Just after a few days of walking the jungle abruptly ended: there was a huge ditch at the edge of the forest, one they had to climb down and then up carefully since the sandy surface could crumble under their feet. The hoversled had problems with such steep surfaces and Yuri had to unload its cargo and carry them by hand to the other side where the Great Plains started. He had the urge to surf down on it, just to see if he could do it, but it would have been foolish to risk breaking such useful equipment. Truthfully Yuri didn't expect for a second that Ambrozy would pay the sum that he had promised once they would reach their destination, but Yuri honestly didn't really care. The sword had been payment enough, it was very hard to find something that would be so sharp and so infinitely durable, and all the equipment they had gotten from the military checkpoint had been a great plus. He could have been able to buy those items for sure, but as brand-spanking new they would have cost him a pretty penny. Those who would sell imperial equipment to him knew how useful these items were to someone who lived out there in nature and they wanted to wet their beaks considerably, so more often than not Yuri had settled on second-hand products. The time they had spent and the distance they had traveled was considerable, that was true, but Yuri's lifestyle consisted of endless walking and hauling of junk anyway, so this sojourn wasn't changing his life much either. Same stuff in a different package.
On the other side of the ditch the sight was somewhat unreal to someone who hadn't experienced it before. Just as endless as the jungle had been with its uneven surface, now the rest of the world seemed to be flat, empty and treeless. Yuri saw from Ambrozy's face that he was a bit jarred by such a sudden and inexplicable change. Walking would now be enormously easier, but getting water would be dangerously difficult for those who didn't know where to look. It rained, of course, but not that often. Llapus 884 was a peculiar place.
They set forth and the climate changed rapidly as the days went by. The hot and humid air of the jungle was replaced with cold and dry, and a piercing wind blew constantly from the east, sometimes hard, other times less so, but never it seemed to stop. The new sleeping bags they had taken from the checkpoint were top notch and you would have been able to snooze through a winter storm with ease, so they slept soundly every night. There weren't insects here to worry about either and Yuri could see how much more comfortable Ambrozy seemed and there was considerably more pep in every step he took.
But for Yuri, this ease was the worst thing that could ever happen to him and it was one of the reasons he had switched from life in the plains to life in the jungle several years ago. He barely remembered his parents and honestly wasn't even quite sure in which city he had been born in: vague faces, feelings and moments dotted his memory in a haze and sometimes he was almost convinced that none of those things had ever happened and he had just sprang into being and consciousness straight from the ground in his adult form. They had been quite poor, this he remembered, and it hadn't been rare for him to go without food for a day or two, and often their meager meals consisted of just plain rice, but Yuri didn't remember being unhappy. There had been a school of some sort, one meant for the poor kids and he had been sitting on the floor and leafing through the Holy Imperial Scriptures they had been taught to read from. He remembered the monk who had been their teacher and who had served them a warm meal a couple of times a week, rice and steamed vegetables. He had been patient and kind.
As Yuri had gotten older, something had happened to his parents. They had died or in some other way they had become absent in his life and Yuri had ended up on the streets. There had been gangs and odd jobs, plenty of fights where Yuri had faced the predatory inhabitants of the city, but in those situations Yuri had fared exceptionally well. He had worked as a loan shark and a hired muscle for a time and Yuri was sure that some people had died in the beatings he had administered. There would have been steady work in that occupation for someone with his boundless strength or he could have become a slaver, anything else would have been impossible for a person like him who was at the bottom of the society, but it all had been so wrong. He had lashed out at the world, but as he grew the more he had seen the futility of it, not in a cerebral or a philosophical sense, but as a feeling, uneasy and grimy. He had gathered what he could and had left the city for good, living with the tribes of the Great Plains for a while but getting sick of that too since they were just as bad as everyone else and then he had wandered around the various villages in the jungle. At some point he had met junk traders and figured out that maybe that was something that he could do. Yuri had been walking that road ever since.
