“Oof!” Nikha tumbled to the ground face-first, her nose suddenly full of the smell of dirt. A clank of kit next to her heralded Kemp’s similarly elegant arrival. She scrambled around on her hands and knees and slammed the door shut with a vicious shove. Then she pushed upright and huffed out a breath. “Well. That’s hopefully the end of that.” She absentmindedly brushed some dry grass off her skirt. “Are you quite alright, K-?“

Wait. Grass?

Nikha slowly looked around at their latest destination, mouth hanging open.

“What?” groaned Kemp as he rubbed his forehead. “What is it-oh.”

Even that was a better response than Nikha could muster. “I…I certainly don’t think this is part of my house…” They stood upon a broad, flat steppe. Gold-green grass extended into the hazy distance, profound in its uniform, gigantic emptiness. The expanse was occasionally broken up by scrubby trees, and in one direction a line of mountains just knuckled over the horizon. Otherwise, there was nothing in view but flat, grassy plain. The sun’s light came in low and orange, making shadows like waves as the grass rippled in the wind. Its rustling was the only sound. The sky made a great blue dome over it all, devoid of cloud. Growing up in the hills and mountains of Kheritsyn, Nikha had never realized how big it was-and how tiny she was in turn.

She looked from Kemp to the horizon and back again, almost desperate. “I’ve never…so this is…” She felt as if she might fall, not down but up or out, and keep going and going into the empty distance until-

Kemp’s hand gave her shoulder a reassuring squeeze. “Big, isn’t it?” he murmured without looking at her.

Nikha started, jolted out of her vertigo. “Yes. Yes. It really is. Well, of course it is, it’s the Great Steppe, isn’t it? Why wouldn’t it be? I’m so sorry, I’m being-“

“It’s okay,” said Kemp. “Happens to everyone. We call it horizon sickness, you know? Feels like you’re on the edge of a cliff even though there’s not a mountain for a couple hundred miles. Even people born out here get it sometimes.”

“R-really?” That made Nikha feel better. She took a deep breath and managed to calm down at least a little. “I…I’ve seen its edge through the mountain passes, but I suppose that’s different from standing in the middle of it. Thank you, Kemp.” He took his hand off her shoulder and nodded, smiling. “So this is it? The Great Steppe of Namets.” If it was, she realized, it was the farthest she’d ever been from Eldergrave.

It had to be the Steppe. Eldergrave was situated at the its western edge, occupying the broad valley between the ancient Yamun Mountains to the south and the jagged, icy Amzh range to the north. West of the pass, the steppe extended thousands of miles until it reached Baolei and the sea.

Now he frowned a little, glancing around. “If it isn’t the Steppe it’s sure doing a good job of pretending. Can’t say this is what I thought I’d find when we came through the door.”

Speaking of the door, Nikha found it was set into the side of a low hillock, its frame subsiding into the dirt. She screwed up her face and glared at it, as though that would make it start making sense. “How-I mean, how in the Blazes did we get here!?” she spat, stalking over to the door and giving it a few savage kicks. “It doesn’t. Make. Sense!”

“It’s not much stranger than anything else we’ve seen, right?” soothed Kemp as she gingerly flexed her toes. “And the pathfinder led us here. We must be on the right track. In fact, let’s check.” He pulled the device from his tool belt and Nikha zipped over to look over his shoulder. He turned it on, fiddled with the gain, and turned until the compass-needle found a fix. “See? It’s pointing away from the door.”

“Mmm. You’re right.” Nikha squinted into the sky, comparing the sun’s position to the pathfinder’s dial. “That looks more like a sunset, don’t you think? So it’s pointing north-northeast. I wish I’d remembered my compass.”

“Yeah, I’d reckon so. Shut it off, then?” The cell of strange, golden phogiston attached to the pathfinder was now below the halfway mark-though it hadn’t been full to begin with.

“I think you’d better. We’ll walk for a while and double-check.”

“Aye aye, Captain.” Kemp stowed the pathfinder then flipped her a ridiculous salute, and she had to suppress a giggle.

“Wait.” She waved a hand around at the general area. “None of this seems familiar to you, does it?”

He shook his head. “Not in the slightest. My da always says they don’t call it the Great Steppe for nothing.”

“That’s what I thought,” she sighed. “Let’s go, if you’re ready.”

He was and they did, setting out across the plain with their shadows stretching long beside them. It was harder going than Nikha would have expected. The stiff grass dragged at her legs, and beneath it the uneven ground almost begged her to trip or turn an ankle. At least the temperature was pleasant, though the breeze carried with it a chill that said the night would be too cold for comfort. Just being outside was refreshing, too-she’d had enough dark, cramped tunnels for a lifetime. Kemp seemed at ease as well. He would occasionally reach out and trail his hand though the grass, or turn his face to the sun. Considering how she’d found him, arriving here had to feel like he’d escaped prison and was on his way home.

