James Axler - Palaces Of Light

Ryan swallowed the bile that rose in his throat and nodded.

“Yeah, that one’s the real deal.”

There was something in his tone that made Mildred look at him askance. “You sound certain,” she murmured.

“Makes sense now,” he said cryptically, shrugging. “I never really believed all those stories, but the look of that…and what’s happened to us.”

“Mancos Canyon,” Krysty said softly. “I’d always figured that those stories were just that…not that there was any truth in them.”

Jak turned back so that he was facing her. His brow was furrowed.

“Stories?” he queried.

“I fear I am with you on this one,” Doc agreed. “You speak of these as though they are common knowledge. Perhaps to you. But not to everyone.”

“Sorry, Doc,” Ryan said absently. “It’s just that they were the kinds of tales that you spin around the fire at night, on watches, to stop yourself falling asleep unless you wanted nightmares.”

J.B. walked past the one-eyed man and looked to the split in the earth that lay in front of them. He took off his fedora and scratched his head, lost for a moment in thought. Then, without looking around, he said, “Mancos, eh? Rumors have always swirled about that place.”

Doc was becoming a little exasperated, and it was reflected in his tone. “This is all very well, but if there is some legend attached to this place that may, perhaps, have some bearing on what we are about to face, then I think that you should tell those of us who are not privy to the knowledge. It would, after all, help.”

“I don’t know if you could dignify it with the word legend,” Krysty began reflectively. “The region got blasted in the nukecaust. So hot that no one could go near it for generations. But along the way there were those who wandered off the tracks and ended up here. Now mebbe you’d think that anyone who did that would end up as shriveled as an old man’s dick that had been left out in the sun too long. If you did, then you’d be wrong. Most who disappeared into this region were never seen again. Those who were, well, when they were seen again, those who knew them said they were…different.”

The way in which she let that last word hang in the air made Mildred shiver. Different in what way? she wondered. More to the point was another thought, to which she gave voice.

“So you’re telling me that we’re headed into an area that is full of nukeshit still, and from which people either don’t come back, or if they do they’re not even recognizable to their friends?”

“Something like that,” Krysty said in a tone that managed to be both flat and grim at the same time.

Mildred whistled. “Sounds like we’re in for a real fun time.”

“Quite,” Doc added quickly. “But I think the real question for me is, in what way changed? Are we to expect that we will become in some way infected by radiation and covered with sores and distortion of the features? Or will we somehow develop some kind of mutation?”

“Like the ones that you think nearly caused you to buy the farm?” Krysty countered. There was an edge of hostility in her voice. “You think that because it’s evil then it must be mutie traits? You think that’s why these people—the ones who were seen again—were so changed?”

“My dear, I do not know,” Doc said mildly. “That is the sole reason that I ask. Being mutie is not itself a bad thing. You must surely know me well enough by now to know that I would not countenance such a thought. But it would require a kind of power that is only possessed by those who are muties to achieve the things we have seen.”

Krysty gave a short, barking laugh. “Guess you’re right about that, Doc. Mebbe that’s why I’m getting so bastard defensive. Doomie sense is one thing, but this is more than that. Far more.”

Mildred had moved forward so that she was standing next to J.B. “So what was it about those who returned that had changed?” she asked.

Krysty thought about that for a moment before answering.

“They had a darkness all around them. Not just in the way that their attitude to people they had known had changed. They seemed to relate to everything and everyone in a different manner. Even dogs didn’t like them. Come to think of it, that’s a good way to describe it. It was like they looked at those around them in the same way that everyone else looked at dogs.”

“Another step up the evolutionary ladder, another link in the evolutionary chain,” Doc mused almost to himself. “That is an interesting idea. Before the proliferation of fools tampering with nukes, and then the nukecaust itself did nothing more than prove the random nature of nature itself, there was an idea that those who had what we call mutie powers were some kind of preliminary breakthrough to the next step of humanity. So maybe, if those who wander this way survive and are changed by that which lies ahead of us now, maybe they feel that kind of superiority.”

“I’ll tell you what really worries me,” Mildred added softly. “What if the reason they think that is because someone or something is telling them that? Where does that leave us?”

“Up to our necks in shit,” Ryan stated succinctly. “That wouldn’t be the first time.”

“You know, we can sit here and wonder all we want, but the only way we’re really going to find out is if we go and have a look for ourselves,” J.B. said with a faraway tone that was reflective of the way in which he was looking to the horizon, and the gaping maw that split the land in front of it.

Ryan shrugged. His old friend was right, of course. They began the march toward what they hoped would be a real answer to all the questions that were bubbling inside them.

One thing was obvious from the start: whatever intelligence had been working on them, and however it had worked, that was now at an end. The land where the illusory rock carapace had stood was proof enough of this on its own. Where the land that had led up to it had seemed smooth and unmarked, now they could see that the land behind them was marked with tracks that were obviously other than their own—obvious because they now stretched across the space that had seemingly been taken up by rock before, and beyond that across the land leading toward the lip of the canyon.

J.B. looked up at the sky. There was some cloud cover, but it was high and thin, barely more than a haze in places. And hardly moving as it drifted slowly across the scorching sun. Down below, where they wearily and warily trudged across the hard-packed dirt, there was no movement at all in the air. It was still. Perhaps it had been that way for most of the time since the first scouring winds of skydark had cleared the land and left it to chill. Then, as his eyes scanned from the skies down to ground level, he could see the immutable proof of the land’s still nature. The ground ahead of them was crisscrossed by trails. Some were made by human feet, others by the hooves of pack animals. Although it took a moment for the fact to sink in, he also realized that there were no wag or bike traces among the paths that had been trudged across the loose dirt. Maybe that said that the way down into the canyon—where, presumably, some kind of life was possible—was too narrow and precarious for such luxuries.

One thing was for sure: the tracks had been made over a long period of time. There was a massive amount of overlap, where one trail was crossed, often many times, by others. Some were ground deep into the dirt, impacted by repetition so that they ran deeper. But as the land around here was so arid, none seemed to have been baked into mud. Instead, they rested precariously on loose soil that should have made them things of an ephemeral nature. Their longevity said much for the bizarre conditions of the region.