by A. Sparrow
Taro sang a brief, lilting phrase. The melody was returned by someone in the nearest igloo, and then echoed and propagated down a series of other igloos stretching around the curve of the hill. The igloos were bunkers and the song was apparently some sort of a pass code.
“We’re inside the perimeter,” said Taro. “We’re safer now. Relatively. Though, if there’s trouble coming, we’d better get up and under cover.”
“Got a tip for you,” said Brian. “Get yourself on Lady An’s good side early, volunteer for picket duty.”
“Lady who?”
“An,” said Taro. “She heads the quorum. The old souls that look after us … infidels.”
“Seriously,” said Brian. “Take the watch soon as you can. It’s the best way to convince the quorum to let you stay. Show them you’re a good fit.”
“Yeah, well. I’m not actually planning on sticking around.”
“Oh? What you gonna do? Chase the Horus?”
“Nah. Not that. It’s just that there’s some people I need to find and—”
“Oh great,” said Brian. “We got us another fucking Sally Ann.”
“Huh?”
“What we call people who can’t let go,” said Taro. “Way back there was a woman who wandered to every corner of the Deeps, herd to herd, looking for her family. God knows how many cycles she hung on, but there wasn’t much left of her to drag around in the end. Sure, you want to find your family, but you should realize, they probably aren’t even here.”
“Yeah, once you crunch the numbers, the odds ain’t pretty,” said Brian. “We’re talking at least a dozen hordes. Let’s say two hundred thousand souls apiece, some bigger some smaller. Another half a million souls lying broken on the land. Counting us infidels, that makes at least three million souls running around the Deeps at any one time. That might not seem like a lot compared to all of humanity, but it’s still a needle in a haystack. And like Taro said, chances are, they’re not even here. This is just one corner of the afterworld. There are other places souls end up.”
“Believe me, I know. But … the person I’m looking for, I know she’s here. I made a promise. And I don’t have much time to get it done.”
“What’s the rush?” said Brian. “Being dead and all, seems to me like you got eternity to play with.”
“No. That’s the thing. I’m not exactly dead.”
“Whoa. Hang on there. What the fuck you talking about?”
“I’m alive. I go … back and forth. This is my second time here.”
They looked at each other, eyes bugging.
“There’s little ‘a’ anomalous,” said Taro. “And then there’s big ‘A.’ If what he says is true.”
“Oh, I ain’t lying,” I said. “You’ll see. Just wait.”
“We’re taking him straight to Lady An,” said Brian.
“Well ... we were going to anyway,” said Taro.
“Yeah, but … this is big stuff. This is news.”
“Anomaly’s always kind of been Lady An’s thing,” said Taro. “She’s anomalous herself. I mean … it’s different. She’s gray like us. But she can talk to sleepers.”
“So where do you go, when … if you go back?” said Brian.
“Um … lately, it’s … Vermont.”
“Fucking A!” said Brian. “I wanna go to Vermont. I’m fucking sick of this place.”
“Nobody’s keeping you,” said Taro. “You don’t like it here, you can go and chase the Horus.”
“Well, that’s not gonna get me to Vermont. But some day, Taro. Someday I might just do that.”
***
They led me to the top of the hill, a dome so gentle it could pass for flat. The remains of brick and stone structures outlined the alleys and buildings and squares that used to stand here. The place looked like it had been leveled by a bomb. Nothing had a roof and no wall was taller than waist high. Only stubs and foundation holes remained.
“What the heck happened here?”
“Happened?”
“There’re no roofs or anything. Did the Horus do this?”
“Who the fuck needs a roof? It never rains.”
“But … the ruins—“
“Fuck no. These ain’t ruins,” said Brian. “This is home. This is Rifugio.”
Curious souls popped into view as we approached, like meerkats scouting for leopards. It became clear as we entered the settlement that what I initially took for foundations were actually sunken courtyards for an intricate network of catacombs. The entire settlement lay below the surface.
