by GM Gambrell
Right on schedule the doors to the warehouse unlocked as the sun rose above the city. Duncan, unable to sleep at all, watched as the light pushed the shadows from Shreveport and workers began loading the food stands with breakfast. Citizens began to congregate around the stands, laughing and joking over breakfast before starting their day’s labors. The city, as a whole, moved with an energized passion. They had long known what was creeping towards them and had been preparing for it. The Centaur’s warning had only made them redouble their effort.
Jessica joined him and took his hand. “This could be a good life here.”
“Do you want to stay?” He’d stay if she asked him. He might regret not pursuing his father for the rest of his life, but he’d stay for her.
“No, we have to help your father. He can’t save the world on his own.”
“Into the breach once more,” NAME said from behind them. “We’re off to see the wizard!”
“What?”
“It’s a good day to die,” NAME said in his typical cryptic way. Duncan wondered if they’d ever get any useful information out of the mangled computer.
Blake, Shreveport’s mayor, waved to them as he walked up. “Good morning, good morning. I take it that you intend on leaving to track down your father?”
“Yes, sir,” Duncan replied.
“He said you would do that, this very morning. Jim often seems prophetic.”
“If he knew we were going to follow him anyway, why didn’t he just let us go with him?”
“I don’t know,” Blake mused. “Maybe he thought you’d stay on your own or that I’d be able to convince you to stay. Should I try? Is there anything I can say to get you to stay in Shreveport?”
“No, sir,” Duncan told him firmly.
“Then I won’t bother.” Blake turned to NAME. “You, on the other hand…I don’t know if I can let you go or not. Why would you want to go?”
NAME squawked, “Luke, I am your father.”
“And that means what, NAME?”
“I think it means that he’s a free person, like we are,” Duncan said, reaching for some idea that would convinced the mayor to allow the computer to travel with them, “and you have no right to hold him here.”
“You got that from what he said?”
Duncan shrugged and NAME rolled back and forth in place like an inpatient child.
“Sadly, I think you’re correct. As valuable as NAME is to us here, even with his cryptic speech, I cannot in good conscience hold a person, be they flesh and blood or steel and wires, in our community against their will. I wish the three of you good luck, and, should you be successful in your quest, I hope that you will one day return to us. We’ll wait with open arms.”
Blake hugged each of them in turn, and then rubbed Sir Dog between the ears. When he came to NAME, he wasn’t quite sure what to do. “I hope that you, old friend, will be safe in your travels.”
“May the Force be with you,” the machine replied.
“Back to New Dallas?” Duncan asked, still not sure of an overall plan and NAME shook his camera in agreement.
“To go where no man has gone before.”
“What do you mean, silly? We just came that way a few days ago.”
“But we need to alter our path, in case the Magicians followed us this way.” Duncan told her.
“We have nothing to fear,” NAME began, “but fear itself.”
“I thought their magic weakened the further they got from their cities? I thought we didn’t have anything to fear from them?”
Duncan knew they had more to fear from the Magicians than any other single thing in the Universe, but that wasn’t what she meant. “I have a feeling that if they truly wanted to leave their cities, they would find a way. They apparently have at least one helicopter.” He told her, referring to the one they’d used to attempt to frame him and Jim. “And if they have one, there isn’t any reason to think they don’t have more. I just don’t know if their desire to have me and my father,” it was still hard for him to call Jim his father, it just didn’t seem real, “arrested will allow them to track us down. There’s so much I don’t know. We just have to be careful. We’ll head out due west, instead of heading south from where we came.”
Jessica nodded and the two humans, one dog, and one computer set out to save the world.
