The Event - Tales of the Triad, Book One

by R J Murray

Chapter 14 - Ice Cream

  Badger had a small place outside the castle, in the town that was still growing up around the walls. City planning was still ongoing, but the streets had been laid out, sewers and water mains laid in and some utilities were working, with oil street lights and stop signs in place. Trash pickup was regular, if somewhat primitive. Set it outside, don't block the sidewalk or the road and mark it as trash. Fifty five gallon drums were commonly used as trash bins, but the lack of lids was a problem, as was where to put the stuff after it was collected. The town still had a way to go before it would be running effectively and John felt guilt every time he walked through the streets.

  “We need to do more here, so these people can get some kind of life going again.”

  “They need to do more for themselves, too. We can't babysit them any more than you will babysit us, John.”

  John nodded at Jenny's remark, but still felt guilty. He had a bath, what did they have, a sponge, a bucket. Running water was available, but only at one spigot per building so far and only cold water. They needed to be clean, as it was the only defense against disease, trash and garbage was piling up, even with service once a week. It was his responsibility, even if it was self imposed. He would do something.

  As they entered Badgers shop, John was impressed by how clean and orderly it was. A few coats hung on a rack and shoe and boot samples were displayed neatly on shelves. Oils and saddle soap in tins were alongside socks and boot laces. He was talking to a woman with a small boy, who obviously did not want to be there. When he saw the Wizards, his eyes grew large and he sat very still. Badger looked up and nodded at the group.

  “Be with you in a minute.” John nodded in return.

  The woman looked up and turned pale at the sight of all the Wizards standing in the shop. “We can come back. We don't want to be in the way.” She seemed to be afraid of the group, her eyes as wide as the young boys and sweat forming on her brow and upper lip, which she licked nervously.

  “Don't be silly. You were here first. Not that easy with a young child along, is it? You go right ahead, please, we will just look around.” John motioned the rest to spread out a little, so as not to seem quite so imposing to the woman and the child. Elizabeth and Cecilia walked over and sat down next to the little boy.

  “Hi. I'm Cecilia, What's your name?”

  “Sammy.”

  “Getting new shoes?”

  “Uh-huh.”

  “He's cute. Is he yours, or are you just watching him?”

  “He's mine, he's my son. Why do you want to know?”

  “You're so lucky. I lost everybody. If it wasn't for my friends, I would be all alone now. My name is Beth.” She held out her hand to the woman, who seemed to be calming down a little.

  “I'm Mandy. Nice to meet you. Aren't you one of them?” she nodded toward John.

  “She is, you know, a Wizard, but I'm not. My dad is up north, at one of the Dwarf settlements, but I'm staying here for the school. Maybe I'll get back up to see him one day. This place is a lot nicer than where we were before. People trying to kill us, Goblin raids in the night, it was scary.”

  “Goblins? You mean they're real?”

  “Oh yeah. When we were up there, John and his team came and got us, but he had to go into the Goblins home cave and rescue one girl they kidnapped . . .”

  John shook his head and tried not to smile at Cecilia's not quite accurate description of the events up north. He was sure the kid would be having screaming nightmares for awhile and his mother would not be too happy about it.

  “. . . they left him for dead. He crawled back to the village to get help, almost two miles through the woods. He was really brave.”

  “Is his name Bubba?”

  “Yes. How did you know?”

  “They live next door to us. I thought they were making it all up, just to scare the kids. It really happened and that man really went into their cave and saved her?”

  “Yes, he did. He saved me too and six little kids I was trying to take care of in Atlanta, when the volcano blew. After the dire wolves attacked and he and Joshua fought them off, he brought us all here.”

  The woman stared at Beth like she was insane. “Volcano in Atlanta? What's a dire wolf?”

  John walked over to them. “A dire wolf is a prehistoric animal that the event we all went through has brought back into existence. The dire wolf that we face now is almost eight feet long and three feet tall at the shoulder. The head and muzzle are elongated and hold a wide variety of canine teeth, with the eye teeth or front fangs being almost five inches long. The amazing thing about that rescue was when Cecilia here threw herself between the pack of wolves and the kids, trying to protect them.”

