Chapter 11: Loneliness in Two Volumes
Taking his own bundle and hiding the remains of the fire, Drifter set out towards the west. He still had to find the ancient springs that had once become a spa, and were now probably ruins. After that, he would turn north and walk for however many days it took him to reach the park in which the Gate was kept. He wished, as he walked, that his car had not betrayed him. It would have been only a few hour’s drive to reach the park, if the roads had been fairly clear. Not only that, but the chance of getting mugged by an unknown gang on the way would have been greatly decreased. As it was he was an open target, plodding across the plains of the wrecked city like a flea on a dog’s back.
But Drifter did not take the open road when he could help it. Instead, he kept to the shadows, slipping around the edges of buildings and walking down marble colonnades. As he walked, he past by buildings that would have housed every sort of store and business. Markets, stripped out inside, general stores fallen in, places that sold tools and small machines full of crushed, rusting junk...
Near noon he stopped on the edge of a low hill, where the road coasted down below him and rolled out across a wide flat. This flat was sparsely filled with structures, wide spaces glaring around the buildings where there had once been lawns and private groves. The installations themselves were large mansions, the palaces and play pens of the rich. Through the middle of the flat land ran a narrow river, water shrunk to a muddy trickle. A highly ornamented bridge had once crossed it, spanning the waters with pride. Now the buttresses hung empty, pillars stuck up from the river bottom like jagged teeth and the waters were clogged with fallen bits of stone and rebar.
There was no good shelter from prying eyes anywhere nearby, so Drifter began to walk down the road into the valley. He hunched forward so that his hood would shield his eyes from the sun, which seemed brighter and warmer on the dead world today than it had been for the last few weeks. His feet thumped in their own peculiar pattern on the pavement. Slowly, the hill spooled away behind him and the flat road came up, stretching before him to the bridge. Cracked statues, often of lions or mermaids, rested beside gaping gate posts on each side of the road. The gates were fallen down or hanging at odd angles, broken arms that would not swing. At a distance of a few hundred yards, the mansions watched Drifter pass, arched windows peering at him coyly or trickling tears of bubbled glass.
Nothing seemed to move in the great buildings. Even the wind was still, leaving the gates to hang in silence. A Rabiter crossed the road ahead of Drifter, making him pause. But the creature just snarled and kept on its path.
After what seemed like a long walk, Drifter came to the broken bridge. There was a steep bank beside it, leading down to the gravel and mud of the river bottom. Someone had worn a path down one part of the bank, perhaps creatures going to drink from the water. The side of the bridge, what was left of it, had been uglified by the personal marks and remarks of the humans who passed by. In chalk, charcoal and paint, words or just symbols like nasty faces had been scrawled on the pale stone.
Drifter paused to look at them, trying to figure what the most recent were. He had been standing for a few minutes gazing at them when he heard a step behind him. Tensed, he turned to see what was coming his way. It was a much more peculiar spectacle than he had been expecting.
A man and woman walked arm in arm down the road towards him, looking like a scene from a faded photograph. Both were dressed in clothes so old-fashioned they might have been called historical. The woman had a long dress, with puffed sleeves and a wide skirt, the waist uncomfortably tight. Over one shoulder an umbrella hung indolently. The man was wearing a top-hat, swallow-tailed coat and tight waistcoat underneath, while a walking cane hung over his unoccupied arm. All the fabric on the couple’s clothes was faded, odd colors that ranged from dusty plum to old mango. It was ripped and torn from use, sometimes hanging in strands where it should have been complete. Their shoes were tight old models with the heels flapping and toes worn.
“Top of the morning to you!” the man called out in salutation as they approached, “wonderfully temperate air today, 'ey?”
Drifter narrowed his eyes without replying.
The couple came to a halt a few yards from him, inspecting him with cocked heads. Both had light burn scars on their hands and face.
“Sullen type, isn’t he my dear?” the man said to his companion.
“Oh, quite.” The woman shrugged, a bit of lace pulling apart on one shoulder. “Do you think he talks?”
“I really don’t know.”
The woman smiled shyly. “Do you think he knows who we are?”
