Pyrocracy

Incommunicado

“Hey, bro, you good?”

Dana came to under the glare of an industrial light with a splitting headache. She blinked several times as she adjusted to being awake and was greeted by maille-covered head filling her vision. The man jumped back as he saw Dana stir, followed by a loud clattering from his armor.

“Oh shit! Yo Crow, get your ass over here, she’s awake!” he shouted much too loudly. The noise shot a flash of pain through Dana’s head and she winced.

“I don't suppose you know where I am,” Dana croaked. “Or who you are.” Her mouth tasted like sand. She struggled to sit up but that only made her head pound harder so she laid back down.

“Hey, stay with me dude,” the man said as he pulled Dana into a sitting position and dragged something over to prop her upright. “Hey, Crow!” he shouted, clumsily snapping his gauntleted fingers in front of her face. “Any of your gods deal with healing or like, sleep and shit?” Another flash of pain wracked her head and a second person approached at a sprint, sliding the last few feet on metal greaves to where Dana lay.

“Here, take this,” the woman said, her voice muffled by a crudely carved red mask that covered the lower half of her face. She pulled the mask off, letting it hang by a strap to one side and handed the man a thermos she pulled from a backpack made out a blue tarp that crinkled when she dug through it.

“Dude, I was being sarcastic. “What is this, the ‘sacred brew of Thor’?” The man tossed the thermos back. “Get that wack heathen shit out of here.”

“Oh for Odin’s sake,” the woman said, rolling her eyes. “It’s coffee, Járnhaus, the same damn coffee we’ve been drinking for years. Get over yourself.”

The woman handed Dana the thermos and she took it, not pausing to even breathe let alone taste the lukewarm coffee. After draining the thermos, she gasped for air and finally took the time to look around her, which brought more questions than answers.

Dana sat against the leg of a desk, surrounded by a sea of more tasteful modern desks in straight, neat rows. Beneath her was a cold concrete floor and above her, a sign reading ‘Workspaces’ hung down from an immensely high ceiling supported by massive concrete pillars. Dana could faintly hear a pop song playing from somewhere, although she didn't recognize the language it was sung in.

“You aren’t from here are you?” the man asked, noticing Dana’s confusion. “Dude, it was confusing when I got here too. Shit’s bonkers, I get it.” He stood up and straightened out a yellow tabard emblazoned with a blue cross, which he wore over a suit of armor. “The name’s Matthew,” he continued, “Sir Mathew of Textiles, Knight of Honor and Devotion of the Holy Order of the Lost Knights of the Pharmacy of Småland. Gratam purgatorium reservant bro, welcome to purgatory.”

Dana stared blankly at him. “I can’t tell if you're messing with me or not.”

“Unfortunately, he isn’t,” the woman said, offering Dana her hand. “Up you go.” Dana took her hand, staggering to her feet and leaning on the woman for support. Her legs felt like looking at an older sibling's calculus homework when you’re still learning your times tables.

“Thanks, uh…” Dana trailed off. She never actually got the woman’s name.

“Vinterkråka,” she replied. “And don't even mention it.”

Vinterkråka wore less armor than her partner, and the armor she did wear was less sturdy. Her greaves and bracers were metal and her only other armor was a white leather chestpiece sewn and riveted together. Beneath that, she wore a simple black tunic that may just have been an oversized shirt. Her black combat boots matched in a sort of anachronistic way, but her denim blue jeans broke whatever cohesion the rest of her… costume had? Uniform had? Whatever it was, the pants didn't match.

“Okay, uh, nice to meet you two. I’m Dana. I don't suppose either of you know where we are?”

“Infinite IKEA,” Vinterkråka answered. “His people call it purgatory and the legends of mine call it Tíundaheim—the tenth world, built of Brimir’s bones and Yggdrasil’s sacred wood—but most people just call it the infinite IKEA.”

“Oh, so you're in on it too,” Dana said, shaking the logarithmic feeling out of her legs. Confident that they wouldn't integrally betray her and realizing the metaphor was rapidly falling apart, she let go of Vinterkråka to stand on her own.

“Bro, it's not a prank, swear to God,” Matthew said. “Shit, hold on a sec. I don't even know if I can remember the welcome speech, it's been forever since I got it.”

“No, you hold on. What do you mean by ‘it's been forever’? Like, weeks forever? Months forever?”

“Nah bro, try eighteen years forever.” Matthew picked up a golden great helm and pulled it on over his maille coif. “Let’s see. We don't know how many people there are here but it's more than you could possibly expect, there's an exit but it only appears for the repentant souls that the Lord has chosen to go on, and uh…” Matthew clicked his tongue trying to remember, which sounded extraordinarily odd coming from the helmet. “Oh yeah, the demons.”

