by Wolfe Locke
“What if I don’t want to be bound to your service forever?” she answered glaring at him.
“Well,” Zander said, puzzled. That thought genuinely hadn’t occurred to him. “I suppose…I suppose we could work something out.”
“What about a term limit? A year of service, and then I’m free to do as I please?” she asked.
Zander frowned, trying to find the issue with this proposal. “I think so,” he said. “Rocktooth, what do you think?”
That won't work. If the bond between you is broken she doesn't go free, she just dies. That’s why when a necromancer is killed, their minions lose their reanimation. Rocktooth answered, including Celeste in the conversation.
"Ok, how about if after a year we find a way to revive me I go free, and until then we keep doing, whatever this is." Celeste offered.
“Alright. It’s a deal,” he said, reaching his hand out to shake Celeste’s. Her palm was soft, and he felt his heart beating faster in his chest as he touched her. I’ll have to find a way to keep that promise.
“One year, and you need to find a way to undo it without killing me” she said, smiling back at him. “Now, tell me, what else is going on? Is this still Atlanta? How did we get to this point?”
“One second,” Zander said, standing up. He was distracted. He needed to be able to think. “Do you—do you want some clothes? More than just that cloak?”
She looked down horrified and blushed. “I would!”
Zander looked around. They were in an abandoned laboratory, so their options might be limited. The pod Celeste had come from was broken, and the others were empty. Steel operating tables set up around the pods also didn’t look promising. All they held were rusting tools and pieces of surgical equipment. Garbage and detritus was strewn around the floor, but none of it looked much like fabric.
Back wall, Rocktooth said. Do those look like lockers to you?
It was hard to tell. They were rusted to an even copper-brown, and their doors hung loose on their hinges like crooked teeth. Most of them looked empty.
“I’ll look,” Zander said doubtfully, rummaging through the storage lockers. He found a whole lot of nothing, and some very unpleasant things. Pulsing black mushrooms, a dead rat with undead eyes, and something that looked like a massive ancient looking bloodstain. But in the second-to-last locker he finally got what he was looking for.
“Here,” he said proudly, unfurling the fabric. It was a large gray janitor’s uniform, several sizes too big for her, and full of holes.
“All right,” she said, biting back a smile. “Definitely better than this cloak. Or nothing.”
Zander looked away. He wasn’t quite so sure the gray uniform was better than nothing, but he kept his thoughts to himself and enjoyed what he saw.
She wrapped the cloak around her, hiding herself, and changed into the clothes he’d provided. Then, she dropped the cloak.
“Ta-da,” she said sheepishly, and Zander tried not to laugh. She looked terrible. The uniform pants sagged on her body and there was a large hole in a very inconvenient place on the thigh.
“We’ll get you something better, I hope,” he said. “I promise.”
She laughed. “This is a lot to take in, but I'm alive, and that's amazing. There’s no rush. Now, I want to know where I am. What are those monsters?”
They sat down next to each other, and Zander wondered where to begin.
“About five hundred years ago,” he said. “There was an event my people call the Harrowing. Magic return to the world and with it a plague of darkness that turned humans into monsters. Before that time, the world was very different—the world that, I’m sure, you lived in. It’s faded into myth a bit for us, but I understand it was a world of machines, full of robots?”
“Yes,” Celeste said. “Well, sort of. We relied heavily on technology. And all the buildings were new, at least where we are, in the United States. I lived here, in Atlanta.”
“What was it like?” Zander asked, with genuine interest, not wanting to focus too much on talking about the monsters, the Draugr, and the other darker things.
“Oh, its hard to describe. We all traveled around in cars, planes, etc. Oh, you probably don't know those, we used to machines to travel in the air, in the oceans, on land. They moved fast. At least, until—what I guess you’d call the Harrowing. When the dead came to life.”
“Yes,” Zander said. “What we call the Draugr. They never left. They’re relentless and vicious—so you do remember.”
“Yes,” Celeste said, her face darkening. “Those were hard times. Everything happened so fast."
