“Kaff?” I said, and mimicked coughing.
“Na,” said Kaleb. He pretended to vomit. “Kaff.”
“Oh, you’re sick. Kaleb kaff,” I said.
He gave a grim nod. “Yap.”
“You better go join the others.”
“Ques?”
I pointed behind him. The group hadn’t stopped for Kaleb. “Pendras. Others. Gae,” I said, remembering what Pendras had told me to do.
“Yap,” said Kaleb. He held up a finger. “Aber, van meenat. Eyre, Isaac.”
“Kaaaaaaleb!” boomed a voice. It was Pendras.
Kaleb opened the leather bag slung over his shoulder. He quickly pulled out a bunch of things and threw them at my feet.
One of them was another bag, actually.
“Luck, Isaac,” he said. It was the first English word I’d heard him speak, but it was a glorious, glorious word. It meant that English existed here.
“Kaaaaleb!”
“Gae, Kaleb,” I told him. “Thank you.”
He arched his eyebrow. Maybe he didn’t know what thank you meant, but there was no time to explain because he ran back to his people now, leaving me alone.
I was confused about everything. About where I was, who Kaleb and his people were, and the things they could do. I was confused why they had first tied me up, and why they had now let me go, and what Kaleb had just given me.
I guessed they weren’t killers. But why couldn’t I have gone with them? I mean, it was obviously because I couldn’t cast a spell on command, but Pendras must have known he was leaving me in danger.
As I watched Kaleb join the other teens and resume guiding the bison away, I felt a flicker of regret that he was going. He had been a friendly face, and this was a time when I needed friendly faces. I’d miss him.
Weird.
Still, at least he had helped me.
“Better see what things he left me,” I said, and I kneeled to check what was on the ground.
CHAPTER 3 – No Place Like Home
“Next time I see Pendras,” I said to myself, “I’ll hrr-chare his ass. I’ll have hrr-chare Pendras for dinner. Come to think of it, I’m hungry.”
I was mad, but more at myself than anyone else. I’d thought things through, and I knew why Pendras had banished me. He and his clan were mages who knew this land and could cast spells. I was a stranger who couldn’t summon a gust of wind to knock a fly off balance, even if I shouted hrr until my temples throbbed.
I only had to look around to see why it was Pendras’s duty as a leader to only keep around useful people. This was obviously a desolate place. Was it Earth? Maybe. Kaleb had said luck, and I had never said that word to him. It meant that English as a language existed. Or, that it had existed once.
Man, what had I gotten myself into?
Either way, this place was the pits. The landscape around screamed that. Seriously, the plains of dirt and weeds might as well have been yelling out “this place is a shit hole!”
That made me think that it was likely Pendras and his people were travelers and that they survived day-to-day. They didn’t know who the hell I was, and I couldn’t help the group with magic.
Why should they support me? They didn’t owe me anything.
Even so, I was going to die out here if I didn’t get moving. I’d either freeze, starve, or get attacked by something, and none of those options were my idea of fun.
It was down to me to support myself. I was the only person I could ever truly rely on, even if my mind was hiding things from me right now.
I wasn’t going to die. First, I was going to survive in this new world. I’d gather what I could, learn what I could, and I’d stay breathing. Once that was taken care of, I’d start aiming higher and think about how to thrive here.
“Food and shelter,” I said. “Then I can try and work out what the hell is happening.”
I eyed the tatty bag that Kaleb had risked Pendras’s anger to leave for me. Whatever was inside, I felt overwhelmingly grateful to him for bothering. I pulled the drawstring and opened it fully.
“Huh?”
As I took out the things from the bag, words formed in the air.
Items Received:
Book
Necklace-thing
Huh?
The words were written in block text directly in front of me. I reached out to touch them, but the words dispersed.
I mean, this was strange. Really, really weird. But it wasn’t the strangest thing I had seen since getting to this place. Honestly, meeting a bunch of bald, green mages had sucked most of the surprise emotion from my brain. Kaleb and his buddies were kinda like my surprise-factor barometer.
I decided that whatever it was, I would go with the flow.
“Book and necklace-thing?” I said. “Could you be a little more specific?”
Items Received:
Tattered book
Necklace-thing in need of a polish
“Thanks.”
The necklace-thing was a medallion similar to the ones Kaleb and the rest of the mages wore. It was a dull bronze color and scratched to hell but hey, it was mine now! I put the metal necklace over my head and let the medallion rest against my chest.
The book looked like it had been read a thousand times and passed from one person to another until it was torn, tattered, and some of the ink was smudged from water damage.
The title on the front of it read Hrr-Chare: Un gata fur Novicien. Inside were reams and reams of words written in a language I didn’t understand, though there were some diagrams.
A raindrop plopped onto the book. Another onto my head. It was time to find shelter so at least I had somewhere dry and a little warmer to stay while I tried to work out what to do. I put the book in the bag. As I put my hand into it, the weirdest thing happened.
My hand reached way further inside the bag then it should have been able to. Almost a few feet deeper than the actual size of it!
Whatever.
I’d already watched a kid make a cart from nothing. A skinny mage dude had shot a fireball at me. A larger-than-it-appeared bag was way, way down on the list of astonishing sights.
