Northwest of Cromsville, on the eastern bank of the serpentine River Odri, sandwiched between the daunting Mt. Doré and the steep Mt. Arcalod—there, where the fields of redspine thistle came to an end and the forests of the north began to sprout, lay a town known to traders and travelers as Beaucourt.

Fifty years ago, Count Edgard Monet and his adventurous expedition arrived at the area and cleared it from monsters. The Blackhide Wolves were murdered; the Constrictor Vines were chopped; the Thousand-feather Harpies were shot from the sky. Then the Count ordered his diligent followers to breathe life into the land and to tame the wilderness with the tools of civilization. The diggers struck the earth open, and the lumberjacks felled the trees. In the center of the valley, against a snow-capped background, a beautiful clock tower was erected using carved wood and smooth stone. And as the silver hands of this timepiece counted the years, the rest of the arable land was transformed.

Before long, striped fields of wheat and barley extended toward the gold-blue horizon. A wall was built to protect the townspeople against the nightly goblin raids. Then the Beau Market spawned in the central town square, where traders and farmers exchanged crops and seeds, and where the wandering violinists stopped to play a memory on the strings of nostalgia. Nowhere in the Cromish lands could one find such an atmosphere. Beaucourt became a rustic retreat—a place of deep quiet and peace. And Count Monet, founder and landowner, built himself a summer villa to partake in this idyllic paradise. For thirty summers and springs, he enjoyed the gifts of the land and the warmth of the people. Then he passed away—he died on his gilded rocking chair on a midsummer night, dreaming, his family said. And his thirty-year-old son inherited the spoils.

Pascal Monet—that was the name of the uncontested heir, the righteous and deserving heir, a workhorse, an entrepreneur. He saw in Beaucourt a potential that his father had not seen, and only a few days after a lachrymose funeral speech, he signed an international deal with the dwarves of Kunzite Forge. The dwarves crossed the border and arrived from the northern frontier. With their tools, they bore tunnels into the hearts of the mountains, and with their skills, they unearthed a hidden trove of silver and gold. The new Count Monet—Pascal was by now a forgotten name—sent letters to the Federal Mint and the Prince of Cromsville. The few words on the paper were the writings of fate. A lucrative deal was arranged, and the valley was again transformed.

This time it became a land of gold and riches and …

***

“… and sweat!” Priest Alphonse exclaimed and paused.

Silence filled the nave. A cough. A sneeze. The rubbing of a straw shoe.

It was not the first time that Priest Alphonse gave such a lesson at his church, the Church of St. Cornelius, but it was indeed the first time that he taught it to children so young, so immature. He searched his prepubescent audience for any signs of intelligent life. All he could find were dim faces in the dim light—the heavenly rays passing through stained glass and hallowed domes, strained eyes and hollowed heads. He might as well have been talking to a set of garden gnomes or to wax statues in museum sheds. He should give up; he should return to his studies. So did the voice of reason say—but he had been tasked by Pascal Monet, the same Count Monet, to educate the town children on this day. And such an important assignment could not be ignored without consequences.

“The shiny stones, children. That’s what we call ‘gold.’ ”

There was a yawn in the dark.

“Our land is full of riches, more than anywhere else!”

There were a few sparks in a few eyes.

“And your parents are working hard to earn their share of this wealth.”

The sparks suddenly vanished—were they coincidental? A stray reflection?

“All of us are born with a sacred duty: to work hard and pray harder,” Priest Alphonse continued—desperate to inspire the children, desperate to command the snotty crowd. “We have to honor this sacred duty until the day we die. Hear me, my children. We have to earn our trip to heaven. We have to thank Amirani for the generous gifts that He bestowed upon us.”

The sparks, however, did not return to the dull eyes. The eight-year-olds were daydreamers, and the ten-year-olds were fantasizers. The words of the lesson would never reach them; even the almighty Amirani could not teach them. Disillusioned, Priest Alphonse turned to the only eleven-year-old in the crowd. This boy was the final hope. The desperate priest looked him in the eye and had a final lash—a perversely wordy thrash: “But it is not enough to thank the high heavens! We must also remain faithful and loyal and obedient to Count Monet, whose boundless generosity breathes fiery life into all of us, and whose wisdom guides our little town toward a future of prosperity! A future of hope!”

