The Withered Land, THE EMPIRE FALLS: HELL'S AVATAR

HELL'S AVATAR -- PART FOUR

"How stand you, Pilgrim?" The Scribe said, using the classic formal greeting between strangers, speaking in the Old Speech of the Emperium. Few people on the vast western continent spoke in the tongue of the Old Speech anymore. Since the terrible days of the Dominion Kings, Tekk-speak and Spacer-language had intermixed into the lexicon of the general population, leaving Old Speech for unique High-Caste situations like those of governmental legislative oratory and ambassadorial diplomacy, military Formation Review and Honor Guard presentations, and the greeting of Offworld dignitaries. The Scribe used it to convey respect towards this strange alien traveler.

He didn't want to get off on the wrong side of a being renowned as a walking murder machine.

For his part, Forynnuhr was rather dismissive towards The Scribe. Since his brief conversation with Atu'ihma, his mind had been aswirl with the strangeness of knowing that it was another version of himself, a twin from a different universe whose life had followed an unguessably different course from the one he knew, who had arranged this rendezvous in an isolated necropolis.

Instead of returning the man's greeting, Forynnuhr asked, "What city is nearest here and how far do we have to travel to reach it?"

"We are half a solar cycle from Koombari City, a place with a moderate sized population and few machines, and the militia outpost of Annet Galjeshir, due south and east, following the Waste's contour of the second tier-terrace around Bre'Enqachuk Mesa," The Scribe dutifully answered. "Riding a motorized landspeeder, which I do have docked, we can be there as the suns set during Horizon-cloak. On foot, should that be your preference for travel, and moving at a steady pace, we'll reach the perimeter to Koombari by late-mideven."

The Pilgrim nodded. He was silent a moment and then said, "I notice you do not wear any armor that I can see under your robes. What weaponry do you have on you?"

"Only a collapsible razor-staff and an old lightburster pistol," The Scribe admitted. "And so far as body protection goes, I only have a vest of linked metal-plate on my torso, covering my front and back, along with the leather knee-guards you see outside my trousers."

"Any combat training?"

"Very limited and very much under-used. I was, in the distant past, conscripted into military service, but I was not an infantryman or an operations specialist...," The Scribe said with some hesitation.

"No Psionic abilities?" The Scribe could not help but notice there was something especially cunning in the way the Pilgrim asked the question.

"Psionics? You mean mind-magic? No, no enhancements of any sort," The Scribe answered. He felt somehow even uncomfortable in the Upworlds traveler's presence. It was as if he were reluctantly interviewing for employment at a job he did not want. More, he felt as if he were being unduly dismissed, seen as having no value to the man.

"I see," Forynnuhr said after a sigh. He kept silent while he mentally weighed the pros and cons of The Scribe's usefulness and then said, "Who are your employers and why are you here?"

The Scribe sighed. He had expected the question, actually dreaded it being asked. He had mentally enacted a couple of differing scenarios on how he'd answer if asked, but, ultimately, none of those scenarios rang true to him. He'd finally decided to simply go for the truth.

"Regarding who my employers are, I really am not at liberty to answer that. If they'd wanted you to know, I imagine they would have explicitly told me to tell you," he said.

"Did they explicitly tell you NOT to tell me?"

"Not in so many words, but their intention was clear. If you were to refuse this project based on a lack of knowledge regarding their involvement, then so be it. It makes things more difficult for them as a group entity, but that's the way they want it. They both like and need their anonymity at this moment. It is not my place to make a different decision for them."