“It’s been thousands of years! How, how old exactly is this place?”
“Almost as old as memory,” Lola said. “As far as we can tell, no other civilization has persisted longer than we have. Though we’re reclusive, we listen to the outside. That’s why I was sent away, to listen.”
“Like you could hide an entire herd in this place,” scoffed Lucio, still looking at the mastodon. “You keep them up in the trees? Do they roost like the birdies?”
Lola game him a pointed look, raising her hand in the air to make it disappear.
“Oh, right,” he said with a gulp. “This just keeps getting weirder. You hiding other things squirreled away there too? Is a dinosaur about to jump us?”
“It’s not some sort of safety deposit box,” Lola said, but I felt her stiffen, her eyes darting towards the center of the city. And as the woman approached, and the cheers started erupting from the gathering crowd, and Lola walked forwards to bow her head in respect, I remembered something she had said to me before we left the city.
We guard that secret like one keeps a beast locked in a cage, lest it destroy the world itself.
Chapter 82
Atop the Mastodon, the woman raised both her hands, and a hushed silence fell over the gathered crowd. From the ground, twelve stalks sprang forth, twisting upwards with enormous lily pads at their peak, forming a staircase complete with a vine railing. The pads reached upwards to wrap around her feet, lowering her gently to each next step. When she reached the ground, slippers wove themselves out of grass to receive her, accompanied by a sapling curved into a cane, shucking its bark before leaning itself into her hand.
She tottered forwards, then let her gaze rest atop Lola, her eyes scanning her through the wrinkles and cataracts.
I could see Lola biting her lip, her eyes shutting under the stare, but the closing lids not strong enough to keep out the tears. She shook, and for a moment, she shimmered, as if she considered disappearing.
“She—” Lola started, her voice just above a whisper, but the breeze carried it for the entire crowd to hear. She swallowed, taking a deep breath before going rigid, and forcing her eyes open to stare at the woman. “She’s dead. My mother, she didn’t make it. She, she won’t be coming back.”
Silence descended upon us as the wind whisked the words away. And it was as if they were carried out of the bramble wall, outside of the blooming city, as the woman spoke.
“We know,” she croaked, both her hands on the cane as she leaned forwards, coughing before continuing. “A great loss her death was to us, though it was a risk for us to take, when we sent you to become our scholar of the outside world. But what greater joy it is to us that you are amongst us once again.”
Then the woman bent in a bow lower than Lola, and the crowd followed, the heads dipping in unison, some dropping to a knee. And she hobbled forwards to embrace her, with soft words that held an immediate effect with the crowd.
“Let us feast, and let us celebrate! To remember the dead, but rejoice in life. For my great-granddaughter has returned!”
***
“Quite the celebrity,” huffed Arial from our table, while Lucio loaded his plate with bread and fruit, casting a suspicious eye towards a bowl of apple slices. She looked up towards where Lola sat at the high table, flanked by her grandmother with her sister, and surrounded by others dressed far superior to the crowd below. Darian too stared, his head turned slightly to one side, his eyes tracking Lola as she moved— ever since we had arrived, there was a newfound grace to her step, an authority. Something that had always been there but had been far more subtle, hidden without subjects to support it.
The last hour had been a whirlwind of activity— Lola was first rushed away from us by a chattering entourage, and we’d been dragged to the barracks, where wash stations awaited for us. They’d hurried us through, blasting us with floral soap and other perfumes on our way out, hitting us with enough scents to be borderline insulting. After all, it had been several days since we’d had a real shower, and we had just run a few marathons.
Then we were sized and fitted— the garments plain but comfortable, the color a green so light that it was almost white. Soldiers whisked away our old clothes as they barely concealed wrinkled noses, and I suspect they burned or buried the rags. And after that, we were loaded into a lift the size of a small car, accompanied by a guard who pulled the lever to accelerate us into the sky so fast I feared the rope might break, and even after flying on tigers made my stomach lurch when I peered over the edge.
We moved at an angle, gliding towards the trunk of the mighty tree at the center of the village. Up and up we travelled, but the trunk refused to shrink, remaining just as thick despite the altitude. My ears popped as we neared the height of the bramble bubble, then moved into it, then through it. And as soon as we popped through the uppermost layer, the tree branches draped atop the bramble bubble, hiding it in a sheath of greenery. There the tree split open like an enormous Venus fly trap, the greenery creating a platform the size of a banquet hall, opening itself up to the sky. Then we were ushered atop the fronds, where dozens of tables set for a feast waited.
“And yet here we are, at the kid’s table,” Arial continued, then waved her hands to the six guards that still surrounded us. “With chaperones, of course. We’re mere commoners. Everyone is equal in the tribe really holds true, don’t you think?”
“But we’re eating better than any point this trip,” said Lucio through a mouthful. “None of this is blended either, so you know what you’re going to get. Chocolate broccoli is great, but who knows if you’ll get broccoli chocolate by surprise.”
“Aye, they feed us well for prisoners,” said Slugger. “But this deep in the forest, I doubt they see many. See how they stare at me? Bet I’m the first ginger they’ve laid eyes on.”