  “Really?”

  “She still has scars on her back from when the lead wolf jumped on her, before we could kill the last of them and get out of there. It was touch and go for a time. You might not want to be quite so graphic around the little one, girls.”

  “Oh. Sorry. Hope we didn't get too scary?”

  The woman put her hand on Beth's arm. “You sure have been through a lot, both of you. It was bad where we were, but nothing like what you went through. We all know that things have been going on, but we just didn't know it was really like that.” She looked at John. “I guess maybe some of the stories are true, then and you really are trying to help. I'm sorry. I've been thinking that you were lying to us, stringing us along for some reason, that you were using us all for something, well, bad. There are all kinds of crazy rumors going around. Do you really use magic?”

  The little boy looked up at John expectantly. John didn't want to disappoint him and held out his hand, palm up. In the hand, coming from the palm, a stream of sparkling light took form and shaped itself into an ice cream cone, with crunchy chocolate coating and sprinkles. The boys eyes got really big, as did Mandy's and even Badger's as John handed Sammy the cone. The kid sat and looked at it for several seconds, then licked it, as though he was expecting it to blow up or vanish. When it just acted like an ice cream cone, he dug in, then offered some to his mom, who tasted it as well and became teary eyed as she handed it back to her son.

  “I have been missing ice cream so bad. You'd think that there were so many other things we need, that I would be more sensible but that was what I wanted more than almost anything.”

  “What's your favorite flavor?” Beth asked.

  “Pralines and cream. It is to die for.”

  Beth held out her hand and formed a second cone, handing it to Mandy when it was formed.

  “I hope it tastes OK. It's my first time making ice cream.”

  When Mandy tasted it, her eyes rolled back up in her head and a small moan escaped from her lips. “Better than sex.” She blushed, realizing what she said in front of the kids.

  The girls giggled and Jenny said, “Don't worry about it. Just enjoy.”

  The Wizard group walked away, to let them eat and finish getting shoes for Sammy. When they left, still eating and waving at the Wizards, John approached Badger.

  “You are a cobbler as well I see, now that I found your shop. We need boots; especially the ladies and we thought we would see if you might have time to make a few pair.”

  “Takes some time, boots. Leather is not that easy to come by.”

  “We brought our own. We have more and we can work out a deal for you, if you're interested.” John laid the rolls of leather down on the table and motioned the others to bring their goods up as well. Badger seemed impressed.

  “Damn, you got some good leather here. Nice, good color, thick too. I can get soles out of this, uppers out of the other. Some of this is garment leather, like for coats and shirts. Tailor shop on the corner might use them better than me. Buckles, hardware, you came prepared, didn't you?”

  Jenny and Beth walked over and pulled John's coat back, pointing at his boots.

  “Can you make us some like these?”

  “Sure can. Take a little time. You each want a pair l
ike that?”

  “You might want to make two pair for each of them.” John held his foot up, so it could be seen better.

  “You sure? Kids grow pretty fast, you know.”

  “I'm sure. These kids will wear them out fast. If they don't, we can always pass them on. How do we pay for them?”

  “What do you have? I can take some leather, but it takes more than just leather to make things and I can't eat this stuff. Well, actually I can, but it tastes like crap.”

  The girls chuckled at that, then John said “How about one of these golds a pair?” John held out his hand, showing Badger about eight small gold coins. “This would just be the down payment, of course. I can pay in silver and copper as well, if you need smaller coin.”

  “Golds good. I was wondering when somebody was going to get money going again. Makes things a lot easier. Price is fine and I will take it in silver and copper too. I gotta be able to make change, I guess. Anybody else got coin yet?”

  “You are the first. We will be paying the troops soon enough and buying supplies from people. We will make sure it gets into circulation.”

  “I need to measure some feet then. You all have a seat and take off your shoes and we can get started.”

  After about an hour, all feet were measured, designs settled on and they left, heading for the tailors. When they got there, the coats were ordered, coins offered as well as garment leather and metal trinkets to attach to the coats. Colors were simple, black or brown. When that was done, they walked through the town, looking at everything.

