Temptation of the Zombie Butterfly : 1

'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!

*Note: I have changed the name of the main character from Myrtle Cyrus to Eris Ella-Cyrus after a helpful reviewer pointed out that Myrtle Cyrus was blindly close to Miley Cyrus. I'm showing my age I guess, when I say that I didn't notice. So there you go.

Great Bazaar Inland Salt Sea, Third month of Grey Skies, 314 APW (After the Precursor War)


The Bazaar stank of eight thousand smells from chlorine sting of mealybug wax to the sweet iron tang of a dozen types of coagulating blood to the stink of more than fifteen hundred bodies perspiring in the salt air. Two dozen languages burbled and jangled and scraped and grated against each other, whispering and yelling, cajoling and bargaining and bickering. The sound of negotiation rose above the sheep skin tents and yurts and took physical form, a kind of violent reverberation that echoed like a tornado above the dun brown pulsing architecture of the bazaar.

Cyri had been tracking the Forgotten Dead for nearly two months now, and although physical evidence of their trail had long disappeared, survivors remained here and there who had pointed Cyri to the Bazaar.

The lacquer black of Cyri's armor and the banner mounted above her shoulders stood in sharp relief against the multitude of tans and browns and umbers of the bazaar. She stood at the edge of the bazaar watching the merchants and slave traders and scavengers and rag pickers scuttle about and ravage the landscape in their mission to squeeze as much profit out of the blasted landscape as they possibly could manage before the land finally claimed their corpses.

The first scavenger approached, a young girl of maybe fifteen dressed in reds and blues caked mud brown and spattered with white crystals by the dust and sweat and salt. Discarded precursor coins had been re-purposed into beads and clattered with a soggy clanking sound against her skirt.

"Read your portents miss?" the girl asked, shaking a spruce root bag whose contents clacked heavily, "The slates know your future." she added when Cyri did not respond.

Cyri paused and looked at the girl. The girl shifted uncomfortably under the blank appraising gaze. Finally Cyri spoke, "When did you last eat? No lies."

There was pause, and then the girl said, "I think about three days ago, caught a peacock quail down by the good well- had it roasted in clay before any of the ganger boys could find and steal it from me."

"What do the slates say about when you will eat next?"

The girl grinned and dumps the rune carved slate disks out of the bag onto the salt, silt and sand at their feet. She looked down and her expression changed from a cheeky grin to confusion.

"Well?" Cyri asked.

"They say that a windfall comes, but not today. They say a windfall comes in the near future." The girl looked confused.

Cyri nodded, "They speak the truth then. If you can brave the salts, I have a treasure for you. To north, about two and a half day's walk, probably a little longer for you as your legs are shorter than mine, is a wreck of a house with a silo and a blasted husk of a barn. Buried in the salt to the east of the barn is a pile of salted meats. It's still good, or was when I left it those few days ago. I took my share and ate my fill and then buried the rest out fifty paces to the east of the barn under a series of grave markers that I moved from beside the house. I'll give you exact directions in exchange for your reading of my portents."

"How can I know you speak true?" The girl asked.

"Ask the slate." Cyri answered.

She scooped up the slates and let them fall again in a smooth practiced motion. She stared for a while and then nodded, before scooping the slates and letting them fall a third time.

"You're looking for people," The girl said after a quick analysis of the slates, "They aren't here, but you know that. You're looking for somebody who knows where the dead men go when they aren't killing."

Cyri didn't say anything and, after staring briefly at Cyri, the girl continued speaking, "They have no friends. The slates tell me that some of their enemies are hiding in the Bazaar. Seek the Serpent Folk; seek the men of the Cinder Scales. Trust not their words, but you know that. Trust not their intent, but you know that. The albino is the weak link who tries to look strong."

The wooden clank and clatter of a rickshaw approached from Cyri's left, and she looked up to see an umber skinned man with a shaved skull and a braided beard thick with red clay marching up what passed for a path.

"It's old Ashton here lady, "The man announced, "You know me, and I know you. You be the Raven of the Wasteland. You be Eris Ella-Cyrus. You don't be liking your mother's name. You don't be calling yourself Eris Ella-Vanora. But that don't matter to me. I served your father, not your mother - when he was sane, begging your pardon. And so I serve you, now that you severed ties with her."

He paused, and Cyri nodded for him to continue.

"I got a message for you. It's a message from somebody who says they recruit for your mother. Say that you're to return home and take your place. Say that you can't run and you can't hide. You will take your place, they say. They say that you will know that consequences for continuing to run. I think maybe it's nothing you don't already know. But you must know what it means that they think they can catch you."

"Thank you Ashton. And yes, I remember you," Cyri said reaching into one of the goat skin bags belted to her hips and producing a small sheep's bladder purse and tossing it into the man's rickshaw, "Which of my mother's hounds is chasing me this time?"

"All of the big four, if the drunk I spoke to gots a brain in his skull: the Dragon Man, Cinnamon Girl, the Bone Man, and Seraphim. What you going to do with all of them here? You ain't beat any of them one on one. What you going to do with all of them here?"

Cyri looked back to the girl, "Do the slates say anything about where these serpents nest?"

"You going to ignore your mother's best hunter trackers? You going to act like they can't catch you?"

The girl considered carefully, "In the south of the bazaar I think. But I think your hunters are there as well. I think they know where you mean to be before you know."

"My mother never chases me. She gets ahead of me and waits. But I channel the power of the two headed Great Wyrm, and the dervishes say that I can do anything." Cyri said and then started her walk into the bazaar, "Thank you Ashton. And girl? You'd best start now. Word gets around."