Promises are both currency and shackle. I have witnessed communities held together by the gossamer threads of mutual assurances, and I have seen lives shattered by the weight of unkept vows.
In Haven, I met a woman who promised her dying husband she would keep their children safe. Each night, she would venture out into the red wastes, scavenging for food and supplies, her body a canvas of scars from close encounters with Dusters. Her promise was both her strength and her burden.
Yet we must be cautious of promises made too freely. In Dustbowl, before its fall, I saw a leader promise abundance and security to all who worshiped him. His words were honey, but his intentions were grit. When the grit came and his promises crumbled, the town tore itself apart.
The most powerful promises, I have found, are those we make to ourselves. To survive, to learn, to help others when we can. These silent vows become the bedrock upon which we build our lives in this harsh new world.
In the end, we are all bound by the greatest promise of all - to carry on, to endure, to seek meaning in a world buried beneath the grit. It is a promise we renew with each breath we take in this unforgiving land.
- From the Writings of Brother Felix St George
“So what’s the first thing you’re going to do, when we reach the Glass Castle?” Scout asked lazily, stretching in front of their campfire.
The Librarian considered this. “Well, I will make a report in full to Abbot Hastings of my journeys and - “
“Oh. My. God. The first fun thing you’re going to do?”
He smiled. “I will take a bath with a book I have read before many times. And I shall read and let the water wash my troubles away.”
November was suddenly alert. “The Castle has baths?”
Scout laughed. “There might be a queue for those baths, Librarian. Me, I’m going to find the technical section of the library. I’m not going to read anything. I’m just going to look at all the books and know I could read any one of them any time I wanted. The next morning, though, then I’m going to blow through them like a grit-storm. Starting with any on androids.”
Uncharacteristically, Josiah spoke up next. “I will visit with any Brothers of my Order and seek counsel on my situation. And as is traditional, we will over-indulge in sacramental wine and the next morning’s weapons training will be shameful.”
“So is a bath off the table?” asked November.
“Yes!” laughed Scout. “The Librarian said bath first. I don’t care if there are multiple baths, let’s just assume he hogs them all so you have to come up with something interesting to say.”
November considered. “I’ll scout the Castle. Identify entrances and exits. Guard patrols and how frequent.”
Scout looked at her levelly. “That is very you. You know, you could try and - “
A rumble interrupted her and they all looked to the red-stained horizon. “Don’t worry,” said November. “I’ve been keeping an eye on it, and the grit-storm is moving away from us. No need for concern.”
Oh, but there is Brother, whispered the grit to the Librarian. This storm will grow and rise and fall on Haven, stripping the flesh from their bones. Then the ingrates of Dustbowl will suffer its wrath. Perhaps it will even reach the Circus Lazarus, if they still survive and make them Dusters in truth. So many shall die, if you do not act.
The Librarian felt ice freeze his veins. Gabriel?
Yes, Brother. You did not think I had forgotten you, did you? The dunes of grit are my eyes and my ears - I have watched your travel with great interest. And it is now, now that you are closest to your goal, that I have chosen to take your hope from you.
And even in this, I offer a choice, for I am merciful. You could take your precious Book and journey south and I would not stop you. But the towns of the north will drown in grit. Or come and face me in the heart of the storm, as you did before.
The Librarian became aware that the others were staring at him, for he had half-risen out of his chair at the words of the grit, eyes gazing at the distant storm.
“It’s Saint Gabriel,” he said tightly. “He is in that storm, guiding it. He says if we do not come to him, he will rain destruction down on all the towns we have visited.”
There was an eerie light in Josiah’s eyes. “It is destiny. It is the will of the Gunpower Gods, that this should happen now.” He seemed ready to charge off into the night at a moment’s notice.
“All right, forget about destiny,” said November. “What we need is a solid assault plan.”
The Librarian shook his head. “He claimed that he can see and hear us through the grit. He spoke enough of our journeys that I believe it to be true, at least in part.”
“So he knows we’re coming and he can hear our plans. The Old Man would call this suicide.”
The Librarian’s face brightened. “Maybe not.”
“How do you reckon that?” asked November.
He smiled. “We are going to use books. And duck tape. Lots of duck tape.”
Scout groaned. “It’s called duct - oh never mind.”
****
The grit swirled around Win, scratching to get in. Despite the duct tape at every gap and crack, some of it still spilled through to whirl around the interior.
It bore witness to a strange tableau. The four companions were leafing through piles of books. Every now and then one of them would say something inscrutable like, ‘Count of Monte Cristo. Pg 73, line 5’. ”The others would crowd around and the grit swarmed their shoulders to see, but the books were slammed shut rapidly, too fast for the grit to settle on the pages.
They went on like that for hours. Whatever they were doing was clearly mentally taxing in the extreme - several times one of them would groan something like, ”I’ve lost the thread. Try again from IT chapter 6.”