The eleven-year-old nodded. A blessing!

“Yes! That is right, my dear children!” Priest Alphonse continued, with more vigor, with more energy. “We must all respect and obey Count Monet, because his words are guided by the words of Amirani! And if we fail to do so, if we fail to follow our guide, there is no telling what might happen to our small town!”

“What might happen?” the eleven-year-old suddenly spoke.

Priest Alphonse was taken aback for a moment, but he regained his calm and composure with a rub of the left cheek. Then he answered, “The town would be looted, destroyed, overrun by greed and larceny, ruined by petty thievery and wild banditry! And we will all be sent to the eternal fire of our Lord!”

When eternal fire was mentioned, the children suddenly became attentive. It was not that they understood what the words meant—“eternal” was especially hard to grasp—but they had heard these two words used in conjunction for thousands of times: when their mothers were angry, when their fathers were dissatisfied with work, when the hot-headed traders were haggling in the Beau Market. Anger, fear, confusion, uncertainty, pain—a veritable calamity was associated with these two utterances. And what is better to mold a young brain than an imaginary disaster of unfathomable scale? First, there are words. Then there are associations. Twenty years later, there will be an obedient miner or a servile farmer (at least according to the well-educated Count Monet).

“Remember, children,” Priest Alphonse continued. “Remember to recite all your prayers—every day when you wake up and every day before you go to bed. These prayers are the key to your peace and happiness. These prayers keep the eternal fire away. And this is the hard work that you can do at your age. Hard but rewarding! And remember that Amirani is always watching you. He knows when you are working hard. He sees you and hears you and changes the whole world so that you may get your deserved reward. His Order is just and absolute. There is no such thing as luck or chance. Everything is as it should be.”

At that moment, as the holy lips seemed to pause, the clock tower sounded its brass bell from across the street. It was already four in the afternoon. The town shops were closing their doors; the gold wagons were leaving for Cromsville; the farmers were returning to their walled houses. Feeling some relief, Priest Alphonse announced that the lesson was over, and a veritable stampede ensued. Laughs, chuckles, shouts, shrieks—the noise erupted for a few seconds as the church door swung around. The short children jostled; the tall ones hustled. Then everyone was gone, and the church felt like a graveyard at midnight.

Calm. Quiet. Silence. Dignity. A church is open to anyone, but it belongs to clergy and scholars. Priest Alphonse felt that his kingdom had been restored. He gathered his thoughts and almost turned toward his study, where his rare books awaited him; but then, his aging body half in motion, his lengthy beard swinging, he noticed a pair of eyes in the dimness. They had been watching during the tedious lesson, and they had not altered their gaze even now. It was the eleven-year-old from before, the only boy who had nodded, the only child who dared to ask one question. He was still standing in the dead center of the church, but he was on the verge of crying, with hot tears clinging to his lashes.

“What’s wrong, child?” Priest Alphonse said.

There was no answer.

“Why are you crying?” He walked closer.

There was again no answer.

“You can tell me, child.” He bent down and answered the gaze with another.

The eleven-year-old sniffled and finally said, “I forgot my prayers.”

“Is that so?” Priest Alphonse laughed. “Don’t worry, my dear child. A prayer is never truly forgotten. It is there in your heart, a feeling inside you. When you get back home, you can ask your father to help you put this feeling into words, and it will be your prayer.”

“My father forgot his prayers … And my mother too.”

Priest Alphonse was distraught. He struggled for words before he abandoned all responses and finally asked, “What’s your name, child? And your father’s?”

“Peter … And my father … is called Satchel.”

