by Bill Ricardi
Chapter 14
The morning brought light but not warmth.
I’m not certain if we were experiencing the same sort of malaise that we felt on our caravan trip through these lands last year, but something was certainly making things unseasonably cold. Although it was reasonable for the dawn sun to need a number of hours to give us her full warmth, it felt like midnight rather than morning.
We had taken what supplies we needed and left the rest in the cave to facilitate the return trip. One would assume that the General, once contacted via Max’s Message, would send his closest and fastest ship to get us. However we had no idea how close or how fast that ship would be, so stockpiling a few days worth of supplies was a wise thing to do.
Moving up the rocky shore was annoying. Scaling the steep paths that led up to the cliffside village was arduous. Once we had all made it to the top, it was still over a thousand paces before we reached the first building that we wished to investigate.
Will was uncharacteristically quiet. By contrast, Rick was complaining far more vocally than normal. Comments about stiff legs and rocks in boots were quite unusual coming from the stoic human.
I jokingly asked if the tall man wanted to ride around on a Flat Mule, as had been promised.
Rick snapped, “Very funny. We’ll probably still be crawling around this gods forsaken place when the students start their midterms, and I’ll miss the payoff for all that hard work.”
Ames and I glanced at each other. I gently informed the man, “Rick. It’s Early Fall of the year 2718, day 1. Midterms were yesterday.”
The human slowed his pace. He eventually came to a stop, and the rest of us followed suit. “It can’t be. We were just…” he trailed off and looked at Will. The smaller mage shook his head a little bit, seeming lost himself.
I put my big gloved hand on Rick’s shoulder. “We met the day after midweek. The trip here took all of that day and the next. So when we woke up it was Fall.”
The man sighed and shook his head. “You’re right. Yeah.” He started walking again, allowing my hand to fall from his shoulder without further comment. Will looked worried. I tousled his dirty blond hair and murmured assurances that everything would be fine.
But Ames wasn’t going to leave it at that.
I looped an arm around the smaller human’s back to give him that extra bit of support. Once we were moving again, the were-cat asked, “Will, Rick. I just wanted to make sure that everything was alright. You were both excellent during the ship-to-ship battle, but this area is known to wear on the mind. So let us know if you need anything. We’re here to help.”
I was impressed. For once Ames had summoned a fair amount of tact. I had to wonder how many times the were-cat practiced that in their head.
Rick snorted and waved off the suggestion. “We’re fine.”
But right on the tail end of that sound, Will said, “We need help.”
We all came to a stop once again.
Rick stared at his partner. “Will, please.”
The younger human shook his head. “No, they need to know. We need help. Being trapped in another dimension wasn’t just some kind of adventure. It was mind warping, soul crushing.”
Rick set his jaw firmly, muscles tense. But he wasn’t disagreeing.
Will continued, “So yeah, especially in a place like this, please check up on us. Sorch, what you had our padre do for us was really thoughtful. Stopping by to see us like that. It helped.”
I frowned a little. “That was supposed to be an anonymous request.”
The small mage had to laugh. “Pretty obvious Sorch, when the visits started to happen right after I talked to you. But it was sweet, and appreciated.”
Ames nodded. “We’ll check up on you regularly, don’t worry. Hey, it’s almost like we have a party full of minotaurs. We’ll check how everyone is feeling three times a day without fail.”
The were-cat and I glanced over at Tara and Toby, only to see them looking quite sad.
The feline threw their arms in the air. “It was a joke! Come on.”
Tara managed a sad little smile. “We’re not upset with you dear. We’re upset that we didn’t see the needs of our small human friends sooner.”
Toby rumbled, “Will, Rick, I’m sorry. I did my best to protect you in that place. Had I known what was happening to you… well I’m honestly not sure what we could have done differently. Perhaps talked more.”
Rick broke his silence. “You kept us alive in there, which was a monumental task. There was nothing you could have done about the hallucinogens in the food, the cruelty of the place.”
Will sighed and started to walk. We all quickly followed his lead.
The small human said, “Let me relate a story that seemed to bring it into perspective for our bishop back home. We were walking over a vast craggy landscape. It was solid stone, no food anywhere. Toby figured that we had to get out of this valley, because there was something hunting us and we were out of mushrooms. This group of scaled, fanged monkeys had been relentless though. They would do nothing but hit and run, try to stop us from sleeping.”
Toby started nodding, remembering the incident. Rick’s face, on the other hand, remained fixed on the horizon. He was probably blocking it out.
The smaller human continued, “There was a steep hill in front of us, but it was climbable. The snake monkey things didn’t seem to have an interest in following us. We were hungry and tired, but we made it to the top.”
Will paused. He had to clear his throat a couple of times before he could go on.
“From this height we could see everything. Or maybe it was some kind of spectral vision granted to us in an attempt to drive us insane. When we looked back, we realized that we had actually been climbing out of a rough stone bowl. It was massive, tens of thousands of paces wide. We were standing on the lip of it and looking down on a colossal stone table, complete with knives and forks the size of entire cities. We found mushrooms growing in the tines of the fork that was perched on the edge of our bowl. It took us over a day to climb down the giant utensil while we were addled and having demonic visions from the poisoned food. I thought that I had fallen off and died four times. No. I had hoped that I’d fallen off and died.”
