Laurel
Burden of the Damned
(there) - thousands of years ago
Chapter 1
On a distant, remote mountainside…
The sun was shining again, but it only appeared from behind the clouds long enough to tease Laurel with its warmth before sliding below the horizon. Laurel crouched shivering, soaking wet. A storm had formed and burst from overhead, at first with large freezing drops of water. The storm began to ravage the mountainside, and for a while, it continued to grow and the rain became mixed with small chunks of hail. Laurel scrambled as close to trunk of a small tree as her chain allowed, but it provided little shelter from the stinging pellets of ice.
Eventually the torrent of water eased to a steady slow rain. Laurel opened her mouth and let the drops fill her mouth, quenching her growing thirst. She thought perhaps she should avoid drinking so as to more quickly slip into Clairambulance. They said that once one achieves the state of Clairambulance the craving for physical necessities drastically numbs. But, Laurel cursed her lack of willpower and eventually drank as much rainwater as she could.
As the darkness drew in, the breeze began to chill Laurel, her clothes soaked through and through. Her spasms of shivers set her chains jingling occasionally. “That was unpleasant,” she thought to herself, though she knew that it was only a shadow of the weather extremes that she would see in the future, desperately bound, as she was, to the side of that remote mountain.
She closed her eyes and let her mind drift back to when she tried to save Evvy from the demons of the Hollow Well.
<>--+-
Laurel rode out of Flint’s compound into the darkness of the night. She kicked Sulfa to move faster only to pull her back when it seemed that the sulky was bouncing too much across the rutted path they followed. Laurel’s stomach seized when she thought of Evvy locked in the small trunk gasping for breaths as the pig’s blood sloshed all around her.
Laurel understood the use of the pigs blood. She understood how covering a divine Wom with the life force of a mortal animal would likely conceal her location. Presumably the pigs blood was mixed with some concoction to prevent the liquid from coagulating or separating. Regardless, sucking the blood into one’s lungs could not be a pleasant thing.
How long would they need to run before the demons of the Hollow Well gave up their search? How would Laurel know when she could let Evvy out? Laurel tried to comfort herself. “This will seem like a flicker of time,” she thought, “when Evvy and I look back on it an eternity from now.” She knew, though, that this “flicker” would have to be at least a moon in length. She knew that Evvy would have to become Clairambulant with no food or water.
It was a hour to the Great River, and as Flint had promised, Laurel found Charis standing with a torch in her hand with the Ferry Wom and a pair of Arbors by the floating platform and attached rigging. The Arbors were Wom who had contracted with the Ferry Wom for a term of indentured employment to improve their arm strength and Laurel was pleased to see they must have been working for some time, as their arms were chiseled with muscle. A strong rope had been tied across the river which was about a kilometer wide. This rope ran through a pair of rings supported by stanchions at each end of the ferry. The Arbors were standing in position ready to pull on the rope and direct the ferry across the river.
As Laurel rode up, the Ferry Wom turned to Charis and started shaking her head and waving her arms. “What is she doing? What is in that chest?”
“We are paying you a very considerable fee,” Charis said.
“No way!” the Ferry Wom said. “Is Evvy in that box? They are running, aren’t they?! No way am I going to carry them across! The demons of the Hollow Well! They will swamp us!”
When the Ferry Wom said the word “demons” the two Arbors began to shuffle uncomfortably, their eyes opening wide and moans of protest escaping from behind their gagged mouths.
“There are no demons yet,” Charis explained. “It has not yet been a day since Evvy was committed.”
“I don’t care how long it’s been,” the Ferry Wom replied. “The demons could come at any time. No way!”
“I’ll pay you double,” Charis said.
The Ferry Wom looked up and laughed. “Hmmm… triple.”
Regardless of the negotiated price, the two Arbors looked none too happy and they moved as much out of the way as they could as Laurel walked Sulfa and the sulky up the ramp onto the boat’s deck. Charis climbed up as well and helped Laurel tie Sulfa to a post.
“Alright, girls,” the Ferry Wom called. “Let’s get going!”
The two Arbors grabbed the rope and began pulling it fist by fist - their arms moving in synchronization - and the boat began to cut across the current of the Great River.
Laurel stepped back to the sulky and leant over the trunk. “Are you doing ok in there?” she asked. Laurel heard Evvy’s voice but had a difficult time making out many of the words over the sounds of the river and wind. By the tone though, Laurel predicted that many of the words were curses.
They were not half way across the river when the rear Arbor abruptly stopped working and began grunting desperately around her gag. The Ferry Wom moved towards the stern and looked out across the water. “Oh, fuck!”
