“You’re later than usual.”

“Do I have a curfew now?” Tulland countered.

Tulland’s uncle was cutting up potatoes into a pot, as he always did the night before the rest day. Whatever else might come, his rest day meal would be the same long-simmered stew, served in limitless portions and good enough in its way, but long since tasteless on Tulland’s palate.

“Of course not. It’s just not your way.” His uncle grabbed a small handful of pepper and tossed it in the pot. “You go to your tutor’s, then you come home and pretend to read for a minute before telling me how small this island is.”

“Well, not today. I took a stroll. Which didn’t take long because the island is so small.”

His uncle barked a wry laugh. There was never any telling what he’d find funny, or even if his laughing meant that he was in good spirits.

“Get used to it, boy. Good and used to it. I wanted to go out there when I was a boy. But Ouros is a good place to live, if you let it be.”

“I won’t have to get used to it, after tomorrow.” Tulland held up his book. “See this class? Captain. A Captain goes everywhere, does everything, sees everyplace. And old Hugg isn’t getting younger. It makes sense.”

“That someone will replace him? Sure. But the odds that it will be someone from Ouros, and not from the mainland, or that it would be you if it is someone from Ouros?”

“It makes sense.” Tulland was stubborn on this point. “I’m young. I’m the strongest of those getting their class tomorrow. I’ve learned everything my tutor can teach.”

“I doubt that.”

“Well, plenty, anyway.” Tulland snapped his book shut and walked over to throw more salt in the pot. If he didn’t, his uncle would forget, and the soup would be as bland as sawdust tomorrow. “I deserve this.”

“Deserving isn’t the thing. Never has been.” Tulland’s uncle dumped the last few ingredients into the pot, nodded his head, and hefted it over to the wood stove, where it would simmer all night. “It’s about what’s right. For you, and for the world.”

“And who chooses what’s right?” Tulland asked back.

“The Church. You know that,” his uncle said, his tone had a warning in it.

“And what gives them the right?”

Tulland’s uncle’s hand came down on the counter just a tiny bit weaker than what could be called a slam. By Tulland’s standards, it was like the man had overturned every bit of furniture in the kitchen.

“What gives them that right? I’ll tell you. When your father drowned somewhere out there on the water, and when your mother died in birth with you, and when you were laying there hardly breathing, one cleric spent what was left of his life and another cut years off his so you’d live.”

That wasn’t the tactic Tulland had expected. He would have had some kind of answer if his uncle had called on some ancient conquest of the Church over the System, or the idea that they kept the borders safe out at the edge of the human world.

The idea that someone had given their life to preserve Tulland’s was a little harder to counter. He sat there quietly, playing the next points of the argument in his head instead of out loud, where his uncle might make things too complex by bringing up other points. Tulland might have survived without intervention. And nobody had asked the cleric to do it, he was sure. His uncle was away when he was born, on a fishing trip of his own. He had mentioned it, years ago.

“I’m tired,” Tulland concluded. The sun was almost down. Tulland had a candle, but not much use for it at this time of year, when the dusk until the next dawn was just enough time for him to get his sleep in. “I’m going to read for a bit, then sleep.”

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“Good idea.” His uncle’s face was unreadable. “Big day, tomorrow.”

—

They had given a lesson on how to handle the ceremony to the five boys up for a class, but it wasn’t as if they really needed it. They were sixteen cycles old, which meant they had seen sixteen of these, and remembered twelve or thirteen of them. And like everything on the island, it was the same every time.

Tulland’s mind was blank as the cleric mounted the stage and said the traditional words about service to one’s people, the purpose of classes, and the history of the Church’s triumph over the System. Tulland could feel the System sneering inside of him, and ignored the impulse to agree. There was no point in talking right now. If the Church did what it should, the System would be gone in a few minutes anyway.

The five boys mounted the stage, and Tulland almost yelled when he caught the sight of the edge of a laurel crown sticking out of the cleric’s pocket. It meant that someone among the five would be getting a class. Maybe two, with the way that the pocket was bulging. That, in itself, was good news. Not everyone got a class and in a place as small as Ouros, sometimes there wouldn’t be a single new class for the whole cycle. But there would be one this cycle. Tulland’s cycle.

“You look like you got the day off work.” Altreck was a simple boy, one who measured most forms of happiness against the idea of successfully shirking his work. “What did you see?”

“Nothing. Shh,” Tulland whispered. “Just wait.”

The cleric turned from the crowd to face the boys, his hand hovering over his pocket. There were three boys to get through before he got to Tulland, all of whom were risks before the cleric passed them.

“And so, every once in a while, a new soul is needed to guard the wall between the light and the darkness.” The cleric paused for just a moment in front of the first boy. His face fell and Tulland’s lit as the man kept moving.

“To brave danger or hardship so that others might not have to.”

The second boy was passed.

“And to sacrifice of one’s own labor that others might benefit.”

He passed the third. Tulland held his breath as the cleric’s hand dropped to his pocket and he paused directly in front of him.

“And so we grant a class, that the one who claims it might protect us all, in one way or another.”

Tulland shifted his forehead forward a bit, ready to take the crown and whatever came with it. He had heard that the clerics gave people some choice in their own class, and he knew he had a hell of a case for his own choice. It was all happening, starting now.

The priest stepped sideways once more before lightly placing the crown on Altreck’s head.

“Congratulations, Altreck. Make us proud.”

Tulland’s ears were ringing with shock when he felt one of the other boys nudge him forward. He needed to clear the stage. Altreck looked like someone had slapped him with a fish. His dumb eyes were getting wider and wider as the cleric found simpler and simpler words to explain the situation with.

They do like their idiots. Easier to control.

It’s not fair. It’s not.

It never is. The strong are wasted. The weak are rewarded. That has always been the Church’s way.

Tulland felt a hand on his arm as his uncle turned him to face away from Altreck. He heard the normal words he’d expect in that situation. That he should be grateful. That he should be glad for his friend. Tulland listened, nodding, until his uncle’s limited communication skills ran dry and he was able somehow to shake loose and walk away.

The rest of the town would be busy in the gathering place for a while. He had the rest of the island to himself.

Move quick. You know what you have to do.

Yes, I get it. Be quiet.

It was a few minutes’ walk to the church building, where the ancient stone arch sat at the edge, indestructible and eternal.

You simply need to walk through. And then I can set you past things like the Church’s control. I can make your fate your own. You simply have to choose it.

A class? You swear it?

A class and time enough away from the Church to learn it, and grow it. I swear it.

Tulland looked at the arch. Everything, every lesson he had ever learned, said that it was evil. That the banishment of the System had been a good thing. That the Church had Tulland’s best interests in mind. It was baked into every holiday, every ceremony, and every word that came out of any cleric’s mouth in a public talk.

It was known that the System was evil, and that the Church was good. But was it impossible that the Church was wrong, or lying? And yes, the Church said that all the good in the world was their doing, but wouldn’t it be in their interests to say that? What the System said made sense. It always had, now that Tulland thought about it.

He pushed his arm towards the arch, then pulled it back like he had almost touched a coal. There was something wrong here. He had been betrayed once today, and there was no telling if he was about to be betrayed a second time. If he just could talk to his uncle again, for a few seconds, or his tutor. He knew that they’d explain things in a way that made sense.

And then the System showed Tulland one last thing. It reminded him of Altreck’s eyes, wide with stupidity, as he claimed the prize that belonged to Tulland. As the boy took away Tulland’s future without even knowing what it was, open-mouthed and slack jawed all the while.

Tulland gulped and shot forward before he could rethink things. He would have the life he wanted, one way or another. And the Church would have nothing to say about it.