“Oh fuck. I can't be trapped here forever, I have something important that I should be doing. Something important.” Dana sank down onto a desk, head in her hands. “That I should be doing. That's important. Fuck, why can't I remember—did you say ‘demons’?”

“Yes, he did,” Vinterkråka answered, putting on a helmet of her own and re-latching her half mask in place. “The starfsfólk are mostly harmless under the light of day, but come night time they’ll send you right the way to Valhalla if you aren't strong, careful, or lucky.”

Vinterkråka’s helmet was almost the spitting image of what Dana imagined a Viking helmet to be, maybe with curlier horns than she expected. A spectacle mask covered the top half of Vinterkråka’s face down to the nose and two rams horns curled down from the top of the helmet to her cheeks. With her red half-mask in place, Dana could almost imagine she was the demon Matthew was talking about.

“Speaking of night…” Matthew checked the time on a wall clock that happened to be lashed to the butt end of the handle of a battle axe embedded in a black desk.“Speaking of night: shit.”

He wrenched the axe out of the desk, ripping the desk apart, and hefted it onto his shoulder. The axe was hand-forged like Matthew’s armor but it was pretty shoddy, little more than a sheet of metal folded over and hammered on itself. The blade was uneven and covered in nicks and although it had been polished well, a large crack ran down the axe’s beard that no amount of elbow grease would fix. The handle was in much better shape, carved from the leg of a table, but it didn't help much to fix the overall quality of the axe.

Vinterkråka looked over Matthews shoulder at the clock-pommel. “Shit,” she agreed.

“What's wrong?” Dana asked. “Is it demons? It doesn't look like night, should I have a weapon?”

“Trust me bro, you’ll know when it's night. But it is getting close, round about a half-hour ‘till lights out. We gotta get going.”

“You’ll be fine as long as you stick with us,” Vinterkråka said, tugging at an ornate spear stuck in desk, “but you have to stick with us, we’ll be cutting it pretty short.”

Vinterkråka’s spear was much fancier than Matthew’s axe, black-halfted with an intricate dark grey steel tip. A red ribbon was tied under the spearhead and golden runes were carved into the wood shaft that caught the light and threw it back onto the floor and surfaces of the desks.

“Wait, I thought there wasn’t an exit.” Dana hopped off of the desk she was sitting on. “Where are you two headed?”

“Headed home, dude. I said there were more people here than you’d expect remember?” Matthew spun his axe in the air and grabbed it by the handle, pointing the clock end into the distance. Far away, a structure rose over the shelves, sandwiched between two massive concrete pillars. “It’s called Småland, it's one of a couple towns that are nearby.”

“Sure, okay, that sounds about right,” Dana said, “makes as much sense as everything else in this goddamn place. So how many towns is a ‘couple’?”

“You are taking this remarkably in stride.” Vinterkråka said, flourishing her spear. “But for us to spend more time here would be to go to Valhalla before our time. Let’s get a move on.”

“Did you miss the part where I lost my shit about being stuck here forever while I have important things to do? I'm trapped in a furniture store where apparently there are enough people to create a couple towns which could be anywhere from three to like, seven or eight which is seven or eight towns too many people stuck in an IKEA for me to comprehend right now. I’ve taken nothing in stride so far.”

“Then take the rest of the trek back to sort your shit out, cause we really need to leave now,” Matthew said, hefting his axe onto his shoulder and setting out for the distant town. Dana wanted to argue, but that actually made a lot of sense so she shut up and followed Matthew whole she tried to compose herself better.

By the time they made it to Småland, Dana had calmed down. Now that she had time to think about it, she felt like she had been in stranger situations than this before. She would at least be safe enough to regroup and come up with a plan in Småland, at least if it’s walls were anything to go by.

The walls of Småland was even more impressive up close. After endless rows of furniture, shelves, and wire containers filled with plastic cooking utensils, the massive wooden walls seemed to appear from nowhere.

Compared to their surroundings, the walls stood out like a gunshot in a cafe. While the infinite IKEA was clean, orderly, and smelled slightly like coffee, the Smålish walls were an explosion of laminated wood, sheets of metal, and hand-forged nails haphazardly cobbled together and wedged between two pillars that were actually pretty far apart now that Dana was closer to them. The strength of the walls didn't seem to come from its construction, but rather their sheer immensity.

