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.
The winding stone trail leading up to the temple carried a dampness that streaked the air with coolness and left beads of moisture on the neighboring boulders. The pail in Nickel’s hands clanged against his leg, shaking the metal bell hanging from a chain inside it.
The roar of the bustling Thraíha settlement, with all its scurrying defense measures and the constant shouting of regimented patrol orders, had faded. The frantic calls of the Thraíha, hurried in their practice and duties, were now distant. Nickel always enjoyed this part of the path, when he had climbed high and far enough that the elevation and rolling canyon rock behind him muffled the village noise entirely.
He preferred it even more as of late, ever since the encounter with Rishi had spurred the Thraíha into a daily frenzy. It was a relief to escape the religious fervor and frantic preparations that he, along with the rest of the Thraíha, had been roped into. At least three different expeditions were being planned, and three different debates about them raged among the Thraíha. Nickel much preferred performing temple duties over having an elder breathing down his neck about a new task with conflicting purposes.
It seemed that Rishi’s arrival had triggered a wave of conflict, infighting, and paranoia. Now, the Thraíha were unsure if they needed to migrate their entire village—a prospect that was being hotly debated, as search parties to find a new home were discussed.
The higher Nickel climbed, the more shadows stretched over his immediate surroundings, cast by the rising rock walls. The air grew cooler and damper. Drops of condensation clung to the surfaces around him like crystalline decorations, glistening slightly in the fading fog.
The dank air, earthy with the scent of rocks and mildew, was a sweetness to Nickel’s nostrils. Hidden between the rising rock formations, this part of the canyon held dampness where the land was less windswept and corroded by the harsh windstorms below.
The rocks were smoother, rounder, and more separated from one another, unlike the long, welded structures shaped by an eternity of blasting winds that Nickel had grown used to.
As Nickel stepped fully into the shadows, the coolness enveloped him completely. He was only a few steps away from the ledge leading into the temple, though the walls of the temple were not yet visible.
It was a strange place for a nuclear power plant to have been built. Nickel remembered reading about the corrosion and evolution of the canyons and rock formations in a book he had stolen from the temple. He now wondered if the boulders piled around him in the canyon recess had always been there, even before the power plant’s construction.
With each step up the protrusions of rock and mounds of stone, Nickel noticed the small green plants growing between the surrounding dark boulders. They were encrusted with small ferns, their lengths never surpassing the gaps between the rocks, limited by the size of the crevices.
Nickel frowned as he crossed the last of the stones on the incline. Water was scarce in this part of the Atlantic Canyons, usually sequestered in isolated bodies. Where was the water in this canyon, where the temple stood?
He climbed onto the ledge, his feet crunching on gravel and scattered pebbles. The walls of the temple loomed before him, disappearing into the rising rock walls. Dark and stained with splotches of rust, they were covered in the remnants of old signs, symbols, words, and patterns.
Nickel passed into the rock recess below the walls of the temple. Entering the darkness, he found his way to the pulley platform by the broken shards of filtered light. Walking slowly, he triggered the lever behind the platform.
The familiar grating sound echoed like ancient bones rattling in their graves throughout the vast hall.
Nickel quickly stepped onto the pulley platform as it squealed against the floor. The rattling of the chains holding the pulley clattered from high up in the hall, shaking all the way down to the platform as it began to lift.
He set the pail down beside him and sat. He sighed, glancing around at the dark temple. The eerie emptiness unsettled him. The temple was usually deserted except for important festivals or significant days, like the ones following Rishi’s arrival, when the Thraíha sought new divinations for the consequential days ahead.
On most days, temple priests inhabited the lower levels, milling in and out of the large, oblong Gathering Hall that loomed over Nickel’s rising platform. The hall, nearly invisible in the darkness, had a round surface that Nickel could only faintly track from the vantage points where he had once heard the priests chanting in the Thraíha language.
As Nickel rose through the temple, it was eerily silent, lacking the priestly voices he had come to expect from the towering, dark structure on his left. It loomed like a mountain, casting a shadow every time he came to the temple.
The sound of the rolling chains at the platform’s corners clinked and scraped even louder in the absence of music. The disorienting experience of traveling up the elevator reminded him of the Blackout he had experienced back home, when all Ether technology had shut down. That world was immersed in the Ether.
Here, there was none. The temple, with its dark, hollow insides stretching skyward, was the greatest reminder to Nickel of his distance from everything else—especially when it was as silent as today.
The chains rattled wildly, sending tremors down their length as the platform lurched to a stop. Nickel had reached the level of the temple where he had set the lever.
To the left, a raised platform jutted out from the temple shrine—a large, round room with two gaping holes encrusted with golden apparatuses. The walls were adorned with Byzantine carvings and inlaid with Thraíha letters. In the center were two large openings.
Nickel crossed the elevator platform and carefully stepped over the narrow gap between the pulley and the ledge of the temple shrine. Whispers emanated from the openings across the shrine. So, there were priests here after all. Nickel hesitated at the edge of the ledge, holding the pail at his side, unsure about entering the shrine.
He had been brought here before by Thraíha priests, but never alone. Though he was on a Thraíha duty, he felt as though he were intruding upon this sacred space—the holy brain of the temple apparatus. The shrine resembled a catacomb or a cocoon, like the burrow of some great beast.
Nickel took a few steps forward, halting when he heard murmurs rising from the whispers. Even in the darkness, the faint hues of green and red streaked across the ornate decorations. The painted symbols were partly visible, and the engraved Thraíha letters bored into his sight.
The room was an odd structure, both ornate and ghastly. The remnants of its past as part of a power plant remained in the etched words and symbols, now painted over by the Thraíha, alongside dark scars that looked like old burns.
“Come in, Nickel,” a cool voice called from inside the shrine.
The sound of pages turning followed. “No need to be afraid. I expected you.”
“Oh,” Nickel muttered, chuckling nervously. It seemed that the Thraíha always expected something of him these days. He hadn’t expected a priest to be so nonchalant. Of anyone in the Thraíha village, he wouldn’t have thought one of the adults in charge of interpreting Thraíha cosmology would welcome him so casually.
Especially not after Rishi’s arrival.
Nickel walked into the shrine, still carrying some trepidation. He walked slowly, squinting to adjust his eyes as he passed under the archway, carefully gauging the room and the positioning of its inhabitants.
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