Eclipse, Part Four

Zinaida felt the older woman’s body move, then settle on top of her, felt Theseus’s arm go around her neck. WIth one of her arms pinned between them, she started to struggle, to get her free arm around. It was futile. Through the rush of panic, the fight for breath, she dimly heard the woman’s voice close to her ear.
“You ever raise a knife to me again and I will end you. Don’t think for a second that I can’t or that I won’t.”
The pressure around her neck and on her back was suddenly gone. Zinaida lay in the dirt, gasping, as footsteps receded into the distance.  She heard the lift rattle, counterweights clattering as it ascended.

–

On discovering her skills, the administration had put her in touch with the city’s construction committee, people tasked with repairing and restoring what had been lost. That, that she could do. As the years began to pass, Paudel had tried to help save what they could, improve what they had. Electricity was a fading memory, fuel stocks depleted, so everything had to be done by hand. The city library became their most valuable asset and new books more precious than gold. From time to time, there’d be rumours of a collection, built by some crazy philanthropist somewhere north of Kathmandu. People were in it, she’d heard, helping others out. As fairy stories went, she used to think this was one of the better ones. Occasionally the story came with an embellishment, a young girl that walked with a tiger, the Collection’s guardian, the Curator’s Cat. She’d laughed, discounted it completely at that point, until she came across the old newspaper cutting, many years later.

She’d been searching the archives at an old abandoned Kathmandu shipping company for something else when she realised that they’d shipped a vast amount of cargo and materials north just before the war. Someone had tucked a newspaper clipping in with the invoices, a clipping that talked about a collection of books and art buried into a local mountain for safe keeping, funded by a foreign millionaire, Isaac Leibowitz.

Paudel had stared at it in utter disbelief, then had grabbed for the invoices.

They’d all gone to the same place. A village called Shikharbesi, about three days walk away.

–

She’d cleaned herself up a little, had considered just hiding in a dark corner somewhere, but the basement was a little too quiet, a little too empty, despite the plants and the clutter. It was too easy to hear the echoes of faint whispers.

Better to face Theseus now, even if she had gone crazy.

Zinaida came out of the lift onto Class 0. Two chairs sat in the middle of the open space they’d been sprawled in before. Theseus was in one, dressed now, shotgun sat across her lap. The other chair was a good fifteen feet away. Theseus left the gun in her lap, pointed a bandaged finger at the chair.
“Sit down.”

She tried to read the woman’s face and couldn’t. Dark eyes watched her cross the room, watched her sit, gave nothing away. They stared at each in other in silence for a few moments.
“Do you want to tell me what that was about?” Theseus’ voice was calm, conversational. Zinaida wondered for a second when the explosion of rage would follow. She hunted for the right words.
“I… I came down and you were talking to someone. Someone that wasn’t there.”
Theseus made a noncommital sound, gestured for her to carry on.
“…I kept hearing things, like in that bunker… and I thought that meant it was here. And that meant you were talking to it.” She paused, looked away. “I keep hearing them.”
“Even now?”
She concentrated for a second, listened. “Faintly. They’re quieter with you here.” She looked up again, met the dark eyes. “Who were you talking to?”
“I told you. I was talking to The Collection.” Theseus rubbed her face wearily, sat back in her chair and blew out a long sigh. “I started hearing it properly just after we got back, although now that you say that you’re hearing things too, I’ve got to wonder if we’re both going a little mad.”
“I can’t hear it.”
“No, it said you couldn’t.” Theseus tipped her head to one side, gave Zinaida a considering look. “The Collection thought I should have killed you downstairs. You’d just tried to stab me, after all.”
A rush of fear; suddenly she felt cold and sick, very aware of the gun in Theseus’ lap. “I’m… I’m sorry. I shouldn’t have.” Tears suddenly pricked at her eyes, confusion welling up in her. “I got scared and the noises got really loud and I didn’t think, I just kind of did it.”

For the first time in years, completely baffled by everything and how she was feeling, Zinaida burst into tears.

–

Shikharbesi was snuggled in between two ridges, just below where the permanent snowline now was. She’d felt a little silly, asking about a girl with a tiger, right up until the old man she was talking to smiled broadly. Tia? Yes, she’d been here, although not much recently. They had been wondering if she was ok up in the mountain. They hadn’t seen her parents for a while.

Anticipation flooded her, an almost choking sensation of having something incredible within reach. She’d offered to check, casually asked for directions. He’d pointed up at the nearest peak and had told her to follow the path.

–

Theseus let the girl weep. It gave her a chance to think. If Zinaida was hearing noises, then there was a good chance that the voice of The Collection wasn’t real, was just her own psychosis showing.
I’m not a psychosis. It actually sounded irritated.
“Yes, but then you would say that.” she muttered softly. “How does a crazy person tell if they’re crazy?”
Psychological textbooks in Class 1?
She smothered a laugh. At least her psyche had a sense of humour. Unlike Zinaida’s. She sobered quickly. The gun was heavy in her lap.  She didn’t want that to be the decision, but had to be ready in case.

She had a couple of choices. Zinaida had, up until now, been a good person to have around. She was learning fast, had been useful when they’d left to conduct trades. And, Theseus had to acknowledge, it was good to have the company and good to have someone else who could take over if she couldn’t carry on.
Come on, be honest with yourself. Someone here in case you die.
“Please shut up for a minute, will you? Do you want me to leave you in the hands of a potential book burner?” She subvocalised her response, not wanting to spook Zinaida more.
The voice fell silent.

On the other hand, if Zinaida was genuinely going over the edge, she might lash out in another murderous fit. That wouldn’t just kill her, it would probably mean The Collection would cease to be of use to anyone. When she’d come to The Collection, when she’d found Tia’s journal, still open on the table beneath the Observatory, she’d realised she couldn’t take it back to Kathmandu. The city was surviving, already had its own resources. There were other people out there who didn’t have the resources, who needed the help; The Collection could reach them and was maybe the only thing that could.

It’s not up to you, either. You help whoever needs it, no matter what. We’re too good at forgetting we’re all in this mess together. You have to be above that. Otherwise…

You have to look after them both, Theseus. Please. Please love them both for me.

You have to be above that.

Shit.

Theseus set the safety on the shotgun, put it down. Since the first bomb had dropped, life had been one long run of risks. There was a risk she was going crazy too. She didn’t know what it would mean if she was, but no matter what, she was going to try and help people until she couldn’t anymore. At least her kind of crazy seemed mostly benign.

