Tales from the Universe
Moral Dilemma: When two groups sincerely believe the other is dangerous, and both can point to real harm as proof, how do you decide whom to trust without letting inherited fear make the decision for you?
Everyone in Vale knew not to cross the hill.
Children learned it before they learned multiplication.
River.
Mill.
Hill.
Don’t cross it.
Simple geography.
Beyond the hill lived the people of Rook.
Vale called them Rooks.
Rook called themselves people.
This distinction had apparently escaped Vale for several generations.
Nerin first crossed accidentally.
He was fourteen.
His dog was stupid.
These facts combined.
“Pox!”
The dog vanished through the trees.
Nerin followed.
By the time he remembered the hill, he was already standing on top of it.
He stopped.
Below:
Fields.
Houses.
Smoke from chimneys.
A road.
Rook.
Nerin expected something more sinister.
Possibly skulls.
There were laundry lines.
This was disappointing.
“Pox!”
Bark.
Downhill.
Of course.
Nerin descended.
He found the dog eating from a bowl outside a farmhouse.
A girl stood beside him.
She held a shovel like a weapon.
Nerin froze.
She froze.
Pox continued eating.
Traitor.
“You’re Vale,” she said.
Nerin looked at his clothes.
“How can you tell?”
“You look terrified.”
“You’re holding a shovel.”
“You crossed the hill.”
“My dog crossed the hill.”
The girl looked at Pox.
“He seems happy here.”
“He has low standards.”
Her name was Mara.
Fifteen.
She had been told never to cross the hill either.
“Because Vale people steal children.”
Nerin stared.
“We say you steal children.”
Mara frowned.
“That seems inefficient.”
“What?”
“Both sides stealing children.”
Nerin considered.
“Maybe we’re exchanging them.”
Mara laughed.
The shovel lowered.
Nerin took Pox home.
He told nobody.
Naturally he returned.
He and Mara met near the hill.
At first to compare stories.
Vale said Rook poisoned wells.
Rook said Vale burned crops.
Vale said Rook ambushed travelers.
Rook said Vale raided farms.
Both had monuments to people killed by the other.
Both had names.
Dates.
Graves.
This was not a misunderstanding invented from nothing.
People had died.
“What started it?” Nerin asked his grandfather.
“The Rooks.”
“How?”
“They attacked the old bridge.”
“Why?”
“Because they’re Rooks.”
“That isn’t a reason.”
His grandfather stared.
“You’ve been asking strange questions.”
Nerin stopped.
Mara asked her grandmother.
“Vale stole the river.”
“How do you steal a river?”
“Dam.”
“Oh.”
“Before that, water reached our southern farms.”
“Did Rook attack the bridge?”
“Of course.”
“Why?”
“To stop the dam.”
Mara thought.
That sounded important.
Nerin checked Vale’s records.
The dam had been built first.
But Rook had attacked surveyors before construction.
Rook records said the surveyors were trespassing.
Vale records said the land had been purchased.
Rook records said the person who sold it did not own it.
Vale records contained a deed.
Rook records contained another deed.
History became increasingly rude.
Then sheep began disappearing from Vale.
Tracks led toward the hill.
People knew immediately.
“Rooks.”
Nerin said:
“Could be wolves.”
His father laughed.
“Wolves don’t cut fences.”
Good point.
Vale organized patrols.
Rook did too.
Because their goats were disappearing.
Each side concluded the other was preparing raids.
This was efficient.
Nerin told Mara.
“We aren’t taking goats.”
“We aren’t taking sheep.”
“Someone is.”
“Yes.”
They stared at each other.
Then both said:
“Probably.”
That word carried more weight than expected.
A Vale patrol caught a Rook boy near the hill.
He had a knife.
Everyone carried knives.
This did not matter.
He was arrested.
Rook demanded his return.
Vale demanded the livestock thieves.
Rook said there were no thieves.
Vale said exactly what thieves would say.
Rook mobilized twenty men.
Vale mobilized thirty.
The hill filled with people who had inherited excellent reasons to be frightened.
Nerin found Mara at dusk.
“We need proof.”
“Of what?”
“That neither side is doing it.”
“What if one side is?”
Nerin stopped.
Mara continued.
“What if your people are taking our goats?”
“What if yours are taking our sheep?”
They looked at each other.
Their friendship had survived stories.
History.
Rumors.
It had never survived evidence because they hadn’t found any yet.
“Would you tell me?” Mara asked.
“If Vale was doing it?”
“Yes.”
Nerin wanted to say yes immediately.
Instead he thought about his father.
Grandfather.
Neighbors.
People who had known him since birth.
Then:
“Yes.”
Mara nodded.
“Me too.”
Neither knew if they were telling the truth.
They followed the tracks.
At night.
Terrible idea.
The tracks led east.
Not toward Rook.
Not toward Vale.
Along the hill.
Then into an abandoned quarry.
Inside:
Sheep.
Goats.
Six men.
Three from Vale.
Three from Rook.
