Nineveh's Child

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Nineveh's Child Page 15

by Gerhard Gehrke


  What light pierced the fabric of her shroud still proved too much. It overwhelmed her. She wished she knew how to pass out on purpose. Her head felt alternately squeezed and inflated like a bladder of water. Something had to give. Her jaw clenched so tightly she thought her teeth would crack, and her lungs burned from holding her breath. She tried counting, thinking of numbers, any distraction, but the seconds became half-seconds, the half-seconds fractured to their tenths and hundredths, and each unit of time ticked by at a dilatory pace.

  She smelled dirt and realized that she had curled into a ball with her face to the ground. Perhaps she had passed out or even slept. She stayed motionless and wished for the earth to swallow her whole, but to do it quietly.

  A damp cloth wiped at her face. The lights had shifted. Callused hands stroked the side of her head. The blanket had been pulled aside.

  “Uma?”

  “Can you drink?” Redmon asked.

  She could. Opening her eyes was problematic, but she managed to squint. It was now late morning, maybe noon. She was damp with sweat. A water skin was pressed to her lips. She took a mouthful of water, and it melted away down her parched throat.

  “More,” she said, but the skin was drawn back. “You stayed behind?”

  Redmon ignored her question. “Can you sit up?”

  Her stomach lurched as she did, but she kept the nothing inside her down.

  “Here.” Redmon pushed some berries to Dinah’s lips. She ate them. They were sour, almost bitter, but she wanted more. Redmon gave her another sip of water.

  Dinah took deep breaths and managed to look around at the rest of the camp. The little boy stood awkwardly under the tree with the doll in his hands. In the daylight, he appeared to be covered head to toe in dust, as if he had been rolled in dark flour. She would have laughed but for the nails in her eyes. Across the makeshift camp, she saw Karl still in the same spot. He sat forward at an angle. He had been bound so tightly that his elbows and shoulders were drawn behind him. His dark face and beard were matted with blood. He was watching them through droopy eyes.

  “I had a cousin with headaches like yours,” Redmon said. “Sugared tea helped when she felt them coming on.”

  “Tea sounds nice,” Dinah whispered.

  Redmon continued to comfort her and made no attempt to get her moving. Dinah fell back asleep with her head against the woman.

  ***

  It wasn’t a hallucination. Actual tea was heating in a pan, and Redmon spooned some to Dinah once she could get up and move closer to the small cooking fire. It tasted of herbs carefully picked and dried, much like something Uma would make. The warm liquid soothed her throat and cleared her head, even though the pain of the morning’s episode still echoed between her temples. She looked around and noticed the boy was gone. So were the rest of the refugees.

  “Your friend left without a word,” Redmon said.

  “When?”

  “I’d guess an hour ago. I suspect he’s close by, but one of us made him nervous.” She indicated Karl with a nod. He had been moved. He now sat with his back against another tree. His hands had been retied so they were in front of him, and the rest of his bindings had been removed. In what must have been the afternoon sun, Dinah could now clearly see Karl’s face. It had dried blood all over it. One eye was swollen. Part of one ear was missing. He was the Beast made human, and he watched her with his good eye.

  Perhaps he deserved what had happened. She imagined a world where the refugees would visit him every night like wrathful imps to take his life by inches.

  “What are you going to do with him?”

  “We didn’t travel far enough to be safe,” Redmon said. “Even lighting this fire was a risk. For now, we need him. There’s something going on that I don’t understand that involves him. And you. What can you tell me about what’s going on?”

  The edge in her voice was unmistakable. She knew or suspected something, and she was better at hiding it than Dr. Mephisto or any of her guardians ever were. But Dinah was a well-practiced concealer of secrets, even when there was nothing to hide.

  Out of habit, Dinah said, “I don’t know anything. Karl was my aunt’s husband, or at least that was how they lived ever since I moved in with them. He was always out helping people in the towns near us fix things. But then he left, and the hunters came. And he was suddenly working with them.”

