---

 

This writing was accepted for publication in the 96 page perfect-bound ISSN# / ISBN# issue/book... “a Creative Journey” Down in the Dirt (v125) (the Sep./Oct. 2014 Issue) You can also order this 6"x9" issue as a paperback book:

Order this writing in the book Need to Know Basis (extended edition) (the 2014 longer prose & poetry collection book)		get this poem collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Order this writing in the book What Must be Done (a Down in the Dirt July - Dec. 2014 collection book)		get the 372 page July - Dec. 2014 Down in the Dirt magazine issue collection 6" x 9" ISBN# paperback book:

Utopia

Matthew Hlady

    “You look exhausted. Startin’ to get old, are we?”
    I swatted Beor. “Emphasis on the ‘we’ you codger.” I was tired though. The weight strapped to my body had drained my strength and, try as I would to hide it, the fatigue was surely showing through as I unpacked my horse. And this is after only one night of carrying it. I glanced at Beor, noting his height and thicker muscles. Maybe he should be the one carrying it. Hell, why am I carrying it? I am getting a little old to be reliable anymore. Trying to ignore the unfamiliar constriction of leather straps wrapped around my chest beneath my shirt, I shoved the thought aside and finished unsaddling my horse. I’m thinking too much. Reflection’s not healthy in this line of work. Gloomy as the pre-dawn was, my fingers were accustomed to working in the dark and did not fumble or slip. “Alden,” I called over my shoulder to the lanky shadow that was tying a feedbag to its horse’s head. Alden had already slipped his sleeping roll beneath an overhang in the rock that would keep the sun off of him while he slept. Greedy bastard probably claimed the spot the moment we got here, I thought, chuckling. “Climb to the top of this outcrop and lower a rope so that nobody breaks his neck exchanging watches.”
    “If anybody breaks his neck climbing in the dark, they probably shouldn’t be here,” Alden pointed out. “If some idiot managed to kill himself climbing during the day, then I’d say he’d probably mistaken himself for a pigeon and tried to fly away.”
    He was creeping up the stone, a rope wrapped around his body, when the fourth member of my crew slipped around the corner of a boulder and pulled down the cloth that masked his face. “Hah! I hate wearing these things in the summer! I can’t breathe in them!”
    “Better than breathing sand!” Alden called from above.
    “Or getting killed if a local recognizes you after a mission,” said the fifth man who was hunched and working over something in his lap.
    “Did you cover the tracks?” I asked.
    “The sand’s still loose enough around here that the wind will sweep them away.”
    Beor turned from his horse, paused, and inspected the speaker in the growing light. “Oi! You’re jus’ a boy! How’d you get chosen for this mission?” Beor was right. The lad couldn’t have been twenty.
    “I’ve been going on missions since I was thirteen. You know, pretending to be a cup bearer and all,” the boy said, shrugging and grinning. “I guess the brass think that I’ve got talent. And I’ve been to Dawnburg before. My name’s Thorn, by the way.”
    “‘Thorn?’” Alden asked. He rappelled down the rope that he had somehow secured to the top of the rock. “That can’t be your real name, is it?”
    “No, but it’s better than the one my mother gave me.”
    “Ha! You’re not old enough to be tough like a thorn,” Beor said. “How ‘bout I call you ‘Thistle?’ eh?” Beor, the others and I laughed while Thorn just shrugged again and laughed along. Beor clapped him on the shoulder and said “I’m Beor! Good to meet ya!” We were all slender and lean, but it was jarring to see the contrast between young, wiry Thorn with his brown scruff of beard and looming Beor, with his arms like bunched rods of steel and the black mane on his face. “Just stick with me an’ I’ll keep ya alright! Either that or the cap’n ’ll set ya straight.” He gave me a little salute and I smiled back. “Always listen to him. Rogdrin an’ I’ve been together for years.” Beor’s clipped way of speaking somehow comforted people. Maybe it was how casual he sounded, or maybe it was his friendliness. He’d endeared himself to people this way ever since he got sick of being a solitary kid when he turned fifteen. I doubt that there was a person back home in the army who didn’t at least know of him. I could always count on him to watch my back.
