Dispocalypse Page 2

  Lord Tan sat on his golden throne, consulting with a grey-robed figure. The master was tall, easily six and a half feet, and loomed like a giant twice that height. Despite his bright red robe, an ominous darkness cloaked him, and only occasionally did the fire of his eyes peek through the heavy cowl that kept his face in shadow.

  Kazix’s knees ached as he prostrated himself before the master, waiting to deliver his report. To be forced to wait would have been an unbearable insult had it come from anyone else, but his master was beyond reproach. Kazix glanced to his right and saw the hundreds of shriveled ears pinned against the wall—all that was left of those who’d spoken ill of the master. Kazix wondered if the master gathered ears from everyone he killed, or just the ones who especially insulted him. For it was rumored that Lord Tan could sense disdainful thoughts from afar—and that he could tear the unsuspecting maligners asunder with a mere flick of his finger.

  “The ears are only from the Collectors who displease me,” said Lord Tan in his silky voice. “Now get up and deliver your report.”

  Kazix scrambled to his feet and unfurled the crumpled piece of paper where he’d scribbled his notes. “Lord Tan, the southern ruler sent forty-five southerners through the great stone barrier. I managed to gather them all with no losses. There was only one that was young enough to be turned into a stalker, and per your instructions, I escorted him to the stalker nursery. The attendants are working on him now. Thirty-five are in good condition. The rest are either very old or injured. They await your direction.”

  “Very well. Take the feeble and injured and feed them to the trainees. As for the rest, send them to the breeding pits. We need to increase our numbers. Did we get any messages?”

  Kazix patted frantically at his tunic before finding the crinkled paper that held the one message. “Yes, Lord Tan. One of the southerners had this note stuffed into his shoe. It reads, ‘The southern governor pays homage to the Lord of the North with a donation of flesh and blood. Governor Vanden-Plas also wishes to remind the Lord of the North that a time of great purging will be coming upon the south. Be prepared.’”

  Lord Tan chuckled. “As if I haven’t already seen the signs. That fool doesn’t realize I already know more than he ever could. The Void knows all.”

  Poking his head into the nursery, Kazix blinked at the creature squirming on the altar.

  Only hours earlier, this had been a feeble southern child, useless and weak. It might have served as a decent meal for a dozen trainees. But now the muscles in the child’s arms and chest had thickened, thin flesh had grown over his ruined eye sockets, and his newly elongated forehead pulsed with a strange glow—originating from the gems that the attendants had fused into the back of the child’s eyes.

  Only one attendant remained, and he was tirelessly pumping a lever attached to the altar, sending a dark-red, almost black ichor of nutrients through clear tubes into the child’s arms.

  Kazix had never seen a stalker up close before, and he couldn’t get over the strange shape of the head, or its grotesque pulsing. It was as if the child’s heart had been moved into its skull. A feeling of disgust washed over Kazix as he imagined walking the world with a head like that.

  He supposed none of the stalkers cared, though. They were all blind anyway, and besides, they were said to be controlled by Lord Tan himself. Mere puppets on strings.

  As Kazix turned on his heel to leave, making only the slightest sound, the stalker lunged against his bonds.

  “Calm yourself,” the attendant snapped. “There’s more to be done.”

  Kazix looked back at the stalker. It was making a clicking sound and straining against the ropes binding it to the altar. Eerily, its empty eye sockets stared at Kazix as if it could see him.

  What a revolting creature.

  Kazix silently wondered if Lord Tan could have made a mistake in creating such a horrid thing.

  Without warning, the stalker sent a gobbet of mucous flying onto Kazix’s chest. Kazix wiped it off with disgust. Almost instantly, his hand grew numb.

  The attendant shook his head with a look of amusement.

  The numbness quickly spread up Kazix’s arm and across his chest. Suddenly he fell face forward, unable to control his muscles. He desperately wondered why the attendant wasn’t doing something to help him. Surely there must be a cure for whatever this was. But he could hear the attendant continuing to work his bellows.

