Call it Rapture.
Call it Ragnarok.
Call it what you will –
It was the end of the world Man knew.
Then gods walked
and the Dregs came.

 

Maurid

Risen and Shining

 

Maurid had been dead for three days.  He knew he had died; he had felt it.  Indeed, the pain of his death had been so great that he had wished to be delivered from life many days before he had actually passed.  Torture does that to a man.

Coming back to life had not hurt, exactly, but it had not been a pleasant experience, even in retrospect.  Luckily, his consciousness was the last thing to recreate itself.  Had he seen his decomposing body rebuild itself from particles culled from the trash heap he had been unceremoniously dumped onto after his expiration, he might have gone mad.    

Before he had quite realized who or where he was, he was helped to his feet by an old man.  It was not until he was standing that he noticed the man was in worse shape than he was.   His left leg was twisted horribly, and Maurid could not imagine an accident that could cause such an injury.  Unsure of what was real, Maurid waited for the crippled man to say something.

“One proper greeting is ‘Ago Legba’,” the old man offered with a wide, white grin.  “Surely your swollen, maggot-eaten tongue has restored itself?”

“What . . .?”  Maurid struggled with that one word.  Nothing else would vocalize.

“No worries, Maurid.  It will all come back.  Hopefully it will come back in time.”  The crippled man muttered and led him away from the stinking refuse.  “Come.  This place smells worse than Death itself.  Let us be away.”

Then the old man raised the stick he had been leaning on and drew a door in the air.  Up, over, and down, the makeshift cane began and ended the door in a nearly clean patch of dirt.  As it touched the ground on the last leg, an opaque rectangle stood before them.  The madness truly began after the old man led Maurid through the door.

It was like stepping into a rising, rushing, flooding river.  He was powerless against the flow of energy, the surging current of life and death of the Nether-road.  Maurid was not carried away; however, he could feel Legba’s grip, and the resistance in the flow.  Legba seemed to cut through it like a knife, making Maurid’s passage in his wake easier. 

            In his hopeless state, Maurid pondered Legba’s hold on him.  He felt an attachment to the crippled old man, though Legba did not quite feel like an old man anymore.  Legba’s grip transferred a feeling of strength and power Maurid had not sensed before.  Maurid could not precisely feel Legba’s hand.  In fact, Maurid realized with a vague kind of horror, he could not feel his own hands or anything else either.  Yet, he still felt Legba beside him, pulling him through a sense-numbing torrent of births, deaths, dreams, memories, and ghosts.  Ghosts and other things.  Things he did not have names for.

            Three of these other things soon flanked them, and traveled along beside them for a while.  Legba seemed unworried, but these were the first things Maurid had experienced on the Nether-road that seemed to have a will of their own.  In comparison to his guide, they seemed somehow smaller, though powerful and quick.  They seemed to show a genuine interest in him as opposed to the indifference they offered Legba.  Maurid felt naked under their scrutiny, even though he no longer had a body.  He could not see their eyes, but he could feel them on him, feel them trying to get inside his thoughts.

            With the reaction of someone that has practiced an act repeatedly until it becomes near instinct, Maurid began playing an imaginary game of five-card draw.  In his head, he dealt out four hands and began to count cards.  Once the hand was over, he switched to blackjack.  After few hands of blackjack came hold-em.  The Nether-road and all upon it were forgotten, and Legba found that towing Maurid had become easier.  Finding Legba’s new toy no longer any fun, the three entities sped away, slicing their way through the Nether-road’s current in a manner that made Legba’s steady progression seem clumsy and slow.

            Maurid was on a winning streak when he suddenly found himself being pulled through the back door of a bar.  The air was thick with the smoke from cigars and wildweed.  He was wearing different, better clothes than he had died in, and the filth of the trash heap had been scoured away. Life seemed so confusing, but it was nice to have hands again. 

After a quick pat down to make sure that he was truly intact, Maurid turned his attention back to Legba, who was once more a maimed old man.   Maurid could now see the latent power behind the old man’s black eyes and recognized it.

            “Ago Legba,” he said, swallowing and trying to wet his suddenly dry throat.

            “Thank you, Maurid.”  The old man chuckled, and turned him from the door with a weathered brown hand on his shoulder.  “Let’s have a seat at the bar and a nice glass of rum.  Traveling the Nether-road is thirsty business.”

            “Quite,” Maurid croaked and settled onto a barstool.  He glanced around the small dark room, and only saw a handful of people.  There was a woman to his right at the bar; her face was bony and unpleasant.  She clutched a glass of amber colored liquor in one hand, her pointed fingernails the same shade of crimson as her rather revealing dress.  She gave him a lascivious smile as she set down the half-empty glass and produced a slim hand-rolled cigarette from a silver case.

            “You have a lighter in your pocket?”  She gestured at Maurid’s chest, and sure enough, there was a metal lighter there. 

He lit her cigarette with a flick of his fingers then looked inquisitively at the image on the lighter.  A woman posed in a leopard print bathing suit with one hand on an ample hip and the other holding up black hair.  Her image was worn around the edges; the lighter was smoothed in places.  Maurid knew he should know the model’s name, but he could not remember it.

            “Thanks,” the woman purred.  “And here’s Leroy with your drink.  I’m gonna want another in a few, Leroy.”  Maurid was glad she turned her attention to someone else.

            After a healthy swallow of rum, he turned to Legba and asked, “Would you mind telling me exactly what the hell is going on?”

            “Well, exactly what the hell do you remember?”

            “I . . .”  Maurid frowned.  “Some things, like basic stuff.  It’s like I have no memories of myself.  I can remember the rules for stick ball, but I can’t recall that I’ve ever played it.”

            Legba smiled, his white teeth flashing across his dark face.  “Could throw some bones?”

            “Dice?  Yeah, I remember how to play.”

            Legba’s smile got wider.  “What about cards?  You remember how to play cards?”

“Yeah.  I can play cards.  I can remember that.”  Maurid sat back on his barstool, and set his glass of rum on the coaster.  The alcohol was cloyingly sweet, and only made his mouth feel foul and dehydrated.  What he really wanted was a glass of water.  

Legba’s question bugged him.  It reminded him of the journey down the Nether-road.  At the time, the card games in his mind seemed natural.  Now it just seemed weird. 

“Leroy,” Legba called.  “Bring Maury here something else to drink.  Don’t think Mamma Brigitte’s rum settle with him none.”

“Thanks,” Maurid said and took a deep drink of the coke Leroy brought him.

“No problem,” Leroy replied and took the rum away.  “Mamma’s rum ain’t to my taste either.”

“My rum is perfect, son.  It’s your tongue that’s broke,” the woman beside Maurid interjected.

“Leroy, ya’ll should be practicing.  Round up these drunk lay-abouts, and get up there on that stage.  Mr. Cross should be here shortly, and ya’ll should look to be hard at work.”

