by Jared Ravens
"So some of us got the note and read what it said,” the skinny man continued. “And we went over his head."
"Genesee," said the thinner man. The man shoed away Gim from the food. Gim backed away with a nasty look on his face.
"So we sent the note on with Marcus when he came down with deliveries," said the larger one.
"And low and behold, Genesee sent us here, to wait for you,” replied the thinner one. “And see if you showed up and wanted a chat.”
“I came here to see someone higher up," said Eryck, leaning against on of the tent poles. “Waste of time, being here.”
The thinner of the men glared at Gim who was climbing on the boxes of food now. Eryck ignored him this time. The fatter man walked back to a desk with some papers on it and handed them to Eryck.
"Can you read?" he asked.
"Not much," Eryck said. But he was able to make out enough of the words to understand what he was looking at. One was a booklet written by Celia. He looked through it for a moment before looking up at the two men.
"She don't care about this," the man said.
"She does now," said the thin man. "Or someone does. They're printing her words, what she really thinks. And she's letting them. Why do think that is?"
"I don't pretend to understand her, I don't care to," Eryck replied.
"Genesee does. See that other thing, that's his response."
Eryck looked at the thick, single spaced column on the paper in front of him. Both papers had the same publisher.
"They're fighting each other in the press," said the thick man. "Its fucking crazy."
“Why do they let them print it?” Eryck asked.
"Cause everyone hears about you all,” said the thin man, smiling. “What is Genesee supposed to say? That it ain’t happening? No, they have to pass blame to each other."
Eryck pointed to the name on the papers.
"Who's that?"
"Oh, Bern Douglas. I don't know, but he's a fucking genius. He got both them to talk nasty about each other. He’s got the fucking balls there! I can’t imagine the sales!”
Gim was on top of one of the boxes, pulling it open. The two men walked towards him threateningly.
"Don't touch him,” said Eryck, sternly. The two men looked back at him. Eryck smiled.
"They want us to stop so they don't look so bad, eh?" he said. "I see."
"See," said the thin one. "It means we are serious. Not all of us want this thing to go on and on."
"If you're serious, you'll give us that food," Eryck replied.
The two men looked at each other. ”I'm not authorized to do that," said the thick one."
“You have enough for weeks, here. You thought you’d be waiting for me that long, eh? I came quick, I should have a reward.”
“That wasn’t what it was intended for.”
“As a goodwill offering," Eryck smiled. "Just some of it. For the journey. You can't eat all that before it goes bad."
The two men looked at each other, unsure what to do. Gim smiled and said: “Yes, yes”.
"I want to talk to this ‘Bern’,” Eryck said.
"I don't know if he wants to talk to you," said the thin one.
"We need to say what we want, in a paper."
"I don't know if he'll go for that."
“No harm in asking,” Eryck shrugged.
The two men looked unsure. Eryck was already making an outline in his head.
“So," said the large one. "You want to negotiate."
"Yes, but only Genesee. Directly."
Three crates of food were loaded onto the cart and they bounded off into the desert, a smile on both of their faces. The soldiers dug into the food and Eryck sat in back writing very slowly in a rough scribble. What he came up with told the story of Eae in a very dramatic and detailed way, outlining all of their needs and wants. He would send it along at one of the future meetings but he would not know for some time that it was not published. Genesee wouldn't allow it. Nor would any of the other writings Eryck passed along to Marcus.
But the importance of setting his thoughts down on paper could not be overstated for Eryck, and it set him down a path of rethinking what the people of Eae now were. They, in his new tell, a group of wandering warriors, looking for a fight, winning each one. They would fight to the death for their independence, he wrote.
This thinking bolstered him for several weeks. It lit up his speeches with a fire that the people of Eae hadn't heard before. The remaining food kept them satisfied for just enough time before the next hunt. He continued to talk to Genesee, sending Gim to give notes to Marcus, gaining food concessions that Genesee thought of as a small token but was a bounty for the impoverished people at Rahm. The demands he gave he said came direct from Fairfax. Genesee never seemed to question this, because there was one demand Genesee never wavered on: He must turn over Fairfax.
So when Fairfax did eventually return he carried with him the same problem that he carried with him when he first came to Eae.
"The fuck you been?"
Fairfax wore a thick coat of brown matted fur over a body that was now much thinner. He was missing most of his armor as well as his axe. He seemed tired, or resigned, and was leading a tiny dark skinned girl by the hand. Fairfax could see Eryck’s anger in his eyes and his tone, though he didn’t know it was more frustration at the question of what to do with the returning warrior rather than disappointment that Fairfax had disappeared for months.
Eaeians surrounded Fairfax with surprisingly cheer. The time had spent away had burnished him in their minds, and their boredom had convinced them that battling with him by their side had more enjoyable than it actually had been. Both Eryck and Fairfax knew the people had decided that he was their champion. It was a relief to Fairfax and a complication for Eryck.
