by Oliver Higgs
“I’ve been saving this for trade, but it’s been a marvelous trip, and I’d like to share some with you fine people–honeyed wine, from the Monks of Aversteen!”
He hefts a weighty jug, much to the delight of his fellow travelers. It’s passed around. I wave it on by.
“Come now, Tristan. If you can’t taste life’s sweetness now and then, why bother carrying on?” Byron asks, holding out the jug.
I pretend he’s not there. He shrugs and moves on. Echo, sitting a little ways from me, looks reluctant at first, but then she lifts the jug to her lips. Octavia asks me if I’ll be staying in Apolis. I give vague answers. Half an hour later, the jug is still hovering around Byron and Echo, though it’s considerably lighter.
One by one, the campers drift off. Octavia and Ambrose say goodnight. I’m tired, yet I linger, watching Echo. Byron has his arm around her. I’m seething. Her head lolls like it’s heavy on her neck. She starts shrug his arm away but slumps lethargically against him instead. He whispers to her. She pushes at him vaguely, irritated. Her shoulders slump a second time. She stares into the fire. Some of the smile has left Byron’s eyes. The orange flames make a devilish mask of his face. He gets to his feet and encourages Kitra to play another song.
Some minutes later, Echo struggles to her own feet. She’s looking at me, glassy-eyed, enwrapped in her borrowed blanket. She’s going to come over and say something–but no, she mutters something about peeing and walks off through the triangle of wagons.
Sighing, I lay my blanket in a patch of soft grass. My pack is arranged and my crossbow on the ground, I’m ready for bed … but Echo hasn’t returned. It has been long enough, hasn’t it? Definitely. She should’ve been back by now. What if something’s happened to her? Wait–Byron is gone too.
I can’t sleep now. I have to know. I head after Echo through a small patch of forest. Voices drift through the trees. Byron and Echo. Fine, they’re talking … alone in the woods. I’m angry, but I don’t want to barge in on something. Echo isn’t exactly happy with me right now. Still, I keep going.
They’re hard to see in the dark. A sliver of moon helps. I spot Echo walking my way, oblivious to my presence. She’s swaying perilously. It’s a straight path through the tall grass, yet she’s navigating it like a tightrope. The talk is done, she’s returning to camp–but Byron isn’t finished. He grabs her arm, saying something I can’t make out. All at once, he’s kissing her.
My body tenses. I freeze. Echo doesn’t react right away–is she kissing him back? No, she veers her head away. But he doesn’t let go. His lips go to her neck. She pushes against his chest. Harder. She starts making little jerking motions, squirming, trying to shove him away, but she can’t break free. She’s saying things in protest, quiet at first, then louder, angrier, almost frantic–and still he won’t stop, he’s stronger, and she’s only half-conscious. He backs her up against a tree, holding her there, ripping her shirt.
I’m not aware of moving. My hands are on the back of his shirt, and then I’m throwing him, he’s hurtling across the forest-floor. He smashes into a tree and falls to the ground. He’s holding his head, down on one knee, turning, before he sees me. His eyes go wide. He flings up his hands in defense.
“Woah, woah–don’t kill me, man!” he manages. To my surprise, I’m holding the hand-axe. Apparently I tore it from my belt loop. My hands are trembling, my expression severe. Now that it’s in my awareness, the decision is there too: I could kill him. I have the power to end his life right here, right now. Who would stop me? I could do this unspeakable thing (which I’ve already done to Ballard–but this feels different somehow, more like murder).
Yet it’s not who I am. The decision is made beneath the level of words. A flip switches in my mind. The axe is lowered. Byron rises cautiously to his feet, swearing. His eyes aren’t smiling now.
“Now I see why you went after Octavia. This one’s nothing but a frigid tease,” he says.
I make as if to raise the axe again, and he stumbles backwards, raising his hands.
“I’m going, I’m going. Enjoy her while it lasts,” he says. There’s an ugly smirk on his face. What does he mean by that? He’s on his way back to the camp. I turn back to Echo.
