by Chloe Garner
Troy frowned. Shouldn’t have, but it was reflexive.
“They didn’t ask if you wanted to come?” he asked.
“Of course,” Wink said, his fingers tapping faster.
“Why did they think you would want to?” Troy asked.
“Because, otherwise I would die,” Wink said.
Troy drew a breath.
“I need you to start at the beginning,” he said.
“That’s a very long story,” Wink said. Troy settled into his chair, folding his hands.
“It’s one I want to hear.”
*********
Winkla Ollamb was not an important Keld as they went. He went to work and he came home, he helped support his sister whose husband had died in the conflicts six months earlier, and he hoped that he would meet a girl someday who wanted to rub shoulders with him for the rest of their lives. He doted on his nephew, a spunky kid of just three years, and he was devoted to his parents. He was a simple man, and there were many eras of history that would have made for a happy life for him.
This, unfortunately, was not one of them.
The conflicts had stretched on for decades, now, approaching the lifespan of a Keld, and the Volds and the Rimpies had no clear plan - as far as what they would tell the Kelds about it - on how to end it. Wink didn’t believe them, but he heard rumors from time to time at work or at leisure that they had no intention of ending the conflicts, because of how they enriched themselves by them. Wink couldn’t imagine anyone looking at the destruction of Illi’allae culture, the destruction of their very future, and turning away, unconcerned. The men of Illi’allae went away to the conflicts and they never came back, just a note giving a date and a location and a small sum of currency.
Rellie’s husband had been called. He had been a brave man, a good husband and a good father, and he had gone. He’d sent letters to Rellie from training, but once he had gone out to the conflicts, the letters had stopped, and then just the final letter. Money enough to pay for perhaps a month of meager living. A date, several weeks past. A location no one could find on a map.
There were fewer and fewer fathers each year, fewer and fewer children. Less laughter.
Wink believed in his hard core that the Volds and the Rimpies who were running Illi’allae knew about this, knew the costs that the conflicts exacted on the populations, and he believed that the conflicts were unavoidable. If they didn’t fight, then the Volds and Rimpies from Ilan’anae would sweep through Illi’allae and steal away all of the Keld and the Bint and the Garla and the Husks, taking their men as slaves and their women as breeders. He believed this because he worked with Keld and Bint and all the rest who were sons of slaves, daughters of breeders. After a few generations, they were all just Illi’allaies, but it was how conflicts ended.
One side lost.
The other side won, and they enriched themselves with the men and women from the faraway places, across the seas and the deserts.
So they fought.
They gave up their men, the strong and the brave went when they were called.
Someday, as the sun came up and the winds came, someday the conflicts would end and the men who were still out there would come home. Wink didn’t know their numbers, but looking around at work, at leisure, on the streets, he had to believe that their numbers were substantial, because he couldn’t stomach the alternative.
He made money, he fed himself and his sister, his nephew. He helped his father keep the house against the winds and the storms. He was a good son, a good brother, a good uncle.
He burned wints for the spirits of the dead and he kept the hope.
And then he got the call.
The law had once been that the last male of a generation could not be called, but they’d changed the law. Rellie’s husband had been his mother’s last son, too.
He had a week to make arrangements for his family; small arrangements they were, because there was nothing to be done. His job would go to someone else, or stand empty, and his income would cease. His father would have to work harder, more, somehow, or his sister would seek a job, if she could find someone who would take her. Keld were most useful as power; they were not clever nor quick, they did not climb well nor make plans. They could pull, though, and push, they could form things with their hands. Keld women were not as strong as the men, though, and there were fewer jobs they could do, and the ones that they could get did not pay well.
But Marla needed to eat and he needed grooming and medicine, and so Rellie would work, if that was what she had to do.
A week was not enough time, even if there was nothing to do.
At the end of it, a herd came by the house and Wink went with it.
They went to the training grounds, a space outside of Illi’allae by a small distance, where Wink could still smell home in the mornings, and they learned how to fight.
The officers called him Ollamb, and the other Keld called him Winkla, the name that meant ‘Henry’. He learned how to use a pike and a knife, how to kill a Garla or a Husk, how to set a tent and how to wear his armor. How to stay alive.
He trained for four weeks, and then he got on a sandboat and he stayed on it for a week.
He thought that they were going to Ilan’anae, but the sandboat beached on a rocky hill in the middle of the desert. Wink had heard of desert islands, before. In the time before the conflicts, Keld could join a sandboat crew and go adventuring, looking for them. There would be a spring at the center of the island, a flow of water that washed away the sand and exposed the rock below, creating the very island over hundreds of years.
Wink knew as well as anyone that there were rumors about what was in the desert stone that the springs exposed. Gold and gems and harder things, things that you could only get out of the stone by heating it until it turned back into dust. They made the pikes, the knives out of the metals that they melted out of the rocks, and desert rocks were the most reliable places to find those metals.
That’s why the sandboats came looking for the islands.
He didn’t know why the officers had brought the rest of them here.
“Camp in,” one of the officers said as everyone was getting off of the boat. The Ilan’anaie will be here soon.”