  Under Redmon’s gaze, Dinah tried not to even think about Nineveh, or that the hunters were after her, or that the attack on the valley people may have been her fault.

  Redmon studied her. “I’ve seen Karl around for a few years. He came to our village a couple of times, and our neighbors to the south talked about him every time he made his rounds to trade. Strange, though, how he just showed up. The same time as you did, apparently. I heard about your Aunt Uma, even met some of her neighbors at market. And whenever Karl came to trade, he was just brimming with information that he was eager to share. He did some good and was never afraid of the anti-tech bunch. Maybe he even saved some of us with his water management techniques. Where do you think he learned all of this?”

  When Dinah shrugged, she saw Redmon wasn’t buying her uncertainty. The woman’s face darkened. Dinah received no more tea.

  Finally Dinah said, “Karl brought me to my aunt’s place from somewhere underground where I used to live. There’s hundreds of people there, like a small city. We had everything we needed. Food, water, everything. I didn’t know him from before that, but I think he used to work there somehow before he helped me get out. That’s where the hunters come from. From Nineveh.”

  The words felt strange. Dinah had never talked about the redoubt with Karl, Uma, or Rosalyn. The transition after Nineveh had been so thorough and instant that it was as if the book of her childhood had been completed and her life with Uma was a new tale entirely. She wondered how much Karl could hear.

  The only thing she left out mentioning was her brother. Knowing now that Ruben was alive in some altered form and possibly the architect of what was happening in the valley made her ill. And Karl knew Ruben, had been the one to take her from Nineveh at Ruben’s command. Dinah became afraid that Redmon would kill him out of hand if she learned more, and Dinah too for being wrapped up in the troubles somehow.

  She didn’t know what to expect next.

  Redmon’s face softened. “Maybe that explains why you’re so healthy and your teeth are so straight. No one has the time or tools for advanced dentistry anymore. It makes you stand out.”

  The woman’s teeth appeared straight enough, but Dinah didn’t comment.

  Redmon got up and approached Karl, one hand on the hilt of her knife.

  “Is this true?” she asked. “Is this where you came from? This underground place?”

  “It’s true like she says,” Karl said. “That’s where Dinah lived, and I took her out of there. She was never one of them, though, not like the hunters. They’re a different breed entirely. But I saved Dinah from that place. Besides me and a couple of others, Nineveh didn’t let outsiders in. I lived with the few they did in a village on the bay.”

  “And what about your advanced knowledge?”

  “They had power and computers we could access. I learned everything I could and passed it along whenever possible. I tried to teach other valley people as much as possible and worked to help everyone I could. You know my reputation. Dinah knows it, too. Dinah, you remember, don’t you?”

  Dinah nodded. But looking at Karl was difficult. She didn’t want to agree with anything he was saying, didn’t want to be connected with him in a shared history. He still had the warm eyes that she attributed to a loving father. His voice held the same comforting tone it always had.

  “You helped people when it suited you,” Redmon said. “But everyone in the valley knew not to go south down to the bay or its villages. People who did that vanished. You would come to us when you needed trade. And then your friends came out of their hole, and you joined them.”

 
“It’s complicated,” Karl said. “I left years ago when I took Dinah away from Nineveh. I didn’t know they would do any of this or kill everyone. When I heard they were coming out in force, I went to find out why. They had orders I didn’t know about. They were looking for Dinah.”

  Karl saying this out loud filled Dinah with fear. Suddenly her role in recent events was exposed. She started to shake her head in denial, but Redmon ignored her.

  “Why?” Redmon asked. “Why are they looking for her?”

  “It’s something she has. Something inside of her or in her mind. I don’t know.”

  Redmon pulled her knife out.

  Karl exhaled sharply and stared at the blade. “I understand that you want to kill me. I’d want to do the same. Just know that I’m not one of those people. I never killed anyone. I tried to stop them.”

  Dinah was on her feet and standing at Redmon’s side. “Then why did you drug me and hand me over to them?”