Brian and Taro led me to an opening in a wall that led to a stairwell of stone blocks leading down into the heart of the hill. The blocks had smooth curves with paper-thin seams, all joined without mortar.
“You guys stay put. I’ll fetch Lady An,” said Taro. He skittered down the stairs, disappearing into a passage off a landing halfway down.
“Have a seat. Relax,” said Brian.
I settled onto a bench carved from the same chalky stone as everything else. People gathered in ones and twos while we waited. They came and lingered around us, sharing snatches of music, sometimes hummed, sometimes sung. It seemed like the usual greeting around here.
“Is he not a Hashmal?” said a guy clad in jagged, plate-sized scales that clanked as he moved.
“Nah. He just happens to be a little pink. He’s one of them anomalies.”
A woman grabbed my hand and kissed it. She laughed and held it to her bosom and wouldn’t let go.
“Does he not sing?” said another woman.
“He’s a newbie,” said Brian.
“Then I will teach him,” said the woman who had my hand.
“That’s okay. I … uh ... actually don’t plan on sticking around. To tell you the truth, if I knew I was stuck here in the Deeps … I couldn’t handle it. I can see why people end up chasing the Horus.”
“Oh come on! It’s not that bad. We got some good people here. Get yourself a cozy chamber cut deep. Nice to get out of the light once in a while, if you know what I mean.”
I got my hand back and kept it clasped over my privates, legs together tight. “Do you … sleep?”
He looked at me funny and shrugged. “Don’t even remember what it’s like. I guess I do meditate. It’s nice to clear your head and chill. And there’s plenty of time for that. The Quorum requires short time duty one song per cycle, plus one full cycle every six. Long time. Me and Taro are serving long time right now. If they let you stick around, that’s how it’ll be. And the big thing is, we’re safe. The Seraphim don’t mess with us. The Quorum trains some bad ass fighters. And it’s all Spell craft, you know. Magic. We’re in good hands. Nobody slips through the cracks.”
“That’s nice,” I said, distracted by group of dust devils down on the plateau. There were four of them and occasionally the wind would shear off one side and reveal a group of runners bearing weapons. There were objects in the sky, too, hovering about the runners, shimmery, semi-transparent things.
“Don’t worry about them,” said Brian. “They stage fake raids all the time. Trying to intimidate us. But they don’t dare come onto the hill. If they did, we’d send them all back to kingdom come.”
“Are they the ones who followed us?”
“Looks like they got some reinforcements,” said Brian. “But I’m telling you. Don’t worry. The pickets see them. Our warriors know.”
“You’re not—?”
“A warrior? Fuck no. I ain’t got the chops for spell craft. I’m just a scout and do my picket duty like everybody else.”
Taro reappeared at the bottom of the stairs, accompanied by a slight, but well-proportioned woman whose posture and demeanor exuded gravitas. Her gaze sought and demanded mine as she came up the stairs.
I couldn’t look away if I wanted. Not because she was too beautiful or bizarre. She just had this tractor beam of a gaze that demanded attention. It had to be some sort of spell craft. No human could be so transfixing through cha
risma alone.
Her torso was covered with little, curly scales more delicate than anything I had seen, more ornament than armor. Overall, they gave the effect of a shaggy, tight-clinging dress.
Her deep-set eyes gave the impression of advanced maturity, but her face was ageless, as if she had always been thirty-five years old and always would be. But those eyes! They had hundreds of years of seeing behind them.
“Hello,” she said. “I am An.”
“I’m James.”
She took my hand. It was strange touching someone so cold with my own cold and numb hands. It did not feel like any kind of human contact I ever knew.
“Taro has told me some rather unbelievable things about you. Do I understand correctly that you have the ability to transit to the birth realm?”
“Life ... she means.”
She smirked. “Thank you, Brian, for clarifying.”
“Yeah … I go back. I come and go. Just like I did in the Liminality.”
“And how do you summon these transitions?”
“Well … I don’t. Not here. It kinda just happens.”
She just blinked at me, her eyes inscrutable.