  Notebooks were flourished and pencils scribbled. The rest of the day went about the same and as they walked through the small settlement, they observed the people and talked to everyone who didn't duck or hide. There were quite a few who hid, more than they were comfortable with.

  They stopped and visited with Beth's kids, who were now in a house with the other kids without families. Three couples lived there and took care of twelve kids, from three to nine years old and they had a lot to talk about with the group from the castle. The list grew longer fast. Toys, soap, diapers, shoes, books for reading and coloring, crayons for the same and on for almost an hour. John promised that he would get toys and books for them, diapers would take some searching, as he couldn't remember the last time he had seen cloth used for that purpose and crayons were, well, he would search. Shoes were not hard, simple moccasins being the easiest with some still in the storeroom they had hit earlier. Joshua and John compared notes and laid out a plan of attack for the town, while Beth, Jenny, Tricia and Cecilia played with the children. Christine came out, talking to one of the women and finally joined John and Joshua.

  “I actually know her. She was a teacher for awhile, in first grade at my school, but she was laid off last year. I hadn't seen her since. They could use more of everything and I told her we would do our best. I gave her the golds you gave me. Is that alright?”

  “Yes, it is. People like these need to be supported by the Crown. I will have to have someone in charge of things like this, Department of Child Care, Orphanages and Work houses, something.”

  “The Crown? Are you going with the Kingdom, a monarchy?”

  “I think it could work, a constitutional monarchy. I'm still not completely sold on it, but we need something. I think that the council we set up has the best people in the settlement. We like people, we care what happens to them and we want to help. We have to succeed and I'm afraid to stop trying.”

  Joshua slapped his shoulder. “You're preaching to the choir, you know.”

  John looked at the people around him and they were all nodding. “No matter what form it takes, you're in charge. You were the catalyst for all this and you've been leading us from the beginning. You're not a control freak, you're not unreasonable, you listen to your advisers, you take suggestions and you find people who know to do things. Then, you actually get out of the way and let them do those things. You encourage everyone to do what they can. You do dress funny.”

  “True.” Jenny had joined them as well as the other girls. “At least he doesn't keep too many secrets. Anymore. You even listen to us brats and spoiled little rich kids. I guess you're OK.”

  “Gee, thanks. I'm underwhelmed by your enthusiasm. Choir. We have people who were asking about churches. We didn't find any Pastors, Priests or Rabbi's. We didn't find many churches that were still standing.”

  “We didn't find many buildings of any kind still standing, not in one piece. It's getting worse, too. The process that started this has weakened all structures and everything is falling down. Is that why you spent so much time removing everything from the plateau?” Tasha asked.

  “Pretty much. We needed open land to farm and clear areas to build on. I figured it would be best to do a clean sweep. It gave me a chance to work on the soil, too. I was able to transplant a lot of trees and plants from the north down here, since the gloop and the cooler weather were killing off all the tropical stuff. Thanks to our Elves, we will have a nice hardwood forest in a few years. I just hope we can figure out what to do with all the gloop we pulled out of the soil and water. It's really starting to pile up and we don't need to store it forever.”

  John's notebook was out again. “We need to get more notebooks too. I only have a few left and this one is getting full. Playground equipment, swings, slides, monkey bars, that kind of stuff. Most of that are metal pipes, so we can make that easy enough. We need a city park, too, for ball games and picnic areas, swimming hole. Survival isn't enough; we need to have a life, a life with some quality to it. Kids need to play, adults need to relax after a day’s work and nobody needs any more stress or fear. We need to move around out here more often, so these people get used to seeing us and our magic. We can get the material for the playground and actually build it here. We can do the same thing at the park, let them watch us work, building something for them. Anybody know any bartenders or chefs?”

  No one did and pencils scratched again. People around them moved along side them, at a safe distance and listened as they talked, nodding and speaking quietly among themselves as they heard the plans and hopes expressed by the Wizards.

  “Let’s go visit Gracie for a few minutes, then get dinner. We can continue this with the council later, but keep thinking about getting this town up and running the way it should be.”

  Gracie and Bubba were glad to see them and Mandy was there, with her son Sammy. They all talked for a while and when the Wizards left for dinner, the neighbors around Gracie and Bubba were a lot friendlier. Dinner was stew and it was good, with fresh crusty bread to dip and even ice tea.