Zander put a hand on her shoulder to calm her down and continued.
“Over time, they mutated from what you originally encountered.. The Draugr are probably similar to what you saw five hundred years ago. But the Monsters of the Abyss are Draugr that—we don’t know. Evolved? Changed? Upgraded? Something must have happened to them somehow. They’ve become wrong, merged forms, combined bodies together in a way that shouldn’t happen. There are other creatures like that—frightening and wonderful. Good and bad. After the Harrowing the world changed a lot. You’ll see things you won’t recognize here. Like us demi humans. We’ve been able to come out of hiding.”
“Let's talk about something else. I want to learn more about magic,” Celeste said. “You can walk me through the magical creatures as we get around to them.”
“What do you want to know?” Zander asked.
“Everything. What are the types? How could I do what I did? What are the rules of magic in this world? We had books about magic, but they were all fictional, fairy tales. It always worked a different way.” She explained.
“That’s a big topic,” Zander said. “I’ll do my best, but this is something you’d have a better time talking to a trainer about. Magic returned to the world after the Harrowing. It had been rare around us elves before that. It’s mostly elemental based—fire, water, earth, and the like. You’re special. Frost spirits are rare. And Summoners like myself are very rare. I’m one of very few—the only one in my village. I’m still learning, though. I’m actually trying to save up for magic lessons.”
“Magic lessons! Like school?” she asked incredulously. “You’re telling me the world ended and is full of monsters and you still have school?”
“Well yeah, but its for my trade.” Zander laughed. “There aren’t many Summoners around, so I have to take specialized lessons to learn the trade. They’re expensive. I’m currently on a salvage team, trying to get some more money. We go through ruins like these looking for artifacts that we can pawn or sell. When I have time, I go out on my own to salvage for myself. That way I can afford lessons, get more powerful spells, level up my abilities, acquire new summons, that kind of thing.”
He looked a bit embarrassed. “It’s not what I want to be doing forever—salvage isn’t a prestige job, or anything. But it’s important. My village isn’t rich, and we need artifacts just to survive. And the more magic abilities we have, the better we can protect ourselves from monsters, and the more of us can go off into the world and make a living.”
She smiled at him encouragingly. “I know what you mean. I didn’t grow up wealthy either. My father was a taxi driver and my mother was a part-time librarian.”
Zander didn’t fully know what any of that meant, but he felt protective of her. He didn't want to ignore it, so he nodded his head as if he understood.
“So that’s why you’re in Atlanta?” she said. “Salvaging in the ruins? Crazy thinking of Atlanta as a ruin. I mean I’d always had issues with Music Midtown but aside from that..”
“Yeah. Well, we call it Arcadia. It’s rich in inheritances and medical supplies. There are a lot of Hnlogies.” Zander responded, feeling a bit of pride in himself. He was eager to show off a bit.
“Hnologies?” Celeste raised an eyebrow in question. “I’m not familiar with that word.”
“It’s on the sign outside. There’s always good equipm
ent in these Hnology buildings when we find them.” Zander responded.
She laughed. "You probably meant Technologies. Some of the text must have worn off." The thought seemed to trouble her. Her brow furrowed, she looked like she was about to ask more questions, but she stopped herself. “Are you here on a team, then? Today. Or by yourself?”
“I’m on my own this time. Everything I salvage today is mine to sell or mine to keep!” Zander explained. "Not even village tax is applied."
“So,” she said, voice low. “It’s just you and me, then?”
“And Rocktooth.” Zander corrected.
The golem waved from across the chamber.
Yes. And me. Trusty golem sidekick who was here first. Rocktooth. Draugr slayer.
“Right,” Celeste sighed. “And Rocktooth. How.. fantastic.”
Chapter Four: Ancient Inheritances
* * *
“Okay!” Zander said, standing up. “So, let’s forage for supplies. Rocktooth will stand guard.”
“I’ll help,” Celeste said, unexpectedly graceful in her ugly gray uniform. “What are we looking for?”
