Chapter 3
Chapter three
Copper, Coal, and Cults
In the War Room stood a tall Black man, older than the queen but still in his physical prime. Clad in rugged adventurer garb, he radiated a cocky ease, standing with hands planted on his hips like he owned the place.
“Guards!” Azaleen called, glaring at the intruder. “How did you get past my sentries?”
General Stark spun, fists tightening at his sides.
“I have skills.” Sweeping his hat from his bald head, the man bowed gallantly. Upon rising, he added, “Skills you may wish to have in your service.”
Four guards wearing leather vests and green identifying sashes rushed in, pikes in hand. “Yes, Queen Frost. You called?” the leader asked. They all halted, snapping to attention, boot heels clicking.
Azaleen studied the stranger, wariness edging her sharp gaze. “Who are you, and why shouldn’t I send you to the gallows as a spy or would-be assassin?”
“My name is Desmond Shaw, and your map is missing an important town.”
With the armed soldiers in the room, Azaleen’s tension eased just enough to step back, clearing a path to the table. “Pray tell, where exactly is this supposed missing town?”
She bristled at his claim. Her father had kept the map scrupulously current, and, since his death, she’d done the same. Yet, however rude and presumptuous the newcomer, the queen never turned away knowledge.
Shaw strolled around the table to the Dead Coast, picked up a marker tile, and set it in the hills to the west, a short distance north of Appalachia’s proclaimed border. The room stilled, all eyes flicking from the tile marker to the man who’d placed it.
“It’s called Coppertown,” he said. “I discovered it while searching for my lost father when I was a young man of eighteen.”
“Wait,” ordered the general. He stepped between Desmond and Azaleen. “Your father made it that far north?”
“Pardon me,” he said with a suave smile, bowing, touching his fingers to his heart. “I presumed you wished for the short version. My lovely wife is always chastising me for being too presumptuous.”
Azaleen quirked a brow at him, leveling her pointing stick in his direction. “First, tell us why this Coppertown is valuable enough to mark on my map, and then I’ll decide if your story is worth our time.”
Desmond Shaw struck her as a snake oil salesman—a little too slick. She scrutinized his every move, watching for his glossy exterior to crack. The nearby guards held their position.
“It’s in a secluded valley surrounded by the Pocono Mountains, shielded from the nuclear blasts that destroyed the large cities,” he began. “They’ve reopened the old coal mines.”
“Coal?” Rosalind questioned in surprise. “You mean that horrid black stuff that was banned nearly a century ago for all the sooty smoke it put into the air?”
“Precisely,” Shaw confirmed. “They use it to melt down metals and recast them into usable items—tools, pipes, weapons, construction materials. They’re manufacturing everything from pots and pans to swords and shields.”
“Bullets?” Stark asked, his tension easing as curiosity drew him closer.
Desmond shook his head. “No gunpowder. Still, it’s an independent municipality we might want to trade with.”
Azaleen glared at him with an icy distrust. “We? You mentioned something about being from Appalachia, and why, exactly, did you stealth your way into my council chambers uninvited?”
“I beg your pardon, Queen Frost.” He held out empty palms at his sides. “Word travels fast within the capital—capitol guard to miller to a neighbor—that Franklin Pickett has gone missing. I’m here to offer my services as your secretary of procurement.”
Absurd! Does he think he can simply waltz in here and charm his way onto my council? Secretary chairs aren’t bought or traded like melons in the market.
“What impudence!” Vera’s nose wrinkled as though the very sight of him offended her.
“Arrogant, aren’t you?” Azaleen decided he deserved a reprimand. Still, she needed to learn more from him. She wouldn’t let her impressions impede the acquisition of information.
“I don’t mean to be, Your Excellency.” He bowed again, this time removing his leather outback hat.
“Why don’t we all sit down?” Azaleen coolly suggested.
“There’s an empty chair between Secretaries Keane and Sutherland.
General Stark.” She sent him a glance to stand down.
“Let’s hear your story, especially the part about why I’ve never met you.
” She took her seat, followed by the general and the flamboyant newcomer.
He could be a spy. No, much too obvious. A conman? A grifter?
“Thank you, Queen Frost.” Desmond made himself comfortable, propped a foot over his knee, and dropped his hat into his lap.
“I was born four years before the War of Ruin—what the cultists call The Great Correction—in a small rural community along the Youghiogheny River in what’s now the northern edge of Appalachia.
With no targets nearby, we hardly knew a war was happening until the power grid collapsed, destroyed by EMP waves from the mega bombs. ”
Azaleen listened, weighing his testimony against what her parents had described. She was aware that a plethora of electronics once did everything from produce light to transmit information around the world in the blink of an eye. Now they had candles and pigeons.
“What I mostly remember from that time was my family hiding out in caves and old mine shafts so raiders wouldn’t kill us, and everybody being terrified.
By the time I was ten, we were back on our farm, living in our old house again.
One day, white-robed missionaries showed up proclaiming the good news of the Oracle.
They said we were now part of a new country called Appalachia and that the Oracle would take care of us and tell us what to do to be safe.
After years of uncertainty and hardship, that’s all anybody wanted.
