Hieronymus shrugged. “In the years that I have wandered across this circle of lands, I have had to accept one simple truth of life on Paragaea: Nothing is impossible. Improbable, perhaps, but not without the realms of possibility. I have seen such sights in these years as to beggar the imagination, and been forced time and time again to accept the reality of the most unreal situations. And if nothing is impossible, then given enough time and opportunity, anything can and will happen…including your finding a safe passage back home to Mother Russia.”
“I don't need to be pacified or patronized,” Leena said, scowling, finishing off the rest of her tankard in one long pull.
“Nor do I mean to patronize or pacify.” Hieronymus motioned for the piav vendor to bring them another round. “I speak only the unvarnished truth. From what I have been able to determine, through personal experience and the testimony of others, gates between this world and our own occur at very regular intervals, and open onto all points from the Earth's earliest prehistory to the farthest futurity. That means, in all likelihood, that the door to your own home, place, and time, is opening at this very moment, in some hidden corner of Paragaea. We just need to search long enough that we might locate it.”
Leena fell silent as the vendor refilled their tankards, and then regarded Hieronymus for a long moment before answering. “And this is your honest opinion?”
Hieronymus nodded.
“Then I will do my best to maintain hope as well, Hero.” Leena smiled, and took another long draw off her tankard. “How could I not, in the face of such optimism?”
Morning found the company reunited at the juncture between the aisles, somewhat worse for wear. Only Benu, in his new suit of clothes, finely cobbled shoes, and slouch hat, seemed to have gotten the better end of the bargain. Leena and Hieronymus were bleary-eyed and dehydrated, passing a large skin of water back and forth between them as quickly as their somewhat enfeebled reactions would allow, while Balam groaned softly, clutching his distended belly, trying not to let his gaze land on any greasy foodstuffs in the nearby stalls.
“Any luck finding the way between the worlds, Akilina?” Benu slung his new pack across his shoulder, having returned to each of them their loaned items of clothing.
“No,” Leena answered, stuffing her returned shirt unceremoniously into her pack, wrinkles and all. Her temples pounding, she couldn't help but smile when she glanced over at Hieronymus, who was splashing water from the skin into his eyes. “But I'm confident that we'll find the answer, in time.”
Benu led the company through the twisted lanes of Roam to the far eastern extremity of the mobile metropolis, where the animal pens and stables could be found. A nomadic community the size of the Roaming Empire required thousands of horses to keep in motion, as well as an equal number of sheep and goats, cattle, and innumerable dogs.
“In addition to my new accoutrements and raiment,” Benu explained, leading them to a stall at the stables' edge, “I was able to trade sufficient secrets on the Whisper Market to procure for us a string of horses, including a pair of large draft horses of sufficient size to accommodate the Sinaa.”
Balam, in light of his intestinal discomfort, growled uneasily at the idea of going horseback in short order.
“I had considered the option of not securing horses for my own use,” Benu went on, “as my capacities are such that I could locomote at speeds sufficient to keep abreast of a galloping horse, but to do so would potentially expend my reserves of energy faster than I could replenish them, leaving me incapable of physical exertions at the end of a day's travel. Considering the fact that we are never certain what obstacles or challenges we might encounter, I decided against that option, preferring instead to conserve my energies until they could be put to their best use.”
Benu handed a marker to the Roamish within the stall, and in a few moments a dozen horses were brought out to them.
“Two each for riding, in turns,” Benu explained, “and a third each for packs and supplies. Our current supply situation being what it is, I also took the liberty of procuring dried beans, salted and jerked meats, cornmeal, and flasks of fresh water, along with cooking utensils and the like.” Benu pointed to the parcels being hauled over by the Roamish and loaded onto the packhorses. “On the high plains of Sakria, grass for the horses will be plentiful, but we might not find food for humans and jaguar men quite so readily, and while my own bodily processes can continue at some length without replenishing my material input, the same cannot be said for you organics.” He paused, and then said in all sincerity, “I hope I have not overstepped the bounds of our relationship.”
