Future Mage

by R H Nolan

  For the most part, there was nothing around but rolling dunes and dusty wind and a few scattered hulls—or the parts of them not yet buried—dotting the sea of yellow-brown. He turned all the way around then and found the darkened outline of Neo Angeles rising against the sky. Nothing else out here was as big as the city—but at this distance, it looked to be about an inch tall.

  The sun was now on the other side of the city wall, and judging by how long Max had been underground in the ships, he had to be east of Neo Angeles now and looking west. So that was the direction of home. Pulling his goggles back up over his eyes, he activated his repulsor skates and took off across the sand.

  After a few minutes, he found himself coming upon a collection of crashed starships. Most of them had fallen and been buried fairly close together, while a few remained as stragglers a little farther north. Max headed for the last one sitting mostly by itself; if there had been a Sandwalker den in the last ship he’d found resting all by itself in the desert, there was a much greater chance of even more mutants hanging out in the shelter of a bunch of ships together. Just before he came to the farthest wreckage, though, he realized he wasn’t alone. They weren’t Sandwalkers, either.

  There shouldn’t have been as many people gathered together out here as he saw huddling tensely between a haphazard ring of sand-blasted starships. He kicked harder to make it behind the lone ship, hoping none of them had seen him. He’d gotten only a glimpse of the few dozen men gathered in the center of the starships, but it was enough. Max recognized the dark, grease-stained clothes and faces of the Bloodletters. He also caught the grotesquely mutilated faces of what had to be Chaotix—metal rings, studs, chains, and whatever else they can find were pierced through almost every inch of visible flesh in this tribe of Scavengers. They clinked like a bag of nails when they moved. Some of them boasted small bones in place of metal adornments, and half of one man’s face was coated in the dry, crusted brown-red of what had to be blood. Max didn’t think it belonged to that particular Chaotik.

  He finally put the farthest starship between himself and this worrisome gathering. They might have been fighting over who could lay claim to the gathering of fallen ships, but this was too close to the city. All these ships had no doubt already been picked completely clean. Max pressed himself against the far side of the outlying ship, just to take a breath and wait to see what happened. Not that any of those brutal men would be able to catch him if they saw him hiding here, but he still didn’t want to risk it.

  A voice did ring out over the desert a few seconds later, but it wasn’t a shout. It sounded like someone was talking right on the other side of this farthest ship, which was impossible. He hadn’t seen anyone else this far from the others. Then he realized the voices were echoing at high volume from within the ring of so much wrecked metal and overhanging hulls and buried ships.

  “When?” asked a man’s voice. The words came out in a hiss, muffled a little as though something was stuck between the speaker’s lips. Probably one of the Chaotix, Max thought.

  “Tonight at sunset,” a second man replied. His voice was gruffer, lower, and it definitely sounded less desperate than the first.

  “Why go after them now?” the first voice asked. “You haven’t attacked their settlement before. In fact, you always protected them from us.”

  “Not anymore. They’ve outlived their usefulness,” the gruffer voice replied. “They used to scavenge from the ships and bring us parts we could barter with the Dwellers. Now the ships are nearly stripped bare, and there are too damn many of them, breeding like sand mice, with not enough food to go around.”

  “There will be once we get through with them,” said the first voice, followed by a phlegmy, throaty sound of laughter. “You’re welcome to join our feast.”

  A round of half-crazed chuckles and hungry growls rose from the crowd.

  The gruff voice didn’t sound amused. “We get the land. Remember that, Invok.”

  “We don’t give a damn about the peace-lovers’ land. We only want the meat.”

  The gruff voice sounded disgusted. “You can have whatever you kill. But whatever we capture, we keep as slaves to work the Heap.”

  The Chaotik named Invok sucked in a disgusting, slurping breath. “You look down on us, Oryk… but you’re just as greedy for the Dwellers’ trash. Greedy as any Chaotik.”

  Oryk. Max had heard the name before, flung around on Bloodletter lips as they argued brashly with one another beside the Heap and threatened each other with the man’s name.