“He should.” The man stared at Drifter with wide eyes. “But it is possible he does not.”
Jerking forward suddenly, leaving his companion behind, the man held out a hand gloved in torn white kid. “I’m Caesarius, King of the Palaces. And this is my delightful wife, Queen Ambrosia.”
Drifter gazed at his hand until it faltered. When it was withdrawn, he returned, “they call me Drifter.”
The man drew himself up straight. “Ah. Well. Welcome to our realm. It runs from this bridge eastward to the edge of that hill. All the mansions and grand palaces you have past belong to us, as our rightful realm. Land bequeathed us by the green fire from the sky, an act of the Lord’s to denote our ascendancy.”
“Nice.” Drifter shrugged. “I’m happy to finally know the reason for the Greenspark fire.”
“Quite.” They both smiled at him in complacent idiocy.
“Is it fine with you if I leave your realm now?”
The man bowed his head magnificently. “Of course, sir. My country has open borders for all. I am no petty tyrant to keep you here against your will.”
“Thanks.” Still at his most ironic, Drifter turned and started down the bank towards the river. Behind him he could hear the 'king’ and 'queen’ continue to discuss him in naive sentences.
The river was low and sluggish, but the bed thick in mud. Drifter picked his way across gravel-bars, trying to find a solid crossing. Finally, he was forced to wade right out into the brown water, feeling river-muck ooze up into his boots. Every step became a fight, and the water soaked into the legs of his pants. It was with an effort that he dragged his feet up out of the mud on the far side and climbed the bank. Panting, feeling the sting of the wetness against his old burn scar, he glanced over his shoulder towards the bank he had left behind. The wonky couple still stood there in their torn finery, apparently discussing him, the weather or whatever else filled their scorched minds. Seeing him pause, the woman waved and the man touched his cap.
Drifter raised a hand to them fractionally, before heading on his way.
That evening he camped in the shell of a building, on the opposite side of the valley, where the town became thicker. The mud had dried and caked onto his boots and pants. He flaked it off idly, sitting against part of the cold brick wall. He had not started a fire, as there were recent signs of inhabitants in this part of town.
“Not much further to the spa, if luck is with me,” he muttered to himself.
Drifter had re-read the scroll in the last of the day’s light and found no clue as to how far away his next way point was, only that he had to turn north at it and walk two days before reaching the park where the Gate stood. Now, he leaned wearily against the wall, thinking again of the comforts of his car. And trying not to think of Bard, out alone in the city for perhaps the first time in his life.
---
It was Bard’s first time alone in the city at night. Even when traveling to the ocean in the Academy sector, it had always been with Dick. Somehow the lank, tall scholar had seemed to hold the night at bay with his words of wisdom and stories of relics that had been found. Bard wished that Dick were there. Were not dying. Had not betrayed him.
Because Bard felt betrayed by Dick, to some extent. Not enough to hate him. Only enough to wish that Dick had never sent him away. Why had his guardian told him to travel with Drifter to the Gate of Eternity? He had evidently not opposed Drifter’s project to end the world and every life on it. But why not let Bard stay with him in his last moments...?
The boy threw a twig angrily into the dark. He was camping not far from Drifter, though he did not know it. He had followed his own path through the structures on the hill, crossing the valley at some distance from the main road, out behind the great mansions. There had been a little footbridge of steel there, still intact across the river. He had crossed it with some hesitation as it creaked and clanged at his every step. After that, he had crossed the rest of the valley without incident and come to a place where the buildings became thicker once again.
At that point, he was to the north of Drifter by a few miles. But there was fresh graffiti on the walls of the buildings and he had heard the sound of loud voices in the distance, laughing and shouting in a frighteningly mocking manner. Veering away from the sounds, he traveled south until the graffiti became less and the voices had long died away. By that time, the sun was sinking in a trail of blood towards the horizon. He decided to make camp.
Even that idea, finding a camp site alone, was thrillingly new to him. On one hand, he was frightened about the gang he had heard finding him or getting too cold to sleep. On the other hand, the taste of freedom was exciting.
