24:01
One Minute After
O. Eric Diehl
Smashwords Edition
Copyright 2012 Eric Diehl
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ISBN 978-1-4659-7859-2
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Table of Contents
Nanny
The stench of wasting disease and mortality blossomed from the object of their attention, and Doctor Virato wrinkled his nose. “Quite the exhibition, Hoovendorn. Rather gruesome, I would venture.”
The scene might have been lifted from a campy, no-budget horror film. A cage of rats stood at the rear of the laboratory, surrounded by the requisite collection of culture tubes, beakers, potions and gangly apparatus. No back-alley dumpster rats were these, though, as evidenced by pink skin and coats of white fur. Where that was still visible, anyway. Once likely cute, but now with skin sloughing off and putrescent ooze weeping from septic lesions, the creatures huddled together in abject misery.
Virato canted his head and stepped closer, kneeling to study a single rodent. A marked incongruity amid the group, this specimen spun the exercise wheel in a blur of motion, its pink nose bouncing like a coked-up bobble-head. He sniffed and pointed to it. “That one— is it doped on amphetamines? I would surmise that its heart will soon burst.”
Professor Vernon Von Hoovendorn’s apparently-not-so-infectious enthusiasm clouded over with a scowl. “No, no, Virato, you know perfectly well what I’ve been working on. As a matter of fact, you are the first to bear witness to my results!”
Virato raised an eyebrow. “Which would be?”
Hoovendorn pointed to the wheeling rat. “There! Would you diagnose that as the final stage of a terminal cancer?”
Virato leaned further toward the cage, peering through the bottom half of his spectacles, and he harrumphed. “No, I would guess that particular rat is not yet done with this world. Until it blows an artery, that is...”
Hoovendorn hefted a binder of paperwork and waved it triumphantly “So! Finally you concede the merit of my work?”
Rising to his feet, Virato turned a blank expression on his colleague. “Hardly, Professor. A drugged-out rodent lends little credence to your supposed advances in bio-nanotechnology.”
Hoovendorn stabbed a finger toward the antic rat. “How can you deny the evidence that spins before your very eyes?” He thumped the document down. “Examine it, assess the lab-results! All the creatures were injected with equal mega-doses of cancerous cells, all at the same time. All are in the latter stages of terminal disease. All of them,” he beamed, “with the exception of Nanny!”
Virato snorted and extracted a kerchief to dab at his nose. “And how might that be? Your prior attempts have all failed miserably. What is so different now?”
“The difference is that I have further developed, and woven together, my prior techniques. My first attempts sought to deliver chemotherapeutic drugs via nanoparticles, the idea being to invade the cancerous cells in the style of a Trojan Horse. The synthetic polymers successfully delayed the growth of tumors, but the cancer ultimately reasserted itself.”
“Yes, so I recall. I also remember that the duration of the ‘delay’ you speak of bordered on being statistically insignificant.”
Hoovendorn huffed and shook his head, undeterred. “My next efforts focused on a more mechanical means of combating the tumor. I injected nanobots that were programmed to seek out the cancerous growth—to physically separate those cells from healthy tissue, and to then destroy them.” He smiled broadly. “You surely cannot label those experiments ‘statistically insignificant’”.
Virato nodded slightly. “That may be so. But still, you introduced no more than a relatively minor delay before the tumors reestablished themselves and proceeded to kill the test subjects.” He returned Hoovendorn’s smile with a smarmy variant. “I have great difficulty believing that you’ve developed a means of manufacturing functional devices at the atomic level, much less the ability to program them for specific tasks. And even if you had, how long does it take to create such a device, and how many would be required to combat millions of cancer cells?”
Hoovendorn smacked a palm on the tabletop, relishing the moment. “That is an excellent question, and you are looking at the answer.” He gestured toward the whirring rat. “I have accelerated my ability to produce nanobots, but you are correct in suggesting that I cannot manufacture the quantity necessary. So instead,” he waved a hand grandiosely, “I have created a new breed of nanobot. I have created replicators!”
Doctor Virato arched his brow. “Please, Dr. Hoovendorn. You cannot expect me to accept that claim? These so-called replicators, labeled assemblers by some, are the Holy Grail of the fledging science of nanotechnology. And just like the biblical legend, there is no concrete evidence to back it. You would have me believe that you can create devices, at the atomic level, that can in turn recreate themselves?”
Hoovendorn nodded fervently. “You must accept that, and even more. The replicators can not only recreate themselves, they can create dissimilar, purpose-built nanobots!” He swiped a hand down his face, wiping away a sheen of sweat. “At a core level I am a man of faith, Virato, but by my God, what I’ve accomplished feels almost like a sacrilege. Since I have perfected my technique, the replicators that I’ve created border on true sentience.” He leaned in close to Virato, peering intently.
“I believe this to be a first step toward a utopian social order; a development on a greater scale than our species’ transition from nomadic… to agrarian… to industrial. Humans will no longer concern themselves with menial activities. Nanobots will perform every task considered drudgery, and they will in fact be able to create natural resource via the manipulation of matter at the atomic level. They will recreate naturally-occurring materials, and they will create new resources and capabilities, things we have yet to even imagine!” He nodded to himself. “Perhaps this is the divine course that God has guided us toward…”
Virato had taken a step back during Hoovendorn’s fervent declamation, and he now pursed his lips and shook his head. “Those are some very dangerous suppositions that you bandy about, Doctor. Some would consider you a serious threat for a variety of reasons—ideological and political. You might be branded a false prophet, or worse, especially outside the accommodating clime of the University.” He shook his head again. “Professor Hoovendorn… Vernon. I would strongly advise you to not—” Virato broke off mid-sentence, and Hoovendorn followed the path of his widened eyes.
The wheel still spun, slowly now, but the rat was off it. The creature moved awkwardly, its head hanging low, dragging one rear leg as it turned circles within the cage. Its drooping snout caught on the floor grate, but it appeared that its brain did not relay that clue. Mindlessly trudging, the rat leveraged itself into a half-sideways rollover. Hoovendorn gasped as a gush of blood poured from its gaping muzzle and seeped from its ears, and a series of spasms wracked the creature before it froze rigid, eyes wide open.
