The Last Adventurer
a (very) short piece of fiction written by yours truly circa 1987...
The rising sun illumined the vast, barren outlands that stretched from infinity to forever. Yet, the monotonous emptiness of the blazing eastern horizon was now broken by a simple, covered wain that trundled slowly into view. High above, a vulture circled on the rising thermals, watching the distant wagon with a keen eye, before wheeling away with the barest movement of tawny wings.
A crooked figure sat huddled over the reins, as the team of lumbering oxen strained to pull the creaking, four-wheeled covered wagon forwards across the unmetalled, sandy wastes. The codger wiped the beading sweat from his face and cursed the heat profusely. The old man’s wispy beard curled haphazardly over his bare and emaciated chest that was, like his bald pate, red with recent sunburn.
“There is no end,” he rasped, seemingly to himself.
But then the much-stained canvas tarp moved aside behind him, and a youth emerged, moving to sit at the greybeard’s side.
“There is an end, dear Brun,” the young man countered, “but we are not going that far …”
The oldster spat and turned his hawk-like features back to the wasteland before them.
“There is no end Padrick,” he reiterated garrulously, “and there is no treasure.”
But the stripling only smiled, squinting into the bright sunlight that now fell full on his face. He was barely in his twenties, but his clear green eyes betrayed the fact that he had lived each of his years to the full.
“It’s out there somewhere,” he returned, “I have it all here.” He tapped a leathern scroll on his lap. “That antiquary swore it lay out here and this old piece of hide proves it … We’ll find the lost treasure of the desert; you see if we don’t!”
Brun spat again.
“We’d better find it soon anyways,” the gaffer retorted testily, “we can’t last much longer … it’s been weeks already. The oxen need fresh pasturage, and the water is running low and …”
A raised hand cut him short.
The old man closed his gummy mouth and looked ahead darkly.
That night, as the lowing oxen settled in the eerie silence of the wastes, the youth lay on the wagon bed and stared out at the pinpricks of stellar light that crowded the heavens. The old man was asleep beside him, his snores floating through the still and chill night air.
“We will find it,” Padrick whispered, addressing the infinite depths above him. “What adventures must yet lie above or below...?”
And he fell into a deep slumber, a smile still playing on his lips.
Before dawn they yoked the oxen and, by the time the cool of the night had evaporated into the haze of the day’s renewed heat, they were already several miles to the north of their campsite. Brun leaned forward unspeaking, his displeasure evident. His young companion remained light of mood, but this simply deepened the other’s discontent.
Padrick broke the silence an hour later.
“We’ve passed the boundary old man.”
Brun looked at him now surprised.
“Aye,” the lad bantered, “the old border and the last of civilization now lies behind us… We are in the true wilderness where who knows what beasts and terrors lie in store.”
He laughed as if danger itself was a mere jest.
“Ridiculous,” Brun snarled, looking warily about him nevertheless.
The youth became suddenly serious and, clutching the gaffer’s shoulder, he pointed to a small rocky rise ahead. It rose like a beacon above the level, dun ground. Padrick scanned his cracking map and smiled.
“This is the road, the road that no man has trod in over a thousand years, not since the loss of the great treasure… no man has dared come this far.”
The greybeard looked ahead, reluctantly directing the oxen towards the stony outcrop, his brow now creased in consternation.
“But why?” Brun wondered aloud. “A curse? A fell beast?”
Padrick laughed, the sound dying ominously in the still of the barrens about them.
“Perhaps,” he said, serious once more. “Who knows why the merchants stopped bringing the caravans this way?”
He gestured expansively.
“What matters now is that the lost treasure is very near, unclaimed because of superstitious fools like you. But I have dared...”
The old man scowled and leaned back to rock the water barrel.
“This treasure of yours, if it even exists, had better be worth this rationing …”
“Do not worry Brun,” Padrick assured him, “we will soon have the prize.”
Slowly, the wagon creaked onwards.
Padrick watched the blood-red sun sinking beneath the dust-laden horizon, a deep violet blush retreating before the coming night. Slowly the young man turned his weary eyes from the high and distant beauty of the fading day and looked back to the large dimming, and dusty hollow where he now lay. The bodies of the oxen no longer piqued him, but the old man’s smelly carcass did. No matter how often he covered the corpse with sand, the old fool always seemed to uncover himself.
He lowered his eyes once more. Brun’s ghost was the least of his worries. He now knew the reason why the caravans had stopped all those time-worn years ago. Certainly not a monster, but a curse?
Perhaps.
He sighed weakly as he slumped against a half-buried wheel. He could no longer easily stand but he still clutched at the hilt of his sword. He had found this place. He would defend both his prize and himself whilst he still could. It was all his now, this lost treasure. Lost, aye, this once great oasis of the traders, lost ages before when the waters had ceased to flow.
But the vultures would be back with the dawn.
