CHAPTER 1 – Tied Up
I’m not going to lie or pretend to be all brave about it. It is terrifying as hell.
That moment when you realize that your nightmare about a bunch of dudes shooting fire at you, actually happened. It’s enough to make a guy feel like a little kid again, scared of the monster under his bed.
At first, I thought it was a dream. A weird one, sure, but a dream. I saw a bunch of bald guys fighting spiky-backed creatures who had teeth like razor blades.
The bald dudes shot fire from their hands, and when they finished killing the weird animals, they noticed me. Right then, if I could use magic, I’d have created a great big hole under my ass and I’d let it swallow me up.
As the mages approached me, I thought about the best thing to say to them, but no dice. I couldn’t remember what I was doing there, but it didn’t matter. The mages never gave me a chance to explain, and the first thing they did was tie me up.
Man, what a dream. Thank god nothing like that could actually happen, right?
If only I was so lucky.
It was as I tried to push myself to my feet, that I realized another part of my dream was real.
My wrists really were bound. Not just my wrists but my ankles, too. Thick coils of rope around them, tight enough to bind me but loose enough so they didn’t hurt. As captors went, at least these guys were considerate of that.
Okay, just keep cool. Losing my head won’t help.
I brought my surroundings came into focus. It was nighttime, and it was cold. There was a fire dying out nearby, the wood chips glowing red. Nobody was attending to it. I was in some kind of wilderness, lying on hard mud in a place I had never seen before.
There were no buildings around. No roads, no lights, not even a truck stop with a big, neon sign shining above an all-night diner. That’s when you know you’re screwed, when you’re so lost you can’t see a light for miles around.
It was then that I realized a few things.
I couldn’t remember my name, where I lived, or where I was.
I had forgotten my favorite color, how I liked my coffee, or if I even liked coffee in the first place. It was all gone from my head. Poof. If someone asked me what my favorite movie was, I’d just have to shrug.
This was getting way too heavy. I needed to get to my feet and find help. I couldn’t just start walking in random directions, though. That was a sure way to get lost and die of exposure or thirst. There were tons of places in the world that looked harmless but became labyrinths when you strayed off the path.
Take the mall, for instance. Those places are death traps if you let yourself get suckered in. You wander in for a roll of tape and boom! You leave there five hours later, your soul drained, body exhausted, and your wallet emptier than a kangaroo’s pouch after his kids have gone to college.
So, let’s see. Where was I?
Can’t spot anything around. Are there any electricity pylons in the distance? Following those would be a way to hit civilization.
Wait. It was as I looked around, that I spotted something.
Is that…
Holy hell!
A scorpion was crawling up my thigh. Oil black, with giant pincers and its tail coiled above it.
I felt my stomach tighten. My first instinct was to flick it away, but that would be stupid. If I spooked it, I’d get stung.
No, I needed to be calm. So I watched it scurry up my thigh and I stayed perfectly still, and I held my breath until it crawled off me and back onto the ground, where it began to creep away.
Whew. It would have been so easy to lash out, to overreact and get myself stung with a tail full of venom. Truth was, all I needed to do was keep control. Not everything in the world wanted to kill you.
More movement caught my eye now. Figures in the darkness.
No way!
The bald guys from my dream were real, and they were all sleeping nearby. A dozen of them sleeping on the ground, covered by different colored furs.
Who were they? More importantly, who was I? I tried to remember my name, but it was like a hair stuck in the back of my throat. It was there in my mind, but I couldn’t feel it. Trying to wrench it free was the mental equivalent of coughing to clear the hair, but the harder I tried, the more stuck it got.
I felt panic begin to edge into my thoughts, drifting over my mind like a mist. I took a deep breath.
A word sprang into my head; mindfulness. The practice of being in the moment rather than letting your emotions overcome you. I couldn’t remember why, but it seemed important to me, like it was something I had practiced again and again before now.
The technique came back to me, and I breathed deeply, and I ignored my dread and instead I focused on my breaths, paying attention to the air filling my chest, keeping a lazy focus on my breath as I exhaled it.
A few cycles of this and I felt better. Still shook up, but better. Able to think again.
I understood a few things now. The ropes around my wrists and ankles were important. The bald men and women had seen fit to tie me up, which meant these people wished me harm.
Then again, they had taken care to not tie the bonds too tight so that they didn’t hurt me. Most kidnappers wouldn’t worry so much about scratching their victim’s wrists.
Maybe they weren’t the problem. It could have been something else. Something I hadn’t considered because it just seemed crazy, but unless I suddenly remembered who I was, there was no way to rule anything out.
Maybe I was a threat to them, and that was why they had tied me up.
But if that were the case, why were they all sleeping now? Nobody was guarding me.
Could I try and wriggle my hands free?
“Gutuk ma la tye,” said a voice.
Ah. Right.
So I did have a guard after all, and there he was. A boy sitting to my left. A teenager with a bald scalp and a craggy forehead. He had a green circle drawn on it, and he wore a green robe that clung tightly to his wiry body. Just to complete his color coordination, his skin was a deep pond-water green too, and his ears were so pointy that they looked sharp.
