Margins of Reality

Thanks are due to the QT Writers' Room for all sorts of polish and feedback. Most especially, I want to think my silent partner for feedback from the very beginning, as I developed the world, characters and story.

And for those who are asking, if I my paraphrase, 'but what about the sex?'—it will happen, but let's face it: it's not going to be at Cal's instigation any time soon, is it?

Chapter 4: Gods & Spirits

Kearsney Station, Monday 3rd April 2056, evening------

Bavi—or Bhavisana Sharon Nirjhar Thapa, to give her full name—was apparently as much a stranger to everyone as she was to Cal, though once proper introductions had been made she gave him the lion's share of her attention.

"I haven't been given all of the details," she said to him over the evening meal in the station mess, "but I understand that you are considered a special cargo." She put a forkful of food in her mouth, leaving the statement hanging, looking at him calmly with clear dark eyes.

"So they tell me," Cal said wryly, looking at his plate. Mashed root vegetables, rich with a fat he couldn't identify—really the only thing you could do with them at this time of year—sat alongside a dish comprised of unfamiliar greens, mixed with a surprisingly large serving of what he readily recognised as whelks. They were much firmer than what he was used to at Westgate, with an appealing sweetness that was quite unfamiliar; the seared finish gave them extra savour. The mixture's unusual saltiness, even in the vegetables themselves—and surely they hadn't used extra salt to do that—was offset by the sharp tang of wild garlic.

Apart from being a little saltier than ideal—which wasn't unusual at this point in the year—it was a surprisingly good meal. Everyone except the current perimeter watch seemed to be sitting down to it at once, in a surprisingly small dining hall. Cal's escort were all there, having finished what they called 'barrack admin' and gotten their bunks 'squared away', and were now chatting with the locals at other tables. Almost everyone there appeared to be someone's militia; Bavi and he were alone at their table.

"And what story do you tell?" Bavi asked with a gentle smile. Her striking cheekbones did odd things to such a simple facial movement, enhancing it while making the precise nature of the difference less obvious. She was also looking at Cal with a warm intensity; he wasn't sure what to make of that. The fact that she seemed to intermittently stop breathing for a minute at a time was also a little unnerving.

"I fix things," Cal told her. "It's all I've done since I finished school. Except now they tell me that I've been fixing things when it's impossible."

"You have the Gift," she observed, in exactly the tone someone might say 'it's cloudy' in December.

"Yeah." He filled a fork with a combination of everything on the plate and shoved it in his mouth.

"There's more. Everyone with the Gift is important, but you're special—and your home Sanctuary has sent you away. For training?"

Cal swallowed the food, which seemed to be losing its flavour as the conversation went on.

"Yeah. No-one back home could get me to do much more than I did by instinct or whatever. The people at Discovery Park got me doing the same thing for more stuff—they were pretty happy about me fixing batteries—but still, just the one thing. Apparently there's someone at Shorncliffe they think will be able to help more."

"The Mahasadhika is a great teacher," Bavi said. It sounded like a formula that should be said with great respect, but that too was said matter-of-factly.

"I keep hearing that title. What does it mean?"

"It's not the easiest thing to translate," Bavi explained in a more natural, conversational tone. "'Great seeker'—or 'seekeress', I suppose, if that were a word—is the most direct translation, but it doesn't really give you the full meaning. She is the originator and greatest practitioner of a discipline that draws on our spiritual roots and that has proven very effective in developing the abilities of a Gifted student."

"Your spiritual roots," Cal said, mentally running through what he knew of Shorncliffe. "Nepali?" he ventured.

Bavi nodded, the slight wave of her black hair becoming more noticeable with the movement. "Like many of my generation, my own parentage is mixed, but the Regiment—and the Mahasadhika—are held in such respect that the ways they teach have become popular with everyone in our Sanctuary. The Gurkhakaidahas influenced our way of life in many ways, and it is one thing that has influenced the Mahasadhika's teachings; those teachings are also widely applied in our society, which makes Shorncliffe quite different from other Sanctuaries in the alliance, but they are also a source of strength and unity. I understand one of her goals, when she developed her discipline, was to make it accessible to those of different backgrounds and different faith traditions, but it owes a great deal to Magar ways."

