by Stephan Knox
Tannin only glared at her. It was obvious he didn’t like it when his senses were compromised, let alone undermined by her questioning. He finally waved her to follow and they crossed until they reached the other bank.
The camp seemed quiet, save for the shuffling noise coming from behind the old machine hull. Tannin glanced behind him to check that Aari was staying close. The men who’d attacked knew they’d been down wind and used that plus the burnt smell of the woods to blanket their own. They’d gotten too close, and had Aari not been armed and able, he would have lost her despite his defense measures. It was just one more remind that his life and journey was too dangerous to keep her with him. But for now, he had to live with that.
Nevertheless, the attack had him on edge and keeping Aari underfoot wasn’t close enough for his liking just now.
They cautiously approached the hull, guns drawn, and he waved her to jump to the opposite side of the opening in its side. On a count of three, he jumped in, ready to fire.
The interior was vacant, only the shuffling he’d been hearing still coming from around back. He peered through a grimy window and spotted a large, wired cage. Then of something moving inside it.
A suspected realization hit a low spot within him.
“Stay in here,” he ordered, leaving Aari behind as he slowly made his way around to the back.
The smell became clear now. And he wanted nothing more than to wash it from his nostrils.
He already knew what he would find, before coming to a stop next to the cage.
The woman he had smelled on the men, reeked of every foul scent one could imagine. Piss, shit and cum, along with a slurry of other stenches that mapped out her plagued health in his senses. She was hardly human any more, her skin caked with so much filth it cracked and peeled away in some spots like chipped clay. Her hair falling in thick clumps of tangled mud from her head and he could see the blistered sores left by the heavy dreads on her scalp. The not even a pin hardly provided enough room for her to move about on hands and knees. Her only provisions were a water bowl in one corner and a braided rug piled up in another.
A flurry of flies swarmed around her, swarming up in a cloud of black smoke when she moved then settled back down on her skin. He didn’t even need to see the maggots that infested the pus laden sores. The smell of them alone made it all too clear they were there. But as he approached, and the feral woman jumped to her knees to hiss at him, he saw the mass of white larvae that clung to the inside of her thighs. The sight catching up with the smell and both made his stomach turn and his throat burned with the threat of bile.
He recounted the attack, realizing the men had not gone for their gear packs, but after Aari. They were after a replacement female.
The woman growled, showing what little remained of blackened teeth. Her eyes were wild without any humanity in them. She’d been less than a whore to the four men he’d just killed. A female pork. He had heard of such horrors but never came across one. He knew now, there was no setting her free.
He raised his pistol, aimed— “Forever sleep now. It’s for the best. I promise,” he whispered to her as she hissed back.
—and fired.
FINDING AARI’S PAST
Tannin having given up on catching the supply convoy at this point, he redirected their path. Now his priority was to find some place safe to leave Aari. The problem with that was the winter cycle was already upon them, so cutting across the mountains to catch his brothers who were now escorted the Laymask to join them at their winter homeland, just wasn’t feasible. They’d been on the move for too long. Aari’s body just wasn’t cut out for it. The increasing cold didn’t help matters. He could only hope that his brothers were slowed down by the new members as much as he was with his and if he could reach the western shore plateau before the first snows arrived, he might be able to catch them in time before they crossed the last mountain range, so he could send Aari off with them. It was a long shot, but he didn’t have any other options to consider.
There was, however, a good chance to encounter a few friendlies along the way.
Ages ago, when he was still just a boy, there were temples in these parts. Priests that cared after the Symbiotai and deliberated hosts for them. While they had all been destroyed some time ago, there was still some kind of peace that clung to the land here. As where a few staggering survivors.
Hence with the only hopes he had to go on, he turned their path for the canal gorge. A man-made canyon that the old ones claimed ships had once flowed through them to travel across the land from one great sea to the other. Water hadn’t flowed through it in ages, but even on foot, the canal was the shortest route to catch up to his tribesmen that didn’t include climbing over the mountain ridge. It was risky for travelers, but safe for those who dwelled along its high walls.
It wasn’t long until they came across the first clutter of ruins. Buildings from old-world, now cracked, leaning, and taken over by vegetation. A few showed signs of recent repairs using scraps from other buildings or from scavenged vehicles.
They sat atop the bank to one side of the canal where much of its vertical walls had given out and landslide into the canal gorge itself, taking some of its fortress ruins with it.
It was obviously inhabited given away by the multitude of rope lines strung across pathways and courtyards from one window to the next, with most ladened down with a myriad clothes and linens hanging from them. A string of pale sheets waved and flowed like sails in the breeze. A few faces peered out from windows with weary eyes, but Tannin kept going.
He kept his head low, hoping the passive posture would announce they were was not here to cause trouble, just passing through. Aari, on the other hand, was fixated on them from one face to another. Though he figured it was her not trusting them, she for all her lack in size, wasn’t a threat to any of them, so long as someone didn’t try cornering her to test her defense skills. Nevertheless, he tested the air frequently, and thus far he’d caught no scent of malice and they were left alone to pass through unbothered.
