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Martin sat in his cell, the pounding of his heart bordering on tachycardia belying his utter stillness on the cot. The thoughts swam by like crayfish in turbid water, muddied by his anxieties, fears, and self-flagellation as the tramp processed his lot. The rational thoughts implored him to reflect on his environment from the relative comfort of his cell. He had learned quite a bit in the last several hours, and could infer more still.

Observation one: this was a city that valued control and order. His first clue should have been the impregnable walls that surrounded it, which he had dismissed as a relict of a bygone era. Clue two was the strong police presence: in addition to the two that had apprehended him, it didn’t take a mastermind to realize that the checkpoints were also heavily patrolled. Clue three was the architectural homogeneity: the lack of individuality of architecture indicated that a strong local government had been able to consolidate enough authority to be able to maintain and inforce such building restrictions: perhaps this local governing authority was whatever the “SAM” business was that he observed on the banners across the city. The order extended even to the man’s criminal rights, where he was afforded the right to an attorney. The man knew no such accommodation would have been offered to him back in Vernon, Darcyville, or Fordham. The right to such an attorney was one of the only things keeping him from spiraling into a mental breakdown.

Observation two: fauns were not well regarded in this city. Even amidst his panic during his arrest, there was no mistaking the disdain the officers held for his companion. And he could have sworn the officer said something about “papers” with respect to the faun woman—if that is indeed what the pallid man meant when he referred to her as “the beast.” Further causing his heart to sink, the man recalled that no legal protection was offered to Namo, who was summarily escorted to a separate wing of the jail after the pair were booked. The brush strokes painted a picture where fauns were regarded as second-class citizens, the implications of which caused the man’s stomach to turn.

Observation three: during his arrest, the officers had been more interested in the fact that Martin was supposedly trafficking a faun than the fact that they had skirted the inspection out of principle. This suggested to the man that a major purpose of the checkpoint was preventing the smuggling of people, rather than goods. In fact, the officers didn’t even bother inspecting the travelers’ bags before they were thrown in evidence lockup.

Evidence and induction in sum, the vagabond hypothesized that the political entity “SAM” viewed fauns as a threat to their established order. But why? As a people, they seemed just like humans, physical appearance notwithstanding. He supposed there was no sense rationalizing what likely amounted to simple, yet insidious, speciesism.

As he considered the perceived value of sapient species diversity in whatever ethos the leading political party embodied, the man’s thoughts wandered to Namo. The largest source of the man’s anxiety was, for once, not what might happen to him, but what might happen to Namo. He had no idea what state she was in currently, and hoped that their captors had shown her the same human rights he had been afforded. Though, perhaps sapient rights was a better term, the man mused.

Martin realized that part of what he was feeling was an emotion somewhat foreign to him. Though they had only been apart for a few hours, the man noted that he simply missed Namo. They had scarcely spent a minute apart since their stay in Uat’sn, and their proximity had grown to be comforting to the man. With nobody but turbulent thoughts and tinnitus to keep him company, Martin found the silence of his secluded cell nearly unbearable. But such was his lot, and so the man busied himself by tracing constellations in the spiderwebbing cracks and etched scrawlings in the concrete walls and ceilings of his brutalist cell.

In the absence of any windows or other indications of the day’s breadth, the man lost track of the passage of time. Minutes became hours, hours became seconds. At some undiscernible point, between bouts of dozing, a guard slid a tray of food underneath the grated cell door. In his anxiety-addled state, Martin lacked the appetite to even touch it. Even his cravings for alcohol had mostly subsided. Now he simply craved to be free, and, more importantly, to know that Namo was alright. He daydreamed about seeing her face, holding her close, kissing her, listening to her sing, and simply basking in the comfort of having her near to him.

Hurried footsteps snapped Martin out of his reverie. The rhythm suggested that multiple people approached his cell. Something told him these were not the footsteps of any mere jailer. He sat up as his suspicions were confirmed: three well-groomed men wearing matching black double-breasted waistcoats over vermilion ties, spotless, starched white dress shirts and black slacks, moved with purposeful authority to surround the entrance to his cell. If these were ruffians come to harass him, they were certainly of uncommon character.

