She blinked. “Really?”
“Well sort of. The design’s a little different.”
“Let me see one.”
I tossed her the one from his left leg.
She caught it. “Interesting. I don’t remember Arcantians using firearms.”
“Evolution, baby.”
She tossed it back.
“You don’t want it?”
“I don’t need it. Neither do you.”
“If I can use something other than my scythes, I will. I’m not exactly up for having to regenerate.”
Sand was a shitty regenerative source. The best source was metal; heavy atomic weight, more sub-atomic particles to render, purer, easier to break down.
“Yes, poor you. Are you ready move?”
“It hasn’t been twenty minutes yet.”
“Well with your new clothes, I think we can go now.”
“We’ve been walking for sixteen hours. Why can’t we rest here for a bit?”
Leid got up, dusting herself off. “The sands are a dangerous place to rest. If your friend over there was still alive, I’m sure he’d tell you the same.”
She crawled out, disappearing up a dune.
“I hate my life,” I muttered, following her.
***
We cleared the desert a couple of hours later. I was about to get on my hands and knees to kiss the non-desert ground, but my heart sank when I peered up at the jagged cliffs we’d have to endure next.
“God, this world sucks.”
Leid decided to take pity on me for once. “There’s a path that leads directly through. We’ll rest there for a while, okay?”
I didn’t think I could take another step. “Yeah, sure.”
A single crevice split the giant canyon wall in half. It led us into a gorge. The suns had gone down, and night painted the scenery black. I was cold and my sweat-drenched clothes were making everything worse.
Leid froze ahead. When I caught up to her I followed her confused stare, presenting a similar one seconds later.
A pack of large black birds circled a cluster of dilapidated shacks. Smoke was coming from one of them. I took a step forward, squinting. Was that really what I thought it was?
“Strange,” Leid murmured. “I don’t remember that being here.”
I glanced around. “The canyons must protect them from the weather. I’m surprised to see any life at all.”
There was a sign next to us, carved into a wooden plank. The scripture was strange; a Russian-Arabic looking combination on first glance.
COLLEA
Two things occurred to me just then. The first was if they had a post outside, it meant they intended others to see it—which also meant that they weren’t the only ones around. The second was that I might actually be able to get out of these disgusting wet clothes. “Let’s check it out.”
“No,” she said. “We’ll go around.”
I glared at her. “Are you fucking serious?”
“That sign is written in Sheken. They’re not friendly to outsiders.”
“We need rest. And food. My stomach is eating itself.”
She didn’t respond, staring at the village.
“These are lessers, Leid,” I pressed. “They can’t hurt us.”
“We could hurt them.”
I held up my hands. “I’ll behave. Promise.”
She sighed. “Alright, but if they don’t want us there, we leave. Understood?”
***
The town was about a block wide, the street completely empty. Shadows moved across the windows of shacks that framed the road. We were being watched. This wasn’t looking good already. A man emerged from the shadows of a rickety porch, cocking a gun.
I raised a hand, while Leid stepped back.
Alezair, let’s leave, she thought to me.
Wait. Just give it a second.
“Who are you?” demanded the man.
“Travelers,” I replied. “We’ve come from the south, hoping to take shelter for a night.”
There was a moment of silence as the man studied us. “Come closer, boy. Let me see you.”
Once I was close enough, we saw each other, and our surprise was mutual. Although he’d looked human in the shadows, he was anything but. The pupils of his eyes were thin black slits and his nose was practically nonexistent; two small holes above paper-thin lips. He wore a duster and a wide-rim hat. A lizard cowboy, no shit.
My entire plan was built around being able to blend in. The other worlds I’d been to had beings that looked almost like us, which made sense since the Celestials created them. That wasn’t the case here, so things weren’t going to work out like I’d hoped.
“What’s wrong with your eyes?” he marveled.
I lifted a brow. “What’s wrong with your eyes?”
“Where did you say you were from again?”
“The south.”
“There’s nothing in the south except for desert. It’s unlivable.”
I hesitated, running out of ideas for civil conduct. Now I was plotting to take that gun off him.
“How do you know our language?” he demanded.
I couldn’t answer him, and he raised the gun. I heard it click.
Leid lost her cool, reaching for the gun on my belt and aiming it at the man. Alezair, we’re leaving. Now.
The other townspeople had barricaded the entrance during our conversation. A dozen more guns were aimed at us. That wasn’t a huge deal, but I didn’t really feel like slaughtering an entire town. It was funny, really; they had no idea how close to the monster’s mouth they were.
“Tell your female to put the gun down,” ordered the man. “And throw yours over here, too.”
“There was a colony in the south, before the desert; in the plains,” I began, surprising everyone. “A disease wiped out our group a couple years back. We’ve been traveling nonstop and this is the first we’ve seen of anyone else.”
I gestured to Leid.
“She’s pointing that gun at you because she’s scared. We lost our family and I’m all she has left. She’s frail and means you no harm.”
Leid frowned, not seeming to like my story much.
