Mazelton woke a little before dawn, the sky lightening up from periwinkle twilight to a thin band of robins egg blue, promising marigold orange and the sun would come soon. He sat out on his camp stool, a little chilled from the lingering night air and his feet were cold and wet from the dew. He had left his clothes in the tent. He just sat out and waited for dawn.

The sun rose as it always did, not caring if he watched it or not. Mazelton was reminded that he was just a speck of dust on an insignificant world… and that was ok. That was enough. Ultimately, every human effort was futile, so… live well. Contribute to the world around you. If nothing, ultimately, means anything, if we cannot know what the right answer to everything is, then our desires and dreams are as good and true as anything else. So live well.

Of course, so are everyone else's desires and dreams. It made sense to get along with your neighbors, your community. Sometimes, a dream or desire was bigger than just one person. If their dream or desire was to take your land, your loved ones, and your life, then conflict would arise. They might not be “wrong” on some cosmic scorecard, but they certainly were “wrong” as far as you were concerned. It all got terribly messy when you started trying to sort everything out.

He watched the sun brighten the edge of the world and begin its daily journey. Mazelton examined himself in the thin light. He could see the muscle definition in his hands and forearms. Not bulky, just… a skinny person who worked with their hands a lot. The same was true for the rest of him. Thin stomach, though not so bad as before. Thin, strong legs with sharply defined thigh and calf muscles. A thoroughly callused foot. Mmm. That wasn’t so good.

Mazelton got out his belt knife and spent a moment honing its edge. He was covered with scars now. Little ones from childhood, some much bigger ones since the fall of Old Radler. The gash from where he slid down the pipe traced a ragged line on part of his chest. A rounder, more blobby scar was a bit lower on his ribs. A memento of the Collective’s snipers. His hands and arms were covered in little details, reminders of broken bones and broken country alike. Mazelton didn’t find a mirror. His face was what it was. It wasn’t scarred. It wasn’t… What was the Poet’s lyric- a reminder of every hand that struck him down, until he cried out in his anger and his shame? Something like that. No puffy, collagen filled ears. No poorly healed broken nose. Still had all his teeth, somehow, and wasn’t that a surprise after everything.

He ran his little knife across a tiny portion of his arm, watching a few individual hairs pop off. It was plenty sharp enough. He set to trimming the calluses off, carving his feet into something a bit more presentable. The skin underneath felt strangely smooth, shaved into angular geometries rather than the organic curves it had before. A little detail work was called for, literally shaping his body smooth again. Mazelton ran his hand over his face. Long past stubble. Too short to be any sort of attractive beard, and he never cared for facial hair. It never grew in well for him. He didn’t want to look in a mirror. For some reason, it was a powerful aversion this morning.

Mazelton got out his heat stone, carefully opening the insulated case and setting a pot of water on it. Duane was up and stirring about too, getting himself ready for the day. He didn’t seem bothered by Mazelton’s nudity, any more than Mazelton was bothered by being naked. He knew Danae had a hang up about it but, well, maybe he could work on that with her.

“Mind shaving me?” Mazelton held up his shaving kit. Duane shrugged, nodded, and the two set to it. Duane had a steady, if indelicate, hand. It wouldn’t be the closest shave, but that was alright. He could touch it up by feel later, if he needed to. He fixed his eyes on the horizon and let his mind drift some more.

It felt so… odd… trying to think of things in terms of right and wrong, at this point. The Dusties had a pretty clearly defined system of ethics and morality, based around community and continuing the cycle of the world. It was a system of building virtuous cycles in every aspect of your life, keeping the wheel turning and leaving the world, and the people you touched, better than you found them.

The Ma had a highly developed ethical system too, to the surprise of everyone who ever met the Ma. It’s just that the Ma definitions of “right” and “wrong” were generally related to the survival of the Ma Clan in particular, and continuing the heritage of humanity generally. By Ma Clan standards, what the North Sea Confederation did wasn’t ethically wrong- they were serving the interests of their “Clan” and trying to ensure their heritage continued. The Ma just disagreed about whose life was more important.

And here he was, running from a battle between people to a battle between… well also people, but there were Nacon dry minds and a stone god in the mix. Off to get married. He didn’t frown at that thought, as moving your face around as you are getting a straight razor shave is a low percentage move.

He, Mazelton, was to be married. Without the blessing of family or Clan, in a marriage he negotiated to serve his own interests. Now, after who knows how many tens of millennia, such things were far from unheard of in the Ma Clan. Sometimes, people just had to keep the bloodline going any which way they could. But it meant that he was operating without an instruction manual. He didn’t know how this was supposed to go.

Like, specifically today. He wasn’t getting married today, right? That would be crazy. Hop off the wagon, dust yourself off and straight to the sacred grove? No way. But what did that mean for living arrangements? The dreaded “bed question” loomed out of the lingering dawn shadows. Where… was he to sleep? Did she have a guest bed? Beds were expensive, as were mattresses. Should he set up the tent next to the house? That might be best, but it would literally put walls between him and his bride to be. Not a great start to the marriage. Not good at all.