However, no such haranguing occurred. The man in the center of the trio, a man small in size but not in stature, with a ruddy, youthful complexion, shiny, slicked back black hair, and a freshly shaved face, called out to the man. “Martin Halsted?” His thin, nasally voice matched his authoritative figure like lace ribbons might match a guard dog.

Martin regarded the other two men that flanked the short man. They both dwarfed the man in the center: one, a man so tall and slender Martin suspected he would disappear if he turned sideways, with dark skin, piercing green eyes, and an utter lack of hair on his head; the other, a large, indolent-looking man with brown hair pulled into a tight ponytail. His size and outward demeanor reminded Martin of Davin in some respects, were it not for his long hair and the eye patch that covered his left eye.

The three mysterious men definitely had the tramp’s attention, though he remained on guard. “Who’s asking?”

The short man in the center produced a ring of keys and unlocked his cell. “Mister Ibrahim Ibn Rashid Al-Kutami wishes to speak with ya. So unless you’d like to be hanged with the next batch of smugglers, I’d suggest you come with us.”

The man drove a hard bargain, but Martin wasn’t quite appeased. “And Namo? You getting her out too?”

The man contorted his face in disbelief. “Who?”

“The… faun I’m traveling with. I’m not going anywhere unless she’s coming with.”

“What are you, stupid?” The thin man on the left replied, derision thick in his voice.

“Whoa, whoa hold up there, Gus.” The man in the center turned back toward Martin. “You want us to bust the faun out too? She the new girl with the, uh,” he gestured dismissively toward his head, then his legs: “the hair, and the skirt?”

Martin cocked an eyebrow; the descriptor left a lot to be desired, but he pressed his luck regardless. “Yeah. We’re a package deal. She goes where I go, vice versa.”

The man in the center considered for a moment. “Yeah, okay, sure. You want the girl to come too, fine. We brought two cars. You had any goods confiscated from ya?”

Martin stood and joined the pair, exiting the cell an apparently free man, in a strange twist of fate. “Yeah, we both do. Evidence lockup, probably.”

“The boss ain’t gonna be happy about this, Frank,” the sleepy man said, as Martin followed the trio down the hallway to the beginning of his cell block.

“’The boss’ ain’t gonna be nothin’, Micah. He ain’t gonna catch flak for having another faun more than he already does.”

The nature of his benefactor, this Al-Kutami fellow, filled Martin with a sense of intrigue and dread, as if he had just entered in a Faustian bargain.

As the small man identified as Frank unlocked the door to exit the cell block, Martin was grateful that, foreboding nature of whoever Al-Kutami was aside, he had at least stumbled into his and Namo’s freedom in the short term.

Acquiring their belongings from lockup was a simple matter, seeing as how the mysterious trio had a key for that room in addition to the cell block and Martin’s cell. Frank had asked whether Martin knew which cell Namo had been taken to. Martin admitted he did not, and so they paid a visit to the booking officer’s station for directions.

The officer on duty, a portly middle-aged woman with the expression of someone who had been given a task she didn’t agree with but was compelled to perform, was already staring at Martin from her too-small wooden chair behind her matching wooden desk as the four men approached. “Done disrupting the rule of law, or was there some other pain in my ass you wanted to cause?” Her eyes never left Martin, to the point where the man almost wondered whether she addressed him, rather than his rescuers.

“Actually, yeah,” Frank’s voice was as close to honeyed as his nasally timbre could allow. “One more thing, then we’ll be outta your hair. Lookin’ for a faun, Name’s Namo or something. You know where we can find her?”

“Oh for cryin’ out loud,” the woman reacted, and finally shifted her uncomfortable gaze away from Martin and toward Frank. “You want her too, the one he was smuggling?” She pointed a derisive finger toward Martin. “You know what, fine, but Al-Kutami owes me for this one. B-7. You’ll find her in cell B-7. I’d give you a key but your boss already took the liberty to make his own.” The words dripped from her mouth like mercury.

