Chapter: Homeland
“If I never return to this world again, it will be too soon.”
—Former Chidron of Diraxus Venti Ulurau
It didn’t take long for Kazlo to figure out what was wrong with Zaina and Baeus’s ship. Surprisingly, Reida had told the truth—the restrictor disconnecting had made its systems crash. With the help of his glyph Kazlo had the issue resolved in less than an hour.
By that time they were finishing their last void skip to Diraxus. Zaina was beginning to feel a little drained after spending so much of her day on a ship—she’d never been to so many worlds in a single day before.
They approached a continent on the world’s southern hemisphere, a beautiful swirl of blues and greens with sparse mountains poking through the dense, low-laying clouds. Apparently, these coordinates were located within Gir’s hometown of Rafol. To be honest, that made Zaina a bit nervous. She hoped his family was as nice as he was.
Kazlo was pale, and hadn’t said a spare word since they’d embarked to Diraxus. He was fiddling with a glyph in the corner. Baeus was a bit more focused after spending time with Reida. Maybe he’d grown more wise to her nature, too.
Zaina clutched a still low-powered Gizmo. Don’t worry, buddy. Once we find out what Gir thought was so important you’ll be back to your old self.
The ship landed with little fanfare. Reida’s voice came over the speaker. “I’ll be down in a minute. You guys go ahead.”
Ominous.
Baeus was chipper in his reply. “All right. We’re gonna get a head start toward the settlement, then. You know where to find it?”
“I’ve got it marked on my map,” Reida replied curtly.
Zaina frowned. Maybe her captain had called at last. Once we get our ship off hers, we won’t need her anymore. Then I can finally make my move.
Either way, she wanted to get over to Rafol with haste. The sooner they reached the coordinates the sooner they could be on their way.
The ship’s bay door opened to a dull, gray sky; a thin layer of fog blanketed everything. Moisture was everywhere—water dripped from the long-leaf trees with drooping branches and the plentiful reeds and grass. The ground was comprised of shifting masses of mud bisected at every available turn by streams or pools of murky rainwater. It was much like the swamp back on Demelia. A steady shower of rain fell from the sky. Despite all the water, it was hot—the air conditioning on Zaina’s armor kicked in after a few seconds.
She put her mask on just in case and departed from the ship. Her foot sunk into a shallow pool beneath a floating patch of grass, nearly spilling her over on her first step. She managed to keep her balance and hoped neither Baeus nor Kazlo would say anything.
Baeus, in his hover-bed, had no problems navigating the dense, wet swamp, simply floating above the uneven terrain. For Zaina and Kazlo, it was more miserable—Zaina held his duffel bag above her head while they walked through a forest that seemed to have been submerged at some point. They trudged through the muck and the murky water for what felt like miles.
Then, it came into view—Rafol. The town was comprised of wide wooden planks atop logs tethered by thick rope. There were three large platforms connected by three large walkways, and built around piecemeal were smaller platforms and smaller walkways forming a chaotic maze. Water flowed freely beneath the town’s wooden foundations.
The three large platforms, each roughly the size of Ildegor from back home, held large buildings and marketplaces. The smaller platforms seemed to be residential areas, with wooden beds carved into logs. For some reason, Raolgrians seemed to enjoy sleeping out in the elements, though every so often there was a tent or a small cabin.
Much of the town was strangely empty. Zaina took the lead as they stepped onto the town’s entrance, walking up a set of wooden stairs to reach the first large platform. There was commotion in the distance, but it didn’t sound distressed or panicked; if anything, it sounded like cheering.
I wonder what’s going on.
She turned to Kazlo, who had the coordinates open on his vis-screen. “Well?”
He pointed toward the commotion. “We’re getting close.”
“All right,” Zaina replied. “Let’s see how this goes, then.”
They walked across one of the main walkways. By now the cause of the ruckus was coming into view: two male Raolgrians, one fiercely green in color and the other reddish-green, stood twenty feet from one another atop identical raised discs. They were about ten feet above the crowd that had gathered below—hundreds of people, mostly Raolgrians, were either shouting encouragement to one of the standers or talking down to the other.
The Raolgrians on either platform were thin, almost to the point of looking malnourished, and they had only pants to wear. The small discs upon which they stood had neither room for accommodations nor seemingly any interest in providing them; Zaina wondered how long they’d been up there.
She approached the back half of the crowd, and an elderly woman Raolgrian with fading green skin turned. “Lancer—lancer? What the hell is a lancer doing here?”
Zaina leaned in to hear her better. “What’s going on here?”
“It’s a ritual,” she said. “If you’re not here on business, stop asking questions and watch. Might learn something.”
Zaina turned back to Kazlo, who checked the coordinates. “Looks like we need to get close. Real close.”
“How close?”
Baeus frowned. “Hm. Based on what I can tell, the coordinates are set to the top of one of the platforms our friends there are standing on.”
Zaina sighed. Great.
She tapped the elderly woman’s shoulder.
“What?”
“I’m sorry, I don’t mean to be rude. I only want to know how long this ritual’s going to take.”
“Praga Dagrathan lasts until it is done,” she replied coldly. “Why do you want to know so badly? Are you here on some sort of lancer mission I should know about?”
“I mean—not strictly speaking, no.”
The woman had turned, now giving them her full attention. “Well, you might find that we’re not too keen on lancers poking their heads about in our clan’s business.”
“It’s about Gir,” Zaina blurted out.
“Gir? What about Gir?”
“I’m afraid he passed away.”
