Ashes and Sunshine

by Nathaniel Sullivan

  “What do I propose? What do I propose?!” He looked around with wild eyes of delight. “I propose WAR!” he cries, and he plunges his fist into her stomach.

  My mind stops working as I see the old lady I love fall to the ground—and my body acts without thought. My finger pulls the trigger on the flamer, and it bursts out a jet of red and orange death that consumes the crowd before me.

  There are screams, but I don’t hear them. There are pleas for mercy, but I can’t stop my trigger finger. I’m enraged—such rage I’ve never felt before. My feet make me stand over their bodies as I run the flamer’s tank from full, to empty, to exhaust on charring their twisted corpses into ash.

  When none are left standing, I fall to my knees at grandma’s body, and check for any signs of life. The large man had hit her hard, but she’s a tough old bird—she has to be alive! I check her neck.

  A faint beat!

  I hug her and she looks up at me—she looks up at me with tired eyes. Eyes that have never been so tired before. I know something is wrong, and I weep at the sight, but she stops me with soft words.

  “It—it’s okay, Sunshine. I’m old—old and beyond my time anyway. You were the light in my world, and you will shine in my stead. Live—stay warm—nev—never—”

  And then she’s gone. As quickly as she entered my life, she departs, and I’m left alone in the dark world. Her banner of peace, her goodwill, her smiles—all of it, gone. She was too good for this world.

  I stand up from her body and run out the alley. I don’t return to our home. I don’t stop at the Red Watcher’s to beg for revenge. I only run, and I run, and I never stop running.

  In time, I find a new place in the world. A dark place, near a dark town, by the dark lands. And in it, I am the only sunshine. For it is within these dark places that sunshine is needed most.

  Evelyn is dead, but her lesson is not lost. I will stay warm, I will live, and I will shine in her stead.

  Always, until the day it kills me.

  Author’s Note:

  If you enjoyed this little story, please consider checking out my full-length novels. https://www.amazon.com/Nathaniel-Sullivan/e/B00FVBOK8G

  —Excerpt From—

  Morphic Ice

  The Clockwork War

  Available Now

  https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07KPR2K7L

  Introduction: A Vision of War

  How do you stop that which mankind has reveled in for thousands of years?

  Death, fighting, corruption—the godless acts of mass violence.

  The lack of empathy, the animal-terror, the need for domination.

  How, for the love of Marr, do you stop a war?

  In my vision, I saved them all. The poor. The rich. The evil and the good. The ragged robbers with knives and the fancy bandits with words. From newborn babe to elderly woman. From malfunctioning clank-bot to the finest mechanical marvels of our age. Even those who insulted me, and spat on me as I pass. I may not look like a kindly soul, but I’ve never been a man to judge those people who treat me with disgust.

  Everyone has a story, every story has a reason. A root cause.

  Perhaps even my vision has a reason.

  In it, I saw a green forest—unimaginable warmth and growing crops splitting a field of ice in two. It was a glorious harvest, both beautiful and terrifying.

  In the distance, there were three banners from three clockwork cities, fast approaching.

  Brilliant shimmering colors of silver, blue, bronze and grey. A faint flicker even of red.

  Men faced each other with angry scowls. Swords were drawn and electric impulses were humming dangerously from mechanical arms.

  I stood in the middle. A lone figure in the center of three armies ready for war, the only thing separating them from a terrible battle.

  The armies attacked—but not each other. They attacked me.

  Blades cut me down, fire burned me, and electricity shook my body in terrible tremors. But always I stood back on my feet. Always I came back, to hold them apart. Despite the aches, the wounds, and the terrible pain.

  I was cursed. Or blessed. It was hard to tell.

  But I did not fall for the last time until the armies gave up and marched back into their cities.

  On that day—the day that was to be a battle filled with murder and suffering, I stopped the war.

  There was peace, but for the death of one man.

  I fell one last time after suffering from my many wounds, and I did not rise again.

  But it wasn’t a bad trade.

  It seemed a fitting end.

