Armageddon's Children

by Terry Brooks

  In the aftermath, he thought about what the Spiders had told him. He did not know if their mountain spirits were entities that had given life to his ghosts or if they were manifestations of the ghosts themselves, but he had been wrong to disparage them. He had not believed they existed, but now he understood that they did. Not everything that was real in this world could be seen.

  He looked around for other ghosts, but the last of them had disappeared. He could feel his memory of their faces slipping away. Although he tried, he could not seem to hold on to it. Perhaps he would remember a few of them, the ones he had known best, but most were gone forever. He had banished them with the Word’s magic, and he knew that by doing so he had made it impossible for them to return.

  Their absence left an ache in his heart, a void so huge that he could not fathom how he could endure it. But when he tried to dispel that ache, he found he could not. For an agonizing moment, he was eight years old again and had just lost his family for a second time.

  Only this time, he discovered, there were no tears to be shed. As he stared out into the darkness and the sweep of the land, his eyes were dry.

  N OON WAS LESS than two hours away, and Hawk was thinking about who he would take with him when he went to his meeting with Tiger. Midday today was the designated time for delivery of the pleneten, and while Hawk was anxious to get the serum into Tiger’s hands so that he could help Persia, he was troubled by everything that had happened over the past few days. He might have been willing to dismiss both their encounter with the dying Lizard and the Weatherman’s discovery of the nest of dead Croaks as all-too-familiar occurrences in a world where death and dying were commonplace. But Candle’s vision of something bad coming their way, coupled with their chilling experience in the warehouse basement, had left him convinced that things were changing in the city and not for the better.

  So he spent more time than he normally would considering who to take and who to leave behind, not wanting to put anyone at risk when he already knew there was no avoiding it. In the end, he settled on taking Panther and Bear and leaving the rest behind with Cheney. If they carried prods and viper-pricks, the three of them would be safe enough. The meeting would take place on the open streets and in daylight and would be over quickly. All that was needed was for him to deliver the pleneten and return home. Then he could begin deliberating anew about how to persuade Tessa to leave the compound and come with him.

  But he had no sooner come to a decision than Owl appeared at his elbow. Her eyes were troubled as she took him aside where the others could not hear.

  “River is gone again. She slipped away right after breakfast. I thought she had gone to retrieve water from the roof, but Candle says she went out into the streets. She’s been gone for more than an hour.”

  Hawk glanced over at Candle, who was cleaning up the breakfast dishes. “River didn’t tell her where she was going? She has no idea?”

  Owl shook her head. “It’s the same as before. She goes out on her own and won’t tell anyone what she is doing.” She paused, and one hand rested lightly on Hawk’s wrist. “I think you’d better go after her this time. I think we have to find out what she is doing.”

  He almost said no. He almost said that he already had something he had to do and shouldn’t be wasting his time chasing after an irresponsible child who couldn’t be trusted to do what she had been told to do and who lied on top of it. But he recognized a voice he didn’t care for in that kind of thinking, a voice that spoke out of frustration and impatience and not out of caring. Owl was clearly worried about River, and he knew that Owl did not worry easily.

  He nodded. “All right, I’ll find her.”

  He glanced around the room, rethinking his earlier plans. He would have to take Cheney if he hoped to track River. That meant he would have to leave Owl and the little ones with someone else and send someone besides himself to the meeting with Tiger.

  He settled on Bear to stand watch in the underground. He could rely on Bear to keep everyone safe—Bear, so steady and unflappable, never acting out of haste or panic. He wished he had a dozen Bears in his family, but families don’t work like that.

  That meant Panther would have to take the pleneten to Tiger. There was no one else old enough or smart enough to send out alone to a meeting like this. It was chancy, sending Panther. He despised the Cats, and Tiger in particular. The source of his dislike was not entirely clear to Hawk, but it didn’t make it any less potent or potentially volatile.

