Waymaker

By Louis Piechota

Kateb’s splinterworld is less than two hundred miles across, and much of it is ocean. Deadly winds and ravenous fiends plague what’s left. Humans eke out a living on the coast. Twelve-year-old Kateb longs to escape to another world, but in his repressive society even daydreaming about doing so is forbidden.

One day a young woman named Ryn stumbles into his world and changes his life forever. She reveals that demons secretly control all the splinterworlds. They keep the humans in each one isolated with false beliefs. Ryn has stolen a compass that senses the hidden gates between the worlds. She intends to give it to the human Resistance in Na’mor, the great city between the splinterworlds, but now she is injured and on the run.

Helping Ryn get back to Na’mor means risking his life and leaving everything he knows behind. A merciless demon pursues her, and the gate she needs lies deep within the cursed desert to the east. But turning her in means staying in his tiny prison-world forever.

Kateb chooses to help.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Louis Piechota
• Release date: Mar 24, 2022
• ISBN: 9780463544365

Louis Piechota

Louis Piechota grew up in Colorado but now lives in upstate New York. Currently he pays the bills as a mechanical engineer, but his dream has always been to become a full-time author and storyteller. When he is not writing he's usually either reading, cooking something, or hiking in the Adirondacks. Some of his favorite authors are J.R.R Tolkien, Brandon Sanderson, Ursula K. Le Guin, and Neil Gaiman.He published his first novel, “A Rose in the Desert", in 2014. His latest novel is "Waymaker". A sequel to Waymaker is in the works, along with an unrelated trilogy tentatively entitled "The Father of the Night".

Book preview

Waymaker

Waymaker

Copyright 2022 by Louis Piechota

Smashwords Edition

All rights reserved to the author. No part of this work may be used or reproduced in any manner without written permission, except in the case of brief quotations in critical articles or reviews.

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents are either the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously. Any resemblance to actual events, locales, or persons, living or dead, is entirely coincidental.

Cover art by Rory Alexa

Smashwords Edition, License Notes:

This ebook is licensed for your personal enjoyment only. This ebook may not be re-sold or given away to other people. If you would like to share this book with another person, please purchase an additional copy for each recipient. If you’re reading this book and did not purchase it, or it was not purchased for your use only, then please return to your favorite ebook retailer and purchase your own copy. Thank you for respecting the hard work of this author.

For my nieces and nephews.

Table of Contents

Chapter I – The Dust Storm

Chapter II – Outworlder

Chapter III – Coming Home

Chapter IV – The Searchers

Chapter V – Sneaking Out

Chapter VI – Betrayal

Chapter VII – The Rescuers

Chapter VIII – The Battle of Kuchira Pass

Chapter IX – Running Away

Chapter X – Ryn’s Story

Chapter XI – The Desert

Chapter XII – Hiding

Chapter XIII – The Ruins

Chapter XIV – Cassi’s Secret

Chapter XV – The Gate

Chapter XVI – Trapped

Chapter XVII – Waymaker

Epilogue

Other Books by Louis Piechota

Glossary

Chapter I

The Dust Storm

‘Beware, when the Dry Winds blow. The bonemen come to eat your soul…’

Kateb knew the rhyme. Everyone knew the rhyme. The people of the Crescent had all been saying it since the oldest, white-haired grandfathers among them had been little boys fencing with sticks. Yet there he was, out at the edge of the desert when the Dry Winds were blowing.

Of course every wind out of the desert was dry. The Dry Winds were something else. They didn’t just carry no moisture, they sought it out and destroyed it. Stand exposed when the Dry Winds were blowing and you would be a shriveled corpse inside of an hour. So as the Winds arose, Kateb cursed himself and ran.

He had stayed out too long again. At twelve years old he still wasn’t supposed to be out on his own past nightfall, but away to his left the sun had already set. A rosy glow lingered above the sea, but it would soon fade away. When he got home now he would be in trouble.

If he got home. For while everything looked beautiful and calm out over the sea, a massive, chalky haboob had risen up over the mountains to his right. Lightning flashed in the depths of the cloud. Great rivers of dust already rushed through the lower passes like flash floods in some other, wetter world. Soon the mountains themselves would disappear beneath the storm.

