The Free Confederacy of Qulomba. Elias had dedicated an entire volume to their nation and culture. Their society was so alien; I couldn't imagine how it worked. They rejected the hierarchy of the Empire, the sacred contracts of Carth, the state-centrality of Spartova, and even the compassionate rule of law of Heliqar. They were a control group for humanity, a test of what happens when you remove all guardrails.
>To the Qulomban mind, the Contract is a shackle for the unimaginative. They are a people governed not by law, but by the ruthless meritocracy of the 'Maker.' In the Confederacy, a man is worth exactly what he can build, grow, or invent. Status is not inherited; it is engineered.
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> They reject the sanctity of the written contract, viewing it as an attempt to bind a free man's future ingenuity. Instead, they operate on an aggressive Honor Culture. Disputes are settled by reputation—or by the duel. But their liberty has a cold edge. In a land where Self-Reliance is the only virtue, Dependency is the only sin. The elderly who can no longer work, the infirm who cannot create, the weak infants who cannot thrive—they are not cared for. They are 'released' to the wilderness. To support a dependent is to steal resources from the Strong, a moral failing that stains a family's honor for generations.
Their men were already scrambling. They didn't have the uniform arms of a standing army. They were a chaotic testament to their culture. One man held a heavy crossbow with a customized, intricate winch system of gleaming brass. Another held a sword made of laminated horn and steel. Each weapon was a masterpiece of individual craftsmanship, a declaration of personal ingenuity.
The men had eyes sharp with a withering pride. They looked to be in far worse shape than their weapons. The sun had bleached their threadbare tunics. Their armor was mottled with corrosion from sweat, the metal dull from neglect.
One wiry man stepped forward from the circle. His skin was weathered to the gray of tuspak hide and creased with deep lines. His beard was braided with copper wire, a garish status display. He held his hands out empty with palms outstretched. It was clear enough that his eyes were preparing a valuation of our caravan and whether his men were sufficient to take it.
"Fierce one, isn't it?" he called out. He gestured at the storm raging above. It was a ceiling of brown blur where there should have been sky. "Plenty of room. The canyon belongs to no one."
Typical Qulomban. No welcome, just a promise not to stop us. No charity, but no hostility either.
Bastien leaned close to me. "Be wary, my Prince. A Qulomban's indifference is usually the first step of a transaction you didn't know you were making."
"We have no choice," I murmured. Sand drifted down from the lip of the gorge like dry rain. "Stand down. But keep the shields loose. Don't unharness the beasts fully."
I walked forward and adopted the person I had prepared. A non-threatening prince from a soft city.
"We are grateful," I said. I pitched my voice to sound relieved and slightly out of my depth. "I am Elyan. We travel from Heliqar."
"I'm Jorax," the man replied. He smiled, a flash of whitish teeth in a dirty face. "Heliqar? A city of stone and rules. You're a long way from both."
He stepped closer, invading my personal space. It was a test of nerves. "We are traders. Innovators. We seek opportunity where others see just sand."
I looked past him to his meager encampment. Just a single smoldering fire burned with a few hardy weeds that had been pried from their crevices. Their supplies were just as meager. Their waterskins looked deflated. They were not successful traders. They looked like a venture that had run aground on the reality of the Breaklands.
"We are merely passing through," I said. I kept my hands visible. "Seeking the passes to Spartova."
"Spartova!?" Jorax laughed. "Come. The storm will last the night. We should be... neighborly. Information is the only currency that matters out here, eh?"
It had to be a trap. Perhaps not a physical one since he did not have the numbers to take us openly without heavy losses. But it was, for a certainty, a social one. Just as I wanted to probe Spartova, he wanted us close to assess our strength, count our waterskins, and probe for weakness that could be exploited.
Like him, I needed data. I needed to know what opportunity Jorax was seeing when he looked at us. Was he planning a trade? A theft? Or something worse?
