The hut was wide and open inside. Mats woven from reeds covered the floor and there were a few chairs positioned in a circle at the center of the hut. The woman led Nis to the circle of chairs and they each took a seat.

“I’m sorry I didn’t introduce myself earlier,” the woman said. “I am Lesch, twelfth Mel of First Respite.”

“Twelfth what?” Nis couldn’t believe her ears.

“Twelfth Mel,” the woman, Lesch, replied. “Every village along the Shards of Patience has a Mel and I am the twelfth to oversee First Respite. Now then,” Lesch continued, “which village or villages are you from?”

“I told you,” Nis said, “I’m not from here. I’m from Duran.”

“Not this life,” Lesch said with an impatient wave of her hand. “Your past life or lives must have been from here for you to have drawn that map.”

“Wait, how do you know about my past lives?”

Lesch gave Nis a puzzled look.

“Everyone has past lives,” she said.

“It’s just, other than Meric, I’ve never known anyone else who dreams about their past lives.”

“Then our histories are correct,” Lesch said, more to herself than to Nis.

“What histories?” Nis asked.

“First, you need to tell me where you’re from,” Lesch stated firmly. “I’m certain there will be those that are anxious to see you return.”

“I’ve told you already,” Nis said, throwing her arms in the air, “I’m not from here. Not this life, not any of my lives.”

“Then how –

“I was Mel in my past life!” Nis exclaimed, her lack of sleep and the unexpected turn of events finally piling up to a breaking point and she began to lose her temper with Lesch and her insistence on knowing Nis’ past connection with the Unexplored Wastes.

Lesch paled slightly and it was her turn to ask Nis to repeat herself. “What did you say?”

“I know this place, drew that map, because Mel is one of my past lives.”

Lesch’s expression grew more thoughtful, even a bit reverential and Nis began to worry that she might have wanted to keep that piece of information a secret.

“How have you come back?” Lesch asked in a hushed voice. “We thought you’d been taken!”

Nis wasn’t sure at all what Lesch meant.

“I’m sorry,” Nis told her. “I really don’t know what you’re talking about. I came here because this was the only place I thought I could go. I had no idea there were people living here. I thought the Unexplored Wastes were still uninhabited.”

“We haven’t called this place the Unexplored Wastes for nearly two hundred years,” Lesch stated. “Not since Mel and Tique began the gathering to combat the rampant stealing of lives.”

Nis’ confusion must have been evident in her expression and Lesch struggled to find the words for her own shock and amazement.

“But you said that no one in Duran remembers their past lives,” Lesch finally said.

Nis was finding it difficult to follow what Lesch was saying and, now that she was in the dimly lit hut and sitting on a comfortable chair, she could feel her exhaustion welling up side of her. How long had it been since she’d last had a good night’s sleep? How many nights in the past week had she been forced to stay awake and not get any sleep at all.

Lesch was still talking but it didn’t seem as though she had noticed Nis’ waning attention. That was fine by Nis and she allowed her eyelids to slide shut and her head to slump forward until her chin came to rest on her chest. More voices began speaking but none of them seemed to be directed towards herself and so she ignored them as well.

A hand rested itself on Nis’ shoulder and she sat up, suddenly alert. For a moment she was confused about her surroundings. Hadn’t she been in a dimly lit hut talking to some woman named Lesch? But no, that was ridiculous. She was in her conference room with her advisors. When she looked to see whose hand was on her shoulder, she was surprised to see that there wasn’t a hand there at all.

“…and with the additions to our workforce,” Het, the advisor for labor was saying, “our textile production should see significant increases.”

“Military is already benefiting,” Pret, the advisor for conflict added.

“We are still having to deal with those remembering their old lands and people,” the cultural advisor, Mirl said. “The more they remember, the more resistance they tend to put up. Right now there aren’t many of them but I believe within another decade or so, we could begin seeing the first of many rebellions.”

“What are you suggesting?” Nis heard herself ask. “Do you want us to end the population experiments?”

All eyes turned towards Mirl, many of them with obvious dislike and Mirl wilted slightly beneath their gaze.

“Not at all,” Mirl replied.

“Then do you have any suggestions?” Nis’ voice did little to conceal her disdain for those who pointed out problems without offering any new ideas themselves.

“In fact, I do,” Mirl said. “You see, the problem isn’t that people are remembering where they used to come from. It’s not that uncommon for one person in one place to have a past life from somewhere else. The difficulties only arise when there’s a critical amount of people, all with similar past lives. It’s then that they tend to start banding together.”

Mirl arose and strode over to where a large slab of slate had been set into the wall. He picked up the calcite stone and began drawing circles and lines that he clearly thought established his points but which Nis found entirely pointless.

“When people have a unifying background, they’re more likely to bond over that aspect of their lives and shape their world view based off of that bond. Currently, we place significant emphasis on people’s past lives. You can’t hardly meet a new person without being asked about your previous three or four lives, and then hearing about theirs in return. Cultures shift and change all the time, so what might have been normal for our grandparents might be seen as improper today. What we need to do is direct some of that cultural change in our favor.”

“By doing what, exactly?” Nis asked. She didn’t like vague talk about things she thought ought to be more straight forward. She wouldn’t let Mirl get away with his usual, circular language where he’d say a lot of good sounding things only to end up with no real substance.

“We need to stop people from talking about their past lives,” he stated, surprising Nis and the others at the table. “We begin with a few statements on emphasizing our current lives. Then, once those have had some time to settle in, we can add in that speaking too much about your past lives is selfish and a sign that you don’t have enough to be proud of in your current life. Eventually we work all the way to where even mentioning the fact that you remember your past lives is seen as socially inappropriate.”

“And how do you suggest we go about doing that?” Pret demanded.

“As you will recall,” Mirl answered, “I have been proposing education centers for the citizenry for some time now.”

“Right,” Pret scoffed, “and as I recall it was a terrible waste of time and resources.”

“Hold your peace,” Nis stated firmly and Pret sat back in his chair, deflating slightly. “How would your education centers aid in this effort?”

“The two education centers that I have been testing out have proven incredibly successful,” Mirl explained. “People of all sorts have been coming to learn and I believe that interest will be universal wherever we build a learning center. We control what the people will be learning so it would be an easy thing to add these gentle nudges into the instruction. As I have said before, a people who are educated will accomplish whatever they set their minds to, but a people who are educated according to what we want them to know will accomplish whatever we set their minds to.”

Mirl set down the calcite stone and returned to his seat. Nis knitted her fingers together as she thought. Most of the advisors looked convinced. Even Pret, who generally did not agree with Mirl, seemed to be opposed out of habit rather than conviction as evidenced by the fact that he did not offer any arguments against Mirl’s plan.

There was another opportunity here for something that Nis had been pondering over for some time. She very much doubted her advisors would share her view on the matter, however, so she kept it to herself for now.

“I will agree to this,” Nis said, “on the condition that every education center develops an archive where you record the history and learning of past lives. While I agree that keeping these individuals from banding together, I do not want this effort to contain a few malcontents to result in a far greater loss of knowledge.”

People nodded and Mirl beamed with excitement. These education centers had been something of a pet project for many years. Nis had been planning on replacing Mirl, but with this new project starting, perhaps Mirl would finally prove useful.