After filling my belly, I huddled up with my back pressed against the airframe, watching in silence as twilight deepened into night. The warmth of the fire washed over me, and I began to feel almost human again. I dozed off for a bit. When I woke, the fire had grown low. I made a slow circle around the crash site, gathering what wood I could hold, and brought it back to the fire with me. Satisfied that I’d make it through the night, I settled back into my place before the fire, picking at the food as the twilight deepened into gloom.
As night fell, the landscape became a glistening field of endless white, contrasting brilliantly with the blanket of darkness that fell over the world. Stars twinkled in the sky overhead and I found myself gazing up at them. I frowned, realizing it was the first time I had really looked at the stars. I’d spent my entire life in the sky and never really looked up. Why would I? There was nothing practical in the heavens. The stars were simply jewels that decorated the night. Or were they? Was it possible that they had some sort of reason, some pattern? I pondered this for some time.
As the night deepened around me, I listened apprehensively to the sounds of large creatures moving about in the darkness. I heard the unmistakable sound of claws against the ice, and snorting and growling in the distance. The noise drifted back and forth across the endless plain in such a way that I couldn’t even guess in which direction it had originated.
I couldn’t identify the creatures, but in my mind I could all too easily imagine the horrific disfigured monsters lurking just beyond the light of my fire, waiting patiently, building the courage to pounce on me the second I closed my eyes. More than once my hand strayed to my side, reaching for the hilt of my sword or the handle of my revolver, only to find that I had neither. I’d left them behind, in Tinker’s care, to reduce the weight load on the old plane. I’d have given anything for them now.
I lapsed in and out of consciousness until dawn, and at some point finally fell into a deep sleep. As I blinked against the first warm rays of sunlight, they touched my skin and beckoned me into a deeper sleep, but I knew somehow that if I submitted I would never awaken.
I pushed awkwardly to my feet and cried out as jolts of pain shot up and down my body. My head spun with vertigo. For a brief time all I could do was lean against the wreckage, clinging onto consciousness. At last, when the vertigo faded and my senses began to return, I squinted against the light and cast my gaze back and forth across the wastes. The mountains were invisible to me now, but I remembered from the night before that they surrounded me in every direction.
I turned slowly, trying to retrace the last moments of the crash in my mind. Which way was north? I couldn’t remember. I sensed a gentle tugging in the back of my mind, almost of something beckoning me forward. The practical, logical part of my mind told me I was hallucinating again. That was the reasonable answer. I was wounded, frozen nearly to death, and half-starved. I had every right to be hallucinating.
Even so, I decided to follow my gut instinct. What did I have to lose? At worst, I was simply trading a slow death at the plane for a quick one in the Wastes. I took a piece of wood from the wreckage, using it as a crutch to help me walk, and went lurching across the ice.
My boots made crunching noises in the snow, but the sound was strangely muted by that vast expanse of nothingness. I came across tall drifts in the snow here and there and had to walk around them, or attempt to climb over without breaking through. I had the small comfort of knowing that the snow was only a foot or two thick in most places and that it was supported by a thick layer of ice just below the surface, but that did little to allay my fears of what might lie beneath.
I could only surmise that I had landed in the middle of some sort of lake or ocean, though I didn’t dare guess how deep it was or whether the entire thing was frozen through. I tried not to think about the possibility that I was crossing an ocean of churning, icy black waters that were just waiting for me to step in a crack.
It didn’t take long to come across the tracks of the creatures I had been listening to in the night. I was not surprised to find both a fox trail and the messy path of a pack of wolves. I even came across the massive footprints of a bear, the size I which I could scarcely imagine. Not even in legends had I heard of a creature so large. I began casting worried glances back and forth across the snow to be sure the beast hadn’t caught my scent and followed after me. Not that I could ever be sure. Not in that white, frozen waste.
Despite all of this, these creatures were not the greatest of my worries. It was the other prints that truly frightened me. They were shaped like some strange hybrid of man and animal, a creature that appeared to have appendages shaped like human hands but larger, and claw marks extended out from the prints.