  The meeting after was short, but productive. Three teams would leave in the morning, one for the mint, one for Ft Knox and one for pipe and playground equipment. Other teams already doing recovery work would have a few things added to the growing list of needs, and then everyone turned in.

  There was a knock on the door, and General Clark yelled 'Enter', a little louder than needed. His aide Lieutenant Morrison came in and saluted.

  “What!”

  “Aircraft sighted, coming from the south. Small and of an unknown type. I've alerted Captain Malachi.”

  Clark stood up and headed for the door, grabbing his helmet on the way out. It wasn't the Kevlar he had worn for years; all of those had disintegrated along with almost every usable piece of equipment on the base. Armor, rifles, radios, vests, even uniforms, anything with synthetic materials was now useless junk. He had nothing left on the world’s largest armored training center to defend it with except knives, clubs and fists and now he had aircraft approaching. “How many?”

  “Just one, so far, Sir. It moves funny and has no wings.”

  “What do you mean funny? Details are important, explain.”

  “No visible means of propulsion, no wings, no propeller, no jet intakes, no rotor, just a long body that looks like a water tank and two outriggers with pods on either side. There.” The Lieutenant pointed into the sky and handed the general the only w
orking binoculars on the base. They were antiques, brass, leather and wood with glass lenses. Using them Clark could see clearly what he would have described as a UFO earlier in his career. “What the hell is that?”

  “I don't know Sir, but it's landing here. We might want to move back to the sand bags.”

  “No.” General Clark saw no reason to move. Whatever it was, with everything else that had happened, good or bad, he would meet it where he stood.

  The airship landed, the door opened and an army Colonel marched up to General Clark and saluted.

  “Sir, Colonel James Davis, US Army, National Guard.”

  The General was quick on the uptake and didn't blink an eye. He returned the salute, made the appropriate introductions of his officers present and waited.

  Colonel Davis turned and motioned to the airship. “If I may, General, I would like to introduce the relief team and our commanding officer.” John and Johnson exited the ship, along with Corporal Milton and five soldiers, all carrying funny looking rifles. John approached and Colonel Davis made the introductions. The General didn't salute and neither did John.

  Colonel Davis looked back and forth and finally said, “He outranks you, General Clark.” Clark stared him down.

  “He isn't in uniform and I have never heard of him before. I've never heard of you before either. You, it is quite likely I wouldn't know, but I know the names of all the officers above me and most of them personally. We don't have that many Generals, you know.”

  “General Clark, you don't have any Generals, except you. I don't have any either, except you. At this time, I am running what's left of the country and you are needed badly. I have almost six hundred civilians and two hundred troops in a secure location and more civilians coming in almost daily. I have airships, weapons, scientists and working technology. We have farms starting up, livestock, schools and some small semblance of a community forming. We have located and are in contact with forty seven groups who are also trying to rebuild something out of this mess. There aren't many people left in this country and the numbers are shrinking every day. I need trained officers and skilled people in every category, or we, the Human race, are finished. Whether you choose to salute or not is irrelevant, because this base and its resources are now under my command and my control. If you wish to be a part of this command, say so. Otherwise, get out of my way.”

  Clark looked him in the eye. “How do I know you're not full of shit? I grant you, that the airship works, but it could be a balloon for all I know. How do I know those weapons work? They don't look like anything I've ever seen before.”

  John pulled a Colt automatic from his back belt. “Ever seen one of these?” He held it out over his head and fired off the entire magazine, then reloaded and hit the thumb safety, before putting the pistol back in his belt. John turned to the soldiers and nodded. They lifted their energy weapons and let loose a one second burst into the air. John turned back to Clark.

  “Now you know I'm not full of shit. Why don't we go to your office and we can lay things out for you. Give you a chance to see what we are up against, before we clean out the gold vault.”

  “Before you what?!”

  “We are not here on a social call. We need to finance the recovery and we can't do it with paper.” John held up a coin. “People will take these, gladly, but paper money is used to wipe with or start fires. It has no value anymore. I need gold, silver and copper to get the economy going again and you have at least one of those in large quantities here.”