As they headed west, it took them much less time to run into the Creeping Death. There were patches of it throughout the ancient, ruined city, but it didn’t have the foothold it did in the Wastes around New Dallas. It wasn’t as prevalent, but it was definitely spreading. Seeing the black patches only convinced Duncan that he’d made the right decision in leaving Shreveport. It had to be stopped or there simply wouldn’t be anything to return to. Instead of the meandering route they’d taken when they’d left Old Dallas, they went directly into the setting sun, sticking to the ancient highway. Rusted hulks dotted the highway, which the old sign called I-20, and Duncan saw the results of the Last War. Cars and trucks were crushed as if a giant had walked through, smashing them. The burn marks from fireballs was still evident even after all these generations. There were bones as well, the human ones easily identifiable, but others that were much, much stranger. There was a great, long set of gleaming white, as large as Jim’s helicopter, with the skeletal remains of wings that Duncan was sure had been a dragon.
“Do you think there are still dragons?” Jessica asked as they walked down the moss-covered interstate. “Dad used to tell us stories about them, how they’d swoop in on the human survivors, those that were left on the surface of the planet after the war, and burn them to a crisp. It was a story they told to keep young children in bed, to scare us. Dragons were the bogeyman. If we didn’t obey, the dragons would get us.”
“In our house it was the humans,” Duncan replied. “If you did bad magic it might bring the humans back.”
“That had to have been hard, all things considered,” Jessica replied.
“It didn’t mean anything to me at the time. I was just a kid, just as scared of the humans as any other Magician.”
“It’s hard to believe they were ever afraid of us.”
“They only are because we represent the past, and not all of them are comfortable with history. But to answer your question…yes, there are dragons. I saw them in the memory stones my family recorded when they went to New Atlantis. There are thousands of them there, so many circling the sky at one time that it blots out the sun.”
“I wouldn’t want to see that.”
“No, I can’t imagine it being a pleasant sight for humans. I’m guessing those bedtime stories are probably based on some truth. I read articles in the Magician Histories about the dragons fighting the air forces of the world. That’s probably how this one got here.” He rubbed the gleaming white bones. “I bet one of the human jets…”
Jessica interrupted. “One of our airplanes.”
“Yeah, one of ours. One of our airplanes shot it down.”
NAME rolled forward, its camera examining the bones. “Here there be dragons.”
“Sort of an understatement, don’t you think?” Jessica asked as they continued their trek.
In the late afternoon, they came to a broken and faded green sign, overrun with clinging vines. Duncan hacked at the vines with a machete. He then cleared away the chopped vegetation to read the old sign beneath.
“Welcome to Texas,” he read aloud. “Drive Safe.”
“All my exes live in Texas,” NAME said and then the entire machine shuddered, the computer struggling to regain control of his systems in the eternal battle with the movie database. “I’m sorry. It’s an old song I don’t quite understand. Texas is the state, in the former United States of America, where New Dallas is. It is only about one hundred and twenty miles to the east from here.”
“One hundred twenty miles,” Duncan began, figuring in his head. “That should only take us a week or so to walk to.”
“A week?” Jessica asked and then caught herself. “Wel
l, I guess we should probably get started then.”
Sir Dog barked and they started off again. Further away from Shreveport they began to see only small buildings—farm houses, small gas stations, and the like. More humans, in ancient times, had lived in the cities than in the country. The towering pine trees blotted out the sun above them and the only places where they walked through the sun were the patches of Creeping Death. It was strange to be enjoying the sun while at the same time dreading each step that shot up ash and dust. The forest began to darken in the late afternoon as the sun set, leaving them to the mercy of NAME’s headlights. And since he ran off batteries that were powered by the sun, they decided to go ahead and camp for the night.
“Back to the ship, huh? Just huddle together until the lights burn out? Till you can't see what's eating you? Is that the big plan?” NAME said just before his headlights shut down and he went into sleep mode. Duncan didn’t blame him for conserving his energy. He knew they might be in the forest for quite a long time.
“This isn’t as bad as I thought it would be,” Jessica said as she put the small tent together while Duncan built a small fire. “I don’t know, I guess I thought it was going to be dangerous or something. At least adventurous.”
“It’s our first night out of the city.” Duncan said, laughing. “I’m sort of relieved nothing has happened. I mean, boring can be good, right?”
Jessica shrugged. “I guess so. At least if boring means raiders aren’t shooting at us.”
