Haven's Blight

by James Axler

  Yet what could even the most squared away of sec men do against a pale phantom that struck from the darkness and then just dissolved back into it? Ryan shook his head. He was rad-blasted if he knew himself, and no man had ever judged him a slouch and lived to profit from that miscall.

  “What about identifying the casualties?” Doc asked.

  Mildred shook her head. “I think their own mothers would have a hard time recognizing them at this stage. Even if the raccoons haven’t yet started chewing on their faces.” It was as if scavengers and predators larger than insects were wary of the place as humans were.

  “We can talk to people in the area and find out who’s gone missing,” Barton said.

  “Right.” Blackwood nodded decisively at the cabin. “Burn it.”

  AS THEY BEGAN the long, treacherous trudge back to the ville proper, and Blackwood House, Ryan glanced back once at Bluie’s shack, which was now the pyre for him, his family and so-far-undetermined others.

  The yellow flames had already eaten through the shake roof to dance high into the starry sky. The householder’s detached head stared out from the brightness, its features beginning to soften and sag in the heat.

  Ryan got the eerie sense it would’ve welcomed the fire instead of what it got.

  Nuke shit to that, he told himself savagely. He turned his back and marched into the darkness without another backward glance.

  Chapter Fifteen

  “A word with you, Mr. Cawdor?” Baron Blackwood said as they stood in the foyer of the big house.

  Despite not having been awake and on his legs more than eight or ten hours, Ryan felt so weary that his bones seemed to sag. But like J.B. he had learned to use a certain circumspection in dealing with barons. After all, he’d been brought up the youngest son of one—and had lost his eye, and almost his young life, to the treachery of a close family member.

  “Sure,” he said. The others had already trooped off to the guest rooms they’d occupied since being brought to Haven.

  He followed the tall, graceful form down a corridor and into what proved to be a study. Books lined the walls, ancient volumes with dark, cracked spines behind glass. A silent servant woman lit a pair of lamps. Kerosene, by the smell, not the fish oil the poorer people used for much of their illumination and cooking. He based that on the smells they’d encountered walking back through the cluster of a hundred or so dwellings that constituted the ville of Haven proper.

  “We manage to produce a certain amount of kerosene from crude oil seeps, both inshore and off,” the baron said. “It provides one of our most reliable trade items, along with turpentine distilled from pine resin. Brandy?”

  “Thanks.”

  “Take a seat, if you will.” The baron himself went to a cabinet and brought out a dark glass bottle and glasses. Ryan did his best not to collapse into a comfortable leather-covered chair.

  Blackwood set the glasses on a table and poured a couple of fingers of dark liquid into them. “It’s not salvage, you know,” he said. “There’s a clan of crazy French-speakers east along the coast who make it from a mixture of fruits, according to some recipe they keep secret with fanatic determination.”

  He brought a glass to Ryan before settling himself in a chair covered in soft green velvet with a grateful and weary sigh. He sipped.

  “It’s surprisingly smooth and flavorful,” he said. “Try it.”

  Ryan did. From his youth in Front Royal he knew a bit about liqueurs, for all that his tastes had roughened since leaving there. This brandy had a smoky, slightly sweet taste that concealed a definite burn on the tongue that only kicked in after he swallowed.

  “Goes down smooth, bit of a kick after,” he said. “I’d say they’re on to a thing or two.”

  “As we are here in Haven, I hope. Cigar?”

  “Never had a taste for tobacco, but go ahead.”

  Blackwood rose and removed a cigar from a humidor, snipped the end and lit the smoke with a complicated and compact little flint-and-steel striker. Ryan reckoned J.B. would like to have a look at it; he loved little gadgets like that when they came across them.

  “Ah.” The Baron sighed, settling back in the chair and letting loose a dragon puff of smoke.

  “I try night and day to do my best by the people of this ville,” he said at length. “My sister’s calm, cool intellect is an invaluable aid. It wounds my heart to see how hard she works for us all. I fear so desperately for her health. But despite all we do, Haven is sorely beset.”

  “The Beast’s that big a problem, huh?”

