Chapter Twelve

Contemplation threw herself to her feet, pointing. "I knew it! I knew it! Your features, that gibberish you spoke. You're too odd to be from another corridor. You're one of them. A Sunlit Man."

"A legend," Confidence said, folding her bony arms.

"So is our exodus from Hell," Contemplation said. "Both so far back in time, even the Chorus doesn't remember the dates."

"Someone want to tell me what a Sunlit Man is?" Nomad said, frowning. He kept his eyes on Zeal, the one person in the room who had not jumped at his entrance. The short man had his hand in his pocket, presumably on the device that could freeze Nomad in place.

"Accept this explanation," Compassion said with her small, frail voice. "Long ago, a people existed who could live in the sunlight. People who could take it into themselves, rather than being destroyed by it. People who could use it. They were able to stay in one place long enough to build a city beneath the ground. These are the Sunlit Ones—those who could survive the light."

"I was touched by that sunlight, yes," Nomad said. "But it nearly destroyed me."

"You touched sunlight and were not instantly killed?" Jeffrey Jeffrey whispered, looking to Nomad with eyes wide. "It's true?"

"For a few seconds only!" Nomad said.

"Sunlit," Compassion whispered.

"With all respect and mindfulness," Confidence said, "I find this entire story to be a notion for children, not a fact for adults. If these people went under the ground, mud would suffocate them."

"No," Contemplation said. "There are places where the ground is all stone. There could be holes in it, like lava tubes. Places where people live. I've always felt I would see one, before my time arrived."

"Stone melts in the sunlight," Zeal said.

"The stones of the Sunlit People don't," Contemplation continued. "They are deep. The Cinder King believes this; that's why he's spent years trying to find a way through that door. And this man here, he came from the Refuge of Stone!"

"Yeah, you're wrong," Nomad said. He'd expected outcries when he'd come barging in, maybe a fight. Not…whatever this was. "But I don't particularly care what you believe. Do you know where this door is? The one the disc opens?"

"We have some idea," Compassion said softly. The smallest and oldest of the women considered him, then smiled. "It was the plan of Elegy, our Lodestar. To steal the Cinder King's key and figure out how to use it, gaining entrance to the hidden lands of peace beneath the ground."

"The only way we can escape him," Zeal said with a grunt. "He's the most powerful man in the world now. He controls the corridor at the equator, with the most resources. He forces everyone else to the bands closer and closer to the poles, where even a stumble leads to death…"

Nomad filed that information away. "Well, I want to find that door too. I'll help you get there."

And are you going to tell them? the hero asks sharply, voice laden with implication. Are you going to warn them what they'll find inside? Not a refuge for outsiders, but a small alien installation, likely here to monitor the Investiture that sun is emitting?

"Not our problem," Nomad said in Alethi. "These people want to find that door. I want to find that door. I'll help them get there. That's where our responsibility to them ends."

Callous.

Auxiliary didn't push him further, though. He knew as well as Nomad did that their best chance to get off this planet was to get into that installation.

"I find this man intriguing," Zeal said. "Shall we accept his offer? Perhaps he can help."

"What can you do for us, stranger?" Confidence asked. "What aid do you offer?"

"For one thing, I can read that," he said, pointing at the disc. "It belonged to a person named Haridan, a lieutenant. It's his authorization badge, letting him open the door. I'll be able to read what is on the door too, and if there are people inside, I can communicate with them."

"Sunlit," Contemplation whispered.

The others nodded.

"I offer my opinion that we should take his help," Zeal said. "We must find this place and escape into it! Would it not be pleasing to us and all our people to pray for the safety of the poor Cinder King as we lock him and his minions outside the very door they've spent years trying to enter?"

"Adonalsium will bless us in this endeavor, I feel certain," Compassion said. "It could lead at last to real rest for our people. No more relying on sunhearts to power our cities. No more outrunning the sunrise. No more…loss."

"Adonalsium, eh?" Nomad said. "By the way, how'd a bunch of Threnodites end up worshipping the father god of an entirely different planet?"

"We learned before our exodus," Confidence said. "We were those who believed the words of the first Lodestar. We lived in Hell itself and were led by our faith to a new land."

"One that's perpetually on fire?" Nomad asked.

"Adonalsium," Contemplation said, "will remember our plight eventually…"

The cynical squire wisely chooses not to explain to these people the sad reality of their god's demise some ten thousand years before. Hint hint.

Nomad held his tongue.

"Perhaps Adonalsium has remembered us," Zeal said. "Maybe that is why the Sunlit Man is here."

"Call me Nomad, if you have to call me anything," he interjected.

They barely seemed to notice. "If he can get us past the doorway…" Jeffrey Jeffrey said, then looked to him. "Can you activate this disc? Open the door? The Cinder King has tried for years and has never managed it. He can find the door, but not pass inside."

