009 – Raft

***

Strythe returned in my dreams. He wore a black mask with eye holes, and stood among a crowd of others just like him. These were the unnamed minions, the faceless cultists who willingly threw their lives away in service of the witches. The cult knelt at the base of a golden idol, fashioned in the form of a human skeleton with a grinning skull. Clouds of glowing vapor spun around it like a whirlwind.

Strythe tried to tell me something. He mumbled in a language that had no meaning. When he removed his mask, it revealed a blank surface underneath. His eyes stuck to the mask, still blinking and glancing from side to side.

I awoke with a jolt as Malisent elbowed me.

“Gah! Wha’s ’at?”

“Wake up, novice. It’s time to go.”

It was the middle of the night. The lilac moon glowed full above us and washed away the lesser stars with a dark indigo sky. I looked across the glittering water of the river and back toward land where shadowy figures lurked in the reeds.

“Are the goblins attacking?”

“No. We’re stealing their raft.”

“What?”

“Do you want to walk all the way to the coast? Rafting will be faster and give us a chance rest. We’ll board one during the gloam and be off before they notice.”

There was no point arguing with her. She’d clearly made up her mind. Malisent didn’t value the lives of goblins at all and would happily slice them up like radishes to get what she wanted. Taking a raft by stealth was the least bloody option, so I made no complaints.

We sat quietly as the shadow of the earth crawled across the moon. At the penumbra, the moon’s light violet color turned to a dark purple. I’d have to ask if those ancient legends said anything about why our twin’s color had changed so dramatically. The eclipse turned the moon to a faint ring in a field of stars and robbed the land of the eerie moonlight.

I could barely see anything at all. We felt our way along the dock and followed the ropes mooring the raft in place. Malisent sliced away the lines, and I used my polearm to shove against the muddy bottom at the edge of the river.

The goblins had eyes better suited to the dark than we humans. They witnessed our escape by the faint starlight. The angry little monsters raced to the end of the pier to hurl stones and insults at us, but did not pursue. They were too cowardly to attack larger creatures unless they had overwhelming numbers or could attack from ambush. Their raspy voices faded as the current drew us down the Spitpoison.

“This water isn’t actually poison is it?”

“Take a drink and find out.”

“No thanks.”

The raft could carry half a dozen goblins, but it fit two humans with little room to spare. Malisent had stayed at a distance from me on our hike, but she could no longer avoid coming into contact with me. Ever since she learned I was a ‘ghost’ from the past, she treated me like someone with a communicable disease.

The moon returned at the end of the gloam, and Malisent handed me a short oar.

“You can work the oar until morning, novice, while I rest. Even a witch has to sleep sometime. Wake me at the first sign of danger.”

She sat closed her eyes and sat cross legged with her back to me. In a minute, she willed herself to sleep. I paddled to keep us in the center of the river and away from obstructions while the strong current carried us through the night.

***

By dawn, Power Station Thirteen had diminished to dark spike on the northern horizon, indistinguishable from the mountain it rose from. The Spitpoison River wove through the valley, sometimes flowing sluggishly around winding turns, other times racing straight over rocky courses. Small tributaries brought rainwater down from the hills.

Morning summoned up swarms of flitting bugs to the banks of the river. Clouds of gnats rolled on the cool breeze over the water’s surface. Buzzing dragonflies zipped among them. Fat fish came to the surface and flicked out long sticky tongues, in the manner of toads, to breakfast on the abundance of insects.

Crabs emerged from the mud and climbed trees near the shoreline. They dangled from long branches overhanging the river and avoided predators by disguising themselves as ripe tree-gourds. Long legged foxes waded through shallows and snatched up fish in their muzzles. Groups of octopuses would inflate themselves when threatened, rise from the water like balloons, and float away to safety on the breeze. A thousand types of colorful birds perched in the treetops.

I didn’t recognize a single animal.

They had all evolved into strange new forms. Most living on the shores of the river looked small and harmless, but there could be bigger monsters ahead, or even lurking under the water. A pair of shaggy wolves with great manes trailed after us for a few kilometers, but they were unwilling to dip into the river. The wolves went off looking for easier prey.

Malisent slept through the morning. She leaned against my back and breathed steadily. I kept still so she wouldn’t roll over and fall off the raft.

