FIVE (2008 Draft)

It was like seeing into eternity. It thrilled him, ripping at him in a way that was almost like terror. It could only have been the sea, and it was stretched out in front of him like a desert. He became aware after some moments that he was seeing through another’s eyes, that he was standing in another body on the peak of a tall cliff several hundred meters above the water. The man’s body was like his, tall and strong, with a coarg jutting from the chest - but it wasn’t his. It was old, taught and wrinkled and from within he could feel the perpetual sense of exhaustion the man felt.

Ah’ro tried to look about him, but the old man’s body controlled the vision. He could only look into the sea, into the fog and harsh stormy distances where the greensky was still present. It was beautiful, and even with the old man’s eyes he felt as if there were no way he could be seeing this much at once. He felt the warmth and thickness of a set of robes that hung about him as they were buffeted by the breeze. He felt the icy finger of the wind on the old man’s cheek and the warming of the yellowsky at the same time, and he began to wonder how long this vision would last.

Then, suddenly, the man’s focus shifted and Ah’ro felt the uncomfortable nausea that came from being trapped within another body. It was as if something had turned his head for him and forced his eyes down. Of course, this was interesting. The old man was looking at a speck, or what looked like a speck, that had washed up on the rocky shore at the base of the cliff. It was moving. Before he had a chance to puzzle over what it might be, the old man’s body started doing things.

There were a series of what felt like small rumbles to Ah’ro then, coming from the man’s coarg. It was like the electricity he’d felt before, within his own chest, but this was different…more measured, controlled. He paid close attention to the way it felt, and what happened next. The old man’s hands flew up from his sides and met each other at the wrists, crossing perpendicularly. Then they slid apart, palm of the right hand falling over the other back of the left, until they met only at the thumbs and forefingers in a diamond. Then he felt the old man’s coarg pop, a gently crisp thing, and then there was a membrane of light within the space between his hands. He spread his hands apart then, keeping the shape and stretching the membrane…and at once Ah’ro understood what the old man had done.

Looking through the membrane he saw what only moments ago he’d thought of as a speck was actually a much larger thing. It was a man on a raft, a particularly ragged looking man on a rotten and rather submerged raft. He had the pale clay coloring of one of Pick’s people and similar clothing, although the clothing was almost nearly gone. His tattoo, however, looked just like the ones he’d seen on the chests of Yornif and Jorgen. A circular knot, split in the middle with the image of a spear. He was pulling himself from the raft and onto the rocks, and from the looks of him it seemed as if he might die right there.

The old man turned completely around and put his hands to his coarg. A low humming started within it, and he felt a sudden powerful connection to several other beings, like himself. And though Ah’ro had guessed now what this vision must mean, he was still surprised when he heard the old man’s voice resonate through that connection.

“My fellow God-Blood…we have a visitor.”

————

“Ah’ro.” The voice cut through his vision and the blue man opened his eyes, startled. He blinked several times to shake the sleep loose from his eyes, and saw, sitting in the entrance to his little room, the expectant shape of Pick looking back at him.

Ah’ro took stock of himself, quickly, noticing the lack of feeling in his legs and lower torso. How long had he been laying here, in this cubby?

“Hello, Pick. Have I been asleep…long?”

“The daycycle of mourning is almost at an end. You’ve slept far longer than I had imagined you might, but perhaps that is the way it should be. You have been through many things, and your body is still healing. Do you feel rested?”

Ah’ro thought for a moment, remembering vividly his dream and wondering whether it was something he should tell Pick…indeed, of course, if it contained information the old man would need to know, he should…but for now he would keep it to himself. At least until he started getting the information he had requested, about the Reapers and the magic. The magic. He remembered the motion the old man had made, and the small puffs of power from his chest that had made the looking surface…and he decided he would try it later, as soon as he was alone.

“Yes, I am rested.” He watched Pick look about the room, at the spilled food on the ground, and then the old man nodded.

“Good. I’ve been by several times already this daycycle, and during none of them you’ve been awake. I need to show you something. Come, we will grab something to eat on the way.”

“I thought today was to be a day of mourning.”

“It is. For those at Grob, and Yuuka. The rest of us are fasting, but I don’t force that upon guests - especially guests who are healing from wounds.”

Ah’ro stood, and came to the entrance into the passageway, lowering his massive body through the small hole. “I will fast as well.”

“Very well. Come, I would like for us to go quickly. Most of my people are within their homescoops today, but I would not have them see us go where I’m taking you.”

The little man sped off down a passageway, the same Jorgen had used the night before, and the Ah’ro followed, feeling the numbness in his legs translate into pain -which he ignored.

They took several other passages, most sloping and curving upwards, until Ah’ro was certain he could feel some slight vibration in the floor. When he touched a wall he felt it as well. When he asked the old man about it, Pick said simply that it was wind against the mountainside.There was none of the glowing rock here - the passages were lighted with fire, and as such Pick had to light them with a torch he carried. It was clear that these passages were not those that were visited by many other people of the Scoop, but it was not because they were off limits…simply out of the way. Finally, in the middle of a long and flat corridor that looked plainer than any they’d seen before, that Pick turned to him.

“This is it.”

Ah’ro looked around. Was he missing something?

“This?”

“Yes.” The old man turned to an unlighted lamp on the wall and put his torch to it. It didn’t light. Pick kept the flame against it, however, and as the lamp heated, something else happend.

The wall around the lamp seemed to push in, collapsing toward the middle and opening into another, previously unseen passage. Ah’ro stood agape. “Magic?”

“No, no, nothing like that. Simply ingenuity. It’s designed in such a way that others won’t find it. The type of rock making up the entrance to the passage is one that changes shape when energy is applied in different places - and others would pass it by simply because they’d assume the lamp was faulty and they’d move on. Instead, the lamp enhances the energy from my torch and tells the rock to change shape, and in what way.”

A rock that changed its shape. The idea astounded Ah’ro - would it work the same if he poured his energy into it the way he’d used the glowing rock in his room the night before? He would have to find out - when he had time, though, because at the moment Pick was pushing himself into the little corridor and Ah’ro was eager to follow. Just what did the old man have to show him?

The smaller passage was dark, and the light from Pick’s torch was all that would have lighted the way, but for the fact that it stood in front of Pick’s body and the old man’s body was almost too big for the passage…which meant Ah’ro’s actually was too big. He had to duck his front shoulder and suck in his gut as he crawled along on his knees. He was slower this way, but it didn’t much matter. The passage opened up into the room it was leading to soon enough - so soon, in fact, that almost as soon as the giant blue man had crawled forward two or three body-lengths Pick had hurried to the end of the tunnel and popped out, spreading the light in a way that immediately brightened the rest of the tunnel - Ah’ro could finally see where he was going.

He pulled himself out of the hole just as Pick finished lighting all of the lamps in the chamber - and it was indeed a chamber, with a tall ceiling and walls that were covered in tapestries and several thousand similarly shaped obects. What he was supposed to be looking at, however, became immediately clear. In the center of the chamber, suspended by long cables, was a giant pair of luxurious metallic wings. They were held together at their bases by something extremely familiar…a coarg.

“Great L’aan.”

“This,” Pick said, “Is something I found, almost eight hundred season-cycles ago.” He cleared his old throat and sat down in a large chair that stood next to the wall.

“When I was a young man, I spent many of my season-cycles in politics, rallying people to my causes…one of which was to convince them that further settlement was needed - that simply being content with our place here at Roll would ultimately be our destruction. After a time they agreed, and we took our people far and wide and planted them everywhere we could comfortably live. Underground, mostly…at the time, the Hundif people to the west were doing the same thing. It didn’t work out for them, as they first incited the anger of the Reapers and were all basically extinct by then anyway.” He chuckled and yet the look he gave Ah’ro was not a jovial one. It was a baleful, horrible look. “You can see what good all the colonization has done, can’t you? I’ve sent them all to their deaths…but of course I could not have known that - I was still only a young man. Anyway, on one of these colonization trips I came along, and this was to build a city within the walls of the Ba-L’aan river. We spent tens of daycycles digging out the first of the homescoops, and on one of the daycycles I brushed away dirt that had covered something beautiful. Something that could only have been made from the coarg metal.

“It is when I cleared away the rest of the dirt that I found the wings…and the God-Blood they were attached to.”

Ah’ro breathed in - he had seen the coarg and recognized that it had come from one of his people, but had simply assumed the wings had been added later, after its removal from the body.

“Why are you showing me this?”

“Because these wings, if we can get them to work with your coarg…these wings will give us one of the most essential things we need in the fight against the Reapers. Flight.”

Ah’ro stared for several moments at the wings, then looked to Pick.

“But…”

“Yes, Ah’ro?” The old man watched the God-Blood intently, as if fearing refusal.

“The wings…they must connect…through the back, yes? And yet my coarg only escapes my body from the front.”

Pick cleared his throat. “The wings must be implanted…for them to connect properly, we will have to put them through your flesh, just behind and in between your shoulder blades…of course, that is if we can learn how to connect them. I have my theories, of course…this other God-Blood has done it somehow. Talk of how to implant them within your own coarg is useless, however, if I cannot remove them from their original owner’s coarg. The are fused in quite an…interesting manner.”

Ah’ro imagined the wings hanging out the back of his own coarg, limp and useless. It wasn’t a pleasant thought. But then again, the thought of flying…was much more pleasing to him.

“How do they…how did they work?”