  I was awakened from the dream by the endless cold that plagues the lands in the great beyond. Yelpik was near my tent—a goblin, and an old friend. He told me that he knows where Marr’s Spear is—an artifact of which I’ve searched for a long, long time. I was intrigued by the prospect, but on that day, and the days that followed, a bigger question plagued my mind.

  The war of the clockwork cities.

  Could it be stopped?

  It isn’t clear if I had a dream or a vision, but I choose to believe it was more than just my imagination. It felt too real.

  Perhaps I am being a fool. Certainly that’s what others would say…

  —The Journal of Nandor

  Chapter 1: Marr’s Spear

  Universal Principals of Life are potent siphons of root knowledge, which wise men know how to apply. For instance, that which is nourished, shall grow, and that which is neglected, shall wither. It is a universal principle. Be it plants, animals, emotions, or the mountains themselves. If you encourage the root positive, you will find it. If you discourage the root negative, the negative will vanish. Life, and your understanding of it, is all perspective, and it matters immensely.

  —The Book of Marr

  A roar from a massive ice drake reigned throughout the thundering mountain air. Its massive wings beat downwards, cutting through Nandor’s coat and chilling him to the bone.

  Steam puffing from twisted metal pipes shifted in the wind, blowing a heavy layer of fog into his gaze, and he muttered a foul curse under his breath as he tried in vain to wipe his eyes clear.

  “Large man! Look out!” a sharp voice at his side pierced into his ear.

  Nandor dived to the side to avoid a burst of fire erupting from the drake’s lungs. Rolling in the dust, he crawled to his feet coughing and wheezing as he stood.

  “They breathe fire? I thought it was an ice drake?” the same voice screamed.

  He took a swift stride forward and grabbed the tiny shrieking creature under his arm. “The spear! Where’s the spear?” He looked from the grey goblin into the sky—they only had moments until the drake’s next passing.

  “Forget the spear!” the goblin shrieked. “Giant flying lizard breathe fire! We run!” It tossed its small hands up into the air, as if he had gone mad.

  Perhaps he had gone mad. Certainly his dedication to his work was a form of insanity, at the least. He seized the goblin with both hands, shaking it as if it were an unruly child, “Tell me where the spear is, Yelpik, and we can go!”

  “Argh! Dumb person! You no know anything!” It squirmed free from his grip, its slimy skin far too difficult to hold onto. As it fled through the ruins it left behind a rotten stench—the only trace for Nandor to follow as it disappeared into a cloud of endless steamy smog.

  Again, he cursed, and charged after the foul creature. There was the sound of an adjacent roar, and then another burst of molten flame exploded before his feet. He spun behind a metalwork pillar before the brunt of the blast could turn him into human wax, but he still felt the heat singe his beard and brows.

  Glancing behind the pillar, he sniffed the air. The goblin had headed south, the odor was unmistakable. Up in the air, the massive drake was circling the clockwork ruins, searching for the man who had upset its slumber.

  Nandor breathed heavy as he tried to come up with a plan that didn’t end in
a fiery death. He knew two things—he needed to retrieve the spear, and the goblin was the only one who knew where it was located. Once he had the spear, he could jump on his skis and flee across the ice, leaving the drake far behind in the ruined city.

  He only had one option.

  After his breathing had calmed, he pulled himself from behind the pillar and erupted into a sprint towards the goblin’s stench.

  “Where are you hiding, you cowardly critter?” he roared as he charged.

  His powerful voice echoed from deep below, to rusted gears and cluttered cogs in ancient metal caverns then back up into the sky and beyond. The goblin, wherever it was, did not respond.

  The drake, however, did.

  An explosion of stonework shattered from on high, sending shards of broken rocks in Nandor’s direction. The drake fell through broken buildings, smashing them to rubble as it stretched out its claw-like feet to brace for a landing.

  “Marr!” Nandor barked instinctively, calling on the name of his god for aid.

  But gods rarely act in the moment. He covered his head as boulders collapsed at all sides. Jagged stones bounced off his wolf-fur coat and gloves. So much metal and stonework fell as the drake landed, carelessly crashing through the ruins, that it would have surely buried any normal man in an early grave.

