Excerpt: The Unmaking of Yesterday

The door to the research room opened, and a short man in a rumpled grey overcoat came in. He had long, dirty grey hair which was receding, and muddy blue eyes. He looked around the room, spotted Richard and, to his slight dismay, started towards him.

“Oy, you the historian?”

“What? Uh, yes. I’m a historian.” The man stopped at the edge of the table Richard was sitting at and inspected him for a moment.

“Oh you’re the one all right. You’re doin’ the history of Ansharra, right? Definitive edition or somesuch.”

“Well, not really. I’m going to be focusing on…”

“Psh. Nonsense. That’s what you’ll be doin’. And I’ve got sumfin’ for you, sumfin’ you won’t wanna be leavin’ out.” He seated himself opposite Richard and leaned across the table toward him. Richard noticed unhappily the unmistakable odor of urine. “You want the truf about the sep’ration, right? You want the whole story?”
“Yes, I do.” He put aside his own fastidious tendencies. If the man wasn’t a total loon, maybe he could offer something new, something not found in books. The best history was often locked up in people’s minds, after all.

“Well, my kin, they had quite a lot of sumfin’ to do wif all that. It’s all ancient hist’ry now, of course, but twas my folk that helped wif it all. Unsung heroes we are!”

Richard pulled the paper to him and readied his burin, preparing to take notes - or pretend to do so, if need be. He schooled his expression, and extended his hand. “Richard Ash. And you are?”

“Nader Simony.” His grip was leathery and warm. “Oh, aye, I see you know the name. Related to the great Dellodruin Simony’s once, yah, but that was before the split even. We’ve been the Ansharra Simony’s for a long time now, longer even than this story what I’m gonna tell you. Black sheep.” He barked out a laugh, revealing blue stained teeth. Richard wondered what he’d been eating. “Now, my gramma recently passed on, but I had this story from her. She was there.” Immediately, Richard started revising his opinion back down. The most recent split with the kingdom had happened 224 years ago, by the best records he could find. There was simply no chance that this man’s grandmother had been involved with it, if she had only passed recently. Even the so-called high bloods of the kingdom didn’t live that long, not any more.

Nader waggled a finger at him. “I can see whatcher thinkin’ there. You think I’m pullin’ your leg, eh? Havin’ a good laugh?” He cleared his throat noisily. “Like I ain’t got better things to do than josh along a historian from Dellodruin. Hrmph. It’s in my grammer’s honor, though, that’s why I’m here. And yeah, she lived an unnatural long life. All the little folks do.”

Richard was nodding respectfully now. Best to humor him. “Well, let’s start at the beginning - or as much of a beginning as we can, considering.”

Nader glanced quickly around the room, then got up and shut the door. “Best to be careful, eh?” he said as he came back to his seat. “So, my gramma. She and my gramps were rid of their kids by this time - three of ‘em, my daddy, aunt Judith, and my uncle Robert. The day it happened, though, Aunt Judith were with ‘em at their apartment. She’d been havin’ a fight with her boyfriend, sumfin’ like that.”

“Where was this apartment?”

“Ah, I’m gettin’ there! It was just inside the dockwall, nice neighborhood. Nuffin’ posh like what’s up here on the hill of course, but it was a big thing. Solid, you know? Whole buncha them looked almost exactly the same, up and down the street. What’s called Firebreak Way now, on account of it all burnt down not too long after what I’m tellin’ you about, and the street served as a firebreak to keep it from spreadin’ up into the city proper.”

He scooted around in the chair a little and gestured toward the room’s sole window. “So, picture it, it’s a fall evenin’, wet. The sea’s workin’ up a decent storm out there, the wind’s goin’, and it’s a little chill. But inside, oh my gramps and gramma and aunty are all quite snug. They had a good dinner and are sittin’ there talkin’, mostly ‘bout how Judith’s gonna spend the night and promises she’ll be outta their hair by tomorrow, day after at the latest. It’s late. They been chewin’ the fat for a while. And then, everythin’ goes funny! Big bright light comin’ in through the windows, like lightning only all sortsa colors. The rain gets louder, and the whole buildin’ rumbles! Can you see it?”

Richard nodded. The man had a way with words, that was certain. He tried to keep his eyes from straying to the closed door, really wishing it were open now that this odd character was getting animated.

“Well, they spent a while jus’ trying to figger out what happened, you know? Checkin’ the china cabinet, goin’ ‘round to the neighbors, that sorta thing.” He cleared his throat again and hacking something into a grey handkerchief. “Well, it took ‘em a while to figger it all out, but I’ll spare you the suspense. A crazy vella witch shrunk ‘em, building and all. And it wasn’t just them! It was all up and down the street, too! Whole rows of flats, three and four stories tall, now not more’n knee high! Filled wif people! All the people made tiny, all their stuff, everything. She was standin’ out there in the rain, just laughin’ her head off while all those people - puny humans, she called ‘em - were tryin’ to sort it out and not get washed away into the gutters when they stepped outside their doors!” He shook his head slowly. “Terrible, terrible it was. And that was jus’ the beginning for those poor folk! I bet you can jus’ guess what the great Dellodruin gummint did about the whole fing?”

Oh, he could hazard a guess, all right. “Nothing?”

“You got that right! Nuffing! Travesty of justice! Well, really it were worse than nuffing. That sildish witch, she got sent back to her people nice as you please. Treaties and not wantin’ to anger our good allies and blahdefuckinblah. Hmph.” Nader stared pensively at the ceiling for a while. Richard opened his mouth to speak and then the old man started up again. “Well. That was jus’ the beginning, though. My gramma and gramps and aunty got away, of course. And when the Sildish war started, they were ready for fightin’. My gramps, he died in the Battle of Dunsen Street. You won’t find that in any histr’y book, but there was a battle there! That was where the Sil got pushed back, but not afore they set the dockside on fire. We got their boats, though, cut off their retreat. It was a bloody struggle.”

The door opened and Richard jumped a little - he’d been rather drawn in by the fantastic tale Nader was spinning - as Adrian said “ah, Richard, there you are. Oh, are you busy?”

“Actually, yes, I…”

“I was jus’ leavin’. You want to hear more, you come find me. I room at The Salty Daughter.” He glared suspiciously at Adrian and hurried out of the room.

Mr. Pierce looked amused. “Well, so much for that it seems. You look a little relieved at the interruption anyway. I heard you were looking for me?”

Richard stood up, relieved to be free of the strange old man. “Yes. I wanted to ask you some questions about the items in the collection, but the doors were locked and…”

“Ah, sorry about that. I’m make sure Martina knows to let you in.”

“Those can’t be authentic Edrunic texts you’ve got in there, Adrian. Edrunic was dying even as our forefathers were beaching the golden fleet, to hear the scholars in Dellodruin talk about it.”

As they walked out of the room, Adrian laughed. “Ah, Richard, when are you going to learn that everything you know is wrong?”