G.R. Nanda

2200 Blues Chapter 57

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 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.

2200 Blues Chapter 55: Part Two

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.

2200 Blues Chapter 55: Part One

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.

2200 Blues Chapter 54: Part Four

Rishi’s smile faltered as he turned his head from side to side, gauging the patrolmen. They stood closer to him now. The two at the center held their blades so close that the tips grazed Rishi’s billowing robes. Akela stood slightly behind them. Rishi had stepped back when the patrolmen had drawn their daggers and formed a defensive line, distancing himself from Akela, who, without moving, now stood behind the patrolmen, leaning toward Rishi.

The edge of Rishi’s mouth curled into a smile. He was less visible now, partially obscured by the squatting patrolmen and their hovering blades.

“So be it, then,” Rishi said coolly, giving a soft laugh. Some of the patrolmen stepped closer, bringing their blades nearer to him. Rishi bowed his head and turned around, tucking his robe into folds in his hands. Nickel saw his eyes flicker over the tips of the blades as he calmly whirled and pulled his hood over his head.

The patrolman to Nickel’s left scraped his feet forward, maintaining his stance and adjusting his grip on his dagger, pointing the blade farther out at Rishi as his robes swirled and he walked away. The other patrolmen remained poised, ready to spring into action.

A gentle rustling of Rishi’s robe echoed as he slowly trotted away into the fog, his back turned to the Thraíha as though he had never seen them. The patrolmen stayed still, their defensiveness unwavering. Nickel moved closer, trying to catch a clearer view of Rishi as the fog began to swallow him. Akela still stood where he was, half a foot from the patrolmen, watching Rishi with a worried expression. His mouth was constrained in a small frown, his eyes glazed over, betraying his anxiety.

Nickel edged forward, moving between two patrolmen but stopping just short of the reach of their blades.

Rishi took slow, deliberate steps, each swing of his leg expanding the girth of his robe below his waist, making it appear almost like the skirt of a dancer. With each crunch of gravel beneath his feet, the strange, willowy figure in dark robes—so smooth they seemed liquid—became further shrouded in the orange fog.

Suddenly, the fog rippled behind Rishi, forming a thick curtain of orange air that slipped over him, causing him to vanish.

Nickel flinched, staggering back a few steps, startled. He frowned, squinting into the fog, and rushed forward, stopping where the patrolmen gripped their dagger hilts.

“Where did he go?” Nickel muttered. Rishi was nowhere to be found. There was no sound of footsteps. The patrolmen remained still and silent, their faces strained with concentration, eyes bulging under deeply furrowed brows from paranoia.

The only sound Nickel heard was his own feet dragging slowly against the earth. Before he could turn to see Akela’s reaction, the fog in front of him began to swirl in a violent torrent of air. From beyond, the swirling orange fog took the form of a serpentine column, moving toward the patrolmen like a sea serpent.

“Father Hawk’s mercy!”

The patrolmen cried out in horror. The sound of daggers clattering to the ground filled the air. The patrolman next to Nickel barely maintained his stance, breaking it to skirt backward. Their blades quivered in the air. The formation collapsed into a scraping disarray as most ran back, leaving just a few standing guard at the original line.

The swirling air grew thicker and more solid, drawing in the fog. In its wake, the orange mist thinned around it. Beyond the source of the cyclone, the air grew translucent, losing its orange hue as it morphed into the current.

From within the cyclone, the air cleared completely, leaving behind an emptied world, free from fog. The tan dirt of the canyon rock materialized, lit by a moon high above. A ghostly night sky illuminated the earth below. In the center stood Rishi, unhooded, his long black hair flying back, his chest adorned with a large vest embroidered with strange golden runes and symbols, running down a lighter red fabric than his robe. The ends of his robe billowed behind him like a cape.

The moonlight struck Rishi’s face, transforming him from the whimsical old wanderer Nickel had seen moments ago into a majestic warrior, staring down at Nickel and the Thraíha. His face was hard, with bony lines running along his cheekbones, his beard whipping to the left against his robe.

He frowned, eyes wide and alert, holding his hands out as he harnessed the force of the fog and the cyclone of torrential air.

