by Tim O'Rourke
“Come to mummy,” the Delf cried on seeing the giant dog’s distress.
The crow opened its long, black beak and made an ear-splitting screaming noise at the dog. Max yelped, and then emptied his bladder into the dust. Seeing this, Fandel clapped his hands together.
“Very good! Very amusing!” he smiled.
“Get that thing away from Max!” the Delf cried, wrapping her arms around the dog’s neck, as if to comfort it.
“Leave the dog,” Fandel said over his shoulder as he made his way to the crow.
“I can’t just set Max free,” the Delf groaned.
“How very sentimental of you,” Fandel smirked as he mounted the giant crow, which squawked again. Then looking down at the Delf, he added, “I thought Throat wanted us to go to the Outer-Rim?”
“He does,” the Delf said.
“Then stop wasting time with that mutt and come with me,” Fandel said, although part of him would have been happy if she decided to go alone. But Throat had wanted them to travel together and Fandel didn’t want to make another mistake.
The Delf looked at Max and stroked his shaggy mane. “Mummy will come back for you,” she told him.
Max whimpered and rubbed his giant head against hers. Then one last time, the Delf sneezed a fistful of maggots into her hand and let Max lick them away. With black tears streaming down her cheeks, she turned and headed towards the crow where Fandel sat waiting for her. Max howled, but the Delf couldn’t bring herself to look back.
Fandel reached down, took hold of the Delf’s arm, and hoisted her up onto the crow. She sat behind him, her lumpy and misshapen bosoms pressing into his back. Fandel shuddered. The crow leapt into the air, its massive wings unfolding as it carried Fandel and the Delf up into the night and towards the Outer-Rim.
Below, Max howled as he raced around and around in circles as if chasing its own stubby tail.
Chapter Twenty -Two
With the Dammed Bandits all dead, the peacekeepers made camp on the shore of the Onyx Sea. They sat together before the fire and ate what was left of the rations they had brought with them. They kept far enough from the shoreline to be out of reach of the crabs that scuttled sideways out of the water and fed on the corpses of the dead bandits. Anna had never seen such huge crabs, and she moved closer to Tanner. Their claws waved back and forth in the air as they raced out of the water, their crusty shells coated with barnacles and lengths of black seaweed which made them look as if they had hair. The crabs made a screeching sound as they fought over the remains of the bandits lying in the sand. Their giant arms were as long as a man’s leg and their bodies as bloated and as large as an armchair.
They snapped open their claws as they dragged the dead back into the water. Anna covered her ears to block out the sound of the deceased bones crunching and splintering as the crabs pulled them to pieces.
“That’s so disgusting,” Anna groaned, putting aside the strip of dried meat which had been given to her by one of the peacekeepers.
“Crabsters,” Tanner mumbled around a mouthful of meat. “A cross between a crab and a lobster, I guess. You’re quite safe. They never attack humans – unless they are dead.”
“That’s nice to know,” Anna said, drawing her knees up beneath her chin as she watched one of the Crabsters tear the leg from one of the dead bandits and scurry sideways back into the water with it.
“Are you okay?” Wavia asked her.
“No, not really,” Anna said back. “I haven’t a clue as to what’s going on here. Where am I?”
“You’re not in Earth,” Baran said, cleaning sand from his crossbow.
“I kinda guessed that a few days ago,” Anna sighed, looking through the flames at the peacekeeper. He was clean-shaven with dark brown hair. He must have been about twenty-three – but no more. Baran’s eyes were blue and his mouth looked nothing more than a stern slit beneath his nose. Anna thought that he looked kinda moody.
“You’re in a place called Endra,” Tanner said, as the other six peacekeepers drew closer around the fire. Anna studied them. They were all male apart from the female who had introduced herself as Wavia. Anna thought she was really pretty with her long blond hair and light blue eyes. She didn’t look much older than Anna, about twenty years. But she had a way about her that suggested she was older than she looked. Anna thought that she somehow commanded the respect of the other peacekeepers, although she wasn’t the leader of the group; Tanner was. Anna knew that by the way the others listened intently to his every word. She sensed their respect for him. But perhaps Wavia was his deputy, Anna wondered.
