VII
1369 Words
VII
ANCESTRAL BOGS, WESTERN CONTINENT, YEAR 2020, ONE THOUSAND YEARS LATER
Lucan Grimoire brushed sharp branches from his eyes as he journeyed deeper into the bog. Flies nipped at his face and mosquitos infiltrated his long sleeves.
He’d picked the wrong day to wear a suit. He had loosened his tie minutes earlier, wrapping it around his neck so he wouldn’t lose it. His light blue button-up shirt was stuck to his skin from sweat, and he was sure the ivory buttons would leave marks by now.
An incessant buzzing floated around his ear and he smacked at it. Two flies lay pulsing in his palm. He made a face of disgust and shook them away. He tasted bug spray in his mouth and spit it out.
“How much longer?” he asked.
“A little further, sir.”
A few paces ahead, a university student stopped and gave him a look of pity. He parted a clump of tangled branches and motioned Lucan through.
“Do you want me to use my machete?” Tony Dyer asked. “I know you aren’t used to the bogs, Mr. Grimoire.”
Lucan didn’t answer.
“I figured you’d be against it, with your platform on the environment and such,” Tony said.
What does he know about my platform? Lucan thought. I’m running a campaign, and here I am in this bog, all because I believed some backwater university kid.
Tony had a backpack on, and his shirt was tied around his waist. He was young, limber, and of elven blood—high cheekbones and bronzed skin, probably from living outdoors in the sultry bog, and ears that were only slightly pointed from centuries of racial mixing.
Lucan had pure elven blood—as pure blooded as one could get given the historical circumstances—and that meant something. At least to him.
“If it’s just a little farther, then leave your machete alone,” Lucan said.
Tony started through more brush, but Lucan grabbed him.
“I’m sticking my neck out for you,” Lucan said. “I don’t traipse after every starry-eyed person who gives me a pitch, you know.”
“I know your business background,” Tony said. “I’m not lookin’ for money, sir.”
Lucan wanted to laugh in his face. Not looking for money! That was exactly what all the snot-nosed startups said. We’re not selling you anything, Mr. Grimoire. And then they’d turn around and ask for a hundred thousand spiras.
This kid was full of crap. Money was the only language anyone understood anymore, even with the end of the world looming. It was the vowels. It was the consonants. It was the forge around which everyone understood the sparks.
“Then what are you looking for?” Lucan asked.
“I want to make a difference.”
“Aren’t you a little do-gooder? I thought you kids lost your optimism before you went to college.”
Tony picked up his pace, and a branch smacked Lucan in the face.
His cheek stung. “Gah! Ah, alright, I guess I deserved that.”
He jogged after Tony, more aware of his sweat and body odor than ever before. The purple trees whispered in the breeze and the murky depths of the water nearby bubbled and popped.
They moved into a constellation of cicada songs as Tony spoke.
“I’m a student of Professor Charmwell’s,” Tony said.
“What?” Lucan said, cupping his hand to his ear. He couldn’t hear the boy over the cicadas.
“Professor Charmwell. You know her, right?”
The name sounded familiar. She was a stuck-up professor who had gotten a lot of news coverage for her stance against magicological drilling a few years ago. He had presented her an award at a banquet once. Or maybe that was someone else. Too many faces to remember them all.
“I know of her,” Lucan said. “If she’s your professor, why didn’t you go to her first?”
“Isn’t optimism your message?” Tony asked.
“You mean for my campaign? Yeah.”
“I was at your rally last week,” Tony said. “At the university. And I believed.”
“Don’t make me feel bad now, kid.”
“You said the cornerstone of our age will be the people who act bigger than themselves,” Tony said. “I agree with you. So no, I’m not doing it for the money.”
The self-important entrepreneurs’ voices rang in Lucan’s head again.
We aren’t selling you anything. We’re creating a future. Surely you believe in it too?
Lucan thought of his campaign manager, Celesse, who was probably sitting inside his air-conditioned sedan, strategizing about where he’d go next. He had tried to convince her to come with him, but she wouldn’t ruin her makeup.
Not for this.
Not for a rumor.
The ground grew softer. Lucan stepped through mud, feeling it pool against his socks. He lamented the death of his leather shoes.
“So what exactly are we looking for again?” Lucan asked. “No offense, but I’m on a tight schedule.”
“Nothing, sir.”
“Nothing? Then couldn’t we have done this in my office?”
“No. That’s it. It’s nothing,” Tony said. “See, I was taking a shortcut through here one afternoon. My home isn’t too far from here, you understand. I was skipping a rock across the water when something just didn’t seem right.”
They came to the water’s edge where a giant wooden stake was driven into the ground. Tony patted it.
“This is the spot,” he said.
Lucan pulled out his smartphone and snapped a picture. He pretended to marvel at the patchy water and the weeping willows wavering at the bog’s edge. A rotten, spicy smell pervaded the air.
“I hope you have more to show me than just a scenic picture,” Lucan said. “You’ve got two minutes before I really get pissed off.”
Tony picked up a rock and tossed it from hand to hand.
Lucan held up his hands in surrender. “You really need to learn how to take a joke.”
Tony skipped the rock across the water. It bounced several times before sinking.
Lucan shook his head and crossed his arms.
Tony took another rock and skipped it across the water. It strayed from its intended path, and a frog leapt out of the water and into a hole in the mud.
Then Tony took another rock and skipped it with all his might, dropping to his knees as he let the rock bounce over the water.
Splash … Splash. Splash-splash-splash-splash.
Thunk. The rock seemed to bounce off nothing before it sank into the water.
“What was that?” Lucan asked.
Tony smirked. He took another rock and skipped it in the same trajectory.
Again, the rock hit something and flew backward into the water.
Lucan took a rock and practiced his swing. It had been years since he skimmed a rock across water. He remembered summers at his father’s lake house, skimming with his brothers. They were all terrible at it.
To hell with this.
He threw the rock.
It struck a surface, but it did not sink into the water.
Instead, it disappeared. An aura of faint pink light flashed. Ahead of them, a jagged white structure lay half-hidden in the trees, like a giant claw scratching against the sky. A rickety boardwalk led up to its entrance, several of its pylons missing.
“What the hell…?”
“Is this a waste of time now?” Tony asked. “I wanted to show you first. If the government finds out about this, they’ll exploit it. I know you’ll do the right thing.”
“Which is…?” Lucan asked.
“Protect this place.”
Lucan put a hand on Tony’s shoulder. Then he walked cautiously around the water to the start of the boardwalk. He hovered one foot over the rotting wood.
Then he set his foot down.
An explosion of air tore through the area, knocking him back. He landed against a tree and moss spilled over his face.
“Man!” Lucan cried.
He was lucky he didn’t break his back against the tree, but it hurt like hell.
Something whistled through the air, and he saw it in slow motion as it hurtled toward him.
The wooden stake.
He put his hands in front of his face and screamed.
The stake stuck in the ground next to him, inches from his body. Tony landed next to it. Lucan was amazed that neither of them ended up impaled.
They both lay in the mud for a moment, stunned and coughing.
The building was gone.
“Where is it?” Lucan asked, looking around.
The blast had winded him and he had lost his orientation. The white claw was nowhere to be found.
Tony shook his head. “I don’t know. The stake was my marker.”
“s**t,” Lucan said.
“Don’t you have tools?” Tony asked. “Can’t you trace magic?”
Lucan laughed. “If this is what I think it is, I’m going to need every tool I’ve got.”
- Writer