  Oryk was the Bloodletter chief, which meant that this meeting wasn’t just about a few dozen men scheming over something in the Wastelands. Oryk would have his entire tribe behind him in whatever he planned to do tonight.

  “Just remember the deal,” Oryk replied. “We get the land and whoever we capture… you get whatever you kill.”

  A muffled clap rang out from the ring of ships, followed by the jangle of metal pieces and bones clicking against bones. Max imagined men from both tribes shaking hands, and a tingle of apprehension crawled up his back.

  “At sunset, then,” Invok repeated.

  “At sunset.”

  More chuckles rose at this statement, and whatever else their meeting entailed, Max didn’t hear any of it.

  His heart was pounding so hard, he felt his pulse in his throat and wondered if it would choke him. The Bloodletters and the Chaotix were planning to murder or enslave all of the Peacewind tribe. His people. Tonight.

  Including his mom and Kier.

  Max had to warn the settlement. He gave himself a few more seconds to calm down a little and regain his focus, then he moved as quickly and silently as he could toward the rising monolith of Neo Angeles in the west. His skates kicked up a storm of sand behind him. Even if the two tribe chiefs and their men behind him had spotted him moving across the desert, they’d never be able to catch him on his skates. Really, Max didn’t care if they saw. He just had to get back home and let the other Peacewinds know what was coming for them before it was too late.

  When he reached his family’s hut on the outskirts of the settlement, Max warred with himself over the pride of bringing home food and the urgency of the news he bore. Tell them the bad news first, or let them eat?

  He finally decided on letting them eat. They would need the strength to get away. If he told them first, they might panic and not eat everything. They certainly wouldn’t enjoy it, and Max wanted them to savor every minute they could. So he decided to wait on the news. It would only be a few extra minutes, ten at the most. Surely that much of a pause couldn’t make a difference.

  Kier and his mom were standing outside their hut when he got closer on his skates. He powered them off and forced himself not to run. His mom was talking to two other Peacewind women, all of their faces worn and haggard and hungry-looking. But when Max approached, all three of them offered him gracious smiles, however weary.

  Max met his mom’s gaze and nodded toward the doorway of their hut without a word. Frowning, she turned toward the other women. “Excuse me,” he heard her say.

  One of the women chuckled. “Always so polite, Myra,” one of them said. “Looks like something important.”

  “It just might be,” she replied, following Max toward the hut.

  “Kier,” Max called. His brother turned toward him on his wobbling robotic legs, the crude metal crutch padded with old clothes under one arm. “Come inside for a minute.” Kier sniffed and made his slow, laborious way across the sand to join his older brother.

  Of course, Max planned to give Kier and their mom the food first. It seemed cruel to start out with telling tell them what he’d overheard and dampen their enjoyment of fresh fruit and vegetables. It seemed even crueler to offer any food at all to his family in front of other Peacewinds who may or may not have found anything for themselves today. So he wanted them all inside before he revealed anything.

  The three of them sat on the cool, sandy floor, both Max’s mom and broth
er regarding him with wide eyes. His mom frowned still a little, and Kier just looked dazed. That was pretty normal.

  “I got this,” Max said, reaching into his coat pockets and withdrawing two apples with one hand and an orange with the other.

  Mom and Kier’s eyes went wide, and they held out their hands hungrily.

  Kier bit into the apple, and the look of bliss on his brother’s face made every death-defying thing Max had gone through today worthwhile.

  His mother actually started to cry as she ate the orange. “I never thought I would taste one of these again…”

  Max grinned and emptied the rest of his pockets, giving them everything he had.

  For a few seconds, they just stared at him in awe.

  “What about you?” Kier finally asked.

  “I already ate,” Max said, and gestured for them to eat. He didn’t know if he could hold back the news any longer. It felt like it might burst out of him.

