Reunification

by Timothy L. Cerepaka

  Chapter Seven

  The beautiful happiness that had filled my body was almost instantly replaced by sheer rage at our failure. I looked down at the narrow drain, unable to think clearly, wondering if this was all some cruel joke that the Old Gods were playing on us.

  The entire waste chamber was empty of the filth and garbage now, save for a few spare empty food bags and some puddles here and there. Nonetheless, that stench—that awful, demonic stench that reminded me of a thousand tons of cow excrement piled on top of each other—remained, entering my nostrils and clouding mine thoughts.

  I was so angry that I barely even paid attention to Resita. He had ceased chirping in delight; instead, he made choking sounds until he threw up onto the floor. Seeing him throw up—which he had no doubt been holding in—almost made me do the same, but I did not want to lose even that false South Delanian tea I had had earlier, so I held it in.

  When Resita ceased hurling, he looked up, breathing hard, and wiped bits of barf off his beak. I saw no reason for that, as his arms were hardly much cleaner than his mouth, but I kept mine silence.

  “God … damn it,” Resita hissed, his voice much hoarser now. “I forgot. While the other drains are big enough for people of our size to slide through, this drain isn't.”

  “How could ye have forgotten that?” I said, without any sympathy in mine voice. “Doth seem like a mighty large thing for ye to forget.”

  “Because it's been years since I last looked at the blueprints for this place,” Resita snapped. “And the sludge hid it, so obviously I couldn't see it and figure out its actual size.”

  “I take it ye did not have a backup plan of any sort?” I asked, putting my hands on mine hips.

  Resita's arms fell to his sides and he sat down on the slimy concrete floor, apparently not bothered by the puddle of sludge he sat in or his barf on the floor before him. “No, I don't.”

  Anger coursed through my veins as hotly as my own blood, but I tried to keep a calm head, for I knew that anger, when not righteous, could lead to darkness.

  “What about the other drains?” I said, gesturing at the ones on the walls all around us. “Could we not climb back up one of them and escape this 'HQ,' as ye call it, that way?”

  “Nope,” said Resita, shaking his head, without looking away from the narrow drain that we had thought would be our smelly savior. “They have no ladders or footholds of any kind. Their surfaces are too slimy for us to gain any footing. Those drains were designed to get rid of things, not allow things to crawl out of them.”

  I rubbed my forehead, for my head was starting to hurt as I considered all of the possibilities before us. Granted, there were very few that came to mind, but I believed that both of us were overlooking something, an escape route that was not obvious. I wished only that I could know what it was.

  Then Resita looked up at me. His bird-like eyes were shining with hope, which made little sense to I, because I saw no hope in this situation whatsoever.

  “Say, you're from Dela, right?” said Resita.

  “Yes,” I said, nodding. “Though I thought we had established that by now, my friend.”

  “I know that,” said Resita, waving off mine sarcasm. “I just wanted to be sure. So does that mean you can use magic? I've heard that the Knights of Se-Dela can channel skyras energy, which is basically the same as magic on Dela, right?”

  I sighed. These Xeeonites had such strange ideas about our 'magic,' as they called it. Granted, we Delanians also referred to it as such, but I did not much like the term, for it made the works of our Sages and wizards and witches sound trivial and childish, even though they were far from that.

  I said none of that, however, as I was in no mood or condition to argue with this bird. Instead, I said, “No, I cannot use magic. Not every Delanian is a wizard, witch, or a wise Sage. Indeed, most Delanians cannot use magic; I mean to say, everyone could learn how to use it, but most do not.”

  “But that doesn't make any sense,” Resita said, tilting his head to the side. “I remember reading an article on the Knights of Se-Dela about a month back. It said that you guys use skyras to cast magical spells and enhance your weapons.”

  I rubbed my forehead again. 'Twas hard for me to think clearly down here, for the stink of the filth and garbage filled mine nostrils deeply, while Resita's silly questions and assumptions about us Knights of Se-Dela only added to the headache that was coming on.

