Whatever this place was, it couldn’t be the underway. The underway was a cramped and narrow and maddening sewerscape. This cavernous place, however, was neither narrow nor twisting.
Eolh was perched atop a long concrete platform suspended over the black lake, right down the center. The water was only a few feet below that smooth concrete. A bulky handrail, made of some metal Eolh had never seen before, jutted up from the platform at shoulder height and followed the platform all the way into the darkness beyond. He could see no ceiling nor walls of any kind.
No space should be this huge, not underground.
Strangest of all, the concrete under their feet was glowing. Eolh could not see where the light came from, but it was that same dull blue hue he had seen snaking up the leaning tower only days ago.
At least the black lake was still. There was no movement down here, except for Eolh . . . and the human. He was staring up at Eolh, wide-eyed, as if he didn’t believe the corvani was really there at all.
“You can talk?” the human said.
“Of course I can talk. Shouldn’t someone like you already know that?”
Weren’t gods supposed to be all knowing? Eolh thought. He couldn’t remember.
“But it looks so real.” The human reached out his fingers, stretching to touch Eolh’s beak. “How did you make that?”
“Make what?” Eolh furrowed his crest feathers in confusion. What the hells was this thing talking about?
“Oh, I get it. It’s a sim. How do I get out of this? Exit!” the human barked the command. “Off! Hello? Get me out of this!”
Eolh could only stare, his beak hanging open like a fool, as he watched the human attempt to do something. He was touching his temples and those ridiculous earholes on the side of his head, feeling for something that wasn’t there. It looked like he was trying to peel an invisible mask off his face.
“Where is it? How do I take this thing off? Hello! Anyone? I’m stuck in here!”
Eolh swallowed the lump in his throat. Were all the gods this mad, or just this one? Perhaps this one had been sealed in that icy container for a reason. And if the myths of their power had even a hint of truth . . .
The human was growing more frantic by the moment. Touching at his face, at his wrists. Turning in circles and shouting single-word commands to the air. “Depart! End! Leave!” His feet, which appeared to be wrapped in an exotic kind of leather, were moving dangerously close to the edge of the platform.
“Keep your voice down,” Eolh said, reaching out one winged arm, meaning to hold him back. But the human saw it coming and flinched—literally jumped—backward. And yelped as he crashed into that unknowable lake.
And then, the human began to scream for real. The concrete platform surged with light, blue turning to gray to white. Suddenly, Eolh could see the ceiling, a hundred feet above, and the walls, even farther.
And the black lake, littered with huge chunks of cavern, and tubes made of metal, half-submerged and rusting in the water. And the shapes that wriggled around them.
The light dimmed, becoming a fraction darker than it was before.
The human was trying to jump out of the water, so Eolh leaned down and offered his black-feathered hand. When the human grabbed it, Eolh’s talons slipped on the smooth concrete, almost pulling them both back into the water. The human splashed and scrabbled with his featherless fingers on the platform’s edge, and together they hauled him up.
Something might’ve splashed in the distance. Or maybe Eolh was hearing things. But after that, there was no sound save the human’s quivering breath. He was sitting with his knees tucked into his chest and his arms wrapped around himself.
“This isn’t real,” the human said. “This isn’t real at all. Why is there water here?”
Eolh cleared his throat with a guttural croak. He had never spoken to a god before, except maybe a prayer or two when he was a young fledgling. How are you supposed to address them again? What had the android said?
“Divine, uh, Divine Human,” Eolh said awkwardly. It already sounded wrong. He shook his feathers and tried again. “Listen to me. You’ve been asleep for a very long time. You just woke up, and you need to calm down.”
The human blinked at him. What an odd creature he was, with his fur drawn in shapes over his eyes and more on the top of his head—buzzed so low it was almost not there at all. The statues had made them look so perfect and untouchable. Yet here he was, simple flesh and blood.
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The worry lines on the human’s face bordered on horror.
“Please,” the human said. “I don’t know what’s happening. I can’t get out of here. Do you know how to get out of here?”
“Take it slow,” Eolh said, holding his hands out. Spreading his fingers wide. “Just breathe. I can’t help you if you don’t breathe. No, you’ve got to breathe slower.”
But the human wasn’t listening. Instead, his dark brown fingers were tapping insistently at the paler skin on the inside of his forearm. What is he doing? The human lifted his wrist to his ear as if he were listening to his own blood.
“It’s not working. Why isn’t it working?” He was hyperventilating now, casting his head about wildly. “Why is it so dark in here? Lights! Lights!”
The echo of his shout died somewhere across the dark waters. Far across the wide-open waters, something splashed.
“Keep your voice down,” Eolh said.
But the human wasn’t listening. His hands were clawed and pressing into his scalp, and his voice was rising again. “It’s not working. None of it’s working!”