  His mom and Kier wolfed down the fruits and vegetables in just a few minutes, munching away and swallowing in loud gulps. Kier actually started to laugh, the first time Max had heard him do so in over a year.

  Then it was gone, and they sat there, licking the juice from their fingers with small smiles. Max knew it wasn’t by any means enough to fill them to bursting, but compared to what they’d managed the last few days, it was almost a feast. And it improved their life stats more than he’d expected, which was definitely something.

  “Where did you find this?” his mom asked. She smiled through her cracked lips and raised her eyebrows.

  “It’s a long story,” Max said.

  “Were you careful?”

  He shrugged. “I mean, I didn’t get caught.” Spotted, but not caught. “I know it wasn’t a whole lot—”

  “I really like apples,” Kier said, licking his lips.

  Max couldn’t help but snort. “Me too.” He reached out with a fist to nudge his brother in the shoulder, then looked back up at their mom. “I do need to talk to you about something.” Maybe he’d said it too quickly, too urgently; his mom swallowed, her smile fading, and nodded. “Stay in here for a while, okay?” he told Kier. His little brother didn’t need to hear this, even though he’d probably find out about what was coming soon enough. They all would.

  He stood and left the hut, waiting for his mom to join him with curdling anxiety in his belly. “What is it?” she asked when she’d moved with him a few feet from the open doorway. Max peered around her to see Kier sitting in the hut, sucking berry juice from his shirt despite all the sand that might as well have been a part of their clothing.

  “I saw something when I was out,” Max started, searching for a way to tell her without terrifying her completely. “Chaotix in some of the wrecks.”

  His mother’s face grew pale. “Max!”

  “They didn’t see me. I think. They were too busy making a deal with the Bloodletter chief.”

  Her eyes widened. “What?”

  “Mom, they’re coming. Both tribes. I heard them talking about it. They’ll be here at sunset, and they’re… I mean, they’re coming for all of us.” Max couldn’t bring himself to say the Chaotix meant to eat them and the Bloodletters meant to take everything that had ever belonged to the Peacewind Scavengers and make it their own. He didn’t have to; his mom’s face paled and the muscles of her throat clenched into thin columns of tension.

  “Go find Havix,” she said.

  Max nodded and activated his skates, skirting around the huts of metal and sand he’d called home for so long. Once he told Havix the news, the entire tribe would hear of it in minutes. Somehow, that still didn’t seem fast enough.

  8

  The Peacewind chief made his home in more or less the center of the settlement—not because he demanded the protection of it but because those Scavengers who had joined him, after either passing across the desert in roaming bands or having been tossed out of cities, like Max’s family, had built their own homes around his. Not many people made it to this settlement outside Neo Angeles. Max hadn’t seen any new faces for at least a year. But in all the time he’d been part of the Peacewind tribe, Havix’s hut had never moved or changed.

  Max found it easily, mostly by the blanket that had once been a deep purple but was now bleached to violet-white beneath the sun. It served as the man’s doorway, and Max stopped to quickly rap at the metal wall over which it hung. A thick hand pushed the blanket aside, and Havix’s blinked against the sun, his thick black beard a dull gray with its coating of dusty sand. “Max,” he said in greeting.

  “I saw Chaotix and Bloodletters meeting in the desert,” Max blurted, staring into the chief’s gray eyes within a leathery face. “They’ll be here at sunset.”

  He didn’t have to say anything more than that to the man who’d spent countless years trying to protect Scavengers from the other ruthless tribes simply by living apart from them. Now, all Max could think about was how they could possibly prepare themselves for something like this.

  “Are you sure?” Havix said, his voice low.

  Max nodded. “I heard them. That’s why I came to you.”

  The chief ran a hand quickly down his face, then tossed the blanket aside and stood from within his hut. He was a good half-foot taller than Max—a formidable-looking man with a singular distaste for violence in the Wastelands. He didn’t believe in it, though he probably could have wielded it better than most.

  “Go back to your family,” he said. “Pack up only what you absolutely need and can carry with you. Tell everyone you pass along the way to do the same.”