Leroy grinned and dropped his towel onto the bar.  He was still grinning as his apron joined it and he whistled to the others in the little bar, people Maurid had thought to be patrons.  Mamma Brigitte vacated the barstool next to Maurid and went to the stage, cigarette smoke trailing in her wake.  A man in a cheap black suit and dark glasses left his pool cue on the table and climbed up onto the stage.  His opponent set her cue in the stand before joining Mamma Brigitte next to a pair of microphones.

Leroy took up an acoustic guitar and began to tune it, his long fingers clamping down on the strings along the frets.  Cheap Suit settled in behind the drum kit, stepping on the high hat and then the bass pedal.  He withdrew a pair of drumsticks from of his inside coat pocket.  Mamma Brigitte had summoned a harmonica from somewhere, and held it in the same hand as her cigarette.  Her glass or rum sat on the stage near her feet, water condensing on the glass.  The other woman had picked up a tambourine and shook along with it, the fringe of her short skirt jiggling distractingly.

Legba leaned over toward Maurid with a conspiratory grin and whispered,  “They only let Mamma sing because Mr. Cross’s her old man.  She didn’t have that harmonica, they’d kick her right off the stage.” 

A thump of the door announced Mr. Cross’s entry.  He was a skull-faced man; his prominent cheekbones made his eyes recede into their sockets.  He wore a top hat that exaggerated his height and carried a cane with a knobbed silver handle.  Mr. Cross took the seat on the other side of Legba.

“He the one?” Mr. Cross asked.

Legba sighed.  “For the moment.”

“Banda’s little shimmy done caught him up.”  Mr. Cross’s laugh was deep and warm.

“He’s made flesh.  Gonna always have that weakness.”  Legba appraised Maurid, noting the glazed look to his eyes. 

“You gonna send him to see Miss Zora?”

“May as well.  He can use all the extra luck he can get.”  He shook Maurid’s shoulder to get his attention.

“Sorry,” Maurid said and returned his attention to them.

“Disorientation is perfectly natural.”  Mr. Cross sniggered.

“That pair of big legs in the short skirt you’ve been watching, her name’s Banda.  The fella on the drums is Nebo.  Leroy’s the best guitar man in the south.  You done met Mamma Brigitte.  This her husband, Mr. Cross.”  Legba introduced them.  “Mr. Cross, this here’s Maurid.  He owes me a favor.”

“Legba says you’re to go visit the gypsy woman over in the cypress quarter.”  Mr. Cross fished a strand of cowry shells out the pocket of his black tuxedo.  “You’ll want these.  Take them.”

Maurid took the strand of shells and put them around his neck.  Some had small single crosses carved into the backs and others were carved in skulls.  The little band broke into a 12-bar blues piece.  In Maurid’s head the tides of disorientation began to recede.  “What’ll I need those for?  What gypsy woman? Why am I here?”

Legba gave him a funny look and then gave a short bark of laughter.  “At least your tongue is working again.  Sorry, boy, you’re here because I need you to take care of something for me.  I need you to go to Memphis and get something for me.  But I can’t have you just walking in and taking it.  You gotta have a cover, see?  And since you’re such a gambler, playing in the Peabody[1]’s anniversary tournament will be perfect.”

“You’re being vague.  What, exactly, am I going to get?    Who am I getting it from?  Why can’t you get it yourself?  You seem mighty powerful.”

            Legba’s old eyes narrowed, wrinkles multiplying.  “I am mighty powerful and don’t doubt it.”

            Maurid remembered the trip along the Nether-road and did not doubt it.

Examining the head of his walking stick, Legba continued, “You’re going to get an infocube containing some sensitive information.  It’s a Dreg cube – you remember the Dregs?  Saviors of technology and all that?”

“Thin, green-tinted aliens?  Gave us the internet back but at a speed dating back to the Petroleum Period?  Sort of – it’s still all very fuzzy.” 

“The details will come back, Maurid.  Sooner or later.”

“Is there no way to make it faster?  Nothing makes sense.  I hate this feeling of disconnection.”

“I raised you from the dead, Maurid.  Even I have my limits.  Even gods have to abide by certain irrefutable rules.” 

“Gods?”  Maurid was not skeptical, just confused.

Legba nodded, a solemn look settling in his eyes.  “Since you men decided to wipe great swaths of each other out, we’ve gained power.  More believers living than doubters.  We walk again.  Not all of us – not the forgotten ones.”

After finishing off his rum Legba admitted, “Only reason I can’t just go get the cube myself is that I can’t touch the person who’ll be holding it.”

 

((Make a Deal scene?))

 

 

*

 

 

Sylva

(Insert clever “chapter” title later!)

 

Sylva made no face of disgust as she sipped the awful-tasting green liquor in her glass, though the revulsion was there.  She hated Green Martians, olive-on-a-toothpick and all.  She hated Dregs more, and the narrow-skulled Dreg that was dealing had dealt her another shoddy hand.  She looked at the cards on the table in front of the other players.

She laid her cards down on the tabletop and quietly said, “Fold.”

The off-world dealer went round the table again.  It looked as if the hand could go on for a while as long as the dark-skinned man in the long blue cape could keep up his bluff.  The queen he needed for the royal flush that was before him on the table was in her discarded hand.

She took her eyes from the green felt of the table and watched the waiter approach, admiring the tilt of his shoulders.  He moved with a careless ease that Sylva admired.  He set down another glass of water and a tumbler of whisky in front of the Dreg.  It was the fourth he had had in an hour and a half.  She wondered if the alien’s body metabolized liquor differently than hers.  His speech was a little slurred, but it could be from his off-world accent.  She wondered if the stupid creature was drek[2]-faced yet.  A smile almost quirked the corner of her mouth as she pondered a drek-faced dreg. 

His card playing skills were slacking.  He was falling for the caped man’s bluff easily, betting high on one round, and the one where the other two players folded, before finally folding on the last round.  As she watched the other gambler rake in the pot, she realized that the Dreg probably could have won with the pair of tens he was showing.  The off-worlder [3]was right where the casino wanted him, drunk as piss with money to lose.

She had broken even two hands ago and was getting sick of looking at the Dreg and hearing his phlegmatic voice.  She shifted her attention to the man in the wide-brimmed white hat.  A fat green gem sparkled from the band.  Sylva forgot about it and sipped the Green Martian.

“I’m out,” the man in the cowboy hat said and stood, taking a cigar out of his jacket pocket.  “It’s been nice playing with ya’ll.”  The gods-awful hat matched the suit and the big-haired blonde that had been sitting beside him all evening.  Texas was gone, she thought, but obviously some people didn’t get it.

The card players all nodded and muttered a goodbye as the couple left.  The four of them looked at each other.  The dark-skinned man in the cape smiled, shrugged, took the deck from the Dreg, and shuffled it.  This new dealer, the Dreg, and the sickly looking Frenchman were the only players on their side of the smoky room. 

Between hands, Sylva mused that it was still as illegal to smoke in most casinos as it was in a bar or other public place in Charleston.  However, the owners of the Fantasy Isle riverboat casino were one of the biggest tobacco producers left in the world.  Not only was smoking allowed, but also waitresses served complementary cigarettes from the same trays as the drinks. 

