Beneath The Mantle

by Ahimsa Kerp

“It’s dark,” Stuart said. “I didn’t even know that was possible.”

  “Is it because we’re in the city? Or was it coming already?” Keshav asked.

  “Or something to do with our afternoon’s entertainment,” Harper mused. “We just don’t know. Regardless, I rather like it. I didn’t know how much I missed the dark.”

  “Here’s another question,” Stuart said. “Is it going to be light again in a few hours or will it stay dark for as long as it was light?”

  “Fair point,” Keshav said. “I agree with Harper though. I kind of enjoy it not being all purpley all the time.”

  A wood golem with a mossy green Mohawk stood by them, much like a bodyguard. The others left; either by turning invisible or leaving, or perhaps both.

  “That doesn’t look good,” Stuart said.

  “Well, there are a thousand reasons why they would all leave. We can only guess,” Harper said.

  “I would like to hole up,” Stuart said. “Just to be on the safe side. I sure don’t feel tired though.”

  “I need to walk,” Harper said. “My body is stiff from sitting in one position for too long.”

  “Actually, that sounds nice. Mind if I come?” Stuart asked. When she shook her head, he asked the other two. They declined, citing exhaustion, and he realized they had not had any alone time since the ship. “Ah,” he said. “We’ll take a nice long walk then.”

  Baruna looked moderately embarrassed, but Keshav simply smiled in gratitude. The Mohawked golem stayed with the couple as they found shelter for the night.

  ***

  And so it was that Stuart Holmes and Harper Gomez found themselves walking through the city. It was dark, but still light enough to see. For the most part they didn’t speak.

  They walked up a pair of stairs carved into the stone. At last they reached a path along the top of the wall. It was wide and seemed to have been made for pleasure walks more than defense. Scattered wild flowers grew in bunches, and there were plenty of benches to relax all along the way. The views in the day must have been special, but now their high vantage point served to illustrate only how very surrounded by darkness they were. Stuart pulled out his camera and adjusted the light balance, but there was no shot to be taken, and he put the camera back in.

  They walked along the pathway, counting the benches so they’d know how to get back.

  “You know,” Stuart said, after no one had spoken for some time. “This city is nice.”

  “It is,” Harper agreed.

  “I mean we’ve got food, water, servants. We’re safe from the animals outside. We’ve even got entertainment.”

  She narrowed her eyes. “You’re not suggesting what I think you’re suggesting.”

  “You know, I think I am.”

  “Stuart,” she whirled on him. “There’s a dying man up there,” she vaguely pointed up. “The captain is depending on us. What’s more, there is an entire ship full of people who will die unless we help them.”

  “I know that!” Stuart said. “Of course I do. But first of all, we’re lucky to still be alive. Those of us that are. We’re twenty-first century travelers. We can’t fight gods and beasts. Even if we could, even if we could get to the light source Acan told us about, it’s been days now. It must have been. They’re either dead already or help has come.”

  “We were the ones supposed to get help,” she said.

  “And we tried. No one can say we didn’t. But time has passed. I mean, it could be months for all we know. Perhaps the ice has melted. Or someone found them. Cruise ships that size don’t just disappear.”

  “That is rationalization and you know it,” she said.

  “Maybe it is,” Stuart said with a sigh. “But the very plants here want to kill us. How are we supposed to survive against gods?”

  “Maybe we’re not supposed to survive, Stuart. But we have to try.”

  “Ah, hell,” Stuart said. “I guess it would get boring here after a while. Besides, it’s not like this place actually would defend us if Ra or Acan came looking for us. I think I’m just scared.”

  He sat down on a bench and put his head in his hands. The stone was still warm from the daylight.

  She sat down next to him. “You know, I really had the wrong impression about you. I know men twice your age who still can’t admit when they’re wrong.”

  “I wasn’t exactly wrong,’ he said.

  “Learn how to take a compliment, Stuart.”

  He did. They kissed, for a long time. At last they stopped, faces still close together.

