The Ishim Underground

by Carrie Bailey

CHAPTER TWENTY ONE

  Chunks of flaky putty dropped on the stairs as it lifted its solid boot shaped feet. They rushed seven levels higher on the spiraling staircase before they reached the main floor of the Archive where two men in yellow robes with red stripes and scarves advanced on them.

  The Archive, on the public floor, spread outward, white, glossy and more opulent than any other space in all of Auckland. A marble room with golden inlay and columns with gems spiraled around it in a pattern that looked like water winding through a forrest, Eron visited to register for citizenship and document his service with the Green Guard. Cases of books with their dingy spines turned outward, lined the walls, along with row after row of wooden card catalogs, a database of paper and endless notes few would ever need. Not the modern works held in the lower floors, but the records of Auck City dating back to the early establishment of the Yellow Guard. The Archive was the best of Liamic architecture. It overlooked the square on the far side from the two corner stairs leading into the lower levels. Between them, a grander wider stair lead into the first level of the ziggurat known as the Auckian Sky Tower. At the pinnacle, a small residence housed the administrator. Every branch of the government lived or worked here. And it was guarded.

  The men in the yellow and red robes advanced quickly in a masterful demonstration of their training and skill. Solomon cracked one on the nose with his metal shard while Jacob evaded an initial blow and then twisted the other’s neck. They dropped to the marble tile where Amit viciously pounded the base of each man’s skull until they faded and were unconscious. Rachel sobbed.

  “We can’t exit that way,” said Eron pointing to the main doors.

  Solomon agreed immediately, but Ester drew closer to the exit already aware that Eron had motive for subterfuge. Achazya trailed behind a few floors below with the golem, which was stilling moving like a jar of molasses with passive aggressive tendencies.

  The two stairs that divided at either side of the platform exiting into the first floor had not been covered in marble. Eron had never been to this part of the tower before. It was constructed from large bricks fit together, gray and rough to the touch.

  “Servants’ quarters,” said Eron. “Do you know where they are?”

  “Third floor,” said the fat man, his brow wet with sweat.

  A brief corridor connected the stairs on the second floor where a hollow space opened into the main chamber below. Below the bodies of the two guards lie unmoving and there was no sign of guards coming from the lower levels of the Archive.

  A year ago, Eron couldn’t have climbed seven flights of stairs without panting, but after months on the road, his legs and his lungs had grown stronger. Rachel and Achazya both wheezed as the golem plodded on up the wide smooth stairwell, still dropping bits of itself as it went. Solomon yanked Rachel’s arm up the steps as a mist wafted in front of Eron’s face, his glasses and false nose disappeared and Tunkukush congealed before them.

  Rachel heaved a stifled scream.

  “Soggy Ishim,” Solomon cursed.

  Jacob stared with his dark eyes wide under his heavy lids and Shem said prayers for protection to the gawds. Though not larger than an imp, the Ishim had taken human form. He pattered across the stairwell to a heavy banner that covered the exit upward on the left side. He pushed it and it swayed. Eron followed.

  “Not this way,” said the Ishim crossing to the other stair.

  With each step, Tunkukush dematerialized into puffs of steam and smoke. He reformed on the second floor to form a banner, an identical green velvet with gold trim. It was the offices of the Green Guard. The shuffling of feet of more guard and scraping of leather grew louder behind it.

  “Genius,” said Achazya catching them up, “I’ll wait with the golem.”

  “Wait for what?” said Solomon.

  “We’re rescuing Eron’s mother,” said Ester. “She works for the Archivist.”

  “But how are we going to escape?” demanded Rachel.

  Eron hung his head.

  “Lights out,” Achazya instructed the golem.

  The orbs in its eye socket flickered and then faded. Beside the steady curtain made from Tunkukush, Achazya crouched. The golem stood woodenly behind him.

  “Wait with him,” said Eron to Rachel.