    The hunched figure got to his feet and turned to Thorn, his tan face shadowy in the early light and his head rising only to my chest. “You’re one of us now, so you just call me if you need any sort of...” he whipped out his knife and held it to his own throat “assistance.”
    “If he needs theater lessons, you’ll be the first he goes to,” I laughed. “Put that thing away. You can shave once we’re all settled in.” Despite my weariness, I knew that sleep would be difficult, so I took the first watch atop the rock formation while the others rolled into the boulders’ shade and slumbered. The stone was worn smooth by the wind and I thought of the almost daily sandstorms that assaulted Sandhold, often cutting off trade with the outside world. After our army’s last campaign, storms killed almost as many men as the last battle had. They even cast aside their wounded to better carry the pillaged goods back home that would maybe feed the city for a year. It could have lasted longer if the priests and lords hadn’t thrown a feast for themselves and the soldiers. Thorn climbed the rope and sat beside me before I could spiral too far into my thoughts. “You should get some sleep,” I said, not taking my eyes from the dust-obscured horizon. I doubted that anyone aside from us was traveling this stretch of desert, but it paid to be cautious.
    “I know, but this mission bothers me. Why are we risking our lives for this one kid? He’s not a prince or anything. The lords of Sandhold told us that it’s a charity mission while the priests are saying that it’s got something to do with our god. Why then, are we risking some of our best men on this?”
    I chuckled mirthlessly. “Don’t let them fool you. It’s the same as any other mission I’ve been on. Sandhold’s going to sack Dawnburg this time and we’re going to make it possible by taking away the city’s ultimate defense.”
    “How though? Dawnburg has never been breached. It’s supposed to be perfect! They’ve never fallen to invaders, the citizens don’t get sick, and there’s always enough food for everyone. Those are just the facts, sir! I’ve been there! I’ve tried to find a weakness in their defenses and couldn’t. Don’t get me started on the rumors about how nobody dies until they’re ninety years old! Just living that long is supposed to be impossible along with everything else about that city. How is busting some random kid out of jail going to change all of that?”
    The wind began to strengthen, swirling dust over the plains and making the few skeletal shrubs dance as they held to the thin earth for their small lives. “About a week ago, one of our ‘merchants’ explored their catacombs and found a guarded chamber. Before that, he said that the city had made its yearly ritual sacrifice to their pagan god the Black Cripple, giving a young boy to the priests to be taken away and killed. When he found that chamber in the catacombs, he saw that same boy there, held in a cage where he was apparently forced to... absorb all of the needless suffering that the citizens would otherwise feel. He said he boy was screaming and far from dead.”
    “That sounds like pure fancy to me,” Thorn said.
    I nodded. “My words exactly. However, the mages searched our spy’s memory and, while old memories can warp and fade, they figured that ones as fresh as the arrow in his back tended to be clear and sharp.”
    “So how do we get him out? I’d bet that Dawnburg’s put all sorts of locks and enchantments on that cage just for people like us.”
    I reached under my shirt, undid the straps, and pulled out the key that they secured to my chest. The key did not shine or sparkle in the sun, seeming to reject the light and take the form of void. When the priest with the gleaming eyes and rancid breath had dropped the key into my anticipant fingers, I had almost pitched forward under the unexpected weight. Holding it with both hands for Thorn to see, the key seemed even heavier. This thing’s like a slab of granite, I thought. “This is our city’s greatest treasure and dearest secret, crafted centuries ago solely to divulge our rivals’ secrets. It is our hope and maybe our city’s salvation. It can open any lock, mechanical or magical, and has never failed.” Nor have I. “Bringing this back home is almost as important as the mission itself. Before that, though, we free the kid, give the signal for the attack, and watch as Dawnburg burns.” Those words tasted bland as I strapped the key back to my chest.
