by Eddie Patin
Carefully setting down the green bottle, Morgana then picked up the ancient section of another bottle she had. This one was far larger but it was broken. Only a portion of the top half remained. Still, the glass that remained was a work of art with carved designs running through its perfectly smooth surface all the way up the neck to the mouth that was similarly made with the same flawless spiraling.
She had other things other than bottles, too. Morgana picked up a strange tool made of the same springy, smooth material as her clear bottle, though this item was thicker and bright orange. The object was about as long as an eating knife, with a small, round spoon on one side and an array of spikes on the other, one of which was flattened out to slightly resemble a miniature, serrated knife blade. She called this her little spiky spoon and figured that it was for eating, but had no idea why it had spikes on one end.
Morgana put the spikey spoon back in its place. She also had a perfectly-smooth and finely crafted steel spoon that was definitely not made by a blacksmith. There was also a strange tool or weapon—she wasn't sure—with a knurled handle of clear and colorful not-glass just like the spikey spoon's but harder, and a thin, round shaft ending with a point shaped like a cross; very odd. She also had a broken piece of a thin and dark metal rod with sharp edges that ran down in a spiral pattern from one end.
The most bizarre relic of all, however, was a flat piece of metal about as long and wide as her middle finger. On one end was a sharp 'beak' angling slightly down, and on the other was a strange hole with a flat piece sticking into the hole from the thing's body. Morgana had polished the entire object up to a brilliant shine other than the black piece. In the center of the thing was a very strange dark rectangle that felt more like a rock than metal—made of something she didn't understand—that actually attracted and stuck onto some pieces of metal! It was amazing. Morgana could take that broken spiral-rod, touch it to the black rectangle, and it would cling to it until she pulled them apart again.
It was obvious to Morgana that some of those items couldn't have been made by people like hers. She didn't know if they were crafted by trogs, or sylphs, or other mysterious and more elegant creatures, but the young woman felt that they were from another time, long ago.
Over the last several years—mainly before her father was killed—Morgana had found each item buried or tucked away in a rare location in that huge valley grown over by years of earth and vegetation.
The relics were from a forgotten time, and now—when times were darkest—they reminded Morgana that there are always other worlds; other times.
Looking at her precious relics made Morgana feel better.
She rolled her relics up again and stashed the bundle in the chest on her dollhouse table, then fixed her hair and left the room as quietly as she could. Silently closing her bedroom door, Morgana padded over to the room where Jason slept. She listened at the door for a while, but heard nothing. Moving stealthily to Damien's door, she listened for Riley and Gliath inside, but they made no noise.
With that, Morgana took a brief look up and down the hall then crept to the stairs. Slipping down into the silent dining hall, she took the doorway that would lead her to the basement, found the stairs, then headed down, opening the door at the bottom of the stairwell as quietly as she could. There, the young woman passed quietly through the hall after lighting a candle to see by, then let herself into the keg storeroom.
The many arguing voices of the men inside echoed in the hall for a moment and Morgana closed the door behind her. There was light in the store room already, so she doused her candle, found Lillian, and sat beside her sister-in-law as a dozen weathered and weary faces looked her way, some still arguing.
"Morgana!" one man said. "You have the warriors from the stars in this house?" He was Jordan Hubbard, one of the Hubbard twins. Both of them sat together, tall and broad and strapping, each with thick, blonde beards and long, wild hair. Jordan had beads woven through his beard braids. Darin—the other twin—did not.
"Yes," she replied, eliciting a clamoring of mixed response. "And I was out with them tonight. We slew eight of the monsters. There is hope."
Lillian sighed and clasped Morgana's arm with a cold hand.
"So what's the plan?" someone asked.
"We are still waiting for Martin and Abraham!" another added.
"Martin and Abraham won't be coming," Morgana replied flatly. "Martin was killed by the beasts, and Abraham was taken."
"Killed?!" someone cried.
