Immortality's Touchstone

by Mark Tufo

  “Let me be clear, Lana. There are only some who disagree with what you are doing, though they are very vocal. And that will always be the case when there are two sides to a critical subject. Most believe your course is the right thing to do.”

  “People are dying out there and the fault is mine.”

  “It is not!” Mathieu said angrily. “You must stop this self-pitying. Lunos is killing people; you are doing everything in your power to prevent that from happening. And before you can even say it, YES you must protect that boy. I do not understand his importance, but it is vast—I can feel it.” He walked behind the desk and hugged Lana from behind, she rested her head on his forearm.

  “Fire!” was shouted from outside.

  Lana stood and ran out the door. Soldiers on the parapet were pointing off in the distance. From the courtyard, Lana could see black smoke rising above the walls. It was the eastern fields, a year’s worth of crops were burning. Lunos had discovered their weakness.

  ONE DAY TURNED to two, two turned to a week and still Lunos did not attack, nor did he say anything. His army was laughing and eating to their hearts’ content as Lana had the city’s food reserves rationed out.

  “We’ve got three weeks before things begin to get tight,” Bertram said. He had been newly appointed from Lana’s personal guard detail to resource administrator.

  “What about cutting back more?” Lana asked as she looked into the storeroom behind him.

  “The grumbling will increase.”

  “I can deal with grumbling, Bertram; it will get interesting when the assassination attempts start.” She was referring to the multiple death threat letters she had received.

  “Lady Lana, you are the best leader this city has ever had. They are fools. I would feel better if you allowed me back on your security detail; let one of the women from your cabinet keep the resources.”

  “Bertram, you have been watching over me since I was old enough to walk. I have got you in more trouble than any other citizen here. I owe you a job where you can sit down, and besides, I need someone here who can be trusted to not show favoritism to those he knows. I will be fine.” She kissed the top of his head and walked out of the heavily guarded area.

  The next morning, Lana woke up to the succulent scent of roasting meat. She wiped the drool that involuntarily pooled around the corners of her mouth. She’d initially thought that perhaps she’d been dreaming, but if anything, the smell got stronger as she got out of bed. She quickly donned some clothes and headed outside. A fair number of the townsfolk were jostling for position on the wall. When she got there, she could see the source of the smell and their curiosity. Lunos had set up five spits and on each one a large deer was rotating over an open fire. What he had so enticingly sitting out there casually turning and dripping fat represented more fresh meat than was inside the entire city.

  “Are you yet hungry?” he asked, moving to one of the carcasses and ripping the tender leg free. He chewed on the large slab of meat. “I did not know how delicious victory would taste!” He smacked his lips. “Those of you in there that join me now can have all you want! Do you doubt my sincerity?” He turned into his human form and faced his troops. “If there are any among my forces that wish to leave, you may do so without any form of retribution from me. How say you?” he asked.

  “We are one! We are mighty!” They shouted in an obviously practiced routine. It was still difficult to doubt the sincerity of their pledge, though. They very much looked willing and eager to be there.

  “I’m getting out of here,” Grund Billings, the butcher, said. He’d had to shut up his shop at the beginning when his meat had been confiscated for the betterment of Denarth. He’d been complaining about it ever since, though not loud enough to land him in the already overcrowded jail. “If any of you were smart you’d come with me.” He pushed his way back down the stairs. There was a commotion at the gate as he shouted for them to open it.

  The guard looked up to Lana, who nodded. Grund left, and before the doors could be closed, two others ran out with him. The trio seemed pretty happy with themselves while they were in the shadow of Denarth, but their steps grew more tentative the farther they went out. One of the men even looked back, perhaps wondering if it was too late to return. Lana thought she recognized him as one of the stable boys from the city livery. He bolted back to the wall; Grund and the other man watched his retreat and may have rethought their own course until they looked up at the parapet and saw all eyes upon them. Spurred by their own pride, they moved closer to Lunos.

  “Welcome, welcome!” Lunos urged them on with an over-exaggerated arm wave. Ten of Lunos’ soldiers came to meet the two, they clapped them on the shoulders and shook their hands vigorously, there were huge smiles all around.

