Halwen and Aemetta ran ahead of Keltin as they led him past the living quarters. Small groups of robed workers on the way to the Hall stopped once they saw Keltin approaching and immediately dropped to the ground. He lost track of how many times he shouted “Stand up!” over his shoulder as he ran past. This sparked a question that Keltin couldn’t ignore any longer.
“Aemetta, who are the Fyrnraed?” Keltin asked as they ran.
Aemetta slowed until she was beside Keltin. “You are the Lifegivers; you saved us from the Great Plague of the Old Kingdom,” she said.
“The Venerates saved us, and brought us to Aldhagen,” he replied. “You think I’m a Venerate?”
“You are a Venerated One, yes, though Fyrnraed is the proper title for your kind, Keltin,” Aemetta said. “And I do not know of a place called ‘Aldhagen.’”
Keltin laughed at that response. “And what do you call this city in which you live and work?”
“Locboran,” Aemetta said. She looked at Keltin curiously. “You really aren’t Fyrnraed, are you?”
“I’m a Fieldsman. That’s it,” Keltin said, studying Aemetta’s eyes as they ran in step for a few strides.
“We’re here!” Halwen shouted from up ahead. Keltin’s attention snapped to Halwen, then immediately to the large plume of smoke rising behind her. They had run many paces beyond the ring of living quarters to a section of the town that Keltin could not identify. The familiar Aldhagen walls loomed in the distance, but nothing else was recognizable. The buildings here were small, only large enough to house four harvest carts at most, and they were spaced very far apart.
White smoke tinged with embers billowed from one of these buildings, and the ground beside it was sunken and cracked. How can such a small structure produce that much smoke? Keltin wondered. Halwen led him to the entrance of an adjacent building that was thankfully free of smoke.
Upon entering, Keltin discovered the source for the large volume of smoke. The structures above ground were merely entryways into large interconnected underground buildings that housed strange tools and devices Keltin did not recognize. Steam hissed angrily from a cracked tube coming out of the floor nearby—it looked remarkably similar to a pump station from the Last Calling chamber, though there was no vent in this apparatus that Keltin could see.
“The bannuc forge is through here, Keltin,” Halwen said, pointing to a large doorway. Keltin’s stomach tightened when he realized that this doorway led to another underground building—the building with the entryway spewing smoke. Halwen took a deep breath, then opened the door.
Smoke instantly stung Keltin’s eyes, and would have burned his lungs as well had he not pulled up his collar to cover his nose and mouth. Fire raged in various sections of this building, casting eerie shadows of fallen wreckage on what remained of the ceiling and walls. Where there was no fire, sections of the roof had collapsed to the floor, spilling dirt and rock into large mounds with jagged bits of equipment protruding from them. The sound of the burning support beams was deafening, but Keltin thought he heard a faint shout from somewhere deep within the destruction. He ran towards the sound, but found the direct path blocked by a burning roof support. Aemetta and Halwen followed closely.
“Keep shouting!” he yelled over the tumult to the trapped workers. He heard no reply.
“Here, Keltin!” Aemetta said to his right. She had found an opening in the debris through which Keltin could see a small group of huddled figures. The opening wasn’t big enough to crawl through, so Keltin looked for another route to the trapped workers. Finding only blocked pathways, he returned to the opening and searched for a way to enlarge it quickly. The fire was growing and it was nearly impossible to breathe now. Keltin at last found a long section of bent steam pipe that he hoped was sound enough to serve as a fulcrum. With Aemetta and Halwen helping, he lifted the pipe and shoved it into the opening. The huddled workers ran towards the opening once they saw what he was doing.
“Move back, but be ready to run!” he shouted to them. His weight combined with Aemetta’s and Halwen’s was just enough to expand the opening to the point where it was passable.
“Now! Come on!” Keltin yelled. The trapped workers crawled over the splintered beams and broken parts, tearing their robes and skin along the way. After the first two workers were through, those still trapped lifted an unconscious worker into the opening. Together, they pulled and pried until the unmoving figure was out safely. Keltin heard Halwen gasp behind him. “That’s Mainwright Stora!” she said in disbelief. The title held no significance with Keltin, but he could see from Halwen’s expression that Stora was a prominent figure in this forge. Keltin shuddered when he noted the amount of blood that had soaked into Stora’s robe—he had never seen that much blood before.