  Max nodded, then he was off again. He didn’t really want to be the bearer of panic and terror for even a fraction of the other Peacewinds, but he’d been given a job. He paused briefly at open doorways to spread the news, skating from hut to hut on the way back to his own. There wasn’t enough time to stop and try to console those who cried out in fear, broke down sobbing, or stumbled against each other with the shock of it. Max didn’t think he’d be able to make anyone feel better even if he’d tried.

  By the time he got back to his mom and Kier, the rest of the settlement had already exploded into action, coupled with the rising moans of urgency, the sounds of mothers comforting their children, the clank and screech of metal being pulled down and entire households being shoved into sacks and packs and onto makeshift sleds. This settlement had been here for a few decades, at least. Max thought his dad had told him that once. But nothing lasted forever out here. Not even home.

  “Havix said to pack up,” he told his mom when he stooped to enter their hut. “Only what we need.”

  His mom just stared blankly at him. “Does he have a plan?”

  Max squatted beside his blanket and grabbed his small box of just a few tools his dad had left him. He stuck this in the middle of the blanket and grabbed the only other shirt and pair of pants he owned. “I don’t know.”

  “So what does he expect us to do?” Her voice rose in pitch; she was obviously on the verge of panic. “He won’t tell anyone to fight. Just to pack up and what? Start walking? Sunset’s only a few hours away, Max! There’s nowhere—”

  “Mom.” He spun around to face her, then glanced quickly at Kier sitting beside her. His mom took in a shaky breath, then reached out with her metal arm to pull her youngest son close against her.

  “If Havix has a plan,” Max added, fighting to speak evenly, “he wouldn’t tell me anyway. He doesn’t really tell anyone.”

  “Anything is better than doing nothing, Max.” His mother’s voice broke when she said his name, and he heard her swallow.

  Max stopped, his blanket halfway rolled up around his things. She was right. Even if all the Peacewinds packed up and headed out now, with hours between them and sunset, they didn’t stand a chance against both Chaotix and Bloodletters. The other tribes wouldn’t just stop and give up when they found the settlement empty, and none of the Peacewinds were armed well enough or even had the skill—or desire—to fight b
ack. Running away would only buy them more time, but their fates would be the same.

  No, if they wanted any chance at all of surviving this attack, they needed help.

  And Max just happened to have a Qirinian friend who could make him powerful enough to stop both tribes coming for them.

  “I gotta go,” he said quickly, then abandoned rolling up his belongings to step forward and kiss his mom on the cheek.

  “Go where?” she asked, blinking up at him with wide, frightened eyes.

  “I have an idea, and I think it’ll help us. But I have to go. I’ll be back before sunset, Mom. I promise.”

  Max paused to put a hand on Kier’s shoulder and squeezed it gently. His brother just frowned at him, but nobody stopped him from leaving their hut or the Peacewind settlement. Max pulled his goggles up over his eyes and activated his skates. This might have been the most desperate trek he’d ever made out into the desert. It was also the only time he’d ever had this much hope.

  Before he left, he remembered something and looked over his shoulder at his mother and brother.

  “I’ll be back before it rains,” he said with the barest hint of a smile—and then he was gone.

  He went the long way around, circling the Peacewind shanty town to the southwest before racing a straight line east again—or as close to east as he could guess. He didn’t want to go too close to the city walls, just in case somebody wanted to watch for the Scavenger they most likely thought had been eaten alive by Sandwalkers. Going back toward the circle of crashed starships was an even worse idea. If the Chaotix and Bloodletter chiefs had seen him the first time, they’d be way more alert now. If they hadn’t seen him, they were sure to pick up on a kid whizzing across the desert at incredible speeds, especially as they made their way on foot toward the Peacewind settlement. Max couldn’t risk getting caught up in anything else. He had to get back to Zryk’s ship as soon as he could, and that still meant adding a few extra miles to the trip just to avoid the common dangers of the Wastelands.