by Mara Duryea
Setting her poison-tipped spear to the side, she removed a bag from her shoulders. This bag traveled with her everywhere. It contained her most precious possession: a Cedrite book. It taught Sylex and Iskerkin how to use their powers, and contained information on special monsters. Her parents had co-written it on rubbery Syladin “paper” when they’d married.
Today the bag held more than a book. She removed a small iridescent blue pebble from one of the many pockets inside, and placed it at the base of the spiral. Ten other blue stones were welded into the black rock. Each one marked a death anniversary.
Gilanra slipped a slender metal bar from her belt. It was about as thick as her finger and three inches long. Syladins in her tribe dubbed it a heat stick. Popping the cap off one side of it, she rubbed the flat end against an empty spot on the memorial’s base. The stick brightened like lava as it melted the small section of stone. Orange light gleamed around Gilanra’s sunless fingers, warming the water until it was almost too hot.
Yanking her hand back, she dropped the stick in the sand. Gilanra waited for the rock to cool a little before she pressed the blue stone into it. The last time she hadn’t waited, the heat had nearly melted the pebble into her skin. There had been a lot of skin-peeling involved. It still gave her the shivers thinking about it.
When the rock had stopped glowing, she pushed the blue stone into it. The heat reached through the pebble and burned her fingers.
“Mmm!” She jerked her hand back and shoved it into the cold sand. She hated it when she miscalculated. At least the pebble hadn’t fallen off. The heat stick, still gleaming orange light on the spiral memorial, brought out the name etched there in high relief.
This rock forged in fire was the perfect memorial for the fiery soul it represented. He was a war hero. He’d died facing six of the enemy. He’d taken four with him before he fell, and wounded the other two. They never found the body, but Syladin bodies were never recovered from battle. The sea monsters conducted their funerals.
Syladins believed the spirits of the dead came near when someone visited their spiral. Talking to a dead body was foolish to a Syladin. It was the spirit that lived. It was the spirit that could hear.
“Warrior in life, warrior in death, warrior in spirit,” she said, “you never really leave.” She smiled and took a red pebble from the bag. “Look what I finally found, Dad. Now everyone will know you were an Iskerkin.”
Swimming to the top of the spiral, she melted the blood-red stone into the point. She held it there with another stone, so it couldn’t burn her this time. Sometimes, she considered using a stone all the time to aid in melting the memorial pebbles in, but didn’t. Last year, her neighbor had accidentally melted the rock onto the memorial stone, and now her cousin’s spiral looked ridiculous.
The pebble glimmered like her dad’s eyes when he was set for battle. She’d never witnessed him close a Midnight Gate. He’d made her stay home whenever he went out to face the soulless. The most she ever knew about it was from her mom, who said that his soul lit the sea. She didn’t explain more than that, even though Gilanra pestered her about it.
Like all Syladins, Gilanra could see in the dark better than sunwalkers. The appearance of gloom was ever-present, but Memorial Hill was extra morbid. Not every warrior was dead. If she were a spirit, she wouldn’t visit.
“Gilanra, what are you doing?”
Gilanra turned. “Hi, Mom.” Her name was Itika. “I’m putting an Iskerkin stone into Dad’s spiral.”
“That is not an Iskerkin stone.” Itika swam to the top of the spiral and yanked on the pebble. “Give me your heat stick.”
Gilanra smiled. “Can’t. The pebble’s melted into the spiral. You’ll just ruin the point if you try to take it out.”
Itika pulled Gilanra from the top of the memorial by the arm. “You’ve desecrated it. Now it looks frivolous.”
Gilanra frowned. “No, it doesn’t. Why should Dad’s tomb look like everyone else’s?”
“Because it is respectable.”
“You never come to visit it anyway. I’m the one who looks at it.”
The older woman snapped the back of her hand against Gilanra’s jaw. “You are silly. You act like a sunwalker. It is disgraceful. I wouldn’t be surprised if you ended up like those silly fools who run after their prisoners when the year is up.”
Gilanra scowled. “I might as well. You wouldn’t miss me.” Itika would miss her as much as she missed her own husband. When he’d died, Itika had carried on like he was never there.