“Or dragons aren’t swooping down from the sky.” Duncan added with a nervous laugh.
They sat and listened to the sounds of the forest as they ate their evening meal, holding hands, and enjoying the crisp night air. Sir Dog’s hair bristled, but they didn’t notice it. Nor did they notice him staring into the dark trees, growling softly.
Duncan dreamed.
He saw the world before the Magicians time, or at least what he thought it should look like. There were cars zipping down a busy street and mothers walking their babies down the sidewalks between garden boxes of roses. Children played merrily with each other and everyone was laughing and singing. He didn’t notice, of course, that the city his mind created for him was, in many respects, similar to Shreveport or even that the people were dressed the same. No, it didn’t matter and he knew that it was an ancient city. Airplanes flew overhead and a helicopter buzzed down the street just above the cars as if it were in a great race.
The sky darkened and the light cast a reddish shadow about. His heart began to race as he heard distant explosions, and the people, happily going about their daily business minutes before, fled in panic. He couldn’t flee, though, as his feet were frozen in place and he was unable to move. Fear gripped his heart as he watched angry storm clouds gathering, lighting striking at the buildings, and deafening thunder roaring overhead. A dragon swooped down and breathed intense fire, setting the cars near him alight. One exploded in a fireball and shot upward.
Then Duncan saw his father, his first father, dressed in Magistrate armor marching down the street, leading an army of the red-suited magical warriors. The fireballs were flying so fast from their hands that he felt as if he were staring into the sun, and he still couldn’t talk his feet into actually doing anything useful.
His father, Albert Cade, loomed before him. “Traitor.”
“Help me, Dad…I can’t move.”
More dragons filled the sky and swooped about, setting fire to the buildings and clearing the streets. His father stared down at him, laughing, a fireball rising in his right hand.
“You betrayed us, Duncan. You betrayed everything we’re about.”
“I’m sorry.”
“As am I,” his father said just as he was about to unleash the fireball.
“Duncan, wake up.”
He felt the gentle prodding at his shoulder and heard Jessica’s voice clearly, though he was still stuck in that place between dreaming and being awake. The image of his father and the marauding Magician army faded, and he realized, after a few seconds, that he was laying next to Jessica in the tent, Sir Dog between them. He felt the dog’s hair bristle, then heard his low growling.
“What’s going on?” he asked in a whisper.
“There’s someone outside.”
Duncan trusted Sir Dog’s instincts. If the dog thought someone was outside, someone was outside. He fumbled with the shotgun, still foreign to him, and made sure that the big double-barrel weapon was loaded. He pulled back the two hammers, just as he’d read in the manual, and edged out of the tent. He then pulled the sheaths for the steel bars over his shoulders where they sat like a large X across his back.
The fire had died down to a dull glow and wasn’t enough to light the area of forest around them. NAME was still and quiet, doing whatever machines did when they slept. As soon as he stepped in the open, he could sense just what Jessica was talking about. They were being watched from just inside the tree line. The stars and the partial moon provided no extra light so he crouched, staying close to the ground. He kept the business end of the shotgun forward and crept towards the fire. They’d piled much more wood near than they would need for the night, and he was thankful they had as he started adding logs to it.
A stick or twig snapped to his right and he spun around, the shotgun ready. He worked up as much courage as he could and said, “We don’t want any trouble.”
There was no response, but he was becoming more awake and could hear more clearly the sounds in the forest. There were more sounds than when he and Jessica had had dinner. There was something moving out there, and whoever or whatever it was surrounded the camp. As the fire caught from the freshly added logs, he began to see shapes and the glint of fire in eyes. There were humans in the woods around him and, for a brief second, he thought it might be more raiders.
“I’m armed,” he said, mustering as much confidence into his voice as he could. “And I will use it. Show yourself.”
“Who is it?” Jessica asked, crawling out of the tent and joining him at his side. She was armed with her own shotgun, identical to Duncan’s.
“I don’t know,” he said. “They’re just circling us.”
