by Ben Woollard
“Prisoners?” he asked, frowning. Apparently no one had told him of the Singulars we had found. He seemed pleased by the news, however. “Oh, I’m sure we can find some use for them,” he said, and whispered something to one of his officers.
“Now boys,” Shilk said, addressing us. “There are a lot of big things coming. We’ve got expansions to make and a civilization to build. We need brave young men such as yourselves, men who aren’t afraid to get their hands dirty in the name of progress. I’m sure that you have bright futures ahead, and I hope to meet you again soon.” We all saluted, our chests swelling. In that moment I felt like we had done the right thing by dragging that boy to death; I felt that we were soldiers in a holy war.
Chapter 2
I woke up to light showers, but they didn’t last long. I took the road to Linhof and arrived a little bit before noon. I hoped the people here weren’t as hostile as they’d been in Roosh. Right away I noticed the settlement was a lot bigger than Tilda’s had been. Farmlands stretched out in all directions, punctuated by small houses. Everywhere I looked were plots of neatly ordered rows, all laid out in preparation for the planting that had begun now that spring was breaking.
I walked along the side of the road where small ditches had been dug as gutters, and where the remnants of the morning rain were burning away, the clouds that had brought them twisting apart on the horizon. The sky was blue, and I had the feeling I knew what lay ahead of me, like the whole path was there and visible in the sunlight that fell onto the earth on which I stood.
After walking for a while I came into a square where I saw a lodge built of stacked tree limbs, a chimney made out of mud and a foraged mix of random colored bricks rising up one side of it. Coming in through the door, no one so much as looked at me, crowded and busy as the place was. I sat on top a stool in front of the counter where a middle-aged man with a massive beard was standing staring out with bleary eyes. The room was thick with the exhalations and burning of tobacco smoke. It was the barman who spoke first. He smiled with a nearly toothless mouth and I smiled back.
“New to town?” he asked me.
“That’s right,” I said. “My name’s Sam.”
“Wesley,” he said, shaking my hand. “Can I get you anything?” I had him refill my water, and ordered a slice of bread. I was shocked when he said they had butter, which was nearly impossible to get in Columbia, and sat eating, amazed by how much difference the simple addition could make to the bread’s flavor. It took me a minute to get over this before I remembered what I needed to ask.
“I’m wondering if you know a man named Theo?” I said, turning back to Wesley. “He should’ve come into town a few months ago.”
“Theo, you said?” I nodded. “Yeah, yeah, I know the guy. He’s been setting up a ‘stead north side of the settlement. Don’t think he’s been havin’ much luck, though, heard he’s been working for other farmers most of his time just to get a meal in.”
“I’m a friend of his, think you could point me in the right direction?”
“Sure, sure,” Wesley said, and after I gave him the few wrinkled Gov notes I owed him for the food he showed me out the door and pointed at a road leading to the northern end of town. “Just keep on that one there. He’s the last ‘stead out there. You’ll know it when you see it, not much more than a hut on the whole place, truth be told.” I thanked the toothless man and headed the way he’d pointed.
When I finally came to what I figured must be Theo’s spot the sun was rising high, and had nearly reached the point just above my head. Wesley had been right: the ‘stead wasn’t more than a small shed standing in a wild field. There was some churned up ground a little ways off, but the rows weren’t well ordered and I couldn’t imagine anything growing in them.
I went and knocked on the door to place, which looked little more than size enough for a person to sleep, though I saw a chimney which meant there must be a stove, at least. No one answered, and I sighed, thinking there probably wasn’t a very good chance of Theo being back anytime soon. I lay out in the grass and stretched my arms and legs, yawning, tired from the sparse sleeping that camping on the ground gives a person.
