“Looks like a wrecked carriage,” said Gorg.
I peered out ahead through the darkness. A little blazing lantern mounted on the side of the carriage cast a moving orange glow beside us.
“I’ll go have a look,” said Tsaeb. He jumped off the carriage and headed toward the wreckage.
Gorg pulled on the reins and the horses snorted and whinnied before coming to a halt.
“Tsaeb!” I shouted. “Get back here! What are you doing?”
“Ah, let him have a look-see,” laughed Gorg. “I’s curious if it’s one o’ the others.”
“Well, then let’s ride that way to get closer.”
Gorg looked at me with a wary raised eye. “The carriage goes off course, it’ll stay off course,” he said, as if I should already know this.
I saw Tsaeb’s figure moving back and forth through the darkness, but could not make out anything solid.
“It a wrecked carriage, or no?” Gorg shouted.
“Yeah, there’s a dead guy but no horses!”
Gorg stood, put his hands around his mouth and yelled, “Wut’s the dead man a’wearin’?”
I leaned forward, trying to pierce the darkness with my eyes.
“He gots skin?” Gorg added.
“Yes, he’s got skin, but not for long!” said Tsaeb. “He’s wearing—what the hell does that matter?”
“Just tell Gorg what the corpse is wearing, will you?”
“Alright, it looks like a yellow robe...and he has a fortune of rings on his fingers!” His voice went up about three octaves.
Gorg fell heavily onto the seat and shook his head. “Thut’s Davis,” he announced with a sigh. “Poor old coot—I’s knew it would happen eventually.”
“What happened?”
“Field bandits.”
Gorg was suddenly looking all around him rather than at me and this made me uneasy.
“They’s come slitherin’ through here, robbin’ carriages and killin’ anyone on ‘em.”
A lump lodged in my throat.
“I hit the jackpot,” Tsaeb said running back up and giggling wickedly, his fingers adorned with oversized rings. He held a bag full of golden trinkets, silverware and other sparkly things crammed deep inside of it. A silver crown with tiny diamonds sat lopsided on his head.
“You robbed a dead man?” I had a bad feeling about it already.
Tsaeb slung the heavy bag into the carriage with a crash. “I don’t think he’ll need any of this stuff anymore,” he said, climbing back in and shutting the door behind him. The carriage clanked and pinged inside as he rummaged through the bag.
“Thut ruffian will regret it later,” said Gorg, snapping the reins.
I was more worried about the field bandits than the property of a dead man. I shifted in the seat, unable to keep my eyes off the blackened field all around me. I listened for any signs of bandits—whatever they were supposed to sound like—and started to wonder what I might do if confronted by any. A lot could happen in five days.
“Why didn’t they take any of the things Tsaeb brought back?”
By now, the horses were moving more rapidly; labored breathing and the heavy grinding of hooves against the earth.
“They dun’t care ‘bout riches. They like warm blood.”
“Vampires? You’ve got to be kidding!” laughed Tsaeb from inside the carriage. He was too busy with his goods to poke his head out the window this time.
“No, not vampires, you dimwit,” said Gorg. “Snakes.”
I froze. “Snakes? What do you mean, snakes?”
“Jus’ like I said: snakes—you two are the deefest ones I’s met yet.”
Gorg focused out ahead.
“They’s live underground, but ain’t many of em’—‘bout two or three tribes left anymore.”
“And what happens if they come after us?”
“Gorg’s horses are the fastest in the field. We outrunned them lots o’ times, but we should be fine.”
Should be? I shifted on the seat. I hated this place, this dreadful field, the stinking carriage, the greedy, thieving demon in the back, the shrunken head, jewelry and trinkets made of bones, teeth and flesh. I hated the Devil for sending me here. But most of all, I hated myself for going through with it.
The days moved uneventfully forward and the bandits were mostly what I thought about.
By the fifth night, I began to realize that I was no longer myself. My vision was blurry and the distant red sky appeared so close. The voices of Gorg and Tsaeb sounded sluggish and heavy. The neighing of the horses and the grinding of the carriage wheels seemed to blend into one another.
