Sand and Scrap

by Chris R. Sendrowski

  Harold turned to the Garfaxman. “Tell me where it is or I break both his wrists.”

  “Beyond the rise,” Waypman said. “But if you go there, you must let me search for the boy.”

  Harold tossed the gob to the ground. “I could report this, you know! Have you sent back to the Boiler Fields . . . or worse!”

  Waypman held his chin high. “You do what you have to do, son.”

  The gob sat cradling his wrist and grunting in pain. “You little bastard . . . I’ll have your eyes for this.”

  Harold ignored him. The rush was already fading, leaving him exhausted and unsteady. I should not push away the Garfaxman, he thought. The gob is filth, but the Garfaxman could be an ally. “Very well,” he said. “If what you say is true, you’re free to do whatever you want once we’re there.”

  Waypman nodded. “There’s still the matter of a booby trap, though. We had to turn back because of it.”

  Drexil glanced at the Garfaxman, his greed overshadowing his pain. “If it’s steel, I’ll know its smith. If it’s wood, I’ll know its carver. Don’t forget where I come from, squiddy.”

  Harold picked up his bamboo staff and swung it over his shoulder. A nervous tinge burned deep into his stomach, but he ignored it. Like the others, he stood balanced on the edge of a razor. “We best hurry then,” he said.

  Distant thunder echoed across the snow-covered Waste. To the west, storm clouds thickened into dense monoliths of ashen gray as purple lightning bolts exploded within. Harold watched them as he patted one of the draw horses. Death hunts us everywhere now, he thought. But what did it matter? Without the boy or Charger, he was already dead.

  10

  The Charger sat silent in the dead forest, his fingers caressing a sun-bleached skull. In the past, he had taken much pleasure in the solitude of this place. But today his thoughts were tuned inward. To the boy.

  It’s near, he thought. So very near. But where, boy? Where did you hide it?

  From his distant perch, he could see the boy traversing the frozen plain, a lone silhouette marching beneath the morning sun. Since leaving camp, Michael had moved at a steady clip, venturing across some of the deadliest sections of the zone without triggering so much as a baby nagra.

  He knows this place, Nicodemus thought. But how?

  Frustrated, the Charger dug a gnarled finger into one of the skull’s eye sockets. “Have you a shadow wraith?” he whispered, pretending the skull was Michael. “Is that what guides you, boy?” It wasn’t unheard of. Thousands had been slain here, and hundreds more lay entombed in sarcophaguses and eternajars buried deep beneath the sands. In such an environment, it was quite plausible that a soul might escape imprisonment after so many turns and perhaps even glom onto the life force of some unfortunate simply passing through.

  A life force such as the boy’s.

  The Charger’s hands unconsciously tightened about the skull. I must know for sure, though. And I must know now. With a loud snap, the skull shattered between his palms. When he looked down, a gentle mist rose from the razor--sharp shards.

  “Hello there, my friend,” Nicodemus muttered, cupping the mist in his blackened palms. “Perhaps you know where he leads us.”

  A sound akin to a distant cry resounded within the mists, but nothing more.

  “No then? Very well.” Raising his palms, he blew the mist into the sky, where it quickly abated into the dark.

  I give you a fate worse than death, Nicodemus thought, grinning. One I will give to the boy once I find what he seeks.

  Tendrils of steam rose from the forest floor, swirling around Michael’s ankles like ethereal snakes. “This place is hell,” he mumbled.

  The air stank of sulfur and rot, the sky pale and sickly as if the war had somehow sucked the color from the atmosphere.

  Michael pushed on, wincing with every step. His feet were covered in blisters, and the soles of his boots had begun melting atop the irradiated soil. Every few footfalls, blackened skeletons littered the ground, their torn rags blowing in the wind like forgotten standards. Here and there, dead tree trunks and smashed wagons peppered the landscape, their surfaces sun-bleached and bristling with spent arrows. He likened the place to an open grave, every bone and rag frozen in time.