***

He was only Peter (a commoner was not allowed a family name), Putter Pete when he worked in the dark mines with his father, Petit Pete when he visited his grandmother and stuffed himself with blueberry pie. There was nothing unusual about him. 145 cm, 33 kg, blue eyes, blond hair. He wore a white shirt that his grandmother made and dark pants provided by the Church. His clothes were always dirty—food stains near the collar, black dirt everywhere else—but so were the clothes of all the other children. He could neither read nor write. Magic-themed bedtime stories fascinated him. Monsters scared him at night; heroes inspired him at dawn. He was an average child, average in all common aspects, except that he listened.

When his beloved father and mother quarreled, when the human workers and dwarven miners argued, when the priests gave their exaggerated sermons, Peter was always there, and he was always listening. He patiently listened, and partially understood, and unprophetically panicked. Words had weight in his world. When his parents threatened to leave the house, he thought that they would set out and never return; when the workers said that they would murder a “pigmy” dwarf, he was ready to weaponize a shovel for the glory of humanity; and today, when Priest Alphonse said that an eternal fire awaited those who did not pray, he could already feel the flames tickling his toes.

Dousing these wicked flames took priority over everything else. He sat in the candle-lit study with Priest Alphonse and spent the sunny afternoon relearning his prayers. Recite. Repeat. Recite. Repeat. As the town children played outside, shadows behind the mosaic of a saint, he learned to thank Amirani and to respect Count Monet. Then, when he had assured himself that the eternal fire was receding, he finally settled in place as if he had reached an equilibrium. He yawned. He smiled. He even looked around him. And between one carefree glance and the other, he had a sudden realization: it was the first time that he was allowed into the hidden rooms of the church.

There was a desk where Priest Alphonse sat and occupied himself with work. There were scented candles, gold coins, and document stacks. Then there were tens of tall bookshelves that padded the walls with paper and dust. Because he had never seen so many books before, Peter was drawn to these towering paper monoliths. He tiptoed to the limit and reached with his fingertips and started to check the old manuscripts lining up on the shelves. These were the historical books that the priests studied and copied. He could not read a single word, but he perceived the covers as canvases and the letters as drawings. And over time he began to notice that some drawings were similar, almost familiar to his eye, while others seemed too odd—apples and oranges, in the tritest of terms.

“Why are they so different?” he dared to ask.

“You noticed?” Priest Alphonse smiled at the sharp observation. He parted with his desk and picked up a manuscript and looked at it fondly. “Listen, Peter, long ago, long, long ago, we humans did not all speak the same way. Our world was divided into many competing realms, and every group of people had their own language. These books are from this time. They had been sealed away deep underground until we found them and brought them here.”

“So some people spoke weirdly,” Peter said. “And wrote weirdly.”

“As a matter of fact, yes,” Priest Alphonse laughed. “Some spoke like dwarves or elves or even lizasaurians. But when we were all united under God, Amirani also united our languages. He made it so that we all speak the same tongue and write with the same alphabet. And He blessed us so that we may communicate with the other races without hindrances.”

“The dwarves in the mines talk like us,” Peter said.

“Yes,” Priest Alphonse smiled. “They sound like humans to you, Peter. But in fact they are speaking their inferior tongue. They are talking in a different way, but Amirani blessed us so that we may hear them and understand them without effort. Dwarven language is one of the so-called Rational Languages.”

“Rash … Rash-on …”

“I suppose you are far too young to understand.” Priest Alphonse placed the old manuscripts back on their shelves. “Amirani guide me. Here I am talking to you about languages when you can’t even read or write.”

“Is that bad?” Peter began to panic.

“No … No, I suppose not. As long as you recite your prayers.”

“I will! I’ll always recite them!”

“That is all you need.”

***

On his way home, Peter prayed without cease. Even as the other children called to him from the street corner—“Pete! Come play with us!”—the prayers still droned. He was not the happiest child in the wide world, but his happiness seemed easy to attain, and so he put his full trust in Amirani. Maybe the heroes would kill more monsters if he prayed. Maybe his father would earn a few more silver coins than usual. Maybe Count Monet would visit them on a cool summer night and bring presents—a shiny pickaxe for him, a silk dress for his older sister. He was lost in these wishes, lost in free imagination, when a small hand suddenly hooked his shoulder.