Kateb put his head down and hurried on as fast as he could, but only mountain goats could run across the slopes that high up. The ground was too rocky and in many places too steep, treeless but strewn with yucca and sage. Only in the ravines which cut between the hills could one find anything like a path leading down to the coastlands. Kateb headed for the nearest of these: a sizeable arroyo littered with boulders.

When he reached the rim of the arroyo, lightning flashed behind him. A deep boom of thunder rang out a few seconds later. A fresh gust of wind, laden with dust, struck him from the side. He stumbled, coughing and blinking. Then his exposed skin began to prickle and burn. The Dry Winds had come.

For a few seconds he stood frozen in panic. Then he shook himself and started down into the ravine, shielding his mouth and nose with one hand. He had to fling the other arm out for balance. The ground was steep enough that he had to step with sides of his feet, and he had nothing to hold on to. Even within the arroyo only a few stunted pines grew amidst the grass and cactus. Kateb zigzagged between the sturdier trees and the rocks which were big enough to lean against.

The wind lessened as he descended, but dust grew thicker in the air. Lightning flashed all around him. Thunder echoed among the rocky heights above like a giants’ cannonade. Every new blast made him flinch.

Just as he reached the bottom of the arroyo, another light flashed. It blazed out from somewhere farther up the ravine. He stumbled to a halt and clapped his hands over his ears, expecting a devastating blast of thunder. None came. Instead the light flashed several times, soundlessly, with a distinctly bluish tinge unlike any lightning he had ever seen. His hands slowly dropped in astonishment.

Then a scream rang out.

A wordless cry echoed above the howl of the wind, then cut off suddenly just as the blue glare finally faded away. Kateb stood in shock, blinking and straining his ears, but there was nothing more to see or hear.

He hesitated. He had to keep running. Every minute the sky grew darker, and the bonemen would be closing in. But the scream had come from a human voice: a girl’s or a young woman’s raised high in fright. Despite his own terror, visions of damsels in distress and daring rescues flashed before his eyes.

Before he knew it he had started up the arroyo. The steep ascent forced him to breathe deeply, so that he was soon coughing and choking on the billowing dust. Luckily he did not have far to go. After weaving between a few boulders and scrambling up over a lip of bare earth, he emerged into a relatively open space. There the arroyo widened into a small, bowl-like valley, which ran up against a cliff of crumbling rock. Maybe when the monsoons came a waterfall would pour over the cliff and gather before it in a shallow pool, but for now the ground was all drifted sand and strewn pebbles.

Sprawled on that barren surface, and looking almost as out of place upon it as a tropical fish, was a young woman.

She had purple hair. That was the first thing that struck Kateb. Not that she was unconscious, for nobody would have fallen asleep in such an awkward position, but that she had purple hair. It could not have been natural, yet it did not look dyed: a dozen subtle shades flickered as the wind played it. Nobody in the Crescent had hair like that.

Then Kateb blinked. He finally realized that she must be hurt, might even be dead, and that purple hair wasn’t the only strange thing about her.

She was a handful of years older than him, in her late teens or early twenties. Her skin had a bronze tinge, and it gathered into strange little folds at the corners of her eyes. One of those eyes and the side of her face had darkened in an ugly bruise. Until the storm had come the day had been hot and dry, but she wore a black leather jacket. A satchel of matching leather lay on the ground next to her. She also wore a scandalously short skirt. It would not have covered her knees even if she’d been standing up. Of course, she did wear what were either sturdy leggings or snug pants under the little skirt. The skirt itself might just have been decoration. But Kateb had never seen a woman wearing anything other than a long dress. He soon found himself staring at her legs instead of her hair.

Finally he shook himself and rushed to her side. Then he froze again. He had no idea what to do. It felt wrong to hover over her while she was unconscious. He imagined her waking up suddenly and screaming at him to get away. Beyond that she had to be an outworlder. Even aside from her hair, nobody in the Crescent had that skin tone or would wear such clothes. Everyone he knew had dark hair like his own, and skin within a few shades of his own sundrenched tan.

People said that outworlders were dangerous. Corrupt was the word that Father Burran used: corrupt, and corrupting. But she did not look dangerous as she lay there, and the Dry Winds were blowing. Even if the bonemen didn’t find her, she would dehydrate if she didn’t wake up quickly.

At last Kateb reached down timidly to shake her awake. He did not know if you could shake an unconscious person awake, or if you should, but it was the only thing he could think of to try.