  “These are not my kin,” the voice said. Michael felt himself grind to a halt. At his feet lay a rusty shield half buried in the ashen soil. With a flick of his toe, he flipped it over, revealing a large, spiraling black horn etched upon its steel surface.

  “Jordonas,” the voice said, shocked. “The mark of Overwatch Beserkers.”

  Michael’s chest tightened. He’d always thought such things were nothing but tales told to scare little children. But the tension in the voice whispered otherwise.

  “This is a sign of darkness,” the voice stated. “I fear the worst is yet to come.”

  Two more calls passed, the crunch of Michael’s footfalls the only sound resonating across the mist-covered slopes. However, when he reached the summit of a large plateau, the presence finally ground him to a halt.

  “By the gods!” Michael breathed.

  A dozen tall, black structures stood sentinel along the edge of the bare, windswept plateau.

  “Catapults,” Michael breathed.

  Behind each, strange spiderlike mechanisms crouched over piles of snow-covered rock. Chills raced down Michael’s spine. It looked as if at any moment they might come thundering back to life.

  Cautiously, Michael approached the closest of the metallic beasts. The machine stood well over twelve footfalls tall, its rusty, steel legs bent as if preparing to jump. When Michael placed his hand on it, a chunk of rust peeled away, revealing a complex network of gears and pistons frozen below.

  “What is this?” he asked.

  “Tritan carriers,” the voice replied. “Steam-powered mechanisms used for manual labor.” At the center of the six-legged machine hung an enormous bucket, where rock and debris could be scooped up and moved with ease. Above it, mounted atop a curving beam, was a single seat, its ancient leather encrusted with moss and mold. Protruding through the worn leather were several metal rods, each topped with a different colored crystal.

  “A watch post,” the voice said. “Circle Carn Clan most likely. It’s been abandoned for some time, though.”

  For the next call, they followed the ever-shrinking trail higher into the mountains. As the air thinned and the cloud line dropped below them, the low-growing vegetation grew sparse.

  “These are the slopes of Galgune,” the voice said as great rock outcroppings materialized above them. “My people fought hard to hold this land.”

  Michael stared wide-eyed at the looming peak. Like a rock fang, it curved above them, its surface peppered with strange plants clinging to whatever cracks they could find. Michael knelt down and examined a strange, orange flower whose luminous petals stood fast against the mountain winds. “It’s beautiful,” he whispered.

  “These lands were once filled with them,” the voice said. “Imagine florae of every color stretching for as far as the eye can see. Smells beyond description: lavender, pollen, pine, birch — it was all here, alive. But as with all things, we took it for granted and destroyed it.”

  Michael stood, his bones aching and sore. The rocky path continued upward, vanishing into another low-hanging cloud.

  “There’ll be time enough for sentiments later,” the voice said. “We still have far to go.”

  “How much farther?” Michael asked.

  “Beyond the clouds . . . to where no man dwells.”

  Several draba birds circled high above the range, their shadows cutting across the rocky slopes like ghostly, black knives.

  Michael looked up, frowning. The beasts were growing impatient; with every pass, they drew closer, as if willing him to trip and fall. You’ll get your meal soon enough, he thought as he negotiated another slippery patch of slate.

  A shimmering curtain of yellow snow was now coating the slope in a layer of slippery
slush.

  Michael wiped it from his mask, disgusted. “This is pointless,” he said, wheezing. “We’ll never find it like this.” Every breath came harder the higher they went. He felt dizzy, and his legs ached, and it was all he could do to keep from tearing off his mask.

  Let me rest. Just for a moment, he thought.

  “No,” the voice said. “The night brings too many dangers. We go on.”

  Michael coughed. He wanted nothing more than to lie down and embrace sleep. I can’t take this for much longer, he thought.

  The voice remained silent as he walked, probing Michael’s mind.

  “I never asked for this,” Michael whispered.

  “None do, boy. But here we are.”

  “No . . . here I am,” Michael said. “You’re the prisoner here! Not me!”

