Lostlander - A Science Fiction Western Adventure (The Coilhunter Chronicles Book 4) by Wilson Dean F

Author:Wilson, Dean F.
Language: eng
Format: epub
Publisher: Dioscuri Press
Published: 2019-03-05T00:00:00+00:00

25 – OUT OF WATER

Elsewhere in the Lostlands, other things stirred. The burrows opened, and out came the desert rodents. The snakes made patterns in the sand. The scorpions scuttled across the dunes. The dung beetles rolled their own brown marbles.

 Near a pile of scrap, near the broken and discarded diesel canister of the Coilhunter's monowheel, a toy lay half-submerged in sand. The desert creatures never approached it. They could see it watching, even though it seemed like maybe it was half-asleep.

 Then, as night fell, Duck awoke.

 He was just a little mechanical toy, an invention to aid the fight against the criminals of the Wild North. Yet some said he was something more. Some called him Mr. Quacky. Some called him the Toy with a Thousand Eyes, even though he only ever had two—those pasted-on eyes. They looked up now at the starlit sky, with its thousand eyes looking back down at him.

 It was hard to get upright, as the blast had knocked him onto his back. He'd lost one of his small front wheels, which he used to roll or waddle. It was just a wheel, but to someone or something else, it might as well've been a leg. Duck wondered what it was like for the other legless creatures of the world. He wondered if it was like this. Or that's how some thought he wondered. Maybe he didn't wonder anything at all.

 After a long time rocking back and forth, he rolled onto his belly and nudged himself upright. He hobbled forward, then tilted over, and began the struggle again. He did this many times, until he adjusted his weight a little more, using the little springs and cogs inside him to pull his back wheel round to the side for a little stability. That was the thing about Nox's toys. He didn't just make them. He taught them things. He taught them to adapt.

 Duck travelled the desert, searching for his master. Maybe “master” wasn't the right word. Maybe it should've been “creator.” Maybe, just maybe, it should've been “God.” There were many who wandered the desert looking for him. Duck stumbled across the bones of some of them. He remembered his own bones, those little copper and brass pieces. He remembered how his creator stared at them through an eyeglass, and how it seemed like Duck saw a tear through the other side.

 Duck was an aquatic beast, and Altadas was the opposite of an aquatic world. There was a time when Nathaniel made toy ducks just like him, when there was a lot more water in the world, back before the Regime came. Nathaniel. Yes, that was his name then. So, God had a name. But then he had a thousand names. Now he went by Nox. Now he went by Coilhunter. Duck came after the name Nathaniel died. Duck was the product of a vengeful God.

 He waddled on, approaching the desert wildlife. He came to the snake and asked him: Have you seen the Coilhunter? The snake said no.

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