Beneath The Mantle

by Ahimsa Kerp

  “Excuse me?” Doctor Gomez said.

  “I’m not being sexist,” Stuart said. “I just know you guys won’t be good in a fight.”

  “That’s what being sexist is,” Baruna said. “And you don’t know that.”

  “All right, you guys go punch out the three attackers.”

  Baruna cautiously glanced at Keshav. He shook his head no.

  “Don’t be a pendejo,” Doctor Gomez said. “Fights are won with more than fists.”

  ***

  Stuart peered out from behind a slender fir tree. The others stood behind him.

  “What do you see?” Keshav asked.

  “What’s the plan?” Baruna asked.

  Stuart looked to Dr. Gomez helplessly.

  “I have no idea,” the paleontologist admitted. “But I think Keshav is right. That man could die if we don’t help.”

  “I may have an idea,” Baruna said. “Though it’s not very good.”

  All eyes fell upon her.

  “Darlingtonia californica,” she whispered.

  The two women went to collect some they had just passed. Stuart and Keshav glanced back out at the scene unfolding before him. They were being very careful not to be seen, but so far none of the men had even glanced in their direction.

  The three men had ceased kicking their helpless victim. This close, he could make out more details. Though they looked human, they were dressed strangely, in dark colors with ever-changing swirling patterns running through their clothing.

  “I don’t know why he sent us after this sargiz,” the shortest of them said.

  “He is worthless,” the second man agreed.

  “It’s not on us to question the Falcon Lord,” the third man said.

  “Indeed,” said the first man.

  “Let’s finish this.” The second man reached for something brightly colored at his waistband.

  Dr. Gomez and Baruna returned with small plants ripped from the earth. Keshav frowned in displeasure as he examined the green snakelike objects, but he made no objection. The quartet charged forward.

  The three assailants drew their pistols. The shortest of them licked at his lips.

  “Sargiz. Now you die.”

  Something hit him, square in the chest. The pistol-wielding man looked down in disbelief.

  “What?”

  His two companions were hit too. Missiles hit them in the back of the head and on their arms. One missile hit the shortest man directly in the face. The cobra lilies had been torn open, and their acid splattered on the exposed skin of the three pistol holding men.

  The two who could still see aimed their pistols at the charging Upworlders. As they did so, the man on the ground grabbed the foot of the gunman. He pulled hard, and the man went down.

  The smallest of the men, in swirling clothes, fell to the ground, grabbing at his face. “It’s burning me!”

  The third one dropped to help his companion from the ground. But the original victim was now on his knees, and he held a pistol carefully aimed at the two attackers. “Drop your weapons. And get out of here.”

  Stumbling, cursing, the two men helped their companion up, and they fled just as the four companions reached the man on his knees.

  ***

  The native man rose and stared at them. He was almost two meters tall and very slender. “Thank you for saving my life. I am in your debt.” He stared at them more closely. “Your clothes are so strange. You are from the upper world?” His accent was stilted, overly formal, but his English was perfectly intelligible.

  They nodded. The man was dark-skinned, wearing clothing that rippled as the wind blew on it. A thousand stars twinkled in the fabric of his long shirt, which went from shoulders to knees. His hair was short and coarse, and his nose broad, wide.

  “It’s been sometime since we had visitors from the crust,” he said. “They must have left here before any of you were born. The fashions then were much more, er, conservative.” He gestured to their t-shirts and underwear; which for the men was still wet from the river washing. Only now did it strike them that this would look strange.

  “How is it that we understand you?” Keshav asked.

  “There is but one tongue in the center of the Earth. All organic life-forms have the intrinsic ability to speak it. The gods made it so.”

  “Then there is a way out?” Doctor Gomez asked, refusing to get sidetracked on a linguistic journey.

  “Well, there was.”

  “Was?”

  “There is a disc of great power. The sun disc. It can be used to send your people back to the upper Earth, among many other things.”

  “I’m sensing a but coming,” Keshav said, his head waggling slightly.