  “This is what you believe?”

  “Yes.”

  Michael broke into a sprint, his ankles slipping haphazardly between shifting rock and slate as he ran up the slope.

  “Is this not power?” the voice asked as Michael’s muscles and lungs burned from exhaustion.

  “S—s—stop!” Michael cried.

  “Are you sure? Perhaps there needs to be another demonstration?” They were moving along the edge of a cliff now, casting shards of slate into the cloud-choked abyss.

  “S—stop! P—please!”

  Michael ground to a halt.

  “We are one now, Michael,” the voice said as they teetered on the edge. “Fused at the core, our powers combined into a single, endless thread. What you think, I know. What you feel, I sense. We are brothers sharing a single plane of thought and emotion. Do well to remember this next time you question my power.”

  Michael tore off his mask and vomited. His head was spinning, and his legs felt numb. You bastard, he thought.

  “Just remember who pulls the strings now.”

  With a trembling hand, Michael wiped his face and looked up. He was above the cloud line now. There were no trees or bushes, and a foul, yellow slime covered the entire area for as far as his eyes could see.

  “What is this?”

  “Foliage killer,” the voice replied. “Low magic used to uncover our bunkers. It’s harmless.”

  Michael looked down at his gloved hand. The once orange laptane flesh was now stained bright yellow from the sludge.

  “We’ll take solace in that cleft,” the voice said, turning Michael’s head uphill to where a small alcove sat nestled beneath a large, slate outcropping.

  Michael staggered toward it, his boots slipping atop the slime-coated slate.

  “Be careful,” the presence hissed.

  Trembling, Michael reached out a hand. He was almost there, when the rocks beneath his feet gave way.

  “Hold on!” the voice cried.

  Instantly, the world whipped past in a blur of wild colors, all sense of direction and gravity lost.

  This is it! Michael thought as gray rock rushed up to greet his face.

  And then, almost as quickly as it began, the world went dark.

  11

  The dead, skeletal branch stood as he’d left it, clawing at the sky like a corpse’s rotten hand.

  Waypman stood silent before it, defeated. There will be other chances, he thought. But deep down, he doubted it. He’d found his riches, his shot at the brass ring. And now it was lost.

  “This is it,” Waypman said.

  Drexil loomed over his shoulder, his yellow eyes narrowing. “I see only mud, squiddy!”

  “That’s because it’s beneath us, fool.”

  Harold nervously stared at the branch. “We shouldn’t be here. Let’s just head back to town and bring excavators in the morning.”

  Drexil grunted in disgust. “You’re yellower than this slop, boy. Do you want to scrape the bottom for the rest of your life?”

  Harold opened his mouth as if to protest, but the gob glared at him, and he quickly fell silent.

  Waypman knelt and began tossing mud over his shoulder. After only a few handfuls, he uncovered the ancient lock.

  “Get on with it,” Drexil urged.

  Waypman twisted the key into the muddy device. With a groan, the doors swung inward, spilling mud and water onto the stairs.

  Drexil quickly lit a torch and pushed past. “Come on, you fools!” he cried. “Our destiny awaits.”

  Harold approached the entrance. The stairs were steep, the tunnel black as night. “If we run into any trouble down there, no one will know where we are. You know that, right?”

  Waypman shrugged. “What have you got to lose, boy? Your life? That’ll already be forfeited if we come home empty-handed.”

  Harold took a final look across the dead forest. There were no signs of the Charger or Michael. Just miles and miles of putrid sand and gnarled black stumps. “We could find Krepen’s Throne down there now,” he said, “but without that wraith, I’m still as good as dead.”

  Waypman approached Harold and put his gnarled hand on the boy’s shoulder.

  “It’ll be fine, kid,” he said. “We’re in this together, right?”

  Harold reluctantly nodded. “I suppose so.”

  “Well, let’s get on with it then.”

  The gob stood silent before the booby-trapped chamber, his torch casting strange shadows across the ancient device.