  “You saw that frightfulness. If that was the first and only time that happened, it would pose a major problem. But sadly it’s not. Yet the Beast is far from the only of our challenges. It may not even be the worst.”

  Ryan grunted. “That’d take some doing, to be worse than having something does that on the loose.”

  “Listen and judge. Our trade is ravaged by a cruel pirate gang—you made their acquaintance, to your sorrow. They raid our coastal dwellings and even up the rivers, raping, robbing, torturing, enslaving, burning and killing. And we wage constant war with the swampies who live deep in the moss-hung cypress woods inland of Haven.

  “Some people even whisper that the Beast is a demon summoned to afflict them by Papa Dough, the swampies’ voodoo king. Absurd, of course—although the indisputable existence of a creature capable of such atrocities makes it hard to sneer too hard at the thought of demons existing.”

  “I’ve seen a lot of things as bad, I have to tell you. Worse, even. And not a bit supernatural about what did any of it—some done by muties, some by regular folk,” Ryan replied.

  “Indeed. And then, of course, there are the more mundane threats—the storms, failed crops, disease, attacks by terrible animals that are nonetheless less frightful and…mysterious than the Beast. The people of Haven have struggled long and hard to make this place a haven in more than just name. And we’ve achieved much. But there’s so much more to do. Always there’s always the risk some disaster, or concatenation of disasters, could bring it all crashing into ruin.”

  He sat a moment holding his hand up, elbow propped on the arm of his chair, cigar an ember in the dim lamplight against the blackness of a window. Smoke trailed out the screened but otherwise open window. Blackwood’s chin had sunk to his clavicle.

  “We still dwell in the shadow of my late father, Baron Dornan. No doubt you heard stories of him on your journey here?”

  After a moment’s hesitation Ryan said, “Yeah.”

  “He was a larger-than-life figure, no question of that. In ability, and depravity, as well as physical size. A blue-eyed, black-bearded giant of a man, prone to rages that got worse when he drank, which was all the time. He ruled with an iron fist—with the aid of his sociopathic security chief, Dupree. Yet the people were convinced he was what they needed to protect them from the horrors of Deathlands life. Especially the swampies. The war with them started after Dornan took power from his own father. Dupree encouraged the people to believe they were cannibalistic although whether they’d really be cannibals if they ate our kind but not their own is a fine question for debate.”

  “I take it you don’t believe that.”

  Blackwood shook his head. “I’ve seen no evidence to support it. The situation is bad enough without that. They are a cruel and wily foe. Fortunately they show no inclination to wage large-scale warfare against us, but the constant threat of their depredations is bad enough. In any event, my father and Dupree were glad enough to use the swampie threat as a pretext for even sterner and more cruel repression of the people.”

  Ryan didn’t know what to say, so he remained silent. It sounded as if Tobias and Elizabeth’s father was more the sort of baron he was familiar with.

  “I killed him, you know.”

  That brought Ryan’s head up sharply. He looked at Blackwood to see the baron regarding him calmly with those blood-colored eyes.

  “I challenged him as he challenged his own
father. He had flown into one of his rages—goaded, I think, by Dupree—and was threatening to murder Elizabeth. That was the final straw for me. I killed my father, then.

  “Dupree tried to kill Elizabeth himself. She defended herself stoutly, gashed his face with a knife. I turned on him, but he escaped out into the swamps, and he hasn’t been seen since. I hope that the alligators got him. But I doubt that the world would be that kind.”

  Ryan had to chuckle at that description of kindness, but he saw it, too. “I know what you mean,” he said.

  “Despite all, the people of Haven seemed to breathe a sigh of relief at my father’s death. After they had supported him before because of his very harshness. Does that seem odd to you?”

  “Lots of people think they need an iron hand to rule them,” Ryan said, choosing his words with more care than usual. “At least, till it clamps on their necks. Then they commonly change their mind. When it’s too late.”

  “Do you think I’m too soft, Ryan?”

