine to what I thought was to be our first intimacy, and I suppose I was right. They poisoned my drink then tried to stab me to death. They were doing a rather good job, but even a polisher of the Ma is trained to protect themselves. I last saw my love as she plummeted seven stories out of a window. And through that window, I saw the fires.

The drums had started before the Jasmine handed me the drink. I remember them well. They started in the Rookeries, the hellish stews the Cabells ran, breeding misery and resentment. Dear reader, do you know what a rookery run by the Cabells is like? A successful family of ten might share a room fit for one. A meal would be enriched by the cockroaches and vermin the family could catch through the day- valuable food in the Rookeries. A slightly less successful family might have a rented bit of pavement in a shaded bit of street. Yes, rented. Some have even saved desperately and purchased the right to that bit of street, generations sleeping on top of each other, defecating in the middle of the road, fornicating in the middle of the road because where else can they go? All the hope has been boiled out of them by the Cabells. You could buy a child of the Rookeries for less than a bottle of wine, and I mean that in every sense you can imagine.

The drums started in the Rookeries. The Cabells hand stirred their serfs into a riot, and loosed them on the city. As they went, the fires spread. Whistles rang out, calling for the guard, calling for the fire fighters, calling for help. What help could come? The rioters had spread throughout the city.

I stood in that high garret and I watched them burst into the Bo Clan school. The team that smashed the gates were trained soldiers. They wore no colors and carried no flag, but even from a distance, there was no mistaking them. They moved as one, lining up on either side of the gate, stabbing through with spears to clear a path, then rushing in with an iron ram to burst through the gates. They were met by the faculty on the other side.

It was a complete ambush. The teachers were unarmed, unprepared, and out numbered a thousand to one. But for every cruel thing I have ever said about the Bo Clan, I have never accused them of being cowards. They fought with broken bones, spears and knives stuck clean through, missing limbs and eyes. Ever the Bo- their bodies might break, but they won't. As they died, they would try to fill the gate, to slow or stop the rush. The soldiers hauled out their corpses, then loosed the mob. I don’t know what happened inside, but I know no children left that building, and it burned as soon as the mob started to leave.

I saw the Xia school burning. I saw the Ma warehouses burning. Reader, do you know what goods are stored in a Ma warehouse? Cores. Heat stones. Dust. Dear reader, I cannot help but suspect you know what the soldiers and rioters apparently did not. The Ma clan trades in heat. Lots and lots of heat. Heat trapped in metal and dust that can be carried by hot smoke quite a long way. And the idiots burned our warehouses. I cannot conceive of how suicidaly dumb one must be to do that, but they did. It must have killed every rioter involved, along with the staff of the warehouses. This was to foreshadow how the day would end, but I did not know it at the time. I was too horrified, desperately wondering how to escape.

Yes, escape. Not take up arms, or avenge my fallen Clan siblings. Escape. I am a Ma to my core. Survival, and passing the Clan into the next generation. Those are what drive us. Everything else is merely a means to that end. If I could have surrendered, I would have. We have been conquered before. It’s nothing new or strange to us. I would have surrendered, but I watched them lynch an elder kneeling on the ground with his hands raised in surrender. I watched them beat to death my cousins, aunts, uncles, nephews and nieces without once offering surrender. In the space of ten minutes, I saw hundreds, thousands, directly murdered with no possibility of surrender. So I bent my mind on escape.

Old Radler is one great hill covered in little ridges and protrusions, built over for millennia, for epochs. There are entire worlds built on each level of elevation, and a bold, experienced hand might travel the entire city without setting foot on the ground. I was such a person- I fled across the rooftops. It was no easy road- the rioters had spread up there too. I had to run and hide at the same time, ever moving towards the city walls. As I passed, I witnessed horrors.

I mentioned above that the Cabells drive those in the Rookeries to such poverty that they will eat vermin with relish. What I didn’t know was that they drove them to madness. I saw them tear people apart, those of the Clans, even each other. I do not mean that as a turn of phrase. I saw a man hack open the breast of a Xia, reach inside the wound and pull out the flesh within. It seems that chest meat was too chewy for his delicate sensibilities, so he gutted the victim, and found organ meat more to his taste. The remains fell on the ground, where more rioters swarmed in, shoving their face against the wounds and eating without even their hands. Then, since they were on the ground, they were crushed by the great press of people shoving along the street. This all took place in less than a minute. Then I saw a chance, and jumped to the next building.

It was easy to see the pattern. The soldiers burst through any doors or organized defense. The Cabells, proud and gaudy, would be bravely standing at the back of the mob, waving flags and cheering on the rioters. I could see their youths running along the lower roofs, waiving vast censers on chains through the air. The incense they burned was some kind of narcotic. Where the smoke passed, rational thought passed with it. The cowards would leave nothing to chance. Then the maddened rioters would rush in.

I had reached the great ring road along the inside of the wall when I heard the biggest explosions of all. Deep, horrible thumps, coming from below, through my feet and up my leg bones. Do you know what’s under Old Radler? I do. Sewers. Catacombs. And the vast dust filters that clean the city and keep the people safe. The very, very, full of core dust filters. And the idiot Cabells and their “Definitely not Confed” soldiers forced their way in with explosives.

Do you know why? Because of the heat stones. The dust from the city is mixed with other materials to make heat stones. The same heat stones used across the continent. In other words, greed. They were so blinded by the chance to steal that they used explosives to blow up the doors. I can only imagine the wreckage they caused inside, slaughtering the staff. Too greedy, stupid and careless to wonder why the Ma keep clansmen there every hour of the day, constantly monitoring the machinery. No, they would have killed everyone and smashed everything they didn’t understand so they could sell the scrap. And because they did so, the machines ran in reverse. All that accumulated dust, days worth, pumped out over the city.

Do not ask me how I crossed the wall. I am not proud of it. My road was one of corpses. Once outside the wall, nobody tried to stop me. They were all running too. But they weren’t polishers. They couldn’t take the heat. I watched them drop around me as I ran. I stole a two wheeler from a woman puking blood, and pedaled until I collapsed.

I fled south, seeing the devastation caused by the Confeds and their local traitors. I am still fleeing south. I don’t enjoy the mosquitos and horrible stinging insects of the Southern Archipelago, but the food is decent. I will find a very small, very out of the way place down here, and hide.

So this then is my testimony- Old Radler was murdered by the cowards of the Cabell family, under the supervision of the North Sea Confederation. They murdered, stole, and committed every sort of violation imaginable. In the end, it was their greed and stupidity that caused them to trigger the great devastation. As for accusations that this was some sort of scheme by the Ma or the other great clans to besmirch the good name of the North Sea Confederation or the Cabells- what good name? What sort of drug addled half wit could imagine the Ma committing mass suicide and destroying epochs of accumulated wealth and wisdom… purely to make the Confeds look worse? Well the Cabells, obviously. But no one else that has actually met us.

I will leave you with this- My sainted grandmother, the scholar Malima, once comforted me after I lost a race. She held me, stroked my head and said “You must learn to run, little Mazelton. Your feet and your wits will keep you alive when nothing else will.” This is the woman accused of murdering a city. They are liars. But I will let you judge the truth for yourself.

Mazelton grinned. Not bad for a first draft. He looked it over and crossed out his name, substituting another. Mazelfo was too dead to mind his name being taken in vain. He was stirring up trouble, but no need to make it too easy for people to find him.