As soon as his hand touched her shoulder, she gasped. Kateb sprang back. Her eyes fluttered open. For a few seconds she writhed on the ground, groaning, then she sat up in alarm.

The quick motion made her wince. One slim hand flew to her injured head. Then she blinked. She looked around frantically as if she had no idea where she was. Her eyes were still a bit glazed, and maybe she was not seeing things clearly, for when she saw him she recoiled.

Wha… Where am I? she cried. Who are you?

She started to scramble away in a crab-crawl, but as she planted her left foot she flinched. A little cry of pain escaped her and she fell back onto the pebbly ground. For a second she lay there with huge, petrified eyes. Then she flung herself atop the satchel which lay beside her. She seized hold of something inside the bag, but before she could pull it forth she chanced to look up at him again.

Kateb himself had not moved. In his own near-panic he had not been able to answer her questions. Now, with her mind more fully awake, the young woman finally saw a scared boy rather than a predator. She relaxed a little.

Who are you? she demanded again. What’s going on?

I… I’m Kateb, he stammered at last. Are you okay?

No. Are you?

I… No. Yeah?

He didn’t intend for the last word to come out as a question, but it did. He blushed, but his stammering disarmed her. She smirked and pulled her hand back out of her bag. She drew herself up into a sitting position with her left leg still carefully extended.

Okay, she said, half to herself. She looked around again. Dust hung in the air like a discolored fog. Swirling brown clouds filled the sky. The arroyo and the cliff face offered them some protection from the wind, but it shrieked and howled just overhead.

Where are we, Kateb? she asked at last. What’s with all this wind?

We’re…

He hesitated. She might as well have asked ‘hey, what’s with all this water falling out of the sky?’ during a rainstorm. Alarm bells rang again in his mind: outworlder! dangerous! corrupt! He still didn’t feel particularly threatened, however. Despite her purple hair and strange clothes, she looked more like one of his friends’ big sisters than some fearsome stranger.

We’re up in the mountains above the Crescent, he began. Then as he remembered what was going on his voice became more urgent. This… This is a dust storm. The Dry Winds are blowing! We have to get out of here! Are you okay? Can you walk?

Bewilderment shone in her eyes as he spoke, but hearing the fear in his voice she swallowed all her questions. With some difficulty she pushed herself up onto her feet. At first she seemed to be okay, but as she tried to put weight on her left foot she winced again. She balanced on her right leg for a moment, then sank back down to the ground.

No, she said through gritted teeth. I don’t think I can. Why do we have to get out of here? Is the dust poisonous or something?

No, it’s the Winds. And the bonemen…

He trailed off. For a moment panic threatened to overwhelm him again. She was slender and not very tall, but for the time being she was still taller than he was. He had just started to ‘get his growth’, as his mother said. Some big hero out of a fairytale might have swept her up in his arms and borne her away to safety, but he could not do that. The terrified, animal part of his brain told him he must leave her at once if he didn’t want to die alongside her.

What are the bonemen, Kateb? she asked fearfully.

He blinked. Suddenly the thought of running away made him feel just as sick as the thought of staying there.

They’re… they’re… Oh, you’ll see! Or, I mean, hopefully you won’t, but let me think!

She frowned at him, but fell silent. He looked around the rocky bowl in which they stood, mind racing. People did survive out in the Dry Winds, now and then. The best thing to do was to make yourself small and cover yourself with a cloak or a blanket so the wind would not dry you out as fast. Then you just had to hope the bonemen didn’t find you. For that reason adults who went up into the mountains always carried a blanket with them, even on the hottest of days. Kateb had a little knapsack with him, but there was no cloak or blanket inside it. The day had been bright and clear, and he hadn’t wanted to lug one around. Now he cursed himself for being an idiot.

At length his eyes fixed upon the cliff ahead. The Winds were coming from that direction, from the desert to the east, as they always did. Right up against the cliff the wind might drop to almost nothing. Some big rocks had piled up there, too. Maybe if they crouched among them…

Come on, he cried, springing forward in his sudden excitement. The movement made her flinch in alarm. He drew up short.

"We have to get out of the wind, he explained, bouncing from foot to foot in impatience. It’s coming from over there, so the cliff will probably block most of it. We might be able to hide in those rocks or something, too. But we have to hurry!"

