Table of Contents

THE TERMINUS

ONE

TWO

THREE

THE TERMINUS

David Annandale

Local myth has it that a mysterious train runs on moonless nights, taking people to untold treasures. But are the myths true, and what awaits at the terminus?

ONE

The wind sighed over iron wreckage. It whistled through rusted pipes. Metal creaked against metal, the notes scraping up and down – a desultory song in the wastelands.

The ruins were a hard yet shapeless black mass in the night. Hills of jagged shadow leaned over Vazya Reinhardt as she and her brother made their way towards the abandoned maglev station.

There was no moon. The only light came from the glow of the decaying outskirts of Carchera, one of the city’s old satellite industrial sectors. Carchera’s long decline had eroded its edges first, and the manufactories here had closed centuries ago. The land was slowly reclaiming the region. The lengthy siege by the forests had sunk roots between the fallen rockcrete walls. Vazya thought she could hear the waving of ferns and struggling shrubs, a green susurrus beneath the dying groans of metal.

Bakhin risked turning on his torch. Its beam caught the base of a rockcrete staircase, crumbling and stained, a hundred yards ahead.‘We’re almost there,’ he said.

Vazya sucked on her lower lip. ‘This might be a waste of time.’

The Enforcer stopped walking. ‘What? Did I hear you right?’

‘Just wanted to say it. You know it’s true.’

‘Are you changing your mind?’ Bakhin . ‘This was your idea.’

‘I know. And no, I’m not changing my mind.’ But if they did turn away from the shell of Ciego Station, she could live with that decision.

‘I don’t believe this,’ said Bakhin.

‘I said I hadn’t changed my mind.’

‘So, we’re going?’

‘We’re going.’ She made herself walk on.

Coming here had been her idea. She was the one who had urged Bakhin to help her prove the reality of the Valgaast Train. She was the one who had been fascinated by the stories since childhood. She was the one who had lived and breathed the legend all her adult life, the effort to track down its existence her obsession that kept her sane through the monotony of her days as Third Junior Cataloguer, agri-sub-directory secundus, in the city’s Adeptus Administratum halls.

The Valgaast Train. The myths that ran through Carchera were bundles of contradictions, and what was consistent was also vague. The train ran only on moonless nights, stopping only at disused stations. So, no one had ever actually seen it. The train ran through dreams. It travelled in the shared tales of children and bored adults searching for something about Carchera that was extraordinary. The worn city edges had hundreds of miles of abandoned tracks and dozens of abandoned stations. Of course a phantom coursed through the metal graveyard.

Where did it go? Where did it take its passengers?

To Valgaast.

Where was that?

No one knew. The name did not show up on any of the maps of Ossorian. If there had been such a place on the planet, it was now gone.

Bakhin kept his torch on, aimed low, until they reached the stairs. Through unspoken agreement, he and Vazya kept their presence in the ruins hidden. They were breaking no edict by being here. It was intuition that prompted their actions, the sense that their quarry would not appear if they were visible.

The steps rose above heaped debris, climbing into the dim light of the city. Vazya could see well enough to place her feet, but there was no longer any handrail, so she and Bakhin kept to the centre. Rockcrete crunched quietly beneath their feet. Fragments crumbled away and skittered down into the dark.

‘Does this feel steady to you?’ Vazya asked.

‘No. Do you know another way up?’

‘No,’ she admitted.

Cracks covered the platform like old veins. The song of the wind had a deeper tone here, as if the elevated track was a massive tuning fork, its vibrations going on and on, a somnambulist hum in the night. There were no shelters. The station was a bare surface, a utilitarian construct that had lost all meaning.

Vazya and Bakhin advanced to the edge of the platform. They looked up and down the track. Vazya saw only night. The track curved off into the darkness in both directions. It ran from nowhere to nowhere. The abyss concealed anything Vazya could imagine. Dreams or nightmares could emerge from this black. She half-hoped nothing at all would come.

Half-hoped. More than thirty years of wondering would not be satisfied with absence.

An hour passed. Then another. The wind sang.

Tedium took the edge off anxiety.

‘When will it come?’ Bakhin’s mournful tone told Vazya that his words were more an expression of despair than a question. She answered anyway. ‘No one knows. It might have come earlier. It might not come at all. It might not be real.’ Though it is. I know it is. ‘Did you want to give up?’

