The light stabbed into Mazelton’s eyes as he desperately tried to slip back into unconsciousness. The attempt to sail across the giant lake west of Old Radler was a qualified success, in that he did actually make it to the North West corner of the lake before fever and fatigue finally made him collapse. He had just enough remaining sense to tip the chicken overboard before he lost control of both his muscles and the boat. He was not a very good sailor, and it was a pretty small boat. Not fast. Not sleeping for nearly three days is bad for your health, as he learned.

Mazelton crashed ashore somewhere, and at some point someone one fished him out of the boat and started treating him. He was still unclear on that. About all he knew was that he was on a bed, everything hurt, someone was looking out for him… and they were a Dusty. Nailed to the wall facing the bed was a yellow disk the size of a plate, a smaller black disk in front of that the size of a baby’s fist, and finally a crescent moon framed against the black. The Sun, the Earth, the Moon, and you, looking at them and seeing just how small and brief your struggles are. The Heavenly Quartet.

He managed a small sip of the clean water by the bed. Mazelton turned his mind inward, tracing the remnant heat in his body and as he had done every day since his initiation, he drew the heat into his core. It was calming. He had to work from his scalp on down, feeling and interrogating each and every scrap of himself, right down the soles of his feet and back up again to the core. Keeping a steady breath through it. Some nights he fell asleep that way.

His flesh was stewing in so much hot water he should be braised. Some of that was his body fighting off the infection but Dusty World, couldn’t you have kept some of this dust? He fed his core and fed it and fed it until he thought it would melt. He couldn’t do any more today, or whatever day. It needed time to solidify. Mercifully, he passed out again.

He came to some hours or days later, feeling like he was freezing to death. The shivers had moved to the point of convulsion, and jerking around was finally enough to wake him up. Some ancient being with rheumy eyes and a bald pate was laying warming pans under his blanket. The ancient saw him wake, smiled slightly and gave his hand a gentle squeeze.

“Rest, brother, rest. The fever is breaking, soon to be gone. But you aren’t done fighting yet.”

“I’m, I’m not a very good Dusty, but I’m trying. It’s just hard.”

“Same as everybody else, then. Drink some water. That’s good. Now, calm and rest.”

When Mazelton next came to, the sunlight was shining through the small window. He spent a timeless while examining the window and trying to make deductions. No glass in the window- generally indicated either poverty or a really remote location, and nowhere less than a week from Old Radler could be considered that remote. So… the person living here was poor. The frame of the window was basically just the wall, and the wall was about the width of his hand. Thick walls means good insulation, which is both smart and necessary living near the lake. It also costs money, so the person living here cannot be poor.

He bounced around the contradiction for a while. The walls were plastered, so determining the building material was out. The thick double shutters were well painted, which could go either way. No bugs were flying in… must be a buried insect killer core in the window frame. Again, not a cheap item, but hardly expensive either. God, he must have made three hundred of them the summer after he was initiated. He was cuffed when he asked what they were for. Mazelton smiled ironically. Wouldn’t it be nice if he was the one who made the core keeping the bugs off him?

“I have a funny window?”

Mazelton turned his head, only now noticing the ancient sitting in a chair in the corner. The ancient ran their fingers along a carved stick, seemingly meditating on it.

“Laughing at myself. Thank you benefactor. How should I address you?”

“I am the Man Iolan. I lead the local coven of the Worshipful, so Humble Iolan would also be appropriate. And how shall I address you?”

Mazelton laughed breathlessly, a bitter laugh.

“I have no idea anymore. I think whoever I was died. I think of myself as male. Benefactor Iolan, might I trouble you to pick a name?”

“A heavy charge. And please, no more “Benefactor.” I did as I should and in the end, which of us has truly benefited?”

“Hah. Yes, Humble Iolan, it is an open question, isn’t it?”

“Mmm. You aren’t all the way better yet, but you are mostly better. I took a look through your belongings, such as they were. You are a polisher?”

“Not a very good one.”

“Willing to work someplace where “Not very good” is going to be more than good enough?”

“I don’t think I can stay here, Humble Iolan. I really don’t.”

“No, I don’t imagine you could. Nor do we lack polishers. No, I was thinking of a community starting up out west.”

“How far out west?”

“Other side of the Ramparts, near the Vast Deep Ocean, north of here but not massively so.”

“Gizbana Island?”

“What epoch is this? It’s called Vast Green Isle now. And no, you wish. About five days inland from there. A little village called New Scandi.”

“What happened to Old Scandi?”

“Nobody knows.”

“Can you tell me about it?”

“Certainly. It was Terra Nullius- a hot wasteland. But historical and geological analysis showed that it was once water rich, fertile and wonderfully full of wildlife. No reason it couldn’t be again, provided a renaissance was performed on a sufficiently wide scale.”

“And this is where the Worshipful come in.”

“Fully thirty covens from all across the continent pooled their elders and started the long caravans. The holy beacons were manufactured by the Leoinida Collective, which sits on the southern border of the waste, and the extra mass was provided by the Laginalopo Tribal Alliance, which covers a big piece of the eastern edge of the territory. The Sea Folk hold the western coast and the Vast Green Island, of course, but they were willing to contribute a huge quantity of biomass as well. At the time, they claimed it was to help rebuild the watershed and improve the coastal sea conditions.”

“Not the whole story?”

“The story is not yet told. How could they speak the whole truth?”

Mazelton bowed his head.

“No, it was at best a third of the truth. Five thousand six hundred and ninety one of the Worshipful positioned themselves according to the Book of Talbot, and burned their souls to light the holy beacons. They burned their souls, and the scorched earth began to heal.”

