“Hello my friend, have you heard the good news?”

The traveler didn’t look at Neville. He veered, keeping his horse steady along the edge of the dirt path to the city of Raulsey.

“Friend?” He called weakly, keeping pace with the horse for a few moments.

It was pointless, he knew. Neville was a practiced student of the school of rejection, a bachelor—not that it was anyone else’s business—slowly working his way up to a mastery in the art of taking no for an answer. It was when he got no answer, not even a ‘no,’ that it began to hurt.

It was this damned country. Whatever happened to common decency? To solidarity? To treating your fellow man with goodwill, and sparing fellow travelers even a modicum more respect than they granted horse excrement?

His feet hurt, his undershirt stank, and he had the strangest sensation of water pooling below the small of his back that refused to disperse no matter how he rubbed at it. And what did he have to show for it?

‘These are dark times,’ they would shrug, and go about their days—unhindered.

Dark times indeed.

The traveler trotted away, not sparing him so much as a glance. Neville simply couldn’t keep up—not in his sandals, curse them. Where was it written that traveling holy men had to wear sandals? Robes he could understand, even if he didn’t care for them, but why sandals—and in this climate, too? Did they make him appear less threatening, perhaps? Or was their entire purpose to slow him down, so that this would happen?

“Try sounding a little more chipper next time,” Amyrix suggested, coming up beside him. “You’ve got to really believe in the cause.”

Amyrix was going to die, and Neville was going to be the one to kill him. He turned to face his companion, keeping his expression hopeful. Amyrix’s alabaster skin shined like the moon against the deep purple of his robes.

Amaranthine robes, they were called. Neville never understood why. He normally called them his purples, wearing a little scowl on his face to make clear what his opinion of them was. It was like being swaddled in a womb of his own sweat and filth: one that smelled perpetually of oranges left to mold, after an accident at breakfast.

Sure, it was a good cause, but did they have to wear a half-stone of blasted cloth to further it? No. No, they didn’t. Still, Mother would be cross if he didn’t wear them. He mustn’t upset mother.

Neville sucked in a tortured breath through his teeth, expression pulling tight. “Maybe if we stuck to the main road, we might have made some progress by now.”

Amyrix was a tall man—skinny, though not unattractively so—with bleached blonde hair and skin like alabaster. There was an indefatigable light in his eyes, like diamonds spread over black velvet, that tore at Neville. Amyrix floated through the world as one who had never made a single mistake and was unburdened from the earthly concern of whether or not his outlook on life grated against his companion like an old razor.

He smiled. “Need I remind you that we were run off the main road, my friend?”

“Need I remind you why we were run off the main road, ‘friend?’” Neville said, tension pulling his voice like the chords of a violin.

They’d had this argument at least a dozen times already—and each time Neville left it feeling certain that Amyrix thought he’d won when he hadn’t.

“Perhaps I should take the next one, hmm?” Amyrix said. “You’re free to watch how I do it. You might learn a thing or two. Remember, it’s ’have you heard the good news,’ not ‘have you heard the good news.’ Got it?”

Neville smiled thinly, saying nothing as bitterness raised in the back of his throat like bile.

It would be another long day, away from home.

…

…

“Look, here comes another one,” Amyrix whispered. “Ready yourself, I’ve a good feeling about this.”

Neville fanned himself with his little blue guidebook. Enkhyria really did have the worst weather; he was ready to jump out of his robes and make a mad dash toward the nearest cave. Oh, how he yearned for the cool and dark of his home, thousands of miles away—the moss underfoot, the clear light provided to them by the Great Quartz itself, and the prawns.

He loved a good cave prawn. Eaten fresh, its skin would be clear as glass, giving a plain view of the mercurial ambrosia flowing within. You always knew what you were getting with cave prawns. None of that fur, or gristle, or stink that came with the local beasts.

He missed his cave. He’d run there now if he could—if Amyrix wasn’t with him.

