Chapter Four

4 – A Brief History

Len made a short detour behind the counter, preparing two more cups of tea and a plate with four more delightful pastries before leading Yuri gently to the patio in front of the Sunset Cafe. Through some seemingly miraculous equilibristic feat, he managed to balance both cups (on saucers), a small pitcher of cream, a tiny pot of honey, and the plate while opening the door, then pulling out two chairs. Yuri graciously planted herself in one of the chairs, and Len sat across from her, laying out the tea and pastries in a cheerful spread. He then cocked his hips to one side as he fished around in his pocket and produced a battered silver case and a bedraggled box of matches. “You do not mind, do you?”

“Hmm?” she looked quizzically at him for a moment, deciding to finish off her first cup of tea.

He opened the case and pulled out a cigarette. From across the table, Yuri could smell the sweet tang that she associated with the cloves her friends sometimes enjoyed. “I know not everyone enjoys this habit, but…” He floundered, obviously searching for the proper words. “Well, it seems more natural to me if I tell a story while indulging.”

“Oh, sure,” she said with a dismissive wave of her hand. “I have some other friends who smoke, it’s all right, I don’t mind.”

He smiled again, lighting the cigarette and taking a long, nearly sensuous drag from it. Yuri couldn’t help but find the curl of smoke that escaped his mouth terribly interesting. “You must excuse me, I did not grow up speaking High Adani, like you. If I’m unclear, please, tell me.”

The hand holding the cigarette made a wide, expansive gesture in the general direction from which Yuri remembered hiking. “Out there is the outskirts of Nachtlin, the very edges of it.” He gestured in the opposite direction, Yuri’s eyes following his hand to see more than just the hints of a spindly skyline in the distance. “That way is the city itself. It is a place of spires and trade and mysticism on the top, and a place of grime and dirt and a little bit of hope on the bottom. The entirety of this continent of Adan is ruled from those spires: by the benevolence of the Merciful Mother’s clergy, and by the High Consulate.”

“So you guys are run by a benevolent theocracy?” Yuri asked, her brows knitting together as she processed the information.

Len nodded. “Yes, and the High Consulate, who is a nod to the days when Adan was many separate provinces ruled by different monarchs. They struggled with each other and often with the Mother’s people, but when the Mother sent Her chosen ones to found a city on the Dark Coast, Nachtlin, the government that was forged was meant to strike a balance. There used to be more Consulates, but when the provinces finally unified under one rule, there was only one ‘monarch’ to represent. See?”

“I think so,” agreed Yuri, tentatively picking up a pastry and nibbling on it. “I’m sorry if this is a little basic, but who’s this ‘mother’ you’re talking about, and why would her chosen ones be founding a city on the coast?”

“You have no idea who the Merciful Mother is?” Len inquired. His voice conveyed genuine shock, and he leaned forward as though to study Yuri more closely. “The Merciful Mother is the Mother of All Things. She has forty-four recognized names, but when someone enters the clergy, he takes the first of Her names, and becomes known as san’Illustra.”

“So, this Merciful Mother is named Illustra, and she’s pretty much your god?” Yuri placed her half-eaten pastry on the saucer and picked up the tea to sip on.

Again, Len nodded. “She is the Goddess of this land, yes, but Her influence is incredibly vast. It’s why I’m surprised you do not know at least one of her names.” He mirrored Yuri, picking up his tea cup and taking a sip. The smoke from the cigarette he cradled in his other hand curled lazily around his face, giving it a pleasant, dreamy quality. “She was not always present here, though. Like I said, once, this continent was split into many different warring countries. History tells us that the wars were escalating to the point that it’s possible the countries would have simply warred themselves out of existence, if things had not changed.”

He paused, took a short drag off the cigarette, and exhaled slowly. “It was brutal. The suffering of everyone was so great, but there was nothing anyone could do to stem the flow of blood. Then, quietly, people began to whisper a name. They were a tiny sect at first, barely worth notice, but they grew, quietly, in number. They taught of love and acceptance of each other, in the names of the Merciful Mother. Bit by bit, they began to change the hearts and minds of the Adani people, and the rulers of the land were rightly afraid of these changes.

“So the Mother gave visions to a man, his wife, and their loved ones. They would travel across the continent, to the middle of the Dark Coast on the western shores, and there they would build a cathedral which would serve as the center of life for all who spoke any of Illustra’s names.” With the hand holding the cigarette, he gestured back to the city’s center. “When they arrived, they found most of the spires you see already carved from the rock. It was merely their job to inhabit it and make it their own.”

Yuri’s eyebrows drew downward slightly, and she scowled. “That seems a little fantastical. That’s what your historians teach you?”

