As the King walked away, the people who had gathered to hear him erupted in turmoil.

Though people talking over each other made it difficult for anyone to make themselves heard clearly, Claudius Galt heard a few voices rise above the clamor of the crowd.

“We’re screwed as soon as more people hear about this,” said one voice in the crowd.

“We just have to be prepared to argue our case,” said another with a little more grit.

“We weren’t responsible,” insisted another desperately.

The group members were in such a heightened emotional state that their voices were hard for Claudius to identify. Not that he had ever been close to most of these people. He had only been traveling with them for a matter of days before they came to the Fisher Kingdom. He did not know them well.

The panic in the air was palpable. Not a single person doubted that what the King had told them was true. All of their minds, including Claudius’s, had skipped to wondering what they should or could do next.

People began giving their interpretations of what he’d said, even though he was barely out of earshot.

“Maybe he’s trying to give us time to flee the country,” said a voice Claudius recognized as Rachel Monroe. He could tell she was trying to calm the situation.

“Or he’s trying to say hold out, because he’s got our backs,” suggested a man. It took Claudius a few long moments to recall his name: Brian Forsyth.

“I think he wants some sort of demonstration of our loyalty,” said an older woman named Caprecia Gray both loudly and thoughtfully.

“We need to get out of here before a lynch mob forms!” exclaimed a shrill male voice whose owner Claudius couldn’t find in the crowd.

There was a deafening crash of sound for the next thirty seconds that prevented him from making out any individual words in the noise.

“Order! Damn it, let’s talk in some kind of order!” Tiberius, Claudius’s father, shouted over the emotional incontinence of the men and women around him.

The roar quieted to a non-debilitating level, and Tiberius continued, “Whoever has the stone can talk. Everyone else, shut up!” He held up a large rock he had pulled from his Small Bag of Deceptive Dimensions. It was a familiar prop. The group had used it for the purpose he suggested during contentious discussions before—such as when they were arguing whether to stay in the Fisher Kingdom or leave it if James declined to become a Holy King.

Compared to this situation, that conversation had been relatively calm.

Still, the group shared a high level of collective respect for Tiberius, who had always been a stabilizing influence in moments of tension between different group members and factions within the group. Wordlessly—almost as if afraid to speak—they nodded.

Claudius’s sister Julia reached out for the stone first, and Tiberius gave it to her with a slight air of reluctance. Claudius guessed that their father was worried he might be perceived as showing favoritism by giving his daughter rather than a non-family member the first chance to speak.

“I don’t think we need to go anywhere,” Julia said in a clear and loud but restrained voice—not yelling, just ensuring everyone could hear her. “The King doesn’t blame us. He said as much outright. He just…” Her voice trailed off. Everyone was looking at her skeptically, and she wilted under so many hostile eyes.

A deep brown hand silently extended, and Julia handed over the stone to Caprecia Gray.

“I agree that he doesn’t blame us,” said Gray calmly. “That doesn’t mean we’re out of the woods. The King’s personal opinion isn’t everything, as he pointed out. Franklin Roosevelt never said the Japanese-Americans were at fault for Pearl Harbor, but he still locked them up for the duration of the war.”

Julia reached for the stone again, and Gray kindly gave it back.

“Yes, Roosevelt did that, but would the Fisher King?” she asked.

Tiberius held his hand out for the stone, then, and his daughter gave it up eagerly, as if it was hot. “We can hope that he wouldn’t, and he’s talking tolerance and protection, but there aren’t any institutional barriers to stop him from doing this,” he said simply. “We have to be realistic about this situation. He already mentioned the passions of other citizens could be aroused. That was a warning. We have to be proactive.”

Another hand was already extending for the stone, and Tiberius gave it up to the next man easily.

“Um, I had something I was going to say,” said Andrew Monroe, Rachel’s husband, “but you kind of articulated what I was thinking. The speech was some kind of call to action. A warning. Not just an announcement. The question is what we need to do—” He looked at Tiberius—“but I have a feeling you had more of an idea than me.” Andrew held the stone back out to Tiberius.

