Chapter 4

Chapter 4

Spliced between lime halves, dropped ice cubes, and a nearly-opened bag of sugar, Dr. Wilcox heard his earphone ring. Twice in one weekend, he marveled to himself. He was never this popular in his youth. He slipped the sugar between the blender and the sink, cradled a lime onto the green-tiled counter top, and strode down the hall to his desk and answered the call.

“Hello?”

“Dr. Wilcox! It’s Eva. I’m so glad to hear your voice—so glad. You don’t—they killed him, Doctor—no warning. They just shot him and threw him…”

Wilcox raised an eyebrow. “What? Who? Calm down Eva and speak to me.”

“It was the empire. We were returning from the northern colonies. They came aboard and shot my grandfather—they killed him—just shot him and threw him overboard.” Wilcox found his breath short and unwilling to enter his lungs. “They loaded her with explosives and sent her to the sea floor. They just shot him and blew her up—just like that. No warnings, no inspection, just down with both of them. I can’t…” Here she faltered. Wilcox struggled to find his voice. “I…I can’t believe it; he’s gone…just like that…”

“Eva, where are you? Listen to me...” he attempted to ask between the sobs now flooding the receiver. “Eva, tell me where you are…let me come to you.” His grandfatherly attitude overwhelmed him. “I just need to know where you are…understand?”

Between two halting breaths she whispered, “Mizer docks; grandfather’s warehouse.”

“Okay,” Dr. Wilcox soothed. “Okay, I’ll be right there.” He kept his earphone in his ear, just in case and left the lime smoothie unmixed in the blender.

When he arrived at the warehouse, Wilcox found her huddled in the office, eyes and cheeks crimson with despair. She tried to stand, but her weak knees trembled and Wilcox reached out and pulled her into a comforting embrace. Her tears flushed anew and triggered his own. She buried her face in his chest; he stroked her hair from her face. There, without words, the two rocked in healing unity.

^*^

Olin knew the specs of the Slaac Canyon Bridge; he had even looked over them before this trip. But even to his mechanical photoreceptors, the magnificence of it astounded him when he began to speed across the repulsor-bridge; Olin thought it seemed like a massive knife-wound in the plains, bitter and swollen with reds and whites, plunging away to the river that bled into the faraway ocean at the mouth of the canyon.

It snaked slightly west at the northern-most part, bending back east just at the bridge to continue straight to the South Sea. Olin marveled at the phenomenon. The canyon opened further beneath him, dropping away in side canyons and burnished cliffs. The further he moved from the eastern edge, the more the distance between the rims became apparent: the western rim refused to seem any closer.

And so Olin, glued to his porthole, gazed at the increasing depth and width of the canyon—his mind told him at the midpoint of the bridge, he would be nearly one and a half miles above the river, and the western rim still nine miles away. He knew that the ancient bridge had been torn down and replaced with the repulsor bridge, but the awe of the engineering those ancients had possessed, perhaps the sheer courage to attempt, to build a bridge across such a canyon seized Olin profoundly.

When at last the western rim passed beneath him, Olin let himself ease back into his seat for the rest of the journey through the sagebrush plains on towards the Nolkric Mountains and beyond, past the Dead Lake and Tiri Desert, to the far city of Shila. Had he been capable, Olin would have shuddered at the mention of his destination. His mind worked through the historical databases that had been compiled for him by the librarian at Mizer Public Archives.

In the last decade, the city had nearly doubled its size; the grassy highlands and its remote location seemed attractive to many settlers looking to move away from the eastern metropolises. But its history was not as simple as those moving there. It was an ancient city, dating back to the Separation period, shortly after the fall of the Ashtonian Empire.

Its sister city, Surgaph, had been the capital of the dark lords, built by the general Rolar, after he seceded from the newly-founded Escollion Empire. These two separate allegiances, after a time of strained relations, finally collided in war. The approximate dates for the war, however, startled Olin: 586-87 E.E.E. As close as he could estimate, his former life in the Basalk Forest was about 566 E.E.E. Caida was not too terribly far from his home. Perhaps some of this activity would relate to some of the tales he heard as a child. He scanned the following information. The first battle erupted at Caida, formerly known as Harken, between the dark Lord Skora and the Sage Trista Tslatsen…he skipped over the information, looking for more about Shilac, but found nothing of interest.

