The Wyrms of &alon

What would Geoffrey do?, Karl thought.

It had become Karl’s favorite question to ask, and it was one that had helped him a great deal, time and again.

He wouldn’t have made it through basic training without Geoffrey’s guidance. The young Count Athelmarch had taken a shine to him. In a way, they were both outcasts. Karl was an outcast because of his lack of strength, smarts, and prowess. Geoffrey was an outsider because of the dark cloud that his ancestor’s sin cast over his family name.

Karl had joined the army to find his courage, and, like with everything else, he’d failed miserably. Jogging around the yard and running formation drills had left him feeling like a dead man walking. Just thinking about training made Karl’s leg’s ache. If Geoffrey hadn’t been there, he probably would have never found his first hints of courage, or that his spirit had so much room left to grow.

It had been so difficult at first. Even after sixteen—now seventeen—years of life at his back, interacting with people was still terribly difficult. Karl paused and stuttered whenever he spoke. His tongue was flabby and useless, and he always dreaded that he wasn’t saying the right thing. He couldn’t help thinking of his father boxing him on the ears, or slapping him with one of his accounting ledgers.

But the young Count had been as stubborn as a mule.

“Karl,” Geoffrey had said, “if you wish to be useful, you must be secure in your own person. You have discernments and sentiments. Value them. A man has to have a reason to act if he is to be a man at all. Build up your convictions so that they steer you to action.”

“But what if I’m not brave enough?” Karl had replied. “What if I… if I don’t have—”

“—No one is brave, except through someone else’s eyes,” Geoffrey had replied. “There is no honor in diffidence. If you want to find your courage, accept your fears. Only then will you be able to grow.”

It took time for Geoffrey’s words to seep into Karl’s soul. But, gradually, he began to listen.

“You’re a deft shot, Karl. You have a steady hand. It seems you’re a born rifleman!”

“Karl, watch your fingers. If a spark crosses your path, stray powder will blast them right off.”

“Please pay attention to how I load the musket, Karl. The routine is paramount. The more quickly you reload, the less time the Mewnee will have to blow your brains out.”

“Stop faulting yourself for what you cannot do, and do what you can. You will grow stronger if you practice. Hone your skills, and have faith that your value will be noticed.”

Karl had never seen that sort of concern before, not from another human being. One day, he asked Geoffrey forthright: “Why me?”

“What do you mean?”

“Why all this?” Karl had asked. “Why devote your time to me? I’m just the horse with the boy. I mean—”

—His face had gone flush with embarrassment.

“I had a brother, once,” Geoffrey had said, “but no longer. The Mewnee destroyed him.”

There’d been such pain in Geoffrey’s pale, green eyes.

“It would be bad enough that the Mewnee defile our lands, but they do not stop there. They break our spirit. They make us meager and base. They force us to become scoundrels to survive. We are the people of the Holy Land, and they have brought us low. They brought you low, Karl, just as they brought my brother low.”

He’d stared at him with those piercing eyes.

A Lassedite’s eyes.

“I failed, then,” he’d said. “I hadn’t yet understood. But, Harmon’s death showed me the Light. We must lift each other up, Karl. Either we rise together, or together we fall. And I will not fall. I cannot. I will lift our voices, Karl. I will leave no Trentoner behind. However deep the darkness goes, we will push through it, to the Sunlight on the other side. I do it for my brother,”

We must lift each other up.

Karl had never thought about that. The thought, so warm and full of hope, was like a stranger to his mind. But Geoffrey believed it. And, bit by bit, Karl was learning to make that belief his own.

Ever since then, whenever crisis came his way, Karl asked himself: “What would Geoffrey do?”

The man was the older brother he wished he’d had as a boy. Someone to look up to; someone to guide him. The fight against the Mewnees was a war of good against evil, and, like Geoffrey had told him, inaction or hesitation would be fatal. And with Geoffrey as his guide, Karl would never fail to do what was right.

No Trentoner would.

But that was what made the current situation so frustrating. For the first time in his life, Karl found others looking to him for guidance.

He wasn’t used to such responsibilities.