Tiberius took the rock back at the man’s physical prompting, but he didn’t look happy to be holding it. “I have an idea of what I think we should do, but I’d rather hear from more voices first.”

He passed the stone to his left, and Gary Chestnut spoke up. As soon as he opened his mouth, Claudius recognized he was one of the speakers whose voice had carried over the crowd at the very beginning—the one who had said they needed to “argue their case.”

“I think we need to prepare a public statement on behalf of our small community and ask the King to issue it alongside his announcement about what happened,” Gary said. “I would leave the drafting up to someone more eloquent than me—” There were a few subdued chuckles at that—“and maybe ask the King if he thinks there are other changes to be made. This is his place. These are his people. They’ll probably listen to what he says and enjoy his style of communication more than whatever we come up with.”

He passed the stone to Rachel’s outstretched hand.

She said, “I don’t think a public statement is a bad idea, but I don’t think it will satisfy people who are legitimately angry either. Imagine if we were in their position, and one of their leaders permanently mutilated one of our guys. If they issued a statement saying something like, ‘Yes, the Fisher King horrifically burned a believer in your God, and he did it in the name of his creed, but we disavow his actions even though we share the same basic belief system as him. Even though we’re still part of the Fisher Kingdom.’ I know the analogy doesn’t work that well, because he’s a political leader, and we’re a religious group—but hey, think about the War on Terror. After the Twin Towers came down, a lot of Americans hated Muslims for years. It didn’t matter that the President repeatedly said that Islam wasn’t the enemy and called them a religion of peace. None of that mattered. People saw that their country was attacked by Muslims, and they didn’t trust Muslims.”

Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.

Another woman, Maribel Cruz, reached out, and Rachel handed her the rock.

“So, is what you’re coming back to that we have to leave? We’re not going to live this down anytime soon, so we need to go back into the wild and take our chances?” Maribel asked.

Another hand reached out for the stone, a very pale and hairy hand, and Maribel quickly gave it up.

“Isn’t what we already do enough?” asked Aiden Parker. He sounded emotionally wrung out by the conversation. “We’ve been contributing to the Kingdom since we got here. Every day, we work to justify our existence here, just like everyone else. We have carpenters and professionals and scientists. All of us took the citizenship oath. We’re not slacking in any way. Why would we have to do something else?”

A dark-skinned male hand took the stone from Aiden’s grasp, almost before he’d gotten through what he had to say.

“Listen, I agree with your sentiment,” said Isaiah Johns. “That’s not how real life works, though. People don’t give you credit for working hard every day if you get accused of something horrible. They judge you. It’s not very Christian—or consistent with the ethics of Islam or Judaism either—but most people aren’t very good at keeping their principles in mind in situations like this.”

Caprecia Gray reached her hand out, and Isaiah gave her the rock.

“What I think we need to do is go back to my analogy from earlier,” she said gravely. “In the Second World War, the Japanese-Americans didn’t have a way of escaping being held responsible by authority for something they hadn’t done. But they worked to prove their loyalty to the country anyway. Huge numbers of them served in the military, fighting against the Axis.”

Another hand reached out for the stone—Jacob Kauffman’s—and Gray gave it up gracefully, though Claudius thought she had more to say.

“How well did that work out for them?” Jacob asked critically. “I seem to remember learning in my history book about ‘No Japs Allowed’ signs all over the place after World War Two. Seems like they risked their necks to correct public opinion, and it didn’t really work.”

He gave the stone back to Gray, whose fingers opened and closed impatiently while he was finishing his thought.

“It’s not mainly public opinion we need to worry about,” said Gray. “Strange as it is to say, this place is a monarchy. If we show that we’re loyal, we win over some of the public—and we make ourselves look more useful to the only person who gets a vote on public decisions. The Japanese-Americans eventually won the public relations battle. Congress and President Reagan apologized to them. Imagine if they had all sat out the war. There’s no way the leaders of this country would have ever changed their minds about them. Unless we want to actually leave the Fisher Kingdom, some of us have to join the Army or the Expeditionary Force. We have to be conspicuously engaged. That’s the best way that we keep people from thinking we’re a disloyal group.”

