Children ran about playing their games in the soft light before evening. Golden beams pierced the forest canopy, growing ever more slanted. Above, the looming shape of Zwillung was still visible through the sky’s roiling haze as it disappeared behind the trees. Something was buzzing nearby but to try and pinpoint its location was an exercise in futility. In the distance three powerful claps of thunder rung out in quick succession.
Adelgard was sat cross-legged on the dark grass. She stared forward, rarely blinking. Even when strands of her rebellious auburn hair escaped their binding, she tied them away without moving her eyes for a second. She could hear some of the old folks muttering a ways down the main path; incomprehensible and unimportant as it might be she couldn’t help but twitch slightly at the mention of her name.
No bother. Let them chitter.
Her hazel eyes burned, begging her to blink but she refused. She felt she was on the verge of an idea. One that truly mattered.
No more than a couple metres from her was the fog’s boundary. A sickly green that if one stared hard enough at—such as Adelgard regularly did—was seen to have wisps of black and yellow. She remembered hearing once from the chittering chorus at her back that it smelled sweet but pungent like a lost yield of fruits putrefied in the sun. The young woman wondered why of all things that was how it smelt, but after little thought realised the speaker was lying for some reason or another.
To smell the fog is to be in the fog. To be in the fog is to die. There was no clearer evidence of that than the forsaken place she currently observed.
The entire village was surrounded by the deathly miasma. Foreboding hazy trees, tightly packed, extended in every direction and had been Adelgard’s view for twenty years. She was, quite frankly, sick of it. All around the village were poles at regular intervals. Each about a head taller than the lanky young woman and topped with a light that throbbed a purple so deep it danced at the edges of perception on gloomy days. No one knew how the poles worked, or who put them there, or what deranged sadist thought it a good idea to trap a bunch of people within a lethal fog.
Where Adelgard stared was the site of the greatest tragedy the village had ever known. She remembered it vividly; being woken by screaming and crying, shouts of anguish both mental and physical. A pole had stopped working for unknown reasons. The fog had seeped into three homes and their surrounding areas. Every member of the three families died that night except Torben, one of the elders who was the closest they had to a leader. To this day Adelgard can picture the look on his face as he arrived breathless from his nightly patrol of the perimeter checking on the poles.
Grim irony indeed.
Since that night there had been patrols three times a day and two a night in the hopes that any future failures could somehow be spotted before the fog got in. Torben declared for the first time in his life an absolute rule: none shall touch the poles or interfere with them in any way. People never had but the grief in the towering man’s quavering voice silenced anyone feeling flippant enough to point it out.
Adelgard stared at the broken pole with narrowed eyes trying to will it into explaining itself. Why did it stop? Why don’t the others? Will they? Is the village doomed to slowly shrink until it can’t sustain itself? There was enough room that between the crop fields, fruit trees, and freshwater fauna of the nearby cave system that none want for food or drink.
But lose a couple acres of agriculture and then where would we be?
She had always been a tinkerer, always wanting to know how things work, how to make them better, or create something new. From an early age she made toys for herself and the other children; things that walked, things that jumped, things that swam.
With a fair bit of thought, effort and surreptitious commandeering of unused materials she came up with a contraption that allowed the adults to essentially lasso trees from within the fog. After a group of strong-armed men and women pulled the straps as taut as possible it would be left. Over a period of days, the straps would be tightened whenever they showed signs of slack. Eventually the tree would either uproot or snap then it was down to the strong arms to haul it into the village. No one had been onboard with the plan at first but after a long debate between elders and a little girl with her fists placed firmly on her hips, they had acquiesced to at least attempt.
Adelgard had fond memories of those days. Her invention worked, she got to inspect something that survived in the fog, the village had access to more materials. Good times all around.
Other times grief caused her mind to work at triple speed. A sickness ran through the village not long after she turned fourteen. It took far too long to realise their water had been tainted. Some fool had tried to find a way out of the village by going through the caves only to end up drowned and decaying in the only source of water. The sickness took Adelgard’s parents along with a quarter of the village. She raged for days after their cremation until one day when staring into the waters that had taken so many she was hit by inspiration. A month later she had iterated enough designs that the village was blessed with a filter that all their water went through. Even though the corpse in the cave had been retrieved and there was a blanket ban on anyone ever setting foot in there again Adelgard felt having the filter in place was for the best. Who knows what other pollutant could find its way in.
It was the act of staring and subsequent inspiration that had led her to spend many an hour sat at the edge of the fog. It was beginning to grate on her that she hadn’t figured out any answers yet.
She was intent on leaving the village. She had always disliked being confined but when Stenger died in the caves she realised she was like him to some degree. She wanted out. But she wouldn’t put anyone in danger. All she had to do was retrieve the broken pole and fix it.
Yup, that’s all.
‘Breathe Adie,’ a soft voice said from behind.
Adelgard half-turned to look up into the warm face of Torben. His generous smile creased a short, well-kept white beard, and his brow seemed to wrinkle back across the entirety of his bald head. ‘Not blinking is bad enough but please remember to breathe.’
The young woman took in a deep breath that burned her oxygen starved lungs. Her eyes popped wide with dawning comprehension.
‘I know that look young ‘un,’ Torben said as he stepped to the side. ‘Off to your workshop, eh?’
Adelgard stood at the edge of the fog and breathed deeply. She had waited for early evening when everyone was having their dinner. She didn’t want to be stopped or talked down. She didn’t want Torben to look at her with those sad, fatherly eyes. Ever since she had offered him her parent’s room, they had lived together but apart. Each filled a need for the other, but Torben knew Adelgard was her own person and generally left her alone when she went in the workshop.
