Modern scholars will tend to criticize elements of the Sjocelym nobility for their initial response while ignoring the context in which their decisions were made. This is unfair, and I say this as one with more cause to bear a grudge than most. Consider: for all of living memory ruudun has been our shield and sword, our plow, our sturdy arm. It kept us fed, watered and warded by stone, the greatest good ever granted to our people. That this view was incomplete, incorrect or fabricated never occurred to them. That it was all three was unthinkable. Forgive them their blindness. I have. They have paid for it tenfold.

Tasjadre Ra Novo, Jesa Sagoja: Zhetam Asade

Her breath came in ragged gasps, her thin woven sandals flailing against the dusty caliche in a rapid drumbeat. Behind her she could hear the yells of the Aedrem cutting through the morning air - closer, now. She was fast, but she had spent the night foraging. Her legs burned with every step, each breath a stabbing knife in her lungs. The men chasing her were rested, they had merely spent the night waiting for their prey. Waiting for someone alone, waiting for someone they could overpower and bring to market.

Waiting for her.

She ran, and tears streaked through the dust on her face. Her father would scowl at her for crying - but she would never see her father again. She chanced a look back and saw her pursuers crest a ridge, four of them moving with long strides and grim faces. Their brown rags flowed back as they ran, mismatched layers of cloth flapping in the cool air. She looked a moment too long and paid for her inattention when her foot struck a rock. Dust sprayed up as she tumbled to the ground, her head bouncing off the sand with enough force to leave her dazed.

Her vision was still swimming when a greasy hand grabbed her wrist, rough fingers squeezing the bones tight enough to send a shock up her arm. She cried out and was struck hard across the face. They let her drool blood into the sand for a few moments before hauling her violently upright. Blinking the grit and tears from her eyes, she saw blurry faces leering at her in the morning twilight.

“A good catch,” one of them chuckled. His voice was gravelly, his face hidden under a thick beard matted with sweat and oil. “She runs well for one of the Satine dirt-pushers. Long legs.” He reached forward and pinched her upper thigh, hard enough to draw a yelp of pain as she twisted against her captor’s grip. They laughed once more, jeering at her struggles.

“Save your screams for later, girl,” the one holding her rasped with a leering grin. “Once I get you alone-” He broke off, snapping his head upright. “Something is coming,” he muttered.

They all stopped moving to listen, even her. Against the still morning there was only the wind blowing through the dry brush, skating over the sand like a caress…

And a deep rumbling, the low growl of something massive moving over the cracked desert. It came from beyond a close ridge in the direction they had come, and the Aedrem turned to face the noise as it grew.

“What is it?”, one of them asked nervously. “It sounds big, and it’s chasing our tracks. Esemadhe, maybe?”

“Now I know you’ve never heard one,” said the one who had spoken first, but he didn’t take his gaze off the ridgeline. “That’s no esemadhe, but it is big.”

“They live in this area,” the nervous man insisted. “I saw tracks as big as my head-”

“Nothing to worry about, then. Now quiet,” her captor grunted. “It’s here.”

A higher-pitched vibrato threaded through the rumbling as the sound grew louder, then across the ridge a large shape burst into view. A great brown bulk covered with tiny spires and protrusions rested on six huge black wheels, sand spraying up from beneath them as they carved deep tracks into the desert. She stared, dumbstruck, and was dimly aware of the men around her doing the same.

A chariot?

She had never seen one before, of course, but her father had told her stories from when he was a young man. He and his brother had ventured far to Sun’s Rest to trade with Tinem Sjocel, seen their mountains that caught the clouds and a hundred other wonders besides. But among the most impressive of these, even to the Sjocelym, were the massive wheeled constructions that raced across terrain with ancient power to carry the obscenely rich in enclosed comfort wherever they pleased. It was said there were only a few handfuls of them in the entire vale - and half of those reserved for royal use. He had chanced to see one on the road, hastily scrambling to the side as it tore down the track like a mad beast. It was wondrous, he had said, and terrifying.

And now one was here. The Aedrem exchanged glances but were obviously at as much of a loss as she was. Running would be useless against its speed; they simply stood and waited. Her captor gripped her arm tighter in a wordless warning: if you make trouble, you die first. So she waited with them, and she watched.

The chariot drew closer, allowing her to make out more details. It was strange-looking, smooth in some places and harshly angular in others. Her father had described the chariots of the powerful as opulent, extravagant, but this one was merely painted a uniform drab brown. No engravings or ostentation sparkled from its weathered exterior. The windows were flat, dark glass without any decoration. Dirty black wheels crushed the weathered desert crust of sand as it advanced, leaving behind an odd pattern pressed into the shattered caliche.

