In the sealed colony of Gravenholt, where the lights flicker and the distribution lines never end, Erich Vogel returns home a fallen man. Demoted from his post at the Union Coordination Bureau and haunted by the failure that put him there, he finds his childhood friend Annelose waiting on the platform—and a colony worn thin by rationing, failing machinery, and the quiet desperation of people pushed to the edge.
His father, the former chairman, greets him with silence and a question he cannot an
The Wanderings of the Righteous - The Nameless One — Bearing the Weight of Righteousness
The early-spring wind moved across the soil of the fields, brushing it gently.
It was still cold. But from the ground where the snow had melted, a faint, damp smell rose into the air. The earth that had been frozen solid through the winter was slowly drawing breath again. Erich Vogel drew that smell deep into his lungs. A prickle stung the back of his nose. The chill touched the back of his teeth.
How many days had passed since he'd left Gravenholt Colony?
He no longer counted them precisely. Since collapsing in the blizzard, being picked up by the Ash Ring patrol, and carried to this farm, the flow of time had felt different than before. He measured his days not by dates but by the slant of the sunlight, the ache of hunger, and the pain in his body. He was beginning to grow used to that way of living. Each morning when he woke, the deep ache behind his ribs came first, then the creaking of his knuckles. That was his calendar.
"Hey, can you still carry that sack over there?"
The voice came flying toward him. He turned, and there was Casper Brandt, waving from across the field. His careless brown hair was sun-bleached, lighter in patches. His amber eyes looked back at him, calm and clear even from this distance.
"Yeah, no problem."
Erich answered briefly and lifted the burlap sack at his feet. It was full of wheat seed grain. Heavy and solid. When he hoisted it onto his shoulder, a dull pain shot up his spine. The wounds he'd taken while wandering the Outskirts still hadn't fully healed. No—not just the wounds. A forty-year-old body didn't move the way it had in his youth. The rope of the sack bit into the flesh of his shoulder, and he clenched his back teeth.
Even so, he straightened his spine.
The habit of standing straight, it seemed, didn't leave a man even at death's door.
He carried the sack to the far side of the field and set it on the ground. His breath came hard. Sweat beaded on his forehead. When he looked at his palms, the blisters had burst and the skin had peeled away. These were nothing like the hands he'd had as a politician. Back then, those hands had signed documents, shaken hands, clenched into fists for speeches. That was the kind of hands they'd been. Now they were a laborer's hands, soaked through with soil and sweat and blood. Grain dust clung to the places where the skin had torn.
(That's fine.)
Erich murmured it in his heart.
(That's the way it should be.)
Casper came closer, a hoe in his hand. His work clothes were caked with mud, and on his left arm an old tattoo of a wheat stalk showed through. He'd had it since he was a boy. Erich remembered the day that tattoo had been inked. The two of them had sat on a fence and talked about the world outside. They'd believed, with a child's innocence, that they would build a brighter world. The ink had bled blue with the years, its outline gone soft.
"Something's off with the well."
Casper spoke while tapping the ground lightly with the tip of his hoe.
"The water level's dropped again. At this rate, there won't be enough water for irrigation. And I don't see the Ash Ring sending us any water anytime soon."
"I know. I checked the water jars yesterday. We've got a few days' worth left, at most."
"You really do keep an eye on things."
Casper's eyes went a little round with surprise. That expression hadn't changed at all since he was a boy. Innocent, incapable of suspecting anyone. Erich couldn't look him straight in the face. He dropped his gaze to the cracks in the dry earth.
"...We need to check the bottom of the well."
As if escaping Casper's gaze, Erich started walking toward the well.
The well stood in the northeast corner of the farm. An old stone-lined well, one Casper had apparently used without pause ever since he'd put down roots on this land. Out in the Outskirts, digging into the ground usually yielded nothing but contaminated water. But this well was different. From a deep underground vein, it could still draw up clear water. That was the lifeline of this farm.
Erich put his hands on the rim of the well and peered inside.
Dark.
Far below, the water's surface caught a faint glimmer of light. The level had clearly dropped from before. Black stains spread across the stone walls. With the water gone, the parts normally hidden beneath it had been exposed. The edges of the stains had dried white, and the mortar joints stood out in relief.
"I'll lower a rope. I'll go down to the bottom and check for cracks."
"It's dangerous. The bottom's narrow, and there's no good footing."
"It doesn't matter. I'll go."
There was a ring in Erich's voice that allowed no argument. It was the same voice he'd once used to shut down opposition in the council chamber. Casper furrowed his brow, just slightly. But he said nothing more—he brought rope and a pulley from the storehouse and began assembling them over the well. The metal pulley turned with a dry rasp.
Erich wrapped the rope around his waist. He'd learned the knot from an Ash Ring patrolman out in the Outskirts. He formed a loop to support his body, and Casper slowly fed out the rope through the pulley.
"Here we go."
"Yeah."
His body sank into the darkness.
The inside of the well was colder than he'd expected. Water seeping from the stone walls dampened his fingertips. The air was heavy, mixed with mold and earth and a faint trace of iron. When he looked up, the mouth of the well was a small ring of light. Casper's face floated vaguely within it. The ring shrank slowly, bit by bit.
(I am now entrusting my lifeline to a man whose exile I once allowed to stand.)
The fact settled suddenly, heavily, in the depths of his chest. The rope bit into the bones of his hips.
(If that man lets go of the rope, I die here.)
