Sand and Scrap

by Chris R. Sendrowski

  Michael lifted it closer to his mask; three triangular symbols glowed directly above the meridium twist.

  “The mark of my great uncle Lithop, rod maker and repeat bow creator.” He lifted his rod and stared at it longingly. “How far these have come.”

  Thousands of tiny ash particles drifted in from the west. Michael double-checked the seals on his mask, shivering despite the oppressive heat.

  “I wouldn’t worry about it,” Waypman said. He sat a few footfalls beside Michael, his mask resting at his side. “Expended storm. You can tell by the ash. Won’t do us no harm now.”

  But when they went back to work half a call later, the dust quickly clogged their masks and caked their suits in gray muck. Even the sands turned against them as the area transformed into a thick, gluey mire.

  Michael leaned against his rod, sweat stinging his eyes. He had cleared two huge swaths of dead forest, but leagues of black soil still stretched in every direction.

  “This is devil’s work,” he mumbled.

  A hundred footfalls to his right, the mystic waded cautiously through a patch of dead fireweed. Every so often, he stooped to examine some ancient relic half buried in the sand.

  The gob approached, rod slung over his shoulder. “He won’t last out here,” he mumbled, shaking his head. “I’d bet my life on it.”

  Michael glanced at the mystic. The boy was sifting through a mound of black ash, his eyes wide with wonderment. When he found what he was looking for, he knelt down and began clawing it from the sands. The gob’s probably right, Michael thought. He’s a fool. And it’ll get us all killed.

  Slowly, the sun dipped toward the horizon. Dozens of draba birds took roost amongst the forest’s dead branches, their ghostly silhouettes staring down at them like statues.

  “Getting dark,” Michael said as he eyed one particularly large bird.

  Waypman tore off his mask and stretched. “Dark and dangerous.”

  Michael slammed his rod into a patch of oily slop and took a swig from his water bladder. It tasted bitter and warm. Infected.

  “Enjoy it now, boy,” Drexil purred beside him.

  Michael lowered the bladder and wiped his chin. “Are you always this cheerful?”

  The gob laughed. “You still don’t get it, do you?”

  “Enlighten me.”

  The gob pulled off his mask and lit an adreena stick. “We’re on a bullshit run, kiddo. They’re betting you won’t live to see your so-called ‘percentage.’”

  “You’re full of it.”

  The mutant took another pull on his adreena stick, green smoke curling past his eyes. “Did you ever stop to wonder why they don’t just give them Chargers their dose and let ’em loose on this mess? Culver would be clean in less than a turn if they did.”

  “You forgetting your history, gob?” Waypman asked.

  “Far from it. In fact, I probably understand it better than any fool on this run. Remember . . . my people dealt directly with the Black Order for more than twenty turns. You learn a lot about someone’s motives in such time.”

  “So tell me then,” said Michael. “What fool’s errand are we running here?”

  Drexil laughed. “We’re a cover, boy. An illusion to draw attention away from our true purpose.”

  “And that is . . . ?”

  “They’re looking for an atuan . . . Menutee’s atuan.”

  Michael laughed. “The Black Chamber? Come on!”

  “So tell me, why else would the Circle invest so much time and coinage into the Waste? For the land?” Drexil chuckled. “For the people?”

  Michael shook his head. “We all have to live somewhere. Even the Overwatch would agree.”

  “Want to bet on it?”

  Michael took another sip of water. “Well tell me . . . how did you come upon such information?”

  Drexil grinned. “I may be in exile, but I still have friends who cross the Acid now and again. They tell me things — tall tales to some lesser ears but priceless information to others.”

  Michael gazed across the forest. If Menutee’s atuan was indeed hidden beneath this mess, he doubted it would ever be found. Would be a shame if this were all a front, though, he thought. By his best estimation, he had already cleansed more than 3,000 footfalls since that morning. A tidy sum by Culver standards. The prospect of it being for nothing was almost too much to bear.

  The Charger appeared beside Michael. “A swath,” the crooked wraith mumbled, examining Michael’s work. “I’ve seen scrawnier dregs clear 10,000 footfalls in under two calls. You’ve had eight.”

