Lostlander

by Dean F. Wilson

   “Porridge,” Nox said. “Forget about flyin'.”

   “But sweetie!”

   “Roll it.”

   Porridge turned to him, incredulous.

   “Roll it like a ball,” Nox said. “Like a marble.”

   “I … I'm not sure if I can, blueberry.”

   “Again,” Nox said, giving him that keen look once more. “I know you can.”

   Porridge bit his lip. “Oh, you better hang on then, plum!”

   Nox clutched the back of the pilot's chair.

   “Tighter, dear!” Porridge urged. “Oh! Always tighter, umm.”

   He fired up the working engines and turned on the propellers. Outside, they spun wildly, some of them scooping up the sand that'd built up around the hull of the Dandyman. The vessel budged, but it didn't roll.

   “There's too much sand!” Porridge cried. “Oh! We're drowning in it!”

   Nox let go of the pilot's chair, grabbed a piece of salvage, and strolled over to the bodies outside. Several of the tribesmen had already stirred, but all were still nursing their wounds. Some were nursing them in their sleep. The waking ones flinched at the sight of the Coilhunter.

   “You boys,” Nox rasped. “You work for me now.”

   The tribesmen looked at each other, confused.

   “This,” Nox said, holding up the scrap piece. By the looks of it, it was a piece of an engine, but boy, it didn't look like much. “This is a new pet of mine.”

   He could already see their eyes widen. They knew his pets, or they'd heard of them. Sometimes the tales were worse than reality. Sometimes in the stories, Owl had fangs and Duck had teeth.

   “He's a,” Nox said, pausing to inspect the item, “mouse.” If you looked at the piece from the right angle, it almost looked like one. You really did have to look hard though. Luckily enough, imagination was a powerful thing.

   “Now,” Nox continued. “D'ya wanna find out what he does?”

   They shook their heads frantically. Of course they didn't. They already knew what many of his other toys did. They blinded you. They knocked you out. They caught you and they killed you. This one was just a mouse. What could it do? There was a reason the elephants were scared.

   The Coilhunter cast the scrap-turned-mouse near the tribesmen, and they flinched more than if he'd drawn a gun. He went back into the Dandyman and emerged with three shovels. He tossed one, then the remaining two together.

   “Now, you dig 'round the copter. You dig us out, y'hear?”

   They didn't protest, even though they wanted to.

   “I'll let him keep an eye on ya. Oh, and he'll be watchin' close. Now, don't you go pettin' 'im, boys, even though he likes it. You don't wanna get 'im … excited.”

   Nox turned back to the Dandyman.

   “I have no shovel,” one of the tribesmen protested. It was a quiet protest, almost a silent one.

   “You've got your hands,” Nox said. “For now.”

   Nox strolled back inside and tapped his belt, where he had a real mechanical mouse waiting. He knew what that one did just fine.

   Back inside the Dandyman, Porridge was working furiously at the controls. Nox found his way to one of the engine rooms and removed several panels for inspection. The wiring was so patchwork, it might as well've been sewn together by a child. They criss-crossed over each other, blocking access to other vital machinery. Porridge might've had a way of making things work, but that didn't mean it was the right way.

   “Some job you've done back here,” Nox grumbled.

   “Is Bitnickle there?” Porridge asked. “She can help.”

   “No. I don't see her.”

   “Oh! I hope she's okay!”

   “Worry about us for now.”

   Nox worked more furiously than Porridge, pulling tools from his belt to fix the engine and remove some debris jamming the cogs controlling the propeller outside. When the engine was up and running, he shovelled coal with gunslinger speed. He glanced from time to time to his new employees outside, who shovelled a little furiously too. Nox swore that all of this would pale compared to the fury the Man with the Silver Mane would feel.

   “I've got it!” Porridge shouted, but he didn't need to shout. The Coilhunter could already feel the rumble. The copter shifted suddenly. The propellers weren't just scooping up sand now. They were acting like oars, moving the vessel. Then, just as quickly, they were acting like wheels.

   Porridge's voice echoed. “Grab a hold of something! Oh!”