Itika didn’t bother addressing the issue. “Where are your gauntlets?”
Gilanra yanked her arm out of Itika’s grasp. “At home.”
“Stupid.” Itika picked the spear out of the sand. “You’re supposed to wear them every time you leave the burrow. If a kralikin attacks, you will have no poison darts to shoot it with.” The darts were located inside the gauntlets. Since kralikins lurked day and night around the village, everyone carried weapons with them at all times. Syladins called kralikins something else, but only Syladins could pronounce it, since their language consisted of clicking and body movement.
They headed back to the village in silence. Gilanra fumed, while her mother cringed at the disgracefulness of her emotion.
As they neared the village, Itika tapped Gilanra’s back with her spear. “Dignity, Gilanra.”
They entered the Sinitar village. It was in a trench filled with towering boulders. Thick seaweed waved in the cold current like dark ribbons in the wind. Fish glided through the small plants covering the craggy walls. All along the bottom of the trench were slabs of volcanic rock. Crowds of Syladins clicked in their underwater tongue, filling the air with a million vibrations.
It was an important time. The Sun Ceremony was about to begin in a little while. It celebrated the trainees who had successfully returned their year-long prisoners to the surface. They’d be inducted into the Sinitar tribe as true warriors and take their rightful place among the people. It also launched the new trainees to the surface to capture a prisoner for their year-long run.
Gilanra and Itika approached one of the huge stone slabs next to the trench wall, and swam down a claustrophobic tunnel beneath it. About twenty or so feet down, a light gleamed at the end. It opened up into a sandy circular chamber. Three mirilites glowed in the sand around the room.
Furniture, dishes, eating utensils, and baths were obsolete. Mother and daughter sat in the sand. They slept in the sand. They chewed on raw fish with bare hands. Whatever they didn’t eat, they sent through a chute in the middle of the floor that spat the remains outside the village limits. The chute even served as a toilet. A short wall surrounded it for privacy. Slok fish devoured everything that spat from the chutes. A Syladin starving to death wouldn’t even think of eating a slok fish.
“Prepare for your launch,” said Itika.
Those headed for the surface to catch and keep a prisoner for a year were called launchers. Gilanra was one this year. She crossed the dismal “living room” to a corridor curving behind it. Her room was yet another sandy chamber. Unlike the main room, Gilanra had imbued as much color into it as possible. She’d planted voola in the middle of the ceiling.
White blossoms flourished on these deep blue vines, which crawled across the ceiling and cascaded down the walls. The blossoms resembled clumps of wiggly white fingers. The blue vines and blossoms glowed.
Most places in the ocean shined like this. Gilanra wished they lived in one of the light forests, but no. The Sinitars resided in the dark wastelands, where other Syladins feared to go.
Gilanra would miss her room for her year-long run. It had taken five years for the voola to reach the floor. She loved resting her head in the blossoms.
Her gauntlets lay beneath the caressing fingers of one of them. Slits in the gauntlets’ sides allowed her fins to flow out. Slipping them on, she pulled out the clothes she’d sewn for the journey to the surface. Made of green and silver fish skin, Gilanra had const
ructed a sleeveless shirt to her thighs, and a pair of shorts that just peeped out from beneath the shirt’s hem.
Syladins didn’t wear heavy armor. It would sink them. They depended on their speed, and fought mostly on the offensive. Syladins wore hardly any clothes. Some tribes wandered around entirely naked. Gilanra’s tribe wore enough clothes to cover the important parts.
Of course, for the year-long run, they fashioned some clothes for the benefit of their prisoners. It seemed to psychologically help a captive. Gilanra slipped the clothing on, feeling bogged down and awkward. Snapping the belt back on with small clips, she hung the bag on her shoulders. She returned to the main room for inspection.
Itika flicked Gilanra’s dark blue bangs to the side. “Your hair is too long.” She frowned. “Well, you might become a sunwalker anyway. Let’s go.”
Gilanra scowled at her back. Shouldn’t Itika have felt the tiniest something? Gilanra was leaving on her dad’s death anniversary. She and the prisoner could die in the canyons, for all her mother knew. This could be the last time they saw each other.