"Does anyone know why they were out tonight?" she asked. "They were in the alley close to the market off of the northern street. "Why would they be out there? Martin was armed with a sword from the old guard."
Many men argued, but she didn't get a straight answer from any of them.
"Estren the fucker must have had the Chosen put them out on the street!" someone shouted. "It's happening to all of us!"
"We have a spy in our numbers for sure," Darin Hubbard said, and many men murmured in agreement.
"There is no spy," Lillian said suddenly, speaking up with her thin voice with a tone like she was addressing children. "The people following the Golden Lady just know their own, that's all. They know who isn't being honest with them."
"That's ridiculous," Morgana replied. "It's all bullshit. There is no Golden Lady. It's a cult."
"But they know!" a man shouted among the noise of several others. "They're hunting us down, family by family. I can't keep doing this! I don't want to see them kill my wife and my boy!"
"Me neither!" someone else added.
"Come now," Morgana said loudly, trying to reign everyone in. This was chaos. "Whether we have a spy in our midst or not—" She stopped. "And how can we? There are so few of us now! We can and will defeat Estren once the gargoyle threat is eliminated!"
"How?" a man named Jack Donner shouted through a furrowed brow and a bushy beard. "It's hopeless, Morgana."
"No it's not!" she replied. "First we have to—"
The man interrupted her. "It is," he growled. "Listen. Even if the gargoyles are all killed so that we can move freely through the night, there aren't many of us left, girl. Maybe we have a spy in our midst, maybe we don't—"
"We do!" someone shouted.
"Shut up!" Jack replied. "But either way, Estren's having us killed left and right. He knows. I don't know how, by God, but he knows who we are. Maybe those Oracle bitches are whispering our names into his ears, but that bastard knows what we're doing."
"We have to hang in there!" Morgana countered. "These warriors from the stars are different than the last ones. They can help us kill Estren and the Communion. I've seen them fight tonight, and each one of them is worth a dozen or more of Estren's soldiers—and one of them is a skinwalker! He can turn into a great, black beast! Their weapons—"
"There's no point, and there's no hope," Jordan Hubbard said, his deep voice cutting through the crowd. "New Bozeman is dead, Morgana. Your family has done as much as it could to make the town what it is—what town it was—but these people are not our people anymore."
"They're all changed now, girl," Darin, his twin, added.
"But what about you?" she replied to everyone, feeling her face twist in pain. Morgana bit back the tears forming. She was watching her family's legacy crumble to dust. "Aren't we what's left worth fighting for?"
"I'm tired of fighting," someone said, and others clamored in agreement.
"I hate to say it," Jack Donner said, folding his arms across his brawny chest, "but I'm ready to just keep my head down, join the damned Communion, and live out the rest of my life. I've got a family to think about."
"The Communion has been praying for salvation," someone else said from the shadows. "Now the necromancer is dead and these warriors from the stars are hunting the gargoyles. Who's to say that the Golden Lady isn't behind this? Maybe we should just join the Communion and stop fighting and Estren will be lenient with us."
Lillian perked up suddenly. "That sounds like so
mething a spy might say," she said with a slight smile.
The room immediately broke into loud arguing. Morgana heard a chair thrown backwards into the wall.
"Stop it!" she cried, holding her hands out. "Don't start fighting!"
"They're going to kill us all!" someone yelled.
"Who summoned the demon this time?" someone else asked over the ruckus. "Who's gonna be killed like Dominic once the gargoyles are all gone?"
It was a good question. No one that Morgana knew of had summoned the Xarzeth the Black a second time to call for new warriors from the stars...
The room quieted down a little and no one had the answer.
"I tell you all what we're gonna do," Darin Hubbard said, sitting back with his brother out of everyone's way. Many turned to listen. "We're leaving. We were born here, and I thought we'd die here, but I don't want to die this week. We've got everything packed up and we're leaving with the dawn."
"Yep," the other brother added. Jordan played with his long beard, twirling around one of his beads. "Don't know where we're going, but we're heading east. We've been several miles out that way before and the land becomes low and flat. There must be more people out that way."
