Prophet of the Badlands (The Awakened Book 1)

by Matthew S. Cox

  “Althea,” he yelled.

  She stopped, fighting the instinct to tremble and back away from a man with a gun coming towards her. She stood her ground, but stared at her toes.

  “Althea, there you are,” he said, out of breath. “Karina has been searching for you.”

  “Oh!” Althea looked up, all traces of fear evaporated. “I…” She glanced around. “I don’t know where I am.”

  “Come, I will take you home.”

  She took his hand, letting him lead her along the coarse white path.

  “It is wonderful to have you here with us.” He smiled at the clouds. “Do you like it here in Querq?”

  Althea nodded. “Yes, but I wish people would stop bowing to me. I’m just a girl.”

  The guard chuckled. “Aye.”

  After two blocks, Karina’s distant calls of her name made it through the ambient noise. Althea ran ahead, pivoted back to smile and wave at the guardsman, and hooked right at the next street. From there, her sister was visible standing tiptoe on the front porch, her skin dark against a long yellow dress. Althea yelled and jumped; the white of a smile appeared on Karina’s face. Racing down the street, she bounded up the steps and into a strong hug that lifted and spun her around once before her feet again made contact with the painted wood.

  Karina pulled her through the door. “Come on, we have things to do.”

  With the last bits of remaining daylight, Althea helped with household chores. She reveled in the normality of it, despite it being work. As a prized pet, she never did anything but sit there and heal people. Helping out around the house made her feel like part of a family.

  Father waited at the table as it was Karina’s turn to cook, and she began to teach Althea the art of making a tortilla. Later, flour covered them both, and Father’s mood had improved; the life she brought into their home had lifted him out of the doldrums within which he lingered after the loss of his wife.

  With the dishes done, Karina sat behind her on the back porch steps and brushed her hair amid the glow of a lantern and many peals of laughter. After a while, Father stumbled into the doorway, a silent, pointing golem of deprived sleep. Stifling their snickers, the girls ducked under his arm and went off to their shared bed. Karina had given her a white cotton thing to sleep in that no longer fit her. On Althea, it ran down to her shins. She studied it before sitting on the edge of the bed.

  “I can’t run in this.”

  Karina laughed. “It’s not for running. It’s for sleeping. It’s called a nightgown.”

  Althea felt the material. “It’s soft. Like a blanket with arm holes.”

  They both giggled.

  “Hush before Daddy gets mad at us. He needs to sleep.” Karina held the covers up so she could climb in.

  Althea woke with the sun, lying on her side with Karina clinging to her as if she were a large doll. The horizon through the window faded from grey to orange as the sun breached the line of Earth and slid into the sky. Althea clasped her hands over the arm encircling her chest. The thing called a nightgown was stifling, but she kept still, at ease with the loving presence of family.

  When Father knocked at the wall to wake them, Karina stirred in her sleep, squeezing her tight. Althea squirmed at the sense of warm breath down the back of her neck and patted Karina’s arm to rouse her. The girl did not move until Father entered and gave her shoulder a gentle nudge, and both of them got a brief hug as they clambered out of bed. Leaving them to dress, Father caused a clamor of pots and pans as he made breakfast down the hall.

  Freedom from the nightgown came over her like a pleasant autumn breeze. Much to Karina’s discomfort, Althea stood for a moment fanning herself before reaching for her day clothes. Once again, Karina tried to convince her to discard the pile of tatters. Althea put it on anyway, followed by her new white shirt.

  Tightening some of the knots in the leather, she spoke without looking up. “It fits me better.”

  “I have other things that would fit you.”

  Althea checked the skirt, turning in the mirror. “Before-time clothes fall apart if they get wet or if you get grabbed.” She explained how people only wore what they found on scavenging trips, and those who did not scavenge only got what others abandoned or gifted to them, like the chest-cloth.

  Karina pulled her into a hug, patting her on the back. “It’s okay, Thea. I know you miss him, but that life is behind you now. You’re safe here.”

