Chapter 21: An Atlas Reference (Patreon)

Broken bones and torn muscles kept Zed down for a while. The team remained in the forest during that time and Zed was beginning to worry that he was keeping them from their money. After all, Chris had only taken that contract for the pay. And while he’d love to believe some love for protecting humans was a part of it, it was only if someone else had picked it. He just couldn’t bring himself to believe Chris was nice towards strangers. Then again, maybe he was looking at it from a biased perspective.

After his first few bouts of consciousness spent with closed eyes and sufficient eavesdropping, Zed lulled back into sleep, at least he hoped it was sleep. With all the pain and the levels of immobility, it could just have easily been unconsciousness. Regardless, anyone sufficed. In his next waking, he opened his eyes and made his state obvious to the others with an uncomfortable groan that scraped his throat and strained his lungs.

Zed’s injuries saw him quiet and without quip for two days. The others took care of him through his recovery in the way an untrained nurse takes care of a hospitalized patient in need of advanced treatment: they watched and doted.

On his ninth bout of consciousness, he finally found enough ease in his pain to move. Only then was he given food.

Apparently, somewhere within one of his long sleeps, Oliver had cooked. He’d roasted pheasant over a fire and garnished it with condiments and ingredients Zed refused to believe he’d gotten from the forest.

“How the hell do you know how to cook out here?” Zed asked Oliver as he bit into a piece of meat. It was sweeter than anything cooked without a pot or pan had any right to be.

“We all know how to cook?” Oliver told him.

Zed looked at the others. “Really?”

“Really,” Ash confirmed with a shrug. “When you spend as much time as we do on the road you have to learn a thing or two.”

“You say it like you’re some kind of mountain climbing adventurers,” Zed said between bites.

Chris cocked a brow. “Aren’t we?”

“Unless there’s a mountain on the other side of this forest you’ve been climbing while I’ve been recovering, I’m disinclined to agree.”

Today Chris wore her hair down and she constantly touched it, played with it like a young teenager finally coming to an understanding of the beauty of her hair.

“Back to the food,” Zed said, moving the topic along. “If you knew how to cook, how didn’t you know what the outcome of me cooking was going to be?”

“You were quite convincing in the kitchen,” Oliver answered. “That, and the fact that I came at the end. If there’s anyone to blame for allowing you do what you did, it’s Ash.”

“In my defense,” Ash said. “You looked good in the kitchen.”

A slow smile slipped into Zed’s lips and he grinned. “I did, didn’t I.”

Ash shook her head.

“Get your mind out of the gutters,” she said. “I meant you looked like a chef who knew what he was doing, not whatever your perverted mind is trying to conjure up.”

“No, no. Hear me out,” Zed chuckled. He moved to adjust his position and winced, a slow groan slipping out of his lips and terminating whatever else he was going to say.

Oliver and Ash moved to assist him and he stalled them with a raised hand.

“No, not yet,” he said. “I’ll call for help on the third attempt. Y’know, see if I can make it past two tries.”

Oliver and Ash eased back to their places slowly, a touch of worry on their faces. Chris looked at them as if they were being dramatic and Jason had the face of someone who’d stolen a colleague’s food from the office fridge.

And now I’m making office analogies, Zed thought. Just perfect. I wonder who enjoyed office life that much. He mused momentarily, stalling the conversation. Must be the father. The good one, not the tyrant. Never the tyrant… I hope.

A slow silence settled in as he tried to adjust his position a second time and was successful. It filled the team, affecting everyone but Chris who looked at him as if he was faking his pain.

Unwilling to allow the silence grow into something awkward, Zed moved the conversation to something that would be more productive.

“So when do I get back to aura training?” he asked.

“When you can walk,” Ash answered without missing a beat.

“What’s that in sundials?” Zed asked.

Ash looked at him, confused. “What’s that?”

Zed touched his face, rubbing a hand around it. He felt nothing and turned his attention back to her. “What’s what?”

“Sundials.”

“Oh, that. It’s a clock. Old timie thingie. Before clocks people used it to measure time with sunlight and shadows.”

“Ever heard of it?” Ash asked Oliver.

“Yup,” Oliver nodded. “Unlike someone I know, I paid attention in history class. And every other class I attended, come to think of it.”

“Don’t be smug,” Zed chided. “Save it for when you have a charming persona—”

“You complete that statement and I’ll shove this down your throat,” Chris scowled, pointing a piece of bone at him.

Zed looked at Oliver. “Have you guys considered having her take anger management classes?”

“Not really,” Oliver answered.