“Probably true. Setting the bar low, aren’t they?” said Lucio, placing the camera on the table. After a cursory glance by the guards as they checked for weapons in our bags, they’d let him keep it— besides keeping watch over us, there were few precautions that they had taken with our presence. Likely, they had no reason to— there were hundreds of them compared to the handful of us, and for all we knew, another dozen with spears leveled at our throats on the other side.
“He’s right,” I said to Arial as she continued to glare. “At least we’re not locked up right now.”
“And did you hear what she said to us before she left? Don’t cause a scene. As if we needed to be watched over. She really thinks she’s that much better than us.”
“Or because,” Darian spoke up. “She’s trying to get us out of the hole that we dug ourselves into when they caught me on the other side. Speaking of which,” he turned and focused on Zeke, who had yet to speak a word since we had entered the city, “what happened to you back there, tough guy?”
Zeke looked upwards, his eyes bloodshot, his hands still trembling.
“I told you this was too deep,” he whispered, his eyes darting from side to side. “Far too deep. Do you know how I lost this finger? How I lost part of myself?”
He held up the stump, waiting for us, but knowing that no one would answer.
“I lost it when I fell into that place last time. When I spent seven years there. Alone.”
Chapter 83
In one motion, the entire table leaned in, Darian checking to make sure we were out of earshot from the guards.
“One second,” he said, his face scrunching together. “This is a bit harder than it looks.”
“What is?” I asked as he focused.
“Well, I picked up that Speaker of Tongues power earlier. And it’s funky— it doesn’t just make people understand; at least it feels like it’s double-sided. Ah — there we go!” he said, and settled back down. “It works the other way too. Babel-style; now they won’t be able to understand us. No promises if the translator gets too close, though; she’s got more oomph than me.”
“Huh, so we’re back to normal,
then?”
“Not quite. They’ll just hear a garbled version of their own language,” he said, taking a handful of edible seeds and throwing them up in the air to form a mess on the table. "Something like Pig Latin, or a word game."
“Which is all nice and interesting,” said Arial, then addressed Zeke once more, “But what exactly were you saying?”
“I spent years in that Hell,” he answered, jaw clenched. “Every minute in there, every second is danger. There is no rest. There are things in that darkness. Perversions.”
“Seemed pretty fine when Lola took us there,” said Darian, but Zeke shook his head.
“She knows the ways. But you ask her, ask her what she’s seen. What’s safe here is dangerous there. What’s light is dark. Palatable is poison.”
“And how the hell did you get there in the first place?” Lucio asked. “You got some transient powers you’re not telling us about?”
“How do you think she got her powers?” Zeke answered, jabbing a finger at Lola. “I fell in. There are openings between us and them, crashed right through one when I walked through a waterfall; lucky I didn’t lose more than my finger on the razor sharp edge separating the worlds. She must have been born near one. They’ll know where they are. They guard them. Seconds after I fell through, they were on me— spears, powers, all at the charge. They hunted me for years in there. But it’s difficult to capture someone who smells danger. It’s difficult to poison someone who tastes it before it’s in their mouth. By my power alone I survived- trusting it to push me away from starvation or thirst and even then just barely. Dark secret, that place is. And secrets are valuable.”
“Did you go telling people then? " asked Arial. "If you escaped, and they don't know, you're probably safe now. If not, I suppose you could feel it."
“Most thought I was insane. All except a few. You see, even I thought I had gone crazy, that I had imagined it when I finally returned. Took weeks to return back to normalcy. But then I heard of a hermitage, of the Litious. Who already knew it existed. So I told them what I saw, and in return, earned their friendship and whatever more they discovered.”
“What exactly did you see?” I asked. “This danger you’re talking about, what is it?”
“Them, for starters,” said Zeke. “Not much alive besides them. But more than that— there are places, entire stretches of land there they smell of death. Where the flowers grow here, the hemlock grows there. That place isn’t just a different world— it’s the opposite of our own. It left a lasting impact on my soul, a scream of danger so loud that coming back here I can’t live without a touch of it, that I feel unbalanced when I’m safe. We’re not meant to survive there.”
“Not. Quite,” came a voice behind us, and we jumped, Lucio launching his plate like a frisbee at the sudden appearance of Lola. Darian snagged it from the air just before it collided with her mouth, and she scowled at Lucio. After a moment of thought, she waved down a nearby guard who was advancing on him, then continued.
“The other side is more than a mirror, more than an opposite. It’s true, what you said— that there are many opposite effects. But really, our world and the other side are one and the same — a duality. Think of it this way— if you have a rope, for there to be tension, a person must tug at each end. Our world is one end, the other side is the other, and when either one falters, it slides. They’re constantly fighting each other— where we are hot, they are cold to maintain the balance. Mathematically, it’s a certain flux that passes between the two, that exists in the region between the two worlds that is unreachable. In the rope.”
“I told you there could be more sides!” said Arial, but Lola put up a hand.
“It’s more than that,” she said. “A side doesn’t describe it. It’s something else entirely. You see, it’s the seed of our worlds.”
“You don’t have to speak in riddles,” said Lucio, rolling his eyes. “What the heck is that supposed to mean?”