  He walked over to Panther, telling himself to keep calm. “There’s been a change of plans. You’re going to take the pleneten to Tiger without me.”

  Panther didn’t exactly glare at him, but his displeasure was clearly reflected on his dark features. “Why do I got to do this, Bird-Man? Why not someone else?”

  “Don’t you think you can handle it?” Hawk pressed.

  Now Panther did glare. “I can handle anything, and I can do it better than the rest. You know that.”

  Hawk nodded. “I do know it. That’s why you have to be in charge. I can depend on you to be ready for whatever happens. Take Chalk and Fixit with you. For a show of strength.”

  “You think those pussycats would try something with me?” Panther sneered. “Like to see them try. Like to see them even think about it. Anyway, I don’t need Fixit and Chalk. I can do it alone.”

  “You know the rules. No one goes out alone to a meeting. If you don’t want Chalk and Fixit, take Sparrow.”

  “Huh! Don’t want nothin’ to do with Sparrow. Lemme take Bear. At least he takes up some space.”

  Hawk shook his head. “Bear has to stay here and look out for the others. I need Cheney with me.”

  “For what? What you doin’ that’s so important, taking Cheney away now?”

  “I’ll tell you later. Just get the pleneten to Tiger. I know you don’t like him, but we made an agreement and we stick to our agreements. We keep our word.”

  “I know that. But I don’t have to like it.”

  Hawk nodded. “Just get it done. Take Chalk and Fixit with you. The pleneten’s wrapped in brown paper in the cold storage.”

  Panther shook his head and made a snorting noise. “Frickin’ Cats.”

  Hawk moved over to the storage locker, selected a prod, pocketed two of the viper-pricks, and slipped on his heavy-weather jacket. Owl wheeled over to where he was standing and watched him get ready.

  “What do I do when I find her?” he asked quietly.

  “You find out what’s wrong, you try to help her make it right, and then you bring her home.”

  He looked at her wise, cheerful face and caring eyes. Her smile told him that she was only reaffirming what he already knew. She gave him such confidence just by her presence that it was impossible for him to measure its importance. She always knew what needed doing and how it could be done. Once, he had thought of her as crippled and helpless. He didn’t think of her like that anymore. He thought of her as the strongest among them. Of all of them, she was the most indispensable, the most necessary to their survival.

  “I won’t be long,” he promised.

  “Be as long as you need to be,” she told him. “River needs to feel safe again. I don’t think she feels that way now.”

  She was saying that River needed to know that she could tell them anything, that she didn’t need to hide whatever it was she was doing. Hawk wasn’t sure Owl was right, but he had sense enough to keep quiet and hope she was.

  He called to Cheney and went out the door and up the stairs to the streets. The day was clear and bright, the sky a blue dome empty of all but the wispiest of clouds. He glanced up at it, squinting despite himself, the brightness unexpected and somehow out of place. The world shouldn’t look so clear when life felt so cloudy.

  A sudden gust of wind brought him back to reality. The air was chilly and biting and sharp with cold. He hunched down into his jacket and called Cheney over to him. Taking out an old T-shirt that belonged to River, he let the big dog sn
iff it, and then told him to track. Cheney never hesitated. He wheeled away and started down the street, big head swinging from side to side, muzzle lowered in concentration. Hawk followed, eyes shifting steadily to the darkened doorways and alleys between the buildings they passed, keeping watch. He knew they would find River. He’d had Cheney track things before; once he had the scent, the big dog always found what he was searching for.

  They moved down First Avenue toward the center of town, and then Cheney abruptly turned left toward the waterfront. Together, the boy and the dog made their way through the rubble and along the cracked pavement toward the oily shimmer of Elliott Bay, its surface glaring sharply in the bright sunlight. A pair of Spiders appeared in a doorway and disappeared back inside instantly. Hawk and Cheney continued on. A gull lay dead on the street in front of them, its graceful form broken, its sleek feathers matted with dirt and blood. There was nothing to show how it had died. Hawk glanced at it, thought about flying things brought low, and looked away.

