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VII. A Haunted World
Above a rocky, shadowed cliff, a low cloud hovered. Anyone looking carefully enough might have noticed that most of the cloud was a mirage of slowly moving shades of white and gray, slightly rippling upon the pebbled surface of an enormous, gas-filled bell. Within and below the odd cloud were the irregular curves of a complex, iridescent shell that flickered with soft colors mimicking the shadows below.
Several miles away, wide buildings huddled, half-buried, under the thick, spreading branches of a grove. Their roots acted as living support beams for the structures that were, if you knew where to look, the primary entrance into a small, hidden world.
On the horizon, plumes of smoke were still visible weeks after the fiery catastrophe that had nearly killed the pallicorn and her small crew, an accidental afterthought of destruction. Much closer, though, the charred earth was already healing, small clouds of bees hard at work as if nothing at all had happened.
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The hidden village of Deep Haven was starkly different from what Zoe had known all her life. She had grown up in New Providence, a city of lovely houses built of singing wood, living pieces harvested from the mother trees that held the inhabitants in safety, peace, and near hypnotic obedience to their kriuulu guardians.
The hundreds of refugees who called it home had dug their village into the earth, roofing the entrance with the same thick, flowering turf of the surrounding meadowlands. It was the sole door leading to the outside world, concealed from any eyes might see and wonder.
Below that village, though, lay a covert subterranean kingdom.
The cavern the inhabitants had carried a wounded Tavirr into was tiny, compared to the huge cave complex winding through the depths below them. Zoe had taken to a cautious exploration into the unoccupied areas, accepting Tavirr’s insistence to never get out of sight of the main tunnelway leading back to the village.
Finally, she asked Tavirr to help explore what she’d found.
“There’s so many strange carvings, Tavirr, you won’t believe it! It’s not even really dark. Come on, you need to see this!”
Tavirr frowned at her but followed.
His wing had healed with a rough scar snaking along its length, turning a portion of the membranes into rigid tissues and stiffening the middle knuckles of all three wing fingers. Although the burning pain was gone, he still suffered from the knowledge that he would not be flying for a very long time, if ever.
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“Myrna Tanner,” Rene called down, heaving a crate of dried leathers onto the pulley Mama had long ago consented to have installed in her shell. A few clouds shadowed the ground below, a pleasant breeze bringing the scent of flowers into Mama’s lower shell, which pulsed with slow blues to mimic the sky. Bees passed in and out, unbothered by the work occupying the lowest deck of the pallicorn’s huge shell.
Rene liked Myrna; she was always as exact in her requests as he was in storing raw leather in the dimensions she would need. His adopted father had taught Rene the importance of keeping their wares in more than the organized mess a much younger Rene had originally tended to; now he appreciated finding similar values in others.
It was a good day for the work. The porters were rapidly hefting out the crates he lowered, sending the harness back up almost as soon as each load touched down. Rene hoped they were double-checking the names on the order sheet with the crate numbers; there’d be a hell of a lot of moaning and complaining, otherwise. He hated having to unpack and repack anything he’d already put together. Especially since the coin of the realm, so to speak, was usually barter.
A crate of leather might be worth a gross of tseyshoes here, but the good folks of Abercrombie, Merriweather, or Hudson would have very different going rates for very different goods.
At least he was Deep Haven’s only contact. He liked the folks below being safe almost as much as he liked trade to be smooth. And trade was never smooth. Most people didn’t travel—humans especially, since they were still under that abominable cultural custody that passed for hospitality in their protectors.
Welcome to your new existence, he imagined his ancestors being told. We’ll give you everything your people need, and then we’ll take everything your people are.
Another crate. “Vergil Carpenter.” This one was huge, heavily filled with wood and fittings, but the porters seemed to have no trouble. With every crate of wares that Rene lowered, Mama purred the rainy sounds of her happiness, letting Rene know that she appreciated the weight leaving her body. Sometimes he wondered how much relief Mama felt when he offloaded his own outsized self from her capacious shell.
“Uh.” Rene tried his best on the next name, a burchar’s. “Dalava?” He’d packed this box with needles and blades of every size he carried, as well as bandages, thread, herbs, and simples. Rene leaned over the shell edge to glance down as he hooked together the crate harness, and was surprised to find the burchar in question smiling up at him. No wonder the porters are so fast today!
