HELENA’S TINKLING LAUGH filtered through the night, “I’m hopeless at this!” She pocketed her flint and steel with a frustrated sigh.
The tall huntress beside her, Vashti, shook her head and squatted to re-organise and start the fire herself. “I can’t believe,” Vashti said, “you grew up on the edge of the desert, the same as us, and you can’t start a campfire.”
A grey, mechanical hand rested upon Helena’s shoulder comfortingly. Kessia, their leader, gave her a warm smile. “Helena’s only human. It’s not her fault she comes from a different culture to you.”
Helena smiled.
“Even spoiled Tehjal can start a fire,” needled Neha as usual, grinning as she peeled bulbs.
The named woman sprawled on her fur nearby gave Vashti an arch look. “Of course. A girl has to have skills to get a rich husband.”
Neha snorted “Or be sold to slavers, apparently.”
Tehjal poked her tongue out, and Neha chuckled.
Kessia’s grey left arm was a prosthetic gained fighting for her life. Later, Kessia had single-handedly saved the four of them from slavers; Vashti the huntress, Tehjal, once-spoiled daughter of a noble, Neha, who kept her history to herself, and Helena.
Helena was only eighteen, the youngest of nine, and from a tribe that used many technological comforts. She had skills, but creating a campfire wasn’t yet one of them. She had been sold to slavers because the wise woman decreed her birthmark matched a new ill omen. In truth, the wise woman’s son had taken a shine to Helena.
Since rescue, they had been crossing the desolate desert waste for weeks. At last, they had almost reached its end.
They found a small creek, followed it for two days, and now camped at its edge. The increased shrubbery and cacti were a refreshing change; several juicy succulents had already been peeled and enjoyed.
Helena had the midnight watch, so as soon as dinner was done, she slept.
THE DESERT WAS COLD at night. Helena sat on a rock a short way from the camp, wrapped in a shawl and watching small canines darting across the rocky landscape. The occasional yip and howl was joined by a faint rhythmic hissing.
The sky inverted and Helena’s head hit the ground. She shouted the alarm as something reeking of decay dragged her away by one leg. The pace of the thing quickened as the camp woke. Helena swung herself up to try to sit on her attacker’s shoulders, but a metal hand gripped her leg in fingers that could not be prized free. She couldn’t maintain herself upright and fell back.
The other women crested the rise, and the thing dropped, scurrying incredibly fast on three appendages. Helena’s shoulders and head were bumping on the dirt as it ran, and a final sharp blow dropped her into black.
THE YOUNG WOMAN WOKE with a start, inhaling sharply, and regretting it. There was a rancid stink she didn’t want to understand, and her head pounded. One eye was almost swollen shut, and her back and shoulders were covered in cuts. Her leg was agony. She screamed for help but none came. She inspected her leg and with a pained cry found her shin-bone broken. She gingerly settled where she hurt the least, shouting again for aid. Vashti was the best tracker she’d ever seen. They had to be close.
She examined her surroundings and tried to calm herself.
She was in a cave littered with detritus both organic and industrial. Sunlight reflected off the bare earth outside, bathing the room in a dusty glow. Large foam-lined cases lay scattered among packaging and broken machine parts on the rust-stained floor. A table in the centre was densely littered with oily tools, and a work lamp hung over the gory remains of once-living things.
She was not alone in her corner. Skulls grinned at her, skeletons in a pile. All of them had broken legs.
Grimly, she supposed it was cheaper than a lock.
She was confident her companions would find her at any moment, but she had to take care of herself meanwhile. She plucked cacti needles from her arms. She couldn’t reach to do anything about the lacerations on her back and shoulders, but her leg was her true handicap.
She needed a splint. Reluctantly she had to make do with a femur. Her face twisted with distaste while she apologised softly to its previous owner. Helena used a scarf from one of the other victims to wrap the bone to her leg. She cried with agony, but finally it was complete, immobile from knee to ankle. She wiped her tears, weak and nauseous with pain and fear. Her hands wouldn’t stop shaking.
She told herself she’d be fine as she sank into unconsciousness.
She shivered when the sun sank, and woke again to daylight. She was certain that at any moment Kessia’s head would appear, but there was no sign of her.
There was a bucket of water nearby, and she took a long drink.
It was well into the afternoon when her captor returned.
In the light of day, she could see what it was—an android without a face, only a cylindrical dome with two green points for eyes. It had obviously attempted many alterations to its physique—its torso had large plates missing, and each arm was a different model. Wires and tubing were ill fit, leaving trails of oil to trickle down the shiny metal carapace like blood.
After a thoughtful moment, Helena quietly turned the bucket over, spilling its contents.
The machine came further into the cave, and Helena’s hand went to her mouth. Its hips and legs were covered with skin. Human skin. Suddenly she realised what the rusty stains on the floor were, and why it had been kidnapping people.
“You want to be human,” she whispered.
Its metal head lifted, the green dots of light glowed. “Affirmative.”
“Why?”
“Your parts self-repair.”
She frowned. “But they won’t repair for your body.”
