CHAPTER 1

The boy Laban and his friend Torreck wander through the desert in search of food. They find something else entirely.

A day out in the fringes of Malkuth is never predictable and very rarely forgiving. A few scattered tribes were all that remained of a once great nation that spanned continents. Of course, they only had stories from the mouths of their Elders to rely on for a history of their people, and stories grow less and less reliable with each telling. It had been far too long for anyone to truly remember what had happened. All accounts concur, however, that their misfortune was caused by someone they called the Shadow Man.

Some days were calmer than others, though. Today was one of those days. The sun hid behind a mess of stringy clouds, though it rarely did so for very long. The hunters only had a few hours at best before they had to retreat back into their hovels. The trip was always risky, but if these parties failed to come back with any food, the death count would only get higher.

“Any idea where we might be headed, Torreck?” a voice grumbled from beneath a gas mask.

“Once we get to the top of this hill we might. I want to see if my macrobinoculars can spy anything from up there,” a young man replied, face hidden beneath a similar mask. Every panting breath echoed through the mechanical filters.

“And if we don’t find anything?” the boy said.

“I think we will. The scouting party reported some movement about three miles north-northwest of here.”

“The scouting parties got back three weeks ago. Wouldn't whatever it was be long gone by now?”

“They could be. But I’m hoping it was the site of some sort of grazing area. Which means meat and vegetables, which we sorely need.”

“What makes you so sure we’ll find anything?”

“I’m not sure of anything. But I’m just hopeful, Laban.”

“What good does hope do?”

Torreck stopped his ascent and looked back at his partner.

“Everything,” Torreck said. “Look, I know you’re new here, kid, but you need to understand everything we’ve built out here was built on hope. The hope of a brighter future. Hope that the Territes will stop leaving us out here to starve…”

“Speaking of Territes…” said Laban, looking up at the pale blue sky. A thin line of white pierced through the clouds, led by a dark black dot. Aircraft contrails.

“Territe scout ship,” Torreck said. “Probably trying to map out our settlements.”

“Can they see us from all the way up there?” Laban asked.

“Probably,” Torreck replied. “Their tech is pretty good. Look at the stuff we’ve managed to scavenge... the Territes are decades ahead of all that.”

“It’s still better than we had at our old camp,” Laban said. “We thought we were lucky because someone found a compass once. But you guys have all sorts of tech. Macrobinoculars, energy-staffs, shield generators�"”

“You just need to know where to look. And stick with a group, more than anything. That’s why our clan has lasted so long. We work together.”

The two cleared the peak of the hill, gladly taking a rest and sitting themselves down in the dust. The wastelands of Malkuth, ruddy and desolate, stretched out endlessly before them. They say that these valleys and mountains were once lush and teeming with life. Green trees had towered overhead, providing shade and shelter for all manner of animal life. That was eons ago, though, before the supposed curse of the Shadow Man.

He couldn’t remember the first time he had heard those words. They were just as much a part of the life of a Malkuth as were the sands and the fiery sun. He had simply grown up knowing the Shadow Man. His parents would tell him stories, but never often. It seemed that a dark reverence surrounded all his tales.

“What are we running from, mother?” he had once asked when he was still very young.

“We run from him,” she replied.

“From who?”

“From the Shadow Man.” Her voice lowered to nearly a whisper as she uttered his name.

“Yes,” Laban said. “I know that. But why?”

“Because he is evil.”

“What does that mean?”

His mother sighed. “He is the one who has caused the sun to burn so hot and the oceans to boil away. He is the reason that you and I must suffer in the desert. I don’t suppose you do, but do you remember the time we found a small river? And the ground around it was covered in green grass?”

As it was, Laban did remember, and still remembered it to this day. He could never forget it. He had never seen anything like it before, or since. He remembered sitting under the shade of an old tree, mostly withered and leaning heavily to one side. They left when the whole thing dried up, and all the grass crumbled away into dust.

“Yes, I remember,” Laban told his mother.

“Well, the whole world used to be like that. Or most of it, at least. There were grass and trees... entire forests of trees. Big trees, too. Not just little ones like you saw, but trees big enough to block out the whole sky above you.”

His mother waved her hands across the wasteland before them, as if painting a picture in his mind with her fingers...

His current view from the hill was no different from the ones he and his family had seen. There was nothing but dust, stretching as far as his eye could see, and no doubt much further.

“There must have been water here once,” Laban said, pulling himself from his memories. “They weren’t just stories, were they? Look! That trench down there. A river must have flowed there.”

Torreck peered down at the winding canyon through his electronic binoculars. “You’re right. That’s where we’ll head. With any luck and a little bit of digging, we might still find something to fill our canteens. Come on. We want to be in that canyon before the sun is at its hottest.”