The Frenchman lit a skinny cigarette with an old-style zip lighter as the caped man dealt the first round.  He won that hand, and Sylva won the next.  At the last round of her deal, the Dreg pulled out an infocube[4].

“I seem to be running short of capital,” the off-worlder said, setting the cube in the middle of the pile of credchips[5].

“What’s on it,” asked the caped man.

“Don’t know,” replied the Dreg.  “Can’t break the code.”

“What good is it if you do not know what is on it?” asked the Frenchman as he folded.

“If it’s encrypted so that a Dreg can’t get into it, then it’s probably valuable,” reasoned the man in the cape, his white teeth showing brightly against his dark moustache.  He dropped his chips in the pot.

“That’s what gambling’s all about,” Sylva said, and added her chips.  She was sure that the Dreg was not lying about not being able to access the infocube.

She dealt the last cards and knew the pot was hers.  The Frenchman had folded when he did not get the king he had needed for a full house.  It was on the table in front of the dark-skinned man now.  Two more were in his hand.  The fourth was in Sylva's hand, the king of hearts, and it made up the royal flush that would beat whatever the drunken Dreg pulled.

The ace of hearts this Dreg had been waiting on was also in her hand.  She raked in the pot as the off-worlder shuffled off, gurgling in his own weird language.  Dropping her winnings into her black bag, she passed the deck to the caped man.

Nice rack, she heard him think as she leaned across the table, exposing cleavage from the low, and square neck of her black dress.  She gave him a smile and a wink, her first facial expression other than calm neutrality all night.

“Good evening,” she nodded to the two remaining at the table and left, the infocube making her purse bulge in strange places.

The Frenchman silently admired her dress as she left, she thought.  She was not sure because he thought in his native tongue, and her French was pidgin at best.  She hoped he would see a doctor soon.  He needed drugs.

 

*

 

 

 

Maurid

Guédé [6]at the Cat’s Cradle

 

“Listen.”  Nebo lit a fresh cigarette from the embers of a filter-less butt that would soon meet its damp fate in a gutter.

Maurid stopped in the street, just outside the Cat’s Cradle.  A hand painted sign proclaimed “Live Music! TONIGHT!  The Guédé - Featuring Leroy Johnson!”  He could hear the traffic of the Old Nawlins Market a few streets over.  Children played somewhere nearby, a game of chanting and laughter.  From inside the bar came the notes of a boogie-woogie tune sans drums.  Someone was playing the piano, responding to Leroy’s guitar, and Maurid wondered if it was Mr. Cross.  Gravel crunched as Nebo joined Maurid and began walking again.

“No, man, listen to me.”  He exhaled a lungful of smoke and guided Maurid by an elbow as he turned them down an alleyway.

“You’re not the only person we’ve got working on this.  This thing is too big for Legba to trust to one man.  Especially one with luck as dubious as yours.”

Maurid was offended by Nebo’s amused chuckling.  It seemed to him that he was damned lucky; he was alive again after all.  That was a miracle in itself.

“I got this feeling, way down in my gullet.  Things are going to go bad at this here tournament.”

“I appreciate your vote of confidence,” Maurid replied acidly, following him into a parking garage.

The jet-lag hell of resurrection still tormented him.  His senses seemed wrapped in gauze.  Details from the world around him distracted him with sudden significances that he was afraid were imagined.  He offered no further conversation and followed Nebo, listening.

“Now I can’t give you no names or anything – but when it goes down, at least one other player in the tournament will be with us.”

Maurid might have felt better if Nebo had said “if” instead of “when”.

“I got what you might call a personal interest in our other player,” Nebo continued talking but stopped walking.  “I’m willing to make a deal with you.  I need you to make sure the other player comes out of this in as good health as they go in.”

Maurid was almost surprised, but not quite.  Deals and wagers seemed to be meat and bread for the Guédé.  Gambling was in Maurid’s blood and bones – it was in his soul. 

“What can you offer?”  Maurid cautiously asked.

Nebo unlocked the driver’s side door of an obviously old hearse.  Maurid climbed into the passenger seat at Nebo’s gesture.  The door was made of metal and much heavier than the reinforced modern, plasteel [7]automobiles.  At a glance at the dashboard’s gauges, Maurid wondered if the monster antique actually ran on petroleum.  It seemed to be an authentic holdover from the turn of the previous century, a pre-plague, fossil-fuel-burning machine.  Maurid loved it instantly.

“Are we going to drive all the way to Memphis?”  His anticipation seemed to finally be growing and excitement tinged Maurid’s question.  He breathed deeply of the worn-in leathery smell of the upholstery, locking it away in his memory.  With his past a in a fog, Maurid was beginning to feel the desperate need to grasp every detail of life.

“Not this time,” Nebo checked and adjusted his dark glasses in the otherwise useless rearview mirror.  “Right now we’s just taking a little drive out to the swamp.  There’s a lady over in the Quarter . . .”

“The gypsy lady Mr. Cross was talking about?”  Maurid felt a thrill as the hearse roared to life, an immensely powerful internal combustion engine rumbling beneath the hood.  The hair on his arms rose.

“Yes.  That’s her, though she’s more of a conjure than a gypsy.  She used to move around a lot, but she seems to have settled in the Quarter these last twenty years or so.  She’s a root worker, a mighty power of the white.  She’s no Marie LaVeau, but even we Guédé are not immune to her tricks and fixes.”

After a few silent minutes of driving through the nearly empty city of Old Nawlins, Maurid repeated his question to Nebo much more firmly. 

“What can you offer?”

Nebo guided the hearse around a NeoStates[8] hovertruck [9]overloaded with scrap metal scavenged from the seemingly endless, unoccupied ruins of Old Nawlins.  The two bulky men securing the load with wide straps gave the hearse suspicious glares as it rumbled around them.  When Maurid looked across the front seat, he could see the Guédé’s eyes behind his glasses.  They were intent on the sorrily patched river road.

“Well,” Nebo said after a few moments.  “As I see it, they’s only one thing in this world you could want.  You want to fill that hole in your head you call a memory.  You want to know who killed you in the first place – who it was consigned your soul to Legba’s care.”

Maurid had not thought of it exactly that way, but it was what he wanted.

“I can get you your memory,” Nebo said softly.

“And vengeance?”  Maurid felt a red surge, the most passionate thing he had felt since he had restarted life.  His voice was oddly resonant, and louder than the hearse’s ancient engine.  The cowry shell necklace felt heavy around his neck.

“And vengeance, if that is what you want when the time comes,” Nebo assured him, frowning.

“We have a deal.”  Overwhelmed, Maurid turned away from the Guédé to the window.

Maurid’s verbal agreement seemed to be enough, and they continued their slow drive through the ruins of Old Nawlins.  What floodwater, mold, and rot had not destroyed, men had burned.  Houses, buildings, streets, and parking lots had long been taken over by encroaching nature and rampant transplanted life.  Kudzu, honeysuckle, brambles, crepe myrtle, pecan, and countless other plants and trees had asserted their dominance once mankind had abandoned the port city.  The N.S. had stationed their regional headquarters and government seat further north, on dryer grounds.

