An explosion of light in the sky, stars bursting forth and down, swooping low to the ground and gliding in streaks of white and yellow and blue. Hadr sat in a small field, legs crossed and hands on his knees, his eyes closed and yet his inner eyes open. They marveled at this congruence of worlds, the sky above with the world beneath. The starts twisted and twirled on their way from the heavens, intertwining in some areas and breaking apart in others, coming to the ground where they formed a great torrent of light beaming strongly out into the west.

In the distance, people rose from the ground, molded by the coming together of clay and starlight, forms taking shape in the darkness of the night sky illuminated by the glaring brightness of the river of light. In the sky still more stars burst into existence and fell to the world. His inner eyes shifted, turning to look behind him, to the east. They saw a horse with a mother and child, trotting further and further against the current of light. They turned now back to the throng of people emerging from the ground. Fifty, sixty, a hundred? Hadr's eyes watched this group for a time, seeing them come together and apart in a great mass and throng and dance, before a beam of light burst through them and the whole group collapsed, leaving behind just a small shimmer.

Hadr awoke with a start. He had been in a trance, trying to touch the other world and see what should be done. Had he fallen asleep and dreamt, or had that truly been a vision from beyond? Sometimes there was no way to tell. He brushed off his hemp robes and rose to his feet, knees popping with each step. He looked around his chambers, hearing a faint rummaging beyond the wall where someone was looking for a jar of grain or bundle of tools. He liked living in the storehouse. He liked being the center of the faith, of healing, or the everyday lives of Ibandr. What to do, what to do, what to do. The old Sinnamit was at an impasse.

His mind went to the previous night, standing by Huttl’s home, helping his young son onto a horse. His mother Mauain hopping up just behind him. She had a bundle of food, a small knife, and some other goods tied into a small cloth of hemp wrapped around her shoulder. The boy had something similar, smaller. A few tears, kisses, and embraces later and the horse was sent off with a clap on the rear, off into the east to the Anug tribe the Sinnamit knew well. What would await them?

“We could stay in Alendr,” Mauain had mused, “only a few days from here.”

Hadr and Huttl had considered it, but Hadr said, “I am not welcome in Alendr, and I cannot guarantee safety there. Further, though, with the Albayet in the Anug, on the river Duf. They know me well,” he nodded, “I saved them many years ago from a plague, they will remember my name."

When the boy and his mother had left, Hadr and Huttl spoke for some time. Bartl, Huttl’s brother, came. Who would they go to in the night? At dawn? Where would they go, who would they confront? Would they fight? Would they kill?

At one point, Bartl asked, “Why are you not welcome in Alendr? They city is much closer, they could find someone sympathetic to them there. The Duf is so far away, so many problems from here to there. A mother and son, alone, with only a horse? Dangerous, Hadr, quite dangerous.”

The old man shrugged his shoulders. “Alendr has had many problems, far beyond the starving times. What we are seeing here? The Zivold taking everything from you all? The Zivold in Alendr did something similar, before Barnam was born.”

Huttl's eyes widended. “I’d never heard of that."

“I never spoke of it. I passed through there on my return from the Albayet in Duf. I stayed with the Albayet for five, maybe six years, and Alendr was a different city on my return. The Zivold killed the Sinnamit, claiming him to be the possession of Kloponin, a trickster within tricksters, from the Outer World to send the city into ruin. The plague had spread to Alendr somewhat at the time but not to any great extent. Still, the Zivold jumped. Within months the whole city was screaming for the Sinnamit’s head, pushing him into exile from the city and so he fled to the north, but the Zivold was not finished. He had been born with a caul and called himself worthy of being both Sinnamit and Zivold.

“He hoarded the blackshine and only days before my arrival, he brought out the missing Sinnamit, who he had captured and tortured, and killed him in what he caleld the great ‘Festival of Defending against the Rosvastatn’. A great big blackshine blade in the throat.” Huttl and Bartl stared at the old man as he spoke. “His blood still stained the steps of the storehouse when I came through. They chased me out when they found out what I was. Fervent they are there now, in their belief that their Zivold is a champion of Vastatn and all the spirits on the world, among the Paroxl even, if you can believe that. Hateful of any ‘pretenders’ such as me.” Hadr shook his head, “so no, I do not believe that city to be the safest. I have not returned since then, but I cannot believe it to be any different.”

Hadr shook his head. What to do, what to do, what to do. In the room next to him, through the wall, he heard the sound of copper on copper, the sound of someone sharpening a blade.

Up, down, up, down, up, down. The undulation of riding horseback had always annoyed Barnam. Such a process, painful at that, it was to ride a horse anywhere in haste. In leisure, sure, but when you had to get somewhere fast? The horse was a nightmare. It got the job done at the cost of sore legs, bottom, and back. At least it forced his mind into a lull, blank and unthinking. Would he hear from his father again? Up, down. What would happen to Ibandr? Up, down. Would Hadr guide them all to safety? Up, down.

He felt his mother behind him, her arms wrapped around his as the horse trotted ever forward, the river Luzum to their right. Above them clouds dotted the sky, occasionally covering the sun as a brief respite from the everpresent glare and heat.

“We must move away from the river.” She hadn’t spoke much the last few days, only when they stopped to find shelter to sleep, eat their rations, and let the horse graze and drink. Not many travelers were making the way between Ibandr and where they were going, but those that did paid them little mind. Along the Luzum they’d occasionally spot someone paddling along the river, standing in a boat filled with small jars and vessels and bundles of hemp, using a long stick to guide their way along the river. The little bits of life in the broad, flat expanse.