Reluctantly, Laban stood and followed Torreck down the hill. His muscles ached. He didn’t know how he was going to get back to camp at the end of the day. He didn’t even know if his legs could carry him as far as the canyon. He strained as he placed his left foot in front of his right, and then his right in front of his left. He repeated the motion, digging his feet into the sand and pressing forward. He stared at the tattered rags and sad remains of what had once been boots wrapped around his feet. He didn’t dare look up to see just how far they still had to go.

Right… left… right… left… was the mantra he repeated in his mind.  If he were to fall behind, it wouldn’t take long before the desert swallowed him whole and the creatures that hid in her sands picked apart his corpse until there was nothing left of him but dust, ready to join the eternal sea of sand. Even now, the desert seemed intent on devouring him; each step drove his feet deep into the dust, driven deeper by the weight of his pack. His friend, however, seemed to bound effortlessly across the desert, as if the pack on his own shoulders had no weight at all.

“I… I need another break,” Laban panted. They must have marched for miles already across the dusty valley floor. Their destination was still far away on the unreachable horizon.

“Alright,” Torreck sighed. “But don’t drink too much. Remember to save some water for the trip back to base.”

Laban lifted the mask off his face and wiped away the beads of sweat collecting on his brow. The last few drops of water left in his canteen trickled out and onto his parched tongue.

“Too late. I’m dry,” he said.

“Then the sooner we get to that gorge, the better,” Torreck said. “Put your mask back on before you suffocate.”

Laban slipped the mask back over his face. Torreck started again walking towards the canyon, this time with a quickened pace. Laban implored his legs to follow, and at last, they relented.

“So…” Laban said. “How long have you been going out on trips like this?”

“A long time. I was probably only five years old when the elders sent me out hunting for the first time. That’s pretty normal for our clan. That’s how we’ve always done it.”

“Our clan never hunted. We weren’t in one spot long enough to be able to. We just took whatever came our way.”

“I hate to say it, kid, but that’s why your clan is dead. You won’t last long out here if you work like that. You’ve got to be active. That’s our only chance of fighting back against the Territes.”

“The Territes…” Laban’s eyes once again looked heavenward to see if he could spot any more gleaming ships darting across the sky. All he saw was the pale, uninterrupted blue.

“Why do they hate us?” asked Laban. “They are… well, they are humans aren’t they?”

“Of course they’re human,” Torreck replied. “They just think they’re a better kind of human. However that works. The elders say that they blame Malkuth for starting a war�" a war that lasted for more than a thousand years. This is just them punishing us for killing their people. Teraam was able to rebuild after the war, but Malkuth was not. The Territes made sure of that. They left us out here to suffer and die. Someday, if we don’t do anything about it, there won’t be any Malkuth left at all. I am going to make sure that doesn’t happen.”

Harsh winds blew up a burning fog of sand all around them, blurring the horizon and obscuring their destination from view. Laban squinted his eyes against the glaring light. He looked west and then east, and then due north ahead of them. A dark shadow moved by in the distance�"wreckage left behind and abandoned, the only remaining evidence of a centuries-past war.

The dry, cracked, and sun-bleached hills rolled over each other, forming lazy peaks and shallow valleys over which they climbed. Sparse patches of dying weeds or sagebrush offered a break of faded green between the otherwise drab color of the landscape, but those were few and far between. It all looked the same: like a never-ending sea of death.

“How far does it go?” Laban asked as they pushed onward.

“What’s that supposed to mean?” Torreck said. “How far does what go?”

“The Outland. It’s just so big. We walked all over this place my entire life, and it never ended. Now here we are, miles from the village, and it just looks like it goes on forever. Does it ever end?”

“It’s gotta end somewhere. Wherever the Territes live, I guess.”

Laban imagined the boundary of the desert. His imagination broke free, filling his mind with the images of lush oases, flowing with water that sprang from the ground and even fell from the heavens. Laban had never actually seen rain, but he had heard stories from one of the Elders of their old clan who had supposedly witnessed what he called the last great storm of Malkuth. It was a story he had heard so many times by now Laban could quote it from memory. The Elder seemed to be carried away to another world, a happier world, when he related the tale of great drops of water, falling from the clouds like a gift from Those Above. They opened their mouths to the sky, letting the water quench their parched throats. Laban always dreamt of seeing rain, but that hope was dwindling and close to death. His mind imagined that the skies above the Territes were always covered in thick, black rainclouds. It also imaged a wall, too tall to climb and too thick to penetrate, surrounding the lands of the Territes. They would never enter.

“I just wanna get out of this desert,” Laban sighed.

Torreck looked at Laban. He thought he saw a glimpse of genuine, hopeful sadness in Torreck’s eyes, partially hidden behind the fogged glass of his mask.

“You and me both, kid,” Torreck said.

Neither said another word until they reached the lip of the canyon. The sun was just scraping the zenith by the time they finally reached the lip of the canyon.