But none of his choices erased what was gnawing at his being. At the end of the day, despite the stuff of life, he just wasn't here. He was on autopilot and he reacted to whatever was happening just like anybody else would, but it was as if those things happened to somebody he didn't know in some other place that he had never visited. The events in his life didn't leave clear memories since they just didn't seem to matter and the things that should have actually been important weren't tangible or accessible to him and not possibly to anyone else either. What was around him was a sham of some sort, a gray and thin surface around – what? Whatever was behind all this was the most important thing, the most important, but Yuri was cut off from it and he was convinced that things on the surface were what they were because they had been cut off too. When Yuri was taking a break in whatever he was doing and he had to sit still, he couldn't get rid of the thought that he was supposed to phase through the ground where he was sitting, but it just couldn't happen. He had given up on the acquaintances and possible friendships he could have had and the possibility of a family was so foreign to him that it was almost impossible. When he had money after trading in his junk at the cities and villages he more often than not could not control his human urges and he visited brothels and massage parlors, lust taking over his tired mind. But not once he could get anything out of it. He was always distracted by something: maybe the room was too cold or he was thirsty or the bed was too soft and his knee was in the wrong position and he had trouble finishing. The lust brought the idea of pleasure but he never ended up having it. He felt bad for the women who had to do this job and he knew that they wanted to get rid of him as soon as possible and once the deed had been done and he stood back on the street, after ten minutes he barely could remember that he had visited such a place at all. Only now his money was gone.
The notion of lust also brought with it the cravings of love and warmth, a wish of just feeling the beating heart of another next to him as time around them stood still, but these sensations just didn't seem to be here, not in this world, just in his mind and that image was a reflection from that other place, distant and vague. Yuri left the possibility of female companionship, just as he had left everything else, but in his weak moments he craved the idea of it and it manifested itself as lust, and so the cycle was complete. Just as meaningless as everything else.
His only relief seemed to be the absolute and exhausting physical toil. When all his being was focused on the tasks at hand that could not leave his mind to wander, he could bypass this lack of connection. The life of a junk dealer had become his temporary relief. Just walking around with his haul in the demanding jungle took him away and nothing else existed. At nights he slept like the dead and in his only breaks he cooked and ate, too famished to think about anything. Only when the rainy season started and the skies seemed to pour out every droplet of water in the hemisphere and there was no point to venture out from his abode, he fell back into his normal disposition. During these periods he tried by instinct to fix things in peculiar ways, without being able to explain what he was doing and why. There was a small, slightly elevated clearing near his hidden cave where he piled rocks in a formation and then he erected a pole in the middle of it when it wasn't raining as much. To the pole he had carved triangles, squares and circles, all connected, something he could accomplish with his pathetic artistic skill. It was miserable work to drudge in the mud and he was soaked from morning to evening, with little light coming through the dark clouds. None of it helped but he had to do it. What else was there?
Days went by as he and Ambrozy walked through the Great Plains. Yuri knew that his companion had noticed the change to apathy in him, but Ambrozy didn't inquire further. One day they saw buildings of some sort in the distance and Ambrozy glanced at Yuri as if to ask if nearing them would be safe, but Yuri knew where they were and what it was. As they arrived at the spot, they saw that it was a site of ruins from the distant past, a small piece of ancient history. It was as if a group of stalagmites were rising from the ground in the middle of the steppe and some of them formed holes and hollows as they connected to each other at the top. Yuri went inside one of them, for once sheltered from the wind, and he started to put his things down and he took the water purifier out to boil some water for their rations. Ambrozy was looking around curiously, not wanting to sit down. “The Second Clan used to live in these places, they're dotted all across the plains. Won't be the first one we will see.” Yuri said. Ambrozy turned towards him with a puzzled look. “What clan? You mean the aboriginals of Llapus?” Yuri waved at him with a spoon he was going to stir one of the ration packs with. “No, no, not people, the other species. They are long gone.” Ambrozy blinked twice before his face cleared up. “That's right, that's how it went! The aboriginals had not been able to clear their competitors away until the empire showed up. That's why some android units have been brought here. It has been the same situation on several worlds when they were discovered the first time. Some of those species have been able to use incredibly high levels of psionic abilities. Winning those wars was not that simple.”
