“Er, they got plenty of booze in Breighton,” said Meesh.
“I’m not from Breighton.”
“Then where?” Abe asked.
“Dividian.”
“Dividian?” said Shade. “Never heard of it.”
“I imagine you haven’t. It lies far to the north, in Pirie.”
“Pirie?”
Asaph nodded, sighed. “Of course you’ve never heard of Pirie. How could you?”
The three brothers shook their heads in unison.
“You know what continent we’re on, correct?”
“Er, Yussai?” Shade said.
“Yes, Yussai,” echoed Abe.
“Well there’s that,” Asaph said. “Though it’s actually West Yussai; East Yussai lies across the Gulf of Torrin. Did anyone ever give you a hint as to what lies beyond the northern mountains?”
Embarrassed, Shade looked to his brothers. Meesh seemed to find the whole situation hilarious, while Abe appeared mystified.
“We haven’t,” Shade said. “I imagine it’s more of the same, only covered in snow and ice, like the mountaintops.”
Abe nodded. “The records in the Temple of the Crone hint at as much.”
“Well they’re wrong, my friend. There are seasons of snow and ice, but beyond those mountains is a territory twice as big as the Wasteland. There’s grass and trees aplenty, and lots and lots of people. And culture.” He shook his head. “That’s what I find so strange about this place. There’s no monetary system, no infrastructure, and certainly no education. Nine out of ten people can’t even read! There’s no government, no enforcement of law…other than yourselves, of course. Three men, thousands of miles of territory. With the exception of the extreme south, what society you have is segmented, like staying with like. It’s baffling.” He paused, appearing contemplative. “In that way, I admire Ronan Cooper. The man might be a religious zealot holding tight to an ancient religion, but at least he’s inclusive.”
Shade started at the sound of Cooper’s name.
“What are we supposed to do, force the people to commingle?” Abe said. Asaph shrugged. “It wouldn’t hurt.”
“Yeah, but Abe can’t do that,” Meesh said, laughing. “The Pentus says not to force beliefs on any man… and Abe’s a stickler for rules.”
“Ah yes, Pentmatarianism,” Asaph said. “A religion founded by Reverend Hampton Garron the First three hundred and seven years ago.” He leveled his gaze at the brothers. “The Pentus, the Deity of the Starred Circle in five parts; Khayrat the head, Yehoshua and Abdalla the arms, Shartha and Shiff the legs. Four of the five parts were borrowed from the religions of the Ancients, you know? And much of the doctrine is too.”
“I do. But how do you know so much about our religion?” Abe said.
“The libraries of Dividian are filled with books telling the history of this world going back three thousand years, and I read every one of them. I was the King’s Compiler. It was my job.”
“You had a king?” Shade asked. “And a position of importance? Then why did you come here?”
“Not to mention how,” added Abe.
Asaph rubbed his thigh and winced. “A little more than two years ago there was an, er, uprising of sorts in Pirie. Our great King Charles was deposed, and the new queen exiled him. Being greatly in his debt, I helped him cross the mountains. It took weeks and nearly killed us, but if one’s determined enough, they can accomplish anything.”
“Wait,” Meesh said, “there’s a king in the Wasteland? That’s priceless.”
“Where?” Abe asked.
“Tansaray, I think. I’m not certain. I left him almost as soon as we arrived.”
“Why?”
“Because he’s a blabbering puss.”
“But you helped save him,” Shade said.
“He was my king. I owed him my life. Didn’t mean I liked him.”
Abe planted his elbow on the table, buried his face in his palm. “This is unbelievable.”
“Almost as unbelievable as undead armies,” Meesh said.
Asaph shrank in his chair. “I’m not lying.”
He’s nervous, Shade thought. He knows so much, but thinks we’ll find him a fool. “Tell us about Pirie,” he said to liven the man’s spirits.