I began to hear strange whispering voices, clearly not of my company.
“You’s alright there?” said Gorg from the side.
My head began to spin. The sky swirled furiously in my gaze. The buzzing of flies sounded like wasps inside my ears. I gripped the sides of my head, my fingers pressing aggressively against my scalp.
“No! I’m not!” I managed to scream under the gritting of my teeth. “The voices...the bugs...the....”
I hung my head over the side of the carriage, helpless to hold back the vomit.
“Field’s a’gettin’ to you.” Gorg pulled on the reins to slow the horses. “Hey, dun’t get any of that on my carriage!”
I fell off the moving carriage with a thud. My body rolled before it came to a stop. I thrashed about, gripping my head, screaming as the voices become louder, more recognizable.
“It was once perfect...,” said one voice.
“Temptation. Curiosity. Greed,” said another.
The door swung open as the carriage came to a stop. “What did he fall off the carriage for?” said Tsaeb, laughing.
I could hear the pumping of blood like thunder in my head, but not even that could drown out the voices. I could not feel Tsaeb’s hands on my arms, attempting to lift me to my feet, or hear Gorg shouting at Tsaeb to be quick about dragging me back onto the carriage.
I mean, yes, I could feel them and hear them...yet I could not.
“She ate the Forbidden Fruit....”
“One evil then tempted another....”
And just like that, the pain was gone.
I lifted my head and the sky was completely red as if the distant clouds had finally covered me. There was no carriage, or Tsaeb, or Gorg and his two white horses. The air was humid, sticky like a summer day before a storm. What was once yellow grass under my feet was now black, charred and smoking as if it had recently burned. The stench rose up in my nostrils, choking me. I could feel the soles of my shoes warm and slowly melting against the ground.
I gazed out at the never-ending expanse of the field.
There was the voice of a woman behind me:
“Why did you listen to her?”
I turned. A naked body with no gender, no breasts, no nipples, stood before me. The head bore no hair; the face, nothing but skin covering the eye sockets, a mouth and a nose. The fingers and toes of this anomaly, fused together.
“Listen to who?” I said, stepping up to the anomaly slowly. “I don’t understand.”
Another appeared to my left. “You were the First,” it said with the voice of a man. “You brought the Darkness.”
“But I don’t understand—”
“She was Lucifer’s concubine, his whore,” said the voice of yet another anomaly. “God gave you many ribs, you could have made another. You could have cast her out of the Garden and made another.”
“Adam and Eve?” I said, my face knotted, unbelieving. “But I’m not Adam.”
“You are Man.”
“Yes, you were the First, created from the dust of the Earth and from your rib, Eve.”
The anomaly to my right held out both hands and in them, a bleeding heart.
“The Tree of Knowledge of Good and Evil in the Garden of Eden was not the temptation of Man,” it said, “but the woman, Eve, was the temptation of Man.”
Without question, I opened my han
ds where the bleeding heart appeared. The anomaly that had held it never moved, never stepped close enough to place it there. It simply appeared as if by magic. Thick, red blood oozed through my fingers. I looked down upon it to see it still beating.
“Take back your heart, for within it grows your soul and so must Life grow.”
I looked to each anomaly for answers; all eight of them, but no verbal answers came. The beating of the heart began to slow in my palms and my own body began to weaken. My breath was deeper with each exhale and then I felt the warmth of blood upon my chest. Looking down, I finally remembered what it felt like to be frightened. Seeing the gaping hole in my chest cavity, I gasped and stumbled.
“Replace it lest it stops beating, son of Adam and Eve.”
I felt my life quickly slipping away. My skin grew cold, the tips of my fingers turning blue and gray. I wanted to shout, but when I tried to open my mouth, I realized I no longer had one. I fell to my knees, the heart still safely in my hands, and just before I took my last breath, I shoved the heart into my chest. Life flowed hungrily back into my veins and the red sky was no more.
“You idiot!” shouted Tsaeb, finally dragging me back into the carriage before falling against the wall.
