A Tainted Story

14: Tension

Both Basil and Silva felt a sudden chill. They shared a creeping awareness that was brought on by fear. It was the horrid knowledge that there was nothing but cruel wilderness around then.
Silva pushed Basil back to the strider, her instincts driving them to retreat. Now that there was evidence, she had no way of knowing whether or not the animal that had attacked the cart was close.

But she wasn't taking any chances.

Her mind raced with scenarios. It was possible that something had slammed into the merchant and their wagon, sending them sprawling to the side of the road. After some sort of struggle, the body- or bodies, or whatever was left- must have been dragged off. She reasoned out her theory aloud once aboard the vehicle, the others listening, slack-jawed.

"Shouldn't we tell someone, then?" Hannah had asked, oblivious to the impossibility of the task. Her sense of logic had dulled, swept away by intense emotion.

The others turned at the sound of her voice, taking in her defeated slouch. Her red-rimmed eyes, overcome with shame.

Hannah was embarrassed by her queasiness, her revulsion, but the scene had shocked her badly.  People didn't just get attacked by bears- or some mysterious jungle beast- or whatever, out of the blue. These were tropes better fit into some fireside story. To her, death was a slow, patient thing that arrived to claim the old and the sick. This fast, vicious existence, where someone could be alive one moment, and gone the next, with no warning or explanation, well, it had shocked her down to the core.

"Of course we're going to tell someone," Silva responded, after a pause. Sighing, she patted Basil on the shoulder. "Thank you for your help." She said softly. "I'm impressed." Basil nodded, blushed. His fear ran just as hot as Hannah's, but the thought of ignoring someone who needed help, right in front of him, seemed deeply wrong.

Silva wanted leave the scene, avoid anything still prowling. She didn't want her strider to share the fate of the wreck close by. So, after a few more consoling words, Basil cranked the wheel and they were moving again, as if nothing had happened. As important as their journey was, Silva told Basil to stop at the first outpost they could find. They had to report what they'd seen.

If nothing else, Silva noted with grim humor, as they shambled away, their trip had finally started to feel like a rescue mission.

...

In the streets of Spirit Town, a small crowd gathered around a collapsed house. Fela, walking nearby, had been attracted by the commotion. She paused, curiosity winning out against her haste. Fela hesitated momentarily, but walked up to a small, portly man who stood on the outskirts of the crowd. She deemed him friendly enough to answer her questions, despite the magnificent tusks that curved out from under his lips.

Looking up, he eyed her approach. As Fela drew up close, her questions were anticipated. The man seemed to guess at what she was about to ask him.

Shaking his head sadly, he said, "It's a real shame what happened here. About a half hour ago, Clara's place just crumbled. No fire, but the wood's all gray, like something had dumped ashes all over."

There were others on the street who had been listening in. They leaned into their space with their own rumors, their strange, twisted explanations for what happened. Fela stepped back, overwhelmed by the chatter.

The tusked man's voice cut through the babble, making her pause again. "Anyway, only one room really took a beating. The rest of the place seems fine."

Glancing over, Fela saw what he was talking about. Only the facade of the house looked damaged. Holes crisscrossed the now-exposed interior of the room, the outside wall completely collapsed. A huge, gaping hole stood in stark contrast to the surrounding wooden floor. With rising dread, she could see a now-familiar sight lining the edges of the pit. The same muddy-black residue that Silva had held between glass, that now littered the terrain around Viktor's home. 

There was only one plausible explanation for this. A potencia well that had been dug inside this women's home must have burst, spraying the room with that horrible corrosive liquid, and leaving this empty, gaping hole. Suddenly, Fela shuddered, imagining the woman, Clara, working the pump, hoping for a quick drink before rushing to her next errand. Instead, her home was blasted apart- no, melted- when a pressurized geyser of corrosive fluid burst out instead. She scanned the scene, and her heart dropped when she spotted two of Viktor's aides hurriedly carrying off a tightly wrapped bundle, gentle with their package, strung across a stretcher. If a drop could cause blisters, and a stream could burn through wood, then Fela was not optimistic about the woman's future.

She felt unsettled by these conclusions, but the logical, calculating slice of her brain filed away the information. The drought had now become a two-pronged threat: the danger of potencia thirst, and the unpredictable, destructive nature of the poison that appeared whenever a well dried up. Fela left, following the aides in the direction of Victor's home. She was sure that the fluid was important- she just didn't know how.