Laurel looked back towards the shore from which they had come. An orange glow quickly grew into a swarm of orbs near the ferry’s pier. Laurel could feel the blood draining from her face as she stood to get a better look.
“Demons!” the Ferry Wom shouted causing the forward Arbor to drop her grip on the line, indeed, it seemed that the current was working against them and the rope slowly began to slip through the rings in the wrong direction.
Charis stepped up to the gunwale. “Those are Wom, not demons,” she said. “Keep going!”
“It’s Harriet… “ Laurel agreed.
“I think that you are right. Wom. More than just one though,” the Ferry Wom said. “Let’s go girls!”
Slowly, the Arbors returned to their positions and began to pull at the rope again.
Several of the orbs of light swept out across the river, circling overhead when they came near, illuminating the boat.
“Maybe you shouldn’t have stolen her horse,” Charis said, looking accusingly at Laurel.
“Everyone knows that Sulfa is the strongest horse around,” Laurel said.
“Like I said… Maybe you shouldn’t have stolen her horse.”
“What are they doing?” Laurel asked squinting into the distance.
“There’s a couple of canoes tied along the shore,” the Ferry Wom said. “My canoes. You’re going to pay for those, too, Charis. Looks like they think that they can catch up.”
“Do you have any extra gloves?” Laurel asked. Soon both she and Charis had positioned themselves between the two Arbors and began to heave on the rope.
They had just found a rhythm when Laurel felt the muscles of her arms contract involuntarily. It felt as though a knife was twisting its way down each arm and across her torso. Her heart thumped erratically as she screamed from the pain, pulling her hands from the rope and falling to the deck. Charis was on the deck as well, her face pulled back in a grimace. One of her gloves seemed to be smoking. Both Arbors were also pulling themselves up, their throats issuing muffled screams.
Laurel got back up slowly. The ferry was once again dead in the water. Certainly, Harriet and her posse were rowing towards them. With no horse, Laurel would never be able to run fast enough to get Evvy away from the demons. And no telling what abuse Harriet would deliver. Laurel had to get the ferry moving again somehow. She tentatively reached out for the rope. When her hand was less than a half meter away a thin blue-white arc of light like miniature lightning shot out from the rope and bit her hand. She yelped and snatched her hand away again.
Laurel looked along the rope. It seemed to glow a little with brief, dim bursts of light snapping and popping along its length. Laurel moved to the stern of the boat to get a better look back towards the shore where Harriet stood amidst the swarm of orbs. Laurel could see a brighter arc of blue-white light dancing, backlighting a person in silhouette. There must have been some technology at play to send this biting light along the rope.
Laurel also saw the two small canoes heading towards them. They were unconcerned about stealth and had orbs lighting high overhead shining on the river as they approached. Laurel saw movement in the closer boat - it was an archer, seemingly stringing a bow. Before she could even duck, Laurel heard a loud crack behind her. One of the Arbors screamed into her gag and Laurel turned to find an arrow embedded in the bulkhead of the shelter house on the forward side of the boat. A second arrow joined the first missing the same Arbor by centimeters.
“They’re trying to shoot my Arbors!” the Ferry Wom screamed. Laurel saw the Ferry Wom lean off the stern and shout back towards the canoes. “Hey! Stop shooting! We’ve stopped! You can have Laurel!”
“Fuck that!” Laurel muttered and pulled a small knife from her belt. She reached for the rope where it trailed from the aft stanchion and gritted her teeth. The blue light snapped out at her arms, but she knew she couldn’t stop and she brought the blade up to the rope and began to cut. Her arms were on fire and her vision exploded into a kaleidoscope of false images. Still, screaming, she cut at the rope.
There was a snap and the boat lurched sideways, suddenly taken by the current. Sulfa stumbled slightly and whinnied fighting the harness that bound her to Evvy’s trunk. Laurel’s instinct was good, though. It seemed that the technology that delivered pain used the rope as a medium to reach them. And now that it was cut, the rope was harmless.
“Fucking stupid cur!” the Ferry Wom yelled leaping after the rope as it began to slide through the eye of the aft stanchion. Charis grabbed at the rope as well and together they wrapped a few turns around a cleat. Still, the current had the boat now, and levered by the line’s attachment to the far shore, they swung downriver away from the approaching canoes, but towards a collection of boulders along the bank.
Laurel leapt to her feet again and grasped the rope. “Pull!”
“You heard the cur! Pull!” the Ferry Wom yelled at the two Arbors. They tentatively grabbed at the rope, but quickly set themselves to work once they found that the rope would no longer bite them.