“It means, anything that is created comes from there, travels down the rope, and emerges in one of the worlds,” lectured Lola. “It’s where essences originate.”
“Hold on there,” said Slugger. “Now just hold on. Anything that is created?”
“Anything,” said Lola, her eyes sparkling. “Surely you see the implications, no?”
“So by that, you mean us?” he asked, staring around. “All of us? People?”
“When they are born, yes,” she answered.
“And when they travel between the worlds, this flux you talked about, does it change them at all?” asked Slugger, still probing. “Does it— are you describing what I think you are?”
“I am,” she answered, laying a hand flat on the table. “And it does. From what we know, that’s the origination point of powers — the tension flowing between the worlds. And if you can alter that tension, if you understand it — well, abnormalities start to occur. And that,” she concluded as she smiled and waved her grandmother over from the main table. “Is just one of the reasons why Lacit would be interested in coming here. Now, as I said earlier, behave. My people are wary of you, but since you come bearing information, I’m hoping they will take the sentence lightly.”
“Sentence?” asked Lucio. “I thought we were already prisoners.”
“Oh, you are. But Darian is also a criminal, for being on the other side. And I’ve almost convinced them not to kill him.”
Chapter 84
“They wouldn’t—” started Darian, nervously looking over his shoulder as Lola cut him off.
“Oh yes they would,” she said. “I’ve told you, the other side is sacred. Only those who can travel there by their own means are permitted, or those deemed blessed by the tribe. The Painted, for instance, are permitted in certain circumstances only.”
“Painted? What do you mean by painted?” asked Lucio, then he laughed. “You mean face paint?”
“It’s more than that,” said Lola. “Each color represents a core component of the tribe. Yellow to bring others together. Blue for warriors, orange for scholars, violet for the esteemed, and several other colors as well. To be painted is an honor— for my sister and I, even as royalty, we had to earn it through years of effort.”
“Heh, so you’re telling me, back at the subway, I was right to have inked your face?” Lucio laughed. “Figures. Just shows how smart I am.”
“I think you’re confusing correlation and causation. Besides, the color was wrong.” corrected Lola, rolling her eyes towards Darian, who still sat quietly at the table’s edge.
“But what about her? Why isn’t she painted?” asked Arial, pointing to Lola’s grandmother, who had started to walk towards us. “Isn’t she supposed to be your queen?”
“I wear paint to prove myself, to show my status, for honor. She doesn’t need paint for that. Everyone knows.”
“Well that would put me on the same field as her then, wouldn’t it?” asked Lucio. “Besides, what’s to stop me from slapping some paint on right now, taking a spear, and hitting warrior status?”
“Because that’s exactly how you die,” Lola answered. “Of all the people to insult, please keep away from the warriors, Lucio. Most are not as patient as I am. If anything, you can wear the grey paint.”
“Oh, and what does that signify?”
“It’s what the kids wear when they play house. I think it’s fitting.”
But before Lucio could respond, Darian cut him off.
“Dropping the Speaking in Tongues power, be careful what you say,” he announced, just as Lola’s grandmother reached the table, and she looked us over with a warm smile.
“I owe you my thanks,” she said, resting one gnarled hand on the tabletop while waving at an assistant, “for returning my granddaughter to me. From her own testimony, she’s made it apparent that she could not have come alone. That she was held against her will and hunted by monsters that are far beyond our reach.”
“That were far beyond your reach,” I said, leaning forward. “W
e thank you for your hospitality, but also have an urgent matter. These monsters have not stopped hunting— they are close now. And they won’t stop until they find what they want.”
“Perhaps. But our walls are strong. And we are hidden beyond reach,” she answered, her voice as calm as a summer breeze. “Why leave safety for revenge alone? Violence is not our way.”
“Because they won’t stop until they find you. They’ll—” I was interrupted by the chiming of a bell as her servant appeared, carrying a tray loaded with several cups and a pitcher.
“Please,” said Lola’s grandmother. “We are at a feast, and we are celebrating. For now, we are safe. We will discuss your concerns when the time is right, and we have more pressing matters at hand.”
“What’s that?” asked Lucio, craning his neck to look at the cups.
“For one, the life of this young man,” she said, gesturing to Darian. “It is already short, but it need not be shorter. And secondly, for coffee. Or perhaps, that is first.”
The servant pulled up a chair, and she seated herself, taking the tray in front of her and filling each of the cups to the brim with steaming liquid, her hands moving slowly as to not spill a drop. Despite their age, and the occasional shake that ran through them from the elbow, they were well-coordinated, performing the motion autonomously from years of practice.
“Do we really have time for coffee?” I asked. “They’re strong and not far off. We need to figure out how to stop them, before they invade!”
“Time?” she answered. “Oh, there’s always more time. We’ve been here for many years, and I doubt this will be our last. But you, you were born a mere handful of years ago; do not presume to know the workings of a world that has persisted far before your time.”
“I don’t think you’ve ever had a threat like this before,” I countered. “I’ve seen what they can do. One of them can tear your wall to shreds, the other can burn it down, and another can slice right through it. It’s not going to last long or be a strong defense.”
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