Cask 947

It was two in the afternoon and you were standing outside the restaurant when it happened. Crickham Street was a rabbit’s nest and even in daylight the shadows were strong. Ahead of you was your favorite place to eat on this side of the valley, The Happy Ghoul. A sign on the door showed a smiling skull gulping down a bowl of noodles, and you sighed in hunger and contentment. It was a Friday, almost BuckBuck hour, and your mouth was watering.

You remember being excited, a job up in Mid-Sky waiting for you. Something about counting lights in a field. You were going to leave tomorrow morning and you wanted your fill of Angenbone’s finest noodles and soups before you left. You weren’t widely known, but where you were known, it was known that you love all soups.

He came up to you, grinning like a friend who knows a secret. Walked over from a new stall in some dark corner of the lot you hadn’t noticed, called himself G-Vo. Givo. Something like that. Just started talking, slid smoothly into a story about the end of the old days, the way people do. Something hazy about... portable electricity, and big crowds. How we’d dug our own graves. You’d heard as many versions of the End Past as there were bones in the dirt, but you listened politely enough. Right as he got to the end, though, voice drawn down all quiet and conspiratorial, he clapped you on the back and told you it was just a joke. A sales pitch.

You’re such a nice person for listening.

Suddenly he had something in his hand. Not a weapon, fortunately; you didn’t even notice him reach for it. A little… thing. With pictures on it. It was hypnotic. He poked around on it and called up--was that a game of Trentons? But with a red King and… round pieces. Hm.

He held up his hand and waved, and a hover machine, a pristine four-rotor floater-guy, hummed over from a roof across the street. Small, but Dayshift Davy, could it move! It hovered in front of your face, and you looked over to ask Givo if it was his…

And the picture thing had a face on it. Your face, as seen from the eyes of the little hover machine.

He had a peddler’s grin, if corpses could meet in the market. He said it showed you maps and found your way, too. For a traveler like you there was nothing like it in the world. You wanted it.

He could have asked you for anything.

Except it wasn’t for sale, he said.

Not for sale? Was he serious? You were hungry. You were ready to fight this guy.

That’s when the real conversation started.

+++

“So, my friend. Heard of the Temple of All Secrets?”

Your answer, “I don’t know ‘Givo’, you heard of the sky?

A smile.

“The Obsidian Grove?”

You shivered.

He didn’t seem surprised.

So he threw his arms open and said, “How about the Bad Archive?”

You stared at him blankly.

He chuckled, smiled big, but he wasn’t laughing. And that grin. Like an idle threshing machine.

“That’s what I thought. But Givo has. Found it written on a black page, in black ink, in a church made of bones on top of a mountain no one can see. Along with a bunch of those ‘Never-Go-There’ kind of places.”

The look on your face was gold.

“But this Archive, it’s got good stuff. Especially for the runt of the litter. Old days stuff, the special kind. Linear accelerators. Animation Arrays.” He paused. “Idea weapons.” Another hollow chuckle. “Don’t feel bad if you can’t keep up.”

He held up the picture glass. “Somethin’ there I need, a box that says UNIT-1217-SYLUM. This has a map that’ll take you there, then this, and him (he pointed to the floater-guy) are yours. Map of the world, eye in the sky, and more. You do this for me, you’ll never get lost again. Never get snuck up on. I don’t want to know what kind of trouble someone like you could get up to with junk like this.”

“Bring me something back, Who knows, might see something else you like while you’re out. Get going, get back to me, and then… enjoy. Go be a wasteland god for a while. See how it suits you.”

He stared, and smiled. It sounded like a scam, but he was fronting the prize.

The deal was made.

He could have asked you for anything.

+++

You don’t pretend you’re going to get any sleep. Screens and little air machines aren’t unheard of, and flying things still haunt the sky in some places you’ve been. But this is something special. The quiet of night thins ahead of the harsh voice of the sun while you marvel over your new treasures. Not to mention any haunted ruins in your near future. Awake, entranced, your mind is full of dreams.

You’ll call him Dragonfly. Dragonfly the Floater-Guy.

+++

Heart high with hope and eyes bright with enterprise, you set out from Angenbone and onto the high road.

+++

Two days out. Wind is strong. Dust in the air. Gonna storm. Been going along the old roads, but the road’s getting hard to see. Worst storm in ten years, easy.

Figures. Got to keep going.

+++

Turned out okay. Dragonfly found you a safe place to stay. Even warned you about a massacre of sand wasps up ahead. He found you a path through some rocky hilltops and you had no trouble getting back on your way. Little guy is clever.

+++

Two more days, longer than the guy said, but the pocket glass tells you you’re close. You see smoke far ahead near sunset, but have to make camp.

+++

You’re inside, don’t like what you see. Gray building, half chewed to cinders. On the wall an ancient sign says “The old tree is burning.”

You move on, unsettled, and struggle with the map until you find some stairs.

A lot of stairs. Going down.

Dragonfly lights the way where needed, though. Two beams that always seem to know where to point themselves.