  “Nobody who ever saw you wade into the swampies with two swords through sixty-mile-an-hour winds would ever call you soft, Baron. And you fought like a man who was used to doing it. I saw that much at least before them stumpy bastards stomped my lights out. One thing I try not to do is mistake cruelty for strength. Or kindness for weakness.”

  His laugh this time was like pebbles shaken in a can. “In this world, only the strongest can afford to be kind.”

  He looked up at the baron. The lid of his lone eye was starting to droop despite his titanium-steel self-control. “You got a reason for telling me this, Baron?”

  “I feel you should know these things before I ask you and your friends to sign on with us here.”

  “Sign on? As mercies?”

  “As whatever you can be or do. Certainly, to fight. But you seem to have many remarkable skills encompassed in your band. Dr. Wyeth, the healer. Dr. Tanner, the man of science. Jak, the consummate hunter and tracker. Mr. Dix, tinker and weaponsmith. You, the ultimate survivor, strategist, leader.”

  “And Krysty.”

  Blackwood nodded. “I’ve not yet had a chance to learn her strengths. I assume they must be extraordinary, for her to travel in such company.”

  “In a lot of ways,” Ryan said slowly, “she’s best of all of us.” He frowned. “You got me at a disadvantage, here, Baron. Not that I can hold your using a strong bargaining position against you.”

  Fiercely the baron shook his head.

  “Mais non! Not at all! I have told you—you and your friends are the guests of the ville—of the House of Blackwood. For as long as you wish to stay. We shall continue to bend every effort to finding a cure for your Krysty, and to sustain her as best we can until we do. This is a separate proposition. I ask that you and your companions join us. Help us. For the short term or the long.”

  He calmed himself with visible effort, smiled, then sat back in his wing-backed chair. “Perhaps I offer you a less advantageous arrangement than you currently enjoy. I would work you very hard indeed. Still, while we are not rich, we would compensate you well.”

  “I can’t commit to anything like that without talking to my friends, Baron,” Ryan said, “including Krysty. Especially her. It’s an attractive deal.

  “But for now—until Krysty comes out of it—we will stay here, since you offer. And we’ll do what we can to help you in the meantime. If that means fighting muties, marauders, or monsters, well, that’s what we’ll do.”

  Blackwood started to protest. Hoping he’d judged the man right, Ryan cut him off. “Hospitality works both ways, Baron.”

  The baron’s broad shoulders heaved in a sigh. “Very well.” He grinned and stood. “Good to have you with us, then, Ryan. For as long as you stay.”

  Ryan rose. The two men shook on it. Tobias’s slim pale hand felt as if it was wound with steel cable. Ryan was unsurprised.

  “If you’ll excuse me,” the baron said, “I’m going to turn in. I’ll have a servant see you to your room.”

  “Actually, could I trouble you for a bedroll?”

  “Bedroll?”

  “Yeah. For Krysty’s room. Reckon I’ll stay by her side.”

  Blackwood smiled. “I’ll have a cot set up beside her bed. Your loyalty does you credit, Ryan.”

  “Like hospitality,” Ryan said, “it’s a stream that runs both ways.”

  A STIR OF MOVEMENT brought Ryan awake in an instant. He sat up. Fortunately some residual body memory kept him from causing the cot to fold up beneath him.

  Amélie Mercier stood in the doorway with a lantern in her hand. Its flame was turned down to a low blue and amber mutter of light.

  “What are you doing here?” she demanded.

  “I might ask you the same question.”

  “Why, I’m tending to this woman, of course.”

  “Me, too.”

  The healer sniffed. She had a long, fine nose to do the job with.

  “Don’t let me get in your way,” he said.

  But Mercier shook her head. “I’ve seen quite enough. Her condition remains unchanged. I will leave you two alone.”

  “What if she needs something?”

  “Then I’m quite certain I can trust you, the loving partner, to notify me.” She turned and disappeared from the doorway.

  Ryan sat watching as the amber light of her lantern dwindled and dimmed to nothing on the far wall of the highway. When there was again darkness but for the cold light of the stars outside the open window he shook his head.

  “That was strange,” he said softly. “Wonder what it was all about.”