“What happens then?” one of the Husks asked.
“You fight,” the officer said. “Kill them all.”
“Why?” another Husk asked.
“Because if you don’t, they’ll kill all of you,” another officer said, closing up the sandboat and waiting as a Keld officer pushed them back onto the soft sand.
They pulled the Keld up into the boat and Wink watched as they sailed some distance away, then set an anchor.
He was as confused as anyone, but there didn’t seem to be any alternative, so Wink set his tent in between the two biggest rocks he could find, then he went to stand on the top of the island. He found the spring and he drank from it, then he stood, crouched behind a rock, as he watched the Ilan’anaie unloading from their own sandboat, Keld and Bint and Garla and Husks. He only knew one of the Keld and one of the Garla from his own boat; other than that, the two groups were completely indecipherable one from another.
Exactly the same, save the blue cloth Wink wore from shoulder to elbow.
The Ilan’anaie wore red.
He gripped his knife, completely bewildered at the violence that was promised to start any moment, at a loss for what to do about it. They were all going to kill each other. If the Ilan’anaie won…
What?
What would happen?
“It ought to be an interesting one,” a voice said, and Wink sat lower, scarcely breathing.
“The officers said that this set has some really strong Keld in it.”
“Looks like they’re going with more Husks, this time.”
“I get that they’re fast, and they’re certainly smarter, but the Keld always come around to the fact that they’re going to have to fight, and they always kill them all.”
“I think
it’s about recon. If they can get organized enough, they’ll find everyone and come back and tell the Keld and the Bint where they are, and maybe the Bint will get the Keld going before everyone else is dead.”
“I still think the more Keld the better.”
There was a slurping noise, and then footsteps moving away.
Wink new the sound of fine Vold hooves on stone.
The Ilan’anaie began to move, and he heard voices behind him, Illi’allaie.
Neither side was at all prepared for what was going to happen.
They wore helmets and heavy clothing, and they carried knives and pikes, but they were just men with jobs and families who had come because they had to.
There was a scream, and Wink ducked his head lower.
That was when he worked it out.
Keld weren’t clever, but they kept at things.
It was a game.
He was a living player in a game.
He fled.
Knowing where the Illi’allaie were, he went down another part of the island, hitting the sandy shore and keeping on.
No one came after him.
He kept going.
The water that he drank at the spring was the last that he drank for days. The sun was hot, but mostly the sandy desert was just dry and unending.
And then he came to another island.
Near death with dehydration and his spirit broken, Wink stayed there for a time that he didn’t measure, drinking and grazing, sustaining himself as his ancestors had, growing weaker but surviving in a way that could have lasted forever.
He considered staying, but the thought of his sister, his parents, his nephew combined with the fear that they would just bring another boatload of toy pieces onto this island finally made him move on.
He walked for yet more days, finding the edge of the desert.
Land was only slightly more sparing to him, as it wasn’t dry, but there was no water, either. Finally, he found a stream, and he followed it for a time, grazing and losing more weight as he went, still lost.
The conflicts had been going on almost so long that everyone accepted them. They would have accepted them, except for the constant personal losses.
Except for the fact that the populations of Keld and Garla weren’t much longer going to be sustainable in many towns.
Keld.
More Keld is always better.
And Wink grew angry.
Rellie’s husband had died in this game. Dozens of Keld men Wink had known had died.
Keld weren’t clever, but they kept at things, and as Wink continued up the stream, seeing more signs of people, he knew that he had to do something.
The conflicts were destroying everything about Illi’allae society, and no one was going to stop them until they knew that they weren’t about survival, that they weren’t about saving themselves and their children from slavery.
He had to tell them.
He had to tell all of them.
The first town that he came to, he just found the market and started telling people. His story made no sense, and they rejected him as crazy, just a Keld who had gotten into some bad grass. He was skinny and mal-nourished, his hair was thin and stringy, and he had no doubt that more than once his desperation to convince them that he knew something that they needed to know made him seem even less credible. It only took a couple of days before the men came together and ran him out of town.
The next town, along a road this time, was little better, but Wink finally got one man to listen to him. The man, a Garla, had sent three sons to the conflicts, and his youngest was just old enough to go, should he be called. The man had sad eyes, and he clutched at Wink’s arm, listening to what he said with a sense of fear and outrage.
“What do we do?” the man asked. Wink hadn’t thought of this. He had thought that telling everyone would be enough, and now that was proving difficult enough that the idea of something coming next was a bit daunting.
“I don’t know,” he said. “But we have to stop it.”
“They took my sons,” the Garla said. “They took them and they’re gone.”
“It meant nothing to them,” Wink said. “We have to stop it, but…”
The man signaled him.
“Let me go home and pack a bag. And one for you. When was your last meal? I have friends within the council who can discuss it, maybe stop the calls for now, but we have to tell everyone. We have to see that this stops.”