The grit did not understand. They were planning something in front of it, and it had been ordered report on their plans. But it could not understand them. The grit did not feel fear in a conventional sense, but it did not welcome the idea of returning to Saint Gabriel without news.
As if its primitive thoughts had conjured him into being, it heard Saint Gabriel’s voice. Report. What are they doing?
Confused. Books. Complicated.
Plan. But not a plan. Reading.
Gabriel snarled in annoyance, reaching out with his mind, and a little cloud of grit turned abruptly black and tumbled to Win’s floor.
****
They were exhausted as the sun rose, which was not ideal, but they had a plan. Keenly aware of potential ears, they went over it as safely as they could.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Okay, so we're going with the Canterbury Tales approach,” said November. “Then I get to be the Jackal.”
The Librarian nodded. “I play Scheherazade. The Electric Sheep does the necessary when we’ve got eyes on Pennywise.”
Scout agreed, “but makes sure Alice is safely through the looking glass beforehand. Don’t want to mess that up.”
“And then I bring the Count of Monte Cristo,” said Josiah heavily.
The grit buzzed around them. Was it their imagination or was there a note of frustration and anger in its erratic movements? They checked their weapons and boarded Win, perhaps for the last time.
****
The grit-storm loomed closer and closer.
Stop that wretched machine at the edge of the storm, Gabriel ordered, audible only to the Librarian. He relayed the instructions, and Scout obediently brought the Winnebago to a halt.
STORM! RAGE! SWIRL!
This close, the cries of the grit were nearly deafening to the Librarian. Quiet, he thought. Passage. Safety.
STORM! RAGE! SWIRL!
Quiet! Passage! Safety! he thought firmly and slowly the winds parted around them as they had parted around Gabriel in his meditations, which seemed so long ago.
Carefully, they made their way through the gap. The Librarian’s protection was not perfect, grit still stung their skin and they had to tie rags around their mouths to breathe freely, but they passed safely through a storm that should have flayed them to the bone.
Up ahead, they saw Saint Gabriel, his hands raised high above a congregation of Dusters. He really did look like he was preaching to them, his voice rising and falling in time with the storm while the Dusters knelt obediently before him.
“Twenty of them,” Josiah whispered to November. “We can take twenty.” His voice was cool and certain.
“Yeah,” she muttered, "but there’s still Scheherazade’s part to play.”
“See!” he called to the companions. “See my command of them! And with my sight through the grit, I can be all-seeing, all-knowing! Truly, I am elevated as a god among men! And yet,” he snarled, “you would hold me accountable for a small village of people whose greatest deed was to serve as kindling to my fire!”
The Librarian raised his own voice. “I greet you, Brother. You are not a member of my order, but I do feel a kinship to you. We both hear the grit, we are perhaps the only two who do. But I now I know the origins of the grit, I know it is a broken, confused thing. You have opened your mind too widely to it, as I nearly did, and it has filled you with that same confusion. To see all, is to understand nothing.”
November dropped to one knee and drew a bead on Saint Gabriel, who didn’t even bother to look at her.
“Come back,” pleaded the Librarian. “Step back from this mad dream of godhood and perhaps you can learn to quiet the voices, to hear your own conscience again. For surely to take life to so easily, it has been drowned out long ago.”
Saint Gabriel laughed. “I wanted to speak with you, Brother, before the end to see if perhaps you had glimpsed the tiniest fragment of what I have. But your mind is trapped in the past, in old and dusty books and the limits and laws of little men.”
November figured that was a good time to shoot him.
The bullet seemed to slow in the air as it approached Gabriel, shredding itself against the raging winds of the storm until it was the merest puff of dust.
“Pathetic,” he sneered and gestured. And one of the Dusters stood up and shot her.
****
It was a shoulder wound, but it still took her off her feet, and sheer surprise at a Duster wielding a weapon held her there. She crashed back hard on grit, jerking her head up to see the other Dusters, rising, producing guns of their own. A shadow fell over her. “Stay down,” ordered Josiah. “I have this.”
And she watched a gun-saint go to war.
Josiah moved like quicksilver, his guns singing a staccato hymn of destruction. Dusters fell in waves, their reanimated bodies no match for the gun-saint's deadly precision. Their return fire peppered the air around him and he seemed to drift through it without noticing.
There was a moment of silence, and his guns quieted and clicked as bodies fell to the floor. Then he dropped his beloved revolvers and flung up his arms, and two snub-nosed .38s slid into his waiting fingers. November blinked - she’d never even known he had those.
Again the gun-saint danced, and the dead died.
And then Saint Gabriel gestured and sent a lance of compressed grit hurtling towards Josiah. It punched through his chest, leaving a ragged hole. November scrambled to the suddenly blood-soaked Josiah. As she attempted to cradle his head, he gurgled and pushed something into her hand. A single bullet.
Behind them they heard Win’s engine rev, Scout having pushed the Button already minutes ago when they first saw Gabriel. The madman laughed. “You have already seen your cannon is useless against me, but bring it if you must!”