  Thus, I said, “That article was not entirely accurate. You see, we Knights of Se-Dela wear metalligick armor. Skyras energy is contained in and flows through the armor. Whilst we Knights can use the energy stored inside the armor to enhance our weapons and do things such as increase the temperature of our bodies, without our armor, we are utterly powerless.”

  “You mean, since you don't have your armor on right now, you can't use skyras magic at all?” said Resita. The hope was draining from his voice as quickly as the sludge had disappeared down that foul drain in the center of the chamber. “Not even a little?”

  “I could not even light a candle with skyras, for I never bothered to learn the ways of magic,” I admitted. “But even if I had mine armor, I am uncertain how useful it would be in this situation, as our metalligick armor was not designed to aid us in these kinds of situations.”

  “Damn it,” said Resita, punching the concrete floor upon which he sat. “Here I was hoping that you would be able to use some of your magic to get us out of here.”

  “If I could, I would, without hesitation,” I said. “But I cannot. It thus appears that we must rely on the grace of the Old Gods to save us.”

  With nothing else to do, I sat down on the floor next to Resita. 'Twas a disgusting thing, for the floor was covered in the filth and sludge from earlier, but I was getting tired of standing and wished to rest, at least for a while. There was little else I could do here besides that.

  Resita was no longer looking at me. He was staring at the drain, as if it had once been his best friend, only to betray him when he least expected it. At least, I assumed that that was what he was thinking; 'twas hard to tell, for his bird-like features were still not very easy for me to read.

  “The grace of the Old Gods,” Resita suddenly repeated, in a mocking tone. “What the hell are the Old Gods, anyway? I've never heard of them before.”

  It took all of mine willpower not to grab Resita by the throat and throttle him like the chicken he was. Sadly, this was not something I had little practice dealing with, for the Old Gods were not very well respected even on Dela, when they were remembered at all, of course.

  I rested my hands in my lap. “Not very surprising. Few people, even on Dela, know of the Old Gods … and of those few, even fewer of them respect those deities.”

  “Why?” said Resita. “Were the Old Gods bad?”

  “Nay,” I said, shaking my head. “They were good, better than King Waran-Una at any rate. They once ruled all of Dela eons ago, having laid the foundations for that world at the beginning of time. Peace was associated with their reign, until Waran-Una came and ended all of that.”

  “But I thought Waran-Una always ruled Dela,” said Resita. “That's what I was always told and what I've always believed.”

  “That does not make it any truer than it is,” I replied. “For you see, King Waran-Una came from somewhere else. I do not know where, exactly, but I do know that he did not always live on Dela. And when he did come to Dela, he clashed with the Old Gods over its leadership.”

  “Let me guess,” said Resita, “he won, right?”

  “Yes,” said I with a sigh. “He defeated the Old Gods in combat and then banished them to the moon, where all of them sleep to this day.”

  Resita scratched the back of his head in puzzlement. “I don't understand. It sounds to me like you don't really like Waran-Una. If so, why do you work for him as a Knight of Se-Dela?”

  “Because not all of us Delanians have rejected worship of the Old Gods,” I said. “Waran-Una has banned worship of
them in Se-Dela, as have the leaders of other Delanian countries, but that has not stopped a minority of us Delanians from continuing the worship practices of our ancestors in secret.”

  “You still didn't explain why you work for Waran-Una,” Resita pointed out.

  I put a hand over mine heart. “I work for him because I was offered knowledge of mine sister's whereabouts if I would become a Knight. And whilst I have never had much respect for the Knights of Se-Dela, I did not want to lose the best opportunity I had to find and reunite with my sister.”

  “So you did it for your sister, basically,” said Resita. “You mean you aren't afraid that your Old Gods are angry at you for serving the being who defeated them?”

  My hands balled into fists, but I kept mine anger from bubbling up. “Nay. My father told me stories about how understanding the Old Gods are of our particular circumstances; besides, my true allegiance is not with Waran-Una anyway. Should it ever become necessary, I will break away from the Knights and never look back.”