"Don't do that!" Morgana pleaded. "We've got to hold out! It won't be much longer! If the warriors from the stars can defeat the gargoyles and the Darkness is gone from the land, we'll be able to wage war with the Communion during the night! We can do this! Please be strong, just for a little—"
"Stop it, Morgana, for God's sake!" Jack Donner exclaimed, holding his big hands out wide. "This village isn't worth fighting for anymore! These people have lost their minds—they've taken in that Golden Lady poison and are all against us now! That bastard Estren has won. New Bozeman is ruined. Why are you working so hard, girl?"
The young woman sat back and stared at the older man's eyes. Jack's dark eyes softened as stood, holding everyone's attention.
Morgana felt herself start shaking.
"Because ... it's my family's town! It's my responsibility to all of you—to New Bozeman—to restore..." Her head started reeling. Morgana felt her heartbeat flying and her skin became cold and broke out into sweat. "As the last Soloster—"
"But you are the last Soloster," Jack replied. "The Soloster family is dead, Morgana. And if you don't give this up, you'll be dead with 'em. Hell—I saw you on your own cross just yesterday."
"The warriors from the stars saved me!" she exclaimed, almost bursting with sorrow and need. There were so many feelings building up in her chest that she was afraid she couldn't take it. She had to fix this. She had to save her people! "I know that I can convince them to help us take back the town! They can help us get rid of Estren and the Virgin Oracles. With their advanced weaponry, they can probably take out all of the Chosen by themselves!"
The room quieted down. Two men stood, which made Morgana gasp.
"You should come with us," Jordan Hubbard said. "You and Lillian. We'll travel east and start over in an hour or so."
Morgana furiously wiped at a tear she felt threatening to fall from one eye.
"I can't! Please, stay with me!" she said. "I will return New Bozeman to what it once was!"
It was all falling apart. She couldn't believe it. The men were standing. One of them patted her on the shoulder and left. They started talking quietly among themselves as they said goodbye. She heard mention of joining the Communion once again.
"Don't leave!" she pleaded, standing. "Give this a little time! Let's see what happens after the gargoyles are killed, please!"
Jack Donner approached, towering over her, and clasped her shoulders with his big hands. "Goodbye, Morgana. Please don't go get yourself killed, girl." He released her and left, followed by two more men.
"But New Bozeman can be a strong community again!" she exclaimed, trying to keep her legs from shaking. "This town has been a sanctuary from the wilderness for over a hundred years! We can still restore it!"
Darin Hubbard suddenly appeared at her side and set a hand gently on her shoulder.
"Are you sure you won't be coming with us, Morgana?" he asked, his gaze shifting back and forth between her and Lillian.
Morgana pulled her shoulder away and crossed her arms. She felt the tears coming and looked down to the floor.
"No. I can't."
Soon, everyone was gone except Lillian.
Morgana stumbled halfway to the chair by the doorway then sat down onto the floor instead.
She put her face into her hands and she cried.
An instant later, she felt Lillian's slender hands around her.
"There, there..." the older woman cooed. "It's good that this rebellion business is all over now."
Morgana sobbed, feeling a level of grief that she didn't fully understand. Cold, crushing pain washed over her in waves. As the rebellion died right then, it felt like a part of her died, too.
Chapter 17
Well, it wasn't memory foam, but it wasn't terrible.
Jason woke up nice and cool, but oblivious to the number of hours he slept.
There was a bell ringing in the distance.
The bedsheets were coarse and the mattress was a little firmer than he would have liked, but Jason didn't feel too groggy. Thankfully, he didn't wake up stiff or with a crick in his neck. As he lay in the strange bed in a t-shirt and underwear, he listened to the sounds through the open window. The distant bell was deep and heavy and reminded him of a cliché church bell. He also heard the sound of chickens clucking, and somewhere very far away was the grunting moo of a cow.
