Outcasts of the Worlds Read online

  Raising his arms to the sky as droplets of water percolated on his clothes, Mack suddenly declared, “The cleansing power of sanitation is upon me!”

  Flynn just looked at Jean and smiled. “Clean water.”

  “Takes so fuckin’ little to wow us, doesn’t it?”

  Flynn’s smile faded as his gaze drifted to the lands awaiting them, and the valleys and streams ahead. “Jean—I can’t promise what kind of friend I’ll be. I’ve done terrible things—”

  “Yeah, and I’ll hit ya for it when I have to,” Jean brushed him off. She took her first steps forward, with a slight limp. “Now come on. All I see here is a long damn road. I wanna know where it goes.”

  Miles of tall grass brushed at their arms as they followed the overgrown road leading out the valley’s basin. Had they not left such an oppressive world behind, the unchanging terrain might have dulled quickly. Though numerous plants populated the land—from the encompassing tall grass to the distant, lonely trees—there was little else. Flynn had expected life to sprout once they progressed beyond the village outskirts, but even the insects were few and far between. Flynn was haunted by the thought that, when stalking and killing his prey in the thicket, he may have cut the last of its kind down.

  The rain petered out by midday and they continued on, only minutely soaked by the end. The journey out of the basin was slow, in part because neither Jean nor Mack was healed enough for a more arduous trek. They neared the exit by nightfall and found a clearing near some trees to build a fire and dry their clothes.

  “My stabbed parts are sore,” Mack announced from where he lay upon the soft soil. “My non-stabbed parts too.”

  A row of sticks sat around the flames of their campfire, each one cooking an uneven shank of meat. While the occasional drop of rain slipped through, most were halted by the brittle leaves above. Glancing over at Mack, Flynn felt the old impulse resurging inside: the need to assess him and determine what use he might be—and to cast him aside if he proved useless. Flynn knew he should feel some guilt or shame at such shallow thoughts, but there was none. His connections had only ever been based on what he could take or gain from others. The ability to genuinely bond was something he had lost along the way, and he wondered if he’d ever really known how.

  “What’d you used to do?” he asked, breaking the silence. It was an aimless question without clear target.

  “What’d I used to—?”

  “I was a seamstress!” Mack sat up suddenly, cutting Jean off with his declaration. He struggled with the suffix “-stress? -ster? Seamster?”

  “Tailor?” Flynn offered.

  “No, Mack—nice to meet ya.” He lay back down. “I like seamster. I was that.”

  “Seriously?” Jean asked. “Since when?”

  “I was ten. They kept me in a dark room and gave me more biscuits than the other kids when I did good. One day they threw me out and said I wasn’t people enough to work in a sweatshop.”

  Flynn moved the subject along. “Jean?”

  “Huh? Like what, to get my bread or whatever?”

  “That’s the idea.”

  “Well, geez …” she thought about it. “Worked in a kitchen. Broke shit. Worked as a roadie. Broke shit. Worked in a hospital. Broke shit.”

  “You … seem to have a track record,” Flynn observed.

  “Scuse me, freak-of-the-week,” Jean retorted. “Ain’t exactly easy when people can look and tell you’re a—” she bit her tongue, “a half-human. What’d you do, looking like that?”

  The campfire’s flames danced in Flynn’s eyes. “I was a confidence man.”

  “A what?” Jean had only heard the term a few times before and wasn’t certain she knew what it meant. Mack glanced up momentarily, then lay back.

  “I made friends,” his voice was distant and peaceful. “I found people. I got close-knit groups at each other’s throats. I culled sheep from the herd. I made deals.”

  “And all that cunning shit back at Civilis—?”

  “I knew their methods and systems because I knew them,” he confessed, letting loose a sigh. It was finally off his chest.

  “Shoulda figured.” Her contempt for him grew. “So you … you’d’ve went after people like us? Me an’ Mack?”

  “The down-and-outs are usually the easiest marks.” He showed no remorse. In its genuine form, it was something he was only beginning to understand, and it would have been disingenuous to lie.