“Thanks, love,” Frank stated, still laying it on thick to the woman who was likely ten years or more his senior. “But, uh, hate to break it to ya, but I gotta: Mister Al-Kutami don’t owe anybody shit. You know as well as I do you wouldn’t have a cell B-7 were it not for him. So uh, just keep that in mind before you say something careless.”

“Go to hell, Tobiason,” the woman spat, before turning her attention to the book she had been holding in her lap.

Frank and his posse didn’t deign to respond to her comment, choosing instead to simply be on their way toward cell block B. As they proceeded down the hall Martin heard a grumbled “…tell me to fuckin’ say something careless, I’ll show his ass…” before the booking officer left earshot.

When Frank opened the door to cell block B, the sound of a woman singing poured through the doorway like a heavy fog diffusing into the confines of a room too small to contain it. The singing was husky, a dirge that differed from the usual marches, ballads, and lullabies that Martin was accustomed to hearing in that lovely mezzo-soprano.

“That her?” the large, laconic man asked.

“Without a doubt,” Martin replied, as they approached her cell. Each cell held an identical austerity to the one the man had recently been freed from, complete with spiderwebbed cracks in the concrete walls and floors. They passed several cells with languishing fauns in them; for a couple of these men, judging by their gaunt appearances and the way their clothes hung from their bodies like limp rags, it appeared to Martin as though they may have been held here for far longer than would be considered reasonable for their day in court. The human chalked this observation up as another piece of evidence suggesting that fauns were not afforded the same rights as humans in Fort Sarmiento, and became all the more grateful that Namo would not suffer a similar fate.

When the group approached Namo’s cell, her back faced them. Her flaxen hair billowed down her shoulders and back; despite the split ends she had begun to accumulate during their travels together, she exuded an effortless beauty to her that immediately threatened to captivate Martin. Be that as it may, the man attempted to keep focused. “Namo—sorry to interrupt.”

Whatever picture of grace the woman had embodied was interrupted as the man’s call to her nearly startled her out of her skin. “Ah-sa!” She exclaimed in shock after recovering from the initial startle. “Ya scared me there, Maa—“ she interrupted herself as she turned around. “Oh, hello there, good sirs. I take it you guys are here to free us?” The woman tried to turn around more, but her hands were clasped in irons that were bolted to the back wall of the cell via a linked chain, such that she was essentially could barely turn her body to face anything other than the far wall of her cell. The cruelty behind this treatment ignited Martin’s ire. A society that was willing to chain individuals who had not even stood trial in such a dehumanizing way was worse than scum.

Frank approached her cell and unlocked the door, pulling it open with an atrocious grinding cacophony as the rusty metal scraped along its improperly fitted track. “Looks like it’s your lucky day, faun. Come on, ride’s waiting out front.” Frank unshackled the grateful botanist. Business complete, their three rescuers turned to head back to the jail’s entrance.

Namo didn’t waste a moment. She sped to the entrance of the cage, where Martin awaited her, and pulled him in a forceful embrace. The man did his best to return beneath her vice grip around his arms and her pack in his arms.

“I was worried, Namo,” the man replied. “I’m glad you’re safe… did they treat you okay? Despite chaining you up like an animal for hours, anyway?”

Her head rested as best it could against his shoulder. “I’m fine. These Amonuunkep have no love for my people, but they didn’t harm me.” Her voice lowered to a hushed murmur. “I just wish I could say the same ‘bout the other Akepmuu in here with me.” She looked at Martin through a lock of hair that had moved over one of her eyes. “Think maybe we can release them, too?”

“No,” Came a simple reply from Gus, the tall, thin man. He had turned around and was waving for the pair to keep up. Namo recoiled slightly at the simple but firm rejection.