    Thorn was silent. “Then it’s war?” I nodded and he fell silent again. “I don’t like war. I’m nineteen and I’ve already lived through eight. Hells, I fought in three of them.”
    “Fought?” I asked, turning to him. “You’re too handsome to be a soldier.” Soldiers were beaten enough during training that most of them at least had broken noses before earning their combat scars.
    He shrugged. “I was an assassin.”
    Not quite the same as being cut to ribbons on a bloody field, I thought. “Then why should you be bothered? You’ve killed, you work in the shadows, and Sandhold’s people honor you more than the poor bastards cut to ribbons on the bloody field. Battles aren’t a problem for you.”
    “It’s bad enough when I kill one person myself, but when thousands die?” He shook his head.
    “Do their lives make you feel so guilty?” I could sympathize. I had felt the same when I was fifteen after witnessing the aftermath of a battle that I had helped start by killing a prince.
    “It’s not their deaths. It’s the people that they leave behind that bother me.” He hugged his legs to his chest, withdrawing into himself. “Especially the kids.” Thorn’s eyes were shadowed. He looked as small and frail atop the eroding stone beneath the murderous sun as I felt.
    “Ah,” I said. “You’re an orphan, aren’t you?”
    He glanced up. “How’d you guess?”
    “I’ve been running missions for fifteen years and I’ve realized that our city’s built on war. We’ve no pastures, no farmland, nothing to support us. We have to take what we need from others. Comes from living in a desert, I guess. With war comes fatherless children. If Sandhold is built on war, it’s built on orphans too.”
    “But how’d you know I was an orphan, and not just fatherless?”
    I looked away from him. “Because starving orphans have nothing to lose. They’re the ones recruited off the streets.”
    “Oh. You’re one too, aren’t you?”
    I nodded. “Ever since our women became spies and assassins like us, orphans have become the majority of our city. You, me, Beor, I’d even be willing to bet that Alden and Drake are orphans too.”
    “We are,” came Drake’s muffled reply. “Satisfied? Now could you please keep quiet? It’s hard enough to sleep with the sun baking us like this.”
    “Yeah,” called Beor. “Plenty o’ time for your life-story once we get ‘ome, master bard!”
    I chuckled. “What, don’t you want me to sing it? I was just coming up with a tune!” I looked at Thorn again. “Go to sleep. Dream of endless riches.”
    “Right.” He got up to leave, but turned one last time. “We are going to come home, right sir? We can actually pull this off?”
    “Of course. Our spy said that the city’s magic didn’t work beneath the earth, so once we get inside, the mission will be essentially done. Now sleep. And call me Rogdrin, already!” Thorn nodded and jumped from the rocks to land without a sound near his bedroll.
    Home, I thought. A decaying city amidst a whirl of sand and blood sustained by feasting off of the corpses we make. It’s better than nothing though. I shook the thoughts from my head. Stop it! What’s gotten into you? Just focus on the mission. But try as I might, the thoughts crept back throughout the day and weighed my mind just as the key weighed down my body. Drake relieved me of duty and, after an hour or so, sleep relieved me of thought until nightfall when we set out again.
    Over two nights, the landscape changed from desolation to pleasant fields and thriving forests. It always felt so alien to move amongst growing things whenever I left the city. We reached Dawnburg as the sky turned grey and hid ourselves in the forest bordering their western fields. I climbed a tree to survey the area before I again took the first watch. As I scanned the land, my gaze was drawn to the fields. My breath caught at how vast and green they were. From my vantage point, I could see the city walls’ outline in the far distance, but I could not discern the edge of the crops. Before me was a verdant sea. A harvest like that could feed Sandhold for two years.
