by Ashanti Luke
“Depressions in the stone? How does something sit in one place and leave a depression?” Cyrus winced as his pulse pounded through his temples, squeezing his brain in a vice-grip.
“Could be from vibration.” Milliken turned back to the hologram and shifted through the image. “As I said,” he added, “according to this scan, those aves were made around six hundred thousand years ago. That’s a long time for something to sit if it vibrates.”
“How is that possible?” Uzziah asked.
“How is any of this possible?” Tanner belted out, more at himself than anyone else. Cyrus stood and put his hand on Tanner’s shoulder but Tanner continued, unmoved. “How do you put a sun in a cave? How could all that exist before any of it was written down?”
“Well, maybe this isn’t time to play devil’s advocate, but that artificial sun seemed like some sort of cold fusion; a technology beyond our means, but not beyond our understanding. And as far as writing things down go, things existing and then being written about is typically the logical progression.” Cyrus tried to keep the sarcasm out of his words, but it must not have worked because Tanner scowled at him. Cyrus continued to grasp Tanner’s shoulder to arrest his attention, maybe squeezing it a bit too hard. Cyrus waited until Tanner turned to look at him before he loosened his grip and continued, “Remember, after the shock of it all, it’s all still here.” Cyrus pointed at Tanner’s head. Cyrus began to speak louder as something welled up inside him, “All this time, you held me—us,” he indicated everyone else in the lev, “together with your composure whether we shared the same beliefs as you or not.” Cyrus’s voice rose even louder. “And through all that, did you ever believe your Bible could stop bullets? Did you ever believe it could make the sun rise or stop it from setting? Did you ever believe it could bring back the dead?”
Cyrus’s chest heaved as he waited for an answer.
“No,” Tanner was still dejected.
It seemed as if Cyrus was speaking to someone standing outside the lev now. His cheeks and lips quivered with each impassioned word, “Then explain to me how what you believe today, even in the face of everything we’ve seen, is any different than what you believed yesterday, right here.” Cyrus tapped Tanner hard over his heart. “So wallow in the shock if you must, but as soon as you’re done, you let me know. Because we’re gonna need every available mind to get to the bottom of this ocean of monkey shit, and I’ll be goddamned if I’m gonna let you bow out before the rest of us do.”
Cyrus stood breathing heavily. His fists were clenched and sweat was running into his beard. Then, when he regained awareness of his surroundings, Cyrus retreated to the back of the mining lev and closed his eyes, hoping lassitude would again overwhelm his overzealous senses.
Cyrus shambled into the barracks and grabbed Paeryl, pulling him aside even as Paeryl bellowed, “Are we winning?” at the group as they entered. After Cyrus spoke to him, Paeryl immediately called another man, older looking than himself, and they both ushered Cyrus into a chamber they had previously not been allowed to enter.
As soon as the door slid shut behind them, the door to the lab area whooshed open and Davidson and Toutopolus stumbled over each other in childlike excitement. They brought a datadeck over to Tanner and Uzziah. “I think we’ve cracked the seal on this Eos thing,” Davidson belted out, almost out of breath.
“Where’s Cyrus?” Toutopolus asked, a look of impending horror replacing his excitement.
“I think he’s already made his decision,” Tanner pointed to the forbidden door that was opening again. Two women brought indiscernible items to the doorway, and Paeryl beckoned them in.
“This cave is a sacred place. It contains the life-blood of our existence,” the man Paeryl had addressed as the Hierophant of Cups delivered in a soft, monotonous voice that was a sobering contrast to Paeryl’s bombast. “The cave lives with us, even outside these walls. It understands us better than we understand ourselves.” The women who followed behind systematically handed Cyrus a folded cloth and a small box. They moved down a long corridor lit by dim, red lighting tubes. “You will present yourself to the Eos as you were presented to this existence, naked and wanting.”
