Dusk Hunters on HotGuySecret
Waypoint
Evening came and the sun crept down by the time Orion’s family packed everything into their wagon. A cool wind blew in their faces while roping everything in the baggage hold. Orion felt nervousness creep in listening to that wind. He imagined it rushing to fill that giant sinkhole that opened up that morning. What happened if it was still growing?
Irrational fear? It was the end of the world. Nothing was impossible.
He’d almost rather another hole open beneath their feet and get on with it. Instead, the unnatural cold wind howled to him the scenario of it growing stronger, louder, until it pulled them all slowly toward an ever expanding pit into the abyss.
Would they see it coming?
Would they look and notice the horizon falling away into a growing black line? His natural magic affinity was Communication, his nature was to look, listen, and touch. He, at least, would feel the End first, before his family.
Orion pulled his cloak tighter against a harsh, biting cold blast. He wasn’t used to this. His magic’s Instinct pinged at him: made him imagine high mountains trapped in skins of ice. But the world hadn’t seen snow since the Apocalypse began. That would be over 1,200 seasons past, 3 full cycles ago!
Finally, Orion’s father Torion started the wagon’s pull-wheel. There were faster ways to travel, yes, far more practical vehicles to use, but they all carried one degree of risk or other of being detected by an invading military.
While the rest of the family packed throughout the day, Orion and his father quietly stowed to the militia armory for a few hours, helped distribute arms out at designated spots for the people of Johmo to take up along the evacuation waypoints.
Speaking of, those evac waypoints were still being determined up until right after father and son got back from the Armory. The intention was for them to finish at the new Gate leading off-world. But that lay in the Kamto region, and the Elder council, the government of Kamto, hadn’t disclosed the Gate’s location until the last minute. It was only fair. They wanted their people to get the first chance to pass through…
“Finally on the road,” Tamantro complained. “Couldn’t you have let someone else manage all those weapons?”
Torion’s eye twitched. He refused to remind his wife that he was Master of Arms Stores. He had to assist arms distribution, thank you. “How about you packing faster?”
“Oh enough!” Rohiah hissed at them. She gestured at her four younger siblings on the wagon. Their wide, frightened eyes peered over the rim at them. “They hate it. Stop it. Just stop. Not right now.” She glanced down the road behind the wagon.
The little heads turned to look at what drew her attention. Lights blazing from lamps twinkled in the distance from hundreds of other wagons crawling over the hills.
“I admit, I’d have liked to start sooner,” Torion confessed with a disappointed shrug. “We only got confirmation the Gate appeared at Nihan City about five hours ago. Can’t organize waypoints to a location you don’t know. The route wasn’t set up until three past.”
“That’s still three hours since this moment,” Orion reminded with one lazy eye open. “Imagine if we’d been prepared to start off right when we received the route. We’d be gone three hours ago.”
“I mean, we’d all have been better off starting at once. Even if we had nothing but ourselves,” Tomantro said. “We didn’t want to leave with nothing. No one does.”
“We are leaving with almost nothing,” Rohiha whined.
Tomantro combed her fingers through her daughter’s hair. “No, my child, we are not.”
Rohiah shrugged in diffidence.
Their father clapped his hands for attention. “Then let’s not waste more time. We’ve all drilled for this. The Evacuation Gate is in Nihan City, Kamto region. Memorize the route just in case we’re all separated at the transportation spinners. The waypoints for reaching the Gate are as follows:
“We reach our local transportation hub. It will spin to an outlying village/town on Johmo’s western border. We cross the border into a town inside Kamto, from its transporter, we spin-out to Kamto’s largest city, Kogan?. We proceed through the main transport hub at Kogan?. It will spin us into Nihan City. The new Gate is located in or just outside Nihan. Once we are in Nihan, get through that Gate, by whatever means possible, and—gods let it be—out of this dying world.”
They repeated the instructions back twice over. Satisfied, Torion gave the word and they started off down the dirt road. Finally.
Looking back, Orion’s heart stung him to spy their home, lying in lightless abandonment. The boughs of the new tree growing over the roof thrashed in the wind with a forlorn hiss.