    I recalled Sandhold’s crowded streets, lined with skeletal men and women, their spines standing out like mountain ranges from their backs, huddled in dark, filthy alleyways. Even when we returned to the city with the spoils of war, there wasn’t enough to feed everyone. Then again, I thought, the lords could’ve handed the victory feast out, rather than tossing the scraps into the gutter and leaving the beggars to kill each other over a loaf of bread. Eager as I was to bring the food back, I knew that it wouldn’t last. How long then before the next campaign? What if we lose a war? I wondered. Will we all starve in the streets? No one can be victorious forever. Dawnburg’s people never have to suffer like that, do they? Not with this kind of land. I shook my head and lowered myself to the ground.
    After assessing the city’s defenses, we decided to walk through the front gate, leading our horses and dispersed amongst the crowd with our equipment hidden under our cloaks. The guards weren’t searching anyone who came through the gates, so why bother scaling the walls in the dark? The gates even stood open at night, but we decided that it would be safer to walk amongst the huge day crowd, rather than stand alone in front of the guards at night. Still, I felt exposed where so many eyes could see me. All around were smiling, laughing, healthy people, some of whom even greeted me as they went their way. Even in the streets, people chatted, strolled unafraid through alleyways, and giggling children played around our horses’ legs before being called away by parents or other friends. People here did not walk around furtively with their eyes on the dirt as people in Sandhold did. Guards strolled the streets, but were often gossiping with the townspeople and barely spared me a glance as I passed. I suspected that they never robbed the citizens either. Even a funeral procession that we passed seemed almost cheerful. I had seen other prosperous cities, but never one so carefree and relaxed. It was so... strange to me. “These guys’ve gone soft since nobody can get murdered ‘ere,” Beor noted once we all regrouped at a stable that Thorn had directed us to where the owner asked no questions. “Why do they even ‘ave guards if they aren’t gonna do anythin’?”
    “Why do they have merchants when there’s no need to bring money into a city with this much food?” Thorn shrugged. “I guess everybody’s gotta do something with their time.”
    “Speaking of which, did anyone see any beggars?” Drake asked.
    “Did you expect any?” I asked in return. “I bet that even the stableboy here gets his own bed, rather than sleeping with the horses.” What I would have given to be born in this city. The thought flashed across my mind unbidden. I squeezed my eyes shut. Stop it already! You’re here to make sure that this place is raped!
    “Rogdrin?” Thorn was looking at me. “I was wondering. With the money that we’d get after this mission, do you think I’d have enough to start an orphanage back home? It’s something I’ve been wanting to do for a while.”
    My brows knitted together. “You know that this whole group only gets one percent of whatever Sandhold gains from the war we’ll start. I doubt that you’d have enough to keep an orphanage running for more than a few months after you built it.”
    “Well, I’ve been saving money for years and...” he blushed, “if you guys wanted to help, we could keep it going for at least a few years.”
    Beor shook his head. “The lords wouldn’t allow it. Rogdrin already told you that starvin’ orphans are th’ main source of soldiers, spies, and assassins. If you give ‘em a place to go other than the military, then the city loses most of its potential recruits. Can’t ‘ave that, can we?”
    “Besides,” Alden dropped into the hay, ready to sleep. “You have any idea just how many of those kids there are back home? Forget feeding them. You’d never find enough space in the city walls to build them a place to stay. Just spend your money enjoying life while you can. That’s what we do.”