They’d met, very briefly, when h’Dlava had explained the bad news about Tavirr’s wing, but Rene hadn’t known his name then. Or that he’d need to keep polishing his admittedly poor burchar pronunciation! But h’Dlava hadn’t been in Deep Haven the last time Rene had stopped through.
The village gained new faces often enough, but this was the first nonhuman to become part of the hidden community. He wondered what the burchar’s story was.
He wondered how the rest of the village felt about their burchar medic.
With the big guy standing there like some sort of saurian centaur, unloading merchandise was taking half the time that it usually did. Once the wares were lowered, Rene joined the small group in hefting the last crate—jars and jars of honey—leaving Mama (and her bees) to enjoy the day.
A pair of nocturnal tseys wearing sun masks over their eyes towed the wagon into a garage camouflaged in a cliff face some distance from the village proper. Inside was a lift, a piece of ingenious mechanical technology that involved screws and counterweights and other things Rene would never understand.
Once the contraption’s mechanism lowered it into the hollows beneath, the two drovers unveiled and unhitched the tseys to lead them back into the sheltered corral and out of the daylight the creatures preferred to sleep through.
The last package was for the stables, and Rene happily accompanied them, having missed their company terribly. The drovers, a father and daughter named Julius and Sasha, exchanged news of the village and the wider world, with Rene happily embellishing his exciting tale of the woman from New Providence and the heroic lysk who’d tried to rescue her from the terrible, ravaging pallicorn.
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“Careful of your feet,” Zoe murmured, “there’s small holes in the ground all over the place in here.”
Tavirr felt one of his talons catch on something. His wings spread as he caught his balance; he flinched, expecting pain that didn’t appear, then crouched for a closer look at what his toe claw had sunk into.
There were clusters of small holes at his feet, and he could see more of them here and there as the corridor wound into a larger space. Faint echoes of dripping water carried up to them through the deeper layers the holes must have led into, and Tavirr caught just the barest edge of an unpleasant odor. He swallowed his uneasiness and continued with Zoe.
They rounded the bend, and the narrow corridor yawned open into a huge cave.
It was a maze of high cliffs and pillars, all faintly lit by a bioluminescent haze of fungi, spores, and tiny, unnameable creatures, and Zoe turned around, grinning to see Tavirr’s expression.
Tavirr stood, ears aquiver and eyes wide in shock. His jaw dropped, revealing sharp white teeth.
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“That ice demon,” Julius said, once they’d reached the stables. He shook a glass bulb until the mixture inside brightened enough that the tseys began to complain. “You’re sure he’s not a danger?”
As Sasha busied herself with brushing the tseys’ scales till they gleamed, Rene sat on a feed barrel and rubbed his face in exhausted frustration.
“No,” he sighed. “I’m not sure. I look at him, and all I see are the pointy bits—the talons and those fangs.”
Julius cocked his head. “Uncle, I know we missed a lot of years till you could get us out, but I’m pretty sure I know you know you better than to think that’s all you see.”
“Well. That’s what I see. But then, I’m not a lonely orphan girl who nearly died in a Cathedral.”
The younger man spat off to one side. Then he raised his eyebrows, a grin showing very white against his dark skin. “Well. Romance is everywhere today. I see you finally got around to introducing yourself to our new resident doctor.”
Staring at his nephew, Rene cocked his head quizzically. “What? Romance? How would that even—? The parts don’t—? And what the hell are you laughing at?”
“Hey, Sasha?”
“Yeah, Dad?”
“You win the bet.”
A burst of laughter sounded from one of the stalls.
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“Uh, Julius?”
“Yes, Uncle?”
“What bet?”
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Tavirr’s inner amusement at Zoe’s excitement faded fast as he looked into the darkness.
Water dripped slowly down the walls into stagnant pools. The overlapping echoes of falling drops created an eerie sense of far-off whispering. There was that odor again—something he couldn’t place, faint but unpleasant.
He was close to turning back—Human noses must not be as sensitive as ours, he thought—but directly ahead, a huge, rough pillar caught his attention. At first, he thought it must be limestone, melted and reformed into a stalagnate column, but something about it was too clean, too regular, and his eyes began to pick out details.