Clearing his throat, Karl sat up straight. They were all gathered in a circle on the smoothy, shiny, patterned floor, as if at camp. They’d thrown off their flimsy gowns. Their armor and leathers smelled of smoke and blood.

Geoffrey’s hair folded down on either side of his head like a raven’s wings. He sat cross-legged, with his arms in his lap, looking more like a statue than a man.

Bever’s dull blue armor seemed to barely contain his muscles. He was larger than life in every way. The man had to be twice as wide as any of them. He wrestled bruins for amusement, and his laugh seemed loud enough to shatter stone.

“There’s no chance of opening the door, Bev?” Duncan asked.

The axeman groaned. “The Hallowed Beast Itself would strain Itself trying to break through that damn thing.”

Duncan stood off to the side. Karl could smell the sulfur on the man’s light armor. His berry-blonde hair was as thick as gun cotton.

“There’s no point in even attempting a rescue,” Morgan said, rubbing his gown on his armor, polishing off the grime. “Eylon's either dead or worse than dead.”

Morgan’s tongue was as sharp as his pike. Impeccably neat and eternally grim, he’d daubed the hospital gown with his spittle to clean up his armor.

He hocked another gob of spit onto the gown. “And soon, we will join him.”

He looked up at Karl.

“I will not abandon a brother-in-arms,” Geoffrey said. “Those traitors took Eylon. This will not stand.”

Given the circumstances, it amazed Karl that Geoffrey could keep himself so well-composed.

“So,” Bever asked, dryly, “what are we supposed to do with these things?” He lifted up the console he’d pulled from his bedside.

Karl felt the weight of his companions’ eyes bear down on him. It had been his request, after all, that they bring their consoles from their beds.

Duncan looked Karl in the eyes. “Do you truly believe it is as they say? That we have… time-traveled?”

Karl nodded, and then answered Bever’s question as best as he could. It helped that it wasn’t just a matter of words. He could touch and point as he explained how to operate the marvelous device.

Much to Karl’s relief, Lt. Colonel Kaplan and Nurse Kaylin were true to their word. He’d told them everything that he could: about the battle at Fortton, about the strange tear in the air, and the sudden light. The Lt. Colonel had been both pleased and disappointed. He was happy to have learned more, but Karl sensed the man had expected for him to know more. Karl still wasn’t sure whether or not they were Mewnee agents, but, at the very least, they seemed to be trustworthy.

Before rousing Geoffrey and the others, Nurse Kaylin had taken the time to show Karl how to use the console, as she called it—the glowing windows. She’d shown him how to use it with a tenderness that belied her foul tongue, and he’d taken to it like a bird to the sky.

Karl had always been prone to flights of fancy, much to his father’s chagrin. As a child, he’d often wondered what the future might have been like. He’d spend hours lost in musings, during the long, cold days of rain that sealed everyone indoors at summer’s end. He’d dream of flying machines that skirted the clouds, and miracle cures that banished all sickness; massive waterworks, a mile long, and secret cities within the earth, down, deep, where the witches dwelled. He’d share his musings with Fink as he tended to his friend’s fur and mane.

The horse was such a kind listener.

The future turned out to be wilder than Karl could have ever imagined, as his friends were about to learn.

Kaylin and Kaplan only began to awaken Geoffrey and the others once Kaylin was confident that Karl knew enough about the console and how to use it that he could explain it to the others on his own. The Lt. Colonel, meanwhile, had been kind enough to let Karl out of the restraints, so that he could be by his comrade’s sides as they woke.

Karl was lucky that the nurse had explained the console to him before awakening his companions with that strange-looking syringe of hers, because halfway through the awakening process, all hell broke loose.

Geoffrey had been sitting up and coming to, with Bever soon to follow, when Karl finally noticed it.

Eylon was missing.

Karl only realized it once he’d been freed to get up off his bed and walk around the room.

Will and Geren were dead—as was Fink—but Eylon…?

Geoffrey noticed it as soon as he’d come-to. By the time the drugs had taken effect and the others had woken, the room had devolved into a screaming match as tense as any battle Karl had ever known.

The military of the future had taken Eylon, for use in some kind of studies.

