Grave-climbing: Sanctuary Series Book 2

By PJ O'Brien

"Grave-Climbing" continues from where "Surviving Sanctuary" left off. The mastermind behind decades of extortion and murder is finally imprisoned, and the citizens of Sanctuary go back to their normal lives. There is a growing movement for social reform, including the relaxation of laws regulating marriage and assets ownership. Traditionalists fear this will lead to their society’s disintegration and counter with greater restrictions. As tensions rise, a university professor is suspected of destroying historical records, a father is pressured to cut ties to a beloved daughter who has eloped, and an otherwise rational young man worries that his new wife’s seizures are of a diabolic origin. Violence erupts once again in a land that has forbidden it. A bloody coup attempt at the palace is put down, but more insidious threats remain as shadowy organizations take root.

Excerpts from Goodreads reviews:
"Just as in PJ O’Brien’s first book of the Sanctuary series, the second book, Grave-Climbing, somehow manages to weave comedy, tragedy, romance, and drama into a plot that includes: an almost feral teen’s first exposure to school; a bizarre palace coup attempt where even those involved have no idea what’s going on; political conspiracies involving marriage entrapment, university professors, and EEG labs (seriously); an argument about the Wizard of Oz and terrorism, typical coming of age dilemmas in very atypical settings; a mass murderer’s backstory; a world-weary photojournalist and his estranged cloistered wife; witch hunts (literally), and a suspicion about doughnuts.

"At any given point, there could be very funny dialog, touching confessions of love, or arguments within arguments (one of them nearly provoking me to scream, 'Just shut up and get married already!!'). For those who’ve read the first book, there are cheerfully helpful tips when you can skip if you know the characters and culture. (And if you do know them, I’m happy to say that most are back, though the perspective has shifted to the next generation.) Despite the name, this is isn’t a horror book about zombies. The title refers to the apparent royal heirs who stubbornly keep coming back after being physically threatened and politically buried. This sad lack of the Undead almost cost the book one star..."

"..In this book we're introduced to a bunch of new characters, there is a coup attempt in the palace, and a whole host of other events and relationships are woven into the tale, including a trial that gives us a glimpse of the Sanctuarian legal system in action, murder, attempted assassinations, kidnapping... As expected this isn't exactly a cliffhanger, but it ends somewhat in the middle of a very long overarching story that is continued in the next volume, even though the immediate 'danger' is resolved. Also, if you start reading this without having read volume one you will be lost, so when packing for your desert isle excursion, be sure you have all four volumes handy. This series, actually more like a single four volume novel, is so monumental and fabulous that I had to invent a whole new category for it in the Rat of Approval program."

In 2014, PJ O'Brien's "Surviving Sanctuary" was given the Smashed Rat on Press "Rat of Approval" designation for Indie authors who pass their standards for grammar, punctuation, formatting, and general coherence. Grave-Climbing earned their mysterious "Great Golden Rodent of Shangri La" award, which they cheekily describe as: long considered a mythical creature, is so incredibly rare it is almost never spotted in the wild.

• Language: English
• Publisher: PJ O'Brien
• Release date: Jan 11, 2015
• ISBN: 9781311007087

PJ O'Brien

It would not be fully truthful to say that the author was challenged to write a genre-bending mystery after losing an argument with ducks about the inevitability of violence. But it wouldn’t be fully false either.O'Brien, a somewhat optimistic rurally-raised resident of a US city infamous for its violence and hopelessness, decided to test a theory. After inventing a country devoted entirely to fairness and peace, she added characters that had to abide by the framework of their culture. They were given horrors that plague real people and were allowed to respond as they saw fit. They had only to be true to their culture, retain essential elements of modern humanity, and be charming when not dealing with threats that could potentially end the world as they knew it.After four books, they felt they had fully addressed the most essential questions of suffering, violence, love, and happiness, and still retain their sense of humor. And did they? That’s for you and the ducks to decide.

Book preview

Prologue

Restricted Access Zone, Great Plateau Temple

He was ninety-four years old when he was incarcerated. The judges assumed that anyone capable of killing so many people was profoundly insane and spiritually damaged so they declined to set a specific sentence. Instead, they ordered him confined to an isolated wing of a temple under the care of physicians and holy guides until he was no longer a threat to anyone. They left it open-ended as to who could decide when that might be. He found that kind of thinking stupid and shortsighted, but since it benefitted him, he said nothing. He took the opportunity to think.

Occasionally, he thought back to his early childhood years. He was surprised that he still could remember them. The people he had tried desperately to please, protect, or escape were long dead.

The memories didn’t provoke any particular emotion in him. He discovered when he went away to school that he didn’t think and feel the same way that other people did. Seeing someone else afraid or sad never inspired the same feeling in him. He didn’t see why it should. It seemed very logical that his feelings would remain unengaged if nothing endangered him personally.

He learned that this indifference was an unusual trait and that it made other people uneasy. He was often excluded when invitations were given out or opportunities for advancement arose. He couldn’t understand why. He hadn’t caused the fear or sadness that others were experiencing. He’d never done anyone harm in those days and he went out of his way to be helpful. But no matter what he did, it was never enough. No one felt comfortable around him unless he displayed the expected emotions. So he learned to hide his true self.

He observed the myriad ways that others responded when they were emotionally engaged with someone. Then he chose which he would display in a given situation.

He realized that emotions were the currency of human relationships. He made sure to maintain the illusion of having just the right balance of credit and debt. The ability to do so had served him well all of his life, so it wasn’t remarkable that it was still effective now that he was confined.

Like most people in his country, he used stories as the marketplace to exchange emotional currency. As was common in his culture, he told stories not only of his own life but also of people and historical events that had made a profound impact upon him. Or rather, he made it appear that the stories had a profound impact upon him.