  “Last time I tried that, you almost slapped me,” he said without thinking.

  She gave a little laugh. “Last time you were being an asshole. This time you were being sweet.”

  Stuart didn’t really understand that, so he kissed her again. He wanted to do more, to touch her body, and pull it close to him. He remained, however, overly-conscious of her boundaries. Instead of acting on instinct, he was over thinking. His hand gently went to her thigh.

  She sensed his hesitation and pulled back. “It’s kind of weird, isn’t it?” she asked.

  “Nah, I make out with hot doctors in all the abandoned cities I find.”

  She laughed at that. “That’s probably technically true.”

  “It is. Unless you count Detroit.”

  “I’m actually from upper Michigan,” she said. She held up her hand and pointed toward the top of her middle finger. “From here, Traverse City. Detroit is actually recovering quite nicely. It’s got nothing on Graben.”

  No sooner had she finished talking than something big in the air descended onto them.

  ***

  It was fuzzy, chittering, and battering at Stuart’s head. Hairy antennae batted at them as more of the flying creatures descended upon them.

  “Gah!” Harper screamed. “I hate moths!”

  He realized she was right. They were moths, only they were bigger than eagles. In the dim light saw their orange bodies, wings grey, but flecked with yellow.

  Instinct kicked in; Stuart punched at the animals. His fists ripped through wings and sent their bodies flying away, but always there were more. A moth wrapped itself around Doctor Gomez’s head. He lurched forward, hands outstretched to grab it off her, but his face was covered by fuzzy wings. The hard nub of the moth’s body pressed against his left ear. Stuart stumbled into Harper, and they both fell to the ground.

  Harper caught herself, landing on her hands and knees.

  Completely blind, Stuart fell hard and landed on his stomach. His forehead slammed into the stone ground. A bell rang loudly in his brain, and fragments of light exploded before his eyes. But the moth was squished by the blow, and its remains unwrapped from his head.

  For a few moments, Stuart lay on the ground while the world spun around him. Above him, he could count at least eight giant moths in the air. There was no real defense against them, not unless he had a giant candle, or something. He wasn’t sure if they were trying to kidnap or feed from them, but either way, the message was clear. We’re fucked.

  A giant candle. Or something. Inspiration hit. Stuart climbed unsteadily to his feet and pulled his backpack in front of him. Quickly he had his camera in his hands, and after a few seconds of fiddling, he had the right mode. The memory card he ejected and dropped into the waterproof bag.

  “Hey moths,” he called. “Say cheese, bitches.”

  He took their picture, flash turned on. The bright light stunned the moths, and Harper wriggled free. “Run back,” Stuart said.

  The moths rushed him as Harper slipped past him. Blood dripped down her forehead.

  “Seven benches back,” she said.

  “I know. I’ll catch up with you before you get there.”

  He flashed the camera again, and the moths singled out the bright light. They came all at once, all together. They came as animals, blindly responding to the flashing lights. They came at him in a mass, and feral fear pricked at Stuart’s nerves.

  I can’t b
elieve I’m going to do this. It was an easy choice though, easier than it should have been. Certainly easier than dying. Stuart pressed down on the shoot button and began taking a series of shots. Like a strobe light, it flashed at them. The oncoming moths stopped, paralyzed. The closest were a meter away from Stuart. He could have reached out and touched one on its fuzzy wing.

  Stuart sighed, shaking his head slightly. I’m going to regret this. With the multi-shoot mode on, he threw the camera as far as he could. It sailed over the walls, and fell the far ground below. The entire time it flashed, strobe-lighting really, and it lit up the dark night sky.

  The moths followed, instinct bringing them over the walls, and after the camera.

  “I just threw away two thousand dollars of camera,” he said quietly to no one in particular. “Not to mention the lens.”

  ***

  He did not catch Harper Gomez before the stairs. His eyes were night blind, and he made his way slowly along the top of the city wall. She was waiting for him at the top of the stairs. Good. He hadn’t been sure if he’d come seven or eight benches, though his wandering boots had stopped at this juncture.

