G.R. Nanda

2200 Blues Chapter 58: 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.

The footsteps grew louder, clanking against the metal surface Nickel ran across. Two large poles confronted Nickel, staggering his run. He turned around, watching the two Death Riders clamber clunkily over the winding surface. Dust rose in a flickering wave over the land below and behind, where Rishi was fighting the rest of the Death Riders.

Nickel whirled around, ducking between the poles and running past their intersection. He found himself on a new platform, hurtling to a stop, nearly falling forward from his momentum but wobbling backward on his feet to steady himself. He was bordered by a crooked edge with large gaps and spaces, irregular and appearing difficult to walk on. Large, crooked, blade-like protrusions stuck out at the ends of the border, protruding outward toward the inner parts of the platform, up in the air, and at various angles between them. Nickel felt that if he moved too far, he would impale himself on any of these susurrated protrusions.

But the clambering of the Death Riders behind him, alongside their jangling armor, propelled him to act. He quickly darted a few feet to the nearest protruding edge, bringing his tied fists down to cut the ropes binding him. He sawed quickly, finding that the rope withered into many loose fibers upon contact in four strokes.

The Death Riders clambered onto the platform just as Nickel’s fists were freed. The blade-like protrusion on the roof fell apart, crashing to the ground. Nickel jerked his feet forward, finding himself facing a Death Rider on the platform, followed by another.

The spear in the Death Rider’s hand came down, but fear and Thraíha instincts took over. Nickel ducked and slid to the side, pulling down on the shaft of the spear before the Death Rider could raise it. As the second Death Rider came down with a fist to strike, Nickel grabbed at the fallen cone on the ground and swung it at his leg. The Death Rider’s knees buckled, and he screamed, reaching for his knee.

Nickel ducked again as the first Death Rider’s grip on his spear propelled downward toward him. Nickel scrambled back a few steps. As the spear came swinging again, he sidestepped, remembering his training from the Thraíha. He darted right and let the Death Rider swing down, then stepped left, grabbing the spear and thrusting the rear end toward his attacker.

The Death Rider swatted at Nickel with his arm, careening into Nickel’s cheek, but Nickel was ready, slipping under the Death Rider’s legs, the nimble movements of Thraíha hunting patterns returning to him.

He never got to use them on a hunt—not in the way the Thraíha had intended. He did get to use them in a hunt, but this time, he was the one being hunted.

Nickel used the opportunity of the Death Rider’s imbalance and vertigo to scramble forward, disappearing behind them once again. He darted off the platform, lurching to steer clear of the bordering protrusions. He ran down, his chest cramping with exertion and stress, despite the endless supply of adrenaline coursing through him like a wheezer.

Nickel dashed madly, searching for a place to hide. He had to run first—run before the Thraíha could come to his aid. Except there were no Thraíha to come to his aid.

The Death Riders’ footsteps soon crunched the ground behind him anyway. Nickel turned around to see the Death Rider he had befuddled now surging ahead, gaining ground on him. And somehow, even the Death Rider Nickel had wounded was trailing behind, limping slightly but advancing in heavy, aggressive stomps—a boar of the canyons, galloping after Nickel, practically charging like a warhorse despite his gaping injury.

Nickel gasped and turned forward again, the painful burning in his legs suddenly coming into focus as his demise became apparent.

Still, he ran, despite the growing awareness of his stitching muscles and burning body, wanting to delay the inevitable for as long as possible. He would run as far as he could, as long as he could, to slow his demise for as long as he could.

Charred walls rose around him, siphoning into a structure that caved inward, dark and grotesque. This place was nothing like the Thraíha settlement at the abandoned nuclear power plant—expansive, its skeletal features eroded by generations of care, adornment, and spiritual attention to the land.

This place, the Death Riders’ hideout, was a grotesque conflagration of metal and steel, twisted—not just as the remnant of a nuclear fallout, but stitched together into a hideous architecture, a filthy and corrosive conglomeration of scavenged metal objects, fused into a den of horrors.

As Nickel ran deeper and deeper into the concave of the walls, deeper into a corner, he felt that this place was designed to horrify him, to corrode his soul.

As he ran, he almost didn’t notice the loud barrage of dust and rock crashing against the land outside.

The alarmed cries of fallen men were a distant din, muffled and saturated into the winds whistling through the canyons of Atalanta—ever present, a fundamental feature of the world.

“We’ve got you now,” rasped the Death Rider immediately behind Nickel.

Nickel wanted to keep running, but his body collapsed against the walls, sending him down to the ground.

A loud crack erupted from far off, rumbling through the earth.

Nickel just barely saw the Death Rider behind him whirl around in surprise before Nickel collapsed inward, slumping against the corner. He felt the corroded bumps and rough surfaces of the metal scrape against his skin.

“It’s him!” hissed one of the Death Riders, nearly whispering.

Nickel couldn’t see him through his hands covering his face, through his head buried in his lap.

He curled into a ball, wrapping his arms around his legs, shivering.

He wanted to stave off the pain, brace for the blows that were sure to come, the spikes tearing into his flesh bit by bit. By curling up, he hoped they would be quick, that they would disappear, or that the exterior of his body would bear the brunt of the pain.

The blows didn’t come—at least not as quickly as Nickel had anticipated.

“No, it isn’t!” barked a Death Rider from behind.

Footsteps moved away from Nickel.

“Don’t let the boy get away!” the voice commanded after a pause, now farther from Nickel.

Nickel opened his eyes a crack, lifting his head just barely above his knees.

The howling wind grew louder, but it sounded strange—unlike the normal winds of the canyons, long and eternal across the depths.

It roared like an ocean wave, rushing down toward the recess of metal Nickel had been cornered in.

Nickel lifted his head higher.

A cloud of dust and rock surged toward him and the Death Riders, trailing through the halls of twisted metal like a phantom of the canyons. Tiny cyclones spun outward from a wave of dust and rock that rumbled behind the structure, billowing into the channels of twisted metal Nickel and his pursuers had run into.

Suddenly, the light shifted, and a gaping darkness emerged from the sky.

The sun glowed a bright white, its normal color fading, revealing the cosmos behind—just like the last time Nickel had seen Rishi channel the elements of the atmosphere before the Thraíha guardsmen.

Before the Death Riders could react, the trails of dust and rock shot out like torpedoes, wrapping around them, flinging them back through the metal channels they had come through, slamming them against the surfaces. They yelped and screamed in pain and horror before the trails funneled them out of the metal architecture entirely.

Nickel slowly stood, his wide eyes fixed on the scene before him.

He stood still at the corner where he had been curled up.

As he slowly walked forward, he saw the wave of dust and rock settling, dissipating.