“Anything that looks ancient and useful. Medical supplies, machinery, inheritances.” Zander replied, not noticing that Celeste seemed a little irritated by the vagueness of the answer.
“You said that before,” she said, brow furrowed. “But what is an inheritance? I’m pretty sure we have very different definitions for that word.”
He ran a hand through his hair. “How to best explain it? It’s bits of paper bound together with this sort of glossy parts. Sometimes it’s not glossy at all, but more leathery. There’s writing in it, sometimes pictures. Some of them are useful, and some of them are just stories. We just try to collect them in case there’s good information in there, although there are a lot of repeats and sometimes it's hard to understand the words within them.”
“You mean a book?” she said. “That’s what we called them. Your inheritances sound exactly like books.”
“Perhaps,” Zander replied as he rooted through a pile of ancient scalpels and other surgical gear. “You’d have to point it out to me to be sure. If I find an inheritance, I’ll show you, and you can confirm with me if it’s the same thing.”
Celeste started going through the rest of the lockers and changed the subject. “What’s your village like? Are we close by? Is it like this?”
"No, it’s nice. It really is. Pretty too, but its not close by at all. It’s about four days’ walk from here, in the woods. We try to stay away from the cities where the Draugr are. They like ruins, and they congregate in the darkness. It’s rare that we see them in the forest, and it’s easy for our defenders to dispatch them when they’re out in the open. The ones who wander don’t travel in packs, so there are fewer to deal with at a time.”
Celeste paused and responded, “I grew up in Atlanta. Georgia peach born and raised. I never really left the city. Guess I still haven’t. We were trying to get to Key West—thought the bridge might be easy to defend. Does it still exist?”
“No. It’s underwater now. I think it was always below sea level. It went under pretty quickly after the Harrowing. Last I heard, some kind of behemoth had settled there and made it his lair.” Zander replied thinking of the aged map he had studied of the area back at his village.
“I’d love to go and see it if we can safely. It can't be too hard to get down there." she replied absentmindedly as thoughts of the way the world used to be weighed heavily on her mind.
Zander shrugged. “We can go if salvage takes us all the way down there. The behemoth I think is seasonal, so long as it’s not in the area, it should be safe. It might be pretty picked over, though. Or, if you want, you should go there after your contract with me ends if we find a way to sever our connection without killing you. It’s a long journey on foot, but with your frost magic, you should be able to defend yourself.”
He pulled open a drawer and discovered an ancient medical kit. The red and white cross had faded but still showed. “This is still good,” he said. “Valuable. Elves aren’t so different for humans. We can use this.”
Opening the kit up, he took inventory. There was two syringes, bandages of various sizes, a pair of scissors, a pair of tweezers, gloves, antiseptic wipes, and a tourniquet.
“Do you know these?” he said, holding a wipe up to Celeste’s face. “You can clean a wound with it and it won’t get infected. They’re really useful, if you can find them. There’s a magical way, but it’s draining.”
“This building is from my period, remember?” Celeste said, finishing her fruitless search of the lockers. “It’s all pre-Harrowing technology. I’ve seen all of that.”
“Right, right—well, you haven’t seen this. I know this one’s our invention, because it’s got magic to it.” Zander responded.
He held up his right hand to reveal a thick silver ring on his middle finger. “It’s a [Spatial Ring]. It’s basically a magical storage space. It’s linked to a pocket in space-time that can hold gear. Easy to store, easy to retrieve. Watch!”
Zander twisted the ring, and it glowed a vivid gold. A beam of light shot from the ring to envelop the medical kit, and it evaporated into thin air in front of their eyes. When the light died down, the table was empty.
“Wow! Ok, that was cool.” Celeste said, clapping her hands in amusement. “Where’d it go? You can get it back right??”
“Yes, I can. Like I said, it went into a space-time pocket dimension. I don’t have to carry any of the weight, either. Although it has limited capacity. It beats actually carrying this stuff. This one can only handle about 500 pounds of stuff before it can’t hold anymore. I can get you one at some point, if we get back to my village in one piece.” Zander promised.