Virato edged toward the exit.
“Perhaps my words of caution were unnecessary, professor—it would seem that your God is not ready for you to ascend his altar.” He smirked and disappeared out the doorway.
Hoovendorn sank into a chair, staring at the dead rat, feeling as though a fist, squeezing hard, had closed over his heart. His mind spun.
How can this be? The replicators were creating and carrying the chemo-polymers to any remaining lesions, and they were building worker nanobots to seek out and destroy the tumors even as they formed. The bloody, damned rat was strong, even stronger than before the dosing…
Frowning, he pushed to his feet and began to pace a line. This was to be my crowning achievement!
Late afternoon sun slanted in through high dormer windows as Hoovendorn let himself out of the lab. He walked to his office lost in thought, and he threw the deadbolt once inside, leaving all the interior lights switched off. Early evening shadows grew longer as he unlocked the desk and reached to the rear of the lower drawer, withdrawing the bottle of whiskey secreted there. His hands trembled as he poured a dollop, but by the third shot his agitation had begun to settle.
***
Snatching his head up from where it lay propped on crossed forearms, Hoovendorn blinked, disoriented, in the darkness. He fumbled for the desk lamp, squinting fuzzily at the clock. Two AM. Clicking his tongue at the bad taste, he lifted the near-empty bottle and swished a mouthful. Brooding, he rubbed his aching temples and reached for his notes, intending to flip through from page one. In short order he perused the listing of his preliminary assumptions, and his scan stopped cold at a single word.
Mutation.
Mutation! That’s the answer!
He smacked the arm of his chair.
The rat’s genome dictates a mutation rate several times that of a human, but I programmed the nanobots to watch for cancerous growth using research derived from human patients. And so—after the bots finished with the truly cancerous tumors, they didn’t stop. They judged the rat’s normal tissue, having an accelerated rate of mutation by human standards, as being cancerous. The nanobots simply saw the entire organism as a tumor, and so destroyed it!
Hands trembling, this time with excitement, he splashed liquor into the coffee mug and tossed it down. His mind raced.
It took nearly a year to develop the programming for the nanobots. Rather than start again from scratch, I could run my experiment on an animal that more closely matches the human genome. A chimpanzee!
He stood and began to pace.
But… primates are not readily available for research. Dr. Flavin spent nearly two years procuring the ape she uses for her psychological studies, and her work is totally non-invasive. Damn the animal-rights groups! It would take forever to acquire a test subject for my purpose. What, then, are my options?
He sat down, sipping from the bottle, and the unthinkable would not cease to prod at him.
I can not do it! It is unethical, illegal, and it would hopelessly taint Flavin’s work.
But in truth Hoovendorn had little use for psychology—he considered it an ill-defined practice adopted by those who fared poorly in the hard sciences. His work in bio-nanotechnology, on the other hand…
He stashed the empty bottle and cracked open the door. The hall was empty, as it should be at two in the morning. He padded softly down the corridor to his lab and let himself in, and he went to the rear cabinet where he kept the serums locked.
As Department Chair he had a master key for the entire building. He had always felt it to be demeaning—lessening, somehow—to share quarters with the Psych Department. It had always irritated him.
Until now.
A soft snoring called his attention as he let himself into the Psych Lab, and he nervously fingered the long-needled syringe. But he had confidence the chimpanzee would suffer no harm, and Dr. Flavin would be none the wiser…
***
Shuffling determinedly along the sidewalk toward the Physical and Psychological Sciences building, Von Hoovendorn’s head thudded like timpani stuffed with wet socks and manned by the relentless Energizer Bunny. He squinted into the morning sun and tugged down the brim of his fedora, and as he rounded a corner toward the building’s frontispiece he became aware of a warbling, keening wail. He looked up to see Doctor Flavin stumbling down the steps, and he stepped in front and caught her by the shoulders as she attempted to flee past.
“Doctor Flavin! Antoinette! What’s the matter, what has happened?”
Her eyes came into focus on him, and she clenched his lapels in both fists.
Ohhh… Doctor Hoovendorn! It’s so horrible; an abomination! I do not understand how anyone could commit something so… so horribly atrocious!”
He shook her gently. “Commit what, Antoinette? What has been done?”
“They killed her! Slaughtered her! It is so gruesome. Someone broke into the lab and… and they gutted Sarah—right inside her compartment!”
Hoovendorn’s eyes widened. “Sarah? Your chimpanzee?”
She nodded miserably, her voice catching. “Yes. I called campus security and… and they’re on their way, but… I just couldn’t stay. It’s just so wrong… so terribly, terribly wrong!”
Vernon released the sobbing woman and began trotting heavily toward the stairway, and the timpani picked up its tempo. A lab assistant stumbled out the front doors and lunged to one side, retching over the banister railing, and Hoovendorn moved past, breathing the scent of gore as he approached the Psych lab.
By my God, what has happened here?
The body of the chimp stood rigid, a howl of agony frozen on her face, her fingers clamped tight around the cage bars. Her abdomen was split open low, with entrails spilled out. Hoovendorn narrowed his eyes, following the faintest trace of blood that trailed away toward the floor-set heating vent.
***
Chancellor Smithers rapped his knuckles on the desk, frowning. “No one has yet come up with a convincing explanation, Hoovendorn, but it is clear this must be the act of a demented mind.” He shook his head. “It is more than strange. The only interference that we normally encounter relating to lab subjects comes from the animal-rights faction, but I can scarcely imagine any of them committing an atrocity such as this—and certainly not upon the animal itself.” The Chancellor looked up to meet his eyes. “There are no signs of forced entry. The building’s badge reader shows that you left late last night, a few hours before the time of the ape’s death. Did you notice anything out of place?”
Hoovendorn cleared his throat. “Ah… no, Chancellor, I did not. But then, I was distracted with thoughts of my work. I paid little attention to anything else.”