   Nox grabbed what he could to hold himself in place.

   The Dandyman rolled forward.

   It was a controlled roll. One propeller nudged it this way, and the vessel rotated until another propeller caught against the sand and pushed it the other way. It wasn't far off how Porridge flew it in the air. As they tumbled, Nox couldn't help but visualise his son playing marbles in the dirt. Little wild Aaron. Oh, how he'd fire those marbles, and how he'd collected more. But now Nox visualised the prized marble for his own collection. The one with Rassa in it.

  24 – MARBLES

  The Dandyman rolled, and it was gaining ground. The propellers worked like wheels, but more than anything, it was gravity that helped. The entire vessel plunged down dunes, picking up speed. It swung up steep climbs, spinning into the air before crashing down into another roll. Porridge steered it as best he could, knocking out a propeller if he didn't want it to push or pull, and firing up another to help the ball tumble into a turn. He was a natural at fixing the unfixable and making the unworkable work, at making the unflyable fly—at making the unmoveable move. And boy did it move.

   “How are you hanging in back there, cabbage?” Porridge shouted. His pilot seat sailed around the rails, keeping him upright. It was the exact opposite of the Coilhunter's monowheel. For that, the outer wheel rotated, and the driver stayed put.

   “Barely!” Nox grunted in response. His head was dizzy as he pressed his limbs against the hull. The vessel tumbled, so he tumbled. There was no rail to keep him upright, no seat to keep him in place.

   He had to steady his nerves and focus his mind. He imagined himself upright, placed himself in the cactus field of his mind, readying for the draw and the kill. It was something he'd learned to do in the years after his family's death. One by one, his bullets punched holes in the cacti. In time, he'd replace the desert plants with people. Conmen. Criminals. The bad. The Wanted. He'd practice his shots in his mind just as much as in the land around him. That way he could guarantee his kills.

   Once he'd focused enough, he switched to a mental map of the Dandyman. He'd been there often enough to know it well, though Porridge had a habit of moving things around. There's no one place for me, he'd say, so why should there be one spot for them? Of course, them could be anything. When Nox first met him, it was his monowheel. Now someone else was trying to steal it.

   When the moment felt right, Nox opened his eyes and hoisted himself out into the main chamber, firing his right grapnel immediately. Barely a second later, as the hook latched into place, he fired his left grapnel in the opposite direction. The wires went taut, holding him in place, dangling and spinning in the centre of the vessel. Then, just as Porridge's pilot chair sailed underneath him, he released the grapnels, dropped down, and quickly grabbed the chair.

   Porridge blew him a kiss. “Nice of you to join me, peach.”

   Nox's head still swam. It was enough to make him almost lose his grip, but he told himself that the edge of the pilot's chair was the handle of his gun. He told himself that because he knew then he wouldn't let go. When he steadied himself enough, he noticed the loose straps on the back of Porridge's chair and used them to secure himself in place.

   Outside, the marbles continued to roll. The monowheel was faster, but the bulk of the Dandyman meant that gravity pulled it down all the quicker when the path turned into a slope. The inclines were harder, but Porridge had a way of
making it work. He didn't leave things to chance either. He gambled on losing. The whole vessel was a testament to that. It had a lot of backup propellers to help steer the way.

   In time, they came close to Rassa's vehicle, close enough that they could've struck if the Dandyman wasn't carrying so much scavenged material. But close wasn't good enough. The chase didn't mean anything if it wasn't followed by the catch.

   “Oh, that reminds me, plum. I've made a … modification.” Porridge nodded towards a heavy lever on the control panel. “Give that a good thug, will you, dear? Oh, if only!”

   Nox complied. Outside, a mechanical arm unfolded from the centre of the hull, rotating on its own axis so as to stay upright throughout the vessel's tumbles. The Coilhunter could see it dangling over the desert terrain outside.

   “Well don't just stand there gawking!” Porridge exclaimed. He nodded to a control stick. “You can move it with that knob there. Oh!”

