The Memory Wall

by Lev AC Rosen

  “Very good. I’ll take them.” The guard nods and disappears through a door in the side of the room. Efem walks up the staircase, and they follow him. Severkin looks at Reunne, but her eyes are blank, reflecting the light of the room like glass.

  “We have very careful systems in place. Most of the prisoners haven’t seen any other prisoner for years. They have no contact with the outside world besides the guards. We have total control over their lives.” He leads them up the stairs and through a door into another room. A few guards patrol the perimeter looking at what Severkin first thinks are windows, but then he remembers they’re underground, and he sees that while the walls are coated with glass, they’re not windows. At least not in the conventional sense. The room is a dome, and the walls flicker with magic, showing fuzzy, faded images of prisoners in cells. Small cells. Most of the prisoners are dwarves, but a few of them are gray elves. The rooms are all identical. Windowless, cramped, with a bed that looks like a plank and a small hole in the ground that Severkin assumes is a toilet. The walls are stone but covered in a ribbing of some sort, like veins.

  “We can see all the prisoners from here,” Efem says.

  “That’s some magic,” Elkana says.

  “Yes,” Efem says. “And you’d be wise not to try to replicate it. We lost more than a few mages creating this room. But it’s worth it. Everyone is constantly surveilled this way.”

  “And it’s limited to just the prisons?” Severkin asks, remembering the feeling of being watched in the undercity.

  “Do you see the ropes along the walls of each cell—coating the walls?” Efem asks, ignoring Severkin’s question. “The slightest tug on those, and a bell rings in the halls. If a prisoner tries to kill themselves, or becomes violent, we can stop it immediately. Some prisoners we keep perpetually drugged, or enchanted—keep their minds fuzzy, so they can’t even think of escape.” Severkin doesn’t ask his question again. He knows no answer is forthcoming. Efem walks along the wall, his palm outstretched, hovering over the images of the cells and prisoners until he comes to one and stops. “This is where you’ll be going,” he says. The room the illusion shows is different—black walls, a table in the center, and a dwarven woman sitting at it. “That’s Sindry. I’ll take you to the interrogation room now. The walls are coated in thick leather—it cleans easier—but there are the ropes underneath the leather. If anything goes wrong, just press down anywhere on the walls and the guards will come in.”

  He leads them out of the room at the opposite end they entered from. The corridor here is wide but low. The doors are all dark, with small rectangular windows covered with bars. There isn’t a single sound besides their footsteps and prisoners breathing short, whimpering breaths.

  “And we can promise her freedom?” Severkin asks Efem when he stops in front of a door. Efem turns and looks Severkin in the eye, a smile curling up into his cheeks like syrup being poured into stirred porridge.

  “You can promise her whatever you need to,” he says.

  “So you said,” Severkin says, “but will those promises be honored?”

  Efem lets his lip curl up, amused. “She’s a traitor. You might not understand what that means down here, but I’m sure Reunne does.” Severkin turns to Reunne, who stares at the floor. “Reunne, will promises to traitors be honored?”

  Reunne looks up and at Severkin. “She’s never getting out of here. She’s never going to leave—no matter what we do. The only thing we can do is try to get the Spear. Even if that means lying.”

  Severkin looks Reunne over until she stares at the floor again. She’s always seemed so strong, but now she seems flattened, crushed under the weight of the mountain. He wants to get her out of here. He wants to bring her to the overcity and show her what freedom can feel like.

  “You can do whatever you want to her,” Efem says, causing Severkin to look back up at him. “But find out where the Spear is.” He gestures at the closed door, palm open and up. “She’s waiting.”

  Severkin isn’t sure whether the “she” he refers to is Sindry or Elega, but he opens the door and walks in. He’ll probably have to take the lead, he thinks. Reunne seems practically catatonic, and Elkana doesn’t have his nuance. He walks into the room.

  It’s circular, and the walls are coated in oil-black leather that glimmers in the light from a caged set of torches on the ceiling, too high to reach. There’s a table in the center of the room, and behind it sits Sindry. Severkin takes a moment to study her. Her hands are manacled to the table and are thin and bony. Her face is, too, her cheekbones rising like the curve of a shovel over a ditch. She looks like she hasn’t eaten in years. Her hair is a dull gold color and cut short. Her eyes are thin, suspicious lines, but they widen into blue surprise when she spots Elkana.