“I don’t know that they did. The God-Blood did end up dead in a riverbank, after all. But I’ve done calculations, and the weight to lift ratio with a fast enough wing motion should have been more than enough to carry the weight of the God-Blood and much more, I should imagine. Why he failed or crashed is unknowable…perhaps he was attacked, even. But if they did work, and he did fly, it was most likely with the help of the magic contained within his coarg.”

“So you say that even if the wings could be attached to my coarg…there is no guarantee they would do anything at all. They could be useless. Is it necessary? Must the wings be used?”

Pick sighed, looking down.

“If there had been more of you, perhaps not. Perhaps a smattering of God-Blood and the magic they held would have been enough to hold the Reapers off. However, you are the only one, a newborn with very little knowledge of the magic that flows from your chest. And you would learn little more from the texts that have been left me regarding this magic - much of that which contained the more extensive information was taken when the God-Blood fled south, because they feared the knowledge would be used for evil if it ever found itse way into the hands of the enemy. Of course, it didn’t end up mattering…the Reapers are plenty strong without it.

So, for now, the answer to your question. Is it necessary? I’m afraid it is, as it must be. You would be little help to my people on the ground, as several of my guards and warriors could do the same work. We, however, cannot fly, and therefore the advantage will always go to the Reapers. A God-Blood in the air could change much of that.”

“And what if the wings do not fuse correctly, or if they fuse and then do not work? Can they be removed?”

“If they do not fuse, yes. However, if they do and do not work, the operation to remove them would kill you. We would have to cut the wings off just above the flesh, and you would be left with stumps. And I do not know how that would effect the power from your coarg. Let us say it is not…a desirable outcome. But, the risks must be taken. I’ve gone over all scenarios. If only we had…if only we had made contact with the God-Blood in the south.”

The lamentation reminded Ah’ro of his vision. He regretted, at the moment, the decision to keep the knowledge to himself. Unless, of course, the vision had been a fabrication of his sleep-deprived mind…but he did not think it so. It had been too real.

He moved toward the wings and began to stroke them, absently noting the fine craftsmanship of the metalwork. The surface felt as if it were water mid-flow, etched and inlaid with patterns that were both beautiful and suggestive of an ancient power. Beautiful.

“Pick, I have had a vision. It may mean much to your people, and to our struggle against the Reapers.”

“A vision? Of what sort?” The little green man hopped out of his seat and waited.

Ah’ro told Pick of his vision then, of his feeling of being trapped within another’s mind, with the arrival of the messenger from Pick’s man on the raft, and the message the man in the vision had relayed to the other God-Bloods.

“By L’aan, the man on the raft is Grundif. I recognize him by the description. He made it…by L’aan he made it,” Pick said after the tale had finished.
“Was there any more of the vision? Did they help him? Did they hear of our situation?”

Ah’ro shook his head. “I do not know. The vision ended with the message to the other God-Blood.”

“The message,” Pick mused. “Is this connection with the God-Bloods the reason you were able to see all of this, do you think?”

Ah’ro shrugged. “Perhaps. But it is good news, yes?”

“It will not help us, if that is what you mean. Even if Grundif tells them what is happening, they may still refuse to do anything. And if they did do something, the journey is much too far for their effort to impact much. The Reapers will have struck by then, I fear. By my estimations they will try to take Roll within the next thirty daycycles. If the time of Grundif’s voyage holds true for the return trip, the God-Blood would not reach us for another forty days. By then my people will have been slaughtered.”

“Unless I can help hold them off.”

Pick nodded.

“You are the factor in my estimations that I cannot predict. I do not want to put to much hope into you, but you are all L’aan has given me, and the fact that L’aan has given anyone at all sparks more hope within me than I’ve had the entire four hundred season-cycles I’ve been Lore-Father within this mountain. I cannot predict what your presence will bring us, but I believe it can be nothing but good. How much good is yet to be seen…and yet, without the wings…there is no more hope at all. Do you understand me?”

Ah’ro did, and as he touched the smooth metal of the wings he felt a great sense of responsibility rising in him. He would do this.

“We must fuse them as soon as possible,” he said, “If they will let me fly, I will need as much time learning with them as can be given.” And the doubt dropped away. He saw it as clearly as he’d seen from the eyes of the ancient God-Blood on the cliff-peak. He would have the wings, and with them he would fly.

With them he would battle the Reapers.

FOUR (2008 Draft)

“Your uncle?”

“Yes. He is the lore-father at Roll. He is the only one of us left to have ever met one of your people. The people have chosen him and his wisdom to keep them for more than two-hundred season cycles. He will be lore-father until he dies.”

The blue man looked upon the green man again, this time noting all that he might have missed on first glance. He was a strong man, smaller perhaps than the blue man, but with the knowledge of centuries at his back.

“Listen, sir,” Pick said, addressing him. “I need to have you checked out. You agreed to allow my staff of healers to look over you once I’d brought you to Hunla. I’ve done that. Now please. Your wounds.”

“Oh. Yes, of course.”

“God-Blood? Why would you have done that?”

“I needed to know you were safe…after what you have done for me.”

“For me? You saved my life. If I had not taken you to this place, still I believe you would have survived. You are more strong a man than ever I have seen. Besides, God-Blood, this is my home. If I am not safe here, where can I be safe? Come, let us have you looked at.”

Hunla walked over to where the Teacher was still speaking her strange language, and whispered something in her ear. The Teacher nodded. And she led the two men from the prayer hall without a word.

The way back to the room with the slab seemed wrong somehow, as if they took too many turns or maybe followed several different passages…if he was going to be comfortable in this place, the blue man was going to have to learn the layout of the First Scoop…and perhaps the second, if indeed the usage of “first” did imply more than one. Hunla strode beside him, walking with the poise of someone in possession of something either incredibly valuable or powerful. He didn’t have to wonder just what it might be.

When they arrived, he sat down and both Pick and Hunla watched as Jorgen and another attendant rubbed his body with a cloth dipped in hot liquid. It was excruciating, especially when they went behind his right shoulderblade where the dustwolf had sunk its two teeth into him. Then they paused, and he felt something actually stab down into the wound.

“Hey, what are you -” he said, pulling away from the attendant, but Pick stepped forward and put a hand on the blue man’s knee.

“When one is bitten by a dustwolf, there are areas too deep to clean simply with the cloth. And if we leave them alone, the saliva from the dustwolf slowly breaks down the tissue around it. Not only will the deeper areas not heal, they’ll start to corrupt the healed ones. So we have to introduce an agent to counterract the destruction the saliva causes.”

“What sort of agent?”

“In this case, a culture of tiny creatures that feed on the decaying flesh and clean the wound with a chemical found in its excrement. They are called l’aogas, since they only grow in deep pockets within the crust of L’aan herself. We discovered them while digging out the scoop…although it was a long time before we realized what they could do for us.”

The attendent held out a clear bulb of liquid so that he could see - within, several tiny segmented translucent creatures wriggled.

Jorgen addressed him. “Can we begin again, God Blood?” The blue man glanced at Pick, who nodded reassuringly.

“Yes,” he said, and the cleaning began again. This time, he didn’t shy away from the deep probing within his two wounds, but when he imagined the tiny creatures within him, eating at his flesh, he shuddered.

“And when the l’aogas are finished? Where do they go?”

“Since they do not feed on healthy flesh,” Pick said, “They will burrow through you to find a way out, or they will hibernate. Most likely they will dig themselves out of your back one night as you sleep.”

“And if they stay in me?”

“No matter - in fact, it’s almost preferable if they do. That way, if you’re injured again, you’ll heal much faster.”

The blue man considered. He couldn’t argue with the advantages of quicker healing and a way to stave off infection, even if it meant having a colony of tiny worms burrowing around inside of him.

Finally, Jorgen and the other attendant began running long, thin pieces of cloth through his wounds, pulling them tight and tying them off to close the rather large openings.

“That will do it, Lore-father,” Jorgen said, and bowed. Pick nodded, and addressed the attendants and Hunla.

“Thank you. Now, I’d like to talk to the God-Blood alone. We have yet to speak of items that have great import.”

They all bowed, even Hunla, and began to leave.

“Hunla stays,” the blue man protested.

“No, God-Blood,” Hunla said to him, “My uncle is right. He will have a harder time speaking to you about the things he needs to with me here. I have things to do besides. Do not worry, you will see enough of me in the coming daycycles.” Then she was gone and it was only he and Pick.

The blue man looked the lore-father in the eye and waited for the old man to speak. After some moments and a sigh, he did.

“I know that you are not of the southern race of God-Blood, the ones we have sent countless messengers to intercept…but I wondered if still you would help us.”

“Help you? With the Reapers?”

“Yes. We face extinction.”

“Have you fought back?”

“In limited fashion, yes, but we lack the tools and skills to do such. The mining of chest-jewels and the creation of artificial machinery is something the Reapers alone have done. Beside that, our culture is one built on knowledge and personal happiness. Many of my people simply accept their fate, and choose to live the rest of their lives in peace.”

“Then I must ask you. What do the God-Blood possess that could so help your cause? If they had come, would you have the advantage?”

“No. At best, we would still only have a slight chance at survival, at some sort of prolonged existance. And even then, it might only be a few more season-cycles until they destroyed us. But it would be something. It would be enough time to leave the history of this place for its next inhabitors.”

“Still. You have not answered. What do the God-Blood possess? What, outside of number, would they bring to your side?”

“For that, my son, I would have to explain the history of your people. Of my people. Of all of this.”

“Do we not have time?”