Hieronymus waved a hand hastily, squinting in the bright morning sun. “Not in the least, friend Benu. If you find us…less than enthused, you may mark it down to the price of our overindulgence last night, in food”—he gestured to Balam—“and drink”—he motioned to Leena and himself—“and not in our lack of appreciation.” He paused, made an urping noise, and swallowed hard as bile rose in his throat. “'Cuse me.”
“It's…great!” Leena said between painful hiccups, trying to sound enthusiastic.
“I think I'm going to be sick,” Balam said, hand to his mouth.
“Splendid,” Benu replied, clapping his hands together, then tightening the cinch on his horse's saddle. “Shall we be off, then?”
By midmorning, following an unpleasantly jostling ride through the eastern reaches of Roam and out onto the plains, the company had more or less regained their composure, having sweated out the last of the alcohol, or passed the bulk of their meals, whichever was the case. Feeling somewhat refreshed, they paused for a brief meal—flatcakes, fried bacon, and tea, expertly prepared by Balam, who was regaining his appetite by leaps and bounds—and consulted Hieronymus's maps and charts.
“The fastest route to Keir-Leystall,” Hieronymus said, “is via the Inner Sea. The closest port is Bacharia, at the mouth of the river Pison.”
“Hmm,” Balam said, sipping at his tea, “but in recent decades the Bacharian Polity has taken a dim view of outsiders, closing off the port and forbidding entrance into the city walls by land and sea to any but fully accredited citizens.”
“A pity,” Benu said. “In centuries past, Bacharia was a most progressive and enlightened culture. But it is an inevitable cycle, I have found, and while it is tragic they have turned away from the world in this era, in time the forces of change will grind away and Bacharia will open up once again.”
“It is a historical imperative,” Leena said, nodding, “that oppressive oligarchies and capitalist empires will in the end fall to the will of the proletariat. That some cultures retrograde in the face of counterrevolutionary forces is unfortunate, but just as inevitable.”
“Be that as it may, we find ourselves living in this era.” Hieronymus pointed along the coast of the Inner Sea, some distance to the east of Bacharia. “And in this day and age—assuming we don't want to wait for the cycle of civilization to turn, and Bacharia to become a flower of culture and openness once again—our best option is to travel overland to Masjid Empor, the port city, and book passage on a southbound ship. We can ford the river Pison here”—he indicated a point upriver from where the Pison emptied into the Inner Sea—“where the ferry lines run, and reach Masjid Empor no more than a week later.”
“I've visited Masjid Kirkos in the south, years ago,” Balam said thoughtfully, “but I don't think I've ever seen the walls of Masjid Empor.”
“I was there once, years ago,” Hieronymus said, a cloud passing momentarily across his face, “but I had to leave in a hurry.” He glanced to Leena, and then to Benu. “But with any luck, that cycle of history of yours has turned once again,” he said with a smile that didn't quite reach his eyes, “and they've forgotten all about me.”
According to Hieronymus's maps and Benu's recollections, the company had more than a thousand kilometers to cover before they reached the river Pison, and another few hundred beyond that before they arrived at Masjid Em
por. Even switching horses at midday, traveling an average of ten hours a day, they could cover no more than thirty or forty kilometers a day. As a result, the journey from Roam to the ferry on the Pison would take them well over a month.
Having walked on foot through rain forest ever since the crash of the Rukh, Leena would have thought that traveling by horseback would prove a relief, but was surprised to find herself, if anything, even more fatigued at the end of a day of riding than she had been after a full day's slog through the undergrowth. Different muscles were sore, and bruises were found in new and sometimes surprising locations, but the fact that the horse was the one expending all the energy of locomotion appeared to do little to conserve the rider's strength.