A heavy rumble from somewhere down there, a couple times a minute. Givo didn’t mention that.

+++

At the bottom of the stairs, a long way for sure. Had to rest a couple times. Sixty stories down the numbers stopped, and that wasn’t even halfway. Not long after that you started hearing something. Noises you don’t like; loud, short and angry. You think Dragonfly seems nervous, but maybe it’s just you.

+++

Definitely something wrong. A problem. Felt a big shake, a cave-in somewhere not far from you. Then after a second… gunfire.

No. Not guns. Something high and strange that gives you a headache, but the cadence of death roasting a room is unmistakable. It dies away somewhere deeper and farther off. You almost turn around, then you imagine that gravedigger smile and hear a roll of grim, ironic laughter. You curse at Givo from here and keep going.

---

Four hour’s walk. At a branching hallway, you suddenly have to sleep, but you can feel your quarry ahead. Like a pit in the air [A WELL IN POSSIBLE OUTCOMES] that you’re falling into.

---

You snap awake with Remedy in your hand, pointing her at… nothing. Something about a well echoes in the empty hall, except--

That was before you fell asleep. And… it just ended. You didn’t hear it while you slept or while you fell asleep but you’re awake and you’re still hearing it.

Doesn’t make sense, so you do something many could not and shrug it off. You struggle to your feet with a headache coming on.

You and Dragonfly start back down the hall, and Remedy sleeps on your hip again.

+++

For a couple hundred yards the air was hot and… angry? And that headache.

At least three hours along the hallway, now all glass on the right side, huge caves beyond. Mostly dark. You’re damned close, though. Around you, boom, boom. A hell of a fight going on somewhere.

+++

Ten paces ahead the concrete wall fractures open and three dogs made of iron sticks tumble right out the glass side and into a pit that goes… deeper than you can say. Sharp snaps, like a voltage fire, [FUSION-FIRED INFRARED PULSE WEAPONRY BE WISE AND MOVE ON] and a hundred more dogs pierce the smoke with something that leaves cinders in the air and you run

+++

Got away

Missed it running but followed the cinders and found the room. It’s marked WIDOW.

Something like a man got in your way, headless and made of sparking steel and

He grabs you but

+++

Remedy chimes brightly, and he falls, twitching

+++

Inside and terrible sounds are everywhere a red willow tree burning, in flower, but all the blossoms are eyes and the eyes are dead but the tree still burns

Something is screaming at you beneath the air and it sings about longing and hunger and safety, and you’re getting your damned reward

+++

The embers in the air dance like snakes but they show you the way and you throw the switch

The pod opens and there it is the box that says [COME TO ME] UNIT-1217-SYLUM and you rush for it

+++

There is skittering

+++

Five metal snakes as big as a man enter the room with burning eyes but you are almost--

+++

A shriek and the wall erupts in flames before you

+++

--you reach the pile of boxes and you go to grab the capsule but it’s under a crate [THAT YOU MUST OPEN] it says CASK 947 and the snakes are on you and it feels your pulse

+++

They tear your hand from the capsule but it brushes open Cask 947 and you see

+++

Gold--

---

Your heart beat slows to match a cryptic rhythm

---

Not gold, pale, ashen [GATHER ME CLOSE IN DARKNESS]

+++

It’s a necklace, no, a [LOCKET FROM MY BELOVED], it opens. You see a face but your eyes go to an inscription [MY LOVE] you try to read it and instead

+++

SURVIVE you do as you are told

+++

You hear other, quieter words [REND] [CONSUME] [CORRODE]

+++

The snakes and a dozen other things are dead, but you don’t know how--something reaches out from you it beats next to your heart and you look and there is a face but your eyes pick out words and you try to read them but instead you only read [ESCAPE] so you do as you are told it’s a good idea anyway

+++

Thunder like eons

+++

You lie beside a river flowing out from a mountain. The sun sets behind it.

You are surrounded by smoldering things you don’t recognize. The river is red with… blood? Rust [PHOSPHOR] but you are unharmed. You don’t understand. You feel your heart pounding but it is not your heart [IT IS MINE] and you clutch at your chest.

The jewelry that fell from Cask 947 is around your neck. You try to think you will remove it, but it’s like pushing a boulder up a wet hill. The rhythm is comforting, besides, and you’re lucky to be [MINE] alive. For a moment you think of [GIVORELIU THE MASKED, WHO IS LOST TO YOU] but

In your hands is the [DEVICE]. Next to you lie Remedy and Dragonfly. You feel the heartbeat and ask

“...?”

It’s nothing but it is understood. You feel a lover [NOT YOUR OWN] guiding your hands in answer.

A new map. Going somewhere far to the east.

Silence. Longing.

Rhythm.

If you ask, you will see, and you ask. You take the ghost-silver metal in your hand. It’s shaped like [A HEART] and you open it. You see a face but your eyes are drawn to the inscription and instead you read [CARRY ME.]

Yeah. Yeah, that sounds good. You get to your feet, holster your piece, consult the Device, and get going.