As he’d hoped, these stories evoked emotion in the counselors and holy people who were trying to help him rehabilitate. He was careful and deliberate in the telling of them; he was known to be a hard man. Insights into his heart had to be brief, fleeting, and seemingly without his awareness. He told the stories to them a little at a time, sometimes waiting days or weeks before the next one. And as he spoke, he would pause frequently to shake his head slightly and turn his eyes away.

It wasn’t entirely dishonest. When he was very, very young, the bitter experiences tore at his heart and destroyed his sense of an inherent rightness in the world. Perhaps somewhere deep within him, the lost and despairing child that he once was still existed. And if not, if that child was truly obliterated, didn’t he deserve something, even if only to be the root of meta-emotion? Didn’t his terror at his destruction deserve some kind of acknowledgement? What they did to him and his brother and their mother was wrong; why was it allowed to happen? Why didn’t someone help them?

Eventually he had helped himself. He was too young to help his mother, though he had tried. But she’d become too damaged emotionally and physically to carry on even if she had been rescued. She wasn’t meant for this world anyway. It was for the best that she’d gone on to the next.

His brother’s mental handicap made him even less suited for the world than their mother had been. Even so, he had protected him and kept him in this life as long as he reasonably could. He didn’t think he owed anybody anything at this point.

His mother had taught him that kindness, compassion, and forgiveness eventually won out over any adversity. But if so, it wasn’t a victory he wanted. He didn’t care what happened in the next life. He felt if nature had intended them to take an afterlife into account, it would have provided them with more of a connection to it. At the very least, there would be some evidence that it existed.

When they threw his mother off the ledge, releasing her once and for all from the despair and pain they inflicted, he had turned away at first. Then he came to a decision. He walked over to her shattered body and said in a voice equally sad and angry, Ma, I’m sorry, but it looks like you were wrong. You were wrong about everything. Then he threw his lot in with her murderers.

He decided that most people, no matter who they were or where they came from, turned out to be stupid, greedy, or cowardly in the end. It was easy to think of the bait to put in the traps for them. He had a natural talent for it.

His mother had hoped that he would become a very compassionate holy man because he had the uncanny knack of knowing how people were feeling deep inside. He knew what each needed to feel safe and happy. He found that simply by starving the fleeting whisper of compassion within him, but cultivating the façade of it, the ability to read and understand people was just as useful in an unholy life as it was in a holy one.

It was all in how you looked at things. His present environment was a good example. To most people, it was a prison. He was constantly monitored and he could not leave his cell. He had no control over who came to see him and he had to put up with a great deal of nonsense from those who wished to redirect his life and personality. But after thinking about it, he realized what an advantage his situation was.

While he was here, no one was likely to think he was responsible for anything else that might happen. He had no need to be constantly on guard against someone discovering that he was a traitor to the Masters Guild and sometimes to the entire country. Now that everyone knew that he was, the worry of discovery was over.

Some of those he’d blackmailed had confessed their indiscretions and pathetic secrets in their testimony against him. They’d sacrificed their dignity and honor to insure that the nation was safe from his ambitions. But most of them hadn’t. He knew they wouldn’t. Once enough people had come forward, the others didn’t see much point in exposing their shame to public scrutiny. Now that he was out of the way, they thought their secrets were safely hidden. They’d do anything to keep them that way. They had reputations to consider and loved ones to protect.

His guards and counselors were useful, too. They all had varying amounts of confidence, self-doubt, and spiritual conceit. He had already quietly altered behaviors and opinions. There was already some sympathy for him growing, and the seeds of ideas he planted in their thoughts were beginning to take root.

The fact that he was a realist was also in his favor. He could acknowledge that he’d made crucial mistakes. He shouldn’t have fallen for Marnii’s tricks, but he consoled himself that it was less a function of her capabilities than it was of his own foolishness.  That was obvious to him, though he doubted it was for her. It was another advantage for him that she felt some power and confidence and believed him to be unable to harm her. He would use that in time.

But for now, he let the holy guides believe that he had some slight inclination to learn more about their faith. He let each guide think that it was that one’s particular insight and spiritual direction that was slowly bringing about his conversion and reform. He knew that nothing pleased spiritual people more than the belief that it was through them that a person adrift without faith or hope found a secure connection to heaven to hold onto.

He was a little afraid that he had revealed too much when he asked for a copy of the Three Musketeers to read. It was a foolish impulse at a weak moment when he needed something to calm and reassure him. But when he thought it over, he relaxed. He knew it would give nothing away. They would assume that he had an inner longing for heroism and may have forgotten many of the subplots of the story. Who remembered Milady in prison when there were competitions, swordplay, and daring rescues?

Chapter 1

National University, Capital City, Southwestern Province, 11 February 2004

Spending the night with his Initial Wife had seemed a good idea to Prince Nor earlier in the day. Their impulsive marriage mid-term hadn’t given them time to arrange student housing together. Miinah still lived in the dormitory and he still lived with his parents.

They alternated staying with either his House or hers on the weekends, but this had its own problems. While his mother had finally accepted the idea of his marriage and had warmed a little to his wife, she had far too strong a personality to allow the couple enough room and time alone to get to know each other. And they needed very desperately to do that.

The idea to marry came relatively recently. He had gone to visit her after her father’s murder, and they’d talked for hours. It surprised them both. Although her father had worked for his for many years, their previous contact with each other had been sporadic and superficial.

But for reasons of politics and propriety, the relatively few visits that occurred between that conversation and their wedding night were very public and well-chaperoned. Conversations had been general. Both were introspective people who didn’t much like to discuss their personal thoughts in the presence of many people.

Nor understood that his parents were trying very hard to make things easy for them. But his mother was the queen of the Realm so proper appearance and behavior were important to her. As a wedding gift, she’d taken her son’s bride to have a new wardrobe designed for her. She had Miinah’s hair cut in a style that was very attractive, but not one that she would ever have chosen for herself. Whenever Miinah looked in the mirror, she saw a stranger.