They took the river road into a thick growth of old cypress trees.  Their knees were as tall as the car’s windows, though the waters had receded long ago.  This part of Old Nawlins had been fairly dry for nearly twenty years.  It was often called the Cypress Quarter for the trees that had claimed the area during the Deluge.  Much of the western and southern parts of the old city were still underwater.  Though Maurid had never poled through the canals in this life, he knew that they were there.

The biggest cypress Maurid could see was the only one that boasted any water lapping its knees.  The still pond the giant tree inhabited seemed to be overpopulated with lilies.  Maurid felt the Cypress Quarter was idyllic.  The white blossoms seemed immaculately, blindingly white in the sunlight that filtered through the cypress’s leaves and the hanging moss.  Maurid thought his senses were still affected, and wondered if he would ever feel normal again.  He did, however, feel that his brain was coping better with processing all of the new input.

Soon the river road gave way to a washed out gravel track.  It was not long before Nebo could take the monstrous black car no further.  He shut off the ignition and climbed outside.  He lit another cigarette with a zip lighter similar to the one in Maurid’s pocket.  Maurid barely pushed the heavy door shut, and it slammed closed satisfyingly.  Without the engine rumbling, the air seemed to hum and buzz with the drone of insects.  Maurid went around to the front of the car where Nebo leaned against the hot black hood.  Maurid imagined that Nebo would be uncomfortable in his equally black suit, but he saw no signs of sweat of discomfort on the Guédé’s face.

“You go on ahead.  Just follow what’s left of the road there.  Through them pokeberry bushes.  See – you can see her roof from here.  I’ll wait right here.”  Nebo puffed on his cigarette and adjusted his tie, looking over the top of his glasses at Maurid as he spoke.

He’s right, Maurid thought.  There’s the roof. 

It seemed to be fashioned from tarred, corrugated tin.  Without a goodbye, Maurid ducked between the tall pokeberry bushes.  He avoided the poisonous clusters of purple berries and found himself slipping on the washed-out gravel.  He quickly regained his footing in the slippery gravel and looked for an alternative path.

When he emerged from the brush, Maurid was surprised to find the conjure woman’s house immediately before him and high above his head.  The sturdy-looking wooden structure was easily ten feet higher than any of the surrounding cypress’ knees.  A narrow staircase led to the only visible door.  Through the screens, Maurid could see a pulley system that would raise and lower the stairs.  The stilts that held the little house aloft looked as strong as the surrounding conifers.  With very little trepidation, Maurid ascended the narrow stair.  The screen door swung open on a long, noisy spring.

It was shadier in the screened porch, and it took a few moments for his eyes to adjust.  He smelled the boiling food before he could see the cauldron.  Corn, red potatoes, onions, and whole bulbs of garlic roiled in a pungent, spicy broth.  A huge mound of streaming crawfish took up two-thirds of the long newspaper-draped table.

Maurid was a little startled to notice a stout gray-haired woman stirring the cauldron. 

“Close that door, boy!  You’re letting the mosquitoes in.”

Maurid obediently let the screen door swing shut behind him.  He was not sure how to address the conjure woman.

“Now, I don’t spirit-talk like my cousin Caroline, but I smell them on you.  Them cowry shells say that Mr. Cross’ll speak for you.  What you need, son?”

“Are you Miss Zora?”

The woman laughed.  “Yes, child.  But I ain’t been called that in years and years.  Sit yourself down there at the table.  Dig in, there.  You look like you ain’t had a good meal in this life.  I’ll join you and we’ll talk some.  I don’t get many visitors these days, except family.”

She lifted the basket out of the boiling water and turned off the hissing gas flame.  After draining the water off, she dumped the entire basket onto the newspaper. 

“I can’t remember the last time I ate this good.”  Maurid sat down on the bench and rolled a potato to himself.  He broke it apart, but it was too hot to eat.  Without thinking, he picked up a crawfish, tore off its tail, and sucked the juices from the rest of its body.  It was hot, but not as hot as the potato.  It was, however, very spicy. 

Miss Zora laughed and smiled, tossing another shelled crawfish into the cooker’s basket.  “Just throw them in there.  I’ll probably boil them back up later for some stock.”  She gestured at the mountain of shellfish.  “Most of this’ll end up in gumbo and crawfish pie.  Family’s all out of town until tomorrow night.  I just can’t cook nothing for one person.”

She cast a sly, sidelong look at Maurid.  “So why Mr. Cross send you all the way out here?”

“I really don’t know.  I’m supposed to go to Memphis and enter a poker tournament for him.”  He replied between bites of corn.  The burning sensation had gone away quickly, and Maurid was enjoying Miss Zora’s cooking.    

“Well, I can fix you.  Send you off with a triple strength gris-gris [10]at least.  Lucky hand root, black cat bone, lodestone, five finger grass - that sort of thing.”

Maurid had no idea what Miss Zora was talking about, but the woman sure could cook.  “Yes, ma’m.”

“You going to Memphis, huh.  I got family there too.”  She thoughtfully peeled a bulb of garlic.  “My Aunt Caroline, she stays there.  Over by the Pyramid – not too far from the Peabody.  That’s where they’re having that tournament ain’t it?”

“Yes, ma’m.”

“You run into any trouble, and you just show those shells, see?”  She reached over and tucked them inside his shirt.  “Folks know what those shells mean.”

“What do they mean?”

Miss Zora laughed an amused light in her dark brown eyes.  “They mean you’re Mr. Cross’s cat’s-paw.” 

 

*

 

 

            “There was something to be said about the cities along the wild western border.  All kinds of folks came together there:  The NS men, working for a government too far away to get anything done effectively, people trying to get as far away from the NS and its laws and regulations as possible, Dustland [11]explorers, and the people that had always been there, the poor country people of the delta, farmers, and ranchers.     

                They knew there were others out there – people that had survived the Ruination[12].  Why they did not leave the desert wilderness of the Dustlands, no one knew.  The NS did not have a hold on anything across Ol’ Man River, and there did not seem to be much over there that the NS wanted.  Texas had been nuked first and the new government had no use for ruined lands.  The Dregs had no helpful information about the great silence from the western part of the old United States.  Golden California was dwindling into myth...”

 

Sylva

((Put a clever title here.))

 

Sylva was tired of traveling, and was only too happy to find out that she had acquired more than enough creds [13]to pay the entry fee on the Peabody Hotel and Casino’s anniversary tournament.  Now she would not have to hit the tables and then rush to be registered before the opening hand.  She pulled her cred stick from the reader on the back of the seat in front of her, leaned her seat back the three inches it would go, and tried to relax.  She hated traveling by the new tubepods[14], no matter how safe the magazine in the holder below the credreader [15]said they were. 