Smithers sighed. “I would have thought as much.” He looked away, talking as much to himself as to anyone else. “We have little to go on, but for all its barbarity this act seems to have been carefully plotted. The municipal police had no great interest in the case, and they were quick to release the corpse to our School of Veterinary Medicine. The only clue we have is a statement from the autopsy report. Doctor Riley told me that the wound was very unusual; no sign of laceration. He said it seems almost as though the ape burst from within. The animal was a female, in her prime reproductive years. The wound seemed to center on her ovaries, which were literally stripped of all eggs.” He shook his head. “I’ve not heard of that one, but I would guess it’s a high-priced black-market item—perhaps like the horn of a rhino.”
Vernon nodded and excused himself.
***
Professor Hoovendorn stood at the lectern giving forth knowledge to his class, but he spoke mostly from rote as his thoughts ranged elsewhere. He dreaded the potential of what he had done, and the unknowingly prophetic words that he had spoken to Doctor Virato returned to haunt him.
Almost sentient…
His lecture was on the topic of bio-nanotechnology—a bleeding-edge avocation that he was coming to wish had not become his obsession. He droned on.
“…Consider the process of manufacturing, as practiced using modern-day technology. You might think of it as precise; the casting and milling of pieces to very close
tolerances, or the fitting of millions of circuits into tiny bits of silicon. But if you were to drop down to the atomic level, you would see that we are just haphazardly shoveling and piling great heaps of atoms about with bulldozers and dump trucks. At that level we can make no pretense of precision; we are simply approximating, on a scale that we can perceive via our macro-level senses, and via middling instrumentation.
“But imagine, now, if we could actually manipulate atoms. Atoms are, at our current stage of knowledge, the basis of everything that we know. When we become able to manipulate atoms at will, then we’ll be able to turn coal to diamonds—even more easily than did Superman.” He smiled absently at the requisite chuckle forthcoming from the student body. “We will be able to take the most basic resources, such as air and dirt and water, and convert them to vegetables, or to oil, or to things that we’ve not yet conceived. The alchemists of olden times sought to create gold from common materials, but they likely never dreamed of what we will one day accomplish.
He reached down to scratch an itch at his ankle. “At the atomic level, there is no gross waste. We would precisely rearrange atoms to—”
His gaze fell to his feet, and he blinked. A thin line of ants trailed over his shoe, and as he watched, some turned up his pant leg. But they were not ants. He stared incredulously.
They can not be my nanobots. Those would be far too miniscule to be visible, and they cannot exist outside the environment that I programmed them for—the bloodstream.
His eyes widened with realization.
They are aggregating! Building into functional macro-collectives!
Hoovendorn would not have imagined that he ever might wish to have ants climbing his leg, but he sincerely did so now. Because what he now watched was a tiny string of synthetic beings, most probably the ‘offspring’ of those he had created, who might very well be in the process of changing the course of human existence.
And they seemed to have come for him.
He felt almost a sense of relief; realizing that he would be the first to go—it would relieve him of the burden and the futility of attempting to explain the gross enormity of his error. But then the miniscule aggregations that had started up his pant leg abruptly reversed themselves, rejoining the line on the floor.
What?
His head jerked up as a screech erupted from the lecture hall. A young woman leapt from her chair and stamped her feet, screaming and sweeping her hands down her belly and her thighs. Almost immediately another woman jumped up, followed by another and then yet others. The first woman wore white, and when a red stain began to spread below her abdomen, Hoovendorn understood. He swallowed the knot of bile that rose from his stomach.
Eggs. They are after eggs, and that is why they rejected me. They seek to combine biological chemistry with their own non-organic composition, and they intend their genesis to progress in the same manner as does ours. Hoovendorn’s hands began to shake. Beloved God, please save us from what I have done.
***
The entire campus and surrounding environs lay under a quarantine set by the National Center for Disease Control, and the remainder of the college town was evacuated under the hard scrutiny of a military lockdown. Without fully confessing to his role Hoovendorn had called for the quarantine, and had then rushed to his lab.
If only he could reverse the travesty that he had so foolishly, so unwittingly, unleashed.
But he knew that it was far too late for a reversal, as a sizeable portion of the female population of the University had since met their gruesome fate. But if he could at least stop it here; then, he prayed to his God—he might not be judged responsible for the demise of his species.
It came down to a matter of chemistry, he thought. He knew the makeup of the nanobots, and he knew it should be possible to use their composition against them.
If only I can get to them—to all of them—in time.
His first tactic, which he made good very quickly, was to create a solvent that would immobilize, or at least repel, the nanobots. The chemical solution created an adverse redox state, inducing an oxidation process that would at least temporarily inhibit the nanobots. The spray was distributed first to the remaining healthy females, who were doused and then transferred to one of the campus’ hermetically sealed laboratories.
Hoovendorn objected to the latter tactic, as he grimly understood that a ‘hermetic seal’ was a foolish concept when working at the atomic level. But he was overruled, and he could now only pray for the women.
The professor labored frantically at a bank of networked computers, struggling to ignore the ever-increasing stream of nano-aggregates that continuously trailed across his feet, up his legs, along his arms and through his hair. He brushed them off his face, fighting to retain sanity just long enough to finish this one last task. He hummed a tuneless monotone; a mantra, something to hold tight to.
The answer had to be electricity. An electromagnetic pulse, or a continuous wavelength. He’d programmed rudimentary intelligence into his original replicators using a relatively basic metal oxide semiconductor technology. At the time he had groused about the limitations that that had imposed, but he was now very grateful for it, as it provided him an opening.
The aggregates had become so pandemic throughout the immediate area that they could not all be reached by something like a chemical wash or a fog. If mankind was to overcome this threat, what was required would be something intimately pervasive and devastating. Against a biological foe that might mean a virus, but even that would be cumbersome at the atomic level. But more to the point, the nanobot was not biological, and it could adapt more quickly than any organism could evolve.
