Lingering Haze (The Elusive Strain Book 1)

by James Berardinelli

  There was nothing left. NewTown had been reduced to blackened timbers and ash. The conflagration that had consumed the town had left no building untouched. The ruins were still smoldering but this had happened long enough in the past that there were no longer any flames. It was shocking how little remained of the town. As for the residents…there was no evidence of survivors. Although it was possible that some of the people of NewTown had fled, nothing was alive in or around the village’s remains.

  I couldn’t say how long we stood there, dumbfounded, with the sun gradually sinking toward the horizon in the west, its twilight glow bathing NewTown in a hellish red-orange. My mind-sense hadn’t yet returned but, if I had been able to use it, I doubted it would have identified a living human in the nearby environs.

  Whatever had happened here hadn’t been the result of a natural fire getting out of control. Putting aside the natural respect and caution with which villagers in this world approached fire, it never would have taken out the entire town. There were natural firebreaks designed to prevent such a disaster. A few buildings might have burned but the fire should have been contained. To destroy over one-hundred structures, there had to have been at least a dozen (and possibly many more) individual blazes.

  “Fire reavers,” breathed Esme, her voice breaking. We all looked at her. “Has to be. Nothing else could have done this.”

  No one tried to contradict her. We’d already encountered earth reavers and air reavers. Was it much of a stretch to believe that another kind of creature could also have emerged?

  Gabriel’s observation was ominous. “If it was, there ain’t going to be survivors.” Like me, he had been holding out a hope that a majority of NewTown’s citizens had escaped, perhaps heading for West Fork. “If fire reavers are anything like what we fought, these people wouldn’t have stood a chance, especially if they were unprepared. A sneak attack at night…” He shuddered.

  “It probably happened around the same time we were attacked. I wonder if there’s a connection?” Samell didn’t expect an answer and I didn’t have one to give him. Coincidence seemed an unlikely explanation. Earth reavers attacking Aeris... An air reaver guarding The North-South Road… Fire reavers attacking NewTown… There couldn’t not be a connection.

  “What now?” asked Alyssa. I deferred to Gabriel. I might be the putative leader of this band but he was the one who knew the territory.

  “South to West Fork. There’s really no choice unless we want to go back to Aeris.”

  “And hope what happened here hasn’t happened at West Fork as well.” Octavius voiced a concern the rest of us were trying not to consider. It was as real a possibility as another attack on Aeris. It all depended on what the reavers wanted. Finding Bergeron had become all the more important.

  “Should we go down there to…be sure?” asked Samell.

  I gazed at the smoking ruin of NewTown. It was getting dark. Our initial hope had been to spend the night in the town’s now non-existent inn. If we were going to explore the ruins and hunt for survivors, it would be better to wait until morning. A search in the gloaming wouldn’t be productive and it didn’t feel right to move on without at least making an attempt.

  “Let’s go back up the road a ways. I don’t want to spend the night this close to the town. Tomorrow morning, we can go down there before heading to West Fork.” Based on the primer given by Gabriel before we had departed, it would take about five days to travel from NewTown to West Fork. We didn’t have enough provisions. Water wouldn’t be a problem. Even with the river diverging from the road to the south, there were plenty of clean springs and brooks. Food, on the other hand, would have to be harvested or caught. Stepan assured me that wouldn’t be a problem. All the men and women of Aeris were expert hunters.

  The night passed uneventfully and in silence with all of us deep in thought about the horror we would witness up close tomorrow. As devastating as this was to me, I could only imagine its impact on the others. Although they had never been to NewTown, it had been a pillar of their local geography. I had never been to London or Paris but I knew their importance to the world where I had been born. For Samell, Esme, Octavius, Alyssa, and Stepan, the sands were shifting under their feet. Things they had taken for granted were no longer stable. The older, more hardened Gabriel was hard to read. No doubt this was difficult for him but I suspected he might be in a better position to absorb what was happening than the “innocent” Aeris residents.

