Colony worlds, p.9
Colony Worlds, page 9
“Home,” said Wylie and kept walking.
Sherlock grabbed his arm and pointed back to the Abbey. “That’s home now Wylie, you live with us.”
Wylie shook off Sherlock’s hand. “Home,” he said. He knew it wasn’t here, but in Deep ... Creek suddenly popped into his mind and he gave sherlock a big smile. Home was in Deep Creek.
“You’ll get me into trouble.”
Wylie wasn’t sure about the name popping into his head. He touched the scar, which proved he’d had the test. Home’s name must be Our lady talking to him.
“I need to go, Sher; Our Lady calls me home.”
“She can’t Wylie. That scar you keep touching is where they removed your implant.”
Wylie didn’t know about any implant.
“I’d hate to thump you Sher. You had better let me go, friend.”
Sherlock backed away. “Ser Clive will send us after you.”
“If he brings me back, I’ll have to thump him good. You tell him that, Sher,” Wylie said, satisfied that would do the trick. He turned and walked away. Deep Creek, he thought, he was going home to Deep Creek.
A mile down the road, Wylie realised nobody had followed him. He missed the company of his friend Sherlock, and he was hungry, especially when a distant bell rang three times for lunchtime. He could imagine the unders and acolytes silently entering the dining hall, carrying steaming bowls of rabbit stew with dumplings and large, round loaves of bread.
Out the corner of his eye, he saw a rabbit and, after giving thanks to Our Lady, chased it uphill. Rabbits suddenly appeared everywhere. Not knowing which one to chase after, Wylie ran in circles after them, until they had all disappeared. He had so wanted rabbit stew for dinner.
When the light began failing, he gazed into the sky, knowing that Our Lady’s home, Severne Eye: the star that moved, was up there somewhere, he petitioned Our Lady. “I want to go home dear Lady. Please take me home.”
The sky was full of stars when Wylie noticed torches on the road; the torchlight making all the robes look black. Servers, he thought, hoping Ser Clive wasn’t among them as he jumped up, waving furiously, and running down the hill to meet them. One server detached, and came closer, his robe turning brown.
“Hello Wylie,” said a familiar voice.
“Hello Sherlock,” said Wylie.
The pattern of Wylie’s life changed: he ate, he worked, he slept, but the under servers stopped him working the fields by the river and stopped him standing at the river window in the eating room. He had to wait in the courtyard until the bell rang. Sherlock said the Chapter House meeting thought the river disturbed him. It’s true, thought Wylie. The babbling sounds which used to soothe him now reminded him this wasn’t home. Deep Creek was, but he couldn’t leave until Our Lady sent a warrior for him; chasing rabbits for his supper was too hard.
Wylie was happy most of the time. He liked to help, and today he was helping to shift beds from the sleeping room to the sickroom. Ser Clive and several unders were sick. The acolytes, thinking Wylie didn’t understand, talked openly in his presence, saying Ser Clive and his trusted ‘undies’, as they called the under servers, were not sick at all, but had drunk too much mead. Wylie who remembered seeing them staggering to their rooms late, soon worked out whenever undies staggered, he could visit the eating room window, and listen to the river.
On clear nights, Wylie hoped for a glimpse of Severne’s Eye, as it crossed the sky visible through the window. Whenever it did, he pleaded with her to take him home. After it vanished, he padded softly back to his bed. One night a puzzling event outside interrupted his vigil. Somebody standing on the far bank slipped into the water and swam towards him. Wylie stepped back, hiding in the shadows, watching the head push through the water, startled when the person changed into a dog.
He heard splashes as the stranger emerged under the window. Chattering teeth stopped with a snarl, and a scrawny leg came over the sill. What followed the leg made Wylie jump; a wolf’s head not a dog’s head. The head turned at Wylie’s sharp intake and snarled. “Shit,” the wolf’s head said, then rushed Wylie. Wylie disliked anyone rushing at him and thumped the wolf’s head with both hands clenched together, and sent him sprawling into the tables. Wylie went to apologise, but the wolf’s head wasn’t moving. The awful racket would wake the undies, thought Wylie, so he slipped away to his bed, and went straight to sleep.