And under the dimming canvas of the black sky and white sun, as the fog rose to fill the air, stood the silhouette of Rishi, slowly walking toward him, his beard and robes flowing.

O L E D

2200 Blues: Major Update for the New Year

Hello! Here we are, five years and 104 blog posts later! Last week, I finally reached the end of the first draft of 2200 Blues. The whole draft is 161,988 words, typical for an epic length novel in the science fiction/fantasy genres. I’ve handwritten the last chapters, which are far ahead of what is published on my blog. I’ve published the first part of Chapter 58, while I ended at around Chapter 78 (I’ve lost track of the exact order since I omitted a previous Chapter 58 from publication).

This has been a major milestone and marks the first completion of a draft of 2200 Blues. This is officially the first novel I have written. I’ve had this story in my system for years (since the fall of 2019), and I’ve finally reached the end. From the age of 15 to 21, even with a nearly two-year break from this project, 2200 Blues has carried me through a formative writing journey.

I will be pausing the regular weekly publication of 2200 Blues chapters for some time, as I need to take a break from this story before typing up my final handwritten chapters.

However, I would love to thank all of you in my small but loyal audience who have braved the bogged-down, murky, and rambling canyons and far reaches of my early draft. What you’ve seen in my published chapters has been edited mainly for grammar and clarity, without any substantial streamlining. It’s been a long and significant investment for those of you who have committed to reading every single chapter I’ve published.

Firstly, I want to thank Jennifer Boorman, who has been my biggest writing mentor. She took great interest in 2200 Blues back when it had just begun and has provided immense encouragement and constructive feedback from the start. Your mentorship during COVID was an amazing source of meaningful social connection and growth. Most of what I have learned about the mechanics of writing a scene, action, and character interactions has come from our one-on-one feedback loop with each chapter I wrote. I am incredibly lucky to have had a reader and mentor like you in my life, especially at such a young age for me. Your compassion, sharp attention to detail, encouragement, and engagement in my story have been an illuminating and wonderful part of my life.

Secondly, I want to thank the WordPress blogger who goes by the name DirtySciFiBuddha. You’ve been pressing “like” on every single one of my chapter posts all the way back to COVID, when I first started the blog at the age of 16. I appreciate your investment in my story. I encourage everyone to check out his writings on his blog—he has his own novels available for purchase on Amazon. Also, Kent, I’d love it if you left a comment on this post! I’d love to finally hear from my longest and most loyal reader!

The tiny group of regular readers has expanded since I began engaging with the arts scene in Gloucester, Massachusetts, this past year. I want to thank Bing McGilvray for reading all the chapters I’ve posted since resuming publication at the start of this year and for putting me on the radar of other interested Gloucester creatives who’ve joined the readership. Your comments and feedback have been an invaluable source of motivation for me. Check out Bing’s works in the Cape Ann Cosmos, a publication he helps run. Here’s a Cosmos piece about Bing as an artist and a fascinating and witty Cosmos piece he wrote about AI. From our lengthy conversations, I can tell you he has a wonderfully creative and perceptive mind.

Fourthly, I want to send a big thank-you to ANYONE who has read my work on my blog and/or offered me feedback and encouragement. Anyone who has perused my blog has given me motivation. I want to thank Eve Kerrigan and Maryann Ullman, my first creative writing teachers in high school, who provided immense inspiration and practice that got my wheels turning fast enough to roar into the accidental beginnings of 2200 Blues with full confidence. You both gave useful feedback on my early writings and were the first test audience for the name 2200 Blues. I greatly appreciate your contributions to my process and for facilitating spaces at school for me to work on this novel, including Maryann letting me focus on 2200 Blues for an entire trimester-length class. To anyone who has chosen to participate in the readership of what is a very intimidatingly long and winding first draft, thank you.

Lastly, I want to give a big thank-you to Reverend Richard Emmanuel of the experimental church in Gloucester, Massachusetts, for his spiritual musings and the conversations we’ve shared this past year as I got to know him. Your investment in me as a fellow human being on the “walkabout of life,” as you would say, and as a creative, has been invaluable to my relationship with art and the human experience. Together, we’ve explored science fiction, the narrative act, consciousness and the human condition—an exploration that seeped into 2200 Blues as I resumed work on it this past year. I am so grateful to have known you and to call you a friend. May you rest in peace.

What an incredible journey and a final wrap to the year 2024! 2200 Blues has seen me through thick and thin—navigating life and high school during the pandemic, readjusting from post-COVID maladjustment—it has been the lifeline I clung to in order to find purpose, stay on track, or get off the wrong track and onto the right one. Being able to share my work online has been tremendously valuable to me as a writer. It’s gotten me comfortable with sharing my work and exposed me to the vulnerabilities of showcasing incomplete and flawed work. Thus, I’ve become very comfortable seeing through and finishing incomplete and flawed work—the only way to bring creativity to fruition.

Phew! That was a lot, and the list of people to thank could go on endlessly. No creation manifests from a vacuum. The truly hard work for 2200 Blues will commence when I return to the project, with many more drafts to come—surely much harder and more arduous than the first. However, a primary project of this blog was to support the completion of my first novel draft. It’s surreal and indescribably fulfilling to have accomplished that.

A second primary project has been fulfilled by all of you reading this blog post and many more: the sharing and engagement of a story. Storytelling is a cycle, moving from the outside world through the creative act, back into the outside world, and right back into the creative act. Life itself is a creative act, influenced by and influencing many more. The storytelling process and phenomenon is never truly brought to fruition until the story has been shared, only for it to begin again, in countless individuals.

During this weird science fiction story we call the 2020s, you have all helped me to tell my own.

Writing this blog post has been incredibly humbling, enabling me to reflect on just how fortunate I’ve been to engage with and receive support from so many people in so many meaningful ways. You have all made this writer.

The last chapters of 2200 Blues will eventually go up here on the blog, but until then, you can expect different works.

Here’s to 2025! Happy New Year! 🎉 🚀 ✨

Early concept art for the lower level of Nickel’s American Eagle hovercraft that I doodled when I was 16

2200 Blues Chapter 58: Part One

Nickel was tossed aside in the tumult of the fight. Tipped over alongside the cot he was tied to, the noise of the frenzied battle took over around him, partly muffled by the surface of the cot sticking up on one side in the air.

The Death Riders screamed into battle with Rishi. Their cries turned desperate and flailing. A storm of swords clanged against unseen surfaces. The whirling of rock and earth tossed into the air rained down like crumbling sand, gushing from above.

Nickel groaned, trying to free himself from his bonds. He squeezed his eyes shut, willing himself to bring the calm he had found with the Oracle before. Instead, he found little to distract him from the stabbing unease and fear percolating in his chest. He grunted in exasperation, opening his eyes again.