“Why not? I think it will help a lot. You know she’s messing up the team chemistry I’m having here, right?”

Chris groaned and let out an exasperated sigh.

“I’m beginning to wish you just stayed unconscious,” she said. “It was quieter.”

“And I’m wishing someone will tell me how long it takes before I can start learning how to sense auras again,” Zed said. “It’s worrying not doing anything.”

“Three days,” Jason said, speaking for the first time since Zed had woken up.

“Sounds kind of long, don’t you think?” Zed said.

“It’s not long,” Oliver disagreed. “Most mages would need a potion to recover from what happened to you. Without one they’d be in bed for almost a month.”

Zed quirked a brow. “Have you met me?” he said. “I don’t know if you’ve heard, but attribute mages such as myself like to do the impossible. Getting back up against all odds is kind of our thing.”

Oliver stared at him flatly. “No, it’s not.”

………………………………

True to Jason’s words, it was a few days before Zed could go back to learning aura sense. He snuck a few tries while he recovered, slipped in a moment to try and sense what he could not.

The first time, he got close enough to something—he wasn’t sure what—before he was hit with a bout of fatigue. The second time was pretty much the same. On his third try, he actually touched on the same feeling he’d gotten on his first day and a pain so bad crushed his stomach that he’d been left groaning all night.

It was five days before he had enough faculty to move around in slow walks and gentle repositioning. Only then did Oliver inform him they could continue.

“Want to know something trippy?” Zed asked Oliver as they sat away from the rest of the group for his training.

“What?” Oliver asked absently, examining some mundane twig as if he’d just found an old relic, a masterpiece from a forgotten legend.

“We’ve been in this forest for over a week now, right?”

“Right.”

“And for most of it you guys have been taking care of my broken bones, right?”

“Don’t be angry at Jason for too long,” Oliver said, turning the stick cautiously. “Despite what happened in the end, he had good intentions.”

“Yeah, no. That’s not where I’m heading,” Zed said, waving the topic aside. “What I’m saying is we’re pretty lax for a team out in search of monsters.”

Oliver’s admiration of the stick stopped. He froze like a prey that just found itself in the midst of too many predators.

Zed chose his next words like he chose his clothes—Oliver’s clothes, if he was being honest, seeing as he didn’t have one to his name.

“I really need to get my own things,” Zed mused. “Oh, as I was saying. The forest. We’ve been here a good while but nothing’s disturbed us. It’s almost like there are no monsters.”

“You fought one yourself, though,” Oliver said, nervous.

“Less of a fight and more of a beat down,” Zed said. “But you know that’s not what I meant. Jason told me the monsters in the request are here, and all of you came out to find it or them or whatever a group of monsters are called. Wait. What do they call a group of monsters? Is there a word for it?”

“A confluxation,” Oliver said.

Zed’s face lit up in surprise. “Really?”

“No. They are monsters trying to kill us. I don’t think we care very much to name a group of them.”

“Oh,” Zed said, crestfallen. Then he leveled a serious gaze on Oliver. “There are no monsters from the contract here, are there? You guys just brought me here to keep testing me.”

Oliver dropped the stick slowly. Even though he said nothing, his entire body screamed guilty. It made Zed wonder how he had even kept the secret of his relationship from Ash. Oliver’s body couldn’t lie to save his life.

Zed sighed.

“Any other lie you think I should be aware of?” he asked.

“The monster thing wasn’t a lie,” Oliver said in a small voice. “The location’s just not correct.”

“Wow,” Zed chuckled bitterly. “Just wow.”

“No, Zed,” Oliver added hurriedly. “It’s not like that.”

“Then what’s it like?”

“The town is on the other side of the forest. And we’re heading there to confirm if the monster problem has been taken care of. We were and we still are. But Jason thought it would be best to train you in preparation for your exam.”

“An exam I didn’t ask to take.”

• You have received [Pocket memory(incomplete)] 2/5.

“Not now,” Zed growled, waving the notification away. Oliver’s eyes narrowed in worry and confusion and Zed dismissed that too. “Go on, then. You were training me like a child for an exam I didn’t ask for.”

“No,” Oliver answered slowly, his worry for Zed’s sudden outburst was still there but he seemed willing to leave it as he continued. “We are more than happy to have you join the town. Hell, I fought for it. But you can’t be part of a community without adding to it.”

“And you decided to make me a hunter. Throw me into the blood and gore.”

“You’ve already shown you don’t shirk away from it. And look around you, Zed. You woke up without much of your memory and found monsters roam the world. They still do. Mages capable of fighting them are as integral as mages who produce food for our survival. But unlike the second one, not many mages can do the first. So we take them where we can find them.”

