“Hair and nails,” Roan said.
Everyone looked back to where she and Gifford walked hand in hand, but it was Moya who spoke. “Roan?”
“Huh?” She’d been watching her feet and stepping carefully to avoid gaps between the bricks.
Moya smiled at her. “You said that out loud, hon. The thing about hair and nails. What does it mean?”
“Oh, ah . . . I was just thinking that the reason Rel isn’t crowded is because it’s always growing, getting bigger. When more is needed, it’s created at the source—in the case of Rel, that would be the river.”
“And everything just moves down? That doesn’t sound right.”
“Well, I don’t know for sure. Maybe the river pulls back, but it’s like Tekchin said, if the size of Phyre was fixed, it would eventually fill up. So it has to expand. That just makes sense, and it would account for a number of things, wouldn’t it?”
Years of experience told Moya that Roan always assumed everyone saw what she did, and Moya found it strange that Roan—who usually noticed everything—never picked up on how consistently this assumption was proven wrong. “What kind of things, Roan?”
“Well, people keep getting born, and they all die, so that means an ever-growing and infinite number of souls. Having new arrivals walk all the way to the end would be silly. It’d be more efficient to add space where they come in. So, the area closest to the gate is filled with people who died recently, while those farther out would have done so further in the past.” She gestured at the mud-brick houses. “Nadak was destroyed after Dureya, and Rhen was attacked after that. As a result, we passed through those areas in reverse order. In a way, we are walking backward through time, at least in regard to the dead.”
“But my parents were killed before the war, and a lot of people died in the Battle of Grandford,” Brin said. “Why didn’t we have to walk through them to get to my parents’ house?”
“Maybe you did, at least some of them. But just like in Elan, people move around and settle in communities. If your parents had died a hundred years ago, they might be somewhere in Rel that resembled a forest like the Crescent. They may have gone for a walk, found neighbors there, and moved to be near them. They would be a bit farther away, but not too far when you consider the amount of time that has passed since the world began. They’d still be relatively close to where we came in. Now, if you needed to find Gath of Odeon, I suspect that would have been harder, and you’d be forced to travel farther.”
“That’s why Brin’s parents and Farmer Wedon have homes near one another even though they died a few years apart,” Gifford concluded.
“Yes, exactly,” Roan said and smiled.
They walked on. More communities came and went. Not all were human. Some were Dherg, others Fhrey. Many paths branched off the brick road as if it were the trunk of a tree, then they grew out to either side, creating their own network of roads and trails. Moya noticed some settlements completely disconnected from the brick road, isolated in far-off pastures, forests, and swamps. Although they were too far to see details, Moya concluded that the architecture was different from any they’d seen so far.
Why live in a swamp? she wondered.
Moya remembered what Tekchin had said about those who died and curiosity took hold. “What’s a Moklin?” she asked him.
“Means Blind Ones. You know them as goblins.”
“You think goblins come here when they die?” she asked, shocked. “You believe they have souls?”
“How should I know?”
Moya looked back at the swamp. Maybe they do.
The trip from the river was always uphill, which Moya thought was odd since everyone knew that Nifrel was below Rel. She concluded that while the entrance might be up high, Nifrel itself could extend a long way down.
Unless it has nothing to do with location. Perhaps Nifrel is below Rel in other ways.
As they gained height and looked back, they saw how the lowland nearest the Rel Gate was easily the most populated. Densely clustered roundhouses dominated the landscape, spreading out in a haphazard fashion along the meandering brick road. They spilled out like silt after a flood. Amid that human sediment were little stone-wrought communities of dwarfs, and speckled here and there were a smattering of brick-and-timber homes like the Fhrey dwellings of Alon Rhist.
Thinking about Roan’s idea that Rel grew over time, she noticed that some sections along the road were more thinly populated, while others were dense.
Am I looking at famines and good years? Times of war and peace?
The farther they went, the higher they climbed, and the sparser the population became. Even the buildings grew cruder, more primitive.
“I don’t understand where all this stuff comes from,” Brin said, pointing to the multitude of homes stretching as far as they could see. “My parents’ home was just like the one I grew up in.”
“Not exactly,” Gifford said. “It was nicer.”
Brin nodded. “Yeah, I suppose. But how do people wish things into existence?”
Roan pulled on her hair and stared at her feet as she walked. “Arion said we exist because we believe we do.” She thought a bit more. “When we died, we left our bodies in Elan, and yet . . .” She poked herself. “I have a body.” She looked up. “Moya has her bow and Rain his pickax. But they aren’t real. They have them because they believe they do—we look the way we do for the same reason—we believe it. Perhaps in a world lacking substance, willpower and faith can shape our surroundings.”
“And the reason all the houses are nicer than the real thing?” Gifford asked.
“Pride,” Tressa explained. “No one is going to make their home anything other than perfect if given a choice, right?”
“Really?” Moya smirked. “Then how come you’re still wearing that miserable shirt? Or am I seeing only what I expect?”
Tressa looked down at herself and shrugged. “You see what I am.”
“We see what you believe,” Gifford said.
“Maybe,” Rain said, “but there are two sides to every wall, aren’t there?”
Roan nodded. “Every impression is built from our sense of self, but also from the expectations of others.”
“You lost me, Roan,” Moya said.
“Oh . . . well, it’s like Padera, isn’t it?”
“Is it?”
“Yes!” Gifford exclaimed with a big grin. “It is. Roan, you’re a genius. That’s why Moya saw Padera as old, but you saw her as young.”
Moya glared at Tekchin, who looked as confused as she felt. “Don’t you dare figure this out before me.”
The Fhrey shook his head. “Not a chance of that. I never was known as the smart Galantian—just the best looking.” He winked at her.
“It’s like this,” Gifford explained. “The reason Moya saw Padera as old is because that’s how she remembers her. Moya’s memory is more powerful than Padera’s perception of herself. That makes sense because Moya’s opinions—her willpower is . . . well, she’s . . .”
“Bullheaded,” Tekchin supplied.