Chapter 130 – In Backlund
Under the gloomy sky, a robin with a red breast beat its wings, riding the air currents through air tainted with a sharp, unfamiliar stink.
"Scree—"
Below it, a steel behemoth roared, belching white steam as it rolled along the rails into the city.
The robin had grown used to these shrieking iron bugs. They crept only along those gleaming "lines," charging toward a world pieced together from countless odd "boulders." Stranger smells drifted from within, and a haze that blurred its sight; it hated the place.
It preferred the outskirts, where sunlight was bright and the grubs were fat.
The bird did not know that, in the mouths of the humans hidden inside the iron beast, the place it loathed was called—Backlund.
Capital of the Kingdom of Loen, hailed as the "City of Cities," the "Land of Hope," the most prosperous metropolis in the Northern Continent and the Southern Continent alike, home to nearly five million souls—from the richest plutocrats, great nobles, and high officials, to penniless vagrants, thugs, and prostitutes—every kind of person gathered here.
Each day the city staged realist tragedies and comedies in turn.
From above, the vast city divided neatly into districts: the Western District and adjacent Empress Borough formed the upper city, where royalty, aristocracy, and merchant princes lived.
East Borough and the Backlund Bridge area were the poor quarters, filthy and lawless.
The remaining districts—ordinary residential blocks, commercial quarters, factory belts, docks—need no lengthy description for now.
The robin's wings skimmed a wharf on the Tasock River; its feathers felt the damp breath of the water. It flew along Backlund Bridge over East Borough, where a disorderly crowd was hurrying in panic, as if some sudden calamity had struck.
The bird cared nothing for human sorrow; it adjusted its wings, banked in the air, and soared toward the sunlit suburbs.
Somewhere in East Borough, Backlund.
"Is the woman from Lame Jack's place here? Your man's been hurt!"
In the squalid, chaotic street someone shouted in alarm. Half-naked stevedores, shoulders bare, carried something together, shuffling forward; a ring of idlers followed. From tenement windows on both sides
gaunt children poked out their heads to watch.
"Where's Lame Jack's woman? Come out, quick!"
The men halted before one tenement and yelled again.
Soon a woman in a grease-stained dress pushed through the crowd. When she saw what the stevedores held, a short, sharp scream tore from her throat—an indescribable cry of despair, like a finch crushed in a fist.
"Jack! Jack, open your eyes—"
She wailed.
Several ragged, scrawny children stood behind her, bewildered.
The onlookers watched her collapse with a morose satisfaction: pitying her,
yet glad the disaster had befallen someone else.
The stevedores carried a grievously injured man—another dockworker by his dress. His right leg was hideously mangled, flattened by some falling weight into a pulpy mess of bone and flesh.
Lame Jack would soon be No-leg Jack.
Blood gushed; the man's face was corpse-pale, moaning low.
"What happened to my man?"
the woman shouted at the other workers.
"The crane cable snapped while we were unloading," one muttered, embarrassed. "Bad luck—Jack was right under the crate when it fell."
"Where's the foreman? They just send him back like this?"
"The foreman says Jack was careless; saving him held up the unload, so if he dies, too bad. He'll pay one soli—calls it… humanitarian."
The docker awkwardly repeated the unfamiliar grand word and pressed a silver coin into her hand; hatred flared in her eyes.
"Filthy pig! Bastard son of a donkey's arse—"
Clutching the coin, she cursed in foul country slang, helpless. The dock company had ties with gangsters and officials; an illiterate village woman could not fight them.
The children beside her, sensing the adults' fury, were too frightened to cry.
After a while her rage ebbed; she looked again at her husband—his breath fading, the blood from his leg slowing.
"Jack's wife, your man's almost gone. Buy something from the gang to ease his passing,"
someone advised.
She said nothing; then her face hardened with resolve.
"Help me carry Jack to the house at the end of the street,"
she told the stevedores, and turned to her eldest boy. "William, run to Aunt Mary and ask for five pounds of fresh fish on credit. Tell her we've money now and will pay!"
Before the men could answer, the crowd murmured in uneasy recognition of her intent.
"Jack's wife, you're not calling on those folk? They're… strange. Some say they're witches—"
"Shut your mouth!"
she snarled. "I know what they are. I've never seen their tricks, true—but I've no other road left. Don't meddle!"
Silenced, the crowd watched the men bear the wounded man toward a lone two-story house at the street's end.
Though it was broad day, the house looked dark, as if sunlight feared to enter; whispers and watching eyes seemed to hide in its corners.
People hung back, keeping their distance; even the boldest loiterer dared not approach.
The woman stepped forward. Though resolute moments before, she turned pale at the door.
Knock.
She rapped.
"Coming."
A girl's bright voice answered; the door opened.
A stunning young woman stood there, dressed in the coarse cloth common to East Borough yet spotlessly clean—her beauty made it hard to believe she lived here.
Her blue eyes swept the crowd, smiling gently as if meeting each gaze.
For a moment all were struck dumb, bewitched by her face—so lovely that neighbors had begun whispering a Witch lived within.
"Can I help you?"
she asked.
Trembling, the woman pleaded: "I need your help, Miss Cecilia."