The Last Hour of Gann

by R. Lee Smith

  “How may I direct you?” the bot asked, struggling along after him. It kept asking every few seconds all the way back to the stormway, where it tried to rattle out some complicated machine-reason why it couldn’t go any further. It made some equally obscure threats when Meoraq picked the fucking thing up and carried it with him to the bottom of the canal. His boots were swallowed at once in a shallow pool of stagnant slime, and it stank just as bad as he’d thought. Meoraq thumped the bot down in the mouth of the tunnel and stepped up onto the storm grate, doing his best to scrape his boots off.

  “There has been an incident,” the machine observed, probing one of its feelers into the scum that covered the tunnel’s floor. “Maintenance has been notified. Error error. Channel not found. Error. No response, no arrival. How may I direct you?”

  Meoraq aimed its glowing chest into the tunnel, where it shone every bit as bright as one of Scott’s human lamps. He could see now fifty paces, maybe more, but there was still nothing to see apart from their tracks. He listened. Deep in the darkness, water dripped onto wet stone. There were no breaths but his, no footsteps, no life. The smell was that of cold, moldering stone and black water—the very breath of Gann.

  He was not going in there. It was madness to do even this much. And Scott was hardly the sort of man who would strike off boldly down an unlit, unmapped, unmaintained tunnel. That took more than just idiocy. That took a certain degree of idiotic courage as well.

  “S’kot!” Meoraq called.

  “How may I direct you? Error. Directory assistance—”

  “What is this place?” Meoraq asked.

  “Error. Directory assistance not found. Updates requested. Error error. Channel not—”

  “Stop. These tunnels…Where do they lead?”

  “Welcome to Citymap! Please wait. Error. Signal not found. Updates requested—”

  “Stop! Enough. Let me think.”

  So. Meoraq’s sense of direction was, like his sense of time, fairly well-tuned after a lifetime of travel. Although the tunnels might turn any number of ways after boring off into the blackness, right here, the stormway ran west to east. It could be fairly assumed that the tunnels stretched as far as the city, and if so, they might go on forever. The cities of the Ancients were the very flesh of this world in their age. A man could dig down anywhere and find their relics.

  Did Scott really think he could travel through to Gedai in this tunnel, crossing not over the mountains, but under them? Or had he only intended to explore them a short way and lost himself? The human lamps were neither infinite nor infallible. They might well be just ahead, just outside of hearing, camped in blackness, waiting for rescue.

  “You’d better be here,” Meoraq muttered, climbing up onto the tunnel’s lip. His first handhold broke off in his hand. Not an encouraging omen. And not the only missing handhold, he saw. Who could possibly pull a piece of the tunnel out and keep going?

  “S’kot!” he shouted, and the tunnel shouted it onward for him.

  “How may I—”

  “Just follow me.” Meoraq started walking, his gaze shifting between the bot-lit black of the seemingly endless tunnel ahead of him and their tracks on the floor. He thought of rain while he walked—the rain that sent Amber crawling in to share his tent, the rain that had not quite fallen enough to spill into this tunnel and wash these tracks away. The rain could be fickle.

  The sound of water dripping grew closer. The bot’s light caught the surface of a wide puddle ahead, casting water-shine over the walls and ceiling. Thinking of rain, Meoraq walked right through it.

  His boots squelched down into what might as well have been a puddle of black oil and went wildly out from under him. Meoraq’s right hand flew out to anchor himself to the wall (his left slapped down over his groin in a futile effort to relieve some of the strain of having his legs skid out in opposite directions), but there was nothing to grip and he dropped smack on his ass in the same stuff. He felt the shock all the way up his spine. And then he felt the icy sludge seeping into his breeches.

  “Why am I doing this?” he muttered.

  “I’m sorry. Please rephrase your question.”

  “Can you not shut up for one fucking minute?!”

  “Would you like to contact an usher support technician? Error error. Channel not found. I’m sorry I could not assist you today.” The light glowing from the machine’s chest snapped off. “Goodbye.”

