Chapter 3: Relics and Phantoms
Drifter glanced into the rear-view mirror. “Even if it was, I’m afraid it’s not over yet.”
“That semi-truck?”
“Yes.”
Behind them a large, scarlet shape could be seen now and then, weaving between the buildings. Its dim headlights proceeded it in the shadows. It was often lost to sight around corners, but the sound of a large engine could be heard gradually gaining on them.
“Some of them survived,” the woman remarked.
Drifter shrugged. “Crystal fuel is not extremely volatile. It goes off in a burst of flame and gets hot, but is not the best material for blowing up buildings.”
Glancing at his fuel gauge, he added, “which reminds me. We’re still low.”
“How will we escape the truck?”
“Some fast maneuvering. Hopefully not too much of it.”
Flexing his aching shoulders once, Drifter took a better grip on the wheel and put his foot down on the pedal. The car jumped ahead, twisting down the narrowest alleys and taking the most convoluted paths. The truck slid out of sight behind them, engine noises fading away. The woman held onto the seat with one slim, white hand but otherwise appeared unconcerned. Her face was turned towards the window, away from Drifter. They burst through a heap of garbage at the end of an alley, spinning out onto one of the main roads.
Right in front of them the semi-truck was pulling around a building towards them, its lights picking them out in the dark. The woman let out a gasp and Drifter made a small gesture with his head as if about to say something in angry words. Instead, he whipped the car to the side and took off. The fuel gauge dipped ever lower.
With a roar and a belch of smoke the semi-truck came after them. It was weighed down with a heavy bumper in the front and various bits of armor all along the rear. But it had enough power to come after the car with an aggressive energy.
“Bad choice of roads,” Drifter explained, “this time they won’t catch us.”
“And the fuel?”
“We’ll burn what we have like Greenspark fire.”
The car redoubled its speed. Choosing the straightest path, this time, Drifter soon pulled away from the truck and left it far behind. Eventually he took a turning which led into a broken, quake-streaked road where cracks gaped in the pavement between blocks of fallen stone from the buildings on each side. It was a barren, wasted street.
Drifter threaded his way carefully between the obstacles, coming out on a curving avenue leading up to the top of a low hill. There had once been a park on the hill, with trees and grass surrounded by a low hedge. In the center, a pavilion of white marble had once stood with a monument to a dead hero inside it. Now black sticks poked up in a circle around a weedy slope, with a pile of fallen pillars and broken roofing tiles at its peak. A pair of thin, twisted trunks stood together nearby like the legs of a charred skeleton left standing. The scene was outlined against the starry sky, drawn in shades of black.
Drifter eased up onto the hill and halted just over the crest, where they would be out of sight from the sector of the city they had just left behind. When the car was shut off, everything went silent. No roaring engines could be heard coming towards them. No headlights cut the gloom of the streets.
Picking up the leather sack of crystals, Drifter got out. He moved slowly over to open the hood. The woman stepped out to stand on the other side of the car, watching him. The light from the cab, coming through the window, illuminated the scene.
“Were you injured in the fight with Melchior?”
Drifter looked up at her with his bright gaze as if not comprehending.
“You are limping.”
“Oh.” He gave a grim twitch of his mouth like a stillborn smile. “I’ve always…well, I’ve had that for some time. It’s nothing that can be cured.”
“I see.”
Carefully, Drifter poured the crystal fuel from the bag into his fuel tank. Grains of every size tumbled in, slowly filling the metal space until it was nearly full. After closing the cap and then the hood, he turned the key half around to check the gauge. Finally he let out a sigh and leaned against the car, observing his companion. She met his gaze unflinching.
He had lost all sense of beauty by now, considering it to be an innocent and youthful emotion of the past, buried with his memories of a world before the disaster. This woman would have been considered beautiful by some, he knew that. She was tall, slim and pale of complexion, with a face almost perfect in its symmetry. Except for the faint red mark where Steelfist had slapped her. Dark brows like the lines of an ink pen arched over her clear eyes, which seemed to hold a mystic intelligence.