As she breathed another deep lungful she thanked the green god for her Not-Father’s understanding. It had taken a year since inspiration had struck to design, make and fine tune the mask she was gripping tightly to her chest. She was sure of her invention’s efficacy, but theory was far different to practice.
With her eyes glued to the pole she pulled on the mask. It smelled of mould and damp. She picked up a fungus known for its pungent aroma and sniffed as hard as she could. Nothing.
Here goes something.
She dropped the fungus, eyeballed the pole and walked into the fog. Three steps in she knew she had made a mistake. The skin of her arms and neck began to itch. Another step and she felt like it was on fire. She took another, desperately hoping to get to the pole but blisters started to form at an alarming rate. The skin of her elbows cracked with each movement as did her wrists, tearing and blackening. She spun on her heel, leapt forward and screamed as she landed on ruined palms. Not knowing if she was out of the fog, she crawled and crawled, crying out in pain, crying out for comfort.
I don’t want to die here.
Suddenly she was being scooped up in arms that still had years of strength left in them. Her mask was pulled from her face, her vision filling with the terrified features of Torben. ‘Oh, my girl what have you done?’
She raised a trembling hand and pointed into the fog. ‘The pole. I need.’
Torben’s face changed drastically. He set her down on stable if shaky feet and stared at her. ‘Why? What possible reason could you have?’
Adelgard took a long breath. Flakes of skin fell from her arms, her ears burned, and her hair felt like it was slicing into raw flesh on the back of her neck. She peered through the pain at the gathered people. So many worried faces. Worried, angry, confused. She knew she had an opportunity.
‘Why?’ she said defiantly, wincing as she stood tall and felt tightening skin tear at her shoulders. ‘I’ll tell you why. We’ve spent unknown generations trapped. No one has even tried to leave except Stenger. We’re surrounded by technology we don’t understand. Our homes are made from a metal found nowhere in this little bubble. We have random pockets of knowledge in farming, medicine, cooking, all sorts. I want that pole so I can figure out how it works. If I can do that then I can leave. I can see what’s beyond the fog, beyond the forest. Who knows what answers are out there? You ask me why I would? I ask all of you: why wouldn’t you?’
She looked from face to face. The younger villagers were clearly on her side. The elders needed more of a push.
‘Should I fail to understand the pole’s inner workings then at the very least I’ll have created a way to go into the fog. At least a bit. Surely long enough to get to the poor souls stuck in their homes all these years.’
She looked at Torben as she said the final part. His eyes told her she made the right point. The moment hung until a boom of thunder caused them all to flinch.
It took Adelgard almost a fortnight to recover enough from her injuries to begin work on her next idea. By the time Linden had decided keeping her in the medical shelter was no longer worth the hassle of dealing with her constant attempts to leave, the village had pooled together everything they could spare.
Before collapsing from the pain, it had been agreed that Adelgard could continue her work if only to retrieve the fallen loved ones. The village was behind her and would help in any way they could, but she was under the strictest orders from Torben—serious face, pointed finger—to never ask anyone to enter the fog in any way. Adelgard readily agreed seeing it as the perfect deal.
Sat in her workshop with the front opened she worked day and night on a suit. She knew straight away what she had done wrong, cursed herself for not protecting her body. Whenever she looked at the scars on her arms the corners of her mouth pulled down, and she felt a pulse of disgust. Less at her disfigurement, more at her stupidity. Every little girl and boy grows up knowing the fog kills you on first breath but to assume something so virulent has no other detrimental effects was embarrassing.
It won’t happen again.
For days she made pieces of the suit, tested it by filling it with water and took notes of what needed to be done next. Occasionally someone would pass by and ask how her efforts were going to which she would happily explain at length. When almost the entire teenage population started showing up on a regular basis to watch and enquire, she decided to expand her workshop with some pop-up tables. The teens were tasked with breaking down old iterations of the suit and then being quizzed on what pieces did what.
Adelgard mused one evening when they had left that it was most likely slowing her down, but she didn’t care. She would leave one day, that was certain. The suit would protect her, the pole would be retrieved, and she would figure out how to make it work. If she was going to venture off into the forest to find the end of the fog, if such an end existed, then better to leave behind a new generation of thinkers and tinkerers.
After four months of effort the day finally came when she was sure her suit could withstand the fog. The teens—or students as they called themselves—surrounded her in a loose semi-circle at the deathly boundary. Adelgard had asked them not to tell anyone else as she didn’t like the idea of the whole village watching. Bless the green god, every single one did as she asked.
Deep breath after deep breath. The grey suit was bulky but comfortable, the hood around her head cinched tightly caused her face to squash together much to the student’s amusement.
‘Mask,’ she said with an outstretched hand. Matthias gave it to her, his eyes on the fog. ‘Thank you. Don’t worry, I’ve sat closer than you are. For hours.’
Matthias tried to smile. When that failed, he simply nodded and stepped back.
Adelgard pulled the mask on, inhaled the odd mouldy smell, checked it was secure then fixed her gaze on the pole standing slightly askew past the metal buildings. ‘What happens next changes us forever,’ she said in a muffled voice.
She took a step forward. The fog was so close she could touch it.
Not a bad idea.
She reached out. Her arm hung in the fog up to her elbow. Behind her Aslaug gasped and Goda could be heard whispering a prayer. Turning her hand around in the fog Adelgard was fascinated by how close she was to death.
I beat it. I beat the fog. Knowledge won against nature.
Her face split with the widest smile of her life as she stepped in. Thunder boomed in the distance eliciting a nervous laugh from the students. Adelgard’s world became tinted with green. Within three steps she was overcome with how still everything felt. The abandoned homes, their surroundings, the personalised adornments on the walls, all were as they had been since her childhood.
