At least this isn't a barren asteroid, I think to try and console myself, as we trudge on across the grey grass plains.
There's actually water here. A twisting river we've waded hours ago and whose water tasted awfully weird.
The water is greyish, the grass is greyish. No star in sight–only pale moons scattered across a sickly yellow sky.
No clouds either.
It smells of wet rocks, and there's no sound but our hushed steps and the whisper of the wind through the endless grey.
No other life forms except us. And the grass.
There's a dry, primal energy that hums from it, from the wind and the water, and it unnerves me.
«I hate this place,» I whine, breaking the silence that'd endured since we'd stumbled out of an ancient portal, barely escaping the battered and admirably persevering System Corps soldiers at our heels.
There's nothing admirable about their perseverance, I remind myself. Blindly loyal and indoctrinated fanatics hunting down whatever prey the High Committee sets them on-
A grunt is the answer I get.
I roll my eyes, and jog a little to catch up with my disgruntled partner. I have an idea and want to share it.
«Can't we just let the Corps get us?» I huff. «They're probably too scared of you to do more than lock you up for a bit. And you said they trained me, in the time you come from! You said they found me when they came to the planet I grew up in, to get rid of the dictatorship–»
I stop in my tracks.
«Go on,» he grunts, not slowing down. Wherever he's anxious to go... this place is too dull for portals. For anything.
«They got rid of it to get to me... didn't they?»
I feel a bit daft for not having made the connection immediately when he told me, months ago. If the Committee was willing to dispatch squadrons of Corps to catch an orphan and a lunatic leading them in a wild goose chase across the galaxy, it wouldn't be too impossible for them to squash a little planet that was just sitting there. More so if that little planet was trying to assert power, threatening the System's own.
I start to question the wisdom of my plan.
But getting closer to the higher brackets would allow me to do something instead of just running like a criminal forever.
Aren't we both? muses the voice in the back of my head.
«They wouldn't just lock me up, would they?»
He snorts. «They wouldn't.»
«They trained me in your time, didn't they?»
«I can train you. A proper training.» He adjusts the grip on the hilt of his blade and marches on, leaving me to jog again.
I'm resigning myself to another long bout of silent trooping, when he mutters something else.
«They made Mayhem.»
It's the second time I hear that name from his lips. It isn't my name–at least not yet, it seems, and never will be if one gives credit to a lunatic's convictions who doesn't believe in time travel paradoxes–but I can feel a pinprick of annoyance at hearing it pronounced with such disdain.
I kick a lone pebble and look at him, frowning. «I thought you'd said it was the Catastrophe's fault.»
«It is said that the extreme duress of countering the Catastrophe was what sent Mayhem into madness,» grumbles the warrior. «But that's the official version.»
YOU ARE READING
Legacy of Mayhem
FantasyStar-children aren't an oddity, but Ember, volatile like fire, born of death and new light, sure is-a very troublesome, talkative one, who has been kidnapped (twice) by a very miffed warrior, survivor of an apocalypse yet to come. Duly named Miff, s...