The pair of workers already free from the burning pile lifted their unconscious companion, then stood staring numbly at Keltin for guidance. “Go find help,” he said, straining to keep weight on the pipe. They hauled Stora away and disappeared towards the entrance. Keltin had seen injuries happen before, both to himself and to others, but this didn’t feel the same. A chilled wave of fear prickled his skin despite the heat of the surrounding inferno. Perhaps the Venerates have abandoned all of us, he thought.
The last two workers were coming through the opening now, totaling five with the group that just escaped. Keltin noticed a shift in weight on the steam pipe and looked towards the end holding up the wreckage. The heat and weight had grown to the point where the pipe was beginning to sag downward rapidly.
Everyone began shouting, but Keltin could see there wasn’t enough time. He felt the pipe give and watched helplessly as the full weight of the crumbling debris pile came down on the last workers. The free end of the steam pipe was pulled out of Keltin’s grasp as it rotated towards the ceiling; it stopped abruptly with a loud hum that accompanied the thunderous sounds of the collapse. Keltin looked away, ashamed and terrified, knowing that he had failed. This all has to be an illusion, he thought. The Venerates defeated the idea of “death” long ago. Come on Keltin, wake up already!
“Look! It’s Ryna!” Aemetta cried out, jarring Keltin out of his state of denial. He looked back to where the opening had been, and saw that one of the workers was visible and still moving.
So that’s Ryna, Keltin thought. She had narrowly avoided the falling mass of scrap, but the same could not be said for the worker behind her. Putting aside his unprecedented fear, Keltin ran to the pile and began lifting away any rubble that he could manage.
“Fyrnraed, please, help Drea before you help me,” Ryna begged him. Keltin glanced at the wreckage behind Ryna, but he saw nothing to indicate that Drea had ever been there. He offered a silent prayer for her, mostly because he didn’t know what else he was supposed to do. At least Ryna was here in front of him, and Keltin knew he could help her. He noticed Ryna’s limbs were all free and flailing, but her robes were hopelessly caught in the shattered wood and metal. Flames licked the ends of her sleeves and began crawling up her back. Keltin started to untie the front of her robe, but to his surprise she clung to it tightly and wouldn’t let him remove it.
“What are you doing?” he yelled.
“There must be some other way, Fyrnraed,” Ryna said as she desperately tried to free herself again.
We’re out of time, Keltin thought. And if the Venerates aren’t going to help us, then there’s only one thing to do. Before Ryna could endanger them any further, he reached out and ripped the front of her still-tied robe open. For an instant, Keltin and Ryna stared at each other with equal amounts of astonishment. In a single glance, Keltin noticed significant differences between Ryna’s body and his own now that the robes were gone. Without the veiled hood, he could see that her features were soft and sleek, not at all like the sharp faces he usually saw in Aldhagen. Is this what they mean by “she”? he wondered. The remaining roof supports groaned and cracked loudly, calling Keltin’s focus back to the task at hand. Ignoring his ever-growing list of
questions, he grabbed Ryna by the arms and pulled her free at last.
“Let’s go!” Keltin shouted as he ran for the door to the other building. He stopped after a few steps when he realized no one was following him. Keltin turned back to the group and found that Aemetta and Halwen were kneeling beside Ryna. She stood in a daze, slowly untying the intricate sima that held back her hair and casting the colored strands of thread into the fire one by one. Ryna shook her long blonde hair loose and walked stiffly towards Keltin, eyes caged and distant. Tears dotted the ash beneath her as she knelt in front of him.
“I am unwoven, Fyrnraed, for the sin of offending your eyes,” Ryna said. “I await your judgment.”
