Deep Roots

by Ruthanna Emrys

  “Somewhere we can put down wards, for a start,” said Nnnnnn-gt-vvv. “They scaffold our survival in this space. If we can’t grow new wards, and the interventionists have taken Yuggoth, we’ll soon need to surrender or die.” It paused. “I’m tempted to try to exploit the mine seed you found earlier. But they may have built in the same restrictions they’re using to keep us out of the full-grown mines. I don’t know if that’s possible—I’m not a deep ward-writer.”

  “What’s the risk of trying?” asked Spector.

  “More than you might think,” I said. “Those caves are already inhabited.” Glabri’s token burned dark in my mind. I knew its precise location in my pack. I hesitated—but Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt could not have missed the colony’s existence when it planted its seeds, and Nnnnnn-gt-vvv wouldn’t miss them when it went to look. Better to forestall the potential for conflict now. “It looks to be a ghoul warren.”

  “Nor were they pleased,” added S’vlk. “What was it they called the Outer Ones, Acolyte Chulzh’th?”

  “Clutch-thieves,” said Chulzh’th, with somewhat less relish than S’vlk.

  “They were quite upset about the mine seed,” I said. “Maybe we can convince them to help stop the people who planted it.”

  “By letting Outer Ones stay in their caves?” asked Charlie. “They seemed awfully territorial. Do we have anything to offer them, aside from the chance for revenge on the interventionists? Not, ah, food, I hope.”

  “That’s traditional,” said S’vlk. “Invite ghoulish aid in battle, in exchange for leave with the dead.”

  Charlie shuddered, and Deedee said, “Ick,” more cheerfully than was perhaps warranted.

  “Will it come to that?” asked Caleb.

  Nnnnnn-gt-vvv’s hum edged into a high-pitched keening, resolving again into words. “I hope there won’t be corpses. There haven’t been so far. We must talk with the ghouls if they hold the mine seed. It’s just like Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt not to care whether its reserve site is inhabited.”

  I had an unpleasant thought. “Did it plant the mine by the ocean because of us? You said it was interested in me, because I’m—” I paused, trying to retrieve the term.

  “Zzzzz’v’ck,” said Clara. “Someone who connects people. Like me—the ‘social hub’ of whatever street you happen to be on.”

  Shelean’s voice echoed from the pendant. “Oh, yes. If you have to run away, you want someone strong at the other end to help out. Especially if you think you’re strong enough to make them help you, even in retreat.”

  “That wouldn’t be his only plan, though,” said Clara.

  “Such a cautious creature,” agreed Shelean. “If I were him, I’d put little seeds all over the city. But we don’t exactly have them on a map, do we?”

  I thought of the fantastic skyscrapers and ethereal bridges beyond the cave ridge, marble plazas and tumbled ruins, skies swarming with gaunts and dark caverns sheltering ghouls. And among them, spreading tendrils through all the levels of reality, scarlet fungus taking root. “The people who have to live where the seeds are planted, they’ll know. We’ll ask the ghouls what they’ve found.”

  * * *

  It wasn’t simply a matter of dreamwalking and calling for Glabri. Chulzh’th settled in to demand details from Nnnnnn-gt-vvv: how many Outer Ones it needed to house in the cave, what they might have to offer, and whether the ghouls would be stuck with them as permanent neighbors. I should have stayed to help, but I felt overwhelmed. The solstice’s opportunity for contemplation had frightened me, but I’d needed it. That contemplation shattered the moment I saw Clara. The shared revelations that should have been my reward at the day’s end had been replaced with all-too-pragmatic planning.

  “Go wash your face,” said Chulzh’th. “We’ll be here when you get back.” Advice for a child, but at the moment I didn’t mind.

  The quiet moonlight glinted sparks on the ocean’s shifting contours. Salt and seaweed overpowered the smell of the beach’s debris. Cool water cleared my head and throat. I lingered with fingers trailing in desultory waves.

  It was easy to get caught up in the urgent tide of great powers in conflict. What did I want out of this? Or rather—letting the solstice remind me of my community—what did we want and need?