She looked over her shoulder at the cliff face, then back up at him. She hesitated, then scowled in frustration and flung out her arm in a clear request for help.

Kateb rushed to her side. He held out his hand so she could pull herself up, then stood awkwardly, blushing, while she draped her arm over his shoulders for support. Together they hobbled over to the base of the cliff. As they got closer Kateb felt a thrill of hope. Black shadows filled the gaps between the boulders, indicating a hollow space behind them, and some of the openings were big enough to crawl into.

We need to get in there, he said, pointing.

Of course we do, she said. Okay, you first then.

Kateb helped her over to the rock pile, then detached himself from her side. Since she was hurt he offered to carry her bag through for her, but she refused. She actually clutched the bag more tightly as if she thought he might steal it. He shrugged, then chose the largest opening among the rocks that he could find and crawled in.

The gap was just big enough that he did not have to slide on his belly, but the rough stone bit into his hands and knees. A couple of times he scraped his back against the boulders above him. Then, just as he was beginning to feel claustrophobic, he realized he had made it through the pile. He crawled out onto smooth, flat bedrock. A comparatively wide space opened up around him.

Come on! he cried. There’s a cave back here!

Wonderful.

She muttered something else that he couldn’t make out, then crawled in after him. Meanwhile he stood up and examined the cave as well as he could. A tall man would have had to stoop inside of it, but both he and his new companion could stand up straight. At its mouth the cave was about eight feet wide, but he could not tell how far back it went. Nightfall and the dust storm had already made the world dim. The weak, brown light which seeped in through the rock pile did not penetrate more than a few feet.

The young woman crawled through the opening behind him, then rolled into a sitting position. She scooted over against the wall of the cave and set her bag down beside her. For a moment she just sat there in silence, holding her head in her hands.

Will we be safe in here, then? she asked at last. She sounded both hurt and exhausted.

I think so. From the Winds, anyway.

The Dry Winds did not reach inside the cave. Kateb could still sense them as a kind of super-arid scent on the air, but they did not make his skin burn anymore. He had no idea if the bonemen would come into the cave or not, but he did not know what else he could do about them. Either they would come or they wouldn’t. He didn’t like not being able to see the back of the cave, however. He kept imagining a bear or a cougar back there, glowering at them.

He racked his brains, trying to think of some way to make a light, but he did not have the right gear. Not being allowed out past dark, he hadn’t thought to pack a tinderbox. In his knapsack he had only a couple of canteens and a little food. A hunting knife which his father had given him on his last birthday, and which was now his most prized possession, hung at his belt. He thought about trying to make sparks with it, but even if he could he had nothing to burn.

You don’t have anything that could make a light, do you? he asked. It’s going to be pitch black in here soon.

I don’t think…

She stopped suddenly. He thought he saw a weird, furtive expression pass over her face, though it was hard to tell in the semi-darkness.

You don’t think what?

"Well, I can make a light, she said. But… You have to promise not to tell anyone about it."

What? Why not?

Just promise. Or we can sit here in the dark.

Okay, fine! I promise. But why wouldn’t you want me to tell anyone you that had a candle or whatever?

She did not answer. Instead she reached into her bag and fumbled with something. Suddenly a faint light flared. It was not firelight. It looked almost like moonlight, only with more pronounced tinges of blue and silver. The light shone up out of her open bag, casting faint shadows across her face. Her gaze flickered back and forth between whatever was glowing and Kateb’s eyes. Then she sighed, shrugged, and pulled a small object forth.

Kateb started in astonishment. She held a disk of faceted crystal, about the size and shape of a pocket-watch. White gold jacketed the crystal, and a chain of the same material dangled between her fingers. The crystal encased a deep blue surface of some kind, but there were no markings on it. Instead a faint, silvery glow swirled above the velvety face like moonlight shining through a fog.

Then, even as he watched, the light grew brighter. It coalesced into two shapes that resembled compass needles, one bigger and brighter than the other. Both needles swung around a few times, independently of each other, then settled into place. The brighter needle ended up pointing northwest, but the smaller one pointed eastward, straight back into the cave. Kateb looked that way reflexively. He could now see that the cavern ended about twenty feet back, in a heap of boulders and talus that looked unpleasantly like the remains of a cave-in. But he had no idea what the light could be pointing at, or what the object was in the first place. He had never seen anything so obviously magical and valuable.