  “It’s actually a however,” the tall slender man corrected. “However, that disc is currently owned by my enemies. They are using it to annihilate our city.”

  “So there are cities here,” Doctor Gomez murmured.

  “Indeed,” said the victim. “Each of them older and grander than any of your crust cities.”

  “Annihilate? That’s terrible,” Baruna said.

  “It is,” the man agreed. “We already have plans to try and steal the disc. You have shown your mettle here; perhaps you would join us. As a reward for your efforts, I can send you home.”

  The four of them exchanged a glance. They had no reason to trust this guy, but he was currently their best and only option.

  Doctor Gomez stepped forward. “What do you need from us?”

  “Come, back to my home. Come with me to the magnificent city of Selvage.”

  His name was Acan; he told them this as they followed him. Acan had collected the pistols from the ground and placed them somewhere in his clothes, though no pockets were visible. He told them too of the xenophobic city-states that littered this land. Powerful cities nestled comfortably in valleys, or perched high in the mountains. This land was big, to hear Acan tell of it; they hadn’t seen but one corner of one district of one small area.

  Selvage was among the greatest of cities, Acan said. It had been at war for over a hundred years with its rival Omphalos, the greatest of cities. Acan did not reveal the exact source of the conflict, but it sounded like a classic struggle over territory. There were mentions of betrayals, bloody battles, laser pistols, and peace that never achieved what they promised.

  “There are fragments of our society all over the crust,” Acan said. “We have been known by many names, most of them divine, but the name most people would identify us with is the people of Mu.”

  “Divine?” Doctor Gomez asked. In the same instant:

  “Mu?” Stuart asked.

  “Crackpot hidden continent theory, like Atlantis. Debunked in the nineteenth century,” Doctor Gomez said.

  “Do not be so quick to judge,” Acan said.

  They left the serpentine rocks at last and entered a pine forest. Apart from the trees’ great height, it was the most normal place they’d been all day. Assuming it still was day, of course.

  “Mu was home to all the gods of your history and mythology. It was highly advanced, highly spiritual. Sometimes also called Lemuria; it is the homeland of all humanity.”

  “Why don’t you go back up the crust?” Stuart wondered.

  “Of course, we can return to our old home,” said Acan. “But none will. Something has changed up there, and now when we return we find ourselves unable to dream.”

  “That’s twice you’ve mentioned gods. Did they live there, amongst the men?” Baruna asked.

  Acan shook his head. “Gods. Men. The distinction is meaningless when you discuss beings of great power.”

  “You’re a god?” Stuart asked. This skinny guy looked more like he belonged on Skid Row than Mt. Olympus.

  “I was known to the Mayans as a god of fermented beverages. Acan, my personal favorite of many names that have been assigned to me, means belch or burp. I am a lowly deity, and always have been. But god, I am.”

  “Ah, a god of wine,” Stua
rt said.

  “Indeed no,” Acan said. “Grapes came over with the Europeans, and they destroyed my followers. I am the god of babringlche, of balche.”

  “What’s that?”

  “Perhaps you’d call it a mead, made with hallucinogenic honey. My specialty was made from fermented honey, to which the bark of the balche tree has been added.”

  “Damn. The Mayans were hardcore.”

  “Indeed. Many went so far as to inject my beverages up their arses rather than down their throats.”

  “The more things change, the more they stay the same,” Doctor Gomez mused.

  “My draughts have inherent healing properties.”

  “It can heal the sick?” Baruna asked.

  “Indeed.”

  Baruna and Keshav locked eyes.

  “Do you happen have some right now?” Baruna asked. “Keshav was hurt badly.”

  “Though he’s taking it awfully well,” Stuart said.

  “Well,” Keshav said. “I hate to cause a fuss.”

  A slow smile spread across Acan’s face. “I should have known. It is hard for me to read humans. Of course I can help. Come here. Please, come here.”

  He cupped his hands, and they filled with a sparkling amber liquid.