This sparked Cal's interest. "Does this discipline have a name?" he asked.

"Not really. We mostly call itSadhana, but that isn't really a specific term; there are many forms of Sadhana, but that one is hers, and ours." She tipped her head slightly to one side as she looked at him. "I think it would be best to leave further questions for the Mahasadhika. Soon, you will be asking ones that she won't answer."

As they continued eating in silence, Cal tried to work out what the hellthatmeant.

* * * * *

* * * * *

Tuesday 4th April 2056------

"Why do we need a guide, anyway? There's roads all the way, and we've got reality stabilisers."

Tiptoe—Lance Corporal Beckett—asked the question over breakfast, and Cal heard it clearly. Unlike the evening meal, people clearly took this at varied times; the mess held no more than a quarter the number it had the previous evening. He was sat at one table with Tiny and Smudge—both of whom were now insisting he use their nicknames, which made it easier to keep things straight—and some taciturn locals, while the rest of Tasha's squad were on the next table over. Bavi had been gone from the barracks by the time Cal surfaced, and didn't seem to be at breakfast, either, so she wasn't there to explain.

Cal had wondered the same thing, but just assumed that it would become clear sooner or later. Or not—it didn't matter to him that much. As long as they got where they were going, preferably without any more spine-throwing monsters, he didn't much care about the details. He just ate his porridge, though he couldn't tell what sort of grain it was made from. He'd added a spoonful of some unidentified red fruit mush, which gave it some flavour at least. A surprisingly peppery, pungent flavour, but it was still flavour.

He regretted not taking the one that looked like it might be apple, but the contents of the third bowl, sharp-smelling wilted greens, had been easy to pass up.

"You've not been this way before, have you?" Tasha responded. "The local Things are different here. If you know their rules, and follow them, they leave you alone. They might even help you. Break the rules, and reality stabilisers won't help you."

"Why not?"

"Well, you're in trouble if a chunk of the ground a hundred metres below you disappears, for starters. Or one of the giant trees they've got spontaneously falls on you. Or the side of a hill collapses. They look like weird guys in masks, but they can do strange things with reality. Not inside a protected area, but they're creative. A boulder is a boulder, and if it falls on you, no stabiliser is going to help."

Cal turned to his tablemates. "Have either of you been down this way?" he asked.

"Not me," said Tiny. The big man chuckled as he spooned up the last of his porridge, waving his hand as he swallowed before going on. "I'm just a lance. You get sent down to Shorncliffe—or the Royal Dockyards—when you're a corporal and they're looking at promoting you. Training, testing that sort of thing."

"So, you been there, or did you go to the Engineers?" Cal asked, turning to Smudge; he understood that everyone in East Kent used the same rank structure, and people only became specialists after time as a corporal. That was the career path for people with some sort of technical skill, while those who were cut out for leadership, to be seconds to the various sorts of sergeants, became senior corporals and so on.

"Yeah, I've been this way," the small blonde said. "I went up that way, as well. The guys at the Dockyards had more to do with my training, but the Gurkhas put me through my paces first. It's an interesting place. I'm hoping we end up carrying on to Crossroads—there's something I want to show Tiny." She glanced at the lance corporal with the ghost of a grin. It had become obvious to Cal that the two were an item, and he suspected that whatever she wanted to show him was of an intimate nature in some way.

"And these Things?" Cal asked. "Tasha makes them sound like a big problem."

"They're a problem if you don't know how to handle them. But that's why Shorncliffe provides guides. Follow their rules and they're nothing to worry about."

"So why not just give us the rulebook?"

"Because it would be very large," Bavi said from somewhere behind Cal, "and it would need reprinting far too often." She sat next to him, setting down a plate on which lay the other option for breakfast, some sort of thick wholegrain crackers. Their guide had taken the same fruit mush and spread it thickly on the unappetising slabs; it looked like it was soaking in. She glanced at Cal's bowl, nodded at her own plate and asked, "What do you think of the titaura?"