“You will remember me!” Rishi boomed, his voice echoing throughout the Atlantic Canyons. “I have witnessed the rise and fall of Hedonim. I have seen the transformation of the Past World into the death and rebirth of the Atlantic Canyons.

“I see into and through the embers of the Ether and the spirit of the soul. I’ve traveled to and from the final plane of the spirit.

“I know where the unyielding currents of the world go and from whence they will return. If you don’t return my disciple into my care, the Thraíha will pay the price at the hands of the Death Riders and the soulless pilgrims of the Past World to Hedonim. I will not be there to save you. That is my final warning.”

Rishi’s eyes glinted, reflecting an inner fire as the cyclone of orange fog expanded from his hands, ripping across the earth, knocking Nickel and the Thraíha off their feet.

Nickel staggered back, falling onto his back as the orange fog surged, replacing the purified air in a violent wave. He entered a coughing fit as he rolled onto his side.

“Reinforcements!” shouted Rishi. “Up! Up! On your feet!” The patrolmen, now scattered across the rocky plane, got to their knees, dusting themselves off as they slowly rose.

Nickel bent a knee, turning to face Akela, who still stood, though at a distance.

“Where is he?” called a patrolman from the far right, still on his knees. “Where is he? Where did he go?”

“Rishi can’t hurt you. Up!” Akela roared, waving his hands in the air, motioning for everyone to stand.

“Nickel, Vorum—come with me!” Akela shouted. “Everyone else, stay here until reinforcements arrive. Constant patrol starts now!”

Nickel dusted himself off and ran after Akela, joining Vorum, feeling completely disoriented. “Follow!” Akela called, running toward the Thraíha settlement where a certain disciple of Rishi’s was surely hiding. Nickel and Vorum ran after him.

2200 Blues Chapter 54: Part Three

“Then three individuals traveled in the hovercraft before coming to you,” Rishi said, pointing at Akela. “Bringing the Death Riders to your country… for the first time in over a century.”

A hushed silence fell over the Thraíha. Nickel’s head buzzed worse than ever, as though it nullified his senses. His mouth widened, gasping for air, while his heart lodged like a lump in his throat. The Death Riders sounded terrifying, and the expansion of the Atlantic Canyons was now as frightening as Nickel could have imagined.

“What makes you think this is more than just a coincidence?” Akela asked.

“The Death Riders have become more active than before,” Rishi said. “They’ve regrouped after their greatest defeat. And Hedonim’s calling has grown stronger than ever!”

“All the signs…” Akela muttered. “Our own people have divined a pilgrimage to Hedonim!” His voice was fraught with shock.

“All the signs indeed… my old friend,” Rishi said. “The passage of the Past World has begun. You wouldn’t believe what I’ve seen in my travels. The exodus to Hedonim has started! Not a pilgrimage! If you don’t heed my warning, your pilgrims will join the indulgence and soullessness of the Past World.”

Akela nodded.

“Reveal yourself, Nickel,” Akela said.

The patrolmen near Akela stepped aside, allowing Nickel to be seen clearly. All the Thraíha except for Akela turned to look at him. Nickel felt paralyzed with fear, rooted to the spot, just as he had been when meeting Steve and Farrul, but this time even more so.

Rishi watched Nickel carefully, his furrowed eyebrows narrowing. His mouth was a thin line, and he looked as if he were studying Nickel’s existence, gauging for a reaction.

“The outworlder?” Rishi asked.

“Yes,” Akela said, waving his hand towards Nickel. “The first.”

Rishi’s frown deepened. His mouth opened just slightly. He held his hands behind him and slowly stepped forward, up the slight incline of the rock. Akela stepped aside, allowing Rishi to approach Nickel.

“It was your hovercraft that crashed?” Rishi asked, though his statement felt like a question.

Nickel struggled to find his words. Rishi watched him thoughtfully.

“Wasn’t it?” Rishi finished.

Nickel’s head felt weightless from lack of sleep, making it harder to respond.

“Y-yes,” Nickel muttered, nearly gasping as he spoke. His heart pounded, and he feared he might collapse under the pressure of his exhaustion and the shocking revelations unfolding before him.

“I’ve known that hovercrafts were adopted by Western culture,” Rishi said, his eyes softening. “But I’m still… surprised to see someone so young crash one in the canyons.”

