Clearly I was not very well equipped to deal with this new world, but that would change with time, provided I could learn to stop passing out at the worst possible times.
When I came to, I was feverishly hot. I was swaddled up in a few layers of furs. Real fur. It smells like… It smells like sweat, I thought as I pulled one of the heavy layers closer against my skin. I was naked. My oversuit was gone. The night air was cold, but thankfully being so close to the fire made it pleasantly cool when it did manage to lick at my exposed face.
My leg hurt, but as I gingerly felt it, my fingers touched bandage. The spot where I had been shot wasn’t tender, but numb. Only the muscle and flesh surrounding the wound ached. My fingers came away oily. A balm of some sort? I smelled menthol and elderflower. That’s reassuring, I thought. When I touched my head, the crescent there was exposed, three-dimensional, but had an oily film to it too.
Groggily, I looked around. A campfire was at my feet, happily licking at a substantial amount of fallen wood. I was resting against a hard, leather saddle. There were bags of supplies scattered around, some of them open and spilling their contents.
There was one other saddle to my right and a bedroll, unfolded, was laid out against it. A couple soft-looking fur blankets were haphazardly thrown on it, along with a black beetle helmet. On the other side of the fire was another bedroll, but there was only a wool blanket folded at one of its ends, and no saddle or helmet to speak of.
The two men from before? But where are they now?
Almost in answer to my unspoken query, a young man came up from behind me and sat cross legged on the bedroll beside mine, tucking furs into his lap as he tended to the fire for a moment. He was wearing a blue and gold duster, its edges stained red by the desert. His face was beautiful in the warm glow. It was the kind of face that could get a man into more trouble than he was in fact worth. He had long, dark hair, bluebell eyes, and black stubble along his jawline. There was a splatter of red-brown across the right side of his face, smeared like he had wiped it at some point.
He looked up then, probably sensing me watching him. He smiled broadly at me and if I wasn’t already about to turn into a puddle of chocolate due in part to the campfire, I would have surely melted then. “Good to see you awake,” he said, his voice smooth and confident. “It was touch and go for a bit there. Had to get fluids in you and patch up that hole in your leg. Nasty work, but all’s well.”
“My oversuit,” I said, not managing to think of anything else to say.
“Oh, we put it in your white bag thingy.” He nodded over to one of the supply bags. “We’ve been tracking you since the canyon, after those dogs picked you up… Well, that’s not entirely true.” He stood up then and threw his fur back on his bedroll. He stood up and took a couple steps back to sit on his saddle. “The name’s Ethis. Ethis Kallos.”
I waited, but when he didn’t say anything else, I said, “My name is Poppy.”
“Like the flower?”
“Y-Yes,” I said carefully.
Ethis said with a smirk. “Never seen one in person, but I'm well read… unlike some people I know.”
Before I could reply, another man came tramping into our little campsite. He was bigger than I remembered. At over six and half feet tall, he looked like he could crush a horse’s head with his bare hands. He was still wearing his helmet, but the hood was thrown back. He set down the fallen wood he had been carrying as Ethis said, “Say an Inkman’s name and he shall appear!”
“An Inkman?!” I almost scrambled from my roll, but when the cold air kissed my collarbone, I sat back. “You’re an Inkman?”
Ethis laughed out loud as the hooded man shook his head. Ethis said, “Just an expression, Pops. That’s Djince, my big brother… Hey, Dickhead, before you get comfortable, did you dig the shit ditch?”
Djince nodded his head once before his gloves went to his helmet and he twisted it off with a hiss. The man beneath was not pretty like his younger brother. He was attractive in a brutal sort of way. His green eyes were recessed into his head so it seemed he was looking out at you, rather than connecting with you. His dark hair wasn’t left to grow long like Ethis’. He had it cut short to his scalp, which only accentuated the star shaped scar on the right side of his head.
A silver star, I thought as my mouth dropped slightly open against my will. I had imagined that the star in my memory was somehow linked to my hand’s mark, but now I was questioning that premature conclusion.
“Djince, this is Poppy,” Ethis said and I clamped my mouth shut.