“Zinaida!” The girl looked up, slightly fearfully, eyes puffy and red. “We might be going crazy. We’re probably going crazy. That thing has quite likely damaged us both. I don’t know how much, yet.” Zinaida flinched slightly, involuntarily, as Theseus stood; Theseus showed her empty palms, slowly moved closer, and offered her her hand.

“But you know what? We’ve got work to do, and I don’t think I can do it on my own.”

–

The blizzard had caught her almost unaware. Blinded, and going slowly numb from the cold, Paudel had struggled onwards, knowing she was too far from the village to turn back. She’d slipped, fallen, cursed herself for having been so stupid. How stupid to have believed that she could find a hidden door to a hidden bunker in the vast entirety of the mountains.

Something had moved ahead of her. A flash of orange. A high viz vest? After all this time? She’d shouted, screamed, clawed her way back to her feet and stumbled forward, driven by a burst of hope. There had been another flash of orange to her right; she’d shambled towards it, literally fallen into the cave that had been hidden by the driving snow. Panting for breath, skin burning in the absence of wind, she’d looked up just in time to see the tiger disappear into the back of the cave. Paudel had got back up, mindful of the risks but also of the stories of the Curator’s Cat, and had cautiously followed.

Deeper into the cave, the light and the temperature had started to rise. She had found the tiger stood outside a doorway, the metal door held open with a chair. The big cat had looked at her, and then had disappeared inside with a flick of its tail.

She had stepped through the door after it, out of her world for the last time.

Linh Paudel’s journey was finally over.

Theseus’ was just beginning.

–

~ Oldgreymane, 19 November 2016.

(Based in The Collection world, created by A.C.Macklin. If you haven’t read it yet, go here:https://everwalker.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/read-this-first-ch-1  Seriously, go read it. My own contributions start here: https://oldgreymane.wordpress.com/2016/11/15/the-light-in-the-dark/)

Eclipse, Part Three

The passage through Northern India had been the stuff of nightmares. When she had come across an enclave of people near Siliguri that didn’t seem inclined to kill, eat or rape her, she was starving, ragged, numb inside from what she had seen and had done. Paudel had spent the winter there, again trading her skills for food, helping to build more shelters. This time, the winter was even longer, colder. The world was cooling, and it took longer for the spring to come around, such as it was.

They had known she’d wanted to leave, to move on. They’d managed to skirmish up some fuel for her, and a vehicle. She’d stood there, speechless at the gesture, reminded that despite everything, people still had the capacity to be kind. She’d wept for the first time in over a year.

–

The gloves went in the biomass incinerator in the garden area. Theseus had scraped them off the end of the blade with a stick, determined not to touch them. She’d stayed to watch them burn as Zinaida went to find dry clothes for them both. To her immense relief, the gloves had burnt to ash.
“Tia said he’d been here. I’d thought…” She sighed. “I don’t know what I’d thought. That we were safe, somehow?”
You’re safer than you were.
“Yeah, you say that. If he can just breeze in and out, we’re not safe.”
He won’t come back without reason.
She ran her uninjured hand back through her hair, thinking. “You’re right about that, at least. She did say it was because they’d pissed him off. I just hope our French friend doesn’t have the same abilities.”
I think they are completely different entities. I doubt this one will chase you.
“I hope you’re right. Look, it’s really good to be able to talk to you finally, you know? I’ve kind of felt you were there all along, but I couldn’t hear you..?” She turned away from the glowing embers to see Zinaida, a bundle of clothes under one of her arms, knife ready in her other hand, warily watching her from a safe distance.

–

Actually being able to lash out at something, even a rolled up pair of gloves, had left her feeling a lot better. Back in control. When they’d shut the shower off most of the whispers had died back; it now just sounded like it did after someone had shouted in your ear. Zinaida knew she could ignore that. She had picked up her own knife again. That didn’t stop her from keeping an eye out as she found clean clothes for them both. For the first time, she was glad for the bland low light that filled The Collection: it didn’t flicker, and the shadows didn’t move as she passed them.

Back in the basement, she caught the sound of Theseus’ voice as she left the lift, clearly in conversation with someone. Someone she couldn’t hear. Years of ingrained caution made Zinaida creep to the edge of the garden, where she listened until the older woman turned, broke off .
“Who were you talking to?”
For the first time since Zinaida had met her, the older woman looked uncertain. “I… I don’t know if you’re going to understand…”
Zinaida felt a flush of anger go through her as the whispers in her ears suddenly got louder. She dropped the clothes and advanced, knife coming up. “You’re talking to one of Them, aren’t you? Selling me out to save yourself?”
Theseus’ face went blank as she shifted her weight slightly. “No! I wa…”  The whispers become a roar: Zinaida lashed out, quick and low.

She missed. Iron strong hands gripped her wrists, spun her;  her shins hit the edge of one of the vegetable beds and she went crashing down face first into the mud and the plants as her weapon skittered away. Her arm went up behind her as Theseus’ weight on her back drove the wind out of her. Zinaida struggled for a second but only managed to get more dirt in her face and mouth. Remorseless pressure on her arm and back held her in place. Despite it, Theseus’ voice behind her was perfectly level.
“You silly bitch. I was talking to The Collection.”

–

The mountain road up to Kathmandu had still been snow bound. She wasn’t entirely sure anymore, but Paudel thought that it might now have been June or July. Regardless, it had been a treacherous, terrifying drive, and subsequent climb into the mountains. The outskirts had been guarded, barricades and patrols set up. They’d greeted her warily; she was the first refugee in months to have made it, and raiders from other parts of the valley still caused occasional trouble.

The guards guided her to the Singha Durbar, formerly home to the Ministries, and now the defacto administration building. When the on duty clerk had asked her full name, she had stared blankly at him for a minute, desperately trying to remember who she’d been a lifetime ago.

They had a hall set aside for refugees and residents that were trying to find someone. On its walls were thousands of slips of paper, photographs, pictures. They got newer and whiter the further she went from the door; she added her own name and message to the end of the paper trail, and then started going back through them. She had to know.

It took her four days.

He wasn’t there.

She tried to mourn but discovered that somewhere along the way she had lost the ability. To her discomfort, most of what she felt was just an absence of feeling. Maybe she had known all along.