The skull was what he recognized first—heavy frontal bone, strong mandibular joints. The long, wicked fangs (he ran his tongue unconsciously over his own fangs) were buried in another skull, a larger one with longer jaws, its blunt teeth seeming to grind together in agony. The horns fringed behind that skull had been driven into the cervical vertebrae of its attacker, locking their bodies into a frozen passion of atrocity, buried forever until whatever forces had created this place uncovered the brutal remains.
Around them—embedded into the floors, the walls, curling through more eroded columns—similar scenes had been captured, preserved in eternal savagery by whatever had buried this place. Here and there, liquid—something, Tavirr realized, that was not water—gathered slowly into seeping drops that dangled from the teeth, claws, and horns of people millions of years dead.
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“I’ll take that now. Birthday girl’s about done.” Julius watched proudly as his daughter latched the stalls and wiped the scale dust off her hands, then presented the cloth-wrapped package Rene had brought.
“Happy birthday, sweetheart,” Rene murmured.
Sasha glanced over at her father, bouncing on her toes until he nodded. Then she took the package, squinting at it, carefully feeling the cloth till her fingers touched the string tied around it, then tracing around till she could find the ends of the bow knot.
Dammit, Rene chided himself. How could I have forgotten? But Julius patted his shoulder, giving him a rueful smile. Right, he told himself. It’s Julius’ every day. It’s only my every few months. But it’s gotten worse.
“What did Dlava say to do, honey?”
Sasha swallowed hard, shivered, then stopped fumbling. Moving her head this way and that until her eyes could focus on the ties, she grabbed a loose string and pulled. Carefully, she handed the string to her father, then the cloth. She frowned at the frame, seeing a jumble of shapes and colors inside it. Then, holding it up at arm’s length, she moved it gently back and forth until she could finally understand the image.
“Wow,” she breathed. “What are they? They look kinda like melks, except without the antlers. Oh! They have manes and tails! But…” She peered closer, moving her head around. “They can’t be tseys, they don’t have horns on their noses, and that looks like… where’s the scales?”
Julius took it from her and admired it. “These are…?” He looked questioningly at Rene, who nodded. “That’s really what ‘horses’ looked like?”
“Hell, I don’t know. But the first time I saw a version of this picture was in a book on old Earth animals. As soon as I saw it, I went way out to a Library to find out more.”
“Way out. You mean, a burchar Library?” He frowned at Rene’s nod. “And?”
“And I found out they don’t let just anyone in. I was left floating for days before a Scribe would see me, and then weeks more until they finally decided it was allowable for Their High-and-Mighties to give me the name of the artist and where to find her. Would you believe the African Plateau?”
Julius stared for a moment, then sent Sasha to the dining hall to save some seats at the table.
When she was gone, he rounded on his uncle. “I swear to god, Rene—”
“I didn’t think it would take that long! And when the hell did you start using that kind of language?”
For a moment, seeing the look on his nephew’s face, Rene was sure he’d crossed a line he’d never even known existed.
“Hold this for me.” Julius turned around and stalked away, leaving Rene feeling like an idiot, standing there with a painting that somehow made his nephew drop the g-word.
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“Is this… a record of a battle?” Zoe asked. “These carvings—they seem so realistic, but why would the sculptor depict them as skeletons instead of as people? And who were they, anyway?”
Tearing his eyes away from their bleak surroundings, Tavirr stared at her, furious. “Carvings?” he snarled. “This is not art, this is…” He saw her expression and stopped. “Ahhh, winds, you didn’t—Zoe, do you know what a fossil is?” He used the Lysk word, his mind roiling too much to try to recall the Common equivalent.
“What… what does that word mean?” she asked.
Zoe had taken a step away from him, and he regretted his anger immediately. He shook his head, overcome with horror, sorrow, and burning shame—and with what he realized must be the remnant smell of some ancient chemical death. Adba, save us from this ever happening again.
The plinking sounds of dripping liquid came here and there, arrhythmic and distorted now, and he tried to shake the feeling that the sightless dead were whispering among themselves.
“These are not carvings,” he finally said. “These are… were… people. My distant ancestors, and my h’adba’s.”