  “Get our guests some food,” Lunos said. The two were given a place to sit and heaping portions of food to be eaten within sight of Denarth. Grund and Rinder, the taxidermist, first ate at a frenetic pace, having not seen that much food in seemingly months, then slowed when they hit their fill. But like animals heading into winter, they continued to eat, in case food stores became low again.

  “What now?” Grund, now that he had a full belly, finally looked around. He noticed that Lunos and a fair number of the soldiers had been watching his every move.

  “Now? Well, you are either free to join us or free to go.” Lunos still had a large plastic-looking smile plastered on his face.

  “We can go back?” Rinder asked.

  “Oh no, not back,” Lunos told him.

  “I’m too old to be a soldier,” Grund said.

  “I offer you a chance to be a part of history, I offer you a chance to be more powerful than you could ever imagine.”

  “I cannot fight against my home.”

  “Yet you deserted your home in her greatest time of need.”

  “I was hungry,” Grund whined.

  “They are hungry, too.” Lunos pointed behind him to the wall and the dozens watching. “You pathetic amalgamation of meat! You are not worthy to call yourself a Denarthian, and I would never allow your traitorous carcass into my ranks.”

  “But...but, you said we could eat all we want,” Rinder begged off.

  “Did you not?” Lunos asked.

  “What is this all about then?” Grund asked.

  “It’s a pageant, you fool, a ruse. First, there are two defectors, tomorrow there will be a half dozen. By next week, half the city will have abandoned those walls. Maybe I can find some soldiers among them more worthy to join my army than you two.”

  “What are you going to do with us?” Grund attempted to stand; Lunos had nodded to his men to put pressure on his shoulders and keep him seated. To those watching from a distance, it would look as if they were becoming friendly.

  “First, I am going to make a great show of letting you go, and I will, for perhaps a mile or so. Then my soldiers, who are getting increasingly bored as we sit here, will chase you down and kill you for some rousing sport. If any part of you is still available, we will cook it up and serve it to the next who leave their home.”

  Grund’s face blanched.

  “What fears are your greatest?” Lunos asked. “The fear of being chased down, or the suspicion you’ve just become a cannibal?”

  “What’s he talking about?” Rinder asked.

  “You just ate boy.” Lunos and his men began laughing loudly. “When we discovered they were not who we sought, I let the men tear one of them apart. The other I set aside for just this event.”

  Grund began to retch. Lunos’ men, without being told, completely engulfed him, shielding his distress from even the most prying of Denarthian eyes.

  “Was it not delicious?” Lunos asked, a sparkle in his eyes as he said the words.

  “What’s going on?” Rinder asked. “Did he just say we ate boy?” Grund retched again, this time so violently he tore through his esophagus, coughing up a modicum of blood.

  “Get them out of here.” Lunos’ mood ha
d changed. He’d hoped for more defectors. He, like his men, was getting sick of waiting. He feared the cost of a full-scale assault; he feared more that in desperation, Lana would destroy his chance to rule them all. The men made a great show of clapping the two traitors on the shoulders and laughing loudly; once they were out of sight of the fort, they were shoved aside.

  “What do you want us to do?” Rinder asked. Grund had already started pushing through the brush.

  “I suggest...run,” the nearest man said, the words getting more gravelly sounding as he transformed into a werewolf. By the time the last word came out it sounded more like a guttural urging.

  “I SURE COULD go for some of that venison,” Mathieu said as he sat on the couch in Lana’s room.

  “Would you leave me quite so easily for a meal?”

  “Michael once told me that the way to a man’s heart is through his stomach. I did not understand him at first, but it makes much more sense now. And I love you greatly...but I have never seen you cook anything, and that concerns me.” He had not been expecting the speed and the velocity of the cushion that struck the side of his head.

  “This is not helping.” He rubbed his noggin.

  “What am I going to do, Mathieu?” Her short-lived mirth was quickly replaced by concern.

  “Are you talking about the two that left today? Who cares, and good riddance.”

  “They are but merely the first. Lunos will bleed this city dry—first of resources, then morale, and then of our very citizenry. We cannot hope to win this war of attrition.”

