The Ishim Underground

by Carrie Bailey

CHAPTER SEVEN

  For Eron, who had never lived outside city or village walls, life on the road had only been fuel for his daydreams. During the few times he visited his aunt outside Auck City in Ponsonby Forrest, Aden and he would chase each other around pretending to thieves and Guards. Eron was always the thief. In the city, young Auckians often told stories about thieves and highway men that drank blood and lived in caves with Ishim, a race of beings made from mist. Some claimed to have encountered them while traveling, but these little more than ghost stories to the people they told. A few older Yellow Guardsmen shared rumors that the Ishim controlled the wastelands. Others believed the entire city had fallen to their subversive influence, but even the mention of their name was usually discarded as being linked to a conspiracy too large to entertain. Eron never believed in them.

  The nomads, however, were very real and so were the highwaymen that wore the distinctive hebra-stripped akubras and eye patches. Apparently all of them lost an eye in some barbaric ritual. Unlike the nomads, highwaymen rode alone, robbed indiscriminately and never engaged in trade with Auckians. There were other differences between the highwaymen and the common nomads. The people of the road favored bright clothing and spicy food while the highwaymen preferred leather, feathers, beads carved from the bones of their victims and purportedly, blood stains were also en vogue. At least, that was what Achazya said.

  At dusk, Eron saw the first silhouette of a man on a horse with the distinct outline of a triangular hat and he wasted no time ducking behind one of the concrete boxes clustered along the side of the road. Against his chest, he clutched a pointed stone. The box was shorter than he was tall and surrounded with footprints in the dust where the structure met the ground.

  “Just let me live one more day,” he breathed so all the gawds could hear him.

  Amit followed Eron, skipping along the trail away from the road.

  “Get down!” he hissed at the wild boy.

  But, even as the rider approached, Amit ignored him and walked toward a ring of concrete in the center of the scattered boxes.

  Eron closed his eyes and waited. His horse snorted as the man dismounted. The scuffling sound the boots was followed by a cascade of rocks rolling down the path toward him. And drawing one strong solid breath, Eron griped the handle of his stone blade and lifted it above his head with both hands. He couldn't hide while Amit was in danger. And if he lingered too long in the shadows, the opportunity to surprise the highwayman would pass. With all the courage he could muster, he roared with the fury of a tortured soul far from home and leapt from behind the box. Planting his feet steadily apart in front of the man, he sought a vulnerable patch in the man's leather apron.

  "Ahhhhhhhhh!!!" Eron continued to cry.

  Only a single loogaroo responded with a deafening howl.

  With his horse's reins in one hand, the strange man waited. Eron didn't move. Amit rushed to the highwayman's side. Confused, Eron lowered the stone.

  The three of them looked back and forth at each other and the horse cocked its head to the side and studied Eron with one large dark eye.

  “Awkward,” said the highwayman. “Would you put that down?”

  "Classic," laughed Amit.

  He towered at least two heads above Eron. The man’s skin was darker than his hair and a gold tooth shone vividly in his smile. Over a dark tunic, his apron of woven leather split at the hip into two panels that protected his legs. On each hand, he wore two gold rings. Around his neck hung a glass vile.

  Eron tossed his stone aside and dropped to his knees, but neither the man, nor the boy said anything as they walked past him. Eron stood and walked sheepishly after them. The highway man gathered some twigs and brush, which he threw in the middle of the concrete ring. About the same length across as Eron's arm span, the rim was wide enough for Amit to sit on, but once a fire was lit, he would have to move. When the highwayman began to roll a stick on the underside of a section of bark, Eron got the courage to offer him the fire horn.

  Fortunately, the ember still smoldered in the dusty olive moss.

  On the horizon, a brilliant sunset swelled. A single star embedded in a wispy fuchsia cloud came into view as the invisible breeze high above carried the cover away. The air filled with the early signs of night and the scent of burning wood as the man loaded larger branches onto the meager flames. By the time the sky had erupted into a flurry of distant points of light and darkness, the crackling wood was shooting its own orange sparks in a stream above their heads.

  "When I first saw you," said the man warming his hands. "I thought you were someone else."

  It wasn't cold enough to need the fire for warmth. Eron starred into the flames hoping they'd been built to keep the predatory megafauna, the panthera and the loogaroo away.

  "But, I don’t think so,” continued the highwayman walking around the circular fire pit. "The man I know is familiar with the roads. You are not."

  But, their conversation was interrupted by a group of nomads joining the small party. Without a vardo or horses, they travelled light. In their bindles, they had food, which they deposited next to the highwayman.

