Historia, Part XIII

The City of Lithe is an impossible dream. It has been flooded more times than the engine of a silly 1970s British Leyland automobile (preferably the Dolomite Sprint, 1976 version), and yet the inhabitants refuse to move. The ground is so soft that most buildings in Lithe sink on average six inches a year, and because of this the city council orders the roads and streets dug lower. The city was actually built atop a mountain, but because of this sinking and digging out process, they’ve gradually, over the course of a couple of hundred years, dug their very own valley, which directed the river even more so at them.

As the valley grew deeper, the people of Lithe came to depend more and more on the talking Beavers to dam the river and maintain the water flow. Even then, though, the water was still too much for a group of Beavers to control.

The floods came irregularly, and there was always a moments warning from watchtowers built along the north end, river facing, part of the city. Because of this warning, Clifford Jenkins survived the eighty-fifth flood to hit Lithe that year. The previous record for most flood in a year had been a paltry sixty-seven, but that had been before the Great Drought had decimated the lands around Historia and had brought ruin nigh to Lithe itself.

Now, a drenched Clifford Jenkins was busily searching through the desolation that had once been a market. Some vendors were out once again restoring their stalls. Some were talking. He was piecing together bits of news about the city without even realizing it.

“They said that the bank just sank eight inches with that flood. We’ll be digging it out soon.”

“I heard that the north wall was damaged this time. They said that the Rigger may fall.”

Clifford kept searching, but asked in the general direction of those talking, “What’s the Rigger?”

The man tapped him on the shoulder, “Look here, mate.” He pointed to the north wall where, framed against a graying sky stood four massive towers, “Starting from the left there’s The Garrison, The Helmstaad, The Rigger, and The Morii. The watchtowers of the city north, named for the gods of Lithe itself. No watchtower has fallen in five hundred years. Now The Rigger might.”

Clifford turned back to the fallen stalls, “Sorry to hear that.”

The other man, the one who hadn’t pointed out the watchtowers, walked up, “What are you looking for?”

Clifford continued moving things, pushing back pieces of wood, flaps of cloth, “I lost my friend in the flood.”

The man knelt down and began moving things around, mostly stuff that Clifford had already pushed aside, “The talking mouse?”

Clifford stopped, “How did you know?”

“I don’t know. I just know that in all that water, in all that chaos, I saw a talking mouse. It screamed out something as it rushed past me.”

Clifford grabbed the man’s shoulders, “What did he say?”

“Go west.”

Clifford sat back, “Go west? I’ve been going west. It’s the only way to Historia.”

“You’re going to Historia?”

“Yes.”

The man offered his hand to help Clifford up, “I am as well. Jaime Conner, post-boy, although I am twenty-seven years old.”

Clifford couldn’t stop thinking about Schrodinger, “You were the one who told the people at the farm of Pepperidge that Nostalgia was a ghost town.”

Jaime looked confused, “Well, I do go to the Pepperidge farm at least once a fortnight, and the last time I was in Nostalgia it was nearly deserted. Only about fifteen left there.”

“I just left Nostalgia about...” Then Clifford realized that he had no idea how long he’d been gone. He stood there looking at Jaime rather stupidly.

“I was in Nostalgia one week ago,” Jaime said, “That’s when I found out that Nostalgia was a ghost town.”

Clifford tried to reconcile the time difference in his head and found that he was completely unable to. He’d either been gone for far longer than he thought, or his “gift” as Schrodinger called it had conjured up an entire town.

Schrodinger. Poor Schrodinger.