  Meoraq clapped both hands to his face, then threw back his head and howled, “I require assistance!”

  Light obediently bloomed. “How may I—”

  “Just stand there and stay quiet!”

  “Standing by.”

  “Great Sheul, O my Father, I thank You for every pain I am alive to feel,” he spat, pulling himself out of the muck with a wet sucking sound that would have been hilarious under circumstances that did not include him. He got up carefully, straddling the puddle in an awkward crouch, and ventured deeper, feeling his way along the wall. “Humans, come! Give cry if you hear—”

  He slipped again, just one boot this time, which had the effect of throwing him hard against the tunnel wall. He hit snout-first, which was bad enough, and then the wall collapsed, pitching him painfully through the rotten stone and into a series of equally rotten pipes. They burst, spraying out stormwater like needles in his eyes and breaking away even more of the crumbling wall. The flow quickly slackened, but the wall kept falling, opening a wider and wider gap below and above him until pieces of the tunnel’s ceiling were breaking off.

  Meoraq scrambled back, his limbs skidding wildly through that damned puddle until he finally thrashed free of it. The bot pivoted to watch him go, lighting his graceless retreat until a crunch and a shower of sparks threw him into darkness. Meoraq bolted back up the tunnel, smashing from one wall to the other until he leapt out into open air.

  He landed hard, skidded what felt like half a span, then hit a crack under the sediment and went right over on his belly in the bottom of the canal. Cold sludge sluiced up over his snout and poured itself in under his clothes, swallowing him in stink.

  He lay there, dazed. He didn’t think he’d ever been dazed before. He could feel his brain still careening through its own black tunnel, seeking some gripping place, and what it eventually hooked onto was, ‘Salkith must feel like this all the time.’

  He laughed, spewing bubbles up through the watery muck, then pushed himself out of it. Behind him, the tunnel was quiet. The mouth stayed open, round and innocent, silently asking if he’d like to try again.

  Meoraq gained his feet, wiping compulsively at the end of his snout even though he knew he was only rubbing the taste deeper into his scent-cavities. He took a breath, coughed it out, took another, and decided he was all right. Bruised, reeking, and without a damned thing to show for it, but all right.

  He started to pray his thanks, stopped to climb out of the stormway, finished his prayer, and headed back to Amber.

  She hadn’t put his tent together—it was still too early for that, in spite of the eons he’d spent in the tunnel—but she had lit a fire and was heating something in the stewing pouch while she waited for him. He had plenty of time to watch her watch his approach. Her face was as good as a mirror, but he didn’t need it. He couldn’t possibly look worse than he smelled.

  “What the hell happened to you?” she asked as soon as he was close enough.

  There were many things he could have told her, things she deserved to know, but he couldn’t think how to do it.

  “I fell down,” he said. That was true enough.

  “That’s tea,” she warned, watching him reach for the stewing pouch.

  “As far as I care, human, it is now oddly-scented bathwater.” He splashed a little over his face, rinsed his mouth, then began to undress.

  She pulled his pack over and found his soap, started to hold it out and then drew it back when he put out his hand. “Am I supposed to…? You want me to help?”

  He laughed curtly
. To have Amber bathe him again had been pressed into his imagination, his fantasies, ever since that night…but now, with this stink in his scales, he could not be less aroused. Sheul heard and answered every prayer. Ha.

  “Yes,” he said, raising his arms.

  She obeyed, wetting the bar and rubbing it between her hands before she gave it to him. While he attempted to clean his mouth, nose, and especially his scent-cavities, she moved behind him and started scrubbing at his back.

  “See anything down there?”

  He didn’t know what to tell her.

  “There’s always something, Soft-Skin.”

  “But no sign of them, huh?”

  She thought she knew what he would say, and yet there was a hopeful tremor in her voice. She had contented herself all these days with footprints, with ashes, with dung. She could follow their shadow all the way to Xi’Matezh as long as she knew something was casting it. Take that away…

  Uyane Meoraq, twelve years a Sword in Sheul’s service, with conscious thought and in full sight of God and Gann both, lied.

