Saul maneuvered the razorback between the rusting automobiles as they made their way up the ancient highway. The way was more or less clear, as though someone had cleared a path at some point, shoving the rusted, wheeled husks aside with some great contraption made of steel and powered by burning petrol. Still, on a few occasions Saul was forced to take the razorback off the asphalt and into the parched dirt and sparse, desiccated vegetation, which proved to be no problem for the vehicle as it seemed equally at home on both terrains.
As they drew closer to Hastrom City, the sky began to lighten. Letho could see the city’s jagged skyline stabbing the atmosphere above, the twinkle of its lights clear in the distance. The landscape transformed before his very eyes as they drew closer to the city. Long-abandoned fuel stations with broken windows and collapsing shelves sprang up every mile or two. Abandoned shopping centers came next, colorful signs proclaiming low prices and convenient services. Letho recognized some of the fast food restaurants from the videodocs and data logs that he had once pored over like an anthropologist.
Letho felt his heart grow heavy as the razorback entered the suburban sprawl that surrounded Hastrom City like a thicket of vines. Part of him hoped that Alastor had succeeded in bringing some life back to the land, that there would be something to come back to if, by some slim chance, they won. The homes here had suffered a worse fate than others he had seen. Some of them were burnt-out husks, as if someone had poured molten lead onto whole blocks from a great cauldron. As they slowed, Letho saw a flutter of shadows inside an intact dwelling nearby. Saul placed a finger on his lips and pointed to the moving shadows that lurked just beyond what they could see.
Muties? Letho mouthed. Saul nodded. Letho reached for the handle of his .50 caliber, then remembered that it was back at Haven, waiting for him along with Saladin, under Zedock’s watchful eye.
The razorback lumbered down the shattered street, weaving and bobbing around abandoned vehicles and what looked like impact craters. Letho imagined listless black eyes peering at him from deformed sockets, misplaced on their melted face. He actually found it quite unsettling that the creatures did not attack. His mind began to race, concocting ever more frightful imagery as they continued their slow crawl. He was certain that at any moment a swarm of mutants would come rushing out of the broken domiciles to bury the razorback under a stinking pile of writhing, clawing bodies.
The suburban sprawl continued as far as Letho could see, but it was beginning to give way to empty expanse as the road they were on connected to a great highway. The overpass had long since collapsed under its own weight and the incessant pull of gravity. In the distance, Letho could just make out the the great steel and stone walls of Hastrom City.
Saul checked the rearview mirror and gave everyone a thumbs-up.
“Okay, looks like we’re in the clear for now. Damn muties, I thought we were done for before we even got started,” Saul said. “We go on foot from here. Grab your waterskins, and for Je-Ha’s sake, Letho, cover up that damn arm. How the hell are we going to explain that?”
“All right already, calm down, Mr. Yelling Guy,” Letho said. He retrieved a roll of gauze from the razorback and began wrapping his arm.
Here, put these on over your clothes,” Saul said, tossing each Eursan a rough-spun hooded cloak. Letho caught his in midair and whipped it from its folded state with a flourish. The cloaks were dusty and smelled of mildew and someone else’s sweat.
“Aw, man, it’s going to be so hot in these things,” Letho mused.
“Well, when that sun gets up and starts baking us, you’ll be thankful for the skin cover,” Saul said. “Besides, we want to be inconspicuous, remember? These are pretty standard gear for scavengers. We’ll blend right in.”
Letho hoped he was right.
“All right, big fella, I know you’re not going to like this, but we’re going to have to cuff you,” Saul said, approaching Bayorn with slight caution, a set of massive cuffs held out in front of him like some sort of bizarre peace offering.
“Saul, why do you even have those?” Deacon asked.
“You find some pretty weird stuff when you’re scavenging, boys. That’s all I’m going to say.” He opened the clasp, andBayorn begrudgingly held out his arms. Saul clapped the shackles on them. “There, not so bad, right?”
“You’re not the one wearing them,” Bayorn rumbled. He was clearly offended by this part of their ruse, but what could they do? How else could they explain the presence of a Tarsi among them?
“Okay, so here’s the story,” Saul said. “We’re scavengers, and we found this slave bear. We’re returning him, looking for a bounty.”
Bayorn’s hackles rippled at the sound of the word slave.
“Very well,” Bayorn said, “but if you call me a slave bear again, I’ll eat you.”
“Fair enough,” Saul replied. “Gentlemen, let’s go. Hastrom City awaits!”
TEN - Hastrom City
Thresha sat in opulence, the fruits of citizen sweat and labor on full display in Abraxas’s temple. The floors were covered in obsidian marble tiles that glinted in the morning sun. The tiles matched the room’s many pillars, which cast long shadows like prison bars across her body. There were statues of cherubim covered in gold leafing, and others of Mendraga warriors, their posture supplicant to the statue of Abraxas, which was the largest and quite stately. Abraxas’s arms were outstretched, palms open and facing the ceiling, and a magnanimous expression was spread across the face, as if it were ever willing to hear one’s most trivial complaint and do everything in its power to reconcile this worry. Under the statue’s booted foot, a horrid caricature of a Tarsi, with massive teeth and large menacing eyes, lay crushed, defeated.
Thresha’s garb was of the finest silk, encrusted with stones that sparkled and shimmered. She sat upon a gilded chaise lounge on a balcony that overlooked the throne room, and gazed down at Abraxas, resplendent in his might and cruelty. Abraxas, the god-king, the child of the sun itself, who had come to Hastrom City in a ball of fire to return it the city its former glory and restore both the Eursan and Mendraga races to their ultimate glory. He sat on a gilded throne atop a large flight of stairs that began mere feet from the entrance to his palace. He wore a long flowing robe, and a gold and silver headpiece that hid his true visage under the guise of a noble Tarsi. Thresha knew of the corrupted face that lay just beneath the mask—which was why Abraxas never appeared in public without it. She wondered what the good people of Hastrom City would think if they saw what he really was: a Tarsi that had corrupted his own body through his meddling with his very genetic code. The fountain of youth that he had so desperately sought had overturned and drowned him, leaving behind a malformed creature that could, theoretically, live for all eternity, but at the cost of his once beautiful appearance—as well as the sentimental trappings of mortality such as empathy and kindness. Such things mattered not to a being whose consciousness stretched back countless millennia, who could take what he wanted without fear of repercussion or reprimand.
Thresha knew this because of the growth of her own Mendraga gifts. She could occasionally see into both Abraxas’s and Alastor’s minds, and she wondered if they were conscious of it. She shuddered to think what they had gleaned from her own mind. Had she already betrayed those in Haven without actually meaning to?
Gifts. That’s what Alastor had always called them. If she had known the abominable price of these ‘gifts’ when she had first been turned, she would have rejected them wholeheartedly. She thought of a fleeting image she had seen in Letho’s mind when he had come to visit her. It was almost as if he had sensed her presence in his mind and snatched it away at the last minute in attempt to protect her from the horror of it. But she had seen it, though Letho’s mind had gobbled it up like someone swallowing a key so that it might not be used to open something, perhaps a gateway holding back a horrible thing.