Awaken (9 page)

Finn nods again and the half man starts
rubbing Cats head and ears. Immediately Cat responds to the
stranger by rolling over for a belly scratch. So much for me trying
to scare him away with Cat’s viciousness. Not even so much as a
growl or baring of the teeth like she had done with me. Traitor! I
think.

“
Hey!” I yell at his back.
“I ain’t forgot I caught you pawing through my
slingbag!”

“
What?” He looks back at me
as if he even forgot I was there. “Oh yes, yes. Forgive my rudeness
my dear. I was not ‘pawing’ through anything. I was just analyzing
the situation, deciding if you were friend or foe. It was the smell
of your delectable meal cooking that drew me to your campsite. You
see I am but a simple traveler such as yourself just hoping to
share of your meal and repay you in kind with a fine tale or
two.”

Finn exchanges a look with me. I don’t
trust this odd little man but Finn is grinning like a fool and I
know right away he believes him to be harmless. The stranger
notices our hesitation.

“
Oh please, allow me to
introduce myself. My name is Winston Phillip the Third. But you may
call me what my dearly departed mother so affectionately referred
to me as…Tater. Tater the trader, the storyteller, the minstrel, at
your service.”

He removes his hat and takes a little
bow. Finn is charmed but I still don’t trust him.

“
If you’re a trader then
where are your wares?” I ask.

“
Ah, very astute for one so
young.”

He taps his nose and smiles at me. I
don’t smile back.

“
They are just a ways in the
wood, packed onto my very trusted companion, my mule Winnie. Named
after my dear mother of course. They share the same temperament.
Some might even say the same facial features….but that’s a story
for another time, yes? I shall fetch her if you like.” He heads for
the trees but stops after a couple of steps. “Oh but can I trust
that this magnificent beast will not take my Winnie as a late night
snack? As with my mother I am very attached to my mule you
see.”

Finn finally speaks.

“
Oh no, Cat won’t eat your
mule mister. She listens to me real good.”

“
Wonderful! Then I shall
fetch her. And maybe, perhaps share in your evening
meal?”

“
Aye, you can,” says Finn.
“There’s lots of snake to go around. You can even camp with us for
the night, if you like.”

Tater happily claps his hands again and
moves off into the woods.

“
Finn! What are you doing?”
I say angrily once the odd little man is out of earshot.

He looks at me all dumbfounded.
“What?”

“
Inviting him to eat with
us…to camp with us for the night! We don’t know who he is….what he
is! I don’t think he’s quite right in the head! He could slit our
throats in the night for all we know!” I cain’t believe the boy was
foolish enough or stupid enough to do such a thing.

“
He could slit our throats
in the night whether he’s making camp with us or not Tara, he knows
we’re here,” he says. Okay, so maybe not so stupid. “Besides, Cat
won’t let no harm come to us. And he says he’s a storyteller….and I
like him. He’s funny.”

Tater reappears before I can respond to
this. He is leading a dappled gray mule laden down with two leather
saddle bags on either side. Cat stiffens at the sight of the mule
but Finn gives her a stern “No Cat! Winnie is not food! You don’t
eat Winnie!” and as if the beast understands she lays down with her
head on her paws and looks the other way as if saying ‘it don’t
interest me none anyways’.

“
Here we are. This is my
Winnie, my most loyal traveling companion. And Winnie these fine
young folk are….well I do not know now do I? I’m afraid in all the
excitement I did not get your names.”

“
I’m Finn,” Finn pipes up.
“And that’s Tara, and this is Cat.”

“
Finn and Tara…and Cat. All
excellent names indeed. Are you brother and sister by chance?” he
asks.

I snort at him. “Do we look like we’re
kin?”

“
Well no you do not but then
again I do not resemble my family at all.” He smiles but eyes me
strangely. I ain’t had a chance to braid my hair since my wash and
it’s now almost dried by the warm evening air. I can tell this is
what he’s looking at.

“
You have the most striking
hair Tara, I do not believe I have ever seen such contrast. Black
and white is usually a combination reserved for the old folk, but
for you....someone so young, rare indeed. And
so….symmetrical.”

I don’t like his interest in my hair, I
find it very unsettling. As if noticing my unease he then smiles
and rubs his hands together eagerly.

“
Now, about that
snake.”

Well Tater truly wasn’t lying about
being a storyteller. His storytelling was even better than Thomas’
and I wouldn’t have ever thought that to be possible. As much as I
didn’t want to, I fall under his magical spell just as much as Finn
does. We listen entranced as Tater speaks of life before the Shift.
He tells stories of the settlers with their magic picture boxes and
their tall sky buildings with their moving floors that went up and
down. He tells us about their great cities that had spread out over
leagues and leagues, so full of buildings and people you could
hardly move. We listen, and for a while we forget all of our
misery, our troubles and get pulled into the tall tales. It was
real nice. And we had been so caught up in the stories I ain’t even
noticed that between the three of us and Cat we had eaten the whole
snake. I knew we should have saved some for the road but it was
just so damn tasty! Finn hadn’t lied. I decided snake was now my
favorite thing to eat, well next to sweet berry bread. Thinking
about the bread makes me think of Miz Emma, and I push it away. Not
now.

Our bellies full of snake and our heads
full of tales, we were now all laying content ‘round the fire.
Tater had gone quiet and was sipping something from a flat tin
flask he had pulled out of his jacket pocket. From the way he would
screw up his face at every sip I reckon it wasn’t water. Cat was
cleaning herself and occasionally swatting at Finn as he flicked
her ears teasingly. I was poking the fire with a stick, stoking the
flames, when Tater speaks again.

“
Now your turn,” he says,
pointing his tin flask at us. “What are two fine young people such
as yourselves doing out in the middle of nowhere with a tame devil
cat? Which by the way, no one is ever going to believe when I tell
this fine tale.”