No one said his mission would be easy… rather, they did say it would be easy, but Neville never believed them. That would be ridiculous. The sun-scoured lands of the Pentarchy were famed for their dangers, not the least of which it brought on itself.

And really, what sort of moron worshiped the sun—having over the world like some kind of… hanger-on. Neville hated hangers-on.

The heat wasn't the worst of it, of course. His mother warned him, but did he listen? No. No, of course, he didn’t listen—not to his mother, nor her ‘friend,’ Chris.

Agh, Chris.

‘It’s not the heat that’ll get you,’ Chris said. ‘It’s the humidity. The air down there’s wetter than the Hoarfrost Crevasse in summer. Drink plenty of water, son.’

‘Son,’ he’d called him. Neville shivered at the thought.

And there he stood, in this blasted kingdom, in this blasted empire, on this blasted peninsula. They still had witch burnings here, for Crystal's sake. It was no wonder that the rest of the world wanted nothing to do with the so-called Pentarchy.

Only a heathen would put another heathen to death for heathenry, and that was the Great Quartz’s honest truth. Better that they all die quickly and get it over with.

Their latest target plodded along the road on the back of a donkey—a sign of good fortune. Donkeys couldn’t trot much faster than they could walk, and that meant the man wouldn't be able to casually brush them aside.

The man—the boy, Neville saw—had an oily forehead and an unfortunate rash of pimples spreading across his chin. Dark rings encircled his eyes, casting him as one who’d forgone sleep in favor of a greater task.

“Hello, weary traveler,” Amarthys called, in a practiced, musical tone. “Have you heard the good news?”

To Neville’s great shock, the boy looked at them. To his even greater shock, the boy spoke.

“News?” He frowned, swaying in his saddle. “The guild hasn’t already been through here, have they? I know I’m late, but I’d be the first to know if anything important happened, wouldn’t I?”

‘Finally,’ thought Neville. ‘I thought we’d never get one this early.’

It was trying work, their mission. It took patience. Only a handful of folk ever bothered to stop and talk to them, and even fewer stayed after they got to tell them the good news. Not a single traveler stayed after that, but he had a good feeling about this one.

“Erm—” Amyrix blinked. “Would you?”

“I would have thought so,” the boy said. “But then, I would have thought my job was important enough to get me a horse, and look! I might have made it here faster by walking.”

He was a complainer. Neville hated complainers.

“Erm—” Amyrix blinked again in the intervening silence. “I think you misunderstand me, friend.”

“Misunderstand you? Gods, that would be a nice change of pace. Do you know how many people I’ve run into who don’t know how news works? I’m a scribe, I don’t pull articles from a hat that are all magically true. There’s an editing process—we have fact-checkers. I’m not even allowed to make sweeping statements about the war, I can only quote what other people tell me! Do you have any idea how often I’ve been told objectively untrue things? Do you have any idea how many people are idiots?”

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‘Hah!’ Neville thought, staring bemusedly at the boy. Perhaps he judged the boy too quickly? It sounded like they might have had a fair bit in common.

“W-would you like to hear some good news? Please?”

The boy sighed. “I don’t know. They say this job makes you cynical, but thought… I don’t know what I thought. That it would be easier, maybe.”

“Are you sure you don’t want to hear what we have to say?” Amyrix’s voice was high and hopeful.

“Yes,” the boy sighed. “No. Maybe. Sorry, I’m being rude, aren’t I?”

“No,” Amyrix said, letting out a heavy breath, and shaking his head. “Rude? You? Of course not.”

“No, I have been rude,” he shook his head. “It’s this job—all listening, no talking. I never get to have real conversations anymore. You never get breaks in this business, and my tour won’t end for another three months. It’s nice to talk without the pressure of writing everything down or trying to think of the perfect question to keep people talking. It’s exhausting.”

“Is it?” Amyrix asked in a high voice.

