Read Online The Judas Line by Mark Everett Stone - Free Book Online
Authors: Mark Everett Stone
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self.
“The box, you still have it?” I asked through the smell of cut grass.
“Of course. Do you want it back?”
“Please.”
Crack! The boulder split from top to bottom, a wide fissure yawning open and spitting out a black metal rectangle the size of a shoebox. It tumbled to the ground at my feet, landing with a heavy thump!
No seam, no hinge … nothing, just an iron box with a small handle welded to the long side. Leaning over I grasped the handle and put some starch into lifting the thing, which weighed a good fifty pounds. “ Thank you.”
“A task to keep such a thing as crafted Earth safe is no task at all, considering the short amount of time served. I promised you a task, Sicarius, but it was over too soon. Some information, then, to help you.”
“I am no longer of the Sicarii,” I clacked back, the hated name proving more than a little irksome.
“To the Sicarii you were born. Of the Sicarrii you will always be, whether you desire the name or not. Remember this, though: Forgetful Water seeks you and Water talks. It always talks. It will never be quiet and will never stop searching, despite its dreamy, absentminded nature. Your brood sire has made sure.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier, when I summoned you in Kansas?”
“You did not ask.”
“It is information I could have used then. Why tell me now? And how did Julian get Water to do his bidding?”
The elemental began to sink into the sandy soil, slowly disappearing. “You were owed. As for your brood sire, he has come into possession of Primal Water and has used it to make a bargain with all Water for its release.”
Primal Water? One of the First Four Elementals? So ancient they had no language. Those First Ones were created by God and imbued with His divine spark. The knowledge that Julian had found Primal Water sent a shiver down my spine.
Before the boulder could vanish, I asked, “When did he find one of the Old Ones? When did he make his bargain?”
It was strange, hearing the grating Language of Earth grow soft. “A very short time ago. Not even long to humans. Less than a cycle of rain in this desert.”
So, perhaps a few months back. That would explain how I was found. Wherever I had touched water, be it a puddle or a swimming pool, Water would know and inform Julian.
Water talks.
Chapter Seven
Mike
While watching a crooked pillar thrust itself out of the sand and growl at Jude, who growled in return, I kept worrying that my heart would stop. It’s not every day that you hang around and chin-wag with the local geology. The strange thing about the whole incident was how used to it I was becoming.
Heck, the nighttime world had been rendered in glorious shades of green, red and gold, thanks to the Vision Word thingy, spell … whatever. Imagine looking at green sky with pinpoints of gold! A little garish for my taste, but nonetheless breathtaking. Who knew that three colors could combine to create such an amazing amount of variation?
My eyes still wandered over the landscape while Jude chatted up the talking rock, and I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of it splitting open and spitting out what looked like a black shoebox. For a while Jude talked to it in that strange tongue (it sounded like he was gargling with gravel); then it sank back into the ground.
Swinging the heavy box in one hand, Jude hustled us both back to the car. “I’ll drive us to El Paso, man. We’ll get a hotel room there.”
In Kansas, Jude had said that El Paso ‘was like Milwaukee, but without the charm.’ I’ve been to Milwaukee … I was less than thrilled. Lucky for me we arrived in the middle of the night, so the electric lights made the town glow with faerie fire and hid its less admirable face.
“El Paso might be a black hole,” Jude said as we pulled into the parking lot of a Motel 9, “but it’s a heck of a lot better than Juarez.”
Our room in the motel was a little bigger than the one in Kansas,
“The box, you still have it?” I asked through the smell of cut grass.
“Of course. Do you want it back?”
“Please.”
Crack! The boulder split from top to bottom, a wide fissure yawning open and spitting out a black metal rectangle the size of a shoebox. It tumbled to the ground at my feet, landing with a heavy thump!
No seam, no hinge … nothing, just an iron box with a small handle welded to the long side. Leaning over I grasped the handle and put some starch into lifting the thing, which weighed a good fifty pounds. “ Thank you.”
“A task to keep such a thing as crafted Earth safe is no task at all, considering the short amount of time served. I promised you a task, Sicarius, but it was over too soon. Some information, then, to help you.”
“I am no longer of the Sicarii,” I clacked back, the hated name proving more than a little irksome.
“To the Sicarii you were born. Of the Sicarrii you will always be, whether you desire the name or not. Remember this, though: Forgetful Water seeks you and Water talks. It always talks. It will never be quiet and will never stop searching, despite its dreamy, absentminded nature. Your brood sire has made sure.”
“Why didn’t you tell me earlier, when I summoned you in Kansas?”
“You did not ask.”
“It is information I could have used then. Why tell me now? And how did Julian get Water to do his bidding?”
The elemental began to sink into the sandy soil, slowly disappearing. “You were owed. As for your brood sire, he has come into possession of Primal Water and has used it to make a bargain with all Water for its release.”
Primal Water? One of the First Four Elementals? So ancient they had no language. Those First Ones were created by God and imbued with His divine spark. The knowledge that Julian had found Primal Water sent a shiver down my spine.
Before the boulder could vanish, I asked, “When did he find one of the Old Ones? When did he make his bargain?”
It was strange, hearing the grating Language of Earth grow soft. “A very short time ago. Not even long to humans. Less than a cycle of rain in this desert.”
So, perhaps a few months back. That would explain how I was found. Wherever I had touched water, be it a puddle or a swimming pool, Water would know and inform Julian.
Water talks.
Chapter Seven
Mike
While watching a crooked pillar thrust itself out of the sand and growl at Jude, who growled in return, I kept worrying that my heart would stop. It’s not every day that you hang around and chin-wag with the local geology. The strange thing about the whole incident was how used to it I was becoming.
Heck, the nighttime world had been rendered in glorious shades of green, red and gold, thanks to the Vision Word thingy, spell … whatever. Imagine looking at green sky with pinpoints of gold! A little garish for my taste, but nonetheless breathtaking. Who knew that three colors could combine to create such an amazing amount of variation?
My eyes still wandered over the landscape while Jude chatted up the talking rock, and I nearly jumped out of my skin at the sound of it splitting open and spitting out what looked like a black shoebox. For a while Jude talked to it in that strange tongue (it sounded like he was gargling with gravel); then it sank back into the ground.
Swinging the heavy box in one hand, Jude hustled us both back to the car. “I’ll drive us to El Paso, man. We’ll get a hotel room there.”
In Kansas, Jude had said that El Paso ‘was like Milwaukee, but without the charm.’ I’ve been to Milwaukee … I was less than thrilled. Lucky for me we arrived in the middle of the night, so the electric lights made the town glow with faerie fire and hid its less admirable face.
“El Paso might be a black hole,” Jude said as we pulled into the parking lot of a Motel 9, “but it’s a heck of a lot better than Juarez.”
Our room in the motel was a little bigger than the one in Kansas,
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