Laying there, listening to the sounds of birds in the tree line behind the hut, with the blue above me pressing down its calm, I fell asleep before I realized what was happening. I dreamt, strangely, that I’d woken up only moments later to an old man standing over me. He seemed familiar as I stared up at the grizzled face. He looked down at me with eyes that blazed unnatural orange hue. I sat up, still dreaming, and suddenly the sky looked as if time had sped up, and the clear blue turned like a rolling wheel into the vault of milky stars, the moon a crescent low up in the heights. I stood and looked around. The old man was gone. Then I saw on the horizon above the trees a glowing crimson red that diffused itself against the stars, and dripped upwards into them like droplets of fresh drawn blood.
I woke up with a start, and saw the sun was just partially past the place it had been; I’d slept for a couple of hours. Still, Theo wasn’t back yet, so I sat on a nearby log, overgrown with plants and fungi, and ate some more bread, savoring the butter that had dampened it. When the first traces of yellow were making their upward drift into the sky, I saw a figure walking down the road towards me at a tired pace. I stood up and waved, but he didn’t see me, downcast as his eyes must’ve been, and it was only when he neared that he saw me and sped his pace up.
“Sam! Good to see you man!” Theo said when he reached me.
“Same to you! How’ve you been?”
“I’ll tell you, but let’s go inside first, I need to sit down.” We went into the small structure, which I saw was furnished with only a narrow sleeping mat, a table with a set of chairs, and a stove with a single burner on it in the corner, the charred remnants of burnt wood sitting in its open mouth. We sat at the table with the door open, a cool breeze filing in with intermittent wafting rhythms. After taking off his boots with a groan, Theo told me what he’d been doing in the past months.
“Since I came out here,” he began, “things haven’t been going all too good, to tell the truth. I thought it’d be easy to start a good ‘stead, what with everything I know about plants, and when I first got here things seemed to be looking up. The settlers didn’t mind me taking some land up here: they’ve got plenty of space, but I didn’t put together how I would pay to feed myself while developing it. A lot of people out here still use the barter system, but the Gov enforces monetary regulation, too. Unfortunately for me, I didn’t have money or anything to trade, so I had to start working for some of the other settlers in order to pay to build this,” he motioned towards the tiny structure, “and just to keep myself fed. Food out here is pretty expensive, y’know, since the Gov takes so much as tax, and almost everyone just eats what they grow themselves. I haven’t had much time to get things established here as a result; It’s just been more work than I can handle. But I’m rambling. Enough about me, how’re things in the city?”
“They’re not too bad,” I said. “The Gov has been pretty quiet lately, at least compared to how they were when we left. I don’t know if that’s a good sign or not, though. Doesn’t seem like they would just go back to acting as if things were normal after everything that happened. Me and Shiloh decided it’s a good time to leave Columbia, but it’s been hard to convince our mom and grandpa without somewhere for them to go to first. That’s actually why I came: I want to start a ‘stead, get something established so that they can all move out here. I think the further we get away from the Gov the better.”
“I can’t say I blame you. As for your steading out here, I think it’s a good idea, but it might not be so easy as you’re hoping. But hey,” Theo said, his eyes lighting up with an idea, “why don’t you stay here and help me get this place started. We can swap days working for the settlers while the other works the ‘stead. It can be both of ours, and then we’ll expand once Shiloh and the rest of your family comes. What do you think?” I didn’t n
eed to consider it; I’d been hoping Theo might make that suggestion, though I doubt I would’ve been able to offer it myself.
“I think you’ve got yourself a deal there, Theo,” I said, grinning.
***
I moved in to Theo’s tiny home and we set our plans to motion. The work turned out to be slower and harder than I’d thought it was gonna be, even with me and Theo trading off days to plow and work the fields. For one thing, neither of us had much of an idea about how to farm, so we had to figure it out as we went along. We learned a lot from working on the other settler’s ‘steads, and we asked as many questions as we could in order to get a better idea of the right practices. We were lucky Theo already knew something about plants, though most of it was about foraging in the wild, and we didn’t have any idea about how to recognize good soil or when the best times to plant certain crops were. The other settlers were happy to give us as much information as we needed, and some of them even lent us tools, which made our task a thousand times easier than it would’ve been trying to dig in the earth with the one shovel Theo had been able to buy. The Gov taxes had made everything expensive, and it took us a lot longer to save up the money we would need for equipment on top of having to buy our own food, rather than grow it like everyone else did.
