New Enemies

  Chapter 4

  Chain stopped leading her daughter along the mountain path and took a deep breath, enjoying air free of Aureu's pollution and life. She might never get used to this purity, to the feeling of her lungs being clean, and that would be a blessing.

  “Mum, what makes a mountains?” Carmen asked, skipping along behind her, long blonde hair bouncing.

  “Sol made the mountains, little one.”

  Her daughter frowned, unsatisfied with the answer. “How?”

  Chain smiled. At first, she viewed Carmen’s refusal to accept basic answers as troublesome, but that was her fault, not her daughter's: Carmen's inquisitive nature would make her brilliant. Chain had come to realise it was her job to encourage and teach her, something her own parents hadn't learned.

  “Well, there are different ideas because nobody knows for sure: we weren't there as Sol made us later. Some think he just snapped his fingers,” Chain snapped hers, “and made the world. Others think, when he created Geos, he set two great islands to crash together, making the mountains where they struck.”

  Carmen tried to snap her fingers and failed, just rubbing them together. She examined her fingers, her tiny brow furrowed. Then she shrugged and looked back up at Chain.

  “I like walks,” she said, changing the subject.

  Chain knelt and scooped her up. “I like walking too. But do you know what I like more?”

  “No! No!” she screamed playfully.

  “I like tickles!” Chain shouted before tickling her daughter. “Ahhhhh! Tickle tickle tickle!”

  Carmen shrieked and shrieked in delight, laughing in between.

  Chain stopped and put Carmen down, let her catch her breath. It was a shame she could not spend much time with her little one, but that was the nature of being a Contegon: her holy duty was just as important as he motherly one. She was grateful, though, for these early evening walks with her daughter.

  “A bunny!” Carmen squealed.

  “Where?”

  “There! It's there!”

  Chain knelt and followed her daughter's direction. Sure enough, down the valley in wild, unclaimed land was a black rabbit. It twitched its ears and hopped, oblivious to its audience.

  “What do rabbits eat, little one?”

  “Grass!”

  “And?”

  “Veggiebulls!”

  “Vegetables, yes. They are herbivores.”

  “Hervibores.”

  “Not quite. It's 'her'”

  She waited for Carmen to repeat the syllable. “Her.”

  “Bee.”

  “Bee.”

  “Vores.”

  “Vores.”

  “Her-bee-vores. Herbivores,” Chain said with a smile.

  “Herbivores!”

  Chain rubbed her head. “That's right. You learn so fast. Soon, you'll know more than me!”

  “Nobody knows more than you, Mum!”

  “I thought that once. I was wrong.”

  Carmen frowned and tilted her head, trying to work out what she meant.

  Chain felt guilty for confusing her daughter, sinking back to her past, so she shook her head and grinned. “Never mind. What do you think the bunny's doing?”

  “Running!”

  Chain looked back. The rabbit was running, having spotted a fox that was stalking it. Rabbit and fox engaged in a pursuit, darting across the untamed grassland. Thankfully, the prey got to its warren before it could provide Carmen an unfortunate lesson in the cruelty of nature.

  “Bye bye rabbit.”

  “Bye bye rabbit,” Chain echoed before standing. “Come on, little one. Let's go see what Auntie Bracket is making for dinner.”

  “I know!”

  “Do you?”

  “She told me,” Carmen said with a nod. “It's a surprise.”

  “Am I going to like the surprise?”

  Carmen grinned widely. “I can't tell you. It's a surprise!”

  Chain couldn't argue with such logic. “Alright, I'll just have to wait. Off we go.”

  Bracket... her friend had been a veritable Servant of Sol since they'd left Aureu. When she'd returned home in her... temporary absence following the Hereticum, she turned to her best friend from before the Academy. Tall, plain, and on hard times, Bracket had been scrabbling for a job when the Guardian recommended Chain take a Contegon post in the Gravit Mountains. Bracket offered to come with her and act as a Nanny. She raised Carmen whilst the Contegon protected the mining town of Buckle. Chain couldn't think of anyone she'd rather have looking after her child.