  Mathieu did not know what to say. Her knowledgeable advisors had not known what to do. He had been a simple farmer, many years before. He did not deal in the affairs of state or of war. All he could do was offer her moral support and comfort in the form of a hug which she gratefully accepted.

  Chapter 14

  MIKE JOURNAL ENTRY 13

  * * *

  IT WOULD BE generous to even call Harbortown a ghost town. Besides some charred boards and a couple of stone foundations it was just gone, as if a giant baby had scraped the flat of his palm along the dirt and swept the remnants up into his huge play pail. I understood the bodies being gone; scavengers, Lycan (so, still scavengers), or maybe concerned people from Wheatonville had buried their neighbors. But what of everything else? There had still been the shell of the town. I was half-convinced I’d found the wrong place until I came upon the eight-foot tall stone marker. It was a column of rocks, and chiseled into it were the words: “Welcome to Harbortown”.

  And sitting perched on top was a huge raven, the size of which I’d never seen. Like—maybe it was an eagle and he’d fallen into a vat of tar—huge. The dark black of his feathers rippled with a soft purple undertone. He stretched his wings, cawed once, and then looked down upon me. He had one black eye and one white. I felt as if the wind had been knocked out of me as I gazed up at that disconcerting sight. We stared at each other for a few seconds before he began to preen his feathers.

  “We cool?” I asked cautiously. I have never been a fan of birds; I’m amazed at the damage movies can do to a young psyche. I’d seen the Hitchcock classic The Birds when I was maybe...seven or eight? Now I can’t stand the things. I saw Jaws when I was ten scarred permanently—huge fear of all things ocean. Can’t even do a pond or lake; who knows what lurks beneath? Watched Saw I,II,III...when I was older...happy to say, no fear-hangover there, although I guess that’s a lie too, I really hate puppets. Young minds can be manipulated relatively easily—or maybe just very malleable minds, like mine. I smiled at my self-derogation.

  The bird reacted to my words, I think. He cawed loudly and took flight. I watched for a few seconds to make sure he was really going. Seemed to be heading in a northwesterly direction. I wanted to go in the complete opposite bearing; seemed the right thing to do but that didn’t serve my purposes.

  “West it is.” I was dismayed; I had not so much as a clue as to the direction I needed. I’d not gone more than a quarter mile when I heard the all familiar caw of my intimidating new spirit guide, or nemesis. Take your pick, I felt like either name fit. He had landed on the very topmost branch of a tree to the right of me. He saw that I saw him, rose again, and flew off in that same northwestern direction.

  “Fuck off,” I told his departing outline.

  Another quarter mile, another loud cawing.

  “Please tell me you just have a large family, otherwise, this is getting pretty creepy.”

  The raven landed on the path in front of me not more than ten feet away. He was at least three feet tall. He turned that blind eye to me and I felt like I’d been sucker-punched in the stomach as the air was expelled from my lungs, leaving an empty pit in my gut. The bird took two hopping steps closer.

  “Please.” There was something more here but I was terrified to know what it was. Somehow I knew if he but touched me, all of a thousand images and feelings from my other lives would rush into me and I would not be able to handle the influx of emotion. Things not yet broken inside me would shatter from the strain. The bird spanned its wings, seven feet if an inch, and once again took off. Same northwesterly direction, though at that moment, I still hadn’t put the pieces together. I was just happy he’d once again left me.

  We had a history, me and that black bird, and it was one I in no way wanted to become reacquainted with. He brought with him pain, misery, and death. Yet here I was, slowly deciding to follow the creepy bastard. A message from Azile, perhaps? Seems like she would have told me something as important as this; unless the situation had radically changed since I’d left her. Anyway, I had others that would and could send something like this. Some in my corner—most not. For all I knew, I was following this harbinger off the edge of the earth. Maybe it was only leading me astray long enough that by the time I did find some help, if ever, it would be too late. I had serious doubts, I also knew how serious my paranoia was. Yet I could not turn around; the bird and I had an inextricable link. There is no more horrible feeling than playing a game for lives, including your own, especially when you have not been given the rules. Or maybe you have, but they just shift like the Saharan sand dunes, I’ve never been there but I hear they just roam all over the place.