When he looked up, the Nolkric Mountains loomed southward, parallel to the Slaac Canyon, all the way to the ocean. He stared out the porthole at the monotonous passing prairie and wished he could sleep.

As he began to power down his systems to hibernate, a faint voice caught his attention. He resumed his functionality instantly and turned to find the round face of a young girl. Her wide eyes sparkled in the morning light seeping through the thick plastic windows, but her eyebrows were furrowed in confusion.

“Are you a real person?” she asked in haste. Near the back of the aisle, a lady who must have been her mother was excusing herself forward to retrieve the stray girl. Olin’s face softened as he pondered her question.

“Yes, I am,” he answered, then turned the question to her. “Are you?”

She smiled. “Yes,” came a bashful reply.

“What is your name, then? Bob?” he asked and she giggled.

“No!”

“Then is it Super Toad?” he prodded.

“NO!” she retorted, laughing. “It’s Molly!” Olin exaggerated epiphany.

“Oh, well then Molly, it’s a pleasure to meet you,” he replied and extended his hard, metallic hand. She took it lightly in her own and shook it. Olin bowed his head and smiled. The lady finally moved behind the girl.

“Please excuse my daughter,” she began, taking Molly’s hand, “she sometimes…oh!” she remarked as Olin turned to face her. She fumbled for words for a moment and looked away. Olin glanced back at Molly and grinned.

“Have a good day, Miss Molly.”

“You too!” she replied, then looked to her mother. “Mommy! Can we go to the snack place?” The lady nodded all too hastily and shuffled past the other passengers. Olin watched them work their way forward and sat back, but noticed the purposeful gaze of the man opposite himself. He leaned forward a bit, scratching a stubbly chin with one hand and adjusting his cap with the other. Olin raised an eyebrow. He finally set his armpit over the armrest and squinted at him, mouth half-open.

“Are you a real person?”

^*^

When Sorel’s eyes flickered to life, they winced immediately at the pain of a massive headache, throbbing behind them. He blinked once, then shut his eyelids and exhaled. Where was he? What had happened? As his senses opened to the world outside himself, he heard whisperings.

“Is he awake? I think he’s awake…”

“Shh…he’ll hear.”

“Well, if he’s up we might as well do what we’re supposed to.”

“Or we could well make sure he’s awake first.”

“Which he is.”

“He’s not opened his eyes right yet.”

“You don’t have to open your eyes to be awake!”

“Yes, I know, but under the weight of that spell, he’s...you know…”

“Groggy?”

“No, blockhead, in pain. Don’t you well remember the first time?”

“Oh yeah…that did hurt.”

“See? And since he hasn’t groaned yet, he isn’t awake.”

“But what if he’s a natural?”

“He’s not a natural; just like he isn’t awake.”

“But…”

“Shut up and man your post.”

“Okay…I still think he’s awake.”

At that Sorel sat up and rubbed his left eye. He heard an audible gasp from his right and a scuffle from his left. The voices raised from their previous whispers to normal tones.

“Get the bag!” he heard from his right.

“I got it, I got it!” came a voice from his left. Sorel turned to look for this bag the one had referenced. A rope fell over his face and tightened around his throat. As his hands moved to the twine rope to loosen its choking hold, a black leather bag consumed his head and was tightened by a drawstring. At that the rope was removed and his arms quickly twisted behind him and hands bound, despite his struggle.

“Told you he was awake.”

“You should have bound him before he woke; he struggled too much. If the master finds out that we damaged him…”

“It wasn’t my job—it was our job. It’s your fault as much as mine.”

“Would you get going. Now that we can move him, let’s move him.”

“Alright, alright. Come one,” the voice on his left addressed Sorel, “Stand up. We got places to go. You won’t get hurt. It’s an easy walk from here.”