–

It was nice to know her reflexes were still ok, Theseus mused. It had been a while since she’d had to do that. Now she needed to decide how to deal with Zinaida. The girl had mostly stopped struggling, but was clearly still tense and willing to fight.
You could just throttle her now.
Theseus caught her breath.
It’s not as if you’ve never done it before. It would solve the problem.
She caught herself looking at the back of the girl’s neck. Shook her head silently, no. That was not her way anymore, not now. She’d done what she’d had to, and had left it in the past where it belonged.
She’s a risk to us now. If she’s lost her mind, what happens next time you argue over something? If you die, what happens to all of this? To me?
Theseus felt her blood rush for a second. It was a fair point. The work had to continue.
If you don’t kill her, she might kill you instead.
She’d survived this long by being able to make hard decisions. This was no different.

She reached out.

–

To be concluded.

(Based in The Collection world, created by A.C.Macklin. If you haven’t read it yet, go here:https://everwalker.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/read-this-first-ch-1  Seriously, go read it. My own contributions start here: https://oldgreymane.wordpress.com/2016/11/15/the-light-in-the-dark/)

Eclipse, Part Two

Linh had taken as much diesel from the construction site as she could find containers for, and quickly searched the area for anything she could find that she could barter with later, including a mismatched pair of knives she’d found in a carpenter’s abandoned toolbox, one small and sharp, the other broad and heavy. The small one went in her jacket pocket, the bigger one on the passenger seat. She left the site before night fell, mildly surprised by the lack of traffic about. It seemed like, at least for now, people were waiting to see what happened next.

She made good time that night, and the following day. That evening, as she settled down to sleep in the 4×4’s passenger seat, there was a staccato rattle on the vehicle’s roof. Bought on early by the bombs, the first drops of the autumn monsoons started to fall.

–

Zinaida sat in the bottom of the shower, knees drawn up, head down, water pouring down over her shoulders. The impact of the water across the back of her neck was soothing, and watching the dirt and blood swill away was weirdly pleasing. It helped her feel like nothing was wrong.

Which was a lie, of course. Every time she had tried to turn the water off so far, the whispers in her ears had started again. The little flickering movements in the shadows came back. The running water kept them away, the sound drowned them out.

She wondered if Theseus could see them too.

–

“She’s not well, you know.”
I know.
“I don’t know what to do. I’m afraid she’ll do something… foolish. Do we have any medicine stashed anywhere that would help?
You already know that we don’t. Maybe one of the psychology textbooks?
“They’re hard work. I swear the authors made words up just to make themselves seem smarter.” Theseus sighed, and started hanging the wet leathers up around the planting area. She’d peeled the clothes off of both of them in the shower, given them a scrub, washed herself and dressed her burns. The leather would dry out quickly in the heat; she’d need to remember to oil all of them before they were next worn.
“You know, I don’t think she can hear you. Is there any way you could talk to her, reassure her that it’ll be ok?”
I’m really sorry, The Collection replied, but I don’t think so.

–

It took Linh nearly two years, two brutal, heartbreaking years to make it to Kathmandu. As countries collapsed in on themselves, as the worldwide temperatures plummeted, people either banded together or turned on each other. In the first week of travel, she found her first rape victims, beaten and left to die at the side of the road. After that, she wore her knives openly, used them swiftly when needed. She stopped only as required, moving quickly on before people got ideas about the lone foreign woman, finding secluded places off the road to sleep. She stole when she had to, ran when she had to, cropped her hair short, bound her chest and wore baggy clothes to hide her figure. When asked, she was merely Paudel, a neutral name that didn’t stand out.

The world changed, and she changed with it.

–

“Hey, Zin..?” Theseus rapped on the bathroom’s doorframe. The water was still running. “You need to come out before you shrivel up.” She waited a moment, then stuck her head into the shower room, not quite sure what she was going to see, a little afraid of what she might see. She’d fixed the light fitting, but she’d cried while she’d done so.

The girl was on her hands and knees, naked backside in the air, trying to look under one of the  cabinets. She didn’t look up, just continued staring at the small gap at the base. “Theseus? Get a knife. I think I saw where it went this time.”

The older woman paused, frowned, and then quickly went for the knives.

–

Paudel spent her first deep winter with some local farmers in Burma, a family of mostly older people.  In some ways they’d been affected the least, their way of life almost unchanged in the last century. They fed her and she taught them how to insulate against the snow, shore up the roofs and walls to take the weight of it, something the lowlands had never experienced before. When the temperatures rose back above freezing a few months later, she took it as spring, and set out again. There would be times in the future when she would deeply regret doing so.

–

The thing was still under there, she was sure of it. She’d seen it out of the corner of her eye, seen the brief flicker of shadow disappear under the cabinet. She felt Theseus step over her as the woman avoided breaking her line of sight, took the long knife as it was pressed into her hand.
“You watch that side.” Zinaida slashed hard through the space beneath the cabinet, the knife jolting in her hand as it bit into something. “Got it!”

She pulled the knife gently back, dragging it all out into the light. The blade was embedded in a balled up pair of white gloves. They were immaculately clean.

Distracted by the oddity of it, she completely missed the look of horror on Theseus’ face.

–

To be continued

(Based in The Collection world, created by A.C.Macklin. If you haven’t read it yet, go here:https://everwalker.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/read-this-first-ch-1  Seriously, go read it. My own contributions start here: https://oldgreymane.wordpress.com/2016/11/15/the-light-in-the-dark/)

Eclipse, Part One

She’d been working in Vietnam when war had broken out. As news spread, more and more of the workers, including her translator, had abandoned the construction site and the foreign contractor to race home. Alone, scared, a long way from her own home, she’d sat in the front of her rented 4×4 in disbelief as godlike flashes of light flickered on the eastern and western horizons, as the airwaves slowly filled with static. Afternoon fell, and hunger prodded her into action; she dried her eyes and started taking stock. At least she hadn’t been in Hanoi. Or London.

Years ago, Tu Thi Linh had become Mrs Linh Paudel, and they had honeymooned in Nepal, his birthplace. Struck by its charm, the removal from the pressures of Western life, surrounded by the perpetual peaks of the Himalayas, they’d joked about retreating to Kathmandu should the end of the world ever come about.

If he’d made it out of London in time, that was where she knew he’d be.