  “Do you have anything to add?” he said hacking at the carcass of a takahe with a very large sharp knife that he kept fastened to his apron.

  Eron watched him deftly work the blade against the dead bird’s bones.

  “He means you,” growled one of the nomads who had a heavy brow ridge and a short green tunic. He wore his hair loose, but tied some of his pale strands around his temples together in the back with a strip of leather. To Eron, it looked almost feminine.

  “He means me what?” said Eron looking at the new arrivals.

  “If you can’t add to the stew,” said a man holding a small child on his lap. "You can't eat here."

  “And not that one,” said the man with long blond hair pointing at Amit. "I recognize him. He has no name."

  "Rubbish!" said Amit hiding behind the highwayman.

  The man's consort had arranged a worn swatch of leather in a hollowed log and filled it with water from two grimy botas. She was mixing a paste from the bird fat and a bit of flour, when the nomad turned his attention to the wild boy.

  “Since when do you think you can come here?” he said sternly as other man used two sticks to drop a few porous rocks from the fire into the leather pot they had fashioned.

  "I'm Amit," said Amit proudly pulling a bag of salt from his bindle, which as far as Eron could tell, might have been the only thing in it.

  “I’ve seenieated the child many times,” said the highwayman twisting a branch in the fire until more sparks rose. “No one has ever turned him away from the lockers.”

  The nomad lurched toward Amit and grabbed for the unsuccessfully to take his salt. Amit ran to the other side of the pit and tossed the salt, which landed on the highwayman’s leather pants. The nomad threw a small stone at Amit and his toddler started to wail, but only a loogaroo and the haunting echo of it’s hollow cry responded while the wild boy darted back behind one of the boxes and watched the man carefully with his wide catlike stare.

  “You don’t belong here either,” said another nomad darkly. His reddish brown face was blotchy and pocketed. He wore a patchwork tunic with ragged edges.

  Nervously, Eron plucked a leaf from a bush growing between the box and the fire ring.

  “You don't belong here,” repeated the man setting down his child. He stood in front of Eron, but as Eron cowered, the highway man took off his hat and four dark braids tumbled out.

  Slowly, he stood.

  “What is the difference between a man who belongs here and one that doesn’t?” he asked the two men.

  In total, there were five nomads. Two women. Two men. And one frightened little boy.

  “Everything,” said the man siting back down and clenching his fists. He was shorter and wider than the highwayman, but no less intimidating. What he lacked in height, he made up in density.

  “The boy said hi
s name was Amit,” said the highwayman gesturing toward the box where Amit hid. “Who gave you that name?"

  "I named him," said Eron. "I don't know understand what is happening here, but I don't want any problems. I’ve got sausages and Amit and I will find another locker.”

  “That’s suicide,” scoffed the less aggressive nomadic man.

  “You stay,” said the highwayman starring the other nomad down. "Amit, come here and meet the others."

  With the flames reflecting in his eyes, the light haired nomad stood, watched them and then turned and spat on the ground.

  "Do you not know what the Auckian Guard did at Grey Camp last week?” he challenged the highwayman. “You and I both know THAT is how an Auckian talks. And that is a boy named by that Auckian.” He said pointing aggressively them both as if he could shoot bullets from the tip of his finger by shear force of will. “They are not supra-welcome on this road or in these lockers and they will not share THIS meal," he said pointing to the stew the women were preparing. He looked at a tree and smiled wildly. “I say if anyone of the people finds an Auckian on the road, we disembowl them. Tie their insides to a tree and make them dance.”

  “That’s a graphic suggestion,” said the highwayman.

  “It’s nothing compared to what they’re willing to do to us,” he said.

  “I lost my aunt,” his consort whispered, but the nomad silenced her before she could continue.

  “Only Auckian guards come this far East. How did THIS Auckian sponge get on the road?” asked the man pointing again.

  The highwayman nodded and turned to Eron, “How long did you live in the city?”

  "I think I was born there," said Eron, one second before he realized that right then was a great time to lie.

  “GUARD!” shouted nomad as his rage flooded his eyes.

  "Wait," said the man in the akubra, an effective sunshield with one side rim pinned against the top. He held out both hands in a somewhat calming gesture. “Neither of these boys have violated the code. It doesn’t matter how angry you feel.”

  “Would you spare a panthera if you knew it would come back to kill your family?” demanded the nomad.