She walked past the buildings, tensing her neck to stop from peering in. She knew she would have to deal with the bodies of people she knew and cared for soon, but the pole came first. Each step made her heart jump and stomach flip. She never knew how acrobatic her organs could be.
Finally, she reached the pole.
Come on Adie.
She grabbed the pole in both hands. It was cold. Even through the thick gloves it was so cold. She gave a tentative pull, but the thing didn’t budge. She pulled harder. Harder. Harder.
She planted her feet either side, bent down and pulled with all her might. Ragged breaths fogged the inside of her mask and the myriad scars on her arms sung with pain.
You will not beat me damn you, not after all this.
It budged.
It took every thread of willpower to keep going instead of celebrating. Behind her voices began to rise, shouts of encouragement, cheers, calls of her name. She laughed through the strain at how she had gone from quirky if useful outsider to chant worthy.
It moved more.
She pulled one final time, gritting her teeth and grunting. The pole came loose. She was holding it!
Heavier than I thought it’d be.
She turned around triumphant to be met by the whole village hooting and applauding. Shock gave way to joy and a toothy grin. Every step back was a celebration. The noise was the happiest sound she had ever heard, so much so she joined in chanting her own name, to the hells with modesty.
Because it worked. It bloody worked!
Without thinking she glanced through a window. It was Torben’s home. Inside she saw the remains of his wife and son clutched together, faces buried in the other’s shoulder, their mummified skin cracked and blackened.
With a few purposeful steps she emerged from the fog and thrust the pole into the soft grass. Congratulations were flowing already but she looked at Torben, nodded and went back in. The crowd gasped as one before falling silent.
Adelgard pushed the door open and walked with tentative steps towards the corpses. As she knelt down, she cursed the fog for its ability to mummify. Ivo had been a year older than her and a friend. She didn’t want to be staring into his terrified, agony laced features.
This fucking fog.
She gently unhooked Ivo from his mother, praying that no part of either would break. She scooped up the ever-child and slowly walked out. Her vision clouded with tears as she took the few steps to the boundary. Walking to Torben she tried to figure out what to say but when the giant fell to his knees and reached for Ivo she knew was no point in speaking.
Numerous supportive hands enveloped his wide shoulders as he wept over his boy but Adelgard was not among them. She turned and marched back into the fog, back into the shell that used to be a home full of love and laughter.
She looked Brynja up and down trying to figure the best way to pick her up. Adie wasn’t weak by any measure but carrying an adult would not be easy. The thought of simply dragging her out flitted across her mind and she almost slapped herself for being so crass.
With a few false starts and a bit of back pain she managed to stand upright holding Brynja. Her breath came out in jagged puffs as she took one step, then another, through the house. By the time she was at the doorway her lungs were burning, and it dawned on her the filter was almost used up.
Shit, shit, shit.
She took one more step forward then ran, shouting for someone to catch Brynja. She got near the boundary and threw the body with all her might before falling to the ground. She gasped for air, but each lungful burned hatefully. She was furious at her mistake, furious that yet again she hadn’t thought of something simple. Like an extra cartridge for the filter. More than that she was furious—and terrified—that she was going to die before venturing beyond the blasted prison of fog.
There was a sudden pressure on her wrist, a stifled scream of pain, then she was being hauled out. As consciousness began to fade her mask was ripped off and Torben’s fearful eyes looked into hers as he begged her to be all right, the cracked and blackened flesh of his right arm of no consequence.
It took a week for her to wake up. Of course, Torben was there when she did.
‘Hey there,’ he said in that pleasing rumble.
Adelgard didn’t want to talk. She felt foolish. All that effort and thought going into the suit had blinded her to other dangers. As she tried to return Torben’s smile memories flooded in.
‘Oh! Your arm. How is it?’
Torben moved the afflicted arm around, flexed muscles constrained under tight bindings, and nodded to himself. ‘Time will fix it. You on the other hand?’
‘I know, I know.’ She slowly sat upright with a few grunts and gasps, her throat felt more burned than her lungs. Interesting.‘Stupid mistake that shouldn’t’ve been made.’
Torben studied her for a long few seconds at the bed’s edge. ‘It was touch and go there for a coupla days. You scared me, Adie.’
‘Sorry.’ She rubbed her eyes with the heels of her palms before fixing him with a resolute look. ‘This was always going to be dangerous.’
Torben stopped meeting her gaze, looking anywhere but at her.
‘What is it?’ she asked.
Staring into his bound hand he said, ‘I don’t understand why you need to leave. I’m impressed and beyond proud of what you’ve done. I’m thankful more than I know how to express for what you did last week. But it’s all so needlessly dangerous don’t you think? What happens if you make a mistake out there? I won’t be around to help. None of us will. You fall out in the fog, that’s where you’ll stay. Forevermore.’ A tear broke free of the great man’s efforts to hold it in. ‘I don’t want to lose you as well.’
Adie could see what he was going through, it hurt at her very core. But she was on a mission that had been brewing since her first memories of seeing a tiny lizard with two stinger-topped tails scuttling along a fallen trunk in the fog.
‘We’ve been trapped longer than our village can remember, and this village remembers far. There’s life in the fog so there must be life beyond it. There must be a beyond. And what else? We’ve spent generation after generation knowing full well that in the sky is another world like our own. Or not! It could be better. No fog or distant thunder. More people like us or completely different. Someone put us here. Someone set up the poles and made our homes.’ She reached out and grabbed his unbound hand. ‘I love you to bits but this place? It can’t be my life. I have to know what’s out there. I have to know more.’
Torben’s shovel of a hand enveloped hers and squeezed, almost too tightly. ‘I know.’
