“Maybe. It’s definitely more alive than what’s down that slope.” French pointed with his chin at the hidden declination. “Let me see if I can read this, it’s faded.” He rotated the paper gently, reading and then confirming what he saw. “Here is the source of the Godbolt.”
“Huh?” Saavin asked. She’d expected something mysterious, perhaps even a raving fragment of thought, but the simple sentence left her confused. “Godbolt? What’s . . . never mind, stupid question.” She shook her head and laughed.
“What’s so funny?” A quizzical half-smile curved French’s lips.
She waved a hand at their surroundings. “We’re in a cave filled with creatures that seem tame compared to the demons that use it to attack the world once a month. We’re standing at the top of a mountain of bones, holding a jar filled with something that is clearly not of this earth, and it’s the source of a secret that might be a holy nuclear weapon. Anything I ask is going to sound inadequate.”
French felt himself smile in spite of the realization that Saavin was right. Everything sane in their world died years earlier.
He finally reached a hand out to Saavin, motioning that she should follow him quietly. They began to clamber down the slope with exaggerated care, listening all the while for a sign of whatever had filled the cave with so many bones.
They heard nothing. That silence produced a sense of dread far worse than the slavering noises of a beast. It was quiet, and their inadvertent sounds clacked off of the stones above with utter loneliness before vanishing into nothingness. For the next hour, they alternately stepped and slid down the declination, their feet disturbing bones and gravel intermingled in a layer that fully occluded the surface of the cave. It was a journey that was as arduous as it was sobering, and they were silent during the entirety of the descent. Saavin inhaled deeply when they reached the flat section of cavern. They stood reverently astride a group of human spines curled into lazy arcs, tossed together by some unseen hand after being stripped of their flesh. Her eyes went upward and she pointed, quietly.
“Clouds.” Her voice was awed. “Why are there clouds?”
French looked into the twilight distance for a moment, smiling grimly. “Because of that.”
Before them, curving away into the dark, lay the still surface of an underground sea. The bones stopped well short of the motionless water, creating a border of smooth stones and flotsam that bent randomly away from their location before being shrouded by the lichen’s smeared light. The cavern soared above them and appeared to go even higher than their eyes could detect; with each passing moment of their careful progress, the sea grew closer, but the clouds, diaphanous and high, seemed to recede. French touched Saavin’s arm lightly, and they stopped, surrounded by shattered skeletons and polished bits of wood.
“Not any closer. I can’t imagine what lives under that surface,” he said, mindful of their position on the exposed plain of bones. They were fifty yards from the nearest water, and French knelt in silence before selecting a flat, smooth rock. “Let’s see if anyone’s home.” He cocked his arm and deftly slung the rock at a point near the shore, where it plunked into the expanse of silent water. Ripples spread across the surface in protest, but there was no response.
“A giant crayfish lives in a pool, but nothing here? I don’t buy it,” Saavin said. She illustrated her point but flipping her own missile into the water, where it made a similar lonely splash before the stillness returned.
“I don’t get it. Something left these bones here, and that’s a big body of water to be free of life.” French rubbed his jaw in thought, watching for any signs of denizens coming to investigate. There were none. “The floor drops away slightly, so we know we’re still heading down and reasonably close to the location of the subsidence. We can follow the shore at a distance.” He looked at the water again with the practiced eye of a survivor. “Can you feel how ancient this place is?” The sense of antiquity was oppressively close.
Saavin nodded, forgetting the bones for a moment as she took in the enormity of the water stretching away into the distance.
“If nothing else, it’s easy walking,” Saavin agreed, returning a suspicious glance to the sea. It could be nothing but a sea. Lake seemed too flippant a term for the broad, dark surface before them.
“We follow this shoreline until it disappears or takes us to our goal,” French said, and stepped over a leering skull with two puncture wounds in the forehead. “Whatever happened here, it was a long time ago. We need to worry about now, and there isn’t anything to be done for these people.” His voice was dour with the realities of the graveyard around them, and Saavin merely nodded before they began walking along the curve of the ancient sea, their feet grinding mysterious bones into the sand of a place lost in time.
