Salamander

Ash rains down on Tal Mallan slightly less frequently than water does, and on occasion they mix together and the grey, sticky rains happen.  To the north there are volcanoes and heavy geological activity, and though Tal Mallan sits on a peninsula, the sea between here and the mainland is not enough to prevent ash clouds blowing over and depositing their load.  The volcanoes were erupting today, and up in the sky, in the distance, the cloudbase had turned an angry orange, reflecting in the heavens the fires of the earth below.  Without a doubt it meant that we were in for another rain of ash in the next couple of days.
The guards were out in force in the streets in the first and second zones as well; in their dusty ochre and brown uniforms they blended in well with the walls of the houses.  They were walking around alert and bright-eyed, hands resting on the da they carried at all times, and their eyes scanning the streets for disturbances.
A sudden scream, cut off in the middle energised all of them, and they broke into a run, converging towards the place the scream had come from.  I was sat on a balcony three stories up, drinking cha and listening to the proprietor of this little café bore another patron with tales of his time as a scrimshaver, so at the sound of the scream I set my cup down on the little ceramic-tiled patio table and went to the balcony to look out.  From my vantage, I could see the salamander in the Square of the Third Soldier, and the char-grilled remains of the screamer.  I admired the guards then; if it were me I would be running as fast as I could away from the salamander, not towards it armed only with a knife.
The salamander was a kind of lizard, its skin ash grey and reportedly as tough as old leather.  Its eyes, and it had six, were spaced equally around its lumpen head and were glittering amber orbs with split pupils.  Below its eyes were pits, which few people knew about, which detected temperature and effectively allowed it a kind of thermal imaging, an ability to see without light.  Natural philosophers up at the university in the sixth zone hypothesized that in the volcanic caves being able to tell which way is hotter is important, especially when the difference is between intolerable and barely-tolerable.  It's mouth was still slightly open, and I could see a grey tongue flickering from side to side as it tasted the air.  It scrabbled for a moment on the cobbles, trying to dig a hole with powerful, spatulate feet, and then the first guard arrived.
The salamander turned its head alarmingly fast, and exhaled in the guard's direction.  A blast of scorching air hit her full on and her hands flew up in front of her face as she turned away, taking the brunt of it on her back.  Her uniform, padded and treated to withstand heat, still began to smoulder, and she collapsed to the cobbles and didn't stand up again.  While the salamander was doing that though, more guards had arrived, from several streets now.
The salamander's eyes prevented anyone from sneaking up on it, but now it was swinging its head heavily back and forth, trying to evaluate the danger and decide who to attack first.  The guards, now that they could see each other, advanced steadily, keeping pace and closing a human net around the creature.  When it finally chose and exhaled again, going for a young man directly in front of it, blocking the most direct escape, he was ready, ducking and turning, finally barely touched by the flame-hot air at all.  And as he did so, the rest charged, leaping in, stabbing with their das and ripping through the salamander's hide.  The blades, like skinning knives, had a hook at the end for ripping, and as the guards pulled away again strips of skin tore from the salamander like a banana opening.  Oily pink flesh glistened momentarily in the sunlight, then was covered over by a green ichor that oozed out and puddled on the cobbles.  The salamander howled and thrashed, its tail swinging wildly and crashing into a shop-front destroying benches holding tableware and scattering household goods everywhere.  It lowered its head, readying to charge, and the guards, moving almost as one, ran in again, leaping agilely, dodging the ooze even as the salamander shook, spattering it everywhere, and drove their das home once more.
The salamander roared again, hot breath playing over the first, luckless guard once more and its legs drove it forward anyway, but the damage done now was too great and at the fourth step its front legs buckled and it collapsed to the ground.  The guards, still wary, approached it from behind and quickly cut through the corded muscles in its back legs, ensuring that if it wasn't dead it wasn't going to get up and start again.  Then, and only then, I noted, did they attend to their fallen colleague.
And no-one paid any attention to the salamander's first victim, now a blackened effigy on the cobbles, amazingly untouched by the salamander's death throes or its ichorous blood.
I returned to my seat and sipped my tea.

Harmony

She stands up from the Go board, scattering white and black stones carelessly across the carpet. Her head drops to her chest and she clasps her hands in front of her, demure as a china doll. She is wearing a white dress that falls to her ankles and wraps almost chokingly around her throat, with sleeves long enough to almost cover her fingers. In some ways she reminds me of a nun, but then I went to a religious school.
"Harmony," I say, and then I stop. I don't know what to say to her.
"Yes," she replies, not looking up. I open my mouth, hoping that the act will inspire me with words, but then I hear the familiar rattle and slither, and looking down I see the Go stones skittering across the carpet like water boatmen across the surface of a lake.
"Oh Harmony!"
I turn at the high-pitched cry of disappointment behind me, and there stands an elderly woman, tall and proud as the now-fallen Statue of Liberty. She gazes at both of us, her disapproval radiating like heat from a pizza oven.
"Sweet Mother Mary," I say, crossing myself. My knees shake a little, though I quickly control them, and a cold sweat breaks out on my brow. Mother Mary, sweet or otherwise, was my teacher at the Immolian School. She died thirty-one years ago.
"Harmony, control yourself. You were named for a purpose."
Mother Mary fades away.
Harmony still stands there before me, her head down-bowed, but the Go stones have stopped moving.
"Harmony?" I ask, not certain of what has happened.
"I have a purpose," she replies, and pushes past me.

