CARBON WONDERLAND

By Giorgia Peckman

I glared defiantly up at the blond, smoke-smeared sky. It glowered back.
Behind me, I heard a young child murmur something before being silenced by their Dimfife.
"Hush! Don't say such rude things! The poor girl can't help if she's mubt!"
I felt a smother blanket of rage settle hotly on my shoulders, tucked in by my flushing cheeks. Mubt! How dare they call me that. Now it was apparent that the child had been talking about my wild mess of hair and large furry ears. Mubt! I was more pure than any of them! Mubt! The word they call the unfortunate survivors of Epop; the Pope's newest piece of warfare, a radioactive bomb cloaked with enhancement charms. Most victims died relatively quickly, but some managed to survive--even if that meant being horribly crippled and/or mutated.
The young boy whispered something more and I whipped around in my steel foldout chair. At the sight of my broad, tan face, with its full, dark lips, flattish nose, slanting green eyes and thin, arching eyebrows, he squeaked and hid behind his Dimfife.
"Oh good lord!" she gasped when her eyes finally took in my face. With a swish of her rumpled shirts, she picked the boy up and herded the rest of the assigned children to a cluster of seats in the front row.
I probably should have felt guilty or hurt, maybe even ashamed, but I was incapable of feeling anything after the explosion. To tell the truth, I was relieved they were gone--the children's endless chatter and the Dimfife's constant clucking like a hen at feeding time had been wearing thin on my already frayed nerves.
So I turned back right-ways and continued at the bleached sky while I waited to be called up to the rickety wooden stage that was normally used for hangings.
Sliding my gaze from the bleak expanse of sky above me, I eyed the slithery pack-leaders contemptuously.
They didn't want us. To them, we were just mooching strangers. An extra pair of workings hands, another hungry mouth to feed. They were only standing up there because of the gold the guards had discreetly passed them earlier.
The Hierarchy always told us we should be grateful that they were "kind" enough to give us another chance, but they never stopped to think that maybe we don't want to be here. That we don't want to be assigned to a new family, a new life; but that's the way things are now, and even though we Splendifonians are strong believers in the Anti-Bomb and the Long-Peace, I have to say that I sincerely doub that it well ever come. Even though the sleek chrome cylinder in my lap did match all the requirements.
You see, 300 years ago, King Galtor of the Verbicide Realm allied himself with the Minotaurs at Darkling Wood who had been banished from their home in the, now regretfully non-existant, Realm of Dactylozooid by Galtor's great-grandson.
This aroused a great wave of hostility and anger from the Zuebrachese who has been neighbors and bitter enemies of the Minotaurs since the age of Alchemy. They had also been so-called "allies" of the Vercidians for centuries. Even though no one is ever really an ally in Carbon--too many people, not enough space.
The rising hostility between the Verbicide Realm and the Real of Zuebracho caused the peaceful Zygodactilians to panic over whom to forge an alliance with; provoking a frenzied bombing in an attempt to silence the whole mess.
They were scammed however by the Popes (sellers of bombs and doomsday devices since 6304) and the missile well missed and hit the Splendiferous Realm instead.
Chief Quirthy (my great-great-great-great uncle's cousin, twice removed, in fact) took the unexpected attack as a sign that the Vercidians and Zuebrachese meant to include the Splendifonians in the discord and as a reply, he closed the Splendiferous borders, withdrew from the Council of Carbon and planted mines in all the major roads.
The Council of Carbon is the "group of equal representatives" that ensure democracy and manage all Carbonyte affairs relating to inter-Realm communication.
That is what they say.
The reality that we poorer folks know is that that is a lie. In the Carbon Code it actually states that no lesser Realms--Groundsfolk, Aquarium, Pinnacles, etc-- and no inferior species--Minotaurs, Popes, Businessmen, etc--may take part in the Council due to their savagery and lower intelligence.
That technically means I am a wanted criminal myself--being half Furcula (a lesser species).
So after Chief Quirthy closed off his Realm, a brief period of peace fell on the Realms of Carbon. This lasted, say, thiry years. Then the real trouble began.
The Minotaurs rebelled.
The Great Lugs had finally figured out that the harsh conditions they were shown were not the customary way that Galtor treated ally ambassadors.
It took long enough, sixty years and sixty thousand lives, but they finally became aware that King Galtor and his court of lying and cheating had only extended the small hand of friendship to acquire Minotaur guides in the labyrinthine mines of the Dwarves, an extinct species most likely wiped out when the Gruesome King Gasthrix poisoned their only water supply 800 years past. (If you haven't noticed, those Vercidian kings were violent, murderous fellows.)
Even though their lives had been improved considerably (from sleeping in mounds of dragon dung to keep warm to sleeping in filthy stables to keep warm), the Minotaurs went on a rampage back to Darkling Wood, enraged at Galtor's usage of them.
Full-fledged war began, and for those who were not under protection of the rulers of their Realm, life became a twisted game of kill or be killed.
Throughout these years of defenselessness, the Popes maintained a smug position of power, pulling on explosive puppet strings, as they propelled the Realms into further war.
In the midst of this, a Zuebrachese assassin sneakily killed Galtor and his son, Galtax--who was, quite impossibly, more awful than his late father--was put on the throne. Some say it was bribery, others say it was plain ignorance, while the most conspiratorial theory is that Galtax was actually a Pope himself. But every Carbonyte, no matter what Realm, knew this was the worst thing that had ever happened.
The Popes joined the Council of Carbon. It was as simple as that. One day the Popes were in hiding, silently wreaking havoc and the next they were broadcasting their admission ceremony to the Council.