“We’re going to have to rest on the shore somewhere,” French announced, and Saavin quickly nodded her assent. The climb down had been brutal, but the somber cloud of so much death made their exhaustion thickly intense. “But, we need water.” He shook his canteen while peering at the inscrutable sea before them.
Saavin stood, head tipped in thought, then reached out to him with one hand. “Give me a chunk of our trail food.”
With a grunt at his own failed analysis, he pulled a large, plump section of lobster from the battered foil wrap and handed it to her without comment. She hefted the meat in her palm, considering the weight, and then took a series of mincing steps forward. With a gentle toss, she lofted the meat less than a foot from the shore. It landed with a ripe splat and she retreated to crouch next to French, who had deduced her intentions and knelt quietly, his eyes on the water.
“Good idea,” he said softly.
Her response started with a knowing smile. “You aren’t the only hick around here.”
They both chuckled low and settled in to wait. It wasn’t long before something broke the surface mere feet from the shore. Then a second, third, and multiple shapes breached the surface as they watched in amazement.
“Sharks?” Saavin asked. She fished for sharks weekly; it was part of her role as a dragonrider. The gray fins cut the water silently, turning in lazy arcs as the scent of the meat drew them closer to the shore.
French shrugged. “Makes sense. They’re older than some mountain ranges.” He seemed to decide some point regarding the presence of the sharks, stopping to open his pack. “I think it’s time for a different source of dinner.” He assembled his spear in short, efficient motions, and began creeping toward the water like a wraith. When he was mere feet from the water’s edge, he lay flat and slid forward, a black shape that Saavin could barely see, even though she knew exactly where he was. When the first fins came closer, French flickered the spear out in a silent strike that pierced the closest fin clean through. He hauled up and back in a practiced motion, and Saavin leapt to her feet, knife at the ready in anticipation of a killing stroke.
They both drew up short at the catch. It squealed in a burbling cry as its claws scrabbled over the gravel, desperately turning toward the safety of the water.
“What?” Saavin’s single word summed up their collective confusion.
“It’s a water beetle?” French answered uncertainly.
The creature was a nearly circular chitinous insect with four eyes, waving limbs, and a fin on its back that was an elegant example of mimicry. It cried out again, bubbles extruding from a busy, unseen mouth that was shaded by clicking parts and tendrils. With a smile of admiration, French slid the oversized insect back into the water, deftly removing his spear with a single quick twitch. He looked back to see Saavin grinning with unbridled joy.
“Beautiful, wasn’t it?” he asked.
Saavin smiled and tipped her hand upward to make the delta shape of a shark’s fin. “They evolved to mimic sharks. How clever.” She could respect that type of sleight-of-hand. “They must be competing with sharks.” She looked at the sea with newfound respect, wondering exactly how long this secret water had been kept from the world above.
“I know,” he said, reading her thoughts, “whatever happened here to separate this sea from the surface must have been eons ago. I think we’re just beginning to see what tricks are waiting for us underneath.” He sighed with resignation. “Salted lobster it is, until we find some new and improved beastie that happens to be delicious. Let’s fill the canteens and get to high ground.” He looked toward the nearest rise, gesturing to an outcropping of stone capped with a relatively smooth area. Lichens ringed the tiny plateau, creating a defensible, well-lit place to rest. “Shall we?”
“My feet say yes.” Saavin cast one long look at the calm water, her curiosity burning. She could see the same need to know in French’s eyes as they darted in an endless intake of sights.
The climb took two hours, but proved to be worth every second. The ground was high, dry, and gifted with an unimpeded view of the cave floor and surrounding approaches. At nearly two-hundred feet above the shoreline, their security, barring spiders from above, seemed nearly guaranteed. The sea stretched away in serene darkness, with only rare disturbances visible on the vast expanse. Silence crowded them as they sat gratefully on firm, sandy ground. There were two large boulders that would serve admirably for watch posts. After drinking deeply of their canteens, they were restored enough to begin serious eating.