As time wore on and the now-familiar aches sank in their teeth, the novelty gave in to a weird, sourceless unease. Even for the Steppe, things seemed too empty, too quiet. She’d not even seen a bug since they’d arrived, let alone larger animals. The only thing making noise was the whisper of the wind through the grass, its susurration ebbing and flowing like ocean waves. Sometimes, the wind stilled completely, leaving nothing but the un-sound produced by huge and empty spaces, the sound of a silence so large and heavy it made words seem useless. Nikha almost wanted to hold her breath during these moments, as if to make a noise at all would shatter some illusion, cause some other shoe to drop. She couldn’t tell if Kemp felt the same, but something kept her from asking. Maybe it was a leftover effect of the horizon sickness.

After what felt like an hour, Nikha called a halt. “Is it still pointing the same way?”

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Kemp did his thing with the pathfinder and nodded. “North-northeast, or close enough.”

“Good.” She looked around, seeing nothing but softly moving grass out to the horizon. But for the absence of the door, it was like they hadn’t moved at all. The mad thought bubbled up that the catastrophe hadn’t been contained to Eldergrave, that it had hit the whole world and her and Kemp were the only ones left. She shook her head violently and turned to her friend.

“Kemp, have you-“

“I feel it too.” He looked off to the east, where the sky was darkest. “I don’t know what it is, but I feel it. Something’s wrong.”

Nikha felt a little relief it wasn’t just her, but more worry. “I think all we can do about it is keep going.” He nodded, still looking to the horizon. “Want a drink?”

They each sipped from one of the canteens and resumed walking. The quiet remained all-consuming. Once their path took them by a tree, and Nikha was relieved to see a bird in its branches. Then they got closer, and she saw it was dead. It was a crow, wizened and threadbare, its corpse slumped between two limbs like a derelict frozen in an alley. Kemp noticed it too, but neither said anything. Shortly after they came to a ridge more steeply sloped than most. For a few minutes, she was distracted by the burn in her legs and the hiss of her breath. Soon, though, they reached the crest and saw the ruins.

There had been a village here, once. Some of the houses remained as heaps of scorched timber. Of others, there was nothing left but crude stone foundations or squares of bare earth. Nikha counted almost twenty buildings-or their remains, at least. Based on the rotted state of the wood and the encroachment of grass, the destruction was months, maybe even years old.

“… What happened here?” Kemp murmured as he stared at the decaying homes.

Nikha gave him a sympathetic glance. He lived in a place like this. Seeing it destroyed probably affected him more than it did her. “Nothing good. Shall we look around?”

Her words made him jump a little. “Yes! Yes. Let’s go.” They half-ran down the slope into the ruined town, grass swishing about their legs. The first house they passed had a cellar. Now it was just a stone-lined pit halfway filled with charcoal. Nikha wondered where the villagers had found the wood to build their homes. Maybe there was a forest nearby.

The main street of the village was still visible as a strip of shorter, sparser grass than the rest of the steppe. Nikha was just stepping onto it when her boot hit something, making a woody clack. She looked down and saw she’d trodden into a skeleton, the skull rocking slightly on the dirt. It was bleached off-white by the sun, a few scraps of colorless rag still wrapped around its limbs. She disentangled herself as carefully as she could, grimacing. Kemp had noticed it just after she had and stared down with eyes wide. “Look,” he said, pointing. There was a short, stubby arrow caught up in the rib cage.

Well, now we know how he died, Nikha thought. “Could it have been bandits?” she asked aloud.

“Maybe.” Kemp shook his head. “I don’t know. Why would anyone do this?”

Nikha didn’t have an answer. “Should we look around?”

“For a few minutes. Maybe we’ll find something that’ll tell us where we are, what’s going on.” Kemp tilted his head north. “I’ll take this side of the street, you take the other?”

Nikha didn’t like the idea of separating, but it’s not like he’d be going far. “…Sure,” she said finally. “Yell if you need me.” He nodded slowly and turned away, picking his was through the grass. This really has him upset, Nikha realized. She’d have to keep an eye on that.

Nikha picked her way through the remains of the village and found nothing but death. Dead earth, dead homes, dead people. The houses were too far gone to contain anything of value. They were piles of charred and waterlogged wood at the best, patches of scorched dirt at the worst. She found several more skeletons, most showing some evidence of a traumatic death. Rusty arrows tangled in their ribs, broken bones, caved-in skulls. She found no weapons among them. The corner of one house was miraculously still standing, though its planks were more char than wood. Sheltered in its lee she found a whole pile of mixed bones. There were three skulls, two quite small. A mother trying protect her children? Maybe an older sibling? Nikha turned away with a frown, blinking back tears. The only other thing of note was at the far end of the street: a tall spear stuck into the ground with the skull of a dog or wolf impaled on its tip. Maybe it was the perpetrator’s calling card, or a message of some kind.