"The fruit stuff? I've been surprised by how many places serve things like this. We don't usually have any fruit this wet at this time of the year; it's usually dried stuff or fruit leather. It's got a weird flavour though."

"Itisfruit leather," Bavi told him. "The kitchen reconstitutes it before serving, so people can use it as they wish. Otherwise it would be melted into the porridge and everyone would have to have the same. And today, they've served one from my home. The spices aren't what they were, back before the world changed, but the survivors adapted to what they could find, much like zatz is meant to resemble coffee." She looked down at her own plate, seeming to inspect the crackers, and picked one up, biting into it. She chewed, swallowed, and continued, "The gundruk would have balanced it out."

"I'm guessing that's the green stuff," Cal observed sceptically.

"Pickled greens with spices. It's good."

"I guess I'll have a chance to try it when we get to Shorncliffe. How come there's so much food from your Sanctuary here?"

"Everyone contributes supplies for the Stations. I suppose they may have decided on this morning's selection because of me. Biscuits brown aren't to everyone's taste, either."

Cal assumed she was referring to the crackers. "What did you mean about the rulebook needing reprinting?" he asked, changing back to what seemed a more important topic.

"The Kul-ye are not straightforward. Their rules change with the seasons, the tides, the phases of the moon. They are different in the rain, or when the sun is shining. Each of them watches over a part of the forest, and each has their own rules. Their territories shift, and their rules change. They give us clues, but they are hard for strangers to read." She took another big bite of her fruit-smeared cracker, chewed briefly, and swallowed. "There are a few dozen of us who keep up-to-date with the current situation in the woods. When needed, we act as guides. The people at the Stations know the rules on their stretches of road—otherwise they couldn't do the maintenance, which is really more than half their job—but nothing more, and we have to help keep them updated with changes." She picked up her remaining cracker and stood. "I will meet you all back in the barracks when you're done. You may need to pack differently. Let the others know."

With that, she left the mess.

* * *

* * *

Back in the barracks, Bavi was laying out the law.

"Given the territories that we will be passing through, and the season, you must have no visible firearms," she explained. "We will be passing through six territories, and three of them frown on guns at the moment."

"What's this about 'territories'?" asked Tiptoe. "It's all one sort of Thing here, isn't it?"

"Yes," Bavi confirmed. "But they aren't like the Things you have seen before. Scholars call them the 'Ban-Jhakri–Lakhe', jamming together traditional terms, but that is appropriate, as they represent a strange mix of different Nepali traditions and folk tales. There are few of them, and they are powerful. Each watches over part of the forest, and so we call it their territory."

Tiptoe shrugged, and started stripping her rifle. The L129A1 didn't break down as far as the SA80s, and Cal approved of the respect she showed for the optics, carefully wrapping it in some spare garments. The Sanctuaries couldn't afford to lose any of those scopes. Everyone else followed suit, breaking different guns into different numbers of pieces, clearing chambers, removing magazines; Bavi went on, trusting that they were listening to her even if their eyes were on their kit.

"I understand that your reality stabilisers can be deactivated," she noted. "That's good. It's not an absolute 'no' for any of the territories we're going through, but there's other compromises we might have to make, so we could do with the credit for that." She carried on, explaining some of the hoops they were going to have to jump through, passing out various objects they would need—river pebbles, ribbons, oatcakes—and reminding everyone how important it was to doexactlyas she said.

* * *

* * *

As they left the station, the forest seemed to close in around them. The foundation was pillars of beech and ash—the latter a rare find elsewhere, the species having died back before the world changed, but plentiful here—with the occasional oak scattered among them, lining the hills that rose on either side. Around them were their attendant retinues of field maple, dogwood and yew, their stocky forms filling space between their noble cousins. Beneath it all lay a wild green carpet of dog's mercury penetrated in patches by ramsons, the sharp green scent of wild garlic carried by the gentle breeze. Scatterings of flowers peppered the ground cover, with clusters of purple blooms here, and cup-like splashes of a green more vivid than the general foliage there. The road was well-maintained, the trees ending a few metres from its edge, but their boughs still created a remarkably solid canopy overhead. Sunlight occasionally dappled the ground, but it was still dark, even though only the beech trees had any foliage to speak of—and that only budding—so dense was the roof of the forest.

