An Arcane Engineer in Another World: Book I, Exile, chapter 4

I headed out at the first crack of “dawn” the sun still more or less obscured by the clouds. Even accounting for that, it seemed oddly dim compared to back home.

But I shouldered the ropes, and started out, the sound of the sled’s runners mixing with the crunching of the snow under my feet, the improvized snowshoes doing a good job.

“Right,” I muttered. There was a fence leading to what looked like a small road, lines of snow covered trees helpfully ensuring I wasn’t going to go off the road is there was another storm.

“So, according to the map…” About a mile down this road it went into a much larger road, bigger than anything I’d seen back home. And after that… Tarleton-Town.

I paused and looked back at the farmhouse and had a sudden vision of it slowly decaying as the years passed, a forlorn monument.

But time was passing and I needed to start moving.

So with that, I started marching down the center of the road.

The road itself was empty, and beyond the world was flat—the snow covered fields merging into the dull horizon.

Even without snow, this place was probably not terribly interesting. Fortunately, Tarlton town was in a small mountain range, at the entrance to a big circular lake… Meteor Lake. The atlas didn’t have anything more about that, but it’d have had to be a big meteor, likely fallen long ago.

I had been taken to Meteor Park by my family once, the dozen depressions and lakes the only sign of the rain that had changed the world 10,000 years before the first buildings were erected.

It was probably the same here.

I kept moving, my breath steaming in the air. Nothing moved save for the wind and some snow flurries picked up from the ground.

I needed to hurry. There was no shelter here. If a storm kicked up, I’d have to try to make a shelter by one of the trees, but that wasn’t good for anyone wanting to live to see another day.

“Well, Marcus,” I said to the air. “Here’s your destiny. No big-breasted princesses needing rescue from a conveniently incompetent evil warlord. Hell, right now I’d be happy with an inn wanting me to muck out their stables in return for a good meal and bed.”

I waited expectantly.

No such Inn appeared.

I kept marching, ever so often sparing an annoyed eye at the washed out circle of the sun that kept moving. It was cold enough now and I occasionally felt little flurries of wind. But as  kept moving, there were odd lumps in the distance. Piles of snow.

Odd…  There was something…

I walked up to one, leaving my sled behind. Poking it with my shovel didn’t get a roar, and in fact, the shovel tip struck metal?  I started brushing the snow away, coming up with dully gleaming metal and glass.

Some kind of carriage, I wonder if—

“Shit!” I screamed and fell back as the last of the snow fell away from the side glass, revealing a blue, frozen face of a woman.

I took deep breaths, then got up and looked again.

Next to her, there was a man, his hands on some kind of control device. The tiller for a carriage, only a big circular wheel.  He was dead and frozen. In back…

I found myself bending down, holding my knees. In back there had been a child, covered in brightly colored blankets, a cat curled up in her lap, a dog curled into her body. Frozen. Dead.

They must have been out here and whatever they used to move their vehicle couldn’t keep pushing…  Too cold to get out, they’d decided to wait it out. Like the others. I didn’t need to go to those mounts.

They’d waited, and the cold had gotten worse, and they’d huddled under their blankets but…

I hoped they’d just nodded off into sleep, slid gently into death, rather than trying to stay awake, terrified and alone.

I shook my head again, trying to get my senses back. If they had been waiting…

Had they been expecting help to arrive?  I looked up the road at the other lumps. Not many. And the road was wide. Had they waited too long?  Been left behind when whatever propelled their vehicle failed?

I didn’t know. But I did know one thing. No help had come from the city. Even the biggest storm back home, them moment it was over you’d have people coming out. Sometimes even during it, if it was bad enough to justify wizard workings to divert the weather.

Not here. Which either meant the people in the city didn’t care…

Or were in no condition to help them.

So, I guess it’s my destiny to go see if they need help. Gods, they’re going to be disappointed in what they get.

I shook my head and grabbed the rope to pull the sled behind me. I needed to hurry.

****

I was about twenty feet from the car when I stopped. They hadn’t expected to die. They’d come out here, to escape, and a storm had blocked them. They couldn’t get out of the vehicle, and whatever powered it didn’t last. So they waited, maybe hoping for help to come. The parents told the kid that there would be help…even when they knew there wasn’t.

You could tell that. Everyone was tucked under blankets, for a sleep that would last for eternity.

My initial shock was over and I just felt…

I’d never seen bodies, not like this. I’d viewed Grandfather’s, before the cremation. Nobody here had family come by for the cremation or to view the body. Nobody here had mourned them—at least not here. Maybe, in some far off place, others were waiting… and would wait for the rest of their lives.

There was no danger of the unclean dead here. This wasn’t greed and evil… it was sad and meaningless.

But nobody had said goodbye to them or honored their lives.

And I was here. The only one who could do it.

I went back to the vehicle, looked in the window one last time, then walked to the front of the vehicle.

I took out some of my wood, put it in a little pile. Then lit it. The fire flickered and a stream of smoke went into the sky.

“Mother who is with us at our first breath, help them remember all the good days of their lives.”

“Father, who guarded us against the night and stands vigil for our last breath, raise your lantern and guide them to the Far Shores.”

“Brother and Sister, who comfort us, go to their loved ones and help them share their burden of grief.”

I hadn’t said anything like this since I’d been in the temple with Grandfather. This was the short form but…

I figured it was all they needed.

I looked to the other mounds. The words encompassed them as well.

I turned, shouldered the straps to pull the sledge, and kept moving on.

I didn’t look at the piles of snow anymore.