“Please, just for one night. We’ll be out of your hair—er, town—by tomorrow. We know your language because there was a Sheken who lived with our group. He taught us it. His name was… Henry.”
… Henry? Is that really the best you could do?
I was thinking fast. This isn’t easy.
You’re an idiot.
The man stared. The townsfolk awaited his verdict.
He raised a hand. “Lower your weapons.”
They did.
I closed my eyes in relief.
“How did you make it across the desert?” he asked. This time his tone was less demanding, more curious.
“We almost didn’t. We had to travel by night and almost froze to death. During the day we took whatever shelter we could. Saw a corpse out there; one of yours, I think. It led us here.”
He slung the gun over his shoulder, nodding toward one of the shacks down the road. “I’ll take you to our inn. It isn’t much, as you can probably tell from just taking a look around, but it’s warm and we might be able to find you two something to eat.”
“Sounds good.”
He smiled. It was horrifying. “I’m glad I didn’t have to kill you.”
I almost laughed. “Me too.”
Leid followed behind us, suspicion in her gaze. Her paranoia was putting me on edge.
“What’s your name?” the man asked as we traveled down the road.
“Alezair,” I said, pointing to my noble. “That’s Leid.”
Leid said nothing, staring at us.
The man leaned in. “Is she mute? Or delayed?”
I almost said yes. “No, she’s just nervous. Scares easily.”
“I guess pointing a gun at you wasn’t the best introduction,” he admitted. “But there’ve been some undesirables around here latel
y and taking care of this town is my first priority.”
“I understand.”
“The name’s Brigan, by the way. My mate, Lucrecia, runs the inn. We don’t get too many visitors.”
At one point this dump might have been something spectacular. Rubble and uninhabited abodes lay in ruin beyond the edges of Collea. There were even traces of pillars, long eroded. It looked like they’d built their village over a bigger city. What had happened here?
Leid moved by me, briefly glancing over her shoulder. “Something wrong?” she asked.
“No,” I muttered, giving the block a final look over before following her inside.
The inn was pretty gross. Tables that seemed to have been scrapped together from trash lined the walls while a scratched, dusty bar-stand stood left of the entrance. Behind it a ‘woman’ stacked large filthy cups on top of one another, pausing to wipe sweat from her grimy forehead.
Groups of ‘men’ sat at tables, talking and laughing. The place fell dead silent when we entered.
“You didn’t kill them,” the woman said. “I’m surprised.”
Brigan gestured to us. “This here is, uh, Al…?”
“Alezair,” I said.
“And Leid,” he finished. “They seem like good enough people and need a place to stay for a night. You got any of that stew left?”
“I was about to scrape the pan, but I think I got enough for ‘em.”
I almost grimaced, but hey, food was food.
Lucrecia nodded at us. “Come on back; I’ll get you some bowls.”
As we followed her around the bar, I heard her whisper to Brigan, “What’s wrong with their eyes?”
***
“This is kind of exciting. Been a while since we’ve had any visitors. I was startin’ to think no one was left but us.”
Leid and I said nothing, eyeing the grey-orange globs that were just dumped into our bowls. If I was susceptible to food poisoning, I wouldn’t have touched it. But I wasn’t and so I did. I was just thankful to have anything other than sand.
I tried it first; Leid watched me closely.
It wasn’t that bad. Not great, but okay. It tasted like wet bread, or something.
After seeing me take a bite and not keel over, Leid tried some as well. “How long has this town been here?”
“Ten years or so. We moved from the west. It used to be an Iyze city but they’ve moved on now.”
Eye-zee?
“What’s that mean?” I asked.
Lucrecia gawked at me. “Precious boy, you’ve never heard of the Iyze?”
“Reavers,” Leid muttered, swallowing another spoonful.
Lucrecia nodded. “That’s right. Those bastards used to pillage towns when there still were some around. If they touch you they’ll suck your life out through their hands.”
I leaned forward, intrigued. “Are there any Iyze around here?”
“No. Some further west I think, but we haven’t seen any for six years or so.”
I glanced at Leid. “Aren’t we heading west?”
“Yes.”
“Don’t head out too west,” Lucrecia advised. “No one’ll ever see you again.”
“Thanks for your concern,” Leid murmured, spooning another glob of orange crap. “We’ll manage just fine.”
Lucrecia shrugged. “You may not even run into any. Maybe they all died out, too. Sometimes I wonder how long we have left.”
With that nova sun, no more than a decade. I didn’t tell her that, though.
“When you two are done eating I’ll show you where you can sleep,” she said before leaving the bar and walking over to a group of men at the back of the room.
I nudged Leid when we were alone, grinning. “See? It all worked out.”
“I wouldn’t be so sure yet.”
My grin fell. “So what apocalypse awaits us now?”
“I don’t know,” she sighed, looking over her shoulder. “This all seems off.”
“Off how?”
“Not right.”
I sighed. “Nothing’s ever right with you. If it were, you’d gain the ability to be pleasant and I’d stop drinking.”
