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A Far Dark Country

An Erebus Story by Lowell Boston

1

___________________________ Jennifer Quade ______________________________

Night.

The pain...the terrible pain was back.

A stabbing burn against the damp cool night. Jennifer threw aside her sweat-soaked sheets, threw aside the mosquito netting, and raced, flannel gown plastered on sweaty shoulders and upper thighs, to her oaken dresser and ceramic basin. Her pale, thin arms trembled under her weight. Easier now considering how much of herself she had lost over the last six months. Lost weight, lost muscle, and her limbs buckled with waning strength as she vomited up the remainder of her evening meal.

...Better now. The dull burning was still there, but the knotted locking of her bowels was considerably less. Then, dry heaves wrenched her body, scalding her throat, thinning the air in her head, making her dizzy, making her grip the dresser and crumple her cotton doily with fingers as thin as nails, as strong as iron. The spasm subsided, and she sucked in the night’s sweet air in long breast swelling tucks, bringing a stillness to the chaos of colors dancing in her mind. The strap of her flannel gown fell off her shoulder and she caught her reflection in the dresser mirror. Even in the weak moon light she could see her transformation... and was amazed.

She was beautiful.

Her sickness was both a blessing and a curse. Her hand reached up and touched a face, once with fatty checks, now hollowed to a high boned attractiveness and a rose colored hue. Her chin was no longer doubled, but thinned to a sculpted neck line that flowed with waterfall perfection to full, up turned breast. Perhaps the only remainder of her former self. Her hand traced her jaw line to her collarbone, to her delicate cleavage, caressing...

Something stirred.

More than a noise, a feeling in her mind, and despite the heavy rain outside she could smell it. The sour odor of heavy sweat. The stale smell of decay on a putrid breath. Quickly feet in heavy mud, coming closer, predator's stride.

It was back.

Jennifer rushed to the side of her bed, and picked up her father’s rifle. She bent back the Continental steel stock and saw what she knew was there, and what she desperately wished was more. One bullet. One Silver bullet left to defend herself against whatever was out there. A hellspawned nightmare that came to her house every night it rained (and when did it not rain in the Rest?) and would not leave until she fired at its first attempt to break in, dwindling down her supply of Silvers until...until tonight. Tonight she would have to make her final stand with one last Silver.

*One shot is all I need,* she thought. *I’ll have to let it in tonight. I have to face it..I have to get a clear shot.*

Jennifer snapped shut the well oiled stock, making a defiant noise against the night. She sat on her soft mattress and waited. The beast must have heard, must now know that she was ready for it. She looked around at what was left of her room. At what didn’t have a bullet hole in it. The framed silhouette of her parents above the fireplace mantle, her pine rocker with her blue dress thrown over. The one she had taken in to fit her shrunken hips. The books on her shelf...her diary. All these she had missed, the rest of her home had been riddled with bullet holes - Silver bullet holes.

*Bullet holes can be covered with curtains,* said a gentle voice inside her head.

It was her mother’s, and Jennifer tried not to cry. She had to be strong now. The floor boards of her porch creaked under an awful weight, and the smell of market dead fish swam up the olfactory of her mind. She raised the barrel and sighted. The wait wasn't long. The hand of something terrible turned the brass handle of her front door. Turned until it was stopped by the metal lock and the rawhide straps latched across the frame. It turned harder, and something in the brass cracked like a horse’s bone. The latches popped like fiddle strings, and the door swung wide open.

The sound of the rain came in, muffled by its massive form. A dark silhouette made from the stuff of all her nightmares. It gurgled, and stepped into her parlor.

Jennifer fired.

Lightning flashed, and thunder followed.

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2

____________________________ Coran Nash _______________________________

Day.

It was perfect.

Coran traced its line all the way up to where the crows traced circles in the rain colored sky. The Secacus Tree had to be at least three hundred feet high and equally as old. His father was right. This land would do. The youth, more man than boy, patted the neck of his night black mount and stood up high in the saddle. They stood on the crest of a hill affording a view to the distant alkali colored dunes of the Wasteland, and to the Crown Empire, more leagues than a boy could count, beyond. Coran leaned back and sighted the lowest branch. He removed the bola from the horn of his saddle and swung it rapidly until the iron balls cut the air with a rising hum. A confident arm sent the twin sphered weapon on a perfect arch over a thigh thick branch to come falling back down. The rawhide cord he had attached to it ran up and over the branch.

