Note to readers: “2200 Blues” is a novel in progress, and each chapter is an early draft in its unfolding journey. Your thoughts and reactions are invaluable, guiding its evolution and refinement. 2200 Blues © 2024 by G.R. Nanda. All rights reserved.
Coming down the canyon cliffs from the entrance of the temple, the surrounding spires were illuminated in their ghastly skeletal forms through the bright orange of the morning fog. It was early enough in the day that their colors were more visible in the fainter orange of the fog. They were stark white walls and cleaved towers stripped of their surfaces and anatomy. Belts of disused fueling panels wrapped around the white and gray surfaces patched with rashes of bloodred rust. The cemetery of nuclear infrastructure quickly disappeared as Nickel was prodded along, traveling quickly down the cliffside, leaving the structures far from sight.
Theren left them with a wave, disappearing around a bend in the cliff consumed by the orange. Finding their way down was easier than climbing up, notwithstanding the dimness of the early morning they traversed to climb up. Following the young man across the short plane from the cliffs to the stone huts bordering the encampment, many dark silhouettes formed between the huts, drawn to the sight of Nickel and the man he followed.
“You haven’t met the missionaries yet, have you?” asked the young Thraíha man. His voice was a crisp sound against the gravel crunching under their footsteps in the dead air.
Nickel frowned, looking up at the young man. He didn’t turn around. Nickel could only see the back of his neck, thick and wideset, with locks of hair spilling over his skin. He was beefy, large, another anathema to Nickel, Steve, and Farrul among the Thraíha.
“Missionaries……… no, who are they?” Nickel muttered. The young man kept walking ahead of him without turning around.
“I don’t know what else you’ve seen of the canyons,” the young man said in a quiet voice, huskier than before. “Or who else you’ve met.”
Nickel’s breath nearly caught in his throat. The dark silhouettes grew in number against the nearing horizon of huts. Nickel frowned in confusion, startled.
“Who else have you met?” the man asked.
“Your friend Steve and Farrul sure have been living here,” the man said. “They can’t be the only ones who know how to survive,” he said, turning his head to eye Nickel with a smirk. He turned back around, never missing a beat in his steady footsteps.
Nickel chuckled, looking down at the earth.
“I’ve met them. We help each other survive,” Nickel said. “I’m not so sure they were surviving that much before they met me.”
Now the man chuckled, still watching ahead.
“Just another collision—a bigger collision with the Past,” he said, stopping short of what Nickel surely thought would be followed by “World.”
Nickel gulped.
“Me or them colliding?” he asked, looking up at the man’s back.
“Both,” he said. “A bigger wave from the Past hitting what stranded from the Past.”
“Oy! Háthrouu ná chuurhá. Nickel háth gáth jurrá?” called a distant man standing at the edge of humans in the fog. He stepped out of his line, waving at the man.
Theren laughed, returning the wave.
“Ná, háth ní thraumun jurrá. Háthrú háthú há houu, thraá háthrá Farrul!” he yelled back, cupping his hand to his mouth. The Thraíha standing far away began to disperse, falling behind away from the huts.
“Everyone else is going to expect you to follow us,” the man said. Nickel opened his mouth to respond, feeling an uncertainty of words and thoughts weighing on his lips, causing them to hang open. “Everyone else sees only the part you can play for Thraíha.”
“I see more, though,” he continued. “I’ve paid attention to who you are and what you do. Farrul wants to leave us, that’s clear from how often he dismisses our practices.”
“You want to leave too, but I see what you do, Nickel. You follow our customs, but we all know you itch for the Quest.”
“What do you mean?” asked Nickel.
“You look for what you seek. You don’t leave us like Farrul, but you’re impatient for Hedonim.”
“I haven’t talked about Hedonim in a long while,” Nickel said, chuckling. “I don’t know what you’re talking about.”
“I don’t have to talk about it,” the man said.
“I haven’t even heard anyone say the word Hedonim,” Nickel muttered. “Until now, why did you bring it up?”
“Easy, Nickel, no need to come on so strong,” the man said in a light-hearted tone. Nickel hadn’t even realized that he’d raised his voice.
“Are you sure it’s… Hedonim you care so much about?” Nickel implored.