  The camp erupted in a spattering of abuse and poorly formed arguments. Everyone had something to say and Eron was at the center of the confusion, but he wasn’t listening. Eron watched Amit slink away into the brush and climb a tree where he could watch the rukus with limited involvement. Although he wanted to follow the boy, he was petrified by his own fear.

  Then just as the angry nomad aimed an elbow at Eron's jaw, but stopping short of contact, his partner stuck out her foot and the man landed across one of the boulders used for sitting on. She was in every way a pitiful sight. Thin with dark circles under her eyes, the woman had all the signs of someone carrying a burden beyond her means and she seethed with bitterness as she stood over her husband.

  “We don’t like you,” she said to Eron.

  The highwayman gently placed both hands on the upper part of the woman’s arms, which were covered by a black knit shawl typically worn by widows or those enduring bereavement, and she remained still in his grasp as the light-haired nomad gathered himself up again. The other couple waited, but said and did nothing.

  "You think I'll marry you now?" the man said to the mother of his child. "You pre-think any man will want you? You're a waste of life.”

  “Enough,” said the highwayman. “By the code, you can leave.”

  "By the code," repeated the other couple in unison.

  Eron shuttered as if he had witnessed something private that he should not have seen, but he was even more stunned when the man grabbed his bindle and marched up the path to the road alone.

  His consort collapsed into sobs with her face in both hands. The other woman, whose dark curly hair swirled about her like the hide of a beefalo, spooned some of the stew into some hollow gourds and set it on the concrete ring in front of the woman. Eron did not know what to do. After all the nomads were served, the woman dried her eyes and nodded to the other who spooned enough for two extra servings.

  Amit dropped from the tree.

  After eating their meal in silence, Eron looked around the daunting space beyond the camp. A void of darkness. An endless sea of black. And yet above it, the sky opened deeply where the stars were suspended and gave no light to ground below. Somehow he thought it would be lighter.

  “"Shouldn't we be going," Eron whispered to Amit.

  “Before the stew?” asked the wild boy.

  “Even if the fire is kept going all night, we need some kind of shelter,” said Eron trying a mouthful of the stew.

  All stew had the same flavor to him.

  "Balls," said Amit stuffing his face until his cheeks could hold no more.

  "I'm serious," said Eron.

  The nomadic woman was nursing her toddler. Eron was startled that she had spoken to him. He had never seen a woman's breast and as hard as he tried, he could not take his eyes off the faint texture of a vein running from under her tunic toward her nipple.

  “Is this your first night?”

  Eron avoided looking directly in the woman's eyes. He didn’t know how to respond.

  “Have you never been on the road before?” she asked.

  “I slept in a carriage on the way over,” said Eron. There was a brief awkward silence before he got the courage to open his mouth again. “How do you survive? Don’t the loogaroo? The panthera? Don’t they…”

  “I uberpromise you a dry safe place to recover through the night,” laughed the highwayman.

  "Where?" said Eron.

  The man held back a smile, but Amit and the nomads had less self-control.

  “The lockers,” said the nomadic woman laughing.

  She pointed to the box behind her and as if Eron just passed one of Achzya’s more taxing examinations, he slumped over in suddenly flooded with release. He wasn’t aware of the tension he was carrying until it was gone. The boxes. It was too obvious. Where the ground dipped on the outer edge, a board covered an entrance. They were shelter.

  “I thought you didn’t like me,” said Eron taking the sausages from his bundle. He handed them to the highwayman who skewered them and leaned their casings against the flame close enough for them to visibly sweat their juices.

  “It’s nothing more than a wall,” said the woman putting her breast away. “Any powerite your people think it gives you is an illusion.” Seeing his bewildered expression, she continued. “Auck City. Your wall. It means nothing to me. I’m flesh. You’re flesh. When we die, we both return to dust. We’re all dust in the end.”

  “And your contracts, too,” said the man in the patchwork tunic. “Paper. That’s what you’ll never pre-understand.”

  Eron held out his empty gourd and accepted one of the cooked sausages from the highwayman. The nomads thanked him, but somehow, he couldn’t help feeling they resented his generosity more than they appreciated it.

  “What is that?” said the highwayman suddenly as he was stepping over Eron’s gray bundle. He hadn’t noticed the scroll case sticking out and a minor tremor shook his limbs.

  “He can read,” Amit blurt out.

  In the quiet moments that the nomads starred at him, Eron could hear the wind rustling the leaves above and snapping bits of wood in the fire seemed deafening.

  “Is it true?” asked the mother whose child was now sleeping soundly against her chest under the shawl.