  Moments passed with Kazix lying face down on the floor, completely paralyzed. And then he heard footsteps enter the nursery.

  Finally the attendant spoke. “Clean him off and then feed him to the trainees.”

  Panic raced through Kazix as a pair of hands grabbed his ankles and began dragging him toward the door.

  “Remember,” the attendant called, “Lord Tan wants his ear.”

  Dream Walking

  Sitting cross-legged, Willow leaned back on her hands and breathed in the scent of the pine trees that surrounded her. As the shadows lengthened, she shivered; it was the middle of summer, but it was clear that it would be a cold night. She scooted closer to the campfire, luxuriating in its warmth.

  Willow’s father tended the flames, and her twin brothers were scouring the woods for kindling. She heard John yell, “Damn you, Brad, stop looking for arrow stock and just gather some dead branches.”

  At twenty-two, her brothers were five years older than her, yet they still bickered like children. It was how they showed affection for one another. In fact, when there was silence between them, she could be certain there was something amiss.

  Dad chuckled as he fed a bundle of dead branches into the campfire. “Mom would have loved being out here with us.”

  Willow nodded. Her father was smiling, but she could see the pain in his soulful brown eyes. Mom had been dead for only two months, and his grief still ran strong.

  So did Willow’s.

  The twins returned to the clearing. John, carrying an armload of kindling, looked frustrated and was muttering under his breath. Brad, following, carried a bunch of straight sticks and had a big smile on his face.

  Willow had to clap her hand over her mouth to hide her own smile.

  “This place is awesome,” Brad said. “I’ve never seen so many decent samples, perfectly straight, with no knots or anything.”

  Willow’s family had been bowyers for generations, but Brad was less interested in the bows than the arrows. He was constantly on the lookout for just the right kind of wood, and he loved to experiment with new ways of preparing arrows so they flew straighter.

  Dad took one of Brad’s sticks and nodded approvingly. “Not bad… not bad at all. But don’t forget that’s not why we’re out here.”

  John nodded defiantly at this last remark.

  They all knew why they were here—to gather wood for bows. Though Willow secretly suspected that the real reason they’d dragged her out in the woods was so that she would snap out of the brooding she’d been doing ever since Mom died.

  “Let’s get some sleep,” Dad said. “If my informant is right, we’ll find a copse of yew within sight of Yawning Deep—and some of the best bow-making wood we’ll ever find.”

  Yawning Deep was a half-mile-wide chasm that separated the poisoned land of the north from the rest of humanity. No one crossed it—no one, that is, except for exiled criminals and those who couldn’t complete the training at the Academy. To be sent north beyond Yawning Deep was to receive a death sentence. Willow had grown up with the nightmarish stories of the horrible creatures that lived on its opposite side.

  The wildlings.

  Willow’s stomach knotted at the thought of being so close to those horrors.

  “Isn’t there supposed to be some kind of barrier guarding us from the wildlings?” she asked.

  Her father gave her a reassuring smile. “Baby, the barrier doesn’t extend to the frontier. But we haven’t seen a sign of wildlings in years, and besides, it’s practically impossible for anything to cross the Deep—even wi
ldlings.” He snapped one of the branches of kindling in half and tossed it into the fire. “I’ll take the first watch. Willow, you’ve got second watch, okay? John, you take third, and then Brad.”

  Keeping watch was one of the things Willow hated about camping. It made her miss New Memphis and her cozy bed all the more.

  She and her brothers picked their spots around the fire and laid out their blankets. And with the warmth of the campfire soaking into her, Willow closed her eyes and fell asleep.

  Willow had lit the candle at the start of her watch, and it was burned down about halfway. When it had burned down completely, it would be time to wake John for his turn. Until then, she would sit with her back to the campfire, enjoying its warmth.