“Are you–”
Her arms around my neck cut me off. She pulls me into a silent embrace, staying like that an unnaturally long time. Her breath is deep and heavy. She pulls back slightly and grabs the front of my collar, bunching it in her fists. She stares at me with drunken, bleary eyes, licking her lips, and my heart kicks itself into overdrive, because for a moment I think she’s going to pull me down into a kiss. There’s something open and vulnerable in her gaze. The alcohol has burned a hole through her outer psyche. Hidden things peek through.
“Tristan, I … I think I …” she slurs, shaking her head. She has some desperate message to convey. It’s in her eyes. She opens her mouth to speak…
… and vomits into the grass.
“Sorry,” she says. I hold her hair back. When she’s done, she pulls big leaves off a tree to wipe her mouth. She looks sideways at me.
“You don’t always have to save me, Tristan. I can handle myself, you know.”
“I know,” I say, though she wasn’t doing a particularly good job just now.
“I mean it,” she says, anger flaring in her eyes.
We walk toward the camp. Echo trips on a branch and loses her balance, cursing. She leans on my arm the rest of the way. Byron’s nowhere in sight. Must be sleeping in one of the wagons. I lead Echo to my blanket. We spoon like we did in the desert. She wraps her hand in mine, takes a shuddering breath and immediately falls sleep. I lay awake a short while, paranoid that Byron may return seeking vengeance, but he doesn’t reappear.
I’m woken by Jarvis. He kneels over me, still feverish and shivering, but a vast enthusiasm suffuses his visage.
“You ready?” he asks. “Come on, dude. We gotta go.”
“Wha …? S’not time.”
“Yes, it is–time for the ruins, Tristan!”
Crom. The ruins. An expedition seems unlikely, but I get up anyway. I could always do with some extra goods to trade. We wake Starbucks. Immediately he shoots Jarvis down.
“We’ve got to. We may not be back this way before winter. Just a quick look,” Jarvis pleads. It takes more badgering, but in the end Starbucks sighs.
“I’ll go. Tristan can come if he wants. You will stay here and rest,” the big robot says.
Jarvis agrees.
“Why not,” I say. Echo is still sleeping. I shake her until she mumbles. When I tell her what’s happening, she goes back to sleep. I try again with the same result. She might as well be a zombie.
“Looks like it’s me and you,” I tell Starbucks.
I have to make room in my pack. I’m storing some things in one of the wagons–when I run into Byron. He too is up before dawn.
“Tristan!” he exclaims, startled. “Listen. Sorry about last night, mate. The wine got to me, you know? I didn’t mean–”
“Move.”
I store the items wrapped in a cloth under my seat.
“You, uh, where are you going?” Byron asks, confused.
“Nowhere,” I say, though that’s obviously not true.
“You–you can’t leave now.”
I scowl at him.
“They’ll be prepping the horses soon. It’s almost dawn,” he explains.
Walking past, I join Starbucks. Minutes later, we set out for the ruins.
It takes less than an hour to reach the cliff. Finding our way up is another story. We walk along the base looking for a suitable incline. We find a promising path, only to stop thirty feet from the peak. A sheer wall blocks all further progress. Starbucks mutters something about Jarvis. We’re forced to descend. The cliff runs north-south. We head south along the base for half a mile before we find another potential path. It leads a third of the way up, then slants sideways in a gradual rise. My legs are tired. It feels like a long tim
e before we reach the top.
“Great idea, Jarvis. Great idea,” I say.
“That boy will be the death of us all,” Starbucks says, his malleable face approximating a frown. Time dictates that we should already be on our way back. Starbucks knows it too, but now we’re at the top. We’ve invested too much to just turn around.
“We’ll take a quick look,” he decides.
The stone building Jarvis spotted turns out to be an old fort. It doesn’t feel like most of the ruins I’ve been through. There’s little salvage. However, the place was still visited, if not inhabited, at the time of the Fall. I know this because people died here, and among their bones are ragged leather wallets containing plastic money-cards and silver-colored coins. I find only one other item of interest: a small leather pouch with elaborate black dice inside. The dice aren’t standard issue. One has twenty sides, one twelve, another only four. I’ve never seen anything like it. Someone’s bound to trade for it. We rob the dead and call it a day.