Coran tied one end in a Wayfarer’s knot around the horn of his saddle. He nudged his horse over to where the bola had landed and retrieved the weapon. Stowing it away in a saddle pack on his side, he then took the other end of the cord and formed a lasso loop. He stood completely out of the stirrups and onto the strong seat of his saddled to his full six foot height. He held the cord tied to the horn with one hand and slipped the other lasso end over his hard soled boot.

"Back up Nebula, nice and easy now." The horse obeyed, pulling the youth in pulley fashion thirty feet in a matter seconds.

"Hold it right there, Bula. That’s fine."

The Cavalry horse once again obeyed and Coran stopped inches below the branch. With fluid grace he climbed onto the limb, loosely securing the lasso around a small bough, and pulled an impressive continental steel knife from the sheath under his tanned buckskin jacket. He’d have to watch for deadwood spiders. Coran pressed an ear against the trunk of the great tree and listened. It was nearly a full minute before he pulled back. A face not use to smiling did so.

The Secacus was quiet, with only small things living inside. The force of life was strong within her and Coran would do everything within his power to respect that. He clamped the knife between his teeth and began to climb. It took him a full three minutes to reach the top where the winds were strong and fresh with scents from the sea, and the sun warm on his hair. The Skywatcher smiled again, and slowly rotated a full three hundred and sixty degrees, the view was spectacular.

To the North lay the Upland Mountians, and the Wastelands; the direction he just came from. To the South he could see the contours of farmer fields and gazing lands, roads fenced in with field stones and lantern post, and the winding banks of the Elder River flashing here and there through the thick canopy of the jungle. To the South East and West he could just make out the church spires and Town Hall of Jamie’s Rest, first town off the Wasteland and last town out of Erebus. To the East rose another clutch of mountains and plateaus, the source of the Elder and the regions plentiful rain.

Coran looked back to the North and knew it was time for him to signal Henry.

The young Skywatcher reached into his buckskin jacket, and unpinned his most sacred possession. His High Silver Star, sacred emblem of the Skywatcher cult. It was polished to a mirror finished and the youth angled it up to catch the light, sending mirror flashes deep into the Wasteland.

>ALL SAFE AND CLEAR, HENRY< > FARE-THEE-WELL, SEND FATHER

MY LOVE<

Henry’s mirror flashes were almost instant.

>FARE-THEE-WELL, YOUNG SKYWATCHER< >DON’T GET SCALPED!<

Coran grinned, but it did very little to mask his feeling of pride. Henry was the first man aside from his father to address him by his newly bestowed title - Skywatcher. His full name now was Coran Skywatcher of the House of Nash. Coran Nash to the residents of Jamie’s Rest that he would soon have to meet. Coran flashed his last good-byes to Henry, his father’s High Lieutenant who rode with him across the Waste, but allowed him to go the last thirty leagues alone. The cord was cut, and Coran had to prove himself to be the man his fellow Watchers believed himself to be. Coran repined his star to his vest, and felt the true power of its weight. His hand felt for the deed document in his inner vest pocket. Time to get to town and register. He looked around once more at the Secacus. It would make a perfect observatory. His home. He estimated he could have it built within the next three mon...

Something crashed over the land. An echoing avalanche drawing Coran’s sharp eyes across the jungle canopy. Sky crows shot into the air with agitated cries. Something was disturbing the forest, quite possibly on his territory. The youth made it down to his horse in thirty seconds flat. He sheathed his knife, grabbed his reins and sent Nebula blazing across the land.

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3

_____________________________ Ethane King ______________________________

Noon.

Ethane King was an ugly man.

No matter how many times you tried to look at him, or measure him., from a distance or by the soft light of the moon, he still came out ugly. He came out ugly when he was born, and remained that way to this very day. He had an Adam’s apple so big it looked like a third elbow coming out of his neck. A nose so gross and crooked it looked pig iron droppings from a blast furnace, and a face as ruddy as milk drained oatmeal.