  “Pragmatism, then,” Resita said. “You do what you need to do in order to survive.”

  “I loathe that term, for it makes me sound like an unprincipled thief who would do anything to ensure his own survival,” I said, “whereas that is not me at all. While I am no fan of the Knights of Se-Dela, I do recognize the good they do in the world, which appeals to my innate sense of justice.”

  “Yeah, yeah, whatever,” said Resita. His head sank lower onto his chest. “I don't even know why we're talking about this. It's not like any of this stuff will help us get out of here.”

  “Perhaps not,” I said. “But what else shall we do? For there is clearly no other way for us to escape this place. Talking takes the mind off our unpleasant situation.”

  “True, but sometimes it's necessary to focus on our 'unpleasant' situation, as you call it, if we're going to survive,” said Resita. He gulped and gagged. “And the smell … it's the worst smell I've ever had the displeasure of smelling.”

  “Agreed,” I said. I looked around the chamber again. “But there must be some way we can escape. After all, don't ye Foundation people have to come down here occasionally to ensure that nothing needs to be repaired or replaced?”

  “We have robots for that,” said Resita. “Very small ones, too, with cameras so they can take pictures and video. Then we send other robots down to fix any problems, such as cracks in the chutes or any chunks of crap clogging up the drain or whatever.”

  “Of course,” I said, not hiding the disgust in mine voice. “Ye Xeeonites never do anything yourselves. All ye ever do is rely upon your automatons and your machines. Your hands are as soft as pudding.”

  “Is that supposed to be an insult?” said Resita with a snort. “And here I thought you Delanians were the people that the great poet Granga came from. Guess not all of you Delanians can be as creative with your words as he was, now can you?”

  I sighed. “Let us not argue. I tire of it. It does nothing except make us more frustrated and angry.”

  “Then what do you suggest we do?” said Resita, throwing his hands into the air. “Simply sit here and hope that these 'Old Gods' you speak of wake up long enough to actually help us?”

  “Nay,” I said, shaking mine head. “The Old Gods could help us, but they can be capricious and choosy in how they distribute their aid. Therefore, we are on our own right now, which means we must rely on our own smarts to escape this bleak situation.”

  “That would be a bit more encouraging to me if you had any smarts to begin with,” Resita said in a tone as sharp as a knife. “Remember how you tried to fight those monsters earlier? With only an energy knife?”

  “'Twas better than fleeing like a frightened chick,” I replied. “Or must I remind you just who it was that suggested we escape into this garbage pit in the first place?”

  Resita folded his arms over his chest and looked away. “Why don't we change the subject to something more constructive? Like finding an escape route?”

  “Oh, so now ye want to speak kindly and respectfully,” I said. “How convenient.”

  Resita stood up and walked away, still without looking at me. “Shut up. I'm going to see if I can find a way out of here on my own. You can just sit there if you want.”

  “Or are you just trying to avoid facing your own hypocrisy, my friend?” I said. “Because that is what I sense from ye, which is typical of ye Xeeonites, for I have never heard a Xeeonite apologize for his failings before.”

  As I expected, Resita did not respond to that. Nor did I expect him to, much, for the current situation left me not wanting peace but conflict. Perhaps 'twas the stink of the concrete pit in which we were trapped, making me surly and unsociable, or perhaps it was just Resita's own bothersome attitude. In either case, I found I was more than happy for him to leave me alone for the moment.

  I sat, therefore, with mine arms around my legs and my chin resting on my knees. I paid little attention to Resita's attempts to search for a route through which we could escape. Click, click, click went his clawed feet against the concrete floor, though I did not look over my shoulder to see him, for there was no need.

  How awful a situation I found myself in. I had been in some narrow situations before—such as the time I was arrested by the Knights of Se-Dela when they attacked a Red Ring Smugglers' hideout—but never one quite as hopeless as this. After all, that arrest had led to me being offered a position in the Knights of Se-Dela, where I had some freedom in where I could go and what I could do.