‘No. We stay until dawn.’

His debts must have been worse than she thought. His need for the train sounded greater than hers. Even a few hours ago, she would not have thought that was possible. ‘Are things really that bad?’ she asked.

‘Yes,’ Bakhin said after a long silence.

‘You can’t know that the train leads to wealth, even if it turns out to be real. That’s just a story.’

‘The train itself is a story.’

‘I’m sure it’s more than that.’       

‘Then so is the treasure. It has to be.’

‘Throne, what have you done?’

‘Nothing new. Just more of it. Too much. The debts are due now. My creditors are insistent. I think they’re about to make an example of me.’

‘But you’re an Enforcer.’

‘That’s the point.’

‘How would they dare?’

‘That’s what I thought. That was my mistake. They dare,’ Bakhin said, tired, and sounding disgusted with himself. ‘They have political power that I don’t. I need this, Vazya. I need this to be real.’

The wind picked up. It had been an east wind, blowing from their right. Now it came from the left, a strong blast and growing stronger, the air rushing ahead of something massive, as if the night were a tunnel. Then, darkness within darkness took on direction and form. It became a shape, rushing towards the station. Vazya and Bakhin jerked back from the edge of the platform.

The train was huge, bigger than should have been possible on the narrow maglev track. Blasts of steam erupted from the locomotive as it braked suddenly at the platform, yet except for the creaking and rattling of the cars as they leaned back and forth with the train’s motion, it was almost completely silent. There was no headlamp. The train was a mass of iron night that crawled towards them like a predator. In the faint light, Vazya made out ornate metalwork on the locomotive. It bulged and twisted, shaped like the movement of the steam. She had never seen an engine like this. It seemed ancient – an entity emerged from a tomb of a forgotten age.

Though there was no illumination from within the locomotive, a dull red shone inside all but the first of nine passenger cars. The train came to a stop with the middle car in front of Vazya and Bakhin. The doors hissed open directly before them. The rest remained shut.

‘An invitation,’ Vazya whispered.

She stared at the train, heart hammering, the reality of the legend too huge, too heavy. She had imagined many things over the years, some sinister, some hopeful, all of them pale, shrunken and vague before the thing itself. She could not move. She could barely think. Awe held her fast.

Bakhin cleared his throat.

‘An invitation,’ he echoed with a hoarse croak. ‘Then we should accept,’ he said, his voice stronger. He stepped over the threshold into the passenger car.

‘Bakhin,’ Vazya said. ‘Wait.’

He turned around, faced her, but stayed in the train. ‘No.’

‘The doors opened for us. For us. The train knew we were here. What if this is a trap?’

‘Then I’m no worse off than I was before. Are you coming with me or not?’

She hesitated. Low ticks and creaks came from the train as it idled. It was waiting for her.

She should go home. She had her proof. She didn’t need to know more.

If I walk away, will I always wonder?

She boarded the train. There was never any real choice.

The doors closed behind her. With a lurch, the train started moving.

‘To Valgaast, then,’ said Vazya.

‘To Valgaast,’ said Bakhin.

TWO

The passenger car was a shell. There were no seats, no décor of any kind. There was only the black iron of the hull, and dull, flickering lumen strips. Their red light did little more than create shadows.

There were scratches on the walls, some of them deep, like clawed flesh. Vazya ran her fingers over them, tracing the way they ran into each other.

She snatched her hand away before she felt a pattern.

‘What’s that smell?’ Bakhin asked.

Vazya wrinkled her nose. The tang in the air made her think of insects, and age.

The train picked up speed, the car rocking slightly from side to side. Vazya looked out the window. The track was curving away from Carchera, and the lights of the city were fading.

They were travelling deeper into night, deeper into the void. The train hit a sharp bend, and the car jerked. Vazya almost fell, and Bakhin reached suddenly for his shock maul. He was not in uniform but had slipped his weapon through his belt. He pulled it out now and looked towards the next car back.

‘What is it?’ Vazya asked.

‘I thought I heard voices.’

They peered through the narrow windows of connecting doors between the cars. There was no one there. Bakhin slid the doors open, moved into the other car, and prowled forwards, shock maul at the ready. Vazya followed, keeping a few steps back in case he started to swing.

They were halfway down when the far doors opened. Two women and a man entered. When they saw Bakhin, they stopped dead and raised their hands.

