Myths of the Fallen City

by James Derry

  “Calm down, Jamal,” he said, name-raising himself. “Know your role. Remember what Nemeah said. You bring good. You bring glory.”

  He took deep breaths and centered himself. He filled his lungs. Then, with one last mighty inhalation, he plunged into the glowing water and thrust himself (as bravely as he could) into the unknown.

  ***

  Sygne was right: There were more air pockets along the way. She was waiting for him in another one, just a few yards further along the tunnel. They waited for a minute; then he nodded grimly when she said they should move on.

  They swam past a few smaller pockets and emerged into a large grotto. The floor here sloped gradually upward until the glowing water was just a shallow scrim that rippled across sand and broken bits of rock. Jamal stared down at the puddle lapping at his feet. That water had nearly killed him, but it looked far less menacing now. And Sygne seemed far less heroic than he’d imagined her a few seconds ago. Her short hair was plastered to her head, which made her ears look huge. Her kaftan dress was soaked through, and it hung shapeless across her body. Her legs were so pale, they looked gray. Her shins were bruised, and her knees were scraped and bleeding.

  “We made it,” she puffed.

  “Right back where we were before,” Jamal said. “Essoth’s eyeful! It stinks in here.” The air in the cave smelled of sulfur and brine, with a strong undercurrent of decaying fish.

  “Are you okay?” Sygne asked.

  “No. I suppose nearly drowning has put me in a bad mood.”

  “Well then,” Sygne said, not at all discouraged by Jamal’s tone. “Let’s see if we can find a way to somewhere safer and less smelly.”

  The walls of the grotto were formed of basalt, smooth and black. Here and there, the walls glittered with slimy condensation, and Jamal thought he saw bugs or worms crawling in the flickering blue light. He leaned closer to one shaft of basalt and squinted into the dark. There was something embossed onto the black rock, like a sculpture in relief.

  Sygne called from the other side of the cavern. “There’s a fossil over here! Something like a trilobite! Do you see a fossil over there as well?”

  Jamal didn’t know what a fossil was. What he saw looked like a long, clawless lobster (as long as his forearm) that had been turned to stone and melded into the black basalt while in mid-squirm. Was it a sculpture or an ensorcelled crustacean? In either case, the form of it was eerily beautiful. Its body had been frozen in a calligraphic line, and a pretty texture sparkled between the centipede’s coils. As Jamal’s eyes adjusted to the gloom, he realized he was looking at tiny, monochrome shells scattered into the stone surface like stardust. He scanned the galaxies of shells until another petrified creature caught his eye. It was a cuttlefish, curled like a fetus on the stone.

  “There’s a starfish over here!” Sygne called. “And some kind of large prawn. This place is a treasure trove!”

  The cuttlefish had one eye showing, and it was half-lidded, as if it had been nearly dozing. Or maybe it was waking. Jamal shivered. The droplets of water on his skin suddenly made the air more chill.

  “Try to be quieter,” he warned. Although he didn’t know why he had an urge to say this. He could feel Sygne’s eyes at his back, but he didn’t turn to look at her. In a low voice, he said, “There’s something sinister about this place. Do you feel it?”

  Jamal held one hand out toward the cuttlefish. His fingers glided near the stone as he walked, but he didn’t touch it. He also saw a starfish, but its five arms were far longer than any starfish he’d ever seen in real life. Its limbs were frozen into wriggling patterns across the stone.

  Beyond the serpentine starfish, Jamal found an entire culture of coral that ran across the rock columns like blood vessels on a strongman’s arm.

  The grotto funneled into a passage. The tight pillars of basalt and the high ceiling made Jamal think of a cathedral. A trickle of luminescent water ran like a tiny, spectral creek through the grit on the floor.

  Where did the passage lead? A voice in Jamal’s head told him he didn’t want to find out. But he ventured into the passage anyway. Sygne hurried to catch up. She was trying to be quiet, but he could hear her sandals crunching through the pebbles and sand.

  Sygne whispered, “I wish I had a way to make us some extra light.”