When he did, he jerked his head to the side, writhing. The blindfold slid an inch off his face, slipping upward. Out of the corner of his eye, he spotted an appendage sticking out of a frame embedded into the earth.

He was certainly far from home—the Thraíha. He would have to reckon later with the fact that he now thought of the Thraíha as home.

“Find him!” roared the voice of the Death Rider in charge.

Nickel froze, lying limp against the ground, letting his head fall slack.

“The Rishi is here somewhere!” the voice shrieked. “Get up!”

Angry footsteps sounded amidst the tossing and turning of the Death Riders, rattling their chains against each other and the ground. Nickel started squirming again, writhing on the ground and butting his head through the dirt to reach the metal appendage sticking up in the air.

“Now! Or I’ll feed you to the Motherboard! Keep swinging your spikes—he’ll reappear into them!”

Nickel inched forward desperately, dragging his head against the ground and shimmying his legs across the earth. The blindfold loosened from his head as he moved. The squirming surrendered to the earth as a welt of cuts on his cheek started to sting with warmth. Nickel winced.

A string of screams pierced the air, and a series of toppling Death Riders fell to the ground. Shouts of alarm followed, and Nickel decided to keep moving amidst the chaos. He could now see better, the blindfold only covering the top half of his left eye, with the cloth skewed to the side, covering a little more than half of his right eye. The warmth of his right cheek grew hotter, so he tipped his head to the left, scraping the left side of his temple against the ground instead of his cheek.

He made it to the metal hook protruding from the ground and bucked his head over it, hovering slightly, his nose just above the hook. He attempted to position the edge of his blindfold over the hook so it would catch under the cloth and over his skin, removing the blindfold entirely.

His head shivered over the hook, shuddering violently with effort. It took the stomping of the Death Riders nearing him for him to gradually, but swiftly, lower his head so the hook could enter the narrow space between the bridge of his nose and the cloth of the blindfold.

A loud burst of force erupted from the earth, sending rubble crashing to the ground and more Death Riders screaming.

The edge of the hook drew a sharp gash over the skin of Nickel’s nose, causing him to wince even more, squeezing his eyes shut. The tumult became a muffled cacophony around him, and Nickel tried lifting his head back to avoid the sharp edge of the hook, only causing the blindfold to tug at his face, wedging the hook slightly forward. Nickel immediately stopped moving, not wanting to drive the hook deeper into his skin.

“Hey!” barked a Death Rider. “It looks like the cub’s loose!”

A series of sharp footsteps sounded against the earth, closing in on Nickel. His heart seemed to stop and leap out of his chest at the same time.

“Get him! How’d he get out?” the voice snarled as the footsteps drew nearer. “He’s raw meat. Gnash him—”

“With a spike?” asked another Death Rider.

“Yes!” barked the first. “Don’t let him on his feet—we’re already at the Motherboard. As long as they see him, it doesn’t matter if he’s dead or alive.”

Nickel immediately drove his head down, letting the edge of the hook cut into his forehead, but the blindfold slipped off completely. The fiery world of grotesque, skeletal metal structures arose around him as his vision cleared.

Gasping, he tried standing, remembering that his hands and feet were tied. He rolled over, bending his body and shifting his legs back to scoot them nearer to the hook. He lifted his feet together into the air, over the hook, and pushed them far to the sides. He grunted and brought his feet down, only chafing the rope binding them slightly. The nail was just in between the rope and in the middle of his two feet. He was now bound, not only to the rope tied around his feet, but also to the hook sticking out of the ground.

The Death Riders stomping their way to Nickel roared with venom now that he was more in their field of vision. Their torsos were visible over the tipped-over cot, marching together toward Nickel. Nickel reached his feet, pushing them against the rope. He shook his feet back and forth, driving the binding rope against the edge of the metal hook. He dug his heels into the ground, rocking his feet back and forth, withering the fibers and strands of the rope away.

The Death Riders stormed around the cot toward Nickel. Nickel’s limbs moved before his mind did, his legs striking out against the earth. He slid his left foot across the ground, driving his soles over and through the gravel. He spasmed, trying to get his body off the ground, rolling over and onto his side.

He started up as the first Death Rider lunged for him, tripping over the hook as Nickel struggled to remove his feet from the bindings of the rope. His sudden rolling over and the Death Rider’s momentum caused the attacker to fall over himself, landing where Nickel had been lying. He reached for Nickel’s feet, shifting his weight as he fell forward.

The heel of Nickel’s left foot grazed his chest as Nickel staggered away, holding his bound hands out behind him. The Death Rider let out a high-pitched wailing scream, interrupting Nickel’s escape. Turning around, he saw the Death Rider writhing, face-down on the ground. In trying to reach for Nickel’s feet, he had impaled his arm on the hook, most of which was buried in the flesh of his arm.

Three other Death Riders ran past their fallen comrade, running after Nickel. Nickel whirled around, running through the arrays of metal workings splayed out on the ground in front of him. Strange glowing objects were embedded into the structure of the metal. Nickel barely paid them any mind as he ran past them, weaving through the open ports laid into the labyrinthine structure hulking around him.

“Come back here!” roared a Death Rider, his voice moving in and out of the noise of the tumult.

Nickel kept running, nearly tripping over the protrusions sticking out of the labyrinthine metal structure. The noises of the Death Riders fighting Rishi and the few chasing Nickel rose and fell like waves crashing onto a shore, roaring onto the sands and dissolving, retreating before surging into another crashing wave.

Nickel ran and ran, knowing the Death Riders behind him were in close pursuit, gradually closing the distance between them. Nickel could imagine running forever, constantly on the move, running as far as he could and disappearing from everywhere else and everyone else in these canyons. To disappear completely into the depths of Atalanta, never to be seen again.

The Thraíha had taught him enough. He could hunt on his own, maybe make a bow and spear out of the woodlands their hunters traveled to but which had always remained unseen to Nickel—places he had never ventured to.

He had gotten himself into the hellhole of Atalanta by letting his hovercraft drift aimlessly through the atmosphere while he mindlessly consumed endless entertainment on the Eagle’s screens. Now he was here, having undergone immense stress, learned a better way of seeing things from a foreign culture, only to find himself running away from the most terrifying experience of his life. If only he could remove the rope bindings chafing at his wrists and leave the Death Riders behind.

A loud jangling of chains jolted him out of the muffled blur of tumultuous fighting. Nickel winced, anticipating the strike of the spiked ball as he jolted to the side, staggering as he whirled around, just in time to see the weapon hurtling toward his shoulder.