  “None.”

  Her hands on his flesh stilled. He felt, in exquisite detail, the fingers of one hand open and lie flat just under his shoulder. Her breath sighed onto his back, first warm from her body, then cold in the wind. “I thought…I was so sure…”

  Meoraq said nothing.

  She sighed again, but resumed bathing him. “Thanks for looking, anyway.”

  ‘Father, forgive me,’ he thought, staring into the sky where the light of the sun stared back at him behind the clouds. ‘Truth does not care if it comforts her. But I do.’

  5

  It started raining immediately after Amber tied up the last piece of laundry to dry. As if she needed more proof that this whole planet hated her.

  “Meoraq?” she called. “What should I do? Take it down or leave it up?”

  No answer. She leaned out around the tree that was serving as her laundry line, but he was still sitting there on the flattest and most hospitable rock in camp, naked, just staring into space.

  He’d been very distant lately, ever since the ruins. He wouldn’t talk about it, not to her at least, but he sure prayed a lot, even for him. And when he did talk to her…

  “Are we still going the right way?” she’d asked this morning, not whining or anything, just asking.

  He’d rounded on her at once, flinging out one arm and shoving his face right in hers. “Do you see the mountains?”

  “Yeah, but I haven’t seen any sign of Nicci and the others for—”

  “And you think I have?”

  “Maybe!” And because that did sound like whining, she added defensively, “If you stopped to tell me everything you saw, you’d be talking all the time! You haven’t said two words all morning, does that mean you haven’t seen anything?”

  “I’ve said more than two words,” he’d said disgustedly and stomped off.

  Some days, it wasn’t even worth trying. “Have you seen anything or not!” she exploded. “Jesus!”

  “I see what God gives me to see.”

  She’d stopped there before she started a real fight, but after she’d fumed long enough to make him happy, he’d said, without looking at her, “No.”

  “See? That was all you had to say.”

  Another long stretch of nothing but wind and the marching of their boots.

  “The doors of Xi’Matezh may not open,” Meoraq had said suddenly. “I will have to live with that…if it happens.”

  “I don’t think I want to hear where you’re going with this.”

  “We may never find—”

  “Shut up, lizardman.”

  He did, and that was pretty much it for chit-chat until they set up camp for the night. They’d talked a little then—he at his end, bathing out of the stewing pouch, and her by the fire, trying to stretch out the saoq they had left with roasted roots. Although neither one had commented on the day’s chilly silence, his bad mood was never further than arm’s length and she’d left him alone after his bath.

  And now he was getting another one, it seemed. Look at him. Just sitting there. In training all his life to be God’s foot and he still didn’t know to get out of the rain.

  “Meoraq?” Tucking her hands under her arms to warm them, she headed over. How in the hell he could sit there without a stitch on in this weather (or any weather) amazed her. “Meoraq, wake up.”

  His spines twitched. He looked up, looked down, looked at her. “It’s raining.”

  “I hadn’t noticed,” she said, shivering. “I just got your clothes hung up, too.”

  He shrugged his spines. “Leave them. They could use a soak.”

  Right. He insisted they still smelled, even though she’d been washing them every night since they left the ruins.

  Meoraq stood up and collected the clothes he hadn’t bothered to put on. He still didn’t bother. He pointed at her mat and went on into his tent without speaking.

  It was going to be another fun night.

  Amber dug their dinner out of the ashes before it completely turned to hot mud, packed it into her pack, rolled up her mat, and joined him.

  He’d put on his panties at least and lit his lamp. He watched in his serious, distracted way as she arranged her bed, but closed his eyes when she asked so she could change into drier clothes. Rattier ones, but drier.

  “I think I’ve reached the point where mending this is only going to make it worse,” she remarked, carefully shrugging into one of her old shirts.

  He grunted.

  “But I guess nothing lasts forever.”

  “God’s will is infinite, His love, eternal.”