With the aid of Dreg technology, the NS government had installed tubepods in a few of the closer-together major cities, like Jackson and Memphis.  The trip from Charleston to Memphis was not an easy one.  From Charleston, Sylva had podded to Macon, Tallahassee, Mobile, and Jackson.  This was the final leg.  Sylva muttered a prayer to St. Expedite when she thought of it.

Memphis had a landing strip, but it was the furthest west of the NeoStates’s capitol cities.  As the reclaimed state capitol furthest from Charleston, Memphis’s central perch on the Old Man River was strategic, and the local government was very independent.  Memphis’s port fees were becoming as legendary as the NS government’s inability to regulate them.  The tubepods were government controlled, however, and cost the same as they did everywhere else in the NS – only slightly less than Memphis’ port fees.  Every one of Sylva’s creds counted for this tournament, but speed was an issue as well.  It would have been cheaper to go by riverboat from Jackson, but it would have taken too long.  Therefore, she found herself crammed into a pod with about thirty other people, hurtling through a plasteel tube at two hundred miles an hour.  

 

*

 

Sylva frowned at the infocube and sat down on the bed beside her open suitcase, her silk robe pooling around her.  The cube’s opaque casing neither let in light nor gave her any clue as to what sort of data might be on it.  She knew she could sell the cube, the information on it, without knowing what it was.  However, she could get a better price if she knew what it was and whom to sell it to.  She pushed a piece of dark hair out of her eyes and sighed, dropping the infocube into her suitcase.  Perhaps one of the Memphis boys would know who would be interested.

            Her suite at the Peabody was included in her tournament entry fee.  It was possibly the largest hotel room she had ever stayed in.  The kitchenette was well stocked, and she could even call room service to have a chef come up and cook her meals.  The bathroom was larger than the apartment she had grown up in, and there was a decadent array of oils, scrubs, soaps, shampoos, and even a massage table complete with a therapist who would arrive as quickly as the chef would if she beckoned.  She had so far avoided enlisting their services, but had eaten well and had a long, relaxing jet-bath. 

            The tournament would last almost a week, with one round of games a day for each gambler.  The nights’ losers were expected to vacate their suites before the ducks marched at eleven the next morning.  Confident in her poker abilities, Sylva looked forward to a complete week of relaxation and pampering.  She would make it to the finals, and she would win the biggest pot of her life.  She imagined buying Aunt Caroline a Lincoln hovercar[16]. 

            After the anxiety, discomfort, and headache of the tubepod trip, Sylva had found the food and bath to be the perfect remedy to her travel maladies.  She stretched out on the downy coverlet, the freshly cleaned scent of linens making her yawn.  There would be a banquet that night in the Grand Ballroom, but no official tournament games would be played until the next evening.  She sat up to finish her trick.  The contents of her conjure bag were spread out on the coverlet. 

“The lord is my shepherd; I shall not want.  He makes me to lie down in green pastures: he leads me beside still waters.  He restores my soul: he leads me in the paths of righteousness for his name’s sake.  Yea, though I walk through the valley of the shadow of death, I will fear no evil: for you are with me, your rod and your staff they comfort me.  You prepare a table before me in the presence of mine enemies: you anoint my head with oil; my cup runs over.  Surely goodness and mercy shall follow me all the days of my life: and I will dwell in the house of the lord forever.”

Sylva repeated the twenty-third Psalm of David as she had every time she fixed her mojo hand. After anointing each item with Van Van oil, she returned the roots, herbs, and charms to their worn red flannel bag.  After knotting it closed Sylva pinned it inside the waist of her skirt, away from prying eyes.

The Van Van oil was almost gone.  A good reason to go see Aunt Caroline; Sylva had not had the time or the ingredients to replenish her carry box of curios and herb cures.  She would worry with that tomorrow.   Tonight she was going to get ready for the tournament.

(ADD SCENE HERE LATER)

 

*

 

 

Dawn had long since risen, but the Peabody’s room service was still serving breakfast.  Sylva could have eaten in the restaurant downstairs, but she preferred her own company.  Crowded rooms were too loud for concentration.  Though the walls of her suite kept most of the distracting public away from her morning routine, Sylva could still hear them if she thought hard enough.

            The Peabody’s breakfast menu boasted fried confections floating on clouds of powdered sugar as well as an array of meats to satisfy the hungriest of carnivores.  Once she removed the silver dome, Sylva’s plate was loaded in strawberries, sliced peaches, kiwi, pineapple, and other various fresh fruit.  The Peabody’s top level boasted a fine formal garden and orchard on the Plantation Roof and in the Skyway.  Instead of fresh ground coffee, from real coffee beans, Sylva had treated herself to an icy pitcher of lemonade.  It seemed to her that life had not been this sweet in a long time.

            Her things scattered around the room, Sylva unbuckled a leather and wood case.  It swung open upon several layers of trays, compartments, and containers.  She selected a blue bottle and squeezed a dropper full of clear fluid into her lemonade.

            “Miss Nefrette?”  The intercom intoned.

            Sylva thought about remaining silent – the thing was voice activated.  Perhaps it had some information for tournament contestants.  “Yes?”

            “There was a message left for you here this morning, ma’m.  At three-thirty.”  The automated machine almost sounded disapproving.  “Would you like the concierge to have it sent up now, or would you like to pick it up later?”

            “Who’s it from?”

            “The young man’s name was Luther Harris, ma’m.”

            Sylva’s little brother.  What could he have wanted with her at three-thirty in the morning?  Surely, he could have found her in the Grand Ballroom the previous night.  He should have been able to get her attention from the street.  She dropped her mental barriers a couple of notches, and listened for a familiar voice among the clamor.

            “Miss Nefrette?  Are you there?”         

            It was the machine.  The thing had blown Turing’s test right out of the water.  Sylva snapped back to reality.  Like the previous night at the banquet, it had been as if the volume on the world had been turned down or muffled in cotton.

            “I’m here.  I’ll just pick it up shortly, on my way out.  Thank you.”

            “Yes, Miss Nefrette.  You’re very welcome.  Have a good morning, ma’m.”

            Sylva quickly finished her breakfast and rolled the cart into the wide hallway for the bellboy to take away.  She wrote down a quick list on the hotel stationary, and put her carry bag back in order and into the wall safe.  Sylva slipped into a comfortable red dress and made sure her shoulder bag had everything she needed for the day in it.  There were trinkets and things she had picked up in her travels – small souvenirs for her family.  She had empty bottles to trade Aunt Caroline for full ones.

            Sylva enjoyed the lift ride down to the Grand Lobby.  Elevators were scarce.  Indeed, even in Charleston, buildings more than a couple of stories high were rare.  Memphis’ riverside district had suffered since the Ruination and concurring riots, but many of the buildings had been undamaged.  The Peabody and many establishments along Beale Street had survived unscathed.  Memphis was a wonder in the new world.

              The receptionist at the Grand Lobby desk looked sleek from her elegant coiffure to her Lansky Brothers suit dress.  Sylva wondered what her street clothes looked like.  She could not see the girl’s shoes, but she could bet they were low-heeled and comfortably worn in.  There was money in Memphis, but one did not make it behind a desk.  Still listening for her Luther’s voice, the girl’s venomous thoughts about her boss came across in a gauzy wave.  Something about a combination lock and dirty pictures.  Her face did not show them though, and Sylva admired her cool control.