  “Even if I wanted to help you loot the vaults, I couldn't. I wasn't part of that, so I have no access. No keys, no combinations and no equipment or explosives to open the vaults. Unless you've got something stronger than that .45 or those rifles, you won't get in.”

  “I have something in mind.” John's smile was more unsettling than anything else Clark had seen in a long time and he led the way to his office.

  An hour later, General Clark and his aide were aboard the airship landing in front of the gold repository. They exited, John lifted his hand and the doors floated out of the way and moved to lean against the wall. Clark raised an eyebrow and looked at his aide. Silently, the two followed John and his men into the vault.

  Two hours later John put the doors back and sealed the vault. He had all the gold he felt was safe to carry aboard the airship and he wanted the place to be secure until his next trip. He turned to General Clark and his aide. “We will be going now, but we will be back. We can use your help and your men, but I know that you don't trust me. So, I will ask you to send someone with me to report back here to you. Hopefully we will be able to convince you of the value of putting yourself under my command. Do you have anyone in mind, should I give you an hour to find somebody or should I just leave.”

  “My aide will go with you and he will report back to me. Lieutenant, pack your kit and report back to me when you're ready.”

  “Yes Sir”

  “We'll give you a lift back to where we first landed, Lieutenant, if that's alright with the General.”

  They all filed back aboard the airship and the pilot, Lieutenant Harding, lifted the ship off, heading back to the initial landing point. They landed and their guests left and were gone about twenty minutes. When they returned, John asked the General when he wanted the Lieutenant to return.

  “How long will it take you to get back to your base?”

  “Couple of hours. Not longer.”

  “One week should give him enough time to find out how much you said was true. That work for you, Morrison.”

  “Yes Sir.”

  “General Clark, I will see you in a week. Hopefully you will see things differently by then. Move out people, we've got places to go. Lieutenant, after you.”

  Clark watched as the strange craft lifted into the air and dwindled into the distance. He was amazed at the burst of speed that took it out of his sight in seconds. If it took two hours to get home, the base could be anywhere inside of a thousand miles. It was too large an area for his people to search on foot. He turned back to Captain Malachi and told him to get the officers together and meet with him in an hour. They had some planning to do.

  Once they were out of sight of the base, the ship headed south, back to the Citadel.

  The playground equipment team was already home, but the team from the mint had not shown up yet. John introduced Lieutenant Morrison around and told the people his purpose for being here.

  “So he's a spy.” Jenny looked him over. “We want a spy here?”

  “He's an observer, not a spy. He's here by my request, so yes we want him here. He is free to go anywhere we let any of our people go and talk to anyone he wants to, as long as he doesn't use force. I will ask all of you to cooperate with him as he checks us out. Do you all understand?”

  Everyone nodded.

  “Lieutenant, you have the run of the place, except the private quarters. I will have quarters assigned for you while you are here. You can take meals either here or the army camp. You can wander about on your own or request a guide, as you wish. Right now, I am going to mint a few hundred coins, so if you, Professor, wouldn't mind, show our guest to the bachelor quarters and let him pick a room. Oh and explain the bath rules to him. I will catch up with you people later.” Everyone left and Professor Johnson waited for Morrison, who seemed confused.

  “You mean that's it. I can just wander around anywhere and no guards, no limits?”

  “I believe that the High Lord Wizard said no private quarters would be intruded upon. Other than that, yes, you are free to go where you wish.”

  “The who?”

  “John. He has a problem with titles and he hasn't allowed us to call him King John. Something about Robin Hood and tax collectors. I am still working on a really good title for him and High Lord Executioner sounds so unpleasant.”

  “Yes, it does. High Lord Wizard, huh. I saw him flip the doors off Fort Knox with a wave of his hand. I see an airship, a water tank flying without any sign of an
engine, so I guess a Wizard ruling a kingdom isn't as insane as it would have sounded yesterday. What can you tell me about how the government works here?”

  “If you will follow me, I can show you to your quarters while we talk. We have a constitutional monarchy in the works. It's not quite in the working stage yet; we're still setting up laws, housing, food, that sort of thing. So right now we have the council . . .”