With all of the other oddities he had encountered in his short time in this place—Locboran, Aemetta had called it—Keltin barely missed a breath before responding. “My judgment is that you should stand up,” he replied. Then, more loudly, he added, “That goes for you two as well. We’ll figure this out somewhere safe; for now we are leaving!” With that, he stepped aside and gestured for Ryna to proceed to the other building. She walked past him, expression unreadable, and Aemetta and Halwen quickly followed into the swirling smoke. For an instant, Keltin was left standing alone in the crumbling ruins of the bannuc forge. He stared, baffled, at the last scraps of Ryna’s tattered, burning robe before turning to leave.
In the safety of the adjacent forge, Keltin found the three women waiting for him at the edge of the ramp that led to the surface. They whispered together quietly until they noticed him approaching. He was relieved to see that at least they weren’t kneeling this time. Aemetta and Halwen stood in front of Ryna, shielding her body from view.
“I’ve gathered that you’re uncomfortable without clothing, Ryna. Here,” Keltin said as he removed his field shirt and tossed it to her. “I don’t understand your embarrassment, really; being naked is a normal part of every day for most workers.”
Ryna pulled on the shirt without a moment’s hesitation. Her eyes fixed on Keltin as she adopted a startled expression. “Does this mean…am I not to be cast out?”
“No. No, of course not,” Keltin replied. It required a serious offense in Aldhagen for someone to be cast out; the current problem simply required a change of clothing. Ryna visibly relaxed after hearing his reply, but her expression suddenly became deeply troubled.
“I thank you for this gift,” Ryna said, “and for freeing me from the forge. But what will happen to Drea now?”
“And Mainwright Stora?” Halwen added.
“I honestly don’t know,” Keltin said. Fear stirred in his mind once more as he recalled the moment Drea vanished. “I pray that your Fyrnraed are looking after them.”
The three women nodded in somber agreement. After a short silence, Keltin noticed Ryna studying him with her head tilted quizzically to the side. She turned to Aemetta. “You were right. He is not Fyrnraed.”
“I am a Fieldsman called Keltin,” he said tiredly. “As I explained to Aemetta and Halwen, I am not a Fyrnraed, or a Venerate, or anything else. So please, speak to me like you would any other worker.”
“Very well, Keltin. Where is it you say you are from?” Ryna asked.
“Aldhagen,” he replied. “It’s similar to your Locboran, although the differences are becoming more prominent.”
Ryna looked down in thought. “Aldhagen,” she whispered. “Could that be another name for the Old Kingdom?”
All three women now studied Keltin expectantly as hope blossomed in their eyes. Keltin knew it would hurt to see that hope taken away from them so quickly.
“Forgive me,” he said, “but Aldhagen is not the Old Kingdom. We’ve tried to reach out to them for many turnings, but they have not responded. And I’m not a messenger of any sort, I am—”
“An intruder,” a new voice said from the doorway. Keltin shielded his eyes against the brilliant daylight as the unmistakable form of a Venerate walked silently down the entry ramp. Aemetta, Halwen, and Ryna all knelt instantly, but Keltin hesitated after hearing the Venerate’s accusation. Keltin had assumed the Venerates would punish him for leaving his isolation cell, but the anger in this Venerate’s eyes spoke of unparalleled retribution to come.
“This is quite a scene,” the Venerate said as he approached. “A Common Wright, a Scullery Hand, and one of the Unwoven, all kneeling alongside this shirtless trespasser. You have sinned greatly against Locboran by choosing not to attend the Calling.”
“Venerated One, please underst—” Keltin began.
“You dare address me before I have permitted you to speak?” the Venerate shouted. Keltin stared at the floor in silence.
“You, Unwoven, weren’t you a Bannuc Wright?” the Venerate asked.
Ryna recoiled slightly from being addressed as Unwoven. “Yes, Fyrnraed,” she said quietly.
“Well, what of the bannuc?” the Venerate said, walking closer.
“We gathered all that we could,” Ryna said, voice shaking. “But the forge is lost. And the bannuc I carried…they were lost with my robe.”
“I see,” the Venerate said, pausing in front of Keltin. “You will all rise and follow me.”
Keltin stood uncertainly and risked a glance at Aemetta and the others. They did not meet his eyes, but chose instead to stare blankly into some unseen distance as they rose to follow the Venerate.