“How I wish I’d been born a Projector,” Orion lamented. He rubbed his arms for warmth. The wind sucked heat out of him with a soft moan. “Teleportation. That would help immensely in just such a time as this!”
“We all mourn your ineptitude, brother,” Rohiah said. Her shoulders sagged. “At least they’ll have plenty of places to buy supplies in Nihan.”
It was a great city, Nihan. Some said the greatest on the continent.
Regardless, it was big.
Over 1,000 transportation hubs spun directly to and from Nihan. A major road connected it with Kamto’s capitol city, Nahanat, as well as Kogan? at the border.
In the hour since the Gate opened, Kamto’s government shut down the transporters spinning into its borders. However, many outlying cities and towns encircling Kogan? lay beyond those borders, and their transporters into the cities remained operational. Johmo and Avee militia occupied them even now, ensuring they stayed operational.
Not that combat threatened the evacuation. Most people living within a hundred miles within any of the three regions were kin, and good neighbors at the worst of times.
This was the worst of times already. Why take chances? The waypoints were all set up now, a militia unit guarding each. The active defenders grew steadily with each family passing it. Torion would drop off outside Kogan?, a major joint in the chain of waypoints, Tomantro would stay on at the waypoint just before Nihan, if need be. Orion and Rohiah agreed to pass on into the city itself and, if possible, through the evacuation Gate with their younger siblings.
A sharp and sheer mountain range separated Kamto and Johmo borders from Prarshavi. Orion glanced south, seeing the peaks jutting up like the serrated teeth of a titantic jaw-bone.
The wind blew toward that sinkhole that lay beyond Prarshavi. When those Shavis march over those mountains there will be bloodshed at the Gate. He took out his water flask and drank from it.
Intuition prodded his sternum.
Should the FOTs of Borolaris assault Nihan to claim the Gate, he’d have to offer himself up: his labor in bondage in return for his siblings’ passage. That was only for negotiating with Borolaris. If it was the Avnicenganr… The Empire doesn’t ask.
Except maybe whether he preferred the cross or impalement spike.
A queasy sensation filled Orion’s stomach like a swallowed fly. He drank more water.
Up ahead, they noticed a family with two carts walking towards them from the opposite way. One of the figures, a young man, staggered along, shirtless and bound with his hands behind his back. A thin collar encircled his neck and the halter led to the man right beside him. It was Orion, his neighbor with the same name. He could tell by the color of his hair in the dusk, and the stripe scars on his back from the whipping he received for thievery twenty odd seasons back. The other fellow’s hunched shoulders quivered in the wind.
A powerful chill raced up his spine. He refused to look at Rohiah, but he was sure he felt her eyes flick over him. A heat increased about his shoulder and cheeks, as if her gaze struck him with sunburn.
He felt the collar. Felt the cold steel about his neck. He realized he was starting to hunch his own shoulders and quickly straightened up again.
They drew closer. The other boy’s lean, broad back and slim waist crept into clearer view. His heart beat faster.
They chained him. Collared. Like an animal.
That the other youth bore the same name and lived only a few miles away from the same spot made it feel like a hideous ghost of his own future parading in front of Orion. With each step, he felt like he was rushing to catch up to it and make his neighbor’s collar his own. He felt knives of ice stab him when he heard the steady clink of his neighbor’s leash.
They passed the other Orion’s family. Their fathers spoke a few moments regarding the waypoints. It seemed the other family were making for Waethe Hill, to meet up with kinsman.
Family my ass, Orion thought. He tried to meet his neighbor’s eyes.
The other youth kept his head low and face in the deepening shadow to hide his shame.
There was a major trade hub near Waethe Hill, hosting a Borolaris FOT embassy and accompanying military garrison, which was always happy to receive conscripts.
Without further words, the two families parted. Orion’s moved across a neighbor’s maize field toward the north-east. The jagged daggers of land upturned by the tremors loomed ahead, blotting out the growing host of stars.
Now the wind really picked up. Everyone donned extra layers of shirts.
“Dousa, can you hand me that Iyoni chainmail? The one with the inner fleece padding?” Orion asked.