I saw signs indicating that the creatures traveled in groups of twenty or more, and that they varied in size from as small as a housecat to at least as large as a man. Judging by the prints, I guessed some of the creatures weighed several hundred pounds.
These discoveries were truly disquieting, and if nothing else they spurred me to keep moving, causing me to travel at a rate of speed that wouldn’t have been possible otherwise. Even so, as the sun passed overhead and began its slow descent toward the horizon, I knew that I had only a few hours left to live. The fabled city in the wastes, the object of my journey, was nowhere in sight. I was tired and starved and I knew I couldn’t go on much longer. Deep down I knew that the sensible thing would have been to lie down in the snow and fall into a deep comfortable sleep, knowing full well that I’d never wake up. At least that way I would be dead before the wild animals discovered me and began feeding on my still warm corpse.
Somehow, I couldn’t bring myself to do it. Instead, some inexplicable will to survive urged me on, pressing me to keep putting one foot in front of the other, trudging through that icy barren landscape even when I knew there was no hope for anything better than a quick death. Perhaps it was an instinct, an almost mechanical reaction to fear and death that continued pushing me forward even when I knew I should stop.
For a brief time during the day, I was able to confirm by the passage of the sun through the sky that I was in fact traveling north. Unfortunately, the span of daylight hours seemed incredibly short and with the inevitable return of twilight it occurred to me that I didn’t know which direction I was traveling, and that I might have ended up walking in circles. The only small assurance I had that this was not so, was the fact that I hadn’t crossed the same path twice. After all, there were no other markers in this icy void. There were no rocks, trees, or hills. Just a vast plain of sparkling white, marred here and there by the passage of the creatures who somehow thrived in that barren wasteland.
If I’d had more presence of mind I might have gleaned more information about my direction of travel from the movement of the stars, but even if I had, such knowledge would not have helped me. Changing direction at that point would have been a silly notion at best.
Later that evening, just before sunset, I found a new trail. It was so odd, so out of place that I froze in my tracks and stared at the ground, almost certain that this was another wild hallucination. It must have been, I reasoned. There was no other explanation. These were not the tracks of some wild animal, but footprints. Shoe prints. And I knew immediately from the size, shape, and design that they were the footprints of the Tal’mar.
3
I stared long and hard, pondering the meaning of those tracks. My thoughts were muddled with exhaustion, hunger, and cold. It was a wonder I could manage to recognize them at all. But I did, and after some reflection, I began to suspect that I knew who had made them.
When I’d last seen my grandmother, she and the other refugees from the isle of Tal’mar had been heading northeast through the Borderlands, toward the Wastes. It was there that they hoped to escape from the invading Vangars. Robie had been with me at the time.
The Tal’mar had not invited us to join them. Quite the opposite, in fact. Some of the elves were suspicious of me becaus
e I had a claim to the throne and being half-human, the Tal’mar naturally mistrusted me. It was decided that for my own safety, it was best I return to the humans. I wouldn’t have stayed anyway, but it was a painful memory nonetheless. My grandmother was my only kin; my last living relative (before my daughter was born, of course).
These thoughts and memories slowly formed in my frozen mind, and I was stunned by the implications. How had the Tal’mar made it this far? Why had they traveled so deep into the Wastes? I didn’t have the clarity to work it all out, but I did have enough sense to follow those tracks. I knew I was likely following them to my doom, but at least I might solve that one mystery before I died. If nothing else, I hoped to learn the fate of my grandmother.
I staggered on, my head lowered against the wind, my eyes fixed only on the tracks frozen in the snow. I leaned heavily on my makeshift crutch, lurching ahead one step at a time. I don’t know how long I pressed on in this manner, only that night fell and the wind bore down on me, hammering icy crystals into my exposed skin, and I kept thinking to myself I can’t go on, can’t go on… Yet somehow, I did.