‘We aren’t here to fight,’ one of the women said.

‘There will be plenty for all of us,’ said the man.

‘We won’t make trouble,’ said the other woman.

Vazya came up beside Bakhin. She touched his shoulder, and he lowered the maul.

‘Who are you?’ she asked.

‘Darra,’ said one woman. She was older than her two companions. Squat, clean-shaven, she had the hard appearance of a manufactory serf, one who had worked the forges long enough to be tempered by them into a hardened alloy of flesh

‘This is Krent.’

The man looked like another refugee from the forges, one who hadn’t been there as long. He had been badly burned recently. The left side of his face and his arm were shiny with scar tissue.

‘And Nevi.’

The other woman, who looked about the same age as Krent, was more slightly built than her two friends and wore a soiled valet’s uniform. A servant from one of the noble families of Carchera, Vazya guessed. One who had been dismissed and was scrambling to survive.

Vazya introduced herself and Bakhin, keeping to first names only, like Darra. Bakhin tensed for a moment, but worrying about being identified was a concern that belonged back on the platform. They had entered the world of a legend. Everything, Vazya thought, was different now. For better or worse.

‘How many are you?’ Bakhin asked.

‘Just the three of us,’ said Krent. ‘We had a fourth,

But she stayed behind…’ He paused when Nevi shuddered and shook her head sharply.

‘What is it?’ said Vazya.

‘She’s dead.’ ‘We aren’t sure,’ said Darra.

‘She is,’ Nevi insisted. ‘I know what I saw.’

‘It was dark,’ said Krent. ‘Too dark to tell.’

‘No. No it wasn’t. Not that dark. She tripped. Somehow, she tripped, and she fell under the train.’

Vazya’s mouth dried. If I had stayed behind, would I have tripped too?

‘Then she tripped,’ said Darra. ‘She should have been more careful. She should have come with us.’

‘To Valgaast,’ Vazya said.

‘That’s right,’ said Krent.

‘And its riches.’ Darra nodded.

‘You all believe that?’ Vazya asked.

‘We do,’ Darra said emphatically.

‘Yes,’ Nevi said, sounding like someone who was rapidly losing her faith. ‘I have to.’

‘She’s alone,’ Darra explained to Vazya. ‘Four children, all ailing, dead husband. She needs this.’

‘And you?’ Vazya asked.

‘I’m tired of being hungry,’ Darra said, fury barely suppressed.

‘What about you?’ Vazya said to Krent.

‘I just… I just want my life to be something better than survival.’ His hope sounded worn out from years of pointless use. ‘Isn’t that why you’re here?’

‘I just want to know the truth,’ said Vazya. She wondered if she should have used the past tense.

‘Have you seen anyone else aboard?’ Bakhin asked the others.

‘The last two cars are full,’ said Krent. ‘There must be twenty or thirty people. They came on in small groups, like us. The train has been circling Carchera.’ He glanced at the window, and the blackness outside. ‘This is the longest we’ve gone without a stop,’ he added.

‘So, we’re going to Valgaast,’ said Bakhin. ‘We’re all agreed, though that tells us nothing. Does anyone know what way we’re heading?’

‘No,’ said Darra. ‘No one does. Too dark to see, and we can’t open any of the windows. We volunteered to go forward to the locomotive. Maybe there’s someone there… who can tell us.’

Vazya noticed Darra’s pause. Maybe there’s someone there… Maybe there’s no one. There was a doubt that Darra feared to express, even to herself.

‘Good,’ Bakhin said. ‘Let’s go.’

He turned and led the way towards the front of the train. The others fell in behind, deferring to his leadership without question. If he wanted the responsibility, he was welcome to it.

The light in the car forward of the one that Vazya and Bakhin had entered was even dimmer. There was only one lumen strip functioning, and it kept flickering off altogether. Vazya peered through the doors at the same time as Bakhin, and she jerked back.

‘What?’ Bakhin asked.

‘Didn’t you see? There was someone there.’

He looked again. ‘No one there now. What did you see?’

‘At the far end. Someone in robes, I think. Their skin was so pale.’

‘Are you sure?’

‘Yes.’

‘So, they came on board before you,’ said Krent. ‘At one of the earlier stops.’

‘Are any of the others robed?’ Vazya asked him, skeptical.

‘No,’ he admitted, looking uneasy too.

