Fractured Dreams Read online

  “You can start by helping me to think of a story that will convince the others to follow this crazy idea. I never set out to be some holy warrior for the new gods.”

  “Do you think anyone ever really sets out for such a job description?”

  Kanika looked over her stateroom. “Anything we tell the others has to have a flavor of truth to it but not too much. I find it hard to think of our captains as religious zealots.”

  “Maybe we should speak to a few at a time. Feel our way through.”

  Kanika lowered her eyes. “I’m not sure that is a good idea. I can see that conversation now.” She put on her best sincere voice. “Hello, I am here to tell you about the coming end of the world and how Anshika can save your soul before the evil takes you away.” She shook her head. “Sorry if I don’t see that ending well in most cases.”

  “You are a wise woman. I’m sure something will come to you.”

  “You mean other than jumping ship and swimming south?”

  “Yes, besides that.” Lizzie shook her head.

  Chapter 4, The Spy:

  The pair found a small cave to shelter from the rain. It was evident the place had been used by humans in the past, as there remained a fire ring of stones with long-dead charcoal left behind.

  It didn’t take long to gather fuel for the fire. With the forest close at hand, there was plenty of dead wood lying about. With a fire at the mouth, the stone walls warmed quickly. Like bread in an oven, the man and Della Villa dried out, steaming slightly in the warm, dry air provided by the fire.

  He worried about the young girl he had rescued. She’d remained silent except for chattering teeth since he started carrying her down the hill.

  The man wished they had more time to search for the bodies. They could have used extra clothes for her and weapons, but the monsters that lunched on the two kidnappers would be more than able to take him and her out.

  He wasn’t suited for the kind of animals he knew lived in the mountains. He was ready to do battle with all sorts of two-legged creatures he would meet in any street or alley, but the four-legged kind gave him pause.

  For some reason the man found death by slash, stab, or bludgeon easier to stomach than watching a beast eat him alive. He forced himself to take his mind away from becoming a creature’s next meal.

  “Are you warm enough?” he asked his young ward.

  She looked up from under her short-cropped red hair. Her kidnappers had done a horrid job of cutting it off. It was all lopsided and too short in places. Nothing like what Della looked like when he first met her. The fire in her eyes seemed dimmed by her experience. “I don’t think I will ever be warm again.” Her teeth had stopped chattering, but she still shivered from time to time. The blood-covered nightshirt wasn’t enough clothing for this high in the mountains. The rough sack did little to help keep her warm, and his jacket was much too large for her. It hung off her shoulders.

  “Do you remember much from the night you were taken?”

  She shook her head. “It was dark, I never saw the man’s face. After he blew the powder in my eyes… I think he put me in the bag quickly after that. Then I only remember the bag.”

  He nodded. Words escaped him. What could he say to make this all right? He could think of nothing. He left the city with little to his name. Things were going downhill fast, and the trail was warm. He never thought it would take so long to gain on the two idiot kidnappers.

  The pair of kidnappers ran like Sinead herself chased them. He wasn’t sure if they knew he followed so close behind or if they simply sensed the danger they put themselves in, accepting the young woman as a bargaining chip. Too late, the fools would never know the pain he planned for them.

  “I knew my Black Knight would find me. I never gave up hope.” Della reached out and took a small limb from the fire and played with the burning end, drawing with the light.

  Her Black Knight felt his pockets. He half-remembered something that might help. He found a forgotten half-eaten piece of dried meat. He reached out and handed her the morsel.

  She looked at him a moment and took the offering without a word. She tore off a chunk. It took most of her strength to chew the tough piece of flesh.

  The dark gray sky turned to black night. The light of the fire seemed stifled by the darkness. Huge trees grew up the cliff face and stopped the light from penetrating the forest beyond.

  He would be ready to leave this cursed land of tall trees and get back among the dregs of civilization. He never thought he would miss people as much as he did right now.

  Della drifted off to sleep. Her back pressed against the smallest part of the cave wall, she secluded herself away from the possibility of attack.

  The sound of a branch cracking made the hair on the back of the Spy’s neck stand on end. Something waited out there, and he doubted it was only an animal. Any forest creature that stalked them would be wily enough to not crack a branch. It must be the human kind of monster that stalked the fire.

  He pulled his sail needle and hid it below his leg. Better to have it ready and not need it than the alternative.

  “Permission to enter the light? We mean you no harm,” a man’s voice called out from the dark. It had a strange accent, one the Spy never encountered before.

  He knew he sat in the light. If they held bows, they could have taken him out with a single shot. They asked permission to enter his light, the least he could do was be nice and invite them in. That way, if he needed to kill them, it would be easier. “Come on in, I’m not alone.” The Spy added the last part like he would somehow have friends about to come to his aid if needed.

  The man who stepped from the shadows looked more like an animal than a man. His hair and beard looked like it had never seen a trim. He was dressed covered in furs more than leather. The Spy was certain they would have kept him warm against the cold, but they made him look uncivilized. This man was not from the Spy’s walk of life.