On the way back, Starbucks is angry. He doesn’t say much, but it’s in his face and movements. Would the caravan leave without us? We’ve taken far too long. We’re still making our way back down the cliff-face when a noise stops us in our tracks. The staccato burst of a big weapon echoes far and wide across the grassy plains below. Starbucks and I look at each other. My heart quails in fear.
“The turret,” I say.
Chapter 15.
The turret–it can’t be anything else. Yet it was only a quick burst, bam-bam-bam. Maybe it was a false alarm, or they fired at game, or it’s meant as a signal for us to hurry. If there were a real threat, it should still be firing–shouldn’t it? Speculation is pointless. All we can do is hasten our descent. When we hit the bottom, we race across the sea of grass. A strong breeze makes green waves around us. I’m waiting for more sound or smoke, but nothing comes. We reach the last patch of trees before the camp, and Starbucks holds up a hand.
We approach slowly, crouching until the first glimpse of the camp comes into view between the trees. The wagons are there, yes, and there’s the turret. It’s not firing now. All appears well …
Until it doesn’t.
The fullness of the scene hits me like a punch in the face. The camp is empty. There’s not a whisper of sound. The big, beautiful horses lie dead with their tethers still attached. The armored mech stands alone by the dirt road on the edge of the campsite, ominously still. During the entire journey, this mech has never once been unoccupied. The operators take shifts inside, switching out every eight hours. One of them is still inside, but the back of the mech is open, and the operator is slumped over the controls. Another operator lies on the ground a few feet away, cut almost in half by the tell-tale burn of a high-energy beam weapon.
Where the hell is everyone else?
We emerge into the camp itself. Aside from the dead Redbacks and the mech operators, there are few signs of a struggle. Even the supplies in the third wagon remain, though whoever operated the turret is missing. So much for the “assured destruction” theory.
What kind of raiders leave the loot behind?
“Kitra,” Starbucks says.
She’s lying on the other side of the wagon, sitting against a wheel, holding her midriff. A phosphorescent blue liquid pools around her, seeping from her insides, staining the yellow flowers of her ragged summer dress. At the sound of her name, she lifts her head. We run to her. She lifts one hand and puts it on my shoulder. Her glassy eyes stare at me out of their rubber-flesh enclosure.
“He took them,” she says.
“Who?” Starbucks asks.
“The … The grass came alive.”
Starbucks stands abruptly, staring down at her in horror.
“What does that mean? Where are they?” I ask.
“Taken by the grass-man,” Kitra says.
Kitra doesn’t have long. That blue liquid means could mean only one thing. Ruptured fuel cells. The Plastic People don’t have to eat or drink, but they have to replace their cells every few years. When Kitra’s cells run out of power, her body will shut down. Like a human brain, the Minkowski-4 needs continuous power to maintain functionality. If it shuts down for longer than ten or fifteen minutes, relationships between the neural pathways begin to lose their coherence. Functionality become unrecoverable. Kitra will die, in other words.
“What happened with the turret?” I ask.
“Sabotage. The magic boy. He stopped the turret.”
Magic boy …
“Byron?”
Mother of Crom. I should’ve buried that axe in his head when I had the chance.
“Yes. Byron. Another magic trick,” Kitra says, shaking her head. “He seemed so nice … Then the grass took them. I tried … I tried to drive the horses, but the grass-man put holes in them. Put holes in me too.”
“Where’s Byron now?” Starbucks asks.
“Taken. He told the grass-man about you. I heard them talking. Byron wanted to wait and take you too. But the grass-man was angry. The turret killed one of his monsters. He said you’d hear the shots and hide. Said Byron was supposed to keep things quiet. So he put the magic-boy in the sled with the others. Can you–get my book? And my sitar?”
Kitra gestures vaguely to the wagon behind her. In my current mental state, the smallness of the request strikes me as aggravating and distracting. I just want to know where Echo is and how to get her back–who cares about a book and a sitar? But Kitra is dying. This is her only request. I retrieve her things, the instrument and a black leather bible. She thanks me and clutches the items in her lap, then begins reciting a prayer.