‘Whoever it was, they’re gone now,’ Bakhin said. ‘We’re not accomplishing anything by staying here.’

‘I don’t think we should go on,’ Nevi said.

‘And what would you do instead?’ Darra asked her.

‘I just want to leave.’

Darra snorted. She pointed to the door, and the rushing darkness beyond. ‘Go right ahead. Let me know how that goes.’

‘The rest of you do what you want,’ Bakhin said. ‘I’m going on.’ He shoved the doors aside and entered the next car. Vazya followed close behind. She had committed herself to seeing the truth through to the end when she came on board. There would be no hiding from it, so it was better to be active and seek it out. That was what she told herself. It was a way of keeping the paralysis of growing fear at bay.

They walked slowly down the length of the car. The insectile sourness of the air grew stronger. The lumen strip’s stuttering rhythm of light and darkness made it hard to walk. Vazya’s balance was precarious. When night bloomed before her eyes, it tried to make her pitch forward into it. Halfway to the next doors, she looked back, and caught a glimpse of Nevi, bringing up the rear. She felt a wave of sympathy. She wanted to tell the other woman that she understood, that she wished all of them were off the train.

There were a lot more scratches on the walls here. The marks were converging towards the front of the train. Vazya could see the patterns now. They looked like how the air smelled.

Bakhin reached the end of the car and stopped. He was still looking into the next carriage, the last before the locomotive, and had done nothing to reach for the door handles when Vazya caught up to him. ‘You were right,’ he said softly. He stepped aside so she could see more easily.

Her breath caught. There was no light at all inside the next car, but the flickering lumen strip in theirs cast a penumbral illumination a few yards ahead. The carriage was full of people. They were standing in rows, motionless, silent, all of them robed, their skulls hairless, their flesh maggot white. They were all facing forward, towards the locomotive.

Vazya’s flesh crawled. She was staring at statues. She was staring at corpses. She was staring at neither and worse.

She backed away with Bakhin.

‘What did you see?’ Darra asked, much too loud.

‘Shhhhh,’ Vazya hissed.

Darra pushed past to have a look for herself. Then she, too, moved away from the door, her eyes wide, her steps careful and quiet.

They all retreated two cars back.

‘Who… What do you think they are?’ Krent asked.

‘I don’t want to know,’ said Nevi.

‘I think she’s right,’ Vazya said. Her curiosity was more than sated. She cursed it for ever having existed.

‘Agreed,’ Bakhin said. He was sweating, and his anxiety did nothing for Vazya’s state of mind. ‘All right, then. We don’t want to have anything to do with them, whatever they are. I’m not staying put and waiting for them to take notice.’

‘What choices do we have?’ Darra asked.

‘I think we should head back and join all the others you were with,’ said Vazya. ‘Strength in numbers.’

Bakhin tapped his shock maul. ‘Did anyone else bring a weapon?’

‘No,’ said Darra. ‘Not that I saw.’

‘And we don’t know if those robed corpses are armed. I’m going to assume they are.’

‘They might not be dangerous,’ Nevi said, pleading for someone to agree with her and soothe her fears. No one did.

Bakhin moved to the right-hand window. He gave it an experimental rap.

‘Armourglass,’ he muttered.

‘What are you thinking?’ Vazya asked, unwilling to believe he was going to try something this mad.

‘I’m leaving this train.’

‘How?’

‘Not through the window, at any rate. We can’t smash that.’ Bakhin went to the exit in the middle of the car, Darra following at his heels.

‘You can’t get out at all,’ Vazya said.

‘We won’t if we don’t try.’

Her brother had the fixed look in his eyes that came when he was set on a goal, no matter how ill-advised, and would not listen to reason. He examined the doors. There were handles for opening them manually if they failed to function during a stop. He grabbed the right-hand one and nodded to Darra, who took the other. They pulled, leaning hard to pit all of their strength against the doors.

‘This is madness,’ Vazya said.

They didn’t listen. Nevi and Krent drew closer to them, as if effort were the same as a plan. Vazya didn’t think the doors would open, but then, as Bakhin and Darra strained, they parted a fraction of an inch. Wind came into the car with a highpitched scream.

‘Pull!’ Bakhin urged.

Bit by bit, the doors opened. Nevi and Krent backed away as the wind roared in with greater strength. Vazya held herself against the hull on the opposite side. The wind buffeted her. It tried to scoop her up in its grip. She pictured herself hurled out into the night, and she stood fast.