“Not as much as I’d like. For now, though, it is enough to say that they possess a great magic. A magic that is born out of their chests, by the very thing that is in yours. It replaces the circulatory and respiratory organs which their descendents have, and for that reason along with many others your people live an extremely long time. A thousand of my lifetimes. Ten thousand. If he’s lived this long, the progenitor might still be alive.”

“The progenitor?”

“The first man ever born out of the Mother River. His name was Ah. It means, in the old language of the God-Blood, ‘first-man.’ He was the discoverer of the magic that came from his chest, and he taught what he knew to the next born, and the next. The River birthed eighty of them, over time. Forty men and forty women, the first time.”

“So this man, the progenitor…”

“Ah..”

“Ah. He…is still alive?”

“He was four-thousand season-cyles ago, when the last of them fled to the South, with their secrets and their magic. I was still a boy, then. But I remember living through it. It had been building for some time, but I paid little attention. Then one day there were hardly any left. Thousands of God-Blood had been massacred during the night. All for the chest-jewels.”

“The chest jewels? But why? Could they also possess the magic of the God-Blood with the jewels?”

“No. The first of them had started to die out by then, you see. And their jewels…were all that was left behind. And it was found that they could be melted down and used in fashioning things of great strength. Machinery, weaponry, things of that nature. Only it soon became apparent that there was not enough of the material - plans for larger machines could not be carried out. Waiting for the God-Blood to die was a tedious task indeed, and saving up the chest-jewels was impossible. Their value became too great…and the greed of a certain group of descendents became too much. There were over ten-thousand chest-jewels in Rolloch at that time, and almost all of them were still attached to their hosts. Although that didn’t last long.”

The blue man gritted his teeth as he imagined the large gear in his chest being ripped from him, tearing him in two in the process. Of course, they wouldn’t have tried it while the God-Blood were still alive. They’d most likely beheaded their magical ancestors beforehand, and harvested the jewels later. What greed could drive men to such things? There had to be more there than what Pick was telling him.

“Why slaughter a benevolent race of ancestors to gain access to machines? Surely the magic of the elders could have done what the machines could…and what need of weapons did a people have if they were truly protected?”

Pick sighed, obviously unwilling to continue.

“There was….a secret. And only one man knew it. He was a politician, only a hundred years older than I was as a boy…but a hundred years is a long time when one is so young. He was charming and  could move a crowd to rise and surge with only words. For that reason he had several thousand followers, and at the time he was campaigning against the God-Blood. He said that they were keeping their magic to themselves and not actually benefitting our race as much as they could have been…that in fact, they were using their magic to let us die while they became older and older…and people believed him. My father believed him. And I was too young to care either way.”

“The secret…What was the man’s secret?”

“He found out how to harness magic within anything made from the material of the chest-jewels…”

“But you said they couldn’t gain the magic of the God-Blood by taking their jewels!”

“They couldn’t. They could, however, trap a different kind of magic within. A magic that worked opposite of the magic of the God-Blood. And this man figured out how. That is the knowledge he used to convince my people to murder the God-Blood. He promised that they would be more powerful, and autonomous - no longer relying on some ancient race to protect and care for them. They would take their power and travel the land, taking control of territory…putting down oppositions. It was an exciting time for most of them…until they found out he was insane. But by then, of course, it was too late. The magic warped them…the Reapers are what is left.”

“And so, when you sent for the remaining God-Blood in the South, you had hoped they would aid you with their magic…”

“Yes.”

“And they have not come, or answered your messengers with any message.”

“No.”

“And since I have been born out of the Mother River and contain a chest-jewel like those you remember, you expect that I will be able to help your kind against the Reapers.”

“I have no choice…to have one God-Blood on our side, even an inexperienced one, is still a better situation than the one we currently face. Also, I feel as though you have been sent. After the massacre, Mother River dried up…it was a hundred season-cycles before it flowed once again - only then no more of the God-Blood were born. Four thousand years of sterility, and then you, now. It cannot be a coincidence.” He chuckled. “Ah’ro.”

“Ah’ro?”

“It means ‘second first-man.’ And that, you truly are.”

The blue man tasted the word, rolling it around his tongue like a bit of charred dustwolf flesh.

“Ah’ro. I like it. I will keep it as my name.” Pick nodded, smiling. Ah’ro (as he would now be called) looked into the eyes of the lore-father and nodded.

“Lore-father Pick, it is clear that you need me…or at least believe that you do. Perhaps you do; I don’t know. But I believe your people deserve to live. And for that I will do what I can.”

It was at that moment, and perhaps a moment more, that one of Pick’s attendants strode briskly into the room.

“Sir.”

“What is it, Yornif?”

Yornif bit his lower lip and looked down. “Sir. We have word from Grob…”

Pick straightened, eyes wide. His hands were clenched into fists. “Yes?”

“Sir…we’ve lost it. It appeared to the scouts you sent that it happened some time ago…as many as fifty daycycles ago.”

Ah’ro tried to gauge the old lore-father’s reaction. He couldn’t. After a moment the man’s face turned hard, and his voice did the same.

“They’re growing stronger then,” he turned to the blue man and added, “Fifteen thousand of my people lived at Grob. It was the largest canyonside city in all of L’aan. Ten times the size of Yuuka…half the size of Roll.” He turned back to his attendant, “You are dismissed, Yornif.”

Yornif bowed and ducked out of the room.

Ah’ro idly ran his fingers over the jewel in his chest. It tingled slightly as he thought of the mutated race of men on their flying machines slaughtering fifteen thousand men and women…greed was no longer responsible for their actions; it was surely something deeper. A madness, an evil. And he thought about what it would take to stop them, and he felt for the first time something like fear course through his body. Pick was speaking to him.

“Fifty daycycles ago…if that figure is correct, we have much less time time than I had thought. I knew they would take Grob, of course…I just hadn’t anticipated it would be this soon. Although I should have known when we stopped hearing word from them…poor Hemlo. I tried to get him to come stay with his daughter at Roll, but he would not. In my heart perhaps I knew my brother was dead, but perhaps not. I will have to tell Hunla about her father first…before the people of Roll learn of the fate of their kin in the sister city.”

“Pick, if I am to help your people…”

“Yes?”

“I must know everything about these Reapers that I can. And anything of the magic in my chest.”

“Of course…you will have access to it all. Anything if it might help us.”

“And the machines…before he died Grell told me you had a Talna, or something like that.”

Pick licked his lips.

“I don’t, not a Talna…however, there is something. Something else. And perhaps that is just one more reason I’ve been waiting for one of your kind to arrive…but that can wait. For now, you need to rest. I’ll have Jorgen take you to your sleeping place.”

The small chubby man appeared, bowing. Ah’ro was about to argue, but then a wave of exhaustion rode over him and he realized how right Pick was. He did need sleep. And food. Pick seemed to have read your mind.

“I’ll have my cooks prepare for you a meal like you’ve never had…and, the way you tell it, you never have.”

“Thank you.”

Pick put a green hand on his shoulder and looked him in the eye.

“No, thank you. I’ve been waiting for you for what seems like an eternity.”

You may have been waiting for someone…but it wasn’t me, Ah’ro thought, but he said nothing and followed Jorgen from the room.

It surprised him when Jorgen finally stopped, as they had been walking for quite some time (at least it seemed to Ah’ro), travelling between the medical and business portions of the scoop and finally reaching the sleeping quarters. Also, he’d been expecting something…larger for someone of his size. Jorgen stopped and pointed to his left, and all there seemed to be was a little hole in the wall, about as wide in diameter as his shoulders.

“Here you are, God-Blood.”

“Ah’ro.” Jorgen smiled, as if the blue man’s name was some kind of joke. He supposed it was, kind of. Hadn’t Pick chuckled as he’d said it? The little man continued. “Whatever we were able to do to make to make your habitat more comfortable we have done, but perhaps it is not enough. If not, we will have a crew of diggers make you a new room on the south end. Making this one too much larger would weaken the integrity of the walls. Make yourself as comfortable as you can. Someone will be alone with your food shortly.”

“Thank you Jorgen.”

And the little man was gone, scurrying off down some previously unseen passage. Ah’ro took another long look at the small opening in the wall, before sighing and lowering his head to look inside. What he had expected to be a dark and plain room was, in fact, glowing an extremely pleasant green…bright enough to see everything easily but not enough to hurt his eyes. He tried to find the source, but the light was even - as if the walls were giving off the glow themselves.

Describe room….bed/no bed, whatever. I don’t care. There’s no painting of this.

He was wedged into his sleeping hole, thinking of everything Pick had said and beginning to nod off when a familiar voice spoke to him.

“I thought you might be hungry, Mister Ah’ro.”

Ah’ro opened his eyes and was greeted by the sad smile of Hunla as she stood outside his hole. Her head came only two thirds of the way to the top of the hole and he realized he’d have to kneel to be her height. She held in her clay-colored hands a clay dish that looked as if it would barely fit through the entrance. It was decorated with an assortment of items Ah’ro was sure he’d never seen before. Tufts of dark green and little reddish balls and slices of a sort of meat and something else that looked amazingly like a large brown worm. As his eyes took in the view, the smells from the dish began to reach him, and his mouth became wet.

“How long are you going to let me stand here, God-Blood? This plate is not as light as I make it seem.”

“Oh, yes. Of course.” He pulled himself from the sleeping nook and lunged forward, gingerly taking the plate from Hunla’s grasp. It was surprisingly heavy. Surely not something he’d expect a person of Hunla’s size to be carrying this far.

“Thank you, Hunla. Where is this food…where is it prepared?”

“Not far. Fourth level of the scoop, in the preserve.”