I slipped my hand into my pocket and found the smooth surface of the white dodecahedron. The Truth Stone.
A public stage would be counterproductive, but focus was not.
I looked Jorax in the eye. I smiled my naive, grateful smile. What is your intent? I projected the thought. I focused on the man's weathered face and on the copper wire glinting in his beard.
The reaction was instant. The stone grew hot in my hand. It vibrated with a frequency that resonated in my skull. The psychic impression hit me.
On the surface it was simple greed. He wanted status. He wanted money. But beneath that was a chaotic, churning storm of emotion.
First came a layer of cordiality. It was the practiced false warmth of a merchant trying to sell a lame animal that might not walk tomorrow but was walking today. It was a veneer of civility stretched thin over panic.
Beneath that was a deep desperation. It was not the desperation just from hunger and thirst but of total ruin. He was a speculator who had bet everything. He had bet his fortune and his reputation and his crew. And he had lost. He was terrified. But not of us. Rather than the shame of going home empty-handed. A failed man would have been a parasite elsewhere, but in Qulomba it was the slowest kind of execution.
And at the core was a strange discordant note wrapped in the sharp tang of a fundamental deception. It was a fierce, protective love. Like Bastien's.
He was lying to me. He planned to figure out a way to exploit me. But it was out of a desperate love. He was trying to protect something in his camp. Or someone.
It was a violation of everything his culture stood for. A Qulomban does not protect the weak. The weak must become strong or perish. To harbor someone who consumes but does not create was to smear oneself with the stench of failure. To steal resources from the strong to support the weak was the worst kind of moral corruption.
But the vision had a hole in the center. Intent usually points to a destination: a victory, a home, a prize. Jorax had none. I searched the psychic impression for his end state, the vision of success he was striving for.
There was nothing. Only a grey, swirling fog.
He wanted to save the object of his love, but he saw no path to doing so. He envisioned no future where he returned home with honor. When one has a goal, he also has a plan for getting there, but Jorax had no plan for tomorrow, only a desperate need to survive tonight.
With the data transferred, the connection broke on its own. I gasped slightly and blinked twice against the sudden headache.
"We would be honored," I said. My voice was steady, though my pulse raced.
Jorax clapped me on the shoulder. His grip was surprisingly strong. His fingers dug into my muscle. "Good man. The desert makes brothers of us all, eh?"
I nodded. I signaled Bastien to bring the wagons in.
"Brothers," I agreed.
I walked past him, returning to Bastien. The stone had shown me the direction of his intention. It was deception and desperation, anchored by a fierce protective love. Intent reveals motion, not the object being moved toward. I knew what he felt, but not what he was hiding. Why did a desperate merchant feel such fierce love while plotting to deceive me?
A man was crouching near its rear wheel. He ran his hand along the canvas flap, as if checking to see whether it was tied down tight.
"Back!" Jorax snapped, like a snarling watchman. "I told you to keep away from that Kraz! The wagon holds the fungal samples. They need the dark. You'll ruin the only thing that's going to make us rich."
The man slowly rose, making himself visible. His right arm was a mechanical prosthetic. "Just checking the lines, boss," Kraz said. His voice almost seemed mocking. "We've been out here six months. If that mold is worth what you say..."
"It is!" Jorax insisted, interposing himself between Kraz and the wagon. "But only if it stays alive. Keep away from it."
Kraz stared at him quite while, measuring his sweaty face. It was a silent battle of wills.
"Sure," Kraz said, tapping his mechanical fingers against his leg. "We wouldn't want you lose your... asset."
He walked away, not out of obedience, but out of patience.
I realized then what the stone had shown me. Jorax was lying to his own people. He was harboring a dependent and disguising it as an asset. What was he protecting that violated his entire culture?
I had entered the canyon to escape the Red Flood. But I realized that I had just stepped into a different kind of storm. Jorax's caravan was a system on the verge of collapse. And systems tend to damage everything around them when they break.