“They bought your story too easily.”
“Hey, my story was genius.”
“It was stupid, and there’s no way they believed it.”
“I think someone’s jealous that I saved the day.”
“Sheken are segregated. They never let outsiders among them. This is completely out of character, Alezair.”
“How long has it been since you were here?”
“About four hundred Atrium years. Probably closer to a millennium for them.”
“And you think after a thousand years their society wouldn’t change?”
Leid didn’t respond, staring into her bowl.
“Hey, Al!” Brigan bellowed from across the room.
I turned around, resisting a cringe.
“You and your female should come join us!”
“Your female,” Leid recited quietly, rolling her eyes.
“Join you in what?”
“A game of kelk!”
I didn’t really feel like socializing but didn’t want to be rude, either. I slid from the stool, nudging Leid. “You coming?”
She shook her head.
I shrugged and left her. I didn’t know what her problem was, and quite frankly I didn’t care.
***
The bar was cleared out by the early morning. I’d sat there and played kelk for three hours before calling it quits and heading to the room upstairs. I sat on the bed against the wall, sipping antiseptic-tasting alcohol out of a filthy glass jar, watching Leid sleep. Dirt and grime were smeared across her cheeks, but she was still beautiful.
The alcohol was boosting my courage. I almost reached out and touched her, but froze with my fingers inches from her face. I let my arm drop and sighed, looking away.
This obsession was pathetic and all it did was leave me heartsick.
Why did I even like her? Most of the time she acted like a bitch, and her kindness screwed with my head. When I first arrived in Purgatory I thought maybe I’d had a shot with her, but not anymore. I needed to stop torturing myself.
There were whispers coming from outside. My ears pricked, and I looked toward the window. The conversation was taking place on the other side of the inn.
I slid out of bed and crept down the stairs, drawing back the curtain in front of the window. A group of men stood on the porch, Brigan among them. I could recognize his voice, but couldn’t make out what he was saying.
Another group of men came from somewhere inside the ruins at the edge of town and met with the men on the porch. They shared words for about a minute before all of them returned to town.
When the coast was clear I opened the door and stepped onto the porch, eyes scanning the darkness. I sensed movement in my peripherals and spun. There was a little lizard girl standing in the shadows. Her large eyes stared into mine as she fidgeted with her tattered, dirty dress. She beckoned me down, and I knelt.
“Not safe,” she whispered in my ear.
“What?”
“You gotta go.”
Before I could make the girl explain, a voice echoed across town:
“Corinth! Where are you?”
Lucrecia.
The girl darted off into the night.
So, it looked like Leid had been right, but she didn’t need to know about this. Not yet. I wasn’t going to stir up anything until I saw an actual threat.
I walked back inside, shutting the door behind me.
I slept like shit.
XVI
IN CONSEQUENCE OF ALTRUISM
I AWOKE LATE IN THE MORNING, MY back stiff as a board. It felt like I’d slept on a cement block, and that couldn’t be any closer to the truth. There was barely any padding in our mattresses.
I stretched and surveyed the room. Leid was gone, her bed already made. I straightened the sheets and grabbed my hat, heading for the stair
s.
The inn was packed with the same people as last night. Everyone sat in the same places, too. Did they do anything else? I supposed not, considering Collea was a shithole and you couldn’t do much with shit.
But how did they get food and other supplies? Did they trade with other towns? Lucrecia had said that they were the only ones around. I didn’t see any fields for crops or whatever else, so—
“Hey Al!” shouted one of the men from last night’s game, and I winced. “More kelk?”
“Not this time, thanks.”
Lucrecia was at the bar, wiping down the counter with a filthy rag. It was like I woke up yesterday—time stood completely still here. I sat on a vacant stool and she gave me a crooked, reptilian smile. “And he’s alive! Did you sleep well?”
No. “Yeah, thanks. Have you seen Leid?”
“She headed out just a few minutes ago. Said she was going to scout for where you two were headin’ next.”
She slid me another bowl of mush. It looked even more disgusting than last night, but it tasted better. Go figure.
“So where are you two goin’ anyway?”
“Not sure.” That was partly true; at least on my end. “We’ll know when we get there.”
“Doesn’t sound like much of a plan.”
“I guess.”
I scarfed down the rest of my breakfast and she took the empty bowl. Nodding thanks, I stood and headed for the door. Just as I was about to step outside, Lucrecia said, “Oh, I almost forgot. Brig was lookin’ for you.”
I turned. “What for?”
She shrugged. “Didn’t say. He’s around here somewhere though.”
“I’ll keep an eye out,” I said, walking out into the sweltering heat.
I found Leid standing at the edge of town near the ruins, looking out at the multilayered peaks of mountains in the distance.
I came to her side, following her gaze. “Is that where we’re heading next?”
“Yes.”
“When are we leaving?”
“Now. Do you have everything you need?”
“Nope.”
She eyed me.
The Antithesis- The Complete Pentalogy Page 15