Neville rolled his eyes. This stranger—this boy—clearly got the better of them. Still, one mustn’t rush this sort of thing—patience being a virtue and all. Neville was nothing if not patient. Amyrix though, looked to be at his wits’ end, the polite smile plastered across his face peeling away like so much paint, revealing the dreaded boredom underneath.

“It is,” said the boy, craning his head back and groaning to the sky. “But I’m still being rude, sorry. What were you asking me?”

Neville’s expression tightened, his eyes trained squarely on Amyrix. ‘He’d better not blow this, or I swear to Cryst I will kill him.’

“Only if you’d heard the good news, friend,” his companion said, the mask of polite interest crackling under the excitement of finally doing their work.

“Probably,” said the boy. “I work in news, if you couldn’t tell.”

“We could tell,” Neville muttered. Neither man seemed to hear him.

“Why,” The boy continued. “Did something interesting happen in the last few days?”

“No, not in the last few days,” Amyrix smiled. “The time is now, my friend, for God is dead, and we have killed him.”

The boy sighed and pulled a notepad from his pocket. It was a labored act, and he carried the little notepad as if it was weighed down with a load-stone.

“Start at the beginning,” he said. “Don’t leave anything out.”

…

…

Percy liked his job. Sure, he also liked complaining about it, but what job didn’t have its ups and downs? He got to travel, meet new people, stay current on politics… and he felt like he was making a difference. It’d be nice if people gave him more respect, but he was content with his own little role in staving off the darkness of the times.

But even he had bad days—and this, he felt, was one of them.

“Amyrix Mica,” the man said slowly and clearly, a little smile playing across his face. “Spelled like it sounds. And this is Neville.”

Neville waved.

“I’m Percy,” Percy said, patting his donkey on the rear. “And this is Oaty. A pleasure to meet you. You two must have been out here for a while now, huh?”

“Oh, for ages and ages,” Amyrix said. “Dawn till dusk every day for the last ten-day. It’s been awful being away from home for as long as we have.”

“I’m sure it has,” Percy nodded, scribbling in his little book. “And you’re from… the Cult of the Immaculate Vibe, you said?”

“Church,” Amyrix corrected. “It’s the Church of the Immaculate Vibe—not the cult. We’re not a cult.”

Percy didn’t bother asking the difference. People always got tetchy where religion was involved. Still, he couldn’t not interview these two. Foreign gods rarely made themselves known to the Pentarchy. He never understood why.

“Uh-huh,” he nodded, scribbling furiously into his notepad. “And what’s this called? The thing you’re doing here?”

“A mission,” The taller of the purple-robed madmen nodded. “To spread the good word, and to let the people of this country know that salvation is possible, now that God is dead.”

“Right, right, you said,” Percy said slowly, copying everything he said word-for-word. “Which god was that?”

“The one true God who has no name, for he is all.”

“He. Is. All,” Percy echoed, still writing. “But he is a he, then? And he’s from… Kalod, you said?”

“We are from Kalod,” Amyrix corrected. “God isn’t from anywhere, he just is. And he’s not really a he, that’s just what we call him.”

“And he doesn’t think that’s annoying? Not having a name, but having a gender?”

That sounded silly to Percy, but gods were well known to be an eccentric lot. The only religion he could think of that was anything like what these two were describing was the Cult of Demoxthes’ Big Toe, whose object of veneration had neither name nor gender, because it was a toe, referred to strictly as ‘it,’ or, on formal occasions, as ‘mistress.’ Percy didn’t understand it, and tended to give supplicants of this particular cult a wide berth.

“He doesn’t think anything,” Neville scowled. “He’s dead. That’s the whole point.”

Neville didn’t speak up much, but when he did, it was to say things like that. Percy got the impression that the holy man wasn’t terribly thrilled with his place in the world, and didn’t mind making it other people’s problem. Percy didn’t blame him, though. With a god like that, anyone would be cranky.

“Sorry,” said Percy. “I’m still just a little confused. Your god is dead, and that’s… good? Could you explain that, please?