As exhausted as their bodies might be at day's end, though, their minds were hungry for activity and exercise. With only the unbroken expanses of the high plains to look at, and nothing but the endless days of riding ahead of them, they passed the time in near-endless conversation—morning, day, and evening—leaving off only while sleeping, and sometimes not even then, as on frequent occasions one or the other of them would be found talking in their sleep, carrying on the conversations of the day.
Having traveled with Balam and Hieronymus since the day she first arrived on Paragaea, Leena felt that she knew them well enough, though the stories, jokes, and anecdotes they shared on those long days on the high Sakrian plains let her know just how little any one being could truly know another. But while there were occasional surprises, little character flaws or past indiscretions, that she found surprising, on the whole nothing was not in keeping with what she could have guessed about her two longtime companions.
Benu, though, was another matter entirely. Though they'd traveled at his side for a period of weeks, now, Leena felt that they'd hardly come to know the artificial man at all. He seemed so different than the frail, ancient creature he'd been when first they'd met, and his hairless, perfect skin and large opalescent eyes only served to remind her at every turn that he was not human like Hieronymus and she. That he never complained of aches and pains, never hungered, never tired, served to remind her that he was not even a living nonhuman sentient like Balam. But neither was he a creature of pure artifice, merely a machine. A kind of soul seemed to lurk behind those opalescent eyes, and a personality bubbled up during his often strange pronouncements and lectures. Here was a being who had walked this circle of lands for countless millennia, had seen things that no other living being had ever seen, and who knew more than any single being she'd ever met.
But what kind of being was he, at the core?
“Benu,” Leena began one morning, as they cantered across the grasslands, side by side, their string of horses following on a lead. “In the days past, the topic of family has arisen from time to time. We have heard about Balam's sisters Sakhmet and Bastet, and Hero has told us of his parents—the scholar and the cartographer's daughter—and I have even made mention of my own parents, Mikhail Andreyevich and Irina Ivanovna.”
“Yes,” Benu said contemplatively. “And I've been struck by how often your stories seem to end in tragedy of one sort or another, whether death, or betrayal, or both.”
On her other side, Balam began to growl, a low rumbling thunder deep in his chest.
“Perhaps,” Hieronymus hastened to interrupt, trying for a light tone, “what Benu means to say is that each of us, in our own way, has experienced the travails of life firsthand.”
“No,” Benu answered, shaking his head and glancing casually over at Hieronymus. “I mean to say that you, Hieronymus, betrayed your father's wishes for your life by running away to sea, rather than pursuing an academic course as he had intended for you. And you did so shortly after your mother's death, only further linking the two concepts.” He turned to Leena, twisting expertly in the saddle, casually leaning against his saddle's pommel. “And you, Akilina, lost your parents when only five years old, and were forced to survive a feral existence in the remaining months of a siege, a hardscrabble life that left you little more than a reactionary beast by the process's end.” Leena stiffened, but before she could respond, Benu had moved his attentions on to Balam. “And you, friend Sinaa, were betrayed by your cousin Gerjis, who turned your sisters away from you, and led your nation into a close alliance with the leader of the Black Sun Genesis cult, one Per, an individual of rather dubious qualities, or so your report would suggest.”
The jaguar man's fingers tightened on the reins, and his black lips curled back over saberlike incisors. “I prefer not to discuss Per, if you please,” he said between clenched teeth. “So make your point, homunculus, if you have one.”
Benu raised a hand in halfhearted apology.
“I mean no offense,” he said, turning from one to another. “I just observe that the concept of family so often is tied up inextricably with the more negative aspects of culture, whether the betrayal of personal confidences, or the end of existence. Though, to be fair, since all existence ends sooner or later, I suppose one could argue that data point isn't particularly relevant.” He turned to Leena, his expression open and confused. “I apologize, Akilina, is that not the point you intended to make?”
Leena was still caught in a wash of emotion thinking of her lost parents, and couldn't help but wish that she hadn't mentioned them a few nights before, in the late hours of the evening, when Hieronymus had left off talking about his own parents, and their loss.