She held the stone out for anyone near her to take, but for a few seconds, it seemed no one had anything to say. Gray had stumped most of the people in the crowd.

Finally, Tiberius reached out and took the rock back from her.

“I think you’ve given us all a lot to think about,” he said. “It’s undeniable service in the positions the King cares the most about makes our status here more secure. Maybe it’s time for us all to consider what we’re willing to do. If anyone else wants the stone, I don’t have much else to say, but now might be a good time for us to talk among ourselves or just sit silently.”

Tiberius held the rock up halfheartedly, but as he had clearly hoped, there were no takers. The argument for some form of military service had won the day.

Finally, he set the stone on the ground for anyone who wanted it to be able to take it, and he turned back to his family.

“Dad, you’re not thinking about going off to join one of those groups, are you?” Coriolanus, Claudius’s brother, asked immediately.

This kicked off a fair amount of quiet chatter in the groups around them, but Claudius could not hear much of it. He was too focused on his family’s discussion.

“Why shouldn’t I?” Tiberius was saying. “Better that this old man should go than for you kids to be risking your lives. I really hope you’ll all stay here. We don’t all need to go.”

“Oh, I will stay,” said Coriolanus immediately. “I have alchemy to do.”

Julia had gained the Botanist Job from trying to Identify and gather edible and medicinal plants during Orientation, while Coriolanus had gained the Alchemist Job from attempting to brew the medicinal plants into a usable form. Claudius had attempted what both of his siblings had done, but he failed to gain a Job. It seemed the System only rewarded some people for doing certain things; it judged everyone differently. Perhaps Claudius just lacked the aptitude for either of those fields.

Coriolanus and Julia had already contributed to the Fisher Kingdom. Julia had worked with the Agricultural Commission to find new plants that they might cultivate or gather for human or nonhuman consumption. Coriolanus had begun developing low-level potions, though they were currently of inferior quality relative to the potions the System distributed.

This discussion reminded Claudius of how little he had done since he had arrived in the Fisher Kingdom. Even Tiberius had contributed more than him, though he had been a white collar worker—a lawyer—pre-System. Claudius’s father went out fishing regularly since they had settled in the Kingdom, and he usually brought something back. Tiberius had claimed he did it because it was “relaxing,” but he was also careful to be seen giving out a share of his catch to fellow citizens.

I’m the only one who’s useless, just living here eating food, Claudius thought. I don’t know how I had the idea that I could live like this for more than a week…

He knew no one gave anything for free. He should have been thinking harder about how he could contribute.

“I really don’t want to go, and I don’t want any of you to go,” Julia was saying as Claudius returned to the present moment. “We finally made it to a safe place. Do we really have to go?”

“You absolutely don’t,” Coriolanus said. Claudius couldn’t fail to notice his brother giving him a sideways look. “You have something important to do here with your Botanist Job.”

“We all have something to offer here,” said Tiberius, his words coming out almost in a groan. The old man was clearly tired of this conversation already. “That’s not what this is about.”

“I don’t,” said Claudius, surprising himself.

“What?” asked Julia.

“I don’t have anything to offer,” Claudius said, swallowing hard. “I should go.”

It was a marker of how useless he had been since he arrived here, Claudius dimly recognized, that it took almost a full minute before his family members found some objection to what he’d said.

“You have great potential, son,” said Tiberius in a gruff voice, as if holding back some emotion. “I’ve always told you that.”

“Are you sure you want to go?” Julia asked softly. “I’m afraid—afraid I’ll never see you again.” She sounded slightly choked up as she spoke that second sentence.

Claudius smiled sadly.

“If I die, it’s nice to know you guys will miss me,” he said sentimentally. “I’m definitely going.” Claudius made up his mind as he spoke.

Coriolanus suddenly—almost violently—pulled his brother in for a hug.

“If you die, I’m going to take it personally, Claud,” Coriolanus whispered angrily.

I love you, too, Claudius thought.

But he simply returned his brother’s embrace in silence.

Anything Claudius could say would only ruin the moment.