Amyrix sighed, the exuberant glow of enthusiasm fading steadily from his eyes. “Because if he were alive, the planet would be absorbed into the fractal dimension.”

“Obviously,” Neville added, folding his arms.

“Obviously,” Percy echoed, flipping back through his notes. “Okay, so, two more questions: what’s the… ‘fractal dimension,’ and what’s the… ‘planet?’”

“Crystal’s sake,” Neville rolled his eyes and scratched his back, before turning to Amyrix. “We’re gonna be here forever, aren’t we?”

“Patience, brother,” the lankier man smiled down at his companion. “It’s our duty to answer all of this man’s questions.”

“‘Brother?’” Neville scowled. “Just because your father has a relationship with my mother, that doesn’t make me your brother, brother.”

Amyrix’s smile grew strained. “Let’s not get into that right now, Neville. The young man has more questions.” He turned back to Percy. “A ‘planet’ is the sphere of earth that we live on. The ‘fractal dimension’ is the energy plane that God embodies. His non-physical form, if that makes sense.”

“This is basic stuff,” Neville groaned. “You haven’t even told him about the Great Quartz yet.”

“I’m getting to that,” Amyrix frowned at his companion. “The poor boy’s obviously uneducated.”

“Well, educate him quickly then.”

“I’m sorry, do you have anywhere else you need to be right now? Am I keeping you from any important business? No? Then shut it, please and thank you,” Amyrix turned back to Percy.

“Did you say we live on a sphere?” Percy paused in his note-taking to glance up at the pair.

That was, Percy thought, probably the strangest claim that these two made yet. Still, it wasn’t a scribe’s job to convince madmen that the sky was blue, that water was wet, or that their ‘planet’ was a flattened disk; a scribe’s job was to write. Neither was it his job to be offended when lunatics called him uneducated.

“Obviously yes, but that’s not the point,” Amyrix said. “I haven’t told you about the Great Quartz, have I?”

Percy checked his notes. “No sir, you haven’t.”

“Well, it’s sort of the quasi-physical emissary of the fractal dimension. It’s not God, but God-adjacent. Then there’s the Crystal of Kalod—the son of the Great Quartz, born of the immaculate vibration. He’s the one that’s dead.”

“Of course he is,” Percy nodded.

Trying to understand the whys and wherefores of religion would only leave you mad—and had a more than fair chance of getting you executed as a heretic. Gods weren’t obliged to be reasonable—only powerful—and they weren’t known to turn down opportunities to smite disbelievers.

Keeping this in mind, Percy carefully avoided thinking any blasphemous thoughts.

“Is there any particular attractor that you have to gather new worshippers, or are you just here to spread the… good news?”

“I’m glad you asked,” Amyrix smiled, sticking a hand into the folds of his deep purple robe, removing a clear and shining stone. “Prospective members get a bit of clear quartz, to cleanse their vibe. Try it.”

Percy took the offered stone—carefully, as one might take a living bird—and held it up to the light. “It’s, err—very pretty?”

It was pretty, no bigger than his thumb, shining in the light of the sun like the heart of a fallen star. Beautiful, but mundane, unless Percy was mistaken. He was never particularly gifted in the arts arcane, but the gem was nothing more than a cold and dead lump of crystallized silica.

“See?” Amyrix smiled, teeth shining like moonstone. “Can’t you feel it tuning your vibrations to a higher plane—cleansing your aura of its impurities?”

“Um,” Percy looked between the man and the crystal. “Sure?”

He made to hand the little piece of crystal back to the holy man, but Amyrix refused.

“That’s for you to keep,” he said. “If you’d like to join up, there’s plenty more where that came from. We’ve got crystals for the mind, body, and soul—everything you need to keep you happy, healthy, and safe.”

“Right,” said Percy. “But what do these crystals do, exactly?”

“Oh, just you wait and see,” Amyrix said, grinning now. “Just you wait and see.”