Bakhin and Darra straightened. The doors were open all the way. A gale battered the interior of the car. Bakhin kept a firm grip on the handle and leaned his head past the threshold, looking down.

‘You can’t jump,’ Vazya called. ‘We’re at least fifty feet up.’ And if the tracks were passing over a gorge…

‘If there’s water, I’ll take my chances.’ He kept staring down. He made no move to leap.

‘And?’ Vazya asked. ‘Is there water? Can you even tell?’

Bakhin and Darra exchanged a look. Bakhin grimaced. ‘No,’ he said. ‘I can’t see anything at all.’

They pushed the doors closed again, shutting out the gale. Vazya let her body relax enough to breathe. Bakhin wasn’t going to jump, and she wasn’t going to be swept out of the carriage by the wind.

‘What are we going to do?’ Nevi pleaded.      

‘There’s nothing we can do,’ Vazya said. ‘We’re here to the end of the line.’ There was no question that the only stop would be the last one. They city was far behind, and with it, she knew in her heart, the hope of any stations.

Bakhin punched the door in frustration.

‘Is she right?’ Nevi asked him, and he nodded.

‘We should go to the rear,’ said Vazya. ‘Join the others.’

‘Strength in numbers is all we have,’ Krent added.

‘Better than nothing,’ Bakhin said, and he started down the car, leading the way as if this had been his idea.

When they reached the crowd in the rear carriage, they were greeted by expressions that went from hopeful and back to frightened in moments. Nevi described the robed figures, and fear spread through the carriage like a heavy mist. No one suggested that all would be well, that the treasure of Valgaast was what waited at the terminus. No one believed that story any longer, least of all Bakhin.

‘When we stop,’ he said, ‘when the doors open, we leave as a group, in force. There are enough of us to be hard to control. Don’t be docile.’

‘What if we’re met by weapons?’ someone asked.

‘We’ll deal with that if and when it happens.’

He sounded confident, Vazya thought. Her brother had always been good at projecting assurance and the impression of forward momentum. She saw the illusion clearly enough. His strategy wasn’t the best option available to them. It was the only one. She could have easily suggested the same course of action.

‘The treasure might still be real,’ said Krent.

Bakhin nodded. Even Nevi did.

We all have to know, Vazya thought. All of us.

THREE

Hours later, with dawn still distant, the train slowed down, then came to a stop. The doors rattled open. Cold air blew into the car. There was a collective hesitation. Vazya started moving first. She wanted to get off the train. By starting forwards, she jerked Bakhin into action, and he hurried to step out onto the platform just ahead of her. The others followed quickly.

Outside the train, irregularly staggered torches burned on iron columns, illuminating the surroundings with a wavering, shifting glow. Shadows jerked back and forth over a confusion of metal constructs. The platform was in what had once been a large maglev station. A dozen other disused tracks converged here, feeding into the ruins of a conglomeration of manufactories. A fragment of rockcrete wall stood next to one of the torches, and on it was a sign that read

“BOGARDUS COMPLEX.”

‘Not Valgaast,’ Vazya said, looking at the sign. The name faded away into the fog of myth. The Bogardus Complex was a name with a different resonance, one of loss, of the long crumbling of a civilisation. It had been centuries since the manufactories here had shut down. The Bogardus Complex lived on only in Carchera’s fading sense of history. It was a thing that had been, and was no longer, and its memory was flakes of rust.

At the other end of the train, the robed beings had also disembarked. Still they did not face back.

‘They’re ignoring us,’ said Bakhin.

‘Good,’ said Krent. ‘Then we can leave.’

‘And go where?’ Vazya asked. They were hundreds of miles from Carchera. ‘Are you planning to walk back on the track? Can you see in the dark?’

‘They’re leaving,’ Nevi said.

The figures were retreating, heading deeper into the ruins, following the line of torches.

‘We should follow,’ said Bakhin.‘

‘Are you mad?’ Nevi exclaimed.

‘They haven’t attacked us. We haven’t been captured. There may be something worth finding here after all.’

‘Then we have to see,’ said Darra.

‘Do we?’ Nevi asked.

‘Could you go back, knowing you hadn’t tried everything for your children?’

‘No,’ said Nevi.