The pace of the people running through the woods around their small camp increased and Duncan saw more of them as the fire grew. They wore ragged clothing that looked as old as the ancient highway they’d use to arrive at the forest. Their skin was incredibly pale, almost white, as if they hadn’t seen the sun in ages. Their hair was a ragged mess, sometimes reaching down almost to their feet. There were no children that he could discern, and the adults were thin and ragged.
One darted out and stood opposite the fire from him. It neither screamed nor howled, nor said a single word. It just looked at Duncan, and Duncan, for a moment, thought he was looking at a Golem from back home. The ragged-looking man’s eyes were blank, as was his facial expression. He had no discernable pupils. He just stood there and stared at Duncan like Steve back in his parent’s house would, waiting for instructions.
“We don’t mean you any harm,” Duncan said, though he knew the shotgun leveled at the man’s chest probably said otherwise.
The man didn’t respond in any way. He took several steps forward, as Duncan and Jessica walked backwards, and stepped barefoot into the fire. Only then did he have any sort of reaction, looking down at his smoldering foot.
“Does he not feel pain?” Jessica asked.
He could tell Jessica was just as nervous as he was. The man continued to stare at his foot, and only after it was actually burning did he step back. The foot was ruined by then, though, and he tumbled to the ground. Another of the strange people, a woman wearing the worn and tattered remains of a yellow dress, leapt out of the forest and ran straight toward them. Duncan instinctively pulled the triggers on the ancient shotgun, firing both barrels at once. The heavy blast of lead shot caught the woman midsection, tearing her body in half. She floundered to the ground, and like the stricken man near her with the mangled foot,
only stared at her bloody wounds. She didn’t scream out in agony or even cringe.
“Oh my God,” Duncan whispered. “They’re Golems.”
“What?” Jessica asked as another rushed out of the woods, in a hurry at first. But like the other two, when the agonizingly thin man saw Duncan and Jessica, it stopped. Jessica raised the shotgun, preparing herself for the heavy kick, and aimed at the creature’s head. Duncan batted it to the ground.
“No. We can’t kill them.”
The man edged toward them, hands outstretched. Duncan let his shotgun fall to the ground and pulled the two steel bars from the holsters on his back. “I don’t want to hurt you. I know what you are and I know the pain you’re in. I know the Void. I’ve been there. Please don’t force us to hurt you.”
The circling stopped and the Golems stood where they were, staring at Duncan and Jessica. Duncan could see their dark eyes in the dark, and hints of their pale skin. The man with the burned foot stared up at them, and the woman, as she died, did as well. He felt a hundred eyes boring into him for a long few minutes. They all stood there, just looking at each other, and Duncan knew that their spirits, trapped in the Void, were trying to reach out to him, to make contact, and he knew what they wanted. He could hear the word on the wind.
Help.
“I don’t know how. I’ve been there, and I came back from it, but I don’t know how to help you.”
Help.
Duncan was on the verge of tears, not because he was afraid of the Golems, but because he understood their pain and could do nothing to help them. “I’ll find a way,” he promised. “One day I’ll set you free from the Void.”
The Golems began disappearing into the forest one at a time. The man with the burnt foot managed to stand and hobble away, leaving just the woman that Duncan had killed. He cried at the sight of the torn and destroyed body, guilt sweeping over him like a cold winter rain. He’d taken her, taken any chance she had to escape the Void and return to the real world. He’d never killed another being and, if this was how it felt, he was sure he didn’t want to do it ever again.
“They’re leaving her,” Jessica said, watching the Golems depart as the sun rose.
“Yes.”
“What are we going to do with her?”
“We’re going to bury her with as much dignity and respect as I can muster.”
“Oh,” Jessica said, pausing. “You knew her?”
“Yes, in a way.” He didn’t want to tell Jessica about the Void. There was so much pain there and he didn’t know if he could manage it without breaking into tears.
As the first rays of light touched NAME’s solar panels, the computer stirred. “Good morning. Did I miss anything?”
Duncan didn’t answer, watching the sun peak above the tree line and wondering how he was ever going to keep the promise he’d made to the people of the Void.