–

Something scratchy and wet rubbed at her face, like a damp piece of sandpaper. It was borderline painful; she tried to open her eyes to see what it was, discovered they were gummed shut by something. Flailing, she bumped her arms on large, solid, and furry.

“‘s’okay…Ro, I’m awake. Awake! Stop it!” Trying to shove the tiger away was like trying to push over a wall with her mind, about as effective. She tucked her head into the crook of her arm to stop the tongue bath she was getting, and scrubbed hard at her eyes with the other hand while Rohini licked the top of her head instead. “Dammit, seriously? Gerroff!” The big Bengal chuffed at her, started licking her ear as she squirmed.

She managed to crack one eye open. Flakes of dried blood fell away as she rubbed at the other, managed to get it open. Now able to see, she scrambled out from under the cat’s affection, used a handful of Rohini’s scruff to help haul herself up, and leaned heavily on the tiger once she was stood. Rohini butted her gently in the hip with her head, nearly knocked her over again. “Enough, furball!” She tousled the big cat’s head and ears. “It’s good to see you too.”

Face tingling, head pounding, she looked around. They were below the Observatory, just short of the stairway up to the mezzanine; overhead, a savage blizzard was driving snow across the glass. The panes were so thick that they reduced the sound to a very faint hiss, almost like tinnitus.

The door, thankfully, seemed to be closed and locked.

Zinaida was sprawled face down several feet away. A small pool of dried blood was under her head. She couldn’t tell from where she was whether the girl was breathing or not.
“Come on, you.” She tugged at the tiger’s scruff, staggered over towards the prone body, using him as a walking aid. Halfway across she became aware that she’d got vomit crusted down the front of her, and that she’d definitely soiled herself. As she collapsed down next to Zinaida, it was pretty obvious that the girl had too.

She brushed the hair back away from Zinaida’s face, wriggled a little closer, was rewarded with the sound of ragged breathing. Theseus reached out again and shook her shoulder, winced as the burns on her hand flexed and split.

“Zinaida. Wake up. We’re… home.” Home. Yes, this was home now. Nothing. No response. She searched her scrambled memory for the right words. “Vstavay! My doma!” The girl stirred, groaned, swore softly in her own tongue. Theseus persisted, shook her again. She started awake with a jump, her face coming off the metal floor with a moist sucking sound as she pulled clear of the blood.

“Theseus? Is that you…? …I… I can’t see!” She rubbed at her eyes, face streaked with dried blood. “NO! NOT LIKE HIM! I WON’T BE LIKE HIM!” Her movements became harder, stronger, panic creeping in. Theseus shuffled over, grabbed her wrists.
“Woah, sshhhh, it’s ok, it’s just bl… stuff in your eyes, it’ll rub out. Easy now.”
“I CAN’T BE BLIND!” The words were a shriek, Zinaida fighting to get a hand back her face. Theseus let her, but kept hold of her wrist; she told herself it was in case the girl started to claw at her face again, but the human contact was immensely calming, comforting. Zinaida ground a finger along her eyelid, succeeded in dislodging some of the crusted blood. There was a sigh of relief as she got an eye open. Theseus reluctantly let her wrists go so she could clean out the other side.

The girl looked up and started screaming, drove herself away from Theseus with thrashing, panicky motions, until she hit the wall behind her with an audible crack. Theseus felt Rohini vanish from beside her, startled, bounding back off into the safety of The Collection with a snarl. Zinaida’s screams tapered off into terrified whimpers as she fumbled for the knife on her belt, her eyes not leaving Theseus’ face. “…not like that not like them…”

Theseus watched for a second, stunned into immobility by the girl’s reaction. “…the hell?!”

The knife came free, came up between them, pointed straight at her. “STAY AWAY! DON’T TOUCH ME!”
“Zinaida…? What’s the matter?” Theseus wearily pushed herself up onto her knees, body aching, hands falling to her sides in exhaustion. Zinaida kicked herself away again, starting to shuffle along the wall.
“What did they do to you?! WHAT DID THEY DO?!”
“What?” Bewildered, Theseus stared at the girl’s blood stained, vomit crusted face. Zinaida’s bloodshot eyes were wide in fear, and in a flash, Theseus suddenly realised how she must look in turn. Blood smeared, filthy, eyes like burning coals, demonic.

She laughed. It was all she had left in her. The more she laughed, the easier it got, until she was literally crying with laughter, sore muscles aching as the hysterics swept through. Struggling for breath, she toppled over onto her side, chuckling giving way to sobs and weeping as Zinaida stared at her in aghast confusion

–

To be continued

(Based in The Collection world, created by A.C.Macklin. If you haven’t read it yet, go here:https://everwalker.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/read-this-first-ch-1  Seriously, go read it. My own contributions start here: https://oldgreymane.wordpress.com/2016/11/15/the-light-in-the-dark/)

The Shadows in the Light, Part Two

She closed The Collection’s door behind them, levered the locking mechanism into place. Zinaida had protested at the abrupt departure, pestered her with questions all the way back, and was now pacing up and down by the foot of the stairs to the Observatory, scowling over at her.

Theseus had bought another bed up to the Observatory for the girl. Tia’s bed sat, still made, where she’d moved it over to one side. It felt wrong to give Zinaida that bed. Just… no.

Zinaida hadn’t understood the words, thankfully, but even just thinking about them her stomach turned over. These people, they needed help she could give. She could maybe even help them to leave, give them the knowledge they would have to have to survive, to escape.

But to do so would draw its attention. Maybe they should just go?

“HEY! DON’T IGNORE ME!”
She came back to himself at Zinaida’s shout. The girl was in front of her, furious. “I’m sorry. I promise I wasn’t ignoring you.”
“Then what, mudak? What were you thinking? Why did we run away?” She pointed past her at the door, glowered at her from lowered brows. “They’re still no better off. Wasn’t that why you said we do what you do, to leave people better off?”

Theseus forced herself to look at her, to look her in the eyes. Like many young adults now, Zinaida was functionally illiterate. She hadn’t read The Journal or any of the books Tia had marked, she didn’t know, and she hadn’t got to telling her all of it, not yet. The girl was still coming to grips with hot water for washing, a door that moved despite being attached to a  building, and an animal you kept for friendship and didn’t eat.

She didn’t know about the Dark Ones.

