Return To Pechard

Return to Pechard

By Jackson Nagle

Snow crunched as Pip walked down a wide alley. Centuries ago, Pip wouldn’t have been able to hear himself think over the crowded bustle of a sprawling alley like this. Now, though, the eerie silence was punctuated by the tired breaths of a shaker slumping down against a frozen wooden door. Pip imagined that, in the prime of Pechard, this door could have led to a famous Kameni bakery, filled with all of his favorite warm treats. He imagined taking a savory bite out of a steamy Pirozhki bun, but he could only taste the familiar bitter flavor of Ash floating through the air.

After the mistake, Ash spread to the most densely populated areas of Minsdo, but, thanks to its isolated location, Kameni remained relatively free of the substance for some time. Now, nearly every door Pip passed reeked of it. Although sometimes pleasing, the stench usually just brought back bad memories these days.

As he continued through the crooked alleyways of Old Pechard, he closed in on his destination within the city. He came to a darkened street corner. Shadowy figures slithered through cracks between buildings, and the smell of ash was as potent as ever. Pip and his partner Bran were once obsessed with unraveling the secrets of the underground. Although nearly every seller they talked to, no matter how high in rank, seemed to be asking all the same questions they were. It seemed to Pip that no one even knew what Ash was. It baffled him that something so intrinsic to society could be such an unknown. “Skepticism is the curse of people like you and me, Pip. The world’s half dead already. I think we both could use a little ignorance,” Bran had once mused, brown liquor falling from his lips.

He continued walking down the long, winding alley, taking a right as he approached a wall of old stone, heading north towards the drop point that his informant had provided him with. He had to be swift, occasionally glancing down at the list of landmarks his informant had also included, having not been back to Pechard in some time. His eyes peered into the distance before moving to his watch as he stopped for a second, confirming his whereabouts. He scanned the scene from the alley’s end, eventually finding a small sign nailed to a cracked brick wall across the street that read, “Vladimir’s Ski Repair.” He let out a sigh. This must be it, he thought.

Pip had a long journey to Pechard, but it wasn’t all bad. Back in the day, they would have had to hop from car to car of Kameni’s gondola system, or rent an old speeder if the journey was long enough – both unpleasant methods of travel. Luckily, thanks to the founders' development, Pip was able to take a train all the way up to Fryndal if he wanted, which, though he didn’t like to give the founders too much credit, was an incredible feat. Either way, Bran needed him to do this.

He quickened his pace. He was never nimble or clever enough to be great at stealth; instead, he walked with heavy, deliberate steps. As he grew closer, he slowed back down and searched for the supplier, his eyes darting all around the shop before him. Of course, there was nothing to actually worry about in terms of law enforcement, but most suppliers still held conditioned paranoia from the earlier days of Ash trade, when the constabulary were more focused on cracking down on it. Now, you’d be hard-pressed to find two in full gear across the entire town.

Flurries of snow fell as Pip reached the shop and stopped to wait outside, leaning against a post, his foot tapping at irregular intervals. In his past, suppliers often showed up late or even failed to appear entirely. He shivered as staggered gusts of wind blew against his face. The brutal cold of mid-winter in Kameni never got comfortable, even for someone born and raised there. Luckily, his racing mind distracted him from the ferocious weather. His worries had gotten more numerous ever since Bran had quit. The Morozov’s always praised him each time he had brought them the ash for Bran, but he rejected the appreciation in his head. They were the only family he had.

CHCHCH!!

Snow crumpled in Pip’s left ear. His head snapped towards the source. There, a dark figure turned into the alleyway and stopped about three doors down from the ski shop, where Pip now stood. The man wore a heavy grey coat, sleek snow pants, and thin white gloves. His greasy black hair concealed much of his face, but Pip eyed him closely, noticing that the man had a scar running down his forehead and that both his eyelids had been cleanly sewn shut. Damnit, skineye, Pip thought.

The man took out a cigarette and lit it, but, curiously, let the whole thing burn out without puffing a single smoke. Pip approached the man with cautious movement, his posture stiffening. Even after decades of dealing with them, skineyes still made the hair on the back of his neck stand tall. Pip flinched a little when the man glanced up at him as he approached, staring directly into his soul. Somehow, despite their eyelids being permanently sewn shut, skineyes seemed to see better than most people could.