Nerin stared.
Mara whispered:
“Well.”
The thieves were working together.
Selling livestock south.
Using the feud as camouflage.
Any missing animal would automatically be blamed on the other village.
Perfect crime.
Powered entirely by inherited certainty.
Nerin recognized one man.
His uncle.
Mara recognized another.
Her cousin.
The discovery did not feel triumphant anymore.
They returned home.
Now came the difficult part.
Tell whom?
Vale?
If Nerin accused his uncle alongside Rooks, would anyone believe him?
Rook?
Same problem.
Both councils?
Perhaps.
But the thieves might flee.
Nerin suggested gathering evidence.
Mara agreed.
They returned with a small camera borrowed from a traveling surveyor.
This technology was new.
Expensive.
Wonderful.
They photographed the quarry.
Men.
Animals.
Brands.
Faces.
Proof.
Then Nerin’s uncle caught them.
He grabbed Nerin.
Mara raised her knife.
His uncle laughed.
“You’re with a Rook?”
Nerin struggled.
“Let go.”
“Do you know what they did to your great-grandfather?”
Mara shouted:
“Do you know what Vale did to mine?”
The uncle looked at her.
“Yes.”
That stopped everyone.
“You know?”
“Of course.”
“Then why—”
“Because everyone knows.”
He released Nerin.
The other thieves gathered.
Rook and Vale.
Standing together.
Nerin stared.
“You don’t hate each other.”
One man shrugged.
“Some do.”
“Then why steal from your own people?”
Another answered:
“Because they’ll blame each other.”
Mara looked sick.
“You could start a war.”
The man laughed.
“They’ve been almost starting one for eighty years.”
“So that makes it acceptable?”
“No.”
He shrugged.
“Makes it useful.”
Nerin understood something then.
Hatred did not need everyone to believe it.
Sometimes it only needed enough people to expect everyone else did.
They escaped.
Barely.
The photographs went to both councils.
The thieves were arrested.
Nerin’s uncle included.
His father did not speak to him for three months.
“You betrayed family.”
“He was stealing.”
“You exposed him to Rook.”
“He was stealing from Vale with Rook.”
“That isn’t the point.”
Nerin stared.
It seemed exactly the point.
The livestock crisis ended.
The feud did not.
Of course not.
Eighty years did not evaporate because six idiots stole goats.
But something changed.
Vale and Rook created a joint investigation council.
Mostly because neither trusted the other enough to investigate alone.
Distrust accidentally produced cooperation.
Humans are strange.
Nerin and Mara eventually married.
This caused approximately the amount of trouble expected.
Both families objected.
Then attended anyway.
Nerin’s grandfather sat on one side.
Mara’s grandmother on the other.
Neither spoke.
During dinner, Pox stole meat from both plates.
Diplomatic breakthrough.
Years later, Nerin served on the joint council.
A fight broke out near the river.
Vale boy injured.
Rook boy accused.
Witnesses disagreed.
Old stories returned immediately.
“They’ve always been violent.”
“They’ve always lied.”
Nerin stopped the meeting.
“No.”
Everyone looked.
“We investigate this fight.”
Someone said:
“You can’t ignore history.”
“I didn’t say ignore it.”
“Then what?”
Nerin looked around.
“History tells us what questions to ask.”
He tapped the evidence on the table.
“It does not get to answer them.”
The investigation found the Rook boy had started the fight.
He was punished.
Some Vale residents celebrated.
“See?”
Nerin hated that.
Because guilt had become evidence for an entire people.
Months later, a Vale man attacked a Rook merchant.
Same process.
Vale man guilty.
Rook residents said:
“See?”
Nerin hated that too.
One evening he and Mara climbed the hill.
Older now.
Below them:
Vale.
Rook.
Lights in both.
From this height, impossible to tell where one ended and the other began.
Mara pointed.
“Remember when you thought we stole children?”
“You thought we stole children.”
“You did steal one.”
“What?”
“Me.”
Nerin groaned.
“That is terrible.”
“I’ve waited thirty years.”
They sat.
Mara asked:
“Do you trust Vale?”
Nerin thought.
“Some people.”
“Rook?”
“Some people.”
“Me?”
“Usually.”
She hit him.
Nerin looked toward the old quarry.
Abandoned again.
“Funny.”
“What?”
“I thought growing up would tell me which side was good.”
Mara nodded.
“Disappointing.”
“Very.”
The wind moved across the hill.
Once, children had been told never to cross it.
Now a road crossed directly through.
People still argued.
Still remembered.
Still distrusted.
Sometimes for good reasons.
Sometimes terrible ones.
The road remained.
Nerin had learned that trust did not require pretending nobody had ever harmed you.
Nor did caution require inheriting every enemy your ancestors had made.
You could remember the graves.
Read the records.
Lock the door when evidence told you to.
Open it when evidence changed.
And when everyone around you said,
You know what those people are like,
you could ask the question that had once carried a fourteen-year-old boy over a forbidden hill:
Which people?