Duane finished up and wiped Mazelton down with a bit of towel. It was a pretty good shave. Mazelton pulled on some carefully preserved clean clothes, smelling faintly of cedar from the chest they were stored in. He brushed his cleanest boots for a few minutes, trying to clean them as much as he could. He didn’t need a haircut, so a few minutes with a comb and Duane’s nod of approval did adequately. It would need fixing again by the time they reached New Scandie, of course.

Breakfasts with Duane were always quiet, but this one felt quiet- quiet like a blanket of snow over a valley, or a comfortable chair in a library. Quiet as a state of being, not an absence of noise. They washed up, and were on their way. One last day.

They rolled up the Roaring River, the green mountains looming large over them. The Roaring River had spent uncountable millenia (off and on, climate permitting) carving a path between the mountains. The valley was deep and wide, the river a raging flood, the little boats struggling bravely against the current as they had for epochs. Mazelton felt adrift- as though he were trapped in a moment out of time.

Small farms were scattered along the edges of the river, clinging to the sides of the mountains with carefully planted trees and shrubs holding down the steepest slopes and keeping the topsoil from washing away. Sheep and goats were scattered about, as were milk cattle and the very occasional chev. These were not the rangy little Plains chev trailing behind the wagon, but enormous, monstrous examples of their breed, with plate sized hoofs and brutal, thick bodies. They could haul wagons faster than aurochs, and were smarter, but they couldn’t haul as long and were more fragile. Did Danae have some? She never said.

Mazelton saw some kids scattering grain for chickens. It didn’t look like a proper chicken shrine was made, just some little hut for them to retreat into at night. He didn’t look away. He still felt sick. He still felt tainted by what he did. But he didn’t look away. The children were healthy, and looked happy enough. They lived. With their parent’s care, they would live long enough to bring the next generation into the world. They didn’t have to shoulder the burden of sin. Their parents would carry it for them, until they were old enough to shoulder it for the next generation.

Like he would shoulder it for his children. Mazelton looked up into the sky, piercing blue and cottony white contrasting with the rich green of the mountains. The clouds were very tall today. It was the settlement phase. These were new lands, with limited sources of food. Even more limited in the winter months. Telling your children to starve because chickens made you sick was obscene. It was evil, as both the Dusties and the Ma understood that word. So he would accept the sin of Cass and Toa and Xiolani. He would force himself to eat carrion, to show his infants that the food was good, and then, with his own hands, spoon it into their mouths. And when they were old enough to understand, he would explain to them what a terrible, wicked thing he did, and why they had to work hard and make sure that they didn’t have to do the same to their children.

The morning passed as it had billions of times before, and would billions more times to come. They sat out for lunch, Mazelton taking pains to keep his clothes clean. He didn’t know what stray neuron sparked the thought but… he did have a fully functional and imperfectly controlled Bo bioweapon in his luggage. What to do about it?

Mazelton considered a number of options, ranging from burying it at a crossroads under the half moon, to painting flowers on it and calling it art. He ultimately opted for honesty. This is a very dangerous weapon. It won’t work for you. It hardly works for me. Please don’t touch it.

So many damn problems could be avoided if people just talked to each other.

Duane slowed the pace of the wagon slightly. They would make it before sunset, and the extra hour or so of daylight wasn’t worth the physical suffering. The forests were thick and lush on the steep slopes of the mountain, seemingly nestling the road next to the rushing river. Very steep mountain slopes. Very densely forested. Mazelton peered up the mostly straight river, seeing nothing but more of the same.

“Beautiful scenery.” Mazelton said, with the tone of a detective at a particularly gristly crime scene. Duane, faithful as Watson, simply nodded.

“The view from up the mountains must be absolutely spectacular. I look forward to hiking up there someday.” More nods, a little fainter this time. Hiking, in Duane’s experience, was not a recreational activity.

“But that’s just my aesthetic perspective, Old Radler roof runner kid and all that. Now, as a farmer, I ask you- is this what you would call good scenery?”

This merited barely half a shrug, more a shoulder twitch.

“I think the answer is no. I think it is a very firm no. Terrace farming is a thing, I grant you, but it’s not a thing anyone around here does. At least as far as I know. Most farmers I have seen, and I have now seen an awful lot of them, like flat or at least mostly flat farms. They do not like forty five degree slopes.”

Duane grudgingly nodded at that.

“And yet, I see an awful lot of very steep and heavily wooded slopes, the occasional homestead… and no real farms. Certainly no farming communities.”

Duane looked over and raised an eyebrow.

“She’s got an orchard, a vegetable garden, a little kitchen garden by the back door, and some land for grazing animals. Not a lot of animals, but some. So, she is less tied to the whole flat surface thing, but what about the whole rest of New Scandie? Do you want to grow barley or millet on a forty five degree slope? I don’t.”

Duane gave him the flat look of a man with no hang ups about eating meat. He would not be farming anything at all, thank you very much.

