possession could tip the balance. The Prime tore through the pile of papers and notes and threw them aside, then entered the armored tomb behind his office to rest. If Apocalypse was approaching, the Prime hated to think it might start without him.
37 – Orphans
The hard bruising arms and grunting, groaning song rolled on and on, and the chanting, droning music pulsed to the jarring rhythm of movement. It brought her screaming out of a nightmare with dog stink still in her face.
She sat bolt upright, eyes flashing open onto a glaring overhead light. Everything around her fell to shadow. She was in a bed with a coarse wool blanket tucked around. The light had the down on her arms glinting golden, and caused her skin to glow; but it created a contrast that dropped the bedclothes into inky blackness. She wore a nightshirt of thick white flannel the same color as her sheets.
Dawn peered into the darkness, squinting her face up against the glare of light and was met by a sudden childish tittering. Giggles rolled around her bed like a wave. She squinted harder and leaned forward, and this only caused another wave of laughter to pass.
“She looks like a grampus squidging his eyes at Nursie’s bum!” a boy’s voice said and laughter followed.
Now Dawn put a hand flat over her eyebrows, hoping the shade would let her see.
More giggling followed. “Now,” laughed another voice. “Now she’s an old Indian scout looking for buffalo!” The giggles grew in intensity until another voice started hushing them.
Dawn’s eyes continued to adjust, and she was soon able to make out movement and forms in the gloom beyond the light.
“Shush,” continued a girl’s voice, it was a little coarse, but it was high-pitched like her own. “You had your laugh, now stop it. It ain’t easy when you first pop your eyes open here, if you remember?” And at that someone moved forward out of the darkness.
Dawn shifted back against her pillows and quickly realized the head of her bed was against the wall. “Wait!” she said, too terrified to think of anything else. The grownup voice in her head didn’t say anything. Sometimes it just watched and listened.
A small girl materialized out of the shadow. She was shorter than Dawn and her body and limbs were thinner. She did have chubby cheeks, but Dawn realized that might have been her heritage, since she was clearly from the Far East or “Old China” as Mr. Jay would have called it.
The girl smiled and said, “I am Meg.” She laughed, there was not a trace of an accent.
“I’m Dawn,” said the forever girl. Her grownup voice suddenly chimed in. You don’t need to say more. NO MORE! “Where am I?” she asked; Meg’s eyes sparkled, and then Dawn blurted: “Where’s Mr. Jay?”
Meg shrugged. “You are in the Prime’s Orphanage.” She gestured left and right. “Dormitory Five. The Toffers brought you.”
“But…” Dawn started, and tears burst from her eyes. “He’s my only friend in the whole world!” She pulled her covers up. “I’ve got to go find him!” Weeping, she pushed her blankets down and started to climb out of the bed. Meg put her hands out to stop her, and it was then that Dawn could see that other forever kids were standing back in the shadows, lots of them. They were dressed the same as she, but were of all shapes and sizes. There were so many, she suddenly recoiled from Meg’s touch and pulled herself back under the blankets.
“Go away!” she cried, and whipped the blanket over her head.
“Go away!” a childish voice mocked and was hushed.
“What a Squeaker!” said another voice, this one a girl’s. “Squeak! Squeak!”
“It’s okay,” Meg kept talking. “Stay under the blankets and listen. You’re not the first to do it.”
Dawn only shivered. Her face was soaked with tears.
“You’re in the Prime’s Orphanage,” Meg explained, “But we mostly call it only ‘Orphanage.’” The girl paused. “And you were brought in on your lonesome by a group of Toffers that looked worse for wear, like there’d been a fight.” She laughed then. “Which all of us were happy to see, since most of us had trouble with them in the past.” A few other forever kids chuckled.
And suddenly Dawn remembered Liz and the other kids with guns and the fight. Mr. Jay must have returned to the hideout and found her missing. At first she wanted to cry even harder, but the grownup voice in her head reassured her. Mr. Jay will look for you.
“The Orphanage is where the Prime keeps us,” Meg said. “And where he teaches us, and tests us, and even makes some of us his daughters.” Her eyes rolled toward the floor and flush colored her cheeks. “Or his wives…”
Dawn lowered her blanket a little and peered out.
Now her eyes could see the others around her bed, the reflected light diffused. There were boys and girls, black, yellow, white, red and brown. And they were tall and short and fat and thin, and all wearing flannel nightshirts against the chill. Some of the kids had scars like knife marks on their faces and arms, and others had shiny bits of skin and ribbons of it on their flesh. And some of the kids looked happy, and some looked sad.
Dawn shook her head and said: “I want Mr. Jay!”
A couple of kids laughed, but most of their faces echoed her sadness. Meg just patted the blanket on her bed. “Unless he’s a friend of the Prime, that ain’t going to happen.” Dawn looked down at the back of Meg’s hand. It was crisscrossed with silver scars. “The Orphanage ain’t a place people like us are allowed to leave.”
Dawn tried to stifle another weepy yawn. “But I want Mr. Jay!”
A couple of the other kids started to tear up. Then a solid looking black boy stepped up close and stuck a finger into Dawn’s face. His cheeks were scarred and he was missing an ear.
“Just shut up you stupid squeaker! SQUEAK! SQUEAK!” he shouted. “Squeaker’s making everybody sad!”
“That’s enough, Larry!” Meg said, “She’s scared.”
“Who cares,” the boy said, “We’re all fucking scared.” Then he slapped at Meg’s hand as she attempted to quiet him. “Don’t shush me!” He swung back to Dawn. “Nobody gets out of the Orphanage. Ever! Unless you go with Nursie. So get used to it!”
The boy punched the blanket when Dawn curled herself under it. She could hear Meg scolding him, and then other kids’ voices were raised in anger. Someone was crying. There were sounds of a struggle.
Dawn just tried to focus on her friend’s face, and she cried for the many years they’d spent together. She tried to remember Nurserywood, and old Arthur, and she wondered what he would do to get out.
“Oh Mr. Jay,” she sobbed into the blanket. “Where are you?”
38 – Nightcare
The man looked different from what the Creature expected. Then she checked herself. He felt different. The physical impressions she’d received over the decades were of the man who stood in front of her. Yes. He was just six feet, his beard, flecked with gray, shoulder-length hair, top hat and coat tails were familiar. Broad cheeks, straight nose and the eyes were right. What was different?
Then she decided perhaps it was the set of his features. There were marks of violence on his clothing: bloody tears in his pants. But that wasn’t the cause. She sensed anger, which had never been in her visions, and he radiated a sour feeling of reluctance. He didn’t want to be here. That was different from what she expected.
She sensed something different in Conan too. His little fighter’s body stood beside the stranger, the guest, she corrected herself; but Conan’s figure, usually a tight twist of muscle, rage and armor, was unusually calm. Something had happened between them. He was calm, and he smelled of tears.
“The Creature welcomes the man to the Nightcare,” the Creature said. The word “welcome” was echoed in a chorus from child to child as the other forever children had gathered in a great semicircle behind her. It was their way, the echo-the chorus-of sharing power.
The phenomenon was not lost to the visitor. He smiled, and let his eyes follow the echo among the children.