“Fuck!” the Ferry Wom screamed, though she continued to contribute to the effort. “Don’t come back, Laurel! I swear, the council will hear about this. A couple of years, for you! Slavery will teach you! And I’d use a whip!”
The boat swung across the river and in no time slammed into a series of large rocks with an explosion of dirt and splintered wood. Sulfa stumbled and dropped to a knee for a moment. Laurel had to pull her bridal to calm her down. “Is it deep here?” she asked.
“It’s too treacherous! Fifty meters up stream to get past these boulders, at least,” the Ferry Wom yelled still heaving on the lines. “But feel free to jump off at any time!”
Laurel jumped back up to the rope and helped pull, planting her feet behind a bollard. Slowly they were able to drag the weight of the boat scraping along a series of rocks and up against the current of the river.
Overhead, Harriet’s orbs continued to circle, and in their light, Laurel was finally able to make out a place where the bank of the river swooped down to the waterline. Just a little further.
Something flashed past her head with a swooshing sound. An arrow! The canoes were catching up. Laurel heard a scream in front of her and Charis fell to the deck grasping her side. The Arbors became rattled again and their efforts became unsynchronized. Laurel felt the rope begin to slide the wrong way. They were beginning to lose the battle against the current. Laurel decided it was time to get off.
Laurel grabbed Charis and pulled her to her feet. As she did, her wrist caught on the wooden shaft of an arrow and Charis screamed as the bolt twisted deeper into her side.
“Shit! Don’t touch me! Go!” Charis yelled as she collapsed back onto the deck. There was the loud thunk as another volley of arrows skittered past and became embedded in the bulkhead. The other Arbors had let go of the rope and fallen to the deck to avoid being hit.
“Come on, Charis! You’re wounded!” Laurel whispered desperately. “You’ll have a difficult time healing if Harriet wraps you in ropes and rocks and dumps you in the water.”
“Go!” Charis croaked, blood spilling out her mouth as she coughed. “Harriet won’t want to start a war with Flint. Go!”
The Ferry Wom was screaming at the Arbors to get back up and grab the rope. The ferry was beginning to drift back towards the boulders.
Laurel jumped up and grabbed Sulfa by her bridal and pulled her towards the side of the ferry. She untied Sulfa’s lead from the stanchion and kicked up the rail on the side of the boat.
“Come on!” Laurel screamed, pulling out a quirt from the saddle bag and applying it to Sulfa’s hind quarters. Eventually Sulfa went over the edge and into the river pulling Laurel and the sulky in with her. Laurel swam up to regain a hold on Sulfa’s bridal and began to swim towards the shore. Sulfa did not need too much encouragement to get her footing and pull towards the river bank.
Laurel heard a loud splintering sound behind her as the ferry ran up against some boulders. She heard the Ferry Wom cursing and shouting commands at her Arbors. The boat twisted sidewards in the current and began to list. There was another cracking of wood and splashing as the boat capsized. Laurel looked back towards the center of the river. She saw the canoes approaching. Someone was directing orbs to illuminate the remains of the ferry. Laurel had no doubt that they would direct the orbs towards her soon. She kicked at the water with her legs, testing the depth every once in a while until she felt the muddy bottom of the river. Evvy and the sulky were completely submerged.
Finally Sulfa pulled them up onto the bank with a loud snort and a jangling of her harness. Laurel climbed up to lead and pulled Sulfa through a thicket of short bushes. Orbs flew in and began to swarm around them followed shortly by the swishing sound of arrows.
Finally, Laurel sighted a clearing and directed Sulfa and the sulky over the underbrush and into the ruts of the roadway. Laurel jumped on the sulky, swatting Sulfa’s hind quarters, and they bounced up the bank of the river and over a small crest.
Laurel looked over her shoulder. She could no longer see the river. The orbs seemed to be disorganized. There was no way they would catch her now. “We’re free, Evvy,” Laurel whispered more to herself.
Laurel began to laugh. “Guess I shouldn’t have stolen Harriet’s horse.”
<>--+-
On a distant, remote mountainside…
Two weeks had passed since Laurel awoke in chains on her mountainside. She cursed the Tribe of the Hammer Girls and the technologies they applied to her hair to speed its growth. Already it had grown about fifteen centimeters and now fell past her shoulder blades. Untended and windblown, its length and tangled knots were going to cause her constant problems unless she figured out a way to cut it often.
On the other hand, she had managed to make a tear along the length of her leggings by hooking the hem by her ankle over the nub of a broken tree limb and using her leg strength to pull at the leather for hours on end. The tear went all the way up to her thigh where she was unable to gain adequate leverage to rip any further. Regardless, it provided some relief from her soiled pants, and for that she was greatly thankful.