Nickel gulped. It wasn’t often someone asked him about the gravity of his circumstances or what brought him there. It could have been any of the teenage boys he knew from home or the military academy—any of them could have crashed a hovercraft into the Atlantic Canyons. They’d all grown up exposed to the Ether. They were given hovercrafts at a young age, especially to escape the marine draft and stay off the radar of the U.R. citizenry service probes, making do as engineers contributing to the computer software of the Ether. At worst, they’d be drafted into cyber-warfare protocols. If lucky, they could conduct their digital pogroms from the comforts of their hovercrafts.

Nickel still had a tendency to push away the troublesome realities of the Ether’s influence on his life. It was here, in the canyons, during his time with the Thraíha, that he found himself confronting the absence of the digital domain that had consumed so much of his life. Rishi was the first person in the canyons, besides Nickel himself, to bring this to his attention.

“He’s young enough,” Akela said, turning to look at Nickel. “The younger he is, the more Thraíha he can become—not like our ancestors.”

Rishi’s expression remained thoughtful. His face softened further, the intensity slackening.

“The outworlders of the canyons weren’t always so young,” Rishi said. “I’ve seen more children and teenagers fall from the sky.” He nodded, looking down. “It means the Ether is more powerful than ever.” He looked back up at Nickel. “You must have grown up with a hovercraft, haven’t you?”

“Did you just say other kids fell from the sky?” Nickel asked, excitement tingling through his chest, siphoning through the fear that had laid there until now. “Like, on hovercrafts?” A familiar sense of longing flared within him, roaring like a flame. If he could meet other people like him from the Ether of civilization, but in person, maybe he wouldn’t feel so alone in the canyons anymore. Right?

“Yes,” Rishi said, his eyes steeling. “Though many of them haven’t been granted as safe a passage or fate as you.” Rishi raised his eyebrows, peering intently at Nickel, his mouth forming a tight line.

Nickel’s mouth hung open in surprise.

“What happened to them?” he asked, dread creeping through him as he imagined what could have been, and how narrowly he might have escaped a worse fate. The thought only deepened his uncertainty about the dangers surrounding him.

“He and his friends,” Akela said, gesturing towards Nickel, “are the only outworlders to join us in over fifty years.”

“I see,” Rishi said, stroking his beard. “Peculiar indeed.”

The Thraíha patrolmen stood around, watching Nickel and Rishi.

“What is our task, Akela?” asked one of the patrolmen standing next to Nickel.

Akela frowned, standing still. His mouth formed a small grimace, giving him a ponderous look.

“On guard,” Akela said. “Your task is still to stay on guard.”

The patrolmen straightened, their armor clattering as their boots scraped against the rock.

“We know there are Death Riders about,” Akela said, watching the line of patrolmen as he walked past them. “There will be regular duty. I’ll speak to our leaders and make this effective. You all stay until Rishi leaves. After that, only twenty-five men will remain, rotating shifts every three hours.”

“Tchouṙth!” shouted the patrolmen in affirmation.

“You are not the Cast-Out spirit I thought,” Akela said, turning to face Rishi, who now stood between two patrolmen at the center.

“Ah,” Rishi said, nodding and raising his eyebrows. “But there’s another Cast-Out, ‘Vramung,’ as you say, being kept by your fellow tribesmen.”

Akela breathed deeply through his nostrils and walked through the gap between the patrolmen toward Rishi.

“Is that why you’re really here, ancient one?” Akela asked.

“Is that why you and your foot-soldiers are really here, Akela?” Rishi asked, raising one eyebrow higher than the other, smirking. He and Akela stood face-to-face, mere inches apart, measuring each other. “Why bring such force against,” Rishi tilted his head up, shaking it for effect, “a strange old wanderer?” His smirk widened.

Akela stiffened.

“To the Thraíha, you’re just a Vramung, a Cast-Out spirit sent to haunt us,” Akela said.

“I had to be ‘cast out’ before you could banish me, right?” Rishi asked, smiling wider.

Akela exhaled sharply.

“You must leave, Rishi,” Akela muttered, his tone almost pleading.

“I know you’re withholding my disciple from me,” Rishi muttered in a low tone, stepping even closer, their noses almost touching. “You sent this patrol to intimidate me, yet you greet me by my real name instead of the cursed one given by the Thraíha. You try to walk two paths as Thraíha, but you can’t help betraying loyalty to one over the other.”