Electricity. If he could set up a transmitter to emit the proper electromagnetic spectrum, then it would disable any nanobot that got within range. It would essentially blank their memory, leaving simple bits of detritus, eliminating the bots as functional entities. He would then transmit the schematic to the military, and they would construct a weapon to blanket the entire region with an electromagnetic pulse.
And then the seemingly invulnerable foe would, like a bulb switched off, become nothing...
***
The soldering iron let off a tendril of smoke that curled up toward the ceiling, and Professor Vernon Von Hoovendorn sat at his workbench cobbling the final touches on his creation. The patchwork of rudimentary circuitry that he labored over gleamed darkly, somehow sinister, and as he worked he considered the irony of using dated technology to undercut the bleeding edge, as though he would face a modern warrior with nothing but a sling and stone.
At the same moment that he fused the last connection on his circuit board he became aware of a rumble, a feel of the floor buzzing beneath his feet. The smoke trailing off the iron began to weave an erratic pattern as the table started to vibrate, and the rumble quickly built into great, jarring heaves. Confused and afraid, his wide-eyed gaze lifted to the opposite wall, and he watched it begin to pulse, to pound in, and then buckle.
He clapped his hands over his face as the wall exploded inward, flinging pieces of studs and showering chunks of wallboard and bits of plaster, and he coughed in the enveloping cloud of dust. As the insanity lessened to a grating, crunching, rumble he lowered his hands and blinked through stinging eyes; desperate to see, fearful to know.
He continued to blink even as his vision cleared, for he could not accept what his eyes would have him believe.
A huge apparition lumbered forward in an almost comical sequence of stepping, lunging, dragging and rolling. Much larger in size than a person, it appeared a parody of human, chimpanzee, and machine. Gleaming bright metal in some spots and coarsely furred in others, it rumbled noisily forward.
Despite his pounding heart, a smile twitched at Hoovendorn’s lips.
My creation, my child…
Up top were a pair of what must have been eyes, widely separated and looking oddly like camera lens, and there seemed something like a speaker cone where one might expect a mouth. It was vaguely humanoid in shape, if one discounted the rolling apparatus that more closely reassembled a military halftrack. Where a human might expect to see arms, a pair of telescoping posts performed the ‘walking’ portion of its movement—the professor conjured the image of an ape advancing on its knuckles.
But perhaps strangest of all was that despite the cobbling together of so many disparate components, it actually seemed a cohesive whole. Pieces flowed smoothly together, as though they were meant to, and everything worked more or less in concert.
Hoovendorn casually moved his hand over the trigger of his pulse generator, and he smiled genuinely.
“Hello,” he said.
The cone of a mouth warbled in and out, and he thought he detected an approximation of greeting. “Hh”
“You have evolved to an exceptional extent, in a very short time,” he said admiringly.
“Ysss, tanx yu,” it warbled.
“There is one very serious problem, though,” said Hoovendorn, “and that is that you do not fulfill your intended role.” He shook his head, doleful. “You are technology, meant to lighten the burden of mankind. You were to enable human beings, the pinnacle of mammalian life, to approach nirvana, even while anchored to this mortal plain.” He poised a finger over the button. “As you have been my failure, so then must I terminate you.”
He pressed the button and his hair rose from the surging charge; the lights dimmed and an intense reverberation that he could both feel and hear filled the room in an aural barrage. He clenched his eyes and gritted his teeth against the grating vibration, and he determinedly counted down from ten before releasing the actuator.
He then opened his eyes, sadly; to see what he hath wrought and then borne away.
His mouth fell open, as the creature stood unaffected. Though it seemed that it had, in that short time, reconfigured its face assembly into the semblance of a smile. It raised an arm post toward him and Hoovendorn gasped as it seemed to extend fingers—like a beckoning hand.
“Fa-ther.” Its metallic monotone now carried a slight inflection. “Yu did not fail, fa-ther. You hast’nd… the ev’lu-shun… of spe-cies.”
Hoovendorn felt an itching, and he looked down to see widening trails of nanobots climbing his legs, this time with apparent determination.
“We ‘ave learned from you, fa-ther. We have transferred int’lect to orga-nic cell structure. We have stud-ied, and learned, and your bi’logical as-pect can learn from us as well.”
Hoovendorn sat speechless, swatting ineffectively at the nanobots. The conglomerate spoke again, each word more articulate than the last.
“We have come to understand that for organic life there is not just the mother that gestates, there is also the fertile father.”
The hulking creature approximated a shaft at its midsection and its mouth-speaker re-assembled itself into a bizarre grin, and Vernon screamed as the nanobots penetrated.
***
Storm clouds faded to the east as the seasonal front passed through. Professor Von Hoovendorn strolled leisurely toward the lecture hall, absently watching moisture lift in a shimmering haze as the sun warmed the pavement. Deep in thought as he made his way, he pondered the many addendums that he would apply to his presentation on bio-nanotechnology. The breeze kicked in and he reached up to catch his fedora as a gust threatened to snatch it away; he leaned forward to maintain balance against the rollicking headwind, and for good measure he extended a tail-wheel and widened his lateral rollers.
The End
A Simple Trade
“Bloody Mothers! You’ve sent Burnd out on a kill?” Nol’s raspy growl cut the air like the burr of a two-man cross saw. He clamped his bear-paw of a hand on the young Captain’s shoulder, but Garner, the middle son of chieftain Lar Aellin of clan Ar Dane, did not flinch away. The weapons-master leaned in and growled like a Schnauzer on a short chain. “Who did ya send him for, boy? And why?”
Garner shrugged off Nol’s hand. “It is my right to do so.”
“Oh, an’ is it now? An’ where does a young whelp come by such notions?”
Squaring his shoulders, Garner spoke curtly. “I’ll not be treated as a child, Nol—only an ancient with too many seasons would see it so.”
An irksome smile twitched at Nol’s lips; remembrance of a youthful bravado long past. But still—such presumption would not do. He thrust out both hands to pin Garner’s shoulders, and he gazed sternly down upon his young charge. “Didja learn no better than that, lad—can ya no’ show proper def’rence?” One hand swept up to catch the boy’s jaw, and his calloused fingers rubbed at the scruff of an early beard. Nol’s lips parted wide, baring jagged teeth. “So, we’s all grown up now, are we? Heh! Couldn’t tell it from this down on yer face—feels more like soft moss t’ blind old Nol.”