  The Outer Ones, in their fear for humanity, risked awakening my species’s basest instincts. We wanted to be better—but that was long work and had little to do with the Outer Ones. If S’vlk was any indication, it might be very long work. She was old and wise, but no less prone to blinding hatreds than any man of the air.

  What we needed from the Outer Ones was the time to do that work. If the interventionists had their well-meaning way, they could send us spiraling into xenophobic wars. We needed Nnnnnn-gt-vvv’s passivist faction to reassert their influence and to hold sway over what their species did on Earth.

  But it was harder to fathom what form the relationship between our species might then take. Barlow already knew about the Outer Ones, and now about the Yith. He’d almost certainly pass that intelligence on to his masters. Would some treaty now be needed between the state and the Outer Ones? Promises of aid to soothe newfound fears? By deceiving Mary we might have forfeited our ability to influence that process.

  We had too narrow a place to stand, and too little we could do to stop cities from burning. But as long as humans survived there was something for us to save. And even after we lose the fight to save them, we’ll still have work to do.

  All I wanted, in that moment, was for my family and species to survive this moment, this year, this decade. Millennia felt too painful to plan for.

  The faint crunch of sand made me turn, and Charlie and Audrey joined me by the water. Audrey knelt to anoint herself. Charlie began the awkward process of lowering himself to the sand, and I hastened to offer him a handful of water so he could cleanse himself standing.

  “You don’t have to do this,” said Audrey.

  “Do what?” I was still thinking about preventing atomic war.

  “Dreamwalk to talk with the ghouls,” said Charlie. “Chulzh’th can do it, and we’re good enough to go along without you.”

  “You tried for a few minutes yesterday, and it was really hard on you,” said Audrey. “You may have to keep stretching, but you should wait ’til that can be the focus. We’ve got no control over how long this is going to take—and we have other people who can do the negotiating.”

  I thought about it, and about whether I could bear to stay behind. “That’s very sensible.”

  “I’ve known you to be sensible, sometimes,” said Audrey.

  Charlie glared. “Do you mind explaining why this can’t be one of those times?”

  “I…” That was harder. “It’s my fault that Mary and her team were so vulnerable, and my responsibility that Neko’s caught up in all this. And Nnnnnn-gt-vvv came to me. And Freddy’s my cousin, in danger from Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt even if he refuses to realize it.” And, if I admitted everything to myself, I wondered if there was something to the way the Outer Ones saw me—as someone with a talent for connecting people who wouldn’t otherwise have met or spoken. If that were true, I might be able to help in ways no one else could. “I can come back to rest as often as I need to. But I’ll do what I can.”

  Charlie twisted his cane, drilling into the wet sand. “What happens after these negotiations? We aren’t ready to pull through another world war, let alone a war with other worlds.”

  “That’s what I’m afraid of. It’s why I can’t just wait somewhere safe. Hold back, and there may not be anywhere safe to go.”

  As we returned to the others, Audrey tugged at my elbow.

  “Do you trust her?” she asked.

  I didn’t need to ask who she meant. Her usual mask wavered, revealing a glimpse of apprehensive bewilderment. Her inner trembling echoed hazily through the confluence.

  “I don’t know. I believe what Shelean’s saying—but that’s different from trusting her. Usually I trust people because of t
heir actions. But Shelean can’t act, only speak. I don’t know how to judge that. Except for the way she talks—and I think Neko’s right about that—she’s not what I would have expected. I never thought about how they must suffer.”

  “Neither did I.” She leaned against me, and I stroked her hair as one might a child. She went on: “After I found out—I thought maybe we were conceived in a star-crossed romance. But more likely they kept some poor woman prisoner and forced her to bear children … I pictured cackling scientists, but I never thought … She’s a victim, but she thinks what they did to us was a good idea. And I can’t argue with her, because I wouldn’t exist otherwise. I don’t know how to talk to her.”

  “I think deep conversations may be more than we’re ready for. But she doesn’t like what Kvv-vzht-mmmm-vvt is doing, and I’m provisionally willing to believe her and Nnnnnn-gt-vvv—they’re the only window we have into what happened.”