  Jean stomped through the fire itself to lay a fist clean across his face, twisting him to the ground. “I—! God! Fuck! I figured there was somethin’, but—! UNH!”

  Flynn pressed his palm hard against his aching cheek. None of his teeth felt loosened.

  “I want to leave that behind,” he asserted. “Wherever we go next, I don’t want that with me, following like a specter.”

  “Doesn’t make ya guilt-free, Flynn.”

  “I’m not—” he started to retort, then caught himself. “I won’t go back to being that person. I need to remember what it’s like to earn trust without manipulation.”

  “Kinda too bad,” Mack piped in. “Can’t say it’s not more interestin’ when you can.”

  “And why the fuck ain’t you shocked by all this?!”

  “I called it.”

  “You can’t say you fuckin’ called it when you don’t tell no one ‘til after he fesses up!” Jean yelled.

  “Well, I did. In my head.”

  Jean quit the argument, looking down on Flynn. Gritting her teeth, she huffed and reached down, pulling him back to his feet.

  “You were kinda bastardly, weren’t ya?”

  Flynn smiled apologetically. “I’m trying not to be.”

  She looked him over, and he knew innately that she was resisting the urge to punch him out and say good night. He knew which way to duck if she did, but would have let her have it anyway. And as Jean crossed back, he realized she had forgiven him from the start. After all, she’d left her mace on her side of the fire.

  *

  They traversed through tunnels of hardened mud and navigated dense forests as they continued west across the Kestlei continent. Within a few days, Mack was able to pick up his pace, and soon after, Jean was able to run with only a slight hobble.

  Their lives on Earth seemed a strange memory as they drew farther from the Jemina Mountains and possibly their only route home. Life had turned from a desperate bid to hide and survive to a journey guided by an impulse that Flynn alone felt. Despite their common goal to find a place more desirable and alive than Sechal, there was little talk about what was to come. An underlying complacency ran through them, for even with the scarce food and pressing elements, theirs was still a better lot now than any they had known before.

  They passed other villages, seldom larger or less decrepit than where they had first recovered. Only remnant tools told any story, simple but very old: shovels and hammers with splintering and rotten poles, swords sheathed in rust. There had been life here, once, but it had never come far.

  After nine days’ trek, they climbed the lip of a great ridge, catching glimpse of a distant ruin built into the stone of a lone mountain amidst a large, coastal field. At seeing it, Flynn felt the pull and knew it was their destination.

  *

  The wind had picked up come morning, and they could see the blades of grass in the valley below rolling like waves. As the trio hiked down the path, branches rattled, leaves shook, and the tattered strands of Mack’s aloha shirt fluttered in the wind with wild abandon. As they’d traveled, Flynn had casually assessed their individual strengths, in consideration of what was to come and whom they might meet. It was with little hubris that he was the wit and negotiator, whereas Jean could undoubtedly serve as muscle. Yet Mack, the cyclops strolling behind him with blithe poise, remained ill defined.

  At the base of the mountain, Flynn found his chance.

  “Gotta take a piss,” Jean said, excusing herself to some nearby bushes.

  It was sel
dom that she left Flynn and Mack alone together.

  “Back on Earth,” he began, “before Civilis, before we met, when it was just you and Jean, what did you do?”

  “Do?” Mack asked innocently. “Checkers and chess, usually. More of a chess guy myself, but Jeannie kept mixing up the bishops and the queens and—”

  “No, no,” Flynn cut him off. He knows what you’re asking. He’s just dodging the question.

  Mack smiled, unperturbed.

  “For survival, I mean. I just wonder why she kept you around.”

  It was an indelicate question, but even if it had registered for Flynn emotionally, Mack didn’t respond visibly.

  “Hmm? Well, mostly I rooted around in tight spaces for junk we could salvage.” With a grin, he added, “Also: I was an expert deal maker! A pro haggler! Cutting bargains with the most tightest of tight wads.”

  Somehow, Flynn doubted him. It was hard to see anyone taking him seriously long enough.