Sherlock called Wylie early next morning to help him fix the eating room mess. They kept the breakfast crowd waiting, while they righted the big tables and set the stools in proper positions.
“You have a different job today, Wylie lad,” Sherlock said. “We captured a hostile feral last night; we need you to control him.” He paused and looked uncomfortable. “Thump him if you reckon he might hurt anyone.”
“Okey-dokey.”
Sherlock led Wylie across the cloistered herb garden into the Chapter House, a funny shaped room like a square with every corner cut off. He counted eight walls with seats attached, and a huge tree in the middle holding up the high roof. Wolf’s head sat on a seat circling the tree, his arms behind him like he was hugging it backwards.
“He’s safe at the moment,” Sherlock said. “We tied His hands.”
In daylight, Wolf’s head didn’t look so bad. His whole body seemed withered, but his face had skin, not fur and his eyes were normal. The pushed-out mouth had lifted his nose and Wylie could see up his nostrils; they were clean. His wide mouth did have lots of teeth so Wylie named him Wolfy.
The undies, but no acolytes (which made Wylie feel honoured) sat against the walls, surrounding the tree, himself, and Wolfy.
“Ah, I see you brought your giant sentry to finish me,” said Wolfy, which drew curious glances Wylie’s way.
Oops, thought Wylie, I’ll have to thump ... but as if Wolfy knew Wylie’s plan, he made a show of closing his wide mouth and hiding his teeth, just as Sherlock laid a restraining hand on Wylie’s raised arm.
“Calm down lad, just watch him while I untie his hands.”
Sherlock took his seat against the wall. Wolfy rubbed his untied wrists and flexed his shoulders while the Chapter House’s gathering debated how to handle Wolfy. Everyone except Wylie and Ser Clive had an opinion. Wylie, as instructed, watched Wolfy who sat up straight on the tree seat, rubbing his cheek, and staring at Wylie with a funny look.
“He’s a feral; execute him.”
“It’s not our job,” said Kim, one of the older undies. “Even our Wall Watchers don’t execute ferals, only Our Lady’s warriors do when they deal with those who harm candidates. Besides, Our Lady may have plans for our feral.”
At Kim’s mention of Our Lady, Wylie glanced up at the high ceiling. Take me home, he mouthed silently. When he looked back, Wolfy gave him another funny look. Wylie smiled at him.
“Oust him,” said an undie.
Kim stood, and the Chapter House quieted. Everyone liked Kim.
“Ousting him would be inhuman,” Kim said. “To have survived feral barbarism towards defects, climbed the Break and got over our wall undetected, and then live off the land in this Goddess forsaken wilderness, shows remarkable adaptability. We should put him to work. What is your name feral?”
Wolfy’s gaze left Wylie and stared at Under Server Kim for a full a minute before speaking.
“I am Aderic of the Forrest. That’s because I was born in the Forests District of the federated tribes you insult when you call me feral. What do they call you–weak?”
Kim continued unperturbed. “How did you avoid being killed at birth?”
“Courageous parents who moved us from our beautiful forests to a barren wasteland to hide me, but you lot wouldn’t understand courage, since none of you except the giant have taken the test. I guess the giant’s result is why you’re afraid of taking it; bloody cowards.”
Wylie smiled as the Chapter House erupted in shouts of abuse at Wolfy for telling his truth that Wylie had taken the test. Wolfy’s truth didn’t include the other two the undies had locked away.
Only Kim remained calm. Wylie was having more fun than since—ever. Despite Wolfy’s odd face, Wylie liked the way talked, and ignored Sher’s orders to stay quiet.
“I’m Wylie. Will you be my friend?” He smiled at Wolfy, who returned a wide, toothy smile. “Of course, I will, idiot. You obviously don’t have many among this lot.”
“I have Sherlock and Kim’s alright, but I don’t like Ser Clive.”
Ser Clive stood shouting for order. “It’s time we voted whether to expel the feral or put him to work?”
4 Aderic
Aderic had expected to die when the big bloke double-fisted him. Instead, he had woken, lying on his side, his hands tied behind his back, watched by a boy in a white robe, who shouted, “It’s awake.”
It? I’ll give them it.
A black-robed man returned, leading an entourage of four brown-robed men.