Her attraction was mitigated by an expression which was cold and calculating. Every move was graceful, but planned and coordinated, with no pleasing artlessness to it.
After a moment, Drifter realized that Ryan had been speaking the literal truth. There was something different about this woman.
“You’re not scorched,” he said harshly, “it’s mark is not in you.”
“No,” she returned, “I’m not. I knew of the Greenspark before it fell. My prophecies went mostly unheeded, but I and a few people who believed, were able to avoid its affects. We went deep underground and hid for a year, until the fallout was over and the world had gone cold. We survived without the scorch, but the disaster still affected us. Friends, family, our whole world was destroyed, blotted away in one burning incident.”
Drifter turned away, crossing his arms and closing his eyes. After a moment he said, “so you survived and let the rest of us burn.”
“I tried to warn the ruling--”
“It wasn’t enough! If you knew the Greenspark fire was going to fall, then tell me, what is it and why did it come?”
The woman sighed softly, shaking her head under its purple hood, “I don’t…perhaps we should start with an introduction. I don’t even know who you are or why you rescued me from Steelfist. And you don’t know me.”
Drifter was silent, so she went on.
“My name is Loran. I don’t know where the Greenspark came from or why it fell. It was only a week before it came that I received a prophecy of its coming. It was…just a vision. A few words. It warned me to go underground. I tried to tell the rulers of Apex but they would not listen. They forbid me from using any form of media to spread the word. They watched me. I wish my message had been allowed to reach more people.”
Something she had said seemed to change Drifter’s anger to acceptance. He turned back, his face impassive as usual.
“They call me Drifter. That about describes who and what I am. I entered the Steelfist gang’s hideout looking for fuel, and to get my car back. But I had already heard of you and wanted your opinion on something I have. So I brought you out of it with me.”
Loran inclined her head briefly.
He reached into his belt and pulled out the second cylinder, the one with the oval ring of bronze sitting sideways on its top. When he pulled on it, a shaft came out, followed by an end with a few teeth on it. It was a key. Large, plain and dulled by age, it looked like a key from a movie about a locked garden, rather than one used for cars and houses in the modern world.
Drifter set it gently on the hood of the car and slid it over to her. She picked it up, turning it over to look at the loop on the end of the shaft. Imprinted on one side was a symbol like a branching candle with a circle resting just above it.
“It’s a relic.” Loran narrowed her eyes. “This same symbol is on all of them.”
“That’s what I thought. I had a friend once...name of Dick Chelsea. He collected a few of those things. Do you know what this key goes to?”
The woman thought for a moment, then shook her head. “I’m afraid not. It isn’t mentioned in the scripts I have read on the subject. But one would think that a relic key must go to something of importance.”
Drifter nodded once. “That’s it. I’ll have to find Dick and ask him. I was hoping you would know…but that can’t be helped. Perhaps you could tell me what these relics are and why they were made.”
Loran perched herself on the side of the hood after giving back the key, resting her head thoughtfully on a hand.
“It is a riddle now, and was even before the Greenspark fell. The odd thing about all the relics is that, as far as we can tell, none of them existed before two hundred years ago. Yet, the relics themselves are definitely older. Thousands of years old, perhaps, though they are in such good condition.”
“Buried and came to the surface by erosion and diggings?”
Loran shook her head. “That is the true mystery. The relics are always found in fairly obvious places. Laying in a park, on a shelf in an attic…all the records I have, show that they were never buried far under ground. Not only because they are found nearer the surface, but because some of them would have been harmed by long contact with damp earth. None of them are.”
She gazed at the key in his hands for a minute before shaking her head again. “Once in a while, I almost feel that someone is playing games with us.”
Drifter gave her another crooked almost-smile. “Whenever I tell that to an inhabitant of Haven they say it’s blasphemy.”
Loran let him have a long, cool look. “I don’t mean by God. Someone else. Something more…mortal. And then there is the ‘phantoms’.”
