Crrrunch.
The sound was sharp, definitive, a dry protest against immense, focused pressure. A desert nut, a mutated, rock-hard descendant of a pecan, yielded its secret not to a hammer, but to the formidable, interlocking strength of Lynda the Wolfkin's thighs. Encased in the sheer, shimmering black stockings that were her lord's latest, bewildering gift, her already impressive legs—long, powerfully muscled, and stretching for what seemed like an impossible length—had been repurposed. Lord Harry Potter Michael, in a stroke of idle genius born of boredom and a modern mind, had declared them the settlement's new, fully-automated nutcracker. It was absurd, slightly scandalous, and worked with terrifying efficiency.
With a delicate, precise motion, Faye the Foxkin picked the plump, pale kernel from the wreckage of shell, brushed away a final fragment, and placed it between Michael's waiting lips. He lay sprawled in a scavenged deck chair that had been Andrew's, its plastic webbing groaning under him, a picture of indolent sovereignty. Lynda's strong fingers worked the knots from his shoulders, Faye fed him the precious, fatty morsels of the desert nut—a rare luxury that scavengers traded for a week's worth of common gruel—and the world, for a few hours, was soft, slow, and pleasantly undemanding.
It was his second day back in the Wasteland, and a strange equilibrium had settled over Cinder Town. The delivery of grain had acted like a chemical stabilizer. John drilled the guards with a fervor fueled by orange board shorts and the promise of future, logo-emblazoned hats. The diggers in the pits swung their picks with a zealous, grateful energy, their payment a bowl of thick, cactus-stretched porridge. Progress on the four wells, though slowing as they delved past sixty, then seventy, then eighty meters into the stubborn earth, was steady. The deepest was now a yawning, inverted pyramid reaching a hundred meters down, its walls shored up with rough timber, its bottom now showing the first, thrilling seepages of dark, damp earth—the promise of water, not just moisture.
The spoil from the digs, hauled out in endless sacks by chains of straining men and boys, was already being put to use, forming the crude, first footings of a new, grander wall beyond the current pathetic perimeter. Michael's mind buzzed with plans: a proper rampart, a deep ditch lined with poisoned cactus spines. For now, however, with the machinery of his small fiefdom apparently humming along without his direct intervention, he had allowed himself the novel luxury of doing nothing. It was a lord's privilege, he supposed, though it mostly involved being used as a scratching post by a wolf-girl and developing an appreciation for mutant nuts.
In these quiet moments, his mind, still conditioned by a world of instant gratification, would wander. A good rain, he'd think, gazing at the endless, brazen blue of the sky. A proper downpour. That's all we need. Could wash this whole damn town clean. Save us waiting on the wells.It was a idle fantasy, born of a fundamental misunderstanding.
The fantasy began to warp into something else around mid-afternoon. A heaviness pressed on the air, the quality of light shifting from harsh gold to a dull, tarnished brass. Michael, lulled by Lynda's ministrations into a doze, felt the change viscerally. He opened his eyes. The world outside the window had gone dark.
He surged to his feet, startling Faye, and thrust his head out of the tavern's third-story window. The sky, moments ago an empty, aching blue, was now a seething cauldron of bruised purple and sickly green clouds, rolling in with a speed that felt vengeful. The wind had changed, too—no longer the dry, dusty breath of the wastes, but a cooler, denser gale that carried a strange, metallic tang. The hair on his arms stood up.
Rain. It was going to rain. His idle wish, granted with ominous swiftness. Elation, clean and simple, bubbled up in him. Water! Free, abundant water from the sky! They could wash! They could fill every pot! They could finally scour the ingrained grime from this place!
"Don't just stand there!" he barked, spinning to face the girls, his voice bright with excitement. "Get my bag! The washing powder! The whole box! This is it! A proper scrub for everyone! Don't you dare be stingy with it!" The vision was glorious: his people, laughing in the rain, lathered in cheap, floral-scented detergent, the years of grit sluicing away. Then, a flicker of proprietary modesty. "The roof! Do it on the roof! Privacy! And… it's more efficient! Less runoff wasted!"