  He was also not an idiot. He approached the fire with caution, more from the side than straight on. His bow at his side but ready to nock an arrow in seconds. He stopped several feet from the fire and sat cross-legged. The Spy was certain now he was covered by an archer standing out in the dark. If he made an aggressive move, the arrows would pierce his body before he could defend himself.

  “You’re not from around here are you?” the man asked in a quiet nonthreatening voice.

  He wasn’t sure what to say. In so many ways, the Spy was not from these mountains or even this shard.

  Thank goodness Della kept her head of red hidden. If the man knew the family trait of the Villas, that hair would give her away in a heartbeat.

  “No… I’m not from here.” It was time for simple, nearly honest answers. “I take it you are.”

  “I grew up in these mountains. Been trading with the mountain people all my life. They are a shy bunch.” The man watched him with his brown eyes over the fire.

  “And here I would have guessed you are from these mountains.”

  “No, I live in the hills at the base. I travel and trade between the mountains and Zar… I don’t normally see people from Zar out this far. It isn’t in their style most of the time.”

  The Spy nodded. What the man spoke of was true. He never heard of city people heading this deep into the mountains. There were too many unknowns out here. “I was motivated, someone took something of mine… I wanted it back.”

  The man cocked his head and slowly reached up and pulled back his hood showing off his black hair streaked with gray. “Must have been important to drive you all the way out here. Many things can get a man killed out in these mountains.”

  The Spy nodded. “I could say the same about the city.”

  “True enough… Listen, my sons are still out in the dark. If I have them come in, is there going to be any trouble?” The man’s right eye squinted while he spoke.

  “You won’t get any trouble from me. I just want to make it back to the city safe. I don’t have
much of any value to take.” Again, the Spy really didn’t need to lie. All he owned he carried on his back. He was Della’s protection.

  “I’m not sure you want to head back to the city.” The older man made a motion with his arm and shouted. “Come on in, boys, I think he is harmless.”

  The Spy was anything but harmless, but he meant no trouble for the old trader and his sons, if they gave him none.

  Two stepped into the light. One was the size of the older man, but the other was more slender. The Spy spotted the fact right off the bat that a male and female approached the fire. He could understand why the man lied. But it was a strike against the older man’s honesty.

  The son sat close to the fire. The woman sat behind them both, out of direct eyesight.

  “I’m not sure you want to go back to Zar, the city has fallen on hard times.”

  “I know about the refugees…”

  “Know about the disease and the riots? I think the mayor has fallen. I’m not sure, we only heard rumors.”

  Della let out a slight gasp from behind him. He wasn’t sure if the three heard the sound or not.

  “Most of Mayor Mason’s kids have vanished or been killed. The flesh-eating sickness is spreading all over the city. Mobs fill the streets, and insurrection is in the air. I’m not sure who runs the city now. All was anarchy last we left.”

  “Then you are returning to the mountains?” the Spy asked.

  “I’m not certain that is a wise idea either. We just returned from our mountain men rendezvous, and there was no one there. It is strange. We come out here once a month to trade. They come down from the mountains to meet us. This time, there was no one… nothing, not a sign of them.”

  “What do you think happened to them? Did the rain keep them away?”

  “Hardly, you should see the snow the mountain passes get. Someone always makes the rendezvous. No, something strange is happening. I just hope the sickness from the city has not reached the mountains.”

  “Did you ever stop to think that the sickness came from the mountains?”

  The man cocked his head. “I can’t say that I had…”

  “If the mountains and the city aren’t safe, what do you plan on doing?” the Spy asked.

  “We have a cabin down the valley. We will hole up there for a month to see what happens. A few of the mountain men have been there before. They might come and tell us what has happened out there.” The older man motioned with his head into the dark.

  “I need to return to the city. I left my boat moored there. I need to head back into the cracks.”

  “I hope it is still there for you. I heard the port is in chaos. You might have a better chance heading due east of the city. Zar set up a refugee camp away from the city. They were sending the sick outside the walls. All new ships were sent to the camp. You would find it maybe a day’s ride east of the city walls.”

  “Thanks, friend. I will keep that in mind,” the Spy said. “Can you tell me one more thing… These mountain men, what are they like?”

  The man shrugged before he spoke. “They aren’t that much different from you. They left the cracks long ago and have found peace in the mountains. They have their own language, but it is not that much different from ours. More about how you say things. If you listen, they can be understood well enough. Mostly they stay apart, but I have heard whispers there is a large town of them underground deep in the mountain passes. Far away from the city-states of the shards. From what I can tell, the majority of mountain men want nothing to do with us.”

  The Spy nodded. From what he knew of the people that shunned the cities, they followed the old way and the old gods. His work kept him pinned to the worst humanity offered, but having grown up on a smaller, less inhabited shard, he knew of another way of living. The major problem of living on the fringes of civilization was the cracks gave easy access to the cutthroats that made a living off the misery of others. The mountains would remove one threat, but as far as the Spy could see, it would replace one with others just as deadly.

