Dear Angela,
I hope by the time you get this letter, we’ll be together and can laugh about this strange turn of events. I hope you are safe, wherever you are, and that you know I didn’t just sign off for no reason. I imagine the news down there has to be talking about what’s happened here in Utah.
My guess is that it was a solar flare or some other kind of electromagnetic pulse that fried all our electronics, so it will take a while to replace all the damaged equipment, but in time things will be restored. Meanwhile, I’m just hoping things here don’t get too violent.
I want you to know my home address as well as my address in Utah. It’s 4 Main Street, Bend ID 88777, USA. That’s where I think we’re going—I’m with a group of people from Idaho. I hope that if we can walk far enough, we’ll get to where the cars and phones and all that work again and can contact our families.
Marc laid his pen aside and finished packing up his backpack. While everyone in the building had pooled their resources, the food would last only another week at most, and the water pressure in the sinks continued to drop by the hour, despite all their efforts to conserve what was left in the tower. Marc packed dry pasta, salt, and olive oil along with his laptop, and a change of clothing. More than that, he didn’t dare try to carry.
The group bound for Idaho was in his lobby when he arrived. Rick and Kevin took one look at him and turned to Chrissie, who glanced at Marc and nodded. It stung that he had to rely on her in order to be included, but he had little choice. He wasn’t of any particular use to this group while the power was still out.
“All right,” Kevin called out. “We’ve got three large packs of supplies here.”
He gestured to some oversize duffels propped against the wall.
“We take turns carrying them. No exceptions. We’ll try to find a wagon or a shopping cart or something on the way.”
“The area’s pretty picked over for that kind of stuff,” said a girl, whom Marc didn’t know.
“Then we make do with what we’ve got,” said Kevin. He hefted one bag, Rick another, and a guy Marc had seen in the halls (but had never learned the name of) grabbed the third one.
Marc fell in step as the group moved out. Bishop Atwood stood outside the front door, and at the sight of them packed and ready to go, he gave a small, sad smile.
“Good luck,” he said.
“You, too,” said Chrissie.
This time, Marc didn’t look back as they walked away. He’d see Bishop Atwood again, he decided. This disaster couldn’t last forever.
* * *
We’ve walked for six days and think that we are perhaps nearing Logan, though it is hard to say for sure because we’ve kept off the roads. There’s still no radio, but there are more rumors of gangs riding bicycles, with chains and baseball bats. I’d rather not run into one of those.
We’ve been able to spend nights in small towns and in the odd barn. Two more people have been added to our group and we’ve actually managed to gain supplies on the way. The only other big group that is taking our same path is being led by Emily Mah—leader of the Student Democrats at the U and a really obnoxious person we want to avoid at all costs. She’ll probably want to go to Canada or something, liberal that she is.
I miss talking to you and I wonder how long this outage will continue. I can’t wait until we can speak to each other again.
I’m so mad at myself for not printing out the pictures I have of you. Often I wonder what’s happened to my apartment. Has someone else gotten in and are they tearing up my mission albums and journals? Are they sleeping in my bed and eating what’s left of my food?
This whole experience is a nightmare, and I can’t wait to wake up.
* * *
A holler made him look up and snap his journal shut. They’d reached another barbed wire fence to cross and while he could walk and write, he couldn’t climb through a fence and write.
As they made their way through a gap where the fence had collapsed, Chrissie fell into step next to Marc and looked sidelong at him.
“Hi,” she said, with hesitation.
“Hi, Chrissie.”
“So, how’re you holding up?”
Marc shrugged, which ignited more pain in that cramp in his back. That had returned with a vengeance the first night they’d slept rough. He did his best to put one foot in front of the other, though, and keep up with the herd.
He waited for Chrissie to keep prattling, but she was silent.
Upon thinking it over, he wasn’t sure what he really expected. Her infatuation with him seemed to have waned. She hadn’t cast him a single longing look this entire time.
“Can I just say something?” she said.
“Sure.”
“You’ve got to let her go. Not because I’m saying you should be with me. I’m not sure that makes sense anymore, but you can’t be with her. She’s gone. The plane that would have brought her here will never fly again and your laptop is taking up space and weight we can’t afford.”
“I’ll need it after the blackout.”
Chrissie looked sidelong at him again. “That won’t ever happen. And I think deep down, you know that.”
Her tone was odd enough to make him look over at her.
“I know you think I’m crazy,” she went on, “but I did have a visitation before this started, and correct me if I’m wrong, but you haven’t even offered one prayer for answers. This change is for good. This is our life now.”
Marc shook his head. He couldn’t accept that.
“Okay, fine,” she said. “How about you let me carry your laptop? Your knees are about to buckle and that’s seven pounds I can take off you.”
“No,” he said.
While she wasn’t scrawny, she was slim. She didn’t have a whole lot of muscle mass, and the rationed food they were eating made everyone’s faces more gaunt and eyes more prominent. He shook his head.
“I couldn’t.”
A root caught his foot and he went down, spraying alkaline soil in an arc, his hands smarting as the skin peeled from his palms. The rest of the group paused, but no one stopped to help him up.