  Michael stared at the sand as his heart rate climbed.

  “You would do well to meet your quota, gentlemen. More than coinage will be docked for short-changed sectors.” And with that, the Charger wrapped his cloak tight about his body and stalked back toward the wagon.

  Exhausted, Michael rolled his head about his shoulders. His arms felt like jelly, and his lungs burned from the filtered Tritan air. Get back to it, he told himself. Forget the gob’s lies. Forget the wraith, too.

  “Keep alert,” Nicodemus shouted as he climbed aboard the wagon. “The sun dips in half a call. No man will be searched out if he strays beyond the zone.”

  Michael lifted his rod and slammed it back into the sand. Thrust, wait, pull . . . thrust, wait, pull . . .

  The gob laughed. “Just remember what I said, boy. Mark my words, you’ll see.”

  Michael ignored him as he ground the rod deep into the sand.

  Thrust, wait, pull, thrust, wait, pull . . . For now, that was all there was to it. For now.

  By nightfall, they had met the day’s quota. Thirty thousand footfalls, if all told, Harold thought as he made a quick note in his log. Not bad. Not bad at all.

  Satisfied, the mystic sat down beside the fire. The others lay opposite him, their snores rising and falling like a septic tide. Envious, he rolled onto his back and stared at the membrane shimmering above. Like a bubble, it looked so fragile, yet nothing from the outside could penetrate it. It’s far beyond my skill, he thought. Yet it required only moments of Nicodemus’s concentration.

  He looked over at the Charger. Nicodemus lay wrapped in his black cloak, a shapeless form sprawled beneath the wagon. It was hard to believe such a man had once donned the white of the old Order. Now they know only black, though. Like their honor.

  The boy named Michael tossed restlessly on the far side of the popping fire. Harold watched him curiously. What would draw someone so young to this place? he thought. The boy was skinny yet attractive, his features both angular and gentle. Under better circumstances Harold might have approached him. But not now . . . not here, he told himself. What’s left of my honor is but a crumb. I dare not gift that to the rats as well.

  Michael sat up, tugging at his collar.

  He’s so new to this place, Harold thought. Seasoned workers wore their suits like a second skin. But the greenbacks always tugged and scratched at it like an itchy rash.

  Michael rose and approached the Charger. “Is it safe to walk the perimeter?”

  The Charger cast him a sideways glance, his yellow eyes glittering in the shadows. “Would I have wasted energy on the pocket if it were?”

  “Well, I need to piss.”

  “So do it then.”

  “I can’t,” replied Michael. “Not here.”

  The Charger laughed. “Stage fright, eh? If only you knew what was out there, it would be the least of your worries.”

  “I’ll be quick.”

  “Very well then. But don’t stray from the light. Might just cost you your life.”

  Michael quickly donned his mask and stepped through the thin barrier. Harold tensed as the darkness swallowed him. He shouldn’t be alone out there, he thought. He started to rise, but the Charger’s raspy voice brought him to a sudden halt.

  “Leave him be, mystic. He’s no fag.”

  “He shouldn’t be out there,” Harold said. “Not with so many nagra about.”


  The wraith sat up and cracked his neck. “Go after him if you must. Just know you forfeit your share if you do.”

  Harold bristled with anger. “We’ll be likely to fall off quota if we lose him. You do realize that?”

  “Not my problem. Now sit down and be silent.”

  Harold hesitated.

  “You move against my order?”

  Harold’s mouth went dry. I’m a coward, he thought. I should stand against him . . . but I can’t. Slowly, he sat back down.

  The Charger huffed. “Craven lot. We’ll be lucky to see another turn with your kind at the helm.”

  Harold stared at the fire, ashamed. The wraith was right. What good could he ever serve without a backbone? I’ve only one more chance, though, he thought. He had one final run to prove his worth, or else it would be the Red Room.

  And then oblivion.

  Michael yawned as he relieved himself. He was exhausted and sore, but the sheer pleasure of a good piss helped him momentarily forget where he was.

  A cry rang out, followed by the furtive sound of shifting sand.

  Nagra.

