Chapter 10: Sco-Ber
Eventually, chilled and frightened as the fire burned down, Bard fell into a light sleep. He was awakened a few times when he thought he heard heavy breathing in the shadows around him. Drawing closer to Drifter, he fell into a deeper slumber. When he was awakened suddenly, the sky was still dark and the hard ground cold. For a minute he did not know what had shattered his dreams, until he saw a nearby movement blacker than the surroundings.
A small, slim shape was bending over Drifter. It moved with such silent softness, like a cobweb hovering in the air, that for a moment he did not believe it could be anything but a shadow. But when it jerked up suddenly and began to move away, still drifting like a dream, Bard cried out. He had seen, outlined against the faintly lighter sky, the image of a small human head.
Drifter came up as if pulled on the strings of his cry. Without waiting for an explanation he took off after the shape, which was now running across the courtyard with small foot-slapping sounds. Drifter’s boots made a heavier noise as he ran after, something glinting silver in his hand as he drew it away from his cape. Bewildered, Bard heaved himself up and hurried after them. What had he seen bending over Drifter? And what had it been doing, poised there?
With a rustle and crumble of rubble sliding together the slim shape climbed agilely over the heap of stonework at the bottom of the courtyard. A second later the flapping of Drifter’s cloak could be seen on top, before he plunged over the far side. Bard followed with the feeling that he was caught in a nightmare. The broken stones were rough on his hands as he climbed over the low heap. His feet seemed to be continually getting trapped in cracks or stumbling over pieces of rebar. It was with a struggle that he reached the top and slid down over the other side. A brief space of burnt, bare ground and he was standing on the peeling pavement of a road. If it wasn’t for the ringing of Drifter’s footsteps on the hard surface he would have lost the chase in the dark.
Shivering with the harsh cold of night, he turned to the left and followed the sound of pursuit. On the open street he was able to pick up his pace and gain on Drifter and the mysterious stranger, who were dashing towards a dark shape which rose ahead of them, tangled with the cracked structures to either side. Bard could not guess what the deep shadows ahead of them were until they came right up to the entrance of a tunnel. The fleet figure before them dashed into the shadows. Drifter slowed and paused at the entrance.
A great arc of cement rose above them, forming a maw of darkness deeper than any shadow outside. Cool, damp air exhaled from this opening, smelling of moisture and places that only rats, two- or four-legged, dwelt. The sound of light, slapping footsteps could still be heard retreating down it.
“Wha--?” Bard gasped.
“The key!” Drifter told him with short, panting fury. Without waiting to give more of an explanation he started running again, jerking into the gaping entrance fearlessly. Bard was scared of the heavy cement above them, afraid of what might be lurking in this giant lair built by man to ferry vehicles below the city. But he still followed, not wanting to lose his only companion.
Their breathing and footsteps echoed down the cement tube, creating weird effects of sound ahead of them. After a few dozen yards Bard was shocked to see a bluish light appear before him, flashing suddenly into life. He stumbled, but then recovered when he saw that it was something in Drifter’s hand making the light. He remembered the flashlight his companion had earlier slipped into his pocket. Evidently Drifter had a electronic light that had not been destroyed by the Greenspark, one that had somehow survived the strange electromagnetic blast that had accompanied the disaster.
In fact, Bard realized as he ran, Drifter’s car had carried working electronics in it as well. It must have a force shield, he thought, that had protected everything within.
But they were still dashing down a tunnel hidden almost entirely in deep shade. The light Drifter carried threw strange shapes against the wall, dancing and flickering as they ran. Far ahead, a small figure could just be seen in the light, thin limbs pumping and long hair flapping. Its ragged clothes also flapped back in the pale light, seeming to wave mockingly at the pursuers.
The tunnel’s ceiling suddenly came down in a tumble of broken stone slabs and dusty rubble. A small passage was all that was left cleared, curving past the blockage on one side. The figure ahead of them squirted down it, disappearing from sight.
Panting, Drifter stopped to peer through. Once again, Bard came up with him. This time he was too out of breath to say anything. He just stood shivering from a mixture of cold air hitting his warmed skin and fright at the huge space of echoing tunnel around them.