Once they reached the surface, Keltin walked quickly up to Ryna’s shoulder. “Ryna, what’s happening?” he asked. She offered no reply, so Keltin reluctantly fell back into his place at the end of the procession. They marched in silence through the rings of living quarters. Keltin took note of another oddity of Locboran—at the end of each building in the living quarters there was a post stuck in the ground with a cross bar on its top. From the cross bar hung many elaborately woven strands of thread, similar to the patterns he noted in the sima of the workers here. Each post was slightly different from the last; some were heavily laden with thread while others were sparsely populated with only a handful of strands. If he was ever given the chance, he would ask Aemetta what those threads signified and how these posts were used.
Keltin became increasingly uneasy as the Venerate led them to the entrance of the Hall. They had not encountered anyone else along the pathway, so the Calling must still be in progress. They walked down the spiraling hallway Keltin had used when he first escaped the isolation chamber. The Venerate did not stop at the opening to the Last Calling chamber, but instead led them deeper into the Hall. Keltin’s heart raced with fear—everyone in Aldhagen knew there were only two things in the Hall below the Last Calling chamber: the isolation cells and Wracandyr, the Exile Door. As they approached an opening in the hallway, Keltin hoped desperately that the Locboran version of the Hall of the Venerates did not follow the same layout. Based on Halwen’s quiet sobs, though, Keltin prepared for the worst.
Through the entryway, Keltin could hear the sound of water flowing rapidly. That immediately ruled out the isolation chambers. Then, the first set of ominous balconies came into view. This place was not the same as Aldhagen’s Wracandyr, but Keltin could see it was definitely the chamber that housed Locboran’s Exile Door. For a typical Casting the balconies would be filled with every worker in Aldhagen, so Keltin regained a small amount of optimism when he noted that the balconies here were completely vacant.
They walked along the Great River’s edge until the Venerate finally stepped up onto a platform at the downstream end of the chamber. The platform was perched on an overhang that extended over the powerful waters below. As Keltin climbed the steps, he could no longer ignore the sound of the Exile Door as it thundered somewhere in the darkness farther downstream. “Face the ledge,” the Venerate commanded.
Keltin turned outwards and looked down. The glow of the light windows shimmered on the rapids below until the water vanished into the shadows. This can’t be a Casting! he thought in a panic. Why are we even here? To be cast out meant that you were forever separated from the Venerates’ protection a
nd that death would be the only solace you would find. Keltin had sinned against the Venerates, he admitted that, but his crimes did not warrant something as final as a Casting.
“First, the Common Wright, called Halwen,” the Venerate announced. “You have sinned against Locboran and the Fyrnraed by ignoring our Calling. For this, your honor is forfeit. You are cast out, and your name will never again be spoken within these walls.”
There was a sudden flash of green light to Keltin’s right that caused him to turn his head sharply towards Halwen. He saw her robed form illuminated by the green flash for an instant as she was hurled from the platform. She struck the water head first and disappeared into the darkness of the Exile Door.
There was no time for Keltin to process the tragedy he had just witnessed, nor to protest this unjust Casting. “Next, the Scullery Hand, called Aemetta,” the Venerate continued. “You have sinned against Locboran and the Fyrnraed by ignoring our Calling. For this, your honor is forfeit. You are cast out, and your name will never again be spoken within these walls.”
The same flash carried Aemetta into the dark water. Keltin wanted to scream, to cry, but he was too stunned to even speak. “Unwoven, cast yourself out,” the Venerate said disgustedly. Ryna stepped off of the platform willingly, and turned to look at Keltin as she fell. The last image Keltin had of Ryna before she entered the water was of her eyes burning with angry disbelief.
“And the intruder,” the Venerate addressed Keltin. Having seen three innocent people suffer right in front of him, something at last broke loose in Keltin’s mind. He spun to face the Venerate.
“Why are you doing this?” Keltin demanded. “If I’ve angered you so badly, then carry out your justice on me alone. They did nothing wrong beyond trying to help their fellow workers. Why were they all cast out for that? Why?” There was a momentary pause, during which Keltin could plainly see the surprise and outrage on the Venerate’s face. Keltin smiled faintly from the realization that he had just left a Venerate speechless.
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