  Sleep used the unremitting stench of smoke to trigger another memory.

  The fire had started in the basement. A short circuit, they would later say, misreading the cause. It was the dead of night when the smoke detector went off. Chaos ensued as the members of my family scrambled to get out of the house before everything went up in flames. We escaped unharmed - me, my sister, and my parents. I stood on the front lawn, shivering in my nightgown while waiting for the firemen to arrive. The house was eerily dark with a faint reddish glow emanating from the small basement windows. It didn’t take long for the flames to start their greedy progression through the rest of the house.

  I watched not with fear or sadness but with intense curiosity. And not a hint of regret.

  The firetrucks arrived. Men poured from them and with practiced ease connected hoses and went about the business of quelling the blaze. My family gazed on apprehensively. My perspective was more detached. Powerful streams of water drenched the house, doing as much damage as the flames. Ten minutes after the firemen had arrived, the fire was under control. Another five minutes and it was out. It was hard to say whether the house could be salvaged. At a minimum, it would need extensive repairs. That didn’t bother me nor did the recognition that all the things in my bedroom would be damaged or lost. I didn’t care much about things. I never had. People in general were too obsessed about them. Experiences mattered more to me.

  A few of the neighbors had gathered to watch, most dressed in night robes or wearing light jackets over pajamas. But there was someone else there, a shadowy figure standing across the street near our neighbor’s hedges. Outside of the streetlight’s pool of light, he appeared almost ghostly. For the first time that night, I felt a shiver of apprehension. A noise behind me, as something in the house collapsed, caused me to turn away. When I looked back, he was no longer there.

  I awoke, shaking and shuddering as I absorbed the memory and its implications, horrified by what I had learned about myself and making the obvious connection between the figure and the one who had pursued me during my last night in that world. How many years separated those two memories? More than five, less than ten?

  “Janelle?” Samell was there, his strong arms around me, cradling me like a child who had been shocked awake by a blast of thunder. It seemed like two of us had been in this position before, not that I minded the comforting. In some ways, the memories were worse than the headaches although the pain was emotional and psychological rather than physical. I wondered which was worse.

  “Another memory,” I said. I was surprised how tremulous my voice was. “The more I learn about myself, the more I wished I didn’t know.”

  “And I told you that it doesn’t matter who you were. That’s another person in another world. All that matters is who you are. The other Janelle - the one whose memories give you nightmares - she’s dead. You’re a new person. You’ve been given a chance to start anew. Do you know how many people would give their souls for that opportunity?”

  I wished it was that simple but of course it wasn’t. It would have been so much easier if I could have absorbed all of the memories in one dump rather than incorporating them piecemeal.

  I lay back down, curled up between his spread legs, my head resting against his chest. His smell was stronger than that of burnt NewTown and that allowed me to doze off quickly. When I awoke in the morning, I was lying on the ground with a small sack pillowing my head. Samell, who was nearby talking to his sister, smiled at me reassuringly when he saw that I was up. We didn’t speak of the nigh
t. There was no need to.

  The trip to NewTown was grim with the gray sky echoing our mood. This time, instead of stopping on the hill overlooking what had once been an active, prosperous town, we followed the road all the way to where it became what had been the village’s main thoroughfare. The remains had by now cooled but the lack of heat didn’t make things easier.

  The fires had burned hot enough that little of what remained was recognizable. Numerous bone fragments hinted at a horrific death toll but it was impossible to gauge the body count. The crudely built houses had vanished altogether, consumed by flames. The more stout buildings had fared better with blackened skeletons of their architecture remaining in some cases. Dishes, mugs, knives, and various farming implements were mostly intact. Our boots stirred up clouds of ash everywhere we walked; in some places, it was three inches deep. I couldn’t shake the feeling that I was walking through an unmarked cemetery. Every moment in NewTown convinced us there was nothing to be found. Even the memories were gone, stolen along with the people who had experienced them. I had never felt such a profound sense of loss. I didn’t need my missing mind-sense to know that my companions were equally affected. It was impossible to express the profound sense of devastation that settled in my breast. After spending more than an hour among the ruins, we headed for the southern entrance to the town where The North-South Road resumed its trek. I wanted to put NewTown behind me as far and as fast as I could, yet I knew it would remain with me to the end of my days, wherever and whenever that would be.