Rick reached out suddenly and grasped Will’s shoulder, his knuckles white. “No.” he said. “No.”
Toby had to pry Rick’s fingers from Will’s shoulder. The smaller human would have a nasty bruise from his partner’s panicked grip.
We walked most of the rest of the way to the cliffside town in silence. Then the taller human started speaking. His voice was only half registering, as in if he was in a dream state.
Rick murmured, “We haven’t really recovered. Neither of us. It’s been months since I’ve felt safe. Or normal. What am I saying? I don’t even know what normal is anymore. Weirdly this, this right here, being on an adventure seems to be the most sane and real thing that has happened to me in a long time. When I was being drained by that vampire I thought to myself, ‘Is there any difference really?’. If life is like this, how bad could unlife be? But then I thought of Will and how he’d be alone. Neither of us should be alone.”
Will reached out silently. They held each other’s hands as they walked.
Rick continued, “I want to be done with the injury, the hurt, the risk. I know it’s my world and I need to protect it. But this is my Will, too. If the world is saved but Will is lost, to me… to me that’s not acceptable. It may be time for others to save the world and let Will and I take care of each other.”
We all expressed our support, and I believed that all of us meant it when we said they should do what was best for them.
Toby was the last to voice his support, “Whether you decide to continue running your shop, or teach at the University, or whatever legacy you choose to leave, I know that the world will be a better place because of what the two of you have done, and what you’ll continue to do in the future. At some point all of us need to st
ep back and train the next generation. We need to provide for them and teach them how to do things properly.“
Toby’s words struck a chord in me. Instinctively I looked at Tara. I didn’t know how I knew, but I stated with complete certainty, “You’re pregnant.”
Both minotaurs stared at me like I was some kind of mindreading witch. The humans saw that reaction and were genuinely surprised themselves.
Ames had a different reaction. The feline fell into a crouch. “Stop. Ears up, butts down.”
Quickly, all of us laid on our bellies in the middle of the dusty road. The were-cat was given complete silence. Those perked, white triangular ears swiveled. That whiskered nose twitched. Then the feline fixed on something and silently pointed a claw down the road.
We were still over 50 paces from the first dilapidated building, but Ames had made a great catch from this distance. Shuffling around towards the far side of the structure was a single figure. It seemed to stop, stoop, pause, and then stand up to shuffle to the next location. Then it did the same thing all over again.
I murmured, “What’s it doing?”
Ames hissed back, “Watering plants that aren’t there with water it doesn’t have.”
The stiffness and mechanical nature of the creature pointed towards one culprit: Zombification. It wasn’t unusual for certain undead to carry on with their lives as if nothing had happened. At least insofar as their new limited capacity allowed.
Eventually the zombie seemed to finish its ‘watering’. It set down the rusted can and slowly ambled deeper into the town. We waited until Ames gave the all-clear, and then stood and brushed ourselves off. The six of us quickly closed the distance between our location and the ruined structure.
Over a century ago, this might have been some kind of garden or flower shop. Other than the undead mimicry of a daily watering routine, other clues contributed to this conclusion. There were counters and some kind of large central display space. Outside, weathered rocks demarcated several small plots of land. Regardless, anything of value or probative interest had decayed long ago.
Ames peered out of the paneless front window. “The ley line passes right through this area. But if we don’t see any signs of actual necromancers or recent activity on a military scale, we move on. We can push inland. Somewhere on that ley line, we’ll find our gateway.”
We agreed to set a time limit to our exploration. If we had nothing by late afternoon, we would put some distance between ourselves and this place before the sun set. That would give us a chance to find a safe place to camp and hide away from the additional dangers that could manifest at night.
We followed in the footsteps of the flower-zombie, cresting the ridge before walking down towards the main portion of the township. What we discovered beggared belief.
The entire town, hundreds of former people, had been zombified. But the truly strange part is that they apparently hadn’t realized it. Every one of the ‘townsfolk’ went about their business like it was a normal day. Presumably, one of these zombies was a housewife picking up meat from the butcher. Another perhaps a philandering husband sneaking out to be with his zombie mistress. A third was going to the cooper to pick up a barrel that had been repaired. But the mockery of living was carried on without a breath being drawn or a word being spoken. Toby mentioned that he appreciated the artistry of it all, but even Tara was a little appalled by the concept of unliving performance art.
It was our cleric that discovered the second strange detail of our new zombie town. A zombie walked out of a pitch dark home, ran right into the startled minotaur… and then kept on walking like nothing had happened. Tara was completely ignored by the zombies. Further experimentation showed that this blissful ignorance of the living applied to each and every one of us. Zombies would simply walk around us and then slowly correct their course to get back to whatever eternal task they had been assigned.