The procession stopped, and it took Cyrus a moment to realize they were waiting for him to remove his clothes. He was a little reluctant, but in the dim light, he saw Paeryl nod slowly, and then he thought of Darius. Whatever had brought Darius to fratricide, however justified it may have been, whatever had brought about the death of Alexander, was not going to be uncovered easily, and whatever was in this cave that allowed these people, what had allowed his son, to survive in this environment, was paramount.
Cyrus removed his clothing and the Hierophant collected them. “Alone and desperate you shall descend, but fulfilled you shall emerge. You shall present yourself to the waters and your fate shall find you.” The Hierophant shuffled a deck of cards methodically then handed Cyrus five cards, each covered in a sheath of plastic.
“Take these and find yourself.”
Cyrus took the cards, and as he turned to face the pathway deeper into the cave, he felt another sharp pat on his back.
His chaperones retreated, and for the first time since he had been in that interrogation room, he felt utterly alone. Cyrus stood there for a moment. His belligerence had subsided, and now his stomach was tightening in on itself. He moved forward, shuffling his feet along the smooth, cool floor. The path was longer than he had expected, and he was sure he had walked for fifteen minutes when, finally, he reached the wide chamber. The dim red light cast an eerie hue and made the small pool in the center of the room look like blood. The room itself had an odd, barely perceptible scent of sweetness that resembled warm bread. Cyrus expected the cold of the room to send a chill over his body, but his gooseflesh must have been spawned from anxiety, as the chamber proved warmer than the passageway.
As he moved to the edge of the pool, the water itself shocked him. Not because it was frigid, but because it was not as cold as it should have been. The water was only lukewarm, but it was warmer than it should have been on its own accord. There must have been some sort of hot spring here that originated deep beneath the surface. Cyrus tested the floor of the pool with his feet and sat down, unsure how long he would have to sit or even what he was waiting for.
Inside the pool, Cyrus held the five cards in his right hand beneath the surface of the water as he had been instructed. He tried to clear his mind, but he could not help thinking of Darius spending many hours each day chatting with a computer, a distorted effigy of his father his only company. Darius should have been there with him. Should have been there to help him through everything he had gone through. The Darius hologram seemed excited to see him, but what the Xerxes unit could not possibly know was that it had recorded and reproduced a pain in Darius’s eyes that only Cyrus could know, because he, and only he, had seen that same look, had shared that same pain as he had boarded the shuttle to Eros amidst the waves and smiles of the spectators who had come to see the voyage off. And that is all they had been, spectators. Cyrus smiled and he waved as best he could, but it was houndshit, a jetwashed attempt at portraying the image everyone had expected to see, feeble as the wills and minds that had made a mission that should have been exploratory necessary to human survival.
And the fury rushed into him again. Why did he get on that shuttle? Why didn’t he turn around, spit in each of the faces of the flag-waving, cheering throng that urged him to walk away from the only thing he ever cared about for their own selfish survival…
…but they weren’t the only ones that had been selfish, were they? No, Cyrus didn’t get on that shuttle for the good of the multitude that applauded as he left his own life behind; it wasn’t for their livelihoods, the livelihoods of their children, or their children’s children. He left because he—he—had to. And now, here he was, faltering under the weight of sheaves sown with his own hands. It was the fruit of his own pride. Pride that had demanded his son’s penance—and what
bitter fruit it was.
He didn’t know how much time he had been there, but his vision began to fade sooner than he had expected. His blood seemed to chill even as his skin seemed to burn from the outside. Sweat formed thickly on his brow, feeling more like blood that perspiration, but he didn’t bother to wipe it away. His eyes became heavy, as if the bloody sweat tugged at his eyelids, pulling him deeper into the pool that seemed even bloodier as he sank in deeper. And then, as his eyes closed, he was left with only the sound of his own heartbeat thundering through his eardrums.
The landscape was immense. Cyrus was standing on a tuft of land that seemed to be rising. The horizon slowly bowed at the vanishing point as more and more nothingness crept into view.
And then his legs thrust him forward. The little girl was going to die. She was just on the other side of the horizon, and she only had moments to live. The perspective of the landscape shifted as he ran; he was descending the hill, but he could not feel the pull that gravity exerted on his body, nor could he feel the ground beneath his feet.