“Hey, he lasted longer than most,” said Gorg from the front. “Usually they go loopy after day two.”
My eyes crept open, but all I could see were traces of light and color from Tsaeb’s movements.
I lost consciousness.
No dreams came. I slept in blackness. A quiet, peaceful blackness. And when I awoke later, I thrust my hands to my chest, gasping for breath as if waking from a bad dream. My fingers desperately probed my lips, my eyes and the skin of my face. I fell against the carriage wall, the shrunken head dangling overhead; a jagged piece of wood poked me in the small of the back.
“They had no faces....”
Tsaeb looked across at me awkwardly, one brow raised.
“Oh, you saw them too?” said Gorg.
I leapt up and moved to the little window, ripping the rotted curtain from it completely.
“Yes...strange faceless, sexless people in the field,” I began, stumbling over my words. “Y-You saw them?”
“No, no,” said Gorg from outside. “I’s didn’t see nuthin’, but you ain’t the first traveler to go loopy like that and see’s naked people with no faces out there.”
I sighed miserably and fell back into a slump.
“You’ve been unconscious for hours,” said Tsaeb. “Gorg said most people start hallucinating by the second or third day. You made it to five!”
Tsaeb patted me on the shoulder proudly.
I was still very much dazed. I stared off at the carriage door and all I knew were the anomalies in my memory.
“Imagine what would happen if you had to walk through it.”
I came back, but my words were slow coming. “Why does the field only affect me?”
“Oh come on,” said Tsaeb. “You really have to ask that?”
“Yes, I do!” I reached out and grabbed a hold of Tsaeb’s throat. “I don’t care about why you can’t tell me anymore than you have! If you don’t start talking, I’m not going to help you!”
“Uh oh,” I heard Gorg say from the front.
Tsaeb snarled and bore his human-like teeth, but he hardly seemed like he was choking when clearly he should’ve been.
“It affects you because you’re human—now let go of me!”
“That’s not good enough.” I squeezed tighter and glared down into Tsaeb’s angry little face. “Tell me what’s going on, or I’ll kill you!”
“Clearly you’ve gone mad. I-I can’t tell you anything...let-me-go!”
Finally, Tsaeb showed signs of discomfort. He gripped my wrist, trying to pry my hand away.
“The witch...in Fiedel City...she’ll tell you everything....”
I held on for a moment longer before releasing my grip. Tsaeb fell backward, his hand covering his throat.
“Once we get to Fiedel City, my job is to take you to her and she’ll tell you everything you need to know.” He hesitated. “But before she tells you anything you have to give her something.”
I glared at him suspiciously.
“Your seed....” Tsaeb winced.
“What the hell are you talking about?”
“Your...well, your seed. You know, you have to knock her up.”
A swarm of nervous bile churned in my stomach. Replay the words over in my head. Let it register. Replay them once more just to be sure. In a jerking movement, I had Tsaeb’s throat in my hand again, pressing the demon against the carriage wall. The shrunken head swayed back and forth. The carriage jerked around, almost enough to knock me from my feet, but nothing could get in my way now.
“This better be some sick joke, or you’ll regret not telling me this sooner.”
The whites of Tsaeb’s eyes rolled into view. He gasped and choked for air that just did not want to come.
“I have...nothing to do with...that. I’m...just doing my part.”
I would not let go this time. No way. I had gone completely mad. But then the sound of Tsaeb’s horns bursting through his tiny skull woke me from that psychosis quickly.
Blood spilled down Tsaeb’s face and eyes, now black like shiny marbles. He hissed and growled behind fanged yellow teeth and reptile-like skin. I drew back, pushing my way through many obstructions, falling over and against an old broken lantern. I was too terrified to notice the little shard of glass prick me on the elbow.
Gorg peered inside with wide eyes. The horses whinnied and kicked, causing the carriage to jolt and stop abruptly. Many of Gorg’s rusty belongings tumbled from the carriage and into the field.
“Whoa, boys! Calm down thur!”