“Well, only one way to go.” Drifter’s voice was harsh with running and fury. Holding the flashlight ahead of him, he squeezed into the crack and disappeared, taking the light with him. Bard glanced around wildly, trying to decide what to do. But if he didn’t want to lose his companion there was, as Drifter had said, only one way to go. Taking a deep breath of air, Bard started into the narrow passage. Cold stone grabbed at his arms, dust brushed off against his head. His feet stumbled around rough jags on the smooth floor.
It was only a few minutes, but seemed like forever, until he was able to straighten up and see the light Drifter carried once again. It was immobile, not advancing, and there was no sound of moving footsteps. Bard blinked in the sudden light, trying to take in what was happening.
They were standing in a sort of wide, round chamber made by the intersection of one tunnel with another. Ahead of them the space was blocked off by another heap of rubble, this one honeycombed with dark holes like a wasp’s nest. To each side the intersection was collapsed into more heaps, full of dark holes . In the center of the intersection, on top of a metal grating leading down into darkness, stood a ragged child. At first Bard could not tell if it was a girl or boy, its hair was so long and face so dirty. After a minute he decided it was a boy, by the squareness of its shoulders and face. The boy was not more than twelve, though his limbs were so browned and expression so toughened he could have been twice that age.
But the thing which made both Bard and Drifter pause was not the one lone child. It was that more than a dozen of them were jumping, wiggling and crawling out of the honeycombed rock and skipping up to stand ringed in aggressive defense around the boy in the center.
They were all dressed in ragged clothes held on by ratty strings and armed in a peculiar fashion. Each youngster carried a long whip-like section of stiff wire in one hand, mounted to a wooden handle. In the other hand they had a variety of smaller weapons from kitchen knives to hammers, all painted or carved in personalized symbols. One of them, a girl with a cape of pink carpet and a crown of dead Christmas lights bound to her forehead, stepped up beside the boy. The only weapon she carried was a table leg carved into a heavy club.
Drifter looked at all of them sharply. “Give me back the key.”
The boy in the center tilted his head to one side, smirking. “Why should I? We’re the Sco-Ber and do as we like.”
“Yeah!” the crowned girl put in right on to of him, “Scotia-Bernie gang. An’ he’s Bernie, while I’m Scotia, so we’re the bosses.”
Closing his eyes for a moment, Drifter seemed to collect his wits and push his anger down.
“Look,” he said, opening them again, blazing with repressed emotion. “I need that key. It’s important to me. I’ll trade you this light for it if you will give it to me right now.”
He held out the flashlight on the palm of his hand. Bernie seemed to consider, looking at the flashlight with one eye like a bird. His hair hung down in his face, until he pushed it back with a gnarled little hand.
“No.” He shrugged. “I don’t like you. We won’t trade.”
As soon as he had pronounced the words, Drifter made his move. He darted towards the boy, grabbing for the hand that had the key sparkling in it. But as he moved the children realized what he was doing and also darted forward, surrounding their leader with a guard of wire swords and short weapons. Drifter’s knife seemed to appear magically in one hand as he slashed out at the nearest ones, parrying their blows. Wires hissed and the light flickered wildly, confusing the whole scene. Bard was paralyzed with fear and uncertainty on the edges of it.
Suddenly the swarming mass, including Drifter, was halted at a word from Bernie, “wait!”
Everything paused. Drifter fell back, his arms sporting a number of thin slashes from the sharp-edged wires. The Sco-Ber looked back and forth uncertainly between their leader and the interloper.
“You want this key that bad, huh?” The boy held it up, bronze sparkling in the light. His face suggested that he might give it up for the right price.
“Yes,” Drifter grated, panting.
“Well, here’s for your precious key, then!” With a sneer, the boy threw the key between his feet, where it clanked on the grating and disappeared into the darkness below.