  Keshav stepped up and drank deeply from the man’s palm. A glowing light suffused his body, and he smiled broadly. His hand shifted, stretching back to normal. The acid holes in his face began to scab over and heal.

  “Thank you,” he breathed with the deepest sincerity. He looked better than better; he looked like a new man.

  “Do you have more of this? What did you call it?” Stuart questioned.

  Doctor Gomez caught on. “We can bring this back for Captain Kugeon.”

  Acan smiled. “I have some quantity of balche in Selvage, already stored. I would be happy to give you some.”

  “It is most convenient having a god on one’s side,” Baruna said. She rubbed Keshav’s formerly broken arm, her face a marvel of wonder.

  “I can heal, but I should warn that I am not a warrior, and my help is not much against the Falcon Lord. Not unless you want the peaceful, buzzing dreams I can offer. But I can summon my brother Ek Chuaj.” He closed his eyes and began chanting softly.

  “Ek Chuaj,” Doctor Harper breathed. “The Black War Chief.”

  “Black War Chief?” Stuart repeated.

  “What do you know of him?” Baruna asked.

  “Not much,” Doctor Harper admitted. “I’m not sure there is much known at all. He was the Mayan god of warriors and merchants. He’s known as the patron deity of travelers, gallivanters, nomads, those who are just or seek justice. His enemies are Buluk Chabtan, Odin, Huitzilopochtli, and Ares; brutish or petty gods of war, in other words.”

  While she spoke, Acan was busy. He found a large stone boulder, twice as big as a grown man’s chest, and picking it up with no apparent effort, he moved it to the middle of the path. He did this twice more; disappearing into the forest and emerging with heavy stone boulders. When the third boulder was placed high upon the others, Acan placed a bit of plant on the top and muttered something.

  There was a shimmering haze. When it cleared, a man stood there. His entire skin was striped black and white, his mouth was encircled by a red-brown border, and a large scorpion’s tail stretched from behind him. He carried a spear in his left hand and had a red woolen sack over his right shoulder. He smelled overwhelmingly of chocolate.

  Acan moved with the grace of a leaf dancing upon a pond. He stood before the recently manifested god and bowed.

  “Brother. So good of you to join me.”

  “You called. I answered,” Ek Chuaj said, his voice gruff as grinding boulders.

  “I did. You did. Your help is necessary to confront our opponent. It may be some fight.”

  Now a smile cracked that craggy visage. “I live to fight. Which of my enemies do you face? Buluk Chabtan?”

  Acan hesitated. “No, no enemy so prosaic as that. We strive against a most mighty foe.”

  “Who is it? Hachiman? He is a worthy enemy.”

  “No brother, though your duels with Hachiman are legendary, and it makes me smile to remember them. No, your opponent this time is your greatest challenge, your greatest achievement.”

  The smile was gone. Extinct. “Just tell me,” Ek Chuaj said.

  “The Falcon Lord, the master of the midsun, he of the two horizons.”

  Acan had not finished before Ek Chuaj disappeared. One moment he was there, and the next he was gone. Like he had been ctrl-z’d, Stuart thought in a weird moment. He noticed that Doctor Gomez had suddenly gone very pale.

  “I was afraid of that,” Acan said dejectedly. He sat down, his face buried in his hands. “Oh, I’m so useless.”

  “What the hell?” Stuart said. “Where did he go?”

  Acan, wrapped up in his own failures, his own grief, did not answer.

  “I don’t blame him,” Dr. Gomez said.

  “Why? What do you mean?”

  “Stuart, we know about the Falcon Lord in our world too.”

  “I’ve never heard of him,” he said deficiently. “Some bird guy?”

  “Who is our enemy?” Keshav asked.

  Doctor Harper paused. She licked at her upper lip nervously. Her eyes shifted to Acan, but his face remained forlornly buried in his hands.

  “The Ancient Egyptians had a name for him. They called him Ra.”

  Chapter 11

  After the incredible things I have seen, this journal is starting to feel a little outlandish. Who would believe what I have to say? And why do I need them to? But it’s best to finish what you start, right?