Pip approached a black steel bench that sat directly in between the ski repair shop and where the skineye stood. Then, he sat down and lit a cigarette of his own, letting the tobacco burn out without enjoying a sweet puff as he stared out, his mouth watering. As he felt the cigarette burn away in his hand, Pip’s attention shifted to a pistol attached to the skineye’s belt. The pistol’s shape was round but sleek, and its barrel was filled with a gloopy substance that glowed an effervescent blue. He thought that skineyes didn’t carry weapons. The blue fire of his lighter pierced the falling snow a couple of times to help the cigarette continue burning in the blowing wind, but, finally, it succumbed to ash. With that, the skineye turned back towards Pip and approached the bench briskly.

He stopped to tower over Pip for half a second, then sat next to him. Pip’s eyes lit up in recognition as the man approached, as this particular skineye was often responsible for deals in Kameni, though Pip hadn’t encountered him in some time. Naturally, Pip had no clue of the man’s name.

“Pip Van Malik, still looking for ash after all these years. I thought you had retired,” the skineye muttered.

“I’m not here to play games, skineye. Just give me the Ash.” Pip replied. He watched the skineye’s face tighten in reflex to the response.

“Fine”, the skineye responded as he reached to grab the ash, “You’re losing touch with the world, though, Van Malik, as is your whole generation. Don’t be so confident that you are well protected. It's the narcissistic indifference of people like you that is killing this damned world, not the storms or skineyes.”

Pip reached into his left pocket and grabbed his Med.

“How much?” Pip inquired as he pushed the device out toward the skineye. The skineye placed the sack of ash down on his right side, then extended his hand out towards Pip’s reader, opening his bony metal palm towards the device.

“Fifteen hard slargs.”

“What?”, Pip responded, “fifteen thousand? Don’t try to upcharge me, mole. I’ve been on both sides of this. I know the markets. I’ll pay seven. That's a fair price.”

The skineye again stared at Pip, his face breaking into a sneer as he began to laugh. “Seven?” he said, between chuckles, “Seven might have been a fair price six years ago, but times are changing quick. The storms are getting worse everywhere, not just Kameni. Supply has almost halved in the last decade. My price is fifteen, and that’s final.” The skineye shifted his hand towards his pistol, looking Pip up and down with a hollow gaze. Pip shuddered, but did not panic. In his youth, he may have fought back against the skineye on the price, or maybe even just taken the ash and ran, but now he knew that was not worth the trouble. Plus, the skineye was right. The underground had changed a lot since his days running it. He was not in a position to push his luck.

“Fine. Fifteen hard.” Pip said, resigning. He reached out his device and tapped it against the skineye’s mangled hand. Suddenly, the skineye pushed that same hand outward towards Pip. Pip’s world flashed with a blinding white. He opened and closed his eyes and shook his head violently until his ears rang. For about two minutes, he struggled, stumbling around until the white began to fade. By then, though, he looked around to see no skineye or sack of ash in sight. Pip slammed his hand against the hardened steel of the bench arm. The audacity of that bastard.

He stumbled up the steps of a winding stone staircase that ran up the side of a small natural cliff. Thanks to the fresh snowfall, Pip could track the man’s footsteps with relative ease, which was good, as focusing became harder as his mind raced. He had to get that ash back. How else was Bran going to recover?

He stared from the high vantage point down into the alleyways below. He scanned for a second, until he spotted the skineye standing still, staring forward at something, but that something was blocked from Pip’s view by a protruding building. He could feel a knot building in his stomach, something that happened often now when he was doing jobs. He thought about the still calmness of Lake Brandt back home. He had felt betrayed by Bran leaving to settle down there, but now he envied his friend.

Quicker now, Pip moved across a walkway that connected the cliff he was on to another streetside, then he slipped through an alleyway, subsequently climbing back down another veering staircase, his movements deliberate but hushed. As he reached the bottom of the stairs, his ears perked up at the skineyes' voice echoing from nearby. Pip leaned against the cold wall and listened.

“We’ve been loyal to the founders for hundreds of years, Shō. Don’t be a fool, you have nothing to offer us,” the skineye hissed. Shō? Pip thought he recognized that name, but he couldn’t quite place it. He shuffled his feet and watched as a raven landed atop an old bathhouse.