Yuri was starting to become irritated by this type of talk. Why did everything always work like this? Llapus was full of slaves, slavers, corrupt imperial officials and desperately poor people, the strong preying on the weak. Who was this empire supposed to be for? It shows up, erases those it finds troublesome and then takes what it wants. The task that Yuri had taken on himself, helping those who had been stranded in the jungle, had become the same for him as the pole with the carvings that he had made. He tried to mend the gap but it just didn't work. “Why did you become a monk anyway? What good has the empire even done?” Yuri blurted out. Ambrozy looked at him, intrigued that he was finally getting something out from his companion.
“Mankind is supposed to be connected, we are on so many worlds all over the galaxy. Our safety and well-being means expansion, the material needs have to be satisfied. Other species cannot deny that from us.” he said. Yuri snorted. “Yeah, the boundless well-being that can be found on Llapus.” Ambrozy shook his head. “It's not that simple. The project isn't finished and we are in for the long game.” he said, but Ambrozy could see that Yuri had become too angry to listen and he had clamped shut. Patiently Ambrozy sat opposite to him and opened a ration package. The conversation would wait for a better day.
The endless march continued for a week and a half, the jungle behind them, becoming a dim memory, until they suddenly weren't going to be so alone anymore. A huge camp of some sort could be seen ahead of them and Ambrozy stopped on his tracks, unable to hide the nervousness in his voice. “What now? Are they friendly?” He became even more tense once he noticed somebody approaching them from the camp with a steady speed. Yuri hadn't even flinched. “It's one of the aboriginal clans, we're passing through their area. I know them. Let's wait here.” They stood next to each other as the aboriginals approached, two men riding some sort of animals that made Ambrozy quiver with disgust. It was like someone had overblown the proportions of the insects he had battled against in the jungle but not all parts of these six-legged animals were completely insect-like as some spots of them were pink flesh and not hard shell. Yuri elbowed him in the ribs. “Don't show it.” The riders were clad in leather, faces covered with breathing apparatuses and goggles. Rifles hung around their torsos from straps. “Greetings.” Yuri said to the riders in their language. They didn't answer and waited for more.
“The androids have been causing havoc in the jungle and me and my companion were forced to cross the Great Plains to avoid them. I used to travel in the Herd years ago, I don't know if you remember me. Before the previous rainy season I sold some of my wares to the merchants of your clan on the Western Edge.” Yuri pointed to his left with his thumb when he said the last part, meaning the border of the jungle and the plains in that direction. One of the riders grumbled acceptingly under his breathing mask. “I thought I recognized you. You and your companion can travel in the Herd.” The riders went back where they had come from and were gone just as fast as they had arrived. “Come on, let's go.” Yuri said to Ambrozy, who followed after a second or two of hesitation.
The clan was just like it had been all those years ago. When Yuri had left the cities for his aimless wanderings he had ended up with the aboriginals. At first he had carried with himself romantic hopes of finding a pure way of life uncontaminated by the suffocation of the so-called civilization, but he had quickly realized that it was just another version of the gang life he had already tasted in the city. The clans of the Great Plains were the humans of Llapus 884 before the empire had shown up and their existence consisted of nomadism and skirmishing against the other clans. The Herd, as this particular clan called itself, accepted city dwellers and members of the other tribes into itself if they could take care of themselves and allowed themselves to be subjugated by the leading family and their patriarch or matriarch, whichever there was at the time being. Through the service as a warrior to the leading family one could better his position in the clan. There had been a particularly vicious and unlucky season of war when Yuri had joined and a coup was orchestrated as the leadership had been challenged for its incompetence. That night the tents had been on fire and the livestock had run in panic in the midst of the mayhem and flames. Yuri had escaped from the scene and left the Herd for good so technically he was a deserter and thus a filthy outcast without a chance for redemption, but the coup had been successful and the family Yuri had sworn allegiance to had been erased from the face of the planet. Those who had cut their ties to the forsaken family were forgiven for their past sins and they could join the Herd again and by his desertion Yuri had accidentally followed proper protocol. He now and then did business with their trades once they visited the Western Edge.