No one but Chrissie.
Marc made sure to get up on his own.
* * *
The next morning, when the load was divvied up, the largest bag plopped in front of Marc. He stared at it despairingly, knowing he couldn’t ask anyone for help. Chrissie stood by, her hand out, offering to take the laptop.
With tears pricking at his eyes, he pulled it out of his bag and laid it on the ground. “Let’s go,” he said.
Chrissie didn’t argue, but she did stare.
“I just need a minute,” he told the group.
They all stood politely as he knelt and bowed his head. Lord, he thought, I guess I should be thankful I’ve lasted this long. Thou must have a million prayers from people asking Thee to fix all this. Add my voice to that crowd and . . . otherwise just help me along here.
He opened his eyes and saw that no one tapped their foot or glared at him.
Marc drew himself up as straight as his aching spine would allow. He tucked his journal, with his letter in progress for Angela, into his pack. No one smiled or snickered, but the pity was as tangible as the ground beneath his feet. He ignored it, shouldered his bag, and the group moved on out.
The laptop grew smaller and smaller until it was nothing but a dark dot in the distance. Chrissie walked next to Rick, who hung on her every word. Marc brought up the rear with an aching back and a limp. He wanted to look back one last time, but he knew that if he didn’t keep up, he was a goner.
Deor
by Diana Paxson
Diana Paxson
I have written a lot of short stories and novels on legendary themes, from Siegfried and Brunahild (the Wodan’s Children trilogy) to the Avalon series that I took over from Mario
n Zimmer Bradley, and some nonfiction books, including The Way of the Oracle. I hosted the first tournament of what became the Society for Creative Anachronism in my backyard. My first publications were the chronicles of Westria, set in a world several centuries after a somewhat different Change. When I read Dies the Fire I was fascinated to find that Steve had come to many of the same conclusions I had regarding who would survive, which made more sense when I found out that he liked Westria! I’ve been following the series eagerly ever since and I’m delighted to have this opportunity to play in the world of the Change.
For more about what I’m doing, see diana-paxson.com.
BARONY OF MIST HILLS
(FORMERLY MENDOCINO COUNTY, CALIFORNIA)
OCTOBER, CHANGE YEAR 30/2028 AD
The ocean was a tumult of white and gray, misting into bars of cloud through which the setting sun sent a glimmer of gold. Deor squinted as another roller crashed against the point, glimpsing for a moment an iridescent form shaped from sea wrack and spray, mutating as he watched into a hint of bright eyes and laughter. Was that what he was waiting for?
“Sae-aelfen haill!” he whispered. He hunkered back into the dubious shelter of the pine, automatically shifting the sheathed seax to one side, and shook back his hair. Dry, it was curly enough to stay off his face, but wet it lengthened, and the wind was whipping the dark strands into his eyes.
“That passed, so shall this.”
For most of his life he had hated that quote, but at moments like this he could appreciate its grim philosophy. He had been born twelve years after the cataclysm that rendered the old world more distant than Old England, and his parents had named him Deor for the long-ago poet who wrote that line. It was the Saxons, or so his father said, whose ways had saved them when nothing from the old world worked anymore. Their arms, their crafts, and their poetry were equally appropriate to a grim life in what had become a grim land. Deor dreamed sometimes of building a ship that could venture beyond the cove and see what else had survived the cataclysm, but even a Saxon ship would have trouble in such a storm.
Why, he wondered, had he wanted to come to Albion Cove? It was the season for harvesting crabs, and he wanted to escape the confines of Hraefnbeorg one last time before winter closed in, but the season was changing early this year.
From the bluff on the northern side he could see across the cove. Waves were rolling all the way in to froth around the tangled iron stubs of the bridge where the Albion River joined the sea. The leather scales of his jack were slick with moisture, his cloak was growing heavy, and the damp would not be doing his bow any good either. On this trip, flotsam was the only harvest they were likely to gather from the sea.
Branches thrashed above him as the wind rose. There were fell voices on that blast. Not evil, but heedless of humankind. His father and older brother were always telling him to pay attention to the dangers he could see. They honored the spirits of the land, but sometimes he wondered if they understood that they were real.
“Deor! Are you froze, man, or just crazed!”
A hard hand closed on his arm. He started to swing, recognized the touch, and pulled the punch as Alfwin leaned away, brown hair tossing. His friend laughed.
“Guess you’re not frozen, then—but stay here an’ ye will be. Th’ others are already headin’ back t’ the village—” He motioned toward the flat beyond the bridge, where a few houses and a boat-barn still stood, despite the river’s habit of flooding every year or two.
The bit of sky that showed between the bands of cloud was deepening to flame. Deor pulled himself upright, scanning the horizon through slitted eyes. And stilled, blinking, as beyond the rocks at the northern headland something moved. He took a step down the path.
“Man, what’re ye doing? I’m not gonna freeze my butt—”
“Alf, can’t you see?” Deor found his voice. “Look there, at the point—by Thunor’s beard, ’tis a sail!”