“No,” Leena finally said, fighting to remain calm and collected. “My point, had I been allowed to make it, would have been that in all this talk of family, we have yet to discuss your own origins, Benu.”
“Oh.” Benu paused for a moment, lids sliding slowly over opalescent eyes, as he looked past Leena at Balam, and then over to Hieronymus. “My apologies. I mistook your meaning. My own origins are fairly inconsequential. I was constructed by the wizard-kings of Atla, as I may have indicated before. I was designed to be a reconnaissance probe, my original charter to walk the planet, making a complete circuit every few centuries, and to report back what I had learned to my creators. Millennia ago, though, the way to Atla was sealed off, the citadel city hidden behind an energetic barrier wall, when the wizard-kings scorched the steppes of Eschar with cold fire, thus ending the Genos Wars.”
“And the age of the Metamankind Empires began,” Balam said thoughtfully.
“Exactly so. It was an interesting time, though as the old saw holds, one does not always find it enjoyable to live through interesting times. Though, in their way, the metamen did not prove any better or worse as stewards of civilization than the Nonae or the Black Sun Empire had before them, or than the human cultures appear to be proving today. Civilization is, in many ways, an emergent phenomenon, and it seems to matter little to history what species of being steers the ship of state, so long as the ship is steered somewhere or other. And like families and individuals, death seems to claim all civilizations in the end.”
Hieronymus drew in a long breath through his nose, his mouth clamped shut, and seemed to marshal his reserves of patience before answering. “You speak cavalierly of families and deaths,” he said, his tone level, “for a being who seems to have known nothing of either.”
Benu regarded him for a moment, something like sadness creeping around his eyes, and shook his head slowly.
“I'm afraid I've given you a mistaken impression, my friends, if you have come to think I know nothing of family or of loss.”
“What could you, undying and sexless,” Balam shot back, “know of either?”
“Because I have almost died, many times, and once at the hands of the one I came to know as Ikaru.”
“Ikaru?” Leena asked.
“My son.”
“Though my outer form appears little different than that of a human,” Benu said as they gathered around a campfire at day's end, their horses grazing on a line in the near distance, “it must not be forgotten that I am an artificial being. My bodies are able to walk unscathed through fire, stay underwat
er for long periods of time, run fast for days on end, and lift huge weights. I have a weakness, though, which I am understandably reluctant to share. However, since you have bared such personal moments of your pasts with me, it seems only right that I unburden myself to you, to a degree. And awareness of my limitations is crucial in the tale which I now relate.”
I am fueled primarily by the sun, Benu went on. I can draw energy and sustenance through consuming and metabolizing matter, but such processes are time-consuming, and the resultant energy yields are comparatively low; as a result, I am designed to draw my energy chiefly from the sun's rays. And though I am able to store a certain amount of energy in my body's cells, if I overexert my reserves can burn through quickly. Whether quickly or slowly, though, as energy is consumed it must be replenished. If my stores run low in the daylight hours, I can recharge fairly quickly, just by absorbing the sun's rays, and after a brief respite I can be fully replenished. If my reserves are depleted at night, however, I can be left in a weakened state until sunrise, forced to subsist on the reflected light of the moon.
When at my full strength, I can go without rest for days, can hear sounds undetectable to the most sensitive of organic creatures, and my eyes can perceive every band of the electromagnetic spectrum from radio waves to gamma radiation. In time, though, my systems can become corrupted, decayed, or damaged, and must be repaired.
My makers imbued me with the ability to repair myself, even to the extent of manufacturing new parts and components to replace worn and defective ones. I assume that my original parameters were set such that, when wear and tear reached systemic proportions, I would return to Atla to be decommissioned. Perhaps another probe unit would be sent in my place, or my personality core would be transferred to a new body. I'm afraid that I don't recall. That knowledge is among that which was lost to me, over the course of the events I now recount.
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