Most of the community embraced the message.
Some of the young people went with them to study in the capital city, Clover Hollow. ”
“That’s where the computer core is supposed to be,” Stark commented. “But I’d always thought it was just propaganda spread by the ruling oligarchy.”
“No, it’s there,” Desmond stated gravely.
Azaleen detected a hint of fear in his eyes.
“But returning to the story, my father had gone north on a business trip and wasn’t at home the Day the Sky Fell.
When I turned eighteen, my cousins and I struck out across the border in search of him, in case he’d survived.
” He paused, lowered his chin, and released a breath.
“We didn’t find him; we found Coppertown instead. ”
It must be hard not knowing, Azaleen thought. She knew how and when her brother, then her father, died. She had been at their sides, buried them, mourned their losses. If this story were true, Desmond’s family wouldn’t have had that closure. Did they hold out hope still?
“And they have functional forges producing metalworks?” Silas asked.
“I swear.” Desmond’s voice sounded truthful.
“After we returned home with only a few pots and pans and a couple of sharp machetes to show for it, I met Jamila, the love of my life. She didn’t like that I’d started making salvage runs, since it was such risky business, but she didn’t leave me.
Then word arrived from the capital. The Ministry passed a new law that all marriages in the country would forever be arranged by the Oracle.
The Oracle knew best.” He bit the words through clenched teeth, his grip tightening on the arms of his chair.
Sabine’s jaw dropped; it was the first time she’d spoken since the meeting began. “Are you saying people are forced to marry computer-chosen partners, not their desired ones?”
Desmond nodded. “Most folks near the capital were all-in on the Core Cult by then, so they didn’t care.
They had been brainwashed to believe the Oracle knew best, only Jamila and I weren’t buying it.
We made a bold move to flee Appalachia and travel south through the dangerous borderlands to Verdancia.
It wasn’t easy to leave everything we knew behind, and, if we’d been caught, we would have been dragged to Clover Hollow for ‘reindoctrination.’” He shook his head.
“We knew some folks it happened to. Anyway, we said goodbye and never looked back. That was over twenty years ago. Our oldest is nearly grown now.”
“If you’ve been here so long, what have you been doing?” asked the general. He was as suspicious as Azaleen.
“We spent our first winter in a small village on Lake Jocassee, where I made a living hunting and fishing. But when the hamlet was attacked by warg and mutants—you don’t want to get bit by one of those,” he emphasized, “we moved on, following old roads. We arrived in Nelanta three years after leaving home with Jamila pregnant. I worked at a cotton gin, then a waterwheel mill, but we wanted our own farm. After our third child was born, I got back into the salvage business—even did a few runs for Pickett. I made the money to buy a homestead, fix it up, and have a place to raise our children.”
Azaleen studied him—his calloused hands, faint scars, the lean strength coiled beneath his dark skin.
“Do you have references?” Vera asked, brows narrowing at Desmond.
“Indeed.” He produced a folded packet of papers.
“Chief Fontaine,” Azaleen requested. “Please take Mr. Shaw’s papers and follow up with his references.”
“Yes, my queen.”
As Sabine walked around the circle to collect the papers, Desmond continued.
“I’ve fought the glowing-eyed warg, the senseless, albino mutants, and gangs of ruthless raiders.
I’ve crossed rivers, avoided red zones—even crossed through a few when necessary.
I can operate a small craft, a hot-air balloon, and ride a motorcycle or horse with equal ease.
What’s more important, I know where to find things.
Useful things. Things our kingdom needs.
Now, I know you might think I’m a spy, sent here by the Ministry to learn your weaknesses,” he admitted casually.
“But who plays a game that long? Would I wait twenty years just to stroll into the Capitol Building? Check my references, my former employers. Appalachia might have been the land of my birth, but Verdancia granted me freedom.”
“I will do that, Mr. Shaw,” Azaleen proclaimed.
“Leave directions on where to find you with my chief of staff, and we’ll get back to you.
Guards,” she directed with a flick of her wrist. “See our guest out. And Mr. Shaw. The next time you break into this building, you’ll be put under arrest. Is that clear? ”
“Abundantly.” With a gallant bow, Desmond swept his hat back onto his head and swaggered out.
“Can you believe that man?” Vera was incensed.
“I don’t know,” Camille countered thoughtfully. “What he said lines up with what I’ve heard of Appalachia. It makes perfect sense that he’d flee.”
“Historically, governmental regimes have frequently used religion to manipulate their populace,” Rosalind confirmed. “When King Frost and his advisors were drawing up our constitution, one thing I fervently insisted upon was that Verdancia uphold freedom of religion.”
Azaleen recalled the stressful time. King Edric was under pressure from various groups to name a state religion for unification purposes.
But her mother and a much younger Rosalind remained in lockstep in favor of religious freedom.
As a child, she’d asked her frail but beautiful mother which religion was the right one.
“All and none.” As a child, Azaleen hadn’t understood her mother’s answer; as a queen, she now did.
“We’ll find out what Desmond Shaw is really about,” Azaleen concluded with a flick of her hand. “Meeting dismissed.”