Derelict

The Root of All Evil

Chapter One

600 A. D. (After Departure)

Boss kept a stick close at hand. It was a gnarled old thing with a leather loop through its knobby head and a brass cup on the foot.

The uninitiated would call it a walking stick.

Boss, however, did not call it a walking stick because it was of no use to him for walking. For Boss, it served a different purpose. He whacked people with it. Mostly, Boss whacked Wyatt with the stick. In fact, Wyatt had been hit so many times and with such regularity he would cringe and flinch any time Boss reached for it. Not that he could help it, the cringing and the flinching, that is. Repeated beatings tend to instill such reactions. Over the course of years Wyatt had become attuned to the stick, alert and ready should Boss find himself in a funk or just generally surly .

Nothin' like a good beating to keep a Speck in line, Boss would say. He talked about the stick like that, as if he were nothing more than a passive observer of its actions whenever it chose to mete out punishment to those deserving of such. Careful Wyatt, that stick's wanting to get busy, or Watch out, that stick be looking your way. The stick went everywhere with Boss because it was never really known when he might encounter someone in desperate need of a good thrashing. He seemed to believe no real communication could occur without a proper tenderizing of the hearer by the stick.

On the day Wyatt's life would change forever, his thoughts and attention were focused on the stick, much like every day. This day was a special one, the last day of the trading season but one on which very little actual trade had occurred. This rendered Boss irritable and foul, looking for an excuse to loosen the fury of the stick. He sat perched on his stool muttering incomprehensible grumblings and breathing out the occasional vitriolic threat, his hand straying at times toward the stick idly leaning against the counter. For his part, Wyatt worked at remaining inconspicuous yet busy enough with his broom to maintain an appearance of productivity should Boss think him slothful. Nothing drew the attention of the stick with any greater certainty than sloth.

The rusty cans hanging above the door to the shop clattered, signaling the arrival of a customer. Without ability to resist, Wyatt's eyes were drawn to the stick, apprehensive of whatever malice it may decide to dispense at this unexpected intrusion. Yet Boss stayed his hand and the stick remained in place, its wrath left dormant. Wyatt gawped at Boss in confusion, this new inconsistency both puzzling and disturbing until he realized Boss was as equally flummoxed by the man standing at the door.

It was a trader, one of the Rama.

The man was lean and weathered, everything about him faded to a sun bleached gray and covered in a film of dust. He wore a vest fashioned of leather from a creature found deep in the Wastelands, a creature spawned of another world. An ebony tusk about the length of a man's hand hung from a cord around his neck, accompanied by smaller versions pierced through his earlobes. Other than those adornments, little distinguished him from countless other travelers who passed through Cairo each week.

He merely stood, letting his eyes adjust from the harsh glare of the street to the relative dimness of the shop.

"Welcome friend." From behind the counter Boss slid from his stool, his palms extended outward in an expansive gesture while his tone and posture belied the warm words.

"Friend?" snorted the trader. "I ain't your friend and they ain't no way I plan on becoming one." His gaze swept across the shop noting the bolts of cloth, the meticulously organized bins of salvaged nails, the spools of wire and rope, and the jars of fruit preserves brought down from the north at great expense. It passed over Wyatt as though he were nothing more than just another bundle of goods or a piece of worn out furniture. And Wyatt certainly was accustomed to this treatment, he was--by all accounts--far less valuable than a bundle of goods or a piece of furniture.