“My uncle brought me here through a doorway in his fireplace,” Anna told them, and however bizarre her story sounded, she knew the group she now sat with would believe her. She wondered how they had all come to be in this world too. Perhaps they had been born in Endra? Maybe it was their home? “My uncle was trying to kill me,” she added. “I don’t know why.”
“I do,” Tanner said, as he tightened the piece of string he had fixed just below the wound at the top of his arm.
“Why?” Anna asked him.
“Because you and your brother are very special,” he said through gritted teeth, the wound still causing him pain.
“My brother?” Anna breathed. “What’s Zach got to do with this?”
“He’s one of us,” a peacekeeper called Nail said.
Tanner shot him a stern glance, and Nail dropped his head. Nail was handsome, Anna thought, even though he did have one of those goatee beards which made some guys look a bit pervy. His hair was a mass of black curls, and he had a white scar that ran from the corner of his right eye and down the length of his cheek which looked like a tear. He was probably the youngest of the group, and Anna guessed he was only a year older than her.
“My brother can’t be a peacekeeper,” Anna said, and then quickly added, “He’s geeky.”
“And what about you, Anna Black?” Wavia asked her.
“What about me?”
“Are you fit to be a Queen?”
“Say what?” Anna asked, confused.
“You have a reflection,” Tanner told her. “And she is the Queen of Endra.”
“Whoa!” Anna said, standing up. Crabsters or no Crabsters, Anna wanted to know what was going on. “What’s a reflection?”
“Your double,” Tanner started to explain.
Chapter Twenty-Three
As Anna Black sat with the peacekeepers on the shore of the Onyx Sea and listened to Tanner explain her and her brother’s importance, Zach was peering over Faraday’s shoulder. He looked into the black well of darkness beneath the stairs.
“I wonder what’s down there?” he whispered.
“There’s only one way of finding out,” Faraday said, stepping into the darkness.
“Dunno,” Zach shrugged as he followed him down into the pitch black.
The stairs creaked as Zach followed Faraday downwards. The air smelt musty as if no one had ventured below for some time. At the bottom of the stairs, there was only silence. It was cold and Zach shivered. It was so dark that he couldn’t even see Faraday standing in front of him. There was a ‘clicking’ sound, and suddenly the area beneath the farmhouse came dimly into view. Faraday had found a light switch and turned it on. A single light bulb hung from the wooden beams above them.
The room was oblong in shape. It looked like some kind of workshop. There were long workbenches along one wall, and housed neatly above them were rows and rows of odd-looking tools. The workbenches were covered in so many cogs and springs, it looked as if a giant grandfather clock had been blown apart, showering its intricate workings across the room. On the other side of the room was a row of tall glass cases. Faraday approached one of them and stared through the glass.
“This must have been the first ever mechanical man,” he said in his synthesized voice.
Zach approached the case and peered through the glass. Inside
stood a life-sized metal structure. It resembled the
form of a human. Its head was smooth and circular but without facial features. The body was constructed from lengths of metal, held together by a series of pistons, cogs, and pulleys. It looked basic – old-fashioned, yet futuristic all at the same time. A maze of wires coiled and entwined around its elbow and knee joints, and as Zach circled the glass case, he could see a series of thick, black cords snaking up the machine’s metal chin and disappearing into the back of its head. There was a tag hanging from the wrist of the machine and it read: Prototype 1.
“So is this what you look like under that skin of yours?” Zach asked Faraday.
“Not exactly, this was just a prototype. By the look of it, its structure and internal organs were very crude,” Faraday said, stepping away from the display case and approaching another.
Zach followed him. “This must have been the second version - prototype two.”