“How’s it going, Pete?” Remi said.

She was the neighbor’s youngest daughter, a frizzy-haired ten-year-old in a brown-beige farm dress. Whenever she smiled, her downturned blue eyes would close on their own; her gaunt cheeks would stretch to the sides of her squarish face; her dry lips would break and crack. Hers was a rather ugly smile, but it was a precious comfort nonetheless. Every day, regardless of the date or time, regardless of the context or occasion, Peter would always meet her on his way home, and she would always smile at him and walk with him for the last fifteen minutes of his trip. Were they friends? They never asked themselves this silly question, and perhaps an answer would have been all the more redundant.

“You know,” Peter began, “we don’t hear it, but the dwarves actually talk in a strange way. It’s because they have a rash.”

“Really?” Remi opened her eyes wide.

“Yeah, Priest Alphonse said that.”

“I hate rashes. Mom had one on her arm, and I couldn’t hug her for weeks.”

“All dwarves have rashes,” Peter asserted.

“Maybe that’s why Dad doesn’t like them.”

“No one likes them. Everyone says they should go back to their forsch.”

“You have a booger! Ha ha!”

“What? Where?”

Peter stopped on the side of the dirt road and started to pick his nose. Remi laughed at him. He could have told her that he had been crying earlier, but this explanation would have left him even more perplexed and more embarrassed, and so he said nothing.

“It’s all gone now,” Remi laughed. “Let’s get going. I’m hungry.”

“I’m hungry, too.”

Peter was about to start walking again, but then, amid the prevalent calm of the afternoon, with the sun blurring his surroundings, he heard an odd sound from behind a building not so far away. It occurred once … twice. It was a loud neigh, accompanied by a lightning whip.

“Horsie!” Remi beamed.

“Watch out!” Peter grabbed her hand and pulled her toward him.

At that chilling moment, in the blink of an eye and the twitch of a finger, a four-horse carriage appeared on the road. It turned at the corner and raced toward the pair of children. The wheels were mad; the horses were rabid. If Peter had not pulled Remi away in time, she would have been run over and squashed. And even after he pulled her, the force of the incoming carriage was enough to send both of them to the ground. They fell on their backs and watched the frenzied vehicle as it raced away. In a matter of seconds, it had disappeared like a phantom, and had it not been for the hoof marks and erratic ruts, no one would have believed that it had been real.

“What was that?” Peter said. Then he stood up and started to help his friend. “Don’t cry, Remi. It’s gone now.” He tried to pull her up. “Don’t cry. You’re a big girl.” He looked around him quite anxiously—the street was empty: there were only small houses and trees and no signs of the demonic carriage. “It’s gone for real, so don’t cry now. Are you all right? Did you get hurt?”

“I …” Remi finally wiped her tears. “I’m all right … But I was scared”

“Let’s get you home,” Peter smiled.

***

The narrow street from which the rushing carriage had turned was called Tiller’s Row. It happened to be the place where both Peter and Remi were born. Remi breathed her first breath in the foremost house on the left; Peter in the farthermost on the right. But it did not make much of a difference, since all the buildings looked alike. From one end of the street to the other, there were only grayish houses with thatched roofs. They formed two tightly packed rows that were uninterrupted except by an occasional private plot and one drinking well. At sunrise and sunset, there was always a queue of miners and farmers in front of that well, but right now the street was strangely empty.

As the shadows elongated, Remi stopped in front of her humble doorstep. A wooden door, twice her height, loomed in front of her. It was plain and dull and undecorated, except with three dry stalks of redspine thistle, which were tied together and hung from the rusty doorknob for good luck. As always, Remi stared up and then down at the redspine stalks. Then she closed her eyes for no apparent reason and knocked thrice on the door. Peter never understood why she performed this meaningless ritual, and today—again—he forgot to ask. She waited for her parents, and he stood still by her side.