“It was home,” Asaph spoke wistfully. “Great green fields, rolling hills, dense forests, teeming cities, great lakes packed with fish, rivers and hot springs, none with bloodworms.” He sighed. “And people. Lots and lots of people. That’s what I miss more than anything. You couldn’t ride down the main thoroughfare without passing horse-drawn carts filled with families. They went from town to town, they worked, they sold their wares. Generally, folks got along. It was… peaceful.”
“Sounds idyllic,” Abe said. “If it was so perfect, why was there this uprising?”
“Oh, I didn’t say it was perfect. It was still a violent place, being filled with people, and those with power wanted more and more. That’s why there was an uprising. My king pushed it a bit too far, hurt the wrong people.” Asaph nodded slowly. “There’s always a price to pay when that happens, and it’s a good thing for the kingdom that he did get deposed, because he’d started talking about forcing his influence south, into the Wasteland. It was a stupid, stupid idea.”
“He wanted to come here?” Shade said, incredulous. “Why on the heart of the Five would he want to do that?”
Asaph raised his eyebrows. “Because you have things in the south that we don’t in the north. Stuff the Elders left behind, tools that can harness the power of the Heartcubes.”
“You don’t have Sacred Trees?” Shade asked.
“No. That’s why I chose to live in Breighton—so I could study the Great Pine. I’d read so much about it back home. It’s a fascinating invention.”
Abe screwed up his lips. “So the Elders didn’t live there? North of the mountains, I mean?”
“They did,” the man said. “But it seems they were more than happy to live a simple life in a fertile land while they experimented with the laws of nature to the south, where they could do so behind a blockade of miles-high granite. A safety zone, if you will, a land that had already been ravaged by mankind’s past mistakes. The cities built here—Breighton and New Salem—were scientific outposts.”
“How could you know this?” asked Abe.
“Like I said, I read the histories.”
“And so have I. None of what you’ve said is in them.”
“Well,” Asaph said, “your libraries are incomplete.”
Abe stammered, Meesh cackled at his discomfort.
Asaph bowed forward. “I need you to believe me, Abednego.”
“It’s Abe. And why?”
“Let’s just say I consider you a kindred spirit. I’ve known you only a day, but it seems like I’ve known you for much, much longer.”
Oddly, Abe bobbed his head. “I feel the same. And I do believe you. It’s just… this is my world being turned upside down. Do you understand that?”
“I do,” Asaph said.
Shade heard a commotion and glanced behind him, saw numerous folks glaring their way. One in particular seemed intent on them, a hard sort with a thick beard and narrowed eyes. Shade stood. “Why don’t we wrap this up and find a room. We’re drawing a crowd, and besides, I’d like to sleep in an actual bed tonight.”
“Here?” Meesh said. “Gonna have bugs, y’know.”
Abe ignored him. “Yes. Let’s.”
After bartering with Loretta for payment of goods, the knights lugged Asaph and their bags up two flights of stairs and entered a large room. There were two beds, a table and chairs, and a settee, filthy but serviceable. Shade deposited Asaph on a rickety old chair and joined his brothers in unpacking their weapons for cleaning.
“That’s something else we didn’t have much of,” Asaph said from his chair. “The king’s smiths only began recreating them in the last few years.”
“Recreating what?” asked Shade.
“The killing devices of the Ancients. Guns.”
Shade furrowed his brow, and from the corner of his vision saw Abe do the same. “These aren’t weapons of the Ancients,” the eldest knight said. “The Elders built them.”
“Well, the Elders might have built them, but it was the Ancients who came up with the design.”
“More information from your books?” said Abe.
“Yes.”
“Makes sense,” Meesh said, grinning as he took apart his revolvers. “The Elders used the Heartcubes, which the Ancients invented. Why wouldn’t they use their guns, too?”
“Exactly. Why not?” Asaph said. “Especially since the Elders were the Ancients. Only a newer version of them.”
“Now that I’ve heard,” Abe said with a soft smile.
Asaph bobbed his head. “After all, the Elders didn’t appear out of nowhere. They’re not like you three.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” Meesh said.