Fairfax, Eryck and Sophi pushed through the crowded street and ascended a series of ladders to the eighth level of a stack of wooden buildings that leaned against the canyon wall. Fairfax told him in the briefest possible manner what had happened as Sophi hummed and fiddled with the contents of their meager luggage.
"Your weapon is still buried?" Eryck asked.
"I was going to go for it," he said. "But then I didn't know if I wanted to fight anymore."
Eryck stood up suddenly and walked to the window, too angry to look back at him.
"You go off, fucking women and laying on boxes forever," he seethed. "Now you come back and you want to live off us for a while longer?"
"I can leave if I need to," Fairfax replied.
Eryck saw the difficulty in this as well.
"Not going to be peace then either, for you or me. Why’d you come back?”
“Army came,” Fairfax said. “Just a few of them. Put up fliers and knew my time was up.”
“So you came back back to us.”
“They’re coming for us. They’re going to get us one way or another.”
“Seems like if they had you they’d leave us alone,” Eryck replied, looking back at Fairfax.
“Do you think so?” Fairfax questioned him. Eryck looked to the ground. “Do you think Atrios would forget about you?” Fairfax continued.
“Fairfax,” Eryck grumbled, “I can’t say that I’m sorry I met you but I can’t say it’s made anyone’s life easier.”
“I can keep walking,” Fairfax. “I can even turn myself in. I don’t think it will make any difference.”
“What do you think about this writing thing?”
"I don't know if I can do that. It comes out as mush. Vivian said that might be permanent."
"Huh," Eryck grunted, pacing.
“You were talking about this Bern fellow,” Fairfax asked. “He seems to get anything published that he wants. You've tried to get in contact with him?”
"Yes."
"You told him I would meet with him?"
"You weren't here," he scoffed.
"I would like to meet with him."
"Write him a letter," Eryck said. �
��Your girl can help you I'm sure."
The resulting drafts were barely legible. Every time he set his pen down it came out a garbled mess. The blind girl could not write and he did not trust Eryck enough to allow him to proofread. Though he didn’t know Bern, he attached to him the dim hope that he knew how to find the way out of this tunnel. The letters that he sent to him were calls for help, pleading for a life line to pull him out of the hole he found himself in.
Wanting to hide away and protect others, he tucked himself deep in a cave at the back of the canyon. He lit it with candles and lay there, spending days thinking about his predicament and waiting for a reply. He stayed out of sight, hoping the situation would resolve itself. Sophi was the only one he trusted, and she was split between two personalities, one of which desired him to follow some lodestar of leadership that he was not prepared for.
She lay beside him under a blanket, her eyes closed but still awake. He could feel Vivian’s presence in her, smiling lightly at him as he moved his hand along the girl’s forearm.
“What do you have to smile about?”
“Visitors,” she said.
Fairfax became alert.
“What visitors?”
“The ones you want.”
“Bern came?”
“Among others,” she replied. “To me.”
He tried to calculate how long it had been since he had shipped out his letter. He glared at her.
“What others?”
“Everyone,” she said. “Everyone is coming.”
“Shit….”
“What did you expect?”
“I’ve got to leave…,” he said, pulling himself out of the layers of blankets and looking around at the surroundings.
“To where?” The voice spoke through Sophi. “Where to? Where can you run to? Haven’t you tried that enough?”
“I’m trying to protect people,” he said.
“Its no use. It’s coming, and you can’t run from it.”
“I wanted Bern, not a bunch of your family.”
“Fairfax,” she said sternly, “where do you expect this to end? Who did you expect to have to deal with? If we don’t deal with her, then it will go on forever.”
He breathed deeply.
“I’m not ready for her. I barely got away from Atrios.”
“You’re going to have to be ready. Until we reason with her or face her down you won’t be left alone. The only way to get her to back down is to show her we can beat her.”
His head filled with thoughts. The walls of the cave felt as if they were closing in on him. He looked back at Sophi.
“We?”
The Hole in the Desert
The distance between the cliffs of Alby woods and foothills that began at the edge of the desert was not an unimaginable distance. A good traveller could cover it in about 3 days time. It was traversable by nearly any reasonably well equipped person with a covered carriage and hardy animals. But there was almost no reason for anyone other than a merchant or an outlaw to make this journey. Once the rocky foothills were reached it was difficult to find any town with provisions. The towns would often not accept money from Sigma and, if a traveller tried to barter with them, the broken languages they used were difficult to decipher. And this was after days of endless horizon and heat that could the burn the hair on an animal’s mane in the worst of times.
Bern Douglas had been warned about the psychological effects that the desert passage had on people and although he fretted over the health of their animals and their levels of water, the mental strain was indeed the worst part. But it was difficult to separate how much of this effect was because of the desert and how much was from crossing the desert with a little spy in the back of their wagon.
There was little doubt that the girl could communicate directly with Celia. He had heard the stories of the handmaidens and their psychic abilities, their loyalty to their dear mother, and general coldness towards people and men in general. Spending time with Ally made him wish for the warmth of a girl of that description. Ally seemed to function like a mechanical doll rather than a human. She showed no emotion in her face and barely uttered a word, even when answering a direct question. Her eyes, so intense and bright, seemed to look right through him when they caught him in their gaze. He made every effort to be friendly with her, hoping to wean the edge off her intimidating attitude. No gesture of food or quality conversation seemed to interest her; instead she stared off into the distance with a blank expression that bordered on lifeless.