French began slicing the pearly flesh and placing lobster fillets on a square of aluminum that was pressed into service as a buffet. “It’s a bit gamey,” he said generously.
Saavin wrinkled her nose at the first bite. “I’ve eaten worse, but not willingly. Think we can hunt a bit after we get going?” Her face was a beacon of hope at the prospect of something other than rough cured crayfish.
French considered a bite on his knife. “I think we might have to. Not that I’m worried; the life down here is shy, but present. We just need to dedicate a little time to the task.” He drank again to clear his mouth of the lobster. “I’ve hunted places far more barren than this.”
Saavin frowned. “Where? I thought the Carolinas were still lush. I know Texas is half wasteland, but it seemed like the inland mountains were a preserve of sorts. You know, protected. Not as many cave systems or something?”
French shook his head. “The mountains are still heavily forested. It’s”—he hesitated then corrected himself—“it was a good place to live. There are caves, plenty of mines, too, but all of the Appalachians, Smokies, Blue Ridge—those ranges were just too wild to be overrun by anything. There’s a natural defense built in place by the simple presence of the mountains themselves; add the people who live there, and it’s one of the most hostile places on earth for anything that might come up out of the ground. I should know, it’s my home.” He looked at his hands, and then added, “It was my home. I don’t know who lives there now, but it’s most likely a shadow of what was once the best hope we had.”
“Can New Madrid grow? To become like Asheville?”
He blew out a contemplative breath. “Perhaps. The land is fertile beyond belief, so we won’t starve, but I worry about the long view, not some short-term calamity like demons or a hailstorm crushing our fields.”
“There’s something more worrisome than demons?” Incredulity colored Saavin’s retort.
“Look around us. What do you see?” He flicked his eyes out at the quiet sea.
“A giant secret, for one thing, but you’ve got something on your mind. What is it?” She leaned forward on her elbows, curious. He liked that about her. She wasn’t irritated, she wanted to know.
French rubbed his hands together with worry. “This entire area is a giant bell, and it’s going to ring again. Earthquakes rip this place apart every few centuries, which makes that water nothing short of a miracle. The short answer is this—we can’t survive what the land can overcome. All it takes is one more of those huge shakers, and our problems won’t be just here at New Madrid. The faults run nearly to the Great Lakes, and I can guess that we aren’t the only people between here and Canada, or what’s left of it, anyway. We lose New Madrid, even to a natural disaster, and we might lose any shot of coming back, even if we can beat these creatures at their own game.”
Saavin was quiet as she absorbed the implications. “I hadn’t thought that far down the line. Banshee doesn’t let me.”
“He doesn’t? Why not?”
Her shoulders twitched with repressed laughter as she envisioned her dragon’s parental bearing. “He thinks my youth will make me too jaded to fight. He’s fiercely protective of me, even if he risks his own stubborn hide without a care every time the moon goes dark.”
French smiled warmly, but stayed silent. The pause became awkward and he shifted on the ground before speaking at length. “Does Banshee think of you as an equal?”
She gave the question due consideration. It was a nuanced issue, so it was some moments before she replied. With a roll of her shoulders, she said, “There are times when I know he thinks of me as a glorified pet.” Saavin laughed ruefully, adding, “And there are times I think he’s little more than a hammer that eats. In between, we’ve come to know each other for what and who we are. He’s actually quite insightful, oddly funny, and his loyalty to humans can verge on mania. He has a singular focus when it comes to killing anything evil.” She cocked her head at him as a smile deepened across her features. “I know who he reminds me of. You.”
French looked surprised, then thoughtful, and then pleased. He swept an imaginary hat from his head to her delight. “I’ll gladly accept that kind of compliment. I wondered about your relationship. It’s so encompassing, or at least it seems so from my little exposure to it.”