  Heart pumping and nerves spiked with fear, he followed Solomon up step after step winding around the next opposite stair and exited through a blue banner into a corridor on the third level. Ester scurried on toward the window at the far end, but Eron motioned for her to return when he saw a door with a metal plaque dented with the image of the wind gawd. He nodded at it and silently they gathered. It was his mother’s room.

  Solomon gripped the handle.

  Locked.

  “We have to break it down,” Eron hissed desperately.

  Ester pushed him aside and rapped three times on the wood.

  As the door creaked open, the figure of a guard emerged from the farthest stair just as the drowsy face of Thadine peaked through. She was in her dressing gown. The shock of white in her brown hair appeared to have spread. She was tall and lean with angular features normally reserved for men too handsome to work with their hands.

  “You found him!” she cried.

  The worn powder on her face began to melt in a trickle of joyful tears as she pulled Eron into a fierce embrace. And the guard behind them stopped and straightened his pike. It was Aden. Five men and Bo fully clad in their leather armor and bright red stripes on the upper arm of their tunics drew in behind Eron’s brother as their trained aggression gave way to a perplexed panic as Aden lowered his pike.

  Eron closed his eyes.

  “Aden didn’t find me,” he said.

  Thadine pushed him back to met his eyes.

  “He escaped the riots,” said Aden still rigid with guardsmen-like austerity.

  Neither Bo, nor the other guards, would contradict their hero, their celebrated Captain. They would not advance until he gave the word. Eron trembled.

  Eron held Thadine’s warm papery hand and risking everything he said, “I’ve been hiding with the thieves.”

  “What have you stolen?” asked his mother shocked.

  “Stolen things,” said Amit, somewhat oblivious to the nature of the question.

  Confusion wrinkled the narrow ridge of Thadine’s brow.

  “What riots?” said Solomon.

  “The nomads are revolting,” Aden lied.

  “No,” said Eron, trying to calm himself. “The Guard have been raiding their camps for slaves.” But, as he spoke, doubt gripped his conscious like a vice, “I-I came to free you.”

  “We’re taking a ship for Ton,” said Ester, watching Aden uneasily.

  The other prisoners backed behind Eron and his mother. Only Solomon had a weapon, though a blunt piece of metal could make little difference against the guard man’s pikes. A long leaden silence between the combatants was broken by the scrapping of slippers and a woman in flowing robe dropping onto the corridor of the third floor behind Aden, Bo and the other guards. She commanded their obedience without speaking a word stepping between them and Eron and the other prisoners as if under the protection and authority of the gawds.

  “Who are you?” growled Solomon.

  “Hansa, acting administrator,” she said cooly.

  The woman had red hair in abundance, a rare trait on the island, but relatively common among the archivists. It was wrapped in a white cloth that matched the color and sheer texture of her robes. A necklace draped over her square shoulders, which were aged by the sun and nearly as spotted as Amit’s face, even in his adult form. Hansa maintained an air of disinterest as she examined the men and women collected in the corridor. Where there was no room for her to pass, both the guard and the prisoners shifted. Her checks were set high and shallow on her face and she seemed to be little more than old skin stretched over bone, but held together on the inside with modern steel.

  “Ton,” she said, “That’s where th
e rubber is shipped from. Should be warm.” She smiled insincerely at Thadine then walked away, back turned, shoulder bones cutting the air with each step until she reached the step.

  “Hang them,” she said nicely.

  One of the guard roared and charged Eron with his pike down and in a flash it was over. Bo remained like a statue along with the fourth guard who waited behind them. Initially, the prisoners had began a retreat, but in shock Eron had not thought to flee and Ester had moved in and taken the blow. The blunt tip of the guard’s pike dug into her chest. Blood ran softly into the fabric of her tunic. Amit whined. Solomon dropped to catch her head. And Jacob and Shem paused at the window seeing for the first time that it led to nowhere.

  Thadine had a hand over her mouth. Ester had died instantly and already looked so peaceful that she might have been sleeping if it weren’t for the blood still soaking from under her punctured rib. The shock would have numbed her to the full impact. Eron knew that, but somehow that meant he was feeling it for her.

  “My son,” his mother whimpered as she rushed to Aden’s side.