Things were slow for a while, and it was all we could do to keep our bellies half-full and try and get a decent amount of sleep each night. There was barely enough room in the hut for us both to lay down comfortably, so we pulled the table and chairs outside so I could lay down a mat. After a while I figured it would be easier just to sleep outside, though, seeing as it still wasn’t too cold, and the grass was softer than the hardwood, anyway. I set myself up just inside the tree line with a homebuilt canopy, under the oak and sequoia trees looming up above me, parsing out the sky and sunlight through their massive limbs.
Even though it was such hard work, I loved living outside the city, and I’d never been so happy as I was working in the dirt each day, alongside the glowing plants and animals that wandered round the ‘steads we worked on. I’d never been so close to animals, and I couldn’t get over how human they were. Momma had always told me they were just like us, but I never believed her until I spent some time around them. Even the cows the settlers kept for milk and to plow the fields seemed nearly as aware as any person, just a lot quieter, more docile. Nights I lay and looked up at the sky, tracing the carvings inlaid into Grandpa’s cane, hoping I’d see him and Shiloh and Momma again soon. Some nights I’d have vivid dreams about the symbols that the carvings made, like they were alive and trying to tell me something important, but I couldn’t quite make out what it was.
Me and Theo saved up enough money to buy a good bit of equipment, and even got a chicken coop set up behind the hut. Between the eggs and the small crops of lettuce and tomatoes that we’d been able to grow we managed to save some money for food, and as everything bloomed and began to dry, we got a settler we’d become friendly with to help us build another little room into the hut for me to sleep in.
Spring passed, and it was a hot summer afternoon, while I was working out in the crops, that I saw the face of an old man looking at me through the trees at the edge of the field I was weeding. I recognized him as the same man from my dream when I’d first come to the ‘stead. I walked out to where he was, but when I got there he was gone. I looked around, confused, and saw something carved into a nearby tree. It looked like two pieces of string wrapping around one another, like two interweaving spiral staircases. I thought I’d seen them before, and later, when I was laying on the straw mattress I’d put inside my room, I took out Grandpa’s cane. There it was: carved into the wood were two vertical grooves that spiraled around, ending in two snakeheads wrapped around the top where the handle started. I stared at them for along time, tracing their light grooves, barely visible compared to the other painted and deep-set markings.
It wasn’t long after that I began to have the regular sensation that someone was watching me while I was working in the fields and garden, though every time I looked up there was no one around. The feeling kept getting stronger, though, and I was sure that old man was out there staring at me from where he hid behind the trees. It got to the point where it really bothered me, and one day I went out and searched all around the woods, but I couldn’t find anyone. Annoyed, I sat down on a log and decided I would wait for a little to see if anyone showed up. I don’t know how, but somehow I dozed off, laying there on top of a rotting log. I woke up with a start, at first not knowing where I was. Sitting up, I looked to my left and saw on the log beside me the old man I’d seen inside my dream. I suddenly remembered where I’d seen him the first time, too, on the road to Roosh.
“It’s you,” I said. “From the road.” He didn’t seem to be paying any attention to me, just sat staring up at the drifting leaves intermixed with evergreen pines and rippled bark. At last he noticed me, and looked over, smiling a nearly toothless grin.
“It’s been some time, hope I find you well.” His accent was just as bizarre as I remembered it, and around him seemed to burn an orange haze, just barely perceptible if I let my eyes go out of focus.
“Umm, well enough. Can I ask what you’re doing here?”
“Certainly you may.”