“Yes, I’ve had a few run-ins with those. I suppose you don’t believe, either, that they are dead people?”
This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report.
“No. If dead people walked as spirits on the earth in such a manner, we would have heard of it long ago.”
“They say it’s because of the violence of their demise.”
The woman crossed her arms, pacing slowly up and down beside the car. “The Greenspark disaster my have been more wide-spread, but there has been isolated accidents and terrors just as violent in the past without that result. No, I don’t believe that the phantoms are 'ghosts’ or the spirits of dead people made tangible.”
“Neither do I. What else they could be escapes me. Humans or beasts twisted by the scorch beyond recognition?” Drifter shrugged. “I just know that they are…powerful in strange ways. Dangerous. Or rather, dangerously attractive. It’s odd to me that you would search for them. Relics I can understand. Not phantoms.”
He gave her a searching glance, which she met with that look of deep intelligence and enigma he had noticed before.
“I have my reasons. Mostly, because I am trying to solve a mystery. The mystery of the Greenspark fire, and the things I believe are linked with it in some way. The relics and the phantoms.”
Drifter bowed his head over the car’s hood, his own hood shading his face in deep shadows. “Mystery: That which is unexplained or secret; A story involving a mysterious person; Secrecy.”
“You sound like you’re reciting from a dictionary.”
“I am.” Drifter gestured at the lit interior of the car. “I keep one in the glove compartment. It’s one of the things which kept me sane when I almost lost it.”
Twisting his head up to look at the stars, he added, “you must be tired by now. I have no great comforts to offer you, but feel free to sleep on the seat inside.”
“I wouldn’t want to steal your--”
Drifter made a motion to cut her off. “I’ve gone many nights without sleep before. I don’t feel the need now. Besides, someone needs to keep watch in case the gang managed to follow us. You rest. I’ll watch.”
Loran hesitated before nodding in acceptance and thanking him. The only time her manner had not been cold and distant was when speaking of the relics and phantoms. Now she retreated into the car and wrapped herself in her robe, before shutting off the light.
Drifter stared at the window for a moment, a faintly gleaming surface which reflected the stars and night sky. Turning, he made his way over to the heap of marble that had once been a pavilion and climbed carefully to the top, where he perched on a chunk of level stone. The stars slowly moved across the sky.
Something padded closer in the darkness. One pair of huge, reddish eyes looked up at Drifter, followed by a second and third. He gave a dismissive wave of his hand towards them.
“Not tonight. I have nothing to spare and another guest besides. Beasts of the dark, disperse.”
The Chardogs blinked, before turning and disappearing into the night.
---
In the morning, Drifter woke the woman by opening the door under her head. She gave a slight gasp and scramble, before regaining her composure. Sitting up, she made room for him on the driver’s seat.
“Where are we going today?”
Drifter looked to her. “That’s up to you. I’ll take you anywhere you wish, in the area. Then I must be on my way.”
“Where are you going?”
He did not answer until the car was running and he started to back it down the hill, turning around before continuing down the slope.
“Dick. I’m going to find him. Someone told me he may be in the Academy sector.”
“Hmm...” Loran put her hands together on her lap. “Academy sector. They have a bigger library there--”
“Many of them.”
“Many large libraries there. May I accompany you?”
Drifter once again did not answer for a few minutes. Eventually he shook his head. “No. I travel alone and could not provide for you. Provisions are hard enough to find for one.”
Loran held up a hand in a commanding gesture. “I have supplies cached nearby. Food, water, coffee. Enough for both of us for some time, if we are careful.”
“Coffee...” Drifter tasted that word like a foreign delicacy. But still, he shook his head. “No. Forgive me. I travel alone. Just tell me where you wish to be dropped off.”
“The Academy sector--”
“Nearby, or else I leave you right here.”
Loran sighed. “You’re a hard man.”
Drifter did not reply, just idled the car down and waited.