Finn looks at me as if to do the
talking. I hesitate. I don’t want to tell this story, not again,
but then I figure he just maybe might know something about
Littlepass or Lily for that matter. He was a trader after
all.

“
We’re traveling to
Littlepass. Do you know of it?” I ask.

“
Do I know of it? But of
course. And as luck would have it I too am traveling there as well.
What a remarkable coincidence indeed!” He’s smiling at us like it’s
the best news he’s heard in years. “And what, pray tell, is your
business there?”

“
We have to find someone,” I
say. He takes another sip and stares at me over the rim.

“
Well that’s very cryptic.
Does this someone have a name?”

I stare back for a bit before I decide
to answer.

“
Lily. She’s a
healer.”

He thinks for a while then shakes his
head. “No…I know many people but a healer by the name of Lily is
not one of them.”

Finn is looking all worried. “Maybe she
ain’t there no more Tara. Tater says he don’t know her, maybe she
moved on and we ain’t gonna find her.”

Tater laughs. “My dear boy, Littlepass
unlike its name would suggest, is a thriving metropolis. There are
a multitude of people living there, I simply do not know them
all.”

I don’t find this funny, not at all. If
there are so many people it’s going to be that much harder to find
Lily. My heart sinks. Oh gra’da what were you thinking sending me
off to find this person.

“
But you still have not
answered my question. Why are you both out here traveling these
dangerous lands alone? Where are your parents? Your
families?”

“
Dead,” I say
bluntly.

Tater looks taken aback. “Oh dear, I am
sorry. Sickness?”

Finn answers this. “No was something
worse.” He looks to me and I nod. He continues.

“
They were men who came from
the sand lands in metal monsters…well machines, we know that’s what
they were really. There was three of ‘em, real big, black, on
wheels. They…they killed all of Tara’s kin and my own with their
iron shooters. Cat killed one of ‘em though and now we got his
shooter,” he nods toward the weapon that is, even still, lying by
my side.

“
Ah...” Tater says and I
look up real quick. He knows something.

“
You know what they are,” I
say. I ain’t asking. He nods.

“
Yes. And that does explain
how the two of you have a pistol of the Prezedants
Army.”

“
The what?” It’s like he’s
talking another language.

“
The Prezedants Army? Surely
you have heard of this force?” He can tell by our faces we ain’t.
He smiles slightly. “I forget how isolated and naive you outlying
villagers can be.”

I ain’t sure but it kind of feels like
an insult what he’s saying and it makes me mad.

“
Tell me what you know of
the metal machines!” I say. “And talk in plain words.”

I can see my anger surprises him but he
just nods at me.

“
Very well. What you two
seem to be ignorantly and blissfully unaware of is the very big,
very populated and very corrupt world beyond the sand
lands....beyond the mountains. There are places you cannot even
begin to comprehend. Some of them cesspools of disease, evil,
darkness…”

I shiver at what he’s saying, I cain’t
help it.

“
Some of them, like
Littlepass, more civilized but all of them under the control of one
man. He calls himself the Prezedant. Ridiculous title if you ask
me. King or General would be more suitable….but I digress. He is a
very powerful man. He has amassed armies of men…evil men to do his
every bidding. They are his collaborators, his henchmen... and his
executioners.”

As much as this information surprises
and terrifies me, it kind of makes sense. “So the metal
machines…they’re his? They carry his men?”

He nods. “Apparently so, though last I
heard they were in no way able to travel this far into the sand
lands or even past the mountains.” He rubs his mustache
thoughtfully. “His scholars must have come up with some sort of
fuel alternative for them to be able to travel such great
distance.”

There he goes talking his odd language
again.

“
His what?” I
ask.

He shakes his head at me. “Doesn’t
matter. What matters is why have they come this far into the sand
lands? He has never bothered to go beyond the mountains before…why
now?”

“
I don’t care why!” I snap
angrily. “All I want to know is why he sent his armies to kill my
kin…and Finn’s. They never done anything to this prezedant!” I spit
out the word like its dirt.”And why did he take the young’uns from
my village? Where would he have taken them? And how do I get ‘em
back?”

Tater regards me with such a look of
sadness that I drop my eyes. I don’t like what that look
implies.

“
As I have said child, he is
a very evil man. As for the murder of your families, I cannot give
you a reason why, only that yours is not the first village to meet
this same fate. He controls those who oppose him with fear and
death. Some have even gone as far as to call him monster…demon. He
knows things…. possesses things that could only have come from
before the Shift. Some say the man himself lived before the Shift,
that he is immortal. That he has walked the land for hundreds of
years.”

Finn is staring at the half man in wide
eyed disbelief.

“
So you’re saying those
metal machines we saw….they’re the real moving veacals from the old
folk stories. They’re from before the Shift? That the stories are
true?”

“
Most stories are based on
truth boy,” Tater says and takes another sip of his
‘water’.

“
How do you know all this?”
I ask, still not trusting his words. “How do we know what you’re
saying ain’t a bunch of shite? You mean to say this prezedant is
hundreds of years old and we’re supposed to believe
that?”

He studies me, this half man. His
piercing black eyes watch me for so long I begin to fidget under
his gaze.

“
You believe what you want
child but I think you know I speak the truth. All I’m saying is
this. I was born in Skytown, the place the Prezedant calls his
home. I have seen him twice in my lifetime. Once when I was but a
lad, no older then Finn here, and again at a public execution just
four years back. Now during that time I have grown old and weary.
My eyes have seen far more then they have wanted too, but the one
thing they are sure of is this. The Prezedant has not changed his
appearance, not one little bit during those years. He looks exactly
the same. How is that possible? You tell me.”