  Back under the boardwalk, Chulzh’th was drawing the necessary diagrams. Deedee was talking to Clara, looking more comfortable than I would have guessed from her first reaction; Caleb stood behind her massaging her shoulders. Spector watched everyone, looking worried and disconnected. When I passed near, anxious and uncharacteristic sweat underlay his familiar cologne. This must have been a very strange day for him; I resolved to arrange some opportunity for him and Charlie to be alone. Chulzh’th finished the last geometric swirl of her work and stood, brushing sand from her hands.

  “You insist on going, I assume?” Grandfather asked me.

  “You know her so well,” said Audrey.

  Chulzh’th looked me over with a rumbling sigh. “You’ll go back when I tell you it’s time.” I nodded. She could have ordered me not to go; either of them could have.

  The three of us who’d already met Glabri—Chulzh’th, Charlie, and I—would go again, joined by Grandfather. The elders judged the greater show of strength was worth the risk of drawing attention.

  “If this goes well,” said Chulzh’th, “we can tell the ghouls that we have an Outer One who’d like to negotiate, and complete the discussion on our native level of reality. Ghouls can walk here comfortably enough.”

  “I thought they could only travel through gravestones,” said Charlie. I remembered reading that as well. My mind wandered the shelves of our collection, seeking the source. Encyclopedie du Pays Dormant, that was it.

  “A story the Puritans told to comfort themselves,” said Grandfather dismissively. “Graves have meaning to us, not to the universe.”

  “But men of the air believe it,” said S’vlk. “Everywhere I’ve gone ashore, you find such stories about the places people leave corpses. Ghouls may not need to come through in those places, but it’s where they have regular business. You might just as well suppose elders can only come ashore near where our descendants dwell.”

  This time, Grandfather sang the lullaby. His bass voice vibrated in my chest, carrying the cadence of sea shanties into even the gentlest song. It was as much a thing of flesh as of mind. I couldn’t imagine losing track of my body, with that song guiding me.

  CHAPTER 22

  Our dreams were calmer today, though I’d expected any number of nightmares. We stood on the deck of a ship. It was a trading vessel, hard-worn by wind and salt, but clean and painted in the sand-and-bark colors that marked every ship out of Innsmouth. I recognized Grandfather’s hubristically-named Kraken’s Journal. Sailors, oddly difficult to focus on, moved among too many sails.

  Chulzh’th tugged me from distraction. “Let me see your cord.”

  I turned obediently, a little frightened. “I keep losing track of time, forgetting to count. You’ll watch over me?”

  “Stubborn child. Yes, since you insist on coming along, I’ll keep time for everyone.” She frowned. “You too, Yringl’phtagn.”

  He returned from the rail. “My apologies, Acolyte. I haven’t seen her in a while.”

  “Is this your ship?” asked Charlie.

  “It was,” said Grandfather. “Kraken’s journal, written in the script of sails across the waves. Abiel liked the poem, but he never liked the name.”

  “I remember,” I said. My eldest cousin had inherited the ship when Grandfather went into the water. “He was superstitious about it. He always swore he’d change the name to Obed’s Terrible Handwriting.” Grandfather’s laughter boomed across the deck.

  Chulzh’th drew the blue ribbon from my forehead. It looked smoother than before, though the edges were still ragged. It bent, but stiffly. “It’s healing, but still brittle,” she told me. “You must be careful. As with a half-healed bone, you’ll be tempted to move as if you were whole, but you could shatter it easily.” She hesitated, and I thought for a moment she’d finished speaking. “Ghavn Yukhl, it’s proper for the eldest-on-land to have a place in these negotiations, and I respect your knowledge of the air’s politics. But speaking solely of your own well-being, this is a bad idea. You should have delegated to your brother.”

  I started to duck my head, thought better of it as the cord wavered. “Thank you, Acolyte. I know the risks. And I know the politics better than Caleb.”

  As carefully as we could, we pushed through. The city rose in a cascade of shining towers, shadowing the ridge. I took a cautious breath, testing the cord between mind and body, as much me as the things it connected.

  Figures scrambled across the face of the ridge. My eyes adjusted despite the city lights: sinewy ghouls clambered over the rock like monkeys, in sudden fits of movement, circling the fungous growth without touching it. Withered scarlet stalks lay scattered on the ground. One ghoul hung almost upside down, held in place by its fellows. It wove its fingers in a cat’s cradle and spat between them. The droplets sizzled as they hit the mushroom ward, and more stems and caps shriveled and fell.