It rolled to a stop with a high whine that made her ears twinge. A long moment passed, then one of the doors on its side swung open. The Aedrem made to square their shoulders, but froze as the largest man she had ever seen exited the vehicle. He towered over even the tallest of her captors, clad from head to toe in a fabric dyed like the drab brown of his vehicle but with blotchy, jagged shapes splashed across it haphazardly. A tight small-helm completed the outfit, snugly fit over short-cut dark curls. His skin was charcoal black, darker even than the sun-weathered face of her father’s father.

Behind him came another man, shorter than the first but still gigantic. He was clad in the same oddly-patterned clothing and carried a strange cudgel, black and jagged with a thin tube at one end. His arms rippled with muscles under pale, pale skin, lighter than anyone she had ever seen, and his eyes were a piercing blue. She watched as he looked at each of the men in turn, pausing when he saw her.

The man’s face darkened, and she tried to shrink away. His companion tapped him on the shoulder and pointed to her, saying something quickly and quietly using words she didn’t know. Whoever these people were, they were not from Tinem Sjocel.

The blue-eyed one stepped forward. “Who you are?”, he barked, his words clumsy and difficult to understand. “Why have her?” He raised one enormous arm and pointed a finger in her direction. The Aedrem all looked at her, and she tried to shrink away as much as she could - but her captor’s hand tightened on her wrist, making her gasp with pain.

Seeing this, the blue-eyed man moved closer and glared at them. “Why have her?”, he shouted, repeating his demand.

“She’s my brother’s daughter,” the bearded Aedre said, stepping between her and the two men. “She ran from our camp late the other night, we were tracking her through the desert…” Her temper flared at his lie, but the tight grip of the man holding her froze her tongue.

The bearded man continued to patter on in a placating tone, although the expressions of the two men from the chariot told her that they either didn’t understand or didn’t like what they heard. To the side, she saw one of the other Aedrem reach slowly to his belt. As his fingers brushed his waistband the blue-eyed man froze him with a glare, his hand pausing a hair’s breadth from the dagger concealed there.

For a moment, nobody moved. The bearded man spread his arms and smiled with mock apology, then rushed forward with his hand blurring to pull a wicked-looking sword from his robe.

She screamed a warning but the bearded man was already lying dead on the ground. The dark-skinned man held a dagger of odd make loose in one hand, its blade smeared red with blood. His face was grim, blank, although his eyes tracked the surviving Aedrem with focused intensity. The man holding her grunted a curse before tossing her roughly aside and drawing his own sword.

Her breath caught in her throat when she saw a small metal disc inset into the blade, tight whorls of script etched around its edge. The two men were going to die. She tried to call out once more, but the blue-eyed man was already moving his cudgel-

Fire spat from the end and ear-rending noise shattered the morning calm. Her warning turned into a wordless yell as she pressed her hands reflexively over her ears, flinching away from the din. When she dared open them again the blue-eyed man was looking down at her and smiling.

She scrabbled away from him, frantically darting her gaze around. All of the Aedrem were down, still or moaning weakly as blood dribbled from their wounds. The man held his hands up to her, palms out, and didn’t come any closer.

The other man stepped close beside him and whispered something low into his ear. The blue-eyed man nodded, then turned his smile on her again. His teeth were very white, she noticed, and perfectly even. “My name is Mark,” he said haltingly. “Name…” He paused and consulted with his companion once more, then turned back to her.

“What is your name?”, he asked.

“Eratajh asade Mark evit,” he said, fumbling on the odd consonants. “Erat…” He turned back to Jesse quickly. “How does the next part go?”, he hissed. “I’m shit at this kind of thing. Took me a whole damn tour to pick up basic Arabic.”

“Erat sacas-” Jesse said, his voice low and measured.

“Ah, right,” Mark said, waving him off. “Got it.” He turned back to the shivering captive and flashed her his best smile once more. “Erat sacas ra evit re?”

The young woman looked at them, still bleeding from the cut on her lip. She held her injured wrist close against her chest while her other hand plucked fitfully at a rough homespun cloak. She was small, even shorter than the men they had killed, with coffee-brown skin and dusty black hair pulled back into an intricate plait. “Gusje,” she said softly, her voice hoarse with dust and pain.