Had I wandered into some weird ritual where people dressed up? Maybe a midnight live-action role-playing session?
Or were these guys actors, and I was in a movie with them, playing the part of the amnesiac tied-up guy? Maybe I was a method actor and I’d purged my memories to really get into the part.
I couldn’t see any weapons on the kid, but in my dream, none of the bald people had needed them. Their hands were their weapons, and the spells they shot were the ammunition.
“Agmame?” said the boy.
What language was that? The word sounded rough. Almost Scandinavian, but also like nothing I’d heard before.
“Sorry?”
“Agmame?” said the boy again, this time raising his eyebrows.
I tried to read his expression. He had wide eyes, almost innocent-looking. His body language didn’t worry me, because his hands were on his lap and his legs were crossed, and he seemed curious rather than hostile.
“Agmame?” he repeated.
“I’m sorry, I don’t understand.”
He pointed at his chest. “Ma agmame Kaleb.” He pointed at his chest again. “Ma agmame Kaleb. Kaleb.”
I thought in understood that, at least. I pointed at him. “Kaleb?”
He smiled widely now, flashing pearly white teeth. The corners of his eyes lifted as he showed his joy.
“Kaleb, yap!” he said.
So, agmame means name.
A great gust of wind came at me, the blast almost arctic. It lasted for a few seconds before dying down, but that was enough to remind
me that I was wearing just a thin shirt and trousers.
Another gust of wind blew at me, and I couldn’t help shivering.
“Caild?” said the boy.
“Sorry?”
He pretended to shiver now, rubbing his arms. “Caild?”
“Caild. Yap,” I said, remembering the word he’d used for yes.
Kaleb smiled at me again. He stood up now and he walked to the fire. There was a pile of logs beside it, and Kaleb picked one up and stirred the glowing embers until they grew brighter and hotter.
Holding the giant log that was thicker than his arm, he ran his free hand over it. He performed a series of strange stances, almost like a yoga routine.
The green circle on his forehead illuminated. I noticed that he had a medallion around his neck, made of metal and with lines etched into it. Soon, a deep red light glowed from his palm.
“Hrr-festroi,” he said.
Nothing happened, and Kaleb’s forehead creased. He shook his medallion in the same way a guy would shake his faulty TV remote. Whatever he was trying to do here, it seem to really annoy him that it wasn’t working.
“Hrr-festroi,” he repeated.
Nothing happened. He stomped the ground. This time he almost growled the words.
“Hrr-festroi.”
The wood crumbled into pieces.
Woah!
I felt a flicker of surprise on seeing that. The log had been thicker than his arm, and he’d just made it shatter with a word.
I realized I was holding my breath and clenching my fists now, so I focused on breathing in and out, letting my thoughts settle.
The boy fed his new kindling to the fire, and then he piled another few logs on top of it.
Now he joined me again and he sat closer. That sold it. He wasn’t worried about me. I might have been bound but I could still have headbutted him or thrown myself on him and bitten him, but he wasn’t worried that I would do that.
Then again, did a boy who could shatter a log with a word have anything to worry about sitting beside me?
Helped by the glow of the newly fed fire, I saw the circle on his forehead in better detail. It wasn’t just drawn on but gouged deep into his skin. Not like a tattoo, but as if someone had actually dug his skin away in this moon shape, and then let it scar over.
Another person stirred now. He had been sleeping with all the others way across from Kaleb and me. He lifted a sheet of fur off his chest and cast it aside, and then he got to his feet.
He was much taller than Kaleb and maybe thirty or forty years older. Although he was bald, he had a thick, green beard, and his pointy ears were torn in places. He was naked and anatomically similar to a human male, which was something I hadn’t really needed to know in such detail.
He put on a robe and fastened it. The fire glowed on his face, showing a circle on his forehead like Kaleb’s but gold in color.
“Kaleb,” he said, looking at the boy and me. “Ya si vatch?”
“Na,” answered Kaleb.
The man gave me a stern glance, staring deep into my eyes as though he was trying to bore a hole into my thoughts. I sensed less friendliness from him. Not outright hostility, but I picked up on his body language and expression and I could see he was wary of me.
I also sensed that this man would decide what happened to me. Right now, I needed friendly faces, and my belly was desperate for something to eat and drink. I guessed I’d need a place to sleep, too.
So did I let him make up his own mind what to do with me, or try and influence it? It was risky. One word he didn’t like, and this guy could shoot fire at me or something.
I decided to take a chance.
“Agmame?” I asked him.
I felt Kaleb’s gaze on me now. Other mages from across the fire were staring. Had I just offended this guy? Had I gotten their language wrong?
And there it was. A flicker of a grin. Not much, but I saw the corners of his eyes lift.
“Ma agmame Pendras,” he said.
“Pendras,” I said. “Kaleb and Pendras.”
That would be the extent of our conversation, I realized. He was staring at me expectantly, but what else could I say? I was hardly going to be a sparkling conversationalist.
When I didn’t say anything else Pendras turned away, evidently bored, and kneeled beside his discarded fur cover and started rummaging through a leather bag next to it.