“Not yet, son”—Torion tossed a sheeba, a kind of exercise jacket with high collar and long, rippling sleeves in the Kamto fashion—“We’re ordered not to don that kind of gear unless we have to.”
He eyed his father askance. Torion forbade him go armed at all tonight. Very strange. His father was armed, however. That’s stranger still.
The fly in his stomach multiplied into three.
He took another sip of water. His heart still pounded like he was the one being led to a FOT garrison. He choked and spat. Rohiah and his younger sisters and brother looked over at him with concern. He wiped his mouth.
Maybe I am being led to the Borolarins.
He kept his eyes peeled the rest of the trip, expecting a Tribe Brave to pop out from the corner of his vision any moment.
They weren’t alone. At least ten other families were converging on the big green and orange dome peaking up over a stand of trees. Its light scattered through the leaves ahead of them and sprayed the ground like stained glass.
Outside the transport building rested glowing magic circles, mandalas, shaped like eight-petalled flowers formed of orange stone. They rested in ever-so slight depressions or bowls in the pavement. Here the family halted their cart. When they used the transporter themselves, their cart would spin into their destination with them. This method kept the interior of the transporter free of excess baggage.
Before long, they were marching through the transport terminal’s vestibule. Gleaming lacquered pillars fashioned in the shape of palm trees rose on either side of the hall leading toward the center of the building, right beneath the dome, which itself came down through the roof and floor. It was a heart-spinner, the core of the transporter magic.
The surface of the dome glowed orange, teal and a hot pink color. Sometimes eddies formed in the dome, hinting at the mighty currents spiraling beyond its calm surface.
Beyond the hall Orion’s family entered an opened space some thirty paces before reaching the heart-spinner dome. Encircling the outer rim of the chamber glowed the shifting lights of over 24 miniature transport domes, diameters ranging between 10 to 20 feet, all set within the walls and flanked by two palm-pillars. Smoky-amber glass casings shrouded each spinner, reinforcing the domes in near-impervious crystal from any kind of external damage, or internal, should the domes suffer some kind of accident.
Above each spinner casing in bold neon lighting, runes and other magic script—predominantly sweeping Nerdic Cursive and ancient Avni kanji—managed the hourly activities of the transport terminal, no human operator required—though today there were several mages about, and several guards.
A voice calling, “Orion”, in a muffled shout caught his attention. He looked to see his friend Aistero raise his hand in greeting. One of his other hands was on a trolley carrying quite a bit of compression crates.
Orion hurried over and clapped his friend on the back.
“Hey, buddy, did your family’s cart make it?” Aistero asked.
“Yeah, yours?” he looked pointedly at the crates.
Aistero’s green eyebrows furrowed and he tapped one of the boxes. He shook his head. “Orion, your family’s lucky star must still be shining. Without the need for all my Dousa’s astrology junk, here.”
Aistero smacked the crate. He hissed and flicked his hand. The crates were about as strong as the sandalwood chest Orion’s father left in their wagon, and it could ride a volcano blast into the atmosphere and back—supposedly.
“I imagine your family packed light, anyway, seeing as what you’re all bring’n is clearly what’s on your shoulder bags,” Aistero said. “But yes, the wagons, died on us about two hours ago. Wheels melted.”
An apprehensive bell tolled deep inside Orion’s head. “A Smelter, must be.”
They both nodded grimly.
“Went out within thirty minutes of Kamto providing the Flow Commons with the location of the evac Gate we’re all dying to see,” Aistero said with a jerk of his head. His topaz eyes narrowed and a fierce gleam blazed in them.
“Kamto’s Elders were discrete about it, too.” Orion knew Aistero noticed the same fire in his own cobalt eyes. They felt their power stirring, flashing in them like fire, illuminating their eyes with a soft, almost innocuous radiance.
“Anyway, since you’re free, mind helping transport our pack-rat nest?”
Orion complied. It took only two trips. Aistero’s father wasn’t that bad. All the while the line to an open spinner barely moved. Orion was kind of relieved to have something to do besides stand there drumming his thumbs.