  There was a moment of uneasy silence as dust arose into the air, and the drake sniffed the rubble, searching for any signs of life.

  Then, a mighty growl grumbled from beneath the debris, and a strong arm erupted from the rocks, brushing aside stones and twisted gears. Nandor quickly crawled from underneath the would-be grave of rubble, and stood facing the drake, close enough to kiss its scaly, sniffing nostrils. He swung his arm as he climbed to his feet, smacking the drake’s wet nose with the brunt of a high-powered electric club.

  The terrible creature, twice the size of a mammoth and thrice as deadly, scampered back as the blow struck its soft nose—not unlike a man stung by a bee, startled, but otherwise unharmed. It stumbled awkwardly on two raptor legs, stretching out its wings as it blundered into the buildings at its back.

  Then, it glared at him with the hatred of a thousand burning suns, and puffed out its chest as it filled its lungs with liquid fire.

  Suddenly, Nandor knew he had made a grave mistake.

  Without looking, he leapt from the pile of rubble down into the lower levels of the ancient city. Fire roared at his heels as he fell ten feet into a pile of discarded copper trinkets and old wires. He rolled until he was safely beneath the upper city, separated by a ceiling of cracked stone, and then quickly checked himself for wounds.

  His arms were bruised, his chest hurt, and he smelled burned patches of fur on his coat, but otherwise he was fine. Above, the drake roared in anger as it stomped throughout the ruins, searching for a way into the lower levels. The stone roof uneasily held throughout the creatures stomping’s, the cracks became larger, splitting wide as the structural integrity waned

  With any luck, there is no opening large enough to let it in, and the roof will hold, Nandor thought, pulling himself to his feet and dusting off his pants. Now where did that foul goblin run off to?

  As if answering his unspoken question, a chatterer of several goblin voices bounced upwards through the lower halls.

  Without hesitation, Nandor grabbed his stun-stick, powered it on, and walked swiftly towards the barking noises from below.

  Goblin is a foul language. More of a fast-spoken series of yelps and growls than anything tangible, but Nandor was well-learnt in their ways from many years spent in the wild, and he listened carefully as he approached.

  “Why you bring the large man here!” a distressed goblin cried. “He too big! Too blundering! Drake hear him from a mile! What you think would happen?”

  “I have no choice!” Yelpik, the goblin who had brought him into the ruins cried. “He not ask! He command! He want spear!”

  “Spear? He want spear? He no get spear!” a different goblin snapped. “It MY spear. I find it!”

  “He no care! He want it! He crush you to get it!”

  A rumble echoed from above, and dust shifted through the ceiling cracks as the drake continued its rampage, searching for the intruders.

  “We must go lower! Run from drake! We kill the large man later!”

  “Yes! Run! Run fast!” a goblin agreed, already scampering away.

  Goblins are like that, Nandor recalled. Cowardly, anxious, fleeting, and impossibly numerous. Even a small party of goblins could number in the hundreds.

  Nandor silently peered around the edge of the tunnel, not eager to face an entire swarm. Dozens of grey and white creatures with long yellowed teeth scampered throughout the tunnel, fleeing as fast as they could.

  Three remained behind the rest. Yelpik, scrawny, scarred, and ugly as truth, was held by a much larger goblin—presumably the enforcer. The chief stood over them both, holding a shiny spear, and scratching his chin as it decided Yelpik’s fate.

  “You betray our clan! You bring large man! Large man awaken drake! You must die, Yelpik!” the chieftain said.

  “No! No kill me!” Yelpik pleaded, crawling on his knees. “I only do what I must! I no betray! I loyal! Very loyal!”

  Nandor watched his goblin friend grovel through a wily grin. The unsavory creature wasn’t as helpless as it seemed. Yelpik was smarter than most goblins. Well, maybe not smarter, but more devious certainly. The goblin chieftain did not see the glitter of a sharp steel dagger concealed beneath Yelpik’s wrist as he pleaded for his life, but Nandor did.