“So…. what are you doing here? Have you been following me?” I asked, piqued by his airiness.
“In a sense I have yes, but I’ve been many places since you’ve seen me in these woods and when I showed you the world to come inside your dreams. I’ve kept my eye on you; the cane has been a beacon.” I frowned at the old man, his face and hair matted with dirt. The way he spoke was rhythmic, almost like a chant.
“Who are you?” I asked him when I saw that he wasn’t about to offer more information without my prompting. He didn’t seem reluctant to talk; it was more like it didn’t occur to him, and he just stared at the scenery around us as if lost in contemplation.
“My name, one of five, is Tahm Pucket. I’ve followed you at the behest of one above me. There is blood coming to the land, blood and iron. I was told to change the course back to what it’s meant to be.” I didn’t know how to take such a bizarre response, and I thought I must’ve been talking to a lunatic.
“You don’t make any sense.”
“Not yet, but you’ll around.” I don’t know why I didn’t leap up and get away from him right then. Perhaps it was the air of calm about him, or something in the way he spoke. Whatever it was, something about the strangeness of him put me at ease when I knew it should’ve done the opposite. The presence of the old man had a sort of power to it that I later learned to recognize; it made the atmosphere euphoric, almost put you in a kind of trance.
“What do you mean ‘change the course’?” I asked him, trying to prompt him into saying anything coherent.
“To set you in your role, that’s what I mean. I know you wish to stay to work the land for tranquil days, but that time is not yet come. There’s a poison that many will be forced to drink before this cycle’s ended.”
“What poison is that?”
“I’ll show you, Sam, but I can’t promise that you’ll like the vision,” and before I could protest he reached out a hand and touched my forehead. Suddenly the woods were gone, and I was witnessing a stream of images, all filled with so much feeling I thought it would tear me up to pieces. I saw the sky filled with a dark red haze, and from it rained crimson bloody droplets. The earth was soaked with blood, and everywhere were people with manacles around their necks and limbs, their bodies naked and skinny as mangy wild dogs. I saw the outlines of a city, and above it a black-winged bird, its eyes burning flames, the air becoming torrents in the beating of its wings. Doom, it proclaimed upon the country, death or tortured slavery for all. I saw it reaching for the people on the streets, and they fell beneath it, or else began to gnaw upon each other’s flesh. The wings of the bird stretched outwards to the countryside and beyond, and its obsidian beak opened and from it came the cackle of an evil
mirth. “This comes from the wreckage of the shattered Proélefsi, who built a tunnel to the space below,” Tahm Pucket’s voice said to me, and I was torn with grief and terror. As the imagery faded, I saw a parting in the east of that crimson sky and from it shone a single blue-rimmed star.
I found myself lying on the forest floor, sobbing with my arms wrapped around my chest. Tahm still sat upon the log, and I looked up at him to see that his face, too, was wracked by distress and pain.
“Do you see? This is what’s to come. This is why I’ve been sent here: to resist this thing, and like it or not, you’ve a role to play in that.” I sat up, my body shaking from the weight of what I’d seen. It had been like witnessing the death of eons in a moment and the burning down of everything. My body shook and it took me a long time before I could speak.
“What can I possibly do… against that?” I asked, staring down at the ground where I still sat hunched, my fists grasping fallen leaves and needles.
“Time will tell the way,” Tahm said, smiling at me now, his face filled with sympathy that I could feel like radiating heat. “For now, go back and work your fields, eat and rest. What you’ve seen shall be a heavy burden. I’ll see you soon, and we will begin our preparations.” With that, the old man helped me to my feet, and was gone the second I turned my head, only a subtle drift of air as evidence he’d been there. I felt broken and confused; the euphoria I’d felt was gone, replaced by an overwhelming sense of hopelessness. I walked back to the fields shaking my head back and forth. I didn’t know how to process what had just occurred, and so I worked feverish to try and calm my head for the remainder of the day.