  He looked again at Krysty. Her upturned face was still, pale in the faint gleam of stars. He tried not to think how dead she looked.

  Ryan made himself break the lock of his gaze. He lay back down on the cot. He was asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow.

  Chapter Sixteen

  Although Blackwood House was shaded by ancient weeping willows, the air in the front foyer was as flat-iron hot as that outside. The windows and curtains all stood wide open to admit any breath of breeze.

  Unfortunately there wasn’t any.

  Closing the big door behind him, Ryan padded inside. Flowers sprayed in frozen explosions of color and scent from vases set on tables, beneath ancient faded oil paintings of people riding horses in front of what looked like the house itself. Along with their delicate odors he noted the harsher smells of varnish and ammonia.

  He wore the white cotton shirt that had been awaiting him when he awakened. Its weave was a bit coarse and irregular, enough to convince him it wasn’t predark salvage. It was good cloth; it was light, as cool as possible and didn’t itch his skin. The shirt was well made. It was a big improvement on the shirt he’d been wearing when they carried him here, which even before the fight with the swampies was in bad shape.

  He wore the same baggy, many-pocketed camou pants he’d worn then. The many rips and tears had been neatly mended while he recuperated. And each and every night his and his friends’ garments were gently but insistently confiscated for washing by the quietly efficient house staff. Ryan gathered the baron, or perhaps his sister, didn’t want their guests, esteemed or not, stinking up the house with dirty clothes. Although apparently Jak had needed some persuading, which Ryan understood from the others had been provided by the soft-voiced and achingly beautiful Elizabeth Blackwood herself, the procedure didn’t bother Ryan much. Fresh clothing was always provided in exchange.

  One thing: the baronial siblings believed in a soft touch and soothing ways, and it seemed to work well enough for them. But their chief steward, St. Vincent, was cut from different metal entirely. For all his soft voice and snooty accent, he had shown himself a martinet who cut none of his subordinates slack.

  St. Vincent, at the moment, stood inside the dining room, polishing silver at a sideboard. Despite heat more stirred than alleviated by the generator-powered ceiling fan, he was impeccable and crisp in his high-collared white shirt and black trousers. H
e never seemed to sweat. Looking at him made Ryan feel shapeless and grubby, which wasn’t anything that bothered him much before.

  “Ah, Master Cawdor,” the majordomo said with a smile as professional as a gaudy slut’s. “May I help you, sir?”

  Ryan didn’t hold the smile’s likely falsity against the man, any more than he would a gaudy slut. It was equally a part of St. Vincent’s job. And if you were boss servant for a baron, whether a stoneheart like Dornan or relatively benign like Tobias—if his words and, so far, actions were to be believed—only death was surer than that you’d have to act like you liked some people you didn’t.

  “I was wondering if any of my friends were here?” Ryan said. “I was out for a walk in the woods to stretch my legs.”

  “Alas, Master Cawdor, I fear not. J. B. Dix is, I believe, touring the Hadid family metalworking shop. Young Master Lauren went out before dawn with some of his friends to practice crossbow hunting up Breakleg Creek. Mildred Wyeth assists Miz Mercier with her researches in the laboratory. And Dr. Tanner appears content to…wander our fair ville, no doubt absorbed in his own thoughts.”

  “Yeah.”

  The little pause seemed to confirm what Ryan had feared—Doc’s mind had decided to wander, and it wasn’t necessarily taking the same route his body did. It didn’t surprise him much. They’d been wound to near the breaking point for days. Now the inevitable letdown of what was, at least for now, a literal Haven of peace and safety had no doubt caused his fragile grip on reality to slip. Ryan could never help wondering: might Doc someday stray so far from the real world he’d never find his way back?

  “Thanks,” he said. “I, uh, I think I’ll just head upstairs, look in on Krysty.”

  “Of course,” St. Vincent said.

  Ryan turned to head to the stairs. The majordomo called him back.

  “Master Cawdor?”

  “Yeah.”

  “I hope I don’t speak out of turn when I say, I hope that you’ll choose to stay here and work with us.”