He grinned in what he hoped was a friendly manner and extended his hand to her. She shrank back with widening eyes at his advance.

“Mark!”, a woman’s voice shouted from behind him. “Jesus Christ, Mark, let the lady have some space.” Jackie flung the M-ATV’s door open and stormed out to glare at him in the brightening light of the morning. “First people we’ve met in two weeks and you’ve managed to kill most of them in front of her.”

“Look at her, Jack!”, Mark shouted angrily. He pointed again at the woman before sheepishly dropping his hand at the renewed terror in her eyes. “Does she look like she’s sorry they’re dead?”, he asked, keeping his voice low. “She’s beat to shit, and she was more scared of them than us. Besides, they pulled swords. That one guy almost stabbed Jesse.”

Jesse pointed to where the last attacker’s weapon lay on the ground, a heavy-looking saber with a wide, straight blade. “More than just swords,” he said quietly, his eyes fixed on the blade’s edge as it glinted in the morning light. “There was something odd about how he moved the blade, and when he fell it hit the dirt like a sledgehammer.”

Jackie’s eyes flitted to the sword, but she shook her head. “That’s interesting, I’ll admit,” she said. “But not particularly relevant at the moment. Let me talk to her and try to calm her down, I’ll see if I can learn anything useful rather than, you know, shooting her.” She rolled her eyes at Mark, who glared back stonily. “We’re running low on some things, and if she’s part of a village here we might be able to parlay some goodwill for supplies and a safe place to let the truck charge up. You two tone down your charm offensive and confiscate the magic boom sword.”

“You don’t speak local,” Mark pointed out gruffly. “You up for charades?”

She shrugged. “I’ll muddle through. I’m the least scary person here except for maybe Arjun, so she might feel better talking to me.”

Mark looked at Jesse, who shrugged wordlessly. The two went over to examine the sword, Mark keeping his rifle at the ready.

She hunkered down near to the young woman. She didn’t move away - but she certainly wasn’t enthusiastic about her proximity. “Hey,” Jackie said. “Gusje, right?”, she said, indicating the young woman. “Jackie,” she said, tapping her own chest. “My name is Jackie. Sorry, they only gave the army guys the language course.”

Gusje looked at her for a moment, then sighed and settled into a more normal sitting position across from her. “Zhaqi,” she said, rasping in her throat on the final syllable. She turned her eyes to where Mark was prodding the sword and pointed his direction. “Mariq?” she said inquiringly.

“Yep, Mark,” Jackie confirmed, smiling broadly. “And the tall gentleman is Jesse.”

“Zhesi,” she said decisively, following Jackie’s finger.

“Hey, no fair,” Mark said, giving them an irritated glance. “She got his name way better than mine.”

“It’s a good name,” Jesse said without looking up. He lifted the sword gingerly to examine the medallion inset into the blade. “My mom was a smart lady.”

“Gusje,” Jackie said, drawing the woman’s attention back to her and sketching a crude house in the sand. “Are we close to your home?” She got a blank look in response. “Shit,” she groused. “Jesse, help me out here.”

“Suun sacas ra evit ga? Ademen udaezhe isin,” Jesse murmured, still studying the minute inscriptions on the medallion.

Jackie flashed Gusje another winning smile and pointed to Jesse. “What he said.”

The woman studied her face for a long second, then seemed to come to a conclusion. Standing, she scanned the ridgeline and pointed towards a divot that marred its smooth span. “Tsan saal,” she said firmly.

“Sand salt, of course,” Jackie agreed, clapping her hands together. “I’m just going to assume that means something good. You guys ready?”

“Yep, magic sword secured,” Mark said, fluttering a hand at it. Jesse had clipped it to his belt beside his knife, its worked-leather scabbard an odd pair with the austere bayonet. “We’re good to go.”

Jackie opened the M-ATV’s door for Gusje and beckoned her inside. She hesitated briefly before climbing up and stumbling into the darkened interior. Blinking as her eyes adjusted to the darkness, she found herself confronted by a wizened, smiling face with wisps of white hair protruding haphazardly from its crown.

“Hello,” the man said, extending a hand to the bemused woman. “My name is Arjun.”

The white flaps of the hastily erected tent slapped her in the face as she passed, the chill wind catching them as it gusted hungrily over the dead brown grass. She batted them away as she entered, then pulled her hood back to look around the interior. It was huge, probably designed as a mess tent or a command post, but instead of tables or desks the center held a large metal crate. It was nearly twelve feet on each side, the top edges scraping the domed tent fabric as it shifted in the wind. Massive hinges sat on one corner to allow the near side of the crate to swing open.