Adding to the chaotic nature of the wall were the words etched into it. Although primarily written in Old Norse runes and Church Latin, other languages and alphabets made appearances as well; Arabic script, Old Irish ogham, and Korean Hangul were all represented. They scrawled out prayers of protection to Odin, Thor, and YHWH, as well as a few deities that Dana had never heard of before. Dana had no clue how the hell she recognized any of the languages, let alone understood what they meant.

Two banners hung from watchtowers, one a red ouroboros—a serpent devouring its own tail—on a black field, and the other a blue Roman cross over a yellow field. Between the watchtowers stood the main gate, a huge metal-plated door that was dented and scarred but still held strong.

The gate swung outward as the three approached, pushed by an armored guard dressed similarly to Matthew, although in bulkier armor.

“State your business,” she shouted, pointing a military-grade rifle at the group. Dana wasn’t sure, but it seemed to be an AR-18, the standard issue rifle for the Irish armed forces, produced by ArmaLite California and chambered for UN-556 rounds. Dana would’ve been more concerned with how she knew that if she wasn’t preoccupied with the gun’s barrel pointing directly at her. Her hands shot up instinctively.

“Oh hey, Matt, you're back,” the guard said, lowering her rifle. “How’d it go?”

“Not too great bro, not too great,” Matthew responded. “Five hours of jack and shit, and then we picked up a lost soul on the way back.” He pointed an armored thumb back at Dana, who lowered her arms and hoped in vain that no one noticed.

“Tough break dude, but the extra hands are always welcome. Get on back to the Lord Commander and he’ll sort out the newbie.” The guard waved them on with her rifle. “Welcome home bro, and God be with you.”

“Bro, you too,” Matthew replied. As he stepped through the threshold of the gate, he removed his helmet and hung it on a chain at his hip, freeing his hands.

“Thank Odin,” Vinterkråka said as soon as she was inside, brushing past Matthew and unlatching her half-mask before removing her own helmet. “Let's report to the elders and get this done with, I’m starv—.”

CLUNK. The overhead lights overhead shut off, plunging everything into darkness. It went silent too, the music abruptly cutting off.

“What the fuck!” Dana shouted.

She couldn't see three feet in front of her face, let alone one foot to where Matthew was standing, and the sudden silence was jarring after having the music in the background for so long. A light flickered on behind Dana and she whirled around to see what made it, causing the end of her braid to smack into Matthew’s helmet with a resounding ‘thwack’.

“Ow! Hey, settle down bro, it's just nighttime. You don't need to start swinging.”

More lights turned on, a mix of torches and flashlights that eventually lit up the area like Peshtigo in ‘71. After completing their tasks, the people lighting the lights all either went back to their homes or continued down the main path of the village, nonchalant about the sudden darkness.

“What did you hit him with?” Vinterkråka asked. “I thought you weren’t armed.” That was a good question, and Dana realized it did not have a good answer.

“It was uh, my hair,” Dana admitted sheepishly. She pulled her hair over her shoulder to see what caused it to hit so hard and—after undoing the end of her braid—pulled out a large ring. “Apparently I braided a ring into my hair,” she said, retying the braid without the ring this time. “Please don't ask why because I want to know that too.”

Dana held the ring up to the light to see it better and found that it was a signet ring, the kind an old-timey person would use to make wax seals. The design was of a stylized hand holding a caduceus, but Dana had no idea what it was supposed to represent, or where the ring came from. Dana showed the ring to the others and asked if they knew what it meant, but they both shook their heads.

“Looks kinda like a weapon,” Matthew offered. “Maybe you’re a knight from a different order?” Vinterkråka elbowed him in the arm.

“The elders might know, but I’ve lived in Tíundaheim my whole life, someone from Midgard would know more than me,” Vinterkråka said.

“You're whole life?” Dana asked. “You were born here?”

“I was, Småland born and raised,” Vinterkråka said. “A lot of us are, actually. You don't get a town almost 500 strong just from taking in wanderers.”

Dana frowned. “500? It doesn’t look that big.”

“Dude, Småland is one of the largest settlements around,” Matthew said, “you just can't see from here cause it’s flat ground and the gate is designed like a bottleneck. In the middle is the Pharmacy which is also where the council sits, maybe they’ll know what your ring means. Most of them weren't born into Purgatory, they came here from outside so they might've seen it before. C’mon.” Matthew started down the path, using his axe as a walking stick.

The wide spiral path they walked down was the same concrete as the rest of the IKEA, but the rest of the ground was dirt. Dana had no clue where the dirt came from. Longhouses sat on either side of the path, with branching smaller paths leading off from the outside of the spiral.