What is that? he whispered. What’s it pointing at?

Don’t worry about it, she said. I just pulled it out to give us some light.

He blinked, then looked up at her face again. She was grinning a little at his open-mouthed amazement. He squared his shoulders, glaring at her.

"I’m not worried about it. I’m just asking… I mean, I’m helping you aren’t I? What is that thing? And who are you? Where did you come from? What’s your name, even?"

"Well my name is easy, she said. It’s Ryn. I’d say it’s nice to meet you, Kateb, but so far it really hasn’t been. My head hurts and my ankle hurts and apparently the wind wants to kill me, and I have no idea where I am. ‘Above the Crescent’ doesn’t mean anything to me. I… she hesitated. You’ve never seen a sojourner before, have you?"

A so…?

"A sojourner. You know, an outworlder. Someone who’s come from one of the other splinterworlds."

He shook his head. He had known she was an outworlder as soon as he’d laid eyes on her, of course, but to hear her say it so casually was still weird. As far as he knew, no other outworlders had come to the Cresent for many years.

Well, you’ve seen one now, she said. "I came here from my own world. Kind of by accident, really. I mean, I meant to go somewhere, but I didn’t know I’d wind up here. As for this… she looked down at the crystal. Well, it’s a secret. I wouldn’t even have shown it to you if the alternative wasn’t sitting in the dark, listening to the wind blow and… and… what is that sound?"

Outside the cave the wind had diminished a little. The sound of it had lessened from a howl to a moan. Over that moan a faint creaking and cracking could now be heard. The sound reminded Kateb of steps in an old house, protesting under the weight of a creeping intruder. As soon as he heard that sound his guts twisted up in fear. He could hardly breathe, and he could not answer Ryn even though he knew exactly what the noise meant.

The bonemen had come.

Chapter II

Outworlder

"What is that?" Ryn asked again. Her voice had shrank to a whisper. Anybody who heard that awful, slow creaking would have known to fear it.

It’s them, Kateb croaked at last. It’s the bonemen.

He turned toward the mouth of the cave, but of course he could see nothing except the jagged edges of the rock pile. Inky shadows filled the gaps between the rocks where the light of Ryn’s crystal did not reach.

He stared helplessly at the rocks for a moment, then started. The light! It must be shining out through the pile. He whirled back toward Ryn. More than half panicked, he reached for the crystal himself, but she jerked it away from him.

Hey!

Put it out! Put the light out! They’ll see!

His obvious terror made Ryn’s eyes widen in alarm. She fumbled with the crystal for a moment, but its light did not change. Finally she just thrust the thing back into her bag.

Blackness filled the cave. Kateb blinked frantically, but for a few seconds he could see nothing at all. His eyes had adjusted to the glow, and night had continued to fall outside. After a moment he could see again, but only just. Ryn was only a deep shadow against a black background.

Outside, the creaking had grown louder and more frequent. A faint crunching of footsteps on dry earth had joined it.

Without a word Kateb and Ryn crept back from the mouth of the cave, him on tiptoes and her scooting across the floor. When they reached the far end they stopped and waited, listening again. The creaking and the footsteps grew even louder and closer at first, but then both noises began to diminish. Kateb held his breath. He had imagined a horde of bonemen converging on the cavern, but now they seemed to be passing it by. When the sounds had shrank so low that he could hardly make them out, he let out his breath in relief.

Then a loud creak sounded right at the cave’s entrance. A scuffing noise echoed in the darkness. Within the rock pile a shadow moved.

Ryn hissed a swear word. She yanked the crystal out of her bag again and held it aloft. The crystal’s light had dimmed when she’d put it away, but now it flared again. Its blue silver rays shone upon a monster.

A boneman was crawling through the rock pile. At a glance it looked like a bleached skeleton, but it had just enough dry, white flesh and sinew to hold its bones together. The skeleton was not quite human, either. Its head and its hands were too long. The empty eye sockets which it turned on Kateb and Ryn had a stretched, oval shape. There were too many teeth in its mouth, and they were all sharp.

The boneman surged forward and climbed to its feet. The creaking of its withered limbs echoed in the cave. An acrid scent filled the air. When it had risen it paused, staring at them as if sizing them up.

Bile rose in Kateb’s throat. He could not move. The creature’s black, eyeless stare