by Wayne Meyers
I glanced at my two companions for an explanation, but they appeared as bewildered as me. Still, I had to ask, “What is this place?”
Spaldeer shook his head. “I’ve never wandered this way before, and my parents certainly never took us past here. I do have my suspicions….”
Babette’s fingers tightened about mine. “Same.”
I glanced behind us back the way we had come, where the buildings still glistened and the few people who walked on that side of the street dressed in clothing that was clean and smooth like ours. “Should we retrace our steps?”
“No,” Spaldeer said. His voice turned mournful with an undercurrent of anger. “I wish to see more of this strange neighborhood before we go back.”
“I agree,” Babette said.
We continued forward then, heading deeper into this startling island of poverty. I knew what poverty meant from my basic education but had not imagined finding it right here in the middle of Solace. The entire concept of Bellisprodus produced an environment where such things could not exist. Where had the Founders gone wrong, then, and why was this failure not widely known? Some irrational part of me tried to believe that no one knew, that somehow this knot of buildings and their inhabitants had gone unnoticed. We just needed to tell someone, and it would all be fixed. How else to explain its existence?
There were many buildings within this strange place connected to each other by pathways that wound through plots of bare dirt and tall, swaying weeds. The buildings were spaced wide apart to allow small parks or squares of benches to sit between them. Children played simple games while adults chatted amongst themselves on the benches until we walked by. Everyone stopped what they were doing and turned toward us with either puzzled curiosity or blatant hostility.
We exchanged nervous glances since there were many of them, but all they did was stare or glare and nothing more.
“Where are the peacekeepers?” Spaldeer asked. “Why haven’t we passed any on patrol in here?”
I certainly did not know, and so made no answer. I glanced over at Babette, startled to see tears trickling down her cheeks.
“They wear strange clothes without guild colors,” she said by way of explanation. “That can only mean one thing.”
“I had almost thought my da told a scary story when he mentioned them, but here they are,” Spaldeer said. “Dressed as bland as their future.”
Peering about as we walked, I realized they were right. The clothes were not only poorly made or poorly fitted, they were of obscure shades of grey and other neutral colors that no guild had ever claimed. And that is when it struck me.
“The guildless,” I said loudly, too shocked by my own realization to practice caution.
Babette rolled her eyes. “You finally figured that out, genius?”
The nearest adults stood up from their benches or boxes. To my further surprise, though, they did not look angry by my declaration, only sad.
“You kids lost?” a tall man asked not unkindly. His companions told him to hush and one punched his shoulder.
“We are sorry,” Spaldeer said carefully after a moment. “We did take a wrong turn but are leaving now.”
A curly-haired woman stepped forward juggling a squalling baby on her hip. “You come to gawk at us? To stare?”
“No,” Babette said. “We came by accident, but now I wish to learn. To understand.”
The woman just stared at us, unable to formulate a reply. Then, she turned on her heel and disappeared into the doorway of the nearest building, yelling at her baby to be quiet.
The tall man frowned as he considered us, then shook his head. “You’d best be off now, then. Not a good place here for the guilded.”
Indeed, a small crowd of older boys had gathered behind us during this exchange, and they did not look friendly. The adults grabbed their children and faded into the building or down one of the winding paths leaving us alone with them.
“Yes, we are going,” Spaldeer said to no one in particular as he turned away from the boys and back in the general direction we had entered from, though down a different path.
Babette followed and I walked close behind her, watching for any signs of attack. Something struck my back though it didn’t hurt. Glancing down I saw a brown, half-eaten apple rolling on the ground. Looking back up, I could see all the boys were carrying some form of rubbish, mostly rotten fruits and vegetables, and from the way their feet were planted, intended to send us off in style.
The crowd followed us as we wound our way out of this mini-city, sometimes throwing their garbage at us with whoops of laughter when they struck true, sometimes taunting us to turn around and play a game of tag.
“You’ll win,” promised one larger boy. “You’re really good at running away!”