  Here, however, I could go nowhere and do nothing. The air was impossible to breathe due to the sheer stink that permeated every inch of this chamber. In my mind's eye, I saw myself slowly dying from the lack of fresh air and my corpse being buried by more of that excrement and garbage that had been thrown down here by the Foundation's members (even though I doubted this place would ever be used again, considering how those lizard creatures had apparently thoroughly rid this place of all Foundation agents).

  I shuddered at the thought. Yet I knew not what I could do to avoid that fate, for it seemed as inevitable as the rising and setting of the sun each day. The Old Gods did not seem likely to save us, even though they were the only ones who could, at this point.

  Indeed, perhaps we were not meant to survive at all. My father had always told me that, when a person is born, the Old Gods decide on that person's fate as soon as they leave the womb. Perhaps this was my fate all along: to die in this narrow, stinky pit of despair with a bird man who hated me. 'Twas certainly a harsh fate, but none of the Oracles ever said that every fate was to be sweet and light.

  What made all of this even worse was that I knew I would never see my sister, Kiriah, again. She would not even know what happened to me. Perhaps a whisper in the wind might tell her that I came to Xeeon looking for her, only to vanish into nothing, but that seemed as likely as a dwarf becoming a master swimmer.

  Just as I was about to give up all hope and simply lie there and wait for death to claim me, Resita suddenly chirped and said, “Apakerec, I found something.”

  I jumped to my feet and turned around without even thinking about it. “What did ye find, bird? The way out of here?”

  Resita stood in front of the wall behind me, which looked as solid and thick as any barrier. But then I noticed that one of his hands had pushed in what looked like a portion of the wall into a niche that had not been there before.

  “What is that?” I asked, walking over to Resita to get a better look at his discovery. “A secret button?”

  “Looks like it,” said Resita, his green eyes locked on the panel he pushed into the wall. “I didn't even know this existed. The blueprints never showed any secret passageway—”

  Resita's words were interrupted by the sound of thick and heavy concrete scraping across the floor. The wall before us moved inward, then slid to the side, revealing a secret passage that was as dark as the moon on a shadowy night. 'Twas impossible to see beyond it; however, I did not sense any vil
lainy or maliciousness waiting in the dark, so perhaps it was safe to enter.

  “Walnak's luck is with us after all,” I said in amazement. “Resita, I thank ye for finding this. I had thought we would never get out of here alive.”

  “But it doesn't make any sense,” said Resita, who did not sound even half as joyous as I. He scratched the top of his head. “As I was saying, the blueprints for HQ do not show any sort of secret passageway down here at all. There's no reason for this.”

  “Perhaps it was added at a later date by someone else?” I inquired. “For I know that many old buildings have additions on them that were not part of the original design, which may be the case here.”

  “No way,” said Resita, shaking his head. “I saw the blueprints. There is no room for a secret passageway down here, even for a very small one that you'd have to crawl through, much less one big enough for both of us to walk through upright. I have no idea where this could possibly lead.”

  “Maybe the original architect purposefully chose to omit this passageway from the blueprints, so no one could find it,” I said, stroking my chin in interest. “'Tis a practice I have heard the wind whisper of, though I do not know for certain how common it is among Xeeonite architects.”

  “Possibly,” said Resita. “But why would the original architect omit this passageway from the blueprints? What was he trying to hide?”

  “How am I supposed to know?” I said with a shrug. “I barely understand the minds of Delanian architects; the minds of Xeeonite architects are a puzzle I do not wish to put together.”

  “Once we get out of here, I am going to find those blueprints and look at them again,” said Resita. “Assuming, of course, that those lizard monsters didn't completely trash all of our computers, though I know we have several backup servers that hold that same information off-site.”

  “A goodly decision, I dare say,” I said, nodding. “But enough talking. Let us enter this passageway and see where it leads us; at the very least, I doubt it will take us anywhere much worse than this gods-forsaken place.”

  And thus, we plunged into the darkness, though with our weapons out, in case we discovered something wicked lurking within.

  ***