A guy came bounding down an alley, skidding to a halt in the dust. “Lady An! A runner approaches.”
“I forgot to mention,” said Taro. “We saw him coming in.”
“We already know,” said Lady An. “He’s from Tiamat. I’m not looking forward to the news he bears.”
She turned her attention back to me. “I would love to have the chance to talk to you, when things are not so hectic. Taro, why don’t you take our friend down below, get him under cover, get him situated. Brian, you stay with me. We may need a runner of our own, depending on what’s happened in Tiamat. Nothing good, I’m sure.”
***
I followed Taro down a stairway of concentric squares that led down into a huge, inverse pyramid of a pit. At each corner, there were openings every twenty steps or so, just as there would be in a football stadium. But we went down to the very bottom where four square passages were carved deep into the bedrock.
The stone looked like hardened talcum or chalk. There was no sign of any roots, just this uniform, fine-grained rock. Certain slabs luminesced under the influence of some sort of Duster spell craft not yet accessible to me. I knew that, because I tried to make some glow, without success.
Down in these catacombs I felt confined and anxious in a way that had never afflicted me in Root, even though its tunnels were no less narrow or deep. The matrix of roots was so loose and malleable, there was no sense of confinement as long as you weren’t stuck in a pod. The tunnels here felt like shafts in a coal mine by comparison. Unlike Root, there would be no taking shortcuts between them.
“These are the upper spaces. Any chamber with a skylight or courtyard is not safe from the Horus. Keep that in mind if it ever comes around.”
“I didn’t realize you can have the damn thing come to you. I thought you had to chase it.”
“It goes everywhere in this land … every square inch. It doesn’t come here often, but eventually it will come.”
“The souls who enter it … where do go?”
“Nowhere,” said Taro. “Lady An says it exists to recycle failed souls. Tears them into pieces. Shuffles the deck. Reassembles them. Deals out a new hand. Creating new spirits. Hoping for better luck next time.”
“So you’re saying, by being here we’re failures?”
“In someone’s eyes, yes. To the Seraphim or the Powers-that-be. I don’t believe so. I was meant to be here. Rifugio is my place, my people. I am happier here than I ever was in life.”
We came to a hollow the size of a small auditorium, illuminated by a shaft to the surface, supplemented by glowing benches of stone that circled the room. The floor was crowded with gray folks, mostly with eyes closed. Their scales were sparse if they had any at all.
“This is the newbie chamber,” said Taro. “So to speak. Some of the folks there have been here a long time. They’re slow learners.”
“What are they learning? Songs?”
“Yes, the song cycle,” whispered Taro. “Sixteen songs, over and over with the same steady tempo. If you want to be part of this community. You must learn. Everything we do is based on the song cycles. We have no sun, no moon, no day or night. Only the songs. Singing is how we tell time. It’s how we stay together … as a community.”
“Yeah, well ... I have to warn you. I’m pretty tone deaf. I even got kicked out of a church choir when I was nine. I’m horrible at remembering lyrics.”
“No matter. You’ll have plenty of time to learn. Everyone learns eventually. Even the slow ones. In the newbie chamber they sing out loud … half the time. That way you get to hear the patterns and words and in between you practice staying in synch.”
The room was still. Not a hum or a murmur broke the silence. “How come I don’t hear any—”
The occupants erupted in full-throated song, bellowing out a wandering melody in an unrecognizable language. Most droned in unison, but a few lonely voices added harmony here and there about the room. Taro joined them. I just looked on, feeling awkward.
It went on for some time, the loose threads pulling together until everyone was in tune and in synch. And then the room went silent again.
“That was Rainsong,” said Taro. “It is almost done. Riversong will soon begin.”
“What … language was that?”
“Pan, we call it. Proto-Anatolian, according to Lady An. It’s a dead language … the language of the dead … of the Deeps. Used only for the song cycle. No one comes here knowing it. We all have to learn from scratch”
We went in and found a spot on the floor, not too far from the entry.
“Okay. What do we do now?”