“We’re going to the same point, right?” Aistero said.
“Yeah,” Orion said, putting his arms on his hips. The crates were all there and entering the spinner transport with all four of Aistero’s bickering grandmothers. “Say, Ai, did you see Regulon?” He looked around and gestured at the crowded rotunda.
“Nope, not a hair.” Aistero leaned to the side, inspecting Orion’s hip, and pointed with a half bent finger. He looked up and they met eyes. “Ordered to go unarmed, too, eh?”
“Dousa wouldn’t explain it to me,” Orion said. He patted his hip. “My fingers are twitching, honestly. I need me a knife handle, or something, Ai.”
“Know how you feel.”
“You can crack enchanted cement with your fingers, buddy,” Orion reminded. He idly punched his friend on the shoulder. It rebounded. Regulon enjoyed the boulder-like shoulders, but Aistero wasn’t far behind in that pair.
“Well, be seeing you,” Aistero said, hopping away and then rushing into the spinner right before it activated without him.
Orion returned to his family. They were just reaching their spinner now.
“I love you, Dousa, Yoima,” Orion told his father and mother, enveloping them in a quick hug. He did the same for his little brother, his sisters and finally Rohiah.
With their affirmations done, they stepped into the spinner. It was all but assured they’d be meeting again in the next few seconds, but it never hurt to let your loved ones know you cared while invasion loomed any moment. Orion, for his part, was profoundly disturbed by the story Aistero gave him about all the simple wagon wheels melting.
FLICKER.
Tomantro followed the youngest children into the spinner. Orion watched her go, eyes glued until she vanished. Then he looked to his father. Torion was furtively watching the runes above the spinner.
Did I imagine the lights blinking just now? He asked himself. He opened his mouth, but before he gave voice to his question Rohiah hurried through.
“Son, did you see something just now?” his father said in a low voice.
If it weren’t the look they exchanged, Orion wouldn’t have known what his father asked. His voice didn’t carry over the crowd. He glanced back at the heart-spinner and activated his Inquiry magic. The magical Archetype of Communication wasn’t often flashy, but sometimes information gathering was even more important than teleporting or superhuman strength.
He read into the heart-spinner. Dark blotches popped up and spread ink over his vision. He requested defenses part for him, a militiamember. Defensive screens balked. He bent and writhed around them, shuffled them, played about.
Resonance good. Rhythms unchanged. Cymatic springs wound the right way, I guess. Something off about the runes. Power failure? No. Disruption to the mandalas? No? Good.
“Anything, Orion?”
Shaking his head, Orion caught his rucksack from his father and pointed at the spinner. “Nothing. You go next?”
“Yeah, that sounds like a good idea, Orion. Watch for weird signs. I love you.”
“I love you, Dousa.”
For a moment, Orion thought he saw the runes over the spinner dim ever so slightly.
His father stepped through the dome.
Orion breathed deep. His muscles hung loose on his body. He waited, listening. He asked his Intuition. Nothing was happening.
“Hey! Oi! Move already or we’re going around you!”
The shouts from behind the line rose to a tumult. Orion hurriedly stepped through the spinner dome.
A refreshing chill raced through his bone up from his fingers and into his shoulders. Intuition blinked warning. Cold syrup molded onto his skin, prickling his face with tiny needles. The viscous dome membrane molded to the valleys between bicep, shoulder and pectoral, and sucked gently, tugging him in further. The tow of the spinner gripped his calves, pulling him sideways.
FLICKER—
–His body jolted once. But the usual sensation of spin-warping continued, the lights around him blended to white then blue. Green swirled beneath him, laced with growing slate grey and blue. Overhead, the color of a dark sky with many long lines of white spun. The spinning stopped. The lines turned to stars.
An unusually strong vertigo seized him for a moment. It cleared. He took a step out and passed through the syrup. It felt warm, slick. Tongues caressed his nipples through his clothing. Dryness and a tightening of the skin pulled him out. Nausea gripped him a second, squeezing his brain, and released him. He forgot about the jolt at the start of the spin.