Abe set down his railgun and faced the weak man in the chair. “You know so much. I’d like to hear more.”
“Anything you want.”
“Do you know what the Rising was, exactly?” Shade asked, before Abe could say anything. The elder knight frowned at him, annoyed, but waited to listen to Asaph’s answer.
“I do,” Asaph said. “This planet warmed—both due to the actions of man and the inevitable progress of time—and the ice that once resided in the poles melted. When the largest glacier fell into the northern sea, it caused a massive wave that spanned the globe. Water tables rose two hundred feet, drowning the Ancients. And that, as they say, was that.”
“But why?” Shade asked. “What about those who sought higher ground?”
“There is nothing you can do when that higher ground is uninhabitable.”
Abe sucked on his bottom lip. “Uninhabitable? Why?”
“You must understand something about the Ancients. They were a people attached to their creature comforts. Nearly every home, in all the world, had the same advantages that only those who live in Breighton and New Salem have now—electricity, power. They rode horseless carriages, flew through the sky in great metal birds. But that comfort came with a price, for many of the outposts that created that power were positioned close to water and were decimated during the Rising. In a matter of days, those outposts leaked poison into the air, which made virtually every corner of the globe toxic.”
“If their outposts were so dangerous,” Shade said, “then why didn’t they try to find another way?”
“Oh, they did,” said Asaph. “They tried and tried, but by that point humanity had overrun the globe. No matter what element they tried to harness—the sun, or wind, or water—they could never generate enough energy to satisfy the needs of so many. They never stopped trying, bless their hearts. And they did find a solution, one that promised to change the world. Unfortunately, they were a tad bit too late.”
“Heartcubes,” Meesh said, seeming enraptured by the tale. Shade had only ever seen him that way after a few too many drinks while in the company of a beautiful woman—or at least a woman who seemed beautiful after those aforementioned drinks.
“Yes, Heartcubes,” said Asaph.
Abe shook his head. “Something doesn’t make sense. If the world was uninhabitable, then how did the Elders survive?”
“Ah, them. The Elders were those who saw the writing on the wall. They knew the end of their world was coming, and so they built a great network of tunnels in the largest mountains. They were secluded for three hundred thirty-six years, constantly working and building in their attempt to reform the world. By the time they emerged and became the Elders, they’d figured out how to harness the power of the Heartcubes, and with that power they were able to rid most of the land of the poison that saturated it. When that was done, they began to repopulate the world.”
“And what about the Sacred Trees?” Abe asked.
“The Trees came later, and for a much more dubious purpose.”
“Which would be?” Meesh said, breathless.
“To create pathways to other worlds.”
Shade wasn’t expecting that. “They used the Sacred Trees to access the Nine Hells?”
Asaph laughed, and Shade felt his neck flush. The weak man noticed and hastily lifted his hands. “I’m so sorry. No offense meant. It’s just that every time I hear someone say those words, it sounds more and more ludicrous. Herr Hogan spouted about them constantly. But no, the Elders in no way wanted to find hell or monsters or anything of the sort. They were ambitious, not suicidal. They used the Trees to replenish their resources. The Elders knew that if they continued to mine their own world, as the Ancients did, it would inevitably lead to their destruction. So they tweaked outdated technology to open gateways into different worlds, alternate versions of their own, and take from those places the sustenance they needed to continue expanding their culture—animals, plants, minerals, machinery, even people—everything they required, they stole from these parallel worlds.”
Abe ran a hand over his bald head, looking as perplexed as Shade felt. “Then why do fissures appear?”
“Who knows? Perhaps they guessed wrong a few too many times. Perhaps there were dark places between worlds that the Elders hadn’t accounted for. It’s impossible to tell, since they disappeared soon after their inventions turned against them, never to be heard from again. That’s one part of history that remains a bit vague.”
The kind of silence that lingered like a bad scent followed. Shade was lost in thought; if what Asaph said was true, that meant much of what Reverend Garron preached was false. It should have terrified him, but instead he felt an inkling of hope.