  No matter where humans tried to scratch out a living, there would be someone or something willing to take it away. The leaders of the city-states were just one example of those willing to get rich off the toil of others. Shit rolled downhill, and the people less likely to protect them and their own would end up covered in shit when the time came.

  “Tell me, you ever seen it rain like this?” the Spy asked the older man.

  He shook his head. “Never have, I can tell you. Stranger still, none of the men or women in my family going back as far as I can remember ever said a thing about rain like this. If it happened less than a hundred years ago, I think people would still be talking about this rain. Maybe we have upset the gods, and they have taken the sun away from us as punishment.”

  “Maybe…” The Spy didn’t want to tell the old trader he thought he was crazy as shit if he thought the gods cared one spit about what humans did or didn’t do. As far as he was concerned, humanity fought for their own survival. There were no gods to help.

  Chapter 5, Alegria Walks on Earth:

  The caves of Alegria’s home-hold had been dug deep into the mountains. She preferred the outside. Even in the coldest months, she preferred to explore the outside world. She left the lower levels of the tunnels and halls to her brethren. They loved the under-earth and would continue digging as long as they found solid stone from which to pull the minerals.

  The smelters ran day and night, creating the ingots of metal her people would trade with the other mountain people. Alegria was a stranger in her own home. Where the others in her cohort mostly went for the mining and smelting occupations, she focused on the animals and the great outdoors that called to her.

  Most of those her age thought she was touched in the head. They hated the outside and the open sky that never seemed to end over their heads. Alegria would never give it up.

  Her male, he named himself Saunders, worked out well. At first, she thought she might need to neuter him, but since he had not shown aggression to others or tried to hump her leg, she left him whole. He seemed mostly tame, and he could speak, even if his language was bizarre to her ears. They learned a few words so they could at least talk of simple ideas with each other.

  He slept in the pens with the kits and did well to look after them. He helped free up her time for training the older animals. He chafed at the silver collar she slapped on his neck the first day, but the brand on his ass made him cry out even more. He cowered for many days when they first arrived at the home-hold, but over time he became more outgoing.

  He learned the routine to clean the pens and feed the animals quickly. After the first month, and after she was fairly certain he would not try to escape, Alegria awarded him with a few leftover furs. They helped to augment his tattered robes and allowed him to travel with her outside of the hold.

  The snow fell deeper than she had ever seen it. Dark clouds climbed the mountains every day to dump more snow on them. If not for the under-earth tunnels that connected home-hold to other settlements, all trade would have stopped.

  Alegria hated traveling by the tunnels—they felt so closed in—but when the snow grew high, she had little choice. She would leave Saunders the task of running the animals outside. If he tried to escape, she would find him before the end of the first day. He was that clueless when it came to the outside. He was clueless when it came to the under-earth, as well. It seemed, wherever he came from, his education in the important matters of life sorely lacked.

  The animal life was even more foreign to her. Most of the creatures she found on the surface grew fur and were made to survive in the elements. In the under-earth, they produced scales and tiny eyes that could barely see. They worked more with the sense of heat and smell than eyesight and hearing. Alegria had witnessed it for herself, but all the children of the under-earth were taught firsthand how to defeat the creatures most likely to attack the home-hold.

  The problem, the under-earth stretched farther
than any of the people had dared travel in her lifetime. The hand-hewed tunnels spread in all directions, but they constantly intersected with natural fissures and caverns in the rock. The under-earth remained a maze that went on forever left, right, up, and down. No one knew where it ended, or if it did.

  The mountains and valleys that spread between them… Alegria found comforting, even with the strangeness of the clouds overhead and the dangers of the weather. The under-earth and the insect-like creatures—she called them monsters—frightened her more than she would ever admit to her brothers.

  Her brothers made a living cutting the living rock of the tunnels into works of art, towering columns, imposing statues, and halls supported with flying buttresses. They loved the under-earth and everything it represented. Their creativity allowed her family to live well beyond the normal middle-classed workers of the home-hold. Their ingenuity allowed her the luxury to train the wild animals for trade. She would hate to admit it, but she owed everything to her brothers.

  They ruled the under-earth as she ruled the outside. They were looked upon as gods among her people, she… not so much.

  “Why must you insist on staying up among the clouds?” The voice caught Alegria’s attention. She immediately recognized her brother Yarn’s voice call from outside the kennels.

  She glanced up, and there he stood, bundled in furs like a newborn. The frost was easy to see on her breath when she exhaled. She did not want to have this conversation again. It was too damned cold outside to stop working for long. “Yarn, why do you bother coming up to distract me. You know I will not change my mind. I am not coming to the caves with you to work.” She reached for a rag to wipe the sweat from her face.

  Her male captive, Saunders, stood ready with the cloth in hand. He worked hard to please her. Hadn’t tried to hump her leg once.

  “Mother sent me. There is a family meeting tonight. I was told to make sure you came and to leave your male out of it. It doesn’t concern him.” Yarn slapped his hands together. Alegria knew it was a futile gesture to keep his body warm.