He stepped out into a cold but pleasingly calm atmosphere. He sensed the light rustling of air displacement formed by people moving around, but no wind. Sometimes Communication wasn’t so bad. He’d sense cloaked or invisible enemies trying to sneak up on him.
“Dousa,” he called, trotting up to his father.
The rest of his family was busy about the wagon. It got their safely, too, without incident. They were not in a proper transporter terminal, but a big, open mandala set into the ground that glowed a calming blue and green, like the sward of grass surrounding it.
He scanned the place, and knew they were in a town just a few miles out from Kogan?. Grey stone rose up around from encircling buildings, with warm light beaming through thin, oval windows.
“Well, so far, so good,” Torion said to his son.
“I’m surprised,” Orion hedged. “There was a weird flicker when I first entered the spinner, but… I don’t recall anything else.” Intuition objected. He ignored it while he talked. “There was shouting or something happening at the entrance, but I think it was just a fistfight set off by people getting anxious.”
Intuition blinked.
“That’s not good. But restoring order isn’t our purpose right now,” Torion said. Intuition BLINKED. “Everyone’s ready, let’s”—
-Intuition basically blinked morse-code for LISTEN RIGHT NOW.
“Yeah,” Orion rubbed his brow. Sometimes his power got intrusive and downright confusing. “What did you say, Dousa? New place, too much info.”
“Dampen yourself down, son, that’s an order.”
Orion tried to push his Communication down. Problem was, his powers tended to work better left to their own devices. Subconscious instincts were a bitch.
“This is where we deposit the armory I was asked to transport,” Torion whispered. “Whoever knocked out the wagons, they didn’t get this one.” He winked. “Sometimes, it pays to start travelling late. Help me unload the chest.”
A net drawing closed.
“Be happy to, Dousa,” Orion said, sharing a grin. Whether it be the Tribes of Borolaris, or Prarshavi, or even the Empire, nobody was going to outfox the Johmo militia in their own homeland!
Orion and his father moved the wagon to a spinner mandala set in place for directly teleporting non-living objects. Direct teleporters and portal gates existed, but they weren’t the kind of thing you set up for automated human travel. It could go wrong a million ways to hell with living bodies. Literally, even.
It took some levitation talismans, but they did it. The sandalwood chest sank with a thud to the mandala, and in an implosion of a million stretching motes of silver light, the chest instantly shrank and vanished, already at the arms distribution site.
By the time father and son finished, floods of people arrived from the mandala in a steady stream.
The family regrouped and followed a designated road out of the town. Arrow-shaped grooves in the road formed accelerator magic. They sped along quick. Before five minutes was up, they’d reached another transporter hub miles away.
The interior of this one was done all in dark grays and shades of green, with a buff floor marked with small maroon tiles every ten feet—Intuition informed Orion these hid defensive traps. The terminal was filled with a very large group of families much like Orion’s, though he noticed the families had a predominant number of youths his own age present.
Still, no sign of Regulon presented itself. Intuition blinked.
The line moved very fast. They got to their spinner in less than three minutes. Orion noticed the color of the smaller transporter domes were all blue. He felt his nerves turning-snake and writhe inside him. But the heart-spinner dome was magenta and indigo. He used Inquiry magic. Nothing came up out of the ordinary.
Hrmm. Light blue was the color for diverging exits back home. This is Kamto now, though. Weird color combos.
His hearing suddenly magnified. Each voice in the terminal roared in his head.
Damned. Fucking. Communication! He staggered. Rohiah and his father ran to catch him before he fell on his face.
He saw and heard the conversation between a family in the next line over, two seeds, three sons and a father.
“Dousa, admit it, it was not helpful for you to insist we wear agotsiki in this weather!” Ekrin said, rubbing his bare arms, his forearm muscles flexing over curled biceps.
“Why the hell, indeed, Dousa!” Foarin, Ekrin’s younger brother added, “We might as well go bare-chested!”
An agotsiki was an eastern Johmo garment, a kind of tank top-styled jerkin that could be unbuttoned down to just above the navel. It was great for wearing on the beach, showing off abdominals and arms—the two brothers, Ekrin and Foarin, had a nice set to show. It just wasn’t the clothing for staying warm in unnatural apocalyptic windstorms.
