Aetherium (Omnibus Edition)

by Joseph Robert Lewis

  When the last of the plant had been cut away, Priya sat shivering on the stone, her arms wrapped around her belly, her breathing shallow and rapid. Asha put away her scalpel, gathered the frail woman in her arms, and lifted her off the altar.

  A single deep boom echoed through the cave like the beat of an enormous drum.

  Asha waded through the waist-deep water, straining to hurry as fast as the cold pool would allow. The woman in her arms felt so light, like a bundle of sticks in a silk bag. The leaves and blossoms clinging to Priya’s head bobbed and shuddered with each step.

  Another deep boom echoed through the cave and Asha paused to listen. The water shushed quietly around her, the surface rippling, tiny waves slapping at the sides of the vast chamber. But there was another sound, a subtle sound underneath all the others. It was the sound of roots waking up and beginning to stretch and reach out through the silt.

  Asha plunged ahead, willing her legs to run through the cold, sluggish water. But soon the sandy bottom angled up and the pool became shallower, making each step lighter and easier. She jogged to the edge of the tunnel where she could see a tiny disc of pale blue light in the center of the darkness ahead.

  The tunnel walls groaned with the crumbling of old stone and dried earth. Dust trickled from the ceiling in steady streams, and larger clods and chunks of dirt began falling to the floor. The light at the mouth of the cave was much larger now, but the view was already partly obscured by tumbled stones and hanging roots.

  Behind her, the entire the cavern hissed and slithered as the chamber amplified and echoed the sounds of the roots moving beneath the pool. The water shivered and the stone shook. Asha dashed down the tunnel, her bare feet sliding in the soft mud around the stream in the center of the floor. Something cold and wet snaked past her ankle. Then she stepped on a root that curled up sharply around her toes.

  Asha tripped and fell. She crashed into the floor face-first, dropping the nun in front of her. A thick bundle of lotus tendrils whipped around her leg and yanked her back toward the pool. As she struggled to untwist the roots from her leg, Asha listened for something else behind the moaning, keening, crying of the roots. The lotus was frightened and confused, but beyond that she could hear a buzzing like the swarming of angry hornets. The sound of the ghost’s fury raced round and round the cavern, rising and falling, lashing out at everything and nothing in a whirlwind of terrified rage.

  As a second and a third lotus tentacle tried to grip her arms, Asha felt the tiny claws of a young mongoose running down the length of her body and in the shadows she saw Jagdish gnaw at the roots around her leg. The roots snapped back into the darkness and Asha snatched up the little mongoose as she ran for the exit, pausing only to grab the nun under her arms and drag her the last few steps, squeezing through the narrow opening, and spilling out onto the sun-warmed grass outside.

  Gasping for breath, Asha pulled the unconscious Priya to the wide stones by the water’s edge where the langur had slept the night before. From the safety of the stones, she watched the pale lotus roots creep out from the tunnel, slip around the loose rocks, and pull them back to seal the opening of the cave. The heavy thumps and crashes of falling earth and stone continued to reverberate through the ground long after the opening had been blocked and Asha sat listening to the wailing of the dead girl deep inside the mountain.

  Then the voice in the cave fell silent and Asha frowned, straining to hear. For a time, there was nothing but the wind in the giant trees overhead. But then, softly, in the distant depths of the mountain, a gentle sighing rose from the stones. And then the earth wept.

  It was like nothing Asha had ever heard before. It was the falling of winter snow, and the tumbling of a single leaf on an autumn breeze, and the sinking of an old stone into the soft mud. It was gentle and soft, the sound of something slowly dying unseen and unloved. It was so quiet that Asha could barely hear it, and so terrible that she felt guilty for hearing it at all.

  And it went on for hours.

  * * *

  In her sleep, Priya’s breathing grew stronger as they rested in the warm afternoon sun. Asha inspected the thin green shoots in the nun’s arms and one by one she plucked them out. The gray woman shuddered and murmured softly. But when Asha began to tug on the longer lotus blooms on her head, Priya stiffened and gasped. Asha let go and held the woman’s hand. “I’m sorry.”