  “What happened?” she asked. “Did you kill them?”

  He shook his head. “Just distracted them. They could be back up here. Come on, let’s go.”

  They made their way back to ground level. There were no visible lights in the city, but the streets were somewhat brighter than the black emptiness above.

  Stuart felt worry churning in his stomach even after they got back to the ground. At any moment the moths could return. They walked briskly back to the square, where the Mohawked golem stood. It did not acknowledge their presence in any way.

  “Should we warn it?” Harper asked.

  “I don’t know it would understand us,” Stuart said. “Let’s just get inside.”

  They entered the house next to the one taken by Baruna and Keshav. Though the kissing had been nice, both were too far too tired to do anything but fall asleep. With the golems about, they decided no one needed to remain sentry. Stuart had been lying down for less than a minute and was nearly asleep when Doctor Gomez’s tired voice sounded in his ear.

  “Stuart?”

  “Yeah,” he said.

  “How did you get rid of them? The moths, I mean.”

  “There wasn’t much to it,” he said. He didn’t want to talk about it. He didn’t want to think about it. But there wasn’t much point in hiding it from her. “I got them interested in the flash of my camera. There’s a mode where it will take endless pictures, frame-by-frame. Once they were into that, I threw my camera off the wall.”

  “You what?” Harper didn’t try to hide her shock. “That camera is your life.”

  “I would have said the same thing, not too long ago. I have learned, or am learning I suppose, that it’s actually my life that’s my life.”

  “Ha. Fair enough. Well, thank you. I owe you.”

  “You know what I miss more than my camera?” he said, uncomfortable with the open gratitude.

  “What’s that?” There was an edge in her question, and he realized she thought he was going to talk about sex.

  “My toothbrush,” he told her. “Or even just some toothpaste and my finger. It’s hard to go sleep with a dirty mouth.”

  She laughed, a bit in relief he thought. Nonetheless, dirty-mouthed as the both of them were, they were both asleep quite quickly.

  Outside the dark deepened, and then, much later, slowly began to brighten. When the four of them arose and met in front of the houses, (presumably) some hours later, it was bright as a summer dawn.

  Though none of them yet suspected, it was to be their last day in Graben.

  Chapter 21

  They began with a fire and a hot breakfast of roasted potatoes and chilies. There weren’t nearly as many golems out today, or at least they were not visible. Keshav and Baruna were shocked to hear of the moth attack the previous night. When Stuart somewhat reluctantly told them of how he had gotten rid of them, Keshav gasped.

  “That was a brilliant camera. I’m sorry, mate.”

  Stuart shrugged. “I have two point-and-shoot backups and a GoPro. Only problem is, I left them.” He trailed off, wondering if their ship was in fact still afloat. Had it been rescued already? Were there search parties looking for him? What were his parents thinking? Would his brother James and his sister Sophie still be going to classes at college? This was not the first time he’d had such thoughts, but never had home seemed so far off.

  “I don’t like moths,” Keshav said, when the silence had become an entity unto itself. “And we know there are worse things out there.” He took a bite out of a steaming sweet potato.

  “They never came into the city,” Harper said. “Fear of the golems, or whether, they just lost sight of us … I don’t know.”

  “I don’t like that it was a regular night either,” Stuart said. “Long purple days are one thing, but at least they’re consistent.” He was sweating from eating half a green chili. “I wonder if different creatures only come out…”

  The ground shook, as if from a distant earthquake.

  “That can’t be good,” Keshav said. The golems seemed to be worried. Several of them shifted back and forth from visible to invisible.

  “You know we’re in trouble when the best case scenario is an earthquake,” Harper Gomez said. They sat there for a few moments, all concentrating on the outside world.

  The ground shook again.

  “A herd of dinos?” Keshav asked.

  “Who knows?” Stuart said. “It might not have anything to do with us.”