“Easy,” Eolh said, taking a step forward. His talons clicked on the concrete, and the human’s head jerked.
“No, get back!” The human threw his hands up.
Eolh couldn’t help it. Like all avians, he had been raised on the myths of the old gods. The unreal powers they wielded. He flinched backward, and his crest feathers went low.
But nothing happened. The human was still lying on the ground, panting. And Eolh was still alive. He hadn’t been turned into a pillar of fire. He hadn’t crumbled to ash. And he certainly hadn’t split open and spilled his innards all over the floor.
Gods damn it, Eolh thought. I knew it.
Whatever this creature was, this human, he clearly had no powers of any kind, legendary or otherwise . . .
Down here, in this dark, infested place, he was more helpless than Eolh.
The human was still holding his hands out. His brow was furrowed with confusion, his eyebrows knitted together. “I was asleep.”
“That’s what I said.”
“I was running. We were running. I was holding her hand, and she . . . no.” The human scrambled to his feet. The leather (or was it some kind of fabric?) that covered his entire body, up to his hairless neck, whispered as he moved. He was gangly and thin and several inches shorter than Eolh. How could I ever have thought this was a god?
The corvani could’ve laughed. But the human was looking up and down the platform as if he were trying to take his bearings. He peered out into the darkness at one of those large metal tubes half sunken in the water.
“What are you doing?”
“The trains will know,” the human said.
“The trains will know what? What does that even mean?”
But the human was already moving. He ran to the edge of the platform and hopped into the water with a splash, gasping as it came up to his chest.
“Come back!” Eolh shouted.
The human ignored him, wading deeper and scooping fistfuls of water as he lumbered toward one of the rusting hulks of metal. The glow that lived in the concrete followed him as he moved away from the platform, leaving Eolh in darkness.
There were ripples in the water, not from the human. Long, slender bodies—pale as moonlight—slid under the dark surface. Wriggling toward the human.
“Get out of the water!” Eolh crowed.
The ripples became a torrent of splashes as whatever they were surged toward the human, each one fighting to be first.
“What is that?” the human shouted. “What is that?”
And then he screamed.
The whole cavern blossomed with radiant blue light. It poured down from the ceiling, out from the walls, up from the platform, so blue it was almost white. For a split second, he could see buildings in the yawning distance. Domes and pyramids and towers rusting and falling to pieces, glittering windows fogged with some white, algae-like growth. Marching up and out of this endless black lake.
Lightning surged out from the submerged hulks of metal, streaming out across the water. White, jagged arcs split around the struggling human, making a vicious buzz.
A mechanical voice boomed out, “CRITICAL ERROR.”
Then, all went dark.
Eolh pulled the android’s eye from his pocket and aimed it across the water, focusing its narrow beam on the water where the human had been.
Steam was coming off the surface. Dozens of pale, eel-shaped bodies floated belly-up in the black water.
But the human was not there. He had somehow managed to pull himself on top of one of those metal tubes and was lying on his back, his limp fingers trailing in the water.
For the hundredth time, Eolh asked himself why he was doing this. Why do you care if he lives or dies? But even as the thought formed, his wings were already carrying him over the lake.
The human was bleeding. There were circular bite marks on the exposed skin of his neck, dark red against all that deep brown. But already, glistening, silvery threads were stitching him shut. Nanite.
His eyes had rolled back into his skull. But at least he was still breathing.
Eolh’s shoulders burned. His stomach was empty, and he could feel the weakness of hunger spreading.
Eolh wrapped his talons around the human’s shoulders and heaved him into the air. The corvani’s shoulders burned from the effort, and the days (or was it weeks?) of wandering the sewers were taking their toll. At least there was plenty of room to fly.
He laid the human out on the platform. Crouched over his still unconscious form. Waited for him to wake up.
What if he’s in deep sleep again? Eolh didn’t think he’d have the strength to carry him. Not for long, anyway.
“Human.” Eolh brushed the human’s cheek with his index feather. Nothing. He poked him harder. The human’s cheek was weirdly squishy. “Hey, wake up.”
The human’s eyes shot open. At least they weren’t glowing this time. His shallow chest was heaving, and he was making his own croaking sounds as he gasped for air.
“Take it easy,” Eolh said. “Breathe. Like this.”
Eolh made his own exaggerated breaths. Take it in. Hold it. And let it out.
“See? You’re doing fine. Say it with me. Everything is going to be OK.”
The human nodded slowly, his eyes not leaving Eolh’s face. “OK,” the human said, calming himself. “OK.”
“Easy, isn’t it?” Eolh tried to smile. “After all, we can’t have the last human alive hyperventilate to death, now can we?”
“The what?” The human jerked up; his eyes shot open. “What did you say?”
Eolh clapped his beak shut. Damn it. So close.