And so it was that Wink took a traveling companion. Bilth was a clever Garla, one with a quick temper and a quicker laugh. He was often sad, considering the loss of his sons, but he sent his youngest son to stay with his sister out away from town with firm instructions not to go with the herd if they issued more calls. He was hoping that they wouldn’t find the boy and that they would continue on, if the council did approve more calls.
“They can’t, though,” Bilth said. “Can they? They can’t.”
“I don’t know,” Wink said. “I thought that, once people knew, it would be easy.”
“Hard to accept that you’re sending your children away to die with no purpose,” Bilth said. “Some families, it’s a mark of pride, others are just going to deny because it makes the pain worse. The ones who…” He tapped his fingers.
“The ones who what?” Wink asked.
“The bitter ones,” Bilth said. “The ones like me. They’re going to believe us, but no one else is going to believe them.”
“How do we stop it?” Wink asked. “How do we make them stop the calls?”
“Doesn’t matter if they call, if no one shows up,” Bilth said. “We have to make ‘em stop showing up.”
“They won’t come back,” Wink said sadly. “All those men, just gone…”
“It’s not about changing the past, it’s about changing the future,” Bilth said. Wink grew accustomed to those words. In the morning, at night, any time Bilth grew sad, that was how he pulled himself out of it. They were going to change the future.
It took weeks, but eventually people started talking to them as if they had heard rumors running in advance of them about the game that the Volds and the Rimpies were playing under the guise of conflicts. Wink confirmed it from his own eyes, and Bilth… Bilth never let him quit. Giving up wasn’t in Wink’s nature, but day after day, they talked to people who met his account with skepticism, with anger, with a blankness that just said that they would never hear what he said, that they couldn’t hear it. He learned to see those responses coming and keep moving, finding the ones who could hear him and could react, who would react, and slowly, slowly a movement built.
And then a door closed.
No one would talk to them.
There was fear, fear that Wink could smell on the air as they went into towns, fear that followed them until they left, and fear that eventually built into a violent response even as they got close.
“You can’t,” a shopkeeping Keld whispered as Wink started to talk to one of the customers. “You can’t talk about it. We know who you are, and we know… We know that the soldiers want you.”
“What?” Bilth demanded, but the Keld wouldn’t talk to him, only Wink. Bilth grunted and left, and Wink lowered his head.
“What do you mean, you know who I am?”
“The stories,” the shopkeeper whispered. “We all know that you’re… You’re trying to start a revolution. I’m…” He quivered. “I’m ashamed.”
“I’m just trying to stop the conflicts,” Wink said, but the shopkeeper would say no more. Wink went to find Bilth.
“All right, Winkla,” Bilth said. “Tell me what’s going on.”
“They think we’re trying to start a revolution,” Wink said. “I don’t understand.”
Bilth tapped his fingers against his stomach.
“Counter-rumors,” he said. “Attacking our credibility before we get here. It’s smart. There are more of them than there are of us. They can reach everyone before we do.”
“But we’r
e telling the truth,” Wink said.
“It doesn’t matter,” Bilth said. “We’re passive creatures, don’t you see that? The Volds and the Rimpies? They want to be in charge, and we’re okay with it. I’m okay with it. So are you. It’s easier to believe what they tell us and hard to believe that a Keld from nowhere would do something to defy them. It just goes along with who we are.”
“Not you,” Wink said.
“Garla are stubborn,” Bilth said. “But I don’t want to be in charge. I don’t. I just… I can’t change the past. I just want to change the future.”
“How?” Wink asked.
And even as he said it, a group of Vold soldiers came around the corner in the marketplace and took them. They put a bag over Wink’s head and they marched for days. Wink heard Bilth complain for the first few days, and then the complaining went silent. Wink never saw the Garla again.
When they pulled the bag off of his head, he found himself in front of the palace. He knew the place by its description and by its size. This was where the Rimpie king lived, where the Vold Congress met. The soldiers walked him in through the front gate, where well-dressed Keld and Bint and Garla and Husks threw things at him and jeered. They took him down to a cell underneath the palace and they left him there for two more days.
And then a man came to him.
Wink had never seen a man such as this before, skinny and pale with the most fragile fingers Wink could imagine, but he spoke Illi’allaie, and everything about him bespoke quick. The type of man who could stand before the Vold and the Rimpies without cowering.
“Do you want to get out?” the man asked.
Wink stayed at the back of his cell, waiting.
“Well?” the man asked.
“Why would my answer be no?” Wink asked, and the man made an odd coughing noise, one that Wink later came to recognize as humor.
“All blunt,” the man said. “Always blunt. Okay. What would you do to get out?”
“I can’t dig,” Wink said, confused.
“I have a deal to offer you,” the man said. “I can get you out and take you somewhere safe, but you have to do something for me.”
“What?” Wink asked.
“You’re going to appear before the king today. He’s going to ask you some questions about what you’ve been doing. I don’t care what you tell him. Truth, lies, whatever. When you finish your interview, he’s going to come and tap you on one shoulder or the other with his scepter. When he does that, I need you to steal the scepter and run. I’ll find you and I’ll get you out of the palace, and then I’ll get you someplace they can never find you.”