  Cheney went straight down to the piers, never deviating, working his way ahead at a steady pace, shadow-dark even in the bright sunlight. Hawk stayed close, cautious and alert. The wind blew off the bay like the coming of winter, bringing tears to his eyes as he squinted against its sharpness. The smells of decay filled his nostrils, causing him to duck his face deep into the collar of his coat in an effort to escape them. He found himself wondering if the waters of the bay would ever recover. He guessed that in time, if left alone, nature would find a way to heal them. But he couldn’t be sure. He couldn’t be sure there was any healing to be found.

  Cheney stopped suddenly, freezing in place, hackles raised. Hawk stopped with him, eyes sweeping the streets in all directions. Then he caught sight of movement on the waterfront south, down by the cranes. A cluster of dark figures wearing what looked like red armbands were working their way through the trash, headed away. Another tribe, one he did not recognize. Some came from outside the city to forage, tribes that lived in the hills behind the city, in what were once the residential communities. Some were very dangerous, as bad as the Croaks. One had moved into the city a year or so back, hard-eyed street kids with no compunction about killing. It would have been bad for the rest of them if the group hadn’t made the mistake of angering one of the Lizard communities. When it was over, only the Lizards were left.

  He waited until the cluster of armbanded figures had disappeared from view, then urged Cheney ahead again. They walked out onto the flats at the foot of James Street and toward the docks. Cheney was sniffing the ground again, returned to his task. He swung south, and then stopped, casting about in some confusion. A moment later, he started away again, headed north toward the remains of the aquarium. Hawk found himself wondering what River was doing down here. This was where Sparrow had found her nearly four years ago, an orphan rummaging through the buildings in search of food.

  Cheney padded along, then turned toward one of the larger piers and nosed his way over to the crumbling building. He stopped at the door and waited, not looking at Hawk, barely lifting his head as Hawk came up beside him.

  River was inside, he was saying.

  Hawk hesitated, and then moved in front of Cheney. He held the prod in front of him as he stepped through the door. Inside, light streamed through broken windows and collapsed sections of the upper flooring and metal roof to chase back the shadows. There were two floors and dozens of rooms, and the building was deep and high. Again Hawk hesitated, wary of entering a largely unfamiliar place. He had been in this building once or maybe even twice, but not for long and only to look for useful supplies. It had been several years since he had last entered it.

  There was nothing he could do but continue. He sent Cheney on ahead, hoping he would find a trail. It wasn’t all that easy given the amount of trash and the confluence of smells that permeated every surface. The building smelled of the bay, but also of dead things, mildew, and defecation. There didn’t seem to be anything living in it, but you never knew. Shadows rippled in the corners of the rooms he passed, disturbed by the sunlight. Hawk kept the prod in front of him. He couldn’t imagine what River was doing here.

  They wound their way to the back of the building and finally outside again. Now Hawk really was confused. But Cheney kept moving forward, heading for a large storage shed set back against the edge of the dock inside a barrier of heavy metal fencing. It was a structure that seemed somewhat sturdier than the building they had just left, although its metal surfaces were badly worn and rusted.

  Cheney stopped before the fencing and growled.

  Instantly River appeared in the doorway of the shed. “Cheney!” she exclaimed, shock mirrored on her child’s face. Then she saw Hawk and gave an audible gasp. “No, Hawk! You can’t come in here!”

  She said it with such force that for a moment Hawk felt as if she might be right, that he had somehow trespassed and would have to turn around and leave. Her words sounded dangerous, and she had gone into a defensive crouch that suggested she was ready to fight.

  “Tell me what’s wrong, River,” he answered.

  She shook her head fiercely, then broke into tears and stood shaking in front of him. “You told me…the rules,” she sobbed. “I know…what I’ve done. But I…had to!”