Heading to the middle of the village, they waited for the new warriors to return. A tense and excited silence filled the trench. Hardly a word was uttered. Every eye was fixed towards the gloomy expanse above them. Gilanra thought she would die of boredom.
“There!” Someone thrust a finger upward. The new warriors floated from above, their heat sticks lit in fiery orange like flaming stars. The warriors hadn’t rubbed the ends enough to melt rock, so the heat sticks were safe to hold. One by one, the warriors alighted among the people and warmed the ocean to almost unbearable degrees. Mothers and fathers flung their arms around them. The sea filled with laughter and joyful greetings. Gilanra glanced at her mother. Itika would never welcome her back like that.
Some of the warriors didn’t return. The families of these lost ones remained silent and still. They didn’t stay for the Sun Ceremony, but prepared to make memorial spirals. Gilanra watched them. They desired no comfort. They would continue stern and strong in the wake of their loss. It was the Sinitar way.
The successful warriors hovered in a line, while the launchers floated opposite them. The new warriors reported their year to the crowd. There were fifty of them, and not one had a turn for narration. Gilanra struggled not to fall asleep. By the time the last one finished, she had fallen asleep. Nobody noticed, except her teacher Srisair. He swam up behind her and pinched her arm.
“They are presenting the spears, Gilanra,” he said. “I shall give you one like that when you return.”
The teachers handed each new warrior a special spear that they’d constructed for their group. Each teacher instructed four to six students, but Gilanra’s teacher Srisair only taught three. Two of them had died, which was common. Once the new warriors had accepted their spears, they took their place among the other warriors.
The teachers spoke to the launchers. There were ten teachers. Gilanra thought she was going to die. She struggled to listen to Srisair’s speech. Thank goodness he had a short one.
At last, the teachers handed their students the breathing masks the trainees had made for their future prisoners. It was a simple contraption which fit over the whole face. There were eye plates on top, and below, a gray covering with slices in it like gills. It sucked the air from the water, vibrating when the prisoner breathed.
“Good luck,” said the head teacher. “May you return as warriors.”
Raising their spears upward, the launchers turned their backs on the crowd and shot towards the great black above. The Syladins below flipped their fins towards the launchers, sending a wave that propelled the trainees upward. Gilanra searched for her mother, hoping to see at least pride in her countenance, but the woman was already swimming home.
Gilanra pinched her lips. She would make her mother proud. She would catch a full-grown adult—a dangerous one, too. She headed to Visseria. The path to that dark country passed through enemy waters, but as long as she kept her heat stick lighted, the other tribe would know she was on her year-long run. It was the only time Syladins could cross enemy borders. Most tribes found it degrading to attack a launcher, because they weren’t full warriors yet. Whenever tribes raided other tribes, the trainees were usually captured instead of killed.
Gilanra spent the night under a bluff. As soon as morning broke, she prepared to capture something big and dangerous.
Poking her head above the surface, she couldn’t believe her luck. A huge Hatrin man wandered along the beach, head down and brows knit. His feet sloshed through the surf. Chills ran down her spine. This was a dangerous Visserian. She almost left him alone, but Itika’s incredulous visage loomed. Gilanra had come for a deadly one, and she’d get one at all costs.
If she could snatch him into the water before he could react, then he wouldn’t be able to retaliate. Gilanra swam in close, eyes just over the surface of the water. Her belly scraped the sand.
The Hatrin stood knee-deep in the surf now. He stared at the sky, and then back at the cliffs lining the beach. A heavy sigh hissed from his lips. “What have I done?”
Gilanra yanked the Hatrin’s legs out from under him. He crashed into the water before he could cry out. Gilanra dragged him into the deep by the ankles, as he clawed helplessly for the surface.
When they were about twenty feet down, she darted above the Hatrin and clamped the breathing mask on his face. He gasped, pulling the mask close around his chin. He stared at her through the goggles. Something was strange about him, like a cold room with the ashes of a dead fire in the middle of it. No matter. He was dangerous. She was keeping him.