Djince nodded once in my direction, but his eyes didn’t linger on me. If anything, he looked right through me. Then he laid down on his bedroll and turned away from us.
Ethis snorted. “Don’t mind him, Pops. He’s just being shy.”
“Tired,” Djince stated.
“Uh huh, whatever you say, Pugnuts,” the younger Kallos grumbled. Then he turned to me and said, “We came from Millplace, which probably doesn’t mean anything to you. Suffice to say, it’s a little village out of the way. We’re couriers. We deliver sensitive correspondence. You understand so far?”
“What do you mean by sensitive?” I asked quietly, eyeing his brother’s mountainous form.
“If I told you, I’d have to kill you,” Ethis said with a grin.
“Understood.”
The younger doffed his duster then and as he folded it up, he said, “Djince doesn’t approve of me explaining things to you. He thinks we should have left you in that hell hole. He thinks we’re wasting precious time taking care of a shelter girl, but I beg to differ.” When Djince didn’t say anything to refute this, Ethis sat down on his bedroll in a crisscross and said to me, “We were heading south when we saw you come up out of that crypt-looking place in the rock. Djince thinks you’re an ice person.”
“I’m… Well…” I wanted to tell him the truth. Ethis wasn’t like the other human beings I’d encountered so far. He seemed genuine, smart, and certainly more playful than anyone I’d encountered so far. Granted, it was not lost on me that he and his brother had hurt people back in Hearthwir--Had most assuredly killed Matron Waska. I decided to be honest. I said, “I don’t know if I can trust you.”
Ethis tisked. “Well, I guess that’s to be expected. I mean, you come up out of the ground and the first people you’re exposed to in this brave new world happen to be cannibals who want to chow down on your pretty pieces! Not the greatest of impressions, to be sure.”
He nodded his head like he was deciding something before he smiled and said, “But we’re not cannibals. We tracked you and those nomads to their little village. We staked the place out. We caught one of their scouts leaving the area and questioned him. Heartbeer? Heartveer? Whatever it was called had a water filter! Those things aren’t exactly a dime a dozen, Pops. Those shiny things can be used for all kinds of things besides turning water drinkable. And they trade like hot cakes.”
He rubbed his hands together and pressed his palms closer to the fire. Ethis said, “So, I convinced Djince we could, under cover of darkness, recover the purifier… and if we ran into you, we’d rescue you.” His smiled soured a little as he said, “Turns out they didn’t have a damned crystal though--not a real one. They were just sifting their water through layers of cotton. Poor bastards were lying to themselves to make it seem better than it all was.” His face turned a little grim as he admitted, “We managed to recover a few of their rifles, that revolver, and your gear.”
“I’m glad you picked up my haversack in the canyon,” I said.
Ethis’ easy smile returned as he said, “Good thing too. Found a first aid kit in there. I’d never seen a complete one before! It came with directions and everything.” He winked at me and I felt butterflies in my stomach. “Better be grateful I can read.”
“I am… Thank you, for everything. You didn’t have to,” I said sincerely. Then I gave him a mockingly suspicious expression. “If you saw me come out of the earth, why didn’t you come to my aid when I collapsed?”
“Well,” Ethis looked a little guilty at that. “The boyos got to you first… We were a ways off…” He lowered his voice then as he pointed an accusatory finger at his brother’s back. “He said it wouldn’t be worth it if we helped you--a waste of time, ya know? But now he’s being all grumpy because he knows those rifles are going to get us closer to the Capitol. Rescuing you was the best thing we’ve done since taking over Millplace!” I chuckled as he puffed up his chest and raised a flirtatious eyebrow at me. “All in a day’s work for the Brothers Kallos! No need to throw yourself at me. I know I’m amazing.” He flexed and I put a hand to my mouth to stifle a snort.
“Now it’s your turn,” he said, relaxing back against his saddle. “Who are you and what in starssake were you doing cavorting around in the desert? Anywhere you need to be? We’re heading to Silverstone, the city where buildings still touch the sky.”