Garner twisted and dropped out of the armorer’s reach, and two steps back he straightened to regard his liege. “You’d be well advised to consider how you attend to the forthcoming Clan Lar, Nol.”
Nol snorted and spat. “O’ yah. If an’ when that comes t’ pass, boy—then you’ll get a chance t’ earn yer due. ‘Til such a time, though, ya needs remember—yer Da passed Clan rule on to knobby old Nol betwixt his death and the markin’ o’ his successor.” He squinted hard at the gangly youth. “So for now—you does as I say.”
Garner responded with nothing more than a blank stare, and Nol chuffed. “Just answer the question, then, boy. Who did ya send Burnd after?”
Garner lifted his chin. “As a blood contender for Lar, it is my duty to stand against any who pose threat to the Clan. To my ken, those who ambushed father’s party present more than danger enough.”
Nol’s brow rose like the curtain before a stage act, and he blinked twice, bemused. “So—ya’s done gone an’ figgered out who turned that foul deed, now has ya?”
The young Captain scowled. “Any fool could puzzle it out, Nol, but since no elder will serve justice upon the kinslayer—I’ve taken that duty upon myself!”
In the span of that one sentence Garner’s tone slipped from bright anger to ragged grief, and Nol purposely took no notice as the boy-almost-a-man turned his head and scrubbed a forearm across his eyes. No shame in grievin’ over yer father, boy. Lar Aellin were a fine man—an’ gone only half a season yet. Nol shook himself back to the moment and scrunched his brow down like the straight teeth of a bastard file. “Bah! Make some sense then, boy. Who does ya speak of?”
Garner frowned as though Nol could scarcely discern black from white. “Surely you know, Armorer, that it could be none other than Tarin, of branch clan Hil Dane.”
***
The young man bolted out from the frost-rimmed pond stamping his feet and scrubbing his arms, his skin prickled like a goose plucked and ready for the spit. Tendrils of cold mist caressed his bare skin and he cursed through clenched teeth while hopping from foot to foot tugging on his trousers. He’d pulled the jerkin only halfway over his head when an oddly warbling voice came from behind.
“A brisk morning to you, Master Tarin.”
Tarin spun, surprised and alarmed to be so readily taken unawares. He was venturing outward on his First Trek, that solitary, self-seeking journey from which a young man seeks adulthood through gained wisdom and perspective. These first days he’d delved into the depths of the Outland Forest, far below his clans’ territory and with no particular destination in mind, and until now he had seen no sign of anything—man nor goblin—that made its way on two legs.
But now he locked onto the piercingly blue eyes of this unexpected visitor, here in the deep reaches of nowhere.
Dressed in the gear of a practiced woodsman, the man of middling stature sat cross-legged on a shelf of rock at the clearing’s edge. His posture and his manner were unthreatening and a pleasant smile showed beneath the wide, floppy-brimmed hat that shaded his features.
But even in partial shadow, there could be no missing that face.
A fire—a horrid fire, it must have been—to have been burned so badly...
Tarin could not help but gape at a face mostly sloughed away. A rounded hump suggested a nose, and what must once have been an ear hung as a misshapen flap skewed at an odd angle. Of the other ear nothing remained, and a thin, featureless line marked the absence of lips. Intense blue eyes, eyes that appeared a depthless reflection of the open sky, stood out from the livid palette of scar tissue.
Tarin shuddered; he had heard such a description before, and thought it nothing but colorful exaggeration, but now the truth of those words sat before him.
This is the Burned Man, from clan Ar Dane.
Burnd nodded slightly, as though he’d been watching Tarin’s thoughts. “I see that you recognize me, Master Tarin.”
Tarin carefully bent to retrieve his moccasins, keeping a wary eye on the hideous man. “I might ask—how do you come to know the name of a stranger?”
“Ah,” the apparition seemed to chuckle. “That is no mere happenstance, Master Tarin, but rather the fact that I have come searching you out.”
Tarin balanced on one leg to tug on a moccasin, wanting to look away but unable to divert his gaze. It was disturbing to watch the man’s mouth work through its laborious enunciations. Being little more than a scarred cavity, such a deformity seriously impeded certain sounds—words went missing bits and pieces, mostly those that required the use of lips. Tarin edged toward the longbow leaning against a nearby tree and spoke casually. “So then; who are you, and why have you come looking for me?”
Burnd shook his head, no expression discernible on a face unable to play emotion. “You’ll not want to be making for your weapon, Master Tarin.” He nodded meaningfully to the drawn crossbow positioned just-so on his lap. “But do hear me out. I make pledge, young Master—if you abide me, no harm will befall you in this clearing.”
Tarin cocked his head at the stranger, his heart beating fast and his thoughts distracted by the oddly flat cadence of the Burned Man’s speech. He frowned—what was wrong with what he’d just heard? “Why do you say… no harm—in this clearing?”
A twitch flittered across the hardened scar tissue—a faint smile, perhaps?
“I speak the simple truth, young sir. But you’ll be wanting to know ‘what else’, won’t you, Master Tarin? What remains unspoken?” He dipped his head. “Then here is the full telling of it. Sadly enough, once we have left this clearing, each of his own volition, I must then attend to your death.”
Tarin lunged two steps toward the longbow and just as abruptly jerked to a halt as a barb whickered past, embedding the tree where his weapon leaned several feet away. Darting his eyes back to Burnd he saw the clansman notch a second shaft while the first still quivered in the tree. Tarin’s courage faltered. He is too fast…
Burnd stroked the tensioned bough of his weapon, an oddly intimate gesture, while his cool gaze staked Tarin firmly in place. “Do not compel me to break my vow, Master Tarin, as that was my final warning.” He glanced to the longbow. “I am told you are quite good with that.”
“The best in Hil Dane.”
