Previously: the thin man and the Komdt, with nothing much better to do, went to the Chapel of Saint Adom to meet the sender of the mysterious letter. Arriving early, they entered the old chapel with its care taker, the Revered, and discovered a semi-functional Purification Era bunker. Too soon, they were interrupted by another visitor.
The Puppet of Saint Adom
The Revered’s eyes rolled back, and her voice became monotonous, “A local one. A recorder. An appointment. Kneeling at the petitions.”
Puppet-like, the Revered jerked from Kolgar’s humiliating door and motioned back to the stairs, “Time will not wait; the appointment will be kept.”
The thin man cocked an eyebrow at the Komdt. The Komdt made hid an imperceptible shrug into the way he turned back to the staircase.
“A shame to leave so soon, the memorium barely plumbed.”
“Time will not wait; the appointment will be kept.”
“Come, Flavio,” the Komdt climbed the first few steps. The thin man paused, then followed slowly, watching the Revered.
She followed, walking swiftly but with exaggerated care. Each foot placed precisely on the algorithmically calculated optimal spot on each step. The landing with Friend Scanner’s reliquary disappeared behind them.
Flavio looked more carefully where he placed his silver-buckled boots. The polyp had grown back with hardened nacre leaving faint but precise footprints visible in the living stone where generations of Revereds had walked.
“Hurry,” breathed the Komdt under his breath. The thin man quickened his step and caught up.
“Time will not wait; the appointment will be kept,” repeated the tethered Revered behind them.
The thin man reached for the larger man’s hand and finger-tapped, “Bunker mind query.”
“Unclear. Old. Timelost,” breathed the Komdt.
An agitated luminance flickered and subsided in the walls alongside them as the Revered herded them out. At the heavy doors, the light veins now glowed hot and flustered. The woman in her woollen jumpsuit marched past them and seized the turn-wheel. As the door swung open, the smells of hay and meadow and warm autumn day reached in.
The Revered’s eyes unrolled, and she looked momentarily confused.
Flavio quickly moved to the appropriate two-pace and bowed slightly, “The Revered has been more cordial than two Outlanders could have hoped, showing hospitality and grace that is often forgotten in diminished times. We, the Komdt and the Direktor, will carry forth our respect for this person and their position of merit.”
The Komdt nodded in what someone might charitably interpret as an attempt at a bow.
“Ah … uh … we are grateful for the Goodsirs acknowledgement of the Old Traditions. There is … outside, at the petitions, a visitor.”
She looked behind, towards the elevator shaft and the stairs looped about it, then back to the day pouring in through the outer door. She tucked two loose strands of sweaty hair back under her felt communications cap with a trembling hand.
The two men waited.
“The Goodsirs should … not be tardy. The visitor bodes … important.”
She followed the two men with faltering steps only to stop at the collection box, making the signs of talon and triangle while mumbling, “zero and one, zero and one.”
The Komdt walked out onto the creamy rock and muttered, “It is noon.“
Besides him, the thin man paused, “Nice and warm. And there is our Leit.”
Kneeling on a small cushion in front of a sensolith on a fluted pedestal was a Baronial in teal-and-yellow walking jacket and embroidered three-quarter length deerskin trousers. One of their Betterfolk.
***
The One Arnas Petbrother
They came close and paused. The Baronial noticed them, quickly disposing of their surprise and replacing it with a practised smile.
“Ah, the Goodborn Sirs find my body upon the steps of the Chapel as I had hoped and as I applied my prayers to the Doctor Love, so kindly brought to our appreciation by their Previous. I am the one Arnas Petbrother, the one that wrote so presumptuously, disturbing your matins at the Foaming Giant”
The Komdt smiled back, stepping into his role, “We, the Direktor of Immernog and myself, their Komdt, could hardly refuse one so versed in the fashions and speech of our Congress.”
Arnas beamed or blushed strongly enough for their eyebrows to quiver. With a breath to calm themselves and bring their brow back into equipoise, as they imagined one of the Common Citizens must do, they replied, “They are too kind, too kind indeed, to find so little fault in the words of a rustic scribe.”