‘And if we can’t go back?’ Vazya asked, but she started walking with Bakhin anyway. There was nothing else to do.

Everyone else followed. Vazya even heard some hopeful whispers, people trying to convince themselves that Bakhin was right. They tried to cling to the dream that had brought them to this spot. She tried to feel resigned instead. She was going to find out the truth of the myth whether she wanted to or not.

Beyond the platform, the rubble of the station and the manufactories had been rebuilt, and repurposed. The passengers of the Valgaast Train descended a slope of battered iron and rockcrete, and it led into a vast tunnel. Chimneys and shattered façades leaned against one another to create an angular roof. Torn, twisted metal reached out of the walls like arms. The torches carried on ahead, and the floor kept sloping deeper into the gloom.

From somewhere deep in the structure came the sound of low chanting.

‘Do you hear that?’ Vazya asked Bakhin.

Yes. I can’t make out what they’re saying.’

‘It doesn’t sound like any prayer to the Emperor I know.’

‘And? Does that change our options?’

‘No.’ She glanced at the shock maul in Bakhin’s hand and wished for a weapon.

The floor levelled off. Vazya saw now that some of the fissures in the walls of wreckage looked like passages. She guessed this tunnel was a major artery cutting through a web inside the wreckage. She didn’t like where her imagination went, because there was still nothing she could do about it.

The chanting grew louder, and at last the train passengers crossed a huge, angular threshold. They entered a circular chamber at least a hundred feet across. The ceiling must have been fifty feet up. It was shrouded in darkness, barely touched by the torchlight. Sharp angles glinted, And the shadows of a weave of iron made Vazya think again of a web. This was its heart. The centre of the roof was utterly dark. There was nothing there to pick up the light of the torches.

Is that a shaft?

There were hundreds of robed people here, all chanting, all looking upward. They all had the same decayed pallor, but the shapes of some of the skulls disturbed Vazya. She was too far away to see them clearly in the dimness, but there was something inhuman about their silhouettes.

As the passengers arrived, the chanting ceased. Still looking up, the worshippers nearest the entrance drew apart, creating a path that led to the centre of the chamber.

‘No,’ Vazya said.

‘Exactly,’ Bakhin agreed.

They turned around, even though Vazya knew the gesture was an empty one. There was nowhere to go. She knew she was going to die.

The rest of their company turned too, but there, back up the sloping path, were many more of the robed beings. They began walking slowly towards the passengers. There was movement next to the walls, the swift and angular movement of things coming down through the shadows, things that snarled, things whose claws clicked and scratched against the rockcrete and iron.

And from above, from inside the ceiling shaft, came a hissing, echoing roar.

Bakhin raised his shock maul and looked up, ready to fight – until the thing dropped to the floor with rockcrete-shattering impact, and he dropped the maul, his body going slack with terror.

The worshippers chanted again, and the passengers screamed. The creature, both reptilian and insectoid, towered over them on its massive hind legs. Two of its four legs were bony scythes. The other two resembled arms, and at first Vazya thought that was the most horrible thing, the way the utterly inhuman mimicked the human and made it monstrous, with one limb seeming to become a hand wielding a serrated blade, and the other holding a whip of flexible cartilage.

The limbs were not the worst thing, though. She saw the worst thing when she stared, mesmerised by monstrous awe, at the elongated, horned skull, emerging from a shell of chitinous armour. The worst thing was the expression forged by the narrow eyes and the jaws that gaped wide enough to swallow a man. The horror looked down at Vazya. Its gaze was mindless predation, but it was also all-knowing. Something as old as night looked out at her through those eyes. It knew her as she knew an insect.

Her old faith disintegrated before the truth behind myths.

Bakhin’s scream was short and sharp as a scythe pierced his chest and lifted him to the jaws. There were many other screams as the being waded into the passengers and began to feed.

Vazya did not scream. She fell on her knees, her vision filled by the sight of the divine in all its monstrosity. She was still on her knees when one of the clawed beings, an emissary of the god, seized her.

Much later, when she found herself disembarking the train in Carchera once more, she rejoiced in her new faith, and in the knowledge that her own being had been altered, and that she was part of the true divine. Made new, made a prophet, she walked into the city, ready to tell a story of mythical trains and wealth to whoever would listen. There was a legend to spread. There were curious minds to lure.

There was a world to harvest.