Miinah was patient and tolerant, but her personality was strong, too. She felt no need to be told when she should wake up, what she should wear, how she should sit, and what she should or shouldn’t be involved in. After one day spent with the Royals, she was ready to leave.

Miinah’s relatives were far more accepting and readily gave them privacy and space. But their apartment was a total wreck. The prince had never considered himself compulsive about cleanliness and organization, but he couldn’t relax among the chaos of laundry, dishes, and general debris. Any order that had existed when the items were first set down was long since disrupted by Miinah’s younger siblings, cats, dogs and even pet rodents and birds who frequently escaped from their enclosures. There was something on every horizontal surface from chairs, tables, and floors. He never knew which piles of clothes were clean and needed folding, and which were waiting to be washed. They were stacked close together and often collapsed into each other.

Miinah’s primary father had been very orderly, but after he was murdered the previous year, the rest of his House seemed to disintegrate. Nor felt very deeply for all of them, but he couldn’t bear to sleep under their roof. He was doing well to maintain his appetite when he sat with them for dinner.

He and Miinah had been married not quite two months, but their circumstances began to cause significant friction in their relationship. They needed time alone together to be themselves. They needed to get to know each other better and not have to constantly worry about inadvertently offending one another’s family members. So Nor had asked if Miinah could find them a private room in her dormitory, at least for one night. The term was ending. Many students had finished their exams and had left already for the long break.

But by the time they were finally able to get the housing manager’s consent to let them stay there, they felt depressed and exhausted. The manager obviously thought little of the Royal House. He swore loudly and repeatedly that they lived in a free country and he was not obliged to do any special favors for a spoiled son of the queen.

I don’t care if you are the crown prince. You could be the Queen of Sheba or the President of the World, but you’ve got no special rights in my building. You’ve got no contract to live here.

I understand that. I’m not expecting any special consideration-

You can’t just decide you’re a resident of this dorm. You’re not one. Not at all. You might think you can convince our young ladies to marry you without asking my permission, but you can’t convince me to make you a resident. We have a waiting list, you know. You have to pay the guest fee, and you have to wait your turn for a room to become free.

The prince controlled his impatience and pulled out his wallet. I fully expected to pay the guest fee. I’m not asking for any special privileges.

I’ll have to check and see if they are any open rooms.

Aren’t most of them open? Three-fourths of the students have already moved out.

Are you trying to tell me how to run this building? Are you implying that you know more of what’s going on than I do?

No, of course not, Nor replied, as patiently as he could. He started to say that he knew it from the exam schedule, but he was afraid that would provoke another surly response. Instead he said that he would appreciate whatever he could find for them and that they’d wait in the common room until he was ready for them.

Maybe this wasn’t such a good idea, he told Miinah grimly.

Don’t worry about Viiz, Nor. He always acts like that. He considers any request a major inconvenience and a threat to social stability.

We can’t keep on like this. We have to find a place to live together.

She nodded, but said nothing. They both knew that housing was tight, both on campus and off. Most married students lived with parents if they weren’t happy in the crowded dormitories.

Nor looked at her and apologized for his bad mood. She shrugged.

You have an exam tomorrow, Miinah. You should study.

It’s too noisy here.

Go down to the quiet room. Or go over to the library. I’ll wait here.

She shook her head. I think the Beast-in-Charge will give you a bigger hassle if I’m not here. He’ll start spouting obscure housing codes about guests not being allowed anywhere without a resident. I’ve already done a lot of studying. I’ll be ok.

They found a chess table and played a game. When it was over, Miinah finally voiced the question that she’d kept silent in the hopes that Nor would bring it up himself. She hadn’t seen him for two days, not since they went out for breakfast together just before he went to defend his thesis. He’d sent a note to her afterwards that things hadn’t gone well, but there was still a slim hope that it would be accepted and he would be able to graduate.

Up until they met with the housing manager, he had seemed in a fairly good mood, so she thought it had all worked out. But she realized it could be a front. Nor kept a lot of things to himself. She was afraid his silence meant bad news, but she always felt that one needed to face things, no matter how unpleasant.

Nor, did they accept your defense? Or did they find another excuse to hold it up?

No, it’s done; I passed. I’m sorry, I should have told you. He opened his backpack and brought out a tube. I even have my degree already. Want to see it?

Sure.

He pulled out the document and unrolled it. She looked at and frowned. I don’t understand: aren’t you a Classics major? Why is your degree from the College of Library Science and Archival Records Management?

I hate this place, Miinah. The sooner we can both get out the better.

But, is this a real degree or not? I know your advisor hates you but he can’t grant degrees from other faculties.

No, but he can refuse to do it from his own. Which he did. He’s the Chair, so he’s got the clout.

He has to have some grounds, though. I can’t believe it, Nor. He made you rewrite your thesis so many times. He made you take the heart out of it and turn it into the most benign…

Drivel, suggested Nor, seeing her struggle to find a suitable word. He made me pull out every bit of original thought, no matter how well supported. Then he still didn’t accept it.

But, why not?

He doesn’t like what I’m trying to prove and instead of just saying flat out that he wouldn’t accept it beforehand, he led me along and then told me publicly.

I thought most people were starting to accept it. You had a lot of references to corroborate it.

Yeah, but those are the references he wouldn’t accept. He said that they haven’t been commonly accepted as authentic sources yet. And he made sure that the others from the Classics department on the committee wouldn’t accept them either.

So how did you end up with this degree? Have you taken many Library Sciences courses?

"Fortunately, yes. It turns out that very few Classicists at this university deal with the actual original documents. Most of the ones housed here were copied out by hand centuries ago. And even though the scribes were meticulous about annotating several possibilities for meaning when there was confusion about translations, they were never really keen to go back to the original sources. Copies were written from other copies if the first ones were getting worn. It never seemed to occur to anyone to travel to where the originals were stored.

"When the ability to make photocopies came, the university and many archivists from the outer temples still used the most recent copies for the mass production masters. No one wanted to remove a thousand year old document from protected storage and risk permanent damage. They didn’t even want to use a camera with a flash.