And then he was up higher, moving faster than he ever could have moved on his own volition. And as the sun sank below the horizon, the sky became impossibly black. Dark tendrils of smoke billowed up where the sun had set, as if the sun itself had crashed into the ground beyond the horizon, extinguishing itself in a grand conflagration.
The billows forming on the horizon grew, and even as dark as the starless, abysmal night was, they seemed darker. The billows filled the sky as he rode harder, and as they grew, the inchoate mass began to form more corporeal claws, teeth, eyes.
The young woman was there, full of ennui as before, seemingly oblivious to the abomination forming behind her.
Then the dark form reared back, bared its teeth, flexed its still forming haunches, and splitting the air with a roar that shook the ribs in Cyrus’s torso, pounced on the hapless woman.
As the beast came down around her, the swirling cloud dissipated into a foul mist. The fog spread out toward Cyrus and wafted around him as he rode, threatening to consume him as well, but keeping its distance. The fog swirled and grumbled, as if its hunger had not been satiated by the kill. A pressure began to build behind Cyrus’s eyes, but he held it back and continued to ride into the morass in abject refusal of the obvious truth.
And then he reached her, and he saw the truth had not been so obvious. The girl lay there in a perfect circle of what Cyrus instantly knew to be blood. He was off the evanescent steed now, standing on his own, and he could see her head, arms, and legs placed on the edge of the circle at five equidistant points. She was not dead, but she did not give the impression of life. The flame in her that burned within all living things had been reduced to embers, rendering her eyes glassy; her already affectionless gaze was now as vacuous as the starless night above them.
And there was a spear. At first it seemed like she had been impaled through the skull by it, but it had not harmed her. It sat there, perfectly perpendicular to the ground, lodged in the earth, pinning a ring that pierced through the girl’s ear lobe.
Cyrus ran to the spear and grabbed the shaft, curious as to why the beast had left its prey here like this. He yanked at the spear, and it took more effort than Cyrus expected to pull it from the ground. A howling wind blew around him as the vapor stirred again. Then Cyrus realized it was not the wind, but the young girl screaming and pointing at the sky as she was freed from her strange shackle. And as the scream dug deep into his ears, curdling the fluid in his spine, he realized that the girl had not been the prey at all.
Cyrus looked up to see the mist coiling again, maw gaping, and horror transfixed him as he smelled the acrid breath of the beast and marveled at its size. He flipped the spear over in his hand to face the point upward, he let his knees give beneath him, and as the ground pulled him in as the beast lunged at him with another, eager bellow, Cyrus caught his own weight, let out a cry of his own, and leapt spear-first into the leviathan’s mouth.
twenty-one
• • • • •
—Dada, how come you don’t wear the same fancy clothes some of the other dads do?
—I guess suits and ties aren’t really my thing. Why do you ask?
—I dunno. I think mommy likes suits and ties and stuff. Yesterday, when we went to pick up my Easter suit, she spent a lot of time looking through the grown-up clothes. Maybe you should put on a suit for mommy one day. I think she would like it.
—You know, I don’t think any of my suits even fit anymore.
—Why do people like suits so much? They are itchy to me, and you gotta walk around like you’re scared of everything so you don’t get dirty—all prissy like Genivere—that part’s complete bunkus.
—Well, maybe that’s part of it for me too. Do you remember the story of the peacock and the puhuy?
—Ha, of course. Puhuy is such a funny word.
—Okay, so what happens?
—The birds all have their feathers in a bunch because the bird god—what was his name?
—Chaac.
—Yeah, well he says they need to elect a new king. The peacock feels like he should be king because he can sing so well, but he is ashamed to nominate himself because his feathers are all pasty and ratty. So he goes to the puhuy, who is all meek and quiet and never comes out of his nest but has a beautiful set of feathers. The peacock asks to borrow the puhuy’s feathers until the election is over. The puhuy doesn’t really want to cuz the peacock is kind of a jerk, but he does anyways.
—Go on.