The glass case was identical to the first, except for the design and look of the mechanical man encased inside. This model was covered in a rubbery-looking flesh that was pale yellow in colour. The machine was hairless, and its face consisted of two circular holes for eyes and a gash for a mouth. It looked creepy, unreal, and its dead eyes seemed to stare at Zach as if reading his mind.
Zach turned away and looked at Faraday. “It doesn’t even look real,” he said.
“Do I look real?” Faraday asked him.
“Like a real person, you mean?”
“I know I’m only a synthetic human being – but do I look real?” Faraday asked again.
Zach glanced up at the second prototype and met its vacant stare, then looked back at Faraday. “But these prototypes are not human beings - you’re not a human being - humans have a soul,” Zach told him.
Faraday looked back at the mechanical man standing in the glass case, then turned and walked away.
“Did I say something wrong?” Zach asked.
There was an uncomfortable silence as Faraday stood on the other side of the room and looked down at the workbench, his lanky arms hanging by his sides.
When the silence became unbearable, Zach said, “So what about prototype three?”
“I think I am it,” Faraday said without a hint of emotion in his voice.
“How can you be sure?” Zach asked.
Faraday held up a small black notebook that he had taken from amongst the cogs and springs on the workbench. Zach took the book from him and thumbed through the pages. His throat made a shallow wheezing sound as he stared down at the pages. The book contained the workings and designs of the mechanical men he had just seen. There were pictures of animals, vehicles, and planes. Beneath each drawing there were lines of scribbled equations.
“Whoa!” Zach whispered as a photograph fell from between the pages of the book. Zach plucked it up. In the picture stood Faraday and a man so tall, that he barely fit in the picture at all. But stranger than that, the man’s face was bright red, as were his hands. His skin was lumpy-looking and cracked. The pair stood in front of a range of mountains which were blood-red in colour.
“Who’s the dude you’re standing with?” Zach said, handing Faraday the picture.
“That’s not me,” Faraday said.
“It looks like you.”
“The other is one of the Boulders.”
“What’s a Boulder?”
“One of the rock people,” Faraday answered, and then quickly added, “His name is Tamrus Turanion.”
“So you know him then?” Zach asked.
“Never met him before.”
“So how do you know his name?” Zach asked. “And if you’ve never met him before, what are you doing in the picture...”
“His name is on the back,” Faraday said, holding up the picture for Zach to read.
Zach read the spidery handwriting aloud. “Tamrus Turanion and Doctor Der Cribbot.”
“So you look like Der Cribbot?” Zach gasped, taking the photo again in his hands and turning it over. “He designed you to look like him?”
“So it would appear,” Faraday said.
“But the likeness is uncanny,” Zach said, holding up the photo and comparing it with the mechanical man who stood before him.
“I thought you said I didn’t look real,” Faraday reminded him.
“I never said you didn’t look real,” Zach said, now wishing he could take back what he had said. He had never intended to hurt Faraday’s feelings. But did Faraday even have feelings? Zach doubted it. So changing the subject, he said, “So who are the Boulder people?”
“They live in the Craggy Canyon,” Faraday said, taking back the picture and the black notebook from Zach, and placing them into his pocket. “The Boulder people are made from the bright red rock of the canyon.”
“I’ve heard of them,” someone said, and both Zach and Faraday turned around to find Captain Bom standing at the bottom of the stairs. William stood behind him.
“I thought you were looking for food?” Zach asked Bom.
“There ain’t anything worth eating here,” Bom moaned.
“And I couldn’t sleep,” William said, brushing past Bom and joining Zach and Faraday by the workbench.
“So what do you know about these Boulder people?” Zach asked Bom.
“Only that they can’t be trusted,” he said. “They’d sell their own grandmothers if the price was right.”
“Cribbot obviously trusted one of them at least,” Faraday said.
“The man who snuck animals and human technology through the doorways to create this messed up place,” Bom grunted, eyeing the prototypes of the mechanical men in the glass cases. “I wouldn’t trust him either.”
