#35

At least, they do so until the dawn.

The Old Man feels something approach hir; something intending hir death. Ze wakes up at once, and looks around in the low dawn.

It's a pack of zombies. Or, rather, the Imperial fuel-mutants. Twisted remnants of humanity, packaged and sent in automated ships, intended to overwhelm the survivors of the English Wars of 2043; a birthday party held in honor of three decades of Empire.

Ze awakens Mark at once. “Wha...?”

Ze points. “Zombies. It's time for you to test your mettle, boy.”

Instantly Mark freaks out. “No!” he screams. “No...!!” The Old Man places hir hand over his mouth.

“I'm going to cut out your artificial phobia,” ze says softly. “It'll be easy, because it's very shitty magic.” There is a flash of light before Mark's eyes, and suddenly he seems fine; the zombies seem almost silly now; his mind reels from the distortion occurring between the pulse of fear and the swift calm.

The Old Man stands up and reaches out, flexing hir arm far into the air before hir. Hir fingers clench and suddenly, there is a sword-hilt in hir hand; ze pulls back, and a large but simple sword comes with it. Ze throws the sword at Mark's feet.

“They'll attack soon. You'd best get to work.”

Mark looks up, his face full of puzzlement. “Me?” he asks. “But...”

“Shhh...” The Old Man's face cannot be seen, which greatly disturbs Mark; at least, in this particular instance.

There is a pause, and suddenly the zombies charge. Mark stands up and raises his sword. With an unconscious chop, he decapitates the first beast that chose to rush him. With another flick, one that he astonishes him, he impales another.

He spins as he hears the cries of some more—five others. This time he lunges, his body not like a tiger but a tiger itself; with a cry, he slices two across the chest, before he becomes mortal and falls back.

“Why aren't you helping me?” he then shouts, his blade held outward. The Old Man just stares at him.

He turns, then, as an angry roar comes towards him; he sees a rushing dark shape before he is knocked to the ground. It's one of the sliced ones; in his strike he took its arm, but it still lives while its brother died. Mark is the one to scream again as he impales it through the chest, then cocks the sword upward, slicing cleanly from the wound to its shoulder. There's no blood, only meat.

As he struggles to stand, another is upon him; and this he also stabs through the chest. It claws and screeches as it whips its dying hands through the air, as he lifts it overhead with the blade, trying to shake it off. He succeeds as it dies, and he brings the thick sword down as one of the last comes towards him. Its head is split, and with its dead yellow eyes rolling in its sockets, it still howls. Acting only on instinct, he raises and lowers the blade once more, cleaving it entirely in half.

His muscles burn suddenly, but only one of the mutants remains. It's attacking now as well; these zombies seem to run on martial arts film mechanics. He simply allows it to run into the blade, but as it pushes the sharp tip into itself, it keeps coming forward, persevering. Soon almost the entire sword is pushed through it, and it's right in Mark's face, howling. He almost panics and drops the sword, but it's too much for it; the last of the pack dies.

He kicks the corpse away from himself, and the battle is over.

He finds himself panting, as he collapses back on the moss-bed he slept on that night.

“Why didn't you help me?!”

“You didn't need any help. Your natural talents arose. I believe you are what I'm looking for.”

Mark looks at the sword, his throat suddenly feeling harsh. “I thought you said magic was subtle.” He gasps and swallows. “Pulling a sword out of thin air isn't my idea of that.”

“It was what was needed. The sword is an idea of a sword, and that is subtle.”

Mark resigns himself to the idea of nonsense and says no more. He looks instead at the sword, and wonders if it even exists; but in that glimmering moment of doubt, the sword vanishes.

“Hey...!”

“As mentioned, it was the idea of the sword. You focused too hard on the material world, the world of Yaldabaoth. But for a time, the sword brought you pleasure, for it was what you've always wanted in a sword; light, efficient, capable of dispatching your fears swiftly and without effort. The sword really was your sword.”

“Well, c'mon now, bring it back!”

“I can't. It was born out of emotions that you don't have right now. But you'll find another weapon, eventually.”

Mark is frequently impatient, but he contains his rage for now. The Old Man still has some uses to him, and for now he is in the quandary of being unable to escape being killed by him, and of being unable to kill him directly. To his knowledge.

Objectively, the Old Man is immune to being killed. Ze has reached that stage in hir life where, even if ze was separated from hir armor, hir soul would be irrevocably bound to it, meaning that the death of hir material body would mean nothing. But Mark doesn't know this yet.

They walk, once more in dead and awkward, until at last they do reach the Wastes.