Searching around the immediate area, the boy found a place where one building had collapsed beside two others, making a hollow in the space between. After clearing a few small slabs of stone, it had become a perfect little fortress, walled in on one side by the rubble and the others almost entirely blocked off by the standing structures. The only avenue that was left was a tiny alley between the buildings, mostly clogged by melted trashcans and other debris.
With a handful of twigs and the flint from his pack to light them, Bard soon had a cozy nest inside. He sat staring at the fire, thinking back on the last few days.
Drifter was not unnaturally cruel. But Bard thought that nature had made him cruel after the disaster. He was a survivor, someone who would follow his own aims and fight for his life to the end. Someone almost unstoppable once he chose a goal.
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“How to stop him?” Bard murmured angrily, “I have to stop him.”
But short of killing the loner, the thought of which made his stomach quirk, he could not think of a way to halt Drifter’s progress. Perhaps he could sabotage the gate when he reached it. If he destroyed the keyhole, would it make the gate unlocked, or break it so that it was stuck shut? And what could he destroy it with, anyway?
Throwing another twig into the shadows, Bard let out a sigh. He had never really been prepared for something like this. He had been raised as a scholar, both before and even after the Greenspark disaster. Reading old manuscripts, translating texts and fashioning experiments out of what he read were his specialties. That and identifying relics by what he read. Not hunting through the ruined city in a race against one of its toughest inhabitants.
“I wish Dick were here,” he sighed. Then, angry at himself for his weakness and mad at the whole world for setting him in this situation, he curled up to go to sleep.
With the shadows at his back and the whole broken world around him, it took some time for him to fall unconscious. When he did, his sleep was strung with beads of vision, dreams reflecting his life.
He saw himself as a little boy again, going to school in the academy sector for the first time. Then, visions of the Greenspark made him shudder and cringe, before fading to a dream about a recent time, when he had taken leave of Dick Chelsea.
“Why do I have to go? I want to stay here, with you.”
“Drifter will care for you now. My time is near, young Bard...I don’t want to leave you alone.”
Alone...
Alone...
Bard woke to a sharp pain in one foot. With a scream he sat up to see what looked like a white rabbit crouching over his shoe, teeth working steadily. Another sharp pain struck through his foot and he realized that the creature was a Rabiter and that it was gnawing at his toe through the shoe. With a gasp he kicked out, sending the creature flying. It thumped against the wall of a nearby building and slid down to scowl at him through red eyes, a drop of blood hanging from its jaw.
“Go away!” Bard shouted, picking up a stone and flinging it at the beast. The Rabiter hopped nimbly out of the way, letting out a growl like a miniature rabid dog. But when Bard reached for another stone it scampered off, disappearing down the alley.
“My foot...” Bard drew up his foot and cradled it, feeling a hole bitten clean through the tough fabric of the shoe. Inside, his big toe had two sets of lacerations on the side of it, places where the Rabiter had bit him. Luckily it had not had time to make a big enough hole in the shoe to bite the toe clean off.
Bard felt the wounds and tears welled in his eyes at the pain. They were nasty little incisions, welling blood rapidly. Afraid of infection, Bard cast around for something to clean the wounds with. But he did not have any water with him. The last time he had drank had been at the muddy river, where he had tried to take only the cleanest water he could find. But he had nothing to carry it in or boil it for safety. Nothing to bathe his wounds with now.
Tearing open his pack, Bard searched for something to stem the bleeding, at least. He had a small hunk of dry bread, a few raisins, his spare shirt and the two books. Snatching the shirt, he wadded it into his shoe against the cuts, wincing as it pressed against them. He hoped the blood had washed out whatever infection was carried on a Rabiter’s teeth. But rodents were known to carry sicknesses that affected men more than themselves. Bard bit his lower lip, frowning with worry. He had never been gnawed by a Rabiter before, though he had heard of it happening.
Would his toe swell up, turn blue, fall off?