I think that was the final blow, actually. Up until the electronic copies, there were a few people like my father who wanted to see the real thing, even if it meant traveling to obscure areas and working very carefully under the scrutiny of an obsessive archivist. Ever since the copies were made available online, few bothered to go further than the versions that came up in their searches. Even if the versions were listed as valid translations, they seldom were. They’re usually amalgams or an interpretation of an interpretation, and it’s hell trying to figure out the provenance of the sources. No one seems to care about version changes anymore. No one seems to care whose account of the story it was. No one seems to care which scribes made successive copies as exactly as humanly possible, and which decided to add or drop some lines without identifying themselves and explaining their changes.

Miinah kept her face neutral as her usually soft-spoken and occasionally taciturn new husband poured out his frustration.

"Whenever I would bring this up to my professors, they would say that the versions we use now have been used for hundreds of years. These are the versions that have influenced history, art, and culture. If the originals are different, it doesn’t matter because they had no effect on us. The versions I used might be historically right, but classically wrong. If I wanted to study history, I was in the wrong department.

"I told them that some of these original, historically accurate versions are known and still have quite an effect on the regions outside the city. I’d remind them of my father’s thesis, which was accepted by the university Classicists in early 1981. Then they’d get really dismissive. They’d snap back that my father would never have gotten a degree granted for such ‘tripe’ if he submitted it now. And neither would I if I kept thinking that way.

But I knew my dad was right. There are a lot of original manuscripts squirreled away in the archives of old temples and rural libraries that aren’t well-known by the university. No one has copied them yet, but they’re still used by the local oral historians for teaching stories. Everyone coming out of those regions knows them and is influenced by them whether they’re masters, civilians, or holy guides. They just aren’t known as well in the city yet, but that doesn’t mean they aren’t important.

But people share regional stories with each other all the time when they meet. Surely when each of these groups came into the city, their stories came with them.

But how often did they come into the city? It wasn’t even a city in the real sense of the term until 150 years ago. It wasn’t important at all until power was shifted from the Royals to the civil groups. Very few people lived here permanently until the late 1890s. It was just a place to stay while you studied at the university or were waiting for an audience at the palace and weren’t important enough to be offered accommodations there.

Still, it’s been a real city for over a hundred years, said Miinah, a little defensively. She’d lived her entire life in the capital and wasn’t in the mood to hear it slighted by a prince who had homes in the palace, the Blue Hills province, and a loft here in the country’s only city. One hundred years means several generations, and that’s plenty of time for storytelling. And I’ll remind Your Royal Highness that the people in the city are more likely than the rest of the country to be educated, to hold highly-skilled jobs, and to intermingle with those from other backgrounds. We’ve got a freer mixing of masters, civilians, holy guides, and even the occasional Forest Hills Exile than you’d find out in the provinces. And certainly more than you’d find in the palace. We tell each other stories all the time. Maybe there’s a reason why some of the more obscure stories are forgotten. Maybe they aren’t really important. The others are certainly shared.

I’m not trivializing the city, Miinah. I grew up here myself, you know…

Not the same way the rest of us did. You went to the most exclusive school. You might have done some master training in the city, but you got most of it from the grandmasters in your own House, or from the Royal Guard. You got the best the country could offer. You never went anywhere without the Guard trailing behind you, which makes you a little inaccessible to the common person. You might have spent a great deal of time in the city, but you’re not really one of us. You’re not likely to have access to the everyday fables that the rest of us would.

Miinah’s irritation left her as soon as she stopped talking and saw that she’d offended him. He immediately erased all signs of it from his face as he’d been taught from the time he was a child. Masters were trained to not show strong emotion in public and so were Royals. He said nothing as he rolled his degree back into its tube and put it away.

I’m sorry, Nor. I didn’t mean it like that.

He shrugged and glanced at his watch.

Really, Nor. I know you had a pretty weird life. Yours was the first Royal House in ages not to live fulltime in the palace. I know people like the housing manager are always giving you a tough time.

Nor shrugged again slightly but was silent.

I know I give you a hard time, too. I don’t mean to. OK, sometimes I do mean to, but not now. I just like the city. I like being here and you don’t. But I think if you could know it the way I know it, you’d like it, too.

I’ve lived here all of my life, Miinah. I went to the palace for ceremonial visits, but it was never home and you know it. And I admit we have a permanent residence in Blue Hills, but it’s a cave-

It’s more than a cave. It’s an entire cave system that-

So what? So what, Miinah? It’s way more rustic than where you grew up. And the neighboring people in Blue Hills were just ordinary people and they told ‘everyday fables’ too.

That’s right. They were ordinary. Which means they treated you differently. I’m not saying it’s your fault, but everyone treats you differently than they do the rest of us.

Usually not in a good way…

You’re wrong, Nor, it’s usually in a very good way. I admit that there are plenty of people who are petty and nasty, but there aren’t nearly as many of those as there are people who go out of their way to please you. Those loyal to the crown do it because you’re the son of the queen. The masters do it because your blood father is the former Royal Grandmaster and your Little Father is reputed to be the ‘greatest master who ever lived’. The holy guides do it because your Little Grandmother is a living saint and most assume your Little Mother Neiren will be, too. Those in the government and Civil Service Corps cut you slack because your Little Father Gar is the head of the International Bureau and everyone has somebody in the family who wants to work or study abroad. Even the Forest Hills and the Exile folks adore you because your Little Mother Marnii is a very beloved Forest Daughter. You can feel sorry for yourself if you want to about the few people who are rude to you, but you can’t deny that the majority of people you meet on a daily basis go out of their way to make life good for you. That doesn’t happen for the rest of us. You’ve never had to face the same kind of life the rest of us have and you never will.

Nor had been staring at the closed window coverings as she spoke, but turned briefly to look at her when she finished. He nodded once and said quietly that she was probably right. Then he stood and said, Obviously Viiz doesn’t intend to give me a room. I’d better go back home and let you study.