  “Hi,” Severkin says.

  Sindry keeps staring at Elkana, then turns to Severkin, her eyes narrowing again.

  “I think you know why we’re here.”

  “No,” Sindry says, her voice deep and scratched.

  “We’re looking for something we need to put the giants to sleep again. We think you know where it is.”

  “Oh, this story again. The giants are awake, are they?”

  “Yes,” Severkin says, “and the under- and overcities have made peace.”

  Sindry snorts. “Why am I still in here, then?”

  Severkin looks at Reunne and Elkana. None of them has an answer.

  “You committed a crime,” Reunne says finally. She doesn’t look up at Sindry. “That it is no longer a crime doesn’t mean you didn’t commit one.” Severkin wants to reach out and take Reunne’s hand. She could be talking about her father, for all she knows.

  “I admit,” Sindry says, trying to lean back, but the manacles on her wrists keep her in place, “the troll costume is impressive.”

  Elkana raises an eyebrow. “Ain’t a costume.”

  “You’re a real troll?”

  “Aye. From the overworld. The giants are real, and we need your help puttin’ ’em back to sleep.”

  Sindry stares at Elkana.

  “It’s a spear,” Severkin says, hoping for an opening. “You found it while excavating.”

  “Not exactly a spear,” Reunne says. “More like a huge spear tip or an arrowhead. Four edges like a cross…” She looks at Elkana. “Got paper and charcoal?” Elkana nods and hands Reunne some from her bag. Reunne puts them down on the table and sketches a detailed drawing of a tall arrowhead with sharp edges and prongs, lines along the middle. Severkin wonders for a moment how she knows the item in such detail and why he doesn’t but assumes it’s because Rorth didn’t want him to know.

  “Yeah, I remember it,” Sindry says, still staring at Elkana.

  “Ye wanna tug on my ear or something?” Elkana asks.

  “Can I?” Sindry says. Elkana’s eyes go wide, and she glances at Severkin, who nods.

  “Fine,” Elkana says, and leans over the table so Sindry can touch her ear. Quickly, Sindry darts in and bites Elkana’s ear. Elkana yells out, pulling back. Sindry’s mouth is red with blood, and Elkana has one hand on her ear and the other glowing with fire.

  “Sorry,” Sindry says quickly. “I’m sorry…I just had to make sure you’re real. Not an illusion.”

  Elkana stares at Sindry a moment more before letting the fire in her hand dissolve. “Real enough, then?”

  “Yes.” Sindry nods. “So is it true? You’re from the overworld?”

  “Aye,” Elkana says. “Him, too. Not her, though. But we trust her.”

  “And we really do need the Spear to stop the giants,” Severkin says.

  Sindry is quiet for a long while, staring at her hands. The blood dries and crackles on her lips, and she licks them, smearing it in a streak.

  “I haven’t seen anyone else in so long,” she says. “Just the guards. What’s the undercity like now? Now that we’re at peace?”

  Severkin looks at Reunne, who is still staring at her hands.

  “Much the
same,” Reunne says finally.

  Sindry nods. “Things are slow to change,” she says. “They look fast, but they’re not.”

  “But if we stop the giants,” Severkin says, “this joint force of under- and overworld, maybe that’ll bring us a step closer.”

  Sindry shakes her head. “No. Not down here. Down here, the high protect themselves and only themselves. The Sword and Shield will protect the Sword and Shield. You’ll never convince them of peace.”

  “They’ll fall in time,” Reunne says softly.

  Sindry sighs, the sounds like dead leaves. “Maybe,” she says. “But hope lies with above, not with below. Below must change into above. And this thing you want to find…”

  “The Spear,” Severkin says.

  “Yes,” Sindry says. “It’s powerful. It lets you…not control others’ minds, but plant thoughts in them. And understand what they feel, which lets you argue to their beliefs more persuasively. It’s how I convinced the whole colony to try to escape. It let me…peer into them. You can’t let the Sword and Shield have it. You can’t let anyone have it.”