“You talk this much to your Thraíha elders?” the man asked, laughing as he spoke.
“No,” said Nickel.
“Didn’t think so.”
“That’s because they feed me.”
“Oh! And I only take you on hunts—or away from them when you’ve earned it!” Theren turned around further than the first time, looking Nickel directly in the eye, a glint of amusement shining directly over his. He turned around, leaving Nickel to face the back of his neck and his silky, tousled black hair once again.
“Let’s not get ahead of ourselves here,” he said, speaking without nearly missing a beat. “I know the real reason why you went slipping inside the wind tunnels behind the priests’ backs.”
Nickel froze, clutching the side of his robe once again. His eyes ceased blinking, watching as the young man continued walking, moving further away without noticing Nickel.
“What are you talking about?” muttered Nickel. “It was an accident.”
“You were looking for secrets where you were told not to look,” the man said.
“Told not to—” started Nickel. “No one told me not to go in the wind tunnels!”
The man turned to respond but looked away, far ahead of him. A commotion had broken out within the courtyard. Two darkened figures stood close to one another, standing opposite to one another in the middle of the yard while children ran around them.
“Ay Ay Ay,” the Thraíha man muttered. “You’re part of the chaos, Nickel.”
“What?” Nickel gasped, flustered. He gripped his book tighter against his chest, looking up at the man. The Thraíha man still didn’t turn around to look at Nickel. Instead, he just held out a beefy hand towards Nickel as if to hold him back.
“The Huntsman’s chased the rooster out of the pen,” he muttered. “Spirits are loose today,” he said, finally turning to look at Nickel with a wide smile. “You’re looking for forbidden fruits from the sky… and we have a new visitor.”
Nickel squinted at the man. Forbidden fruit? It seemed the more he talked to Theren, the more his speech sounded like riddles. The commotion was rising.
The figure of the two standing off in the yard with his back to Nickel and his accomplice shoved the person facing him. More children emptied from the neighboring nursery building. They ran out, many screaming as the fallen figure rose up and lunged at his attacker. Men standing off at the corners of the buildings closest to them rushed to the sides of the man who had pushed the person who must have been a violent heretic to the Thraíha—or an intruder?
“Is that one of the missionaries you were talking about?” Nickel asked, pointing in the direction of the altercation.
Theren didn’t respond right away. After a long moment, he cleared his throat.
“I don’t know, Nickel,” he said. His voice was lower-pitched, more even in tone, having lost his aloof playfulness. He exhaled sharply from his nostrils. “I didn’t think this would be this violent.”
Shouts of the men rang through the courtyard as they huddled, frantically advancing upon the outsider, whoever he was.
“Should we go back to the temple?” Nickel asked, squinting at his guide, his mouth hanging open. He couldn’t help but also consider restoring his book to the wind tunnel and the possibility of discreetly ridding himself of the object marking him a culprit.
“No, no, no,” his guide said, shaking his head. He stooped ever so slightly, groping his waist where the belt was with one hand. He pulled out a dagger from a small, narrow scabbard hanging from his belt, so dark as to blend in with his robes. He held the blade out, its very tip visible past the gentle billow of his robe.
“They won’t let us in. Priests work. If you’re not on the hunt, you have to attend the mass.”
“But it looks pretty bad,” Nickel said. The children had dispersed, and the mass of men clustered closer against each other, shouting at the intruder. They rummaged against each other, pushing further into the throng.
“You have no choice. We have to help them,” the man said. “Stay close at my side to my left but keep behind,” he said. They crept through the outskirts of the Thraíha encampment, walking around rock and stone. By the time they’d reached the encampment, the crowd of men had been pushed back towards the smelting station where Nickel and Farrul had been initiated mere hours ago.
Women carrying stone pitchers of water from the western grounds stopped around the scene, calling to various men caught in the frenzy.
“Where did he come from?” one of the women called. She was unheard over the din.
“The rat!” shouted a man emerging from the crowd. His clothes were rumpled, and the bindings of his robe undone. “Vramung sent him!” His long hair cascaded all over his head, disheveled by the tumult.
“This is Vramung’s doing!” shouted another man.
“Spirits are loose! We never should have brought him in!” a woman shouted, pointing at Nickel.
G.R. Nanda 