Doyce Testerman

We got home with the sun coming up. Time was weird along the Vayland Road I guess; by the clock in the kitchen my part had been only about 24 hours. It seemed longer.
Dad was… well, no, he’s wasn’t alright, but he made it; he wasn’t talking about it much, and I suppose I knew why as well as anyone. It was just the way life worked and you dealt with it even when it got strange.
There weren’t happily ever afters, because it’s never really the end, is it?

One of the real people walked up to him. He was limping, and had a
my
gun in his off-hand. There was a big stick in the other. Steven looked up at his face with its hurt eyes, and frowned. Familiar…
”It’s time to go home, Dad,” the young man said.
”I think that he will stay here.” Churkk’s voice was the same as always.
The other one glared. “His choice, not yours.”
”Or yours.”
The young man shrugged and nodded that he knew. Steven could feel Churkk’s surprise that he
Sean?
understood that much. He —
”Dad?”
Steven looked up.
”I’m here.”
is he?
”Can we go?”
do you dare?
Nothing.
do you dare?
Churkk chuckled into the silence. It sounded like someone with a collapsed lung. “Seems ‘e might stay with me.”
The man glared again. “He can do what he likes, but I’ll still cave your head in.”
“The end result ‘s the same. What d’you think, Steven?”
Churkk was doing more than asking. He could feel the needles pulling.
”You let him –”
”Sean.”
The young man jumped. “Dad? Are you–”
”Give me that stick.” Steven’s head was very heavy.
Silence.
”Give it to me.”
Sean did. One of the others behind him make a noise… not even a word. It was Churkk that finally spoke. “He understands, Sean.” There was a dry rasping sound as it licked its lips. “You’ll understand too, someday. Heh.”
”Damned if I will.” Sean said flatly.
Steven’s head came up.
Damned if I will.
Steven turned and swung, as hard as he could.
Sean almost killed a cow with this damned thing when he was fifteen; s’why he only got to use it around the bulls after that.
Steven only swung once. After that, everything was quiet.

The morning didn’t come the way Steven thought it would. It was much noisier. There were screams and people hollering
dirt-eaterrrrrs!
and sounds like an echoing crack.
I know that sound. Don’t I?
Then his cage shook and one of the camp was leaning against his cage. Their beady eyes were looking straight in at him, but they were cloudy. Blank.
Dead.
It’s knife had fallen just outside the
not my
cage. Much easier than working the ties.
Moving very slowly, so that he wouldn’t have to argue with the other voice, he reached out for the tool and started to cut. The camp got quieter around him. The little explosions stopped
ran out of shells
somewhere in the middle. He got the gate open and pushed. Easy. He dropped the knife on the floor of the cage and crawled out.
A few feet away, three real people stood.
Churkk was right behind him.

They’d had to tie him to the Turning Tree for the whole ritual. The bristlerope had rubbed him to the meat everywhere it had touched him, from the struggle. He’d done it to himself.
How do I know the names of those things?
He was back in the cage
not mine. NOT mine.
now and he knew it was the last time he’d get out until they put him in a sack or he walked
shuffled
out on his own.
Or he could escape. He’d done it once and the burning on his skin wasn’t even as bad as before.
Or you’re getting used to it.
Or he was — no. It was time to go.
But where will you go? What if —
”NO!”
No one in the camp looked at him. He wasn’t even sure if he’d really shouted. He
Steven. Not ‘he’. Steve. Steven. My name is Steven.
Right. Steven.
Steven sat in the cage that wasn’t his and watched the stars, which he still recognized, and repeated his name.

Turned out that Brock was wrong.
The gun worked just fine.
Most people, sitting back on their couches and watching this play out on television, might have wondered why I believed all this from the start. It was a good question; if I’d been writing this as a story, I think my main character would have yelled bullshit right off the bat and spent most of the story being convinced. The problem with that is that sometimes there are things going on that no one knows about.
I saw a goblin shambling along the bottom of a ravine with an old and rusted sword across his back like the yoke of a wagon. I didn’t bother mentioning it to my mother; I just assumed I’d imagined it.
Except I hadn’t. Not really. My life had gone on without a hitch, certainly; I wrote my stories and did the right things, but there was always a small dark spot in the back of my mind that watched the ravines and kept an eye on the shadows of alleys that led to the back of old houses — a part of me that never really believed I’d made it up.
When the goblins boiled out of the thickets around us, that small dark spot in my mind stood up and said ‘fucking KNEW it!’
And the gun worked just fine.
On the other hand, I wasn’t all that great for the first little bit. There’s a hell of a long distance between target practice, hunting for food, hunting for sport, and finally shooting at something that could talk back to you, even if it was running straight at you with a weird little bow-legged gait and swinging a sword straight at your head.
The first one would have killed me, I think, except that Brock was there; he had his axe out (‘of course he has an axe, every dwarf would use an axe if they could I guess’ came the errant thought) and it was a great beautiful thing of which I’d only seen the polished grip, poking over his shoulder — then there was a cresent flash and like that the goblin-thing was very still on the ground. Brock clapped me on the shoulder and grinned.
”Dirt-eaters,” he drawled, and I noticed for the first time that his eyes were bright, clear blue.
I had to shoot the next one in a hurry, so I didn’t have time to say anything about it right then.

They let the thing that used to be Ted Shafer out of his cage the next morning. The clouds weren’t a complete shroud over the camp, but it didn’t really help the light; the sky was the wrong color to begin with.
There weren’t any helpers to clear away muck and detritus from the body — it wasn’t necessary anyway — the last batch of muck (Steven understood that the meant the third batch), was left on until it was absorbed almost completely. The camp then waited to see if the captive lived or died. In Steve’s opinion, Shafer had been unlucky. There weren’t even any needles left to remove.
The tall creature stood before the Shafer creature in the center of the gathering and spoke in its gurgling hiss “You have lived.”
The Shafer-thing wobbled its head.
”You are part of us now. We are part of you. I am Churkk. You are Zef.”
The thing paused, cocking its head as though listening to a distance sound, then nodded. “Zef.” It swayed slightly, and several of the creatures came forward to help it to a hut.
The thing called Churkk turned towards Steven’s cage. “It is the third day.” It gurgle/growled, and its smile returned.
This time, Steven fought.

”What’d you say?”
Brock was suddenly standing at my elbow. Somehow, the smell of him didn’t seem overpowering anymore.
It’s not. Here, it fits in. It doesn’t clash.
I shook my head, partly to clear it. “Nothing. I’m tired. It’s been a long trip.”
He looked at me for a few more seconds. “How’s the pain?”
I started, suddenly sure I’d lost the needle, and felt for it just below my right collarbone. Still there. Still there? I frowned. “There isn’t any pain.” I looked at him. “Not that I mind, but you said the pain would still be there.”
Brock looked at me, then glanced over his shoulder as Bhuto emerged from the gray-green scrub brush where he’d gone scouting and nodded. “I was wrong.”
I started to ask what else he might have be wrong about, but the look on his face (probably the cloud cover) made me think better of it.