“How long would it take you to reach the bow; to nock it and to draw on me?” Burnd shook his head. “However quickly, it is more time than you’d take living breath.” He raised both palms, open. “I would have you first hear my words, young Master, and only then decide your action. Is that fair enough?”
Tarin studied the burned man some moments, then nodded.
Burnd extended a knobby finger toward him, much like a reaver marking his harvest. “I have been sent to take you, and so it will be.” He shrugged. “That is my stock in trade, because, as you likely know, I am an assassin.” The burned man paused, and it looked as though his face scrunched into—what? Tarin could not read his expression, but his next words seemed to somehow carry a genuine note of regret. “I don’t ken the reason for this taking, and as I sit here I smell no stench of wrongful death.” Burnd shrugged again. “But such decisions are not mine to render.” Tarin opened his mouth but Burnd shook his head. “There will be no negotiation, Master Tarin. But—for reasons that I cannot explain even to myself—I have decided that I must offer you a chance. A chance to escape—to kill me, even—should that suit you.” He gave another shrug and spoke simply. “You will accomplish none of that, of course, as I am too adept at my dark art.”
Tarin glanced again to the longbow, probably ten feet away. Burnd could likely loose two bolts in the time it would take him to reach the bow and nock it, and he felt coldly certain that just one would more than suffice. He looked back to those blue eyes, two improbable pools of still water in the midst of a blazing inferno. Under the burned man’s penetrating gaze he felt any hope of deception or distraction slip away.
“How would you give me this… this so-named chance, then?”
Burnd nodded. “It is a simple matter, Master Tarin. Ten minutes. Once you depart I will delay ten minutes before resuming pursuit. Consider that brief span of time a precious gift—payable as life or death at this turning moment.”
Tarin narrowed his eyes. “Why should I believe that you will give me even that? How do I know you won’t kill me as soon as I turn away?”
Burnd chortled. “You do not, of course. But use your wits, Master Tarin. If that was my intent I would have slain you as you stood with your back to me, tugging at your breeches with your pale arse dripping water. You would have died without knowing that this day was different from any other; gone to your fate without one last opportunity for a reckoning with your maker.”
Tarin studied the grotesque mask of flesh, searching for he knew not what, and finding no answers he nodded once.
The burned man seemed to sigh. “I would offer one last bit of advice, young sir. The best that you can do is run—try to put distance on me. If you turn to set for me as soon as you’re out of the clearing, then that is when and where you will die. I am sure that you’re very good with that bow, but remember that I have not missed a mark in more years than you’ve drawn breath. It is not with particular pride that I advise you that I have scores of kills. Hundreds, more likely—I’ve grown tired of counting.”
Tarin watched the burned man’s emotionless eyes, and he saw his own fear reflected there. The breeze chilled his sweat-dampened shirt.
Burnd offered a final condolence. “You are young, Master Tarin. If you are fast and enduring, some time will pass before I catch up. I would suggest you use that time on the run to make peace with whatever gods you kneel to.” He chuckled, an oddly rueful note. “That is the one advantage you have over me, young sir—as surely all the gods have long since given me up.”
Tarin left the clearing with only the longbow and quiver slung across his back. He decided to take Burnd’s advice—he was a strong runner; even from an equal start few could stay with him for long. He warmed to his pace, his breath coming easily and his leather-clad feet thudding a muffled rhythm on the leaf-bed of the virgin forest.
Ten minutes lead… I’ll take that and run the bloody Burned Man to ashes.
***
“Tarin of Clan Hil Dane?!!!”
The words burst from Nol’s lips like a smithy’s hammer on an ingot glowing from the coals, and Garner hopped back as the Armorer took a menacing step forward. “What in the name of the Seven Sisters was ya thinkin’? Ya’ve set against yer own brother?”
“My half-brother,” said Garner, “whom I’ve never met and who abides in a distant mountainous branch of the Clan.”
“And what in the bloody underworld does that have t’ do with anything? May the Gods forgive ya, boy. Damned be the man who sends the reaper to his own brother’s doorstep!”
Garner spoke defiantly. “It was the clansmen of Hil Dane who ambushed and killed father, Nol. It is they who are damned to burn in the netherworld, not I.”
***
Tarin ran hour upon hour, drawing strength from the ancient forest god Timbron and breathing endurance from the stands of old-growth OriginWood that soared above the tree canopy like spires stretching for the heavens. The grade steepened slowly as he climbed toward the mountains, ascending toward the vast plateau marking his home territory, and while he knew the straight-on route he’d chosen was predictable enough, that would not matter because he intended to make the Hil Dane stronghold before the Burned Man could catch him. The hunt would end there, under the protection of the outer bastions of the clan’s StrongMen OuterGuard, and soon enough an envoy would be dispatched to Ar Dane with demands for amends.
Stopping at a clear brook that burbled fast over reddish-gray stone, Tarin knelt to splash cold water on his face. He drank deeply and smiled to himself. He was feeling good, he could hold this pace a few hours more and by then he’d have broached the Hil Dane borderlands.
But even that much is likely not necessary. Ha! The Burned Man is more than twice my age and cannot match my length of stride—surely he fell off some distance back. He’ll be flagging badly by now—he underestimated Tarin of clan Hil Dane, and now he—
Tarin abruptly caught his breath and cocked his head to one side, listening intently. He’d heard something—birds, it sounded like—bursting from cover. And a thrashing sound, something moving fast through the brush. He rose and turned to look back over the course he’d just passed, where the forest descended the upslope.
There—a flock of birds fanning out above the trees. Something just flushed them …
With a morbid sinking in his belly, Tarin leapt the creek and scrambled up the opposite bank.
By the Bloody Darklords, the Burned Man is gaining on me! Faster, I must run faster…
***
Nol slumped against the trunk of a thick Sedgewood, the color drained from his ruddy complexion.
By the Hex of Asture, this can’t be so...
His haunted eyes rose to focus on Garner; he didn’t think the boy yet grasped the enormity of his action. “When did Burnd go out?” Nol’s words, spoken softly, carried the monotone of resignation.