The houses were boxy and simplistic—little more than log cabins with mono-pitched thatch roofs and floor to ceiling windows—but each house was unique, designed in an odd combination of medieval Scandanavian architecture and the modernist sensibilities of the infinite IKEA’s furniture. The craftsmanship was remarkably well done for what Dana expected.

“What's up with the pergolas,” Dana asked as they passed yet another one. Most of the houses had them, and they were growing much more frequent as the three of them got closer to the center of Småland. Several lightbulbs hung down from each pergola, although none of them were powered.

“Oh dude, you like them?” Matthew answered, clanking as he turned around, walking backward to talk to Dana. “I helped make most of them, they’re there to hold the lights up. We tried light poles and stuff but the pergolas work better cause the light poles either didn't illuminate enough or took up too much room. With the pergolas, we can cover the whole area without taking up floor space.”

“Then why aren't any of the lights on? What's the point of having lights if they’re not, you know, lighting anything?”

“Start from the beginning, Járnhaus,” Vinterkråka said, elbowing Matthew again. “Beneath those pergolas is the cropland we use to grow most of our vegetables. The lights hanging from the ceiling don't produce the right lighting to grow our crops, so the pergolas are used to hang sunlamps. We turn them off at night because the plants only photosynthesize during the day and the constant light dries out the soil. This uses much less water.”

“Where does the dirt come from? All I’ve seen since coming here is concrete.”

“The concrete really isn't that hard to chip away at with the right tools,” Matthew said, hefting his axe back onto his shoulder, ”and the dirt usually comes from Greenspaces or Decor. That explanation is best left to the council.”

“Speaking of…” Vinterkråka gestured forward to where the path ended. Dana didn't think they had been walking for all that long but apparently, they had made it to the center of Småland.

“There it is,” Matthew said, stopping as they drew near. “The Pharmacy of Småland.”

The Pharmacy was designed the same way as the rest of Småland, a modernist take on Norse architecture. Easily the tallest building in Småland, the Pharmacy was built like a stave church, albeit one with large windows and geometric walls made of dark wood and steel.

Mounted above the door to the Pharmacy was a shield decorated with a coat of arms that combined the ouroboros and cross banners that decorated Småland. Behind the shield were two crossed spears, one nearly identical to Vinterkråka’s black and red spear and the other a haft of unvarnished wood tipped with a large grey spearhead wrapped in gold wire.

“Does ‘pharmacy’ mean something else here?” Dana asked, looking up at a gold spire crowning the black-roofed monolith.

Matthew shook his head. “Nah bro, not unless pharmacy means something other than ‘place we keep the medicine’.”

“The Hall of Healing, Heilunhalla, in the tongue of the gods,” Vinterkråka said, sliding her spear into a loop in her backpack “Like Matthew said earlier, it’s where the elder council sits as well as where we eat, but yeah, it's most famously known as the Pharmacy.” She approached the door and after knocking twice, a guard dressed similarly to the one at the gate and armed with a large cudgel emerged from the Pharmacy.

“You know, that right there is the largest store of medicine for days, if not weeks around,” Matthew said to Dana. “Protecting that is the responsibility of our Order. People come from miles around for our aid and as the Lord commands, we help the needy and cure the sick.”

Dana grew concerned. “Did you say ‘miles’?” How big is this place exactly?”

“You do know what infinite means, right?” Matthew asked.

“I thought that was just hyperbole, like, you know, infinite breadsticks at Olive Garden or something. Like, you know, it's called infinite, but it's just really fuckeningly big or something.”

“Olive… garden?” Matthew looked confused. “Sir Tyler has an olive tree that he found out scouting and it is growing exceptionally well, but I hardly see what that has to do with breadsticks.”

“Oh shit, you don't know what Olive Garden is, do you.” Dana’s eyes widened. “Oh shit, there aren't any Olive Gardens here, are there?” There weren't, in fact, any Olive Gardens here.

Dana was content to continue to mourn her loss of Olive Garden infinite breadsticks for a significant length of time, but at that moment Vinterkråka returned from her chat with the Pharmacy guard.

“You two, get in there. Foods hot, and the elders want to hear our report.”

“Ooh, food,” Matthew said. “I'm famished, let's go.” Of course he was hungry, that armor probably wasn't light in the slightest and—if he was telling the guard the truth—he’d been walking all day, but all Dana could focus on was that she was about to get answers.

Pulling herself together, she threw the door to the Pharmacy open and walked inside.