“Ah.”

“Ah’ro,” she said, her tone of voice playful as she corrected him.

“Yes. I’m starting to wonder if perhaps the name I’ve chosen was the wrong one.”

Hunla laughed. “The wrong one? God-Blood, it is the only one. It was a wise choice, although I wonder if someone who has lived so little has the capability for wisdom. Heroism, yes, and courage. But perhaps wisdom only comes later.”

She began climbing through the entrance to Ah’ro’s sleeping hole, and for a moment he thought of helping her, but instead he just watched. A moment later she was sitting beside him, hugging her legs to herself on the floor.

“Did they do anything to your room? It looks as small as all of the rest of them.”

“I don’t know…Jorgen said they had.”

Hunla laughed. “Jorgen. Jorgen says what keeps Jorgen out of trouble.”

“Do you know him well?”

She looked up at him. “I was betrothed to Jorgen before leaving to Yuuka. He and I were to be life partners. He is the reason I left.”

“I see.”

“Of course, historically, pairs of life partners rarely stay together for life…our people lived too long for that. But at least most of them stayed together long enough for the mating period to end.” She looked away. Ah’ro’s hand started to move, to comfort her, but he stopped it. A moment later she looked back at him.

“Aren’t you going to even taste anything I’ve carried so far for you?”

Ah’ro looked back down at the dish in his lap. He grabbed at one of the red balls, and put it into his mouth. Immediately he was assaulted by a severe sweetness, and an undercurrent of something that sparked a strange sense of familiarity.

“It is…I like this.”

“Of course you do. Everyone likes dropka berries. They were rare as it was, but with the raids there are even less than ever. Of course, we have a stockpile so deep it won’t bother us much.”

Ah’ro popped another of the dropka berries in his mouth and decided he would taste the meat next…and the worm thing last. In fact, he would probably just skip the worm.

“What are you speaking of? Raids?”6

“The Reapers. They’ve tried attacking Roll before, but it never worked for them…the mountain was too thick and they can’t fly their Talnas through out entrances. And if they’d sent footmen in, we would have put them down easily. They are, after all, rather weak when it comes to physical fighting. So, to draw us out they began destroying our crops and animal stock. But that didn’t work either, as Pick had us begin stockpiling foods in the preserve almost four hundred season-cycles ago. It was right about the time the Reapers started…reaping. If it was my guess I’d say he predicted they’d eventually try to take Roll. And he was right. And now that Grob is gone…” She trailed off, and Ah’ro watched a tear drop off the shelf of her cheek. He remembered her father, and this time when his hand chose to move, he let it.

“Tomorrow is to be a day of mourning in Roll. There will be no eating, no digging, no working of any sort. There are none of us who did not know someone at Grob. It will be a day of reflection, and of realization. That within Roll lies the last remaining pocket of our people.”

Ah’ro had trouble listening, because his coarg had begun to throb. He could feel it pulsing along with his anger and with Hunla’s sorrow. He wasn’t prepared for the power that assaulted him, and he quickly tried to disperse it, clenching his teeth and trying to calm himself. But instead he felt a bolt of electricity go through him and he heard a loud CRACK!

“Ahhhrg!”

Hunla jumped away from him, clutching the point on her shoulder where Ah’ro’s hand had been resting. He rolled to his feet, spilling the contents of the plates all over the floor, and spread his arms wide as he made to comfort the bewildered Hunla.

“Hunla, I…” She backed away, looking at him in a new way. And Ah’ro knew it wasn’t good.

“Please, no closer. God-Blood, why would you harm me?”

“I…didn’t mean for that to happen. I suppose I don’t have control over the way my coarg responds to my emotions…yet.”

She turned to the exit, clutching her shoulder.

“God-Blood, you saved my life, and I am grateful for that…but I can’t trust another man…especially if I sit in fear of being cooked like those dustwolves. You have a great power, and I hope it will help my people survive…but if you can’t control it, I don’t think - I don’t think I can spend time with you until you can.”

“Hunla, I would never hurt you…”

She turned to him, from the passageway.

“I want to believe you. If my people knew about this, they would fear and probably hate you. Some of them still think the destruction of the God-Bloods was a good thing.”

Ah’ro said nothing.

“Enjoy your rest, God-Blood.”

A moment later she was gone, and Ah’ro stood clenching his fist and feeling a great sadness fill his stomach and rise to his chest. The electricity filled him and this time he let it power his pain, let it grow and didn’t bother to disperse it. He sat back down and spread his hands across the floor, feeling the soft roughness of the strange glowing rock. He closed his eyes and breathed, and felt something different happening to him…it was as if the power inside him were trickling through him and escaping from his palms. A flash of brightness broke through his closed eyes and he opened them to see what was happening. The glowing rock was emitting an amplified version of its light, so amplified that the area around his hands looked as though it were the only lighted part of the room. It wasn’t heat energy, or electricity, but almost as if he were affecting the rock itself, directly transferring energy into it. He pushed harder, with his palms and his thoughts, and felt the trickle expand into almost a rush. The permeated area spread, radiating from the source and climbing up the walls. It was almost too bright to see anything, but the release of the power felt good. It wasn’t like when he’d shot fire from his hands; that had been violent and taxing. This…this was almost peaceful. He let the power flow from him for a good while, practicing until he was proficient in releasing just the amount of energy he intended. Then, almost as abruptly as he’d started, he was done.

The room faded back to its original ambient brightness, something that seemed almost to Ah’ro like darkness now. He pushed over to his sleeping scoop and fell in, exhausted. And somewhat satisfied, as he’d gone to some lengths to learn about the power of his coarg…like Hunla had told him to. He didn’t want to be without her in this place…because for some reason, she was familiar to him. And she may have been the only familiar thing.

But that was all he thought of, and no more, because that was when Ah’ro fell into sleep.

THREE (2007 Draft)

He was given almost no warning before the first claws raked his naked back, and he grunted when impossibly long teeth sank into his shoulder. Then he was being flipped up, jerked away from Hunla’s helpless figure, and he heard the snarls of the creature that had found them. A moment later he was on his back in the dust, and he put his arms up to ward off the coming assault. It didn’t come. He rolled to his feet, and though it hurt, opened his eyes and scanned his surroundings for the dustwolf. What he saw immediately was Hunla, sitting up and peering through the green-tinted sand tempest for him. He looked past her. Where was the dustwolf? He whirled, squinting, and was at last rewarded with the dark, brief image of an incredibly large animal, fully two heads taller than him and sporting a snout that seemed to breath on its own, and teeth that fell from the upper jaw like two perfect daggers. Its ears were enormous, and where its eyes should have been there was only fur. The beast was blind.

He stood there, half crouched and tense, waiting for the dustwolf to strike. But it did not. It licked its chops, tasting the blue blood it took from his shoulder. Then, it made a piercing howl that pulled at the device in his chest, and stood stark still. Surely it knew where he stood, could feel perhaps his vibrations? Then why had it not finished its job, struck him again while he was down? Over his shoulder he sensed movement, and twisted to see. It was Hunla, standing now, huddled to herself as if in cold, and she made a motion to put her hand over her eyes and crouched, peering. She could not see him. He knew immediately that she would speak, that she would not be able to help herself and before the thought found its way through his mind she had begun.

”God-Blood? Where have you gone?”

No! You’ll attract more of them! He wanted to leap at her, to throw a hand over her mouth, but it was too late. She’d already done it. He cursed her for her stupidity, and then realized. It didn’t matter. The beast had made no move toward them at her voice. It was waiting. They hunt in packs. Grell had been right. It had called the rest of them with its howl. He stepped toward Hunla, reaching out to her. When his finger touched her she jumped, but realizing it was him she fell into his body, weeping.

”The one that attacked me is calling for its brothers. What can we do?” His voice was calm - he did not feel the fear she felt. Only a numb disbelief, a distant sense of impending doom.

”We can do nothing. It was good to have met you before my death, God-Blood. To think that I survived the reapers…that I survived them only to die on the way to Roll. And Grell…”

The blue man stayed silent and kept his eyes about him. He was becoming used to the constant stinging, the dark green that chilled him, and the shadows that played through the desert. He felt as if he were at the bottom of a deep river, anchored there and simply awaiting whatever death chose him. He noticed now that there were two beasts, standing side by side, ears perked in their direction. Then three, the third coming from their left - a shadow that seemed to swim through the darkness and a certain type of lonely fear began to tickle him. For now there were five, six of the monsters, all circling round and he thought of Grell, of the screams he’d heard…ten, fourteen, too many around now to count. His shoulder was warm and his arm felt hot, electrified with the pain from the dustwolf’s bite. A moment more and they were all there, all of them, and he knew because the first stepped forward and bowed its head, before raising it and howling rapturously. They seemed to all crouch back, in preparation for leaping. The blue man’s body tensed, and he realized he meant to fight. He threw Hunla to the ground and as the dustwolves replaced the sand in the air and fell toward him, he raised his hands to them and his chest exploded.

A great electricity, a whirring sort of heat came from him and he felt it course through, seeming to tear his limbs apart with its power. And now the animals were falling on him, dying as their bodies smoked and blackened with his touch, dying the way the one reaper had when the Talna he’d been riding had been upended, speared by the sacrificial Marg, and he wondered if somewhere beneath him Hunla was suffering the same fate, perhaps murdered by an incidental touch to his ankle, or calf. More and more of them he fought off, catching them in the jaw or underbelly and sending their charred bodies back into the fray of still living, confused wolves, and he worked his way through them, touching and tearing at them, turning the sand beneath his feet to glass with every step. The smell was rancorous, reaching into his nostrils and ripping through to his brain - the smell of cooking meat and roasted hair, the chemical stench of liquid fire.