  Jamal just nodded. He wasn’t sure if Sygne could see him do it. He had to touch the cavern wall to keep track of where he was walking, and immediately he touched another stonework creature, stuck in mid-slither. He stifled a groan.

  Sygne said, “Did you find another fossil? Don’t worry. Fossilization is a perfectly natural phenomenon. These creatures have probably been dead for hundreds of thousands of years.” Jamal could sense that Sygne had begun touching the surrounding walls as well. “Oh… There are a lot of fossils on these stones… Ugh… This one feels… And there are so many… I have to admit it doesn’t seem feasible that there would be so many jumbled together…”

  For thirty seconds they crept along, and the walls squeezed in closer. The shadows and the stench of rotten fish grew thicker.

  “Jamal? I wish you would say something.”

  “Something…”

  “Oh, very funny. I—”

  “No,” Jamal reached behind him and clasped Sygne’s hand. “Something’s there. Up ahead. Do you see that?”

  A sliver of bluish light peeked from behind a bend in the passage.

  “Oh no,” Sygne said in a voice that was low and slow with dread. Jamal knew what she was feeling. Suddenly the claustrophobic darkness of the passageway didn’t seem so uncomfortable. The dark was keeping them hidden and safe. The bluish light ahead might expose them to some kind of lethal awfulness.

  The stench was overpowering, and now it had a ferrous tang to it. A musty breeze moved the air—rhythmically, like a breath. He released Sygne’s hand so that he could keep both hands free and in front of him. Sygne’s fingers gripped tightly around the inside of his elbow. She was clinging to him. Afraid.

  “Maybe we should go back.”

  Jamal clenched his jaw and forced his eyebrows down into a scowl. It was time to stop pouting and start proving that he was the hero of this story.

  “No,” he said. “Remember the last time we felt this… breeze… We turned back then, and that’s what led us to the trash chute and all the disasters that followed. This time we forge ahead.”

  “You’re right.”

  “I just wish I had a sword. But don’t worry, I’m not completely useless without a weapon.”

  Sygne said, “I know… Oh drat!”

  He jumped. “What?”

  “I forgot to look for my pocketbook… while we were in the courtyard. Sorry, I suppose this isn’t the best time to be thinking about that.”

  Jamal sighed. “No. It’s comforting that you can worry about other things at a moment like this.”

  Then, with Sygne following close behind him, Jamal walked into the light.

  ***

  It was a strangely paradoxical situation, Sygne decided, to be a scientist thrust into such an uncanny environment—a state of being so unnatural that it was positively metaphysical.

  Sygne had already lived through an improbable encounter with a goddess. In that moment—far from the steadfast fortifications of the Academy at Albatherra—Sygne had understood why an ordinary person would go to great lengths to display their admiration or devotion to such beings. Or, conversely, why they would devote a great deal of energy into ensuring that they never attracted a deity’s direct animus—or even just their attention.

  And now she found herself in the presence of the Dweller Under Dreams. An Ancient One.

  A god’s god.

  They were in a vaulted cave, expansive enough to hold the Dweller’s ample size. The very air shimmered with the power of its presence. It was like watching sunlight reflect off of a rippling pool, except there was no way to pinpoint the source of the light here. It
seemed to move in unearthly angles, in a way that made Sygne feel bombarded and nauseous.

  The Dweller was unmoving. Sygne had the distinct impression that it was in a deep slumber. She didn’t want to imagine how much worse its effects would be if it woke into its own omnipotent version of consciousness. Even while unconscious, the Firstspawn was inflicting a trauma on the natural world.

  It was a dreadful miracle. A canker in the flesh of reality. A wound. A raw, torn hole. It was a wellspring through which one could pull the wisdom of the ages. It was also a mire through which a person could fall and be forgotten forever.

  All of these thoughts came to her, and Sygne couldn’t tell if her close proximity to the Dweller was expanding her consciousness—or if the Dweller was pressing its own alien perceptions into her mind like a fistful of acupuncture needles. She felt her mind stretch and shrink, stretch and shrink. At the same time, the Dweller’s cave seemed to be inflating beyond all perspective. The fossils in the ceiling grew as wide as constellations glimmering darkly in a night sky.

