Zachary Jernigan - No Return

Time stretched and contracted as it does for the drugged. The passage of the moon above the ventilation hole in the tent’s ceiling took hours, and the changing of the sheets under him happened in a handful of seconds. His body reacted unpredictably to touch. He neither grimaced nor groaned when someone palpated his ribs and chest, underarms and neck. He laughed instead. Tears flowed from his eyes when someone put a warm rag on his forehead.

Finally, darkness descended on his mind, complete and total immersion. He slept soundly.

“Do you hear me, Vedas?” someone said.

Vedas opened his eyes. A slow, luxurious process, letting light into his skull. It spread from there, suffusing his whole body, centering in his stomach and genitals. A warm tingling, similar to but infinitely better than blood rushing into a numb limb. Though he had experienced the effect of a spell wearing off before, this proved to be a different sensation entirely.

He smiled. The muscles of his face were sore, but it felt good nonetheless. He lifted a hand to his chest and exhaled with relief. They had not removed his suit. As reality crept back, he enjoyed the texture of smooth fabric and muscle underneath his fingers. His hand drifted over the ridges of his stomach and paused.

An erection pushed almost painfully against the fabric of his suit.

A polite cough. “Can you hear me, citizen Tezul?”

Vedas’s head swiveled to regard the doctor. His hand fell to his side. “Yes, I can.”

“Good.” The doctor pressed fingertips against Vedas’s chest, ribs, and stomach. “I think you can stand now, but not too quickly. You’re still weak.”

Berun walked into view. “Here,” the constructed man said, offering Vedas two fingers to hold onto. Vedas gripped them and rose on rubbery legs. His bowels felt loose. Everything hurt. Running fingers over the wiry stubble on his head, he found that even his scalp was tender. Now that the novelty of the world had begun to leach away, the light in the room was too intense, the noise from outside a painful racket.

“We’re still in Nbena, I assume,” he said. “How long have we been here?”

“Just one night,” Berun responded. He looked over Vedas’s head at the doctor. “Do you have instructions? Medicines to give him?”

The doctor shrugged. “He’s not dead, so the spell worked. He’s cured. I’d recommend at least one night’s rest before continuing your journey, plenty of water, and food. The pain is mostly muscular tension, which will fade in time. If you want to buy more sedative spells, I’ll gladly sell them, but they aren’t good for him.”

Berun shook his head. “No. He’ll deal with the pain.”

‡

The town simply called itself Nbena. Its citizens on both sides of Dalan Fele wore metal badges, which allowed their free movement from one nation to the other. Apart from the Autumnal Wars, the last of which had occurred three centuries previously, Dareth Hlum and Casta enjoyed a congenial relationship. Dareth Hlum looked upon Casta as a younger, less civilized version of itself, while Casta considered Dareth Hlum amusingly tidy and idealistic.

The different personalities were reflected in Nbena’s layout. On Dareth Hlum’s side, the streets formed a grid. They were wide and clean, and the evenly spaced clay buildings that lined them were unpainted. Quietness and sobriety ruled. Even the stunted oaks appeared at regular intervals. On the Castan side, roads existed where foot and barrow wheel needed them to be. They were uniformly dirty. Once-brightly painted buildings leaned over alleyways and crumbled cheap bricks onto the street. Loudness and gaiety ruled.

The doctor had recommended an Anadrashi tavern on the Castan side named Brickchurch. Unlike its neighbors, it had been carved into the sheer stone facade of Dalan Fele itself. To Vedas, raised believing in the wall’s impregnability, this seemed almost sacrilegious.

Standing before the tavern’s doorway, he swayed as a brief spell of dizziness nearly overtook him. Black motes swam at the corners of his eyes and an odd pressure built in his ears.

Berun’s fist closed around his bicep. “Steady. You have to eat. Come on.” He led Vedas into the tavern’s dim interior, where the air was cool and still and smelled of stone. Eyes followed the pair as they navigated the furniture and sat at a rear corner table.

Vedas leaned forward on his forearms, fighting the urge to drop his throbbing head onto them. “This isn’t pleasant.”

Berun grunted. “What do you want?”

“To go back to sleep,” Vedas answered immediately. “I’m hungry but I don’t feel like eating, which is a first.” He licked chapped lips and reconsidered. “I suppose I could eat, but before that I need a pitcher of water. Plain, no lemon or mintgrass, and I’ll pay the extra for ice. Then I’ll eat whatever they have in the kitchen. I’m not picky.”

Berun walked to the bar and ordered. Vedas watched him through halfclosed lids, feeling a vague sense of unease. You won’t let him die , the constructed man had said—but why had he said it? They were nothing more than traveling companions. Such concern made Vedas uncomfortable. He liked uncomplicated relationships, and disliked owing favors.

“Excuse me.”

Vedas’s eyes snapped open. Only a handful of seconds had passed, yet a woman now stood before him, short sword naked on her left hip. By the look of her corded arms and shoulders, she knew how to use it. Vedas shifted his hips slightly and inched his right hand over the table’s edge for leverage. It would not be a graceful move if he were forced to defend himself. The slightest tensing of muscle in his legs and back stung sharply.

The woman’s pale eyes held his. “Your name is Tezul, right? Vedas?” She spoke with a slight Onsi accent. Her voice was deep but not unfeminine.

“Yes,” he said.

“And your companion? He’s the construct Berun, right?”

“Yes. Who are you?”

She shifted her weight in an odd fashion, as if she had suddenly become uncomfortable. She gestured to the chair across from him. He nodded and she sat, crossing her legs to the side. For a moment he fought the temptation, and then glanced quickly down. Her calves and thighs were well formed, muscular, freckled and hatched with scars. The tattoo of a sea serpent wound around her right ankle. She brushed short brown hair from her forehead and yawned, revealing a gap between her two front teeth.

Berun arrived, index finger hooked around the handle of a pitcher. The woman turned to stare up at him.

“Who are you?” he said.

“What is that?” she asked, nodding at the pitcher.

“Water. With ice.”

She made a sour face. “My name is Churls. Churls Casta Jons. I have a proposition for you.”

BERUN

THE 17 thOF THE MONTH OF SOLDIERS TO

THE 2 ndOF THE MONTH OF CLERGYMEN, 12499 MD

THE BADLANDS, NATION OF CASTA

The air grew sharper as they ascended into the badlands. Berun noticed it as a minute change in the sound of his spheres rubbing together, while Vedas experienced nosebleeds.

“You’ll get used to it,” Churls told him.

“Nosebleeds?” Vedas asked without a trace of humor.

She started to laugh and caught herself. “No. No, I meant the air. You’ll get used to the air.” She stared at her feet, opening and closing her mouth as though considering her next words carefully. None followed, however. Eventually: “It’s even drier than I thought it would be,” Vedas said.

“They do call it the badlands,” she answered.

He frowned. “I didn’t make the connection.”

She shrugged. “That’s... understandable.”

Berun watched his companions carefully. He could see the thing between them, but not as if either yet recognized it. Their conversations were infrequent and stilted, though both kept at it. Churls and Vedas reminded Berun of certain individuals in the Seventeenth—men and women who, despite forming attachments, could not succeed in forming lasting bonds. The pressures of living and fighting together overwhelmed them.