Phew. At least he hadn’t ordered the other dudes to kill me or something. I felt a little safer now. As safe as a guy could be in my situation, anyway.
I turned to Kaleb now. “How did you do that?” I asked him. “With the fire and the log and stuff?”
“Ques?”
I pointed at the log and mimicked snapping it. “That spell…your magic. What is it?”
“Ah, yap,” he said. Nodding as if he understood. He pointed to the gouge on his forehead.
Well, at least I’d learned something else. Na meant no, and yap definitely meant yes.
Kaleb pointed his forehead again and then at the fire. Then he gestured toward my forehead. “Szee?” He kept pointing at my forehead.
I felt a chill tease up my spine.
Holding my breath, I touched my forehead and felt an unmistakable shape gouged into it.
What? Had they done this to me? Had Kaleb and his people mutilated me?
If they had, then it was too late. The deed was done. Just like with the scorpion, I had to keep my cool. If I lost it now, they would lash out, and I was heavily outnumbered. Better to stay calm, win their trust, and choose my moment with surgical precision.
I faced the older, bearded mage now. “Pendras?”
He turned to face me. I pointed at my chest. “Agmame Isaac,” I said.
A few mages had stirred awake now. Some of them laughed, but it didn’t seem like they were laughing at me. More like my attempt at speaking their language amused them.
“E’ agmame Isaac,” said one, grinning.
Kaleb patted me on the shoulder. “Welvorca, Isaac.”
“Welvorca, Isaac!” cheered a few of the others, and it wasn’t long before a cup of beer and a wooden plate filled with meat was passed to me.
CHAPTER 2 – Self-Discovery
The rest of the clan woke up as dawn broke, and I observed them better in the daylight. If you saw them from behind, only glimpsing their robes and the shapes of their bodies, you’d think they were human.
Looking at their faces robbed me of any idea of that. These guys were about as human as the creatures I was 89% convinced the government was keeping in Area 51.
The mages had green skin colored in different tones, with some pond-water green like Kaleb, some a more minty hue, and others like tree leaves. I guessed it must have been a family thing.
Some of them wore earrings in their pointy ears. A few of the men had grown their beards, styling them in all sorts of ways from untamed growths to oiled mustache points. The women were tall and toned. In fact, it occurred to me that a lot of the men were pretty slender and wiry, and the muscles in the clan belonged to the women.
Two things that they all had in common were the medallions around their necks and the different colored circles on their foreheads.
Seeing them, I couldn’t help but think about the circle on my forehead, and the stirring in my gut that said this clan had done it to me.
Mindfulness, I told myself. Worrying and getting mad won’t solve anything.
The thing about mindfulness is that it was invented by a guy who had never woken to find himself tied up by a bunch of green-skinned mages.
Nevertheless, I knew I had to think rationally and not emotionally, so I went through the steps of breathing in and out. When my pulsed calmed a little, I observed the people around me.
The clan was busy now, some of them eating what looked like strips of dried meat, some folding up their furs and putting them in their leather rucksacks, others leading bison away from camp and west to where the dawn sunlight gleamed off a stream.
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They looked like a close people. Friendly with each other, and all of them knowing their own morning roles. They wore tight-fitting robes that looked warm yet light, and many of them had calloused palms from what I guessed must have been physical work.
One of them, a younger mage with leaf-green skin, walk past me and hummed a song that I recognized. The tune, anyway. I listened like my life depended on it, and I swore he was humming the guitar notes of Whole Lotta Love.
Nah. It couldn’t be. It was just similar, that’s all. My mind was latching onto any familiarity it could find.
As well as seeing my captors, I got a good look at the landscape around me. At first, it didn’t show me much. There were patches of weedy-looking grass, but most of the ground was a kind of hard stone or mud, brown in places and orange in others. I couldn’t see anything else in the distance around me save the stream.
It was as I watched one mage leading the bison to the water, that I noticed something.
One of the bison got its foot snagged in a tangle of weeds and couldn’t get it free. It wheezed as it tried to pull its foot up.
The mage stopped. She was tall, and her robe hugged her athletic figure. Although she was bald like the rest and didn’t look so feminine in her body, her eyes gave away her gender.
The purple circle on her forehead began to glow, and light seeped from it and to her palm. She made a series of gestures with her arm, and then she spoke.
“Hrr-cyte,” she said.
A scythe appeared on the ground beside the bison’s foot. It slashed through the weeds, cutting them all but going through the animal’s foot without hurting it. Again and again the scythe of light hacked at the weeds, until finally the bison was free. The mage patted its head and led it away.
Now that the weeds were gone and the ground underneath was visible, I saw a strip of yellow paint.
The kind they use for road markings.
Road markings? Was this Earth? If it was, it certainly wasn’t the one that I knew, unless I’d grown up ignorant of the fact that green-skinned mages existed.
Nah. Someone would have mentioned it.
I sat up. I was desperate to go get a look at the paint, but my ankles were tied by the rope, and I knew I’d fall over if I tried to get to my feet. Besides, although nobody was paying attention to me, I doubted the mages would just let me wander around.
Everything Is Worth Killing- Isaac's Tale Page 1