  She gripped his checks in her slender palms and began to sob. Aden hugged her tightly.

  “We’ll escort you,” he said.

  “Yes captain!” said Bo and other guard.

  And it was only at then that Eron saw the second injury. The guard who had killed Ester lay bleeding beside her, a wooden shaft protruding from his back through the slats of leather, a weakness only another guard could fully exploit. And of the three guard remaining, only Aden was no longer holding a pike.

  He stepped over the guard who was still breathing laboriously and grabbed his brother around the chest. Eron’s head barely reached the man’s stubble, but Aden wrapped his strong arms around him and pressed his head tightly against his leather and pulled his mother in, too.

  “You don’t have to forgive me,” said the captain. “Either of you.”

  “Come with us,” said Eron not hiding the desperation in his voice.

  Aden squeezed Eron around the shoulder, “Go home,” he said to Bo.

  “Are you dense?” said Bo defiantly. “We’re coming with you.”

  “No,” Aden spat dropping Eron and releasing his mother, “I’ll take the blame. Do you think Eron’s friends are going to welcome us with open arms?”

  Bo shifted her weight thoughtfully without backing down.

  “We’re coming, Captain,” said the other guard whose helmet obscured his features, but he sounded as solid as he looked.

  “This,” said Aden, gesturing to Eron and Thadine, “is my family. I protect them. What they need, I provide. I will not be your captain.”

  “I don’t need you,” said Bo through her teeth, “I’ve killed more than a hundred people. For uniforms. Food. Clothes. A place to sleep. When my aunt died with the influenza, I followed you and I turned my pain into a profession. You don’t have to remind me that I have nothing. No family. No friends. Only neighbors. But, it was the wrong choice.”

  “I’m trying to help,” said Aden.

  “No,” said Bo. “Eron is right. And I’m not following you this time. I’m following him.”

  “And you are always welcome with us,” said Thadine, soothingly.

  “What about him?” said Shem pointing at the young guard standing with Bo.

  “I have friends,” said the man who had lost the flow of the conversation.

  Solomon and Aden lifted Ester into Thadine’s tiny chamber. His mother had a bed with a wooden frame, a table for her ointments and powders and a closet. In the corner, he recognized her nesting boxes she used in the factory to organized threads. The floor. The walls. The window. All bare cold gray stone. Even the boxes. Empty. This was not his mother’s home. She had less than twenty robes and only three jars of white paste, which she quickly piled on her bed sheet along with a selection of clothes and shoes. The sack was massive, but Aden would carry it.

  “Did you know him?” asked Thadine as they carried the wounded guard into her room.

  “Do you have wine?” said Bo.

  “You knew her,” said Eron’s mother as he knelt beside Ester trembling.

  She would not get up. She would not talk to him again. He couldn’t ask her if she was okay being left behind. And instantly, it was too real for him.

  Thadine rummaged in her closet for a large vial in a green glass, which they administered in haste.

  “Hansa has a way to control auck fire with metal,” Thadine whispered to Eron when she had finished. She looked at her reflection in the old wavy mirror that hung behind a desk as Eron laid Ester’s hands one over another. Thadine took something from under the nesting boxes and handed it to him.

  It was a gun.

  “Why does the guard not know about this?” said Bo fingering the object as Eron held it in a cautious stunned silence.

  Solomon reached over and picked it up and the moved the small curved piece that fired it with a loud explosion. The shot dented the mirror and imbedded in the wall behind it.

  Eron took one last glance at the potter before Solomon pushed him through his mother’s door. As they descended to the second floor, in spider form, Tunkukush, crawled across the elegant woven rug into the middle of the mishmashed assembly of reluctant rebels. At first Eron thought only Achazya noticed him before he burst into a gaseous cloud startling Amit as he returned to his tube.

  “Ishim,” Achazya said to Aden who was looking pale.

  “Though the main door,” Eron said in his most masculine voice. “Can you take us to the docks?”

