Three and Two and Two: The Crossroads, #1

By Sam Locrian

Half a century after the catastrophic War of the Roaches, the Riverlands are rebuilding.  But not everything is returning to the way it used to be.  The trade routes that tie the waterways' cities together have been overtaken by the traffic of a new economy–an economy of magical artifacts, the scavengers who collect them, and the False Gods: the rogue mages who seek to acquire them by any means necessary.  In the Crossroads, the hub of this new "scav trade", merchants, rogues, and mercenaries arrive in droves, seeking their fortune, valuable information, or perhaps just their next meal.

 

In the midst of it, Bleeding Wolf, a shapeshifting beast mage, returns to what was once his home, trying to understand what has happened to the place.  Ty Ehsam, a professional scavenger, searches for a missing artifact that should have been his ticket to retirement–but which has instead made him a fugitive.  Orphaned siblings Orphelia and Devlin seek shelter and relief from the magical influences that have been haunting them since their parents were killed.  And inexplicably drawing them together is the mysterious, eccentric merchant, Lan al'Ver, pursuing an agenda of his own, though even he cannot say what it is.

 

Their arrival, for separate but somehow interconnected reasons, portends change for the Crossroads.  But as old and new powers stir around them, they find that the stakes of their meeting may encompass more than just the fate of their town.

The first chapter in the Crossroads trilogy, Three and Two and Two is an adventure, an intricate mystery, and, ultimately, a story of how the smallest gifts and promises can change the course of history.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Sam Locrian
• Release date: Jul 1, 2023
• ISBN: 9798223785927

Book preview

Three and Two and Two

The Crossroads - Book 1

Sam Locrian

Copyright © 2023 by Sam Locrian

All rights reserved.

No portion of this book may be reproduced in any form without written permission from the publisher or author, except as permitted by U.S. copyright law.

For the many who gave to me of their light. It's made the darkness navigable.

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Contents

Part 1: Three

Part 2: East and West

1.The Crossroads

2.Old Friends and New Problems

3.The Hunter of Beasts

4.The Visitor

5.Confluence

6.Nom de Guerre

7.Security Considerations

8.Calls to Disadventure

9.The Nemesis

10.Preparing the Olive Branch

Interlude: Three of Seven

1 - Amir

2 - Patches

3 - Fox

Part 3: North and South

11.Mr. Ruffles

12.A Fish Which Flies

13.An Image of Failure

14.Ben Gan Shui

15.A Plan for Three Fronts

16.She-Lord of Ka

17.Promises Kept, Circles Completed

18.Carrion, of a Sort

Epilogue: The Alchemist

Afterword

More by Sam Locrian

Part 1: Three

A very long time ago, the world was nowhere. It was a place of getting lost, of entanglement in the chaotic everything. Through this haze, a world without humans, a world without anything, really, a shadow wandered peacefully across the earth. Some say this shadow was Nature, some say Magic. They are right, in some measure, but truly, it was the Night, progenitor of both. In the quiet of his passing, flora grew, birds fluttered, insects chirped. There was life and death, of a dreamlike sort, but the only dreamer to perceive it was Night himself. He wondered: What if there were others to share the dream? All the Night had ever known was solitude, but perhaps he wanted more.

His dream changed. In those hazy shadows, he envisioned great trees, twisting and contorting boughs to form houses arranged in whimsical spirals, a dreamlike village for his would-be dreamers. And then they emerged as well, fully formed, with histories and origins and thoughts. When the Night walked among them, they would dream together, living, however briefly, a greater existence in their communal unconscious. When he left, and the haze of his presence faded, they would lie dormant until his return.

One dream, as the Night approached the village from the east, he was met by a fox emerging from its burrow.

Greetings, Great Darkness, it said.

Greetings, lively one, the Night replied. What business have you with me?

I awoke as you dreamed me, Great Darkness, the fox said. I have seen what you have created, and I wish to help you. The Night paused and pondered this.

How would you help me? What is it you would see improved?

Great Darkness, the fox began, these little dreamers you have created are soft and ephemeral. When you arrive, they breathe and animate and partake of borrowed life, but when you depart, they collapse to mere image. They shift and waver, and I fear a strong wind may wipe them away. If you so permit, I would protect them, give them a place of their own. With this permanence, they will surely bring to your dream things you have never considered.

The Night thought on the fox’s proposal. A piece of the dream, a place for the dreamers that remained independent of his presence? He had never considered it before. It was a step into the unknown, and even he could not say what might become of it. But it might yet better the dream, and after all, what had the Night to fear of the unknown?

