Archive for the ‘Rudi Dornemann’ Category
Haggling in the Wasteland
Tuesday, January 6th, 2009
Sitting in the shade and relative cool of his yurt, the vulture keeper realized he had company. Someone was walking back and forth in the blaze of light and heat outside. The keeper hadn’t heard a camel, and anyone crossing the waste on foot–well, they’d be crawling by now, if they were still moving at all. Which left only one possibility.
“If you’re here to haunt,” said the keeper, “save yourself the aggravation. I’ve got wards. Ground ’round here’s full of quartz, so they’ll hold.”
“I’m just,” said a voice like a sigh, “here to talk.”
“Don’t particularly want to talk,” said the vulture keeper. He went back to tuning his zither.
“You have something of mine,” said the ghost. “Or you will, when your flock returns.”
The keeper strummed and made his answer into a little tune. “Whatever they bring back, it’s something of mine.”
“It’s a particularly valuable stone,” said the ghost.
The keeper worked a troublesome string. “That’s what I deal in: carbuncles (twang), snake stones (twang) — any brain stone my vultures find (twang) and you wizards will buy.” (twa-ng-ng-ng)
“I need you to deliver it to my heir-apprentice,” said the ghost, “in the hidden city of Ar-Zellekan.”
“I’m semi-retired. Only go as far as the caravanserai. Don’t go to cities, even ones I can find.” The keeper had tuned the last of the strings. “Give up and move on, little wisp. Like the priests say: rise up as rain and come down again in the Afterworld.”
“My enemies will pay the merchants ten times its worth to kill you and take it.”
The keeper stopped his strumming. “That seems…” he said, “unnecessarily harsh.”
“The stone will bond with you by the time you reach the settlements,” said the ghost. “They won’t be able to use it with you alive.”
“My retirement’s getting shorter either way, although…” the keeper reached into his pocket for a zither pick, “this isn’t my first retirement.”
“Oh?”
The keeper strummed a complicated tune.
“You were a wizard, weren’t you?”
“Wizard-king. Nearly wizard-emperor,” said the keeper. “Had the skill; lacked the power.” He stilled the zither’s strings. “Guess that won’t be a problem much longer. Just hope your heir knows some good war-spells.”
“He’s a pacifist,” said the ghost, “like all our people. Perhaps I’ve exaggerated the stone’s power.”
“A hidden city would make a fine capital,” said the keeper.
“The stone’s strong, but not that strong,” said the ghost. “Nothing special. Nevermind.” He blew away with the next breeze.
“Good,” said the keeper, and returned to his zithering.
Sea of Crises
Friday, November 21st, 2008
On the news, the replay: L5 station exploding again, ring after ring opening into flame.
Behind me, Ivan threw clothes into a bag. In the doorway, Jill looked down the stairs her friend Sue had just run down.
Ivan shouldered me toward the door and nudged Jill through it.
From the empty apartment, we heard official confirmation: the moon had started targeting earthside cities.
The car met us as at the ground floor. The people from the fourth floor were loading their kids and an antique lamp into their van. Waving, we glided away fast.
We asked; the car told us the moon would rise in twenty-three minutes.
We were OK, we figured, as long as we stayed away from cities. No reason to think this, except then we could do something. As if surfacing from the deepening night, the evening’s first star appeared.
Ivan thought we should turn the radio on, hear the latest. Sue said no use getting all hyped on information.
We left the radio off.
Hours, the three of us rode, tense on the over-upholstered seats. The car gave us the random wander we’d asked for– industrial park cul-de-sacs, interstate frontage roads and ruler-straight deep-country state highways. Past fire-gutted grain elevators, through all-night truck stop diner/adult bookstore/discount firework shack minimall parking lots, down aisles of tall old elms where the leaves were thick enough overhead we relaxed a bit, and realized how tired we felt. Then we remembered the miracle of infrared and the blaze our engine must be making to distant watchers, leaves or no leaves.
By three, we were numb to worry. Ivan and I said OK when Jill suggested hacking one of the surveillance bands. We watched with watchers’ eyes: everything alien, milk-colored, sharp-shadowed. A farmhouse our earthly eyes could barely make out framed four dim embers in what we guessed was the kitchen. Mother, father, child, gathered around the newsfeed. The fourth heat source– a coffee-maker? And not far off, three smudges in the blurry lozenge of a car. We climbed around and traded seats, watching the screen to see if it really was us.
It was.
That spooked us. We turned off the screen, dimmed the controls, listened to wind-hiss and tire-hum.
If the moon sets and we’re still here to see it, we told each other, we’ll pull over and get some sleep.