A second voice then slipped in, apparently responding to the skineye. This voice was raspier, older, but the man spoke quietly. Pip thought that he heard him say, “Damned stupid world,” but he couldn’t be sure. He peered his head around the corner of the building he was hiding behind, and decided it was safe to get closer, so as to better hear the conversation and possibly make a move. He dashed from his raised position on the staircase towards the other side of the alley. The two men spoke behind a corner, and Pip continued listening.

“Do you even get how ironic it is, skineyes working for the Founders? Tradition is so fucking lost in this world,” the mysterious Shō muttered.

The skineye tightened his brow. “I know your story, Shõ,” he spat, “Vendettas, blood oaths, the whole game. You’re no savior.”

Pip sat for a second as a beat skipped. He didn’t understand what they were referencing at all. Maybe the skineye was right. Maybe he was out of touch. He inched closer, stepping through the snow towards where the two stood. He knew he had to make a move. As the silence continued, he whipped his head around the corner and snuck a glance at the scene. He saw the skineye standing ready, his hand hovering above his pistol. The man named Shō stared back at the skineye, spinning his wooden cane casually. Curiously, Pip thought he saw ash laced within the man’s beard, but it looked dead and greyed. Pip snapped his head back so as to not get seen. He took a few bated breaths.

He and Bran had sold the man ash years before, but he hadn’t seemed like an addict. When their informant had told them about Shō before the job, she said that they should be cautious of him, as he was supposedly a dangerous mystic. Despite this, when they actually made the deal with him, he’d been nothing but welcoming, inviting them into his home and making them (what he’d called) an ancient tea. The man seemed unnaturally older now than he had been back then.

Pip curled his head back against the cold blackstone, then decided to make a gamble. He jumped out from behind the corner where he was hiding, then yelled out towards Shō as he pointed towards the skineye, “The mole stole my ash!”

The skineye turned his head towards Pip, then whipped out his pistol and pulled the trigger. A speeding blob of glowing blue flew at near bullet speed towards Pip, but barely missed, splatting like paint against the snow-stained blackstone with a low hiss.

Pip dashed to the side, precariously hiding behind what seemed like a family of old fishing barrels. He poked his head above one and saw Shō dashing towards him with unnatural speed like a white leopard on the hunt, still curling his cane casually. The skineye fired three shots towards Shō, but he dodged them all with a mix of bobs and weaves. The skineye cursed, then danced a hand out at the approaching Shō. Leaning in, Pip thought he’d get a good look at the skineye’s other weapon, but, once again, his world flashed white. This time, though, it only lingered for mere seconds, the haze wearing off as the skineye and Shō came back into focus.

Shō didn’t flinch at the flashbang. He held his cane behind him as he moved towards the skineye. He closed the distance with four lunging steps on the cobblestone, and then swung with power, striking the skineye on the side of his sternum with the cane. The skineye fell to the street; hunching over and coughing out blood. Shō then hooked the skineye’s pack with the end of his cane, and hurled it through the air and towards Pip.

Pip was startled, so he didn’t catch the pack cleanly, cursing as it slipped from his grasp. He wondered why this man was even helping him in the first place. Still, he propped the pack up against one of the barrels, unzipped it, then grabbed the pouch of ash. Pip had no interest in staying any longer, so he dashed back around the corner, through the adjacent alley, and up the staircase. As he fled, he turned and yelled towards Shō, “The hearth sits within you!” respectfully drawing a circle on his heart. Shō did not respond.

Pip continued running southward until he exited Old Pechard and only slowed when he got far enough that his heart was no longer beating through his chest. He stopped and watched as a pair of snow foxes burrowed under what looked like a long-forgotten church of Odran. He held the pouch out in front of himself, and stared deeply at it. He remembered back to when the constabularies had caught him selling the stuff to some desperate shakers in Fryndal. They took him out to a main street and beat him senseless, then left him bleeding in the pattering rain. It was Bran who had tracked him down and carried him back home that day, and then nursed him back to health. He would have died without him.

He placed the pouch back into his coat pocket. Flakes of a new snowfall floated down. Pip released a long sigh; his white breath pulsing outwards. I hope this works, Bran, he thought, as another shaker slumped down against the old wood fence of the church. This one’s eyes were frozen open, his pupils flooded with the blue electric flash of someone who had just used ash. Sometimes Pip envied the skineyes. Maybe, they purposefully sewed their eyes shut, so they didn’t have to witness such horrors.