  She called to Jamal, “How long have we been here?”

  “I don’t know.” Jamal looked as seasick and as stupid as Sygne felt.

  “Can we get out of here?” Sygne asked.

  “I don’t know.”

  Sygne couldn’t tell up from down. Her head was spinning; she needed to get off of her feet. She raised herself on her tiptoes and tried to find a place to sit, but the floor was too high to reach.

  Jamal suggested, “We should try to not die.”

  “That’s a good idea.”

  Sygne wanted to close her eyes and concentrate, but she realized she had forgotten where her eyelids were. ‘Try to not die.’ That was an important thing to remember, but her memory wouldn’t let her grasp it.

  There was something else she was forgetting. Something very recent.

  She made herself drift toward the Dweller Under Dreams. Its aura was magnetic. Something she could affix herself to.

  ‘No! Don’t do that! Not literally!’

  What did she see when she looked at the Dweller? A collection of deadly, invasive shapes. An incomprehensible symmetry of death. Spikes. Needles. All gathered toward its black center. The center. The fulcrum of the universe. The gravities of every existent and non-existent world converged here—at the Dweller’s dark heart. Those gravities compelled her to step forward and embrace the center of all things.

  ‘No! Don’t do what Ilona did. Stay where you are!’

  ‘Ilona? Where is Ilona?’

  Again Sygne tried to focus. What exactly did she see? Some of the Dweller’s quills were as thick as spears. Other quills were as fine as strands of hair. Those reminded Sygne of the needles that had been stuck in Ramyya’s body.

  “It’s an urchin,” Jamal shouted. His voice was far away.

  “What’s that?”

  “A sea urchin. That’s what it is. A gigantic sea urchin.”

  Sygne saw that Jamal was right. She chuckled.

  “Why are you screaming?” Jamal asked.

  “Oh sorry,” she said. Jamal was floating away from her. She reiterated, “Try to not die.”

  Jamal called over his shoulder, “Oh. That’s a good idea.”

  Sygne felt for a moment like she had regained a handhold on her sanity. “It’s just an oversized, omnipotent sea urchin,” she told herself. “A passive invertebrate… Incapable of higher brain function… That’s all.”

  Jamal appeared right beside her. He whispered, “That’s all.”

  She nodded. “A boneless bottom-feeder.”

  “That is all,” Jamal breathed in her ear. “That is all. And everything that ever was.”

  Sygne stared hard at the flesh of the Dweller where it was exposed between its larger quills. Her mind began to piece together something that resembled a labyrinthine face. It was like a portrait scribbled by a dozen madmen. She saw milky, sightless eyes—too many to count. And branching mouths that twined around the bases of the Dweller’s spikes. Lizard lips that snarled to show tiny, sharp teeth. She saw nostrils—or maybe they were vestigial ears. And here and there, blackish, slimy nodes that reminded her of fingers.

  The Dweller’s eyes lolled like the eyes of an opium addict, and the nodules on its skin began twitching. There was something of a beckoning gesture in the movement of those digits, and Sygne felt herself moving toward the Dweller.

  “No!” Jamal called. Once again he was far away. “Remember what you’ve seen. Try not to die.”

  She dragged her gaze away from the Dweller’s flesh until something bright and fairly large caught her attention. A flash of white. Lurid splashes of red, vivid enough to register as recently spilled blood. She saw ragged folds of white wool, hoisted onto two of the Dweller’s largest quills, like dirty laundry drying on a branch. But someone still wore the clothes. Two arms and two legs dangled from the bloody wool. A head slumped lifelessly between limp shoulders. The dead woman’s face was hidden, but Sygne knew who it was.

  Princess Ilona had finally had her communion.

  8 – Mementos

  How did Ilona die? Sygne imagined the princess following the sounds of the Dweller’s ‘breathing.’ Coming face-to-faces with the Ancient One. Treading toward it. That inexorable gravity.