  Morrison made notes as they went and spent the next few hours filling page after page in his journal. He watched John minting for almost twenty minutes, coins flowing out of a bar of gold. The bar was shrinking as the coins made neat stacks of twenty on the table next to John. When one of the little girls came in and after watching John for a few seconds, started doing the same thing with a bar of silver, he couldn't even write it down for several minutes. How many of these Wizards were there? He walked out with the Professor and asked him. Johnson told him and then listed the names of each.

  “So you have a ten year old girl, a twelve year old girl, two sixteen year old girls and two twenty year old men.”

  “Yes, except that one of the sixteen year olds is thirty two and the other is twenty seven, Joshua is thirty three and John is eighty one.”

  Morrison just wrote it down. He couldn't see why anyone would come up with such a ridiculous lie, so he just nodded and kept going. He met with Suki and saw the power plant, the steam engines, the camp, the soldiers, visited the firing range, tried out an energy rifle and was ready to stop for the day.

  Johnson took him back to the castle, going through the town. They walked and talked to people on their way, stopped in the tailors shop, the cobblers and the cabinet makers, talking to them as well. By the time they sat down to dinner, Lieutenant Morrison was ready to move in permanently. He didn't say so, but he was convinced that they needed to join these people. He asked how many people the plateau could support.

  “We think about twenty five hundred, comfortably. More than that, we have several thousand square miles south of the Citadel that can be cleaned up and made into farms and villages. It's empty land, no people, no Goblins.”

  “Goblins. I saw the report on them, but, well, Goblins?”

  “Why not? Joshua and I are Elves. Oh, John, I meant to tell you earlier, but didn't. I think we have a few more Elves here. Not magic, just Elves. I think Tricia is one and one of the kids that Beth brought in. There are more, scattered around the people in town and some of the soldiers, too.”

  “That's great. I knew it would take a little longer, but I'm glad they are finally starting to show up. See if you and Joshua can identify them and get a list started, we can see what you want to do in a few days, OK. Joshua isn't back yet?”

  “I saw the ship landing just as I was coming in. He should be here in a few minutes.”

  He was and he didn't look happy.

  “Goblins jumped us after we came out of the mint. Gary's dead and two others were hurt, Brown and Gonzalez. They'll recover, but I couldn't help Gary. He took a spear in the face and was dead when he hit the ground. I'm sorry.”

  “I'm sorry too. He was a good man. Does Charlie know?”

  “Yes. I went to her first. She's taking it pretty hard. I got a couple of the women from her camp to go with me, so she isn't alone.”

  “What happened?”

  “We were done, everything was loaded and Gary was looking in the offices for the addresses of other people he wanted to find. He came out the door with a folder in his hand and they attacked. Spears and arrows, first, then clubs and swords, axes. I fired and the troops opened up on them. When they were beaten back, we went and got Gary, but the spear took out his jugular and he was gone. We loaded his body, took off and I flamed the block around the building. We don't have any kind of funeral home or mortician so I asked the cabinet maker to build a coffin for him. Suki will detail people to dig the grave, but we don't have a cemetery.”

  “We do now, south of the castle, the small grove of poplar trees and a meadow, a few dogwoods around the edges. I think it would do fine. I will make a headstone tonight. Do we know his birthday?”

  “Yes. I have it in my records. I'll go get it for you.” Jenny ran out of the room, Beth right behind her, both with tears running down their faces.

  “I'm done here. If you will excuse me, I'm going to see Charlie and ask her about the stone. See if she wants anything special on it. I have some granite I think he would have liked. He was asking about using it to make a patio out in the courtyard, in a pattern he drew up. I'll get with you all later.”

  John left and Christine went to Joshua and hugged him, tears in her eyes. They also left and only the professor and Morrison were still at the table.

  “I think I'll go back to my room, professor, so if you need to go also, feel free. I'm not hungry either.”

  Johnson nodded and got up and left, with Morrison right behind him. He wanted to ask about the attack, tactics, how the block was flamed, weapons, everything. He couldn't, since he was a decent human being, he would give these people their privacy and let them mourn in peace.