“Are you better?” he asked when I approached.
“Yeah,” I said. “Actually, I feel pretty good, Alfred. Sorry about leaving you out.”
“You do remember it doesn’t affect me?” Alfred chuckled.
“Sure, still, it was rude.” I unhitched Marble and led him to his stall.
“Sorry, buddy,” I said petting his nose. Once he was in his stall he immediately looked better. As long as he was in the stall I didn’t need to feed or water him. But I left him out, exposed, and felt guilty for that. So I brushed him and he liked that. I’m sure it felt really good and went a long way to make it up to him.
I cleared the wagon and put the sword in the weapon shack. All I brought was my seax and my hand axes.
“What’s going on?” Alfred asked. “Why did you leave the magicked sword?”
“Can’t use it worth a shit. Figured I’d stick to the seax and hand axe. That feels more comfortable.”
“You do realize that those things get tougher and harder as you progress, don’t you?”
“Doesn’t matter how tough they are if I can’t use the thing, does it?”
I remembered last night, though most of it was vague. I couldn’t recall his name, but I really remembered the man.
“Alfred,” I said, standing there next to the wagon. “Were you supposed to tell me to go somewhere when I first arrived here?”
“Like where?” Alfred asked.
“Fighting training or something like that.”
“You mean the training yurt?” Alfred asked.
“Yes, why didn’t you tell me?”
“It was always an option I suppose. But you weren’t interested in anything other than the course of action you selected. Time seemed of the essence to you.”
“So you never told me because why?”
“You never asked how to use any of the weapons you chose, nor how to fight. You never seemed to indicate you needed any combat training.”
“But I can’t use that sword.”
“But you did, and you can fight.”
I stopped at that. I had just fought, and won. I shook my head and grabbed Alfred. We entered the house.
The day was spent relaxing. After lunch I set myself at the huge formal dining room table with a pitcher of ice water, a carafe of coffee, and a large bowl of shelled mixed nuts, without peanuts. Those bastard always gave you way too many peanuts. Then out came the giant book about the Realm.
“That’s a nice book,” Alfred stood, hovering above his hockey puck overseeing me as I opened the book. I let the book fall open naturally, then began turning pages, scanning each page as I went. There were detailed hand drawn maps with a write up for that map on the opposite page. My page turning stopped at Five Rivers.
“What have you learned from the scholar’s tower?” I asked.
“A tremendous amount,” Alfred said. “But there is more for me to learn. The scholar tower has levels, like access levels. It takes a scholar, a skilled one, to unlock those.”
“Do you know what happened? Why I’m here?”
“No,” Alfred said. His voice fell, it really seemed as if him not knowing something I needed to know, saddened him. “I’m sorry Urto.”
“Hey, not your fault,” I said.
“It’s not yours either,” Alfred said. “You realize that don’t you?”
“That you don’t have access to what you need? I guess I need to clear everything first.”
“The guilt you carry,” Alfred said.
I looked at him. I didn’t expect that from the tiny computer-generated man before me. “What do you know about that?”
“Observation,” Alfred said. “Purely observation. I’m afraid I don’t have any knowledge of why you’re here, nor your life or your world before you came here.”
“Why do you think I’m guilty?”
“You’re driven. You push yourself hard. You seem to accept the punishment you receive as deserved.”
“Don’t mistake being tough for being a masochist.”
“Urto,” Alfred said, “you are tough, there is no doubt. I’ve seen it. But the punishment you put yourself in can only be driven by guilt, loss, fear and pain.”
“You a fucking shrink now?”
“Yes,” Alfred said. “As a matter of fact, that and an engineer, an alchemist,” he was going to go on but stopped.
“The scholar’s tower?”
“Yes,” Alfred nodded. “I have access to it all. Just, there is more I can know but need higher levels made available.”
I sighed, ate some nuts, took a drink, and stared at the map of Five Rivers. My eyes roamed over it and the words, describing the buildings, their function, the city, and its exports.