Akela remained silent, meeting Rishi’s gaze unwaveringly. From Nickel’s vantage, it seemed that the side of Akela’s face betrayed a hardening of expression. The side profiles of two patrolmen flickered with worry and panic.

Their steadfast leader was showing signs of wavering in the presence of this Rishi. Who was this strange wanderer? He seemed to elude the Thraíha, least of all his history with Akela. This Rishi was the only person Nickel—and presumably the patrolmen—had seen melt Akela’s fast and sturdy resolve. Akela seemed to struggle between accepting this interaction out of past loyalty and fulfilling his role as a Thraíha leader, serving his people.

“I’m asking you one last time,” Akela intoned, his authoritative voice returning, stronger than before. “To leave our borders and not come back until I seek you out.”

“You’re asking me?” Rishi said, his voice lilting.

“I’m ordering you,” Akela said.

“Then you should have chosen your words better, my friend.”

“My friend, I would choose my words very carefully now,” Akela said. He whistled and raised his left hand into the air. “Hák rávouhou!”

The patrolmen unsheathed their long daggers, stepping into a defensive stance—right legs extended, left legs bent back. They hoisted their daggers, tips pointed toward Rishi.

2200 Blues Chapter 54: Part Two

Trekking up the rise and nearing the flat-topped peak, the rock began to disappear ahead, giving way to a flatter surface. As they walked, the rolling terrain vanished, revealing a wide-open sky that seemed to swallow them in a flash of bright gold, penetrating the orange fog from the high sun. The vast expanse above glowed a warm yellow in the afternoon light. The earth below seemed to vanish as the sky unfurled, casting its radiance.

“We have no good news for you, Vramung,” echoed the voice of a familiar Thraíha from below. As Nickel and Akela trekked over the ridged top and down its declining surface, the afternoon light flared above them before fading, shrinking to a dimmer visage hanging overhead as the orange deepened in the air around them—warmer than before.

“I told you,” boomed a loud and austere voice, “I haven’t come here looking for good news. I’m here to bring the next age!”

“We’ve had enough of your tricks!” responded another Thraíha voice.

Wisps of the Thraíha patrolmen came into view—hard, gray backs mostly concealed by the fog but appearing side by side in a flanking formation.

“We’re not letting you through,” growled one of the patrolmen.

“You have a disciple of mine,” said the man, presumably Vramung.

“He left our village six days ago!” snarled a patrolman.

“I know you’re keeping him hostage,” Vramung said calmly. The figures of the patrolmen grew clearer in the fog, yet Vramung was still unseen. “Until you bring him here safely, I will not leave.”

Cries rang out from the patrolmen, some of whom broke formation in agitation, their stone armor scraping and thudding voluminously.

“Your cursed Out-Cast spawn of a student isn’t with us!” shouted the same patrolman. “You can’t come here and make that devil-spawn our problem!”

A patrolman from the left, near the center, stepped forward into the concealing mists. He spoke, identifying himself as the previous speaker. “We will bring the might of the patrolmen down on you if you do not leave.”

“ENOUGH!” roared Akela, walking briskly, his pace overtaking Nickel. “Vráthokk!”

The Thraíha patrolmen quieted, turning to face Akela, their formation now completely broken.

A hooded figure stood still behind the patrolmen, his more distinguishing features shrouded by the fog.

“There will be no violence on my watch!” Akela commanded. “The night of the Red Moon was a hundred years ago and will not happen again.”

Akela hurried down the last slope of the rock. The patrolmen parted for him, and he passed through, his gaze fixed on the dark, hooded figure known as Vramung.

“You all know this man as Vramung,” Akela said, standing in front of the hooded figure. Nickel rushed down, standing just behind the patrolmen, Akela’s back nearly facing him. “But that’s only the name of the Cast-Out in Thraíha legend. I know you from the days of the Hallowed Oaths, beyond the far reaches of my Thraíha brethren’s lands. I know you by the ancient name, Rishi.“

A flicker passed over the stranger’s face beneath the hood—a twitch of the eyes, a glowing flicker in his pupils as he raised his head higher to meet Akela’s gaze.