Adelgard squeezed back as hard as she could. He didn’t seem to notice. ‘But no more foolishness. I don’t care how long it takes me but I’m doing it right this time OK? I’ll test and test and test. If you or anyone has a question, ask. It’s the only way I can cover all aspects, I think. You, Aslaug, Goda, Willamar, Osmund, anyone. You come over and quiz me. No matter how long it takes I won’t leave until no one has any questions left. Sound like a plan?’
Torben held on tight as he stared deep into her eyes. ‘Not a single question left.’
Three weeks passed in a flash as Adelgard worked relentlessly on improving the filter cartridges. Raban, one of the most recent additions to her teaching group, had posited they would last longer if she wasn’t exerting herself extracting the pole and carrying bodies. The idea had stopped her in her tracks at first but after a debate between her students that made her swell with pride it was decided that using the exertion time as a baseline was the safest option. Better to underestimate.
Improving the cartridges wasn’t a hugely difficult issue, especially with the ever-widening knowledge pool around her. She eventually had her students creating extras due to an abundance of caution. Adelgard figured that a production run might have a few defective ones so best to beat the problem with volume. Additionally, the work was good practical learning for them as it was fiddly, time-consuming work.
One evening when talking about the reality of using the suit and cartridges Aslaug brought up the concept of a warning system. She—quite rightly—balked at the thought of Adelgard only knowing to swap in a new cartridge when she started feeling the fog’s effects. The discussion went through the night until a design had been agreed on that would become part of the mask, as opposed to the cartridge itself which would require a rework of all previously made ones.
Once the filters were up to a respectable half hour usage and the warning system had been integrated Adelgard suited up. As the sun was beginning to lance through the trees she made for the boundary. Students trailed behind with Goda at the front reeling off a checklist. When all was done, and she couldn’t be any more ready Adelgard stepped into the fog.
As she entered one of the two remaining homes her students set about laying down blankets for the deceased. One by one the young woman gently cradled and carried the bodies of long-gone friends out of the fog. The village gathered as she laid them down, saying a prayer to the green god for each. A strange stupor enveloped the onlookers, including her students. There was not much they could do, and the air was thick with renewed grief, but it was the woman all eyes were on. A woman many had written off at a young age as too odd to work well within the community. A woman whose inner fire had pushed many a nose out of place. As they watched none could deny she had done more for the village than any in memory. By the time the ninth and final body was gently deposited on its blanket she had become one of the most beloved villagers to have ever been.
With a squeaking of rubber Adelgard pulled her mask off and wrenched the hood down, sucking in big lungfuls of air with a sad smile. She watched the others wrapping the bodies and preparing to take them to cremation pyres. Her brow furrowed as a strange feeling clasped its hand around her. She wanted—needed—to see it through. To ensure the mothers, fathers, brothers and sisters of the village could finally rest.
She quickly shed her suit, tasking Goda and Willamar to break it down, clean it and store it away. She knelt by the ninth body, precious Eydis who never got to see more than two summers. As she scooped up the most unfortunate of unfortunate souls Osmund approached her and said he would take the child so that Adie might rest. Adelgard gave the old man a slow shake of the head and walked on.
She spent the day working the pyres with others. They only had room for two of the lost at a time then would wait for the entire thing to be ash before erecting a new one. Adelgard stayed until the very end, until the last ember of the final pyre flickered out.
The day after the funerals work began on the pole. Adelgard was practically salivating at the thought when she awoke. Once sat in her workshop with the pole lain on the counter, she felt paralysed about how to proceed. She sat. She stared. She scratched at the scars on her ears. She knew it would be no easy task, nor would it be short.
She picked up a tool, paused as a booming roll of thunder sounded, then steadied the pole with her free hand and began.
The world blurred for Adelgard as she worked. Days became weeks which somehow became years. The technology within the pole was so advanced she could barely comprehend a single piece. Once she found a cylinder whose purpose she was fairly sure of, it became a long slog of learning and discerning what each bit connected to it did. Every time she did so a smile cracked her face as the possibilities of new technology flooded her mind. She would stop for weeks to document every revelation, every conceivable application of the latest knowledge for the betterment of the village.
She was always available to talk for her students, for the elders, for Torben. But all would agree she was not completely there. She was a woman possessed. The inner workings of the pole, the insights it gave and the ever-nearing goal of venturing through the fog consumed her thoughts.
For a while life turned into a series of snapshots. She would look up from her open-air worktable and see a family she didn’t recognise. Her students became adults and began teaching a new generation. Torben looked a little more bent in the back and wrinkled in the face each time she saw him.
On many an occasion she thought she had cracked the problem. On those days she would suit up, march to the boundary nearest her work area and try to activate the pole. When it invariably didn’t work, she would march back, hang up her suit and get back to work. Not only undeterred but with renewed vigour as every failure offered much information.
On the evening of each failure Torben would tap three times on the table, gesture to the padded bench in front of their home where she had taught so many so much, and they would while away the hours talking technology. He would question her on all and sundry, she would answer at length. When their energy wound down at the end of the night, helped along by a rather smooth rum produced by a distillery one of her original students had made, she would rest her head on his broad shoulder. They would stare across the village, into the fog and wonder what she would see.
One evening after another thrilling failure there wasn’t a single tap on her table. Deep into another round of documentation, she felt an unpleasant sensation across her skin. An hour later she arose from her work enough to notice what was wrong. She looked around but there was no Torben in sight. She got up, walked into their home and called his name. After a silent moment that grabbed her by the gut a weak voice answered. Adelgard all but ran to Torben’s room, grabbing the doorway to stop herself barrelling into the congregated villagers.