We ignored them and tried to maintain a brisk pace that was not so fast as to make us appear afraid as the mob grew larger and bolder. From the corner of my eye I could see some of the newer participants scooping up rocks or small branches.
“Should we run?” Spaldeer asked.
I thought of the larger rocks in some of their hands and considered.
Babette shook her head. “No. That will only make them think they can hurt us and dare them to try. Right now, they are still more afraid of us than we are of them.”
“It appears we’re reaching the end of this place.” Spaldeer pointed ahead where we could see the street again. Across the street were brightly robed people walking briskly about.
Our entourage stopped to watch us without having thrown a single rock once we reached the street, though their taunts and jeers echoed in our ears as we crossed over to safer ground. We glanced over our shoulders a few times to see what would happen next.
The boys did not follow but fell back and disappeared within the twisting pathways and delipidated buildings. Once safely on the other side of the street we stopped and turned around to see the last of them hurrying away out of sight. Shaken, I found comfort in the familiar colors and sounds of normalcy where we stood even as some of the hurrying people pushed against us or shot us dirty looks for no other crime than standing still in their chosen paths. They wore guild colors and insignias. The buildings we stood close to were pristine and painted, one building a brilliant yellow, the next a glossy sky-blue, not composed of crumbling, faded, red brick scoured by years of rain and wind.
No one so much as glanced across the street, as though it did not exist.
The entire experience was surreal. It was like we had passed through another world as foreign to me as the lost and almost forgotten Earth. Thoughts churned within my mind as we blindly walked until the questions burst from me. “How can such a corner of wretchedness exist without our knowledge? Doesn’t anyone know? Why don’t they help them?”
“They must know,” Babette replied with a sour tone. “Yet, they choose to ignore it.”
Spaldeer’s voice was as serious as I’d ever heard it. “The buildings are old, if uncared for. Old enough to be here for the colonization.”
Babette kicked at a discarded tin cup as dented and dull as I now felt. “I thought the same.”
I blinked. “Then the Founders…” My voice trailed off as realization struck me.
Spaldeer finished the sentence I could not speak aloud. “The Founders knew everyone could not be included and prepared a place for those who would not be part of their utopia.”
“A contingency perhaps,” I replied.
“One that came true.” Babette swiped angry tears from her cheek with the back of one hand.
“But why…how?” I shook my head. “Surely they could all become part of some guild.”
“How do they eat? Who takes care of them?” Spaldeer asked.
Babette hissed. “From the thin faces I’ve seen so far it doesn’t appear they eat much, and whoever takes care of them is not doing a very good job.”
“Ho, what brings you three over here?” A peacekeeper journeyman by the name of Timmo approached us with a worri
ed frown. “Shouldn’t you be back at the guild?”
“We got lost,” Spaldeer said. He turned back toward the place we had passed through, still visible in the distance behind us. “We found our way within those streets and only just passed through.”
Journeyman Timmo’s eyes widened. “You walked through the streets of the guildless? No, that is not possible. You would have been torn to pieces. They live like animals and we do not patrol there. You should not tease your elders.”
Babette looked him in the eye. “We did pass through. They didn’t attack us, but some of the children threw garbage.”
He scratched his head, looking confused.
“Why do they live like that?” I asked.
He frowned deeper, his brows furrowing. “You are not journeymen yet, so need not be aware of such things. Frankly, I thought most citizens of Solace already knew about them and to stay away. Your parents never warned you?”
Babette and Spaldeer shook their heads.
“They only threw garbage, did they?”
“That is all,” Babette said.
“You should stay clear of this part of Solace,” Journeyman Timmo said next. “If anyone were to discover you wandered in there, the masters might restrict future trips into the city.”
After he mentioned it, I did remember once hearing several warnings regarding where we were permitted to venture while roaming about in Solace but had completely forgotten. “Please, Journeyman Timmo, do not tell the masters this. In our excitement today, we managed to get turned around and only when we were so lost that every attempt to find the right way made us more so, did we manage to stumble upon that place. We won’t go in there again.”