“Leaving aside all that, the thieving salesmonk showed me a plot map of New Scandie. My plot is tucked right behind Danae’s place, in the bend of the river. Notably, the map showed it as being flat, not, yanno, on a brutally steep slope running into a murderous flood.”

Duane gave him a different flat look, this one indicating that there were two words in there that might explain some things.

“No way. He was a greasy little shit but he would have been lynched once the first reports got back to Sky’s Echo if the plot map didn’t line up with reality. No, this is something else.”

Duane looked mildly curious.

“I mean, I don’t know what it is yet. But something very odd is going on here.”

The wagon shook and juddered its way along the gently winding road, watching the violent river smash against every little twist and bend. He could see huge fish jumping about, some almost as long as his arm. Mazelton squinted a bit. It looked like it got pretty shallow in places, and then very deep again. Probably not navigable along its whole length, but it sure looked great for fishing. He had wondered why he hadn’t seen anyone floating logs down it, or any vessels bigger than quite small craft.

Well. Not his problem. He certainly wasn’t going to be sailing anywhere.

The river made a charming little s curve, almost a perfect sine wave and then, quite out of the blue, Mazelton saw New Scandie. New Scandie was on the eastern bank of the Roaring river, nestled up against the Ramparts. It was impossible to miss, even from miles away.

Some ancient force had simply scraped the mountains back a few miles to the east, leaving about sixty square miles of perfectly flat farmland along the side of the river. Where the rest of the river valley was a sharp slope, this was a vertical wall, and clearly unnatural. Mazelton could picture children playing by the river bank and moving the mud walls of their “castles,” to give themselves more room to play. It was just… smooshed over, and patted until firm. But with millions of tons of solid granite mountains.

Mazelton’s jaw hung open. It was the casual unreality of it that was doing him in. There was no reason he could think of for some ancient ancestor to say “Fuck this particular mountain, the rest are fine,” and… not just level it but forcibly shove it to one side. That was probably the thing that was doing the most mental damage, the fact that the mountain wasn’t demolished and hauled away. It was all still there. Just in one stupidly vast stretch of wall. What the hell did that do to the climate in New Scandie?! All these mountains were funneling rainwater into the river, so what did this stupid wall do with all-

“Is that… am I seeing a fucking waterfall coming off the five hundred meter tall wall?’ Duane just nodded, eyes slightly widening to reveal his complete shock. Mazelton quickly tried to picture the plot map. Lucky. His plot was as far from the wall as one could be, right up against the edge of the river.

The… valley? What do you call something like this? He went with valley. The valley New Scandie was in was shockingly lush. He could see a little tributary of the Roaring River coming in from the west, and the muddy color of the water suggested that a lot of silt was coming from the north. Tons of well drained water, plus loads of minerals replenished by the river. It would be strange if it wasn’t lush. And since it was a little warmer here, things grew that little bit better.

Wait. Why was it warmer here? It should be cooler, surely. The wind would literally be funneled down from the extreme north, and they were high in the mountains as it was.

Mazelton closed his eyes and let his senses sweep out. He could pick up the heat traces from the plant life around him, and the explosion of little mammals that they fed. Remarkably rich cores, given the age of everything. Higher than one would expect. He swept his senses down into the soil. He didn’t see anything, but he could feel it. Something buried very, very deep below was gently radiating heat. Something impossibly huge, putting out enough heat to gently warm an entire, unnaturally wide, river valley in the High Ramparts.

“It could have been a normal farming village.” Mazelton mumbled to Duane. “It looked like one on the map. Everyone said it was a boring, tiny place, right?” Duane just patted his shoulder and drove on.

There really wasn’t much to New Scandie, as promised. There were no docks. Most of the produce would have to be hauled by wagons along the road. The houses were all one story tall, covered in shingles or clapboard, with high peaked roofs sweeping out to wide eaves. No garden canton here. This was a small, dense village, with the houses clustered around a central green, a sacred grove off a bit near the stream from the giant waterfall, and a single inn for the traveling trade. One general store. The fields were just outside of the village. People lived in the village and walked to the fields to work. Maybe they were all the common property of the village? Then, just outside the village center, were a few scattered farms and orchards.

One farmhouse, close to the river, was brilliantly whitewashed with yellow shutters, a yellow door, and very fine cedar shingles on the roof. All around it were fruit trees, apple and plum and Mazelton didn’t know what else, with a small barn next to the house. There was a tidy little path from the road up to the front door of the house, and on that door was a wreath of blue flowers. Chickens ran around the yard, pecking away happily at whatever happened to catch their eye. Mazelton saw a flash of movement in one of the open windows, and a few seconds later the yellow door opened.

She was a little shorter than Mazelton. Broad shouldered and well muscled from a life of labor. Her hair had been cut to show off the lines of her skull, like a bravo or a high class city lady of a few years ago. It looked good on her. Nervousness, pride and excitement seemed to slide across her face. She stepped out her front door and clearly didn’t know what to do with her hands. She swept one to the side and towards the door, awkwardly inviting him in.

“Welcome home, Mazelton.”