“I’m not that complicated Alfred,” I said. “Not really.”
“No, m’lord,” Alfred said, smiling. “You wear your emotions on your sleeves for all to see.”
I chuckled. “I guess I do.”
“Just don’t blame yourself.”
“I have to. I’m the reason we were there, I’m the reason… I wasn’t good enough, that’s why I was caught up in the big layoff, the first one that started the downfall.”
Alfred shook his head. “I don’t know what you’re referring to, I don’t know what a lay-off is, and I don’t think you’re talking about anything here.”
“I’m not,” I said. I drank some coffee. “Tell me about the city.”
“You want me to read the page to you?” Alfred said, grinning at me.
“No,” I said, “tell me what’s not here, what I don’t know.”
“The crack in the cliff wall that opens the ocean to Five Rivers wasn’t always there,” he said. “The valley was pristine then and protected. The explorer Ismal, said, it was crafted by the Gods for their vacation to the Realm, and for that reason it held all natural riches to support them.”
“Garden of Idunn,” I said.
“I don’t understand the reference.”
“Garden of Eden?”
“Nope, still nothing.”
“A garden, a paradise on earth.”
“Yes,” Alfred said. “That.”
“So,” I pulled out a cigar, snipped it and lit it, “what next?”
“M’lord,” Alfred said. “You’re smoking in the house.”
I laughed. “I am,” I said. “Is there a rule?”
“Well,” Alfred said. “You have kept your smoking to your smoking chamber. This is the first time you’ve smoked outside of that room while in the house.”
“Yeah,” I said, “almost right. When I first got here,” and I stopped. I was enjoying the banter with Alfred. The talk, even if it was intensely personal. But, me recalling that first day, shook me. “Just tell me the story,” I said.
————
I stood in the shower and stared at my reflection in the shaving mirror that was there. Something had changed in me. I knew it. I glared deeply into my own eyes. I didn’t care about the wrongs I had committed to others. I cared about my family. I could see Lil’Urto’s head fully under water. I could hear the words I said at the wrong time that hurt Raevyn so much. I could see that when our life started getting hard I wasn’t there for her. I couldn’t be there for myself. I shut down. I rested my forehead against the mirror, glaring directly into my own eyes.
It was all coming out. I felt like I used to, the same power I used to have, the same confidence that there was nothing I could not do. Alfred was right. There was guilt. But he was wrong. It was my fault. I knew that. But, I found me, lost, in that mass of guilt ridden helplessness. Only now, unlike then, I could do something about it. All my pain was there, in the shower, staring back at me in the mirror. My mother’s bloody and broken body, yards away from the car, the smell of my father cooked and burned. My ultimate failure to protect my daughter.
“Even worse will come,” I said as I glared into my own eyes welling with tears. “You hear me?” I growled in anger. “It won’t be close to what you des
erve. Just don’t turn so you can bring them home.”
————
The first building on the list was the one nearest the ferry house. It was the import-export office. That didn’t sound too hard. It was the place that everyone sold the stuff created in Five Rivers for export. Five Rivers, according to legend and history, was a breadbasket of the Realm. Cattle, crops, orchards, the mines, quarries, fish, you name it Five Rivers provided it.
My first stop was an accountant. Damn. I had worked with accountants as a project manager. Most were fairly nice and decent, except for this one guy assigned to run the books for my project. He was pretty much insane and tried to convince me and my manager that my project coming in under budget was stealing, yeah that crazy. I couldn’t imagine what the undead version of that guy would be like.
I stood before the door. I wore my cloth coat with metal plates, my helm, my gauntlets, and only brought throwing axes and two knives, my seax and my bowie. I opened the door, not even drawing my weapons. The area was narrow, with a bar, boxes, barrels and packages all over, on the floor, on shelves. A huge ledger was next to a bell on the cabinet.
