The Wizard Killer - Season One: A Post-Apocalyptic Fantasy Serial (11 page)

Closing my eyes, I rack my brain for what could be going on, and then it hits me. “You think I can do something to help you; that’s why I’m here, isn’t it?”
 

For a split second, her face isn’t dispassionate or detached. It’s difficult for me to tell if it’s fear or what, but there’s something. I wait patiently for her to answer me.

She blinks for a few seconds, her face once again passive. “The leecher’s attack should have killed you, but didn’t. You’re incredibly strong, useful. There’s very little left for us here now. Our neighbors are damaged too. We need to leave. We need your help.” Her expression’s subtle, but there’s truth to what she’s saying.

I sit up and shake my head. “I don’t know what to tell you, but I can’t do much. I’m not a Wizard, or even an adept… I can fight, somewhat, but that’s about all I can do.” Eyeing her carefully, I watch for… something. Something that can explain why my gut’s telling me there’s something more to the story. Part of me thinks this is all in my head, and that the strange vibe I’m getting from her is just because she’s a oner. All the weird pauses and moments where she looks like a statue for a few seconds really throws me off.

“You can help us get to safety. We need to get moving.”

With a big breath, I stand and spread my arms out like a kid walking on a log. Glancing at her, I’d swear I see the very edge of her mouth turn up. “Okay, if I’m going to help, I’m going to need my short sword and pistol.”

She stares at me, her fists clenching for a moment before replying, her speech extra-stilted this time for some reason, “They are in a sack, slung on this One’s back under the cloak. Given your condition, we believe it best that we hold on to them for now.”

“Fair enough,” I lie. Nothing says you don’t trust a man more than not giving him his weapons back. But I don’t have any choice, so I smile.

She drops her gaze to the floor, her eyes close.

“What happened?”

“They are gone,” she replies.

I rub my forehead, trying to make sense of her clenched fists and blank face. “You mean the other oners?”

She nods. “We must move, the carn is coming.”

My eyes dart about, my fingers twitching as I think up a plan. “Is there a stable around here? Maybe some animals we could ride or something?”

The oner shakes her head. “The only thing is an old levi-car, but it won’t work. We had a mechanic One once, he said it lacked life.”

“Life? Yig, get me to it. Take me there, now!”

She grabs my arm and puts it around her neck. Opening the front door, my heart sinks as we see a golden field of wheat ablaze on the opposite side of the road. I don’t remember the wheat being so high, but it doesn’t matter. I swallow hard and put everything I can into moving.

episode nineteen

Sticking to the southern edge of the road, we hurry as the inferno on the other side roars. After a few minutes, I dare to let go and start jogging on my own. There’s nothing like fear to boost one’s eagerness to get the body moving properly. My mind keeps ignoring the wheat field on the southern side that’s just waiting to burst into flame, I’m sure. I stare in fear at each and every fiery ember that dances on the breeze.

The road snakes back and forth and finally dips, revealing a rust-roofed barn half a mile away in a valley. “Geez, do you guys plant crops everywhere?” I mutter, hoping for a scarred landscape that would give us some refuge.

“Yes, to do otherwise would be wasteful.”

I raise an eyebrow at her as she runs ahead. I can’t buy that oners are simply communities of people working for a common good. There’s got to be something going on. I stop in my tracks and glance about; thankfully there’s nothing. Paranoid, I close my eyes to see if I can hear any voices or anything, in case she gave me their blessing or whatever it is. Nothing. Wait, there’s something else though. “Hey! Hey, oner! Stop!”

She slides to a stop. “What are you doing?”

“It’s like I can feel it,” I say, rubbing my hands together. “My fingers… the tingling. My chest… There’s something that way, in the southern field.” I tear into the wheat field at full speed. She’s yelling at me, but I couldn’t stop if I wanted to. Something’s calling my body and soul, and I’m just bearing witness. It feels so familiar, I can’t explain it.

Fighting through the wheat, I finally arrive at a small muddy clearing, with a stagnant pond in the middle. “What?” I stare at it confused, searching about hoping for something else. “That’s it?”

“The pond?” she says, arriving behind me, a hint of irritation in her voice. “You ran back to the pond?”

Dropping to my knees, I lean over and look at my reflection. “Can you feel it? Something’s here but… This doesn't make any sense. I know this place… but I’ve never been here before.”

“We have to go,” she says, grabbing my shoulder, the irritation noticeably stronger.

“In a minute,” I say, shrugging her off. I wave my hand back and forth over the pond. "Maybe it's the water? Maybe something in it?"

“We need to get to the barn,” she says insistently.

Shaking my head, I reply, “Can't you feel it? It's like almost being home."
 

"We are going to burn to death, or be ripped apart while we burn. Let us go."

Timidly, like a child touching a celebration cake, I let one finger break the murky surface of the pond.

There’s a screech in the background somewhere, but I don’t care for some reason. I peek over at the oner who is standing like a statue, waiting. As much as I know we shouldn’t be here, I couldn’t leave even if I wanted to. My heart’s pounding and my hands are trembling. I'm on the verge of bursting out with laughter or breaking down and crying. I recall feeling this way before, but I can’t remember where or when.

Taking a deep breath, I plunge my arm all the way to the bottom. I fish around. “There’s something here, I can feel it. I just don't know what it is...” Pulling my hand out, I stare at it. It's covered in black mud, shiny speckles here and there. "Yig!" I yelp, shaking some of it off my hand.

Sitting back on my heels, I rub my forehead, and without thinking I use the muddy hand. My eyes go wide and I jump into the pond before I know what's going on.

The oner turns to stare at me, her eyebrows up.

Laughing from the deepest part of my soul, I can’t stop slathering the mud from the shallow bottom all over my body. I roar at the sky and then look at her.