Ethane King was ugly, pure and simple, but not unloved. He was the nicest man in all of Jamie’s Rest, and well liked by everyone. Were he was burdened by his looks...

("Yeah I’m as ugly as piss, but let’s get over it and move on," he would often say)

...he was strengthened by his smarts. He was the head foreman of the Elder River Lumber Company, and no man knew the business of lumberjacking as well as he. Ethane wasn’t book smart, just innately smart, with common sense and pragmatic stubbornness.

He had thought he had seen it all, until he t turned around and saw the young man standing next to him on the pure black Cavalry horse.

"Jumpin’ Joe’s horse shit! Where da hell did yew come from!"

The foreman clutched his heart, and jig danced away several feet, scared completely out of his wits. The young man on the horse glanced at him without turning his head, then hooked his chin in the direction Ethane had been looking. They were standing on the slant of a hill leading down to a winding gully. One hundred yards away, two draft horses were tied to a long chain leading up to the high branches of an elder Cedar Giant. A crew of lumberjacks were cutting up a second one that had been pulled down only minutes before. Other workers were sighting the right direction to pull down the next old growth tree.

Coran pointed to the rim of the gully. Another steep incline that ran sharply up near the working crew.

"You pull that tree down, and the land will slide. Your men will be buried in a sea

of mud."

Ethane looked at the young man wondering who he was, or where he came from. The foreman knew everyone in the shire.

He wore a buckskin jacket with a row of fringe along the sleeves, and rows of hand sewn eyeholes with hardwood buttons up the front. Only the bottom two button were fastened, and through the part of the coat he could see a long cartridge belt strapped across a lambskin vest. Brass fittings sparkled in the light. .45’s, but ones he had never see. Some were longer than others, while the rest were black, or silver tipped, arrowheaded, or grooved with a corkscrew thread in lay, and he thought he spied one that looked as clear as glass.

On each thigh were two well oiled holsters holding Shooting Irons of black Continental Steel and wooded handles. Brass pins and weaves of gold were etched through the weapon. Ethane had never seen the like.

"Hombre, you listening?"

Ethane looked into bottle green eyes under sunbleached hair. A rawhide cord tied a weather worn hat, resting on his back, around his neck. He tracked the youth’s pointing hand.

"What’s that you say?"

His mouth dropped opened. Sure enough there was a deep split in the slope all the way to the bedrock. A split growing deeper with each tug of the draft team. The pit of Ethane’s stomach dropped out. He had been so intent on supervising the pulling of the Cedar without damaging the younger trees around it, he hadn’t noticed the rain soaked topsoil of the surrounding grades. The foreman screamed at the top of his lungs.

"Evan! Evan stop ya darn fool! Don’cha see the hills!"

Ethane’s younger brother (a man not cursed with his brother’s looks) craned his head around to his sibling, then followed his pointing finger. He jumped thunder struck, and screamed at the crew to stop. Seconds later the lumberjacks and their horses scrambled out of the gully.

Ethane rested his full weight back on his heels, and took several full breaths. He turned to the stranger at his side.

"Much obliged, young..."

But the youth was gone, as silently as he came.

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4

__________________________________ The Boy _____________________________

The calf was dead.

The boy with skin as dark and pure as burnt cork looked down at the head with lifeless eyes staring up at the coming rain. Inches of a deflated tongue dangled from its mouth. The black mass of swamp-flies worming out its head, feasted on what surely must be some length of esophagus.

The boy shivered.

Something didn’t just kill the calf, it ripped its head completely off. The boy mouthed the words.

-COM..PLETE..LEE...OFF...-

Mouthed it again, like the portent warnings his grandmother would say to ward off danger. He warned himself not to look up to the break in the shrubs four steps away where the sound of the swamp-flies were their loudest, and the smell was beginning to break.

Instead, he took a small step forward, small and timid for a boy his size. Took another one and stepped in the print. He had just grown into his brother’s hand-me-down boots, and would be out of them in season, but even their size was twice as small as the foot print he now stood in. He had been hunting enough with his brothers and uncle to know what it was, but the size was too terrible to believe...too terrible to be real. They were wolf prints.