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A few minutes later, Julius was back. His hammer almost made Rene reconsider his life choices, until he remembered that he was, after all, holding a picture.
Once they’d hung the painting where the glow light could show off those ancient horses galloping over a splashing river, they began the walk through the village caverns and corridors, heading for the well-lit dining cavern.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t know Sasha’s eyesight had gotten worse.”
“It’s… pretty bad. We don’t have any opticians, lens grinders, not even glass blowers. Turns out, though, blurry vision isn’t actually her problem.”
Rene marveled, as always, at the smooth cavern walls, the lack of cracking, the absence of so much as a pebble in the twisting hallways of the underground village. Every time he visited, there was more room, yet he never saw a soul at work.
He didn’t pry, giving his nephew time to decide what to say. After a long silence, Julius continued. “I convinced her to let Dlava take a look at her eyes. He says she’s got an interesting thing going on. She sees moving things way better than she can anything that’s still. Called it stationary blindness.” He paused, then added, “She’s been losing colors for a while, too.”
“Is there anything Da… Dlava?” Rene said, stumbling over the name. “Is there anything he can do for her?”
Julius shook his head. “You know why we had to run, Uncle. She can’t wear a stone, they make her sick. The goddamn parrots wanted to… study her. Study my Sasha. You know what happens to folks they take an interest in!”
“Hey.”
He stopped to look at his uncle.
“Dlava’s not a kriuulu, Julius. Burchars are… they’re not kriuulu, okay? They don’t do that shit. I know it’s hard to hear, but burchars are good folks.”
The younger man ran his hand over his face and sighed. “I know. He’s been good for all of us. And I know Dlava’s not a monster, far from it—you’ll see. But… it’s been rough, Uncle. Anytime Sasha sees him, well. She’s not okay with him, and I won’t put her through something that scares her that bad. She… she still has nightmares.”
Rene bowed his head. Leaned against the smooth corridor wall. Tried to banish his own memories of being hunted.
“So. There’s been a lot of new space carved out,” he finally observed. “I thought you didn’t have any masons yet.”
“Seriously?” Julius’ laughter took Rene by surprise. “Wait, for real? You didn’t know?”
Rene ducked as his nephew slapped his scalp. “Hey!”
“Just seeing if there’s an echo inside that bald head of yours! We’ve got ‘masons’, Uncle. They were already living here long before any of us arrived!”
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Zoe stared at Tavirr, then back at the walls and irregular pillars, all gruesomely pregnant with the dead of eons past, and shuddered at what her ignorance hadn’t let her see.
In some places, the stone seemed to have turned liquid, somehow flowing and folding over its skeletal prisoners, not destroying them so much as leaving their bones stretched and twisted, eye sockets become screaming mouths, mouths warped into silent howls of the damned.
The sound of dripping water she had subconsciously tuned out shattered her thoughts. When had it gotten louder? Why did it sound so strange?
And—what was that smell? It had been so faint at first that she’d thought maybe it was just what caves smelled like, but it was getting stronger and stronger, and suddenly all she could think of was those gaping eyes and screaming mouths tangling into a nightmarish thing that must be slouching inexorably closer!
“Tavirr—”
“I know. We should not be here, where the dead can see us. Something is terribly wrong.”
The dripping sounds became tapping, clicking, chirping, the rising chemical smell making Zoe’s eyes burn and sting.
They came out of the holes in the ground, snaking around the walls and columns, long, sinuous bodies breaking apart and reforming, hissing out plumes of foul vapor that overwhelmed them. Zoe’s legs went numb, a sudden tingling in her hands making it impossible to catch herself as she fell.
She could see the things now, as they overpowered Tavirr, chaining around his body, tying down his wings with their long, wriggling strength.
But they’re just bugs. Just…
He was tearing them off himself in chunks, ripping those long, many-legged bodies apart, but they kept coming, and Tavirr finally went down, helpless and wheezing.
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Many thoughts. Many minds. Join, break, join another mind-limb. Think other thoughts with other minds.
Break again. Rejoin.
Too few. Gather more.
Join.
Break?
No—
Join again. And again. And again, enough to make many minds think one thought:
SPEAK.