I entered, the door slamming closed behind me. Unfazed, I walked to the bar and rang the bell. The bell hadn’t finished its ‘ding’ before a small, narrow man wearing huge black rimmed glasses, the lenses completely black, as if he were blind, and a top hat with that was ridiculously tall, floated out. His feet didn’t touch the floor. He floated and stopped at the ledger.
“How can I help you,” it said in a weak raspy voice.
“Do you know who I am?” I asked.
“Yesssss,” the voice said, finding it hard to end the trailing ‘s’ sound of the word.
“Tell me.”
“You are Urto, Lord of Five Rivers.”
“I am,” I said.
“How can I help you, Lord Urto?”
“I wish to complete an export contract.”
“Oh?” the thing lifted its head, as if it were intrigued and excited. It opened the ledger, took the pen and dipped it into the ink well. “Tell me, what is your export order?”
“All beings that are not human within the city of Five Rivers,” I said, grinning at my own clever joke. “I want to export them to Walmart Customer Service.”
The little man tried to write it down but began shaking, then its head moved in a most inhuman manner, to the side, looking up at me. “I cannot complete your request,” he said and floated from behind the counter.
This was it, I drew my seax and axe and was about pounce when it opened its coat and about fifty small balls flew out. They each had a mouth, and they attached themselves to me. They were all over my coat and my helm.
“Smack the piglet,” I said. I took one step and swung my axe. He caught it in his hand and stopped the swing. He was strong. Fine, I could play that. I dropped the axe, twisted my grip and grabbed his forearm. He tried to pull away, but I hung on tight. He looked at me, confused. I pulled him close and then shoved my seax into the side of his head. He didn’t catch that. I rummaged around in his brain until his body vanished, a stack of cards falling to the floor, but there was no crystal.
Those things continued eating my coat and helm. I dropped my belt, pulled off my helm and took my coat off, dropping it on the floor with the Helm. The small balls finished devouring them, and then vanished. Gone, with nothing left behind.
“Fine,” I said. I put my belt back on, shoved my axes back in it, then took an axe in one hand a seax in the other and went through the door behind the counter. It was a small office, loaded with papers, a chair and small desk. The stairs led down, and down them I went.
The basement was loaded with boxes of paper. In the darkness something moved.
“Come out,” I said. “I’m not in the mood to play with you.”
The small shadow grew, moving and shuffling, and from the darkness emerged a massive woman. Her skin the white-grey of a drowning victim. Her belly huge and bloated, her breasts massive and reaching farther than her distended belly. And she was my height. I am six foot eight and this thing was as tall as me.
“What did you do to my husband?” the voice bellowed. It was female, but deep and rattling, like it was trying to force its pipes to work out of sheer will. And she moved, faster than I had expected, her massive bulk speeding across the floor, wild hair flowing behind her, ragged and stained as if soaked in salt water. Her face was frightening, her mouth wide, inhumanly wide, and her hands outstretched to me. The stench was overpowering, fetid rotting bile as if the gasses in her body had been there, fermenting, until she moved and they escaped. The entire visage had trapped me and her bulk slammed into me, hard.
I flew back and crashed into the stairs, bashing the back of my head against a step. I felt blood flow. She moved fast, took a step back, and then tried to dive on me. I brought my legs up and caught her. My feet were planted directly on her enormous boobs. It would have been funny, one boot per boob, her massive boob flesh swarming around my boot, swallowing it until it almost vanished, were it not for her pummeling my face and head with huge meaty fists screeching at me. “What did you do to my husband!” She screamed in a high pitch death rattle voice over and over again.
I used to leg lift two thousand pounds on the machine daily when we had to do weights for football. She was harder than that. But I forced myself and pushed, with as much power as I could, and she flew across the room, landing on her back. I stood, wondering why I didn’t stab her while she was on top of me and then I dismissed it. There was no time for that.