Very well, lively one, he acquiesced. You may help me.

Excited, the fox scampered ahead, eager to fulfill his promise. When the Night arrived at the village, he found the fox to have been as good as its word. The creature had given of its liveliness, inspired the dreamers with physicality and space, and, sure enough, their dreams were rich with silty experience. It was good, the Night decided, and he resolved to make the fox a guardian of his creation.

The very next dream, at the edge of the forest where the dreamers dwelled, a flutter of wings greeted the Night’s arrival. He gazed into the boughs to see a lark, perched at the edge of a nest of twigs and dead grass.

Greetings, Father Sky, the lark sang.

Greetings, the Night replied, curiosity aroused. Though he had seen the larks of the forest flitting and nesting upon the forest floor in dreams past, he had never seen one venture up into the trees. Tell me, he said, doesn’t your kind nest upon the earth? Why have you abandoned your place? The lark furled its wings and cocked its head.

Did you not know, Father Sky? My kind did indeed nest below, but beasts and terrors roam these wilds. My brothers and sisters became their food, but I survived. I used these trees and twigs to change my place.

Very well, resourceful one, the Night admitted, moving to pass onto the village.

Wait, Father Sky! the lark exclaimed. I yet have a worry to bring before you. The Night stopped to listen, and so the lark continued: The dreamers are awake now in this world, and when you depart, they fear the beasts just as my kind does. They cower in the houses you gave them, but they know not how to change their place. Would you permit me to teach them what I have learned of tools and resources, lest their terror spoil their dreams?

The Night took a moment to think, though he had already warmed to the lark’s proposal.

I think I may permit this, he relented. I do not desire that the dreamers should be imprisoned by fear. Go, then, resourceful one. Let us see what their autonomy might bring to the dream. Without another word, the lark fluttered off to the village to share its wisdom, and the Night continued on his way.

As dreams passed, the Night watched the lark’s efforts bear fruit. At first, it was simply as the creature promised: The dreamers grew beyond their fear. They began to venture outside their shelter, made formidable by crude weapons constructed by the lark’s guidance. But they didn’t stop there. Soon, they began to change their houses, their idyllic village sculpted of the Night’s dream. They chopped down the trees, built dwellings–rougher, of their substance rather than the Night’s–close to the ground, allaying any fear of falling.

The Night found it bittersweet that his gift should be discarded this way, but the dreamers’ autonomy yet had purpose. They had become something separate from the Night, and their dreams, accordingly, had become something novel, exciting, beyond any horizon the Night had, within himself, perceived. Ultimately, he decided, the lark had earned its place as a guardian of his creation.

Many dreams passed from that point, but finally, in one of them, the Night found himself on the bank of the river to the west of the dreamers’ village. As he lingered there, he saw one of them–an old man, one of those the Night had created in the very beginning–approach the water’s edge. The man paused there, searching the ripples for a moment until, wordlessly, he stepped in. At first it seemed the current would pull him under, but then he grabbed hold of something beneath the surface and steadied himself. From his vantage on the shore, the Night watched the man drift, slowly but purposefully, into the mist shrouding the other bank. Then he saw it: Beneath the river’s glass, a shadow returned from the mists and, with the same lilting purpose of the man’s departure, approached the Night in utter silence. The shadow surfaced, and a turtle’s shell breached the water.

Hello, Moonlight, the turtle intoned, soft, into the air.

Hello, traveler, the Night replied, cold concern plain in his otherwise polite salutation. What is it you have done with my creation?

I have given a gift, Moonlight. I have given the dreamers time.

"Interloper," the Night breathed, and ire washed over the land. Chill wind swept through the grass, silencing the owls and cicadas, and dark clouds roiled past the moon above, but beneath the river’s surface, the turtle remained calm and still.

Do you think yourself beyond cycles, Moonlight? the turtle asked, curious, without a hint of malice. I would not have expected it, for I see your brilliance waver between fullness and shadow. You wish the dreamers to dream as you do, but you would deny them the wheel by which you yourself experience? You would deny them experience itself? The dark silence around the riverbank persisted, but the cold winds stilled. The moon shone down, casting the turtle in an eerie pallor. At last, the Night whispered:

What have you done with this one?

I have given him an end, the turtle said. Does not every journey require one?

You have destroyed my creation, then.