They were nearly out of the quiet country town when they came across what was likely to have been one of the temples Tannin had heard about; what was left of one at least. One side was completely taken out by the collapsing cliff walls. The rest bore the scars of heavy artillery bombardment.
He felt a slight burning sensation in his back that came out in a wave of anger. “Knock it off, old man. There’s no point in stopping to mourn what was gone long ago,” Tannin grumbled under his breath, then pinched his shoulders back, but that only made his sym feel worse. However, before the internal argument between him and Sif could commence, Aari let out a cry behind him.
“No!”
Tannin twisted just in time to see Aari take off running for the temple.
“Aari, don’t go in there!” he called to no amount of influence.
She didn’t even look back at him before scrambling up the pile of rubble then disappearing through one of its crumbled walls.
“Drenn,” he cursed and went after her.
He found her inside, in what could be nothing other than its altar communion hall. In its former days it would have been a sight to see, with walls towering up so high trees could have sought refuge in it and never touched the top. Its windows would have been cased in with colorful glass, perhaps of depictions of the Keepers in their divine bodies of light, or just attractive designs. There would have been carpets of exquisite talent on its floors, and perhaps pillows for patrons to come and kneel as they prayed. And there would have been priests and tenders roaming about to greet and comfort anyone who came. Now, the glass gone, the rugs rotted away into soiled dust gathered in corners. Its decorated ceiling arches had long since came crashing to the tile floor, leaving the hall exposed to the elements— and Terra.
He approached where she stood, up the main stairs that led to what was left of a large marble slab altar. Aari was kneeling next to it, but she wasn’t in pr
ayer. Rather she seemed to be peering under its broken slab, now covered in a thick layer of moss, as though expecting to have found something there. “Aari?”
It was just as she remembered— ruined.
Except the little girl was no longer hiding under it. No chance of rescuing her.
She heard her name, but she kept silent. What could she say? She only knew if her mouth opened, only sobs would come, and it was too late for those.
She stood finally, letting her gaze roaming over the remains of the temple hall until her gaze came to land on Tannin’s face. But she soon quickly looked away, returning to her broad scope of the place she once knew. Her thoughts half recounting the past— half seeing what had happened since. She was grateful the skeletons of those who’d been killed here weren’t still resting on the temple’s floor. That much might have been too much for her to hold back.
“What is this place to you?” he asked.
She sighed but it didn’t echo of the walls like she remembered. “I was born here,” she answered solemnly.
The world outside had long since claimed its walls, including the mountain slope nearby that sent mud slides of dirt and rock against the temple’s exterior. It’s weight eventually breaching the barrier and encroaching its once tranquil sacred insides. The back passageways and chambers where she’d lived and played as a child were now gone. What was left of them was dust upon the ground where she stood. Only the sliding rock had kept on pushing until sending much of it down into the canal.
Amidst much of the hostile takeover from the outer world, some semblance of its prior exuberance still lingered at least in the temple hall. Echoes of a past could still capture the eyes of a weary visitor, with its fragmented remains of brilliant colored mosaic tiles peeking through a lifetime of abandonment and neglect. But then one particular color, just a smidgeon of it caught her eyes. A light blue-ish white.
She jumped down the steps, running to the wall where she spotted the glowing blue paint, and began tearing the ivy from its grip until she’d managed to get most of it free. She held her breath as she stepped back, seeing the secret it revealed.
~~ “They’re coming. Where will you take them?”
“To the Mountain Peak of Steps. To the Pool of Waking. We will be safe there.” ~~
Voice from the past echoed in her head with words she’d not understood then, but now she did. They’d just passed there.
Upon the wall, Aari had uncovered a mural of tiles displaying the very mountain ridge Tannin had just brought them over before turning for the canal gorge. There, on top of one jagged slope, an artist had been precise in the way they’d painted in a blue symbol. It was the symbol for the Pool of Waking. She remembered it. It was identical to the symbols painted on the walls that had surrounded the temple pool where her sym used to be kept here in the temple’s back chambers.
She whirled around and ran to Tannin and clutched her fingers into his coat. “Take me there, please.” But already Tannin was shaking his head. “Please. I need to know if any of them are still there, if they are even still alive.”
Tannin peeled her fingers from him and stepped away. He shook his head again, rejecting her request, then let out a slight growl, rolling his shoulders, giving off some notion that he was angry when he had no right to be.
“Why?!” she cried out after him when he started to walk away. “Why won’t you take me there?”
Tannin spun on his heels, the rage clearly burning in his eyes now. “Because I will not waste our time or energy chasing after the past or ghosts for you! It serves no purpose to our destiny!”
“You carry a Symbiotai inside you!” she screamed, not caring if anyone out in the village had grown curious and followed them. “You could not fulfill your destiny if it were not for him! You owe it to him to see if any of the others are there!”
“Drenn to the both of you!” he cursed them both: Aari and his Symbiotai, then he turned his back on her, and headed out in a fast pace.