  Eron watched at the highwayman. He picked up the leather case, untied the strings and unrolled it. A few fragments of charcoal slid out and landed in the shadow of the pit where light of the fire did not reach. He handed the skin with Liam’s Discourse to Eron, exposed only far enough to see the final lines.

  “Um,” said Eron. It was hard to see, but he’d read it so many times before. “This. This is Liam’s f-final writings. He w-wrote something he was going to call The Anthem for Tomorrow on the night Seth murdered him.” As everyone in Auckland knew the s
tories of their founders, little explanation was required.

  An Anthem for Tomorrow

  Though the days are ending,

  We stand upon the shore.

  Though our lives are now behind us,

  We are free forevermore.

  Nothing ends, which is remembered.

  As the dusk precedes the dawn.

  Those who fought for justice,

  Are now dead within the ground.

  Those still waiting for equality,

  Will never make another sound.

  Nothing ends, which is remembered.

  In the silence before the dawn.

  What is lost is not forgotten,

  Though the rivers are flowing red.

  It is written in our blood.

  That we recall the honored dead.

  Nothing ends, which is remembered.

  In the darkness before dawn.

  All tears shed in darkness,

  Will dry upon the ground.

  And with liberty is all around us,

  We hear the beauty of her sound.

  Nothing ends, which is remembered.

  As we watch and wait for dawn.

  We will build a new tomorrow,

  Upon our forsaken Earth.

  Only yesterday reminds us,

  Of their death and our rebirth.

  Nothing ends, which is remembered.

  As we stand here at the dawn.

  What the brave do just by living,

  To raise their heads to meet the sun.

  Is the choice we make together,

  It happens one by one.

  Nothing ends, which is remembered.

  In the beauty of the dawn.

  What you need to build tomorrow,

  Is the strength to seize today.

  “I don’t think he finished it,” said Eron rolling up the scroll.

  “How do you know was reading?” asked the woman who had been quiet all evening. “He could know it and just lookify at the paper.”

  “He’s reading,” said the highwayman. “I’ve seen it done before. You can tell by the way his eyes move.”

  “How do you make the symbols talk like that?” said the departed man’s consort.

  “Show me?” said the man in the patchwork sitting next to Eron and grabbing the corner of the scroll.

  “The wind is picking up,” said the highwayman interrupting them. “It’s time we all got below.”

  Relived, Eron stuffed the scroll back into this cloak and gather it up over his shoulder carrying the leather straps in one hand as the highwayman started throwing dirt on what remained of the fire. He marveled at the influence the man seemed to have over the nomads. Quietly, one by one, they picked up their bindles and stole away quietly into a locker. Eron shivered as he followed Amit to the opening of one of the concrete boxes.

  “We won’t fit,” he told the boy seeing the entrance.

  The locker, as the nomads called them, stood waist high with an opening in the base facing the slope of the hill. Amit moved a wooden slab and motioned Eron inside. The entrance was too narrow for the loogaroo or panthera, but large enough for any man. The dank dark space within the locker carried the rancid flavor of herbs and sweat. Eron lowered himself in, underestimating the drop, and fell to the ground, landing hard on his rear. He stood comfortably and reached out to feel the walls as his eyes adjusted to the dim. The texture of the walls was gummy. Without a place to wipe his hand, Eron waited for Amit to crawl inside and then patted him aggressively on the back until the moisture was gone.

  “I owe you one,” said Eron.

  The light of the crescent moon filtered through two pipes on the ceiling that allowed the night air to ventilate the empty chamber. Although Eron had seen the boxes dotting the roads on the carriage ride to Dunedin, he had never imagined their purpose. He thought the villagers might have used them for storage or possibly, the nomads kept them to trap smaller animals. As he settled into a far corner on the hard ground, the highwayman set the cover over the opening and it was dark again.

  Eron’s carriage didn’t stop at the nomadic camps when they traveled from Auck City to Dunedin earlier in the spring. Eron thought the bedbug infested straw pads of the inns where he and the soft spoken driver slept were the worst accommodations to be found on the island. Amit was fast asleep and wasn’t bothered as Eron turned and repositioned himself for the twentieth time. If there was one positive thing to be said about the lockers, it was that they had a slight advantage over the shepherd’s root cellar - no roots.

  “Are you awake?” said Eron. He was lying flat on his back with hands crossed over his abdomen.

  Silence.

  “It reeks in here,” said Eron loudly but, the boy didn’t stir. “Goodnight,” he whispered. “I hope you said your prayers.”

  He looked at the slumbering lump in the other corner.

  “We’re going to need it.”