  “We’ll be careful,” Severkin promises. “But we need it to stop the giants. Afterward, we’ll hide it again.” He knows this isn’t true. The side that ends up with the artifacts will want to hold onto them to keep the other side in check. But maybe he can persuade them that the best way is to split them apart and hide them again. That would be the best for everyone. “But we need it. Or else all of Wellhall, above and below, will come toppling down.”

  Sindry wipes a bit of Elkana’s blood from her lips and stares at it on her hands.

  “I wonder if that would be so bad,” she says so softly Severkin can barely hear it.

  “There’s hope now,” Severkin says, and reaches out for her hands. He takes them in his, and they feel light, like dried reeds that could crumble under his touch.

  Sindry looks up at him. “You promise?” she asks. “That there’s hope?”

  “I promise,” Severkin says. He realizes it’s the one promise he can keep.

  “I hid it in the clay pits,” Sindry says after a moment, and as she says it, it’s like part of her leaves her. She seems even thinner somehow, without her last secret. Severkin wonders if it was the only thing keeping her alive, and whether now that he’s just made her give it up, she’ll die. And if she does, will he ever know? He knows the answer to that question: no. He’ll never know anything about her again.

  “Thank you,” Severkin says.

  “We shut the clay pits down,” Sindry says. “There was an infestation of mud flies. I hid it in their nest—the highest one. Don’t let them have it, when you’re done. Steal it back, throw it to the deepest part of the ocean. Promise?” She tries to reach out, but her hands are still manacled to the table.

  “I promise,” Severkin says.

  And then they sit in silence a moment more. Sindry stares at her hands, and Severkin wishes there were something else he could do. But he knows that there isn’t. She’ll be here until she dies, and she’ll probably be buried here, under an anonymous gravestone.

  “Thank you” he says, and turns to go. Reunne and Elkana follow him outside, but before closing the door, he looks back at Sindry—pale and sharp angled, hair like old gold, a forgotten statue, crumbling apart underground.

  Outside, Efem is gone. A guard—possibly the one from earlier—stands in his place, waiting.

  “I was told to give you this map. It will tell you how to get to the abandoned colony and then how to get back to the undercity after that.”

  Severkin takes the map and unfolds it. It shows their starting location as a cavern far from the city.

  “Is this where we are?” he asks, looking up at the guard. But the guard has a face mask on, and suddenly there’s a strange smell in the air, and Severkin feels his eyelids droop and his body fall to the ground.

  SEVERKIN OPENS his eyes in a large cavern lit only by torches on the wall, clearly not anywhere in the prison. In his hand, on top of the map, is a note, which he opens and reads:

  Sorry for the dramatics, but it was the best way.

  —Efem

  Severkin crumples the note in his hand and looks around for Elkana and Reunne. Elkana is just a few feet past him, starting to stand, shaking her head as if dizzy.

  “Not very hospitable, was that?” she asks, when she sees Severkin. “We’re just out of there, right? Not trapped in some new prison or something?”

  “I think so,” Severkin says. “Do you see Reunne?” They peer through the dimness of the cavern, and Severkin sees some movement at the far end. “There, maybe,” he says, and they walk toward it.

  It’s Reunne, waiting at the end of the cavern, doing what appears to be exercises with her spear, fluid motions one into the other, almost dancelike.

  “Reunne, you all right?” Elkana asks. “This isnae some kinda seizure, is it?”

  Reunne stops and puts her spear back in the scabbard on her back. “Exercises,” she says. “I needed to…think.”

  “Was all that difficult?” Severkin asks, meaning their seeing the prison, her seeing a place like where her father is probably kept. Was probably kept. It sounds stupid as soon as he says it, but Reunne is kind enough not to glare.

  “Let’s move on,” Reunne says. Severkin nods and opens the map. The colony doesn’t look to be very far from their starting position, and he wonders how far they are from the prison and how long they were unconscious.