Aari scampered after him, running down the steps two at a time until she hit the bottom, then came to a complete stop. “I will give you want you want if you will take me to see them!” she shouted the offer after him.
Tannin ground to a halt but didn’t look at her just yet.
“I will give you my union, willingly, and then you can leave me with the priests.” She watched as he slowly turned and looked at her. A strange expression on his face, the anger gone but she wasn’t sure what she was seeing. But when he didn’t answer, she figured it meant he was not convinced, and she choked back the lump in her throat along with the pain that had created it when she realized what she was about to say. “You won’t even have to come back. She and I will be happy there— with them.”
“Happy?” he almost sounded sad when he asked.
Aari rolled her mouth a moment, trying to find a replacement word. She’d have to force that one out of her, if she said it again, he would know she was lying. He always knew those things. “As content as one can be, I suppose, but at least my sym and I won’t be alone.”
Tannin’s entire body slunk down, his chin falling to his chest, and his shoulders hung low. He looked defeated, but then a deep breath brought him back to life, and he silently nodded to her. “Very well.” Then he turned and walked off in the direction in which they had just came.
A SECRET FLED AND GONE
It took another four days to back track to the ridge where the supposed mountain hide-out of the alleged sacred pool was located. Much of which Tannin spent fighting with the turmoil of emotions from his sym. Never mind the anger Sif felt over the desecration of the temple they’d discovered. But when Aari spoke the words that she would willingly give him her union, Tannin felt a flood of emotional sensations as though she had given him her heart. He arched against the reaction from his sym, knowing full well she had not actually given so much.
So why had he and Sif felt so hopeful and relieved as if she had? And would he actually be able to leave her with the priests? The very ones who had been unable to protect their own all this time? At least he and Sif agreed on this part, Aari’s request to leave her at the hidden temple would not be a likely request he would accept. His only respite from the mental argument came at night when she willingly slept in his arms for his body heat. And perhaps for a bit of the security he offered her and her sym, he told himself.
Four days— three nights.
Now, they stood at the base of the sloped peak. The very one shown in the temple’s mural.
“The Mountain Peak of Steps,” Aari whispered.
“What?” he asked.
“That’s what the high tender called it. The Mountain Peak of Steps.”
Tannin felt even more unrelenting that he would be able to bring himself to grant her wish and leave her in such an isolated spot. However, he’d agreed to bring her here to find the hidden sanctioned pool. Soon, she would know by her own two eyes if there were others who’d survived, and perhaps he’d find some answers for himself as well.
Aari felt the strong pull up the incline of sliding rock. She took careful steps, not wanting to have another incident like the time she went sliding down the mountain of shale. Tannin was right behind her, his hand often touching the small of her back, steadying her as they climbed.
Partway up, they spotted the hidden stairs cut directly into the cliff rock. Aari looked over her shoulder to Tannin and gave him a forced smile. “We found it,” she said with a ring of hope, then turned and quickly headed up the steps with Tannin sprinting to catch her and maintain his looming approximation. Further up, they could make out where the steps disappeared into a passageway carved into the rock itself.
As the stairs wound up the crumbling mountain’s side, not a soul was found. Not even a sound to hint of anyone moving about. The closer they got, the more anxious Aari became.
The stairs, carved in sections, were hardly more secure than walking on rough ground. Some were so slanted the
y tricked her eyes in making her feel off balance. Others were so shallow, Aari’s foot barely fit toe to heel. But they didn’t deter her from scrambling up them. Tannin kept up in strides preferring to take them two, sometimes three at a time. As they made it up closer to its destination, the wind picked up and howled like a spirit intent to push them right off the stairway.
She was relieved when they reached segments where the carvers had included high walls on either side of the steps. Smooth, undecorated walls, which not only offered handholds punched into the stone to grab onto where the steps grew steeper, but also served to block the unrelenting cold wind that tried to blow them off. They even discovered several recessed sitting areas. Not invitingly comfortable looking, but clearly served a purpose should a priest or tender needed to catch their breath along the climb in former times.
The small cavities seemed to put Tannin on edge indicative to his huffing growl behind her.
The air up here was different, it buzzed as if it held some electric charge, but it was also thin and stale, burning the lining of Aari’s lungs as she panted from the climb. Though the sight of the entry granted her a second wind.
“Wait, let me get in first.” Tannin’s sudden grip on her coat pulled her to a stop. He tugged her gently back against the wall allowing himself to ease passed her. He drew his hunting knife and held it out from in his grip then proceeded up the remaining stairwell for the passageway into the mountain’s side. If they encountered anyone, death would be quick and silent so not to set off an alarm.
Tannin went in first. Aari followed close behind disregarding any signal to hold back and wait for him to call her in. Albeit, when Tannin came to an abrupt stop, Aari, as she often did, slammed into his backside.
She peeked around his bulky body discovering what had stopped him, feeling sick in the instant, wishing she hadn’t looked at all. Hadn’t come. But she had and now she had to face her past all over again.