“Crazed—” Alfwin draped an arm across Deor’s shoulders and stood beside him, leaning into the wind. They had sometimes seen ships slipping along at the edge of sight offshore, long, low vessels like the ones the Pomo tribesmen up at Kah-la-deh-mun said had burned half the town the year before. But this one was closer. Too close, for one who did not know the channel, and in such a sea.
“Not to worry—” said Alfwin grimly. “Rocks’ll get ’em if they go on that way . . .”
Deor squinted into the sunset. “No . . .” he breathed. “This one’s different. Like the picture in Treasure Island!” Alfwin was not much of a reader, but Deor had taken to it, and when they could escape the endless chores he read to his friends from the lore books at Hraefnbeorg.
Alfwin peered at the angled black wedge that leaped against the sky. “Maybe . . .”
A host of wordless intuitions coalesced into certainty. “She’s in trouble!” Deor pulled off his cloak and began to sweep twigs and fallen branches into it. “I’ll light a beacon. Run back t’ the village! Get boats out—pick up survivors if she goes down!”
The wind had torn a long branch from the pine. He tossed it down to the spit of land at the foot of the bluff, then pulled the hatchet from his belt and began to hack at the brush. By the time he had bundled it all into his cloak and scrambled down the slope the ship had passed the point. He stopped short as the sun, sinking below the clouds, painted the vessel a sudden vivid gold.
Need propelled him into action once more, piling the wood, using his belt knife to shave tinder down to the dry pith and fumbling with the flint and steel. He had been doing this since he was old enough to hold the striker, but never when lives might depend on that flame.
“Neid, Ken!” Deor sketched the rune above the wood. “Loge damn you, burn!” He struck again, saw the spark catch, and spread his cloak to shield the infant flame. In moments, the resinous wood was flaring, fanned by the wind. Smoke billowed upward. Surely they would see. He flapped at the flames with his cloak until they roared.
When he dared look again, the ship was turning! Now he could see battered timbers and a white, desperate face at the rail. Even if mortal, the ship was amazing, maybe fifty feet in length with two masts, though one had snapped and the other bore only a tattered trysail. She leaped like a horse with a burr beneath the saddle, but she still swam.
He snatched a brand and loosed it in an arc to land in the slack water just beyond the guano-covered rock. “Here!” he shouted. “Anchor here!” The cove had seen no ship of any size since the Cataclysm, but the fisherfolk said that long ago, big ships had anchored there to load the great logs men cut in the hills.
Someone shouted from the deck. Deor snatched up another brand and waved it around to the left, willing them to turn. The boat heeled over, foam frothing at her prow. With a crack the sail split, but the wind at her stern was pushing her now. He gazed hungrily as she neared. Everything—her size, her elegant lines, even the bright paint on her battered sides, proclaimed, “Not from here . . .”
Until this moment he had not believed, not really, that beyond this small corner of what had once been California there were other communities of men in the world who still deserved to be called human.
The ship shot into the lee of the white rock and slowed. Men heaved at the anchor and with a splash it shot downward. The ship jerked as it caught, then came to a halt a short stone’s throw away.
Deor let out his pent breath in a long sigh. Alfwin waved from the shore below the bridge, Willa and Manfred behind him, as two rowboats from the fishing village nosed between the pillars and headed into the cove.
“Ahoy!” came a call from the deck.
The man’s graying dark hair was cropped shorter than he’d ever seen a free man wear, but it was clear that this was no thrall. Beside him a youth leaned over the rail. He looked to be a little less than Deor’s age, but what wonders must he have already seen?
The captain’s dark eyes met his own. “Wha
t place is this?”
Deor’s pulse quickened. “Albion Cove!” he called in reply. “Barony of Mist Hills! I hight Deor Godulfson. Wes haill! Be welcome here!”
“Captain-owner Daniel Feldman,” the man replied. “Of the Ark; what’s left of her,” he added ruefully.
Four machines crouched on either side—catapults, he realized, but they hadn’t been enough. The sides and deck were peppered with holes as if someone had been using the boat for a target, even through the thin metal that covered much of the hull. In fact, in several places below the waterline something that looked very much like the sort of arrow an etin might shoot was still wedged in the planking, broken off and caulked with pitch to plug the hole. The rowboats had reached the vessel now and were taking off the first load of crew. To Deor’s surprise there were women among them. At home both lads and lasses trained in the basic skills, but only the men of Albion Cove went to sea.
It’s me—Deor hugged himself, controlling the impulse to laugh from sheer joy. Not my father, who dreamed of this day, or my brother, who never believed it would come. I’m the one who will welcome these folk and get first news of the weird of the world.
Still grinning, he kicked the remains of the fire into the sea and scrambled back up the hill.
* * *
By the time Deor had made his way back along the bluffs and down to the village, most of the ship’s crew had been ferried ashore. A cauldron of chowder was already steaming over the fire. In their sodden shirts and breeches the strangers looked human enough. Alfwin’s leather bota of brandy was being passed around, but they were clearly waiting for him, as the baron’s son, to make the first move. As he came forward, the captain nodded and gestured toward the sea.
Tales of Downfall and Rebirth Page 60