“What is the real reason you’ve come into Thraíha lands, Rishi?” Akela asked in a low voice.

The sound of a patrolman scraping his armored boot across the earth to the far left broke the silence. A light pierced the fog, casting greater illumination on Rishi’s shadowed face. A smile spread between his thick, glistening black beard.

“So we meet again at last,” Rishi muttered. “I never thought the day would come when another Thraíha would remember.”

Akela stepped closer to Rishi.

“I remember the name Rishi like the last lifetime of my forefathers was a dream of yesternight,” Akela whispered. “So I ask you again,” his voice grew venomous, “for what purpose does a Rishi enter Thraíha lands?”

Wind blew stronger, brushing the ends of Rishi’s beard—the wiry black locks lifting, revealing themselves to be longer than they had appeared. His smile stilled, hardening into a neutral expression.

“A millennium has passed since the subliminal code of my order faced the primordial nature of your tribe,” Rishi said.

“Just over a hundred years, actually,” Akela replied.

“Point is,” Rishi said, raising his head higher and inhaling deeply, “I haven’t forgotten you, and you haven’t forgotten me. Our souls remain intact through our lineage. I’ve been summoned to these canyons.”

“Not by us,” Akela said.

“No,” Rishi said, lowering his head. “The gates of Oblivion have been open for centuries in the Atlantic. There are callings that arrive from time to time, disruptions in the canyons that stir the worst elements of the Atlantic.”

“Enough with your riddles and histories!” shouted a patrolman on the right, immediately hushed by his comrades.

“Silence!” Akela growled, waving his hand at the patrolman. “This is between me and him!”

“The Death Riders are on the prowl again,” Rishi said, turning toward the patrolman who had interrupted, smiling grimly.

“No!”

“It can’t be.”

A ring of shocked murmurs echoed among the patrolmen, their boots scraping once more against the earth. Nickel’s head buzzed, overwhelmed by fear and confusion.

“I don’t mean to frighten you, but if you’re impatient—well, that’s just the most immediate threat among others.”

“The last Death Riders to cross into Thraíha lands were slain by our best warriors a hundred years ago,” Akela said, his voice regaining a fraction of its former surety. “I don’t know what you speak of.”

“A hundred years ago, the Thraíha had warriors,” Rishi said. “Now you only have hunters. You will have to seal your fate with Father Hawk or venture beyond Thraíha lands!”

“That was a hundred years ago, because the Broken Pact hadn’t yet occurred!” Akela said, agitated. “The Shatterings of the Lost World hadn’t been healed!”

“The ruptures of the Past World that created the Thraíha are happening again!” Rishi cried, fury blazing in his eyes beneath his hood.

A patrolman shrieked from the far corner of the group, gasps rippling through the crowd. Several looked up at the sky, hands trembling in shock and confusion.

Rishi sighed, lifting his arms from his billowing sleeves and removing his hood. His face was austere, edged by the hard lines of age and toil. Long black hair flowed from his scalp, gathered into a ponytail along his back. His beard wrapped around a strong jaw, and beady black eyes sat above his broad cheekbones, beneath thick black eyebrows.

“I said before that I bring a new age,” Rishi intoned. “I’ve weathered the tolls of this one. It’s arrived, and I seek your help.”

“I owe a Rishi for the fate of my great-grandfather,” Akela gasped. “But I don’t understand you! The days of the warrior Thraíha are long gone! We are a tribe of hunters now because our lands haven’t been attacked by agents of the Past World in a century! No Death Riders have been seen for a hundred years! We hunt the hawk, along with the rest of the Huntsman’s kingdom!”

“Look to the stars, and you’ll see the finger of the Devil,” Rishi said. “The Huntsman has sent a call for salvation and remembrance.”

“I knew there was something,” Akela said, shaking his head. “I just didn’t know what. The priests have guided us for so long. I thought it was a new turn of the Great Hawk. This is greater than I imagined.”

“How did this happen?” Akela asked, looking up at Rishi.

“It happened as it always has,” Rishi replied. “A change in the fabric. An outworlder crashed just scores from the Death Riders’ valley. A hovercraft—a flying vehicle—was spotted by them before crashing into the canyons.”

Nickel frowned, his mouth widening. His heart nearly stopped. Could it be him?