Eventually the night brightened around me and everything seemed cast in a deep blue hue. I told myself that I was imagining things. It was another feverish dream, that bright blue light, a trick of the mind so close to death. I did not even bother to raise my eyes. I pressed on, one step at a time. Then, suddenly, the trail vanished and I realized mid step that some sort of black abyss was yawning up before me. I swayed unsteadily, trying to catch myself before walking over the edge like a fool, but I had no sense of balance left. Before I knew what was happening, the ground gave way beneath me and I fell.
Any normal, healthy, sensible person would have panicked. They would have reached out for a handhold, twisting and turning, crying out in fear. Instead, my body went limp as I fell. I watched with a strange sort of detachment as the heavens disappeared through the hole in the ice overhead and that strange blue light swallowed me up. I remember feeling only a vague curiosity, and the thought that went rolling around in my head was: Well, isn’t this interesting.
When I hit the water, it didn’t even occur to me to swim. I saw a flash of blue as I sank beneath the surface and everything went blurry. I knew matter-of-factly that I was dying. I closed my eyes, savoring the odd sensation of the water as it filled my ears, my nostrils, my lungs. I had expected it to be cold, but oddly it wasn’t. It was like a heated bath and it folded around me like a blanket, warming my body and sucking me even deeper into its embrace. I smiled, succumbing to the odd warmth, and died.
Or so I imagined.
4
I woke on the shore of a lake, lying under the shade of a gnarled old oak. Rays of soft golden sunlight filtered down through the treetops, kissing the deep blue waters. Upon waking, I instinctively reached out, clutching at the grass, and sucked in a deep, gasping breath. The air was fresh and cool, sweet like the forest on a warm summer day. I felt a surge of energy course through my body. It was the invigorating, intoxicating rush of energy a child feels before a party, and it was strange to me. I hadn’t felt like a child in a long, long time.
I pushed to my feet and threw my gaze back and forth, trying to get my bearings. Thick woods surrounded the lake on all sides. I heard the sounds of creatures that I couldn’t identify moving about in the treetops, but none close enough that I could see them. I turned my head slightly, gazing out across the lake, wondering at the strange blue light that seemed to emanate from everything around me. In a vague detached way I could remember falling, hitting the water, and being swallowed up by that strange blue light. There was something about it… in fact, there was something about the whole place that seemed almost familiar.
I turned my gaze heavenward and gasped as I saw the surreal, shimmering wall of ice looming over me. I turned in a slow circle, watching it rush down to meet the treetops in the distance. I knew then that I must have been in some sort of cavern under the lake of ice. But that didn’t make any sense. I was surrounded by trees and plants. The temperature in the cavern was perfectly comfortable, and yet that icy wall showed no signs of thawing in the warmth. I frowned, considering. None of it made any sense.
Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the movement of some large creature under the surface of the choppy water. A chill ran down my spine as I observed the enormous shadow passing slowly by. I felt as if the unknown beast were watching me, waiting for me to get within reach. I stumbled back a few steps to the tree line, warily watching the movement under the waves, terrified that the thing might be able to reach out and grab me.
I heard a grunting noise behind me and spun around, my eyes searching for the source of the sound. I noted movement in the tall foliage a dozen yards to my left, and then again just a few yards closer. Cautiously, quietly, I pressed myself up against the trunk of the oak. I waited, hardly daring to breathe. I heard another low grunting sound, like that of a large human male lifting something heavy.
I stared into the dense green undergrowth, hardly daring to breathe. The creatures –whatever they were- seemed to be moving in my direction. I subconsciously reached out to the tree with my mind, preparing to leap up into the branches. It had always been my experience that trees help the Tal’mar. They bend their branches down to catch us, and move them around before us to create a path as we run. I didn’t get such a response from this tree. Instead, I got the cold irritated sense that the tree wanted me to get off its roots.