  Michael quickly zipped up his suit and headed back to camp. But after only a few steps, he hesitated. In the northern sky there hung a teardrop glow unlike anything he had ever seen. By the gods, why didn’t I see you before? he wondered. The comet glowed a dull gray, its enormous, tapering tail cutting across both Drenem’s Blade and the Northern Arch. An omen, perhaps, he thought. But whether good or bad was anyone’s guess.

  A breeze blew in from the west, rattling the dead forest’s bonelike branches. Michael turned his attention 200 footfalls to the north, where the silhouettes of a half dozen hovels sat atop a small rise. Low built and sand ravaged, the structures stood half buried beneath a sea of migrating dunes.

  Curious, Michael approached the closest structure. Ancient detritus lay strewn everywhere: arrow shafts, spears, rusted rapiers, and a section of plated armor. All of it bleached bone-white beneath the Culver sun.

  A fortune’s worth, he thought.

  A hundred footfalls to his right, a massive shadow protruded from a single blackened dune. As Michael drew closer, his eyes widened in astonishment. A Tritan ballista, he thought. Few had survived the great war, and even fewer ever made it to market. Yet here you sit, he thought as he approached it. Warped and bare of your firing chord, but deadly nonetheless. The iron plating held its original patina, and the dark green meridium-infused steel glowed eerily in the moonlight. “You’re worth a king’s ransom,” he whispered, running a hand along its exposed bow.

  “You should be more careful where you tread.”

  Startled, Michael spun around. The Charger stood behind him, a black hole in the night.

  “Many of my kin died here,” the wraith said. “The accounts say Menutee’s atuan was held in this very sector by the Overwatch.” The Charger scraped a match across a dead tree and touched it to an adreena stick dangling from his lips.

  Michael’s heart leapt. The sudden burst of light illuminated the many stitches and sores normally hidden beneath the wraith’s hood.

  “Anyone ever find it?” he asked.

  A draba bird crashed through the forest’s dead canopy as some unseen creature shrieked in horror below.

  “No,” the Charger replied. “Like so much else, it was lost to time. And legend.”

  With its prey clenched in its claws, the draba bird alighted once more into the sky. When it was out of sight, its victim emitted a final, agonized shriek.

  The Charger took another pull on his smoke. “Best get back to camp, boy. It’ll be light soon.”

  Michael turned to leave, but the Charger grabbed his shoulder.

  “Do not return here again.” The wraith’s fingers dug into his shoulder. “Unless you wish to never leave.” And with that, he turned and headed back to camp.

  The group awoke at dawn, the new day greeting them with blinding swirls of sand and ash. For the first few calls, they toiled atop Tribat’s southerly slope, disarming a scattering of fading ice traps and boil pits as several draba circled above.

  Waypman leaned against his rod, exhausted. The ice traps were hard going; the poisons clung to the sand like tar, pulling at his every thrust. Just two traps had taken him a call to disarm, and the tedium was overwhelming.

  He yawned as the alchemical resins slowly sizzled beneath the rod. Twenty turns ago, he would have been dead where he stood, but now the trap was nothing more than a pollutant to be thrust from existence.

  When it was through, Waypman pulled the rod up and gazed off to the south. A bright blue elemental was drifting silently across the horizon. Most likely a cyanide cloud, he thought. He had only ever seen one, but there was no mistaking it. Great blue masses of silent death sucking oxygen from any living organism in its path.

  Two . . . maybe three more runs and then I’m out of here, he told himself. Ix or even the Reef would be preferable to this hole.

  And then perhaps home.

  A weight slowly settled upon his chest. It had been three turns since he left Garfax. Three brutal and tedious turns without a roof or warm body to lie next to. And neither awaits me now. Or ever will. Now there was just this life. Blood and sweat traded for a pittance in coinage.

  The gob and boy toiled on either side of him, grunting and groaning as they pounded their rods into the sand. In two days, they had covered only a fraction of the hill’s eastern face, slow going considering their quota. But it’s a start, he told himself.

  A hundred footfalls to the north, the mystic stood silhouetted against the rising sun, his logbook in hand. Waypman watched the boy curiously. He was far too young to be leading a cleansing swath. And unlike other men he had worked under, the boy took little caution in his wanderings. Greenhorn, he thought. A dangerous title out here.

