Gramps Was Right

His lungs burned, his legs cried out in protest, his feet threatened to fumble at every step. His arms had long since grown numb holding the precious cargo tight to his chest. Ahead lay the safety of the ’burg; a vast network of hidden and secret paths through, between, and below the crumbling buildings that he knew with his eyes closed.

He ran past the faded pink facade of the abandoned HiLux Hotel, dodged right down an alley then continued deeper into the ’burg. Once he was satisfied that he was no longer followed he allowed himself to slow to a walk. He wanted to collapse but knew that his legs would seize up if he did.

Most people considered the Danburg neighborhood dangerous, but for him, it was safety, home. The derelict subway station, a remnant of the before times, was his destination. He made his way down the steps on rubbery legs, past the broken turnstiles, and down into the subway tunnel.

Using his back to push open a door that had once led to a maintenance shaft, he emerged into a dimly lit space populated by tents, tables, chairs, and a few small cooking fires. The sounds of quiet conversation, together with the thud of the closing door, finally slowed his heart.

“Hey, kid,” Old Nora asked, “what you got there?”

“Gramps was right,” he said. “I found it.”

Old Nora laughed a raspy laugh that turned into a coughing fit. When it passed, she said, “Careful now, that old coot might just rise from the grave to say his told-ya-so’s.”

He walked to the tent he shared with Mama Jean and the other young strays. Beside the tent sat a table made from scrap lumber with a street sign for a tabletop. The writing on the sign, like most writing outside the ’burg was Elvish.

He tried to set the bundle he’d cradled on the table, but it ended up falling from his grasp and landing on the table with a loud bang. Mama Jean shot out of the tent wielding a short spear.

“What’s the ruckus?”

“Sorry, Mama. My arms are tired out and I dropped it.”

Mama Jean lowered her spear and looked at the bundle; a stack of books bound with a leather belt. “Why’d you bother with that? Ain’t no one here can read Elvish, and they ain’t letting anything else exist.”

“Gramps said that we used to—”

“Gramps said a whole heap of nonsense. No point in taking any of it serious.”

“Those are proof. I found it right where he said.” The kid tried to cross his arms, but they hung at his sides with elbows bent and refused to move.

Mama Jean leaned in close to him. Her lined face and salt-and-pepper hair placed her age closer to Old Nora than the kid. “You went to the library?” she hissed.

He nodded. “Fourth floor, through the gildy doors. These was in the farthest back shelves.”

Mama grabbed him roughly by the arm, eliciting a sharp cry of pain. “How did you get out of there? Did you lead ’em here? Where are they? We gotta prepare.”

“Same way I got in, Mama; I snuck. They didn’t even know I was there until I left the library, and an alarm went off. I ran all the way to the ’burg, from the other side. Even the hounds couldn’t keep up.”

“You ran seven miles with hounds on you and think you lost ’em?”

“I know I did.”

Mama stepped to center of the space and rang the makeshift bell. “Hounds coming! Hounds coming!”

Old Nora herded the children to the back of the space behind a cement wall. Adults grabbed their weapons — spears, clubs, whatever came to hand — and shields made from old street signs.

The shields were arranged in a semi-circle around the one entrance to the enclave. They had no way to lock the door, and no chance against the hounds, but they’d make them pay for every person they took down.

The kid opened the book on the top of the stack; the one he’d been holding closest to his body. It was in English…and Gramps had taught him how to read that.

The book opened to the page that he had first seen, the binding broken in such a way that it wanted to open there. He wasn’t sure he had enough control of his arms yet, but he gave it a shot.

The hand positions were tunnel-rat signs for “shield” on the right and “wall” on the left. Gramps had said that tunnel-rat sign used to be magic in the before time, and when he’d seen this page, he’d known Gramps was right.

His hands in the proper position, he began moving his arms in circles. He heard them coming. The unmistakable baying call of the hounds.

As he chanted the words on the page, the door blew down in an explosion of concrete and steel. Immediately behind the debris followed a hail of bullets from the hounds.

All of it stopped in midair a few feet from the shield-bearers. The kid continued circling his arms and chanting as the hounds threw themselves at the magic barrier, doing nothing more than knocking down the debris and flattened bullets that peppered it.

As he kept it up, he heard Old Nora laughing, and falling into another coughing fit. Mama ran back to the table and flipped through the book. Finding what she was looking for, she called out instructions to the kid.

He made the signs, moved his arms in the way she’d described, and called out the single word, “blast!”

A shimmer like heatwaves off hot pavement flew from his hands to the shield. The shield held, and the shimmer passed through, turning into a massive blast wave in the middle of the hounds.

Their armor did them no good; the concussive force shattering bones, crushing organs, and rattling their brains in their wolf-like heads. Two dozen hounds, the elite of the elves’ protective force, lay dead in the entrance to the squat and the tunnel beyond.

The sound of cheers rose from the defenders, fading as exhaustion overtook him and he collapsed into darkness. His last thought before he fell to the floor was that he wished Gramps had been around to see that he was right: humans had magic, too.