Toby said, “I detect no evil from any of these poor creatures. Even sitting on the ley line, they are apparently undirected and uncontrolled. At least by anything with malicious intent.”
Tara agreed, “I had prayed for a Minor Portent divination, in case we got close to our goal but needed more guidance. I believe that Melflavin will happily provide some direction, given the extra-planar influence that has come to bear on this situation. However if we’re confident that this place is ‘innocent’ enough, I’ll make my inquiry tonight before we bed down. Get us pointed in the right direction.”
We continued our coverage of the town well into the afternoon. Given how free we were to move around, the party would complete a full survey of the area well before our deadline.
The academic in Will wanted to study these creatures further. As we finished our exploration, he and Rick were discussing the possibility of getting an Arcane University grant to fund a broad expedition staffed by experts in necromancy and the afterlife.
As I opened the gate to what looked like a small temple, I called over, “Don’t forget a botanist to study the habits of our flower zombie.” I turned to my left, crouched, and scooted forward a bit in order to examine the writing on one of the ancient gravestones.
That’s when everything stopped.
Every zombie in the town halted, and their heads swiveled in my direction.
Tara, standing just outside the gate, followed the undead gazes until she saw me crouched by a gravestone. “Oh gods. Sorch, they can see you because you stepped on consecrated ground.”
I quickly hopped up and ran back to the street. By then zombies had lifted their arms towards me, jaws hanging open in silent screams.
Ames made the executive decision. “Run.”
Toby came over to stand by my side. “Do you think they’ll-”
Whatever thought the paladin was having got cut off as several hundred zombies charged towards our position.
Ames shouted, louder, “Run!”
Rick and Will were probably the slowest runners, but they were also over a dozen paces ahead of us, having started to run when Ames first said so. They were heading northeast. That seemed like as good of a direction as any, so the four of us remaining sprinted after our wise human friends.
We were gaining some distance between ourselves and the angered undead horde, but there was a catch: They would never get tired. They would ignore a twisted ankle. The word ‘relentless’ came to mind.
When we had caught up with the human mages, Ames ordered us to slow down a bit.
“Pace yourselves. Just maintain the gap.”
We had a good twenty paces over the closest of our unliving pursuers, and a brisk jog was all we needed in order not to lose any ground. The main issue was that the terrain inland was dusty, featureless. We couldn’t maintain a jog forever.
Toby panted openly as we approached a slow moving, murky brook that any of us could easily hop over. He and Tara were wearing the heaviest armor, and the pace was starting to wear on their big, muscular frames. “Might need to stop. Defend Tara. Get Portent to find nearest safe place.”
There was a stone wall up ahead in the distance, likely some kind of property barrier. I pointed. “At least. Backs protected. There.”
Ames hopped over the little brook. “Okay.” was our leader’s brief consent.
We all made the jump, clearing the slowly moving water, though none of us matched the were-cat’s level of grace. About twenty paces later, I heard Rick say, “Wait!”
We skidded to a stop, worried that something might have happened to our human friend. But he had stopped and was pointing back at the brook.
The zombies had halted as well. They were all looking down at the tiny stream, but none of them even attempted to cross. It was like they were staring down into an infinite abyss. The hapless creatures behind them had also come to a stop, all of them well short of the water’s edge.
Then, with a sudden calmness, the zombie horde turned and started shuffling back towards their town. Apparently they had better things to do and more important places to
be.
Will hunched over, hands planted firmly on bent knees as the little human tried to catch his breath. “Betting that’s. Old property line. And township. Ends there.”
Tara had an alternate theory, “Might be. Freshwater thing. Maybe someone. Blessed the source.” She fell to her rump, gracelessly, tail flicking irritably.
We all joined our cleric for a much needed pause. Toby started laughing at the absurdity of it all. Everyone but myself joined in.
Ames thumped my back. “You alright big man?”
I took a deep breath. “I nearly got us all killed.”
There was unanimous and vocal protest at my statement.
Rick was the one who tried to reason with me individually. “We had no reason to suspect that stepping on consecrated ground would set them off like that. They ignored everything else we did. They were bumping into clerics and paladins all day long, for gods’ sake.”
Everyone voiced their agreement. Their united front was so strong, I was starting to think that blaming myself really might be unreasonable. “I don’t know. Maybe I missed something, an inscription or… some hint.”
Toby snorted. He reached over with one of his huge hands to mess up my dull black hair. “Don’t be silly. If I was closest, I would have been the one checking the gravestones. It could have been any of us.”
I laughed a little bit. “Okay. I’m sorry.”
Rick noted, “You know, we trust Sorch’s opinion and professionalism to such a degree that we forget… he’s the newbie here. He’s only been adventuring for a little over a year now.”
Tara blinked in disbelief. “Really?”
The tall human nodded. “Early to mid Summer of 2717 if I recall rightly. With his alligators and his giant silverfish.”
I nodded slowly. “Yeah, that sounds right.”
Will stood up and stretched, trying to circulate the acid from his muscles. “Alright, let’s leave the new guy be. Nobody got hurt, nobody was to blame.”