Scout stared at Josiah, bleeding out on the grit. “I’m going to enjoy watching you die,” she said savagely. Then she leapt into the passenger seat and slammed the door. Win’s shielding was complete. Then she reached under the dash, slid aside a little panel, and hit a button.
The storm died with a sigh, red grit blackening and tumbling from the sky. It was almost beautiful as the change spread outwards from Win into the air. Saint Gabriel screamed and shouted and clawed at the air, weeping in the sudden silence.
And November’s hand found one of Josiah’s guns and loaded the single bullet. As she rose, she found herself settling not into the familiar angled stance the Old Man had ingrained into her, but the open stance of a gun-saint.
There is the man and the gun, Josiah whispered in her head. The man moves and the gun moves. You aren’t involved. The man moves…and the gun moves, and -
The shot rang out across the quiet plain.
November had known he would fall the moment before she pulled the trigger. You did with some shots.
Josiah let his last breath escape him as a sigh of satisfaction.
****
They buried the two men in the middle of the patch of black grit Win had created. Saint Gabriel they dumped without a backwards glance and barely a few shovelfuls of grit to cover him.
Josiah was buried with his guns, fully loaded, his hat upon his chest and his hands on the handles of his weapons. They dug a full six feet deep through grit to make sure no scavengers would disturb his rest.
Tears fell freely from Scout’s eyes as they stood over his grave, but November found herself dry-eyed. All she could think was how the Old Man would have raged at burying perfectly good weapons and ordinance just for sentiment. And yet, November knew there was no way she could have ever taken one of those guns.
Scout sniffed, rubbing her face roughly with her sleeve. November just watched. What was wrong with her that Scout, a machine, could grieve more deeply than she could?
The Librarian cleared his throat. “I have been looking through some of my Order’s writings on the Order of the Eastern Wood, and I have found a few words I deem…appropriate.
In the name of the Gunpowder Gods, we commend our brother Josiah to the eternal range.
May his aim be ever true, and his bullets never run dry. We honor his life of service, his unwavering dedication to the Order, And his final act of sacrifice in the face of darkness.
As smoke rises from spent casings, so too does his soul ascend. May the echoes of his last shot ring through eternity, A testament to his skill, his courage, and his faith.
We return his body to the grit, but his legend shall be etched in the annals of the Order.
In death, as in life, may he always stand ready to draw, guarding the innocent and striking down evil.
Amen."
He shook himself. “Let us be gone from here.”
****
The wind blew slowly over the grit dunes, carrying fresh grit with it. Slowly red grains began to mix with the black and the wind exposed a pale hand in a shallow grave.
Repair. Restore. Rise.
The hand twitched.
Epilogue
Dr Emerson sat in his office and listened to the air filters quietly turning. They had to be on all the time - no matter how carefully sealed the bunker entrance was kept, some grit always got in. He supposed there was a metaphor in that.
The woman in front of him stood stiffly, her expression tight.
He favored her with his full attention. “Something bothering you, Dr Lee?”
Dr. Lee shifted uncomfortably. "Sir, the situation is... complex. Scout-Seventeen has gone rogue, Dr. Gabriel remains unaccounted for, and we're on the verge of exposing sensitive technology to potential hostiles."
Dr. Emerson leaned back, a faint smile playing at the corners of his mouth. "Ah, but that's where you're mistaken, my dear. This isn't a crisis – it's an opportunity."
He stood, moving to a large screen on the wall. With a gesture, it flickered to life, displaying a map dotted with blinking lights. "Every step Scout takes, every word she speaks, feeds back to us. Her 'rebellion' is, in fact, our most successful data-gathering mission to date."
Dr. Lee's eyes widened in realization. "The radio..."
"Merely a decoy. The illusion of choice is a powerful tool," Emerson confirmed. "As for Dr. Gabriel, well, his... deviation... was unfortunate. But Scout's encounter with this 'Librarian' presents us with a far more intriguing study of stable integration."
He turned back to face Dr. Lee, his expression growing serious. "Make no mistake, the road ahead is fraught with danger. But each challenge brings us closer to understanding the world we've inherited – and shaping the one we'll leave behind."
Dr. Lee nodded slowly, but hesitation still clouded her features. "And the PDD? The risk of exposure..."
Emerson waved a dismissive hand. "A calculated risk. Let them squabble over scraps; it will only drive home the value of what we offer."
He moved to the window, gazing out at the sterile corridors of the bunker. "We are the custodians of hope, Dr. Lee. Whether through Scout's journey, the Glass Castle's preservation efforts, or even the misguided actions of men like Gabriel – all of it serves our ultimate goal."
"And what goal is that, sir?" Dr. Lee asked, her voice barely above a whisper.
Emerson turned, his eyes alight with fervor. "To guide humanity back from the brink, of course. One experiment, one data point, one Scout at a time."
As if on cue, a new alert blinked on the screen – Scout's latest transmission. Dr. Emerson smiled. "Now, shall we see what our wayward child has learned today?"
End of Book One