            “I’m in suite number seven - Nefrette.  The ‘com said I had a message?”

            “Oh, yes, ma’m.”  The receptionist grinned and turned to a line of cubbyholes to get her message.

            Sylva impulsively dove into her shoulder bag and came out with a slim silver cigarette case.  She opened it and extracted one of her business cards.  Borrowing the pen on the desktop she scribbled on the blank back: 36 – 23 – 35.  Sylva took her message from the receptionist and slid her card across the desktop toward her.

            “Try this one.”

            Sylva was pleased to see the girl’s working smile briefly shift into a puzzled look.  It turned into to suspicion before settling into her working mask.  Sylva grinned and headed for the door, unfolding a piece of paper exactly like the one her list was written on.   

            “Presley Plaza – No Trolley,” was all it said.

            That was easy enough.  Luther meant the park across from the Orpheum, over on Beale.  Where the old MLGW building had stood before the riots.  The trolleys did not even go that way; they went towards the Pyramid and Aunt Caroline’s. 

It was a short walk from the Peabody’s southern entrance to the park.  Sylva found herself sitting at the King’s feet, looking down Beale Street.  It had changed since her childhood days there, but not much.  A few hover cars slowly prowled the morning street.  The Orpheum was still at Main Street, but there were not any shows playing there.  She could hear a trumpet from King’s Palace, even though it was just getting on lunchtime.  The ancient King’s Palace sign still boasted air conditioning.  There were other neon signs as old as that one, dulled by the dazzling daylight.  Sylva would be craving that air conditioning in a few hours.  There were a couple of more signs that Sylva had never seen, but she paid them no mind.  The gauze muffling her inner ear was just as bad out here as it had been in the hotel.

“Luther!” She projected.

The reply was so faint; she almost missed it as a hover bus trundled by.

“Quiet!  Wait!”  The muffled cries sounded worried, nearing desperation. 

Sylva almost did not recognize her brother when he approached.  He was wearing a suit that accentuated his narrow hips and wide shoulders.  The pinstripes exaggerated his height.  Worry lines aged his youthful face.

            Luther caught Sylva up in a hug.  “Let’s go get us some gator chips and boudin [17]over at the Palace.”

            “I ain’t real hungry, but I’ll have a drink while you eat.”

            They headed away from the Orpheum and crossed the street.  The dining room was pretty full, but there was only one table taken outside.  Luther requested seats outside, and Sylva soon found herself on the patio enjoying the music from a jazz trumpeter and a rum and coke.

            “Why’s everything so fuzzy?”  Sylva immediately asked.

            “Don’t know.”  Very few of Sylva’s family shared her ability to hear the thoughts of others, but Luther did.  “But folks is worried.  Some of them bad worried.”

            The waitress set down a platter of fried alligator tail and a bowl of gumbo.  They were out of boudin, and Sylva was thankful.  She sipped her drink, condensation running over her knuckles, and watched her younger brother shovel food into his mouth.    The air conditioning would have been nice, but Sylva was catching Luther’s paranoia.

            Between mouthfuls, Luther told her, “It started about a week and a half ago.  Mary Wonder says it’s the Dregs.  We just heard they’re building an enclave out past the tubepod station.”

            “The Dregs,” Sylva repeated, scowling.  It made a twisted sort of sense.  No matter how hard she concentrated, she always drew a blank on Dregs.  It was as if they did not have an inner monologue.  She had to go with body language and facial expressions, which was not easy with a non-human off-worlder.  “Anybody tried to go over there and figure out if that’s it or not?”

            Luther shook his head, “No.  Mary’s about the only one that thinks that.  She is the only one that says that.”

            “But you just said it, Luth.”  Sylva gave him an evil grin.

            “She also says they can hear us.”

            “Where she get that idea?”  It made Sylva wonder.

            “Dunno.  And don’t go ask her neither.  She’s got Aunt Caroline all wound up.  So don’t you go repeating any of this to her.”

            “What’s Aunt Caroline care?  She can’t hear nothing but what the spirits tell her, anyway.”

            “I don’t know.  I just don’t know.”  He popped a piece of fried gator tail into his mouth.  “I’ll ride the trolley back with you.  The bridge people has been acting funny lately.”

 

*

           

“’Fore we head to Aunt Caroline’s, I got something I want to show you.”  Pride peeked out of Luther’s eyes.  His little grin showed white teeth.

            “Alright.”  Sylva dusted crumbs off her dress.  She had finished up Luther’s cornbread muffin and made herself a mess.

            They headed down the street, away from the Pyramid and Presley Plaza.  Eventually they stopped in front of a small storefront.  It had a fresh coat of black paint.  The wooden door was red with black trim and heavy brass hardware.  Sheets hung inside the windows hid the store’s interior.  There was a young man standing inside one of the windows painting a black top hat onto a grinning skull. 

            “Is that Geraldine’s son?” Sylva asked.

            “Yep.  Alexander.  That boy can paint.  The old Midtowners have asked him to come study with them.”

            “Why’s he painting that window then?”

            “He ain’t sure about the queers.”  Luther laughed.  “Naw, I just asked him to, is all.  C’mon in.”

            Luther opened the red and black door and held it open for his sister.  She preceded him, taking in the details of the little shop.  The carpentry work was new and well done.  There was an old style bar against the north wall, surrounded by counters.  Their wood tops had a natural warm honey glow in the light of the hurricane lamps.  The place would definitely brighten up more once they took the sheets down.  Candles burned all over the bar:  tall ones, fat ones, squatty votives, tall glass votives, tinned candles, ceramic held candles, candles in sea and cocoa nut shells, candles in jelly jars . . . Scattered throughout them were pictures, fetishes, statues, figurines, bottles of rum and whiskey – the various things Sylva had seen on many altars.

            “You know, I been saving my money.  Well, I up and spent it last month - every penny in my piggy bank.”  Luther’s pleased grin was rampant. 

He spread his arms and gestured to the proud little shop, turning to encompass the whole area.  Sylva’s eyes roamed from her beaming brother to look more closely at the little shop.  The shelves were empty, but they glowed in the light – rich and gold.  There was a tall glass cabinet with an ornate engraved brass frame and locks.  Two of Sylva could easily fit inside.  The inner shelves were lined in black velvet.  Sylva wondered what he had to display in such a fine case.

“I talked Geraldine in to working with me.  The whole west wall is going to be hers.  Herbs, roots, teas, tinctures, oils, soaps . . .” 

“Hey, Ms. Sylva.”  The paint speckled teenager stepped out from behind the curtain.  “Luther bragging again?”

Sylva laughed. “How you doing, Alexander?”

“Just fine.  What you think about my walls?”

“Your walls?”  Sylva had not notice anything about the walls.