Karl hadn’t the foggiest idea of what that meant, nor did Geoffrey or anyone else. And then, Geoffrey noticed the Mewnee script tucked away on the nurse and soldier’s strange uniforms, and on the devices all around the room.

The nurse and the Lt. Colonel had left the room, locking them in. Bever had tried to break open either of the doors—there were two, located at opposite ends of the long, broad room—but to no avail.

And now, Karl thought, they want me to tell them everything.

Having calmed them—well, Bever had done most of it—and gathered them in a circle, Karl’s time had come. He had to find his courage, because it had fallen to him to lead his friends to the truth the way Kaylin had with him.

“Tap the image of a… the compass,” Karl said, stumbling over his words.

Geoffrey looked him in the eyes. “Calm yourself, Karl,” he said. “I know you can do it, and I know that you will.” Geoffrey glanced at the others, “because we need your help.”

Nodding, Karl clenched his fists. “Tap the compass,” he said, “and then…” he exhaled, “tap the white bar that appears at… the top.”

He repeated Geoffrey’s advice in his head: Stop faulting yourself for what you cannot do, and do what you can.

Stop faulting yourself for what you cannot do, and do what you can.

Karl calmed, exhaling—letting the tension out of his chest.

“Oh!” Bever said, in surprise. “There are all these letters…”

“Do you even remember your orthography?” Morgan quipped.

“Y-Yes,” Karl said, nodding, “the letters. Press the letters to spell out the words Flying Cloud, and then… and then press the thing labeled Go.”

Kaylin had told Karl to type into the white bar the name of anything he was interested in—any topic, any event, any person, place, or thing—and he had, and the results were horrific.

Lt. Colonel Kaplan was right: these were the Last Days. And Karl—and, soon, his friends—would see it for themselves.

The most incredible thing about the console was the way it answered your questions: it showed you videos—displays of moving images, accompanied by sound. A video was like a dream made real, plucked right out of its dreamer’s head. Only, the dreams Karl had seen were nightmares one and all. They’d shown what was happening in the world outside the hospital. It had him making the Bond-sign every other second.

Kaylin had also mentioned something about a Flying Cloud.

“If you want to know something,” she’d said, “you’ll find it on the Flying Cloud. I’d look there if you don’t want to see stuff about the Green Death.”

“What now?” Geoffrey asked.

Karl told him.

“Anything?” Duncan asked.

Karl nodded. “Yes. You can look up anything at all.”

“What would you suggest?” Bever asked.

Swallowing hard, Karl recited some of the most interesting tidbits he’d found while he’d been waiting for the others to awaken.”

“Elpeck,” he said. “Aerostat. The Second Empire. Train. Washing machine. Factory. Video game.”

Karl couldn’t bring himself to smile, even as Bever’s eyes went wide.

“Their buildings are so… tall,” the axeman whispered, awestruck.

In a moment, Bever forgot himself—as he so often did. He became as excitable as a child. Every minute or so, he prodded Morgan or Geoffrey to share his latest discovery.

“Moving images…” Duncan muttered. “Extraordinary…”

“Angel’s breath…” Geoffrey said. There were tears in his eyes. He turned to Karl. He smiled softly. “It is always safer to step than to leap,” he said.

Karl gulped.

Bever turned in confusion. “What is it, Gof?”

“What about those creatures?” Geoffrey asked. “All those men and women, raging like wild animals.”

“Simple,” Morgan said, “they were demons, and this is Hell.”

Karl looked Morgan in the eyes. “I don’t think Hell is half as bad as this awful place.”

“Is that supposed to be funny?” Morgan asked.

Sighing, Karl typed the words Green Death into the white bar on the console in his hand. And then he showed them.

There were gasps at first; gasps and shudders. Not even bitter Morgan could remain unmoved.

“What could cause such horrors?” Duncan asked, barely above a whisper.

“The people of this era… they don’t know,” Karl said. “A Lt. Colonel in the Trenton military—the… the army of the Second Republic… he told me many of them believe the Last Days have come.”

They all made the Bond-sign, except for Morgan.

“Anything else you have to share, Karl?” Geoffrey asked.

“I… uh…” Biting his lip, Karl lowered his head. “You were right, Geoffrey. The Mewnees are still here.”