  It surprised her she had not felt like crying thinking about him. At the village, only Den seemed to trust her. Most feared her, the chamán tolerated her, and Palik went back and forth between wanting to kill or cage her. Here, everyone adored her. This place, this family, felt safe as though not even being the Prophet could ruin it. She peered up at Karina, and asked with an impish smile if she ever liked a boy.

  “I was sweet on Dominguez, but the council disallowed it. The boy they said I could marry is an asshole.” She grumbled.

  Althea blinked. The face she made at the literal interpretation of the unfamiliar slang made Karina laugh herself gasping. The attempted explanation of the meaning only confused Althea more and she settled for the simpler explanation he was not a nice person.

  “They tell you who to marry?” Althea tilted her head.

  Karina smoothed her hands over her dress. “There are only six hundred or so people here. We have to be careful to avoid inbreeding.”

  “Inbreeding?”

  “If people too close to family have a baby, it will not be healthy.” Karina described some of the things Dr. Ruiz had said about what happens.

  Althea listened, thinking it fit her memories of malformed raiders and other sub-vocal horrors she had seen. Karina explained that to prevent problems, the Council kept records of families and relations.

  “Oh. Yes. Inbeading is bad.” Althea thought for a minute, furrowing her brow at Karina’s giggles. “What do the words mean on those bits of wood?”

  “Those are their judge-names.”

  Thinking about how battered the blocks were, Althea’s eyes grew wider. “Wow, they must be very old.”

  Karina laughed at the face she made. “No, the judge-names are very old. The judges are not so old. When a judge dies, a new one takes the judge-name.”

  “Maybe a new one will let you wed?”

  “I’m high on the list for outsiders if we get a new man around here.” Karina giggled.

  “What if he’s an asshole?” Althea asked innocently.

  They laughed until it hurt.

  Sounds of distant gunfire sent Althea scrambling and flailing. Karina fell onto the bed, holding her by the wrists. Althea squirmed, eyes darting about in search of a hiding place, reason lost to feral panic. Karina, shocked she had such trouble containing a malnourished twig of a child, rolled on top of her to pin her to the bed.

  “Althea!” Karina’s fifth shout pierced the veil of terror.

  She stopped struggling, breathing in rapid gasps, staring at Father who appeared in the door.

  He reached the bed in two strides. “What happened?”

  Sensing the fight leave her, Karina relaxed her grip and sat up. “Gunfire outside, it scared her wild.”

  “They’re coming,” Althea wailed, leaping to cling to Father.

  “Relax, child.” His hand cradled her head to his chest. “It is just the hunters gathering food. The shots are too few to mean raiders.”

  She looked up at him and then blushed at the floor.

  He patted her back. “Do not be ashamed, girl. You have had a hard life.”

  Father talked as they went to the kitchen. Althea had no idea what “prey instinct” was or why she had it, if it was a good thing to keep, or if she should discard it like the chest cloth. He figured she would grow out of it. The tattered old chair and its blown-out red cushion felt like thin leather over a board. She sat, staring down her legs at the toe-shaped smudges of clean her feet created on the floor.

  It started with the gunshots, a haunting
feeling this would not last. There was no phantom vision like when she dreamed Den would die, just a twisting discomfort in the deepest part of her gut. She did not want to tell them why she picked at her food. People believed the Prophet saw the future, if she spoke a word of this, they might take it for truth rather than her own insecurity. Was it? Would bandits take her away from this place, away from her family?

  “They can try,” she muttered in a cold, stern voice that did not sound like her.

  “What’s that?” Father looked up from his plate.

  Karina blinked at her, having felt the wave of rage. Her voice sounded hesitant, almost trembling. “Are you okay?”

  The defiant mask melted to her usual smile. “Yes. Sorry. I had bad dreams.”

  nocking.

  Father went to the door; the worried voice of another man floated in from the living room. Althea overheard enough to understand his daughter, Corinne, had gone missing and he wanted the Prophet to find her. The two men returned to the kitchen, the guest declined an offer of food. His worry was genuine; dread clung to him like a garment.

