Free Life and Limb (The Ebon Chronicles) by Chris Capps Page B

age she showed great intelligence and spirit.  And of course, it doesn't hurt that she's beautiful."
    "The most beautiful girl you've ever seen?" Ebon said wryly.
    "Yes," I said, "The most."
    "It sounds difficult," Ebon said pulling a knife from his side as he crouched to a sitting position against the wall, "Being forced to learn who someone is in such a controlled environment.  I wonder, could you ever truly know who she is if all you've done is talk politely?"
    "Tread carefully," I said, "The thought of losing her claimed my leg.  Don't think I wouldn't kill a man to preserve her honor."
    "Such a gentleman," Ebon said humorlessly, "Would she kill someone to preserve yours?" I felt an invisible, ethereal elastic band form between my hand and the seven shooter at my hip, but I knew to ignore it.
    Why bring this up now?  Whatever game Ebon the Waste was playing, it wouldn't get us anywhere if we turned on one another.  He seemed to notice it too, shaking his head and chuckling to himself, "I'm sorry, Adon.  I'm sure she's a lovely girl.  But in a situation like this, where you're choosing a life with someone who's never lived like you have, what are you expecting?"
    "Adon the idle player of music," I said, "That's what I aim to be called.  What about you?  Have you ever loved anyone?"
    "The person I love most of all," Ebon said drawing long on his cigarette and flicking it at the wall, sending a shower of sparks down beside me, "Will come along years after I'm dead.  She'll be kind, gentle, and never know about the savagery of this time, this world.  She'll never hear about me."
    I stood uneasily, the cane creaking beneath me. I raised the flashlight and spilled a muted beam down the hallway ahead of us,
    "Do you think someone like that will ever exist?"
    "What do you think we're doing here now?" he said with a grin.
    I reached a hand down, warmed by his words for a moment.  It was a tempting thought, that we might be on the verge of changing the world.  Why not indulge the fantasy?  We, two men with nothing to speak of in a world of ruin, were setting down a path to rekindle that spark of civilization.  What followed could very well blossom into a utopian dream.  We didn't know, and in not knowing there was that spark of hope.
    Ebon grinned back at me, taking my hand and grunting like old men do, coughing wetly into his hand and sniffing as he propped himself up on his rifle.
    "Well if you're going to put it that way," I said, now sharing his grin, turning our hands clasped together into a handshake, "I'm glad I met you, Ebon the Waste."
    "And I you, Adon Still," Ebon said, shouldering his rifle, "But you seem to like strangers.  And be liked by them."
    We continued down the main way, walking nearly a mile until we finally reached the main tunnel's end.  It was down a gentle slope, a hundred feet, and it ended at a solid round metal slab.
    "A door," I said, the flashlight beam caressing the grey surface of the machine, "Of some sort or another."
    "This is it," Ebon said as he stepped lightly down the small path, "Whether you know it or not, this is a moment you will remember forever.  This is when you won Tyche's hand in marriage and we opened up the door on our new world."
    "We'll work together," I said, excitedly slapping my hands against the dull carbon grey wall, "I promise you, Ebon.  When we get back to the city, you and I will work together to bring peace.  And we'll use this place as a sanctuary for the downtrodden.  Your strays will populate these corridors and know that there is a place for them.  They will be safe."
    Ebon was staring at the wall with few features, studying the strange writing at its center.  Wiping the long streaks of dust behind it away, he uncovered a small compartment door.  With our hands working together we cleared away every bit of dust, uncovering layer upon layer that had accumulated along its surface so that not a single inch within our reach remained obscured.