The Storm Beneath the World by MIchael R. Fletcher

Author:MIchael R. Fletcher [Fletcher, MIchael R.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: MRF Books Corp.
Published: 2024-04-05T00:00:00+00:00

WEX JEL

We found the dying skerry less than a day from the northern stormwall. With one exception, the crew were dead. Some had starved. Many looked to have taken their own lives. All were elderly. The sole survivor, Zjeen Chay Nash Kio Phin, claimed she left the Yil Queendom forty years prior on an exploratory mission. Zjeen said they took a squad of skerry through the stormwall and that they discovered another reality on the far side. They found a race of carnivorous reptilian gliders who built cities on massive coral trees that reached up out of the storm below. There were, she told us, no islands at all.

They were taken prisoner and saw other ashkaro imprisoned there, though couldn’t converse with most due to differences in language. If true, this would suggest ashkaro have arrived there from many different and widespread islands. She said they managed to stage a grand escape during which most of the ashkaro were slaughtered. Fanciful and insane as her story was, we did find a number of devices of unknown purpose on the skerry.

After our Redemption priest declared it all blasphemy, we threw Zjeen and all artefacts overboard.

—Queen’s Wing Report [REDACTED]

You need to question everything.

And she did.

With a single careless suggestion, the veil had been ripped from the world.

Wex’s heart slammed against her carapace. Maybe she hadn’t believed everything she heard, but there were ashkaro you were supposed to believe. High ranking bright females, with knowledge backed by an education Wex could only dream of. Such ashkaro spoke the word. If a five-name bright female told you something was true, you believed it. That was community, ashkaro working claw in claw toward a single goal. That was how society was supposed to work.

Wasn’t it?

It’s hive.

Memories inundated Wex. The things Mom said that she’d blindly believed. Every sermon. The Redemption itself! Nothing was sacred. Nothing was above the need to scrape it apart, to examine every aspect until it was understood.

Suddenly, everything she’d ever learned was in question.

That’s not true.

With the slightest thought, much of it was either clearly false or at least not entirely true.

You need to question everything.

Even as she rushed down the stairs, some distracted part of her quailed at the implications. It was a command, not a suggestion.

We’ve misunderstood Joh’s talent.

Calling them suggestions undermined the truth, belittled his terrible power.

He commands.

Worse than that was the idea she’d spend the rest of her existence doubting everything. There was a comfort in faith, in knowing what your betters said was true.

She recalled an old axiom her mom once told her: Beauty is in the eyes and antennae of she who witnesses it. Truth was like that. Maybe there was some underlying reality where a truth existed, but no part of ashkaro society worked on that level. Everything was perception, reaction, and emotion.

Truth is a myth.

You need to question everything.

She wanted to scream at Joh, to rage against this terrible injustice. Those words changed everything. In that instant the bright speaking out in the field became a voice of poison.

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