  “Okay, but nothing real lasts forever.”

  His eyes opened.

  “Nothing physical,” she amended, holding up her hands in surrender.

  He glanced at them, then ran his gaze thoughtfully across her well-worn shirt down to her bare thighs. He frowned and looked away. “Put your clothes on.”

  She rolled her eyes, but found a huge pair of jeans to step into. Her skinny jeans. “Like you haven’t been sitting around bare-ass for hours. Like you’re not—” She eyed him. “—ninety-eight percent naked right now.”

  He grunted.

  And did it bother her? She wasn’t sure. She told herself it didn’t, but she told herself a lot of things these days—we’ll find them they’re fine they’re looking for us too—she didn’t entirely believe. It was his tent and the man had every right to sleep in the nude if he wanted to. Besides which, he was so perfectly casual about his body that she felt it might be…she wasn’t sure…impolite to say anything.

  But it was his body and on nights like this one, when he made her sleep beside him under his blanket, bother didn’t even come close to what he did to her. She knew he knew it; he had to know it; there was no way she could look at him or not look at him or touch him or not touch him that didn’t scream everything that had happened that night, and everything she’d wanted to happen.

  But he just fell asleep.

  Amber spread out her wet things so they had a chance to dry and sat down. “I hope these are done,” she said, pulling dinner out of her pack.

  Meoraq watched her unwrap the mixed mess of fatty saoq and sooty roots, but didn’t reach for any. She couldn’t blame him, but she took a big bite anyway.

  “Well,” she said, after she simply couldn’t chew any longer and had to swallow it. “They’re cooked enough. But I wouldn’t call it a success.”

  He did not comment.

  “I was hoping the fat would help flavor these godawful roots,” she explained.

  “Gruu.”

  “This godawful gruu. But instead, the gruu made the saoq taste bitter. Now they’re both incredibly nasty. Have some.”

  He pinched off part of one softened, fat-smeared root and ate it.

  “It’s horrible, huh?”

  “I thank You, O my Father, for food in the wildlands to sustain me when the world dies for wint
er.”

  She rolled her eyes and took another bitter bite.

  So did he. “And I thank You for the human who prepared it,” he said. “And for the life which sustains her also. Even here, in the very shadow of Gann, O Father, You have set our table and filled our cup.”

  “Rub-a-dub-dub. Thanks for the grub. Yay, God.”

  He looked at her.

  “You pray in your way, I pray in mine.”

  They ate, but not much. Prayer did not make the stuff taste any better and Meoraq’s heavy mood would have made even cheeseburgers and fries difficult to eat. Soon Amber was wrapping the remains back up in the hopes it would magically disappear before morning.

  It wasn’t very late, but the rain made things darker, so Amber went ahead and put herself to bed. The sound of her blanket crinkling as she wound herself into it was all there was for several minutes. He waited until she was settled before dropping half his blanket over her. He didn’t offer first, he just did it. Like he always did.

  And then he just sat there and watched her.

  Well, okay. Might as well light it up, as Bo Peep would say, and see who inhaled.

  “Something on your mind?” she asked.

  “Yes.”

  “Want to talk about it?”

  “No.”

  “Why not?”

  He scowled and looked at the wall. “I know what you’ll say.”

  Flat spines and a narrow stare warned her not to ask, unless she wanted to see his neck light up too. Amber rolled onto her stomach, idly flapping a shadow-bat across the tent wall with the help of the lamp. Meoraq had never seen shadow-puppets before; the last two times it had rained, she’d done dogs and ducks. She didn’t have a lot more to show him, but she was saving the elephant for a finale.

  He watched for a while, but not with the same interest as he had on other nights. She wasn’t surprised at his abrupt, imperious, “Say something.”

  “About what?” she asked, letting her hands drop.

  “I don’t care. Talk to me.”

  Amber had never been a social person, but she knew instinctively that ‘What the hell is going on with you lately?’ would have been the wrong way to begin. She said, “Is this the furthest you’ve ever been from home?”