“Dr. Hicks?”, a young woman asked, rushing over from beside the crate to shake her hand. “Sandra Boynton, I’m Captain Grande’s XO. Just a few last things and we can get going.”

Jackie grabbed her hand and shook, feeling dazed. “Going where… Lieutenant?”, she asked, peering uncertainly at the young officer’s uniform. “When they said I’d be deployed to an ‘undisclosed location’ I was picturing somewhere in Syria or Yemen, not a park in Denver.”

“Lakewood, technically,” Lieutenant Boynton answered with an apologetic grin, “and please, call me Sandy.”

“Jackie,” she replied absently. “Are you not permitted to brief me, or…?”

Sandy laughed, shaking her head. “Sorry, ma’am, I don’t mean to dance around it. It’s just that explaining it never works. Most people don’t believe a word until we show them.” She walked briskly towards the crate, undoing a catch on the side.

The door swung wide without making a noise. Jackie threw a hand up to shield her eyes from the blinding light that emanated from within, turning away with a scowl. “Jesus, warn me,” she grumbled. “What the hell do you have-”

The rest of her sentence died half-spoken as she peered into the crate through watery eyes. A light coating of dust and sand was scattered over the bottom of the container, wafting gently in the hot, dry breeze. Sunshine spread over the sand with merciless fury, and she could see the ripples of heat haze dancing above the scorching drifts. It rose like a wavering curtain in front of her, stretching up, up... A flat expanse of desert lay before her stretching endlessly away into the distance. Baked ridges of stone loomed over a cluster of tents and makeshift fortifications, and as she watched a patrol vehicle rumbled past on a circuit of the camp.

Jackie shook her head in confusion and looked away from the blinding sunlight to the tent’s door behind her. Afterimages danced in her vision, obscuring her view of the grey winter morning outside. Another gust of wind filled her nose with the smell of dust and ash. She stepped closer to the crate to look once more, shielding her eyes with a shaking hand. The sky was the wrong color, a dull and desaturated blue.

“Welcome to FOB Looking Glass,” Sandy said with a grin.

The sun peeked over the horizon to gild the desert with its light, the sky shifting to a dusky blue-grey as it brightened. The five of them sat quietly in the truck as Mark drove carefully in the direction Gusje had indicated. She had quickly forgotten her skittishness as they began to move, staring raptly out the window to watch the terrain slide by. Jesse had also lapsed into quiet study of the low ridges as they picked their way through the broken terrain.

A particularly tall ridge gave them a wide view of the land in front of them, a swooping cascade of grey-brown ridges that rippled away endlessly in the clear morning light. Before them, a long slope trailed down to a bone-dry riverbed that snaked across their path.

“Every once in a while this place is kind of pretty,” Mark commented, “in an empty, dry, dead sort of way.” He glanced back at the others, but Jackie had fallen asleep and Arjun was still scribbling intently in his notebook.

Jesse looked over at him, his eyes sliding past Mark to fix on the terrain out the window. “I think it’s beautiful,” he said quietly. “Like the moon. Magnificent desolation.”

Mark snorted. “Yeah, they should have sent a poet,” he said dryly, starting down the slope. He took advantage of the long flat decline to build up a bit of speed. The truck vibrated as the terrain rushed by underneath them, and Mark heard a gentle sloshing from their mostly-empty water reservoir in the back. “I wonder if we’re heading toward that rock spire”, he mused, pointing forward at a rounded dark prominence peeking over one of the ridges. “It’s right in our path, and it seems like a good landmark.”

“Could be,” Jesse allowed, squinting toward the far-off spire as they descended. It slid behind the near ridge as they approached the riverbed, the brakes making a soft whining moan as they bled energy from their descent.

“I know she’s not talkative, but can you ask- Fuck!”, Mark shouted, jerking to the side as the confiscated sword tore itself from Jesse’s hip and slammed into the dashboard. Even through the thick leather of the scabbard it left a noticeable dent as it caromed sideways.

Jackie woke with a start at the sound of the sword’s impact. Gusje had clambered around to hide behind her seat before the vehicle fully stopped, her eyes wide as she peered around its back.

“That was exciting,” Arjun commented, closing his notebook and peering owlishly toward the front of the truck. “Did it do that all on its own?”

“Maybe,” Jesse said slowly, bending down to retrieve the sword from the floor. He picked it up with slow, careful motions, his hand gripping tightly around the handle. “The sword pulls at you when you move it, like it weighs too much.”