“Oh, trust us, we’re aware,” the woman replied. “That doesn’t explain why you’re here.”
“I believe Gir left me a message before he died. To access it, we need to reach a set of coordinates here.”
“Oh, I see. And how does this concern me?”
Zaina blinked a few times, taken aback by the woman’s callousness. “Uh—well, I’m guessing Gir was related to you?”
“Yes, he was the spawn of one of my broodmates. Good Ra-Folgoth stock through and through. But he decided to die for your freak show of an Order rather than renounce his curse and come home to his real responsibilities. Hence why we have to do this now.”
Zaina nodded. At least the woman was talking, even if she was dead wrong about Gir. “So whoever stays up there longer wins, or something?”
The woman gave a defeated sigh. “You really aren’t going to leave me alone, are you?”
“All I want to know is—”
“How long it will take. Well, here’s the thing. Praga Dagrathan is a test of endurance, of will. Those two have been up there for two months already without either stepping down for a moment. So when I say it will take as long as it takes, I mean exactly that.”
“Two months?” Zaina asked. “That’s insane!”
“It’s tradition,” the woman said. “We can’t simply pick a new Clan Head on a whim—our trials have ensured our clan is led by only the fittest and wisest since the eldest days of old.”
“So whoever stands on one of those platforms for the longest gets to lead your entire clan?”
“No,” the woman said, looking at Zaina like she was stupid. “Whoever gets closest to guessing both the winner and the amount of time elapsed will be the champion of the Endurance Trial.”
Somehow Zaina was making less and less sense of this the more she learned. “So—you gamble to determine your leader?”
“In the case of an unclear succession, yes. The best qualities for a leader are wisdom and foresight—what better way to demonstrate that?”
Zaina held her tongue—there were so many better ways. A simple game of Tuloc was better. The flip of a coin was better. Still, it didn’t matter—she wasn’t here to question anyone else’s culture, after all. She was here to save Gizmo.
“If it makes you feel better, offworlder,” the woman continued, “I don’t think they’re going to last much longer. Those boys are nearly delirious. If I was a betting woman like I was in my youth, I’d say they have a day left, tops. Back in my granddad’s day, he said Praga Dagrathan would last years. That Raolgrians had hearts of iron. Not like today.”
“That does make me feel a little better,” Zaina admitted, though there wasn’t much truth to her words. Reida was still a ticking bomb ready to go off at a moment’s notice. The sooner this was over the better, but Zaina didn’t dare interfere with their tradition. “So wait—are you trying to be the new leader, too?”
The woman dismissed the comment with a wave of her clawed hand. “My spawn had his time, but it was too much for him. He took his own life. Since he didn’t have a son, his favored cousin was meant to become the new Clan Head of Ra-Folgoth, but that didn’t end up happening. His favored cousin instead shirked his responsibilities and his family, and died on some nowhere planet for nothing.”
Suddenly the succession crisis made sense. “Gir.”
He was royalty?
“That’s right. So while he was off gallivanting with your weird little cult, we were back home with an interim council. Dealing with real problems—and waiting, hoping our Gir would return. Instead he abandoned us.”
“You know, he saved a lot of people as a lancer,” Zaina replied. “He even saved entire worlds.”
“Not the last one, he didn’t,” the woman said, snorting with stifled laughter. “And whoever, however many others he saved is irrelevant. His duty was first and foremost to his family, and in that regard he was an abject failure. Whatever he did for anyone else doesn’t matter.”
Zaina frowned. Suddenly it made sense why Gir chose a modest life as a lancer over being involved in his family politics—his family was the worst.
“Now,” the woman said, “I’m assuming you’re not going to leave until you get what you want. You’ll probably end up staying the night. We do have cabins available for purchase or single-night rentals. Once the sun goes down this crowd will disperse and you’ll be able to find somewhere to stay.”
“Thank you,” Zaina responded, wondering why the woman was being so thoughtful.
“Yeah, yeah. Is there any other reason you have to bother me, or can I go back to what I was doing before you interrupted me?”
Zaina gestured toward the crowd and turned to Baeus and Kazlo. “All right. Looks like we need to wait now.”
Baeus had a spark in his eye. “That’s fine by me. I’ve read about Praga Dagrathan before, but I never dreamt I’d see it firsthand. Did you know the practice originated as a far different type of endurance competition; it was a test of the ability to endure pain, with each participant taking turns throwing daggers at the other. The original purpose of those platforms was to keep participants from dodging unless they stepped off. Its more modern incarnation started gaining popularity about a hundred thousand years ago, give or take a millennia, around the time of the Great Irxordaqyr Clan Disaster.”
While he was talking Zaina and Kazlo shared a glance, and she could tell the hacker was thinking the same thing: if they didn’t find something to do, Baeus was going to talk their ears off about boring history.
“Say,” Kazlo said, “maybe we should go get your guys’ ship ready. I wouldn’t be surprised if Reida tries to pull some bralshit.”
“Yeah, I think that’s a good idea,” Zaina replied. “What do you think, Baeus?”
“I believe I’d like to stay here and watch,” he said, then turned toward the elderly woman. “Hey, you!”
She turned around. “What do you want now?”
“Who do I talk to in order to place a bet?”
A smile spread across her face, and her eyes glowed with amusement. “Right this way.”
“Who did you bet on?” he asked as they bumped their way into the crowd. Like that, they were gone.
Zaina stood next to Kazlo, dumbstruck. “Did he just—okay.”
Kazlo shook his head. “Well, I’m glad you’re taking this seriously. Come on.”
She nodded and followed him back to the ship.