Fairfax

by Jared Ravens

  Fairfax hit the ground and tried to move but only swam in the sand. He had no weapon, only his legs. The pain of his side was mercifully lost in the panic of the moment as he climbed a dune of sand before Atrios swung at him.

  The sword was enormous, and the force of the blow alone would have ended Fairfax. But it was dark and it missed, cutting the sand just below his feet. It cut a deep hole that pulled the sand and Fairfax into it. The second blow came just above his head, where Fairfax had been moments before. The hole became bigger and Fairfax fell hopelessly into it. The sand fell on top of him and he held his breath. The third blow came above his chest, cutting the sand away so more could take its place. Fully buried, the next blows were thrust into the sand that covered him.

  Fairfax turned and swam away, fully immersed in the dune and unable to breath. His hands found the other side of the dune and he pulled his head out and coughed again. Atrios' feet thudded on the other side of the sand hill, hearing his prey but not able to see him. Fairfax could see the dark figure in the night sky, poised but not facing him directly. Atrios let out a deep, angry bellow and thrust his weapon into the dune between him and Fairfax.

  The thrusts were in the right direction but they caused more commotion in the sand, making it more difficult to discern what motion came from where. As Atrios thrusted again, Fairfax wiggled his way out and rolled across the desert floor, to the back of Atrios’ feet. He couldn't run but he could stumble, and he made his way clockwise around Atrios until he was behind a pile of sand at his back. He listened for Atrios' screams, again and again, before making his way to the next dune, and then the next, until he was able to walk slowly away, clinching his side as he stumbled towards the foothills.

  Sophi

  She woke up differently. Normally there was a slow awaking, a natural way to blend her dark nights with her equally dark mornings. This time it happened suddenly, like she had been shaken by an unfelt hand. She had heard something but she could not sense anyone else in the empty recesses of the warehouse.

  She pushed the empty sack off of her body and climbed down the stack of crates, her bare feet finding each crack to slip her toes into. She walked slowly around the wide expanses of the empty storehouse, listening for anyone.

  When the sound came back it was from inside of her. It was a slow, glowing feeling that ran like waves through her legs and chest, then ended in a resonating tone in her head. It wasn't an unknown sound to her but it was stronger this time. She gathered her things and walked into the street.

  The light of dawn had not spilled over the mountains but it wouldn't have mattered to her anyways. Had she the ability to see she would have only seen ugliness, a black sky with red cracks bleeding through it and a few wood buildings pushed agains the mountains. She followed the canyon walls, finding teeth and nail marks left by unmentionable things, and used them as signposts to tell her where she was. She edged carefully down the road until the canyon opened up and the valley stretched before her.

  Her other senses guided her bare feet along the road. The waves that flowed through her body pulled her forward without a wrong footfall. It was an endless series of slow motions that seemed to her a logical set of steps. It was a state of mind she was used to, but not with this degree of urgency.

  The voice was always right.

  Today it told her where to step. It called her down, further and further towards the desert. She could feel the difference in temperature as light encroached on the valley. After many hours she stopped and felt her enviroment. She called out, knowing something was there, but nothing replied.

  "Hello?" she asked. The response was not a voice but a faint series of clicks. She leaned against a boulder and calmly pulled knife with a worn hilt from her belt. From her bag she fetched several arrows and a small bow. She could tell from the clicking how many legs each one had, and from the direction she knew how many there were. They were coming closer to her, but they had been drawn here by something else.

  She held the knife in one hand and a spear in the other. She stood there, frozen, her eyes lifted skyward, waiting patiently as the clicks moved towards her. She bounced her eyes back and forth as if timing the sounds to her sense of direction, drew back the bow string and, when she heard the next click, relaxed her fingers.

  She knew it hit from the welp that came from the animal. She readied another arrow. Two animals clicked more frequently, revealing their positions to her. She sensed one close to her and shot the arrow. The body hit the ground as she placed the last arrow. It was stalking her, quietly. It had seen what had happened to its friends and was watching her. She let it come closer, feeling for it. She thought it might dodge so she needed it close.

  She felt it lunge just before its body hit her. It was just enough time to step back, avoiding the swipe of its claws. She was on the ground and it was lashing at her, but it had missed its chance. Her knife was in its stomach and cutting upwards. The constant clicking silenced and the body dropped onto her.

  The being was a thick mess of wiry fur and fat. She pushed it off and stood up. She felt around, looking for what she had come here for. She came to another body but it felt different. It was human, splayed out on the ground. It had such an unusual shape to its shoulder that she thought for a moment it might have come from the edge of the world. She thought it was dead, so she reached for its chest and felt for breath. It was indeed alive. In its side was a cut, thick and deep. She reached into her bag and pulled out a reel of string and a needle made of bone.

  She started with the deepest tissue levels, pouring liquids on it it and then stitching it up. As she worked through the layers she sang. The song was a tune she hadn't heard before with lyrics in a laguage she couldn't understand. It came to her word by word, bringing her peace as the time inched on. Up she worked, pouring on ointment and then stitching, as sounds pulsing though her head. When she had finished she poured water into his mouth and pulled him into the shade of a boulder, sensing that the heat would be too much for his skin.