“The Workman’s library. It’s near here. Down that street and to the left.” She gestured at an intersection ahead of them. It was fairly clear of debris, leading to a medium building of pale green stone. The roof had an ornamental dome on top of it, smashed and shattered so that only jagged teeth of glass was left in a ring where the dome used to stand. A blackened statue stood beside the steps, depicting a lion raising one paw over an open book. The face was broken off, leaving a blank hollow behind.
Around it was a space of gravel that had once been a parking lot, ringed by trees and shrubs that would never grow again. Even the seeds had been cooked by the heat of the Greenspark, giving no hope for the future. Where there had once been short spaces of lawn, there was only hard earth and the broken fragments of nearby structures, mostly less fortunate than the library. Glass from the building lay sparkling all across the area.
“There are rumors that the Academy sector was hit less hard than many others, in places.” Loran looked at him once the car had stopped.
“Then perhaps Dick survived.” Drifter motioned towards the door. “Your stop, I believe?”
With only a small nod in return, the woman opened the door and stepped out.
Her feet crunched on the gravel and she paused. “There is one more thing I should say before I go.”
Drifter shot a glance at her.
“Thank you.”
She did not wait for an answer and Drifter did not offer one. He eased the car away as she moved towards the building, robe swirling softly behind her. The woman had just disappeared into the sagging doors of the library when he rounded the corner and it disappeared from sight.
For just a moment Drifter felt as if he had made the wrong decision. He was going towards the Academy sector anyway, the woman’s knowledge might be useful, and she had offered supplies the likes of which most modern inhabitants of Apex would kill their closest relative for. Not only that, but she had claimed to be a prophetess of sorts. Someone who could see the future might be useful to have around. Drifter had not disbelieved her, though it would have been easy for someone to lie after the fact and claim they had foretold it. But she was unmarked by scorch and that was a finger pointing out the truth of her words.
But the feeling of having left something important behind stayed with Drifter for only a moment. It was soon washed away by thoughts of how to reach the Academy sector in one piece, with his car.
The fuel he had stolen would not last all of the way there. At some point he would have to refuel, finding or stealing another supply of the same size along the way. He also had to find the usual food and water supplies while he traveled. The thought of food made him hungry, realizing that he had not eaten, even after the fight in Steelfist’s hideout. Reaching over to the glove compartment, he yanked it open and took out the lump of stale hardtack. It was a grayish, amorphous blob in his hand, stiff with long baking and exposure to air. Someone had cooked it before the Greenspark fell, probably for a voyage across the sea or as an experiment. Now he gnawed crumbs off as he drove, thinking how good meat would taste instead.
The thought grew on him until, just a few miles from the library, he decided to stop and camp. He would get something more to eat, perhaps enough to take with him and last for some days. Then he would not have to worry about provisions during the first days of the journey.
Two buildings leaned precariously together over a sunken section of road. Drifter pulled up just outside of their shadows, reaching into the shelf behind his seat to push aside a few rags and tags before drawing out a slingshot. It was of the sort a person could hold in one hand, balancing it against the wrist while aiming and firing with the other hand. It had belonged to a boy before the disaster… someone Drifter had known. It had been left by accident in the car and the original owner had perished off the face of the earth. Not powerful enough to use as a weapon of defense, but it could flick a rock, bottle or bit of metal hard enough to stun small game. He only used it for hunting.
The buildings stood up starkly against the sky, one leaning on the other like a pair of drunks trying to get home together. Reinforcement rods and power lines dangled from the building’s sides towards the deep shadows underneath, where all shapes became a dark blur. This pit was what Drifter made his way towards, picking up sharp corners of broken stone along the way. Perhaps half the size of his fist, they fit neatly into the sling and into the pockets of the military uniform, where he stored them.
Drifter slid into the shade, feeling it on his face like cool water. He had to watch his step here, so as not to trip over the rubble on the ground. Caved in underground systems created a hollow pit directly underneath the leaning towers. Cracks ran through it, rough and torn like shedding skin. A smell of damp pavement and burnt wires pervaded the space.