  Sol certainly had a strange plan for Chain. She reflected on it often, though not as much as when she raged against the Guardian, the Acolyte Maya, and everyone who had wronged her. Chain now realised that, after playing a crucial role in the Battle for Aureu, she had been given a chance to build the unfurling Acolyte Station. Being pregnant would have been an inconvenience, but that connection with Sol was her reward. Her pride and anger had robbed her of that.

  Sol never shut you out completely, though, even when you stupidly broke an oath to the Guardian, the spiritual and political leader of Geos. Chain still couldn't believe she did that... but that was in the past. Sol still had a future in mind here in the north: Buckle, Carmen, and her new life.

  Carmen skipped down the mountain path, leading the way. They'd walked this path so many times her daughter knew the way by heart, hardly paid it attention. She hummed a hymn and tried to jump as high as she could. Chain just watched her, her heart full of pride.

  After ten minutes, they rounded Sister, the smallest of the Family's four mountains, and entered the wider plains of Geos. The Family stood tall and proud over them: Father and Mother, snow dusting their shoulders; Brother to their right, only a hair shorter, and Sister lowest of all. The Family Mine was at the base of Brother, its equipment, rough wooden stores, and carts abandoned for the day. During the day it would be crawling with Miners, a subset of the Merchants.

  Mining was a tough business, but at least they had a great home to return to. Buckle was a jewel, a wooden haven set amidst Geos' endless green. Holding maybe four hundred people, it was a vibrant community with a playhouse and town hall. A new town, its buildings were handmade and fresh. People took pride in that: a new house had to last generations, so they put time and effort into their craft, cutting their own wood, and helping each other as Buckle expanded.

  They were out now on the area known as Lower Range, a few hundred feet higher than Aureu far to the south-west. Great patches of forest rested between the roads and Farms that sustained Buckle.

  “How are roads made, Mum? The Mister wants to know.”

  The Mister, Carmen’s imaginary friend, had shown up shortly after Carmen had learned to talk, a figure Carmen drew as a green man. He covered much of Carmen's inquisitiveness, perhaps due to Chain's initial dislike of her questions. “Hundreds of horses flatten it down by riding the same way with big, heavy loads.”

  “They flatten trees?”

  “No, we cut them down first, but that was a long time ago.”

  Carmen nodded and skipped ahead, considering something else now. Chain returned to examining her town. She was responsible for keeping its people spiritually-primed to delve into Geos' bowels. Every Miner worked for a Merchant named Muster, with Par the great man's proxy, but it was their faith that kept them going. When you've seen your friends crushed, or had your child called up to the Shields, you need a stern and authoritative voice to tell you Sol planned it.

  It didn't hurt if that voice comes from a hero from the Battle for Aureu...

  Buckle, like many small towns, had had many of its young called to the Fronts. The town had stopped expanding as a result, and Miners were unable to take their Rest: some foremen were in their sixties, too frail to traipse in the dark, but they had to earn. Many had their children later too, leading to complications for Doctor Marsh to deal with.

  Being a small town's Contegon wasn't as simple, and as thankless, a job as she'd
once thought. Like many other things in life. The responsibility of being a mother and leading a whole town, speaking with normal people and putting aside her airs, had changed her. And she was grateful for it: Sol's greatest lesson was humility, learning that you could be great and wonderful in his eyes, but were still just a person.

  “Are you alright, Mum?”

  “I'm fine, thank you. Why do you ask?”

  “Your eyes were sad.”

  Chain held out her hand, and Carmen took it, tiny fingers slipping into her hard-worn palm. “I've just been thinking a lot. You know, today marks the fifth year I've lived in Buckle.”

  Carmen's eyes widened as she considered a length of time longer than her whole life. “That is a long time.”

  “It is. So I was thinking about it.”

  “What were you thinking?”

  Chain smiled. “That I hope the next five are as good to me.”

  Though she didn't understand the sentiment, Carmen smiled back. Chain preferred talking to her like she was older, give her the opportunity to consider adult things. After all, she only had five more years of school before she'd join a Station. Chain had already decided not to intervene, to let Sol decide her fate. After all, he had done a great job with her mother.

  Together, hand-in-hand, they returned to Buckle. The surprise dinner was Chain's favourite, a roasted chicken with thick gravy and roasted vegetables: Bracket had remembered the anniversary too. They ate heartily and slept well, content as only a happy family could be.