“It’s so hot today,” she said, wiping sweat off her forehead.

“I think it’s pretty nice,” Peter laughed, not realizing that his clothes were much lighter than a farm dress. “Summer is fun.” He played with the redspine stalks. Before he could unthread one of them, however, Remi slapped his hand. He flinched and shouted, “Hey! What did you do that for?”

“Bad luck,” Remi said. “Touching the grass is bad luck.”

“What do you know?”

“Mom always says that.”

“Priest Alphonse said there’s nothing called luck.”

“My mom knows better.”

The two children reached an impasse and quieted down. Peter moved away from the door, crouched near the wall, and started to poke with his finger at the mushrooms growing out of the ground. He stayed there for a full five minutes, losing his sense of time and forgetting that he had to be home soon.

“This is weird,” Remi said.

“What?” Peter looked up and saw her face in the sun.

“I knocked five times already.”

“Maybe your parents are out at the farm.”

“Maybe.”

“Do you wanna wait for them at my house?”

“Thanks … But I’ll stay here.”

“You sure?”

“Yeah … You can go.”

Peter shrugged his shoulders and stood up. He said goodbye before he headed down Tiller’s Row. Every other step he looked back for no apparent reason and saw Remi’s silhouette at the same position at her doorstep—this was his own meaningless ritual, which he could not explain or unlearn. She grew smaller and smaller, darker and darker. The blood-red sun was already setting behind her. It was evening, Peter noticed, but there was no queue forming at the well. The houses were quiet. Traffic was nonexistent. It had been a strange day, to say the least, and soon it would be a strange night.

His stomach growled. Would he be having leek-potato soup and bread again? He shuddered at the thought and drooled for chicken or meat. If only he could turn around and head for an inn and savor the cooking of a chef, how much his night would change. But now he was at his own doorstep—it was too late for hungry daydreams—and his tired feet were already dragging him toward their preprogrammed destination. Any food would do. Anything edible would do. He climbed the step and prepared to knock on the door to his house, but then, to his utter surprise, he found it wide open—lock smashed, hinges broken.

“Father?” he whispered.

There was no answer.

Fear rushed through him—through his arteries and veins. He did not know where to go or what to do. He lingered near the door, with neither the courage to step inside nor the wisdom to run away. He simply stood there for the longest of time, and eventually, he began to hear voices. Whisper. Whisper. Whisper. A young woman stifled her weak whimpers. An elderly man controlled his violent cough. Suddenly, a shout resounded like a roar. There was a heated altercation, a nauseating clash between two men. Armor rattled. Furniture slid. Then, from among the terrible noise, there emerged a familiar voice.

“Father!”

Peter walked into his house. One step followed the other. He made it through the short entryway and turned a sharp left into the main room. The red-orange fire was crackling in the fireplace, and in its light, he saw tens of human figures congregating like insects. There was an unfamiliar odor in the air, and it felt as though ten thousand tongues were speaking at once. He could not understand what was happening; he could not bear these alienating surroundings. His eyes erased the world with their scalding tears, and his throat silenced the universe with its shrill screams. He was ready to wail for hours, fueled by hunger and fear, but then a woman appeared from among the countless figures.

“What are you doing here, Peter?” She picked him up.

He realized that it was Remi’s mother, Marthe, and stopped screaming.

“Let’s go outside. You shouldn’t be here.”

He still understood little, but he found himself nodding. He felt safe in her arms and closed his eyes and began to rest. She was like a second mother to him, and if she had taken him outside fast enough, he would have fallen asleep and forgotten about this strange day. But her feet were slow, and by the time she reached the entryway, Peter’s father, Satchel, had already unleashed another feral roar. It was distant like last time, but owing to bad luck, the words that followed it were both audible and intelligible: “My wife was killed by a fucking dwarf! In her own house! My daughter was taken away! In broad daylight! God knows where! And you … you want me to just sit and do nothing? By Amirani, you are all cowards! Murderers and cowards! Murderers!”

Peter’s eyes opened wide, and his heart became void of prayers.