He looked uncomfortable and his eyes kept darting about as though concerned another peacekeeper might see us. “Very well, then. Be off with you now and say not a word to anyone, or it will be an end to your trips to the city. I daresay the other apprentices wouldn’t be happy about that, either.”
I briefly envisioned the older apprentices banned from this treat of limited freedom and shuddered at the thought of the numerous beatings and torments such a punishment would generate upon the three of us for a long time to come. I nodded fervently and turned away, but Spaldeer was not yet finished.
“But why do they live that way, dear Journeyman? Why do we not patrol their streets as well as ours if we are peacekeepers to all?”
“There aren’t enough of us to maintain order within the streets of the guildless, Apprentice, and still patrol the remainder of Solace.” Journeyman Timmo pointed ahead. “Now go back to the guild before the sun sets and you are in serious trouble. Just keep walking down this street and in a short while you will intersect with Market. You should know your way from there, I’ll venture.”
“Come on Spaldeer, it is late,” I said.
But Spaldeer’s curiosity had remained unslaked. “Please, Journeyman Timmo, tell us why they live like this.”
Journeyman Timmo sighed. “You will learn all about them later, but I’ll reveal this much. Many tasks of minor importance do not require any special training and so would be beneath a guildsman. They are but common laborers earning what they can doing odd jobs about the city. For example, when the masonry guild needs many new tiles in the spring to replace the ones broken after the coldness of winter, they call upon the guildless to assist, rather than keep people waiting needlessly. They are lower class people not worthy of the benefits of a guild, yet inconveniently necessary for society to function. When a guild has call for their muscle, someone is sent to the edge of their neighborhood at a spot like this one and cries out to them how many bodies are required. We don’t care who crosses the street, or how many fights take place as they decide among themselves who will go and who will stay. Once these issues are settled, the ones who make it across are loaded up onto carts and quietly brought to wherever they are needed. When the job is finished, they are paid and returned to where they were picked up. That is the way it is, and there is nothing more to say about it.”
Spaldeer’s face had turned redder than Journeyman Timmo’s. “Does the Scriptures account for them as well as the rest of us?”
I grabbed his arm and pulled him away. “Good day, Journeyman, and thank you for your kindness.”
Spaldeer allowed me to half-drag him down the street before he yanked his arm from my hand and continued on his own by my side. His voice cracked when he spoke. “This makes no sense. There is nothing I’ve ever read in the Scriptures about this. If anything, the Scriptures have emphasized how there is a place for everybody on Bellisprodus.”
Babette snorted. “The Scriptures are far from perfect.”
My mouth opened. “Babette!”
She turned toward me, her long hair billowing from a wind gust as we rounded the corner onto Market Street. “Well, it’s true. It’s clear the guildless are people who fell through the cracks in the guild system and, over time, had families and children who were not permitted to join a guild because their parents were ostracized. It’s cruelly unfair.”
“There must be something in the Scriptures.” Spaldeer shook his head. “There are many volumes, and more than what we have at the guild. I wish I could get into the bureaucracy guild’s library. They are supposed to have copies of the Scriptures for each guild, as well as the common Scriptures that pertain to all.”
Babette laughed. “And who knows how many of them were written by the Founders or by someone later. Anyone could write a book and call it a Scripture.”
Spaldeer’s face paled. “They wouldn’t dare.”
“Wait,” I said. “I recall from basic education that the bureaucracy guild has some power to adjust the laws the Scriptures may have missed.”
Spaldeer brightened. “That is true. While the Founders tried to conceive of every possible scenario we might encounter, they set themselves to an impossible task. When the Scriptures become blurry in their directives, the bureaucracy guild must fight over what they believe to be the proper path based on how the Scriptures address similar scenarios. They then present their proposals to their Grand-Master, and if he agrees, he’ll present it to the King for approval.”