No, Moonlight, the turtle replied, calm as ever. You have created life. Life begets life, and of such fecundity, death is an unavoidable consequence. It is a gift I bring gladly, but by my will or another’s, welcome or no, it will be brought.

The Night did not respond, and the moon’s pale gaze slowly passed on. He turned and left, and though no more was spoken between them, both understood their accord.

Thus, by three gifts given under the veil of Night, humanity was born.

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…and from these three came two and two

And circles stretched

From sea to sky

To the End did seven headlong run

Then all the world

That’s why

That’s why

Part 2: East and West

Chapter 1

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The Crossroads

Bleeding Wolf hated boats. They were wretched, unstable things riding upon tangles of current and whim. And yet, boats were the only decent way to get about west of the Scrubline, so Bleeding Wolf tolerated them. It was confusing, but the Riverlands were a confusing place, and he was–physiologically, spiritually, purposefully–a confusing man. For good or ill, he was a Riverlander, and he put up with the boats.

And despite his distaste for water travel, he had to admit the journey of the past week had been interesting. He’d bargained for passage up the Lifeline from the famous Captain Lan al’Ver, an eccentric merchant whose aloof manner and ersatz aesthetics might have led Bleeding Wolf to find another ride out of the Reach, but the man had a reputation for reliability and competence. Though this was Bleeding Wolf’s first time meeting him face-to-face, he had heard of Lan al’Ver many times before, and so far, it seemed the merchant’s notoriety was well-earned.

Since the trip began, no fewer than twenty passengers had boarded–and since departed–their small, six-person vessel. Lan had asked only a pittance of Bleeding Wolf, provided he would help with portage when they reached their destination, but with each new face that boarded, the captain’s negotiations seemed to take a strange, new turn. In each case, he would offer much more than was asked–he even once fought off a pair of bandits who had chased one hapless passenger into the river–and received more than he requested. By the time they had reached the fork with the Artery, Lan had made himself several times Bleeding Wolf’s fare, the boat was laden with food and goods and an impractical bounty of knickknacks left in gratitude by the erstwhile passengers-in-distress, and, somehow, they had suffered no particular delay for their semi-charitable excursions.

And now, in the final leg of the journey, they had picked up two final traveling companions, each conspicuous in their way amidst the Riverlands’ fluctuating normalcy. The first was a quiet, jumpy man who offered coin for his passage and little additional information, though his attempted anonymity was undercut by the strangeness of his garb. It was a particular style of traditional clothing that Bleeding Wolf recognized as Grayskin, an all but extinct ethnicity of Khettite diaspora that had settled centuries ago in the Bloodwood and–he thought–long since melded with the rest of the Riverlands’ cultural stew. Besides, he had a read on the man, anyway: The light travel, the paranoid manner, the way he carried himself–this man was a scav, a professional graverobber of sorts and a profession Bleeding Wolf had dabbled in himself. And if he was not mistaken, this man was running from someone, a mark who’d turned out more alive than expected, perhaps. Or a business relationship turned sour.

The second passenger was more conspicuous, though Bleeding Wolf felt he was almost trying to be. He described himself as a wandering scholar, and his name was Naples. And while the Grayskin scav could scarcely be persuaded to open his mouth, Naples seemed quite unable to shut his own. He was traveling to the Crossroads, he explained between bites of an apple, to reunite with his lover, whose father had forbidden their romance within the bounds of their village. He was also excited, apparently, to see the town’s historic architecture.

Did you know that the Crossroads is home to the oldest theater in the Riverlands? he asked, tossing his apple core over the side of the boat. It has fallen out of that particular use, of course, but don’t you think something like that ought to be better recorded for posterity?

Bleeding Wolf truly did not give a shit. He was far from disinterested in history, but he found Naples perspective–the carefree attitude, the obliviousness to the hunger and violence Bleeding Wolf saw everywhere–almost offensive. Perhaps the man had the privilege of luck or a peaceful childhood, but Bleeding Wolf didn’t trust that sort of coincidence easily. In his experience, people who weren’t hungry had a reason for their comfort, and the less obvious the reason, the less they were to be trusted.

For his part, Lan seemed entirely unperturbed by the subject of architecture, throwing in a haughty exhortation that Naples ought rightly to have laid eyes on the Grand Amphitheater of the World City, which earned a raised eyebrow from the scholar. Deservedly, Bleeding Wolf thought. No history he had ever encountered mentioned an amphitheater in Kol, and even if it had existed, he doubted Lan had the requisite centuries of age necessary to have seen it.