  Except that right now, her bladder insisted she get up and search for a place to relieve herself.

  She stood and moved away from the campfire, tiptoeing carefully. But before she had gotten more than a few feet into the shadows, the crack of a branch sounded from nearby.

  Willow halted. Were there wolves in these woods?

  She turned toward the sound—only to feel something smash into her head—hard. A shock wave of pain rippled through her, and sparks danced across her vision. The campfire split into two, merged, and split again as she staggered back.

  But despite her disorientation, when something grabbed at her arm, she reacted instinctively, lashing out with an elbow. Pain shot up her arm as she made contact, but whoever had grabbed her grunted with pain and let her go.

  Finally, Willow remembered to scream.

  She felt another blow to her head, and her body fell to the ground. Yet at the same time, with a wrenching sensation, she found herself floating in the air, hovering over the scene—detached from her body.

  Am I dead?

  From above, she watched as a gnarled, misshapen creature prodded her unmoving body. Its mottled and scarred skin was covered with scraps of crude metal armor, and when it lifted its hairless head to sniff at the air, its yellow eyes flashed in the reflected light of the campfire.

  Willow had never seen a wildling before, but she knew that was what this creature was.

  The wildling grabbed her ankle and began dragging her away.

  It was then that she noticed five other wildlings gathered nearby, all wielding primitive weapons. They backed away as her attacker dragged Willow into the darkness.

  “Willow!”

  It was her father, now on his feet, his expression both worried and determined. He was already stringing his bow, and her brothers were scrambling for their weapons.

  Willow wanted to scream out a warning, but she couldn’t. She could only drift like a leaf on the wind as her father advanced on the wildlings. Perhaps she was already dead. And soon enough, her family might join her.

  She hoped she’d soon see her mother.

  Here, There, and Back Again

  Willow drifted across the landscape, beyond the places she knew, past the polluted oceans and the wreckage of the critically injured world she called home.

  Until she slammed against an invisible barrier.

  She pushed, straining to get past it, but the barrier, whatever it was, was like an elastic membrane. When she pushed, it stretched. But something called to her from the other side, and she was determined to reach it.

  And then she was through. And not just in another town or on another continent.

  She was in a totally different world.

  The first indication was the sky. Gone was the dirty haze that filtered the daylight, casting an orange-brown pall over the land. Gone were the streaks of ball lightning that sent people scurrying for shelter. Instead, the sky was actually blue, like in the stories of the land before the Great War. Like a fairy tale come to life. The daylight was so intense, Willow felt a moment of sadness that her brothers would never be able to see it.

  She tore her gaze from the beauty above her and looked down. No longer could she see the Yawning Deep. There was no hint of the one-hundred-foot concrete barrier snaking across the Dominion’s lands, soldiers patrolling the top, keeping the citizens safe from marauders coming out of the depths of the Forbidding. Instead she hovered over a city like nothing she’d ever seen. Enormous buildings of stone and glass, easily five stories or more tall, loomed over metal creatures that raced about at astonishing speeds. This place bore no resemblance to the villages of one-story wood buildings she was used to.

  She felt herself drawn to a sprawling structure at least a thousand feet long, and with a thought, her ghostly form zoomed toward it. The words “Kansas City Convention Center” were written above the entrance that she raced through.

  She came to a stop in a room filled with people sitting at tables, talking to each other. As she looked around, a girl walked in, anger on her face. She bore a remarkable resemblance to Willow herself, except much thinner.

  Willow willed herself closer, and as she approached, the girl’s thoughts seeped into her mind.

  “I can’t believe that judge. It’s total discrimination!”

  As the yards that separated Willow from the fuming girl turned to feet and then inches, the pounding echo of the girl’s heartbeat grew louder. Willow could now feel the girl’s fury. It was directed at an old man who’d accused her of cheating.