“I could say the same about you,” Saavin answered.
“Regarding my relationship? I don’t have any attachments,” he protested, maybe a bit too fast to seem aloof.
Saavin paid no mind to his answer, chewing her lip before speaking again. “But you do. You’re sworn to fight for a community that has mixed feelings about you, and you take the job seriously enough to risk your own life first. Does that sound like someone who lives without attachments?” Her eyes bored into his with a guileless search.
He spread his hands in surrender. “You’re right. I don’t have any deep connections with the people, not really. I just know what they’re going to face, and I want to stop it. I want to end all of the warfare, if I can. I’d like to see another Asheville rise before I’m gone, if only to know I had something to give that merits them taking me in to their town.”
“Their town? Isn’t it your town? And if you’re alone now, were you always alone? You can’t live as a monk, not in this world, French.” Saavin sipped at her canteen, avoiding his eyes.
It was some time before he replied, “You’d think that it would be simple to convince people of the dangers they can’t see, but no. It’s nearly impossible, given how violent our lives are. Part of my choice to be alone is due to fear, not just—” He broke off and looked down at his hands in contemplation. There were no answers to be found there, so he reluctantly made eye contact again. Saavin was in the act of a decision; her face told of standing near an emotion she was unused to, then she dipped her chin and spoke to the dust under their feet. Discomfort hung between them.
“You can tell me to go to hell, but . . .” She looked around with a wry grin. The cavern wasn’t engulfed in flames, but it was alien enough to pass for some versions of hades. Her tongue caught and she made vague gestures with her hands that were different from what French had come to expect from the young dragonrider. Her eyes snapped to his and she blurted, “How did your wife die?”
The cave grew even less hospitable under the flare of his gaze. He stayed ramrod straight for endless heartbeats and, when his lips moved as he prepared to speak, his eyes were dangerously flat. For a chilling instant, Saavin wondered if he was going to strike her. She curled her hands discreetly and watched his rage uncoil, flex, and then subside. A long hiss of air escaped her nose as she realized she’d held her breath and, for the first time since
their descent, Banshee’s absence was a pang in her side where the fear sparked, hot and unwelcome. In for a penny, in for a pound, she thought, recalling a lost aphorism from an Old Stater who was long dead. She didn’t know what it meant, but it seemed to fit. The gravid moment lingered until Saavin spoke again, this time with as much care as she could muster.
“I looked in your sketchbook.” Simple and short, Saavin spoke and mentally braced for impact.
French’s shoulders bunched again in an imitation of Banshee just before he leapt forward; it was a curiously draconic gesture to see in a man, but then she corrected herself. Not just a man, a fighter. His facial muscles twitched once in a betrayal of his outward calm as he forced a mild expression to consume the darkness his mood projected.
“Kiera. Her name was Kiera.” His lips moved without emotion.
Saavin nodded, slowly. “She was beautiful. You drew her as a real person.”
That seemed safe, and French lowered his eyes in acknowledgment. “She was. We were only married a short time.” He ticked lines into the dust, making a record of their short marriage in small vertical scratches. There were six, perhaps one for each month. “She died outside Asheville.”
“I’m sorry,” Saavin said to his pain and memory. To the man, she knew there was nothing to be spoken.
“Demons. We had a running car, an ancient Volkswagen that I’d stashed at our bolt hole. It pulled a little trailer full of things we could never replace. Books, pictures, there were things we’d saved from our families. Things that this world will never make again,” he added, bitterly.
In that she heard the loss of all mankind. She knew that tone.
“So, demons. They carved out the bank under a metal bridge that had stood solid for a century. I was ahead on foot, looking to see if the bridge was clear; there were storms that left limbs and trees like jackstraws. I waved at her to stop, but she thought I meant it was safe.” His hands were fists and the knuckles dead white in the light of the cavern. “It was less than eight feet of water. She was just under the surface, not more than an arm’s length. The car filled, she panicked, she drowned.”
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