In their confusion the dustwolves scattered, careening into each other as they bolted blindly, ears flopping uselessly in the wind. Another moment and he was on his knees, watching the almost-black blood from his eyes and mouth pour onto the smoldering glassy surface below him and pool, as his body convulsed with electricity and the awful thing in his chest sputtered, bringing an end to the charge that had filled him with such power. His blue body smoked, naked, and every grain of sand that flew against him felt like ice. He collapsed, and for the second time that day lay unconscious half in and half out of a river.

***

He woke, it seemed, much later, and in a different light. It was the yellowsky again, or something very similar, and he was moving lightly across the ground or the earth was rotating beneath his back, although he seemed to float on a pillow of warmth. Fur? His feet were bound together with a sort of rope and before he became fully aware of what was happening to him his shoulder screamed in pain as a passing rock rolled under it. He grunted, and abruptly his body came to a stop. Small footsteps made their way quickly toward him, to his side and he looked up into the surprised and frightened face of Hunla, who was apparently alive.

“God-Blood! You did not move, you did not speak. I thought they had killed you! But you are stronger than I had imagined!”

He grunted, rolling to his left and, with some effort, pushed himself up on into a sitting position. His feet were bound with a sort of rope, hairy and wet. He looked back, and saw the trail that his body had left, a long shallow dip in the sand that went on as far as he could see. Returning to Hunla he was startled by a dark shape behind her, a rising pointed structure in the distance that overwhelmed him with its size. The mountain Golrath. They had come much closer.

”You thought I was dead and still you pulled me all this way? Why? And how? I would not have thought you had the strength!”

She reached into the cloth that wrapped around her midsection and pulled out a small skin, a rag from the fur of a dustwolf. She opened it, and showed him several strips of brown, greasy meat.

”The dustwolf is tough, and hearty, and does not eat often. Its meat is full of energy, and strength - but to hunt one dustwolf is to hunt them all, and my people do not often get the chance to eat of their flesh. As for why I have dragged you…even dead, you would have been a beacon of hope for my people. My uncle, at least, would have taken your existance as a sign that we are not lost, that there is still hope for us. The reapers, you see, are trying to wipe us out.”

He nodded, and struggled to get to his feet. It was difficult, and he felt as if his limbs were crisp and brittle, and that they might crack at any moment. Hunla pushed him back.

”You must not try to get up. You are wounded, badly, in the shoulder and elsewhere. You were ablaze with death, and your body must heal. Lay back.” He did so, grudgingly, but aware of the fact that she was right. He needed to heal. From her pouch she pulled a long tendril of meat, and gave it to him.

”It will give you strength, and cure your hunger. Chew on it; we will soon be there.”

He put the meat in his mouth and chewed, slowly at first and then with a speed and voracity that startled him. Hunger had just now hit him, like a boulder from a cliff, and though it was tough and tasted of grease and charcoal, he savored each moment it sat in his mouth. When he had swallowed the last bit he closed his eyes and felt, as he drifted on the wolf pelt beneath him over the changing landscape (it was less sand now, more weeds and tough rock) as if he’d come apart from his body, and he imagined he was Marg, a version of him that had perhaps survived, and was now circling the world with a watchful eye, playfully diving and dodging, pulling clouds along with him as the motor beneath him hummed. The memory of it made his chest tingle, but he wasn’t aware of it anymore - he was peacefully asleep. Peacefully, even as his body was flipped up and carried gently by many soft hands, even as their voices drove him from his dream of black and green and he began to hear them, to listen, and it was again like hearing the babble of the river from which he’d come. Familiar, and warm.

“No, she was the only survivor from Youk. Grell came with her, and she told me of the deeds of Marg, but then Grell was killed by the dustwolves and she would have been as well if it hadn’t been for this, for this God-Blood. She does not seem to know anything of him, and why not? Did she not ask questions? Was she not curious of his reason for coming so far North? Or why his people had only sent him? Or if, indeed, he’s here to help us fend off the Reapers? Why have our messengers not returned with him?”

”If he does not wish to help, why has he saved her from the wolves? And though Grell was killed and it is a regrettable loss, he was no more important than any of those we sent to colonize Youk. We spread our arms, our people, and again and again they find us. Continually they kill us, harvest us. It is only a matter of time before they come to Roll. And when they do, may we be helped.”

”They will not attack Roll. They cannot. It is a fortress. They know of our existance here, and at Grob, and have not come. They instead take us from our auxiliaries. ”

”Oh, they will come. If we did not fear their arrival, we would not have attempted to branch out in the first place. We have always feared, and for good reason. The Reapers will destroy us.”

The blue man clenched his fingers, reached up for his chest. A pair of gasps greeted his action, and his eyes shot open.

”He’s awake! Send for Pick - he should be the one to make contact.”

The blue man tried to focus in on the two men, but one of them was streaking out the only entrance to the little room. The other man looked similar to the way Grell had, but was fatter and had a shorter frame. He twitched as the blue man regarded him, and when the blue man pulled himself from the stone slab he laid on, the little clay-colored man’s eyes widened and he put his hands out.

”No! You are not to move! You haven’t healed!”

The blue man ignored him and, once sitting, swung his legs over the side of the slab. They touched the ground and once again he regarded the small size of the room. He wouldn’t be able to stand here, his head was bare inches from the ceiling as it was. The little clay-colored man was nearly jumping out of his skin.

”You can’t! I’ve been ordered to keep you -”

”Where is Hunla?”

The man’s eyes widened. It was as if he didn’t believe the blue man would talk - and now that he had, he didn’t know what to do. His mouth hung open. The blue man pushed himself off the table, and crouched low under the small ceiling. His legs were weak and his shoulder still hurt, but he could move, and he did. He pushed past the silent man and pulled himself out the entrance.

”You really shouldn’t…”

The hall was much larger, and several of the clay-colored people strode up and down, looking into many of the smaller rooms that connected. The blue man could stand fully here, and he did. He stood tall and searched through the people, hoping to catch a glimpse of Hunla. Where had she gone? There were several females here, each bearing a slight resemblance, but none of them were her. And it was easier now, since all of the passing people had stopped, and were now watching him with the same wide-eyed open-mouthed stupor the man in the room had had.

”JORGEN! I SAID TO KEEP HIM ON THE TABLE!” A furious-looking man came darting down one of the halls, and there was something different about him; something that was obvious in the way the other members of the clay-colored race just moved out of his way as he walked. He was green in color, and wore a crown of intricate headgear that seemed to be created from several gear shapes that looked just like the device in his chest. He sliced through the crowd and came to a stop in front of the blue man. He looked up, smiling.

”Hello.”

The blue man said nothing. The green man changed his focus. “Jorgen! Come out here.” The squat man from the room scurried out of the entrance and stood there, nervously glancing back and forth between the green and blue man.

”Jorgen, I told you he was not to move until I had come and checked him. He could be further injuring himself.”

Jorgen lowered his head. “I…I’m sorry sir, he didn’t listen to me. He just got up and…well, I tried to send for you as quick as I could.”

The green man nodded, and from that point on the snivelling Jorgen was ignored.

“You.” The blue man addressed the green man. “You are Pick?”

”Yes, I am Pick.”

”You are in charge here?”

”I…I suppose you could say that.”

”Then you will take me to Hunla.”

Pick looked around, at everyone watching. He made a motion with his hand and they reluctantly began moving again, returning to whatever they’d been doing. He returned his attention to the blue man, looking up into his dark eyes. “I can do that. First, though, I need to make sure your wounds are healing correctly. If they’re not, you could be injured more seriously.”

The blue man shook his head.

”I feel much better. If you want to examine me, you must first take me to Hunla. Or is she also injured?”

”No, she is well. If that is really what you wish, you can come with me.”

”Thank you.”

Pick turned, and began speeding once again through the crowds of rushing people. The blue man followed, and found the way increasingly easy as the residents of this part of Roll fell out of his way with a mixture of fear, awe, and respect. The blue man began to wonder why.

”Why do your people call me the God-Blood?” he asked as Pick led him down another series of hallways.

“We have stories, you know. Stories that go back hundreds of generations - our people have been around that long - it’s only recently the Reapers have established their power. It is said that in the beginning there were only the God-Blood. And as time went on, the God-Blood split into several groups, each warring with the other until they became so isolated that every group came away with seperate attributes. Two of the factions grew so large, and warred so long that they swallowed the rest of the factions and absorbed their genetic differences. And after thousands of years, we are what’s left. The Reapers and the people of Roll. We are all related, and the God-Blood are our common ancestor. You are one of the old ones.”

”And what are you?”

”Oh. You are referring to my skin color. Well, this is what we looked like a thousand years ago. I just haven’t died yet.”

They turned a corner and went through an opening. It was as if they’d entered a completely new arena. They were underground, that was clear, but this new space was ridiculously large - a beautiful cavern that rounded out at the corners - thousands of openings touched its walls, and thousands of people gathered at vendors and such along its bottom. There were tents and rows and rows of people just going about their normal day, strolling around. It was something to see. The blue man just looked. (MORE DESCRIPTION PLEASE - MAYBE A PAINTING)

”This is the First Scoop.”

”Where are we?”

”Within the Golrath mountain. It is the only safe way to live here.”

”Who built it?”