Bard choked down a sob and forced himself to be calm. He had to stay focused and deal with whatever came up, not waste his time borrowing trouble. Peeling the shirt back off, he found that the bleeding had already slowed to a tiny trickle. Using the knife Drifter had given him, he cut a wide strip from the bottom of the shirt and wrapped it awkwardly around the toe. Then, he wadded another strip into the shoe, blocking off the hole that had been bitten in it.
He had not looked closely at the knife before. Now he saw that it had a hefty blade, sharpened on both sides of the point. The handle was firmly attached and neatly made, brass rivets holding together strips of smooth, reddish-brown wood. A tiny cross guard, more ornamental than useful, protected the connection between blade and handle on the outside. It was a fine knife, from he little Bard knew of them.
He used it to hack up his bread and eat it with the raisins for breakfast. It was early morning, with the sun growing red over the horizon. He stood up, ready to go on. The dry crumbs of breakfast made Bard thirsty after he had gone only a few yards. He realized that he would have to find water soon, hopefully some clean enough to drink unboiled. Perhaps he could even scavenge for a pot or metal flask from a building nearby. But whatever else he did, he had to keep moving towards the Gate of Eternity as quickly as possible.
Drifter could have wasted a little time looking for him, but he knew that the loner would push himself afterwards to reach the Gate quickly. And when Drifter pushed himself it was hard for anyone to keep up with him.
Bard stuck to the edges of buildings and side-alleys as he made his way north.
His thirst got worse as he traveled until it reached the point that he decided to scout around the nearby buildings for a vessel and a supply. It would detract from his traveling speed, but he had to have water to keep going. And Drifter would have to find supplies of his own as he traveled, slowing him down a little. At least, Bard hoped it would.
He wandered through a few half-ruined structures without finding anything of use, before reaching a building that had once been a private home. It had a second story, still mostly intact. As he came in the front door, he immediately heard the sound of dripping water. Following it down a musty, scorched hall he reached a room littered with dusty furniture, surprisingly unmarred by fire. The stone construction of the house had saved the furnishings, though one wall of it bulged out dangerously where it had been hit by the earthquakes.
The ceiling above had a long, jagged crack running across it from one side to the other. A chandelier with a few of its crystals and bulbs unharmed hung askew next to the crack. Slowly, a drop of water ran down the crack, hit a jag and dripped off onto the chandelier. From there, it undulated down the hanging strings of crystals to fall with a plink on a broken platter laying on the floor, as if put there for that very purpose. The platter was too cracked to hold the liquid and it ran away into the carpet, creating a rotten marsh of plush.
Bard stared at the white plate for a minute, eyes fixed by a blue pattern around the rim, being marred with water like teardrops. With a shake of his head he hurried across the floor, pile squishing at every step. He had no time for day dreaming.
On the other side of the room was a wide staircase of marble leading up to the next story. The floor there was unstable, groaning at his light treads. Multiple ways led off of the landing. Two doors were jammed in their frames so that he could not open them. The third door led to a wide room which was missing half of its roof. Pigeons roosted in the joists, fluttering away with guttural cooing noises as he entered. They left the building like phantoms, or white shawls thrown into the sky.
The long crack ran through this chamber’s floor. The left-hand half of it was shaded by what remained of the ceiling.
A bathtub sat moldering with yellow rings in its stomach, silver chipping off the shower head and feet. A toilet without a lid snuggled against the far wall, dry as desert sand. Over on the right there was a fancy porcelain washbasin, sitting on a gray marble stand. The stand had once been white, but joists falling and burning around it had changed its color forever. The washbasin was, amazingly, just barely cracked on the near side. Because of the open roof above it, the vessel had filled with rain water, which was now oozing from the seam. It was only half full. The water had been trickling away, down to he floor and across I before dripping into the room below. As he looked across at the basin, Bard estimated it to be about a gallon of water left in the container, enough to quench his thirst for more than a day.
He stepped out onto the floor and felt it sway under him. Walking lightly, he avoided the large crack below as much as possible. Slowly, the boy inched his way over to his target. The basin.