He spun away in a scattered smattering of footsteps, dodging the strike and slithering out of its path. Nickel had become more nimble and athletic since living with the Thraíha and training in their ways, but he didn’t know if his training would be enough to out-run the marauding Death Rider in front of him. The attacker turned to face Nickel, lurching to his feet and dragging his weapon away.

The weapon clanged against the arm of the metal structure it struck instead of Nickel’s shoulder. The Death Rider yanked at his weapon, grunting and lurching backward.

As he continued to pull at it with both arms this time, heaving even harder to dislodge the spiked metal ball, his back was now fully turned to Nickel. Nickel spun away, running from him, moving back in the direction he had come from but angling to find a better vantage point, away from the fighting Death Riders and especially from those chasing after him.

He spotted the rest of the pursuing Death Riders coming from his far right, staring and moving, confused, toward the Death Rider still trying to pull his weapon free from the metal structure.

Nickel darted into a narrow recess that climbed upward. He was soon followed by the footsteps of the Death Riders searching for their comrade. Nickel whirled around, finding that two of the Death Riders were pursuing him while two stayed behind to help their comrade free his weapon.

Short Story – Woodland’s Heart

Please leave a comment for feedback! What you liked or didn’t like is greatly appreciated.

Out of the whole campsite, it was the log cabin that I hated the most. It reminded me of the reason I was at the campsite in the first place, to do the terrible work my dad wanted me to do. He’d got me like a fish on a hook with promises of— doing just that, fishing and also hiking up the Adirondack. But the dripping carcasses of freshly killed animals inside that cabin was really why I was here. I’d rather do anything than skin those animals, but my old man always said it was what I was meant to do in life.

I dragged my feet around the trees surrounding the campsite, procrastinating on the work I didn’t want to do. The trees were giants then, protecting me from being seen, creatures I could trust in their stillness as they stood tall and silent out of the endless carpet of dried foliage, frozen snow, twigs and sticks, creating little walls I could hide behind. I wanted to find one big enough to hide me as I ran away, only to return when the sun began to dip as my dad finished the day’s work. After some slow and quiet wandering, I found one, stopping behind a tall oak with a wide waist of bark, tracing the endless ridges in the wood with my eyes as they raced to the sky.

“Patrick!”

The boom of his voice made me quiver. It boomed whenever he was irritated with me. I could still hear the fireplace flames licking the air in fluttering motions. There were animals hanging over those flames, and I wasn’t ready to skin them. My chest tightened with anxiety, freezing me. Ever since my mom started chemo, the animals he skinned were his favorite pastime. He was so sure it would make the money he said it would—as long as I helped him, of course. It was his way of guilting me, of punishing me. He hadn’t mentioned it before we came, but I knew he’d bring it up by the end, to twist the knife either way. I didn’t like doing it, he knew I didn’t like doing it— he wanted me to like it, but he’d criticize me regardless.

Before I could move, something else did, crunching the leaves next to me. Breaking through a clump of drying, dying leaves hanging from the branches of a bush near the oak tree, was a small furry paw. My head buzzed, and I leapt backwards, my feet jostling more leaves than it. As its legs reached out, and dug into the earth, he turned his head around the bush. Peering at me with small beady eyes, he almost looked cute, except for the sharp claws that tore holes in the leaves as his paws sank through the foliage.

“Patrick!” roared my father. “Don’t make me come there and drag you! You’re old enough to know when you have to work.” The wolf slowly creeped around what was left of the bush. It opened its mouth as if to yawn but bared its sharp fangs at me— like a snake. I wanted to run and run like I was trying to impress the girl I liked in my gym class. But I couldn’t. I was frozen. As long as I stayed still, I could imagine the wolf walking about, a part of the world, like in a game of Pokémon Go, instead of my mind. I heard my dad’s footsteps behind me, a constant thunder, pounding on the earth, breaking the foliage, trampling the snow. His trampling was when I knew for sure I would get hit. Usually, it was down the staircase back in the shack we called home. There weren’t so many trees back there. Hiding in the trees here, I felt like an animal. At school and home, there were so many expectations— how to sit still, who to talk to, who not to talk to, how to play on the baseball field, how to be a good boy. With the trees— and the wolf, I felt like more than just a boy, but free— wild like an animal.

As I waited for the lightning strike of my dad’s body, I wanted nothing more than the wolf to bite me. I see that a lot clearer now. In the moment, I just wanted to stop slaving away for my dad. I wanted the wolf to jump on me and tear through my skin with its fangs. To hurt so bad that my dad would finally see me. Care for my wounds. Care for me. That as my dad’s footsteps grew louder and his ragged breath more imminent, I’d gasp and collapse to the ground, unable to stand up, a fetal animal in the throes of death or worse, lamentation.

“You’re still standing there!” my dad grunted. “Turn around and face me! I’ve called you six times now—” The wolf skidded its feet at the sound of my dad, turning around and looking me dead in the eye. “—but you have the nerve to stand with your back to me!” It took a long step forward. It’s happening. The outstretched claws stabbed the leaves, sinking its paw. Dad’s breath was like a snowblower, a spitting exhaust, behind me. I could hear it against the roof of his mouth and the insides of his nostrils. “What in God’s name is into you-”

The wolf opened its mouth wider, showing me its pale pink gums, the length of its long gray teeth, and snarled a hissing snarl. I remember thinking I’d rather feel them cut into me than whatever it was my dad was going to make me feel, in my body or my mind.

“Patrick! You lost all your chances!” my dad roared. The wolf’s paw almost disappeared in the leaves. My dad’s footsteps crushed the leaves and sticks behind me, snapping, crunching with no thought. With none of the quiet and gentle of the wolf. The wolf stepped forth with its hind leg, this time wobbling it. The wolf was stuck. It was taking too long to turn around, its hind and front legs stuck together. “Just when I thought you were good for something,” breathed my father.

The wolf collapsed, shivering on the way down. Instead of jumping on me, it limped around the bush before it fell on a pile of snow. Blood dripped out of its stomach, a pool of red bigger than I’ve ever seen before. Its head crashed, its eyes staring into mine as life escaped them. It went completely still. Its limbs curled up, eyes still staring into mine.

A painful blow struck the side of my head, burning across my ear and the side of my face. The sound of crashing skin came first. Then my exploding cry. Then the ringing in my ear, louder than everything. The burning grew over the side of my head. My blood rushed to the side and then it rushed up. Cold hard leaves and dirt met the other side of my face, prickling my skin, burning as hot as my dad. I grunted, tasting bits of dirt in my mouth, feeling hot tears grow in my eyes. I blinked them away in a hurry, seeing the top of the dead wolf, me curled over him.

To this day, I wonder how different a man I’d be if the wolf had bitten me.