“May their names echo in eternity.”

“Loud and soft, in the rain and whispering grass.”

“The renaissance was a success.”

“An enormous success. So enormous that the Sea Folk moved to immediately annex the coast line and another fifty Lects more. A necessary buffer, apparently. Of course the Leoinida collective swarmed north and the Laginalopo swarmed west. It all got very tense. It is still very tense.”

“Who holds the land now?”

The ancient Iolan smiled, a distinctly uncomfortable experience for Mazelton.

“No one, or at least, no one whose fist is large enough to count. Most of the land is still unbearably hot, and the ecosystem has had barely thirty years to restart.”

“So how is there a community out there?”

“Because ecological rebuilding happens at different speeds in different places, and some folk want a place they can build up from scratch. Be it a legacy or just personal satisfaction. But that’s not the reason I am mentioning any of this to you.”

Mazelton gave his own ugly smile.

“Where are the covens in all of this?”

Humble Iolan tapped his nose.

“By amazing coincidence, the land guarantees made by each party to the renaissance have not been honored. Not breached, exactly, but not honored either. Right now each party is claiming that, since the other parties broke the rules, they cannot possibly honor the rules. After all, how can they guarantee the land rights if they don’t wind up holding the land?”

“Very fair. Far sighted and just.”

“Quite. And by another amazing coincidence, each of the signatories have allowed subsidiaries to sell leases on the land. Of course, the agencies don’t talk to each other, so if two leaseholds conflict, you are on your own.”

“Leaseholds?”

“Are you familiar with the concept of private land ownership?”

“Sort of. A person owns a bit of land like it’s a business, and they are entitled to the profits and don’t have to share it with a clan.”

“Sort of. It is… well it’s complicated and nobody seems to agree if there is a right way to do it. Basically, the leasehold is like saying you own it, but only for a fixed period.”

“So… a rental?”

“Again, it’s complicated. Treat it like you bought a chunk of land and it’s yours and your heirs forever, or at least a millennia. Of course what the covens were promised were communal lands covering some prime areas- going to be some great river valleys when the water starts running again.”

“And they don’t want to pay up.”

“Not when they might be losing out on the deal, no. So in the last Grand Synod, most of the leading covens came to an agreement. I wasn’t in attendance, obviously, but I quite agree with the proposal and have been leading my coven along those lines. Which leads to you.”

Mazelton tilted his head in inquiry.

“The agreement was this- No renaissance performance for the Collectives, the Tribes or the Folk. No investment in their lands or goods. Sell what holdings we do have. Use that money to finance settlers, Dusty settlers, and have them build cantons all over the disputed land. It means shelling out for their bogus leases, but that’s a short term problem. Long term… Do you know what absolute misery it is to turf out religious, armed, settlers? It’s doable. But it costs an absolute fortune and takes years, if not decades. Smarter to bring them in, especially when they have a reputation for working well with secular authority.”

“They must know what we are up to.”

“Of course they do! The Synod sent them a letter laying it all out the same day they reached their agreement. No point in doing it if they don’t know you’ve done it. Of course, how to respond to the Synod’s “Blatant disregard for the sovereign rights of our nation over the land we so painfully recovered,” is still being debated.”

“Sovereign rights. Over Terra Nullius. That they recovered.”

“I am paraphrasing, but not by much. Starting to see where you come in?”

“Yeah.”

“We would finance you. We can’t pay your way and supply you fully, not this far out. But we can ease your path and once you reach Sky’s Echo and find a convoy out west, we can kit you out. You would not be going empty handed. And you would be going to people who very much want to see you, and hope you spend the rest of your life amongst them.”

Mazelton panted out a little laugh.

“Sounds great.”

“A rebirth, as it were. A place where nobody knows about the great Clans of the Coast. Or cares.”

Mazelton stopped laughing.

“You have been here for two weeks. You spoke a great deal during your hallucinations.”

“And you chose to heal me?”

The Humble Iolan stared directly into his eyes, and Mazelton felt a jolt. Iolan was old, a senior of the Hag’s generation, and he looked to have no intention to join a renaissance. And a Humble Speck of what must be a good sized congregation, judging by the house. A politician, then, and given how close he was to Old Radler, not someone soft.

“Yes, Mazelton, I did. And since you wish to be reborn, I suggest you do it in a land of rebirth. Far, far away from here. The long knives of the North Sea Confederation haven’t reached here yet, but they will soon enough, and their spies have been here long since.”

Mazelton stifled a curse.

“How long do I have?”

“How long do any of us have? Don’t leave the house. Do get up and start moving, it will help you heal faster. So are you willing?”

Mazelton snorted.

“Bit of a Dolia’s Bargain, asking me just when I regain consciousness after a long fever. Not that I’m not thankful.”

“Think it over. You won’t be ready to do anything for a few days yet.”

The village where Mazelton made his recovery was called South Bay. From South Bay to New Scandi was a journey of nearly four thousand kilometers, or to use the old way of counting, some two million Smoots. Of course, that was only if you could fly like a cloud. And even clouds got hung up on the Great Ramparts. One had to cross rivers and seas, mountains, hills, swamps, hot wastes, deserts, deserts that were also hot wastes, forests both old and young, and perhaps most irritatingly, the planes. Despite all that, it was universally agreed that the really dangerous thing was the people you met along the way, who may well skin you alive both literally and metaphorically. At the end of the day you got to live somewhere so backwards, it didn’t even have a single core polisher.

Mazelton agreed barely an hour later. It sounded like a paradise.