The tiny postapocalyptic biker gang buries Patch under a pile of stones not far off the highway, wearing his chaps and shotgun, the way he would have wanted. Tatters gets his bike.
“You’re a man now,” explains Rackham gruffly. “You ride midpack. You carry your share and when we raid, you’re out there with us, gun oiled and clean. You understand?”
Tatters nods, trying not to itch his nascent mustache.
At night, encamped, he smears aloe on his neck and listens to the soft steady click of the Geiger on his lanyard. The moon whirls above him, stippled in 255 colors.
“That’s right,” says Donovan, “the Spirit Seekers are here in Romania, testing the basement of this collapsed sixteenth-century castle,” and the low-light turns his eyes into cat’s emeralds. Sarah swings the magnetometer; it keens when she points down the stairs.
“This way, I guess,” she says.
The pulse only gets stronger, and the video’s starting to fuzz in and out. “We’re nearing some kind of major manifestation!” hisses Sarah, hoping the mics still work. “Hello? If you’re present here, can you make yourself–”
Around the corner, they almost fall over the prow of the wrecked spaceship.
“Uh,” Donovan says.
Every day a hawk spirals up from the warming cliffs and ranges out to peer at the nine duchies. Each night, Master Grocta climbs to his tower room and draws a map of their shifting borders. Tired eyes and tallow; vellum and black ink. Place the pages atop one another and you see the Bruenwald creep south and west, bulging like the stomach of a corpse.
“Once they ford the Oen,” he tells his Duchess, “they’ll be at your doorstep.”
“You look tired, Grocta,” she says gently.
Grocta shakes his head, and waits to be hooded and jessed and led away.
Fifteen months and, somewhere, Theo’s still logged on to iChat. At first it was creepy and Annabelle thought about calling tech support, or something, and asking them to disconnect him. She’s not even sure how that would work. Would she have to produce the death certificate? Can you prove an email address is dead?
But she takes comfort in it now. A little weird and, yeah, probably unhealthy. But she’s not his only buddy, and the others don’t talk about it either.
“you around?” she types, every couple weeks, and waits. Nothing yet. He doesn’t even have an away message up.
“Ooh, I found a good one!” says Teluel excitedly. “Look at the emblem on top–I think this is one of the Enchanted Arrows of Alectria!”
“That’s a weathervane,” says Black Dougal gently.
Teluel crestfalls. “I’m awful at picking out equipment. Maybe I should just get a bunch of healing potions,” she mutters.
“Now come on, Tel, we can pick those up anywhere.” Dougal makes an expansive gesture, coincidentally knocking four or five priceless little knickknacks down his sleeve. “This is the Dweomerium! Treat yourself to something unique!”
In Teluel’s belt pouch, her magic gift certificate sits, pulsing with unidentified possibilities.
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
The raiders have moved on, mostly, but the sets are still smoldering. Sajak heaves a beam up and crawls from the rubble, heaving coughs through dust and smoke, a battered steel case in one hand.
Not far away, Trebek is sitting heavily on his heels, hands empty. “I couldn’t save them,” he mumbles. “All my writers, Pat. They hauled them off like cattle for the slaughter, and–”
“They took Vanna too,” says Sajak grimly, popping the case. “But they’re not out of here yet.”
He tosses over his spare double-barrel. Trebek catches it and chocks it with one practiced hand.
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
This season it’s wimples and, yes, hennins, for whatever godforsaken reason–probably something to do with extreme interpretations of “retro” and the late Amy Winehouse. Everybody’s got them. They make one with a slot for your iPod.
“You don’t see men wearing those pointy hats,” growls Kaela.
“I bet we could make them,” says Finley. “Like in Lysistrata.”
“Lysistrata was a satire. And anyway, how does withholding sex get women to stop wearing things like that?”
“I think natural selection will take care of it,” says Finley.
There’s a yelp from the revolving door, as another fashion icon forgets to duck.
Thursday, January 29, 2009
The tiny postapocalyptic biker gang sets up a series of tiny settlements across the south belly of the desert, and no, a couple of them don’t make it through summer, but over time the rest struggle into some sort of establishment. They clash over borders with the six-eyed naked bear tribes, but eventually the bike raiders beat them back to the treeline. They begin to sustain each other.
Tatters is always busy, queuing up buildings and balancing food harvest against production, trying to start a decent school. He hasn’t ridden in five years. He still oils his gun every night.