The Search Party PT.3

Continuation of Romilasco's Accounts

Taken from Romilasco’s scout report on a search party from Galia’s territory. (The writer of this report has made any thoughts or assumptions based on what is known about the traits of the subject.)

[402 A.E. Temp d’ Fig, 26th]

In an eyeblink, Tendro slipped back into that peculiar state—a place where numbness reigned and consciousness barely flickered. It was the same strange fugue that had claimed him when he first set foot on that barren path. His thoughts still whispered, a faint echo in the vastness of his mind, but they were a flimsy thing, too insubstantial to stir his dull limbs or give voice to the scream that coiled in his throat. And he wanted to scream.

‘You needn't give voice to your despair.’ It was a thought in his mind. It was the woman's voice again. Tendro's ears had once again betrayed him. Yet his eyes still caught wisps of the world beyond. In the shadowed periphery of his vision, Ugu materialised. The woman, it seemed, had ensnared him too in her constriction of stillness. And there, another shape—Vasc, equally entangled in this silence.

‘What kind of magic is this?’ Tendro spoke to her through his mind. 

‘Magic? It’s no magic. It’s science.’

Tendro's gaze bore into her. The woman stood motionless. She, too, seemed ensnared in this liminal space where their consciousnesses mingled like mist.

‘Is this the "science" that made the sceptical timers vanish?’ The question formed in his mind.

'Science was but a tool. War and greed made them vanish. Science just provided a dramatic end for them.'But also a new beginning.' Tendro heard her last words echo in his mind with hope. 'But tell me, you seem unfamiliar with science. If not that, what other doctrines do you follow?'

‘Doctrines?’

‘Yes. Rules and principles from which your people guide civilisation.’

Uncertainty roiled in Tendro's mind. After a moment, he offered up a fragment of his truth. 'We are taught that each soul has its shepherd,' he began. 'Some unseen hand that gently nudges our path through the labyrinth of life.’

‘Like a God?’

‘Yes. I wasn’t sure you would be familiar with the term—’

‘Oh, I can’t believe it.’ She interrupted him in his mind.

‘Backlog.’ The word sliced the air like a blade, her voice suddenly corporeal. She had reclaimed her physical form, standing before him. Her eyes, fixed on some unseen horizon. ‘All units, retreat to base. I repeat: all units, fall back to base.’ A heartbeat's pause, then: ‘Initiate termination protocol. They've created religion again.’ The sigh that followed carried the weight of countless repetitions. ‘Back to square one.’

'Wait! Wait!' He screamed in his mind, wholly uncertain—could she still hear his thoughts now that she had reclaimed her corporeal form? She stood motionless. Was she truly there, flesh and blood? Or did she linger back in the labyrinth of his thoughts? Or perhaps in a place somewhere in between?

'What does all of this mean?' He decided to try and talk to her, or perhaps just to think to himself, as it was the only action left to him in his paralysis. 'We came from beyond the mountains,' he said, 'where the land gives freely of its bounty and life thrives in abundance. A place where darkness is but a fleeting visitor in the span of a day. It's as certain as the turning of a wheel. We know its coming and its going, as surely as we know our own names. We've learnt the seasons when it lingers, like a reluctant guest, and when it arrives with haste, like an eager friend. But this... His thoughts faltered for a moment. Never have I stood in a place where darkness reigns eternal.'

‘Death, you mean?’ Her voice rang through the quiet halls of his mind; had he command of his body, he might have startled at its sudden intrusion. ‘You usually don't feel it,’ she continued, ‘but you've been there, as you all have at some point. And where you will all, inevitably, return.’

‘I don’t understand. 

I didn’t expect you to, Tendro. You’re not supposed to.’ She was again out of her body, head down, and in a seemingly lethargic state. Why did you come here? She asked.

He pondered her words, turning them over in the quiet of his own thoughts. In that moment, he decided to be honest, despite the unknowns that surrounded her motives. 'To save Rumino,' he confessed, the place we come from.'

‘And how did you expect to do that?’

He didn’t answer. He didn’t know.

'The human,' she said in his head, 'seeks an artefact of value, a treasure to trade for his village's prosperity. A noble intention, perhaps.' There was a pause. 'But would not such a fortunate soul be tempted to keep the lion's share for himself?'

‘You don’t know that.’ Tendro protested.

'Oh, but I do.' Her voice resonated with confidence now. 'You see, from the moment you crossed the threshold into the outerlands, I knew. Vasc, the feral, is a pitiful excuse for a being. Your village's welfare is but a mote of dust in his thoughts. His true desire is to weather this storm and bask in the fleeting glory this adventure might cast upon him.'