-COM..PLETE..LEE...OFF...- worked his mouth again.

He took two steps back, turned and looked at the print again until it was etched in his mind, then turned and ran.

Stickers and burs scrapped his skin, something cut his cheek, and tore the knees of his dungarees before he burst through the thicket and onto farmer Corbin’s field. He fell flat on his face, and scattered the small herd of heifers gathered there. The boy picked himself up, and sprinted across the clearing as fast as nine years old legs could go. He vaulted the field stone fence on the other side of the clearing, and threw himself deep in the gutter grass along the Far Towne Road.

His heart pounded in his chest. His throat clutched at the gore rising in his stomach. Mosquitoes buzzed in his ears, and he nearly forgot his age, and allowed himself to soil his pants. He had never been so scared before. Worse than when they brought his father home with the noose still around his...

He closed his eyes and pressed the palms of his hands deep into his face. He tried to will himself into non-existence, to forget everything he saw, but behind each closed lid was the calf’s head staring back...the growing smell....the sound of the flies.

He counted back from ten slowly as his grandmother had taught him whenever he had bad dreams. He made it to six when he heard the sound. The Shifter was back.

He parted the tall gutter grass, peered down the road and saw the dark silhouette of a horse and rider under the shadows of the arching cedars. The horse trotted into a patch of light, and the boy saw that the animal’s coat was darker than him. The rider wore a buckskin jacket over black denim pants and hard riding boots. His eyes were hidden under the shadow of his brow, and his hair was sunbleached and light.

-STRAIN...JURR...- Mouthed the boy without a sound.

He pulled himself back deeper in the grass and kept himself perfectly still. The fear had never left him, but he was secure in his ability to remain unseen. Even his Uncle couldn’t find him when he hid from his chores, and Uncle was a master hunter. The boy watched as the rider passed by, and he caught the glint of his shooting irons holstered on his sides. Suddenly, the rider stopped, and the boy’s heart jumped. He made no movements, not a sound. How did the Stranger see him?

The rider turned in the saddle and looked into the gutter grass for several untimed seconds, then tipped his chin in a delicate nod.

"How-do-thee, youngster," said a voice young and old at the same time.

The rider drew a sly grin, and touched his shooting finger to his lip. The boy in the grass tensed. He felt the curly hairs on the back of his neck tinge, washing him in a feeling, like the way he felt when his uncle would pull a coin from his ear, or make an egg disappear with his kerchief. It was magic.

The rider turned and nudged his night black horse down the road. Only when the boy thought he was out of earshot did he raise from the filth of the gutter. He pressed his attention up the road from which the stranger came, and furrowed the tiny features of his brow. The rider was coming into town from the North...from the Wastelands. The stories his grandmother told of Demons and Hellspawn from that alkali inferno still scared him to this day. The boy pulled his sling shot from his back pocket, picked up a rock from the road, and dropped it in the pouch. He took aim, stretching the bands to nearly twice their lengths. He could kill a sky crow at fifty yards, and the rider was less than that distance now. It was a sure shot, but his fingers were frozen. His mind would not let go. He searched his thoughts, searched for his reason to kill.

He had never killed before (nothing more than a crow, or a thieving junkamonk), and the thing he was aiming for was a...a...

*A Man* said a voice in his head.

The boy narrowed his eyes and studied the rider. It looked like a man, rode like a man, and as far as he knew, it was a man. Had he been a demon, a Shifter, he would have eaten him. Would have torn his head...

-COM..PLETE..LEE...OFF...- mouthed his lips again. The boy looked at the rider and remembered how he saw him in the grass. The nine year old with the cut cheek and the torn dungarees lowered his aim and looked once more towards the North end of the Far Towne road. Could a man cross the wastlands and live?

*With Magic...* said the voice again.

And there was something magical in the air. The boy dropped the stone in his pocket, and placed the sling-shot in his back. He shuffled down the road after the rider, hesitating at first, but gathering speed until he was chasing at his best late-for-school pace. Something was drawing him towards the stranger. Something like the undertow of the Elder River. He wondered if the rider was being drawn by the same forces. After all, he would be the second stranger in town this week.

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To Be Continued....

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