  While she waited she skinned one of the beings. It was thick with fat and meat and the insects were already making a meal of it. She started a fire and was cooking in the evening light when she heard a stirring.

  He was disoriented, mumbling and calling out words. She held her knife close just in case. She said some words to him but what she heard coming out of his mouth didn't match hers. She listened, and she spoke the things that she did know.

  "Fine," she said. "Doing fine."

  "I'm not doing…" he gasped. He was trying to stand up but his side hurt too much and he collapsed again.

  "Lay..." she said, her hand on his shoulder to calm him. He laid back down but he began to pant heavily with pain. When he was able to open his eyes again what he saw was a tiny girl in clothing that seemed to be fashioned from sacks and spare rags. She had wild black hair and dark skin. She was young, younger than him, but her little features played into that. Her eyes were unusually close and the pupils tilted upwards when she opened them, giving her a ghostly appearance. Though she was unimposing she had a presence about her, and when she stretched her arm out towards him he fell backwards without protest.

  He lay for some time as she cooked. He listened to the fire and tried to recall his most recent memories.

  "Who are you?" he asked. She listened and deciphered.

  “Sophi," she replied in a high, light voice.

  "What are you going to do to me?"

  She looked at him with bewilderment in her face. She said nothing.

  "Why did you rescue me?" he asked.

  "Voice," she said, pointing to her head. Then she put her hand back on his shoulder and he closed his eyes.

  After they had eaten and packed the remaining meat she helped him stand. She tried to pull him along but she had no muscle to do so. He leaned on her as much as he could, using her as a crutch as they walked up the path. He could see nothing in front of him so she guided him, step by step, for hours, until he saw torch light refelcted
in a canyon wall. They entered the tiny village and walked its dark, vacant streets until they found the warehouse. It was empty except for stacks of crates. She climbed one of these stacks and brought down several rough blankets made from the same material as her dress. She bid him to lay on top of the crates and pulled the blankets in around him.

  He was shaking, so she pulled herself close to him, her wild hair covering his face. She ran her hands over his face in a manner that reminded him of something that happened not so long ago. He drifted off and visited with Orlando, who rubbed his cheeks in the same delicate way as Sophi, until the red light of morning cut into the slats of the warehouse.

  He was too stiff to move, so he lay there, looking at the dark face in front of him, trying to understand it. She woke up but continued to lay there, listening for him, waiting for something to happen.

  "You listen to voices?" he asked.

  "Inside," she said, pointing to her head.

  "Whose voice is it?"

  "Friend..."

  He examined her, wondering if it could be her. She pointed her eyes which looked out to no point in particular.

  "Can't see ... where we are."

  He nodded.

  “So we are safe?”

  "Yes," she said in a raspy voice.

  “I thought I was safe before,” he grumbled.

  “She says she never told you that.”

  “Tell her she’s still a lot like her family.”

  “She say’s she’s sorry,” she said after a moment. “She couldn’t help it.”

  “I believe that.”

  Sophi was unlike anyone he had ever met. Though she was inhabited by the mind of someone else she held her own mind separately, thinking as she was receiving from the other. He had many days in the warehouse to learn this. She would leave and refuse to allow him to go with her, not that he was not in any shape to do so. She would come back with plants to mash into paste, humming while worked. She would apply the paste to his wounds and her tune would change to suit her new job, and then she would cover him at night and sing until he fell, shivering, into sleep.

  She knew when someone was coming to fetch something from the warehouse. Her head would jut up and she would pull him away into a corner to hide him, then find a space in the wall to climb through. When the danger had passed she would return and pull him out.

  She was not a beauty; her nose was large and her chin too thick. But she was remarkable to look at. Sophi had been born and brought up by a man who had turned to her over to a woman when she was five. She was then given to another man after the woman had died. Growing up under a blood red sky and surrounded by demons, Sophi was not accustomed to the way things would be done in more civilized environments. There was no normality in the wasteland she lived in. Her final father was either dead or had abandoned her, but that was long after she had dismissed the idea that other people could be relied upon to give her safety. As much as they may desire her to live, none could protect her.

  It was in this solitary place she found skills and senses that others thought not possible. She could see in darkness. She could fight because she had no other option. She could hear that which other people did not know existed.

  Despite her condition she had survived, and she had learned to go through life in a way that few ever could. She seemed to float, to move from one instant to the next, and she had learned how to decipher the messages that Fairfax, too, heard. While they drove him crazy with their attempts to control him, to her their advice contained the secrets to contentment.

  There were two people inside the girl, and Fairfax could not decide which one was more remarkable.

  In time he was better, able to walk without pain. While large scar that ran longways up his torso no longer disabled him it was a burning reminder of what lay out waiting for him. By his count had been weeks since he first arrived here and he slept on top of a stack of crates for safety.