  A steady rain started soon after we had put a few hills and valleys between us and the destroyed town. It wasn’t hard enough to halt travel but it turned the poorly repaired road into mud and made progress slow and unpleasant. We kept an eye out for survivors or signs of survivors but there were none. The fields to the east and west were barren with no indication that anyone had passed through them recently. By the time we stopped for the night, everyone was sodden and, with the clouds continuing to leak moisture, there was little we could do to keep dry. Because it was too wet to get a spark to catch, we went without a fire. I could have used magic for that but it was warm enough that it wasn’t needed and, considering what had destroyed NewTown, flames weren’t apt to lift our spirits.

  Still and silent, the ghosts of NewTown haunted us that night. I closed my eyes and saw in my imagination what must have happened. For once, I wished for the memories but they stayed away, forcing me to face the more immediate reality. None of us got much sleep so, as we set out the next morning, we were dragging. If there was one good thing about the new day, it was that my mind-sense had returned. It brought with it good news and bad news. On the one hand, I could find no signs of survivors, even when I cast a wide net. On the other hand, there were no reavers nearby, either. It was safe to journey, at least for the time being.

  The rain had stopped but, owing to the muddy conditions, travel was messy. The road here was wider than to the north and showed signs of regular use but we hadn’t seen anyone. I wondered how well-used the road was and whether the lack of traffic was a sign that something could be wrong to the south. I put the question to Gabriel.

  “I’ve often gone from NewTown to Aeris and not met anyone. It’s not a popular trip and the road’s not much more than a wide path. Most merchants don’t make enough profit and, outside of merchants, there’s no reason to head up north. Occasionally, you’ll get an adventurous sort who wants to see the world and once in a while someone will go there for a fresh start but, for the most part, Aeris is isolated. NewTown, on the other hand, is part of the confederation of southwestern towns. It’s not as big as West Fork or the other places to the south and east of here but it’s still important. There’s usually a steady trickle of people going back and forth between NewTown and the other villages. It’s possible to go a day without encountering another soul but more than that and there’s reason for concern.”

  With all of us wrapped in our own thoughts, the conversation that had flowed so freely in the early days of the journey slowed to a drip. And then I noticed something. Despite the majestic trees of a new forest to the right of the road, the only sounds were those we were making. No insects. No birds.

  “It’s blighted,” said Samell when I mentioned it. “How or why, I don’t know, but this part of The Long Orchard is infected by the same condition that’s poisoned the forest all around Aeris.”

  “This is new. Can’t say I noticed one way or another the last time or two I passed by here but I’m sure it ain’t been like this for long,” said Gabriel.

  My unwillingness to accept coincidence as an explanation for anything compelled me to add, “It must have something to do with the reavers. All of this is connected somehow.” Strands in a web, but where was the spider? Maybe Bergeron could explain… At that point, I realized I was developing unreasonable expectations about what the Summoner could tell us. If he could answer half my questions, I should consider myself lucky.

  Octavius’ condition concerned me. Although he wasn’t complaining, I knew he was in a great deal of discomfort and the chest injury hadn’t improved. In fact, it might have gotten worse. There was nothing any of us could do for him. I had been hoping to hand him over to the care of NewTown’s healer but, with that option removed, there was little choice but for him to continue on with us to West Fork. When I asked him if he could make it, he laughed it off but I could tell from the pain in his eyes that it would be difficult.