—So the election day comes, and the peacock shows up with his new fancy feathers and sings and all the other birds are all wowed out. So the election goes down and they make the peacock the king. And the peacock is all happy. The puhuy is so ashamed that he’s all naked that he doesn’t even go to the election. So the peacock just keeps the puhuy’s feathers cuz he likes them so much and doesn’t keep his promise. The puhuy never says anything, he just hides.
—So what happens?
—One day, Chaac is visiting the birds and sees the puhuy all by himself. He asks him what happened to his feathers, and the puhuy tells him the whole story. So Chaac goes to the peacock and lets him keep the feathers, but makes him sound like a dying duck when he tries to sing.
—And what happens to the puhuy?
—Nothing I guess, but he doesn’t get his feathers back. I guess in a way, he kinda gets punished too.
—Why?
—I dunno. I never really understood that part.
—Well, I have an idea. I think it’s because the puhuy just let the other birds slap him around and didn’t do anything about it.
—Shouldn’t the god protect him more then?
—Well maybe, but what would their life have been like then? You want me and your mom to follow you around at school and make sure no one ever bothers you?
—Eww, no.
—Why not?
—Cuz then I’d look like a big sissy.
—Exactly. You see, from what I’ve seen, sitting in your own little corner and keeping your mouth shut is one thing; letting people walk all over you is something else. Bottom line, meek is as it is, but if you don’t ever stand up for yourself, all you’ll ever inherit is misery.
—Okay, but what does that have to do with wearing a suit?
—Well, look at the peacock. All he did to get elected was impress the other birds. No one even questioned where his feathers had come from.
—Well, isn’t being impressive important too?
—Sure, if something about you that helps you do your job is impressive. The point is, the peacock looked fancy and sang well, but deep down, he was still a turkey. Way I see it, if a man can’t do his job in his underwear, he can’t really do his job.
—So you don’t wear suits cuz they make you look like you can’t do your job?
—No, whether I wear a suit or not, I’m gonna do my best to do what I say I can do. I don’t wear suits cuz they are uncomfortable, and I don’t want to
walk around acting like a sugar-coated sissy because I’m afraid to get dirty. If the suit makes the man, he isn’t much of a man to begin with.
—Maybe Dada, but they do make you look stellar. Maybe sometimes that’s enough, at least for mommy.
—Maybe you’re right Dari, but sometimes with your mother it’s hard to tell.
—Could be, but is there really anything wrong with looking stellar?
—I guess not, if you actually are stellar.
—Well, I think you’re pretty stellar Dada, so maybe you should wear a suit more often.
—Maybe one of these days the suit I don’t mind wearing will find me, Dari, and then everyone will be happy.
—I think whenever that does happen, Dada, you’ll look pretty stellar in it.
• • • • •
Cyrus stepped into the vault in the white linen robe that had been given to him before he entered the cave. He appeared weary and somewhat ill. The pallid light of the room set an odd sheen to his brown skin, but as he moved closer, it became clear that the odd, greenish-sienna hue was not due to any light in the room, but to the color of the skin itself. Tanner made space for Cyrus to sit on the chair, and Cyrus let his legs give, plopping into the chair like a bag of dirty laundry. “You look ill.” Milliken moved toward Cyrus to get a closer look.
“It’s the Eos. I felt like I was dying. For a while I passed out and I was sure I was dead. When I finally awoke, I was surprised that I felt relieved.” Cyrus exhaled, but his breath was not as exasperated as Milliken would have expected. “How long was I in there?”
“About fifty-five hours. Paeryl said that was shorter than most.” Tanner leaned over to get a closer look at Cyrus’s face, his eyes. The green tint in Cyrus’s skin and in his irises made him look as if there were a soft light following his every move from above.
Darius moved to the center of the room. “Dada, how does the sun feel to you now?”
“Honestly, it’s hard to place. When I left the cave, they had me stand outside and walk. At first I felt like I was going to vomit, and then, it felt like... I dunno... like coming home after a long, painful trip—only it never subsided.”