by Zach Adams
Zach Adams
Dead Man Walking
First published by Zach Adams 2021
Copyright © 2021 by Zach Adams
All rights reserved. No part of this publication may be reproduced, stored or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, scanning, or otherwise without written permission from the publisher. It is illegal to copy this book, post it to a website, or distribute it by any other means without permission.
This novel is entirely a work of fiction. The names, characters and incidents portrayed in it are the work of the author's imagination. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, events or localities is entirely coincidental.
Zach Adams asserts the moral right to be identified as the author of this work.
Designations used by companies to distinguish their products are often claimed as trademarks. All brand names and product names used in this book and on its cover are trade names, service marks, trademarks and registered trademarks of their respective owners. The publishers and the book are not associated with any product or vendor mentioned in this book. None of the companies referenced within the book have endorsed the book.
Artwork by Touqeer Shahid via fiverr.com
First edition
ISBN: 978-1-7370775-1-0
This book was professionally typeset on Reedsy
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Contents
Acknowledgement
Prologue
Chapter One: Land of the Living
Chapter Two: A Little Bird
Chapter Three: Memoriam
Chapter Four: Næ’zätæmém, Part One
Chapter Five: Næ’zätæmém, Part Two
Chapter Six: A Hollow Night
Chapter Seven: The Brain Gang
Chapter Eight: One Who Shouldn’t Be
Chapter Nine: The Book of L’æsälum
Chapter Ten: A Day at the Museum
Chapter Eleven: The Beast with No Eyes
Chapter Twelve: The Vanishing Book
Chapter Thirteen: Äl’khäshæ, Part One
Chapter Fourteen: Äl’khäshæ, Part Two
Chapter Fifteen: The Study of Everything
Chapter Sixteen: A Pebble in Glass
Chapter Seventeen: The Devil in the Pale Moonlight
Chapter Eighteen: Birds of a Feather
Chapter Nineteen: Velryd
Chapter Twenty: A Wolf in Beige Clothing
Chapter Twenty-One: The V Organization
Chapter Twenty-Two: Location, Location, Location
Chapter Twenty-Three: Æ’genesis, Part One
Chapter Twenty-Four: Æ’genesis, Part Two
Chapter Twenty-Five: Rozariu Mazăre
Chapter Twenty-Six: The Remembrance
Chapter Twenty-Seven: The None
Chapter Twenty-Eight: The Lost World
Chapter Twenty-Nine: The Diverging Point
Chapter Thirty: Átrí Nä’lún
Æ’lin (Elvish)
Acknowledgement
I would like to acknowledge all of the friends, relatives, teachers, coworkers, customers, pets, plants, and any other nouns I may have forgotten, who have suffered through my incessant babbling in the years leading up to this story’s completion. I only partially suspect that one of us imagined the other.
Visit https://www.adamsvalentine.com/ to follow me anywhere but home.
-Zach Adams
Prologue
?2018?
The sun rose earlier than it should have. For the time of the year, and in the opinions of certain life-forms currently making their homes on the rocks surrounding it. More specifically, only a small handful of sentient beings on a planet called Earth knew the significance of such a minute event. According to a small man in a suit locked inside a box speaking from behind a plate of glass, it should have taken to the sky by 10:15 AM, with a high chance of additional snow by lunchtime. The man in the box must have had more to say but was rudely interrupted by a short presentation about a cheeseburger.
Of this handful of beings who knew, two could have any effect on the events unfolding. One of them knew what it meant, but not why it was happening. The second was a native of the planet, not yet aware of what he already knew. The first, or rather the last of the First, was something else entirely, a visitor to the world of humankind. A lost visitor, at that.
L’æon felt the dissonance in his bones. Chronomancy - the magic of time - was not his primary discipline, but he had dabbled in its complex workings. He knew the change would pass unnoticed for many in this corner of creation. Focusing on such things, odd happenings in one’s peripheral vision which the subconscious doesn’t want to notice, was akin to plucking a block from the bottom of the Jenga pile - you’re likely to bring the whole structure down. It could take centuries of study and meditation for one to feel the pulse of the universe, and still overlook crucial details as he did.