   Nox moved the arm around, getting a good feel for it. He couldn't see it quite as clearly from most of the windows he was forced to look out of as the pilot's chair sailed around the ball, but what glimpses he got were enough to gauge how far he needed to move it.

   Nox almost had Rassa's vehicle in the grasp of the mechanical arm, but at the last moment, he paused, letting Rassa roll away.

   “Nox! You're letting him get away!”

   “No,” Nox said. “I'm lettin' him lead the way. I ain't no bettin' man, but if I were, I'd wager he's headin' back to his master.”

   “And you want him to go?”

   “I want to catch 'im on the doorstep.”

   “Then why even chase, sugar?”

   “'Cause he needs to feel he's at risk of gettin' caught. He needs to know how close we are, that he needs to do desperate things to get away.”

   “Oh, and what if he really does do desperate things? Like die! Or kill! Oh!”

   “We won't let 'im.”

   They continued on further, following the zig-zagging trail Rassa left behind. He was desperate alright. He was trying hard to shake them. He was trying harder now that the long mechanical arm of the law had almost caught him.

   Then, after one more steep climb, Rassa's marble came to a halt.

   “What's he doing?” Porridge asked.

   Nox shook his head. He can't be givin' up. Not yet. Maybe he'd realised what the Coilhunter wanted, that he was chasing him all the way home. Maybe he thought it better to give up now than give up his life for leading the Coilhunter back to the castle of sand. Or maybe he was just getting ready to fight. Well, you could bet your life on maybes. Nox bet the lives of the bad on sure and certain.

   The Dandyman rolled up cautiously to the monowheel. Porridge parked it just feet away. Yeah, those marbles hadn't quite clinked together yet. Neither one could claim the prize.

   Then, as Nox and Porridge shifted their eyes from Rassa to where that tribesman stared, they realised why he halted. They saw it. A sand fortress on the horizon, with a pinnacle bursting with periodic blasts of lightning. They were close now. Close enough that they could smell the diesel from the monowheel. Close enough that they could almost see the sweat upon Rassa's brow.

   Then their eyes travelled down and they saw the immense valley before the castle, with its many sand pits and winding paths, a deadly maze of sand-swept features. Except it wasn't a valley. No, this was something carved from the earth. This was something crafted by man. This was an arena.

  25 – OUT OF WATER

  Elsewhere in the Lostlands, other things stirred. The burrows opened, and out came the desert rodents. The snakes made patterns in the sand. The scorpions scuttled across the dunes. The dung beetles rolled their own brown marbles.

   Near a pile of scrap, near the broken and discarded diesel canister of the Coilhunter's monowheel, a toy lay half-submerged in sand. The desert creatures never approached it. They could see it watching, even though it seemed like maybe it was half-asleep.

   Then, as night fell, Duck awoke.

   He was just a little mechanical toy, an invention to aid the fight against the criminals of the Wild North. Yet some said he was something more. Some called him Mr. Quacky. Some called him the Toy with a Thousand Eyes, even though he only ever had two—those pasted-on eyes. They looked up now at the starlit sky, with its thousand eyes looking back down at him.

   It was hard to get upright, as the blast had knocked him onto his back. He'd lost one of his small front wheels, which he used to roll or waddle. It was just a wheel, but to someone or something else, it might as well've been a leg. Duck wondered what it was like for the other legless creatures of the world. He wondered if it was like this. Or that's how some thought he wondered. Maybe he didn't wonder anything at all.

   After a long time rocking back and forth, he rolled onto his belly and nudged himself upright. He hobbled forward, then tilted over, and began the struggle again. He did this many times, until he adjusted his weight a little more, using the little springs and cogs inside him to pull his back wheel round to the side for a little stability. That was the thing about Nox's toys. He didn't just make them. He taught them things. He taught them to adapt.

   Duck travelled the desert, searching for his master. Maybe “master” wasn't the right word. Maybe it should've been “creator.” Maybe, just maybe, it should've been “God.” There were many who wandered the desert looking for him. Duck stumbled across the bones of some of them. He remembered his own bones, those little copper and brass pieces. He remembered how his creator stared at them through an eyeglass, and how it seemed like Duck saw a tear through the other side.