  The ghouls looked different from each other, but the things I’d marked about Glabri were things they all had in common. They were all raw sinew and muscle, skinned corpses in obscene motion. Yet they varied in the contours of their flesh, in height and sickly shade and blotches that mimicked wounds and rot. On a battlefield, interrupted in their feast by a living intruder, they might fall motionless in an instant, perfectly camouflaged among their meals.

  I held up the string of tiny bones. “Glabri! Are you here? We’ve learned more.”

  One figure broke from the herd and crabbed his way to the ground. I could see now that he was tall and lithe for his kind. His well-muscled legs were spotted with greenish discoloration, and his ears came to sharper points than most of the others.

  “We learn,” he said, drawing himself up. “Can fill holes. Explain holes?”

  Chulzh’th glanced at the uprooting in progress on the cliff face. Our negotiations weren’t likely to be as simple as we’d hoped. “I yield to you in this,” she told me. Grandfather nodded, looking stern and reassuring in his quiet support.

  I took a deep, steadying breath, but had to disguise my reaction: the ghouls’ camouflage included scent as well as appearance. I stepped forward. “One of the Outer Ones came to me, seeking help. They’ve split into two factions, fighting each other. One faction planted the holes here in case their attack on the other failed. The ones they chased off need a place to retreat if they want to continue to fight. If you’re willing to come back with us, they want to negotiate for the holes.”

  Glabri scratched his leg, looked back at the cliff. “Dead clutch-thieves good—safer for clutches. But clutch-thief battles useless. No bones, no marrow. Why should we bring them here?” He shrugged and cocked his head. “But you want to help—why? You hate clutch-thieves too.”

  “The attackers want to interfere in human wars. The defenders want to stop them. We want to stop them too—our wars are our own business.” But would Glabri care? Perhaps it would matter to him that atomics left no corpses—though merely the thought of that reasoning turned my stomach.

  “Interfere how?” He added something in his own tongue, and Chulzh’th responded.

>   “I’ll translate,” she murmured to me. “He understands English better than he speaks it, but…” I nodded.

  “They’re worried that we’ll destroy ourselves,” I told Glabri. “That we’ll fight too hard and go extinct. We’re worried about that too, but we think that if they try to help they’ll make things worse. We’re helping the faction who agree with us.” Up on the ridge, the other ghouls had stopped their weeding. The corpse-crowd watched us with silent, black eyes. “Do you care if we destroy ourselves? You eat our dead, but I suppose you can eat something else when we’re gone. What matters to you, besides keeping Outer Ones away from your den?”

  He laughed—a surprisingly normal-sounding laugh, where most of his speech darted like his movements. “Humans. So superstitious. We taste death—same stuff alive. Can like alive, still eat dead.” He nibbled his finger, which disturbed me unreasonably. Superstitious. Familiarity with death had never reconciled me to it. In the camps our captors had studied our corpses, turning atrocity to practical use and supplanting the sacred rites we should have been able to offer. I tried to think of the ghouls’ diet as something other than desecration—but it was hard. Glabri continued. “Clutch-thief guests near our den, chased by enemies? Too dangerous.”

  “If you’ll talk with them, they might have more to offer,” I said. “They might even agree to stay away from your clutches forever.” I didn’t think Nnnnnn-gt-vvv would be thrilled by that. It was too attached to letting individuals go where they willed without any authority’s leave. But it might have little choice.

  Glabri snorted. “Clutch-thief promises? Llllirrap murrrrt.”

  “He doesn’t believe it,” said Chulzh’th. “Roughly.”

  Charlie touched my back, a shock of warmth. “Aphra, I’m starting to feel queasy. We’ve been here a while. Are you okay—do you need to go back?”

  “This isn’t a good time,” I said.

  “Excuse me,” said Chulzh’th to Glabri. She added something in Ghoulish, and once more drew my cord into visibility. She hissed. “Yes, you need to go back. Yringl’phtagn and I will finish the discussion. My apologies, Glabri.”