“Well this Cribbot guy obviously isn’t at home,” William woofed. “Maybe he’s dead already?”
“Perhaps,” Zach said. “But unless we know for sure, we’re never going to figure out how to turn off these creatures he created. If we don’t do that, then we can’t get across the Outer-Rim and reach the volcano.”
“Maybe he is hiding out with these Boulder people?” William suggested.
“How far is the Craggy Canyon from here?” Zach asked Faraday.
“Not far, I think,” Faraday said. “But I’m not sure of the way.”
“How about using that buzz-buzz-thing to show us?” Bom suggested.
“I thought you said these Boulder people couldn’t be trusted?” Zach said.
“You’re going to go whatever I say,” Bom groaned from behind his wild beard. “You always do your own thing. And to think I survived The Battle of Neff only to be ordered around by some boy.”
“I’m not ordering anyone around,” Zach said. “But if you’ve got a better idea, then I’m all ears.”
Bom made a huffing noise, then skulked back up the stairs.
“What’s his problem?” Zach asked, looking back at William and Faraday.
“We’d better find some Tep leaves - and quick,” William smiled. “The old guy needs a smoke.”
Faraday took the silver compass from his pocket and flipped back the lid releasing the Seek-Wasp. He asked it to locate the Craggy Canyon. The Seek-Wasp fluttered about the room.
While it worked out the most direct route, Zach looked at his friend William and said, “Do you think we’re doing the right thing by going in search of these Boulder people?”
“What other choice do we have?” William shrugged, staring at Zach through his glowing lenses. “Cribbot isn’t here, so I guess the next place to look would be the canyon. Maybe this Boulder person will know where he is?”
“Okay we leave at sundown,” Zach said, turning away and climbing the stairs.
Chapter Twenty-Four
Wally Willabee led Willow through the forest. It was quiet. The moon cut through the canopy of leaves above them in sporadic shafts and lit their way. Neither Wally nor Willow spoke. She wasn’t completely comfortable in her new skin. Without the long braids of hair hanging from her cheeks and hands, she felt naked, even though she was clothed. Her skin felt too exposed. S
he looked at her long, slender fingers as she stepped into a shaft of moonlight. The fingernails were cut short and painted red. Who had ever heard of such a thing? Willow wondered. Red painted nails indeed. She much preferred her long, ivory-looking fingernails.
They reached the edge of the forest and stood on the crest of a great valley which cut through the hillsides like a deep cut in the land. The wind blew hard and cold about them, Willow’s new blond hair whispering about her face and neck. She brushed it aside so she could see down into the valley.
“That’s where we need to go,” Wally finally spoke, and pointed into the distance.
“What’s down there?” Willow asked.
“The station,” he said.
Before Willow had the chance to ask anything else, Wally was making his way down the hill. Moonlight filled the valley, giving the appearance that it was covered with a lake of silver water. The trainers that Willow was now wearing crunched over the uneven ground, and they felt uncomfortable. She wondered what her new toes looked like. Were they painted red, too?
At the bottom of the hill, Wally led her into the valley. They hadn’t gone far when Willow saw something shining through the grass beneath her feet. She stopped and toed some of the grass apart. There were tracks of some kind which lead away into the distance.
“We need to follow the tracks,” Wally told her, and set off again.
Walking between the two sets of rails, Willow followed him. The tracks spiralled downwards, twisting between the hills and gorges. Wildflowers and weeds grew tall between the rails, and Willow wondered how long it had been since any kind of vehicle had travelled over them. She had heard of the Great Wasteland Railroad in Endra but had never seen it. Often she had wondered if it was just a myth – a story that the folk from Endra liked to tell as they made camp in the Howling Forest at night. She had heard the tales of how a beast called the Scorpion Steam ran along these tracks, moving at great speeds, thick black smoke pouring from its funnel. Although she had enjoyed listening to these stories, she had never really believed them. But now as she walked between the two sets of silver tracks, she wasn’t so sure anymore.