   Duck was an aquatic beast, and Altadas was the opposite of an aquatic world. There was a time when Nathaniel made toy ducks just like him, when there was a lot more water in the world, back before the Regime came. Nathaniel. Yes, that was his name then. So, God had a name. But then he had a thousand names. Now he went by Nox. Now he went by Coilhunter. Duck came after the name Nathaniel died. Duck was the product of a vengeful God.

   He waddled on, approaching the desert wildlife. He came to the snake and asked him: Have you seen the Coilhunter? The snake said no. He came to the scorpion and asked him: Have you seen the Sandsweeper? The scorpion said no. Or, again, that's how it might've seemed if anyone was watching. Maybe if a child was watching. Told you imagination was a powerful thing.

   Duck remembered the hours his maker spent on him. Who could say that of men? No. They'd forgotten their source, and that was one of the things that made them bad. But then there were others who paid too much heed to their supposed source, and they were bad too. Maybe the God-fearing and the Godless were still the same: all too human.

   Duck wondered what it would be like to be human, or so some humans thought he wondered. Why didn't humans wonder what it would be like to be Duck? Maybe he was a philosophical creature. The only thing he knew, if he knew anything, was that Nox had laboured long and hard. Even though he was designed with vengeance in mind, Nox couldn't help but pour a lot of love into Duck. It was the love he still had left for his family, the love he hadn't gotten to fully show them. He modelled Duck on the old toys, the playthings, the joythings.

   Then he put a bomb inside.

   The Northfolk grew to fear Duck pretty early on, though many still thought he was just a rumour. They knew Nox was good at putting out phantoms, at making literal and figurative scarecrows. Some feared Duck because of the stories of how the Coilhunter appeared after the explosion of light. Some said the Masked Menace revealed his true form then, that he was more terrifying than any demon.

   And some had no time for fear. Some just wondered if Duck was really at home in a desert. Was he lost? Was he always searching for water? Was he always searching for home? Indeed, did Nox spend some of his hours of labour crafting a little lake for him? Did he teach him to swim?

   But the ones who wondered such things, and put those imaginary thoughts into his head,
weren't the ones Duck was made for. He was made for the other ones, the ones with evil eyes. He was made to make them blind.

   So he kept on waddling, on and on, across the emptiness of the desert. He kept searching. He kept hunting. After all, that's what Nox'd do.

  26 – THE ARENA ABOVE

  Rassa didn't wait long to admire the way. As much as they could see the fear in his eyes at facing this obstacle course, he feared more being dragged into the Bounty Booth. He knew the Coilhunter usually dragged you in dead. He fired up the engine again and dropped down the long, steep slope into the valley of holes, traps, and God-knows-what-else. If God knew, he wasn't telling. Or maybe he was trapped there as well.

   Porridge accelerated soon after, letting gravity be his pedal. The Dandyman tumbled down after Rassa's marble, rolling maybe a little too quick. The slope seemed to grow steeper, almost vertical, and the arena just begged you to come down too fast, to turn too slow. Those were big mistakes. But then so was entering at all.

   Rassa's monowheel skidded into a turn near the first dark pit. You wouldn't have even known it was a drop but for the lanterns around the edge. Even in the heat of the moment, Nox wondered whose job it was to come out here and light all those. Well, the Man with the Silver Mane didn't employ anyone. He had slaves.

   Porridge scrambled with the controls to slow his vessel. It clipped the edge of the pit, knocking a lantern down into the depths. The light hurtled down a long way before the darkness swallowed it. The land was playing marbles now, and it was playing to win.

   The Dandyman chased the monowheel between the zig-zagging lanterns, which marked deep drops on either side. The chase continued down a spiralling path, which led through a tunnel and back out into a lower plain. There, statues of cobras didn't spit venom—they spit electric bolts. The marbles crackled, frying some of parts inside, and the sparks clung to the machinery until the wind scraped them off. Now Nox knew why Rassa needed the monowheel to be enclosed.