Looking at the open window, he saw iron bars protecting the room from the open air. The gargoyles had been attacking this town for years, right? It made sense that the Solosters had installed some sort of defenses. A gentle mountain breeze blew inside and Jason was glad that it was springtime. A spring morning in Montana seemed nice. Not too hot.
He sat up in bed and looked around the room.
On a stool next to the bed was his AK-47, chambered with the safety on. He only dimly remembered putting it there before going to sleep.
It had been a long day.
The room was fairly large and spacious—much bigger than the bedroom where they had killed the gargoyle that was torturing the baby and mother the night before. There were old wooden dressers stained dark mahogany, and the creaky, wooden tub that he had bathed in last night was still there.
Jason stood, letting his feet settle on the rug extending from under the bed. Stepping away, the soles of his feet immediately became cold on the stone floor. The man walked over to the tub of cool bathwater and he reached in to briskly wash his face.
"Next time," he said to himself, "bring a toothbrush too."
Looking up at a wide-open cobblestone wall, Jason considered the oil painting of Owen and Lillian Soloster. The man was strapping and proud, smiling broadly from behind his short, black beard. His long black hair was pulled behind his head into either a ponytail or a braid of some kind, and he wore regal, medieval-looking garb of blue and white. In the portrait, Lillian clung onto him, petite and wearing a yellow dress, her curly, blonde hair a little shorter than it was now. Lillian in the painting smiled, but there was something strange about her eyes.
Jason wondered why Lillian wasn't still sleeping in this room. If they were married, surely they both shared this room before, right? With Owen gone, why wasn't this room Lillian's now?
Who knows...
Of course, if her husband had betrayed the family and the people and brought shame to everyone, Jason could understand her not wanting to live in this room anymore.
That thick, gold chain around Owen's neck caught Jason's attention once again. In this painting, Morgana's eldest brother displayed it prominently. It was definitely gold with a large teardrop pendant hung down in the middle and resting on the top of Owen's chest. In the middle of the pendant was a bold and sparkling blue gemstone the size of a quarter. Maybe it was a sapphire.
Jason got his shit together, d
ressed himself, geared up, and left the room to head downstairs. His watch told him that it was 11am, but he had no idea if the time on his watch—set to Earth of u934—was the same as it was here.
When he arrived downstairs, Jason found Riley and Gliath sitting at the dining table with their weapons and gear all spread out on the table before them. He smelled the salty scent of eggs and either ham or bacon. Did they have bacon in the middle ages?
Dark ages, he thought.
And, of course, this wasn't the true dark ages. This world of u936 was nine-hundred years in the future of his own time, apparently after having suffered some kind of major cataclysm. This was a place where technology had previously existed but fell into ruin, and the people had forgotten all modern ways.
Riley waved and smirked. He was helping Gliath clean his big, black semi-automatic shotgun. They'd broken it down into parts on the table and were working together on lightly scrubbing the bolt assembly. Jason had no idea how that Versa Max was put together. He didn't have a semi-auto tube-fed shotgun, himself.
Walking over to sit next to them, Jason plunked his rifle down onto the table. He shrugged out of his backpack and put it next to his gun.
"Good morning," Jason said.
"Mornin," Riley replied. Gliath looked up without a word, then went back to what he was doing. He was in his human form again.
The smell of eggs and ham pulled at Jason's stomach. He was hungry.
"Where's Morgana?" he asked.
"Kitchen," Riley replied, pointing at the doorway on the opposite side of the hall from the front doors. "You know, I think I'll try the lever action tonight. My Gauss rifle slugs aren't having the penetration that I hoped for."
Jason took a sip from his CamelBak bite valve. "Well that's why we got you all of that hard-cast lead ammo, right?"
"I reckon so."
Gliath spoke up suddenly. It was usually unexpected. "The female human was listening outside our doors last night. She was being stealthy."
"Gliath noticed her listening at our door," Riley added, "maybe an hour or so after we all went in. Then she went downstairs and didn't come back up until much later."