“Yes, Ma’m.  Look here.”  He picked up a lantern and went around behind the counter.    He held the light up, brightening the wall to the altar’s left.  The Dark Man stood at the crossroads, a trumpet in one hand and a fistful of money in the other.  The mural was very stylized, but Sylva knew the subject.  The colors were predominately black and red, as was tradition.   “And here,” Alexander moved to the opposite side of the bar.  This side was of lighter colors.  Saint Peter stood at the Gates of Heaven, golden keys in one hand and a thick book inscribed with the cross on the other.

“Oh, Alexander,” she laughed and clapped.  “You’ve done him so cleverly.  No wonder the Midtowners want you.”

Alexander gave her a proud smile and set the lantern back on the counter.  “I’m going to lay down a few vévé [18]before I’m done, I think.  But what you really need to see, though, is what is in the basement.  Go on, show her, Luther.”

Sylva was feeling a little excited.  It was shady in the little store and she had almost cooled off.  Her underclothes felt a little damp and uncomfortable, but they were easy to ignore.  “Basement?  Like a storm cellar?”

“No, hon, like a basement.  These old buildings on Beale are full of old hidden staircases and speakeasies.”  Luther opened a door so narrow that Sylva had decided it was a broom closet.  There was a staircase there, leading down into the darkness.    He took the lantern from the counter and started down; Sylva followed.

The air was remarkably cooler down there, and Sylva felt goose bumps pop out on her arms.  “Why do we live above ground at all?  It’s nice down here.”

“Except for the mildew smell.  You’re spoilt to air conditioning.”

“Probably.”  She grinned at him, and then looked around.  There were little cubbies lining one wall.  Sylva guessed that the racks were supposed to hold wine bottles.  Luther had them filled with candles in every color of the rainbow, explaining his largesse on the upstairs altar.

“Hey, they won’t melt!”

“But they might float off if it rains hard enough.  I found a candle maker.  He calls himself Chandler.  But I think he’s pulling my leg.  That’s not what Alexander wanted me to show you, though.”  He brought the lantern over to a dark corner and pulled a waterproofed drop cloth off a hulking shape.

            “What… it’s a neon sign?”

            “Yep.  Petroleum age, easy.  It was down here when I bought the building.  Most of the original neon tubing was impossible to fix, especially on the top hat.  But the other lights are more or less in working order.”

            Sylva rubbed a little dust off the grinning skull-face.  “I like the swirly eyes the best, I think.”

            “They light up with red bulbs.”  Luther’s earlier anxiety had completely disappeared. 

            Sylva smiled at him, happy to see him happy.  “When do you get electricity?”

            Luther grimaced, happiness vanishing.  “When we make enough money to pay off the new NS government officials.”

            “Oh.”  Sylva felt bad.

 

*

 

 

“During the early days after the Ruination, scrappers had taken many of the huge plates of stainless steel that made up the Pyramid’s sides.  Left open to the sun and sky, what had once been terraced seats were eventually turned into gardens.  An open-air market thrived in the arena’s parking lot, the old, crumbling Interstate 40 overpasses shading shoppers. 

Most of the Pyramid’s internal support structure had been left intact, but the insides had long since been salvaged.  It was said that most of the plates had been smelted down and recycled for valuable metals including chromium and nickel.  There were also tales of the plates being used in the reconstruction of the D’Soto Bridge.

                The D’Soto Bridge had once been the way across Ol’ Man River.  Like almost every other bridge spanning the river, including the old I-55 downstream, it was heavily damaged during the Ruination.  Survivors had rebuilt the d’Soto in the intervening generations, but not for the purpose of taking vehicles across.  They had rebuilt the bridge the way fabled King John had rebuilt the London Bridge – with houses and shops.  The bridge folk were a community unto themselves…”

   

Maurid

 

 

            Traveling the Nether-road was not as difficult this time as it had been the previous trip.  Maurid had been a little more prepared.  The sensations could have been overwhelming, but he reverted to his imaginary card games to keep the deluge of disjunction at bay.  Nebo did not seem to pull as fast or as strong as Legba had, but this trip seemed no longer than the previous one had been. 

            “That’s strange,” Nebo muttered when they stopped.  “I’d thought we’d be on Beale Street.”

            “Where are we?”  Maurid looked around, trying not to be wide-eyed.  It was, after all, time to put on his poker face and be cool. 

            The wind was the first thing he noticed, but the heat placed at a very close second.  His pants legs flapped against his shins, and he could feel the sweat welling up.  The ground swayed beneath them.  He could hear people – voices, shouts, and laughter.  The buildings closest to him seemed to be cobbled together from bits and pieces of all kinds of materials.  Wood, tin, plasteel, sheets of visqueen [19]– a nearby roof appeared to be an overturned fiberglass boat.  It was hard to see.  There were a few lights, but none were near them. 

            “Damn,” Nebo cursed.  “We’re on the bridge.  We’ll probably be stuck here until morning.”

            “Can’t we just hop to where we need to be?”

            Nebo frowned.  “No, I don’t think so.  We’d be there if we could be.  Something strange is going on.”

            “We should have brought the hearse,” Maurid said, deadpan.

            “You don’t know how right you are, boy.  Let’s go.  Try not to make eye contact with anybody if they talk to you.  The bridge people will be able to tell we don’t belong.  Let’s try to get off of this thing intact.”  Nebo cracked his knuckles.  “I don’t think they’ll open the gates for us and let us down off the overpass this late, but maybe I know where I can leave you for the night.”

            “What do you mean?  Where you running off to?  Thought Mamma Brigitte told you to protect me.”  Maurid snorted.

            “And I will.  In fact, we’re not even going to try the gate.  It would just waste time, put us out in the open longer, and give them time to pick us out.  I don’t like to mess with bridge people if I don’t have to.” 

            “We’re on a bridge?  It looks like a shanty town.”

            “It is a shanty town.  And it’s on a bridge – the D’Soto Bridge.  Ol’ Man River is under our feet.”

            “Where does the bridge go?”

            “What they used to call Arkansas – West Memphis.”  Nebo chuckled.  “But it don’t go all the way anymore.  Even the bridge rats and scrappers haven’t rebuilt that.  Everybody knows that everything west of Ol’ Man is tainted.  It’s hard enough to find anybody to ferry across.  The Idlewild is the only boat I know of that’ll go across.  Nobody else wants to get close enough to touch the soil over there.  The biggest part of their fear is plain old superstition, though.  The dirt’s fine until you hit Texas and Oklahoma.” Nebo started walking.  “This way.”

Maurid did not have much of a choice but to follow him.  The bridge people did not sound very friendly.  The little hovels were piled upon one another, wasting no space.  The alleys between them twisted and turned; the place was a tunneling maze.  Strange things squished underfoot in the darkness.  Thirst burned the back of Maurid’s throat. 

“Is this mud?”  Maurid asked.  “Doesn’t smell like . . .”

            “This wasn’t here last time,” Nebo frowned at a wall that had suddenly stopped their progression.