  “It’s all right.” Priya sat up. “Are we still in the cave?”

  Asha shook her head. “No. Open your eyes and you’ll see the setting sun.”

  The nun touched her face and gently massaged her eyes open until she could blink them normally. She swept her colorless irises across the ledge. “I can’t see anything.”

  Asha touched her hand. “Your eyes. I’m sorry. They’re dead.”

  Priya nodded slowly. “I suppose that’s the price of living for two centuries in the dark.”

  “Maybe if I remove the rest of the lotus, it will help.” Asha moved behind her and carefully grasped one of the long tendrils.

  Priya cried out, “Please, stop!”

  Asha let go, frowning. She parted the nun’s hair to examine her scalp and saw that the lotus roots snaked under her skin in long white lines. “It’s in deep. I’m not sure how to remove it without hurting you, or even killing you.”

  “It’s all right.” Priya reached up to stroke the leaves and blossoms in her hair. “It’s a small sacrifice for the freedom to go back out into the world and tell people the things I’ve learned.”

  “I could cut away the plant above your skin at least.”

  “No, thank you. I want to keep them as a memento of my time here.”

  They spent the night on the grassy ledge sleeping back to back under Asha’s wool blanket. When morning came, she saw that the stream had dried up completely and only a little water still shimmered in the deep pools farther down the mountainside.

  “She did it again. That poor girl,” Priya said. Tears fell from her sightless eyes. “I had hoped I had given her the peace she needed. I thought, after all this time, she had learned to accept herself and her place in the world.”

  Slowly, hand in hand, they descended the steep path beside the dry river bed. The giant trees stood in silent watch over them, the heavy vines creaking quietly in the morning breeze. At the bottom of the mountain they found only a muddy track where the river had been.

  It took three long days of slow walking to return to the village where they found the people sitting along the banks of what used to be the source of their livelihoods. Asha introduced Priya to them and let them marvel at the youthful nun crowned in flowing black hair festooned with white lotus blossoms.

  “When will the river come back?” Kishan asked.

  “It may not,” Asha said. “Priya’s sacrifice gave your village two hundred years of life here, but that’s over now. You’ll have to find new homes somewhere else, or learn a new way to live here if you choose to stay.”

  For two weeks, Asha and Priya remained in the village. Priya slowly recovered her strength while learning to walk, dress, and feed herself without the aid of her eyes, and day by day the color returned to her ageless skin. Asha took the villagers deep into the forest to help them find edible plants and to teach them how to transplant the herbs to their gardens in the village.

  Then one morning Asha awoke to a familiar shushing sound, the constant white noise of water rushing over stones and down gullies, pouring through channels and crashing into pools. She stood up, her blanket still wrapped around her shoulders against the pre-dawn chill in the air, and she walked down to the river running clear and deep through the middle of the village. Small brown birds bathed in the shallows and large silver fish floated serenely in the deep shadowed pockets at the bottom. Jagdish chittered under her hair, and her dragon’s ear heard two deer grazing downstream and a pack of dogs loping through the trees far to the east.

  Priya, holding her bamboo walking stick and wearing a cloth tied across her eyes,
came down to stand beside her.

  “The river came back,” Asha said. “Higher and stronger than before. Your ghost gave it back.”

  “Yes.” Priya nodded. “I suppose she just needed a little time to adjust to being alone. Or maybe she was just surprised when I left. Maybe I should have said good-bye. But in any case, I think she’s at peace now, truly.”

  “Good for her.” Asha stuck a ginger sliver in the corner of her mouth and patted Jagdish on the head. “So what will you do now? Stay here in the village?”

  “No. I’ve just learned that dragons exist and that trees have souls. I want to see what other wonders are running loose in the world.” Priya smiled. “Where will you go?”

  “West, I think.”

  “West sounds very nice. I’m ready to leave whenever you are.”

  Asha raised an eyebrow at the little nun with her thick black hair full of soft white blossoms. “Well, all right. But no chanting.”