  And then Willow’s view of the world fully merged with that of her twin. No longer was Willow a disembodied mind floating in a foreign world. She was this other girl. And she was overcome with anger—no, fury—at getting cheated out of her victory. She had won first place in the taekwondo competition. Or she should have, if not for the lead judge.

  Willow strode right up to the judges’ table and glared at the wrinkled man. She needed to confront the dinosaur and get an explanation.

  “What do you mean I’m disqualified?”

  “Listen to me carefully, Miss Park.” The judge spoke slowly and with condescension, as if she were a kid. “You did a fantastic job today, but you made a false statement on your application. You checked the male box instead of the female one.” He pulled a sheet of paper from the stack of folders on the table and twisted it around. It was her tournament application. He pointed to a checkbox she’d marked.

  “Making a false statement on your application is grounds for disqualification. Furthermore, you proceeded to compete in the male division—and you are not a male. Competing in the wrong division is also disqualifying. I’m sorry, but we have no choice. We cannot let your results stand.”

  A voice shouted from behind her. “Willow!” Brad had just walked in, and he waved to her. She should have known that somebody would call him.

  She turned back to the judge. “Are you seriously telling me that because I beat all the boys in this tournament, it wasn’t fair to them, because I’m a girl?”

  “Like I said, you did well today. Very well. But we have to enforce our rules. If a boy had competed in the girls’ division, the other young women would have cried foul. And although it’s an unusual situation, the same rule applies in the opposite direction. Might I suggest that next time you compete in the proper division.”

  Brad appeared at Willow’s side and pulled her away from the judges’ table. It was probably for the best. Willow had been about to do something that would likely have earned her a lifetime disqualification.

  But at the moment, she didn’t see it that way. “Let me go!” she screamed at her gorilla of a brother. He was five years older and twice her size, but still the best he could do was half-drag and half-carry her away from the judges. “I want to show that judge where my foot belongs. Right up his ass!”

  Brad shook his head but remained silent as he pulled her out of the convention center. Rush-hour traffic had subsided and the streetlights had flickered. It was a warm, clear evening as Brad steered her to Willow’s other brother, John.

  He laughed when he saw them coming.

  She shot him a withering glare. “Shut up, John. It’s not fair. It’s complete BS that I can’t compete like anyone else.”


  Brad ruffled her hair playfully and looped his muscled arm over her shoulder. “What did you think would happen? I can tell you, John and I knew what would happen. The minute Darrel called and told us you were competing in the boys’ division, we came straight down.”

  “Is that why you cut your hair so short?” John asked. “Did you think you could pass as a guy?”

  Willow took a few deep breaths and tried to release her frustration. “I figured it was worth a try. None of the girls that come to these competitions are worth my effort. You guys know how it is. Grandpa Lin has been teaching us how to fight since we were babies.”

  “But why do you care so much? I’m sure they saw you coming and said, ‘Oh no. It’s one of those Park kids coming to dominate our tournament again.’ They know what you can do. What we can all do. What are you trying to prove?”

  John didn’t get it. Neither of her brothers did. But they’d always been there for her. And here they were, looking after her again.

  The love she felt for them swelled, pushing aside the anger. And to her dismay, her throat tightened and tears streaked down her face.

  “I just wanted to compete against the best. Just like both of you did.”

  Brad put his hands on her shoulders and turned her toward him. His compassionate eyes broke something in her. He wrapped her in his arms and held her tightly as she sobbed.

  All those years of practicing taekwondo. The girls at school making fun of her for caring more about practicing with Grandpa Lin and her brothers than going to a school dance. The boys starting rumors about her when they learned the hard way that Willow could knock them on their butts if they got out of line. She’d always wanted to prove that she could do something special.

  Brad rubbed her back and made a shushing noise.

  “It’ll be okay, baby sis,” John said. “It’s just a silly tournament. Besides, you’ve already won every time you competed against the girls. And you won against the guys this year, too. What difference does the trophy make? You proved your point, didn’t you?”