2200 Blues Chapter 57

The road smoldered in the night. From behind the cot, Nickel could hear the sounds of the Death Riders clashing with the Thraíha guardsmen. His forehead throbbed from a bruise, and the world of the Thraíha felt ripped away from him. Nickel tried to summon the acht-chi, as the Oracle had taught him, to dissolve his fraying nerves and bring a semblance of calm and strength. But his lack of control over his senses left him befuddled, disoriented, and overwhelmed.

A gag filled his mouth completely, and his eyes were blindfolded, though he could see a warm haze of flickering light through the black cloth—a smoldering on the horizon. Nickel tried to grunt, but the gag reduced his sounds to muted, muffled protests. He grated in exasperation, the strain making the insides of his mouth ache more with every attempt.

The cot he was tied to jolted, rolling steadily down through the canyons, carrying him further away from the Thraíha. The rumblings of roaring Death Riders surrounded him, their metal equipment and chains rattling and grating against the earth. A strange, staticky roar sputtered near Nickel, coming from both sides—unseen, unknown. It was a sound more technological than anything the Thraíha possessed.

These were not the primitives Nickel had lived among for months. The unknowingness of who they were gnawed at him. Before being kidnapped, he had glimpsed these people briefly, but afterward, there was only motion and noise, rough and unrelenting, with his sight robbed by the blindfold. The paranoia overtook him, maddening in its intensity. His hyperventilating became just another noise in the hellish descent.

If ever there was a moment he wished for his hovercraft, it was now. He felt as he had when he first crash-landed in the Atlantic Canyons, but worse—tenfold worse. It was because of him, because he had meddled with the old computers. The Thraíha were right to leave them untouched, but he hadn’t listened.

It wasn’t Rishi. Who else could it have been? It was the Death Riders, pretending to be Rishi to bait Venkaar—the man who must have been Rishi’s disciple. And Nickel had taken the bait.

The smoldering light at the end of the road grew brighter through the blindfold. Nickel squirmed in the cot, the rope chafing at his wrists. He felt no more resentment toward Steve, no more frustration at Farrul. He didn’t care if Steve would have led him back into the Ether. He didn’t care if the Ether, with all its problems, was still the safest place he could be. If only he’d left with Steve on the hovercraft…

When the rolling vehicles lurched to a stop, Nickel was jolted out of his panic-induced reverie. He tried to sit up, but the bindings held him fast. He grunted, half moaning through the gag, his entire body trembling in fear.

“Stop!” shouted a man nearby. “You’re not trying to crush the tavern with our new wheels, are you?”

“Ahh,” rasped another, smoother voice, “it won’t matter how fast we roll in, not when they see our new toys.”

Nickel flinched, imagining he might be one of these “new toys.” He wanted to scream, but the gag stifled his voice.

“I’ll crush you with the ends of them if you talk back to me!” growled the first man. Growls erupted from the group around Nickel, violent sounds amidst the chaos he’d endured.

Enough time had passed for the emasculating shame of being kidnapped—dragged and bound against his will—to dissolve into an unyielding wave of paranoia, unlike anything he’d felt before.

“Shut up!” roared the gravelly-voiced Death Rider.

“You’re forgetting why we’re here!” boomed another, his commanding tone silencing the others. “Our toys are here courtesy of the Nexus Brigade!”

Shouts of affirmation followed, but they were short-lived as the leader continued. “I’d give every one of you these scraps of the Ether if I could—if you sit tight long enough…”

Someone jostled Nickel’s cot, sending it rolling further across the uneven rock surface. The smoother stretch of road had allowed the Death Riders to line up their vehicles, but earlier, Nickel had been flung like a rag doll over boulders and winding terrain.

“…if we pull off this last raid, we’ll be so feared we’ll be the most dangerous thing in the Atlantic Canyons—more dangerous than the fucking windstorms!”

The leader’s words were met with raucous roars. Nickel’s cot jolted harder as it was pushed faster. He cringed, curling into a ball as the inside of the cot slammed into him.

“The sons of bitches at Wutobang will have no choice but to see us!” the leader roared. “And when they see us, THEY WILL FEAR US!”

The next wave of roars was so loud it seemed to rupture the air like a force of nature. It was a barbaric ecstasy, visceral and unrelenting, as if a howling storm had descended.

Amidst the noise, Nickel’s panic-stricken shock gave way to deep remorse—sadness and fear for the Thraíha. These fractured, vulnerable people had been besieged by evil men.

Nickel closed his eyes. The darkness beneath his eyelids was indistinguishable from the near-black of the blindfold.

As they traveled closer to the smoldering light, the bright haze reappeared, glowing through the black blindfold. Nickel cringed, shivering violently. This was where it would all end. In fire.

He would smolder before he could do any of the things he wanted in life—live free in the U.R. without a hovercraft, find love with Kythria, or even be brave enough to speak to any girl he liked.

Bravery. The missed opportunities. The days wasted in the hovercraft. Even the streak of restful sleep he’d begun enjoying in the Thraíha village, free from screen-induced insomnia, was gone.

The fire burned brighter—a flickering green-white haze through the blindfold.

The world was cruel and dark, and the faint hope Nickel had gained since meeting Steve and the Thraíha now seemed irretrievably lost to the wasteland of the Atlantic Canyons.

“Get the Rishi boy out!” shouted a Death Rider.

“No! Not yet!” another barked. “We’re going online! Let them see him before we give him to the pit.”

“There will be none of that tonight!” boomed a commanding voice.

For the first time since Nickel had been captured, silence fell upon the Death Riders.

The crunch of footsteps on the ground punctuated the quiet, accompanied by the faint jingling of chains. These footsteps were heavier and more deliberate than the Death Riders’ previous movements. There was something mechanical about their rhythm.

“Your treacherous journey ends here,” said a stranger in a somber, authoritative voice. “By the light of samsara, your raiding and butchery will not dominate Atalanta.”

A Death Rider spat, the sound wet and phlegmy, before his footsteps crunched toward the speaker.

“Go back to the ashram you came from, wizard,” sneered the leader of the raiding party. “I’ll make sure no ashrams remain in Atalanta.”

Nickel frowned behind his blindfold. He gasped softly. Rishi?

“Go back at once! And release the boy!” the stranger commanded. “This is your final warning!”

“Listen to him!” hissed one of the Death Riders. “He’s stronger than the Thraíha. We don’t stand a chance!”

“No!” roared the leader. A heavy chain rattled near him. “Let’s rid ourselves of him forever, starting with this spike.” The chain clanged louder. “Then we’ll hunt down every Rishi left and show their bodies to Wutobang and the whole Ether.”

Some of the Death Riders began storming forward, though their numbers were fewer now. A sharp whistle sliced through the air, followed by a sound like the atmosphere being sucked inward.