  Where do I start? Well we’ve discovered some amazing things. Some terrifying things too. Huge plants that eat people. One attacked us, and we were lucky to all emerge alive. More importantly, we’ve met people! Well, “people” might not be the right word. They’re known in our worlds as gods. I haven’t worked out if all the gods we know are down here, but some of them are for certain.

  Apparently the gods have been on our part of the planet. (They call it the crust.) They claim responsibility for the pyramids, Stonehenge, Maccu Pichu and especially the Easter Island statues, which they say represent each of them.

  I say “they,” but we’ve really only met one of them. Acan, is his name. The Mayan god of burping. Heh. Alcohol too, I guess. He and his brother speak English. When we asked Acan about this, he said something like, “We invented it. Why shouldn’t we know it?” It seems gods kind of innately can speak any language ever known. He has other powers, too. He can create healing draughts with his bare hands.

  We actually saved him from some enemies. Apparently, he was out riding a favorite animal and he got ambushed by some rivals. They wounded and drove his beast away, but we saved him before they could kill him. Now he says he can help us get home. That is, if we can help him get a disc of great power from his rival, an Egyptian god named Ra.

  I mean, I saw Stargate, but I don’t really know who this Ra guy is. Doctor Gomez took it seriously though, and even the Hindus were impressed. Not that he is Ra, as they explained, but he’s the guy that the Ra legends are based on. A creature of great power, by all accounts, and I’m guessing not a particularly nice guy.

  All right, the lunch break is almost over. Acan found some wild fruit kind of like pears, and we stopped and ate a few while resting our blistered feet. We should be in Selvage soon, though I’m not sure if that means in less than an hour or half a day. But I’ll just finish up here while the others wash up in the stream.

  Last thing. This island of Mu was apparently a super continent. Places like Samoa, Easter Island, Tahiti, even Hawaii are meant to be the last remnants of a land called Lemuria, which is just another (better) name for Mu. I don’t know, it all sounds kind of, you know, chem trail, and Doctor Gomez agrees with me. She says it was a big pet theory in 19th century, but no one reputable believes it now. Keshav, who surprisingly is a bit of a geek, knows a b
it too. According to one story, it was some lord of volcanoes that destroyed it. Apparently, Plato wrote about it and thought earthquakes were what finished off Lemuria. I asked Acan, but he dodged the question. It left me wondering one thing.

  If Lemuria was truly an island of gods, who was strong enough to destroy it?

  Chapter 12

  The city of Selvage was even grander than they had imagined. To begin with, its location was beautiful; nestled in a valley between two narrow, rocky mountain ranges. A small river tumbled down from the mountains and through the valley. Fluffy fields of white flowers stretched across the horizon, and scattered copses of pines and maples, all under the purple sky, gave it the most stunning backdrop possible.

  It wasn’t a city like any of them had seen before. There were no streets, nothing concrete, stone, or brick. Instead there were trees, specially grown, and shaped into small buildings. Most were low to the ground, a cave made of wood, ever blossoming with leaves and flowers. Around each tree home were four curved cylinders, somewhat like ivory, but it shone like metal. The cylinders were set equidistant around the tree-homes, and each home had its set of curved pillars. In the center of the endless plain was an enormous green plant building, twenty meters high, with dark windows carved throughout the verdant monolith.

  There was plenty of space all along the mountainside, and there were possibly thousands of the cave-like tree-homes.

  A thought occurred to Stuart as they traveled over the last bit of field before reaching the first of the structures. “All those fields are just grass and flowers. Nobody is growing any food, and I didn’t see any cows or goats. Do you even need to eat?”

  Acan grinned at him, the smile of a pleased college professor. “We do eat. Although godlike in our abilities compared to you, we are corporeal beings.”

  “So what do you eat?” Keshav asked.

  Acan shrugged. “We grow mushrooms beneath the city in great numbers. These we treat in a variety of ways.”

  “A man cannot live on mushrooms alone,” Keshav observed.