L’æon didn’t seem the sort to have that kind of time on his hands or any other appendage. He didn’t particularly seem like anything specific - he was an odd peripheral happening personified. He was abnormally tall, and abnormally long-limbed, with abnormally long fingers. Atop his head he had a short wave of abnormal silver hair which reminded one more of brushed steel soaked in moonlight than his deceptively advanced age, and abnormally pale skin which almost seemed to glow. His ears had delicately pointed ends, the left one of which was bent at a slight angle.
Often L’æon would freeze in mid-sentence, scanning his own mind for the next thread in a wide tapestry of thought. At the moment when whoever he spoke to would ask if he was alright, a grin would split his face. Some who had encountered him said that his smile gave the impression that he could either embrace them kindly or go for their neck, depending on his whim. The man was built from traits which would draw attention if anyone else bore them.
But not L’æon. He appeared as a mirage, an afterimage of something separate from man. This suited him fine. If you could train yourself to gaze upon this mirage long enough to see those shimmering gold irises, there was one piece of advice offered by ally and enemy alike; Run.
L’æon was, at this particular moment, perched quite rigidly at the top of a large white spruce tree. The air was noticeably colder at his altitude, but a small cape of phoenix feathers around his shoulders kept him at a comfortable temperature in any climate. This was all the better, as the white suit underneath, a gift from his last visit to this portion of the galaxy, did little to guard against the elements. He had forgotten how cold parts of this world could be. It reminded him painfully of home.
It had been dark out, not yet morning to any sane being, not that the term sane ever applied to him. The strange entity scanned the landscape, most of which was dominated by a collection of skeletal trees among bushy evergreens like the one he occupied, dotted with rocks and ice. All of which was blanketed with nearly a foot of the previous night’s fresh snow. In the distance, he spotted a wide green square bearing a single surrounded by other symbols. “Anchorage”, it read.
L’æon sniffed the air once, twice, and a third time for certainty. Through the chill, he detected a faint scent of vinegar, just as he suspected. Someone or something was doing heavy duty magic, but it lacked refinement. They didn’t seem able to avoid leaving marks. Even L’æon couldn’t cast a spell without a sensory signature unless he was perfectly focused – basically, never.
I shudder to think the problem is anything other than simple ignorance, as they are blowing bubbles in reality itself, The strange one thought. He flicked out the index fingertip of his right hand, extending the moistened digit proudly.
A little too proudly, as it turned out. As he thrust his hand forward, he followed w
ith the rest of his spindly body. This is a well-known tactical error among tree climbing enthusiasts, and if L’æon didn’t know why before, his sudden change of perspective from bird’s eye to worm’s eye certainly drove the lesson home. He groaned in a mixture of pain and frustration as he pushed himself to his feet.
“All that effort to climb it and for what,” The curious person grumbled to no one in particular. He swatted at his arms and chest to rid himself of stray pine needles and snow. Damp spots with specks of green dotted the fabric wrapped around him.
“To fall on my backside looking like a bloody Krylian hedgehog.” L’æon spun his head side to side, making sure no one was near to see his clumsy mishap. Some local wildlife shuffled among the plants, and he hoped he hadn’t disturbed anyone’s rest. When no one came forward to criticize, he licked his right index fingertip again and held it in the air.
“North, then,” L’æon said absently. “Sálvë. Haven’t been to a north in a while, I think.” He patted himself clean a second time and happened to glance back at the tree he had vacated. Several branches had broken, victims of the glowing man’s fall to earth. He leaned forward, lowering his face parallel to the lowest arm of the tree.
L’æon sighed woefully. “Oh, äb,” He whispered. “That was rude of me.” He extended his left hand and delicately twitched the tips of each in order of length. He muttered, seeming to shake the air for a meter around him as he did, “Shínímä.”