  “Guess these open roads and tall plantlike thingies aren’t really the place for guys like us then, huh?” Mack nudged Flynn with his elbow. “What use are a couple’a smooth talkers in a place like this?”

  Curiously, Flynn’s pride was stung. His wit and talent with people were the tools he’d used to cause the most harm. Here, on Sechal, they were effectively powerless.

  Jean soon returned, shaking her hands dry after rinsing them with the contents of a waterskin they’d found. “What’d ya two chat about?” she asked.

  “Just chattin’,” Mack replied decisively.

  She smiled at Flynn and said, “You know I wouldn’t trust him alone with just anyone.”

  Flynn nodded distractedly, preoccupied by his thoughts. They weren’t far along, however, when something snapped beneath his boot. Drawing his foot back, he found beneath it a rusted sword, broken in two—a tool for pain and death, forgotten in a field. Whatever function it once served seemed to matter little now. What warriors and empires of Sechal, had there ever been any, were long gone. Looking ahead, he could see the entrance to the ruins, marked by tall stone doors. He hoped they were open.

  *

  Within half a mile of the temple, it was clear that the massive doors were shut tight and that no amount of brute strength would be enough to open them. Though there were windows, they were narrow and above easy reach. Before Jean could offer to smash anything, they saw another way in: Several large holes breached the lower walls, rendering the barrier irrelevant.

  “When I see stuff like this, I kinda wish we’d hired the Sechal tour guide,” Jean cracked. “Get our asses all cultured up.”

  By the time they reached the temple doors, midday had passed and afternoon had settled in. The gaping hole to the right of the entrance was easily surmountable, as a pile of stones had cluttered at its base. A great many claw marks adorned the sides of the hole.

  “Something has nested inside,” Flynn observed.

  Mack, who had been climbing up ahead, stopped mid-perch. “So? We’re still high tailing it this way, aren’t we?”

  He didn’t wait for Flynn’s answer, hopping through to the other side. Not to be left behind, Jean and Flynn quickly followed, touching down on the interior grounds.

  “Okay, I know we’re planning to am-scray,” Mack stated, “but if we do come back, I’m totally calling dibs. This would make a killer place to live.”

  Despite the grandeur of the entryway, the temple as a whole was not the majestic sanctuary they were expecting. Between the windows and gaps, it was pleasantly well lit, though that comfort would diminish as the hours fell short. A subtle madness pervaded the architecture; passageways suddenly led to dead ends, while archways were still fully plugged with mountain stone. Pathways wound toward the mountain walls, at times seemingly disappearing into them, at others tapering off, as though the builders had run out of carved stone in the process.

  Flynn tried more than once to look at the writing on the wall, which did not resemble any pattern of characters he had ever seen. Before his mind could draw any sort of conclusion, a sharp pain ran through it, pushing him away.

  “There’s something strange about these inscriptions,” he warned.

  “Not just me, huh?” Jean asked. “Yeah, figured it after the second searing headache.”

  “See, I think it’s a little keen,” Mack said as he stopped, staring at the carved writing with his one good eye. “Ow.” He winced. “Ow. ” He winced. “Ow.” He looked to the others. “Come on, where else are ya gonna find a conversation piece like that?” He nodded confidently to himself. “This is definitely gonna be my house one day.”

  Flynn tried to glance at the wall without looking directly at it. He had never given much credit to the thought of genuine magic before—the talents half-humans possessed were always rooted in some biological extreme, though what some could innately do might have passed for magic in better, bygone eras. Since they’d passed through the gateway to Sechal, though, it was hard to deny that something otherworldly was at play.

  It’s not for human eyes. Scytha’s voice in his head, whispering the conclusion to which he’d come. Rather than anything she had actually told him, it was information he suspected she’d have provided, based on their limited time together. It may have been easier had the real Scytha stuck around, given a little more information on Sechal and the reason the three of them had come here. She had certainly pushed them in this direction, and he wondered if she’d had some ulterior motive, or if she had genuinely wanted to help. Or perhaps she just thought it funny, setting them loose on the unsuspecting universe.

  “Flynn?” Jean asked, snapping him out of it.