Over the next five years, things changed drastically in Carbon. I was one of those changes.

My birth was a rarity, even among refugees. In the hubbub of the highway, crossbreed pregnancies were frequent, but more often that not, the Dimfifes lost the children and the mother--overcrowded, dirty dust-filled caravans weren't exactly the healthiest place to give birth.
My only flaw was that when I was born, I had breathing problems and was so small our pack's cat often mistook me for one of our other kittens. I did have a very catty look about me after all.
My parents were an odd pair, to say the least, but they raised me well and loved each other more than any couple you will ever find. My father, standing at four feet, eight inches was an educated, funny little man who hated when officials commented on his large catlike ears that protruded from his wild, scruffy mass of hair.
He was dwarfed, in comparison, by my mother, a willowy beauty distantly related to the Prime-Royals that towers over my Furcula father at a good six foot, three inches.
Nonetheless, my mixed blood was accepted by our pack, which loved my parents dearly. Even though our pack's cat liked me considerably more.
When I turned four I was large enough for the cat to pick up,






The way I am, cat ears and all. I never understood her words, but now they are carefully stored next to my heart.
"Fai, you are beautiful, whatever the Popes say, they may have taken the hand, but they will never take the people. You are NOT of a lesser species because so called "dirty" blood of the Furculas runs through your veins."
Two years after my thorough and rather unorthodox education began, the Popes brought another grand business venture into the fray. Alloy. All of a sudden everything was alloy this, alloy that. Everyone was clambering to get alloy replacements for perfectly good things they already had. Bombproof—that's what everyone wanted to be—bombproof. But alloy wasn't the answer, it wasn't bombproof—it was flammable. So, while the Popes tried to cover up the disastrous alloy incident, the businessmen made a stand. Anti-Bomb! Anti-Bomb! was cheap and effective. Soon all caravans were fitted with Anti-Bomb! skeletons and bottoms. Shockproof (up to 5,000 zwings!) for mines, bombproof, for grenades, and, of course, for nuclear weapons there was always that nifty force-field enforced with every shield spell used by magicians from necromancers to wizards—activated at the flick of a button.
No matter how you looked it at, Anti-Bomb! was great, only problem was, it got rusty. I don't mean the pretty red stuff that slowly dissolves mold, because usually things still work after that grating carpet of russet creeps over them, but with Anti-Bomb! This was not the case.
All of a sudden, all across Carbon, wagons were exploding once again. The businessmen, completely not in the tradition of their usual nature, felt awful for selling faulty wares to the war-stricken Carbonytes. This hardly mattered though, because even though the businessmen were offering Anti-Bomb! caravans for 75% off the marked price, it was still too expensive for most packs, who already spent several months' food money on their new Anti-Bomb! gear.
This was indeed when the true horror began.
I remember when I was ten—that delicate age where one is old enough to understand the horrors of the world yet still protected by the naïve innocence of youth—I would see the charred skeletal remains of Anti-Bomb! wagons that had gotten too rusty. My parents would see me staring at the sad gravemarkers as we pressed on in our own, protected wagon (one of the Dimfifes was of wizardly descent) and would usher me away, but not before I saw the burnt, mutilated corpses of what was once a scared homeless pack, just like us.

Our pack had stopped by the side of a small, pristine lake filled with clear, azure