“I expected Kamto to be warm this time of year, Mint,” their father, Eiho said. He gave a quirky laugh.
“We’re the warmer climate,” Ekrin “Mint” grumbled. He ran a hand through his chocolate hair. It had mint highlights at the ends, the same color as his eyes, from which he clearly earned his nickname. A golden—
“ ….Hey,” Torion’s voice was distant. It grew louder with each syllable. It cut through his magic.“….snap out of it. Turn it off!”
With a gasp, Orion found himself back in his body. He was sat against one of the pillars flanking their transporter. He massaged his face, stood up, and rubbed his ears. “Got to get something more than basic training on Communication. It’s too sensitive in big crowds.”
“Turn it off.” His father repeated through clinched teeth, glancing back at impatient families waiting their turn at the same transporter dome.
“Can’t, Dousa. Makes it worse.”
“Are you alright?” his mother asked, dabbing Orion’s cheek with a handkerchief. She stroked her hands through his spiky black hair.
“Yeah, I’m fine. Thank you mother.” He gave her a quick hug.
“It’s our turn now,” Rohiah said.
Not wanting to hold the line up further and earn the both the crowd and guard’s ire, the family stepped through into the spinner dome in pairs quickly without hugging.
Intuition blinked.
Orion planned to go first this time, but his father clapped a hand over his shoulder and drew him back until the others had gone.
A metal jaw groaning, a trap closing.
His father grabbed Orion into a hug. “I love you,” Torion said, sounding almost out of breath. “Be strong, be confident… make yourself have fun.” He cupped the back of Orion’s head in his hand for a moment.
“A trap closing,” Orion mumbled. He tried and failed to push his father away. “Dousa, not in front of a crowd. What’s wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?”
“Our duty is to ensure our family passes through that Gate. We do Anything. Understand?”
“You know I don’t need to be told that.”
“Hey, move! You’re holding us up!” the man next in line behind them shouted.
Torion whispered into his ear, “Fight until the earth falls beneath you and the sun dies. We will always love you. Whatever master you fight for. Don’t look back, Orion.”
His father’s words still ringing in his ears, Torion shoved his son through the dome’s surface.
Again the spinner spun him.
Fighting vertigo, Orion watched grey above and polished grey beneath, grey all around him. He blinked and focused his senses. The spinner halted. He stumbled out into a large circular chamber with 12 spinner domes set into flower-petal shaped alcoves in the wall.
The floor was semi-translucent marble. It reflected the arches holding up the ceiling. Now and again, silver or green lights ran beneath the stone. Peering closer, attuning Scrutiny magic, he made out letters formed in light—runes travelling circuits from one magic system to another.
Cold silent air hardened is nipples and nipped at his ears.
My family’s not here. No odors from dozens of people. Damn it, the blue color was indicating a split in the transits. Nobody else got sent here. And my—he cursed. His fingers rubbed together, missing the string of his rucksack. It wasn’t on his back anymore. He didn’t see it. Which meant the Spinner diverted it on arrival. Nothing but me. Only me.
Twisting in place, he peered behind him at the transporter dome. It continued to hum.
Dousa, what were you telling me? A shiver ran over his skin. And he shook in spite of himself. That had better not be the last I ever see you! His heart beat faster. I’d bet both balls the militia set this up! Where is this?
He examined the chamber for more clues.
Hair-thin silver veins ran across the entire surface of the chamber walls and ceiling. The light of rune-script transmitting through the silver in a ceaseless trickle made it look like worms or tentacles writhed over the surface of the walls. Up ahead lay a corridor. It bent sharply left. It probably narrowed, too. A logical place for a choke-point, he surmised, and I’ll bet there’s someone waiting to ambush me.
Stomping the tile to test his leg strength, he adjusted his coat collar and started across the chamber for the hallway.
Displaced air brushed all around him. He halted. The air flow ceased. Something invisible was moving with him. I’m surrounded. At least five of them. He raised his hands. “Alright, don’t pounce! I”—
-“Now!”
An Encirclement of six men decloaked and attacked.