Dead Rainbow

Dead World

"Ten days. It'll be enough," Redwing said to himself. 

Though he was utterly alone in the vast wasteland, he felt no loneliness. Melock had meant to show him the negative side of an environmental disaster but Nicholas saw it as a raw world he could mold to his liking and rewrite the laws of physics. He had just enough time to make his purpose happen. But first, he wanted to see what his father left. 

He lifted back the door flap and entered the tent. Inside was a chair and desk, a trunk, a cot, and a small iron stove. Its tin pipe rose out the top of the tent and its warm fire made the space quite comfortable.  Atop the well-blanketed cot was a long heavy woolen winter coat, a rabbit fur hat, and a new pair of sturdy woodsman boots. 

"You care for me in such practical ways, father," he said to the gifts. 

He kicked off his old outgrown shoes and stepped into the new boots. Then he opened the trunk. In it were empty vials, containers, and jars, a heavy bound book with blank vellum pages, ink and writing utensils, a hand ax, a fine dagger, a box of candles, and a square metal box containing a crystal sphere wrapped in velvet. 

"A method of contact indeed." He recovered the orb and put it back in its box. 

Redwing exited the tent in his new winter clothing with dagger and ax on his belt and his pack of supplies. He trekked several miles out into the wasteland. When the woods and tent were lost to the horizon and a mountain range loomed in the distance, he felt he'd reached a good spot. 

He dumped his sack and began to dig out a circle with the ax, then he carved out a very specific set of ruins; ones that described the location of the dead world. After that, he walked the massive boneyard in search of the shapes he needed. It took several hours but he was able to fill his teleportation marker with bone. The outer ring made of the dinosaur ribs and the inner runes made of teeth and claws. He made each ring and symbol was three layers deep, packing in the bone layers with damp earth. He stepped back and inspected his work. 

"This will do." 

Taking out his potion book he turned to the last page; there was the rune circle Melock had instructed him to inscribe. The one he could always use to go to Melock's castle. He had never used it yet, but Melock taught him a way to go there if he was ever in trouble, that there would always be food and safety there. 

He turned one page in and drew the new circle in perfect detail. He double-checked it for accuracy. 

"Yes, this will do perfectly." 

Adjacent to the current circle, he dug another more shallow circle in the form of the one at Melock's castle. From his pack, he took a small flask of oil and filled the yard wide image he'd just made. 

"Partum vatra." 

When he spoke the words the oil ignited. The rune circle wouldn't last long so he stepped into the fire ring. A flash of light consumed him and in an instant, he felt time and space bend all around him. Everything came to a screeching halt and he found himself in the courtyard of a large stone castle. He looked out into the distance and he was on a massive mountain top. 

"It works!"

Looking around he saw no one about. Figuring it best not linger, he stepped back into the rune markings laid into the castle's courtyard in golden mosaic. He pulled a piece of bone from his pocket and drew the symbol of his dinosaur world circle within the castle's circle and stepped inside of it. 

"Lanuae magicae." 

Time and space bent all around him again. A great feeling of unease began to overtake him. He felt dizzy and sick. The next moment he was back in the dead world standing in the center of his bone circle. The top layer of bones turned to blackened ash. 

He stepped out of the circle and vomited on the cold, cold ground. 

It was getting darker and he assumed night was coming on, though the dense clouds kept the world in perpetual gloom. He pulled himself together and made his way back to the tent. Along the way, he spotted an intact skull of what was clearly a predator and put it in his pack. 

Hunger, thirst, and fatigue were overtaking him and when he reached the tent, his vial of rations waited to welcome him. One drop on the tongue was enough to satisfy the physical nourishment needs of a grown man or in his case, even a budding teen. 

He reached for his pack, pulled out the raptor skull, and set it on the desk. He missed Lazar. The dead eye sockets looked back at him. He lay down on the skinny cot blissfully full. 

"Tomorrow, I'll bring you back to life." 

He fell asleep, the only living thing in thousands of miles.