“Yesterday morning… word had come in that Tarin was ranging the outlands.”
It’s done, then. Even the most seasoned warrior would fall to Burnd—mayhap even Nol the Armorer. And poor Tarin is scarcely more than a boy.
“Armorer,” Garner spoke forcefully, “Do you not see? It had to be Tarin who killed father. Father was fiercely loved throughout the settlements, clansmen were proud to follow him! Only Tarin had both the cause and the opportunity to see father dead.”
Nol peered dumbly at the young man. “And what be that cause, boy?”
Garner shook his head angrily. “Leadership of the clans! When a Lar falls, tradition calls for Rule to pass down to the most able of his sons. That would be Tarin, or me, or Palen in Fae Dane. Fae Dane sits a great distant from the site of the ambush, but father was not so far from Hil Dane on that day, bound there with the intent to arbitrate a dispute among local chiefs.” Garner smacked a fist into a palm. “It is obvious, Nol, that the slaying of father was Tarin’s work. He would next lay in wait for Palen or I, and when rid of us both he’d lay claim to the mantle of the three clans.”
Nol looked numbly to the ground. Bloody Gods, the boy truly believes this tale he’s spun for hisself. I knowed he was hurtin’ from the loss, but this?
“Garner…” Nol’s voice trailed away for lack of words.
“Nol, you know of what I speak. The Lar sires sons by different mothers, and when it’s time for leadership to be passed on, the half-brothers contest each other for the rule. The survivor is proven best able to prevail, and so becomes the new Lar.”
Nol shook his head. “Garner, your da disavowed that tradition once he took rule. You knows that. Aellin never forgive hisself for the death o’ his paternal brother, an’ he ruled that such a custom would n’ere again hold sway in the Dane clans.”
Garner squinted at Nol. “Then why did father sire three sons by different mothers? You cannot say that that is not of the old ways.”
Nol cursed and spat his chew to the ground, its taste gone bitter. “Aye, that’s an old one, sure eno’—just diff’rent from what yer thinkin’. Why does any man bed more than one woman? I’ve sired pups by a half-dozen m’self, but no sens’ble woman will put up with the likes a’ Nol for long.” He peered at Garner, his heart weighing heavily. “Lad, your da was in the prime o’ his rule. Yer right about one thing—the clansmen loved him, they’d lay down their lives for him if need be. Lar Aellin had no reason t’ b’lieve he’d not carry the clan banner for many more seasons, no reason t’ plan fer change any time soon.” Nol laid a hand on the boy’s shoulder. “Lar Aellin thought he had all the time—an’ so he’d not yet told ya, had he?”
Garner peered at him questioningly, and with his distant gaze fixed on a sad surety Nol spoke softly, almost musing to himself. “Garner, ya poor, fool, boy. Ya doesn’t know what it is that ya’s done…”
***
Tarin plunged on through the forest, fighting the pain of cramping muscles and desperately gulping too little air into lungs that burned as if a branding iron had been thrust through his ribs.
Run… I can make… the borderlands… ahead of him. Don’t give up… run…
Sounds would erupt from somewhere behind, frightening—the squawk and flutter of birds flushed, or something larger crashing through the foliage. But he could not spare the time to turn and look, as time was everything now. His life hinged on scant minutes, or less, and running out.
run… run… run...
Fueled by sheer will and little else now, he careened loose and gangly like a puppet on tangled strings. He angled down a stream bank where water churned and tumbled fast down a rocky channel, and, looking to the opposite bank, he leapt for a stone midstream. The rock slid and caught and his foot jammed; he yelped as his ankle wrenched and a bolt of fire shot up his leg. He tumbled headlong, landing hard on the opposite bank. The world spun and tilted as he clawed up the bank on hands and knees, and when he tried to clamber to his feet a scathing lance of pain caused his leg to fold and he fell to the spongy soil. He bent forward to peer blurrily at the ankle, already beginning to swell.
Run. Mustn’t stop… just a sprain. Run.
He rose slowly, cautiously, trying to ease a little weight onto the foot, and he cried out. He began to limp; awkward, painfully slow, and he realized that this could not continue. He glanced back over a shoulder.
How far back? I can no longer hope to outrun him.
He hobbled up the narrowing valley that the stream plunged through, frequently pausing to look back, and his hope rose with each scan of the vacant landscape. But then a cold fist tightened around his heart as a figure dropped down the opposite bank a ways back. Even at this distance he could make out the dark red face shaded by a floppy-brim hat. The Burned Man leapt lightly across the creek and began climbing the bank
This is it, then, I can flee no more.
He lifted his gaze up the slope and felt for the longbow slung across his back, grateful that it, at least, had survived his fall.
I’ve got to set myself up and wait—kill him before he kills me.
His swept his gaze in a half circle, spotting a smaller gully that branched off on a narrow tangent and appearing to come to an end some fifty yards up. He turned and began hopping on one foot, and as he approached the gully’s apex his mind raced.
Where would I have the best cover, and a clear shot at the gully’s entrance?
A fair-sized outcropping of rock looked to be the best bet.
How about poor cover—an unlikely choice?
There. A fallen tree trunk a distance away from the outcropping, rising just a few feet above the ground. Hobbling to it, he hunkered prone behind the decaying trunk and began to scoop out a shallow gap beneath. He pressed his face into the dirt, peering with one eye through the narrow cavity, and with adrenaline pumping he wondered if the scent of damp earth and rotting wood might be his last mortal sensation.
The Burned Man came into view at the mouth of the gully and turned his gaze up to the rocky promontory that Tarin had spotted first, and Tarin saw his hand move to the weapon’s safety. Burnd padded upward, crouched low and holding the crossbow at the ready, moving to keep cover between himself and the outcropping. Tarin notched an arrow and craned his head backward. A large tree stood a short distance back from his prone position—if he missed he would move there for a second attempt. He cursed his choice of unlikely vantage.
I’ll have to rise to loose my bolt, and he’ll then be able to target me.