  “Sorry,” he said brusquely. “Just … something peculiar about this whole place.”

  “I assume you mean the excellent architecture?” Mack offered. “I mean, come on, this place is in mint condition.”

  Flynn realized then, in spite of Jean’s scoff, that Mack was right: All the damage to this temple had affected the mountain-scape itself, but not a piece of carved stone was broken, fallen, or cracked. He shared this observation with the others, and Mack just nodded smugly and replied, “I know.”

  “Want me to test just how durable this place is?” Jean offered, but Flynn declined quickly as Mack complained about diminishing property values. If this place had stayed intact for so long on its own, it seemed wrong to damage it now.

  “Still, how unexpected that it’s like this,” Flynn mused. “It seems so deliberate, but there’s so much about it left undone. Did the people die out, or were they killed in the war fought outside this very mountain?” He shook his head. “There’s so many possibilities.”

  “I don’t really care what happened in my future home,” Mack said haughtily, then added more casually, “Am startin’ to wanna know who they worshiped though.”

  Whatever had gone on in the temple, there were no signs of the builders themselves, only the writing on the walls whose meaning was obscured. Pictographs of an ill-defined girl painted entirely white and at rest adorned a few scattered places, drawn with too much reverence to be human, however clearly humanoid she was.

  *

  Dusk was nearing when they reached a sun chamber at the top levels. Despite the height of the temple, there had been no stairwells, forcing them to climb vines that had grown long ago from cracks in the mountainside. Jean had scuttled up more than a few ropes in her day, and these growths were soft and slick by comparison. What she saw when they entered the sun chamber was an unwanted intruder—a slumbering beast the size of a truck. Quills extended from all over its body, but it was the thick horn that she noticed more readily, jutting from right between its eyes. The horn crowned an extended muzzle containing teeth both sharp and flat. Strangest of all were the six legs it possessed, each resting on a trio of sharp, cloven hooves.

  “Right past that thing?” Jean asked.

  “Right past that thing,” Flynn confirmed.

  “Tip toe, guys,” Mack whispered confidently. “Tip.
Toe.”

  The pecking order was determined the only civilized way that Jean knew. After losing at rock-paper-scissors, Flynn had to go first, walking like he regretted taking such heavy boots from Civilis. His ears twitched every time the sand ground beneath his feet. Whatever he was afraid of, the beast slept on, and Flynn climbed the three steps behind it, reaching the balcony and the setting sun’s dim light. Quick to follow, Mack aped Flynn’s footsteps almost obsessively. As he neared the stairs, the six-legged beast snorted and Jean tensed for a moment, ready to smash the thing’s skull. Her friend teetered forward before scrambling up the steps on all fours, intercepted by Flynn who helped him up.

  After that mess, Jean was convinced that nothing would wake the creature and proceeded forward with little more thought to caution. She’d have likely made it too, had the creature not inhaled just as she neared its face. With a loud snort, it pulled up its great head, its eyelids splitting to expose an orb the size of her fist, burning red and orange and looking directly at her.

  Nice and easy, she soothed herself, reaching cautiously for her mace.

  “Jeannie, run!” Mack yelled loudly, impulsively.

  Fuckin’ hell.

  There was no time to pull her weapon. She turned tail and ran, twisting around just in time see the monstrous thing charging, its horn leveled right at her. Bracing herself, she managed to avoid getting impaled as the creature rammed her into the wall. Its horn scraped against her side, shredding her tank top like cobwebs as she felt her skin rip and bleed.

  “Jean!”

  “Jeannie!”

  Least they fuckin’ noticed, she thought as she gritted her teeth, suppressing the pain. Trapped between the beast and the wall, Jean struggled to pull her leg up, planting it on the creature’s head and pushing herself up before it could think to pull back and gnash at her with its spear-like fangs. With one hand, she attempted to keep herself steady while the other frantically tried to unhook her mace from her belt so she could crush the beast’s skull. She heard Flynn throw aside the empty rifle he’d been lugging around as both he and Mack charged quickly, one striking high, the other low.