The tree shook from the lowest branches to the top, each turning a much livelier green as splintered twigs stitched back together. Scratches on the bark faded away. Behind the tree, L’æon saw the sun climbing the sky as if chased by something below the horizon. He squinted at it for several seconds, his head tilted to the left, mouth slightly ajar.
“This time nonsense is rather tricky to keep track of. Why these people even bother, honestly. The small box-man said that wasn’t meant to happen until, what was it…” L’æon paused, lost in thought. He slowly lifted his right hand to his face, gently scratching his temple. There had to be some explanation in this weird universe.
“Well, perhaps… Zätém húlsömn,”
As he chirped the phrase, he waved his left hand in a tight circle. A holographic image of an analog clock appeared in the air in front of him, showing 7:59 AM. The seconds hand ticked three times before jerking backward, and then the clock turned to fuzz like a television screen with a weak signal. The shape warped and stretched into that of a Venn diagram, with the original on the left and a new twin to the right. L’æon could almost not make out 10:15 AM on that one. The center was a pitch-black void. A breeze wafted through the construct, filling L’æon’s nostrils with the scent of old books.
“Two untrained spellcasters? Oh, dear,” L’æon said gravely. He waved the mutated clock out of existence.
“North, then.”
As he departed, a pleasantly warm, apple-scented breeze followed in his wake. The healed tree swayed its branches gently in an upward spiral as if to say goodbye.
Chapter One: Land of the Living
?2018?
Several miles to the north, the sun gazed into Isaac Falcone’s bedroom as it climbed the heavens two hours ahead of schedule. The unwelcome ultraviolet, meeting little resistance in the window, assaulted the thick blanket held up by thumbtacks on the inside. The blanket, a memento of its owner’s childhood, bore the fuzzy but faded likenesses of the Avengers and a vague smell of marijuana. The sun pierced through Isaac’s lifelong protectors and landed on a gray tabby cat who had been sprawled across her human’s neck and shoulders.
Sensing it was time to rise, the cat leapt from her human, leaving small scratches on his right shoulder. The shock pulled him, rather rudely he thought, from a dead sleep. The cat, uninterested in Isaac’s annoyance, began meowing incessantly for him to open the door.
Isaac groaned and, with an enormous amount of effort, opened one eye. He aimed it directly at the invading sunlight, and his eye lost the fight.
Though it was rare he went a night without awakening several times, 7:59AM had been his time to give up and leave his bed since early childhood when his mother used to wake him for school. Though he fell off the routine in high school, it became a habit once again after he entered his twenties. This has been his daily life for two years now, and instinctively he knew that something about having his already-poor eyes assaulted by space fire this early, in late December no less, was incorrect.
Isaac dug his collapsed right arm from under his torso and flung it toward his side table in search of his cracked cell phone. He yanked the phone from its charger and pressed the home key; nothing happened. He pressed it again, a bit harder. The screen lit up with white static and froze in that state. Isaac swore, admitting defeat to the early sun.
Though a phantom sore patch between his shoulder blades and spanning up around his neck protested, he pushed himself to the edge of his bed, and promptly swung his right big toe into the metal leg of the desk beside it. The jolt knocked a glass pipe with a single eye on the end surrounded by three curved horns, labelled OSCAR, over the edge and into Isaac’s hastily extended hand. Another assortment of colorful language escaped his mouth.
“See what kind of trouble you get me into, Gamora?” He asked the still-meowing cat.
She scratched the door as if to tell him, “I can’t reach the shiny thing, you must aid me in my escape. I believe there to be food on the other side, so your petty misfortunes are no concern of mine.”
Isaac grabbed a t-shirt from a loose pile on the floor. A black one with the Ravenclaw banner printed on the front was among the handful with the least offensive odor, so he pulled that one on and stumbled out of his room, kicking a path through the collection of debris. His lack of care resulted in a small papercut on his left foot, from a pale green sheet with notes from Doctor Williams, repeating past notes which said nothing could be done for Isaac but continue with his medications.