Or rather, it would have been dark if Bavi hadn't done something about it. Once they were into the shadows, she absently raised a hand and a glowing ball of something wispy and insubstantial appeared over her shoulder. With a gesture, it rose a metre higher and grew brighter, illuminating the ground and trees for some distance.

"You're Gifted," Cal said, surprised both by the fact of her Gift, given she hadn't mentioned it, and the completely casual way in which she used it; he wondered what it felt like to have that easy competence, if he would ever know it himself. Then it occurred to him that it was possible that others with the Gift might feel the same when they witnessed his repair work, though it seemed so simple to him.

He was standing close by their guide—where he couldn't wander off or get anything wrong—at Sarah's suggestion; the sergeant was at his other side. The rest of the group was clustered together behind them, fingers twitching around the absence of their guns, still covering arcs as a matter of habit.

Or possibly out of anxiety. The forest was a pretty weird-feeling place.

"Yes," Bavi replied. "But the Ban-Jhakri–Lakhe don't have the antipathy for the Gifted that most Things demonstrate. They aren't likely to approach us—well, other than Blue Streak; he likes to make his presence known."

"Blue Streak?"

"We don't know what they call themselves, if they have names at all, but we recognise the individuals. It's a description of his mask. Really, we don't know if they are really masculine, if such a concept applies to them, but it's traditional." She glanced from side to side, looking at the trees and other parts of the environment. Her eyes fixed on one large stone. "Here. Everyone stop, please, I must make an offering."

She walked up to the stone alone, squatted in front of it, and placed something in a little niche or hollow.

"I give thanks to the Guardians of the Forest," she said, more loudly, "and ask them to watch over myself and my friends as we pass." Turning back to the others, she gave them their instructions. "Now, if you would all please tie the sky-blue ribbon I gave you to something on the left side of your chest." She was doing the same herself, attaching it to the strap of her pack. She inspected them each when they were done, and nodded. "Now we can continue."

At one point, Tiptoe began to overtake her, and Bavi put out an arm to restrain her.

"Being even one step ahead of me would be unwise," she warned. "Pass a tree where I need to make an offering before I have made it, and the spirit that watches this part of the forest would act. If we are lucky, he will simply make that one step put you back at Kearsney. Or it might push you all the way back out of the Fief, or even forwards. You don't want to meet the Gentry dressed as you are."

Late in the morning they turned aside from the road, stopping for lunch at Hawkinge Station. By then they had changed their ribbons, left oatcakes in a hollow in a tree, and recited what seemed to be a nonsense verse while gathered around a standing stone several metres into the forest, while Bavi had taken several other ritual actions on behalf of the group.

Over soup and hard biscuit—not quite as brick-like as the hardtack they were carrying, but still much easier to eat when soaked—Bavi explained how things would change when they left the valley.

"Folkestone would have become swamps and waterfalls, maybe even fallen into the sea after the world changed," she explained. "But the first survivors at Shorncliffe recognised the problem. They used what heavy machinery they could find, as soon as they had enough reality stabilisation available, and uncovered the Pent, carved new watercourses, to make sure the hills could drain without having to run pumps and keep culverts clear." She pulled the biscuit she had been soaking out of her soup and took a bite. "The buildings are all ruins now—more than you would expect for thirty years—but the forest hasn't spread as thoroughly. Still, the Kul-ye"—apparently another name for the Ban-Jhakri–Lakhe—"rule there as much as in the deep wood. They are a bit different, but the same principles apply."

"Hasn't anyone considered expanding Shorncliffe east?" Asked Sarah. "You know, re-colonise Folkestone proper?"

"Perhaps if we had done so to begin with—if we'd had the capacity to put permanent Sanctuary protections over all that area." She popped the last of the biscuit into her mouth, chewing briefly before she swallowed it. "Now, it is forest. Different forest, sparser forest, but it is forest, and it is protected." She put her bowl to her lips, draining the last of her soup, then looked around. "We should move. The best time to make our final approach is the early afternoon."