“We’re here. And not a moment too soon,” Torreck said, looking up at the sun. “We’ll be baked if we stay out here any longer. Our only hope of shelter is at the bottom.”

“That’s got to be at least a sixty foot drop to the floor,” Laban lamented. “You expect us to climb down with all this stuff on our backs?”

“No,” Torreck replied. “Lucky for us, I was thinking ahead and brought some rope. Give me a hand, will you?”

Torreck slung the pack off his shoulders. He threw it open and pulled out a neatly coiled length of rope.

“Find something to tie this to. Tie it tight. I don’t really want my guts splattered all across the bottom of this canyon.”

Laban grabbed one end of the rope and ran towards a nearby boulder. Tying knots was something he could do. Hunting wildlife, he was not so sure. This was his first trek away from the camp since they had rescued his clan from starvation. The elders had pretty much forced him to leave. They said it was time for him to learn to survive.

By the time Laban had made sure the rope was adequately secure, Torreck had already fastened himself to it.

“There’s another belay device there,” Torreck said. “Strap yourself in and follow me down. Hurry.”

Torreck practically threw himself backwards off the edge of the cliff. The sound of friction between the rope and the harness faded quickly as he descended, and then stopped. Laban peered carefully over the precipice to see his companion already waiting at the bottom of the gorge.

“Do you want your brain to turn to jelly?” Torreck shouted up at him. “Get down here! The sun will kill you if you don’t hurry.”

Laban fumbled with the straps and links of the belay device, but managed somehow to clip it onto his belt. Hopefully the correct way. At any rate, he would find out soon enough, one way or another. He looped the rope through it and slid his feet as close as he dared to the edge of the cliff. He leaned back, waiting for the reassuring tension on the rope to support him.

“Jump!” Torreck shouted. “Or it will literally be your own funeral.”

Laban closed his eyes. He let his heels teeter over the edge. His feet slipped. His heart jumped up into his throat when he suddenly found himself falling through the air. He felt the rope slipping through his gloved fingers as he plummeted. The leather started to heat up. The ground hurried up towards him.

His stomach fell all the way to the floor when the belay harness finally engaged and slowed his fall. His feet made a gentle landing on the weathered stone floor of the canyon. He tried to stand, but his quivering legs wouldn’t let him.

“About time…” Torreck said. “Feel that? It’s already cooler down here. That’s a good sign. If nothing else, I won’t have to carry your remains home in my canteen by the end of the day. We’ll be safe down here for now. Come on. I think I see an overhang there we can hide under.”

The red stones of the gorge provided some much needed shade and opportunity for rest. Laban no longer had to squint against the blinding rays of the sun, which were magnified by the blank, dusty terrain. He was covered from head to toe in leather and bandages, but still it wasn’t enough to keep his skin from feeling raw and scorched.

Laban reached into a cloth pouch he had hidden beneath his belt. He pulled out a brown stone, small and egg-shaped. It had the figure of an eye roughly etched on the surface. Laban nestled it in his palms and closed his eyes.

“What on earth are you doing now?” Torreck said. “You’re praying to a rock?”

“This is a seer stone,” Laban said softly. “The ancients always carried them wherever they went. They are our connection with those in the heavens.”

Torreck rolled his eyes and laid back in the dirt. “Boy, it’s been a long time since I’ve believed in that sort of thing,” he said.

Laban finished his meditation and lovingly tucked the stone back into the pouch. “You mean you don’t believe in Those Above?”

“I’ve seen things. Things that would scramble the brain of a kid like you. Once you’ve been out on the fringe as long as I have, you’ll understand.”

Kid. Laban hated that. Torreck seemed to forget, or at least chose not to acknowledge, that they were quite nearly the same age. Yes, Torreck was at least a few years older�" that’s why the Elders had placed Laban with him�" but it couldn’t have been more than a three or four year difference. Laban had seen just as much of this desert as Torreck had. Even he held dark memories imprisoned in the recesses of his mind. Sometimes, when he wasn’t careful, they would start to seep through, staining what few good memories he still had, like black ink spilled on a page of clean paper. The thing Laban lacked was not experience, but merely skill.

He wanted to say as much to his arrogant mentor, but his tongue held him back. Whether out of fear or some amount of feigned politeness, Laban didn’t know.

“I just thought that everyone believed,” was all Laban decided to say. “The elders of our camp always said that our belief in Them was the only thing keeping us alive. Keeping us safe from the�"”

“From the what?” Torreck interrupted. “From the Shadow Man? Don’t get me wrong, kid. There’s a lot of nasty stuff out here. Stuff that’ll kill you without a second thought and then drag you off to feed the rest of its pack. And not all of those things are animals. But as for evil, mystic… ghosts or whatever this shadow guy says he is, I ain’t seen nothing. That’s just a story our parents told us to keep us scared of the dark.”