Nor, I’m sorry. I just get angry sometimes. I know it’s not your fault. I just want things to be more fair.

So do I, he replied as he put on his jacket.

Let’s go to Why Not, she suggested. It’ll be pretty quiet there now. My sister has high school exams to study for.

I don’t want to distract her then. Your House certainly goes out of their way to be nice to me. It’s probably that inescapable special treatment thing.

Probably. But we can handle it there. Don’t leave, Nor. Please don’t leave. If you do I’ll feel wretched and I won’t get any studying done.  I’ll bomb on the exam tomorrow.

You can’t blame everything on me, Miinah. And despite life’s unfairness, you manage to do whatever you want to anyway. You only call me when it’s convenient for you or if you’ve got nothing better to do. How often would we spend time together if I didn’t come to see you? I think you get a little satisfaction out of having a prince at your beck and call.

That’s just ridiculous, Nor.

Please excuse me, then. Apparently everything I say is ridiculous to someone and I’m getting a little tired of it. Maybe it’s because I’m sheltered and I’ve got no sense of what real life is like, or maybe it’s because there’s a little hypocrisy in all of us. People say ridiculous things to me all the time and I try to listen politely. But I can’t tonight.

Nor, don’t be like that. You’re taking this all wrong-

I’m sorry, Miinah, but I’m not in the mood for your noble ‘life should be fair’ speech tonight. Study if you want to. Fail your exam if you want to. Mingle with the common folk and lament about those of us with special privileges until you’re bored and need something else to feel self-righteous about. Invite me over then and I’ll come as I always do. But give me a few days first. Great-grandmother Mehben is not doing well, and former queens deserve their own special privileges. I promised her I’d go see her as soon as I finished here.

Nor, please, I’m sorry. Don’t go. Please don’t go. I’m really sorry.

I’ll call you tomorrow…

Nor, don’t go! Don’t go without giving me a chance to defend myself.

He turned around and said, Defend yourself? You weren’t the one under attack.

You called me self-righteous. You twisted my words to make it seem like I’d blame you for my exam performance. You described me as if I’m some conniving, manipulative, heartless bitch who was using you like a puppet. And when I objected, you told me I was ridiculous.

That’s not what I said…

The door opened and five students who lived on the second floor came into the common room. They nodded to Miinah and Nor, turned on the television, and found seats around it.

I’ll call you tomorrow, Nor said again and walked out.

He’d reached the end of the block before he remembered that he’d promised the university’s supervising master that he would make the early evening rounds. He dropped his unhappy thoughts and concentrated on his surroundings.

Patrolling the campus always seemed to be a waste of time. There was almost no crime or violence and it was small enough that people seldom got lost or injured. But it remained a routine part of the campus safety watch, and there was the occasional desperate student who attempted suicide from the High Bridge over the Green River. Nor went up to check it after walking through the campus a few times.

He saw a hunched figure sitting against the inside wall of the bridge and recognized the coat. He glanced around to make sure that no one else was nearby and quietly walked over and sat down beside her. Miinah jumped a little when he did. Her head had been leaning against her knees and she hadn’t been aware of his presence until he touched her. He discarded the words he started to say as soon as he saw the desolation in her eyes. He put his arm around her instead and leaned his head against hers. For a long time, they sat together without speaking.

Maybe we should start all over, she told him quietly. Or even better, let’s just pick up where we were before things got wrong. I’ll be quiet and let you finish what you were telling me before I started to get mad about the city… and the other stuff.

It’s my city, too, Miinah. At least I always wanted it to be. This is where I live. It’s what feels the most like home to me. But, I don’t think it wants me. You’re right about that. I don’t fit in and I don’t think I’ll ever be able to. But that’s not the way I want it to be.

She put her arms around him and kissed him on the cheek, but she did it quickly. She knew he was uncomfortable with affectionate gestures in public places, even if no one else was in sight. She guessed that he was holding her to make her feel better, but was probably unhappy about it. To relieve his unease, she suggested that they walk back.

Walk back where? The dorm?

It doesn’t matter, Nor. You can walk me to the dorm, or to the library. That’s where I was heading. At least, that’s what I told myself.

This bridge is nowhere near the library, babe.

I don’t think I was really going to study.

That would explain the lack of books and notes.

The library has books.

So I hear. Where are your gloves, Miinah?

I left them. I needed to get out of the building and I didn’t want to look for them.

Nor helped her get up, then took off one of his gloves and handed it to her. After she put it on, he took her remaining bare hand in his and tucked them both into his pocket.

He glanced back at the small river as they neared the end of the bridge. He turned slightly to look at her and said quietly, It scared me to see you up there.

Up where?

You know where. On the bridge.

I’m sorry. Sometimes I feel like it’s pulling me up there.

That’s why it scares me. I remember what you told me right after your father was killed. You said you had an urge to jump off a bridge. You told me that if you could feel the fear and pain that he must have felt even for a few seconds, it wouldn’t feel like he died alone. He turned her around to look at him. I want you to promise me that you’ll never do that. If you can’t do it for me, think of the rest of your family. Think of your dad. It’s the last thing he’d have wanted.

I promise you that I won’t jump off this bridge, Nor.

Promise me you won’t jump off any bridge. Or any building. Or anything at all. Promise me that you won’t hurt yourself in any way.

She shrugged and nodded, and began walking again.

"Promise me out loud, Miinah. Say, ‘Nor, I promise you and my dad that I will never intentionally hurt myself’.’’

Nor, leave me alone. I’m not suicidal. I just like bridges.

Promise me, Miinah.

Fine. I promise. I promise you and my father’s memory that I will never intentionally cause serious harm to myself. Now go away and leave me alone.

Thank you. I’ll walk you back to the dorm.

I wish we hadn’t gotten married. We’re making each other miserable.

You don’t make me miserable, Miinah.