Three of the elders sat together on the far side of the room with worried looks embedded in their deeply lined faces. Linden sat next to the bed with Saldis, his wife and assistant, standing behind him. On the bed looking gaunt and pale was Torben. His breathing was shallow; his eyes stared into the spaces between. Adelgard couldn’t understand how emaciated he had become. She gasped for the first time in her life.
Torben’s eyes snapped to her immediately. ‘Adie,’ he said in a voice that was a mockery of its past self.
Everything disappeared. There was nothing in the room, nothing in the world except her and Torben. Her work didn’t matter, her dreams ceased to exist. ‘Dad,’ she said for the first time.
She got on the bed, pushing past people she couldn’t perceive, and enveloped him in as strong a hug as she dared. It was when she felt his bones just under the skin that she burst into tears. The biggest person she had ever known had been reduced to a size she could wrap her arms around.
And I had no idea.
A quiet loathing bubbled inside as she cried. She wanted to lash out but there was no one to blame but herself. ‘What happened? How. How can I fix it?’
She looked him up and down, analysed as best she could.
Why can’t people be like machines!
Torben let out a slow laugh and rested his head on her shoulder. ‘It’s going to be OK. You’ll get through this.’
‘Me? What about you? Please, I have to be able to help.’
He pushed away enough to prop himself up against some pillows and look Adelgard in the eyes. ‘I’m old lovely. They call us elders for a reason.’
‘I know but, but.’ She had no idea what to say. ‘It’s so sudden.’
Another laugh, louder and fuller almost like the Torben she knew. ‘Maybe I made a mistake. Maybe I should’ve gotten you away from that thing now and then.’
‘What?’
‘Adie.’ He gave her a look more serious than he’d given in many years. ‘Do you know how old you are?’
She felt a scowl crease her face at such a ridiculous question. ‘What? Of course I do. I’m. Uh. I’m.’
The scowl gave way to confusion. Her eyes roved from side to side as she flipped through memories. All she saw was technology, documentation, teaching, and the occasional jog around their home to keep in shape.
‘You’re thirty-four lovely.’
What?
‘I’m sorry I won’t get to see you off on your adventure.’ Torben’s eyes grew wet, and he let the tears flow freely. ‘But knowing you has been one of the greatest experiences in my life.’
No, no, no, no.
‘This can’t be the end,’ she said, pushing off the bed and looking at Linden in desperation. ‘Do something! You fixed me from worse. Please.’
Linden shook his head. ‘I can’t heal age.’
She became more frantic. She had missed so much. Turning back to Torben she said, ‘But I failed today.’
Confused looks sprung all around. All except for Torben. ‘Well why didn’t you say? Come, let’s go.’
As he pulled his legs over the side of the bed Linden began to protest, imploring his friend to stay put.
‘Why Lin? We all know what’s happening here. I’d rather spend one more evening with my daughter.’ He put out his hands for Adelgard to help him up and used the opportunity to fix her with a delighted sparkle in his eyes. ‘I’ve got to hear about the latest developments.’
Together the pair shuffled out of Torben’s room, through the kitchen and out to the workshop. Adelgard lowered him onto the bench with more care than she had treated anything in her life. Once sat next to him, acutely aware of how much more space there was than usual, she didn’t last a second before bursting into body-shuddering sobs.
‘Hey, hey, hey,’ Torben said softly as he wrapped a thin arm around her, ‘there’s no need for that.’
She couldn’t stop.
What a wasted life.
‘I just wish we had more time. I’ve lost years with you and everyone else for what? To wander around a poisonous forest? It’s so pointless.’
‘Adelgard Entdecken how dare you speak such things.’ The force he spoke with startled her. ‘You are doing more for this village than has been done in generations. You’ll do even more before you leave.’
‘But what if there’s nothing out there? What if I walk and walk and walk, and the fog never ends?’
‘Then you return and think it through.’ He shuffled where he sat to find the comfiest spot for his weary bones. ‘Nothing is eternal. There’s an end to everything. Whilst you figure it out who knows what else you’ll accomplish? Might even make some new poles eh? Can you imagine? Growing this place after so long?’
She could imagine it. So much so that if not for Torben’s insistence on her leaving she might have stayed to do exactly that.
‘Now then,’ Torben said as he leant on her and got comfortable, ‘what went wrong this evening? Tell me all about it.’
Torben became the first and only villager to ever be buried. Adelgard went along with the standard cremation funeral but afterwards scooped up every last flake of ash she could and sealed it away in an ornate container of her own making. She took his remains home and buried him under their bench so she could continue talking to him whenever she tried and failed.
Time began to bleed again.
She was made leader of the village no matter how much she protested. She had brought so much new life to them with her spirit and inventions that she was always going to be the frontrunner. But when Torben made it his dying wish? No one else stood a chance. Not that any wanted it.
In between her working, her experimenting, and her documenting she would down tools regularly to sort out one issue or another. She enjoyed the forced break and interaction with her fellow denizens and took great pains to make sure everyone knew it. She didn’t want anyone going without or suffering in the slightest because they didn’t want to disturb her.
One day a voice asked her a question she didn’t quite hear. She looked up as she asked for it to be repeated and was met by a pair of eyes that shared the same segmental heterochromia as Frida. A third of both irises were brown whereas the rest was blue. The child had to be around ten years old, yet it was the first time she had seen him.
‘What’s your name young man?’ she said, putting down her notes.
‘Stenger ma’am.’
‘You don’t say? I knew a Stenger once.’
‘Yes ma’am, he was my dad’s cousin.’
‘Ah yes. So, Frida and Yngvarr got together, did they? Good for them.’
‘Yes ma’am.’