“Shouldn't we be? Afraid of the night, I mean.”

“Sure. We should be afraid of everything. Heck, even that sun up there is trying to kill us. But that doesn’t mean we should make up ghost stories.”

He picked up a rock and tossed it lazily at the canyon wall as if to punctuate his point. It bounced off the far wall and tumbled down before settling back into the dirt.

“Still,” Torreck continued. “I guess it could be comforting to think that all this misery is caused by something beyond our world… that we’re not all destined to die alone and join the dust ourselves.”

In that moment, Laban truly began to sympathize with his friend. He wanted to embrace him, put the seer-stone in his hand and tell him that his world needn’t be so bleak, that he only had to look to Those Above for comfort. Laban knew that his poor mind would have been lost long ago if it hadn’t been for Their comfort and the comfort that came through this stone. It flowed from the heavens, through his hands, and into his heart. Even the slightest glimmer of light was enough to cast away the darkest of shadows.

Still, Laban knew Torreck would never listen. His spirit had been broken, but perhaps not beyond repair.

Laban knew it was time to change the subject. “So, do you think there’s any water here?” he asked through cracked lips.

“I’m surprised you haven’t noticed,” Torreck replied. “But I guess you were distracted by that rock. Take off your gloves. Feel the ground.”

“It… it’s damp,” Laban said, letting the soft clumps of clay run through his fingers.

“We’ll have to dig. But it shouldn’t be deep,” said Torreck. “You brought the shovel, right?”

“Oh… yeah. I did.” Laban reached into his pack and pulled out a small collapsable trowel. He handed it to Torreck.

“What?” Torreck said. “Did you forget how to dig? You find us some water. I’m going to have a look around. Maybe I’ll be able to find something useful. There might be enough water for some weeds to have sprouted up somewhere. Hopefully I can find some not poisonous ones.”

Torreck unclipped a small canister from his belt and tossed it at Laban. “Filter. Call for me once you’ve finished filling your canteen. Then I can fill mine and we’ll get the hell out of here.” Torreck leaped to his feet and took off eastward down the narrow walls of the canyon, as fast as if he hadn’t just walked ten miles to get here. Knowing him, he would be gone a while. Laban was certainly happy to finally enjoy some peace and quiet, and, he was sure, so would Torreck. He jabbed the end of the shovel into the soft dirt and leaned back against the cool stone. The only noise was the soft breeze that ran through the corridor of the gorge.

He closed his eyes and tried to sleep, but thirst clutched at his throat and he could ignore it no longer. He sat up, forcing his aching muscles to move, and grasped the handle of the shovel. He tore the pointed end of the trowel through the sand, creating a larger and larger mound of clay next to an ever deeper pit. Downward it went, but the promise of water went deeper still. Laban’s tongue burned for even the slightest drop of liquid.

Laban’s gloves and linen-bound arms were caked with sand and mud before the first bit of brown sludge began to pool at the bottom of the pit. A few more shovel-fulls created a puddle large enough for Laban to cool his sore fingers.

Unfortunately, as much as he wanted to, he couldn’t drink this yet. This mud would be poison. He uncoiled the hose of the filter that Torreck had left with him and dipped the end of it into the mud. The inner workings of the canister toiled to remove the dirt and contamination, and soon a spout of clear, fresh water erupted from the other end. Laban threw off his mask and let the cool liquid pour over his face and into his mouth. He must have downed a gallon of the stuff before he opened his canteen, filling it until it spilled over. He nearly drained it again before filling it, sealing the lid, and collapsing to the floor. It didn’t take long before his eyelids closed and the world began to disappear and he was overtaken by sleep…

Laban heard footsteps approaching.

“Back so soon?” Laban hollered, without stirring from his spot or even bothering to open his eyes. “I thought you’d like to be rid of me for longer than that.”

Thud. Laban was suddenly shaken by rough hands that had wrapped themselves around the collar of his robes. His head slammed into the hard stone he had made his pillow. His eyes opened in surprise, only getting a glimpse of a face wrapped in linen before everything melted away into the blackness.

Reviews

[Bri]

Hey! Wonderful description and feel for the characters' environment. Besides a little bit of cleanup, my only suggestion is to cut back on reiteration I see from one sentence to the next. Compound points and ideas, minimize number of sentences. Just a small suggestion. Otherwise, well done :)

[Seth Pincock]

Thanks for the feedback! What sentences in particular seem redundant to you?

[Bri]

“They could be. But I’m hoping it was the site of some sort of grazing area. Which means meat and vegetables, which we sorely need.”
this sentence, for example, could be reduced down to something like “They could be. But I’m hoping it was the site of some sort of grazing area. Which means meat and vegetables.” leaving out “which we sorely need” cuts back on unnecessary reiteration...if that makes sense, haha.

[Molly Faith]

You've created such an interesting world here! Very enjoyable dialogue, also.