“Look, you know how I said that there are some things out there that we need to avoid at all costs?” Some of the books on Class Eight had little slips of red paper sticking up out of their spines. They had been an education in fear, especially for someone who considered themselves a rationalist.
She glared. “Some guy living deeper in the hole?”
“IT’S NOT A MAN!” She swore at her loudly in her own language for a moment. Abashed by the tone, if not the words, Zinaida warily stepped back a little, hand dropping to her belt near her knife. Theseus blew out an angry breath, paused, breathed in. “It’s something we don’t ever want to meet. Ever.”
Zinaida was silent for a second, thinking. “Like the Shriekers? No-one stays out after dark unless they’re a guard…”
That is not dead which can eternal lie… the line crossed Theseus’ mind unbidden, and she shivered, hard enough that Zinaida noticed. “Worse.”
“…worse… then what do we do?”

–

Theseus spread the diagram of the portable shelter out across the reading area’s tracing table, turned the lantern up underneath it. “I need you to copy this, exactly as you see it.” Zinaida stared at her like she had asked her to flap her arms and fly.
“How?”
She gestured at the pot of pencils, the roll of thin paper. “You lay that over the top, then trace out the lines with the pencil…” The older woman trailed off as Zinaida continued to stare at her. “What?”
“What is ‘trace’? How can I see it if I put this over the top of it? And what is a pencil?”
“Um… like a piece of charcoal. You follow the lines with it.” She laid the tracing paper over the diagram, demonstrated with a few strokes. Zinaida came close, fascinated by being able to see through the paper. “Don’t press too hard though or you’ll tear it.”
“The light does this? Makes the lines show?”

Later on, Theseus would remember her words.

–

The package wasn’t enough, not nearly enough, but she couldn’t just leave without leaving something. Couldn’t.
You help whoever needs it, no matter what.
With shaking hands, she unwrapped the shotgun from its oilskin, worked the action, once, twice, then loaded it. At close range, this was the most potent weapon she’d got. There were a couple of other choices, but she wasn’t as confident with them, and her knives weren’t enough.
No matter what.
She slung her satchel and then the gun over her shoulders. “Zinaida.”

–

Theseus was afraid. She’d seen fear in people before, it was a fact of life. You got used to it to a degree. It was always there. The look of sheer terror in her face made Zinaida feel hollow.
“Yes?” The short sword she’d found was a comforting weight in her hand. It countered the fear, a little at least.
“I’ve shown you how the door works. I’ve shown you where The Journal is. You know where the books that will teach you to read are. If I don’t come back, you just go. Take The Collection, take Rohini, and go. Do you understand?” She grasped the girl’s shoulders, grip tight with her urgency. Zinaida reached up with her empty hand and squeezed the woman’s arm.
“We will both return, but yes. I understand.”

The door swung open and she followed Theseus through.
–

The area outside was deserted. They both stood for a second, tight with adrenaline and tension, then made their way back in towards the heart of the town. If she could get the drawings to Justine, perhaps, then maybe the young woman would have a chance.

It was waiting. Of course it had known. Nothing passed within its dominion without its consent. Every single person they had spoken to that day was gathered before it, all the others to one side,  terrified mute witnesses to what was to happen. Justine and her mother were there at the front; the old woman’s look was of resignation, devoid of hope, Justine’s full of fear.

Dark cold light roiled around it, bright but not dazzling, with a sense of sickening wrongness that grew the more she looked at it. Theseus tore her eyes away, and suddenly remembered the light experiment, the light that was one thing and another, understood in a way that made her feel ill to her core.

In the periphery of her vision something moved at the heart of the light. Something spoke. It must have. There were words. Their basic meaning was clear enough, but the shadows of these words, they scratched at her mind, whispered of things she could not grasp. Things she could not grasp but feared nonetheless.

_mine_   _only_   _no others_

A thud to her left as the sword slipped from slack fingers.

_go_  _continue_
_stay_ _end_

Something wet and sticky began to run from her eyes, her nose. The dark light pulsed, grew. It shone, tearing its way into this reality from somewhere soul-crushingly distant and cold. The people grouped before it began to shine too, lit from behind by this stygian glow.
The light. It made the lines show.

–

She had a handful of Zinaida’s jacket.

–

The words itched, rustled, tore.

_go_

–

Cold midnight flame engulfed the satchel. It burned her as she tore it loose.

–

Their silhouettes before her, shadows cast in shadows cast by light that wasn’t.

–

Voices, human voices, raised in discordant… song..? far behind. She threw up, kept moving.

–

The handle turned. And turned and turned and turned again.

–

~Oldgreymane, 15 November 2016

(Based in The Collection world, created by A.C.Macklin. If you haven’t read it yet, go here: https://everwalker.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/read-this-first-ch-1  Seriously, go read it.)

The Shadows in the Light, Part One

Theseus had read something, somewhere, in one of the Collection’s books, about light not always behaving as it should. She’d been trying to find a way to brighten the thermal glow lamps that gently lit and heated The Collection’s rooms and corridors. and had gone from book to book, learning a spread of new things about light, and the way it interacted with its environment.

Back before the Cold, some pretty smart people had carried out a number of experiments that really hadn’t come out as they’d expected. Turned out, if you shone a beam of light through a slit, what you got was pattern of lines, light and dark, not a single bright line.

Not, she had to admit, an experiment she would have ever thought of doing. Their conclusion was that light was both one thing and another, all at once; she hadn’t entirely understood it at the time.

She understood now.

She wished she didn’t.

–

Theseus was strange, Zinaida had decided. Not that anything she had come across in the last handful of days had been normal, exactly, but she seemed… well, strange. Distracted. Almost like she was hearing something Zinaida couldn’t, which was ridiculous of course, as she’d had some of the best hearing in the village. The older woman was friendly enough, though. She hadn’t hit her once, or threatened her. She’d even fed her, expected nothing in trade. Shown her something called a “shower” that water fell out of like rain, only hot, and clean. Talked to her about words, and books, and how they held knowledge, like in your head, but marked down, trapped in the paper.

Very odd.

There was a big hairy creature that Theseus called Rohini, that lurked in the shelves and corridors of The Collection, just out of sight. Zinaida had found some of its hair rubbed off on the corner of a cabinet. It was quite coarse, some of it orange and white in colour, some of it charcoal black. Nothing she’d ever encountered had had fur like this. She couldn’t decide if that scared or interested her.  She heard its heavy footfalls sometimes, an occasional throaty grunt. She didn’t think that was what Theseus was listening to. The woman had said Rohini would come out eventually, that he was just getting used to a new person.