Then why do you always want to run away from me? I say things and you run away. Then I’m miserable while I rehash what just happened and I wait until I can’t stand it anymore. I swallow my pride and hope that you’re not still mad at me. I go out of my way to find the most emotionally neutral reason to call you.

You don’t make me miserable, Miinah. I like being with you. I’ve just been under a lot of pressure lately. I haven’t been myself. I’m angry and frustrated, but not because of you. At least, not often because of you. A wife’s entitled to make her husband mad occasionally.

And vice versa, I hope.

Sure. That’s only fair. Anyway, now that I’ve finally gotten my degree, it’ll be better. We just need to find a place where we can talk and be together without worrying about who’s around.

I still haven’t heard how you ended up with a library science degree. You were telling me about the problems you had getting your professors to agree to let you use only original sources.

I didn’t insist on using only original sources. But I thought it was important to include as many as I could, particularly when it came to lesser-known stories or those with disputed versions. I wanted to review as many sources as I could for my background research because I knew that I had ideas that a lot of people weren’t ready to accept. I wanted to trace when the versions began to split. I’d long since given up trying to explain why they did.

Miinah nodded, but said nothing.

The temple archivists are pretty strict about who gets to handle the originals, which is completely understandable. Some are thousands of years old and there’s only one copy. No one gets to touch them without special training. No one wants them lost forever. So, from the beginning I took records and document management courses, both here at the university and through the various temples’ archival classes. I also took classes in history and archaeology so that I could learn how to date a document by studying the inks and writing materials, as well as the historical context of the time.

So you had enough for a double major?

I didn’t know it, but I guess I did. But I still would have lost out on the degree if I hadn’t asked professors from the Library and Archives, History, and Archaeology faculties to be on my thesis committee. It made the committee intimidatingly large, but it paid off for me. Even with all the strikes the Classics people made against my theories, there was enough substance in the rest of the paper to interest the others.

Miinah frowned as she recalled Nor’s thesis. But without any of your theories, what’s left? The only other thing you had in there were appendices and supporting documentation of where all the original sources were.

Yeah, but that’s what made those from outside the Classics department happy. I guess we should all thank my advisor, if only to spite him. If he hadn’t insisted that all the original sources were suspect, I’d never have catalogued where they were around the country. Apparently that had never been done before.

Seriously?

The archivists in each place kept good records of what they had, but no one had catalogued all of the information into a single reference. And because I was getting such a hard time about the possibility of fakes and forgeries, I had to cross-reference manuscripts in one area that corroborated the existence of those in others. I also had to give some kind of rating of how reliable each was in terms of physical condition, readability, and validation to prove the actual author.

So, the committee accepted your thesis solely on the basis of your reference cites and appendices?

"Well, that committee didn’t. When I asked the people from the other departments to join the committee, the Classics chair added more people from his to counterbalance them. That committee was the largest one in the history of the university, by the way. My one claim to fame. Or infamy, I guess. But anyway, the Classicists were in the majority and turned my defense down. They told me two days ago, but I was too depressed to say anything to you about it. I knew you were busy studying and didn’t want to distract you with my bad mood.

"But later that afternoon, the Chair of Library Science and Archives called me and told me she’d reviewed my course record with two other members of her faculty. With them and the sympathetic archaeology and history professors who heard my original defense, she had enough for another committee, this time for a degree in Library Science and Archival Records Management, with a minor in history.  I had just enough credit hours to qualify. She told me that if I could re-work the formatting to make the appendices the main body, I could defend my thesis again later that evening. In the meantime, she would arrange the paperwork to have the university administration office change my major and advisor listings.

They told me immediately after my defense that I’d passed, so I didn’t have to sweat it out like I’d had to before. She made a few calls and had the degree finalized, registered, and printed out before the Classics people found out, in case they wanted to make trouble.

The benefits of having the records folks on your side. Other people can talk about it, but they can make the paperwork happen. So, what are you going to do now? Be an archivist or a librarian?

I don’t know. Maybe. But for now I’ve got a few things to do. My father has to go back up to Cliff Heights to bring down the feral kid who’s been trying to live with the eagles. I told him I’d help coax him down and get him adjusted to Uncle Nev’s school.

They’d reached the dorm again and Miinah expected him to say goodbye after he opened the door for her. Instead, he followed her in and took off his jacket. Wishing to keep him there longer, but unable to suppress her curiosity about his problems with his professors, she asked Why does your Classics advisor hate you so much?

I’ve no idea. No, that’s not true; I’ve got a very good idea. It’s not the general grudge against the Royals that you, your housing manager, and a lot of others share. He has a specific issue with me.

Miinah ignored the criticism and asked, Really? What’s his issue?

 He doesn’t like what I think, do, or say.

And why would that be?

I think what he teaches is wrong. And I told him so.

Not very diplomatic of you.

He makes me mad.

It seems the feeling is mutual. Is there something that you could have thought, done, or said that he would like? And vice versa?

I suppose that if I gave up trying to define what was mythology and what was historical fact, he’d be happy. Or rather, if I quit trying to prove that what we’ve commonly believed was mythology and what we believed was historical fact was exactly opposite of what it really was, he’d be happy. Especially when it involves the stories that are very important to him.

Isn’t he more qualified than you to say what’s mythology and what’s historical fact?

He should be. But if he is, he doesn’t show it. In fact, what anyone else would call beautiful and poetic teaching myths, he teaches as historical events. It’s baffling to me. Why would a Classicist of all people question the importance and value of mythology? Why would he feel the need to pretend that they’re historical facts in order to be taken seriously?

Maybe something else is going on.

If there is, I can’t figure out what it is. And I’ve been struggling with this ever since I started to study here. It’s like he has the ideas first and then tries to make his work conform to them, rather than the other way around.

Maybe every scholar struggles with that to some extent. Our perception of the world is affected by our beliefs about it.

I know. But some people are more aware of it than others. And it would help if he’d use the same scholastic rigor that historians use in deciding what the facts are. That would mitigate some culturally-based perception problems.

