“I last walked the streets of Kontabliku many years ago – indeed, it must have been 207 or 208. I am sure I wrote some of my experiences there down, but those records are lost to me now. I remember it as a small town, a little place out of the way of the bustle of daily life. But the view of the sea from that place was beautiful – I remember sitting atop the towers, watching little boats sail out on the ocean. The little ones were the new ones, those built in the past decades. But the old ones – hundreds of years old, some of them – they were the big ones, the ships that survived the ocean-death and came out of the storm intact. Some of those ships were first found, in the aftermath, floating in the deep ocean without a living soul aboard. I wonder if there’s something wrong with reclaiming such ships – if the dead might resent us for it – or if they really are nothing more than masses of floating wood and metal, dormant in the blue. There are still so many of them out there, unclaimed, left behind when everything came to an end. But our ships just sail past them – they have more urgent business to attend to.”

-From “From Core to Corod”, a travelogue of the Scholar Geshor

244 YT, Late Spring: Kontabliku, Southwestern Gaurlante

“Sir, I’m just seeking an escort to the border. Your man at the last checkpoint north of here told me I could find an escort here.”

Geshor stood at maybe a third the height of the vehicle next to him. One of its tires could easily have crushed him in motion, and he couldn’t help but think of that horrible weight as he half-shouted up at the soldiers atop the vehicle. A book clutched in his hands, papers shoved haphazardly between its leaves, he tried to make eye contact with the soldier. The boy simply stared off into the distance, speaking to Geshor as though he weren’t there, but a voice on the radio.

The boy’s fellow – an older soldier, a woman in a slightly tattered uniform. The gun she shouldered carried a magazine of some kind – Geshor had seen so little of the Invictans’ new weapons, but if he had to guess, this was a gun that could fire many times in a row without reloading. Pre-Desert stuff, except now apparently they were producing it en masse, enough of it to put in the hands of ordinary soldiers and not just the elite.

Beyond the truck, the road continued till it reached a seaside gate. The city of Kontabliku stretched along the coastline past that gate, a low wall separating it from the land and a small flotilla of boats guarding it from the sea. The city had many towers and vaulted buildings, structures built new upon old. Some stretched over the sea, monuments suspended over the water that would inevitably some day claim them. The city was so much bigger than Geshor remembered, but there were inherent limits to its growth. It could build up, as far as that was possible, but it could not build out over the sea. Older buildings would collapse into the water, pieces of them, if they weren’t attended to quickly enough.

Still the city seemed to be thriving.

After a pause of what felt like minutes, the younger soldier spoke. “Look, I’m sorry sir, but we can’t provide you with an escort unless you can prove your business.”

“Well, can I enter the city then?” Geshor asked. “I’m sure there are people still there who know me. I have visited here before, many years ago.”

“When was that?”

“207, or…” Geshor scratched at his chin. “207, 208, I don’t quite remember. But I’m sure there must be someone still here who remembers me.”

“207?” The older soldier laughed. “That was a long time ago, old man. You must be really old. 207! I was an infant then.”

“Yes, yes.” Geshor smiled. “Do you happen to know if the old couple who run the library of Kontabliku are still kicking around? They’ll remember me.”

“The… library? Man, I don’t know.” The soldier laughed.

“Well, they’re…” the younger soldier started to speak, finally glancing toward Geshor for the first time.

“Yes?” he said, waving his hand to prompt the boy to continue.

“They died years ago,” he finished.

Geshor sighed, lowered his head, and glanced down at the book in his hand. He muttered quietly: “Should have guessed… wish I’d been able to see you again. And just my luck…”

“What was that?” the older soldier, perhaps the commander, climbed down from the truck, brandishing her weapon. She didn’t point it directly at Geshor but he couldn’t help but back away a little bit, glancing nervously at the swinging barrel of the gun. She landed next to him, and Geshor’s eyes locked on the trigger guard, on the finger pressed and curled around it by the pressure of landing. Dust rose, kicked out by the impact from earth overturned by the truck’s wheels.

Geshor met her gaze levelly. “I was just talking to myself. May I enter the city?”

“Are those your papers?” She roughly took the book from Geshor’s hands without waiting for a response.

“Inside the book,” he said. “But I’ll need the book itself back, if you don’t mind.”

She handed it back idly, inspecting the papers. “And your profession… scholar? That’s not very specific.”

“It’s a title.”

“Alright, well…” the woman grumbled to herself as she scanned through the papers.

Geshor glanced past her. Near the gate, several laborers lounged against the wall in the slowly-fading daylight, watching the orange-lit sky. One of them raised her head and, for a moment, her eyes met Geshor’s. He looked away quickly, back to the soldier.

The harsh sound of paper ripping made Geshor to grit his teeth and jolt, his eyes going wide in panic. The soldier folded the one piece of paper on top of the other, held them together and ripped, ripped again. Geshor sputtered, struggling to form words before finally he said:

“What are you doing?”

“These papers are counterfeit,” the soldier said, and stepped behind Geshor. Rough hands grabbed him by the arms. His book fell to the ground, open. By the gate, the laborers stood up from their rest, staring across at the spectacle. The younger soldier leapt down from the truck, watching Geshor and watching his commander.

“We’re taking this man into custody,” the commander said. With a grumble – a few muttered words of distaste – the younger soldier shouldered his gun and moved to stand beside Geshor.

“Alright,” he said. “Let’s go, man.”

“This is ridiculous!” Geshor protested. “I haven’t done anything. I’m only passing through.”