The Komdt nodded, “So it may be, but we, Direktor and myself, trust that we will prove precisely kind enough to match the interest of import the Scribe implied.”
A shadow flickered in Arnas’ eyes, then they were all limpid purple again.
“Yes, they are … it is past the meridies … and time. Time. They will attend me upon a walk to the bonfire pavilion? It is little visited in these times of peace and at this time of day. A short walk, elegant, quiet.”
“Please, the Writer is too kind to offer themselves as a guide in this land where we find ourselves.”
The scribe ducked their head in something between a nod and a twitch, then motioned towards a walking path.
The thin man sauntered behind, interested in a couple of bumblebees drawing lazy loops among the late blooms. Below them, the prehistoric petrified wood walls of Belna seemed like a giant tree stump obstructing the cold, pale waters of the Rushka.
The Komdt would point towards one feature, and Arnas would explain, “They observe keenly. One of the wool cooperatives. Run by the clan of So-and-So. A very democratic institution, all decisions coordinated by the Betterfolk.”
Then another feature, “Ah, they notice the best of our lands. The clans of This-and-That and Thus-and-Other preserve and improve the tree-singing methods of our forefolk, working the wood in the field. Popular rustic furniture, fashion statement in many new industrial cities. Fitting the new human, transcending divide between Green and Machine.”
Then a third, “They are bold to mention, but advised to avoid. High there, an old place. Purification times, dark and shadowed. The lesserfolk call it the Murt, a place of dying and passing. Souls and minds alike, easy to lose. Terror statues mark the boundaries, keep away, keep away in a hundred dead tongues. Yes, a stone of translations now. Recorders from the Left City came just three summers ago. Said very good texts of the Corded Yamash.”
Finally, after half an hour’s walk, “Here they will see, the bonfire pavilion. Used in times of khans, warnings up and down the valleys to hide from the centaurs.”
The Komdt looked over the pavilion shaped of six interlocked pine trees harnessing a cantilevered lith and murmured, “A heavy stone to bear, even for six such well-grown trees.”
Pride again brought colour to the writer’s forehead, “They observe so well! But though graceful the tree song of the local clans, this is a neutralith. Once moved into a position, it remains unattracted by the pull of ground or sky. Only mechanical force accompanied by vibration of moving songs shifts it—but with the anchorage of the shaped trees not even that.”
“And yet maintained? Has it not been two centuries since the centaurs?”
“They know better than I, humble local scribe, not a chronologue, but the Betterfolk believe that the better to endure, the old ways better be kept.”
The thin man then appeared between them.
“Yes, better…” he said and paused. His pause fell like a stone, disrupting the chatter. He licked his cigarette closed while his left hand reached for a trouser pocket.
The Komdt nudged him, passing the battered imperial lighter.
“Yes, better…” he repeated and dragged to light the spiced tobacco.
“…better indeed. But now, it’d be better if you told us why you wanted us.”
The direct address landed like a boulder on a frozen lake, shattering the scribe’s composure.
“I … “ Arnas’s eyes flickered quickly, their head turned. Somebody was cutting lumber far away in the woods, but they were alone by the old pavilion.
“There is an Outlander out of time. I mean, thrown outside their river of life, aged beyond their days. I mean, they … not a Goodsir like yourselves, but still, an Outlander … they were young, but now they are old. Suddenly old. A curse.”
The thin man smiled, “Ah! A mystery!”
The Komdt sighed.
Dear readers,
Two weeks (I planned), but two months it became. Every new year is always such a surprise, with its whirl of winter weather and festivities.
Sometimes other things intervene. I hope everyone entered the two new years well and I wish those who wish such wishes a good Valentine’s day.
One link: In lieu of a kind of gazetteer of the Rainbowlands of the Ultraviolet Grasslands I’ve embarked on a project to turn it into a game. A world each player must (re)create for themselves and their table anew each time they want to use it. A play at making a fictional canon harder to nail down. For those who like sandboxes of that sort, here is the free 0.1 version at my game and fiction patreon, the wizardthieffighter stratometaship.
I know. I’m terrible at nailing down names.
So it goes.
Trust you enjoyed this chapter. Hope the next chapter arrives sooner.
—Luka