  “What is it?” Harold asked.

  “A Garbat Bristle,” Drexil replied. “Good make, too.”

  Harold leaned in closer. The air smelled of oil and must, and the floor appeared unnaturally clean. Cold sweat broke out across his brow. “Can you disarm it?”

  Drexil smiled. “Can a blind man beg?” He handed Harold his torch and gestured for him to get back. “Put that light on the floor.”

  Waypman stepped forward. “What are you gonna do?”

  “Don’t distract me.”

  Harold tensed as the gob stepped onto the floor. “Get back!” he hissed.

  But it was too late; the device was already groaning to life.

  Fool! Harold thought.

  The gob knelt down and inserted his dagger between several loose tiles at the Bristle’s base. When he pushed down, a loud click resonated inside the device.

  “There!” he shouted.

  But instead of stopping, the Bristle picked up speed.

  “What did you do?” Harold cried.

  Drexil stood up and approached the device. “If I try to bypass the main trigger plates, the fail-safe mechanism will shatter itself. Then there’ll be no stopping it!”

  Harold turned to the Garfaxman, his eyes wide with fright. “Do something!”

  Twenty footfalls behind them, an enormous granite wall crashed down, blocking their retreat.

  “No!” Harold cried.

  With a click, the center spindle altered its rotation as the first set of arrows locked into position.

  “Get down!” Drexil cried.

  Harold and Waypman dove to the ground, their faces pressed to the floor as dozens of arrows whipped overhead. Indifferent, Drexil crawled forward and opened a small plate mounted against the main axle. Inside, he found a small metal lever and quickly pulled it down.

  A metallic groan filled the chamber as the Bristle’s three spindles ground to a halt. A few rogue arrows continued to spit from the silent machine but fell listlessly to the chamber floor.

  When it was safe, Drexil rolled onto his back and sighed. “You can come out now, fools!”

  Waypman and Harold slowly emerged from the tunnel. “You’re all right?” Waypman asked.

  “I’m fine,” Drexil said, rising onto his knees. “No thanks to you two.”

  “How did you do it?” Harold asked, his legs still trembling. Dozens of splintered arrows littered the floor, their shafts crunching beneath his boots as he approached the slumbering machine.

  “Child’s play,” Drexil replied. “My great uncle, Lepneth, was part of the team that devised this little darling.” He picked up a spent arrow and examined its yellow fletching.
“I always hoped to see one in action.”

  Waypman stood before the machine, dumbfounded. Embedded on the main axle drive was a tiny plaque that read:

  GRATARIAN CLAN

  CRAFTSMEN OF TRITAN

  MECH—XXXIII

  Waypman pulled an arrow from the center spindle, making sure not to touch its poisoned tip. It was of remarkable craftsmanship, tipped with gold-plated steel and polished to a high sheen. “Your people take great pride in their craft.”

  “My people are their craft,” Drexil replied.

  Harold wiped his brow and leaned against the wall. His heart was still hammering in his chest, and cold sweat now soaked the inside of his suit. “Your uncle was an engineer on Tritan?”

  “Not just an engineer . . . a genius,” Drexil replied. “Some of the Retrac Daor’s finest inventions were machined at his hand.”

  Harold cautiously stepped past the Bristle. Behind it, two tunnels branched off into darkness. If there was one Bristle, he told himself, there’s bound to be more. He stepped into the right tunnel and ignited a torch. But if that’s the case, the reward will be much greater. But before his spirits could lift too high, he remembered Nicodemus. Without the Charger, none of their salvage would set to market, no matter what they brought in. And the others . . . they have no idea of the extent of this dilemma. Even now, their absence was being noted back at the docks, penalties tallied. And if the Charger remained lost, they too, would be implicated in his death.

  Either we find salvage worth turning heads, Harold thought, or we’ll surely know the Red Room upon our return.

  “We better keep moving,” Waypman said. “Who knows what’ll be lurking out here after sundown.”