”Well. I did, among others. We had to adapt, you see, after migrating so far east. The dust and the wolves and the mandatory need for shelter…we had no choice. We dug out the mountain. We dug out hundreds of different places as well, and some worked better than others. This one seemed to work the best. This, and a canyon we call Grob. They are where we are centered…though recently, those at Grob have been increasingly difficult to contact. We don’t know why, since our messengers don’t seem to return anymore…here, God-Blood, we will find Hunla two levels down. She most likely would have been along to visit later, she can’t seem to stop talking about you and what you did for her.”

”So then you know about the fire I made to kill the dustwolves. Is that why your people are afraid?”

They ascended a curling set of stairs, and stepped through a narrow alley. They emerged into a larger sort of room, lit with fire and where several of the clay-colored people knelt, heads bowed as an old woman spoke. She stopped at the sight of them, and Pick addressed her.

”I’m sorry, Teacher. May we borrow Hunla?”

The woman pointed toward the back of the room, at a flat rock that was apparently rolled over another opening.

”She is in private meditation, grieving for those lost at Youk.”

”Then we shall wait here. Thank you.”

Pick knelt at one of the rounded stones positioned on the ground, and bowed his head. After a moment he motioned the blue man to do the same. He perhaps wouldn’t have, but didn’t see a reason to resist. They were here to see Hunla, after all, and Pick had been rather helpful. The blue man was beginning to like the little old green man. The teacher began speaking again, but it was a different language.

”What is she saying?” This he whispered, and Pick raised an eyebrow.

”This…this is the language of the God-Blood. It is used in group meditation and higher learning. You mean, you don’t recognize it?”

The blue man shoook his head.

”Then, the language of the old ones has changed? What language do you speak now?”

He realized that Pick thought he had come from a community of people like him from across the ocean and far to the south. He clicked his teeth together and beckoned the green man closer.

”I don’t remember anything before…before the Reapers attacked your colony. Yook. Only moments before, I came aware on the riverbank nearby. That is what I remember. I don’t believe I’ve come from where you believe I have.”

Pick was silent for a long moment.

”If you’re not from the God-Blood, it may explain certain things. The metal jewel in your chest, perhaps. The fire that danced from your fingers. If you have not come from afar, perhaps you’ve come from the heavens. Perhaps you’ve come from the very Earth herself. Or perhaps you just cannot remember.”

Movement from behind them caused the blue man to look up. The little slab of rock was sliding aside, and from a dark room stepped Hunla, cleaned and wearing much more colorful clothing than she had been in the desert. She spied the two of them kneeling and nodded, smiling slightly.

The blue man stood.

“Hunla.”

”Hello, God-Blood. I see you’ve met my uncle.”

TWO (2007 Draft)

Their route had taken the blue man back across the river in which he’d awoken and up the riverbank on the other side. By the time they’d gotten that far, the presence of the reapers in the burned out hole on the other side was impossible to ignore. It was the reason Grell and the woman (whose name was Hunla) had instructed him to cake his body in mud, so they wouldn’t be seen by a patrolling reaper. There were certainly enough pairrs of eyes in the sky to do it. Upwards of twenty of them, two groups of which held nets out for the others, who circled as before only now they pulled the bodies off the ground and flung them into the nets. Very interesting behavior. Grell explained.

”They come to kill first, with their warriors. When the killing is over, others come to join them. For the harvest.”

The blue man nodded. He focused about as far across the landscape as he could, and saw the body of the rider he’d seen felled by the warrior’s spear. As he watched, one of the reapers pulled this body from the ground as well, and it was added to the net along with the clay-colored dead. They harvested their own. It made him think of the reaction they’d had when that particular rider had died. None at all. The Talna was obviously more valuable. Which made it clear why they’d all streaked after the warrior through the sky.

They’d begun walking again, and Grell jumped when the blue man spoke. To this point he hadn’t, and the effect was clearly startling.

”What happened to the man who fought back? The man who flew the Talna?”

The question seemed to annoy Grell, who lowered his head and waved it off. “There is not time. We must continue, and we must reach Roll before the dust. Otherwise we will have to survive the dustwolves. They, too, hunt in packs.” He grumbled and moved ahead, walking faster. Hunla fell in step beside the blue man.

”Your voice is like a rockslide. You must have a name, yes?”

The blue man didn’t answer. He did not shake his head, even though he had no name that he could remember, no real memory at all beyond his awakening on the riverbed and a vague sense of familiarity with his body and with this world. He did not know who he was and was not particularly interested in finding out at this point. He might as well have been borne of the very river which had carried him so far. Hunla, uninhibited, continued.

”It is a great honor to meet one of the God-Blood. We have only heard of your people in tales, in stories told by our clan-master’s griot and scientist. He is the man you must talk to. He is the only one of us to have ever encountered a God-Blood, and it is said that he is ageless because of it. That he has lived a thousand years. I don’t believe it, but it is a good tale all the same. All of the women at the Yuuka colony were very fond of him - he is considered somewhat of a prize.”

She fell silent, and tossed her head back the way they’d come. “But now they are gone. I had many good friends.”

“We did what we could, Hunla,” Grell said from his position in front of them. He had apparently been listening.

”Yes, of course, Grell,” she said, and then put her eyes to the ground and sighed. “Marg did what he could.” She said this quietly, to the blue man and to the rocks beneath her feet. Grell gave no sign that he’d heard.

The blue man addressed him. “How far to the city of Roll?”

Grell pointed ahead, to a mountain that lay in the distance, jutting from the horizon. “Beyond Golrath. We really must hurry.”

”And what is the dust?”

Grell turned to him. “You have come this far North and yet you do not know of the dust? Surely you must have encountered it, there is one dust every daycycle.” His eyes grew together, and his face formed an expression of suspicion. The blue man said nothing, but challenged Grell with his eyes. The smaller man gave in quickly.

“The dust happens when the sky turns green and the winds blast the ground, turning up the sand and making it impossible to move. For us, at least. The dustwolves and airsharks have adapted to it, and they use the dust to hunt for food. The yellowsky is next, and then the greensky and the dust. If we are to make it to Roll, we have no time to lose. If we do not make it, we must count on finding a place of shelter…and that is not something we would like to do. There are few enough of them unnoccupied as it is, and the construction of a new shelter within the sand would alone take several daycycles. We will be safe at Roll.”

And they continued on, the tingle in the blue man’s chest dissipating as they made their way farther and farther from the reapers and their Talnas. He was more comfortable then, and took to touching his gear absently as they walked. Grell became more and more agitated as they went, obviously beginning to realize how far the mountain Golrath really was, and the probability that they’d make it in time. He suggested that they jog, and for several thousand yards they did. The sky was turning from it’s magenta hue and cascading into a calm yellow one, casting lighter rays on them and kicking up a cool breeze. Still, Hunla soon grew tired.

“No more. No more of this, Grell.”

She tumbled to the ground and put an arm over her face. Grell stopped with a look of furious annoyance crossing his face, and drew back over her. “Get up, Hunla! There is not TIME!”

He pulled at her arms and she swatted him away. He stood, blinking, obviously unuse to this kind of behavior toward him.

“Go then, run and I shall catch up. I need rest now, and running will not give it to me. You will kill me with your hurrying and your whip-cracking. And I will not arrive at Roll only to fall dead at the gates.”

Grell looked about with panicky eyes. He made as if to do just what Hunla had asked, to run and leave her, but then he stopped himself and put himself again at the task of raising her from the ground. She swatted him again, and this time anger rose in his eyes.

”The run will not kill you, Hunla! The dustwolves will! You will die just as your father did. He, too, was stubborn. A fool!” He put his hand into a fist and raised it above her, bringing it down - the blue man saw he intended the blow for her face, and as the fist fell he aimed a kick at Grell’s side. The little man went flying from the force of it, and the blue man checked himself. He had not meant to put Grell off of his feet; he’d simply aimed to move him away from Hunla so that his fist would fall harmlessly into the earth. Had he been underestimating his strength this entire time? Or was it simply that he was a giant now, removed from his own people, the supposed “God-Blood”? He put the thought aside for later.

Grell whirled on the ground to face him and for a moment the blue man saw the man’s eyes. I will murder the God-Blood.

”Do not…touch me! It is dishonor!”

The blue man stared him down, and as before, Grell lowered his eyes first. The man leading them was a coward. Most likely he and Hunla had been hiding (on his orders) until the man named Marg had fought back, sacrificing himself so that they could escape. The blue man felt a great distaste for Grell, and knew he’d have to keep an eye on him.

”Go, Grell. I will carry Hunla. We will not endure the dust.”

His voice was power, and Grell sprung to his feet and began to run. “Hurry with her, God-Blood. I must not arrive in Roll without you.”

The blue man snarled. A liar as well as a coward. Grell could not claim to need him when a moment before he’d had a mind to destroy him. The thought had been clear within his head, and put forth with so much rage that it had jumped at the blue man. It was also curious to note that this, like the gear in his chest, did not seem altogether unfamiliar.

He knelt down next to Hunla.

”You will ride on my back. If we should lose one of you, I would rather it was Grell.”

She nodded, as if afraid to contradict him, as if it was some kind of insult.

”He has a temper, sir God-Blood. It is not his fault, he has had a difficult life and his family has not been good to him.”

The blue man shook his head. “That is no excuse. He is a coward. However, he is right. We should not be out when the dust happens, if indeed it brings these things you call dustwolves. Are they as horrible as that?” He made to lift her, but she picked herself up.