“Negative. Compatible donor not yet found. Silence,” the machine flicked on the overhead light, illuminating its gory instruments.
“There is no point looking human if you are inhumane,” she said pressed desperately.
“If no human ever hears of it, is it inhumane?” the malcontent creature purred, turning its back on her.
“My friends will find me,” she warned, clinging to her hope.
The damn thing actually chuckled. “They will not.”
Helena fell silent. She watched the machine making preparations and knew her time was running out. It had been over a day. Where were they?
A horrible notion had been lurking in her mind. What if they weren’t looking for her at all? Kessia, Vashti, Neha, even Tehjal had useful skills. Helena was a dead weight. Perhaps they had decided she was dead when she hit her head on the rocks.
She slumped, her usually bright eyes dimmed with disappointment. She had been certain of her rescue, but perhaps she’d been blind her to her reality. She was a child among adults. She had no idea how far away, nor how well hidden this cave was. No doubt the machine wanted rescue impossible. There was no way she could fight her way past it. It had overpowered bigger people than her.
A flicker of lightning ran through her.
She was going to die.
Her thoughts spiralled into dark places, oppressive and lonely, fatalistic.
Her grandmother’s wrinkled face swam into her vision, smiling, repeating something she had told Helena long ago.
“Hope is as necessary as air!”
But Helena was suffocating. She had no hope. Her friends were not coming.
“So do it your damn self!” her grandmother had often said.
Something glittered defiantly deep in the shadows.
Helena would have to take her survival into her own hands.
HELENA LICKED HER LIPS and sat up.
The creature was at the desk, sterilizing a short blade. A reeking bucket sat at the end of the table.
Helena cleared her throat. “I need water,” she said. The green dots winked in her direction. She licked her lips and pointed. “I knocked over the bucket in my sleep,” she said softly. “You know what dehydration does. If I’m going to be spare parts, you had better not waste
me.”
The monster took the bait. Irritated, it snatched up the bucket and stomped out, hydraulics hissing with each step.
The sound gave her an indication of the machine’s distance from the cave. The moment it was far enough away Helena set to gathering the fragments of rotted clothes from previous victims, pulling free another long leg bone and wrapping strips of fabric around one end. She then shredded small scraps into a pile before her and dug into her pocket.
Flint and steel in each hand, she trembled.
“Survival skill,” she muttered. “What I’d give for a lighter.”
Over the fabric, she struck the flint. Sparks danced out from the tool to snuff out on the fabric.
She groaned in frustration and grabbed up the shreds, tearing them smaller and smaller as the hissing got louder.
Again she struck the flint, but still the fabric would not light.
Feeling tightness in the back of her neck and arms, Helena growled as she threw away her bundle of scraps. It must have been fire-resistant cloth, so she started anew, frantically striking as the hissing entered the cave.
A mechanical voice cut through the sounds of metal on stone. “Stop.”
The abomination stumbled towards her, reeking of death and corruption. The sparks flared and sailed into the scraps of cloth. Smoke and light billowed, hot and tall, and caught at the cloth about the femur.
Helena thrust the torch forth, hoping to set the flesh-thief on fire, but it reared back too quickly. It moved its flammable body well back from her, and crossed its arms.
Her stomach clenched.
It was waiting for her torch to burn out.
The thought gave her impetus. Her right hand clawed the dirt, her right leg pushing. Painfully slow she dragged herself through the detritus on the floor, torch held aloft like the beacon of hope it was. The sunlight was feet away, and she dragged herself into it.
The last of the fabric on the torch floated free of the upthrust femur, and hydraulics hissed.
The machine launched itself at her and Helena bashed the bone hard against the ground.
The fire-weakened tip shattered, exposing a sharp point which Helena drove into the android’s circuitry as it fell upon her. The murderous machine stumbled back, sparking and twitching maniacally before attacking Helena once more.
A spear went through its head and down into its core.
Whirring wound to silence, sparks crackled, and the thing fell inert to the dirt.
The younger woman twisted around to find her companions hurrying towards her.
“We found you!” Kessia cried, dropping to her knees to hug the exhausted woman. Helena held her tight. Tears stung the corners of her eyes.
Vashti retrieved her spear from the machine and curled her lip at it. “Rogue artificial intelligence are always trouble.”
Tehjal was catching up, leading the camels, and Neha was digging in her medicinal bag.
Vashti squatted beside Helena. “I’m sorry it took so long. It was hard to find your trail on the rocks.”
Helena gave them what she thought was a smile, but her mouth was twisted with barely contained tears.
“What’s wrong? Is it the pain?” Kessia asked her, but Helena shook her head, beyond words. She grabbed Kessia and Vashti close, tears cleaning tracks on her filthy cheeks.
She had hoped in her friends and hoped in herself.
And her hope had been rewarded.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR: L R Johnson lives in Queensland, Australia. Being bi-polar she understands the need for hope, in oneself and in others, in dark times, and that all dark times pass.
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Lady of Wings by A.P. Morse
“DON’T ROCK THE BOAT,” says the boatman. “Sit down.”
