Temptation of the Zombie Butterfly 3

'Temptation of the Zombie Butterfly' is a Short Narrative is 7 Sections numbered 0 through 6. The Narrative is now complete and all are available on this website under my portfolio (Prof. Harbinger). Enjoy!

Deep Southern Desert, First month of the Monsoon, 314 APW (After the Precursor War)

The rains hit the lands of the great salt wastes and the surrounding regions for only three months of the year. They drenched everything, and then disappeared- swallowed up by a hungry earth that did not give the moisture back. The desert was soaking, and the sands were treacherous, giving way whenever the water and the sand reached some mysterious agreement and become almost liquid. Swimming in such a mud puddle was nearly impossible. Cyri fully intended to return Ashton's cassowary and took her time, travelling very carefully. This could prove disastrous for her, she knew. Her mother's hunters would ride whatever mounts they commandeered into the ground to catch her. And they’d then walk her home across the desert if it came to that. Still, Ashton had lost nearly everything when he lost his position in the stables, and she wasn't about to make his generosity to her cost him further.

The rain pressed the usual smells of the land into the earth. All that Cyri could smell was rain. She would not know if the four hunters were there until they wished to her to know. The rain got into everything, leaving Cyri soaking and miserable from smooth round helm to soggy flapping moccasins. She could feel her body temperature dipping well into ranges where torpor lurked in the shadows. The Cassowary appeared unperturbed by the temperature as it nested beneath the chassis of the rickshaw between the wheels. Cyri still had trouble believing the beast could fit under the rickshaw, but it curled up beneath the rickshaw each night as Cyri made camp, so she had learned to accept it. Cyri herself had given up trying to bed with the bird for warmth, the beast would have none of that sort of cooperation. Instead, Cyri crossed her legs beneath her and made herself as compact as possible as she watched the Camel Spine Mountains from a distance of a quarter league or so away.

The Camel Spine Mountains weren't truly mountains. Though they had tilted considerably since the Precursor War, the Camel Spine Mountains could be immediately identified as ancient stone towers of the great golden age that had ended nearly four hundred years earlier. Erosion, wind and sand had filled in the structures. And although many balconies and rooms were still accessible, the structures were more landscape than architecture these days. The Camel Spine Mountains housed a maze of collapsed tunnels that could swallow the unwary. Cyri had no intention of poking her head in only to have it lopped off. She needed to know where she was to hunt. And so she watched and watched. Cyri had sat without food and only rain water for eight days. She focused her mind upon her patron spirit, the great wyrm, and her eyes upon the mountain range. Her stomach ached, and she had plans to devour whatever food stores the Forgotten Dead had sequestered in their hideaway. She meditated when she could, keeping her eyes open in soft focus. She kept her efforts focused on slowing her body to minimise the need for food while she waited.

She remained cold as she maintained her vigil, watching the whole of mountain range- looking for campfires. Evidently the Cinder Scale gangers had overestimated the carelessness of the Forgotten Dead gang. Or perhaps the Forgotten Dead had pulled through their withdrawal symptoms and had become more careful as the mysterious Zombie Butterfly had left their systems. Or perhaps they were dead, or had moved on to a new campsite.

Finally, on the twilight of the eighth day, Cyri saw a light on the north most spire of the Camel Spine Mountains. The flickering light of an open flame illuminated a ruined room turned cavern about five stories up the tower turned mountain. Cyris stood, stretched out cramped and tired limbs, and shook the phantom biting of a thousand insects out of sleeping limbs. The cassowary noted Cyri standing and pulled itself out from under the rickshaw and shook a spray of rain and damp sand from its feathers, fluffing and shaking its plumage several times before presenting itself at the front of the Rickshaw. Cyri harnessed the bird to the rickshaw and set off with little preamble. The rickshaw was impractical, even dangerous in the damp sand. But cassowaries disliked being ridden, and had impressive talons with which to pass their displeasure on to the would be rider. The rickshaw wobbled into motion and Cyri and the cassowary headed to the base of the mountain.

They found the gang's war beasts easily, sleeping metal hulks resting in the lee of a series of eroded buildings. Cyri slipped in and took a knife to the beast's tires and twisted open their stomachs to let the rain and sand into to clog their guts and stop them from going to war. Then she hid the cassowary and the rickshaw further in the lee of the building, out of easy viewing should any of the gangers wander back. Preparations complete, Cyri began to climb up the mountain of assembled straight lines and right angles, moving along roughly parallel as she aimed for some hypothetical perch overlooking the spot where she had marked the fire.

"Alright," Cyri said as to herself as she climbed, "Let's go remind the Forgotten Dead that dead men stay buried."