The realignment halls

My footsteps raise small puffs of dust from the floor, and each puff of dust intensifies the smell of mould. It's gloomy in here, so it's hard to be sure, but I think the puffs of dust are actually greenish, and I'm a little worried that what I think is dust is actually just a thick layer of mould. Nonetheless, I've been told that this is the only way in, so this is the way I go. I pull my sleeve across my mouth and try to breathe shallowly, hoping that it will make a difference.
The room is narrow and long, and by the smoothness of whatever it is on the floor, hasn't been visited recently. This also worries me, as I only know of this place from ancient references. It's looking more and more likely that the realignment halls have been shut down or destroyed long ago, and the space is being reclaimed by Nature in her cthonic garb. I plod on anyway, clutching a tiny spark of hope in my heart. Even if the halls aren't in use any more I might be able to find something useful.
I reach the end of the room and stop, stymied by the wall in front of me. There's no obvious handle or way through, so I reach out, a little gingerly, and run my hand over the wall. It's smooth and dry, and nothing flakes away or bursts into sporeclouds. I relax a little, and use both hands to touch and probe all the wall I can reach. It goes up to the ceiling, about thirteen feet above me, so if the way in is up there I've no chance of finding it. The wall remains obdurately solid.
I shuffle over to the corner of the wall, pulling my sleeve back across my mouth again. Dust rises to the level of my knees, but I encounter nothing on the floor that might be a handle or lever. At the corner I check the wall that adjoins the one I want to pass. It's colder than my wall, but otherwise smooth and dry again; no secret panels, no touch-switches. Not even a neatly-printed white placard with instructions for seekers of enlightenment.
I shuffle across to the opposite wall. The flame of hope in my heart is guttering now. I reach it, again not finding anything on the floor, and reach out. Almost immediately I touch something yielding and fibrous. Spiderweb! I think, and I have to cruch my stomach hard and bend forward to stop myself screaming. I back up a little, staggering in my awkward pose, and make myself take a deep breath. Then another, and another, and then I can stand up again. It's the last thing I want to do, but I reach out again, and check out the spiderweb.
It's a bell-pull, a silken rope tied around a peg in the wall. My relief is so strong that I actually break out in a cold sweat on my forehead and my knees tremble, jellylike. I allow myself a tiny little chuckle at how stupid I've been, and then untie the bell-pull. It drops heavily to the level of my waist and hangs there, immobile in the stillness of the room.
I yank on it, tugging firmly, and almost immediately a line of light shines out of the middle of the wall as a door cracks open, and hangs very slightly ajar. The light is the soft yellow of the glowglobes used everywhere in Tal Mallan, and the flame of hope burns more strongly at last. I approach the door and, hopefully, the realignment halls.

Bath-house

The chick-shaw dropped me off outside the bath-house and skittered off again, claws rattling against the cobbled street. A few seconds later the driver's howl of fear reached me; the street was so steep that I thought I'd been horizontal coming up it at one point so going down again must be far worse. I always walked down the steeper hills in Tal Mallan, and occasionally I wondered why they'd been so perverse as to build on them.
I entered, and in the vestibule was a cedar desk as fragrant now as it had been when it was first cut. It stretched a good twenty feet and was pristinely empty, not even dust dared rest upon it. A young lady sat behind it reading a book, and I noted that there were fourteen columns of characters across the double page. Almost certainly that meant it was written in Haruspic, the language of the Haruspice-eaters. She closed the book before she looked up, and she smiled at me dreamily.
"I'd like a bath, please," I said, and she nodded. Standing up, she moved further along the desk and produced a register which she proffered. A pen was attached to it with a blue silk ribbon, and I signed where she pointed. Two towels then appeared from some hidden container, along with a discreet bill slipped on top of them. I read it; it was written in Elatinate, the common language, and swallowed as discreetly as she'd passed me the bill. I paid anyway, as I had reasons to be here other than the bath. She pointed to a door in the wood-panelled wall, and I departed the desk.
The changing rooms, or deshabillation as the Mallan called them, were simple: some large wardrobes with plenty of hangers, some stacked footlockers with heavy iron keys, and a low bench running the length of the room. I disrobed and hung my clothes up, putting my wallet and the sealed package under my spare towel in a locker. Then I passed through.
The bath room was a large, cedar panelled room with high, broad windows that started thirteen feet above the floor and went up to the ceiling. There were twenty four baths laid out in a rectangular pattern, each sunk mostly into the floor. A lip, raised about six inches all round, stopped the unwary from walking into the baths, but not from tripping over and falling in face first. I imagined, knowing the Mallan temperament, that that would be a cause of much hilarity. Fragrant steam billowed and gusted in the air whenever the door opened or closed, and I could smell meadowsweet, wild violet, gentian and Attic rose wreathing around me. Almost immediately I felt myself relaxing.
I slipped my towel off and stepped into the second bath in the third row. The bath-house had only two other occupants, so getting the bath I'd been told to take was thankfully easy. I'd had no idea what excuses I could have made for waiting for a particular bath to come free. The water was hot enough to make me catch my breath, but I acclimatised quickly, and soon the only evidence was the beading of sweat on my brow. I laid back, relaxed, and waited for my contact.