The old soldier standing in the middle of the vessel sways violently, as he tries to grasp the gunwales on each side. Zhéni, sitting in the stern, sighs, reaches out with a foot and hooks his knees so that he slumps onto the seat. He topples backwards toward the boatman . . . apologises as she grabs him by the lapels and pulls him upright.
“Just keep low. That’s how it works.”
The boatman nods at her and leans forward, tilting his head so the soldier can hear him.
“Do you know what happens if you fall in here?”
“I guess you drown, mate.”
“Only if you’re lucky. The current that runs between the mainland and the island here runs on to the end of the world. You go in here and there’s nothing to catch you until the waters rain into the Void.”
Zhéni knows it’s not entirely true. There are small islands here and there between the Last Shoals. But she also knows it’s not true for her in particular.
If I drift out through that passage there will be a ship waiting for me, and if they haul me in empty-handed they will kill my sister in front of me and put out my eyes.
The boatman is right. It would be better to drown. But they would hurt Aniki anyway.
She unfastens the loops on her quilted leather vest. If they go over, she will swim.
As they come out from the shelter of the headland, the swell increases. Zhéni can see the wooded peak of the island rising and falling above the dark water. She also notices the old soldier shifting nervously, trying to counteract the movement with his body.
“What are you seeking from the Oracle?” she says, trying to distract him.
“What? Oh. Atonement, miss,” he says. “What about you?”
“Redemption,” she says. It’s true, but not in the way it sounds.
“Well they say the Lady of Wings is merciful,” he says.
“She needs to be more than that if you want atonement.”
“What do you mean?” She has his full attention now.
“I mean atonement isn’t a local matter. If you can’t be forgiven by those you’ve wronged, then little gods like the Lady of Wings can’t make your wrong into right. You need the Lord of the Great Sea.”
“Ah. Ah, yes. I see what you are saying now, miss. Maybe you are right. It’s true that I cannot make amends because those I wronged are dead. But I hope that the Oracle and the Lady might help me find the next step.”
“Good luck with that.”
Yes, and good luck getting anything other than vague answers and hocus pocus. You’ll need extra good luck if you come after me. I doubt you will find the Oracle in a friendly mood.
The sun is coming up now, washing the eastern flank of the pinnacle in yellow light. When the breeze swings around there is a warm smell of trees and earth and flowers mixed with the sea air. The lightening sky looks swept clean by the wind.
She would have loved this as a girl. She remembers climbing to the top branches of the pepper-elms with Aniki to greet the first light while the dawn chorus broke forth around them.
They were the same age then. Before she was offered. Before the journey into the Deep Slow that would be three weeks for her and almost two decades for her sister.
She wonders who is older now. Aniki at forty-eight or she at thirty. By the time she had returned from the Sun Lake, Aniki had already been married and widowed, lost three babies and a mother. But in the fifteen years since then, Zhéni has lived on the road amongst merchants and pilgrims and sometimes with bandits. She has killed nine men—eight men and a boy depending on how you count it—and she has crippled one woman. She has known the weight of each of those acts. And she has known what it is to stand her ground; to be feared and respected for her speed and skill.
But not enough or we wouldn’t be here, would we?
Now in the lea of the island, the boatman guides the vessel round a bouldery bluff topped by shadowy trees with broad fluttering leaves. There is another scent now: the smell of t
he bees-wax lamps that light the jetty and the pavilion nestled in the shadows at the end of the inlet.
One of the maidens appears in the lamplight as they tie-up—slight, in an embroidered dress with a veil and crown of dried flowers. When she points and beckons to the soldier, Zhéni notices a broad wine stain on the back of her arm.
There it is. They don’t give pretty girls to the gods, do they? They offer the likes of us. The blemished and blighted and ugly.
While she waits, she sits in the pavilion, wondering what she will do afterwards. The “no witnesses” instruction was clear.
Meanwhile, out in the middle of the inlet, the boatman puffs on his pipe and casts a net.
The soldier returns an hour later. He won’t look at her in the eye or respond when she asks him if he got what he came for. Suddenly and unexpectedly she feels pity for him—wishes there really were places of atonement.
But there aren’t. You can’t undo what you’ve done. Not-killing doesn’t make up for killing. Being faithful doesn’t make up for adultery. Loving doesn’t always make up for not loving. Those things sink down to the bottom like a corpse in a pond. And God help you when they come up again.
But the maiden is beckoning to her now, leading her up the stairway of white stones through the twisted trees. The sunlight still hasn’t reached this face of the island but tiny birds are flitting and pipping amongst the branches.
“Are you forbidden to speak?” she asks the maiden.
“No, I can speak to a woman.”
“Do you stand by when the Oracle meets with a person? Do you hear what is said?”
“Yes, that’s how it works. I lead you to her and . . .”
“Would you make an exception for me? Would you leave me alone so I can speak to her privately? I have something very delicate I need to ask her.”
“I . . . I don’t . . .” But then the girl looks down. Somehow, as if by magic, a gold coin has appeared in her moving hand. She looks at it for a long time as she keeps walking. “Maybe I can go out of the cave for a little while.”
Stories of Hope Page 20