I chuckled, relieved. “Well, then. They should be able to resolve this unfortunate condition. I’m sure they must be hard at work on a solution even as we speak.”
“Oh, Hofen.” Babette shook her head with a sad smile. “It takes a two-thirds majority of the thirty-two cities before the bureaucracy grand-master would even consider such a thing. Do you know how many changes have been approved over the past hundred years?”
My cheeks flushed. “Well, no. My tutor never discussed this with me.”
“Because it isn’t covered on the exams,” Spaldeer said. “One of my teachers mentioned it only in passing. The answer is none.”
“Still, something of this significance must be under resolution,” I persisted.
Spaldeer grunted. “If it were only that simple. Most likely the bureaucracy guild is quite happy with the current situation, for as it becomes worse, it feeds fire to their desire to receive the power to change the Scriptures themselves.”
“The Scriptures are sacred and never to be altered,” I chanted by reflex.
“Not even when it makes perfect sense to do so?” Babette asked.
“Of course not,” I said. “As peacekeepers, our primary task is to protect and enforce the Scriptures so that no one, not even the bureaucracy guild, may change them. The bureaucracy guild’s purpose is to manage the city, resolve disputes between other guilds, and make sure commerce and such continues to flow smoothly.”
Babette groaned. “I adore you, but you simply must grow up. Even High-Master Chendor recognizes the need for variance; we are stagnating under the burden of living according to rules written by people who died over a millennium ago. If the Founders were alive today, they would certainly understand and support the need to modify the Scriptures so that those poor people need not live like savages.”
Spaldeer sho
ok his head. “High-Master Chendor only leans on the Scriptures by finding loopholes and taking unprecedented actions without blatantly defying them. Given the authority to do so, would others be as honorable and cautious in their own modifications?”
Babette flung her arms in the air. “Does it really matter as long as the problems we face today are repaired? Why can’t a woman be considered equal to a man? The Scriptures say we must stay at home and tend our children once we wed. And if a woman gets with child, she must leave her guild to tend to them as per the Founders’ wishes. How is that fair?”
“Well, someone must take care of the children,” Spaldeer said.
Babette growled. “Why not the father?”
Spaldeer was speechless for a moment before he grunted and continued. “Anyhow, the real concern is that the multitude of people affected by the Scriptures would be subject to the whim of whoever became empowered to change them. Certainly they might be made less severe in many ways but once the changes began, what would prevent them from being used to one person’s advantage, for example naming themselves as king?”
“I will tell you the solution—let the women control the Scriptures and have the men follow our solutions. The world will then become the utopia the Founders meant for Bellisprodus to be in no time.”
Spaldeer and I exchanged bemused glances, but to our credit we managed not to laugh, and the resulting silence overcame any attempt at further discussion. For myself I could only marvel at how chaotic the world would become without adhering to the Scriptures, though the need for minor adjustments was clearly required. I had no idea how to engineer a solution. As Spaldeer had clearly articulated, once changes were accepted in any way, then all the Scriptures became subject to alterations. How could you trust any one person or group to understand what was best for everyone without letting everyone affected have their own opinions acknowledged? Many thousands of people arguing about the best way for the Scriptures to be reworked seemed an impossible challenge to undertake, and in the end, how could all their input and needs be fairly incorporated and refined into some workable revision everyone would embrace? Worse still, say, after all was said and done, a year passed then people changed their minds and demanded to repeat the process over and over again, putting the world into one constant cycle of confusion during which none of the laws could be enforced as no one would be certain what was currently law and what used to be law. Not being able to grasp any possible means of accomplishing such an incredible challenge, I could only agree that the Founders had been very wise to colonize Bellisprodus as they did, for only in stasis could we achieve true peace and harmony. While there might be a few areas that needed clarification, surely, overall it was in the best interests of everyone to continue living as we always had, as the Founders had meant for us to live, free from the worries that constant change would inflict upon us.