“I am Ser Clive, server to Our Lady of The Towers, the Goddess, Severne.”
Aderic gave the Goddess’s server his best snarl, drawing his lips back to show his teeth despite the pain.
“Is that the was ferals greet benefactors?”
“Benefactors! I’m trussed like an animal.”
“You behave like one.”
Aderic grunted. it was true; a survival habit he’d learned the hard way.
Ser Clive turned to the brown robes. “Bring him.”
The four brown-robed blokes marched him to an octagonal building they called the Chapter House, through a throng of jeering white robe youngsters. Inside, his escort re-tied his hands behind a central tree holding up the roof. The seats attached to the walls soon filled with men, all in brown robes, except for one in black and the big bloke, a brown robe had called Wylie, in shirt and trousers.
Wylie was unexpected. Despite the thumping Aderic got from him on arrival, he felt no animosity from Wylie, who had even smiled during the Chapter House uproar, and asked if Aderic would be his friend. Aderic readily agreed, but his biggest surprise came when the majority voted to put him to work. Why soon became obvious. He got the jobs nobody else wanted, like emptying and cleaning night cans; even Wylie never did that job.
According to Wylie’s friend Sherlock, tasked with showing Aderic around, Wylie was one of the least damaged of the three candidates they looked after. Aderic hadn’t known Our Lady’s test could go so wrong, probably because his lot buried their failures as mutants. The way this lot treated Wylie, like a two-legged horse, prompted a sense of kinship in Aderic. He found it laughable that the one thing his people and uplanders had in common, besides the Goddess, was intolerance of difference. Both cultures had rejected them for different reasons: physical deformity and reduced mental acuity. At least the uplanders didn’t kill their rejects just hid them away, even those so damaged they needed full-time care; another of his jobs.
Aderic realised during the Chapter House meeting, the test had not entirely disconnected Wylie from reality. He had watched him mouthing what he now knew was a constant prayer to the Goddess to take him home. Unlike the other two. Wylie had a goal.
* * *
With abundant clean water and regular meals, Aderic could feel his health improving and settled into Abbey life; the work, though onerous, wasn’t hard. He made friends with Under Server Kim, the old bloke who’d suggested putting him to work. Kim was a treasure trove of information, and it was from his calendar, Aderic worked out he was now twenty. Three years had passed since unforeseen events had propelled him to the uplands, and he could no longer recall his perfectly formed brother’s face. Unlike Patrick, Ethyl’s image remained indelibly etched in his mind. He couldn’t believe his life might end, hidden away with a bunch of reject undies, as Wylie called them. Yet despite his misgivings, several undies following Kim’s lead made friends with him an impossibility back home.
Aderic continued scandalising undies by calling Wylie idiot, dolt or lumber brain. Wylie didn’t mind; smiling and calling him Wolfy, like a private joke. It confirmed Aderic’s opinion that Wylie had more pigeons in his loft than anyone realised. Despite obvious attention and memory problems, once he grasped a concept, it stuck.
Newly arriving acolytes and undies found Aderic’s muzzle confronting but they never mentioned ‘mutation’, only that ferals were the enemy. Most let it go when Ser Clive explained Aderic’s labour value.
“Simply put, the more work we give him, the less work we give you.”
Some persisted, unless Wylie was around. ‘Be nice,’ Wylie would say, ‘Wolfy is my friend’.
Regrettably, on the first anniversary of his arrival, Ser Clive, deciding Aderic was no longer a threat, gave him and Wylie separate duties and the complainants gathered.
“Eaten any acolytes lately, Wolfy?”
“Did they get the wolf that ploughed your mother’s field?”
“Severne’s bloody eye Wolfy, if I had that face, I’d walk on my hands and talk out my arse.”
Aderic ignored their taunts, but only for so long before he attacked. His snarls no longer worked on this lot; they had become too familiar. The brawls didn’t go unnoticed, but the resultant Chapter House gathering always sided with the undies.
“Perhaps you’re not a good fit for Thornton Abbey after all,” Kim said. “Your presence has become disruptive. I’m sorry Aderic. I like you, but perhaps it’s better that you leave and let peace return.”