He reached it and stood upon slightly firmer flooring. The basin was too large for him to carry far, especially on his journey. The marble stand around it had a few pigeon droppings encrusting its sides. But the water inside he bowl appeared pure, much cleaner than what he had taken from the river. Leaning over, he took a long slurp. Cool and refreshing, it slid down his throat. It was only when he raised his eyes in silent gratitude towards the sky that he noticed what spanned the gap on the stones above his head. A sort of iron trellis had once been placed on the roof for vines to grow up, as there was a platform which could be reached from another room. Flowers had bloomed on the vine, its green leaves had reached for the sky. But when the Greenspark struck, it was all withered away to nothing and, in the ensuing disturbances, the long iron trellis had been knocked across the gap in the roof. Someone had been on the roof when the disaster hit. In the last throes of death the owner of the house had fallen onto the searing trellis. Now a blackened skeleton lay sprawled across it, hideous skull staring down at the basin directly below as if pleading for a drink of water.
Bard choked down a scream, fixated by revulsion. The skull stared at him, jaw gaping and eyes empty holes. It was right above the basin. Bard tasted the water in his mouth turn to ashes. Every drop had run over that weary skull.
Unable to contain himself, Bard turned and dashed out of the room. His footsteps echoed on the unstable floor, setting up a deadly reverberation. As the boy crossed the living room below, he heard an ominous cracking and creaking above. Slamming out of the front door, the sound turned to a steady rumble of falling stone.
Bard did not stop running until he was across the street and behind another building. Then he leaned, panting, against the wall and peeked back with one eye. The house had imploded, crumbling into a heap of huge, jagged chunks covering a crushed lower story. Rock was still sliding and falling, dust rising in streamers like smoke.
He had drunk water from a dead man’s head.
As he gasped in fresh air and tried to fight off the horror that had taken over his mind, Bard saw a figure walk slowly into view down the street. It moved with a slight hitch, making the gray-blue cape hanging down its back swing from side to side irregularly. There was something distinctly familiar about that irregularity. It was Drifter.
The man stopped a few yards from the recently collapsed building, bright eyes sweeping the scene. After a moment he turned, slowly taking in the surrounding area. Bard jerked away from that searching gaze, hiding behind the building. He thought he must have been seen, and waited every second to hear those slightly uneven steps coming towards him down the alley. But after what seemed like a long time, there was no sound of approach and the boy dared peer out at the street again.
Drifter was disappearing up it, bundle tucked under one arm. He skirted the fallen ruins of the house and turned down a side-street, escaping the boy’s gaze. With a quickly in-drawn breath, Bard finally moved from his place. Not knowing why he did it, drawn like a magnet to a blade, he followed Drifter’s path. Not too closely, not enough to overrun him around a corner. But when he reached the turning in the road he looked down it, seeing ahead the flicker of blue-gray and tan as Drifter rounded another corner. Fearing that he would be seen if he tailed him directly, Bard began to ghost haunt Drifter’s path from one street over, checking down alleys until he saw the silent figure pass.
Eventually he lost the man around a corner. Not seeing him appear down the next side street, Bard determined to climb the tallest building he could find and see if he could spot Drifter from there. He did not dare continue on his way without knowing where the loner was, as he might accidentally run into him around any turning.
Choosing a building with steps up the outside leading to a platform on top (much more stable and empty than the last one) he quickly mounted the steps and had a view of the nearby streets. Shading his eyes with a hand, he peered all around. In no direction could he see a moving figure. The only living thing he could make out was a bloated red lizard of some sort resting on a stone nearby. It had huge bubbles of reddish material on its back legs like inflated rubber floating devices, and a head with a jaw too deep for its snout.
But after a moment of scanning the area, Bard noticed a building directly to the east which was set a little apart from the rest and surrounded by a rusty chain-link fence. It was a large, low building made of alternating white and blue stone, most of it still intact. A huge dome had once protected the central chamber of the place. Now it was smashed in and its broken shell screamed at the sky. The thing which attracted Bard’s attention was a large slab of granite set up vertically outside the building, just on the inside of the fence. It was worn and scorched from the disaster but still bore three large letters in faded blue. 'SPA’.
“The ancient springs!” Bard whispered, thumping his fist on the curb of the roof. “I’ve found it!”