‘You can stop that right now. I’m no ma’am.’ She looked at her hands and saw more lines than she remembered being there. ‘I might be getting on in years, what is it, thirty-nine? Forty-one? Eh, doesn’t matter. But I am no ma’am. Call me Adie.’
‘OK.’ The young boy lingered but seemed to have no more to say.
‘Oh, you asked me something didn’t you?’
‘Yes ma’am. Adie. Me and my sisters were wondering why you don’t just go into the fog in your suit? Mam and dad said you’ve been able to for years.’
Adelgard leant back until she remembered she was on a stool and quickly grabbed the edge of the table. ‘Well young Stenger, I had thought about it. In fact, I’ve been very tempted over the years to do so. But you see, we have no way of knowing how far the fog goes. I might be walking for days which means setting up camp, sleeping, eating, drinking. I don’t think I can do all that if I can’t take my mask off.’
Stenger pushed out his bottom lip and nodded to himself. ‘Makes sense. Thanks Adie.’
As he wandered off to rejoin a group working through the basics of general maintenance Frida caught Adelgard’s eye. The pair shared a smile. Adie pointed to the boy and mimed applause at how cute he was. Much to her surprise Frida walked over to her and gave her a hug so hard it nearly squeezed the life out of her.
Unbeknownst to everyone, even her most trusted original students, Adelgard had completed the pole’s repairs over five months ago. Once she had done so—in the middle of the night, a solitary light in a dark village—she felt a sense of loss that took her quite by surprise. Tears had welled as she rejoiced at her years of effort coming to fruition but were countered with the knowledge that she would be leaving a family that meant everything to her.
She had taken some time that night to sit on the bench and chat with Torben. As she worked through what she was feeling she imagined the grand man beside her as clear as he had always been. He told her she had to go, of course she did, she would hate herself if she didn’t. But. But, he said, she could decide when.
So, she did.
She wandered the village every day, greeting people, watching the children play, asking what various members and groups were up to. Without her obsession playing on her mind, and Torben’s imagined words ringing in her head, she felt an ease she had never known. She would decide when to leave, therefore she had all the time in the world to know her people.
One day she heard a muttered curse coming from the cave entrance. When she had gone to offer help a young man with broad shoulders and wild hair made an obscene gesture at the replacement water filter he was installing before spinning on a heel at the sound of her approach. Adelgard nearly fell over in shock when she looked into the part brown, part blue eyes of a twenty-year-old Stenger. The pair had chatted about his life of the past decade whilst they installed the machinery, all the while Adelgard marvelled at how much he had changed in what felt like a matter of days.
Moments such as that came thick and fast over the following weeks. Before she knew it an entire season had passed. Students old and new quizzed her at times about progress on the pole but she brushed it off by saying tests were ongoing. She would scratch at the marks on her ears or arms as she spoke, and everyone understood why she would be so cautious.
Eventually the day came when she grew weary of deceiving her loved ones and believed the village could carry on without her. She had collected her original class, told them she was done and proceeded to have a very merry evening with them, celebrating long into the night. Once the hangover cleared a day and a half later Adelgard made it known to all she was preparing for her journey.
The village banded together to ensure every minute detail was triple-checked for safety as no matter how much she tried to explain that it could be a one way trip they all told her she would return. She was Adelgard Entdecken, of course she would succeed and return to tell them all about how right she was. She laughed at the sentiment whenever it was voiced and would pause to stare into the fog. Her mind was ablaze with possibilities, near overloaded with scenarios. The more she prepared the more the fire grew in her, the old fire of her youth that wanted, needed, to know what was out there.
When all was done, when nothing more could be checked or tested, she declared it was time.
On a brisk spring morning with golden rays lancing through the trees Adelgard stood at the boundary in her suit and stared into the fog. The entire village stood behind her. Tears had been spilled, hugs had come with enough force to bend ribs, and from oldest to youngest she had been showered with praise and love.
She took a deep breath of the decidedly much more pleasant mint scented air of the latest generation of filters. Her hand gripped the pole tightly as she took a step forward. The fog touched her visor, smearing tiny particles of black and yellow across the plastic. She pushed three fingers into the activation grooves and twisted. The fog billowed away from her in a half circle; an act met with applause and cheers from behind. She looked back, smiled and gave a final wave.
It was the trees that disturbed her more than anything. Her entire life she had been looking out at an almost never changing view. Stepping into uncharted territory was deliriously enjoyable but seeing different trees, different layouts caused a deep unquiet to seep into her bones.
In the three days since leaving home she had seen plenty that was alien to her. She had watched with glee as a strange fish hauled itself out of a stream and walked proudly off into the undergrowth. Or when she saw a creature covered in feathers that flew at speed between the trunks with grace and accuracy. There were four-legged furry things and six-legged scaly things. There were tiny things no larger than her finger and there were big things, hulking shadows that loped in the distance. All of which she saw unhindered once she took off her mask after the second hour, finally accepting the reliability of the pole.
As the light waned each evening, she would set up camp, eat little and sip less, whilst drawing everything she could remember seeing. She was thankful that the light from her fire each night couldn’t penetrate far so she could relax from the unsettling, unknown trees. On the third night she was happily scrawling the outline of a spider who was kind enough to pose on a log near the fire, only scurrying off when three pounding thunderclaps made it and Adelgard jump out of their skin. With her drawing all but done and her heart hammering she got comfy on the sleeping mat and stared up through the canopy. The night sky was busy this time of year; lots of flashing streaks deep in the darkness. As she fell asleep Adelgard smiled at the thought of future generations working hard to answer different questions. The fog was hers to conquer but perhaps one day they would know what flashed far away in the sky.