“I’m sure they’ll explain,” Martin interjected, trying to change the subject, “but there’s a man named Al-Kutami who’s responsible for freeing us. Maybe he can get the fauns here better treatment.”

Namo nodded, retrieving her pack and shouldering it as the pair exited the cell block. “Why are we being freed? Isn’t that against the law, or somethin’?”

Martin could only shrug. “Seems like these guys are keeping quiet about it. I think he wants to talk to us himself.”

Namo flashed a wave to the booking officer, who had her characteristic stony glare fixed on Martin and Namo. The three men grabbed their overcoats and hats from the rack by the door and the group exited the prison. Night had fallen since the pair had been booked, and a gentle but gelid rain fell amidst the evening calm. Frank pointed to a pair of horseless carriages that awaited their group. In his limited experience with these vehicles, Martin could scarcely tell the different vehicles he had seen apart, with their large, metal-spoked wheels, sweeping fenders, and boxy passenger compartments; however, the red and gold trim that decorated the otherwise black vehicle imparted an air of luxury that told of a lifestyle lived in decadent excess. As they approached the first carriage, Frank opened the rear door for the pair to climb into, but not before the man instructed the pair to keep their feet off the seats.

The rescued prisoners sidled into the rear seat while the other two men entered the second vehicle. Frank climbed into the driver’s seat. With the pull of a lever, the engine sputtered to life, a smooth but precarious sound that nevertheless caused no alarm for the driver. After flashing a thumb’s up to the pair in the separate vehicle, the group embarked from the prison farther into town, as misty rain cast a foggy glow around the street lamps like silent watchmen standing bravely against the cold evening air.

The pair sank into the plush upholstered cushion comprising the back seat of the vehicle as the vehicle jostled along the cobblestone road. Namo, perhaps exhausted from the day’s events, leaned on Martin’s shoulder, though he imagined it would be nearly impossible for her to sleep amidst the turbulence of the ride. Martin stared out the windows, watching street lamps pass by, before Frank called from the front seat. “So, first time in Fort Sarmiento, huh?”

Martin shook his head, startled from his reverie. “Y-yeah. A lot different than where I come from. Never even seen one of these things we’re in before, for starters.”

Frank gave a sharp snort in amusement. “You mean an automobile? They haven’t been around long here either. I first saw ‘em putzing around maybe five years or so ago. Now they’re all the rage. Mr. Al-Kutami has five of ‘em.”

Martin completely lacked the context for how impressive that was supposed to sound, but the man surmised that the sum total evidence pointed to a man who enjoyed flaunting his wealth, so Martin played along. “Wow, that’s impressive. This Al-Kutami fellow must be powerful indeed.”

The flattery seemed to have an effect. “Sure is. Powerful enough to bust you out, though why he’d want to I can’t imagine why. No offense, you two don’t seem special to me. Just a couple country bumpkins from… Vernon, was it?”

“Yeah. that’s where I’m from, anyway.”

“I hear that Vernon’s dying up there. All the mines dried up.”

This again. Martin didn’t even bother correcting the man that only the platinum mines had dried up, and that the copper and other minerals were still highly sought after. Instead, the vagrant gave a polite, forced laugh. “Yeah, but we make do.”

“So why come all this way? With a faun, no less. You know they’re highly regulated on the peninsula, right? Illegal without a permit.” He supposed Frank was referring to the Perras Peninsula, the land form that connected Sinoe and Echo.

So it’s true, then. “I had no idea. First time on the peninsula. ’S why we got caught, I guess. How long has it been this way?” He hoped the deflection would serve to prevent Frank from prying on the subject of his business in town.

“Not long enough, if you ask me,” Frank replied. “SAM moved in about ten years ago or so. Turned the place basically from a ghost town into what you see today: a hub for order and progress.”