Len shrugged. “It’s the church’s teachings. But we know that this city exists, that the Cathedral at its heart exists, and the Merciful Mother does grace most of Adan. So, for all intents and purposes, it’s as real as the conversation we are having: it may be, or it may not be.” He grinned. “Now, please, tell me about yourself. Where do you come from? What is your life like?”

“Well…” Yuri began, worrying at her bottom lip subconsciously, “I come from a place called Maryland, in the country of the United States, on the continent of North America. My country started out as a handful of colonies of another country overseas, but eventually we battled for our independence. Um… We’re ruled by a democratic republic, which is where everyone elects officials who do all the decision-making…” She sipped at her tea and racked her brain for everything she’d managed to absorb in her social studies classes. “Y’know, I never really thought of how to condense two hundred-odd years of history before.”

“Only two hundred?” Len seemed impressed. “Your country is so young. Don’t worry about it if it’s difficult. Tell me about yourself, then.”

Yuri smirked sardonically and said, “You already know the most interesting thing that’s ever happened to me. There’s not that much more to tell.”

Len frowned, his eyebrows drawing together. “That cannot possibly be true.”

“It is,” Yuri insisted. “I mean, there’s other stuff, but it’s all pretty mundane compared to this. I like foreign TV shows, comic books, video games; I like to draw a little bit; I just found out that I’m adopted, and my birth mother committed suicide, and I have no idea who my biological father is. But that’s got nothing on either dying, being in a coma, or falling into another world.” She shrugged and began picking apart what remained of her pastry with her fingers.

“So that must be why your hair is that color,” Len said in the voice of one to whom all has been revealed. “That’s very interesting. So are these words. ‘TV shows, comic books, video games,’ they sound very exotic.”

“They aren’t, really,” she said with a shake of her head. “TV shows are a dime a dozen, comic books are just books told with pictures instead of words, and video games are… well, okay, I guess you’re right, TV shows and video games are hard to explain to someone who has no point of reference for a TV.” She sighed and licked the last pastry crumbs off her fingers before plucking another one off the plate in the center of the table. “Seriously, you guys have some pretty average-looking buildings, at least by my standards. And you run a coffee shop that seems to have a pretty nice-looking coffee-maker. How do you guys not have TV? And didn’t I see a cash register in there, too? And bikes, you guys have bikes.”

“We have what we need, with the Merciful Mother’s blessing,” Len finally replied judiciously. “There are people who devote their lives to finding ways to improve life for others, and, Mother willing, they are inspired to create new things. If we can’t make a ‘TV,’ then She does not wish it to be made, at least not now.”

“That sounds a little… I dunno.” Yuri’s face tightened as she struggled for the right words. “That’s unsettling to me, I guess. In my world, there was a time when the dominant religion would burn books and kill inventors and scholars because they felt that knowledge was harmful.”

“That is horrible,” Len whispered. Without taking his eyes off Yuri’s face, he stretched and reached over to another table and grabbed a cut-glass ashtray, into which he stubbed out the remains of his cigarette. “Are you sure you want to go back there? Gods know that Nachtlin is far from perfect, but I can’t think of a time where people were killed for pursuing knowledge.”

Yuri shrugged sheepishly. “It’s not like that now, not that we don’t have problems either. But home’s home, y’know?”

“Of course,” Len said, looking a little sheepish himself. “Well, if it’s at all possible–” He stopped, his entire demeanor going from open and friendly to closed, cautious, and stony. Yuri followed his gaze to the door, in front of which Kiih stood with his arms crossed over his chest and a deep scowl on his face.

“We are going to the Library in the Cathedral,” he said evenly, though his face betrayed his irritation. “This was a waste of time.”

“Was no’,” Ro protested from behind him, elbowing his way forward to offer Yuri a hand out of her chair. “But it’s true, it’s tha Church tha’ can help us now.”

Mer shouldered his way past Kiih, though he failed to jostle him as Ro had. “I’m sorry I couldn’t help, Miss Yuri,” he said, though he was grinning. “But it was a pleasure to meet you, and I wish you luck getting home.” He glanced at Len, whose expression remained stony. “Back to work, peon.”

Len grimaced as though he’d swallowed a lemon. “Please, try not to make me strangle you in front of the guests.” He reached across the table and took Yuri’s hand. “It was very nice to meet you. If you find yourself in Nachtlin in the future, it would be a pleasure to see you again.”

Yuri smiled, and he grinned in return. “Sure, why not? It’s a date.”

“Can we be going?” Kiih asked irritably from the door.

“‘Course, ‘course,” Ro nodded, pulling Yuri to her feet and gently leading her from the coffee shop.