Could he? "I'm almost one hundred percent confident I can get that door open," Nomad said. "I'm not from the place beyond, like you think, but…I do know the people inside. Some of their kind, at least. I speak their language."

Contemplation met his eyes. She understood, as the others didn't seem to, about other languages. She believed. Gazing into those aged eyes, so full of hope, he found himself slipping. His ancient self reasserting just a little.

"Look," he said to her, "I…don't think you'll find what you want beyond that door. It's…not a refuge, like you want it to be."

"Do you know that?" she asked. "For certain?"

"No," he admitted. There might be a large installation there. Storms, it could even be abandoned. That seemed very improbable. Most likely it was a survey ship, full of researchers investigating that sunlight. Such ships were tiny. Barely enough room for a complement of two dozen scientists.

"No," he repeated, "I don't know for certain. But…I have a lot of experience with this. I don't think that key will bring you salvation."

The group shared glances.

"We need to try anyway, don't we?" Confidence said. Words he was surprised to hear from her, considering her objections earlier. "This really is our only hope?"

"We have dwindling power," Jeffrey Jeffrey said. "And the Cinder King is enraged. No, we will not live much longer. This is our only hope."

The others nodded. Storms. Well, Nomad had tried. He had spoken up. That was enough.

He'd do his part. Get them to the doorway, then open it for them. After that…well, they were on their own. And he would bear no guilt. It wasn't his fault they were determined to pin their hopes on an impossibility.

"We must ask the people before we commit for certain," Compassion said softly. "If it pleases the others, I request this course."

"I agree with that, in wisdom," Contemplation said. "There are no tyrants in Beacon, only family. We will bring this to the people and let them decide if we should risk the possible reward of entering the Refuge or if we should instead surrender to the Cinder King. I suspect the presence of this stranger will help them choose the former."

"Great," Nomad said. "I need something to eat that isn't mud. Something to drink that isn't raining on me. Something to wear that isn't hanging in shreds. Consider that my fee for translating that disc for you."

"And do you have a fee for helping us get to the door?" Rebeke asked.

"I just want into that Refuge," Nomad said. "Also, I'll want these bracers off my arms."

"We don't have the keys to—" Zeal started.

Nomad glared at him. "You hacked the Cinder King's system and knocked out his ember people—"

"They're called the Charred," Rebeke said.

"—whatever they are, you knocked them all out at once. You absolutely can take these off me."

Zeal looked away.

"We have yet to discuss," Confidence said, "how you feigned the inability to speak merely to spy upon our workings."

"Can't be too careful," Nomad said, "when you meet someone new. Eh, Rebeke?"

She glared at him.

He smiled and winked. Then he held out his arms. "So how do I get them off?"

"I'll fetch the attuner," Zeal said with a sigh. "With your blessing, Greater Good."

The three women nodded. He slipped out, leaving Nomad to settle down in a seat at the table. He tipped his chair back against the wall, but didn't put his feet up this time. He was, after all, feeling far more respectful.

"If it is agreeable, Nomad," Confidence said to him, "I should like to inquire regarding the spirit that accompanies you. Rebeke tells us you can materialize objects at will?"

"That's one way of putting it," he replied. "But the way I do it is my own secret. Sorry."

They let it drop, which he found surprising. How did they know that Auxiliary was a spirit? And why didn't they push harder? One thing he'd noticed everywhere his travels took him was the universal fascination with Auxiliary. People often treated his abilities as a sign of divinity, or at least of extreme favor with divinities.

Here, they simply let him brush them off with a single sentence? How odd. They turned to other topics, discussing how they'd gather the people and how to find the entrance to the facility—the Refuge of Stone, as they called it. Apparently it wasn't easy to locate.

Rebeke didn't join the conversation; she turned to getting the others more tea. Curious. Outside, when they'd been running for their lives, she'd seemed a desperate rebel. Now he saw her differently. A young woman in a wet dress, her hat lost in the fighting. She was splattered with mud the rain hadn't washed off, her shoulders drooping, her posture slumped. She had been through a lot today.

What kept her here when she should have, quite justifiably, headed for her bed, or at least a change of clothing? Perhaps it had something to do with her sister. Hadn't they said that the woman—now transformed into one of those Charred—founded this city and came up with their plan to escape into the Refuge? Where did that leave Rebeke?

Her brother died today, he remembered. She watched his head get vaporized while rescuing their sister. Yeah, that dull expression, those rote motions. Rebeke was in shock. He knew what that was like. Carrying on by sheer force of will, trying to keep busy. Because if you stopped, if you did go to bed, you knew what would happen.

You'd have to face it.