“Have you lost your mind?” she asks in that disjointed tempo of hers.

Shaking my head, I stare at my hands, turning them over and over again. “I feel more alive than I have in a long, long time. The energy… can’t you feel it? The river of warm and cool running through here. It's a mana oasis... maybe all the wheat or something else protects it. It's raw and pure... there's not much, but more than I need right now.” At the back of my mind, I can sense frozen memories thawing.
 

“You
are
a weslek,” she says, taking a step back.
 

“Yes, so? I need my short sword.”

She glares at me.

"We are on the same side. Yes, I'm a weslek." I hold my hand out. “I need my sword.”

The oner just keeps staring at me.

“The scar along the chest of that carn, I did that. And
that
was when I was at half-strength and didn't know what I was capable of. Now, I think I can give us a fighting chance. But I need to do something first, it’s my backup… just in case.”

She lowers her gaze for a second.

Shaking my head, I gesture again with my open hand. “You already knew I was a weslek, that’s why you mentioned the levi-car. I don’t know how you knew, but you knew. So move on with it, give me my sword, and let’s get the yig out of here.”

She takes another step back, both serrated swords in her hands now.

“Woo, put those down. What are you doing?”

“The leecher could be inside you, infecting you, her own twisted version of our blessing roaming around in your mind,” she says. Her face almost looks like she’s fighting the words.

I put my hands up slowly. “Leechers don’t work that way. She’s dead, and I’m fine.”

“We cannot afford that risk.”

“You need me to charge and drive the levi-car, or can you drive one?”

She glances away, thinking.

I put my hand up. “Do you feel that?”

“We already—”

“Not this, not the pond. That. That deep… that haunting sound? It’s more than I can feel it rather than hear it.” I turn to face the west and my mind goes numb for a second. “What’s wrong with the sky?”

She follows my gaze and we stare at where the blue afternoon sky changes to flaming red. She takes a step back. “That… that’s the rage of the carn,” she says. I’m unconvinced.

Pointing at it, I shake my head. “That looks like gods are reigning fury down on the world, and gods don’t exist.”

“It’s the carn,” she says, turning to me. Her hands are jittering. If she’s scared, then I’m terrified.

“Give me my short sword.”

She stares at me again.

“Look! I have no interest in controlling a colony or harming you. I just want to get to Banareal. I need to figure out the missing parts of my past, and who killed me. More importantly, I’m not interested in dying today, are you?”

“You’re a weslek, why do you need it?”

I stop myself from answering. My gaze keeps flipping between her and the fiery sky. It’s like a fire storm, and I can’t help but feel that it’s coming our way.

The question makes me twitch. “I serve no Wizard, if that’s what you’re asking. I’m not part of whatever that is. I escaped a long, long time ago.” There’s something disconnected about her questions, and her expression. Maybe oners are terrible under pressure. “Like you, I’m my own master.” I can’t help but stare at the flaming sky. Neither of us has much of a chance against the carn on our own, never mind whatever that is. May I please have my short sword?”

“I told you, it’s the carn.”

“I don’t believe you,” I reply, wincing as I realize that’s not going to help me get my sword back. Surprisingly, she tosses it to me. I plunge it deep into the mud and crouch down in the murky water. Shutting my eyes tight, I concentrate on the image of a river of silver and blue light coming out of the ground, through me, and into the sword. It’s peace and serenity and joy and--
 

“Wake up!” she yells in my face, shaking me.

Blinking repeatedly, I nod.

“Yig, that fire storm’s getting closer.”

She points to a plume of smoke in the west. “The carn has set the fields ablaze. We need to head to the barn before our path is cut off.”

I glance at the short sword; it’s glowing a healthy blue. I slip it into my belt.
 

“Take this,” she says, handing me a bag.

“My pistol, thanks,” I reply, slinging it over my shoulder and following her. My body’s light and ready to move, what a wonderful difference.

The path seems endless until finally we emerge on the road. As we run down the hill towards the barn, I'm relieved to see it’s got a significant amount of clearance around it from the potential flames. There's a few broken plows, and some other rusted farming equipment, around the barn. Some of it I don't recognize.

The barn’s got an old metal roof, rusted and the sides are rotting wood. It looks like it’s been there for decades, now on its last legs. There are rocks and old farm machinery around it. The oner opens one side of the double door and ventures in.

Swallowing hard, I stop myself from looking back at the fields and sky. The wind’s picking up, and I swear there’s a horrifying screech being carried on it. I can’t remember anything about carnu and fire storms, or having a screech like this, but the last thing I need to is rely on my sketchy memory of academia. Dealing with the oners has already reminded me of the limits of what I’d once learned.
 

Shaking off the sense of impending doom, I follow the oner. Inside the barn’s filled with tools and a few hay bales that have seen better days. Occupying most of the space is something covered in strange, shiny tarps.
 

“Help me remove these,” she commands, grabbing one part of the silvery covers. I help her get it off, and then stand there, stunned.

“This… this is an original two-seater levi-car. I remember these," I say, standing back to marvel at it. The poor thing's been ravaged by time and uncaring hands. Its paint is faded to a pale blue, its doors are missing, and there’s no glass. Walking around it, I remove the tarps covering something behind it. “What the yig is this?”

“We found it like that,” replies the oner. “It’s like someone bolted a cart on the back of it.”

I give her a sideways glance, but am drawn back to the modified, antique beauty. “It’s more than that. This is amazing,” I say peeking underneath. “Someone cannibalized a few other levis to make this flatbed a functional part of the levi-car. Look at this… the cloth webbing is still clean and firm, and the sapphire tubes are laid out expertly. Someone really knew what they were doing.”

The oner’s unmoved by my excitement. “We believe it was used to carry produce for trade, if it ever worked. That’s what we want.”