“No!” Drifter jumped forward, knocking children away left and right. They began to press back, blocking him. For a moment it looked like they would swarm him, but then Scotia gave a strange, high cry as a signal and the whole mass of the Sco-Ber fell apart. Bare feet flapping and little limbs scrambling, they scuttled away into their dozens of holes. The only one who did not escape was Bernie, whom Drifter pounced on as he tried to escape and struck down with a blow from the knife. The young boy fell to the ground with a gasp, life’s fluid leaving him in a red tide.
Bard’s mouth drooped open and he stared at the scene in shocked horror. No matter what the young gang members had done, he had not thought that Drifter would kill one of them. Not even in revenge. But the man stood grimly wiping off his knife before turning around to fix Bard with his pale eyes, flashlight pointed at the grate.
“He threw the key down there.”
Bard felt transfixed, fear bubbling through him in waves. Would this terrible man stop at nothing if someone got in his way?
“Y-yes.” Bard agreed with a dry mouth.
“Could you fit down there to get it?”
“I--well--I...”
Drifter knelt beside the grating, prying at its edges. Soon it came up and he flopped it heavily to the side. It fell beside the dead gang leader with a clang, bars reddening. Pointing the flashlight downwards, Drifter exposed a narrow hole surrounded by cement, leading down to a depth of perhaps twelve feet. There it opened out and water could be seen glinting inkily in a paved gutter.
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“You’ll have to be the one to do it,” Drifter explained, looking up, “I might get stuck and you are not strong enough to pull me out.”
Bard’s mind was still spinning with the happenings of the night. He could hardly grasp reality or form words to describe it.
“But, how...?”
“My cloak will make a rope.” Drifter reached up and undid the ties that held it on at his throat, shedding the dark blue cloth. With a few deft twists and a knot he made a sort of rope, something that could be held onto and was strong enough to bear Bard’s slim weight.
“Here.” Drifter held out the flashlight. “Take this. Go down there and find the key. It’s important.”
When the boy still hesitated Drifter looked at him, his expression holding a surprising bit of pleading. “Trust me. I’ll pull you back up. Just find the key.”
Acting mechanically, as if the words had wound him up and set him going, Bard took the flashlight and moved over to sit on the edge of the hole. Drifter knelt across from him, seeming smaller and less imposing without his blue hood and cape. It was dangling down the hole, gripped tight in his hands. The drop was not a long one. Bard gazed down at the sparkle of water for a moment, wondering where it came from and went to. Then he put the light between his teeth and wrapped an arm around the cloak, sliding gently off of the cold cement floor.
It took his weight. He hoped that the seams would not part as he grappled his way down it. The slick wall went past him in a blur and he dropped off onto the floor beside the wet gutter. His feet hit solidly, sending a shock through his heels. Looking up, he saw the cloak still hanging down, knot inviting him to climb back. All he had to do was find the key. And it could not have gone far.
Up above, Drifter sat in darkness, listening to the sounds of scurrying feet and crawling knees, whispering little voices. The Sco-Ber were still nearby and active in their holes. He braced himself for them to creep out and hunt for vengeance, come for him with their whips and knives. He had his own blade to defend him, but he did not dare let go of the cloak with even one hand or move from his place. Bard might try climbing back at any time, requiring Drifter to be gripping the improvised ladder solidly. Drifter could only sit and hope they did not emerge until his companion came back.
In the subterranean tunnel, Bard did not think of those dangers. He glanced up and down, pointing the flashlight both ways. The tunnel was small and cylindrical, branching in many directions to his right and running steadily away on the left. Wires and pipes clung to the wall, safe from Greenspark, yet melting under the rust of age. Recalling himself to his mission, the boy pointed the flashlight down at the gutter. The key was too heavy to have been washed away. Looking down through the oily glint of water he saw something shining bronze under its surface. His fingers slid into the black liquid, curling at the cold sliminess. The key jerked out in a shower of drops, each one gleaming pale gold in the light.
Bard tucked it into a pocket of his jacket, before reinserting the light’s metallic body in his mouth. Moving over to the cape dangling down, he grumbled around the flashlight, “coming up!”