Setting off, the first thing I did was visit the stream and drink until my stomach was full. I washed my face and my hair. I would have had a full body wash, but I didn’t want to risk freezing.
I just wished I had something to put water in, because who knew how long it’d be before I found more? I thought about using the bag since it looked waterproof, but that’d mean carrying the book in the rain. I got the sense that Kaleb didn’t give me this book just so I didn’t get bored at night. It was important, and I couldn’t let it get wet.
Just before I left, I saw a berry bush nestled amongst a thicket of other wild bushes. My stomach ached for food, even for these little morsels of black fruit. But as hungry as it was, my belly wouldn’t appreciate getting poisoned. I couldn’t trust the berries, could I?
A thought came to me.
No, a memory. A voice speaking in a sing-song way.
Beware white and yellow, or you’ll be a sick fellow.
Half the reds will leave you sick in bed.
But purple and black can go in your sack.
The berries on the bush were blackberries, and they were safe to eat. Somewhere inside me, I seemed to know about this kind of thing.
To be careful, I picked one blackberry, washed it in the stream, and ate a small bite. Then I plucked the rest of the berries from the bush, washed them all, and put them in my bag. As long as I didn’t get violently ill in the next hour or two, I had something to eat.
Leaving the stream, I found the road marking and then decided to follow it west. Although I couldn’t even see most of it, I followed a straight line, and every so often I pulled and dug at weeds to make sure the markings were still underneath.
Hours later, it was getting dark and I didn’t want to be stuck outside, alone and without shelter. It was so damn cold that I couldn’t stop my teeth chattering, a
nd my feet felt like blocks of ice.
I really, really wished I could hrr-chare myself a fire. Anything that would keep the night at bay, because I knew that a person can only last so long when he’s exposed to the elements.
Not only was I hungry, exhausted, and at risk of getting ill from the cold, but I was sure I could hear noises.
I didn’t hear them all the time, but they were there. Strange noises from the distance. Maybe wolves, maybe something much worse. I felt like the sounds were aimed at me. A warning to me, or perhaps a message about me.
Come eat the lonely human!
I wasn’t going to let myself get eaten. Of all the ways to meet your end, I sure as hell wouldn’t let mine be that.
I hurried on, and soon a village loomed into view, and to me the sight was like an island beach after days of floating in the ocean.
Calling it a village was being generous, I realized as I got closer. It was a collection of five thatched cottages, along with an old building that was once a tavern, but now looked deserted. There were streetlights, which meant that there had once been electricity, and even a village shop.
All the windows on all the houses were dark and covered in dust, and most had weaves of cobwebs over them. There was no sign of life. No sounds.
The utter emptiness of the place was strange, but even stranger were the small marks I noticed that were painted on each house, shop, and tavern.
They were all in the same place, to the left of the door. Someone had painted marks in red. A simple drawing of a bottle and a fork, with a line crossed through them.
Kinda reminds me of the vagabond’s code.
The thought had come from nowhere, like it had been plucked from some hidden recess in my mind.
Only a millisecond later, it replaced by a memory.
Of walking from town to town with a rucksack on my back. Stopping in some towns, knocking on certain doors and knowing the people there would give me food and a bed for a full day’s work.
Of being a teenager and spending every day looking for markings on houses. Desperately hoping for a T shape that meant I could get food here.
Or dreading seeing two chalk lines intersecting and becoming a kind of fish shape. That was the worst code.
A dishonest person lives here.
The markings on the houses in the village were a kind of vagabonds’ code. A crude kind, maybe. Not as sophisticated as the one I now remembered using, but a code, nonetheless.
Now, I started to see the code everywhere, as though my mind were attuned to seeing it, like it was an instinct to just know where a person would try to hide a symbol.
There was one on a sign on the road leading to the village. The sign read Welcome to Kirkwall, but next to it was a tiny, red circle with a horizontal line through it.
No use going this way.
It meant there was nothing here. No food, no water, nobody who could use a laborer in exchange for supplies. Damn it.
Still, it was nighttime, and I was getting cold in my flimsy shirt and trousers. I needed to sleep under a roof.
I approached the first house, where the curtains weren’t drawn and the rooms inside looked pitch black. A sign on the front read “The Gables.” That was a crummy name for a house. If you were going to the effort of not only naming your house but getting a sign made, why not come up with something better?
I knocked on the door. Nobody answered. To be safe, I knocked on the rest of the houses, and then I waited. Nobody stirred. No lights came on.
Yeah, this place was deserted. I tried the door handle of the first house, but it wouldn’t budge, so I grabbed a rock and smashed a pane of glass, then reached in and felt the inside of the door.
Aha! A key. One turn of it later, the door opened and I was inside.
“Hello?” I said.
There was no answer, and the house was silent. Which was what I’d expected, given I’d made the decision to break in, but it was good to check.
“Hello?”
Great, it was deserted. Time to explore a little.
The kitchen was pretty bare. A few cans in the cupboards, but it was too dark to read the labels to see the use-by date. Rotten food in the fridge. Actually, it looked more like some furry, black, mossy monster had grown in there. I opened a kitchen drawer and found a knife with a black handle.