They’d been places without moving. That was deeply strange. The village she’d grown up in, everyone she knew, gone, far away; where it had been was a new landscape, places she’d never seen or even heard of. Theseus had talked about the Door, and the handle, and how it moved, and honestly, if Zinaida had’t seen it, she would have written the woman off as crazy. She’d always thought that part of the story was nonsense anyway.

Equally, she was warm, dry, safe and fed. She could stomach a little crazy for now.

This time The Collection had opened into the top floor of a shattered fort, something Theseus had called a “bunker”, a hiding place dug deep in the ground before the Cold. It was kind of like the Collection, but it had been dug to hide people, not books, and it didn’t travel, and the people hadn’t really planned to leave it. This sounded to her like getting trapped in a scurry hole, like when those feral dogs had cornered her a couple of years ago: you were stuck, nowhere to go. She shivered at the thought.

It also appeared that the bunker wasn’t maybe as strong as the builders had hoped it would be. Something had cracked it open to the sky, torn the very earth itself away from the top of it. She couldn’t even begin to imagine what that would take. She’d caught sight of some of the broken walls, and they were thicker than anything she’d ever seen. Now there were people living in the top level of it like a little town, out of the bitter winds. It wasn’t like they’d lost a lot of light, after all.

Where the roof of the bunker had been torn away, subsistence crops had been planted in the soil that had sifted down from above. The rooms that still had a ceiling were being used as living space. The whole thing was dingy, slightly smoky from the lantern oil the residents were using and cluttered by the pieces of rubble too big to move and too hard to break.

They’d gone into the heart of it, spoken to a number of people, and always Theseus would ask about what they needed, how they were. Zinaida stayed quiet in her shadow, listening, learning, watchful. Their language was distorted, a twisted version of the Trader’s Tongue; thick accents made it hard to follow some of the exchanges, so she listened closely to what she could understand. She watched the people, she watched her colleague, and she saw how their words pulled at Theseus, even though she hid it. She saw her torn by wanting to help them all, and being unable to do so.

–

It was puzzling. These people didn’t want help, not openly. Any two books from the Collection could measurably improve their lives but any time she offered, she was rebuffed. Sometimes gently, sometimes bluntly. It made no sense. They were not so well off they could just refuse all help. She’d seen places in much better shape, had helped rebuild some back in the day. Long ago, gone now. Keep moving forward.

Maybe it was a pride issue? They didn’t seem prideful, more… cautious. Something was off though. She’d traded with enough people now that she was used to the wariness people had towards strangers, and this wasn’t it. Well, it was, but there was an extra element she couldn’t quite grasp. The couple she was talking to right now had dodged most of her questions. The older woman, presumably the mother, was starting to get impatient with her, and the younger one, barely a teenager, had avoided making eye contact with her or Zinaida at all. Like everyone nowadays, they were dirty, worn beyond their years, borderline starving.

“Friend, told you. Told you twice, no help you have will be taken. Got all we need.”
She forced herself to stay calm. Getting angry wouldn’t help. “Look, you must have someone that’s sick here. I’ve got some notes, just basic medical stuff…”
The older woman took a step forward, cutting her off with an emphatic gesture, scowling into her face. “Enough! Told you no. Suzerain said no, so no it stays.”
“The suzerain…?”
Before she could answer, the younger woman finally looked up, tugged at her mother’s sleeve. “Reynault is sick.”
The older woman’s face hardened even more as she shook her arm free. “Elle ne peut pas aider! Le suzerain a dit non!”  Theseus recognised the language with a cold shock. It had been a very long time since she’d heard French spoken.
“Pourquoi ne la laisserez-vous pas essayer?” The girl stamped her foot angrily. “What is the worst she could do, maman? Put him right?”
The older woman slapped her. The sound echoed like a whipcrack in the corridor they stood in; one or two people nearby looked over in dull interest as her voice raised.“Tu penses que je veux que la lumière noire t’emporte aussi?” Her French had grown rusty from lack of use, but something about a dark light..?
Theseus stepped sideways a little, so she was facing the mother, not quite in front of her daughter, but enough to be in the way. She sensed Zinaida shift out to one side, watchful, poised. She spread her hands, palms up and outwards, placating. “Madame! …uh… Je suis desole, um, je veux seulment… aider? Donnez secours? Regarde moi Reynault?”
–

Zinaida wasn’t entirely sure what was going on. She’d slowly got the hang of their mangled Trader’s Tongue, but she hadn’t followed the rapid fire burst of the other language at all. When Theseus had put herself in the way, she moved out to flank the older bunker dweller. She might have been the mother of the other one, she might be a little older, but that didn’t mean she couldn’t be a threat.

Violence was something Zinaida did understand.

The elder ignored her, staring at Theseus. “This might kill all of us.”
“Reynault has plague? A disease?”
The woman shook her head dismissively and seemed to come to a decision. “Come and look. It is too late now anyway.” She pointed a finger at her daughter. “Justine, go and place some offerings. It might help.”

They trailed behind her as she led the short distance to where she lived. The door was frozen open, hinges long lost to rust and decay, so a tattered leather hide was hung to keep the draughts out. They pushed through, into the stinking, dingy room inside. Blowing a guttering lantern into more life, the woman raised it, stepped over to a piled bundle of rags in the far corner. “This is Reynault now.”

She set the lantern down nearby and delved into the bundle with both hands, dragging a young boy up out of them by the front of a tattered jersey. His limbs fell limply as she propped him carefully up, so he was sitting against the wall. Jaw slack, his head rolled loosely to one side, a faint trickle of drool starting to run down his chin. Brusquely his mother gestured them closer as she stood up, gathered her lantern to hold it overhead as Theseus approached.
“This is how he has been for the last month. Before that, screaming, flailing, weeping. Whispering to himself all the time. ”

