Chương 20: Chapter 18 — Words and Conversation

[NOTIFICATION] ──────────────────────────── Current XP: 487 / 5000 Fenwick came back with three books. The administrative record he had gotten from his sleeping area had been a start — three hundred and twelve pages of dispute resolutions and Abbott Crispin's eleven years of weather observations, precise and thorough. It was the book Fenwick read to help him sleep. It had given the system an alphabet and a foundation. The three books he had brought were now different. A history of the kingdom.

A theological text from the Order's middle period. And, because Fenwick had stood in front of the library shelf for a moment and made a decision he didn't examine too closely, a collection of traveling merchants' road guides covering every major settlement between Thornwall and the eastern border. He held them open in front of Max, one at a time, for as long as it took. Max ate a beetle he found on the floor. The system read. The system scanned faster than Fenwick could turn pages.

He would hold a spread open and feel the slight pause as something worked through it, and then a hand signal — next — would appear, and he would turn. When a word came up that the scan couldn't resolve, it would flash on the screen, and Fenwick would read it aloud, and the flash would disappear. They worked through the first half of the history book that way. Halfway through, the screen cleared. A single sentence appeared. My name is Sindy. Fenwick looked up from the page. He looked at the screen.

A small smile played at his lips, and the thought that he wasn't as alone as he was yesterday.

"Hello, Sindy," he said. The screen showed a small figure. It nodded. He turned the page. They kept going. By midday, she could make proper sentences. By early afternoon, she could make arguments. By the time the light through the barn's single window had shifted to the long gold of late afternoon, she had filled in enough gaps that what remained were not absences but character. Fenwick had sat on a stump the whole time, slowly turning pages as the system recorded the new written words.

When a question mark appeared, he would read it aloud. Usually, this was only on places or names that had peculiar spellings. The screen changed. I have been in this world for fifty-four days. I arrived one month and four days late. I know this because the delivery record says so and because Max was already turned when I found him. Fenwick looked at the screen. He looked at Max, who was facing the wall with the quiet attention of someone listening to something nobody else could hear.

"Turned," said Fenwick.

"You mean—" Yes. I arrived on Earth. The world he came from. Something had happened there. I don't yet have the words for what it was. Many people. All of them were wrong. Max had survived longer than most. He had made it back to his apartment. Fenwick was quiet for a moment.

"He is a zombie. Z O M B I E is how it is spelled. Back from where?" Zombie, thank you. I'll update that. He was outside. It wasn't safe outside. He had been outside anyway. He came back. He knew he was gonna die, but he still returned. That is the kind of person he was. The screen paused. Then: There were marks on the wall. One for each day. He had been keeping count for a very long time. Fenwick looked at Max.

Max stood with the absolute stillness of someone listening to a story he had heard before but had not yet finished understanding.

"How did you know his name?" said Fenwick.

"The screen says corrupted." It is corrupted. I don't have his real name. I found an account he used for reading. Stories. He downloaded them when the networks were still working and read them afterward. The account name was Max Action. Fenwick considered this.

"Max Action." He read to his dog every night. The dog was called Oscar. Fenwick set the road guide down on his knee. Five words. The dog was called Oscar. He had been alive in that apartment for months, keeping count on the wall, keeping a dog alive, reading stories to a dog every night while the world outside got worse. Somewhere in all of that was the person currently standing in the corner of an aphid barn facing a wall. He sat with it for a moment.

"Where is the dog now?" said Fenwick. The screen was still. Oscar died before I arrived. Fenwick looked at his paws. He looked at the sword in the corner, the harness on the hook, and the acorn bag on the shelf.

"That's why you read to him," he said. I started because it kept him from wandering. He heard the rhythm, and he stayed still, and I needed him to stay still. But yes. That is also why. If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. The screen paused again. When the next words came, Sindy slowly typed them out. These mattered; this showed that something was there beyond the rotten meat. This was what mattered to her and to Max I read him the same stories he read to Oscar.

I thought — I don't know what I thought, maybe that the words were going somewhere. That something in him still recognized them.