(But that man would never do such a thing.)
(That man doesn't know who I am. Not knowing, he is saving me.)
The rope lowered him, little by little.
At last his toes touched the water. Cold. The bottom was shallower than he'd thought. Because the level had dropped, the water came only up to below his knees. Erich landed at the bottom of the well, carefully testing his footing. Mud slid slick beneath the soles of his boots.
The water had reached above his ankles. Cold seeped slowly into his boots.
"How is it?"
The voice came down from above. It echoed off the well walls, muffled and hollow.
"Can't say yet. I'm checking the walls."
Erich lit the lamp at his waist. A small flame illuminated the bottom of the well. The stone walls were covered in blackened moss. With the water gone, the parts normally unseen had been exposed. Erich put a hand to the wall and slid his fingers slowly along it. The moss crushed beneath his fingertips.
His fingertips touched something.
A gap between the stones.
No—that wasn't it.
This was a crack.
Erich brought the lamp closer. Part of the wall had split vertically. The width was about a finger's breadth. From it, water was seeping out in a slow ooze. The crack ran from the bottom of the well up along the wall.
(Ground subsidence.)
Erich judged it instinctively. The ground around the well was sinking, crushing the water vein. As a result, the flow of water had changed and the level had dropped.
But that wasn't all.
Erich noticed something wedged deep inside the crack.
He thrust his fingers in and pulled it out. Black mud packed itself under his nails.
It was a piece of metal.
He laid it on his palm and held it up to the lamplight. A small fragment, glinting a dull silver. Fine grooves were cut into its surface. The marks of machining. Not something that had formed naturally.
Erich caught his breath. A thin whistle sounded in the back of his throat.
(This is...)
His heart pounded violently in his chest.
(The same material as a component of a circulation core.)
In Gravenholt Colony, he had seen the deterioration of circulation technology with his own eyes. In the engineers' guild office, he'd seen metal fragments of replacement parts. The same fine grooves as the part he'd held in his hand then. The same dull silver gleam.
(Why is something like this at the bottom of a well in the Outskirts?)
Erich checked the direction of the crack. He moved the lamplight along the wall. The crack ran from the bottom of the well toward the southwest.
Southwest.
In that direction lay the Ashfall Valley.
A place where contamination had concentrated during the old war. A danger zone where records told of survey teams wiped out to the last man. Lately, sightings of contaminated creatures in that valley had been increasing, they said.
(Is the disturbance in the water vein connected to that valley?)
Erich clenched the metal fragment in his fist. The bones of his fingers went white.
(Why would a circulation core component be in the Outskirts?)
(No—could the circulation core itself, perhaps—)
His thoughts accelerated. The analytical mind he'd cultivated as a politician tried to connect the fragments of information. But he couldn't speak of it. He must not let Casper know that he was well versed in circulation technology. If he knew, he would ask about his background. Why would a man who'd collapsed in the Outskirts know about circulation technology, the colony's most closely guarded secret?
Erich hid the metal fragment in his coat. A cold weight pressed against the back of his breastbone.
Then he pulled the rope and gave the signal to be hauled up.
"How was it?"
Casper asked as Erich climbed up, hands on the rim of the well.
"There's a crack in the wall. Signs of ground subsidence. The water vein is being crushed."
"I figured as much."
Casper let out a deep breath. His expression was tired, and yet somehow resigned.
"The ground around here has always been unstable. Especially near the Ashfall Valley. Whenever something happens in that valley, it always affects our water vein too."
"What's happening in the Ashfall Valley?"
"Who knows. Word among the patrols is that there've been more contaminated creature sightings at the valley entrance lately. They say the water vein itself is starting to get contaminated too."
Casper sat down on the rim of the well and looked off at the distant sky.
"The day I found you, the patrols were saying it too. That they could hear strange sounds coming from the direction of the valley."
Erich couldn't say anything.
The metal fragment in his coat pressed against his chest, cold and heavy.
In the afternoon, the Ash Ring patrol came to the farm.
There were three of them. All bundled in thick cold-weather gear, the lower halves of their faces covered with cloth. On their backs they carried modified hunting rifles and hatchets with chipped blades. The typical equipment of those who moved through the Outskirts. Their leather straps creaked like old wounds.
Casper invited them into the farm's hut. The interior had a dirt floor, with farm tools leaning against the walls. In the center stood a single crude wooden table. Casper served the patrol barley tea diluted with water.
"It's about the water."
The man who seemed to be the leader pulled down his cloth and spoke. Mid-forties. An old burn scar marked his face. His left eye was clouded white, drained of light.
"A swarm of contaminated creatures was confirmed at the entrance to the Ashfall Valley. At least twenty. Maybe more. They're gathering near the water vein."
"So the water vein's contaminated."
"Yeah. Contaminated water is flowing out from the bottom of the valley. That water's mixing into the underground vein, I'd guess. At this rate, your well'll be useless sooner or later."
Erich listened in silence from the corner of the hut.
(Contaminated creatures gathering near the water vein.)
(The disturbance in the vein is connected to the Ashfall Valley.)
(And the metal fragment I found at the bottom of the well.)
In his mind, the pieces were slowly but surely beginning to form a single picture.
"So what about the water? We're at our limit here too."
Casper's voice
Novelia is an AI-powered platform to read original light novels and fan fiction, create your own in just a few taps, and chat with the characters. New, illustrated episodes arrive daily — free to start.