Isaac finally reached the door without further injury and forced it open against the overflow at his feet. He took a quick peak outside to make sure Chloe, the other tenant in the apartment and Isaac’s younger sister, couldn’t see into his room. She would have him out on the street if she saw the state of it, despite it technically being his apartment still, with Chloe having seized control from the moment she moved into the larger of the two bedrooms.
The door to the bedroom on his left was open. This room was free of all clutter, with a freshly made bed perfectly parallel with the far corner. The floor and walls were nearly bare, with posters of each Star Trek series’ commanding officer lining one wall in chronological order. Each had been hung so perfectly straight, with two inches precisely between each one that it could have been done by a machine.
The machine in question - Chloe herself - was not present. Isaac pulled his door shut and took a few sluggish steps out into the land of the living.
The apartment proper was a sequel to the empty bedroom. Every surface was stain-free and sanitized. The off-gray carpet had a light-and-dark striped quality from a meticulous vacuum job. Every inch of the phone booth-sized kitchen to Isaac’s right was scrubbed clean.
The place was cheap, as were most of the things in it, but it was comfortable, even with two residents. A pair of lime green bookshelves stood on either side of the balcony door. Perpendicular to these was a shabby maroon sofa which sat facing a scratched twenty-five-inch flat screen on a wooden stand and a simple, horribly stained coffee table. Behind the television a row of posters featuring the Beatles, Avengers, Justice League, and Nirvana hung on the wall, some of the few things left unchanged when Chloe began her occupation. On the screen, Matt Smith’s Doctor was facing off with an astronaut from a lake. Isaac assumed that Chloe had popped in a DVD from his box set.
The shelf on the right, property of Isaac, was adoringly polished and arranged in proper Dewey Decimal style. A collection of books ranging from fantasy and sci-fi to Beatles biographies and Quantum Physics for Dummies, ga
thered by Isaac since elementary school, had been carefully sorted by author and stacked spines-out, as well they should be. Little toys and trinkets decorated the empty shelf space in front of the books - Lego figurines of the fourteen Doctors and four Beatles, a wind-up TARDIS, Superman mid-flight, and a miniature statue of the Hulk grappling with the Thing. On the middle shelf, several bass guitar picks had been arranged in order from lightest to heaviest.
The other bookcase was something he believed should be considered a crime. Belonging to Chloe, it was identical to his in every way except for how its owner treated it. Science and engineering texts were either standing, resting sideways, or upside down and open to whatever page the reader stopped on. Piles of papers were tossed in between, pinned down by loose computer parts and tools. A well-used and partially pear juice-stained paperback copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy was left propped diagonally against the spine of an unnecessarily large school textbook.
My damn copy of The Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, an angrier version of Isaac’s own voice in his head growled before Isaac remembered that its condition was mostly from years of his ownership, not from her recently borrowing it. Rage simmered down a bit. Still, Isaac felt it was a gross misuse of a perfectly good book. He should have known better.
The one who could leave her own bookshelf such a mess while being compulsively neat with the rest of her surroundings was nowhere to be seen. She had left her favorite mug, one in the shape of Darth Vader’s helmet, full of fresh coffee on the postage stamp-sized table. It was carelessly left on the bare wood instead of on a coaster or napkin. Isaac began to worry and looked around the apartment for her.
They shared a smallish space, so internal search-and-rescue operations tended to be short-lived. His sister wasn’t in her room, the living room, or the kitchen. As he crossed back to the balcony, a dim, gray, humanoid shape not entirely unlike a shadow of his sister moved past him to the door. This was nothing new to him; it was the reason their mom made him start wearing glasses in middle school. Almost, but not quite, everyone he saw had a blurry doppelgänger mirroring their movements. What was unusual was that there was typically a physical person in view for the shape to be a shadow of, and Isaac saw no one.