Martin let the implication behind the phrase, and the rapid growth the town had experienced, sink in as they turned off the main road and onto a tarmac-paved side road that led up a grassy hill. They had departed the city center, it seemed, and now found themselves traveling along a winding road where gated mansions, illuminated by spectacular arrays of outdoor lamps, dotted the landscape in a manner reminiscent of the mesas that jutted from the badlands of central Sinoe; only here, the scrub and spindly grasses of the badlands of his younger years gave way to immaculately manicured gardens and pristine lawns. It seemed clear to the man that order and progress benefited some more than others.

Their two-vehicle convoy passed through a gate at the end of the winding road, after a brief delay for Gus to hold it open for Frank’s vehicle. Martin peered in the distance, determining that the fence enclosed an expanse of parkland beyond what he could see in the rainy darkness. In the span of a minute or so, the two-vehicle convoy pulled into a circular driveway, wrapped around an illuminated water feature. Namo, who had been raptly staring out the driver’s side window at the passing surroundings, sat up from leaning on her wrist. The vehicle shuddered to an unceremonious halt as Frank called, matter-of-factly: “Well, we’re here. Welcome to the estate of Mr. Al-Kutami.”

The pair exited the vehicle, bags in hand, and regarded the domicile before them. The manor they beheld all but gleamed in its extravagance; Martin caught his jaw hanging agape for a moment, before catching rain in it. He awkwardly coughed, suppressing the urge to gag on reflex. The opulence of the manor was like nothing he had seen before. The building itself looked both modern and timeless: from the dim light of the moons and the brilliance of the lanterns positioned regularly across the mountainous edifice, Martin could tell that the building was built from white masonry, with shallow slate gables and ten-meter-tall windows flanking the entrance to the manor. Regularly spaced columns along the façade gave the building a neoclassical appearance, complete with a beckoning marble staircase beneath a portico easily four times Martin’s height. Flanking the marble staircase, a flower garden drank in the gentle rain—perhaps unsurprisingly, it was the muted rainbow of flowers and bracts that captured Namo’s attention.

Frank snorted in condescending amusement. “Take it you’ve never seen something like this? You look like a couple of tourists. Come on, let’s not keep the master waiting.” Gus and Micah joined Frank as the group made their way up the marble staircase, Namo’s hooves clacking against the hard stone behind them. “Wipe your feet, take your shoes off,” Gus commanded, as they made their way to the massive paired doors that served as the manor’s front entrance. “Well, except you, faun. Just wipe your, hooves or whatever.”

The travelers did as instructed, the human placing his road-worn boots in a basket at the entryway. His threadbare socks served as a source of embarrassment for the man, but he supposed that between his patched jeans, wool parka, and torn felt hat, there was nothing to be done about his appearance: such was the life of the vagabond.

If the exterior of the manor held a unique beauty, the atrium of the manor strove to compete for the crown. The architecture of the foyer was, in a word, grand. Tall alabaster columns towered at regular intervals throughout the spacious room, adorned with wall sconces whose gas flames flickered with the subtle draft of the door closing. The columns framed cavernous entrances to their left and right into separate wings of the manor. A staircase wide enough to accommodate half a dozen people arm-in-arm pointed straight ahead, its three dozen steps bounded by an ornate gold balustrade like strings of a lyre and capped with matching gold-and-white banisters. The pale wood parquet on which they stood gleamed with a near mirror sheen: despite the difference in material, the tone of the wood complimented the organic golden filigrees that adorned the balusters and the ornamentation that covered the columns and ceiling of the room. Martin could scarcely imagine the price tag this room carried, nor the man who would have the wealth to afford it.

While the pair gawked, a suitcoated faun man of immaculate posture approached the group, wordlessly taking the coats of the party, starting with Frank. He approached the newcomers, startling Namo from her starry-eyed stare. “Your coats, sir and madam,” was his simple, professional greeting, one arm laden with outerwear and one arm beckoning for theirs.