Gasps erupted from the Death Riders as bodies hit the ground, their chain-laden armor clattering against the earth.

2200 Blues Chapter 56: Part Two

The question mark on the screen kept flashing. Could he reply to that message? If he did, he risked alerting not only the intruder but also the person transmitting the message. If either one was dangerous, Nickel couldn’t afford to reveal his presence.

But how much longer did he want to stay with the Thraíha? Rishi had said the Thraíha held his disciple. What if the intruder was Venkaar, the disciple, and the transmitter of the message was Rishi?

Nickel’s hand hovered over the modem, feeling for the keypad.

He punched the letter “I.” Startled, he saw it appear on the screen beneath the question to Venkaar. He continued typing. This technology was the closest he had been to civilization in months.

I’m okay.

The “y” flashed on the screen, the last letter he typed. All he had to do now was hit the “return” key. He waited, breathless.

The “Y” kept blinking.

Suddenly, letters began flashing across the screen in rapid succession, one after another:

Go through exhaust chute stay away from reactor.

The “r” lingered for a moment.

Whoever was sending these messages knew about the temple’s past as a nuclear power plant. But they didn’t seem to know how the Thraíha referred to the rooms. Or, if they did, they weren’t using the same terminology.

Nickel’s fingers trembled as he punched the keys again, sending another message:

Ids this QRishi?

His hands shook violently. Taking a deep breath, he used the arrow key to correct the message:

Is this Rishi?

He hit “return,” but the question mark resumed flashing endlessly on the screen. Nickel squeezed his eyes shut in frustration. From somewhere below, the thudding noises returned, louder this time.

The screen went dark with a sharp fizz, followed by a faint spark from within the computer’s circuitry. Nickel staggered back, his heart hammering in his chest.

A guttural shout erupted from the room beneath him, reverberating outward like a strange, aggressive wail.

Nickel instinctively stepped to the side, adrenaline exploding through his veins. Jittery and unsteady, he clung to the wall for support.

“Who’s there?” roared a voice from below. “I heard you! I heard you turn them on!” Nickel tripped, landing hard beside the wall.

A rattling clatter of pulley chains echoed from far behind the shrine room. Scrambling on all fours, Nickel searched for the closet where the priests kept water jugs for the incense pots. He felt his way along the wall, his scattered footsteps betraying his panic.

Heavier footsteps clanked from outside, crossing the pulley platform and onto the ledge outside the shrine room. They were heavier than the Thraíha’s steps, accompanied by a strange rhythmic clinking Nickel had never heard before.

His hand found the knob of the closet door. Just as more clinking noises approached from outside, he yanked the door open and slid inside.

Before he could fully shut the door, the shrine room’s main door burst open with a resounding crack. Footsteps thudded and fabric rustled as Nickel pressed himself against the jugs and pots crammed into the closet. A large stone flask dug into the small of his back as he leaned awkwardly on his elbow, trying not to make a sound.

When the door crashed open, Nickel froze, every part of his body still except his hammering heart.

“Erru kuffu, hrra?” growled a gruff voice, echoing through the room. The heavy clinking of metal accompanied the footsteps.

“He’s not here,” replied another voice, cool and detached, with a lifeless, calculating tone. Nickel frowned.

“You didn’t look everywhere,” the gruff voice snapped. “The computer went out—he’s hiding somewhere!” Silverware and furniture crashed to the ground.

“Where is he?!” The footsteps grew louder, their impact harsher. The sound of china shattering filled the air, punctuated by the clattering and reverberation of colliding silver surfaces.

The closet door flew open, revealing a hairy mass of coarse fur and metallic appendages. Before Nickel could react, a massive hand grabbed his legs, dragging him out of the closet. He crashed against the jugs, his skin burning with the scrape.

As soon as he was pulled free, heavy arms pinned him down, pressing abrasive metal surfaces against his body. He screamed and flailed, but before he could land a hit, his limbs were seized by meaty hands. A black cloth was forced over his face, and rough ropes tightened around his arms and legs, binding him completely.

2200 Blues Chapter 56: Part One

After searching for the Venetian plants by groping around in the darkness of the room, Nickel finally bumped into their pots at the far end, right next to a rickety hatch that squealed when he stepped on it.

Stepping around the pots, he stooped to filter the soiled water from the plants into his pail. Then, he opened the hatch and emptied the contents of the pail down the chute below.

His mind was preoccupied with the discussion he had with Ethra and the other priests. A pang of hunger briefly interrupted his frantic thoughts, reminding him he had procrastinated too long on returning to the village for lunch. But another thought flared, disrupting him even more.

This new alarm came from a series of sharp, heavy footsteps echoing across the floor, breaking the illusion that the Thraíha priests were the last inhabitants to leave the temple.

Nickel’s heart jolted, a spike of adrenaline coursing through him before he could begin speculating. His frantic thoughts were interrupted again by a loud clanging—his pail had slipped from his grip and struck the ground without him noticing until the impact echoed against the cement floor.

The sound was so loud and unnerving that Nickel froze, his fear oscillating between the attention his clumsiness might attract and the oppressive buzzing in his mind. He was paralyzed before he could catch sight of the intruder.

When he finally turned away from the rolling pail, the wall opposite him was empty. Yet, the temple was not silent. A faint vibration hung in the air—subtle, but enough to raise his suspicion that someone else was still moving through the temple.

Nickel’s breath caught in his throat. When he exhaled, every inhale and exhale seemed to echo through the chamber. His adrenaline frazzled his movements as he crossed to the other end of the room, searching for any sign of a hidden chute or entranceway.

It was then he noticed three black screens on the wall, their surfaces so stained with grime and dust they almost blended into the cement.

Nickel stopped before them, studying the dead screens. He could imagine the Thraíha having no idea what they were, dismissing them as apertures of an old building in ruins.

Momentarily distracted, Nickel searched for a console or interface beneath the screens, like the ones in his hovercraft. Finding none, he stepped toward the leftmost screen, stumbling over long wires trailing into the edge of the room.

The wires led up the wall into a modem jutting out beneath the screen. Nickel’s eyes adjusted to the dim light as he examined the keys and buttons on the modem.

Antiquated. Old and dusty from disuse. The layout of the keys was unfamiliar—different from the integrated touchscreens he typically used. The computer mechanisms he engaged with were digital, materializing on the screens themselves.

This keypad was ancient, yet it matched the rustic age of the building. Nickel recognized its layout from his computer science modules at the Academy, where he learned to build programs using outdated methods. He had struggled with those lessons and doubted he could recall much now.

Nickel sighed as he inspected the keys. The “function” key stuck out at the top left. It was worth a shot. He dragged the “clamp” and “dataset” keys from the bottom toward the “function” key, hesitating as the motions triggered old, uncomfortable memories of school.