Wrapping his hands in the coarse fabric he began to climb. At the same time Drifter hauled on it, pulling him scraping up through the damp cement of the hole. Bard flopped panting onto the floor beside him, getting wearily to his knees.
“Here.”
He held out the key.
Drifter took it as if he had been starving and it was a scrap of meat. “Thank you.”
“Now maybe you can tell me,” Bard said, standing up and readjusting his glasses, “why it’s so important to you? Why are we going to the Gate of Eternity? What will happen if you use the key on it!”
The last words were almost shouted. Tired and shocked by the night’s activity, weary of the mystery Drifter surrounded his quest with, Bard was close to breaking.
“Dick never told you about the Gate?” Drifter was polishing the key between his fingers. He stuck it in his belt.
Bard shook his head mutely, waiting for an answer.
“I’ll tell you. I’ll explain everything.” Drifter stood up, limping towards the exit through the hole in the wall of rubble. “But let’s get out of here first.”
Bard followed after him, giving him the flashlight when he held his hand out for it. Its light was starting to dim, the battery running low. Drifter held it high as they navigated the tight passage and began to traverse the long tunnel. Somewhere behind them rang a high, mocking laugh muffled by the rubble walls.
---
They made it out of the tunnel into the darkness of the night. Though Bard thought that he had slept a long space before awaking, and it seemed to have taken hours to retrieve the key, in reality there was still an hour left until dawn began to break.
As the flashlight went out, Drifter led them around the wall of rubble, back up onto the hill where their camp had been laid. A few red coals still peeked out of the ashes, glowing like feral eyes hoping for a good feed. Drifter rummaged around and pulled up a few twigs and slices of moss to throw on it, making flames flicker once again. The flashlight, turned off, went back into his pocket. With a sigh he sat down on one side of the fire. Bard crouched across from him, shivering with a mixture of cold and fear. He did not know what he was afraid of. But the picture of Bernie laying dead with a red pool spreading around him kept reappearing in his mind. A dread anticipation was on him.
Before saying anything, Drifter reached down and rolled up the left leg of his pants. Bard drew in a tight breath when he saw the burn scar underneath. Cracked and blackened, it appeared damp in the firelight. Drifter lay a hand against it and then drew the hand away, staring at the moistness on it laconically.
“It’s getting worse.” He wiped his hand off on the cloak, which he had somehow put back on while they traveled, and jerked his pants back into place. “No matter. It won’t be long until I don’t have to worry about it anymore.”
Looking up, he met Bard’s horrified gaze. “A direct hit.”
The boy made a slight noise but did not reply.
“Now, the key,” Drifter leaned forward, speaking slowly and carefully, “this might be hard for someone of your age to understand. I’ll try to be concise.”
Bard made a dismissive gesture, drawing up his knees.
“You can see how the world has been going. Pain, starvation, fighting all around. The abomination of desolation. It’s not just that something bad happened and we’ve got to get over it. Not like all of the other wars and destruction of the past. It’s this. We’re nearing the end of the world. This is the apocalypse.”
With a motion, Bard made as if to interrupt. But Drifter held him back with a raised hand. “Wait. I’ve seen angels dancing in the darkness. Demons flying in the sky. The world has been destroyed. Not just this city, this continent. I’ve heard tales from travelers of other lands as well. They are all gone. It is time to end the suffering that the remnant, the elect, have been going through. It is time for the end to come.”
He stood up, looking down at Bard solemnly. “The Gate of Eternity will bring about the end of this world and we will be at peace. This key is the only thing that can open it.”
He looked like a prophet of old standing there, face picked out by the flames while the rest of him faded into the surrounding darkness. Bard’s mouth slowly dropped open, staring up at him. It took a moment for him to process everything Drifter had just said. Once he had, a flash of anger ran through Bard like a hot wire.
“No!” He jumped to his feet, fists curling into balls. “You can’t end the world just like that, on a whim! I don’t want everything to end. I want to rebuild it, to fix the world, not destroy it! I’m not ready to end yet.”
He stood panting, shocked at himself for having spoken some of his deepest-held secrets. Yet he was determined to defend them until the end.