“Oh my goodness, another Kepmuu!” She quickly reverted to her native tongue as she simultaneously removed her parka she used as a rainjacket. “Kuubeno’oko A’snkepo! Ke’eponuunamo upuutebe Namo upuutebe so. Somoto’osn mokote te?” Her voice, muffled and almost incomprehensible by the thick fabric and rustling of her parka as she doffed it, was ignored by the faun manservant. Faunservant? The thought flashed intrusively in Martin’s head. Probably offensive. He doffed his own parka and handed it to the butler, who departed without further comment. Martin glanced at Namo, who bore an expression of utter confusion. “H-how rude!” She stammered. “He ignored me!”

“Maybe it’s part of his job to ignore smalltalk. I wouldn’t take it personally.” His words likely fell on deaf ears, given the woman’s dejected expression.

Frank, checking his pocket watch, spoke up. “Alright Marty. Ya mind if I call ya Marty?” Martin did, in fact, mind, but acknowledged that he was in little position to protest. “We did our job. Just follow Ulysses when he gets back and he’ll take you to Mr. Al-Kutami. See you around, maybe.” The group of men turned to head toward the left wing of the manor.

“Sure, sure. And, uh, thanks.”

“Don’t mention it,” Frank responded. The other two men simply nodded in acknowledgment.

After the trio departed, their footsteps echoing down the wooden halls leading to the left wing of the manor, Martin stepped toward the center of the room, avoiding the plush rug that adorned the focal point of the atrium. Above his head, a golden and crystal chandelier hung like dozens of tiny icicles from a meters-high chain on the filigreed ceiling. Everywhere he looked there was something to catch his eye, from sculptures, to paintings, to scale models of metal carts on rails. The experience was simultaneously calming and enticing. However, the travelers did not have long to wait before they heard hoofsteps resounding from the back of the atrium. The faun, presumably named Ulysses, approached the pair. “If you’ll join me, sir and madam, the master awaits.” With a courteous dip of his head, he motioned for the pair to follow as he led them down the right wing of the manor. The hallway was similarly adorned with white and gold ornamentation, with floor-to-ceiling multi-paneled windows arranged in a grid capped with an arch. These windows provided stunning views into the driveway and front lawn, where a valet was currently driving away with the second of the two vehicles to the garage farther down the road. On their left, paintings of various sizes and subjects alternated between a series of closed doorways to rooms the purpose of which Martin could only speculate. However, the travelers did not have far to walk: the third door on their left was opened a crack. Warm light flickered from the opening as Ulysses knocked on the adjacent wall.

“Come in, come in!” A cheerful, satiny voice replied from beyond the threshold. Ulysses pulled the door open and gestured for the pair to enter. With a nod, Martin entered the room, followed by Namo.

The study that they entered was a rustic, cozy room by comparison to the vast spaces they had toured moments before. Mahogany panels, or another richly-stained wood, covered the walls and floors. Bookshelves containing more books than one person could ever hope to read in a decade’s time lined the walls, but a brick fireplace served as the focal point of the room. A fire blazed from the far side of the room, and Martin could feel its gentle warmth from the doorway. Plush couches and chairs attempted to ensconce the ornate structure, but only served to make the retreat more inviting. A man lied in a chaise positioned such that he could regard the fire and the doorway with ease; he held a book in his hands, as he tucked a bookmark inside and set it on the wooden table at his right.

The man sat up and swiveled to face the pair. If this were the master of the manor, he certainly chose an interesting ensemble to greet his guests. The man wore a simple pair of gray satin pajamas, his bare feet sliding into strategically-placed slippers at the side of his chaise. Despite his unorthodox choice of attire, the gentleman carried himself with a cool confidence that exuded self-awareness of his charm. His obsidian hair was slicked back in a coiffe that was just messy enough to draw doubt as to whether it was intentionally so. By contrast, his mustache and beard were immaculately trimmed, as if he had stepped out of a magnum opus portrait. His tan skin revealed few wrinkles that seemed placed just so the man could appear distinguished in some modicum of age-borne wisdom.

The man regarded Martin. “Ah, Welcome! It is great to see you, Mister Halsted—“ before interrupting himself upon seeing his travel companion. “—and guest?”