Saints of the Void: Atypical Read Online Free Page B

that the Council thought was their secret in order to
record the meeting. She must have seen his abrupt exit right before
the minor earthquake and been in this office as soon as she could
get inside.
    “How...?” she began to ask.
    “I don’t know,” interjected Dastou as they walked
towards the middle of the room to meet. “Something felt off, weird.
All I knew was that we had to leave there immediately.”
    “At least we gave them an interesting little
meeting,” added Nes as he joined the other two.
    “The end of which featured an apparent psychic
prediction,” said Saan.
    While it did seem that way, Dastou had never heard of
one of his kind being able to predict something like what just
happened. “Honestly, that was a coincidence. I left because of
Tryst acting strangely. I think he received a message while I was
speaking at the end.”
    “Well, sir…” Saan said, crossing her arms. “That was rude of him, yes, but not worth upsetting the council
further.”
    “It wasn’t Tryst’s actions that made me leave, it was
instinct, reflex. Something about the way he was acting combined
with the meeting. I just felt like I had to leave, go somewhere
protected. Don’t ask me why, because I have no idea.”
    Nes laughed. “You say that like we’re not used to you
doing weird stuff with little explanation.”
    Dastou sneered at him, but what Nes said was true.
Lately, the Saint had become secretive. He was having fits,
near-seizures like the one that drove him back to Silverline Sharp.
He also had a tendency lately to disappear, go somewhere in the
Academy or Caravan and come back in two or three hours, having no
clue as to what he did with the time. He kept it to himself, not
wanting to reveal all of it without knowing more, even if that was
irresponsible of him.
    “Speaking of explanations,” said Saan, “should I
assume you’ll want to contact a science team to come here and
research the seismic activity after we leave?”
    The science team would be standard operating
procedure, but this was a strange occurrence considering the
history of the lands on which Stone-State was built. He shook his
head at Saan-Hu’s question.
    “No, we’ll use the Caravan and stay with them. I want
to be here in case the volcano has become active again.”
    Nes and Saan looked at each other, apparently
confirming that neither of them had missed a step in this
conversation.
    “Hey, uh... you did that thing you do sometimes,” Nes
told Dastou.
    “What?” replied the Saint.
    “You mentioned something that you think we know.
Something about a goddamn volcano .”
    Ah, yes. Of course they wouldn’t know about it. Not
unexpected considering where the information was recorded and where
it came from.
    “Right. Sorry. Let me show you what I’m talking
about.”
    Dastou moved towards a shelf in the middle of the
wall to his right. It took a moment to find the book he wanted, Anchor River of the West, Geological, just below eye level,
and he slid it out. Leather with dark green dye and yellow leafing
revealed who the author was before Dastou even read the name: Saint
Avrazi Keymeign, from three generations back. She and another
Saint, her husband Breddis Gosch, decided to explore one of the
“future build” locations on this continent, the largest landmass on
the western hemisphere.
    Future build locality types were where a Saint
figured a major Social Cypher construction project would soon begin
due to population expansion. The climate in this area is
comfortably warm for most of the year, so the couple was basically
on celebratory holiday for their twentieth anniversary, scouting
only after they had their rest and relaxation. Keymeign did the
work of creating maps in as much detail as she could, and Gosch
studied the flora and fauna for a companion volume.
    Dastou walked back to the desk while flipping pages
to find what he needed. Saan moved the wheeled guest chair out of
the way and the book was laid down on the desk,