  He had no idea what she was talking about. “River,” he said quietly, “let me come in. What’s going on in there?”

  “Just…go away, Hawk,” she managed. “I won’t come…back home…or anything. Just go away.”

  Leaving Cheney where he was, Hawk walked the perimeter of the fence, found the hidden section that swung open, and stepped inside. River rushed to stop him, but he was through before she reached him. She brought up her fists as if to knock him back through the opening, then simply collapsed in a heap on the heavy planking, crying harder than ever. Hawk had never seen her like this. He knelt beside her, stroked her dark hair gently, then put his arm around her shoulders and sat next to her.

  “Shhhh,” he soothed. “Don’t cry. There isn’t anything we can’t work out between us; you know that. Nothing we can’t solve.”

  She cried some more, and then said suddenly, almost angrily, “You don’t understand!”

  He nodded into her hair. “I know.”

  She didn’t say anything more and didn’t move; she just sat there as the sobs died away. Then she stood and without a word started for the shed. He rose and followed. It was dark and cool inside, but there were brightly colored hangings on the wall and stacks of packaged goods and blankets. Ropes hung from hooks, and books were stacked to one side on makeshift shelves. Someone had lived here recently.

  A low moan from the shed’s deepest recesses caught his attention, and he peered into the gloom.

  The Weatherman lay on a mattress suspended atop a low wooden bed frame, his ancient face twisted with pain, his hands moving under the blankets tucked about him. Hawk took a quick look at the blotches on his face and backed quickly away.

  “He has the plague,” he said. “You can’t stay here, River.”

  She replied in a whisper so soft he could barely hear her. “You don’t understand. I have to.”

  “He’s an old man,” Hawk objected. “I like him, but it’s—”

  “No,” she interrupted quickly. “He isn’t just an old man.” She paused, struggling to get the words out. “He’s my grandfather.”

  SHE TOLD HIM her story then, of her family and of how her grandfather had brought her to Seattle.

  Even before there were only the two of them, she was always his favorite. A quiet, introverted girl with a waif’s big eyes and a skinny, gawky body that she found embarrassing, she followed him everywhere. For his part, he seemed to enjoy her company and never told her to go away like her brothers always did. He enjoyed talking to her and told her things about herself that made her feel better.

  “You are a special little girl,” he would say, “because you know how to listen. Not many little girls know how to do that.”

  When she
cried, he would say, “There is nothing wrong with crying. Your feelings tell you who you are. They tell you what is important. Don’t ever be ashamed of them.”

  He was tall and strong then, even though he was already old, and she had heard that he had once been a professional athlete back before they stopped having teams. She imagined that must have been a long time ago, years before she was born, but he never talked about it. He mostly talked about her, and he was the only one who did so. No one else ever even paid attention to her except when they needed something. Her brothers ignored her. Her mother was a strange, distant presence, physically there, but mentally off in a place only she could visit. She barely acknowledged the rest of the family, lost in distant stares and words spoken so softly that no else could hear. River’s grandfather said it was because her father had broken her mother’s heart.

  River didn’t know if this was so, but she supposed it was. She remembered very little about her father. She remembered that he was a big, noisy man who took up a lot of space and made her feel even smaller than she was. She was only three when he left. No one ever knew what caused him to go, but one day he simply walked out the door and never came back. For a long time, she thought he would. She would stand in the yard and look for him in the trees, believing he might be hiding there and daring them to find him. Her brothers laughed at her when she told them what she was doing, and eventually she tired of the game and gave up.

  They lived in a small woodlands community north of the big Washington State cities, out on the Olympic Peninsula where it was still heavily forested and mountainous and empty of people and their problems. Their isolation protected them, they believed, and so they stayed in their small community, a group of about thirty families, waiting for things to change back for the better, keeping hidden and secret as the rest of the world slowly receded into a distant furor they knew about only from listening to radio and from infrequent encounters with travelers.