When she awoke it was still dark under the trees, but she could see light slowly beginning to colour the highest leaves. Her heart was playing a fast tune again from the thunderous boom that roused her. It sounded close in her sleep-addled mind. Felt close. Closer than ever before.
She gathered her things, put the sun at her back and marched on. As the hours trundled by the ground began to change colour, morphing from dark brown to an odd ruddy hue. The tree trunks became paler, and the leaves grew red. Many times, Adelgard tripped on a root or rock as she couldn’t stop from craning her neck this way and that. She refused to stop for breakfast, pulling out a large oat bar and gnawing away as she pressed on. Said oat bar was lost half-eaten when a tremendous thunderclap rolled through the forest, shaking leaves loose and vibrating the ground. Adelgard stared at her fallen bar, contemplated picking it up then thought better of it. Tightening the straps of her pack she pushed onwards at a quicker pace, knowing then that the thunder had to mean something. It was possible to get closer to it, therefore, she reasoned hopefully, it was not in the fog, otherwise whatever it was would surely move through the fog at some point in the village’s history.
She walked until the sun was in front of her. Every so often, far more often than before, a boom would meet her. Each so sudden and forceful she flinched. The trees became less densely packed by the hour to the point she could see the direction the thunderclaps came from as they disturbed leaves and rippled the ruddy granules of alien earth.
An hour later with the sun still high and bright she saw the treeline. From her vantage point she couldn’t make out anything beyond. Not even if the fog ended. Freezing blood pumped through her body as she seriously considered for the first time that the fog was global. She found herself rooted to the spot, so close to answers but terrified to learn them.
Get your shit together woman.
She shook her head hard and tensed every muscle until it hurt. When she relaxed them, she felt much better. With cautious steps she walked the slight incline to the treeline, gripping the pole tightly. The closer she got the more confused she became as nothing came into view. Just the same old sky, except more of it. With a defiant slew of swears she ran, emerged from the forest and nearly plummeted over the cliff edge a couple of metres past the trees. With a yelp she stabbed the pole into the ground and dug her heels in, stopping mere centimetres from a most inglorious end to her journey.
As she sank to her knees, breathing heavily and hoping she wasn’t in the beginning stages of a heart attack, Adelgard Entdecken started to realise she had done it. Whatever happened next, whatever strange sights were seen, she had made it out of the forest. She was the first of her people in no one knows how long who didn’t have trees hanging overhead. Well, she would be, once she got a bit farther away. She twisted around to look back and very nearly dropped the pole. To her left and right along the cliff, far beyond the effects of the pole, the fog stopped at the trees. She couldn’t believe it. Her utterly unscientific assumption had been right.
BOOM!
Adelgard cried out at the sudden explosion of sound. She dove onto the ground, held the pole tightly to her side and began looking around for its source. She heard roaring like nothing she had ever experience before, cries of rage and pain. She shifted around on her belly to look out from the cliff.
BOOM!
All blood drained from Adie’s face. The cliff overlooked a massive open plain of cracked red ground dotted with boulders, caves and one sickly yellow lake near the horizon. A pack of eight-legged creatures with dark blue fur and ferocious teeth ran down a herd of bipedal scaly things that screamed in fear and tried to protect their young. Flying beasts that dripped black ooze from their beaks swooped down, attacking predator and prey alike. Viscera and bones decorated the entrance to more than one cave. But it all paled in comparison to the source of the thunder.
In the middle-distance were two beings of titanic proportions. Humanoid in shape but towering into the realm of nightmares. The thunderclaps were from one striking the other. Currently the huge green one with muscles that bulged so grotesquely its skin had torn into a patchwork across its body was on its knees. Crimson sludge leaked from its three eyes and a gaping maw filled with row upon row of broken teeth. The red one stood over it, snorting a colossal jet of steamy air through its single nostril as it wiped sludge from its face. Three eyes, set in a triangle pattern, blinked one after the other in contemplation. Achingly long seconds later it raised both hands up high above its head, wove its fingers together then with an obscene grunt brought them down. The green titan was dead before it had begun falling. Its head caved, eyes disappearing into the sludge, and jaw tearing away to thud into the ground.
Adelgard felt an unpleasant warmth spread in her lower half and could only muster enough thought to be thankful the bodily evacuation stopped there. She couldn’t move no matter how hard she tried. Suddenly the fog seemed inviting. She wanted to crawl backwards until she was enveloped once again and would never have to see any of the ghastly creatures for the rest of her days.
Fear held her. Grief held her. She felt sick at the thought of all the years she had wasted, all the life she hadn’t lived. All so she could end up lying in a puddle of her own piss and watch a monster tear pieces off another for food.
What’s that?
She had managed to move her head, hoping to see something not horrifying. To her right where the cliff edge sloped downwards, she could see something propped up against a rocky outcrop.
It looks like me.A ridiculous thought Adie surmised as she studied the suit with its sleekly formed helmet. But it really does.
Curiosity is, funnily enough, a curious thing. It is the engine of discovery, of learning. But it seems to have no survival instinct. Adelgard knew she had to retreat into the forest; any one of the monstrous things on the blasted plain could kill her with little effort. But there was a new question in need of answering and she was never able to resist such a siren song.
With painfully slow movements she pried herself from her spot and wormed her way towards the other her. Without thinking she shed her backpack, dropping it partway between cliff edge and treeline as a marker. Minutes of grunting and chafing passed. Whenever something below made a noise she froze, put her head in the dirt and prayed.
When she finally arrived at the suit, she made a mental note to erect a shrine to the green god in thanks. With a quick look in every direction, she rose to her knees and inspected her find. It was fascinating, looking like a far more refined version of her suit constructed from materials she couldn’t begin to guess at. The visor of the smooth curved helmet was opaque, and she couldn’t figure out how to unlatch it. She patted down the suit and felt a mummified body within.