"Something does," said Fenwick. He said it simply, without elaboration, because it was true. The screen was still for a moment. Then: Thank you. Fenwick cleared his throat. He straightened his robes. He reached for the acorn bag and put it down again.

"There are things you should know," he said.

"About what's happening here. The reason the Order spent twelve thousand gold pieces was to summon a hero." Yes"The Followers of the Egg," said Fenwick.

"That's what they call themselves. A cult. They've been growing for three years — longer probably, but three years is when villages started disappearing." Disappearing?

"Recruited or killed. Whole settlements. The cult doesn't offer a middle position — you join, or you don't, and if you don't, they move on and send something back later to make sure the village isn't a problem." He paused.

"The eastern settlements near the border have gone quiet. The merchants stopped coming through. The Guild lost three scouting parties before they stopped sending them." What do they want?

"The prophecy calls them the children of the egg that burned. Something old. Something underground. The texts aren't specific, and Nibbles doesn't like to speculate without evidence, but the evidence has been arriving steadily for three years, and none of it has been good." Where are they based? Fenwick was quiet for a moment. This was the part that was harder to say.

"The Omnivore kingdom," he said.

"To the east. In the mountains that separate the omnivores from the Carnivore kingdom. Beyond the border settlements." The screen waited.

"It's complicated," said Fenwick.

"The Omnivore kingdom is a civilized nation. Has been for thousands of years. They don't — " He stopped. Choose his words with the care of someone navigating something old and not entirely rational.

"They haven't eaten intelligent meat in a very long time. It isn't done. It hasn't been done since before anyone's grandfather's grandfather was born. Treaties. Laws. Centuries of coexistence." He paused.

"And yet." And yet.

"There are those of us who remember the history even when we don't think we do," said Fenwick.

"It sits at the back of the brain. Quietly. Not accusation — nobody here is accusing the Omnivore kingdom of anything. But the Followers of the Egg recruit heavily from their eastern territories, and the first recruits were said to be from the Carnivore kingdom, and the cult's promises involve something very old, and when the border villages started going quiet, the first question everyone thought, and nobody said out loud, was — " He didn't finish the sentence. He didn't need to. I understand.

"The Omnivore kingdom officially condemns the cult," Fenwick continued.

"King Aldenmere sent a formal declaration eighteen months ago. The Guild has its correspondence on record. He means it, I think. But meaning it and controlling your eastern territories are different things when something old is making promises in the dark." So we can't send an army.

"We could send an army to the border. We couldn't send it through. And even if we could — " He looked at the theological text on the shelf.

"The prophecy doesn't describe an army solving this. It describes one person. One person who cannot be put out." The hero was supposed to stop them.

"The hero was supposed to be here a month ago," said Fenwick.

"Ready. Trained. The prophecy describes radiance and power and someone who stands against the darkness at the appointed hour." He looked at Max.

"The appointed hour came and went. The cult kept moving." How much time do we have?

"Nibbles doesn't know. The king is patient. Stondall—" He stopped.

"Stondall keeps a record of everything." I know the type.

"The kingdom is holding. But the eastern border is quiet in a way that borders shouldn't be quiet, and every week we spend on beetles and frogs is a week the cult spends on whatever they're building toward." The screen was still for a long moment. His INT was zero when I arrived. He is actively hunting now, using real thought and real skill.

"I know." He is getting there.

"I know that too," said Fenwick. He picked up the acorn bag. He put it back down.

"I just need him to get there faster than whatever is coming." The screen showed him something assembled from the road guide and the history book and the theological text, a sentence she had been building quietly in the background while they talked. Then we had better get back to work tomorrow. Fenwick looked at it.

"Yes," he said.

"We had better." [SYSTEM PRIVATE LOG] ──────────────────────────── [Sindy — Private Log — Day 54] I talked to Fenwick today. He told me about the cult. The villages. The eastern border is going quiet. He told me about the Omnivore kingdom, but he stopped mid-sentence and didn't finish. I understood what he didn't say because some things are older than words and don't need them. I told him about the apartment. The marks on the wall. Oscar. He said, "Something does" about Max hearing the stories.

He said it simply, as if it wasn't remarkable, which made it even more remarkable. Max is at 487 XP. We need to go deeper into the cave.