  Karl had a hurt look on his face. “Because I found out it was you they were looking for. Once I knew that, I hoped that they would stop their raid and go back home.”

  “So because she escaped…” Redmon started to say, and then she looked at Dinah.

  “They’ll keep looking,” Karl said. “And they won’t stop. More will die until they find her.”

  “They appear to be content with killing everyone. Why would they stop? There must be more to it than this girl. Is it land? Food? Slaves?”

  When Karl didn’t have an answer, Redmon started to close in on him. Her grip on her knife adjusted the way you might grip a screwdriver before turning a screw.

  “Wait,” Dinah said. She put a hand on Redmon’s arm but withdrew it when the woman shot her a withering look. “I don’t know why they’re doing what they’re doing, either. But I do know who’s in charge. It’s my brother, and he’s crazy. I know that I have to be the one to stop him. And I might need Karl to help me.”

  ***

  “All this time,” Dinah said, but then hesitated.

  Redmon was listening. Her full attention unnerved Dinah at first, reminding her of the way Dr. Mephisto would listen during their analysis sessions. He would take notes and murmur and nod at strange times. Redmon had the look of concern that Dinah imagined a mother would have. Perhaps that was what Redmon had been before the hunters began their raid.

  Dinah cleared her throat. “All this time, I thought I would find my way back. I wanted to return to the redoubt, to Nineveh, wherever it was, and see my brother Ruben one last time, to rescue him, to bring him to the surface so he could look at the sky and feel the sun on his skin.”

  “Would your aunt have let you?”

  “No. But there were plenty of times when neither Aunt Uma or Karl were around. I could have run off. I also could have tried to catch a glimpse of the strangers when we heard they were coming around. I knew right away who they were. If they came out of Nineveh, they would have returned there eventually. I could have followed them, or surrendered to them. Maybe…maybe all of this could have been avoided.”

  “How could you have known? From what you’ve told me, you were still both children before you left. Who could say a thing like this would happen? No one knows how a person will turn out, not even whatever doctors you might have had back in Nineveh. So when I say this, I’m not saying it out of meanness: stop feeling sorry for yourself and focus. How do we stop your brother?”

  Dinah nodded. “Whatever sensor the hunters use to locate me could work with him. He made sure I had one when I left Nineveh. I was to use it to come back to him.”

  “They put trackers in you?”

  “I think so. I think he has a similar device, too. Their range seems quite short, though. I lost mine, but Karl had one when you captured him.”

  Redmon clenched her jaw. “It seems like it would be more direct just to find Nineveh itself. They’ve always come from the coastal areas to the south. If Nineveh is the name you use for their underground warrens there, then it’s possible it’s more than one facility. There’s too many rumors without enough facts. It’s well defended, but with so many of their soldiers or hunters out here, this might mean we’d have a chance of getting in. Or at least getting close. If I could make some observations on the place, whatever resistance we have forming might stand a chance at a counterattack.”

  “I appreciate that,” Dinah said. “But I’m not going to observe. I can get to my brother. No one else can. I have a basic direction. I can observe the hunters and track their vehicles on the roads. But Karl knows the way. And if you give me back Karl’s device, I’ll be able to keep track of my brother.”

  “How?”

  “Triangulation. Basic geometry. The signal is weak, but even the slightest read in two locations will let me know exactly where he is.”

  Redmon didn’t look impressed. Maybe she knew what triangulation was, and maybe she didn’t care.

  “You going down there would be a one-way trip. I don’t know how Karl managed to get you out in the first place, but if you go down there again you won’t be rescuing anyone and you won’t be coming back. They may have traps, alarms, and who knows what other tech that most of us can barely remember. There’s a reason no one returns who goes that far south.”

  “Karl will help.”

  Redmon’s face soured. She considered Karl, then Dinah.

  “Taking you south with a tracker hidden on you is the height of stupidity. I can’t scout it out if their entire military is turning around to find you. We should go north, find a surgeon, and have him find it and remove it.”