“Only 500 pounds? That’s wow. You know what, I’d love that. I’d love to have one, that sounds like it would make life a lot of easier out here,” she responded with a smile.
Enough flirting, Rocktooth said. Let’s get out of here. I don’t like this Hnology building. You can go back to whatever this is once you’re in the safety of the village.
“I agree,” Zander replied. “It’s creepy in here. And who knows where the rest of the Monsters of the Dark might be.”
Celeste shivered, remembering the disgusting sounds of the creatures’ footsteps on stone. She didn’t want to encounter them again. Even with her newfound power.
They retraced their steps through the building, as they went, they made sure to keep a sharp lookout for more Draugr. They saw none. Perhaps their fight had driven the rest of the monsters further down into the darkness. Celeste was very quiet as they passed through the ruined halls full of debris.
“I remember this building when it was new, I think I was 9 when they finished construction. My friend worked here when he got older,” she said once in a low voice, looking as though she was about to cry. Zander’s heart broke for her, but he didn’t push. He knew it must be difficult to wake up to find her home city a barren ruin, and it was only about to get worse. Somebody she cared about?
Outside of the ancient building, they blinked in the bright Arcadia sunlight. Rocktooth sighed with satisfaction as Zander touched the golem’s core and the summon grew back to his normal size. Celeste gasped up at him, looking breathless.
“If you’re nice, he’ll let you ride on his shoulder,” Zander said. “He rarely ever does it with me, but he might for a lady.”
Rocktooth politely shook his head to indicate a sharp no. I’m a guardian from the Nether. Not a horse.
“Where are we going?” Celeste said. “Morningside? Decatur? Heading south toward LaGrange?”
Zander looked back at her blankly. “What are those? I’ve never heard of them.”
“Parts of Atlanta. Rich ones. At least they used to be. Well, not LaGrange." Celeste explained. "Anyways, you might get good artifacts there.”
His jaw dropped. “Why didn’t I think of this already! You know Arcadia. You grew up here! This is pe
rfect! Where should we go? My people like old technological things—machines that we can take apart and reassemble. With you by my side, we can scavenge only the good stuff.”
Celeste stopped to think from a minute. “Ok, I’ve got it. Let’s go downtown, then. We can go toward some of the biotech offices inside the skyscrapers. I bet there’s something you’ll like there.
“The tall buildings in there?” Zander shivered. “You’re sure there’ll be good artifacts in there? They’re almost certainly crawling with Draugr.”
“I’m almost certain those are the buildings. But I’m not sure about them being full of Draugr. You’re the expert on that, I’ll have to take your word for it.” she countered.
Her idea isn’t terrible. We can go that way, Rocktooth said sensibly. It might be worth the effort. You’ve a summon and a minion now, Zander. We should be able to keep you safer.
Zander sighted the sun. “We’ve still got a few hours until sunset. We should make sure to find shelter before it gets dark. The Draugr like to roam at night, and they’re aggressive when they’re out of their Harrows. So long as we’re quiet once night comes, we should be ok.”
They moved through the desolate city, stepping lightly over the piles of debris that filled the streets. Celeste looked stunned. She pointed out several buildings she recognized as they passed them. Most of them were total ruins, shadows of what they must once have been.
They passed rusted cars with deformed glass shards all around. Celeste recoiled after seeing some of the bleached skeletons still trapped within. Whenever she went to say something, Zander raised a finger to his mouth and shook his head. Not now.
After a while they passed a slow moving Draugr on the street, near what appeared to be the ruins of an old industrial park. Celeste tensed. Zander put a reassuring hand on her shoulder.
“The ones that come out in the daytime aren’t as dangerous,” he said. “They’re sick or injured. I’m not sure why, maybe the other Draugr attack them. A normal Draugr hates the sunlight—that’s why they live in the ancient buildings and the dark and only come out on the streets at night. If we stay clear of this one, it’ll leave us alone.”