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The camp was buzzing with activity. Livestock was being butchered and the portable ovens were cranking out fresh bread as much as they could. Ambrozy was visibly sick once he saw that the meat these people ate was from the same animal they used for transportation. Pens were full of what seemed like gigantic larva and their skin was translucent so you could see their innards working. He had a hard time following Yuri as he could only look at his own feet in order to avoid seeing the animals around him. Yuri barely noticed Ambrozy's queasiness as he was looking for the shaman's tent. The man had been friendly to him.
A small but elaborate tent of a multitude of colors was near the center of the camp and there was a shaman in front of it, addressing a group of people as he was trying to organize something. This man wasn't the one Yuri was looking for so he waited patiently to get a chance to ask about him. The shaman saw Yuri and Ambrozy from the corner of his eye as he talked and he realized that they were waiting to speak to him. He gestured with an open palm for them to wait and after several minutes all the people he had been speaking to dispersed.
“You came back, Yuri. I wondered if that was going to happen at some point.” the shaman said as he walked towards him. Yuri was puzzled but he bowed as the custom dictated, shoving Ambrozy so that he would do the same. “Holy One, how can you know my name? I came here looking for the esteemed Cihansha, who was the shaman here when I traveled with the herd.” The shaman nodded his head. Yuri realized that he was very young. “Dead. Four seasons ago he was killed in battle. The enemy wanted our God from the Holy Site, Cihansha wouldn't let them.” The God was a statue carved from wood. “That saddens me.” Yuri managed to say. “It shouldn't. He did what he was supposed to do.” the shaman answered. Yuri stammered a bit. “Holy One, how do you know me? I am nobody.” The shaman had gestured for them to sit down on a carpet in the front of his tent and a servant brought them milk tea with butter in it. “I was an apprentice under Cihansha, I remember you very well. You started helping him out of your own accord, looking out for moments to talk to him.” The shaman was quiet for a while and he eyed Yuri and Ambrozy from top to bottom, not in a judging way but curiously. “I wonder if much has changed with you.” Yuri flinched a bit from this sudden query and he didn't want to answer. He gestured towards the camp, meaning the hustle around them. “Holy One, why is the Herd so busy? It shouldn't be the jubilee yet. And I don't think that the camp should be in this location right now.” The shaman nodded. “This is true. We are arriving at the location of the Forefathers. This ceremony did not happen during your time. We consult the spirits and contemplate the future of the herd. The Herd feasts.” Then he went quiet with a thoughtful look on his face. Yuri felt nervous about this conversation without really knowing why. “You are invited. Please do not leave before the ceremony is over. That would offend the God.” Yuri had not expected this and he bowed from the sitting position and Ambrozy followed his lead, having no idea what they had been talking about. Some clansmen came by to consult the shaman and he had to leave to attend their matters.
