2200 Blues Chapter 55: Part Two

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.

Thin candles lit the room, scattered across the floor around rugs on which four priests were seated. They looked up from their sheaves of Thraíha texts, piles of leaf-based parchment spread before them.

Ethra, a thin, middle-aged man, sat cross-legged in the center of the rug, smiling at Nickel. His head was balding, but a rush of gray-white hair streamed over the back of his scalp, and another smooth cascade of hair flowed out from around his mouth in a well-kept beard.

“Hi,” Nickel said, offering a small smile despite feeling awkward for interrupting them mid-ritual.

“Hello, my friend!” Ethra spoke coolly. The other priests watched Nickel carefully. There had been much more focus on him ever since Rishi had appeared, particularly from the elders. Yet, despite the scrutiny, Ethra and the priests before him maintained a calm, welcoming, and collected poise. “Here to fill the incense?”

“Yeah,” Nickel replied. A quiet followed as the priests sat in silent repose, unmoving, watching him. “Oh!” Nickel suddenly remembered. “And… for the new plants.”

“Ah,” Ethra said, standing up, followed by the other priests. “Good, good.”

“The farm is coming along quite well, Nickel,” said a priest to the right of Ethra as he smoothed his simple smock-rope. “You and Farrul are doing a great job.”

“It’s mostly Farrul,” Nickel acknowledged with a shrug. “I just keep the garden clean and cut it. He’s the one who grows most of it and picks the right seeds.”

“You’re both playing your part,” another priest seated to the right of Ethra said, smiling warmly at Nickel. The rest of the priests smiled and hummed in agreement, nodding at the lanky old priest who had just spoken.

“Yes,” one of them murmured to the lanky priest.

“Of course, of course,” another priest said, turning to Nickel. “We’ve watched you, Nickel,” the lanky priest said, his smile widening. “We want you to know—you’re doing great.”

“You really are,” Ethra added with a nod.

A rush of warmth and surprise flooded Nickel’s chest, trickling into his heart.

Nickel opened his mouth to say something but found his voice caught in his throat, feeling slightly embarrassed. He was surprised to hear such praise from the priests. Despite their kind words, Nickel felt undeserving. The memories of his encounter with Steve and his difficult interactions with Farrul seemed to tell him otherwise.

“Listen,” Ethra began. “We know there’s a lot going on, and many of our Thraíha brothers and sisters are difficult with you. They’re difficult because they’re scared. You’re a visitor from the Past World, and then a Rishi appears after a hundred years.”

“A Rishi?” Nickel interrupted, alarmed enough to break into the priest’s words. The conversation between Rishi and Akela flitted through his mind again, and he frowned.

“Akela spoke to Rishi of an order,” Nickel explained, feeling the need to justify his interruption. “Rishi’s order. He said—” Nickel sighed. “He said the word ‘Rishi’ like it was… plural. Why did you say a Rishi? Is there more than one? Is that a group’s name or a title?”

“Rishi,” said the lanky priest. “The last time a Rishi encroached upon our village, it was a different person.” He picked up his book and walked toward the back of the room. “To many of our tribesfolk, it’s the same. Vramung—another Cast-Out—in the same clothes. They hear ‘Rishi’ and think of them all as the same.”

“But they aren’t,” Nickel said, tempted to follow the lanky priest but staying where he was. “That’s not what ‘Rishi’ means—not even to Akela.”

Pausing momentarily, Nickel looked up and asked, “Are you keeping secrets? Are you keeping secrets from the rest of the Thraíha?”

A dry chuckle rolled from the lanky priest’s throat, nearly shaking his entire frame. He looked like a spider in the dark, almost dead but shuddering in its final moments. His smiling face and bubbling mirth made him strangely personable to Nickel.

“You’re doing well, Nickel,” he said through the last bubbles of laughter.

Nickel bit back the next question he had about Rishi, caught even more off guard by the man’s statement. The lanky priest cleared his throat, raising his palm toward Nickel as if remembering to answer his question.

“Yes,” he muttered through the clearing of his throat. “Your question—there’s only so much we can share with the whole tribe.”

“The whole tribe?” Nickel asked. “I don’t understand—why can’t you explain it to them so they stop worrying?”

“Because the cosmology we write and preserve,” the lanky priest said, “is not the literal truth. It’s not in the realm of…” He picked up a bowl of seeds that had been hidden in the shadows beside him. “How many seeds are in this bowl?” He pinched a few between his fingers, letting them rain back into the bowl with a dull clatter.

“You mean you don’t tell the Thraíha what has or hasn’t happened?” Nickel asked.

“That’s for our scribes,” the lanky priest said. “Even then…” Ethra wheezed, catching Nickel’s gaze. “That’s not what everyone looks for.”

“What do you mean?” Nickel murmured, frowning in confusion.

“The Thraíha are a hunting pack,” the lanky priest said. “Only recently have they settled here under the protection of the rock walls, joined with the remnants of the Past World.”

“It’s because of the power plant,” Nickel whispered, mostly to himself, though still audible. Ethra raised his eyebrows but said nothing. “It’s because of all the metal that used to connect to this building,” Nickel said, louder now.

The lanky priest burst into joyous laughter, rubbing his hands together in the air.

“Oh! You’re doing great!” he exclaimed, nearly clapping. “We have a seeker—a seeker from the Past World. He gives me hope!” He turned to the other priests with astonished gladness. They murmured in agreement, nodding.

“The Thraíha came here,” the lanky priest said, “by accident—an accident of the stars. Our culture is still that of nomadic hunters. We staggered from cave to cave, swept by the next windstorm, with the stars to guide us through the remnants of the Past World. We lived as nomads, believing like nomads, until we encountered this wreckage of the Past World—a temple that once harnessed the sun.”

“Nuclear energy,” Nickel muttered, thinking of the book he had stolen from here, now tucked away under his cot in the village far below.

“The language and deities of the Past World have long since passed,” the lanky priest continued. “Our hunters live alongside their old symbols while believing something else. Our greater shelter baffles us, though many fear it’s softening the hunter’s edge.”

The fears and friction among the Thraíha now made more sense to Nickel. It all fit within the backdrop of history shared by Ethra and the tribe. They were searching for meaning, making do in a world that had lost much—just as Nickel had been lost, living in his hovercraft, escaping it, and now living as a Thraíha.

“You’ve given me so much to hope for,” Nickel said. “All of you,” he added, looking at the priests. “The Thraíha have shown me a greater way to live. This is the longest I’ve gone without my hovercraft and the Ether. I’ve never felt more liberated.”

“It was you who did the liberating,” Ethra said. “The Thraíha merely showed you the way. We didn’t give you hope.”

“Why is that?” Nickel asked.

“There is no hope in the canyons or the world,” Ethra replied. “There is only your own being and how you relate to it. Hope created this temple before it was a temple. Being made this a temple.”

Nickel watched as Ethra’s face contorted in concentration, his previously aloof demeanor hardening.