“Patience,” said Taro. “Riversong will begin soon. You will hear the first verse out loud. Don’t worry about the words. Concentrate on the sound and pattern.”
***
The silence and dimness lulled me into a trance. I had managed to keep my claustrophobia in check, aided by the cavernous room. My mind wandered back to Vermont, wondering how the girls were doing, hoping Wendell was letting our holiday continue.
Everyone around me had closed their eyes and let out their breath. I could feel that something had changed in the room. I looked over at Taro. He nodded to me. Held up three fingers. Two. One.
Out of nothing, a wall of thunderous vowels rose all around and immersed me in sound before falling away. And then again, it came like a wave.
Riversong began in fits and starts like that, almost like the beginnings of a rain storm, in spare, complicated syncopation. After a while, the notes coalesced and began to flow into a weird, trickling melody. I could almost hear cascades running over ledges.
Forget understanding the words. I don’t think my mouth was even capable of articulating the sounds these people were making.
The tune deepened and swirled, building to a crescendo that ended as abruptly as it had started. In the silence that followed, I did my best to keep the pattern going in my head. But by the time the singing started up again, I was way off, having warped the melody and drifted off-rhythm.
Lady An and Brian came in and settled down beside us like churchgoers late to mass.
“It is good you came below,” said Lady An. “We had a bit of excitement up top. A gang of Protectors attacked the mount. We repulsed it, but it is rare they challenge us so directly. It seems the Seraphim are interested in you.”
“Seraphim? Angels?”
“So to speak,” said Lady An. “But not what you think. Nothing ever is. But they are powerful in ways you can’t imagine. If their avatars ever found you on the surface, there is nothing we could do to protect you. I suggest you stay below, until things calm down.”
No. I have to go. I’ve got things to do. People to find. I didn’t come here just to hide out.”
“What about the runner?” said Taro.
“He b
arely avoided being cut down. Our pickets rescued him. He brings word that Tiamat is sending Old Ned for safekeeping. He’s gone into the big sleep. I’ve already tasked the masons to prepare a chamber. We’ll soon have a chamber for you too, James, down deep.”
“Oh, I don’t need one,” I said. “I’m not staying.”
“You can’t leave now. The Seraphim have been alerted to your presence. If you leave now, you’ll be hunted down.”
I rose to my feet. “No! I … I can’t stay,” I said, starting to panic. My claustrophobia returned. “I need to get out of here. I need some fresh air.”
“Don’t be silly. You don’t even breathe. No soul here needs to breathe. I am only suggesting you wait until our enemy’s interest wanes. And it will. They have plenty of other anomalies to occupy them in this place.”
I made for the exit.
“Brian! Taro! Hold him!”
They lunged after me, grabbed my arms and hauled me back. I tried wriggling free, but others in the chamber joined in and dragged me down to the floor.
“This is for your own good,” she said, looking down at me, her eyes sharing annoyance and sympathy. “You don’t know what you are doing. You can’t possibly know. We will hold you in protective custody until you have a better sense of where you are.”
“Fuck no! Not again. You can’t keep me here”
She leaned in close to me. “Please James, relax. You are not a prisoner. We’re just keeping you safe until you have a chance to learn the risks of being an infidel in the Deeps. Particularly one who is not gray.”
I took a deep breath and smiled, because a little shivery tingle told me that I was going to have the last laugh. My senses were returning. I could feel the coldness more intensely. And that could only mean one thing.
Chapter 32: Laurent
Searing heat penetrated my flesh, from the inside and out. I gasped and wheezed, sucking in air that again carried oxygen, my lungs again serving the function of feeding it to living cells and not just some ritual and pointless pumping of gases.
The girls must have carried me all the way up from the dock. I could hear them in the kitchen clinking pots and, laughing. Writhing and flexing my reclaimed body, I rolled off the sofa with a thump.
I lurched to my feet just as Ellen came rushing into the living room carrying a dish rag. I staggered into her, latching onto her shoulder to steady myself. But the warmth of her body burned me and I pulled away, collapsing back to the floor.