Yuri sat on the carpet a bit puzzled as he watched the shaman walk away. He had just thought that he could do some trading with the clan now that they had ended up with them a bit unexpectedly – he knew what their route usually was and meeting them here wasn't on the normal schedule – but now they had to stay at least a few days. During his time with the Herd he had ended up as a bit of a peculiarity, as he did not try to advance his position in the clan but settled on being a simple helping hand, not much more than a servant. Others had seen him at first as a dangerous competitor but once they had become convinced that his lack of ambition was real and not an act and he was left alone. Yuri had gravitated towards the shaman and his ceremonies simply because it was something different, something he had never seen, but soon he had started to respect the old man Cihansha genuinely. He had let Yuri help him with whatever task was at hand and he didn't judge him. They didn't talk too much but in the ceremonies and rituals the shaman conducted Yuri had been put into positions where he had to participate much more than most other people in the audience. Yuri didn't understand the meanings and functions of the dances danced and songs sung under the endless sky of the Great Plains, but he was drawn to the otherworldliness of it all, as if these esoteric actions brought forth something that life couldn't exist without, a strength and essence drawn from a source kept secret. Yuri had started to spend as much time as he could with the shaman, wondering how someone who sat so many hours still with his eyes closed in contemplation and idleness could be so important to this group of people. His was the most important of all missions, a quest for the whole of cosmos. Yuri was a bit embarrassed if his behavior had been noticed by others, such as this young successor for Cihansha. However, once Yuri had stood witness to the life of the Herd and its endless cycle of warfare and constant cruelty, he had judged the shamans mission as a failure on the night of chaos caused by the coup. He hadn't thought much about the shamanic ceremonies once he had started the next phase of his life as a junk dealer, but now he realized that he had been trying to grasp a glimpse of that during these recent years as a hermit of the jungle. Yuri started to feel the familiar sensations of restlessness and uneasiness of being so unsure of how he should live his life. One day he would die, and if his life would just be the constant and vague feeling that something just wasn't right, what was the point of it all? A knot started to form in Yuri's stomach as he thought these gloomy thoughts.
He turned towards Ambrozy in order to explain their stay with the Herd, but he caught him trying to sneakily pour out his milk tea that he hadn't touched the whole time Yuri had been talking with the shaman, seemingly disgusted by the thought of what animal had produced the milk in it. Irritated, Yuri punched Ambrozy's arm and he flinched and spilled some of the hot tea on his leg, yelping from pain. “Don't do that you dolt! You've got something else coming if these people notice how you disrespect them! Don't you have any brains?” Ambrozy tried to keep the spot on his trousers that had absorbed the hot liquid from touching his skin by lifting the damp cloth with his fingers and he looked hurt at Yuri, but didn't say anything. Yuri sighed. “Anyway, we're going to have to stay here for a few days, they invited us to take part in the ritual they are conducting soon.” Ambrozy looked at him suspiciously. “What? Why?” Yuri could only shrug his shoulders. “I don't know. I used to be a part of this clan for a while years ago. Maybe they think that the ritual still binds me too. This shouldn't take too long though so let's bear with it.” Ambrozy didn't look happy or any less suspicious, but he accepted the situation.
They placed their gear on a spot somewhat near the other tents but still on the outskirts of the camp. Yuri said that there was no fear of anybody stealing from them, even though Ambrozy wasn't completely convinced. The next four days Yuri helped with the preparations for the feast and funnily enough everybody seemed to assume that he had shown up precisely for this event and they took it as a mark of his loyalty to the clan, even though he had been gone for so long. In a way, Yuri had accidentally created a home for himself from a place he did not feel at home any more than in any other place. He helped butcher the livestock and he ate their grilled and greasy meat greedily, finally tasting something that wasn't shelf-stable and artificial. Ambrozy didn't touch the stuff, but he was missing out. In general Ambrozy stayed with their gear and out of the camp.