Catching the mask by the straps around the head, she pulled him towards the boundary between her tribe and the Halleese Tribe. She kept the heat stick lighted and out to the side. Time was irrelevant to Gilanra, so she had no concept of how long it took to reach the border. It was marked by a mountain of craggy rock that curved like a snake for dozens of miles.
It was actually a grivarion’s winding skeleton. Nobody knew how old it was. The elders said it was probably alive when the ocean had been the desert called the Baker’s Strip. It had connected Visseria and Aralia. The land had sunk during the Midnight Death. That was when countless millions had died and the soulless had crawled from the Midnight Gates for the first time. They had issued out of Aralia at Midnight Moon. The entire world went black, like a shroud had fallen on it.
Syladins still found the remains of those people who hadn’t survived in the Baker’s Strip. They had lived in burrows like the Syladins, probably to escape the unbearable heat.
Some of the grivarion’s millions of spines stuck out of the ocean. Sometimes ships wrecked on them during storms. The sailors mistook them for mere rocks. It was on one of these that Gilanra found the bubble she’d finished contstructing last month. It protected sunwalkers from the ocean pressure, but not the cold. The heat stick took care of that. The bubble’s membrane sides allowed water to flow in and out so the prisoner wouldn’t suffocate. It had taken Gilanra two years to complete it.
Gilanra shoved the Hatrin into the bubble. He didn’t dare resist, lest she pull the mask off his head and he drown. She pressed the sides of the slit together until they sealed. The bubble was almost too small for him. Oh well, at least he fit.
Taking the line at the top of the bubble, Gilanra swam down towards the twisting canyons. They’d be home for a year. It was too bad she couldn’t plant anything in the numerous caves down there. At least she’d acquired mirilite.
They entered the canyon. Cold currents reached icy fingers from the black depths. The gray ocean ceiling vanished altogether. Eyes winked from the abyss. Strange moans sent chills down Gilanra’s spine. She struggled not to think about the canyon people. They never ventured from the bottoms. As long as she kept the heat stick lit, they wouldn’t hazard an attack. They couldn’t stand the heat. Dark seaweed waved in the currents. Creatures with dozens of legs darted among the craggy rocks.
The blacknes
s suddenly moved en masse. Screaming, Gilanra almost darted back to the surface. What was she going to do if the thing decided to eat her? How could she escape it if it came upward? Its mass would pop the bubble, and her prisoner would implode. Its shortest fang was probably longer than she was.
To her relief, the mass moved deeper into the dark. Freezing currents rushed into her face, clamping her frame in an icy fist. Gilanra hugged her spear, as if it could protect her from the monster.
It’s gone. It went deeper. You’re okay. You’re okay. The heat stick was too bright for it. Swallowing her pounding heart, the Syladin forced herself deeper into the canyon. The gray flag hanging on the cave entrance finally appeared. Gilanra rushed inside, bumping the bubble against the sharp wall.
Mirilite glimmered at the end of the tunnel. The spiky floor gleamed like a wonderland of hiding places. Gilanra took a breath. Nothing could enter except a kralikin, but the mirilite would give it away before it could sneak attack.
Breaking the surface, she pulled the bubble onto the sandy shore. It collapsed like a blanket around the Hatrin. He clawed at the sides, trying to rip himself out. Gilanra didn’t want to spend another year making a new bubble. She yanked the seams apart, and he scrambled out. Pulling the mask from his face, he gasped in the cave air. He looked at her as if she was a fiend, but he didn’t attack. He would never get out if he did.
“Why did you bring me here?” he said.
Gilanra leaned on her spear. “It’s my final task to keep you alive for one year.” Every student learned Zherwor and Aralian so they could communicate with their prisoners.
The Hatrin’s brows knit. “And then what happens?”
“I put you back where I found you. You may call me Gilanra. Give me your name.”
He gazed at her uncertainly. “Sizhirin.”
Gilanra pointed at the lever on the wall. “See that? That lets in air.” She pointed to a giant wheel in the middle of the floor. “Turn that before you pull the lever. It closes the way into the ocean, and then the air comes in. If you let in the air without closing the doors, the place will flood and then you’ll get crushed.” It had taken her three years to prepare this cave.