I hope you didn’t tell him that.

I did. That was a mistake, but I was frustrated. I wasn’t as tactful as I should have been. And he’s gotten worse since then. Now his historical facts have gone a step beyond. They’ve become like religious dogma to him. And when you question someone’s religion, it provokes a great deal of anger.

But he’s a scholar, Nor. He has to have some inclination towards truth and knowledge. He has to have some curiosity about the wider range of sources that you’ve presented him with. Maybe he doesn’t think you respect the importance of myth and story enough. Does he think that you don’t realize their impact on culture? Culture has an impact on history, just like history does on culture. It’s true anywhere.

Sure it is; I’ve got no problem with that. I was attracted to the Classics in the first place by the mythology and the stories; the interest in the historical record came later. But they shouldn’t be at odds with each other. How many scholars of Greek Classics would claim that Zeus or Athena or Orion had been actual living people? No one would insist that the events in those stories actually happened, despite their profound effect on politics, art, architecture, and even astronomy. More likely, actual events influenced the stories and the stories in turn influenced events for other generations.

Many myths contain truths.

I’d say all of them do to some extent. But they don’t necessarily contain historical facts. A story doesn’t have to be about a set of facts to convey the truth about something. And conversely, just because a story is set in an actual place and time and uses someone who actually existed as a main character still doesn’t mean that it actually happened or contains any truth at all, whether moral or historical. But I will concede that the most enduring stories, including all the Classics, contain truth. Otherwise, why consider them Classics?

Maybe just because they’re nice to hear. But anyway, to bring us down from the theories and back to basic human interaction, do you suppose your former advisor would respect your opinions about which were historical events and which were teaching myths if you were more respectful?

"Maybe. But if you want my honest opinion, I think he does think that what I’m saying might be right. He just doesn’t want to accept it. He’s afraid that it might completely change the world as we know it."

Oh please Nor! I warned you about reading Dostoevsky when you had a fever a few weeks ago. Now you’ve turned the man into the ‘Grand Inquisitor’.

Nor laughed. Well then, what would that make me? The Grand Inquisitor actually has the returned Christ imprisoned and orders him-

"I did read The Brothers Karamazov, darling; you don’t have to give me a plot summary. So, other than a possible Messiah-complex, what makes you think he’s consciously suppressing what he suspects is the truth?"

His belligerent lack of curiosity. That’s always a bad sign in someone in a knowledge profession. No matter what his own opinions are, any historian or Classicist should be intrigued by new historical evidence.

Not if he knows it’s not real.

How could he know unless he looks at it? Each early variation of the teaching myths ought to be exciting to him. I understand the need to make sure that there aren’t any forgeries or mistakes in dating, but he and his colleagues are disregarding what archaeologists, archivists, and historians have evaluated and found to be authentic. They’re suppressing all of the stories, real or legendary, that show their heroes in a less than favorable light. They call them modern forgeries despite the fact that they appear in several documents that are over a thousand years old.

I wonder why? You’d think they’d want to study the recently discovered stuff. Everything else has been done to death. Are they just mad because they didn’t get to see it first?

They don’t want to see it at all. Even the stuff they got transferred to the university by court order would still be jumbled in closets or under a coffee mug on someone’s desk if the archivists hadn’t taken charge of it. I think the only reason the Classicists wanted it was so that it could be destroyed or discredited.

The turn of the conversation made Nor’s mood bleaker. Although it had certainly made life easier for him to have the old documents transferred from the Purple Mountain Valley House library to the university, he disapproved of them being forcibly removed from those who’d treasured them and had taken great care of them. He’d been content to study them where they’d always been and to have copies made to provide wider access to the contents. The Classics department’s petition to have them transferred to the university museum in the interests of the public good seemed hypocritical when they mismanaged the handling of them. Many documents were damaged, others were misplaced, and collections and catalogues meticulously maintained over centuries were mixed up and scattered. The effect on the academic and archival communities was bad enough, but the effect on the people of the Forest Hills was far more devastating.

The Forest Hills was an oasis of fertile farming land bounded on all sides by the Purple Mountain Ring. For thousands of years, it had supplied almost all of the food for the rest of the arid country. It had been the center of conflict and battles for control in ancient times and even now its residents and those of the rest of the country looked at each other with suspicion.

The worst conflicts were finally resolved over a thousand years ago. Queen Behder, the reigning monarch at the time, orchestrated a compromise: Forest Hill residents would not be forced from their land on trumped up charges of food hoarding if they provided assurances to the rest of the country that they accepted the feeding of the country as a holy duty. In exchange for protection from invasions and land seizures, the farmers of Forest Hills agreed that every major harvest would be supervised and all food and seeds would be removed from them. A small allowance would be given back weekly for their own needs, and the seeds would be returned to them each spring in time for planting. To prevent any family from monopolizing the right to the limited arable land for more than one generation, only one child from each House could remain within the Inner Ring of the Purple Mountains. All others had to be exiled when they reached adulthood. They couldn’t return for visits without permission of the local Protecting Masters, who monitored them to ensure that they stayed no longer than the twenty-one days per year in accordance with the Exile law.

Queen Behder had hoped that this would better integrate the unique culture that developed within the Purple Mountain Ring into the rest of the country. This didn’t happen as she’d anticipated. The wars over farmland and the accompanying land seizures did end, and the Forest Hills folk lived up to their obligation to feed their country (sometimes starving themselves to do it, if necessary). But, a sense of alienation and unease often existed between those who descended from Forest Hills people and those who did not. Forest Hills Exiles generally went no further than legally required, and they tended to marry other Exiles. Their children grew and returned to farming in the Forest Hills if they could, and lived austerely and remotely on the nearby arid plains if they couldn’t.

Few citizens of the country’s other provinces had more than a mild curiosity in the ways of the forest or farms. They visited occasionally, but not many chose the Forest Hills life. Living marginal existences on the plains didn’t appeal to them either. Most of them preferred to live along the small rivers in the southern and western parts of the country, the areas surrounding the palace, or much more recently, the capital city.