The flocking birds ended their songs in unison and fled from the trees. They scattered in every direction across the valley. Something frightened them away. I looked around for danger along the river but did not find the cause of their panic. The foxes darted off. The crabs dropped from their branches back into the mud. The balloon octopuses deflated and sank underwater.

One bird flew overhead with its wings spread wide, barely moving. It seemed as if it were pinned to the sky. Almost imperceptibly, it began to expand. The bird wasn’t actually growing; it rapidly descended from a high altitude. One of the gigantic birds from the top of the station had followed us here. These monsters preferred to hunt at sunrise and sunset, when prey animals cast long shadows that pointed them out like fingerposts. On our raft, on the middle of the flat river, we made obvious targets.

I shook Malisent. She snapped awake and jerked away from me. The little raft rocked from side to side, sending out waves.

“We’ve got danger! Up in the sky.”

“Damn it,” she growled. It took her no time at all to assess our situation. It was bad. “Paddle us toward the shore.”

Malisent lifted the polearm with her one good arm. She couldn’t use it well in her current state. She stood up, bracing her feet at the edges of the raft in a wide stance. It bobbed and shifted beneath her. I paddled hard with the tiny oar. The log raft was a big chunk of wood; we wouldn’t win any races with this thing. My best efforts only slightly changed our course toward the shoreline.

A strong wind blew over us. The trees at the edge of the river swayed and sighed. Their leaves came loose and fluttered through the air. The choppy water sent up a spray of fine mist.

“It’s a big one. Keep your head down.”

My back was to the monster, so I couldn’t see what happened next. A huge gust of wind blasted us accompanied by the sound of beating wings. A dark object rushed overhead. Malisent stumbled and fell on top of me.

Looking up, I saw the tail end of a gigantic bird monster scrape along the water. A creature that size did not fly as gracefully as its smaller cousins. It couldn’t make a steep dive onto prey like a falcon; trying such a maneuver would snap its wings and send it crashing into the earth. Instead it attacked by flying almost parallel to the ground and clawing as it passed. The bird rode the wind as much as it flew.

The river became so turbulent we had to kneel on the bucking raft. The haversack with our supplies almost rolled overboard, but I grabbed onto it.

“It’ll take a minute for that devil-bird to turn around for another pass at us.” Malisent jammed the polearm into the soft wood of the raft. “Do you remember how to swim, ghost?”

She didn’t wait for me to answer and shoved me off the edge of the raft. I plunged into the water. The extra weight of the haversack threatened to pull me down. I broke the surface and gasped for air.

“Over here! Get under the raft.”

Malisent clung to the bottom of the raft and kept her head in a gap between the logs. I paddled over and joined her. Fortunately, I did know how to swim. Although I learned in a nice swimming pool in the metropolis, not a muddy river filled with weird tongue-fish.

“Did it follow us?” I asked.

“No. The devil-birds have a wide hunting range. They fly for hundreds of leagues from their roosts. Get ready. It’s going to come again.”

The fierce winds picked up again. The wind didn’t blow from the bird’s flapping wings; it was more like a sudden storm. The huge monster passed over the river, this time disappointed to find no humans waiting on top the raft. We clutched the underside as the waves tossed us around.

“We can’t come out yet. Let’s swim our way to shore and the get under the cover of some trees,” Malisent said.

“But the shore is where all the bugs and gross animals live.”

“Do you want to deal with a giant devil bird or a few water striders?”

“Let me think about it.”

We grabbed onto the ropes binding the cork logs together then kicked with our legs. This form of propulsion moved the raft better than one tiny paddle. We edged closer to the shore until we brushed against the slimy rocks on the bottom. Ours was not the only mass of logs in the Spitpoison. Tree trunks had drifted down river and formed a tangle on a sandbank.

After securing the raft in place, we dashed for the treeline. We hid for several minutes under a large tree like a willow. The returning songs of birds signaled to us that the danger had passed. The devil-bird had given up the hunt.

“I’m wet and muddy and I hate it,” I said. “You shoved me in with our supplies. All of the bread turned to mush.”

“I’ll find us something to eat. You can stay here and gather driftwood for a campfire.”

“How are we going to start a fire? We don’t have a flame. And all of our stuff is soaking wet.”