"So, Aux," Nomad said in Alethi as they waited. "Are we going to talk about how you went against my explicit orders and contacted Wit?"

The knight shuffles uncomfortably beneath his squire's pointed question, Aux said. He tries to reply with confidence, but the nervousness in his voice betrays him.

"What did you hope would happen?" Nomad asked. "Did you think Wit would sweep in here, prop me up with one of his little morality tales, and I'd just go back to whistling?"

I remember…revelations in light. Transformation.

"Those were rare days," Nomad said, shifting his gun against his shoulder. "Most change doesn't happen with a revelation in light, Aux. Most change happens as a slow, steady slide toward the pit. Like how we age, step by shuffling step toward the grave."

You don't age anymore.

"My body might not," he whispered, "but my soul sure does. It's been rounding that pit for years. Step by step, Aux. We wear away. Ideals are like statues in the wind. They seem so permanent, but truth is, erosion happens subtly, constantly."

The others continued to confer. "This will be dangerous, Greater Good," Jeffrey Jeffrey was saying. "I offer this as fact: we will have to disassemble the entire city and bring it along, to be ready once the prospectors locate the entrance."

"We will make this clear to the people in our explanations," Compassion said. "Thank you, Jeffrey Jeffrey, for your frank assessment. But this is where our hopes must rest. Contemplation is correct. We cannot survive as we are. Our sunhearts die, and our resources dwindle."

"Either we must access this Refuge," Contemplation said, "or we must die by the Cinder King's brutality. He will not accept our surrender, and the people will know that."

"Imagine," Compassion said, "a place beyond his influence. A place where we can prove that our way is better, that we do not require his tyranny or false ‘unity' to survive. If Zeal's mission had failed, we would perhaps have to accept worse options. But with that key, we have a chance."

Confidence, tall and intense, turned away from the table. "Which provokes my memory. We have not yet discussed a punishment appropriate for the one who disobeyed our strict commands and in so doing, cleaved unto chaos and jeopardy, sowing both to all who accompanied her."

Rebeke, who had been quietly cleaning up the hotplate and teacups, stiffened. She looked back at the table, then cast her eyes down.

"Hey," Nomad said in their tongue, "maybe give the girl a break. Without her, you wouldn't have me."

"This is not your concern, outsider," Confidence said.

"If you haven't noticed," Nomad said, "I don't really care what you think is or is not my concern." He stood up as Zeal returned, bearing some equipment. Nomad placed his gun on the table, then held out his hands.

Zeal looked to the Greater Good—who nodded their approval—before beginning work on the bracers.

"You keep saying," Nomad continued, "that you're different from the Cinder King. That you resist his tyranny. It seems to me that if you're trying to establish a place different from the one that guy rules, you'd want to avoid punishing a person who is just doing their best to help."

The first bracer came off. Zeal set it on the table with a thump, then moved underneath the other one, working.

"Thank you for the lecture, young man," Confidence said dryly. "Perhaps, with age, you will come to realize that a balance is needed. Tyranny is awful, but not all authority is to be rejected. It is common for the young to have trouble with this concept of moderation."

"How old do you think I am?" Nomad said, amused.

"Older teens?" Confidence said.

"No, older," Contemplation replied. "Young twenties."

Storms. He knew that he looked a lot younger with the grey no longer appearing in his hair, but young twenties? He'd been thirty-eight when time had finally stopped tracking him, his soul bending under the Dawnshard's influence—and that was by his planet's accounting, which had longer years than most.

Granted, he might have had trouble guessing their ages, living perpetually in darkness. But still.

"I've experienced much more of life than you'd expect from my appearance," Nomad said. "And I've seen a great deal of tyranny in the name of, to be blunt, what people called ‘the greater good.' Names are irrelevant. You want to avoid being considered tyrants? Act like it."

The other bracer came off. Nomad nodded his thanks to Zeal, who backed away, eyeing him—as if worried he'd grab the rifle immediately and start shooting. A part of Nomad wanted to do just that: fire a few rounds into the ceiling, if only to give these people the shock of their lives. Shake them up. Auxiliary would chew him out, though.

Instead he just shouldered his rifle. "Food. Clothing. Bed. That order."

"Rebeke can fulfill that assignment," Compassion said. "As part of her punishment."

"Can you fly, outsider?" Contemplation asked.

Nomad froze. He looked to the three of them, his mind racing, emotions surging…until he realized they meant fly a ship.

"I could probably figure it out," he said, "with a little instruction on the controls. I've flown similar craft. Why?"

"Because the region holding the entrance to the Refuge will soon be upon us," Contemplation said. "We will have to make our case to the people and have a decision soon after. Then we'll need to divide the city and go hunting for the way. And I'd rather know…"