“...so it can move on its own,” Jackie said flatly. “Great, you found a haunted sword.”

Jesse shook his head, moving the blade back and forth in his hand experimentally. “No, I don’t think that’s it,” he muttered. “If I move it side to side or up and down, it’s too heavy. It feels like I’m dragging it through water. If I move it forward…” He moved his hand lightly and nearly lost his grip as the blade clanged against the dashboard once more.

“Hmm, interesting,” Arjun mused. “I could see how that could be useful.”

“Sajhad saon drai gasit,” Gusje said, looking impatient. “Vaetajh ase ce evi, Zhesi’t ed raedh-et a ademen udutsen asvataa-et!”

The four of them stared for a moment at her outburst, then all eyes shifted to Jesse.

Jesse shrugged, looking out the window. “I think I heard my name,” he said. “Not sure on the rest, she talks fast.”

Jackie turned to the driver’s side. “Mark?”

“What, you think I understood any of that?” he said, laughing. “I’m at ‘donde está la biblioteca’ right now and she’s over there with Don Quixote. Based on her tone I’d say she wants us to stop fucking around with the sword.”

“I could have told you that much,” Jackie grumbled. Jesse lowered the blade carefully, then glanced at Gusje for confirmation. She smiled and sat back in her chair, looking at Mark pointedly.

Mark shook his head and settled back in his seat. “Like I’m driving a goddamn taxi,” he muttered. “I preferred when she thought I was trying to kill her.” He reached over to put the truck in gear once more, then paused. “Jesse, I’m going to start moving again,” he said. “Do me a favor and secure the haunted sword before it decapitates someone.”

“It’s not… ah, yeah,” Jesse said, carefully stowing the sword with the blade pointing to the rear of the truck. Mark nodded, and with a low whine from the truck’s electric motors they began to roll forward once more.

“So,” Arjun said from the back, his voice high and reedy. “The sword. I feel like we shouldn’t gloss over the fact that we have an object in here that defies what we know of physics.”

Jackie quirked an eyebrow at him. “You realize where we are, right?”, she asked. “You got here the same way we did? Of all the shit we’ve seen since we got here, the spooky sword is the thing that finally does it for you?”

“Yes, yes,” he sighed, waving her off with an irritated look. “That’s all quite strange as well. My point is, I feel as though this item in particular points to us having some serious gaps in our knowledge. The man who owned that sword wasn’t a great leader or a rich man, by the look of him. He had something like that even so. What does that tell you?”

She frowned, looking at Gusje. She was eagerly looking out the window, seeming to get more excited with each ridge they crossed. “That it’s more dangerous out there than we thought?”, she ventured.

Arjun shook his head, excitement coloring his voice as he spoke. “No, more than that,” he enthused. “There have been other oddities. The coins that Captain Grande obtained from the merchant. The water trap we found in the abandoned village. And, of course, the… things that came to the camp.” His enthusiasm dampened for a moment, but he shook it off quickly. “In isolation they’re just strange phenomena - but still something we can brush off as having an unknown, mundane explanation. Taken together they all point to something fundamentally different, something incredibly powerful. Life here may work very differently than what we assumed.”

Jackie fixed him with an irritated glance. “You enjoy being this cryptic, don’t you?”, she asked.

“He may be on to something,” Mark said quietly.

Something in his tone drew Jackie’s eyes to the front. They had crested a particularly high ridge, and once again they were presented with a sweeping view of the desert stretching out before them. The jagged scarps mellowed into rolling dunes and peaked ridges, then flattened further into a wide, low basin speckled with grey and brown scrub.

And in the center, green. The dry scrub gave way to a riot of leafy shrubs and low grasses, and they in turn to dense thickets and hedges wending their way around carefully-tended fields of low crops. Rising above it all like a spike driven into the plain grew a colossal tree, easily two hundred meters tall. Its sprawling roots slithered between the small buildings clustered against its base, while the arching branches radiating from atop its massive trunk spread drooping green fronds over the fields below.

“That,” Jesse remarked, “is a really big tree.”

“What do you know,” Mark quipped, unable to entirely quell the tremor in his voice. “They did send a poet.”

Gusje stood from her seat and moved up to poke her head between Mark and Jesse, a radiant smile plastered over her face. “Suun,” She said, beaming at the basin ahead of them.

Jesse nodded. “It means-”

“We got it,” Jackie said, unable to tear her eyes from the tree. “Home.”