  The raven...and there’s another thing. Why the fuck couldn’t it be a cardinal, or maybe a bluebird? A fucking toucan, maybe. Something with a splash of color. A type of bird whose group is called a flock, for god’s sake, not a fucking murder. Who thought of that? Had to be Poe, the asshole. Wait, where was I? Oh yeah, the bird. Whenever he would begin to get too far ahead of me, he would land on a tree in the direct compass setting that I, apparently, needed to go. He really could be playing for either team. Even if he led me straight to the Lycan, we had no love lost, me and the furry brutes. There was a better chance they would kill me on sight than ever listen to three words strung together come out of my mouth.

  “Interesting point, Mister Talbot.”

  “Oh come on...we really aren’t going to start this shit where we talk to ourselves are we?”

  “Got any better suggestions?”

  “Yeah. You could just shut the hell up.”

  I was sort of amazed that I hadn’t got all indignant with myself and, this time, I did just that. Shut up I mean. Must be maturing. Three days I followed that bird; when I would stop for the night, he would pick a tree close to me and stare down. I couldn’t tell if he did this for the entire night—(refer back to the part where I say he is as black as a well-used chimney). I could feel those beady, probing eyes upon me, though, and I must say, it adds a whole extra crappy layer to trying to sleep in the woods, on the ground, surrounded by enemies. The blind one seemed to delve deeper into me than just the surface and it was a wholly unwelcome experience. This bird was all about the early worm, too, and would caw incessantly as soon as the sun was hinting at its presence.

  “I’m up...I’M UP, you asshole. I’ve known cats I liked better than you,” I said as I rolled up my humble bedroll. I’d been trai
psing in the woods through most of the morning, fairly agitated that Caw-Caw up in the sky couldn’t see fit to find me a path to walk on as opposed to trailblazing through all manner of thorny undergrowth. Then I got a sneaking suspicion he was punishing me on purpose for my earlier comment. Probably a two-lane highway, three hundred yards to either side of me, and I was trying to make it through what was once the median. “I don’t take back anything I said!” I yelled up at the bird. I thought perhaps he had dropped his breakfast when I saw something the size of a sewer rat fall away from him. I was sort of right, though it was not undigested rat. He’d fertilized all of the bushes in front of me.

  “Oh, you’re real funny! How long you been saving that up? Hope you busted your anus! Gonna fuck up your aerodynamics to have that prolapsed thing fluttering in the wind behind you!” I had to do a wide skirt around his shitting grounds, and of course, it was into thicker vegetation. Not too pleased I had to get a bird that received tutelage from Einstein. It was coming up on midday and I was going to take a breather. The woods had finally eased up and I was looking forward to putting my back against a sturdy tree and taking a long drink of water. Maybe I’d also flip the bird off, but only if I was sure he couldn’t see me. He seemed pretty pissed that I’d gone on break. He landed on a heavy branch on a tree opposite me. He cawed twice, then began to hop around. Cawed again, and took off. I’d not taken more than a gulp before he came back around. The bird wanted me to follow and right now. I’d already thrown my lot in with him; I had to see it out until the end.

  After a mile I thought he’d just been fucking with me, then I was assailed with unpleasant smells. Not zombie-unpleasant but an eye-water inducing stench, nonetheless. The bird landed on a large rock directly to my twelve o’clock. It was not lost on me that our gazes were level with each other.

  “What’s up, bird?” I said hesitantly. I was more than half-convinced this was the spot of the ambush. A thousand of his friends would dart out of the sky ripping tendrils of my flesh away, neatly plucking my eyeballs out. I’d be consumed peck by peck, a sliver of meat each time they bobbed their heads into me. It would be a torturous pain beyond anything I’d ever known—a thousand hangnails ripped forth from a body at the exact same time. I shuddered, thinking about it. I was expecting the sun to be blotted out by their appearance, day turning to dusk within seconds. I was tentative to look away, but I did so. I was momentarily blinded as I looked directly at the sun.