  “If she is hurt I can help, but I have not seen her.” She felt ashamed at being unable to offer anything, and lowered her gaze to the table.

  “Prophet, please. You must be able to find her.” He slid to his knees at her side, taking her hand.

  “Sam, if she cannot do anything… You know how stories grow tall.” Father’s voice was somber.

  Althea wanted so much to be able to help him, but could not think of how. Desperate tugging at her arm jostled her, and the agate pendant tapped against her chest. The touch of it made her look up with eager eyes. Clasping it, she slid off the chair and stood.

  “Do you have a thing she liked?” She held up the pendant so he could see.

  The man thought, urgency clouding his mind. A moment later came enlightenment. “Yes, she made a bracelet for her husband.”

  The four of them fast-walked six blocks to a small building made of rough beige stone with large windows. Fading words on the glass surrounded a circle of red and white splotches with a brown edge. One triangular piece slid out from the rest. Inside, brick-colored floor tiles traced a path alongside a counter behind which wide metal doors hung open into blackened chambers now used as storage spaces. A handful of chairs identical to the ones from their kitchen piled against the wall. The floor bore the scars of a dozen bolted-down tables and booth seating, removed to allow the trappings of a home. Rope hung about here and there, draped with sheets to section the large area into smaller rooms.

  At the center of it all, a young man paced a circle, pausing at their approach. Althea walked over to him and looked up into his eyes. As soon as he saw the blue glow, he collapsed to his knees, bowed, and kissed the tops of her feet. She tensed with a startled squeal.

  “What are you doing?” She tried to pull him up by his shirt.

  Father intervened, lifting the man away from her.

  “Praise the Prophet. She has come to help.” The young man, no older than twenty, held his hands to the ceiling.

  She felt awkward. Two other villages in her past had treated her like this; one even carted her around on a hand-carried chair, refusing to let her touch the ground. Raiders had walked right in and grabbed her; no one lifted a finger to protect her, thinking it was her will to be taken away.

  “Get up. Please don’t do that.” She folded her arms. “You don’t have to bow to me.”

  The man bowed three more times, offering a timid apology.

  Althea stepped closer, taking hold of his arm and lacing her fingers around the braided leather bracelet. “She made this for you?”

  “Yes.” He put a hand on hers, holding her tight to his arm.

  Closing her eyes, she rubbed the material, searching for any emotion embedded into it. Her focus deepened and she felt wooziness, then burning as if hot water spilled in her lap. After a flash of light and a vision of brown rocks, the pain moved up into her stomach and grew stronger.

  The hot flash of fever spread over her, followed by disorientation and icy cold on her legs. A sensation as though a sharp stone edge, slick with algae and cold with running water, raked across the sole of her right foot made her whine. A burst of agony went through her shin, a broken bone. Icy coldness covered her, and she could not breathe. When reality returned, she found herself sprawled on the ground.

  Althea gasped and pushed herself up off the floor. It felt like water covered her mouth, and she fought for breath, unable to decide between cradling the phantom cut on her foot or the burning between her legs. Karina and Father each took an arm and lifted her, looking worried.

  “Are you okay? You just fainted.” Karina wiped the tears from Althea’s cheek.

  She had not noticed them; the pain drew them forth without thought. Her mind searched for words but could not speak, feeling like a fish out of water. Father carried her to the tattered green sofa and held her until the shaking subsided. Corinne’s father and husband paced and muttered, exchanging anxious glances.

  Between the secure presence of Father and a few minutes, Althea’s body reoriented itself to the here and now, leaving the vision-senses behind. She smiled at Father, and waved the worrying men over.

  “She is sick.” Althea put a hand over her bladder. “There is fire here. She has a sick and does not know the world around her as it really is. She walks a dream.”

  “Is she alive?” Sam gathered Althea’s hands together and clung to them.

  Althea offered a pained expression. “Yes. I think so, but she is in danger. There is water, very cold water. I think she fell into it. Her leg may be broken.” She tapped her right shin.