On their eastern way Barnam had seen a handful of buildings, empty of life and people and crops. Ruins of channels that had been built, small but enough to support a small village, had dried, as unkempt as the houses that were slowly crumbling. The first day they stopped at the first small, empty village they found. The sun beat down on them, few clouds to provide shade, no trees or rocks or other ruins to shade them on their journey. The village looked large. Not the size of Ibandr, nothing was, but still there were a great many houses and buildings. Some stood on their own, some in groups of four or five as in Ibandr. In the middle of the village a small, round building that must have worked as the great storehouse did back home. They walked through it but only found a handful of jars, mostly broken, all empty. They made some bedding here, the largest of the buildings in the small village, and slept the heat of the day away. They tied the horse with a frail hemp knot by the river and let it eat and drink as the sun made its way down to the west. Then, Barnam and his mother were off on their journey east again. If the night became too dark, without fail they’d find another empty village and rest for a time.

In the morning, they’d ride until the sun beat down on them. Find a settlement, sleep. Let the horse eat and drink, ride until the darkness made it difficult. Sleep in the open or in another settlement. Repeat.

At one point the boy asked his mother where all the people had gone. “Ibandr, when I was a girl, was not what it is now. When my mother’s mother was a girl, it was much the size of these small villages we’re staying in. Or so I’m told. When the river floods, washing away all our small crops and we turn to rely on the storehouses, people come to Ibandr. When the river dries, much as it did this past year, people come to Ibandr. When the Anug turn their horses to raid these small villages, their people flee to Ibandr. When the rains come hard from the sky, Termet angry or happy or something in between, the people come to Ibandr.

“With any hardship, Ibandr is the only city for some time with a wealth of food and horses and fish and people. The further you go, the same story it is with Alendr.” She paused, then, “or so I’m told. These years have been especially hard, and the number of people you see in our old home is much greater than I’ve ever seen in my youth. They all come from here, though,” she said, patting the walls of the home they were sitting in, "places like this."

Barnam’s mind came back to the present. Up, down. Everyone was coming to Ibandr. Up, down. Ibandr or Alendr, or some other city he’d never heard of, farther than he’d ever dreamed of. Up, down. Was anyone else leaving the city? Up, down. Was anyone else but them?

“Alendr is up ahead, we must turn now,” she repeated, and guided the horse in a slow arc away from the river.

Bartl and Huttl stood at the head of some fifty people, Hadr close behind them. The throngs of people were surrounded by others, merely onlookers. In front of them, the great storehouse of Ibandr, guarded by four men wearing only their loincloths and a cowl to guard their heads and shoulders from the sun. In their hands they each held large sickles or blades of copper. Huttl held his blackshine in his right hand, and raised it in the air as he shouted, “Zivold! Show yourself to us! To Ibandr! To the people from whom you have stolen!”

Huttl could name each one of the guards. Each one from a different family who had become loyal to the Zivold in the past years, bonded to him now by the starving times and the takeover of the storehouse. There was Gordon from Matina, Turturt from Gudin, Pol from Assath, and Xalhal from Mureb. There were certainly more families who had bound themselves to the Zivold, and from there others who bound themselves to them on the off chance they got extra grain, extra fish, extra clothing, extra anything. The Zivold's prominence ran deep in the city.

Behind Huttl the crowd threw jeers at the guardsmen, calling them cowards or brutes or beasts. No one left the storehouse. No hint of life within the storehouse at all despite Hadr having assured them people were coming and going all morning. Then, in the homes surrounding the storehouse, more men with copper scythes and sickles and blades walked out. First in the homes directly opposite of Huttl and the crowd, then the ones next to them, then the ones behind. Faces Huttl had known but also those he’d never seen before. Faces from Gudin and Matina, sure but also from families he’d considered friends, Paliatl, Hossan, Dur, Yol, Billet. So many clans and families the brothers had once approached for aid. So many clans and families who had told him no but the secret was safe with them, swearing even on blood. So many betrayals, to the brothers and to the city.

“Hadr,” Bartl called, “Hadr, make the oath.” No response except for the grumbling of the crowd, the clinking of their weapons, the prayers they said to their chosen Paroxl. “Hadr? Hadr!”

Huttl turned to see Hadr was gone, his mass of hair off in the far distance breaking away from the crowd and running back from they had come, the line of the Zivold’s guardsmen letting him pass. “Traitorous Kloponin bastard!”

Laughter from inside the storehouse. “You thought my Sinnamit would not tell me everything you blubberous fools! You thought my people would not tell me everything?” Huttl saw the Zivold make his way out of the storehouse now. He was a good deal taller than either Huttl or Bartl, and both stood a half-head higher than the rest. The Zivold wore a robe of fine material, unlike the rough hemp clothes the brothers and most others in the city wore. His was made of cotton and danced around his figure as he strode to them, flanked by his guards. “You thought wrong to steal from me. Oh you have certainly been problems for some time. But no more. Kill them. Kill the great traitors of Ibandr.” And it was only then the two brothers understood why it had taken so long to find those willing to their cause. The Zivold owned everything, so it seemed the Zivold owned everyone. Everyone who mattered, at least.

And so the fighting began.

When it was over, the streets outside the storehouse were painted in the blood of the fallen. Sixty-one dead men lay in pools of blood and gore. Eight were the Zivold’s guards and the rest those who tried to take the city back from them. One body in the throng, surrounded by four guardsmen, lay with his face in a pool of blood, right arm outstretched. At the end of it, clutched tightly in his hand, a small black rock.

Context: The attempted removal of the Zivold goes poorly for the citizens of Ibandr, and the Zivold is able to cement his hold over the city. As Barnam and his mother travel east, Barnam learns that a great many of the smaller settlements in between the bigger cities of the Luzum had been depopulated, their people migrating into the city as each crisis they face becomes one crisis too many. Alendr, one of Ibandr's neighboring cities, has also seen a similar thing happen to it, where the Zivold has assumed the title of religious figure as well as city owner (rather than head).