Even Shayne, whose personality was much more welcoming than Bern's, could not break down the girl’s wall. While sitting by the fire at the end of the first day of travel she asked Ally questions about serving Celia.
"It must be so exciting to live on The Hill."
"Yes."
"So much goes on there. What is your favorite part."
"The food is good," the girl sighed, as replying to a math question.
"Celia must be wonderful to work for."
The girl said nothing, humming out something that might have been an affirmation or an abortive attempt at whistling a tune.
Bern and his wife would wander off at night on the ludicrous task of trying to find fire wood in the desert so they could converse without ears nearby. They thought of how to off load the girl when they found Fairfax, or how to send her back with Marcus. They encouraged each other to keep their spirits up when around her and they thought of new code words to express their feelings.
"Shiny," his wife said when they reached the foothills. It had felt like two weeks and each of them had a mind that had been charred from the burning light of endless days. ‘Shiny’, they decided, was a way of saying 'trash' or 'messy' or 'This is insane' depending on the tone use.
“Shiny” Bern said early one morning with an inflection that seemed to mean 'get me the fuck out of here'. He stepped down from the carriage and walked forward, his hands on his hips. To his left and his right, yawning out in to the dust, were low lying hills of rock and orange dirt. Beyond them were mountains whose steep inclines make them appear as roughed up pencil ends. He could see clouds in back of them, black and red with flashes of lightening.
"Which way?" asked Shayne from the carriage.
Ally seemed to answer this. She hoped down from the back of the wagon. She walked with determination towards the south, her brown cloak layered in sand and dirt. Bern hopped back up on the wagon and turned it to follow her but by the time he had maneuvered it around she had disappeared into the foothills. He glanced at his wife, hoping they had indeed lost her. He feared the repercussions of losing her less than the fallout from saying the wrong thing in front of her. But as they continued they saw the girl, standing with her head down as she examined a dark pit.
It was a large, round indention in the side of a hill. In the middle was a hole and the girl scuttled down into it and disappeared. Bern and his wife got off the wagon and called to her. Afraid that she might have fallen and her herself Bern carefully walked around the sliding sand and looked down into the hole. The pale face reappeared in front of his and he jumped back. She ordered him to get back so she could crawl out. Bern dusted himself off he as he asked her questions.
"Is this someone's home?"
"Yes."
"Whose?"
The girl hesitated and then declined to answer.
"Someone broke into it."
The girl nodded. "Atrios."
"Oh, my," Shayne whispered.
"I need to go back in," the girl responded but his time Bern followed.
By the time he had dropped down into the collapsed living area the girl had vanished again. Not much was left intact. The furniture was splintered and books lay strewn about. Piles of greenery lay on the ground, their broken and unwatered pots crushed. Bern's wife followed him through the hole and bent down to walk through the remains of the structure. The ceiling had caved and they had to bend over just to fit. They walked through the remaining rooms in a matter of minute
s before returning to the living area. The girl was nowhere to be seen.
"What's here that was so interesting?" Bern asked.
"Someone she knew," she replied, hunching over to examine the books that had been blown off the shelves before being crushed. Books about plant. Herbal remedies.
:Martel?” she asked.
“She's on The Hill," Bern replied.
“She could live here, too... I forgot my schooling on them."
“So did I," Bern replied. "I don't recall them giving tests on the titans summer homes."
"How about... Vivian?"
"Why would she live in the desert? And, besides," he said, his voice becoming a whisper, "there could be a lot of kids of hers that we never learn about."
“Well of course, she had thousands of kids," she replied. “But if what we know is true, Vivian and Fairfax…” She crossed her fingers together simulating their closeness.
Just as he finished the sentence when there was a movement in the dirt wall. Bern and his wife walked towards the disturbance. There was the outline of a doorway covered in loose dirt. A small hand emerged, grasping for help. The two of them pulled it, yanking Ally's arm until her head appeared, gasping. Bern pulled on her shoulders trying to get the other arm out but something held it down. Slowly an enormous piece of silver revealed itself from the waterfall of dirt that poured forth from the doorway as she was dug out from it.
"That..." he said, collapsing on the floor as the girl lay on her hands and knees, coughing up dirt from her lungs. "That thing is as big as a house..."
It wasn't quite that large, but laying on the ground next to the girl it seemed so. Though it had been encased in the ground for some time the axe was still glowing brilliantly, as if it had just been polished. Though it was almost three times as large as the girl she had been able to pull it almost effortlessly through the dirt wall. When she recovered and picked it up in both hands she exhibited no extreme effort in doing so. She put it close to her face, lovingly touching its face with her finger.
"Curson must have done that," Bern said.
"He did," Ally said.
Bern and his wife looked at each other.
"So he was here... Fairfax.."