He turned back to the window, ready to bellow the good news to the town, to orchestrate a great, communal baptism. The words died in his throat.
The scene below was not one of gathering jubilation, but of erupting, silent panic. The reaction to the darkening sky was not a reaching for buckets, but a frantic, animal scrabbling for cover. From the pits, men were climbing not with careful deliberation, but with desperate haste, abandoning tools. The distant cries that reached his ears were not of joy, but of raw fear.
"Rain! Inside, get inside!"
"Jem! You little fool, get in here! Now!"
"Has anyone seen the Miller boy? Drag him in!"
Like beetles scattering from an upturned rock, the population of Cinder Town vanished from the open ground, swallowed by doorways, hatches, the dubious shelter of leaning walls. The transformation from busy work-site to ghost town took less than a minute.
Old Gimpy hobbled into the tavern's main room, his face ashen. "My Lord, you should close the shutters," he rasped, his eyes wide.
Michael stared at him, utterly baffled. "Close them? Are you mad? It's rain, Gimpy! Water! From the sky! It's a blessing!"
The old man looked at him as if he'd suggested drinking battery acid. For a long moment, he simply gaped, struggling to reconcile his lord's obvious power with this staggering, fundamental ignorance. Then, pity and grim understanding dawned on his wrinkled face. "A blessing?" he whispered, the word itself seeming dangerous. "No, my Lord. The rain… it is poison. The sky is sick. The water burns the skin, carries the Blight deep into the lungs. To be caught in it is to invite the Rot, or the madness. The wetter you get, the closer you dance to the grave, or to… becoming something else."
The words landed like physical blows, shredding Michael's cheerful fantasy. The metallic tang in the wind wasn't ozone; it was toxicity. The greenish cast of the clouds wasn't a trick of the light; it was sickness. A cold, sick feeling flooded his gut. The roof. The washing powder.
He took the stairs two at a time, bursting out onto the flat, tar-papered roof. The girls were there, huddled by the door, the box of lurid pink washing powder held between them like a live grenade. Their faces were pale, their eyes huge with a terror they hadn't dared voice against his command. The first heavy, cold drops began to spatter the dusty tar paper around them, each one leaving a dark, spreading stain.
Relief that they hadn't yet begun warred with sheer, utter humiliation. He forced a laugh, a brittle, unconvincing sound. "At ease! Stand down! It was a test! A drill! To see if you'd follow orders, even strange ones! And you passed! Brilliantly!" He herded them back towards the door, his voice too loud. "Now get inside. And… well done. Next time, I'll bring… ribbons. Or something."
The rain began in earnest not long after, a steady, drumming downpour that battered the roof of the Honey and Maiden. It was not the cheerful patter of a summer storm, but a solemn, dirge-like rhythm. Inside, the usual sounds of the settlement were hushed, replaced by the constant, oppressive roar on the tin and tile above. There was no laughter, no conversation. The people of Cinder Town waited in the gloom, their faces not relaxed, but tense, listening to the poison fall. They were thinking, Michael knew, of those not under a roof. The scavengers, the lone travellers, the wild things. The rain was a scythe, and its work was silent and impersonal.
The planned lesson in 'Landlord's Poker' was forgotten, the mood shattered. As the unnatural twilight deepened into a proper, rain-lashed night, Michael called for John. The Minotaur arrived, his garish holiday wear looking absurdly out of place in the grim atmosphere, water beading on his horns from the dash between buildings.
"Sit," Michael said, gesturing to a stool. The frivolity, the mistaken assumptions, were over. It was time to stop being a tourist, however well-armed. He needed to understand this world, to tap into its hidden currents, not just its material scraps. He met the Minotaur's steady gaze.
"You've spoken of it before. The Qi. The fighting spirit. Andrew had it. You have it, a little. I need to know how it works." He leaned forward, the guttering candlelight painting his face in stark relief. "Teach me."