  Chapter 2

  The bamboo forest stretched on and on in every direction, the trees growing so close and thick that Asha couldn’t see more than a few paces from the path. A hundred dark shades of emerald and jade painted the walls of the forest on every side, each segmented trunk and stalk leaning at its own unique angle as though too ancient and tired to stand up straight. The dead brown trees still stood as they had in life, leaning gently on their green neighbors as though unwilling to accept that death had already claimed them.

  “It feels like walking through a long hallway,” Priya said. The nun swept the path ahead of her with her slender bamboo rod. The only scent in the forest came from the lotus blossoms on Priya’s head. Her saffron robe was faded, her woven sandals were powdered with dust, and the cloth covering her eyes was frayed. “The trees are so close they feel like walls.”

  Asha chewed on the sliver of ginger in the corner of her mouth, listening.

  Nothing.

  There was nothing out there. No birds overhead, no deer moving through the trees, not even crickets hidden in the underbrush. There was no underbrush. Every spare inch of earth was riddled with bamboo roots and stalks. The forest was not merely silent, it was empty. Even now in the first month of spring, it was empty.

  “I’ve been through here before,” Asha said. “I remember it being thick like this, but not so quiet. Something’s changed.”

  “Is the forest dying? Have all the animals moved on?”

  “Maybe.” Asha knelt down and touched the thin dusty soil of the path. She scratched at the ground and found a hard, dry root just beneath the surface. “But I don’t think so. Do you smell that?”

  “I can only smell the lotuses,” said the nun. “What does it smell like to you?”

  Asha moved farther up the trail and stared toward the north. All she could see was the dense wall of bamboo, and all she could hear was the forest standing perfectly still, but now, beyond and beneath the aroma of the lotus blossoms she could smell something dry and dead. Something charred. Something burnt. And as she tilted her head back, Asha saw the tops of the trees obscured by a thin white haze that shimmered faintly. In the silence, a soft hum tickled her right ear.

  Aether. Lots of aether.

  Asha sniffed again. “It smells a little like smoke.”

  “A forest fire?”

  “No. If there was a fire, I would hear it. This is something older. Much older.”

  In the deep stillness, a single rustle of animal life appeared at the bottom of the trail. The little ball of brown fur stood up and bobbed its head.

  “Jagdish.” Priya smiled and held out her hand, and the little mongoose darted up the path into her palm and onto her shoulder, huddling in the warm mass of dark hair and lotus vines around the nun’s neck.

  “He was supposed to be my friend, you know.” Asha smiled. “You’re lucky I’m good at sharing.”

  “You’re terrible at sharing.”

  “Are you saying that I take too much?”

  “No. That you take too little.”

  “Hm.” Asha squinted down the path, straining to hear. “There might be something or someone down there. But it’s still a long way off.”

  They continued down the path, their sandals padding softly on the earth. Through the slender bamboo leaves overhead, bright white clouds drifted across the deep blue sky. A chill hung in the morning air.

  It was early in the afternoon when the trees began to thin out near the foot of a high ridge. Tall green grass swayed along the edges of the path and soon Asha could hear a handful of crickets chirping softly off to her left. A few moments later, she heard the trickle of water falling on stone. At the bottom of the path a large flat rock had been placed over a narrow stream and across this small bridge stood a house.

  It was a very old house, built of the native bamboo and thatched in dried bamboo leaves. One corner of the house was supported by thick bamboo poles to hold the floor level where the ground sloped away, and the entire mass of dark brown walls leaned slightly to the south. Beyond the house Asha could see the forest thinning away, and in that grassy field there was a poorly tended garden half-ringed in stones and half-fenced in bamboo rods.

  Asha glanced to the north, to the edge of the forest at the bottom of the meadow and saw the white mist drifting out of the trees where it dissolved and vanished in the sunlight.

  “Can you hear him in there?” Priya smiled. “I can. My ears are almost as good as yours.”

  Asha glanced at the old house. “When you say him, do you mean the father or the son?”

  Priya pouted. “You’re cheating.”

  “I’m not cheating. I just have an unfair advantage.”

  “That’s an interesting perspective you have.”