  By nightfall, the normal sounds of the forest had returned but other travelers had not materialized. We were all anxious about what might lie ahead but, due to the lack of sleep the night before, exhaustion overcame apprehension. I did a lot of tossing and turning and probably never got more than an hour of unbroken rest but I wasn’t conscious of dreaming or uncovering additional memories. The next morning, as we were about to get underway, a wagon appeared a little way down the road, heading in our direction. Almost as one, the seven of us heaved a collective sigh of relief.

  There were four people in the wagon in addition to the driver and the man sitting beside him. I imagined it was cramped inside; it wasn’t a large vehicle. The two horses pulling it looked beleaguered. Gabriel motioned us to go to the side of the road and keep our hands away from our weapons. He then moved toward the newcomers and hailed them. It appeared they were acquainted.

  The wagon slowed to a stop as Gabriel approached. He and the driver engaged in a short discussion then he waved for me to join him. The finely dressed man sitting next to the driver rose and offered a curt bow as I reached Gabriel’s side. The driver, an older, unshaven fellow whose expression hovered between contempt and skepticism, gave me a long look then turned to Gabriel.

  “You’re claiming she’s a Summoner?” He was incredulous. In his position, I might have reacted similarly but I couldn’t help but be insulted by his dismissal. The other man continued to watch me with a speculative gaze. He was more open to possibilities than his companion. The men in the wagon didn’t move. I could sense apprehension radiating from them. They were ready to fight if circumstances required it. I sincerely hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

  “I’m not sure I would have believed it if I hadn’t seen it with my own eyes,” confessed Gabriel. “But that’s beside the point. I assume you’re on a routine drop to NewTown?”

  The well-dressed man nodded. “Unlike you, we don’t go all the way up to Aeris. Not much profit in that, is there? What about you, Gabriel? Why are you traveling the road like a vagabond in the company of north-folk and this young ‘Summoner’, as you call her?”

  “NewTown has been destroyed.”

  That got the undivided attention of both men.

  “What do you mean by that?” demanded the driver, looking like he was ready to come down from the wagon and punch Gabriel.

  “Peace, Galen,” said the other man, although his face was as bleak. To Gabriel, he said, “Perhaps you could elaborate?”

  “Burnt to a cinder,” said Gabriel. “We just le
ft there yestermorn. All that’s left is ashes and bits of bone and it doesn’t look like anyone survived. Had to have been done deliberately. Can’t see something like that happening accidentally.”

  “And your Summoner wasn’t able to do anything?”

  I held my tongue, curbing my impulsivity. I knew this was a tenuous situation. The last thing we wanted was a fight. Let Gabriel handle this. He knows these people and how to talk to them. I directed my eyes groundward so they wouldn’t see the anger there.

  “She can’t raise the dead and we didn’t get there until long after it was over. We encountered...something else…on the road between NewTown and Aeris and she got rid of it. And she fought alongside the villagers up north when their town was invaded by a swarm of…creatures.” I noticed how Gabriel avoided making references to “earth reavers” or “air reavers.” Presumably, that would be like someone in my world claiming their house had been burglarized by leprechauns. NewTown’s destruction was undeniable but it might take some convincing to make people believe it had been burned to the ground by fire reavers, especially if there were no survivors to confirm that version of events.

  “It’s not that I doubt you, Gabriel,” said the well-dressed man. “But if things are as you say, we have to see them for ourselves. Although I can’t fathom what you might gain from adjusting the truth.”

  “Are things well in West Fork? No signs of danger?”

  “No more so than usual. The landowners are threatening to withhold their militias if the chief elder doesn’t relent on his latest tax but, other than that, everything is calm. Certainly no monsters lurking in The Infinite Green, if that’s what you’re wondering.”

  “Marlek, we need to get word of this to the council as quickly as possible.”

  “I agree. But my men and I need to make a firsthand assessment of the situation. If you were in my position, would you just take the word of another merchant about something like this? If it is as you say, we’ll lose maybe two days. And if everyone in NewTown is dead, it will hardly matter. Two days doesn’t mean anything to the dead.”