I took an awkward step back, staring up into the branches. A chill ran down my spine as I noted that the branches had taken on the shape of a face, and that it glared down at me with a disapproving stare. Perplexed, I reached out to the tree again. I thought I might explain the situation and ask permission to use its branches. Instead, as I opened my mind, I felt an invisible hand give me a slap right across the face.
This all happened in my mind of course, and yet the stinging sensation on my cheek was so real that I let out a yelp as I reached up to massage it. This was a mistake, of course. My scream had attracted the attention of the unknown beasts and I immediately noticed that the creatures in the underbrush had stopped moving. I could almost see their grisly, misshapen features, heads turning, eyes searching, salivating jaws aching for my flesh.
I heard a thump as of something hard hitting the ground, followed by several loud grunts. The tops of the ferns and flowers waved and shuddered as the beasts came crashing in my direction. I turned and fled. I followed the shore around the edge of the lake. My heart lurched as I heard the creatures stampeding out of the woods behind me. The forest floor shook with their noise.
I risked a glance over my shoulder as I ran and saw the leader of the pack launch himself out of the undergrowth, crashing down on the beach. It was a fur-covered creature that I mistook for a wolf at first. Then the creature landed on all fours and threw its head back, sniffing the air. Strangely, the creature’s fur was orange. Its body structure was closer to that of a human than any other beast I had ever seen. It had a horrific leathery face with dark eyes and broad, misshapen features. The others behind it were smaller but no less intimidating. Their fur ranged in color from orange and brown like the leader, to violet and deep, dark black.
The monster reared up on its hind legs, standing like a man, and let out a roar as it pounded on its chest. I put on a burst of speed, knowing full well that it had already seen me. My gaze danced back and forth, searching the trees as I ran. I reached out to them with my mind asking for help and protection, and my head rang with deep, hollow laughter. I noticed movement in the branches around me and realized that more of the monstrous creatures were up there. They alighted from branch to branch with the agility of squirrels, their harsh chattering noises confirming my worst fear: these creatures were communicating with each other. They were sharing my location with the others, guiding the predators to me, their prey.
As I swung my gaze back around, I noted a distant path rising out of the forest floor up ahead, leading up a slope and
into the woods. I raised my gaze and noted tall rectangular shapes in the distance. I blinked, surprised. I had discovered man-made structures. Suddenly, I knew where I was. This was it. This was the city in the wastes. The city was real, and against all probability, I had stumbled upon it. My mind instantly equated civilization with safety and I put on a burst of speed, flying along the beach and into the darkened woods, heading for those massive buildings.
As I passed under the canopy, I noted movement and frightening sounds all around me. The hideous, furry creatures were still shrieking back and forth at each other. I seemed to be outrunning them but I dared not stop. I crested a hilltop and flew down the other side so fast that I nearly barreled into a deer at the bottom of the ravine. I was upon her before she even saw me. I had to leap into the air to avoid crashing into her. As I did, the doe let out a frightened bellow and dashed off into the woods.
I landed awkwardly on the embankment and the loose soil gave way beneath me. I lost my balance and dropped painfully to the ground. No sooner had I hit the ground than a massive beast dropped out of the trees overhead. It had the same overall appearance as the other creatures, except that it had sleek blue fur, dark as the midnight sky, and a patch of fur on the right side of its head had been ripped away to expose shining bronze metal.
It landed heavily on the ground in front of me, glaring at me with dark yellow bloodshot eyes that intimated a human-like intelligence. A scream escaped my lips.
“Quiet!” the beast said in a low, terrifyingly human voice. “Follow me, if you wish to survive.”
For a split second, I was too terrified to do anything but stare. The missing patch of fur caught my eyes. I watched the impossibly tiny gears whirring inside the thing’s head, the tiny pipes curling around, back and forth, connecting the internal machinery to a tiny smokestack. A trail of steam puffed out of the smokestack behind its ear. I glanced down and I saw more torn flesh and more exposed machinery on its right arm and other parts of the creature’s body.
Blood and Steam (The Tinkerer's Daughter) Page 17