Education was important to all of the citizens in the country, but even that didn’t have the effect of bringing everyone together completely. Those within the Purple Mountains often taught their children at home rather than send them off to board at a distant high school or the university. The few that did go returned home when they graduated and added their formal knowledge to the teaching stories that each generation passed to the next.

This lack of formal secondary schooling gave the impression that the people of the Forest Hills were ignorant and superstitious. And since they seldom had positions in formal educational institutions, their perspectives were not included in the standard texts. The perception that the Forest Hills people were ignorant was very wrong, however. Although not many had formal degrees, their literacy level and reasoning skills were just as high as those who were taught in accredited schools. And because the Hills people were obsessively proud of their heritage, they treasured every document, story, and even scraps of farming reports from the preceding generations.

They weren’t allowed to keep the food they grew or most of the children they reared, so they compensated by holding on tightly to their culture and their past. Meticulous records were kept of all of those who were exiled out and stories of their childhood were repeatedly retold so that they wouldn’t be forgotten. Every Hills child could recite stories for at least twelve generations of ancestors. All of these records, written and oral, were under the care of a special group of women known within the Purple Mountains as the Forest Daughters. They were the guardians of the entire body of knowledge and had the dual tasks of sharing it with as many of the Hills people as possible, but still preserving it intact for future generations. They were trained from childhood in preservation techniques and records handling. They studied their library throughout their lives and they retold the stories to visitors, reciting by heart footnotes and cross-references. This insured the artifacts weren’t handled more than necessary, but allowed the knowledge to be shared.

It was the restriction of access to the primary documents and the reliance on delivering the information orally that kept most scholars from visiting the Purple Mountain library. There had not been much interest anyway. The Forest Hills people were not only farmers, they were pacifists. They tended to have strong religious faith, but were relatively free of articulated dogma. Few of them held political offices. Without conflicts, political intrigues, or religious tensions, they were seen as somewhat dull.

The Forest Daughters themselves perpetuated this lack of interest by sharing the most boring of trivial information when it seemed that some outsider appeared too avaricious about their treasure of knowledge. Prince Nor had been able to get access to these records only because his father, Grandmaster Fiij, a Classics scholar himself, had married Marnii, an exiled younger daughter of Ahnei, the most influential of the Forest Daughters.

Marnii and her mother had disagreed with each other about allowing Nor and his father to have broad access to the records. While both women trusted the men to handle the manuscripts with care, Ahnei had an intuition that once the scope of the records was known, extensive damage would surely result. Nor joined his father and his Little Mother Marnii in assuring her that this was unlikely. The great Queen Behder herself had overseen the construction of the structure that served as library and home to the Forest Daughters over a thousand years before. Everyone had always known it housed ancient records and no one had ever tried to harm them. The records were being properly maintained and Nor assured his Little Grandmother that he would take digital pictures of the manuscripts without moving them from their controlled environment.

But when he published the documents he’d photographed in the university’s digital library, it generated a great deal of interest among scholars across several faculties. There was an immediate demand to see and authenticate the originals. Ahnei complied at first, but was extremely strict in deciding how long each artifact could be handled and scrutinized. This was taken as interference and an unnecessary restriction to access by those who felt she had no qualifications to make such decisions. Ahnei had had no formal training from an accredited institution. The knowledge passed to her from her mother from generations of Forest Daughters was disregarded as charming but insufficient.

Her fears were realized when the university Classicists petitioned the civil court to have all manuscripts and records in her library created before 1950 moved to the university library for safekeeping. The petition was granted.

It was a terrible time for Nor and his House. His primary mother, Queen Shahnei, could not be seen as obstructing the decision of the civil courts. Neither could his primary father. Grandmaster Fiij had once been the highest law enforcement official in the country. While he’d resigned that role recently, he was still a Protecting Master. These highly adept martial artists were responsible for enforcing legal decisions as well as offering protection for Houses during crises and natural disasters. He could not refuse to honor the court ruling without calling all of his fellow masters into question.

But while he did not interfere with the order, Grandmaster Fiij declined to take part in the escort duty while the records were being removed. Nor’s Little Father, Grandmaster Shahn, also declined. Although Prince Nor and some of his brothers and sisters were trained masters as well, the university did not ask their help in transferring the documents. It was assumed that they would refuse as their fathers had done. The new Royal Grandmaster, a former protégé of Grandmaster Fiij and a brother husband to the king, quietly fulfilled his duty and oversaw the sad task.

They had no contact with Ahnei since the records were removed four weeks before. Both Nor and his father made apologetic overtures to each of the women. There was only silence from Ahnei, but they received a sad, brief acknowledgement from Marnii. Grandmaster Shahn later reported to them that she had retreated to the cave where she did her painting. He suggested to both his Little Son and brother husband that they leave her alone for awhile. He would watch over her and would send word to them when she was ready to talk about it.

Prince Nor could do nothing but enlist the help of archivists, archaeologists, librarians, and historians to ensure that the Forest Hills records were well cared for. The queen personally visited the university president to express her concern and he ordered that the care and maintenance of the documents be moved from the Classicists to the Archivists. This had two results: the records were now being properly organized and cared for, and Nor had a made a serious enemy out of his Classics advisor.

The housing manager came into the common room and told Miinah and Nor that a room had finally become available. He held out his hand for the guest fee, and then grumbled that they should follow him. He led them down silent hallways and up a seldom-used stairway to a small empty storage room on the fifth floor. There was no bedding to be seen. There wasn’t even a covering on the small dormer window for warmth or privacy.

I trust it will be satisfactory, Your Highness? It’s the only one I can offer you.

Where is your room, Housing Manager? In case I need anything during my stay?

The housing manager responded, There’s not much point in that; this is all I can offer you.

Prince Nor turned to Miinah. "Where