  His mask began to fog, dampening his vision. “Damn it,” he grumbled. He slammed his rod into the sand and was about to remove his mask when he noticed a coil of steam rising at the mystic’s feet.

  “Don’t move!” he shouted to the boy.

  The mystic froze. “What? What is it?”

  Waypman slowly approached, his rod held out before him like a spear.

  The gob took notice and chuckled. “Damn fool. Walked right into it, didn’t he?”

  Harold’s eyes trembled beneath his own foggy mask. “God’s be damned, what did I do?”

  Waypman knelt down and prodded the sand at the mystic’s feet. “Where’s the Charger?”

  “B—back at the wagon, I—I think.”

  Waypman turned to Michael, who stood only a few footfalls away. “Stay with him,” he said. “And for the sake of the gods, don’t let him move.”

  Michael nodded.

  “Will someone tell me what’s happening?” Harold cried.

  “You stepped on an ice trap,” Waypman said. “A fully charged one, by the looks of it. Move and it’ll kill you.”

  The color instantly drained from Harold’s face. “By the gods . . .“

  “Just relax,” Waypman said. “If you stay where you are, you’ll be safe. I’m gonna get help.” And with that, he turned and ran back toward the wagon.

  The indifferent gob sat down atop a petrified stump. “You still think we make quota today, boy?”

  Harold’s legs trembled as ribbons of blue steam coiled around his ankles. “Your n—name,” he said, glancing at Michael. “It’s M—Michael, right?”

  Michael nodded.

  “I don’t want to die here, Michael. Not like this.”

  Michael swallowed. “You’re gonna be fine. Just stay still.”

  The gob laughed. “I wouldn’t be so sure about that, boy.”

  The Charger shuffled behind Waypman, his gate calm and reserved.

  Waypman screamed within. He’d already slowed his pace twice for the old coot and still the Charger lagged behind.

  “What was the color of the resin?” the Charger asked.

  “Blue,” Waypman replied.

&n
bsp; “And the smoke?”

  “Blue as well.”

  Nicodemus grunted. “Fool should’ve stayed back in town. I’ve no desire to haul his corpse back through this forest.”

  When the hill finally appeared in the distance, Waypman breathed a sigh of relief. “Over there,” he said, gesturing toward the rise.

  Nicodemus snorted disinterestedly as his boots crunched atop arrow shafts and bone. Scrap lay everywhere: pitted armor, petrified crates, rusted mail, and melted steel. Pounds of priceless salvage. Waypman ignored it all. For mixed amongst the detritus were thousands of sun-bleached draba skeletons. Trap signs, he thought, sidestepping the worst of it.

  “How long can such things last?” Waypman asked.

  “Two sometimes three hundred turns,” Nicodemus replied. “Its cell life depends on the skill of its caster.”

  “By the gods.”

  “No . . . not the gods. The Circle.”

  The sun hovered low in the west, a golden disc dimmed by orange and brown cloud bands. Fire elementals, Waypman thought. And they will be here within the call.

  When they crested the rise, they found the mystic standing where Waypman had left him.

  “I—I didn’t see it,” Harold lamented as they approached. “It was camouflaged in the sand.”

  “As they all will be, fool!” the Charger grumbled. “That’s what the rods are for. Did they teach you anything at the Isle?”

  Waypman scanned the area; only Michael remained. “Where is that gob?”

  “O—on the western hillock,” Harold said. “Keeping to the quota, he said.”

  “A wise creature,” the Charger said. He knelt down at the edge of the patch and placed his palm an inch above the tainted sand. He then took in a deep breath and exhaled. “It’s old,” he said, his eyes still shut. “Very old. And weak.”

  Harold sighed. “What now?”

  The Charger smiled. “Now you pray, boy.”

  In a nearby tree, a pair of draba birds squawked hungrily. “They think they’ve found a meal,” Harold nervously joked as the birds fought over a scorpion.

  Nicodemus leaned close to the ground, so close, in fact, that his breath disturbed the mists coiling around Harold’s ankles.