She had also been able to rip off a rectangular section below her knee, even using her teeth to chew the material when necessary. She was able to use the leather to line a shallow rut which allowed her to capture water to drink during the day. She found a few edible leaves and flowers which helped fight off Clairambulance.
Even though her supply of food had not increased, she was becoming used to the limited amount she found and did not feel the pangs of hunger as strongly as before. Such is the way of the divine, the immortal, the Wom. They were not cursed to suffer an eternity, but rather to adapt and survive.
Indeed, other aspects of her condition that were painful and annoying at first had mellowed. Nights after downpours no longer felt as cold even as the summer began to become weary and the sun gave up the sky to the stars earlier and earlier. Also, her arms had become used to their position, and she no longer had pains in her shoulders. And though she used her hands as best as she could, she missed them less and less. She worked on improving her flexibility and used her bare feet to deal with more and more tasks.
She had used her feet to dig out a space somewhat protected by the boulder into which her chain was embedded, and lined the area with fallen fir needles to use as a bed. She could curl up in her burrow and lie undisturbed at night listening to the wind push at the tops of the trees.
She had named her boulder Janet and would talk with her occasionally, simply to avoid the tedium of captivity.
“One day maybe, Janet, you will tire of me and decide to let me free,” she explained to the boulder. “I don’t feel that our relationship is based on mutual respect. And while I have the utmost confidence in your perseverance, I fear that I may disappoint you by my inability to live up to your standards. For though I am immortal, still, I am only flesh and blood.”
She sat in the shade of Janet as the afternoon sun withered the grasses in the distance, feeling her stomach gurgle with hunger and thought back to another time she was hungry and stuck in the blazing sun… Dragging Evvy through that forsaken, desolate desert.
<>--+-
It had been eight days since they had crossed the last trickle of water half buried under rocks. The terrain was mostly flat, but the ground was covered in sand, and now Sulfa could do no more than stumble from step to step. Laurel knew that there was no use to waste more water on the poor horse. And when Laurel stopped pulling on her lead, Sulfa staggered awkwardly until one knee gave way and she collapsed into the sand.
Laurel unbuckled the straps of the harness from the dying horse and pulled the sulky free. She leaned across Evvy’s trunk and, cupping her hand to the surface, rasped, “I think that’s it for Sulfa, my love. It’s just me and you now.” She pressed her ear to the trunk.
“Please… please… open the trunk, Laurel. Let me out. I’m so hungry. Let me out.”
“No, Evvy. I can’t let you out. The demons of the Hollow Well will find you.” Laurel closed her eyes, but she was too dehydrated to cry anymore.
“Please, Laurel…” Evvy’s voice barely audible. “It’s been long enough.”
“No.” But Laurel’s fingers reached up to the key dangling from the collar locked around her neck, pulling at it, flicking it back and forth.
Laurel knew that Evvy was slipping into Clairambulance. She’d had nothing to eat or drink for a long time. Already, Evvy’s complaints had shifted from the depth of her thirst to her hunger. Wom are divine. They do not succumb to the elements like horses do. Laurel knew that Evvy’s pain would grow worse before she settled into a particular stasis. Regardless, Evvy would continue to survive.
And Laurel… She still had a bit of water and food to keep her going for a few more days. After that, she would also start to slip into Clairambulance. Even without food and water she would be able to go on, but in a vastly weakened state.
As the sun set in the West, Laurel was adjusting the straps of the harness, pulling them over her own shoulders and around her waist. She looked out to the distant mountains, then one last time back at Sulfa, whose flesh was already sunken, highlighting each motionless rib. Finally, Laurel leaned into the harness with a weary grunt and the sulky began to slowly slide through the shifting sands meter by meter.
Laurel remembered many years before when a tribe of gypsies would pass through every so often with a herd of pony-girls. They were always asking the Wom of Blint to join their ranks as herders or as the herded. One of Evvy’s old friends, Marania, even volunteered for a stint as a pony-girl. She had given all her belongings to her neighbors and, as a final act, undressed in the town square and cast her clothes to the growing crowd as the gypsies headed out to the Western lands. She had stated that she was looking to become strong and she wanted to see the world, maybe work as part of a team on a Key Quest.
She was still among the gypsies when they returned two years later. Marania was hitched to a sulky, her arms bound behind her, her nipples pierced and tethered with leather straps. Evvy had approached her to talk about her adventures, but Marania simply shook her head. Either she refused to or was unable to speak.
Evvy asked, “Marania, is this what you want?”
Marina nodded once and turned her head away, but Laurel saw a tear slide down Marania’s cheek as they walked away. Marania was not with gypsies the next time they came through and Laurel never asked what had happened to her.