“Well,” I began, but then I bit my lip. After a moment of internal debate, I met his blue eyes and said, “I really am Papyrus. The Papyrus that ended the world.” Ethis only stared at me with a polite smile on his face, waiting for more. “I… was recreated in The Cradle of Life. I was supposed to be awakened a hundred years after the end of the world. I… I don’t remember why. You have to believe that… I don’t know why I ended the world. I need to find out for myself.”
Ethis blew air out and then gave me a low whistle as he sat up and looked into the fire for a moment. “That’s… some heavy jazz, Pops. I’m almost inclined to believe you.” He looked at me then. “Are you sure you’re not just misremembering? I mean, you look human enough to me. Different, sure, but still human.”
“I am human. I was made into a mortal body. I don’t know why.”
“Seems to me you’re suffering from amnesia.”
“More like delusions of grandeur,” Djince said from his bedroll.
Ethis threw a rock at the back of his head before he said to me, “Ignore him. I always do.”
I huffed a laugh and said to Djince, “You could be right though. I just don’t know.” I shook my head, looked down at the palms of my hands. “I remember so much about being God Scribe. I remember my pantheon and my… I had a family. I remember things that haven’t happened to me. I remember worlds that have never been and will always exist. I have these… notions about the world and how it works. I remember how to fight and how to speak. I know things… I just don’t know what happened at the end of this world. I don’t remember creating the chronophage. I don’t even remember why it all happened…” I couldn’t help it when an anxious tone coated the last of my words. It dressed each syllable in a waxy bile of self-loathing and coaxed each worry up from the center of myself, where all my second-guesses seemed to loiter, waiting to be thrown up or swallowed. I felt sick and useless.
Ethis was studying me. He looked even more intense when he was being serious. His perfect proportions made me feel inadequate--Me! A god! Here I was, smitten by him--clinging to this hope that perhaps there were people in this world worth saving, and he was one of those people.
Finally, he said, “Seems to me like you need some friends.”
I met his gaze. “At the very least,” I agreed.
“And some food,” he said.
I swallowed. “That too.”
“And probably your clothes.”
“Ah, I almost forgot… One doesn’t wear much in the way of cloth as formless divine energy. When I did, I just summoned a shape already wearing suitable clothing.”
Ethis laughed loud and mirthful as he got to his feet and retrieved my haversack. Its original straps had been ripped and cut, but the bag itself was still intact. I took it from him as he said with a grin, “Well, god or not, you’re good luck, Pops. I’d be stupid if I threw you away now.”
Good luck? I almost rolled my eyes. Tell that to the hole in my leg.
“If anything… you’ll get more chances to find answers in Silverstone, Capital of Retzu. That’s where we’re headed, remember? You could tag along if you wanted. The city’s the oldest thing on this side of the country. It’s got a big dome over it that kept the ‘phage out and protected it from the light that followed.”
“An intact city from the world before…” I said under my breath. I nodded and said to him, “If it’s not too much trouble. I have credit.”
“Credit?”
“Money.”
“Oh, those little clear stick thingys that go into machines? Yeah, they don’t work. There’s no connection. Most places can’t even talk to each other, so there’s no more money. The stuff’s invisible anyway. Nobody believes in that kind of shit anymore.”
“Oh…” I said thoughtfully. Then I said, “Well, you are welcome to keep the first aid kit and the revolver.”
Ethis gave me a questioning look. “The handgun we got off that fat, brown bitch with the yellow hair?”
I nodded. “It’s my gun. It was taken from The Cradle before I rose.”
“Oh,” Ethis said. “That’s fine… But you shouldn’t really concern yourself with payment, Pops. Really, we don’t mind.”
“I mind,” Djince grumbled. Ethis threw another rock at his head and the older Kallos let out a big breath. “Whatever Ethis wants,” he said before he pulled his blanket up over his head.
“Take your boots off, Dong-whisperer,” Ethis said, but when Djince didn’t move, he rolled his eyes. He smiled at me. “He doesn’t mean anything by it. He just thinks you’re pretty. Makes him nervous.”
I laughed a little. Then, to keep myself from saying anything foolish, I grabbed up a fur and held it about myself before I gestured off into the dark. “I’m… going to go get dressed now.”
“Oh! Right,” Ethis said, turning his back to me. “Take your time.”
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