“So you fought for me to be a part of the town because you wanted more shields against the monsters.”

“That’s not fair,” Oliver said with a frown. “I’m one of those shields, too.”

“But you chose it of your own accord.”

There was a hesitant paused from Oliver and Zed knew there was something he’d missed.

“You didn’t choose it of your own accord, did you?” he observed after a moment.

Oliver smiled but it didn’t reach his eyes. “After the awakening,” he said softly, “Ash was spiraling out of control looking for a way to get to our parents.”

His lips twitched as he tried to hold the smile and failed. He looked behind him into the distance where the others sat around a small fire. Ash was laughing at something Jason was saying.

“When she hit a hard wall trying to get past category one of Beta rank,” Oliver continued, “it was hard on her. She was trying to get me to our parents because she felt she owed it to them and she actually missed them, but with the slip-space and no idea where anything was, it was impossible. Not unless we were part of the VHF.”

“So you found a town and settled into it.”

“Not really.” Oliver shook his head. “Heimdall’s town was supposed to be a resting place we accidentally stumbled on. A brief rest to catch our breath, to have a good night’s sleep in a soft bed.”

“Then what happened?” Zed asked.

“A day’s rest turned to a week because we decided to help the town out with a monster problem. We worked with the others because some Beta rank group of monsters were lurking too close to town. While we were there I watched her come alive again. I watched her worries ease and she no longer scowled like she was trying to singlehandedly hold up the world.”

“Is that an Atlas reference?” Zed asked.

“I’m confused,” Oliver said. “How’d you get a topic of maps from what I said.”

“Not maps,” Zed said. “Atlas, you know, ancient Greece? Roman mytholo—never mind. Just keep going.”

Oliver gave him a worried look.

“What?” Zed protested. “You read comic books. Justice League and all that. I assumed you knew roman mythology, too. You know what, just forget I said anything. So you stayed in the town so Ash could forget her worries.”

Oliver nodded. “Yes. I know she still thinks of our parents, but at least it’s not like before. She doesn’t look as if she’s let some god down. We were actually headed to Novis-fort when we found the town. It’s another week’s drive from here, give or take. We met some people on the road that claimed we could get a sketch map of what the new world looked like after the apocalypse there.”

“Doesn’t sound reliable,” Zed noted.

“Maybe,” Oliver agreed. “But it was the best we had. The person said it had labels on where was where. Each town’s new location and all that. Thankfully, Ash got her hands full helping to save someone else; an entire town. Now, the town is as much a family to her as our parents. Or at least its as close as it gets.”

Zed found himself in a mild state of confusion. He’d never expected this kind of conversation from Oliver. From the little he knew Oliver was the jovial one, the free spirit, though he didn’t show it as often as he’d been led to believe. He hadn’t taken him for someone who’d done something like this. If anything, Ash fit more into that category. The older sister who’d found a place for her younger brother to call home.

“Question,” he said suddenly.

“What?” Oliver said.

“You said she wanted to get you to your parents,” Zed said. “I assumed you were the adopted one. I take it you aren’t.”

Oliver smiled, and it was a genuine one.

“Most people make that mistake,” he said. “Which I understand. I’m the black kid and this is America. The white parents are usually the ones doing the adoption. But no, I wasn’t adopted.”

The conversation settled here for a moment, like sedentary waters. Zed would’ve loved to say he took the moment to digest everything Oliver had said but he didn’t. He simply allowed the silence for Oliver to collect himself. It couldn’t have been easy saying all that. It was one thing to have a dark memory hidden and held onto, but it was another to say it out, almost as if speaking it made it somehow truer than it was, especially saying it to someone else.

When Zed felt the water was too sedentary, he ruffled it.

“You don’t have to worry about my feelings about what Jason did,” he told Oliver. “He’s already done it, and there’s no point dwelling on it.”

“You sure?” Oliver asked.

“Certain,” Zed answered. “The truth is I actually get it. He loves the town, and you guys are his team, so he cares about you. So when Heimdall said I was going to be your problem I expected he’d want to make sure I wasn’t going to be a threat to you guys. Making sure I can pull my own weight’s probably what he was doing.”

“So you’re not mad?”

“I said I understand what he did,” Zed said slowly. “I never said I was okay with it.”

“So, you understand it.”

“Yes.”

“But you’re not okay with it.”

“Yes.”

“Oh,” Oliver mused, crestfallen. “So what happens now?”

Zed shrugged, nonchalant. “I guess now I learn how to sense aura.”