            “No cheese?”  Maurid was starting to feel peppy, though Nebo had ignored his question.  Wandering around in a labyrinth of potentially hostile people was having a strange effect on him. 

            “No cheese.  Let’s backtrack.  It’s been quiet.  Hopefully we’ll not have to get onto the main thoroughfare.”

            After much round about walking, they finally stopped outside of a particularly large shack.  It had been painted bright yellow, Maurid thought.  There was a sputtering lantern a few doors down, and it was hard to tell in the darkness.  The lack of good lighting had let them avoid the few other people they had seen. 

            Nebo knocked on the door.  No one answered.  Maurid pointed to a small plaque that read “Ring Bell after Curfew”.

            “Ah,” Nebo pulled a glittering chain, and moments later the door opened a crack.  No light spilled out.

            “Can I help you, landwalkers?”  A young man looked out at them, his lip curled.

            “I’ve come to see Mary the Wonder.”

            “Sorry, sir.  She closed up at dark.”  The door started to close rapidly, but the pointy toe of Nebo’s boot stopped it.

            “I know, Tommy Rivers.  Mary owes me a favor, and I need to take her up on it.  Let me in.”

            “Hold on.”  The door shut and there was silence for a short while.  Tommy eventually came back. 

“Come on up.  Wipe your feet.”  The boy sounded put out.

“Thank you,” Maurid told him, scraping his feet on the coarse rug in front of the door.  The area he had entered seemed to be a store of some sort.  He could make out a cash register in the gloom.  There was a light at the top of the stairs that went up directly before them, but the downstairs was otherwise completely dark.  Maurid thought he saw bundles of herbs overhead and rows of small bottles packed onto shelves.  There was a strong herbal smell.

             Tommy led them upstairs and into an enclosed loft.  He ushered them into a room paneled in cedar.  There were hurricane lamps burning here, and a few uncomfortable looking stuffed seats with arms and clawed feet.  The small round table also had carved feet. 

Before leaving them, Tommy said, “Go ahead and sit down.  Mary’s coming.”

Maurid took a seat, but Nebo remained standing.  He straightened his tie and sunglasses as he waited.  “Should’ve worn my good hat,” he muttered.

“Hot date?”  Maurid fought the need to giggle.  The grin stretched across his face made the muscles in his jaws hurt.  He certainly hoped he could calm down when it came time to play cards.

“You let me talk to the lady.  She’d eat you alive.”  Nebo chuckled.  “Your poor luck what’s got us here to begin with.”

Maurid shrugged.  He was ready to go to sleep somewhere safe and comfortable.  Lack of sleep was making him giddy.  That or the incense burning on in a little brass censer.

A little door at the back of the room slid open, and a small woman joined them.  She was covered from neck to ankle in a fuzzy green dressing robe that accentuated every curve of her body.  She had hair a shade of black it was almost blue.  It cut square across her forehead above large, painted eyes.  Whereas most folks were any pleasant shade of brown, her skin was uncommonly pale, what little of it her robe did not cover.  Maurid felt a tingle at the base of his spine, and realized that this was the prettiest woman he had seen this side of the grave.  He suddenly wished he had a hat, too.

“If you’re from Aunt Caroline, you just go tell that crazy old woman that I’ve had it.  I ain’t gonna stand here and let them treat us this way.”  Fury smoldered in Mary the Wonder’s pale brown eyes.

Nebo raised his hands.  “We ain’t even planning on seeing Caroline.  Just got into town. ”

“Oh,” she pouted prettily.  “Then who sent you?”

“The Baron,” over the top of his glasses, Nebo gave her a pointed look.

“The . . . Well then, what can I do for you folks?  A little late for you to be walking the bridge.”  She settled onto a chair, and Nebo followed suit.

“Yes, certainly didn’t mean to end up here.  What we need from you, my dear, is a place for my friend to stay until curfew lifts, and he can walk out the gates.  I’m afraid he’s stuck.  I’d prefer not to upset the folks here on the bridge.  I just want to get him over to Memphis proper as soon as I can.”

“I see,” Mary said, her eyes narrowing as she turned to examine Maurid.  He watched her face, noting her calculations, though he had no idea what they could mean.  “I’ll have young Mr. Rivers bring him a cot and some linens.  Is there anything else you need, Mister?”

“Maurid,” his voice was creaky.  “Please, my name is Maurid.  Something to drink would be wonderful.”

“Good, then, Maurid, I will see you soon.  I’ve gotta go.  Thank you, lady.”  Nebo bowed and kissed the back of her hand.

“I’ll see to your comfort then,” Mary smiled at Maurid and left the room.  She was back a few moments later, handing him a big mug of water.  He gulped it down without even tasting it. 

“If you need anything before daylight, don’t hesitate to call out for Mr. Rivers.  He’ll be just downstairs.  I’ll see you to the gate in the morning.  Good night.” 

She smiled sweetly at him and went out of the little door in the back of the room.   Tommy Rivers arrived shortly with a cot, an armful of sheets, and a pillow.  It was not long before Maurid was relatively comfortable on the narrow canvas bed.  The water had quenched his dry throat.  Sleep stole up on him like a pickpocket, robbing him of awareness.

 

*

 

Maurid woke up with a filthy taste in his mouth.  As his mind buzzed into early morning awareness, he remembered that his dreams had been equally filthy.  He was half surprised to see that he wore dry britches.  He sat up, his feet swinging onto the floor with a thump.  The glass Mary the Wonder had given him the night before was bone dry.  In the new light of day, it did not look like a very clean glass.  There was something in the bottom.  Scowling, Maurid stood and gave himself a mental shake all over.  His muscles felt exhausted, and his head pounded. 

He wondered if Nebo would come back for him, or if he would have to make his own way off the bridge and into Memphis proper.  Maurid had never been to Memphis before that he knew of, and he did not think he would be able to find his way around easily.  The bridge people did not seem like the folks to ask, but maybe Mary the Wonder would point him in the right direction.  She had, after all, mentioned that she would see him to the lift down to dry land.

As if summoned by his thoughts, the little door to the back room opened and Mary the Wonder stepped into the room.  Maurid felt a disturbing stirring in his groin.  He turned and started folding up the sheets he had been given the previous night.

 

 

 

 

 

 

((Extra ‘flavor texts’ to develop later))

 

 

 

Several years before the Ruination, the history of home appliances was forever altered by a young Mennonite man.  An unorthodox youth,

 

 

 

 

 

                “We crossed the tainted lands, long after the all clear.  We took our provisions from the shelters and loaded them on the pack animals – horses, donkeys, and dogs . . . The trail was hard, but no harder than it had been the first time.  We did not follow the same path, but took the one we found easiest. 

We drove our animals south, until we reached the river.  The waters were not badly fouled.  Fish and wildlife thrived in the depths and along the shores.  We crossed on a man made bridge, no longer in use.  Once on the south shore, we followed the river south and east.  As we went, the land became more lush and wild creatures more plentiful.

Peyote Coyote’s spirit was leading us to our ancestral lands.  The homes we had been removed from in the distant past . . .” 

 

 

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