Staring at it, she suddenly realized how quiet it was. So very quiet. Shouldn’t she be able to hear Kemp moving around, at least? I knew we shouldn’t have split up! She ran back as fast as she could and crossed the street. “Kemp! Kemp, are you all right?” She skidded round the side of a heaped ruin and spotted him. He was standing still, looking down at a low pile of bricks. “Are you okay?” she huffed as she reached him.

He nodded slowly. “I think so. It’s just that I’ve never seen anything like…” He waved a hand around at the ruins. “This used to be a forge,” he said, kicking at the bricks. “Probably someone like my father worked it. Maybe he had a son like me, who helped him. And now they’re dead. Just...gone.” There was such a fragile sadness in his voice. It nearly broke Nikha too, broke right through the wall she’d put up in her head, the wall behind which she had been shoving all her grief and fear and despair since awakening this morning. Nearly. She sucked in a sudden breath, bit her lip, exhaled after a few seconds. It could wait. It could all wait until this was over and her parents were safe. Kemp, too.

She went closer and bumped her shoulder against his. When he looked over, surprised, she fixed him with a determined look. “We’re going to fix this, Kemp. Whatever’s going on, we will stop it.”

He held her gaze for a moment, eyes wide, then shook his head and grinned. “Right. You’re right. Thanks. Did you find anything over there?”

Nikha looked away, remembering. “No. You?”

“Me neither. Let’s get out of here.” He pulled out the pathfinder and raised an eyebrow. When she nodded he briefly flipped it on and checked the reading. It was still the same, so they turned to the northeast and marched out of the village. On the way out, they passed a patch of turned earth that was sprouting with green grass rather than tawny yellow. At one end a broken wooden beam had been thrust into the ground, and a weathered length of gray cloth streamed from its tip.

“A grave,” Nikha said quietly. “Is that-“

“Part of a funerary nun’s robe,” Kemp finished. “The color’s right, and it’s got the stitches too.” He pointed at the pattern of black thread along one of the cloth’s edges. It followed some kind of pattern, Nikha knew, that was significant to their order.

“Does that mean there’s a nun buried here? Or that she buried someone else?” she asked.

“No idea.” They both murmured a brief prayer and left it behind. For the next several minutes, the pair walked in silence, and the plains went on. Grass rustled, dirt crunched. The wind swelled and ebbed. Golden light streamed in from the west, spread across the steppe like a silken shroud. Time blurred together, the sun and silence and repetitive motion rendering their passage trance-like. Nikha’s feet seemed to move of their own accord while her mind slowed like a steam engine just ticking over. She idly wondered how long it had been since she’d slept. Between being underground for so long and the various other geographical convolutions, she’d completely lost track of time.

“Odd how those houses looked different from the ones back home,” Kemp said suddenly.

When Nikha’s feet were back on the ground and her heart rate back to normal, she replied. “How do you mean?”

He shrugged. “Just little things. The way they made the joints, how wide the boards were…kind of hard to tell when it’s mostly burnt down, but I still noticed.”

Nikha wasn’t sure where he was going with this. Maybe he just wanted to break the oppressive quiet, which she was fine with. “I wouldn’t know,” she said. “I haven’t seen many houses at all, to be honest.”

“Really?”

She nodded. “Just Eldergrave. And some of our peasant’s houses, I suppose. My father was going to take me to Kheritsyn-the city, I mean, not the krai- next time he went, but now…”

“Yeah. But, wow. You really spent your whole life in the same house?” She looked over, eyes narrowed, but he seemed to really just be asking. “I mean, I’ve only left Afansk a few times, but I still go all over town.”

Nikha shoved through an especially tall patch of grass before answering. “Not in the house,” she said archly. “I spend most of the time outside. Though I guess I haven’t ever left, either.”

Kemp was quiet for a few moments, his moccasins whispering through the dirt. “Have you ever wanted to?”

The question took Nikha by surprise. She loved her adventure tales, certainly, those stories of brave explorers and world-spanning journeys. But to do something like that herself? The thought had hardly crossed her mind. Visiting other places would be fun, but she couldn’t imagine leaving forever. The hidden creeks with their twisting courses, the great pine forest so ancient and solemn, the jagged, snowy mountains hunched on the horizon, …she loved them, and they were her home. But would that always be the case?

“…No,” she finally answered, her voice tentative. “I suppose I haven’t.”