“I thought the Christians don’t accept synthetics into their ranks,” Starbucks says.
“There’s a parish for the Created down in Boulderfield. Reverend Cold tells us we don’t have to be accepted by man to follow Christ,” Kitra says.
“You hold with a faith that tells us we have no souls?” Starbucks asks, frowning.
“It’s not the faith that says so, just people. Reverend Cold says all living things got souls–we’re alive, aren’t we? I served humans the best I could all my life. Will God not accept me into his Kingdom because my bones are made of metal?”
Starbucks only scowls. He turns away to examine the rest of the camp. I’m about to stand but Kitra stops me.
“Don’t go. Please,” she says, reaching out. Her hand feels almost like real flesh, only firmer and smoother. I crouch there, listening to her pray. Slowly, her voice sinks to a whisper. Her chin droops by degrees. Finally, her hand drops and the life goes from her body.
“Tristan,” Starbucks calls. There’s a heaviness to his robotic voice. He’s crouched out in the grass by the side of the road, looking at something. A body.
Fear fills me. I can’t see it from here, but I just know it’s Echo. Who else would it be? Time for disaster. Time for unending sorrow and bitter regrets. I’m waiting for the hammer to drop when I see the brown shoes sticking out of the grass–the shoes of a man.
Thank God.
Thank Crom and Ishtar and Set; it’s not Echo after all. A mixture of guilt and sorrow follow: guilt because I am relieved, sorrow because it’s still someone I know.
Ambrose.
Octavia’s brother lies dead in the grass. His clothes and general bodily features are recognizable–his face is not. His face is a blackened crater. I can hardly believe this thing in the grass was once animate, that this isn’t just a morbid sculpture but the remnants of an actual person. Yet the evidence is undeniable. Ambrose’s ear and parts of his hair are perfectly intact, only inches from the ruin of his face. I remember that day in the forest: him laughing and running, me chasing down Octavia for a kiss. The memory seems to belong to someone else. I can only imagine how Octavia must be feeling.
“Why?” I whisper.
“The boy had brain damage. The flesh markets have no use for a body like that,” Starbucks says.
“Flesh markets?” I ask, bewildered.
“
Where they sell slaves, up north. That’s why they were taken. That’s where they’re headed now.”
Echo in a netted enclosure, heading for captivity … Octavia and the others too, everyone who shared the fire with me–bound for a life of servitude. Byron’s betrayal is unthinkable. Yet Ambrose was harmless. He was no threat to anyone.
“Couldn’t they have just left him?” I ask.
“I think they did. He’s further away than the others. Looks like he may have chased the sled. Probably ran after his sister. Grass Man turned back and shot him. Probably didn’t think twice.”
“Ambrose,” I lament, closing my eyes, rubbing my temples.
We find only one other body–but it’s not one of ours. It’s an automaton. Programmed, not sentient. Dead now, in any case. The main body is shaped like an elongated egg. Four long legs stick out. If I had to guess, I’d say the legs were modeled after one of the extinct big cats; the cheetah, perhaps. The thing was meant to run. It was also meant to hide. Long tufts of plastic grass cover its hide like mottled green-brown fur. This is the “monster” the turret hit in its one brief moment of glory.
“The Demon of the Grasses,” Starbucks says. “That’s who Kitra was talking about. I’ve heard of him in Apolis. This is one of his bots. He’s a robot. And a slavetrader. He’ll be heading north.”
As we look through the wagons, it becomes clear what happened. The Grass Man, as Kitra called him, hid somewhere out in the fields with a long-range beam rifle. Around dawn, the mech operators changed shifts, and he burned them both down while they were vulnerable. Then he sent in the automatons. An EMP device took out the turret. The supply-wagon is hardened to prevent such an attack–but the controls weren’t shielded from inside the wagon. Apparently Byron hid a device with his supplies. When he saw that the attack had begun, he triggered it with a remote, leaving the wagons defenseless.