  Harper’s expression showed how likely she thought that was. “Either way, we need to take shelter,” she said.

  They rose together. As they did so, the ground shook again. Baruna fell spinning to the ground, and a giant appeared in the distance

  “Oh, hell,” Harper said.

  ***

  There was no mistaking the colossal figure before them. The Falcon Lord himself had come for them.

  Ra was massive. As big as Godzilla, maybe. He was humanoid, with a human head and face. A blue and black feathered falcon headdress covered him from the top of his head to his shoulders. He wore the traditional shendyt, a white cotton skirt around his waist. His muscular chest was bare, along with his arms and legs below the knees. He barged through the city, knocking down buildings with tender ease.

  “Can we get the golems to fight?” Stuart asked.

  Keshav winced. “I don’t see how.”

  None of the golems were even visible.

  “What can we do?” Harper asked.

  Ra drew closer, striding through the city. He bashed houses down, tore off rooftops, stomped flat gardens and wells. He must have known where they were, or seen them, because he strode directly at them.

  “Run!” Keshav suggested. He and Baruna fled back into the house they had slept in.

  Stuart remained a moment, staring as if compelled at the colossal creature. Harper tugged at his elbow.

  “Come on,” she said. “We can’t stay here.”

  The towering god stopped for a moment. A massive voice sounded in the city, not necessarily from the god, but certainly because of the god.

  “HOLD.”

  The command was so palpable that Stuart felt his muscles tense up. He could not move at all; his legs were cramped and tight. Harper had frozen next to him. He could see her white teeth gritted in concentration.

  With an immense effort of will, he rocked himself backward. “Let’s get the hell outta here!”

  He tore down the street. The plan, such as it was, involved drawing their terrible foe away from where Baruna and Keshav hid. Stuart had not, however, accounted for the speed of the giant god. Ra took one pounding step, and the ground shook. They kept their feet, but the god was suddenly only meters behind them.

  “Hide!” Harper yelled. They dove into the nearest house. It was a two-story, basic marble house of the kind typicall
y found in Graben.

  “COME OUT.”

  The voice filled the air around them. It did not sound entirely human, but only because no human voice could have such urgency, such richness, such command. The urge to comply was once again nearly overwhelming, and Stuart and Harper held each other’s legs down. Stuart concentrated as hard as he could; he grew dizzy and lightheaded, and yet his legs carried him up and to the door.

  “Don’t!” Harper cried, but she was completely taken up with her own struggle.

  At the entrance, the pressure lessened. Stuart grabbed the side of the door, and the cool marble helped ground him. He peeked out the door to see where their enemy had gone.

  Ra’s massive size was now a hindrance as he searched for them. Evidently the god realized this, for in a blink of an eye, he shrunk down to a mere six meters. He remained as tall a two-story building, but now he was on a more human scale. The god had not seen which house they had entered. With his great size and power, he punched through a building two houses away from them.

  “What can we do?” Harper asked.

  “You’re the expert,” he said. It came out harsher than he’d intended.

  “I’m not an Egyptologist,” she said. “Even if I were, that would mean recognizing him on a vase or coin, not knowing how to fight him.”

  Stuart peeked out the window again.

  Ra’s rampage continued. He did not look enraged or angry or even mildly annoyed. Instead, there was a look of reserved efficiency on his face; the look of a man taking the garbage out in the snow. He moved to the house one away from them.

  “You know the myths though. What could fight him?”

  “Unless you have a sixteen yard long serpent with a head of flint, I think we’re boned.”

  “Do you suppose he’d let us surrender?” he asked.

  “I suspect frying one of his aspects leaves that off the table.”

  “I guess we scramble and run. Each try to get somewhere different. Meet back at the gate we came in at.”

  “Okay,” she said. Her tone said a lot: it was a shit plan, and guaranteed not to work, but there wasn’t exactly time to refine it.

  They fled down the stairs just as Ra reached their house. The god tore the roof off, and the two humans ran out, between his legs.