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.
Nickel stared up at a wide open space. His eyes closed again. Red. Blue. A sun. He saw them wide open before his eyes, splayed out like clumps of cotton candy smushed together in a trash can after a carnival.
But now his eyes were closed. He was livid, waiting for someone to say something to him.
Instead, he only heard a soft, gentle smoldering—unrelenting, undisturbed. It was so soft, it didn’t seem to withhold the air that was gently crackling near him.
Nickel gently groaned, turning over to the side, his eyes opening a crack before he closed them again. He sighed, feeling his chest heave like it was relieving a stitch. With every inhale and exhale, his chest rose and fell, loosening the knot of weight inside it.
Oracle. Where was she? Was it her pot of stew that he could hear? What time was it? Were the Thraíha back from their hunting yet? It was too soon in the day to be cooking stew—unless it was the Oracle’s for another acht-chi meditation.
Nickel breathed sharply again, inhaling deeply, smelling embers like none he’d ever interacted with before. He exhaled sharply, opening his eyes, embracing the release. Opposite him, opposite the fire, was Rishi, standing as still as a tree, observing the long, shocking white flames in a still trance. Nickel was far away from the Thraíha, but he was also far away from Steve and Farrul. How far away from Hedonim?
He wanted to leave the canyons. He was now in a new part of the canyons. The rock expanding around him was flatter than what he’d experienced before. The fog was lighter and more distant, a shroud on the horizon encircling the rock basin they were in. The rock below the fire was smoother, but of an encrusted pale-brown surface. It expanded in rings, growing into encrusted circlets of peach and pink and tans. Nickel closed his eyes again, shifting his weight. Blankets slid over him.
He craned his neck and opened his eyes again, looking at Rishi.
“Where am I?” Nickel croaked.
The fire crackled, and Rishi continued looking into its flames. He slowly craned his neck to look at Nickel.
“You are where you were seeking, a place closer to civilization,” Rishi muttered, still standing still over the fire.
“What?” Nickel exclaimed, getting up from the ground. The stretch of bandages over his limbs alerted him to their presence. He slipped out of the blankets covering him, looking down at his body. The bandages were expertly wrapped over his limbs, protecting the areas of injury.
“Slow down,” Rishi muttered. “You’ve been gashed across your right arm, and any sharp, sudden movements could slow the healing process.”
Nickel scoffed in exasperation, looking at his right arm and remaining seated up. He opened his mouth to the new scenery before him. The land looked like the canyons of Atalantia where Nickel had crashed and met the Thraíha, but the fog was lessened and farther away in the distance, wrapping around rising cliffs, grazing the edges of the horizon. Inward, the land was flatter, with clumps of dried earth and multicolored granite rock, all stitched together in rising formations, intersected by pockets of rising steam clouding into the sky—a warm yellow ochre haze, colored by the molding of the horizon’s orange fog and a pale sunlight.
“Civilization?” Nickel scoffed, rubbing his face with his left hand. “This isn’t civilization.”
“There’s a depot station just around the bend,” Rishi said, motioning behind him.
“Wh-where?” Nickel exclaimed, shaking his head in frustration.
“Just around the bend of the first cliff closest to us,” Rishi said. Nickel watched Rishi’s hand point toward the nearest rise in rock elevation behind him, where the protrusions of the granite folded across the earth, growing to an encrusted fold so high that it formed a steep cliff, rising like a city building.
In the haze of the steam was a dark building over the surface of the cliff, almost unnoticed, mistaken for another boulder in the landscape.
Civilization? That wouldn’t take Nickel home. This wasn’t Hedonim; the city was nowhere to be seen on the horizon.
“Where am I?” Nickel said, turning around swiftly, looking for more buildings across the land and seeing none.
“You are where you have been seeking,” Rishi said.
Nickel looked at him, about to say something, then scoffed again.
“Why did you help me?” Nickel asked. “Who are you, Rishi?”
“I am where all Rishi have been and gone,” Rishi said, smiling gently and looking into the fire. “I travel the forgotten lands, bringing harmony to the nature of things.”
His eyes suddenly turned stony, as if he was looking somewhere Nickel couldn’t, beyond the flames he was focused on. Rishi grunted and grabbed a long wooden stick, pushing the coals at the bottom of the fire. The flames sputtered, crackling sparks at the bottom and elongating above. “You’re lucky you found the Thraíha, or else I probably would not have found you.”
“And the Death Riders would have,” Nickel muttered, sighing a shaky breath. Voices came from afar, close to the cliffside he was looking at. “Well, can you at least take me to Hedonim?” Nickel asked, looking up at Rishi.
“I take people nowhere,” Rishi said.
“You took me here,” Nickel said, scratching his head. “You brought me here.”
“I brought you here out of no other accord than my goodwill, boy,” Rishi said, poking the embers of the fire again. “I rescued you to harmonize the lands. That is the purpose of a Rishi.”
Nickel waited for more, but hearing none, sighed. He wanted to stand up but felt confused, looking around at the alien landscape. He was still unsure of where to go. This man would give him no further clues, but Nickel couldn’t have been more confused about where he lay in the order of his life. He didn’t know how he would return to civilization if he did. Which is why Hedonim was on his mind all this time. But the path to Hedonim was proving itself to be more difficult, dangerous, and confusing than he had wanted it to be—or had thought it to be in the first place.
Nickel sighed, looking down at his lap. His silence was interrupted by a loud clanging of tools from far away. He looked up, seeing a large crane-like vehicle moving around over the cliff high ahead. It bumped and clanged around the rock and earth before it until it bumped into a geyser, which showered it with an uproar of steam that clouded it completely. A line of moving figures diverted his attention to the far right. They were far ahead of the cliff, toward the rising mountains of the North—a line of people walking across the ground toward the right end of the city. Now that Nickel paid more attention, more people emerged into view, small vehicles and flashing lights interspersed around the landscape. This was a far less desolate place than Nickel had first imagined. But that wasn’t saying much for Atalantia.
G.R. Nanda 