Page 40 of The Brotherhood

“How often do… people visit?”

“I would imagine not many and not often.”

“Do you have to like…apply at a website?”

His deep chuckle created jitters in her stomach as she braced to feel stupid. “They have no website, no digital anything anywhere other than the one that allows me to communicate on occasion. Thanks to their apprentices, otherwise I would be flying out here just to speak to them. Which I wouldn’t.”

She regarded his severe profile, his focus sharp as he studied the pad. “Sounds like they need you more than you need them?”

“You could say that.” He presented her the tablet, turning it slightly so she could see.

The image on the screen displayed a dimly lit room, simple yet functional. A sturdy wooden bed with a thick, well-worn quilt sat in one corner, opposite a small, iron-banded chest. A basin and pitcher rested on a heavy stone counter, illuminated by the soft glow of an old-fashioned lantern. The walls were made of dark, aged wood, giving the space a rustic, almost timeless quality. As he swiped through more images, she caught glimpses of other rooms—each similarly sparse but well-kept, with a quiet, almost monastic stillness to them.

“They have running water? Plumbing?”

“Thank God, yes,” he said, lips twitching slightly at the question. “Although it’s hardly modern. But it works.”

He gestured to one of the images, where a small alcove was visible, partially concealed by a heavy curtain. “Water comes from a well-fed system, stored in overhead cisterns. Gravity keeps it flowing, but it’s slow. The sinks and baths drain through stone channels leading to a filtration bed outside.”

She leaned in, studying the layout with new appreciation. “So, no hot water on demand?”

“Not unless you count heating it over a fire,” he admitted. “But the pipes stay warm enough in the deeper chambers, so it’s not as bad as it sounds.”

She traced a finger along the screen, absorbing the ingenuity behind it all. Even with its outdated methods, the place was self-sustaining—functional in ways modern convenience had long forgotten.

An image of a beautiful lagoon brought her gasp. “Where is that?”

“On the back side of the mountain.”

“Is it…in the mountain? I can’t tell.”

“It is. And that opening to the sky above here is where the water feeds into it,” he pointed.

“It’s so…unbelievably beautiful. How deep is it?”

“The surface is beautiful. But what’s beneath it…”

She glanced at him then back at the tablet when he showed her. Instant terror struck her at the sight of the literally black hole that seemed too perfect in the stone surface. “What… is that?” she wondered quietly.

“They call it many things. The Maw of Unmaking, consuming all things, even reality itself. Or the Hollow Vein, a lifeless artery running through the world, carrying something…unseen,” he muttered in a spooky tone. “And The Unscripted Rift. Beyond time, beyond prophecy. A rip in the fabric of fate.”

That grin from earlier grew as he watched repulsion overtake her face. “And this is…under this… place?”

He nodded. “And if we’re welcomed, I may be able to give you a private tour.”

His grin bloomed into a full-blown smile and even laugh. “Your face.”

She looked at the image, shaking her head. “That is terrifying. So what is it really?”

“It’s a geological, gravitational, andpossiblyquantum anomaly. However, no explanation fully accounts for its unnatural effects.”

“My God,” she muttered, remembering. “Null Zones and debunked Hollow Earth hypothesis.”

He quirked a curious brow at her.

She cast a glance at him. “I… have a degree in spatial engineering and remember encountering those terms in texts.”

“You have a degree in spatial engineering?”

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