“Asaph,” he said, “do you believe there is something out there greater than ourselves?”
“Such as?”
“God.”
The man smiled. “Of course. We in Pirie have religion just as you do, only of a different sort. It too borrows from the Ancients, and Friedrich Wilhelm the Pious, the man who united the world two hundred years before the Rising, is hailed as our savior. We’re a superstitious bunch just like anyone else. As for myself, I’ve seen too many anomalies in my life, experienced too many strange, unexplainable occurrences, to discount the possibility of God.”
“What kinds of things?”
“Hm. Well, I saw a man come back from the dead once, up in what we call the Forgotten Territories. The locals said he’d been dead for a week, and then all of a sudden he was back on his feet again, chatting away as if he’d just been sleeping.” He chuckled. “There were countless explanations for it. Some said he was simply misdiagnosed, that he suffered a massive head injury and, being a rather large man, the surgeon caring for him couldn’t feel his pulse through the layers of fat. Others said he’d eaten too many wild blackberries and was paralyzed. But my favorite is the theory that he’d been granted new life by the Queen of Snakes, one of our local legends, for payment of past debts. Like I said, we can be a suspicious bunch.”
“Why’s that your favorite?” asked Meesh.
“Because it’s the most outlandish. I tend to appreciate outlandish things.”
“Oh.”
Asaph’s complexion soured, and he sank in his chair and gritted his teeth while gripping the armrests tight.
“What’s wrong?” Shade asked.
“I think I… might’ve overextended myself.” The man turned an ailing shade of green before the knights’ eyes. “I… I think I might get sick.”
Meesh helped Shade lug Asaph out of the chair and lay him on the bed while Abe snatched an empty chamberpot from the corner and set it beside him. Shade handed over his waterskin, and Asaph took a huge pull, sat back, and hacked.
“Lie down,” Shade told him. “Try to sleep.”
He felt the man’s forehead, clammy and cold. When Asaph gazed at him with those gray eyes, they shimmered with tired tears.
“I’ll be fine,” Asaph rasped. “Please, don’t worry yourself over me.”
&nbs
p; “Easier said than done,” Shade replied. He tried to give the man a comforting smile.
Not ten minutes later, Asaph was asleep. Abe gestured for his fellow knights to follow him into the hall. Shade stepped out the door last and eased it shut behind him. Abe looked his way, as did Meesh. They both appeared fretful.
“What now?” Meesh asked.
“I’m not sure,” said Abe. “This is a lot to take in.”
Shade tugged on his shirt’s hem. “What do you suggest?”
“I say we sit on this for a bit. Loretta will be satisfied for at least a few days while we think it over. Asaph seems to know far more than me. Maybe…”
He trailed off.
“You’re thinking about asking him to look at the riddle, ain’t you, brah?” Meesh said.
Abe gave a short, unhappy nod. “I am. It’s not a decision I can come to lightly.”
“Yeah, no shit.”
“Do you think it’s smart to wait?” Shade asked.
“Who knows? We don’t even know if—”
He stopped speaking when someone cleared their throat from down the hall. All three brothers snapped their heads around, and at the top of the stairwell, Shade saw the heavily bearded man who’d been staring at them in the tavern, one hand on the rail, the other twitching by his side. Shade hadn’t heard him ascend; he wondered if he’d been there the whole time.
The man removed his hat and held it against his chest as he spoke. “Are you the knights from Sal Yaddo?” he asked in a reedy voice.
“We are,” said Abe.
“The Prophet Ronan Cooper demands to see you. High noon tomorrow, a mile outside Lambswool. He says you shouldn’t delay. You might not like what happens if you do.”
With that, the man whirled around and descended the stairs two at a time, as if he couldn’t get out of there fast enough. Shade started after him, but Abe snatched him by the arm.
“Don’t,” he said. “Leave him be.”
“But—”
“But nothing. He’s only a messenger. It’s Cooper you want, and if this man’s to be believed, you’ll get your wish.”
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