Finally the big day came and everybody gathered to the northern part of the camp where Yuri realized that there was a similar type of rock formation they had spent the night in a while ago. It didn't look any different from the previous one but it was clear that the ceremony was bound to this specific location and Yuri could only wonder why. He sat with Ambrozy in the middle of the clansmen on the left side to the entrance to the cave and the matriarch of the leading family gave a speech that everybody listened to with grave looks on their faces, but Yuri barely understood a word. It wasn't the everyday language that he had learned but something else, verses in a previous version of their tongue, as distant as the time itself, half sung. Soon there was music and dancing. It started in the front of the cave with women whose specific task seemed to be this very ritual and their outfits shone in a multitude of colors against the drabness of the steppe and the muddled brown of the rock. Then the people from the audience started to take part and one by one men and women around Yuri and Ambrozy stood up and participated, spreading their arms and spinning around in loose circles. Yuri felt awkward not participating, but nobody seemed to expect it from him, so he remained sitting with Ambrozy, who looked at him questioningly to see how he was supposed to act. In time some people sat down and food was being served, those who wanted to continue dancing gravitated towards the center. People came back to eat and rest, then went back to dance and the music never stopped. A servant brought food to Yuri and Ambrozy and Ambrozy seemed to gather all his determination to take a bite of the meat, but after the first taste he ate it like he had never seen food before. The feasting and celebration continued for hours and it started to become dark, but Yuri noticed that some men from the audience were led to the cave quietly and they didn't come back. He didn't want to leave his spot so that he wouldn't be seen as rude, but he stood up to see better. Yuri realized that further away a few men every now and then emerged from some other entrance to the cave, one or two at a time. They seemed disoriented as they staggered about, some of them falling to their knees and having trouble getting back up. Yuri didn't know what to make of this so he sat back down.
He had eaten more than he probably ever had in his life since he and Ambrozy were constantly served more and he couldn't take another bite, when suddenly the servant only brought food to Ambrozy and asked Yuri to come with him, pulling Yuri from his sleeve. He could only glance at Ambrozy who looked back at him as Yuri followed the servant and entered the cave. This time he was the only one brought in, there weren't others with him. They walked down several meters and the music became slightly dimmer. There was a peculiar smell, something that Yuri couldn't really identify or place, and the shaman was waiting for him. There was a small open area that had another route leading out and the shaman was dressed in an elaborate getup, his face hidden away with a breathing apparatus and a wooden mask depicting an old, demonic entity, but Yuri knew that it was him. The servant bowed and left the other route, leaving Yuri with the shaman. Yuri was nervous and couldn't stay quiet. “Holy One, what do you require of me?” he said in an unsure voice. The shaman stayed quiet but gestured towards the open area. Yuri hesitated but walked to the middle of it, turning towards the shaman but no other instruction came. Yuri realized that he was sweating profusely and he could only wonder if he had made a grave mistake. The music from outside was still audible, but Yuri barely registered it as he only heard his blood rushing through his body.
Suddenly it was as if a pipe had burst and from the cracks of the cave's floor thick and gray gas filled the space and Yuri felt like he was going to die. The gas burned his eyes, throat, mouth and nostrils and he coughed so hard that he almost vomited and he could not get air into his lungs. His chest was on fire and he panicked like an animal in a trap, unable to move from the pain. The moment seemed to last an eternity and Yuri lost all his bodily awareness, not knowing anymore where he was and what was happening. The only thing he could sense anymore besides the pain was the intense heat of the gas, but apparently the shaman had started to push him towards the exit at some point since the heat stopped and the cool wind of the Great Plains touched his skin yet again, but Yuri was in so much agony that he was certain that he stood on the brink of the abyss. This was it.
First he saw them in his mind's eye, shapes and colors somewhere between dreamscape and imagination, but more important than seeing was feeling, and Yuri felt their presence. Beings of unimaginable power were revealing themselves to him, infinite in number, existing in a vast, dark void that was a canvas for their brilliance, each of them shining in such a way that Yuri thought that he had never seen color before. Then they noticed him and turned their attention towards him, to this inferior insect that had violently stumbled somewhere where it would never deserve to be in. Yuri was terrified, more scared than he ever had been, and he tried to run but he had no legs anymore, no arms or head or heart or lungs and there was nowhere to go. The only way left for Yuri was to destroy himself, suffocate his own pathetic light, strangle it in the cradle it had never managed to move out of, and then, finally, the pain, fear and shame – yes, shame, the strongest of them all – would cease, and these beings could see that at least he could realize what he was and do it from his own accord. What strength Yuri had he used it to extinguish himself, pushing and squeezing as hard as he could, and the lights grew dark and the void deepened.
But the peace didn't come.