‘What's my flaw?’ The question arose unbidden. As if in answer, his mind began to unfurl a list of his perceived shortcomings.

‘It is not flaws that I’m looking for. Every being has weaknesses. It’s their intentions that count.’ She paused waiting for Tendro’s answer that never came and so, she continued. 'Every few thousand years, a soul from beyond the mountains ventures here, each bearing their own hidden purpose. I study them, as I have you, and through their eyes, I glimpse at the world's tides on the other side. Should their tales speak only of harmony and light, I allow the world to spin on, undisturbed. But I cannot set them free. They've peered too deeply into the heart of things, you see. They know far too much already.'

Had Tendro's body been his to command, his heart would have sent torrents of blood coursing through his veins. But in this strange twilight of paralysis, even fear was a silent, motionless thing.

‘You gave me the worst possible news, Tendro.’ She continued. ‘So bad I’ll have to end it all.’

‘Is that because we have a God?’

'You don't have one. You believe in one.' Her voice was harsh enough that he almost felt his very mind tremble. 'Once death claims you, your flesh will know this chill, this numbness, this utter uselessness. But you? You won't feel a thing. For your mind won't linger here as it does now. That soul you speak of? It won't find the forgiveness you so fervently preach. There is no above, no below. There is nothing at all, really.'

'I'm happy that I'm not going back home, then.' The thought drifted through the void of his mind. He knew, in some distant part of himself, that he ought to feel something—grief, perhaps, or fear. But instead, he found this absence of feeling to be a strange sort of blessing.

‘Why?’

'If what you're saying is true, I can't return to my mother and shatter her hope. Not after she's spent countless days searing under the sun, back bent over stubborn crops. Day after relentless day. Pain layered upon endless pain. He paused, the gravity of it all pressing down on his thoughts. 'I can't rob her of that last comfort on her deathbed.' A chuckle bubbled up from somewhere deep within him, surprising in its presence. He hadn't known his mind could come up with such a sound, not after what he'd just learnt. 'She won't even draw water from Mr. Joro's well, he continued, the memory sharp and clear. Not because he'd notice—he wouldn't—but because she believes God's eyes are always upon her. Judging. Weighing her worth.' His thoughts turned bitter. 'Do you know how often we've gone hungry because our crops withered from thirst? How many times have her children fallen ill from it? ' The final thought came as a whisper. 'Learning this... it would destroy her.'

'And therein lies the peril of faith,' her voice now a gentle caress against his thoughts, 'the weight of expectation.' A pause, as if allowing the words to settle. 'Religion became a stumbling block for the sceptical timers, as you call them. It posed the ultimate challenge, you see. That's why I have been designed. To root out and obliterate any civilisation that shows even the faintest glimmer of such beliefs.'

'Have you been out there?' He thought, as fearless as his mind allowed. 'Hope is a rare currency in our world. Born outside the city walls? Your fate is sealed. And chances are, you will be born in misery.' Had he control of his body, this would be the moment his fists would clench, his voice rising like a storm. 'One must scavenge for hope wherever it might be found. Without hope, life withers. So go ahead; be done with it all. For in the end, nothing truly matters.'

There was nothing for a long time. The woman stood still. Tendro, trapped in his unmoving flesh, yearned for the simple mercy of closing his eyes. In that moment, he thought, he might touch the void the woman had described—that place beyond thought, beyond feeling. Real death, he supposed.

‘But there is hope.’ The woman finally came back to his mind. ‘You give me hope, Tendro.’

‘Me? How? You just took all from me.’

'That's not what I meant to do. I apologise.' There was a moment suspended in time, as if she were gathering scattered thoughts. 'They told me, she continued, that one day I might be touched by someone. That everything they knew—everything I knew—might have been wrong. And that I should adapt to it.'

‘What does all of that mean?’

'It means that I won't reset your world, for hope still flickers there.Your mother will continue her dance with the unyielding land until her body finally bows to time's relentless march. She will pass from this world, never to meet the God she so fervently believes in, for it simply isn't there. But she'll depart with hope cradled in her heart, her last thoughts laced with dreams of reuniting with her son.'

‘But she won’t.’

‘But that, Tendro, hardly matters.’

'What is going to happen to us?' He knew the answer, but there was little else he could say. The thought of returning, of carrying this terrible knowledge back into the world he once knew, was a burden too heavy to bear.

'Well, your companions are already dead. As I said, they knew too much.' She said calmly. 'But you, I'll spare. You'll remain here with me. I believe you'll prove invaluable in assessing the world when the next soul ventures beyond the mountains.'

‘That could take thousands of years. What will we do?’

'Nothing.' Her voice chimed in a simple manner this time. 'It’s going to be the closest thing to death you’ll feel.'

Then his eyes closed.