The Man in Blue

A short story from an idea that struck me suddenly as I listened to other talking about a story.. It's an atmospheric tale.

The Man in Blue

Dawn touched the edges of the sky; the marshy waters of the city held a darkness as fog lay low on the reeds and rushes. Pale green light illuminated the slow river. Boats emerged and faded into the fog, ghosts of the morning. A scant few pious lined the shores of the river, offering their prayers to the river before the morning rush, their chants mingling with the sounds of river, water fowl, frogs, and insects, punting poles leaving only a rippling as they pushed along.

There were few boats on the water that morning. Recently, the catch was poor in the river; too many hands took what many mouths needed. The boats were long and slender, low against the water. The punters sang as they went along, a language that seemed to belong to them alone.

On one boat, a man in loose blue silks lay on pillows at the prow, listening as the man standing in the back sang. Distant prayers reached him, somehow in time with the song. He admired the morning. A gift.

His hands ran along his arms, touching the bracelets and amulets he kept there. Gold inlaid with silver and studded with rubies. They were warm to the touch. Feeling secure, he stroked his long, braided beard. Everything had been prepared.

The boatman in back lost his song among the reeds, mumbling off. Then he began another. Up front, the man is blue smiled and began whispering along. He couldn’t join in. Boatmen did not take kindly to outsiders speaking their muddled language. They thought that no one understood them. They spoke rudely of their betters or moaned about the dying river. The man in blue was not about to take that from them.

He sighed, leaning back on his pillows and dipping a hand into the sluggish water. A river of life had been turned by many people into a river of waste. A shame. They threw away what they had for this city. This collection of lives. Forty thousand people. All their lives thrown into the river. Waste, clothes, dead.

Would they ever learn to care for their environs?

He doubted it.

His boatman swore is his sluggish language. The man in blue pulled his hand out of the water, shaking it clean.

Out of the gloom loomed a large boat, overtaking them. The man in blue smiled. One of the pleasure barges which the few masters of the city moved through the river. Eight pole men punted the boat. Their backs broad and their muscles toned. Here were well-fed men. Those were only slightly less rare than the masters.

The man in blue was not a master, but he was well-fed. He didn’t have an important job, nor was he a valuable slave. He simply knew where to find food.

A drum beat their rhythm. The barge was much larger than other boats on the river, the deck nearly six feet off the water. A tiller stood at the rudder. Heavy incense fell off the barge, mixing with the fog. Cedar wood.

The man in blue smiled. He couldn’t smell the river anymore, just the incense. He knew whose barge overtook them. They would see each other soon.

His boatman’s song trailed off and began swearing a beautiful streak that would put all others boatman to shame as he moved their boat from out of the wake of the larger vessel. So the man in blue focused his ears on the chanting pious. The crowd was growing along the banks as the day began. They wouldn’t see him in the fog.

Perhaps the sharper sighted of them would. His passing would become rumor, then myth.

Aboard the barge, someone was having a bad day. He could hear snippets of conversation, hurried and clipped, and couldn’t help but smile. His hands ran over his bracelets again. Still warm.

The barge pulled ahead, and was lost in the fog. He relaxed on his pillows, his eyes moving to the heavens. The sky was hidden from him by the fog, he only caught glimpses of it. It wouldn’t be until midday when the sun was strong enough to drive the fog off. Then the sky would be revealed, though it would be too late for the man in blue.

On and on they went up the river. The man in blue listened to the songs and prayers, feeling the warmth of his bracelet. Here and there something moved in the water, though in his youth it had been teeming.

On and on, through the waters that he had known all his life.

Then the river ran out. They had reached the city plaza. He briefly considered ordering the boat on, on up the river and out of the city entirely. Or to turn it around and follow the sluggish river out to the sea, there to live with pirates and bandits. Evil men, but he would live.

He sighed. It was impossible. This was his home. How could he flee his home? His life was a little thing. He could give it away for a worth cause. His home was worthy.

The boat came to rest at the dock beside three great barges. He had kept them waiting. Good.

“Peace with you, mighty one,” the boatman said.

Unlikely, the man in blue thought. “Peace belongs to you.” He spoke with the slurred speech of a life long fisherman.

The boatman looked at him shocked. The man in blue threw a heavy purse onto at the boatman’s feet. He smiled, then jumped into the marsh water, though they were next to a dock.

The river welcomed him as it once had, coming up to his waist. Weeds wrapped themselves around him as he struggled through the muck and out of the river.

Behind him, the boatman took a moment, regarded the purse, then called after him. “Mighty one, the river is filthy. You should not swim in it.”

The man in blue did not turn back. “These waters are my home. I will wade in them. Thank you. Goodbye.” He turned and planted his hand on the prow of the boat. His bracelets glowed and golden light seized the boat and pushed it back into the fog. The boatman fell to his knees at the shock of it. The man in blue smiled.

People were never ready for the power. His bracelets had cooled slightly. The man in blue waded out of the water, pausing on the bank to admire the sludge he had brought out with him. This was what lived beneath them. Their city built on muck.

He activated his bracelets again, golden light sweeping around him, pushing the dirt and water from his clothes. Only when he was satisfied with his cleanliness did he walk into the plaza.

Here it was said that the city was founded. A great sundial sat useless in the middle of a wide mosaic depicting the sun itself, rays stretching against a blue sky. Thirty paces across. He had always liked coming here on the market days.