“It’s a crime to carry counterfeit papers.”

“My papers aren’t counterfeit!”

“Prove it.”

Geshor laughed bitterly, trying to gesture at the scraps of paper lying in the dirt. But of course, his hands were held behind his back, and he could not move them to even make the gesture. As they led him toward the gate, a few of the laborers from the walls began to approach. “Oh,” Geshor said, “So I can go inside the city? And here I thought that I wasn’t supposed to –“

“Shut up. You can talk all you like when we get to the guardhouse.” The soldier behind him shoved him forward.

“I’m sorry about this, I’m sure we’ll get everything cleared up soon.” The one standing next to him spoke more quietly, in what Geshor was sure he must have thought of as conciliatory tones.

When they came close to the gate, the laborers stepped into the way of the guards. “What’s going on here?” asked the one who’d made eye contact with Geshor earlier. “Is everything alright?”

“Move along,” the commander said, without letting go of Geshor’s arms. “This is no business of you lot. Why don’t you head back inside and let the Imperial Guard do their work?”

“Imperial Guard, my ass,” laughed one of the other laborers. Gesohr felt something shift behind him and the man quickly clammed up, taking a lengthy step back away from Geshor and the soldiers and behind the other laborers.

“You’re all interfering in official business, now get out of the way.”

“What are you arresting that man for?” It was the woman in front who spoke – young, but her face and hand were roughened by the sun and by long hours of physical labor. Agriculture, if Geshor had a guess. It showed in the way she walked when she stepped toward Geshor and the soldiers. He couldn’t fault the bravery in her eyes when she approached.

“For fraud,” the commanding soldier said, over Geshor’s shoulder. “For claiming a false identity and travelling through Invictan territory under false pretenses.”

“And do you have evidence of these crimes?”

“He was carrying counterfeit papers!”

The woman stepped forward again. “And what proof do you have of that?”

Geshor reached out. The woman was now within reach of him, and the soldier’s grip on his arms had loosened. He held out a hand toward the young woman. “I’m sure this can all be worked out if we just go to speak with the relevant authorities,” Geshor said. “I haven’t done anything wrong, so it’ll be fine.”

She looked uncertain, but she took a step back and away from the soldiers, closer to the others. The rest were beginning to back away more quickly, losing interest in the scene and dispersing from where they stood. But the young woman remained behind a little longer. “But… you haven’t done anything wrong, have you?”

“He’s either a Mirshalite or an Adma spy, there’s no other reason for his behavior!” The commander scoffed and pushed Geshor forward, past the laborer.

The laborer gasped at the mention of Mirshal, and again at the name Adma. She took a few quick steps back, staring at Geshor. “But…” Geshor turned to her, realizing then how dire his situation was.

“I’m not Mirshal or Adma, I’m just a Scholar, I’m headed south to meet a friend…”

“Don’t lie to us.” The soldier gave him another shove, pulled his wrists together. He heard a click behind and the cold iron of cuffs resting against the hollow of his wrist.

The young woman’s eyes darted between Geshor and the soldier behind him, her mouth hanging open.

She took a few steps forward.

Geshor took in a deep breath, preparing to speak, to tell her that it was okay, that for her own safety she had to back away and that there was no point in standing up to these soldiers, not here, that it would only make the situation worse, not only for herself but for him…

A jolt ran through him, a shiver down his spine, as the girl spat at his feet and turned to run away.

“Come on,” the soldier said, and when Geshor turned to look over his shoulder he saw a smug smile on her face. “Let’s go.”

When they passed through the gates Geshor saw beyond the buildings, the assorted towers and stacked complexes, to the ocean. It was glittering in the fading sun, the horizon line water stained deep orange by the light. “This way,” the soldier said, and turned Geshor to the left. A tower stood, its shadow long and wide over him. The stones looked old – hundreds of years old, older than the Desert. They were even worn at the edges, the individual stones made smooth at each edge that must have once stuck out jaggedly from the mortar.

Inside, they brought him to a room with a single window. Overlookin the ocean, the window afforded a view of the sun as it began to drown under the horizon.

Geshor had little chance to take in the view of those distant, shining waters.

“What is your business in Kontabliku?”

“How long have you been working with the Adma?”

“What is Mirshal’s plan?”

“What’s the secret of Kivv’s defense?”

“How did you get past the checkpoints?”

“What weapons are you trained with?”

“Tell us about your magic.”

“From where does your cell operate?”

Finally, out of impatience, Geshor turned and slammed his hand on the table. “I already told you, I’m not who you think I am! This is ridiculous.”

From behind the commanding soldier, the one who’d destroyed his identification papers, another approached. “You’re… Geshor. Scholar Geshor.”

“Oh,” Geshor said, looking up. “So you recognize me? So you know that I’m not who your commander thinks I am?”

“Your name is in our records,” said the other soldier. “There’s someone you should speak with.”

Geshor let out a sigh of relief. “Okay, okay. So you are aware that I’m not who this… commander of yours claims that I am?”

The other soldier nodded.

The commander stood up. “This is outrageous,” she said. “We obviously can’t trust this man –“

“I don’t,” said the other soldier. Geshor’s breath caught in his throat. “As I said, there’s someone you should speak with, Geshor.”

“And who might that be?”

“You’ll find out.” Geshor’s eyes widened, and his hands clenched to fists. “Lucky day, my man. You’re going to Kurikuneku.”

Geshor had a feeling that it was not, in fact, his lucky day.