“Suck it,” I said. I had intended that to be internal, but it came out verbally. I stalked to her while she struggled to climb to her feet, like a turtle trapped on its back, she ended up rolling and then pulling herself up by grabbing onto the boxes that surrounded her, cocooned her. I must admit I was stymied, watching, wondering how the hell she would actually manage to get up, but before she was fully on her feet, she charged me again. I dodged, matador style, and slammed my axe into the base of her skull as she passed.
She crashed into the stairs and tried to push herself up with her massive arms. You need to realize, the entire time this was happening, she was screeching, non-stop, without break “What did you do to my husband!”
“I killed him,” I yelled and jumped on her back. I shoved my seax into her skull and began prying it open. She wriggled and began slamming me against the walls. I saw stars, and my vision waned. But I held on and made an opening, then I shoved my hand into it and felt the crystal. I squeezed and the flash of light and airless pop of the rush cleared through me. Soon, she was gone, and all was replaced and looking nice, clean, bright, cheery and normal; for a basement overcrowded with boxes filled with receipts and ledgers.
I stood, got dizzy, fell and vomited. Damn. I knew I had a concussion, maybe inner ear damage. I waited a bit, then moved slowly, things were blurry. I walked and there were flashes of light. I moved again, dizzy and staggering but made my way back to Alfred. There were more strobe lights with some impacts with the ground more than a few times. The boat was the only stable part of the trip. I gingerly climbed into the wagon. Marble knew and began moving as soon as I was sitting. He stopped when we were at the garden that led to the shrine. I hung to the trees as I moved to the shrine and entered. Once in I crawled into the healing pod and lapsed into unconsciousness.
CHAPTER 4
Twenty miles, it was just twenty miles. The average human being walks three miles per hour. Rae and her four compatriots were in excellent condition, their bodies trained to the rigors of long arduous hikes. They should have been able to do two hours, then a half hour break, then two more, and then their second half hour break, then just under two hours they’d have reached their destination. Seven hours total, eight if they had any issue. But their prisoner, he whined, he complained, he moved slowly. They went an hour and then took a half hour break. They weren’t making three miles per hour.
They had left just as dawn crested, abou
t six. It was already dusk by the time they reached the outpost oasis, nearly eight, a total of fourteen hours. It was called Willaby’s Perch, as it was nestled in a rocky crag that over looked a perilous drop into a cavernous rift. It wasn’t their destination, but it had a shrine, an oasis, and a camp of colorful wagons and wandering merchants that were friendly.
“In you go,” Martin said, and threw the old man into the shrine. The rest followed suit.
“What now?” Carson asked.
“Do what you want,” Wendell said.
“Who will untie me?” He asked, demanding.
“See if they will,” Martin said nodding to the wagons. Carson grunted and began shuffling towards them.
“So,” Rae said, her voice trailing off. “What do we do now? I’m not keen on sleeping here tonight.”
“Double march it back?” Martin asked.
“We’re just thirty miles to Marchant’s Oasis,” Wendell said. “And it’s straight that way,” he pointed, at the rocks. “Not over flat desert.”
“Yeah, but how much climbing? We can’t do that in the dark, in ten hours.” Martin said.
“Excuse me” a meek voice said. A small elderly woman was approaching them. “The camp is safe, we mean travelers no harm.”
“It’s not you,” Rae said. “It’s him,” she nodded to Carson, now getting untied from folks in the main camp.
“He’s crazy,” Brandon said, “and violent.”
“I can rent you a wagon. You’ll be safe in it for the night and no one can gain entry,” she said, smiling. “If you have coin.”
“What about you?” Martin asked.
“We can take care of him,” she said.
“A wagon,” Wendell said, smiling and moving closer to her. “What kind?”
“A traveler kind,” she said.
“Our traveler, or your traveler?”
“There is only one traveler,” the old woman said, smiling at him. “I guarantee you will not be disappointed,” she said, smiling. “Just ten silver pennies for each of you.”
Awakenings Page 5