  “You die, Yelpik! You bring stranger here! You must die!” The chieftain lowered his spear, and took an eager step forward. As he did, Yelpik’s dagger slowly crept closer into his hand. If he got a good thrust, he might succeed in killing the chief. But the enforcer was large, and held a big wooden club. It would cause problems.

  Old Yelpik, up to his tricks, Nandor shook his head, letting the smile fade from his face. Suppose I should lend him a hand…

  Stepping from behind the wall, he held up his stun-stick, electricity pulsing from its club-like tip. “I’m afraid you won’t be killing Yelpik today.” Nandor muttered, just loud enough for them to hear. The goblins jumped at his sudden appearance, and he took another long stride forward. “Run, and you may live. Stay and you die.”

  In his experience, goblins were rarely reasonable. Rather than negotiate, or have a rational conversation, they preferred to fight, run, or scream.

  This time, they didn’t disappoint. They did all three.

  The chieftain screamed as Yelpik took advantage of the surprise, plunging his dagger into his tormenter’s leg, then the chief hobbled down, scrambling with his arms and his one good leg to flee further into the ruins. The enforcer, on the other hand, clutched his two-handed club and charged Nandor without hesitation.

  Nandor almost laughed at the sight. Although large for a goblin, the enforcer was only at the height of a small woman, and its form was terrible. It swung its large club like a blindfolded child—no elegance, little direction, and lacking in power.

  Nandor side-stepped the blow, and then swung his response. His own weapon was far more refined then the goblin’s club. He held a stun-stick, weapon grade, and capable of felling anything smaller than a bear through a series of high-voltage electric impulses.

  As the stick collided with the goblin’s head, it crunched against its skull and then burst into a series of brilliant blue sparks, sending the goblin flying against the side of the wall in a chain of uncontrollable spasms.

  Quickly, Nandor pulled his attention away from his fallen foe to lend aid to Yelpik, who was wrestling with the fleeing chieftain. It was a dirty fight the two goblins were engaged in—spitting, biting, poking—anything they could get their dirty teeth and claws on, they used. They hissed at each other as they rolled across the floor, and for the life of him Nandor could not say who was winning, or if, indeed, either of them would come ou
t on top.

  The chieftain was certainly larger than the small and scrawny Yelpik, but he was also wounded from Yelpik’s dagger. It was an even match, and he couldn’t allow it to continue. With a grunt, Nandor kicked them apart, sending the chieftain flying further down the tunnel. He held out his hand, and Yelpik took it.

  “Dumb person! You let him live!” Yelpik cried as he was pulled to his feet.

  Nandor pointed upwards, “We have bigger problems than the chief.” On cue, the drake furiously rumbled, and more stones shifted in the ceiling. “If the chief wants to run, let him run. Since when did you care about the clan, anyway?”

  “I no care,” Yelpik pouted, sheathing its rusty dagger. “But he try to kill me. He should die.”

  “Your vendetta will have to wait,” Nandor advised, looking around. “Now tell me—where’s the spear?”

  “The Mighty Spear of Marr?” Yelpik grinned, baring crooked teeth. It waved at the ground. “At your feet, stupid man. You no have eyes?”

  Through a raised brow, he glanced at his feet. Sure enough, there was a spear there. A good spear, too, if you were a goblin. It had a long, wooden shaft, carefully cut and polished, and a sharp, pointed edge up top composed of strong steel, only partially rusted and weathered from age.

  Yes, it was certainly a spear. An old spear, from old ruins. At one point, it might have even been a decent spear. Now, however, only a goblin would mistake it for a good weapon, let alone the Spear of Marr—a heroic, god-like figure.

  Slowly, Nandor knelt down to pick up the spear. Beneath his coat, his muscles bulged in anger. To have come so far… to have risked so much… for… for this?

  “It mighty spear huh?” Yelpik crossed his arms in satisfaction. “I told you so. I say it Mighty Spear of Marr. I do good.”

  Nandor could not find words for his rage. He gritted his teeth, and stared downwards at the goblin. “You… you…” he mumbled, clenching the spear so hard that it bent between his hands. “You thought that this miserable stick was the Spear of Marr?” He suddenly burst, and the spear snapped in two.