Bleeding Wolf found it all bizarre, suspicious even, though not quite threatening. But by the same token, he found it almost appropriate that their four-part, motley company–the merchant eccentric, the paranoid scav, the oblivious scholar, and himself, a shapeshifting beastman of the Greencircle–should be bound, together, for the Crossroads. It was home for him, one of them, the most accessible anyway, and despite the transient strangeness of their traveling party, he knew from his decades passing to and from the place that none of them would be out of place there. The Crossroads was the knot that tied the Riverlands together, that kept the venous waterways of the North connected to the war-ravaged South and bridged the gap from the Bloodwood to the northwest and the Gravestones beyond to the prairies of Holme to the east and basin of Hazan past them, where the water abandoned the ground and the air. It collected enterprisers, riffraff, merchants, ne’er-do-wells, mercenaries, and laborers, and in the mix, none of them would be strange enough to merit a second glance. Bleeding Wolf missed it.

In the five years he had been away, he had found himself distressingly noteworthy in the hollowed out landscape. There wasn’t much left of the Greencircle he had once followed, and beastmen were a rarity, especially south of the Bloodwood. In the various villages where he’d visited, worked, lived for scattered weeks or months, his appearance earned him plenty of suspicion, few friends, and lots of trouble that he was glad to be free of for a time. And with any luck, his acquaintances in the Crossroads would even be happy to see him.

Such were the thoughts that ran under the days of travel and dubiously worthwhile conversation aboard al’Ver’s vessel, but soon enough, they drew close. They pulled ashore on the Crossroads’ southern outskirts, some miles away from the port where al’Ver presumably wanted to avoid a docking fee. Naples and the Grayskin disembarked quickly and politely, leaving Bleeding Wolf to help with the boat, as agreed. He admittedly wasn’t sure how the merchant intended to secure the various windfalls he had accumulated along the way, but that certainly wasn’t his concern.

Do you want it beached here? he asked, hopping ashore, gripping a line lashed to the vessel’s bow.

Oh, heavens no, Lan replied. We’ll be taking it into town. As the captain spoke, he wrenched down a lever near the rudder, lowering four wheels, previously nestled in alcoves in the boat’s hull, into the water. Bleeding Wolf’s eyes widened.

What?

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The Crossroads had always been between. Of the townsfolk who still remembered, there were yet many versions of the town’s history. Brill the Apothecary’s was closest to the truth: It began as a tiny trading post, a makeshift connection between the waterways of the Riverlands and the mountains and woods to the north, situated at a crossroads which existed in every sense but the literal. That enterprise which would become the town was built at the northern mouth of the Lifeline, where the Riverlands’ greatest highway became just another minor stream from the Gravestone range and where, incidentally, the eastern prairies and western hills were separated only by a shallow creek and a thin stripe of dry, firm ground, more hospitable, certainly, than whatever hid between the trees of the Bloodwood to the north. As the rickety post became a place, merchants and enterprisers would enter by each of these routes of convenience, transient but somehow still fixture, carrying lumber and pelts and cloth and ore.

Sometimes they would pass through; sometimes they would return the way they came, but those who settled, those who came to call the place home did well for themselves in those days. They made fortunes in trade, and anything they could want in return somehow found its way there from afar. And of course, those plagued by wanderlust had no shortage of opportunity to escape. All they had to do was jump in with the next caravan that came to town, and they would most assuredly see the world.

The War was not kind to the place, but even that was mitigated by its betweenness. The town was far enough south that it saw its share of the roaches’ horrors but still northerly enough that its people, broadly speaking, survived. Its young men and women proudly aided the forces of Harmony at the Battle of the Ouroboros, weathered the devastation of the bloodsick–the Dragon’s parting gift to those who deposed him–then returned to a peaceful existence at their Crossroads. For a short, in-between time, things were as they had always been. But soon, new wares began to make their way through the village, and with those wares came news.

It seemed Lord Ka of the Roaches had kept a secret from the world. It was a stone, rough, heavy to hold, unimpressive to the eye.

But the power.

To the mystics, the magically inclined–no matter their inexperience–it was a sun. At the fall of Bloodhull, soldiers of Harmony who had never once in their lives channeled mana held this stone–the Hellstone, as it came to be known–and felt that power, that gruesome possibility thrumming in their hands. They said that Harmony destroyed the Hellstone, that its power might never be unleashed upon the world again. Some did not believe that story, but they missed the point. The Hellstone’s legacy was not its power–rather it was a