As soon as he was down inside the pit Drifter stood still, listening. Little squeaks and scuffles started up after a minute, running all through the cracks in the valley. This was the sort of place where Rabiters and Vollans lived.
Those creatures had begun, once upon a time, as rabbits and voles. But the toxic influence of the Greenspark had twisted them into new creatures, which had received mutated names to suit them. Rabiters, as their name suggested, were known for sneaking up in the night and biting people as they slept. Especially on the toes, if the victims weren’t wearing boots, or on the fingers. They bit hard, often severing the digit and running off with it to munch in peace. Vollan was a play on the words vole and villain. They were fat, burrowing creatures which stole whatever was not nailed down or watched, but were otherwise harmless. And better for eating than the hazardous rats.
It was not long before Drifter’s eyes had adjusted enough for him to make out shapes and movements in the dark. Something scuttled between burrows dug into the cracks in the pavement. A split second later the shape resurfaced, carrying a bit of straw or a twig in its mouth. Drifter aimed carefully and let fly with one broken piece of rock. There was a thump, a squeak and the Vollan lay still. But the man did not go to pick it up right away. He waited until business resumed in the colony before shooting another one, then a third soon after.
Accepting this amount for the moment, he walked forward to scoop up the creatures one after the other and break their necks. Each was about the size of a normal rabbit, unnaturally plump in the back and narrow up front. Somehow they managed to survive on what seemed to Drifter to be little more than dirt and burnt twigs, even getting fat on them. Of all the rodents in the new world they were the only one he had come across really safe to eat, unless you studied the animal carefully first. Rats were often poisonous or diseased from their own horrible diets and the Rabiters seemed to have become indigestible while turning to carnivorous habits.
It did not take much to skin and dress a Vollan. After scouting around to make sure he was unobserved, Drifter started a small fire near the base of one tower. He burnt the inner woods of pre-charred sticks he found laying nearby, and some yellowish-orange moss from cracks in the buildings themselves. It just took a small jerk of the hand to harvest handfuls of these materials and they gave out a steady heat.
Laying the Vollans on half-melted metal gratings from a window, Drifter propped them over the fire on rocks. The ones he did not eat would keep better cooked than raw, especially as they were roasted right in the smoke of the fire.
As he sat watching them, another pair of Vollans crawled out of the pit on their own accord to be added to the improvised grill. Fortune was giving Drifter the benefit of a wink for the moment, making his life easy. He even found a hollow stone in the shade, full of rain water, which he put in his metal flash and set near the fire to steam away impurities of the organic kind. Any heavy chemicals collected from the buildings above he would just have to live with. So far, drinking that sort of water had not killed him.
When the Vollans were roasted, he ate one with the remaining bit of bread. Then he rolled the others carefully in rags and set them on the back seat of his car to cool. The water was also set aside to lose its heat, while he searched the bottom story of one leaning buildings. It creaked dismally in every gust of wind, all of its empty windows humming as the breeze blew through it. The bottom story was burnt almost bare from fire.
The only thing of interest he found in it was the head of a ceramic doll, broken and missing one eye. Holding it in one hand, he looked down at the curls that had once been painted yellow and the single eye with flecks of blue still remaining in it. This object had been held by a little girl once, probably loved in a childish fashion. Perhaps talked to, fed pretend delicacies, led an imaginary life. It had most likely even had a name once, just like the little girl who owned it. Now it was broken in two and there was no sign of the one who had held it before.
The eye seemed to stare up at Drifter with cold intelligence. With a tiny shake of his head, he dropped it to the floor. It shattered as it hit, the fragment with the eye flying away to land in a corner. Lost like so many other things of the past.
Feeling oddly reluctant to start on his journey, Drifter decided to camp outside the leaning buildings until the next morning. To justify himself, he hunted again and roasted one more Vollan. But they were wary now and did not show themselves often. Adding more sticks to the fire, Drifter let it burn on into the blue shades of evening as he sat beside it, listening to the night sounds.