You have equipped a [blunt kitchen knife.]
“Thanks,” I said. It was strangely comforting to have this weird text, or whatever it was, narrating parts of my life. Almost as if I had a friend.
In the living room there was a sofa, coffee table, and a fireplace. A bunch of shelves filled with books and knick-knacks too. You know, various antiques and that kind of thing. I took the poker from the fire. It was made from metal and though it wasn’t sharp, it was bigger than the knife. I put the knife in my bag.
[Blunt kitchen knife] added to inventory.
You have equipped a [fire poker]
I’d expected as much after putting my hand in it, but putting the knife in my bag confirmed something; this thing could hold a lot more than it should. I wasn’t too surprised if I’m honest; after all, a green-skinned mage had given it to me. Maybe if I’d bought the bag in the mall and found it was magic, I’d be a little more wary.
There were a bunch of newspapers next to the fire, probably there to use as kindling. I would read them in the morning when it was light enough, and maybe they would give me a clue what was going on here.
Upstairs, there was a bedroom and a bathroom. In the bathroom, I found a bunch of pills in the medicine cabinet, but it was too dark to read what they were. Maybe aspirin, or something. I added these to my bag.
The bedroom was bare. Just a bed, a bedside cabinet with a photo frame on it, and a wardrobe.
A wardrobe!
Now I was getting somewhere.
I opened it up and saw a bunch of clothes hanging on a rail. Mostly shirts. I grabbed what I could find. A shirt, some jeans, and thick, wool socks. I hurriedly threw them on.
Sleep was calling to me now, and I realized I hadn’t had any shut-eye since waking up with the Lonehill clan. I headed downstairs and locked the front door and pocketed the key, and I dragged the couch out of the living room and pushed it up against the front door.
There was a backdoor in the kitchen, so I dragged the kitchen table close to it so the table edge was under the handle, preventing it from turning.
Upstairs, I closed the bedroom door and then jammed a doorstop under it, so it wouldn’t open from the outside.
Safety. The idea had seemed impossible back when I was walking around. When I was cold and I was hearing strange noises and had nowhere to go. I was safe, for a while at least.
I hadn’t imagined how good it would feel to be in a house and surrounded by solid walls. A roof over my head and a door to stop anyone getting in. If it rained tonight, so what? If it was windy, no problem! I had walls and a roof, woo hoo!
Feeling little more secure and a hell of a lot more tired, I climbed into the bed, feeling weird about sleeping under a stranger’s covers.
Weird, but warm. It was like getting a big duvet hug. I felt some of my built-up tension begin to unknot itself from my muscles. Worries detached from my brain, at least for now, and a warm glow of near-sleep spread through me.
This all could have been worse, I told myself.
I had woken up in a strange place, among strange magic beings, none of whom spoke my language. Something bad had happened to the world, and I was alone.
But I’d made it this far. I’d gotten to shelter, and I’d found a bed to sleep in. If I could do that, there was some hope.
I had a lot of work to do, but for that night, I let my exhausted body recuperate.
CHAPTER 4 – A Friend?
I bolted upright in bed, confused about where I was. It took a few seconds for awareness to come back to me, and although it wasn’t great to wake up in a stranger’s bed, I’d take a soft mattress and a thick blanket over waking up on th
e ground with my hands and feet tied up.
Besides, I woke up with a peculiar feeling in my body.
Yes, it was strange. I felt…refreshed.
It’s amazing what a good night’s sleep in a comfy bed can do for you. I felt energized and ready to go. Not just physically, but mentally. A night of heavy slumber had swept some of the dust from my brain, and I felt a little more motivated, a little more resistant against fear and worry, a little readier to take on this new world.
It wasn’t quite light yet, and the sun was a bright red spot in the distance, still trying to rise. Even so, the little daylight it gave off was enough for me to start working.
I first went into the bathroom, where I looked into the mirror.
“Holy shit.”
I don’t know what I expected to see. If I closed my eyes, I couldn’t remember what I looked like. Even so, I was surprised.
The face staring back was pale and kinda long, with stubble around my cheeks and mouth. My hair was cut short in a messy way. Nothing unusual so far.
Then there was my forehead.
In the center of it was the circular gouge I had felt earlier, the same that the mages of the Lonehill clan had. Only, mine didn’t have any strange colors inside it. It was pale-white, matching the rest of my complexion.
Just looking at it gave me a weird feeling. Like every glance was a kick in the stomach, as if my brain was shouting how unusual it was. At least I wasn’t green, though.
I needed to ignore it. Focus on something else.
I headed downstairs and spent a few hours cataloging anything useful in the house. My biggest prize came when I checked the kitchen cupboards, where I found five cans; some kidney beans in brine, a microwavable chili con carne, some sliced carrots in water, and two cans of lentils.
Food. Lovely, lovely food. Awesome!
I felt my survival chances had just quadrupled with one opening of a kitchen cupboard door. The rows and rows of cans seemed like gold coins glittering from a treasure chest, and I felt a swelling of gratitude for whoever had owned this house.
Everything Is Worth Killing- Isaac's Tale Page 3