Malisent stared at me for a second in disbelief. “If this is all an act, you’re very committed to it.” She snapped her fingers and mote of fire jumped from her hand to a nearby log, which began to smolder and smoke. Witch tricks.

While she was gone, I stripped off my outer clothes. I wrung out the moisture and hung them up to dry. The river water had washed the salve off my wounds and dissolved the crusty scabs. The medicine helped, because my burns had already closed into patches of raw, pink skin. Several days worth of healing happened in one night.

Our supplies were thoroughly soaked. I dried out what I could next to the campfire.

Malisent returned some time later. She had carried some wild fruits and two dead animals like large rabbits.

“Oh no. What are you doing with those carcasses?” I asked in dread.

“They’re breakfast.”

“Dead animals? Gross. Don’t tell me you’ve evolved into a carnivore too.”

“What? It’s just food. Didn’t the Ancients eat meat?”

“No. I heard stories about people getting shipwrecked and being forced to eat bugs and fish to survive. But that was in emergencies. Not by choice.”

“We’re not eating any bugs.” Malisent expertly stripped the skins off the animals, almost like peeling a banana. Their guts spilled out on the ground.

“Ugh. Do you eat other people too?”

“No. I’m not a cannibal.” She chopped the heads off and tossed them aside.

“What about monster people? Trolls and goblins?”

“No. That’s disgusting.”

“What about your snake? Would you eat Orma?”

“Absolutely not. Don’t even suggest such a thing.” She crammed wooden spits through the carcasses lengthwise.

“So you don’t eat bugs, humans, monster people, or animals who you know personally. Now just extend that same disgust to all animals and you know how I feel watching you mutilate these fuzzy forest bunnies.”

“This is an emergency. We’re alone in the wastelands. Out here, you can either eat or be eaten.” She jabbed at me with the point of a wooden spit. “And I’m starting to rethink my position on cannibalism, so don’t annoy me.”

I ate the fruits she gathered and reluctantly nibbled the cooked animal flesh off the bones. It had a weird taste and slimy texture. Muscle and fat. I placed the two severed heads next to Malisent.

“What are you doing?”

“I want you to look in the eyes of your victims while you eat them, you monster.”

She frowned at me and kicked the heads into the fire. “I think the centuries have driven you mad, ghost. You’re too daft to be one of the godlike Ancients.”

“If I’ve gone crazy, it’s happened since you woke me up. It’s gonna take years of therapy for me to sort out this weekend.”

“You’re too soft. Like a pampered city dweller or a plutocrat from Skarve.”

“I hate the wilderness. I only left the metropolis for a research project. If it was up to me, I’d have never left.”

“What’s that?” She asked as she wiped the dead animal grease from her chin.

“The metropolis!” I jumped to my feet. An untranslated word. My violent reaction made her reach for the hilt of her sword. “The metropolis… The ‘mother city.’ The home of the human race. You know? The place where everyone lives. Where we’ve always lived. That metropolis!”

“Ghost. Calm yourself. Your civilization is long ended.”

“Yes. I know. Everyone died. A thousand years. Legends. Sure. But the city itself…”

“Ruins. Long forgotten.”

I dropped the rest of the carcass into the fire. Malisent had already told me that monsters rendered the entire continent uninhabitable. That my civilization fell. That our history faded away to hazy legends. I should have deduced that the metropolis had fallen into ruins, just as the power station had. But my mind couldn’t conceive of a world without the city at its heart. Even after hearing it directly, I couldn’t truly accept the mother-city was gone.

All the buildings fell. Weeds and vermin overtook the parks and plazas. Time tore down the bridges. Our grand towers toppled to the ground. Our museums and theaters and galleries caved in. My old neighborhood sank beneath the dirt. The Community of Scholars and the Research Society labs, where I spent so much time with my friends and colleagues, crumbled into broken blocks of stone.

I was homeless. We were all homeless now.

“Ghost. It’s time to leave. The smell of meat will attract wolves soon. We have a long way to travel today.”

There was no point escaping this wasteland, because there was no place to escape to. My home was no more. I would be adrift in this alien world until I died. It would have been better if I had slept for another few thousand years. Or if I never woke up at all.

Malisent gathered our things quietly. We said nothing more as we got back on the raft and shoved off into the new world's poison waters.