“It’s time, kid. The world can’t last forever and someone will end with it.”
“No!” Bard repeated again, all of his frustration with the companion he had been imposed on flashing to the for. “It doesn’t have to end. You’re just scorch-mad! I won’t let you end it.”
Drifter’s gaze sparked perilously. “You can’t stop me.”
“Oh, yes I can!” Bard jumped forward around the fire, reaching for the key. With a smooth precision, Drifter struck him on the jaw when he came close. For a moment he was filled with rage at the boy’s impudence, which put strength into the blow. It connected with a solid cracking noise and Bard fell to the ground, laying in a crumpled position, his glasses fallen beside him.
Drifter blinked and looked down at the still form, feeling the anger give way to remorse. Bard was just a weak boy, too young and foolish to know any better. Kneeling beside him, Drifter felt to see if he was still breathing. A faint movement under his hand reassured him.
At that moment he heard a heavier, wetter breathing from across the boy. Looking up, he saw a pair of red bulbous eyes glittering at him from the dark. Firelight flickered off a set of white teeth. A large mouth gaped open.
“This one’s not for you.” Drifter grated softly, sliding his arms under the boy to pick him up. Gently, he laid Bard by the fire, using one of their packs as a pillow to rest his head on. Sitting beside Bard, Drifter drew his knees up and rested his elbows on them, bowing his head inside the arc they made. In silence, he watched as the sky turned gray and then flushed pink, steel giving way to peaches. The sun rolled up in the sky with an inexorable gradualness, conquering the night.
When the sun had come up about a hand’s length from the horizon of ruins, Bard began to stir. Drifter leaned over him, eyebrows contracting as the boy’s eyes came open. Without his glasses on, his face looked smaller, more in proportion. But his eyes also looked more tired, ringed in shadows.
“Drink.” Drifter took the flask of water and held it to the boy’s mouth, supporting his head. Still groggy, Bard sipped what water was in it. But the flask was soon empty.
“I’m...I’m still thirsty,” he muttered, flinging an arm across his eyes to protect them from the sun.
“I’ll find more water.” Drifter arose, nodding at the dagger in Bard’s belt. “Lay here until I come back. Protect yourself with the knife if you need it.”
With that he was gone, disappearing into the shadows of a nearby building. Bard lay still for a few minutes, breathing lightly. Once he was sure Drifter was gone he rolled to his knees and stood up. For a moment dizziness overcame him.
But once his head cleared he was even more sure of what he wanted to do. Everything was a little blurry until he picked up his glasses and fit them back to his nose. That done, he snatched up his sack and hoisted it over one shoulder. There was still a bit of hard bread and the like in it. He would have to care for himself from now on out.
“I memorized the whole scroll,” he muttered to himself in determination, “I can get to the gate ahead of Drifter and stop him.”
Leaving no time for hesitation or to become frightened at himself, he walked over to the low wall of rubble, climbed over it and started trotting down the road. After a bit he turned off to the side at a random location and climbed over a pair of fallen marble pillars, starting down a side-street.
Meanwhile Drifter was returning with a flask of fairly clean water. He would still have to heat it it before it was safe to drink, but the boy could always have it hot, as a sort of tea. A flavorless tea. Unless there was something in his pack to spice it with...
Drifter’s mind registered something missing before his eyes realized what was gone. Bard no longer lay beside the camp fire. He was not even in the area. His pack was gone and his glasses disappeared from the ground. Bard was gone.
If someone had kidnapped the boy they might have taken the pack. But no one would have stopped to pick up the glasses while struggling to subdue the boy and drag him off. The only person who would have picked up Bard’s glasses...was Bard himself.
Intuitively Drifter knew what had happened even before his mind formed this conclusion. The boy had run away on him. Dick’s last wish had been for Drifter to watch the boy and now Bard was gone.
Drifter’s shoulders slumped as he looked around the empty courtyard one more time. There was no point in going after Bard. Even if he could have tracked the boy, Bard would not want to come with him when he caught up. It was best to continue his mission in the hope that he could finish it before anything truly terrible happened to the foolish runaway.