  They start walking and along the way find themselves fighting off the occasional creature—giant rats, mouths foaming white, and huge bats like living shadows. Nothing overpowering, though, nothing unexpected. They’re soon on what looks to be an abandoned main road, or main tunnel, he supposes. It’s well paved, but the stones are dusty and the air smells stagnant. Spiderwebs hang like lace arches over the road, and sometimes large spiders climb down them and Severkin and the others fight them off.

  “So,” Severkin says quietly, “do you think your father is being held in one of those prisons?” He turns to look at Reunne. She doesn’t look back at him. For a moment, he’s not sure she even heard him.

  “Maybe,” she eventually says. “Or he’s dead.”

  “You want to break him out?” Severkin asks. “I’ll help. Maybe he’s been kept drugged. There must be a way, though.”

  “I don’t know,” Reunne says. “I don’t know if he’s being kept, or how, or where.” She spins on him. “How can I save him when I don’t know anything?”

  “I…,” Severkin says. “I don’t know. But you can still try. Make plans.”

  “I’ll try,” Reunne says, turning back to the road. “Once the giants are asleep again, I’ll do more than try.”

  They walk on a while more in silence until the road ends at the colony. There’s an arch and a sign over it in Dwarvish that names it Far Northeast Colony. Dwarves aren’t much for interesting names, apparently. They go through the arch and look around at the ruins of a colony that was never completed. It’s lit by a gentle glow of purplish mold on the high ceilings. It would have looked like a small version of the undercity, if it had been finished. But the walls of buildings are only half up, and machines lay rusting on the roads. The cavern, at least, was hollowed out. And there’s one large building in the center, with a domed roof and a few statues in front. There are street signs for streets that never existed. It feels like a city, if a city were a thought you’d just forgotten.

  “I don’t like this place,” Elkana says. “Let’s find the clay pits and be out of here.” Severkin looks down at the map, which is sectioned off into zones: algae ponds, brick workshop, housing, clay pits. The clay pits are across the cavern, so they set off, walking down the barest outlines of streets.

  “Why’d they need clay pits, anyway?” Elkana asks. “Dwarves use it fer their skin or some such?”

  “Bricks,” Reunne says. “It’s a special sort of clay, but if you find it, it can be strained and mixed with algae to create br
icks that are strong and that glow slightly. It’s not hard to find, but we use it up pretty quickly, so all colonies are built near clay pits.”

  As they get closer to the clay pits, Severkin hears a buzzing, at first like a background hum, but then growing louder.

  “She said there was an infestation, right?” he asks. “Mud flies?”

  “They build nests from mud or clay,” Reunne says. “Nasty things—they bite. But I can’t imagine they’ll be too much trouble. We can burn them out if we need to.”

  Another arch marks the entrance to the clay pits. The buzzing is loud now, so loud Severkin needs to shout.

  “Sounds like more than just an infestation!” he yells. There are two statues on either side of the archway, of noble dwarves standing in finery, weapons in front of them. But they’ve been colonized. Along the curves of their faces, in the angles of their necks and chins, are long clay tubes, like panpipes, with holes along their sides. As Severkin stares, a fly the size of his thumb darts out of one and into the archway. Severkin shines his torch after it. He can see a thousand flies, easily, filling the air like a cloud.

  “Ye want me ta just burn ’em?” Elkana asks.

  “Can you think of a better idea?” Reunne asks.

  Elkana rolls her head on her shoulders and steps forward and raises her hands, letting loose a tide of fire through the arch. For a moment, the buzzing seems to soften, but then it grows loud again as hundreds of mud flies come out through the arch, dodging Elkana’s flames. Severkin raises his hands to his face, expecting them to bite, but instead they all fly to one area, a little way off, and assemble. They contract as one, like a heartbeat, and pulse out again, this time not as a cloud but as a shadow—a shadow of a dwarf. Severkin feels his skin shiver, and quickly draws an arrow and fires at the fly-dwarf, but of course the arrow goes right through it. There are more of these dwarf-shaped swarms forming and charging them.

  “How are they doing that?” Severkin asks. No one answers. One of the fly-dwarves is upon him and jumps at him with such force that Severkin stumbles backward, hit all over by a hundred stones. And then the stones start to bite. They’re not mere flea bites, sting and itch. They’re the bites of sharp axes or arrows. He can feel blood running into his eyes.