But the intruder was here. Nickel clenched his fist to steady his shaking fingers. The sharp sound of a single footstep echoed. Had the intruder used the modem to leave? Nickel bent low, searching for a hidden hatch or escape route under the screens. He found none. Could the intruder have exited through another part of the wall?

Nickel’s attention returned to the modem. If he could activate the screens, the temple might reveal its secrets—clues to the past the Thraíha had abandoned, and perhaps even to the intruder’s purpose.

His blurry recollections of computer science lessons flooded back. Holding his hands over the keys, he felt the same confusion and dread as he had during countless late-night assignments. He closed his eyes briefly. Would he ever make sense of this?

The sound of clanging elsewhere in the temple snapped him back to the present. His eyes flew open, and he moved the keys frantically. The “dataset” aligned with the “function,” but not directly—it needed to attach beneath it. Slowly, a map of connections formed in Nickel’s mind. The keys clicked into place, and his memory of basic functions from past projects resurfaced.

A low hum began to emanate from beneath the screens, growing like an electric motor’s fan. Nickel gasped. A monotone beep followed—the sound of a router seeking connection. One screen flickered to life, casting a ghostly glow. It brightened in quick bursts, revealing white letters against a black background:

The letters flickered out, replaced by another logo:

The letters dissolved as rectangles splayed diagonally, revealing “Global Social Networking.” The old social media company that had helped transform Hedonim into an AR-infused city. This machine was an artifact, yet its startup logos were still functional post-nuclear fallout. Were these systems restored after the accident, or had they always been here?

The screen flashed white, blinding Nickel. He shielded his eyes, reopening them only after the light faded. In its place were strings of green ones and zeroes scrolling across the screen like headlines on a news ticker. Then, the digits swapped and rearranged, accelerating until the screen blacked out.

A line of code appeared:

<function(){code711.55.9; blue_box//label(Cdataset32)}

Above it, words flashed on the screen alongside a blinking question mark:

VENKAAR, ARE YOU STILL SAFE?

Nickel’s heart raced. This message couldn’t be for him. It must be for the intruder. No Thraíha would know about these ancient computers or how to use them.

2200 Blues Chapter 55: Part Four

“I still can’t understand why we can’t just tell everyone the truth about Rishi and the canyons,” he protested. “How are we able to prepare for what’s coming if everyone else doesn’t let us in?” he complained.

“We won’t share the literal truth from the village square for all to hear,” the lanky priest said, walking closer to the ring of priests. He waved toward the sheets of parchment rolled around the priests that they had been writing on before Nickel had arrived in the shrine room. “That’s because we have a better way—one that illuminates the truths better, by the light of the stars: a story.”

Ethra chuckled.

“You have a way of revealing our secret affairs with such drama, Kyeven,” Ethra said, addressing the lanky man without looking at him. He shook his head in amusement.

“We can trust the boy,” Kyeven said. “He’ll be on his way soon enough. The more he knows, the better he’ll be with the truth,” Kyeven added, looking back at Nickel. “When the truth isn’t enough, you craft a story—a story that lives in the minds of others easier than the raw truth,” Ethra continued, walking through the ring of priests towards Nickel.

“We write the cosmology of tomorrow,” Ethra said. “The dream for the bigger dream,” he nearly whispered. “When the truth causes too much chaos, you send it inside a story that warms the hearts of those you wish to reach.”

“Stories are how we experience the world. The creation story of Life and Great Father Hawk is how you were initiated into the Thraíha tribe.”

“We are stories upon stories, Nickel, told to each other and about each other. It’s what we do. We are storytelling creatures.”

“A story is being written now—of humanity and of each human. It’s the nature of reality. Men turned to the sciences and machines of the Past World, forgetting that what they were really making were stories.”

“Reality is a grand story. It’s the crystallizing of existence and, therefore, of reality itself.”

“Why would such a story be written, Nickel?” Ethra asked, turning to look at him with a sharp look. “What’s the point of our history? Why would it be written? Who would listen to it?”

Ethra turned fully, his whole body now facing Nickel. “Who would read it? What if you were part of a story being read by someone else?”

Nickel laughed.

“What if you and I were in a story being read by someone—being written by someone. Why would someone write such a story about us?”

“Well, I don’t know why someone would write such a cruel story for me,” Nickel said, feeling his smile waver. He lowered his head, rubbing his eyes with his palm, wanting to hide his sudden sadness and self-pity. “I don’t know why someone would be cruel enough to write me—Nickel Veda—such a… shitty backstory.” He looked up sharply. “Why would I be stranded in these canyons?”

“Ah,” Ethra said, his face furrowing. “What if you were the author crafting the story of your life in your mind, writing it every second with the instrument of your thoughts?”

Nickel gave a soft chuckle that was partly a scoff.

“I definitely didn’t write that I wanted to land in the canyons,” Nickel said, “and get stranded here.”

“Yet you landed in the canyons,” Ethra said.

“Because I was fleeing a situation out of my hands,” Nickel said through narrowed lips, his voice rising without his awareness. He only recognized it by the last bit of venom inflected in his final words, hissing like an angry rattlesnake slithering out of his mouth and into the thickets of the air.

“Despite what has happened to you,” Ethra said, “it is your mind that writes the stories you believe in—even the ones handed to you. And then,” Ethra paused, “that begs the question: what is your story—truly? What will you make of it?”

“And on that note,” a priest to the right of him said, “I think it’s time to leave for our council meeting. We’ve been writing and talking long enough. The women will start to wonder what has happened to us. Nickel, you’ve come far on your journey, and you have many ways to go. You have been touched by the constellations, and you have walked the pathway of Father Hawk’s flight—”

“—and he hasn’t even been on a hunt yet!” joked another priest, as they all began standing up, adjusting the folds of their robes as they extended their legs. “—the flight of Father Hawk has been treaded many times—through the canyons and the cosmos, countless times.”

The priest, a lumpy old man with a knobby head and a stumpy beard, smiled widely at Nickel as he prepared to leave.

“May his journey be with yours always………”

A warmth of gratitude swam in Nickel’s chest, mingled with a slowly growing jab of alarm in his stomach. It was a pinprick of sadness creeping in that alarmed him. Why did he get the feeling that he was at the cusp of an ending? He was too overwhelmed to ask the priests if he was, though he felt the urge strongly.

With that, the priests turned their backs to Nickel, filing out of the back of the room, leaving him alone in a mix of relieved tension, melancholy, and confusion.

2200 Blues Chapter 55: Part Three

He sounded like the Oracle to Nickel, full of half-truths and conundrums for him to piece through.