  Sygne could see the moment: Ilona stepping closer and closer until she had impaled herself on the Dweller’s quills. It seemed like an incredibly difficult and painful way to commit suicide, but Sygne shuddered at the possibility that it had been far too easy for Ilona. The Dweller’s smallest quills could bring ecstasy when injected under a person’s skin. Sygne imagined it: a moment of indescribable, ultimate pleasure as the Dweller penetrated her flesh. It might be…

  Jamal’s face hovered in front of her. “Remember,” he said, “try not to die.”

  Sygne nodded at that. Or did she shake her head?

  Jamal frowned. “We should leave.”

  Sygne reached out to Ilona. What did it feel like? There was a quill right there. It ran as black and as straight as an architect’s line in charcoal. But protruding into space. And through Ilona’s ribcage. Through her heart? Blood boiled along the length of quill. Sygne wanted to touch it. The Dweller Under Dreams. What did it feel like? How did it feel?

  Jamal clamped his hand onto Sygne’s shoulder, meaning to draw her away. Instead Jamal’s touch jolted her like thunder. She heard a loud snap. Then she was immersed in a strange vision.

  She saw:

  A man dressed like a gladiator. He loomed over her, very tall and imposing. And she realized that she was a teenager. A boy. An Ardhian. The Dweller Under Dreams could crystalize past experiences, and now she was living through one of Jamal’s memories. The man wore a half-shield on one of his shoulders. His forearms were wrapped in leather bracers, and he held a wooden sparring sword that he raised over his head, threatening to smack Jamal.

  “You’re not yet free, maggot! Your life still belongs to Gjuir-Khib.

  Young Jamal stood his ground, staring straight ahead. “Yes, sergeant.”

  The sergeant slashed his wooden sword through the air. “Are you ready to give your maggot life to Gjuir-Khib? Are you ready to die? If not, I’ll kill you now.”

  Young Jamal laughed. “Sorry. What you just said makes no—”

  The sergeant thrust his half-shield into Jamal’s face, and the memory was shattered in an explosion of black.

  ***

  With a jolt, Jamal found himself in Sygne’s memory.

  The tang of burning wood hung in the air. And another smell… the briny mist of a choppy sea.

  He was a toddler rocking in a cradle. No, not a cradle. A raft. A woman leaned into his field of vision. She had long red hair that flowed down to tickle his nose. No. Sygne’s nose.

  The woman’s face was blurred. Sygne would only focus on the ends of her hair, which seemed to move and change color, like flame.

  The sound of torn sails snapping in the w
ind. Their raft sloshed next to a large, black penteconter. The galley’s razor-sharp bow was shaped like the snout of a dragon, and it was wreathed in flame. The sight of fire and sea together chilled Jamal to the bone. Two deadly elements converging.

  What had happened here?

  The raft drifted away from the doomed galley. The woman cradled Sygne to her chest, and Sygne stared to the horizon. Jamal recognized the walls of Albatherra’s palace complex, standing tall on a bluff overlooking the sea. And farther inland, shining like newly cut teeth on the scrubby hills, he saw the white-walled buildings of the city’s Academy.

  ***

  Another memory burst to life around Sygne. She was Jamal. He was young again, with arms and legs that were as skinny and springy as greenwood branches on an olive tree.

  He stood, ready to fight. His heart hammered in his chest, and Sygne could feel that restless thrum of his pulse.

  He was on a training field. The ground was packed sand, heavily trampled and gouged by sparring men. An older, larger man charged at Jamal, and Jamal whirled out of his way, lashing at his greaved legs with a wooden sword. The sergeant stumbled—and swung hard at Jamal’s head.

  Jamal rolled away. Rolled in a ball. Sygne’s vision spun with him. Sky and sand. Sky and sand. Sky and sand. Jamal snapped to his feet, and his vision remained steady. Not a hint of dizziness.

  “What are you doing?” the sergeant growled. He slashed with his practice sword, and Jamal did a full somersault to get away. Sygne felt a whir of vicarious joy at the sudden grace of the gesture.

  “Stop that!” the sergeant demanded. “Are you training to be a soldier or a circus performer?”