“Reynault, comment ca va? Je suis Theseus.” She squatted down in front of the boy, waved a hand slowly in front of the boy’s face. When nothing happened, she glanced up at the boy’s mother. “May I touch him?”
She shrugged. “Do as you please. It will make no difference. We will all be like him soon anyway.”
Theseus stared at her for a moment, then turned back to Reynault. Reaching out, she lifted the boy’s head by the chin. There were scars down the lad’s forehead and cheeks, quite fresh, not long healed. Theseus sucked in a sharp breath. It took a moment for Zinaida to realise the shadows on the boy’s face weren’t shadows: his eyes were missing. “What… what happened?”
“He tried to claw his own eyes out.” Her matter of fact tone sent chills down Zinaida’s spine. “When we put bags over his hands, he tried to chew through them. He crushed his own fingers then pushed the splinters through the bags.” It was suddenly so silent that all Zinaida could hear was the faint hiss of the lantern and the boy’s ragged breathing. Theseus had frozen, the boy’s face still in her hand.
“…..why….?”
“He went where he shouldn’t have.” She watched the woman’s face twist gently in sorrow, stark deep lines in the lantern light. “He went where he shouldn’t have, and he looked at the lumière noire, and  it looked at him.”
Theseus dropped the boy like she’d been stung, stood and spun sharply to face the older woman. “WHAT looked at him..?!” She gazed back, unsurprised by the reaction, and to Zinaida she looked sad. Not sad for her son.

Sad for Theseus.

“The suzerain. Le Vieux Sombre.”

–

~To be continued.

(Based in The Collection world, created by A.C.Macklin. If you haven’t read it yet, go here: https://everwalker.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/read-this-first-ch-1  Seriously, go read it.)

The Light In The Dark

(This is a story based in The Collection world, created by A.C.Macklin. If you haven’t read it yet, go here first: https://everwalker.wordpress.com/2016/11/01/read-this-first-ch-1  Seriously, go read it, I’ll wait.)

It wasn’t possible. It simply wasn’t possible.

It was a myth, a story, a tale of hope that people huddled in the dark told each other to help them believe that things could improve, even when they clearly wouldn’t.

Which meant that the woman Zinaida was watching at the moment couldn’t possibly be the Curator. TwoFingers had sworn up and down it was, but everyone knew how reliable Fingers was… that was why he only had two fingers left. Why would someone from a myth have even come to this hole in the ground?

The stranger was tall for a woman, worn, made broad shouldered and lean by a lifetime of hardship, her clothes as dirty and as torn as everyone around her. Nothing about the way she looked made her stand out in any way from the other villagers around her, her jet black hair shot with grey like everyone else’s. But the way she walked… that was a different matter. The way she carried herself. This was a woman comfortable with carrying authority, being in charge. She wasn’t a merchant, and she wasn’t a mercenary. She lacked the former’s watchful nerves, and the latter’s menace.

And Mikaelanovitch had let her in, apparently heard her out. That was… odd.

–

“We have something you need.”

The vozhak eyed her sceptically over his steaming bowl. “I doubt that, unless you can provide clean water, sunshine, food..?” He snorted at his own cynical humour, shaven head gleaming in the flickering lamplight. The leader’s stone hut was the most solid structure in the village, solid enough to even keep the wind out. It boasted a low table, some half decent furs and hides, and a battered samovar apparently made out of an old artillery shell case.  It was nothing she hadn’t seen before, elsewhere.

The stranger shrugged with a low sweep of one of her hands. “Those, no. Short supply these days.” She lent forward, took her own bowl with the other hand. “But we can help you stop everyone here from dying when the Chirkeyskoye dam gives way.”

Mikaelanovitch paused, then drank slowly, watching the stranger over the rim of his bowl. Dark almond eyes met his steadily; no challenge but no withdrawal, confident of her offer. He set his bowl down, put both open hands on the table in a deliberate gesture; empty of knives, inviting discussion.
“Tell me.”
“That wall, as strong as it once may have been, is starting to crack. When it goes, so will you.”  The stranger sipped at her own foul tasting tea, let the words hang for a few seconds and then placed her bowl aside. “We can teach you how to stop that, how to release the water safely. Take the pressure away and the wall can crumble to nothing, it won’t matter.”
“That knowledge is long lost and you know it, moshenika.” The big man took his hands off the table, scowled at her, started to unfold from his seated position. “You waste my time.”

The stranger’s voice hardened, an edge creeping into her words. “No. No, I do not. I am a caretaker of lost things, not a wandering conartist, vozhak. We have the information you would need to do this, in our possession, right now.” She tipped her head back and stared at the village boss now standing over her, unfazed by his size. “Of course you would have to do the work to fix it, this is not some form of magic and nothing is free.”
They stared at each other in the low light. He grunted softly in amusement, sat back down. “No, nothing is ever free. What would you want in exchange for such as this?”

–

The stranger had left the vozhak’s home earlier today  and disappeared for a while. She wasn’t sure if she’d left the town or not. She certainly hadn’t seen her go through the gates, but there were other ways in and out. Zinaida had hung around what passed for the main street for most of the afternoon, pretending to run errands, keeping an eye on the boss’s stone and slate hut. TwoFingers had said the stranger had been in to see Mikaelanovitch a few times, had claimed to have listened from a scurry hole while they talked of a trade.

She still wasn’t sure if it had been worth the scraps of food she’d given him for the story.

–

She made her way along the shelves, flushed in The Collection’s dry heat after the cold outside.  Carefully, deliberately, she took certain books down, checked them, added them to her satchel, or tucked them gently back. Most she’d take notes from, copied by hand, then put back. Another was a duplicate, trade currency in a world where knowledge was more valuable than gold or steel.

It had to be the dam. She hoped it was the dam. It wasn’t always easy to tell, but the ancient structure above them in the hills had been decaying for years since the Cold fell, and it was the most likely reason they were here.

That and the vozhak’s wall ornament that she’d spotted over his shoulder while they talked.

Given enough information, like the book she currently held in her hands, given enough time, maybe the people here could come to harness the waters from the dam again in some way, maybe a mill of some sort… but then that would tip the balance. Too much improvement in a small settlement would attract unwelcome attention, usually detrimental, usually violent.

She sighed as she slid the book back onto the shelf. It was always such a fine line.

–

The khazri was picking up as the light faded, the chill edge of its breath starting to cut through her battered leathers, and the stranger had still not returned. What passed for autumn simply meant a little more cloud, a little less light, and the khazri crossed a lot of open land and water before it got to the town. Zinaida hunkered down in the lee of Kolya’s collapsed shack, nestled down into the rubble and ash that no-one cared enough to clear, wrapped her hide jacket in on herself.
Why did she even care who this woman was? The Collection was a fantasy, so this lady must be either a very smooth liar, or crazy, or both.  She only had TwoFinger’s word that she’d said she was the Curator. Wasn’t the Curator meant to be a guy? Why was she so interested anyway?

