The city of Kurikuneku sits at the base of a great mountain and mesa, separated from the rest of the Gaurl Core by ridges of stone that are complemented by walls of concrete and steel. Even years after its initial development and technological boom – enabled by the work of enterprising Artifexes, delving the ruins of the pre-Desert world - led to a renaissance of sorts… still after all that time Kurikuneku remains among the most modern, developed and technologically advanced cities I have ever encountered. The land around it – outside its central ring of mountains and walls, but within the larger ring known as the ridge of Gaurl – is the Gaurl Core, and it is prosperous land. Even in the outskirts and villages, there is wealth and there is, for the most part, peace. Not so the rest of Gaurlante. There are those here in the Core who believe all of Gaurlante is the rightful property of a single polity, and who have pushed for years for the creation of what they call an empire. Invictus, this faction calls itself. There is no love lost between themselves and I, or the other Scholars to lodge in this city and their students. Yet for now, these tensions remain little more than that, tensions and harsh words.

-From “From Core to Corod”, a travelogue of the Scholar Geshor

244 YT, Summer: Kurikuneku

Geshor awoke slowly, finding himself leaned against the interior cabin of a vehicle rocking along the remote paths of the Gaurl Core. His head lolled and he whispered to himself, pressing his hands to the wall as he struggled to steady his body and take a look out the window. He was still tired and bruised after the treatment he’d received on the journey here, but he was thankful that his notebook was still intact, secure in its pocket over his chest.

He had slept fitfully and in snatches during the long journey overland; through valleys and between mountains and finally along the hidden paths of the pass that led inevitably to Kurikuneku. His dreams were, of course, horrific – the imagination filled in what gaps there were in knowledge, but Geshor knew well enough what had become of the Gaurl Core, its people, and its ways in the years since he’d last walked Kurikuneku’s streets. He knew very well why he was going to the city.

If they had recognized him, if they had figured out his identity and his past, and he was still here, then it was because they wanted something more from him, and something they couldn’t easily take from his cold hands.

The sun was rising now, orange spread across the horizon like a thousand signal fires lit on the mountainsides. The glow of it almost turned the colors of the mountains themselves, making even Geshor smile when he looked on. Out there, beyond the mountains, Geshor could almost see the people walking through shadows of palm trees and crossing stone steppe, desert sand. He could imagine, at least, and he had the memories locked inside his head and bound up in the books in his pockets and sent out into the world in the thousands of books of his that had flown on wings of thought to the far corners of the earth.

The central walls of the Gaurl Core separated Kurikuneku from the rest of the Core. The closest range of mountains – which, it was said, were only a few hundred years old, having been carved out of the earth during the Aether War – ringed most of the basin that contained Kurikuneku. There were other ways into the city, of course – the rumored tunnels beneath the city. Mysterious back ways into the Vertical Corridor, connections to the highways of the Core and beyond. The tunnels, far older than the mountains that made Kurikuneku, made the core. Geshor’s own research, years ago, had confirmed the tunnels’ provenance. They dated over five hundred years prior to the Passing of the Desert, positively ancient. It was a miracle they had survived, as so few man-made structures far from the Refuges had survived. And yet they had – subterranean passageways, partially flooded, the site of many wars before and after the Desert. Entire societies had risen and fallen in these tunnels. Geshor’s colleagues in the northern part of the Core said that the tunnels had started originally under the Old-World city known as Istabn’ul, but people had continued to build them over the years and centuries, and now a significant amount of the Gaurl region was on top of these old tunnels. Paths that existed just below the sight of any who dared look, and yet which most of the land’s residents were unaware of.

Geshor was shaken from his daydreaming by a barked voice from the front of the vehicle. “Alright, you four, we’re getting close! Wake up already!”

They were, indeed, getting close. The central walls of the Gaurl Core… they filled in the gaps in the mountain ridges and ranges that ringed Kurikuneku’s crater. A long time ago, water from nearby lakes might have filtered through the cracked stone and dirt and flowed by furrow into what was now Kurikuneku. Now, instead, a grand wall. Geshor did not even get to see those who tended the gate, did not hear them, for they must have taken note of the vehicle from afar, must have received invisible word of its nature and purpose and commanded the gates to open. Through a small entryway – small, at least, compared to the majesty of the entire wall – the vehicle carrying Geshor entered Kurikuneku.

The other three prisoners slowly stirred awake. They had all been nearly silent on the journey from Kontabliku, though Geshor gathered from the comments of the guards and soldiers what each of these prisoners were here for. They were all political prisoners of one sort or another, which made Geshor feel a little honored to be in such good company. Well, admittedly, one of them was a murderer – but a political murderer, which was far more interesting and exciting than the alternative. There might be a story behind that, though the assassin – alleged assassin, Geshor had to mentally amend - was not eagerly sharing her story, nor could she. It hadn’t occurred to Geshor that she might be not only unwilling, but unable, to speak until several days into the journey, when during a particularly harsh berating from one of the guards she’d opened her mouth as though to spit a curse, or simply to spit at the guard’s feet. Geshor saw then that the assassin had no tongue – not anymore.

One of the others had been quite outspoken at the beginning of the journey. He’d tried to reason with the guards, to argue that this whole situation was unjust and that the group should simply be set free to go about their business. This was not convincing to the guards, and eventually, receiving no response – not even a violent one – the would-be orator gave up on his repeated attempts and fell into surly silence for the remainder of the journey.

And the final prisoner, sat beside Geshor in the transport, observed the proceedings around them with a detached amusement. He spoke only when spoken to, and then only in the most noncommittal way possible. Even gregarious Geshor couldn’t get any real information out of him.

As the transport entered Kurikuneku, the windows were covered by an iron gate of some kind, obscuring Geshor’s view of the outside. He had been looking forward to seeing what had become of the city, but he couldn’t even look at the streets, the crowds. The angle of the wall as the transport had approached even prevented him from confirming that the old bright lights of Kurikuneku were still shining. Though, by all accounts he had heard, the city was still as bright and bustling as ever, even if a pall of misery lay over it for those who remembered what it had once been.

So instead of trying to watch, and instead of trying to talk to his fellow prisoners, Geshor simply lay back and counted the turns, feeling the rhythm of this transport’s movement through the city, mapping out in his mind the route he would take to return to the gate.

There was, of course, a missing step or two along that plan, but one thing at a time, one thing at a time…

Left… forward fifteen vehicle lengths… right… stopped for five minutes. Forward three hundred vehicle lengths… right… forward ten vehicle lengths… right… forward forty-five vehicle lengths… left… forward…