  “And how many more would die?”

  Redmon turned to Karl. “What do you know?”

  Karl cleared his throat. “Ruben made sure I gave her the device after taking her out of Nineveh. He didn’t explain it to me. The hunters only have a couple of them. They’re short range like Dinah says. And the hunters don’t have much else in the way of tech. In some ways, they’re not the brightest bunch. They all wear coms, like radios, so they can quietly speak with one another. They can operate their vehicles. They all take their daily dose of medicine from a machine they keep in their trucks.”

  “We noticed that too, but didn’t know what it was.”

  “So it sounds like if Dinah keeps moving, she’ll have a good chance of evading them. But I can guide her south. I’ll get her inside Nineveh if that’s where she wants to go.”

  “How noble of you,” Redmon said acidly. “And what about taking the tracker out of her?”

  Maybe it was Dinah’s imagination, but she saw Redmon’s hand brush the handle of her knife.

  Karl shook his head. “From what I’ve seen, a few of the hunters have implants that are beyond anything a normal doctor might be able to remove without power or the tools they have inside Nineveh. You’re talking about technology that ties into the central nervous system. You can’t risk that kind of operation without knowing what you’re doing. Maybe it’s something only skin deep, but we have no way of knowing.”

  “What if the doctor doesn’t try to remove it, but just deactivates it?”

  “It would all be guesswork unless you have one of the redoubt doctors,” Dinah said. “It’s too much of a detour. I don’t know how to solve the problem of Nineveh coming after me except to steer them away from anyone else that might get hurt. I’m going to head south and lead them that direction. Maybe I’ll make it all the way to Nineveh and get them to take out whatever they put in me. Maybe I’ll manage to talk to my brother and get him to stop the attacks on the valley. But I’m not changing my mind. I won’t go north with you.”

  Redmon gave Dinah an appraising look. “Then I’ll be blunt. They’ll probably kill you and take whatever you have that they want. Or worse. There’s always worse.”

  “I have to take that chance.”

  “Let me go with you,” Karl said. He turned to Redmon. “Let me go with her. I know what the hunters can and can’t do. Their biggest weakness is their overconfidence in their su
perior firepower. I also know where the settlements to the south are, and which ones to avoid.”

  “Like hell I’m letting you go.”

  “Dinah, please. You know I’ll do everything in my power to protect you.”

  “You’ll do everything in your power to keep me from cutting your throat,” Redmon said.

  Dinah studied Karl’s face, his eyes, the way his jaw set after he spoke. He was in there, the old Karl, the Karl that she once trusted. The situation reminded her of a time when Rosalyn apologized after having tricked her into drinking lemonade with soap in it. Rosalyn tried the same trick with a different drink a month later. And Dinah fell for it again.

  Her head pulsed. Not a big headache, but a smaller throb from stress.

  “Let me take him,” she said finally.

  “Are you sure?”

  “No. But I have to believe him.”

  Redmon appeared to be on the cusp of a decision. One choice would result in a bloody act of violence that neither Dinah nor Karl could stop. She cut his bonds. She said nothing, but the warning in her eyes was enough for Dinah to know that Karl would not get a second chance with her.

  “He’ll go with you. So will I.”

  Redmon looked surprised when Dinah gave her a hug. Karl stood up stiffly and rubbed at his wrists.

  They went into motion, collecting their few bits of gear and obscuring obvious signs that they had camped there. Redmon buried the fire and broke up the small stone ring set around it. Karl got close to Dinah once, tried to speak, but she kept her back turned to him and tightened the laces of her boots.

  When Redmon saw that they were ready, she handed Dinah the device. She had Karl and Dinah take the lead and she followed. They headed south, in the opposite direction of the scattered tracks of the village refugees. South toward Nineveh. If Dinah couldn’t find her brother, then at least she could get him to follow.

  17. Before: Nineveh

 

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