  “It’s not a perspective. It’s reality,” Asha said. “Are you hungry? Let’s introduce ourselves.”

  * * *

  Asha had only just knocked at the door when a man thrust his head out and pressed his finger to his lips. He slipped out, closed the door behind him, and herded the ladies away from the house. He was short and slender, with a thin beard on his wasted cheeks and wide darting eyes. He spoke softly, “Yes? Hello? Yes?”

  “I’m Asha and this is Priya. We’re just passing through, but this is the first house we’ve seen in quite a while and we thought we might rest here, if it’s not an inconvenience.”

  The man shoved his hand into the unkempt mass of wavy black hair on his head and stared at them with a pained expression. “I’m sorry. Of course, I’d like to let you rest here, but my son is very sick.”

  “Sick?” Asha squinted at the house. She could hear the boy’s heart racing, a faint but quick patter in the hollow of her right ear. “He has a fever?”

  “How did you know? Are you a doctor?” He looked at Priya, peering at the bright flowers in her long dark hair. “You’re dressed as a nun.”

  “Yes. Nuns often do that.” The blind woman nodded. “And you are?”

  “Chandra.” He glanced back at the house. “My son, Naveen, he was fine, just fine. But then one morning, he complained that the sun was too bright. He stood by the window, rubbing his eyes and squinting for a while, but then he went out and I thought he was fine. But the next morning it was worse, not better. He needed to shade his eyes with his hand all day and he stayed in the shadows of the trees. On the third day, he couldn’t go outside at all, and on the fourth day he draped his shirt over his head to cover his eyes, even inside the house.”

  “Do his eyes look different?” Asha asked. “Lighter or darker? Bloodshot?”

  “No, they look the same.” Chandra tugged at the short whiskers on his chin. “But that was just the beginning. Soon after, I found him curled up in the corner with his hands over his ears. He whispered that I was being too noisy. I couldn’t even speak without making him shake with pain. I had to lay blankets on the floor to muffle the creaks in the wood and silence my footsteps.”

  “And the fever?”

  “I don’t know. It started in the night. Sweating,
shaking. He was delirious. At first I thought he was dreaming, but the things he was saying were so strange. Sometimes he sounded like an old man complaining about his wife, and sometimes like a baby babbling nonsense.” The man rubbed his eyes. “I can barely get him to eat or drink anything. He’s gotten so thin.”

  “How long has he been like this?”

  “I’m not sure. Five, maybe six weeks.”

  “Weeks!” Priya grabbed the man’s arm with her groping, uncertain hand. “Why did you wait so long? Why haven’t you taken him to a doctor?”

  Chandra shook his head. “I don’t know any doctors.”

  “It’s all right, Priya. As long as the boy’s still alive, then there may be something I can do for him,” Asha said. “Wait here. I’ll take a look at him.”

  The man nodded. “Please, be very quiet, doctor.”

  “I will.” Asha went up to the door. “But I’m not a doctor.”

  She stepped inside and closed the door behind her. The single room of the house was pitch black. Mud and grass had been pressed into the narrow cracks between the boards in the walls, but a few slender spears of sunlight crossed the room just inside the door. She stood and waited until her eyes adjusted.

  The boy lay on a pile of blankets wearing only a thin cloth across his hips and another across his face. His bony chest fluttered up and down, his ribs shaking with the pounding of his heart. Asha could barely see him, but she could hear his whole body shivering. She knelt beside him and listened to him mutter and gasp.

  “…should have been there for…didn’t you come to tell us…died in my arms…”

  Asha frowned. “Who died?”

  “Agh!” Naveen curled up into a ball and rolled onto his side with his hands pressed to his ears.

  Asha nodded and chewed on her ginger for a moment. She pulled her bag off her shoulder and searched inside with her fingertips among the heavier things down at the bottom. The two rods had slipped down below everything else, and she pulled them out as quietly as she could. With one in each hand, she pressed the cool metal bars to the sides of the boy’s face. Instantly, his whole body relaxed. His breathing slowed and the murmuring stopped, but his heart still pounded against his chest.