  Eron knew the faces of the thieves and the nomads. He hadn’t spoken to all of them or learned their names, but he could tell them from the Auckian citizens. But, when they stepped out onto the grand entrance of the Sky Tower, opening into the square, and the mid-morning sun, there were none. Not only was the Archive closed, but the market had been shut down. Solomon seemed worried. Thadine passed a private farewell to municipal code where it sat under the black draping in the center of the vast labyrinth of closed carts and moody vendors.

  Jacob, borrowed a Green Guardsman’s supply lorry from an unsuspecting woman on garbage detail. Though there would be no elegant manner for removing an eight hundred pound clay beast, disguising the golem as rubbish had an advantage when escorted by three guardsmen.

  The march to the docks led them through the part of town that emptied into the sewers they had come in through. Thadine nervously obscured her face with her white scarf. She had often employed people near the docks to ship her textiles or collect raw materials she had ordered. No murals or sidewalks lined the path and there was no evidence of the Auckian architecture seen in the square or the procession. The structures had been formed from flotsam and jetsam, mostly worm eaten wood. And the streets smelled of inadequate sanitation planning, industry and three day old fish. It hadn’t bothered Eron before, but Thadine and Rachel both clung to each other as though it were worse than prison or the servants’ quarters. It wasn’t. Not really.

  Their uneventful escape came to jarring halt when they heard the first blast of Auck Fire. They ran. Jacob pushed the golem and Aden hauled his mother’s bundle staggering clumsily after them with the awkward sack.

  Gathered on the docks, a line of guardsmen rained jeers at the sea where the Auckian fleet unleashed its tan sails and cut white trails into the glistening surface of the Specific Ocean. The rest of the dock burned, emitting cascading clouds of billowing black smoke.

  That was it.

  Everything Eron had fought for flitted into the distance like a forgotten conversation over a cup of coffee on slow afternoon.

  As though it hadn’t mattered.

  As though the gawds couldn’t be bothered with to trifle with the tedious workings of human rights. The man who had sold everything he owned on a bid for his liberty, trembled visibly. Rachel broke into tears. Amit yelled after the boats. And with the exception of Eron, the Auckians seemed wrenched from within by an unseen terror. Eron stood numbly
starring at the sea as the thieves, nomads and the men and women they’d rescued disappeared creeping onward toward the far horizon.

  Solomon ran. The rest of them followed close enough to see him dive into the waves beyond the rocks off the edge of a dock. He swung each of his broad arms in the cold sea reaching for the transport as the gap between the swiftly moving wooden hulls and barnacle coated beams of the dock widened. Boats burned beside him.

  Thunk.

  An arrow whizzed through the air over their heads and caught his back. Red blood floated causally into the blue waters and his futile aspirations abruptly and unceremoniously were ended.

  The larger two of the ships might hold at least a hundred men, but others had an advantage in speed and carried between fifty and eighty. There was no way to know how many had boarded for they left, but Eron and the others felt alone.

  “We missed the boat,” said Achazya.

  “Our ship has sailed,” Eron laughed.

  Thadine scowled at them and shielded Rachel from the darkness of their humor.

  "They'll probably caught in a storm," said Jacob, "or eaten by giant cephalopods."

  “Aunt Sarah,” said Aden.

  “I couldn’t impose,” said Thadine, but as the Red Guard passed them on their way to the edge of the dock where they slaughtered the first old man who appeared sympathetic to the boats, she had a change of heart.

  “I’d been saving to buy your contract,” said Aden. “She offered to sell two of her horses and take you. I wrote her a month ago after I ran into Eron in one of the villages.”

  “You told her I’d been contracted?” said their mother raging with injured pride. Pride was not so much a quality Thadine possessed as a choice of lifestyle.

  But, they spared no more time watching the seven vessels tread the horizon. And without deliberation and only symbolic coaxing from Aden, they found a garbage cart and transferred the golem. Eron and Rachel squeezed in beside it while the spotted man found his place beside Eron’s former tutor. Shem pulled the lip shut and Aden latched it. Bo, Jacob and the other guard escorted the rocking cart one lonely step at a time away from the city.