“Perhaps if you bunch of cowards didn’t gang up, I wouldn’t need to,” Aderic said, knowing he should stop rising to their taunts. “Wylie has more brains than you—bloody undies,” he said, with deliberate derision. Ser Clive sat shaking his head throughout these one-sided debate and Wylie wasn’t any help, taking everybody at face value. If the perpetrators said it wasn’t them, he believed them. And if Aderic said they lied, Wylie would say, “You can’t both be right Wolfy, ask Sir Clive to sort it out.”
Aderic knew he could never win, yet they didn’t expel him, but maybe he should leave, anyway. Until he stumbled into the Abbey, he had been single-minded about finding a place to recover, grow a little, and plan his revenge. He’d achieved everything except the last, but returning home meant running and hiding while he searched for her, and if he did finally kill her, he would need to repeat his escape to the uplands, actively pursued by her warband. The task felt daunting, but not revenging his family would make his survival pointless?
* * *
When he told Wylie he was leaving, the reaction was immediate.
“Take me with you, Wolfy, take me home. I knew Our Lady would send someone to take me home.”
Aderic sat back watching Wylie’s guileless expression. Shit, he believes it.
“Please Wolfy.”
“Where’s home lumber brain?”
“Deep Creek.”
“And where’s that?”
“You know. Our Lady sent you.”
Such blind faith in the Goddess amazed Aderic. He had lost all faith long ago when he learned Our Lady’s most devoted followers, despite insisting he was a gift to his mother, wanted him destroyed. Some gift; it got her, Pat and dad killed.
“Yeah, right, it’s that way,” Aderic said, waving his arm in an easterly direction where, according to Kim, civilisation lay. Wylie smiled and Aderic seeing his expression of supreme confidence, thought, why not. It might be handy to have him along. “Tonight, when the mead flows, we leave the same way I arrived.”
“Okey-dokey,”
“You remember that, do you dolt?”
“The river,” Wylie said with a smile.
Ser Clive and his select Undies gathered after the bell for candles out rang and mead soon flowed. Aderic waited an hour before he retrieved his knife and went to meet a pleased Wylie at his favourite window embrasure. They climbed out, swum across the river, and headed for the road.
They hadn’t gone far when the bell rang in alarm. Someone, probably Sherlock, must have checked Wylie’s room before going to bed and discovered his friend missing. They came along the road, waving torches, shouting Wylie’s name. Aderic didn’t rate a mention.
They watched from a hillside, Aderic smiling as the search party walked right past where they had left the road. If they had bothered to look, they’d have seen the disturbed verge. They must think calling Wylie’s name would bring him to them, entirely discounting his yearning for home, and Aderic’s help.
Leaving had been child’s play, thought Aderic, undies are children who wouldn’t survive a day in seeker school.
* * *
Bushranging in the Ortum hills downriver from Thornton Abbey was harder than the cloistered life, but easier than his family’s precarious existence. The Southern Hummocks on whose foothill the abbey stood spewed forth countless rivers, making the area rich in wildlife and living wild easy. If he’d come this route, he wouldn’t have reached the Abbey in the emaciated state the undies found. He glanced sideways. Nor would he have met Wylie who’d become like a big brother, a replacement for Pat; strange how things work out. What angered Aderic, was finding abandoned homesteads with viable fruit trees and overgrown vegetable patches. He failed to understand why anyone living in such abundance would ever leave. In the Shadows, productive homesteads like these became villages, then towns.
Ortum was the centre of a vast farming area, so besides the abundant game and wild gardens, they could supplement their diet with eggs, milk or honey from farmers taking their produce to Ortum’s markets, Wylie’s size and Aderic’s muzzle was a scary combination. Most gave up whatever they carried without protest. To keep ahead of their reputation (the giant and the wolfman), Aderic kept them moving, often returning to the vicinity of Thornton Abbey. Wylie would get excited and say, “I’ve been here before, Wolfy. Is Deep Creek close?”
Aderic’s usual answer was, “No Wylie, it’s thousands of miles away, a year or two of travel.” Without undies to shock, Aderic had stopped calling Wylie names but on rare occasions Wylie’s perennial question ‘Is Deep Creek close?’ made him snap.
“Does it look like it, sawdust brain?”
Wylie would consider the question as he surveyed the area, then smile, and say, “Okey-dokey.”