Laurel thought of Marania now, though, as she struggled against the sulky’s harness. She remembered how Marania had looked when she last saw her - legs, firm and muscled - torso, sculpted and tanned - hair, long and wild. A beautiful creature. Marania could probably skip through this desert with no problem. Not so, for Laurel.
When the sun began to rise in the morning, Laurel slipped in the sand and fell to her knees. She looked out across the dunes, the distant mountain peaks looked no closer. She unhitched herself and staggered to the shaded side of the sulky, touching a few drops of water to her lips. She knocked twice on the side of the trunk.
“Sun’s rising. I’m going to rest for a bit.” Her voice was raspy and it took a lot of effort to speak loud enough for Evvy to hear.
“Please, Laurel, please…” Evvy’s muffled voice came, “please let me out.”
Laurel slid down into a heap by the side of the chest and drifted off to sleep.
<>--+-
“Demons!” Laurel’s voice was raspy and as dry as the wind. She collapsed into the sand, shaking herself out of the harness and circling behind the sulky to grab her knife. She slowly peeked out from behind Evvy’s trunk, straining to hear the horde of beasts coming towards her. But, when she looked she saw only the heat rising from the desert floor and the distant mountains, seemingly floating above the earth.
“No…” Laurel rasped, tapping on the trunk. “Just an illusion, Evvy.” She leaned her head against the trunk. “…again.”
“We’ve gone far enough,” came Evvy’s voice from the trunk. “You need to let me out of here. Unlock the trunk! Let me go, Laurel!”
“No, Evvy. It’s not long enough. The demons will find you if I let you out. Please, let’s not go through this again,” Laurel said with a slap of her hand on the side of the trunk. “Not yet. We have to be sure.”
“Laurel! Listen to me!” Evvy’s voice said. “Don’t you remember the touch of my skin? I need you to touch me! I need to feel your hands sliding across my back, your lips pressing against my lips, my neck, my breasts. I need you to open this trunk. Just for a moment. Just to feel you.”
“No,” Laurel said as she slid down to sit next to the trunk. Her hand wandered up to her neck where her fingers found the key hanging from her collar. The key that would open the trunk.
“My hands are still locked in these leather mitts. Maybe you could open the trunk just long enough to cut these off. That way I could massage my knotted legs and back as we went along. Besides, I think it stinks in here - all this pigs blood sloshing around.”
“No,” Laurel said, her head drooping and her shoulders beginning to shake. No tears fell, though. She hadn’t enough water in her body anymore to waste on tears. “No.”
<>--+-
The wind had begun to blow in the afternoon, when Laurel awoke next. She tried to scrape the sand and salt from her eyes. The sun was still up overhead, but the blowing sand had turned the horizon into a featureless blur. Laurel could not even make out the mountains. Still, she slithered into the oversized harness and pushed forward with barely enough strength to pull the wheels of the sulky from the sand which had already buried to the hub on the windward side.
Laurel had to keep moving, even though all landmarks were hidden. She tried to maintain her position to the wind, but she knew she may easily be wandering in circles.
By the night time, the wind began to scream, drowning out Evvy’s moans. Laurel collapsed into the sand - unable to see, barely able to breathe. She lay for a minute before she attempted to scramble to her feet again. Already, enough sand covered her, that standing was a chore.
She found the reins and tied one end around her ankle and another to a spoke on one of the sulky’s wheels. She staggered back to the sulky and huddled against Evvy’s trunk. She reached up and fingered the lock that kept Evvy’s trunk lid sealed.
Laurel thought about opening the trunk. Maybe she should try to climb in the trunk with Evvy. The sand would bury them. They would disappear from this desert, but they’d be together forever, holding one another in a bath of pig’s blood. She pulled the key up to the lock and toyed with pushing it into the waiting slot.
“No!” Laurel screamed. If she opened the trunk, the demons of the Hollow Well would find Evvy and come for her, leaving Laurel alone in the cramped trunk for eternity. Besides, there was no room for two in the trunk.
<>--+-
When Laurel next awoke, she was held rigidly and warmly. She felt a blissful fuzziness. So perfectly silent. Her limbs were numb and she was so comfortable that she didn’t want to move at all. She felt faint and tried to take a deep breath, but she couldn’t even move her mouth. Laurel began to panic a little and her mind quickly began to focus. Where was she? She was in the desert. She was pulling Evvy in the sulky. They were running from the demons of the Hollow Well. Laurel then realized that her mouth was full of sand. She couldn’t breathe. In fact, she wasn’t breathing.
“Oh, fuck!” Laurel thought. “I’m buried in the sand!”
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