”They are worse. The reapers? They train them. In the land the reapers come from, there are hundreds, thousands of trained dustwolves. And there they do horrible things. My uncle…my uncle went there to save my father when he’d been taken…by the reapers…you see, they don’t always kill. When there are small groups, one, two, three - there is no reason. They are too few to fight back. They are already helpless. These they take alive, in their nets or just tied to their Talnas. My father…anyway, they took him and my uncle went after him. And when he reached the land of the reapers, he saw things he never wanted to tell anyone, but…but he told me.”

”Please,” the blue man said, “Climb on my back. I will try to make it easy for you, so that you aren’t jostled too much. You can continue your story while we run.”

She obliged, climbing gingerly onto his back and settling herself there in a way that made her almost weightless. She was comfortable there, and gave a certain pleasant warmth against his body. He bent forward and began to run. This time, unhindered by the pace Grell had set, he could go faster. He set himself at a quick trot, almost twice as fast as they had been going, and within a few moments he had Grell in his sights again. And this - this was odd. Grell was sprinting, it seemed, running as fast as his short red legs could carry him. Not the speed of a man concerned with waiting for friends. The blue man showed his teeth and dug in a little harder, quickening the pace.

”Tell me, Hunla. About your uncle.”

She coughed, and then started, her voice carrying the artifacts of fear and exhilaration. She was almost yelling.

“When he reached the land of the reapers he saw the dustwolves, saw the way in which the reapers controlled them and made them…well, he saw my father in a group of those who had been captured - live ones - and they dropped them all in a hole and then set the dustwolves into it. Twenty, thirty of them…And there were screams, he said. When it happened he saw the large building in the center of the city glow, and the reapers all howled with pleasure. He said he thought it energized them, revitalized them. Because the reapers would swoop down and spear a dustwolf or two, and then they’d all jump from their Talnas and eat… My uncle told me he was lucky to escape with his own life.”

She was silent, and the blue man ran on. Grell was just ahead, and every so often he’d take a frantic look back. He saw them, but still he kept sprinting.

“I am not afraid of the dustwolves, Hunla. Your friend is a fool. Your father was not given a chance to fight, and Grell was wrong to use the memory of his death against you. Wrong to try and hit you as well.”

Presently he caught up with Grell, and when he did he looked the little man cooly in the eyes. The other man’s were frantic, wildly pitching about and focusing on the terrain ahead of him.

”We. … we’re not going to make it!”

The blue man looked ahead, to the mountain of Golrath. They were more than halfway there, and it seemed only two or three thousand yards away. The sky, however, was darkening. Yellow was turning to green and winds were picking up. The dust was beginning. It seemed time to test his legs.

”Good luck to you, Grell,” he said to the man as he sped ahead, and then, to Hunla, “Hold on.”

He worked his feet against the ground, beating them with a pace that pushed him ahead quicker and quicker. Behind him - well behind him, it seemed, Grell sputtered a plea, a cry of desperation.

”Don’t leave me!”

The blue man ignored him, and ran faster. The ground sped by, weeds and rocks a blur beneath his feet, and all the while the sky darkened and the wind grew stronger. The first time he was buffeted by a gust of it he was surprised, throwing his hands forward as if to ward it off, but soon he figured out he could muscle his way through the gusts, since he could see them coming if he looked hard enough. All he had to do was watch the sand.

The mountain loomed closer.

”Where is the entrance to Roll?” he yelled to Hunla.

She didn’t answer.

”Hunla! Where is Roll?”

Again, no answer. He squeezed her left leg, struggling to keep the same pace.

“Hunla!”

She didn’t answer once again, and this time the blue man slowed, bringing his rapidly swishing legs to a stop. He pulled Hunla from his back and cradled her. She did not move. Her eyes were closed and her mouth hung open, although her chest moved up and down with breath. She was not dead.

He pulled her to him and looked around. He would not be able to make it to the gates of Roll, wherever that was. He had to find a place of shelter…shelter from the dustwolves. A place he could stash Hunla until the greensky and the dust had passed. Grell was far behind, most likely lying in a heap at this point from the exertion, and even if he had continued his sprint he would not reach the blue man’s position for quite some time. If they’d all gone faster…no, they still wouldn’t have made it. And now he had to find shelter.

There was only one problem. The desert was flat but for several dunes that rose to medium height, near his chest. There was, essentially, nowhere to hide. Perhaps closer to the mountain, but not here. He lifted Hunla once again and began to drive his body through the wind but he was thrown back, the sand stinging his eyes and pushing him with the authority of a spear. He fell on his back, still cradling Hunla. The sky was full green now, and the sand swirled and twisted, making it impossible to move. He turned over so that Hunla was beneath him and that way he crouched over her face and body, protecting her from the storm. Violently the wind took over, pelting him with sand and stones. In the distance, along with the howl of the storm, he heard the howl of something else. Multiple somethings, actually. The dustwolves were on the prowl.

The dust had begun.

***

Having no idea how long the dust nor the greensky was supposed to last, the blue man crouched over Hunla’s body for what seemed like a day. His awakening in the river bed and observation of the destruction of Yuuk colony and subsequent meeting of Grell and Hunla had taken less time. He thought about the dustwolves. He heard them howling constantly it seemed, communicating with one another even when the avenues of sight had been shut down. At one point he heard a specific voice in the wind, carrying with it a message of violent death. Grell, it seemed, had been destroyed by his own greatest fear. The blue man had felt, for a moment, a slight sort of remorse, but that had drifted away with the wind when he remembered Marg, the warrior who’d died so the coward could live.

That had been long ago though, it seemed, the apparent death of Grell and the time leading up to the greensky. At this point he dealt with Hunla, her body. At times he feared she was no longer breathing, had died beneath him. But no, she had just not yet awoken, and he caught himself wondering if she ever would again. It seemed, perpetually, that she would not, and that he would be here, in this position over her, waiting for the dustwolves to find and kill them, forever. However, it was not so. At some point during the dust, an indeterminable point, Hunla woke up. She pushed up against him, and either thinking of something else or in a sort of waking trance, the blue man was surprised into rolling off of her. Hunla gave a yelp, and he rolled back, noting that by this time most of the skin on his back and his legs had been scoured by the dust and was beginning to slough off in giant blue sheets.

”God-Blood!” Hunla screamed, tearing at him from underneath. She understood their position, their predicament, and whimpered when she heard the first howl.

”Quiet, Hunla. They use their ears to find and direct each other.”

She didn’t make another sound, but looked into his dust-caked eyes with fear.

“Where is Grell? What happened to him?”

The blue man didn’t answer. He closed his eyes instead, and just as Hunla realized what had happened to her escaping friend, he heard two howls that were closer now than had ever been during his time in the dust.

”The dust-” Hunla began, but then she could not speak through the blue man’s hand.

Another howl, this one even closer, and the blue man braced himself. The wolves were coming.

ONE (2007 Draft)

It was the heat that woke him; sharp and stinging heat that bubbled up from underneath, turning his chest from the hot rocks and his back from the sky. His feet, the only parts of him cool (the only parts of him wet), lolled like bobbers in the spraying rush from where he’d come. He blinked open eyes that saw with incredible clarity, and twisted to take in his surroundings.

He’d washed up on the bank of a great winding river, a river that had cut its way down into the rock so far that the horizon was well out of sight and the sides of the bank leading up and out were steep and smooth. The river was deep and fast, and for a moment he wondered how far he’d washed in it, or how long he’d laid here boiling. He almost wondered what he would do next.

His limbs were like rubber, and pulling himself to a standing position was difficult. His body was weak, but his mind was made up. He’d walk along the river and find a suitable place to scale the bank. He’d gone only a hundred meters or so when he felt the ground shake, and he stumbled, falling to hands and knees. An air-shattering noise came from his left, and his chest screamed in pain as the sky filled with yellow light and deep black smoke. The explosion rocked him, and a wave of hot air came over the ridge and jumped past him, stinging his eyes and filling his mouth with the taste of hot metal. A moment later the air had settled, and all that remained of the explosion was a ringing in his ears occluded only by the sounds of the still-rushing river and his own ragged breathing. The column of black smoke several hundred meters beyond the ridge began to dissipate, swirling in the wind as it was painted into the magenta sky. He allowed himself a single moment for shock, and then stood. His chest throbbed heavy, almost vibrating - something new since the blast, since the horrible pain he’d felt. Looking down, he saw a shiny gear-shaped cylinder protruding from the center of his chest. It was as wide in diameter as his palm, and cool to the touch. There was of course a mild surprise at the discovery of the foreign object in his chest, but there was something familiar about it as well, almost as if it had always been there, but had just been forgotten. Anyway, it was not his chest he was interested in; it was the explosion.

He turned toward the steep bank of the river and eyed it, looking first for places in the rock where there had been more or less erosion, and the surface was uneven. He looked for spots that had been hollowed out, and where rocks still jutted from the slick face. He planned his route. And, teeth gritted, he stepped forward and began to climb.

About halfway up the rock face, he started hearing the screams. Deep, gutteral screams - a group of animals? This was unnerving already, but when coupled with another group of sounds, several high pitches whines that moved up and down in pitch but seemed utterly uniform in origin, it was almost unbearable.yThe combination did much to his curiosity, and actually hindered him in that he began to rush, eager to see what commotion had been created by the explosion that had knocked him from his feet even at this distance and under the cover of the tall rock face. His hands and feet were tiring, and as he pushed to find handholds and toeholds, he started reaching the ends of his current vertical routes and had to slow and find some other way around. In rushing, his progress was actually slower, as he kept having to put his body against the hot rock to rest.