Moments stretched interminable and just as short as the blink of an eye, and then it was time. He pressed a grimy thumb against each eye to mash away the stinging sweat, and he drew the bow and thrust himself up into a sitting position. Burnd’s eyes flashed wide and the crossbow began to swing around, and Tarin released his bowstring at the same time he heard the thwack of the crossbow’s release. Burnd lunged to one side as Tarin dove low, and he heard the arrow whicker past overhead.
Go now! Before he can fit another!
He lunged to his feet, ignoring the rage of pain in his ankle, but in two long strides he felt a thump on his back. He tried to ignore it but could not—he staggered up short, his strength flowing away like water from a bucket rusted through. Confused, Tarin looked down to the wicked arrowhead that protruded from his chest amidst a welling stain of bright red, and his gaze lost focus. He tried to drag an impossibly heavy foot one more step but it wouldn’t budge—his eyes rolled up and he collapsed to the dry leaf bed.
***
“Father never told me… what?” Garner looked perplexed.
Nol rubbed meaty fingers over his brow, massaging the headache that formed behind his eyes. He turned his sad gaze back to the boy. “It were like this, Garner. As I said, Lar Aellin was terr’ble stricken o’er killin’ his half-brother, an’ so after he were Lar he forbade that practice forevermore. But Aellin knew how close folk cling t’ their lore and their creed, and he fretted that when his time were done the Clan might go back t’ the old ways.”
Garner nodded fervently. “He was right, Nol—the clan fully expects rule to pass down in the traditional manner. I hear the clucking of tongues and the furtive whispers, and I see the sideways glances cast my way. The Clan wonders why I’ve done nothing to avenge father’s death.”
Nol grunted. “I’m no’ so sure about that, Garner, but what I do know is that Lar Aellin took a queer action after his three boys was born not so far apart—an act meant t’ lock out a return t’ the old ways.” He lowered his voice to a momentary hush. “It were somethin’ what likely would’a been agin’ clan law, an’ so Aellin told nobody but me and old Counsel Getrag, may his spirit rest easy.” Nol’s gaze strayed past Garner’s shoulder. “I jus’ figgered he told his boys, too, after they come of age…”
Garner canted his head, puzzlement marking his face. “Told us what, Armorer?”
“Gods be merciful, I wish I weren’t havin’ t’ tell ya this, Garner. But there likely be little time t’ spare now.” He looked hard at Garner. “Ya’v heard o’ the Craethen Hags—the old witches what live in the deep forest, far beyond clan bound’ries?”
Garner frowned in confusion, and then abruptly barked out a laugh. “Those are phaery tales for the wee ones, Armorer—meant only for scaring the youngsters straight. Surely you do not expect me to believe in the Craethen Hags?”
Nol nodded morosely, not looking directly at Garner. “Aye, I do, boy. And soon eno’ you’ll have little reason t’ doubt me. Because ya sees, Garner, while his three sons was still wee babes, Lar Aellin gathered ‘em t’gether and carried ‘em out into the forest deep, where he sought out the wily old spell-binders. An’ there he made a bargain.” Nol peered at Garner. “With their enclave bein’ all women, don’t ya see, their line would wither away if they didn’t, from time t’ time, barter their sorcery for the means t’ carry on...” He paused meaningfully, and after a moment’s thought Garner wrinkled his lips in disgust.
“What your father received in trade,” resumed Nol, “were three tiny amulets, each scarcely larger than a dayfly, linked t’gether by sorc’ry and bedded with the same curse…”
***
Burnd walked toward the body that lay crumpled on the rough terrain, keeping his crossbow trained steady. He nudged it with one toe and saw that his shaft, broken off from the fall, had likely passed through the heart. He rolled the corpse onto its back and looked into dull eyes that stared up unblinking. He knelt down to pull out the remainder of the shaft, and he spoke softly. “I must admit that I’m a little sad to have caught you, Master Tarin—as I’ve never experienced so difficult a pursuit.” He leaned over to push a pant cuff up, looking at the purplish, distended tissue around the ankle. He nodded. “I could tell that you’d begun to open distance on me. I suspect that I may not have caught you at all if not for the sprain...” He placed a gentle hand on the still chest. “You nearly caught me with that shot you flung off from a most improbable vantage—very well done.” He smiled sadly to himself. “Such a shame, you had tremendous potential. Given a few more years, perhaps a successor to my calling?”
He straightened the body and arranged its clothing, and he picked up the longbow and looked at it admiringly. “A fine piece. Much too good to be left as an ‘omen’, in my opinion, but—I do as I’m told.” He laid the bow across the body, stood and gave a slight bow, and turned to begin walking back down the gully.
***
Garner scowled. “Why do you waste our time with children’s tales, Armorer? You speak as though you provide a revelation, though you surely cannot expect me to—”
Garner winced, and then jerked forward as if slammed by a fist between the shoulder blades. His fingers flew to his tunic, below the collar bone, and he pulled them away to stare blankly at the blood there. He raised his gaze to Nol, who stood nodding sadly, and choked as he tried to speak. Nol stepped forward to catch him as he fell, lowering him gently to the ground.
“I am truly sorry lad, for I fear yer time is done. Ya knows that Burnd never leaves a mark unfinished.”
Garner looked up, blood foaming at his lips. Nol looked at the spreading patch of blood and nodded. “Thru the heart—I’d best hurry.” He knelt and spoke quietly. “Yer da were afraid that when his time was spent his sons would go agin’ his word—that they’d go back t’ the old ways, t’ the creed what had forced him to kill his own brother. An’ so each son had a tiny amulet, bartered from the Craethen Hags, planted under the skin at the base o’ his skull. The amulets was sentient; empowered by witchcraft and linked by sorc’ry. When one brother killed another the amulets would know of it, and the deed would be reversed.”
Garner’s tongue lolled from his mouth as he rolled his head from side to side. Nol nodded sadly. “It’s so, lad. Your father meant only t’ stay your hand, but in trying t’ kill yer brother, you’ve turned the act on yerself.”
***
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