  “Where?” Father’s voice came from above and behind, comforting.

  “Shallow, fast water full of rocks as big as my head. Square and sharp.”

  “Corinne has not been missing long enough to get far.” Father squeezed her hand. “I know the place of which she speaks.”

  The young husband started for the door. “We must go now.”

  “Easy, Carlos.” Sam patted his son-in-law on the shoulder.

  “We cannot wait.” He yanked the door open. “She is alone in the river. What if bandits find her?”

  Althea looked at them. Here it was. The reason for the feeling she had earlier. They would insist on bringing her out to the river, out of the walls and safety of this place. That is where the raiders would come and take her away from Karina and Father―and so it continued.

  “Okay.” Althea tried to remain stoic, but her face twisted as tears came.

  “She feels Corrine’s pain.” Carlos sighed, bowing again and muttering in whispered Spanish.

  Father carried her outside. She clung to him, in no state able to walk, wanting to savor her last few minutes with this family as much as she could. Men’s voices shouted in a blur around her. Losing herself in his scent, Althea kept her face hidden in his jacket, and wept.

  She would help this woman whatever the cost.

  Gentle rocking made her look up. She lay in the back of a truck like that awful man had driven, sitting in an open space behind a small cabin. Ten men accompanied them, all dressed in blue jeans and blotchy green shirts. Every one of them carried a rifle, though only two of the weapons appeared to be the same type. One resembled what Rachel called an “M4” but it was a bit longer, the rest had wood parts like the Raiders who stole her from Den. Two other trucks, each with a dozen more men, rode on either side. The second truck carried a machine gun too large for anyone to hold, mounted on a post to which a standing man clung.

  She put an arm over Father’s shoulder, pulling herself up and looking at the ground. If bandits were going to take her, there would be death. Perhaps that is what she sensed; a battle rather than losing her family.

  Althea shivered. What if Father was to die?

  “Calm yourself, child.” He kissed the top of her head.

  “I don’t want you to get hurt,” she whispered. “Please be careful.”
<
br />   He grinned.

  The man next to him slapped the side of the truck bed. “Fernando cannot be hurt. He is too stubborn for even Hell to want him.”

  All the men laughed.

  The water she had seen raced past them, intermittent streaks of brown-green scrub shot past in the beige blur of the dirt. Metal, hot and smooth, caressed her legs with the grit of sand and the wind whipped through her hair. Someone ahead of them shouted, and the truck slowed to a stop. The men got out, but a hand on her shoulder held her back.

  “Wait here, child.” An unfamiliar face greeted her. “We found her.”

  Althea ran to the front of the truck bed, climbing up the roll cage to peek over the roof. Standing on her toes, she watched the men approach a fluttering ribbon of coral-colored fabric in the water. Two stayed in the truck with her, six others surrounded it. She twisted left and right, searching the endless dust, but found no sign of raiders or bandits.

  A wounded moan came from the woman. Althea pulled herself up, beckoned by the pain in Corrine’s voice, but a hand clasped about her ankle kept her from leaping over the roof to run to her aid. She looked back at the man with a hurt expression, trying to squirm out of his grip.

  He smiled. “Calm down, child. They will bring her to you.”

  She clung to the roll bar and tugged at her leg. “They are hurting her.”

  The dry calloused hand held her until the others carried Corrine to the back of the truck and laid her in a puddle of water. She looked to be about nineteen. One did not need to be the Prophet to detect the presence of sickness on her. Bone protruded from her right shin, and she mumbled an incoherent ramble in words neither Spanish nor English.

  Sam held her husband back, knowing he would get in the way. Althea fell to her knees by Corinne’s side, placing her hands with care around the splintered bone; the skin was hot. The sense of her energy flooded Althea’s mind, torn blobs of color where the leg cracked and the bright yellow glow of infection shone from the center. The moaning lessened as Althea blocked the woman’s ability to feel pain. She scooted around to grab the broken limb with both hands.