But still he climbed, and still the screams and whines continued. Before long he’d reached the top, the precipice. He pulled his head above the crest and stared, his eyes immediately drawn to motion just a couple of hundred yards in front of and below him, in a great valley of sand decorated with tufts of vegetation and large rocks. The motion came from a large hole in the ground, and several flying figures. He focused on these first. They were balls, it seemed, with wings, and they were manned. They circled the hole, swooping and diving at it, making motions of throwing and of pulling, and it was these balls, these flying machines, from which the peculiar mechanical whine poured forth. It was even louder now, and rung in his head like the perpetual grinding of stone against stone. It made the metallic jewel in his chest hum inside his flesh, and with the feeling came a great unease. He watched.

The hole was not empty, he saw. Figures poured from it and were pushed back, were pulled up and as they struggled, were thrown high into the air and then performed a kind of rigid dance before going limp and falling to the ground in whatever position their bodies chose. Dead? A few of the figures broke free of the hole and ran, darting past the swooping mounts only to be caught up, one by one, with long whips that seemed endowed with the ability to grasp and these, too, shuddered as if in shock before falling limp to the ground, their escape run over with. The screams continued. Bodies of fifty, sixty of the figures struggling to flee were strewn about the hole, and still he heard the sounds of hundreds of more of them who had yet to emerge. He watched.

Some of the ball-mounted riders had, beside whips, spears of metal and lightning that they would cast down into the hole amid piles of the oppressed figures some who had been struck down there and others who were trying to use the bodies of their fallen brethren to climb up and out into the daylight. Were there no escape tunnels? Had they been blocked off? What had the explosion done? He could only begin to assumed that it had been used to blow the giant hole in the ground in the first place, that all of these fallen figures and those still remaining to struggle in place against the flying offenders had been existing somewhere beneath the ground and the ball-mounted riders had blown it open to get at them. More and more of the hole-dwellers were struck down and he blinked. He felt something, a vague outrage at a sort of injustice, but at the same time he wondered at the efficiency with which the ball-mounted riders worked. They had done this before, and they were skilled. Six of them against two or three hundred (granted, the latter had a disadvantage of tool and of experience - these were not fighters) and still they dominated with no real resistive effort put against them. The screams grew lesser and he realized he was about to view the end of this group of people. Perhaps a part of him wished to help, to halt the death of so many, but at the crest of the riverbank he couldn’t fathom it. He was tired, and anyway what could he do? He wouldn’t possibly fare any better than any of the others, and he supposed he would probably die before doing any sort of good anyway. It was regrettable, but he couldn’t, out of self-interest, get involved. The riders swooped and threw and killed and he watched, knowing that if he were ever to be their target that he would be in some very bad trouble. He crouched lower on the crest of the riverbank and kept still. And watched.

When he thought it was over, when the screams had stopped and the whine of the circling riders w as becoming almost too much for him (he was considering climbing back down the rock face and rejoining the river until he could find a more appealing place to exit and search for cover, for reliable safety, somewhere he could stay for an extended period of time with general resources near at hand) something extraordinary happened. He almost missed it, but not quite. From the gaping hole burned into the ground and what was now filled with bodies and the carnage of war came a line of motion, a shot that glinted from the dark and ran at one of the riders. For a moment he thought the spear had missed, had glanced off, but no - the rider had caught the weapon square in the chest and was then flailing backward - swatted off his vehicle as if he’d been struck by a giant hand. He landed amidst the wounded at the perimeter of the hole and did not get up. The spear shone in the magenta of the day, even as it protruded from the beast’s chest. For surely, the rider had been. It seemed they wore helmets or some sort of facial mask to make them look regal, a decorative sort of headgear that busted from the dead rider’s head and exposed a sort of hairy demon whose skin bubbled with boils and deformities.

The other riders went into a frenzy, ignoring their fallen comrade and instead frantically attempting to wrangle his unoccupied flying ball (whose wings had abruptly quit, sending it into a spinning dive) except their attempts were in vain and the great mechanical sphere drove past them and directly into the hole. From his somewhat elevated vantage point two hundred yards away, the dull sound of the heavy ball landing didn’t reach him for more than a second. And directly after, a new sort of screaming. An angry gathering of howls this time, and he imagined he was hearing the riders venting whatever emotion they’d garnered at losing the ball. Not the rider, but the ball. Even as he thought this, three of the remaining five riders dove at the hole, breaking the plane of the ground for a moment before another of the spears flew, and another. The first flew harmlessly between them, but the second caught the underbelly of a retreating ball, sending a spark of lightning along the entire structure. The sphere smoked, its rider blackening as the wings became engulfed in a dark blue flame. The remaining four riding beasts gave the ball of flame a wide berth, and it came down fifty yards right of the hole with substantial forward velocity, driving it through the sandy crust of the desert ground. The rider became a plume of white ash and the cry that came up from those remaining riders was one that, along with the whine of the balls, threatened to rip the metal core from his chest. Still he watched, with eyes that were a little more open.

The four riders rose, ceasing their endless circle for a moment and bringing their jockeyed spheres as close as they could come without tangling the wings. A regrouping. It was apparently a bad move.

A moment later a dented yet no-less-effective version of the first fallen ball came streaking from the hole - manned this time by one of the hole-dwelling figures. A man with red skin, adorned with tattoos and several decorative tapestries that clung to his limbs and his midsection. This new rider flung his vehicle at the grouping of beast riders, throwing forth a heavy spear as he did so. The beasts scattered and the red man piloted himself through the gap they left, speeding up as he did so - he streaked across the landscape like the very spear he’d thrown. The four beast riders had drawn back into their fighting formation, drawing whips and spears themselves, before realizing the red man hadn’t meant to fight at all. He’d meant to run.

They pulled back on their spherical mounts and with necessary haste threw their weapons on their backs and gave chase. By the time they were at speed the red man was already too small to see. They wouldn’t catch him.

The man watching on the riverbank closed his eyes, letting them rest for a moment after all they’d seen. Then, filled with awe and a definite energy, he pulled himself to his feet and quickly made his way down from the crest of the riverbank onto the subtly living desert floor. The riders were gone, and the whining hum of their vehicles was left only as a feeling in his chest that turned him wholly to rubber. Still, once he stood on level ground, he began to move with some eagerness to the crater in which so many hole-dwellers had perished. All, it seemed, but one.

He was wrong. Not thirty paces from his hiding place, the man who’d watched what he’d perceived as the total destruction of a community, of a people, watched something else just as extraordinary. Two figures (these still very alive) emerged from the side of the crater, the first pulling the second out by the hand, and he saw clearly they were a man and a woman, clay-colored, the female dusted with a paler complexion that matched her almost perfectly with the rusty orange of the sand she stood on. The two took stock of their surroundings, marveling at the enormity of the casualties strewn about, and then began to walk, hand in hand, toward where he stood. For upon sighting them, alive, he’d stopped. Now he stood, alone, and he could be sure they saw him - the female raised a hand and pointed, and he saw the male nod. The two continued toward him.

He was unsure of what to do next. So he did nothing. His arms hung limply at his sides and wondered vaguely how they would react to him. He didn’t have long to wait. As they neared, he began to notice something odd. At a distance, he’d imagined they were his same size, but now he saw that wasn’t true. They stood at least two heads shorter than him, and were slight. He glanced at his own body and could not help feeling like he was ridiculously ot of place. Had he seen any figure with the shade of skin he displayed? With a gear protruding from their chest? No - they’d all been earth-colored, bare-chested, and short. Somehow he’d arrived an anomaly. It may have been an item of interest before, but not necessarily importance, because now he was set to interact with a pair of them instead of examining them as a pure observer.

The male gave a hand-motion to the female, indicating that she should stay behind. She stopped, and the male stepped up to the taller figure - who still hadn’t moved, although his eyes focused in on the smaller man with interest. He wore the same sort of decorative cloth around his limbs and his midsection, and his face was painted or tattooed with deep black lines that traced his cheekbones and drew intricate spirals up past his nose and around his eyes. His hair was braided and hung past his shoulders like a length of rope, held together by grease and dirt. He was muscular, and his arms bulged. He stood tall and raised his chin, although the taller man could feel the fear trickling from him. The woman was dressed in the same style, but she wore a headdress. When he made eye contact, she looked down. The male coughed, and crossed his arms.

“You.”

He coughed again as the taller man said nothing.

”You are one of the God-Blood. Why are you here? We have never seen one of the blue men.”

The blue man was silent.

”I am Grell, from the city of Roll. It is said the God-Blood come from a region that is too far South for anyone but them to see. All others either die from the trek or never return. It is said that only those with the strength to cross the great ocean have ever found their way to this land. Have you come from there?”

The female gave a small nervous noise, and the Grell looked back to her. He nodded and turned back to the blue man.

”We cannot stay here. The reapers will be back, with more of the Talnas. We have survived at the expense of our people, and it would not do to spit on their sacrifice. You must come with us.”

The blue man looked past the two figures and eyed the masses of dead, and the crashed ball - what Grell had called a Talna. He’d like very much to examine it…something about it caught his interest. What could he learn? He stared a moment longer, and the smaller man seemed to have caught his glance.

”They will be back, and they will destroy whatever has been left alive. If you would like to see one of them, a working Talna, you must come with us. There is someone with whom you must speak.”

A moment later the device in the blue man’s chest began to tingle. It was the mechanical whine - the reapers were coming. The little man who’d called him a God-Blood had been telling the truth. He took step back. Grell gathered his woman to him.

”We must go. Will you come?”

The blue man nodded, and the three of them turned and began to run.