You poor soul. Were you like me?
She looked around the body but saw nothing else other than a strange metal instrument about the length of her arm that looked like it was meant to emit something out one end.
What’s that?
She put the metal mystery aside carefully and inspected the series of buttons that wrapped around the suit’s right wrist. She pushed one, then another. Nothing. There was a circle with a line that went up the suit’s forearm. She put her finger in the circle then traced it along the line.
‘Reviewing most recent log.’
The voice was pleasant but not at the same time. Familiar but alien. Regardless, Adelgard clutched her chest at the sudden speech and wondered how many more times her heart could jump before it left.
The suit’s visor flickered, growing brighter. Terror sliced through her at the thought of being seen. With strength that surprised her she quickly hauled the suit and its occupant around the rocky outcrop and propped it up to face the forest. By the time she was done the visor had begun to broadcast an image into the air.
Adelgard stared at the person floating before her. Pieces of the puzzle were already beginning to snap into place as she looked at a broad shouldered, handsome young man who bore a striking resemblance to Torben. He wore the suit and held the strange instrument in one hand; a finger placed lightly over its trigger-guard.
‘ – whatever it was ruined the ship. We managed a controlled crash-landing on Zwillung but without a retrieval team we’re marooned.’ The floating not-Torben looked down at his feet, an eerie sheen of resignation on his face. ‘Maybe that storm ‘round this rock has a reason. This place is a hell world.’
Not-Torben sniffed, shuffled on the spot then shook his head before finally looking outward again.
‘We uh, we found a spot to hold up. A forest produces a fog with some fascinating qualities. Horrific and fatal like everything else here but fascinating, nonetheless. Berard figured we’d be able to scrap the ship to turn into shelters. It’s coming along nicely but how much more we can do depends on how easily we can avoid the local wildlife. The pack animals and the birds aren’t too much of a problem but the big lads? Scary stuff.’
Birds?Adelgard didn’t know the word but loved its sound. Birds.
She knew she should be amazed, shocked, confused, all manner of things. But it made sense. Right? A small group of people in the middle of a poisonous fog living in shelters made of a metal they don’t have any knowledge of or ability to work, kept safe by a technology that until recently was beyond their ken? No, that was the confusing part for her, always had been. But this? Not-Torben was giving her all the answers she craved.
‘Hariman has already shown how to take some of the components from our weaponry,’ he brandished the instrument in his hand as he spoke, ‘turn them into something to keep the fog at bay so we don’t need the suits on.’
No way. Adelgard looked at the elegantly made piece of metal, turned it over and over. They were weapons?
‘I don’t know why I bother with these updates. You’re not coming.’ Not-Torben suddenly looked defeated, broad shoulders slumped and handsome features twisted with grief. ‘Why did we come here? Like we don’t have enough planets already.’
He sniffed again and rubbed at his eyes with his free forearm. Adelgard’s heart ached for the man, the look carving into his features told her something she didn’t want to know.
‘I’m going to sit down, I think. The others will be fine. Adela will make sure they survive. What a woman, what a wife.’
No. No, no, no. Don’t.Adelgard wanted to reach out through time and stop him.
‘I know I’m being a coward.’ Not-Torben put his helmet on with a hiss of air as it sealed tight. ‘I could tell you I’m helping them, being one less mouth to feed. But if I’m going out a coward, I’m going out an honest one at least.’
He leaned forward until he was just a dark visor floating in the afternoon light.
‘This is Pathfinder Wulfric Entdecken signing off.’ The image hung motionless for a few seconds. ‘Sorry Adela.’
With that he vanished. Adelgard stared at the empty space, jaw hung low, and brow knotted. Entdecken? Entdecken!
She dropped the rifle as her mind devoured the information. It hit the ground and fired a bolt of dark purple something across the blasted plain. Instantly, the feasting titan locked onto the source of the noise, saw Adelgard and was on its feet. It ran full pelt at the cliff, roaring with such force Adelgard felt it pushing her back.
Grief for her ancestor turned to fury at the nightmare planet that ensnared him. She screamed with all her might at the onrushing behemoth. She screamed with the rage of innumerable generations left to rot.
Without taking her eyes off the monster she ducked down, picked up the weapon and took aim. When it was almost to the cliff, she squeezed the trigger and didn’t let go. A barrage of deep purple bolts thumped into the titan’s eyes, turning one to slag and tearing at the other two before it got a hand up in defence. It crashed into the cliff, roaring in pain and clawing at its eyes.
It raised a hand over its head to retaliate, smartly protecting its face with the other. Adelgard ran to the forest, scooping up the pole as she did, and didn’t stop until she was deep in the fog. When she spun around to check on her adversary, she was surprised to see it was already walking away, nursing its face as it loped across the plain.
Huh.
With every thumping step it took Adelgard felt her breathing stabilise but even when it had returned to its feast she refused to move. For over an hour she contemplated what to do but knew the decision had been made the moment she stopped running home.
With cautious, oh so quiet steps she walked back to Wulfric.
‘Hey gramps.’
With a grunt of creaking joints she sat next to him and spent time inspecting the rifle and digesting everything Wulfric had said. He was right about it being a hell world, that she couldn’t deny. But she and so many others had lived peaceful lives. There were people in the sky flying around and taking worlds, but they were the kind to abandon their own. There were the remains of something he had called a ship out there somewhere and she had a much better suit to reverse engineer.
She pushed at a panel on the rifle, and it flipped open. Inside something was pulsing deep purple. ‘I think you should come home,’ she said to Wulfric with a nudge. ‘You, me and Torben need to talk next steps.’
Couldnt stop reading this one 🙂