***

    We found the catacombs with little difficulty and slipped in at night, undetected. The winding tunnels were lit by torches ensconced on the barren walls, close enough to each other to cast some light on everything, but far enough that they left shadows between the faint orange glows. We pressed deeper, passing graves and skulls, the key’s weight around my neck dragging me further into our descent. We slipped from shadow to shadow, a reflex to me after so long. Beor had often taunted me for skulking around my own house, but in Sandhold, the city lords might kill me whenever they decided I knew too much. I had good reasons for avoiding windows and keeping the lights dim. When will I become too dangerous to them? I wondered. How long until they decide that my knowledge outweighs my usefulness? Such was the fate of every major spy and assassin in Sandhold. At least my name will be carved in the memorial wall for whatever that’s worth.
    We heard voices from beyond the next bend. My thoughts silenced. I peered around and looked through a stone doorway. Several guards surrounded a cage that seemed to hang in the center of the bright room beyond.
    We drew our weapons and Alden stepped through the doorway. The guards shouted and I heard Alden run back toward our hiding place. He jogged past, pretending to be slow for the guards. Three men barreled around the corner. Drake, Thorn, and Beor opened their throats before the men were two steps past the corner. My men muffled their dying gurgles. Alden ran into the room again, brandishing his sword and shouting as he attacked the seven remaining guards. He kept their attention while the rest of us crept up behind the soldiers. We killed four of them in a flash and Alden slew another who turned in surprise as his comrade beside him fell to my blade. I retreated, too valuable to risk. Thorn finished the job, slipping past the two remaining guards’s defenses and hamstringing one, parrying the other’s blade, and spinning behind his last opponent to stab him in the back. He’s good. I thought as he stood without a bead of sweat on his brow, his face impassive.
    My men ended the screams and cries for help and Alden turned to me, his clothes and armor stained the deepest of reds. I watched as a tear of blood crept down his cheek.
    “Hurry, sir! Someone might’ve heard the commotion.” I nodded and dashed forward through shadow and white light as I passed beneath... what?
    I looked around and realized the immensity of the chamber we stood in. The high, domed ceiling was lined with glowing runes and bright circles from which long, thick beams of light reached down to converge into one ray that pierced the thing hanging in the center of the room, all of which illuminated the space with a white glare. Within each shining shaft there slid a procession of black droplets. I could feel them from where I stood. Each droplet permeated the air with... something. I can only describe it as a miasma of pain and despair. I choked on it. Suspended five feet above the ground by a thick chain was the cage.
    I couldn’t describe the thing within as human. It sat curled in a ball on the floor of the cage, the steel chafing its flesh raw. Its head was hairless, its skin so tight and stretched that every bone showed through. The creature’s skin might have been pale when our spy saw it, but now it was as black as the abyss, dyed from the droplets tormenting it. A droplet touched the creature’s body. The skin sucked it up and the thing convulsed in agony, its toothless mouth gaping in a silent scream. Its voice had long since failed.
    Blind, white eyes rolled toward me, and I felt as though the child was pleading for my help. My stomach clenched. I took a step back, repulsed by the grotesque thing.
    “Captain!” Thorn gripped my shoulder. “Hurry and free that... thing! We need to get out of here.” Beor positioned himself to lift me to the cage. “Just make it stop writhing like that!”
    I took a step forward and found the coal-colored key in my hand. I’ll release you from your prison. My men urged me toward the inky creature while I took another step over a guard whose vigil for the city had ended. I will be a hero again and rich. My people will be wealthy.
    The guard’s hand grasped my foot. “Please,” he groaned. “Don’t. If you open that cage, the black will fall and seep into the earth. You would poison us all!” Beor planted his knife in the guard’s neck and the grip on my leg loosened, but I remained frozen.
    Everyone? I would poison the entire city? I was less than an arm’s length from the child. If we sacked the city, it would be the same result. I thought. I could see blood in the wretch’s throat as it gasped for breath. If I don’t do this, I can never go back to Sandhold, I realized. Sandhold would hunt me as a traitor with too much knowledge and as a thief with their greatest treasure. Hells, the people here in Dawnburg might kill me just for thinking of destroying their home. There’d be nowhere to go.
    “Hurry!” Beor was crouched and waiting.
    The money we get from this won’t last. I thought. It never does. Sandhold’s going to die. I looked down at the key that held all of the world’s dangers wrought into its fangs.
    “For the love of the Almighty! Give me the fucking key!” Alden grabbed my clenched fingers. I twisted away and drove my free hand into his throat. He stumbled back and crumpled to his knees, wheezing.
    I spun and sprinted back the way I came. Someone seized me. “What are you doing?” Drake yelled, his fingers digging into my armor. “You have to get that kid out of there before we’re found!” I wrenched free as the other men began closing in. I rushed through the exit, the men screaming and pursuing me.
    “Sir!” I heard Thorn yell. “Sir! Come back! Don’t go”
    “Rogdrin!” Beor bellowed.
    Through the passages dappled with torchlight I streaked, up the stone stairs, and into streets of the perfect city. I found my horse and barreled through the still open city gates. I glanced back at the guards. Instead of shock or anger, pleasant smiles followed me into the night as I held the key to all of their suffering in my trembling fingers. I turned back around and looked at the forested horizon. As much as I dreaded it, the moonlit wilderness beckoned.

Copyright of written pieces remain with the author, who has allowed it to be shown through Scars Publications and Design.Web site © Scars Publications and Design. All rights reserved. No material may be reprinted without express permission from the author.

Problems with this page? Then deal with it...