  One night, the town was invaded and the noise woke him. He sat up instinctively but she immediately pulled him down and covered him in blankets. His burning need was to fight what had come from the mountains while she compelled him to do the opposite. The beasts broke in the warehouse and patrolled the floor below them. She held his hands and pressed them gently in a tender effort to keep him from moving. He relented. The beasts snorted and grunted until the town militia found them and killed them. Fairfax lay still on the stack of crates as it happened, with Sophi’s hands in his hands, her breath meeting his breath, as she told him without words that this could be how it is.

  These soundless words might have been Vivian speaking but Fairfax believed it was Sophi. She wanted him to survive, it seemed; it wasn’t just words in her head compelling her to do this. He waited with her in the quiet and let others do the fighting. He could do this for the rest of his life. He could live here until others forgot his identity and he faded into myth. He could let armies search endlessly for him while he hid out of view. He could build a farm somewhere where no one would think him or her odd. He could do this with Sophi, he could do it with another; he knew now he could quiet the voices in his head. They would forget about him if he stayed hidden. With her help, he could shut that out everyone else and wait for the storm to pass.

  The Tent in the Desert

  The complexity of Eryck's life had once been measured in skulls. The greater the number dead animal remains washed and cleaned, the more complicated his life had been. The more complicated, the happier he was. There were times when the rain of beasts pouring over Eae had become overwhelming, black times when the people of Eae didn't not know if they would last another day. These harsh times were memorialized in paintings and in elaborate woven blankets drenched in color. Since these items tended to be destroyed with time, it was the stories that were passed on. He heard from about hardships of his mother’s mother in these stories, although they were told as if they occurred in ancient eras, from a time before dust was created.

  He wondered what the stories of this time would sound like, and how they would end.

  The separation from their home had created a shock that reflected in the blank looks he saw coming from the people of Eae.

  Taking up residence in someone else's town was more than uncomfortable, it was emotionally disorienting. They built wood houses on top of wooden shacks, leaning them against the already crowded canyon wall, in what looked like a stack of multicolored blocks threatening to fall with a push from a stiff breeze. People packed into the crowded the streets to carry on their business causing the two groups of people, the Eaeians and the Rahmians, to rub shoulders together until physical conflict was inevitable. They spent their days fighting over the violent treasure that flowed from the hunting ground by the sea and the nights pushing each other for a scrap of land to sleep on. The only thing that kept the Rahm people from pushing the Eaeian's out completely is that the guests outnumbered their hosts, and the threat that was coming would require both groups to stand up to it.

  After a day of fighting no one was in the mood to hear stories before bed. Their context was out of place now that their homeland was gone. What they had fought for all of those eons ago was now gone, not to return anytime soon. They were without a home and without a story. They were not without a fight.

  From a distance scouts watched Atrios’ army roam the desert day in and day out. Though many were anxious for a fight Eryck had to hold them back. As long as Fairfax was gone they stood little chance. He also knew that as long as they were associated with Fairfax they were doomed. He hoped that the army would interest and go away and that Fairfax would have enough sense to stay hidden. But if the army continued to search they would eventually find Rahm, and Faifax or not, they would burn it to the ground.

  Faced with this choice, he sought a reconciliation. He had a scout follow the army some distance to the north and shoot an arrow into the center of it. The message wrapped in it was from Eryck, asking for a meeting to resolve their differences. He referenced a rock in the foothi
lls that stood on three legs. They were to leave messages there. He sent a girl to check it every day. Eventually a letter appeared, a rough map with a mark on it for Eryck to meet for a summit.

  He took Gim with him, in a wagon with several barrels with the small amount of the briman and cindr they had in storage. They rolled out on the bumpy trail with a few soldiers and the plan to either have a conversation with Atrios or, if threatened, blow him (and probably themselves) into ash.

  What they expected to see in the center of the desert was not a giant with a gleaming sword. What they saw was a large tent with open flaps and a couple of disheveled soldiers sitting on boxes of food and barrels of water. They were leaning on the cases of provisions with their feet up and shirts off when Eryck and Gim approached them. They didn’t bother to stand up to greet them, and Eryck was glad not to have to move closer to their red, sweat glistened bodies.

  Eryck scanned the long line of the horizon, seeing nothing in the flat surface around him.

  "You're not going to find em," said one of the soldiers. He was thin with patchy dark chest hair. He had a helmet tipped backwards that falling off his head. The only thing he wore was a pair of underwear and dusty black boots. "Atrios doesn't want nothing to do with this."

  "Then who do I talk to?" Eryck asked.

  "Us."

  Eryck looked at the other man, who was putting on a shirt that was the same tan color as his rumpled tan pants. He was fatter than the first man but seemed to have lost a significant amount of weight since his shirt hung off him like a large blanket.

  “You?" Eryck the larger man.

  "Atrios saw your note and threw it away," said the larger man. "He don't believe in negotiating.

  “He don't really believe in leading much, either,” scoffed the other man. “He wants to kill everything."

  "Seen that," Eryck replied. Gim climbed off the wagon and stepped towards the food crates under the tent.