Why..?

Because what if she was…?

–

She watched the village girl quietly from the shadows. She’d spotted her quite early in the day when they’d stepped out for a break. The villager had turned away a little too fast as she’d looked over and been a little too studied in her nonchalance. After everything she’d been through and the people she’d encountered, the girl may as well have set up a stall.

She could just re-enter the door behind her. The Collection could reposition it, and she could avoid confrontation completely.  The satchel bumped against her hip under her coat, weighted with the book and some sketches. As trades went, this was a pretty safe one.  No need to take risks. She still had her knives, hung under her armpits in case everything went to hell, but it was always better to leave them sheathed.

She turned back to the door.

–

“What do you want?”

She shrieked in surprise, cold limbs protesting as she sprang out of her makeshift nest, gravel and ash flying away as she flailed.  The adrenaline made her slightly giddy as she spun to face the speaker. The stranger was smiling, crouched in the debris just behind where she had been, and that flustered her more than the surprise.

“I… wha… WHY DID YOU DO THAT?!”

A flicker of unease. The stranger would have had to have passed through the ruin of the shack to get to where she was. She hadn’t made a sound. Zinaida’s stomach dropped.

“Look I’m sorry I’m not doing anything I haven’t stolen anything and I’m going, ok? Please don’t hurt me!”

The smile vanished. “You think I’m going to hurt you?” The older woman stood up and stepped out of the wrecked building, ducking a fragment of the old doorframe that hung loose. “If I was going to hurt you,  I wouldn’t have wasted time speaking to you.”  Up close, the stranger was a lot taller than she was,  a lot, and suddenly anywhere else seemed like a good place to be.  

“I know you’ve been watching me, so I’ll ask again: what do you want?” Not angry, just… impatient?
She met the stranger’s eyes. Dark eyes.  Such dark eyes, a faint uplift at the corners, like the people of the Steppes.
“…I wanted to know who you are…”
A puzzled look. “Who I am? Why? Why would you care?”
“TwoFingers says you’re the Curator!”
“The Curator..?”
“YES! The one who looks after the Collection!”

A moment of silence as the older woman studied her. The khazri whipped around them, cold fingers across exposed flesh, dirt scratching on skin in the growing twilight. “And now why would that be me?”
“TwoFingers says you told Mikaelanovitch that The Collection was willing to trade for that thing on his wall.”
She laughed for a second. “TwoFingers seems to say a lot of things. Does he normally lie a lot?”
“Well, yes, sometimes, but he swore this was true…” Nonplussed, she trailed off as the woman chuckled again.
“Look, girl…” She stopped, frowned. “My apologies, what is your name?”
“…Zinaida”
“…Zinaida, I’ll be honest. Yes, I’m trading with your vozhak for something I want. No, I’m not this “Curator” type. The Collection is a fairy story, something we tell children. How could something like that be real? And don’t they say Curator’s a man…?”  

She watched the stranger’s eyes as she spoke, uncertain if it was all truth, or just part of it. The woman held her look, faintly amused by something that she couldn’t work out.  
“Where are you from, gospazah? Your accent is… different.”
“Ah, a way east from here. You won’t have heard of it. Nobody has, unless they’re from it.”
Zinaida managed a smile. “A bit like here, then?”
“A lot like here, yes.” The woman raised a eyebrow at her. “Are we done? May I conclude my business?”
She nodded. “I am sorry to have bothered you. Please… do not mention this to the vozhak? He may be angry at me.” She shivered in the wind, only partly from the cold. “I do not desire a beating for asking a stranger’s name.”
The older woman grunted softly to herself. It sounded almost like disgust, but could not have been. Who, honestly, would care? “I will say nothing. Our conversation is ours alone. Goodbye, Zinaida.” She turned to leave.
Impulsively, Zinaida reached out, touched her arm lightly. “Gospazah. I am sorry, but… what is your name?”
The look that crossed the worn face was sad. Maybe even… regretful? With a soft sigh, the woman gave her a wistful smile.
“My name is Theseus. Goodbye Zinaida.”
She left. Zinaida watched her make her way to the stone and slate hut and enter it, before she thought to get out of the wind.

–

Often there would be no trade, just a open sharing  of information that people could use.  Sometimes things could be rescued or salvaged – there were still caches, even now, waiting to be recovered. Every last fragment was valuable, but retrieving them from their resting places was risky, physically and mentally. There were… things that preferred to be left undisturbed in the dark and the Cold. Things she’d never had dreamt of before the war.

Theseus turned the storage unit over in her hands. It had been many, many years since she had seen one of these in use on a construction site. It had survived surprisingly well, hung as a shiny prestige item on a villager’s wall, but connected correctly back into a network, it was beyond value.   The lack of electricity might be overcome someday, somehow. She’d felt The Collection would had wanted it, had been willing to trade for it, and she hadn’t had to risk life, limb and sanity to retrieve it. A good trade.

She dropped it back into her satchel, and glanced quickly around the darkened alley. The ramshackle town was mostly deserted now night had fallen. Only the guards on the walls, patrolling in pairs, were still moving around outdoors. Far off in the distance, something was uttering guttural screeches in the dark, a sound that made the back of her neck crawl. Frost was starting to form on the ground and walls. She gratefully turned to face the rough wooden door set in the alley wall, reaching out to grasp the handle. Warmth and light spilled out from another place, far from the windswept town she was in; she stepped quickly through, the light in the dark narrowed to a flicker and was gone.

Hidden deep in the darkness opposite, Zinaida clenched a fist in triumph and frustration.

She crossed the ground between her hiding place and the alleyway at a flat out sprint, the fastest she’d ever run, skittering to a halt in front of the old door. She paused for a moment, pulse thundering in her head, screwed up what was left of her courage and raised her hand.

–

Theseus set her bag down, shucked out of her coat and hung it on the worn brass hooks to one side of the door. Yawning, she reached for the door mechanism handle, ready to crank herself and The Collection on to somewhere else to spend the night.

There was a knock.

 

 

(With gratitude to A.C.Macklin for letting me play in her universe, and for the encouragement. Go check out her blog: everwalker.wordpress.com)

First post

I’ll be using this to store and publish creative stuff as it pops up/ out. Don’t expect regular updates, it’ll be as the Muse wills it!