“I see what the Thraíha mean when they speak of the Past World,” Nickel said, looking over the priest’s head at the crooked shapes of a silhouette of a mural in the back of the room. “I’ve thought over my last life before I came to the canyons—everything I left behind.” Nickel sighed. “I’m not so sure I want all of it again.” He looked at Ethra.

Ethra spoke in a tone so husky it sounded like a whisper. “Where I sit and you stand is what has been left behind. In our race consciousness, the ancestral memories of the Past World speak to us. The wreckage of the ruins we call home speaks to us of a world that our ancestors left behind.”

Nickel frowned.

“And you still can’t leave it behind?” Nickel asked.

A small smile formed on Ethra’s face, visible in the faint flickering darkness, barely lit by the burnt-out candles. It slowly stretched wider across Ethra’s jaw as his head shook from side to side, even slower. Then his mouth stretched into a smile. He was shaking his head.

“We’ve run through the canyons, hunting ghosts, running away from the lives of our ancestors of the Past World. We could only run for so long until we ran into the ruins of the Past World.” Ethra cackled, his hearty, bubbling demeanor returning. He lifted his head and raised his arms towards the ceiling, motioning his palms toward the space around them.

“The hunter’s mind meets the agrarian mind, and the journey begins anew.”

The howl of the winds outside entered a whipping frenzy, resuming its regularity, whipping against the sides of the temple, causing the metal elements wrapped around the temple’s exterior to crackle and clang as their foundation was tested against the screaming thrusts of the winds outside. At this height, the temple’s architecture seemed feeble against the onslaught of air. Nickel flinched, as he always did, the few times he’d been in a room this high up in the temple.

Ethra chuckled.

“You’ll be fine,” Ethra said. “At this height, nothing is created or destroyed. When the temple’s time comes to collapse, we’ll all have an escape hatch.”

“But then what happens?” Nickel exclaimed. “This is the place the Thraíha commune with Father Hawk and the Huntsman! What if that’s gone? This is for generations! What will everyone else say about—”

“The journey must begin anew!” Ethra said, slapping the floor with his palms. The priests around him laughed.

“But that’s not how the other Thraíha see it,” Nickel said.

“So be it!” the lanky priest shouted, to grunts and murmurs of approval from the other priests.

“So be it!” two of them echoed, to “mmms!” of agreement.

“There is nothing that you can do—” said a priest sitting to the far left next to Ethra, resting the palms of his hands on his knees. “Or you.” He pointed at Ethra as he spoke. “Or me,” he pointed at himself. Another priest sitting behind Ethra, his face mostly hidden, exclaimed, “Or you or me.”

“The time will come, and the present will appear,” said another priest from behind the lanky man.

“The Thraíha,” the lanky priest started, motioning with his hands. He chuckled before continuing, “Most of our brothers and sisters—not all—will keep following the same patterns they are used to, from the days of hunting and hunting only, fighting with their brothers and sisters who want to be pilgrims, over whose way is better. Pilgrims and hunters! Both wrong, but both believing theirs is the only way, all fighting the tides of change.”

“Because we will have to leave,” another priest murmured behind Ethra. All the priests turned to look at him and nodded. “Change is inevitable; there will be many Past Worlds in the lifetime of this earth, many changes and evolutions. We resist change at our peril. Father Hawk may have flown before the time of the Thraíha, but he will leave his nest again. The Past World is more connected to us than many of the Thraíha believe.”

“But there’s still Thraíha like you,” added Nickel.

“Yes, the tides are not lost on all,” Ethra said. “Too many people are in their waves for not but a few at least to catch sight of the motions—to open their eyes and see the foam and where it comes from.”

“You and—Theren too,” Nickel said. “He talks different. He’s not as afraid as the other Thraíha.”

“Yes! Yes,” Ethra said, nodding. “We know.” He chuckled.

“There are others too,” said the priest behind Ethra.

“If we all know what’s going to happen, and more about how to find what we’re all really looking for, then why don’t we just go and travel there ourselves—find what it is we’re looking for without the rest of the Thraíha?” Nickel said. A nervous tension strung through his chest as he sensed an ending. He wanted to understand why he could or couldn’t bring the priests along on his journey, or the one that they seemed to think was right for the whole tribe.

“Ah,” Ethra exclaimed, pointing his finger at Nickel. “There it is,” he said.

“What?” Nickel said, holding himself from scowling at the misdirection. Surely, he expected them to answer his question clearly.

“There’s the trap,” Ethra said.

“Where is it—what are you talking about? What trap?”

“The reach to think you’re better,” Ethra said.

Nickel really did scowl at that, his eyebrows dropping like rain.

“I didn’t say that!” Nickel protested.

“It’s in your words and the meaning you ascribed to them,” Ethra said.

Nickel felt a heat rising to his cheeks.

“No,” he said, shaking his head.

“You are from the Past World,” Ethra said, slowly drawing his fingers out through the air. “You have seen places and things unseen by the Thraíha. You have come to our world, having already seen the paradigms of the Past World. And you are curious to find more! Not everyone is so. But did you do anything to deserve or earn your inclination?”

Silence dropped through the room, and in the air between Nickel and the priests.

“Mine?” Nickel said, feeling trepidant and questioning, as if he knew what Ethra wanted to hear.

“You did not,” Ethra said, his smile turning to a plain line. “You did not earn it; your curiosity was molded, and if you try to mold theirs—” he paused, smiling as if to emphasize to Nickel that Nickel should know he was talking about the other Thraíha—”you’re telling them that you’re better than them—which you’re not.”

Nickel swallowed.

“I don’t think I am,” he hurriedly said.

“You do,” Ethra said, chuckling. “There’s a part of you that thinks you were brought to us because the world was catering to you, its main character.”

“No,” said Nickel, shaking his head.

“It’s natural,” Ethra said. “We are born that way. The tapestry of constellations is moving everyone to and fro. The rhythms of the stars move us every which way. The ego is meant for the hunter to survive.”

“To move through the hunting route, and into the ether of being, is to see that we are all animals, roaming the Great Huntsman’s soul,” Ethra said, “penetrated by the light of the stars, the same as we are guided by them.”

“The Great Huntsman?” Nickel asked. “I thought Great was a title for Father Hawk, and Father Hawk only.”

“We’re changing our language,” Ethra said, “one text at a time,” he said, picking up a quill and a sheaf of parchment at his feet. “A new story for a new world. But we won’t tell the rest of the Thraíha right away, and we haven’t!

“If you or I told all the Thraíha of our ideas, we would lose the hunters. They would abandon us, and we would have no food—no pack big enough for us to hunt with. Their world isn’t worse. It’s necessary.”

Nickel swallowed his words, feeling confused. He shook his head, sighing, before abruptly cutting into his next bout of frustration.