Tsaeb cracked his neck to both sides, approaching me.
“I can’t kill you,” he began with a low, guttural growl, “but the Devil never said I couldn’t hurt you.”
I put out my hands. “I’m sorry...what the fuc....”
Suddenly, the door swung open, smashing into the side of the carriage. Gorg stood there disapprovingly, hands on his hips.
“Yer scarin’ my damn horses, y’shit!” He grabbed Tsaeb by the back of his shirt and dragged him off the carriage and into the field. “Either you’s tame yerself, or walk!”
Tsaeb grunted and mumbled something inaudible under his breath.
“So, wut’s it gonna be?” Gorg demanded, one foot tapping the ground.
“You’re the driver,” Tsaeb forcefully replied.
Gorg nodded and went to his horses, patting them on their thick, muscled necks to soothe them. Tsaeb shifted back into his child form before stepping back inside with me. I was in that body cast again, forgetting how to move anything but my eyes.
Tsaeb kneeled in front of me and I could feel his hot, rancid breath on my face.
“My mother tried to strangle me with my own cord when I was born.” I listened with great interest hidden behind a petrified expression. “Punch me, kick me in the nuts, stab me even, but never touch my throat.”
He glared forebodingly at me and then moved to his bag of stolen riches. I sat in the same spot until the sixth day arrived and signs of life beckoned in the distance. We never did face field bandits, and the Field of Yesterday did not take my mind. But in that six days at the center of the dead world, I came to realize that this was no game. This task I had been sent on was a serious matter.
I just needed to know what the hell it was.
The towers of Fiedel City grew upward on the horizon. A strangely wicked-looking place from afar, with scaling gray towers shaped more like stalagmites than buildings, and hundreds of carved-out windows and doors. Tiny torch fires and lanterns dotted the streets and moved in scattered formations throughout the city and the great black mountain from which the city had been carved. Plumes of smoke rose high above many cottages and storehouses, taverns and whorehouses. The moon was enormous in the background behind the mountain as though t
he Earth was only a few thousand miles away. It was dark like coal and lacked the familiar craters shown in science books. This moon was oddly porous, looming and fraught with frightening memories.
The air was sticky with humidity and smelled of a coming rain and the funk of an odor that reminded me of what a landfill smelled like. The stench, lingering on the breeze, left me lightheaded. Queasy chills ran rampant under my clammy skin. I pressed my hand over my nose, but it was useless. I was just going to have to get used to it.
The carriage left the Field of Yesterday behind as it slipped into a thick of trees on the outskirts of the city. The road was long and winding, twisting with difficulty upward through the black mountain. The trees on either side gave way to a wall of slate rock, soft like chalk but strong like stone, until many twists and turns later, the trees returned and the carriage stopped in an opening. Fiedel City up close looked no less wicked than from afar, only bigger and busier with people bustling around in old, dirty hooded robes.
Tsaeb and I got out of the carriage.
I looked up to see the towers. Unlike the many smaller buildings that surrounded us, the towers were made from the mountain itself; five that I could see, ominous and unsteady in their form. They appeared to sway above me, seemingly ready to topple with just the right wind, but they were formidable and stubborn.
People passed by, but all that I got from any of them were a few uninterested glances. A sneer here, a grunt there, but nothing that related to a smile or a welcome.
“Get yer news!” said a voice from the dirty, cluttered crowd. “Another attempt on the queen’s life! Get yer news!” The young man waved a flimsy newspaper in the air, a small stack under the other arm, dangling carelessly.
“Would you like a paper?” the young man said, stepping up to me.
“I, uh....”
“Give me that damn paper.” Tsaeb jerked the paper from his hand, inspected the front page, then the back. “Now get!”
“He didn’t mean that,” I apologized, reaching into my pocket for cash. I pulled out a five. “My friend doesn’t know the significance of manners.” Nervously glancing around at the passersby, I hoped to diffuse a scene before it started, but no one seemed to care.
“Thanks,” the young man replied, though he looked at the money strangely.
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