Huddled together on the near side of the plaza, just below the sundial, were the seven masters of the city. Three men, four women. The most powerful families. They turned to face him, spreading out into a semi-circle as they did.

“Maer,” said Linla, nodding her head towards him. Her piercings were tied to chains that wound their way around her head. “Good to see you again.” The others agreed politely.

The man in blue laughed as he walked up to them. “Then you should have invited me.”

“They say you have been walking the desert. Half mad. They say you have seen things, Maer.” That as Poltin. The man in blue knew how to find food. Poltin didn’t need to look. It was brought to him by hungry hands.

The man in blue stopped. The seven of them on one side of the imagined circle, him alone on the other. “Sand mostly. That’s what deserts have for sights.”

None of them smiled. A shame. There wasn’t so much time left for them to learn.

“There are stories. Prophesies,” Lalin said. It had been six years since last he saw them. She had lost a piece of the beauty she carried. Her eyes had hardened. “About the desert.”

“We have all heard them,” the man in blue said. “Don’t put any hope there. They are just stories.”

“Maer. Friend.” Wenten was dressed in blue. He at least kept the same shape that he had long ago. “We need to know. Please friend. For the sake of the city. We need to know.”

“Don’t call me that. Not you.” The man in blue felt hate roar through him, though he kept it from his face. Emotion. He had conquered it long ago, yet here it was. He took a deep breath and felt his bracelets. “My name is not…that. Not anymore. You took that name from me when you took my family from me. So do not call me that, nor friend. You made me this. You must take pride in your work.”

Wenten looked away. Good. He should be ashamed. The man in blue summoned his calm and steadied himself. Who knew dying was so emotional?

Raet shifted his weight. The man was dressed in blue silks, mirroring the style of the man who had once been Maer. Blue had once been the color reserved for him alone. They let hm keep his clothes, at least.

“That answers that question.” Raet’s voice was unbalanced, ready to change with just a push. “Let us dispense with the pleasantries. Maer, I understand you, but you have never understood us. You were the strongest among us. You were a threat.”

The man in blue’s calm didn’t break, not for this inconsequential man. “Naturally. But once you had removed me, one of you must have become the strongest master. It is simply the nature of things. You must expel them. And then the next, and the next, until there is only one left.”

Raet flinched at the answer. “Don’t try to confuse us. We understand you too well.”

The man in blue didn’t look at him. He watched the others as their eyes betrayed who they thought was the strongest. Linla. No wonder she had hardened.

Poltin sighed. It moved a lot of him. “We talked about this. We talked about this.” He waved a hand at the man in blue. “We said he would try to divide us. Here he is, dividing us. Can we press on?”

“Yes.” Raet said.

The man in blue watched the seven, noting their own bracelets and finery. They had been less skilled in the power, but that didn’t matter. They held just as much of it as him, and there were seven of them. A fight would be devastating. And short.

Linla composed herself, wary of her position in the seen. “Maer…or what ever it is you call yourself these days. The river is dying. The power is dying. You know more than anyone else. You have seen. You could save us.”

The man in blue nodded. “Yes. I think I could.”

Relief spread around the circle. Linla grinned. “Then help us.”

“I am.” 

“How?” squealed Raet.

The man in blue smiled, opened his hands, and then let them drop. He was here. He had come when the hour was dire.

Daereta frowned. The man in blue had always disliked her. When he had been a master, they argued at every meeting. Naturally, she had been the one to be begin the discussion to expel him. She only did it because the others permitted her. “What does that mean? What are you doing?”

“I told you all he knows nothing,” Raet said.

Poltin ruffled. “Foolishness.”

Wenten raised his hands. “Peace, masters. Let us hear from our friend.”

Anger again. Friend. What a lie. The man in blue wandered the deserts alone, hungry and half mad for three years. Friend. Wenten had sent him to that fate. That was what friendship was worth.

The man in blue looked away, watching the sundial. There was a path. He could save it all, perhaps. The path was narrow and long. Out in the desert was the answer, he found it when he was completely mad. But it had to start here.

Some people moved through the plaza, giving the masters a wide berth as they craned their necks to see what was going on. When they saw him, they hurried on their way. Probably for the best. This could be messy.  

He looked at the seven. Remorse absent from their eyes. They were angry. Eager. If he gave them what he knew, they would discard him. They would seek the beginning of the path, but they wouldn’t be able to take it.

“We will reinstate you,” Linla offered. The others frowned but didn’t contradict her. “Give you back you home. Your name.”

Return a man to life a moment before he died. Laughable. They wouldn’t do it anyway. Once they had his knowledge, they would discard him.  

“Keep them,” he said calmly. “Know that my aim is to restore the river and the power. I do love this city.”

That put them on edge. Maybe they had learned something these last years.

The man in blue took a deep breath. He dropped his hands to his sides.

“Friend,” Wenten said one last time.

A golden glow swirled around his hands. The other masters took a step back, cloaking themselves in power. The man in blue raised his hands as if to strike and was assailed as the seven unleashed their power on him.

He could have made it a fight. They were clumsy, unskilled if fighting with the power, but there were seven of them. The man in blue was thrown to the ground pushed from all sides. His head bloodied, darkness closed in.

The man in blue smiled. The path began.