by Merl Fluin
“Mei-Lin.” Lulu did not move. “Ok. Keep talking. Were you in the fire?”
“No, I heard about it afterwards. Did Mei-Lin get away?”
“Heard about it how?”
“Cantos knew about it.”
“I’ll bet he did.” Lulu’s voice came out rough and shaky. “It’s obvious what’s going on here. You’re with the Star gang, the two of you, out to destroy us, and you almost succeeded. Now the Stars have got their man back, and it won’t be long before they come looking for you too.”
“I know how it looks, but I swear we’re not with anyone. I hired Cantos to help me find some lost property and that’s all. We’d already left town when the fire happened.”
“So who told you about it?”
“Little Dove or False Uncle. She met us in the desert. Stole my pony.”
“Then we’re both on foot. And we’re both going to die in this desert.” Lulu’s weight lifted and rolled away from TJ’s body. “What a fucking mess.”
“You sit here and die if you want to. I’ll do no such thing.”
TJ groped her way back along the rock fissure. Cool air and then a slither of starlit sky led her towards the outside. The battleground of the pass came dimly into view.
A rattling brought her to a halt a few yards from the end of the passage. She felt Lulu lean close into her from behind, cursing under her breath. The noise outside stopped and a barely visible shape froze beside one of the dead ponies.
The two women inside the rock held their breath, immobile. The rattling resumed, punctuated by the noise of bundles of cloth or leather being thrown around.
Lulu tapped TJ on the shoulder and they silently returned to the dark space deeper inside the rock.
“Now what?” whispered TJ.
“There are lots of other ways through these caves. We’ll have to find one that takes us out without landing us back in the pass.”
“You know one?”
“Mind your business.”
“I have a good mare waiting outside.”
“Where?”
TJ snorted. “Yeah, right. Do you know a way out of these canyons or don’t you?”
“I can find a way.”
“Then I’ll help you if you help me. Deal?”
“Maybe,” said Lulu. She sucked her teeth. “You’re probably lying. About a lot of things. But not about the Slits. Mei-Lin did have a friend from outside. This bit of ‘lost property’ a fancy horse?”
“Yeah.”
“Bean eater.” Lulu spat. “But I don’t have a whole lot of options here. All right, Miss TJ, you got yourself a deal. I’ll find us a way out of these canyons, and then you’ll help me get back to what’s left of the Eleven Twenty-Threes.”
“And then?”
“And then you can take your chances and be damned.”
“So which way do we go?”
“Any which way. First thing we have to do is find some light to see by, so I can get my bearings.”
TJ ran her fingers along the rock face. “Opening here. Grab hands.” A small, hot hand fumbled into hers, then recoiled when the eyelid on her thumb shivered at the touch. “Hang on.” She pulled a glove from her pocket and put it on. “All right now.”
“Let’s get going.”
They shuffled and stumbled into the new opening and along a narrow tunnel. Lulu walked into TJ’s back and TJ pulled on Lulu’s arm as they concertinaed through the blackness. TJ held her ungloved hand out in front of her, probing with trembling fingers. The only sounds were their footsteps and shallow breathing.
TJ swore when the tunnel roof grazed her head. “Ceiling’s getting low here.”
They bowed their heads, then stooped, then dropped to a crouching gait as the roof sloped ever lower. TJ leant forwards, running her hands along the ceiling. “We may have to crawl our way. Either that or go back.”
“Nowhere to go back to. Keep going.”
Smooth ridges of rock rippled beneath TJ’s bare hand as she moved forwards, feeling up and around in front of her as she crawled. The tunnel continued to narrow; the stink of their own bodies filled it. They wriggled on their bellies. Lulu cursed every time her fingers got caught between TJ’s boots and the tunnel floor. Neither spoke again about trying to go back.
They made slow progress in a straight line, but then the tunnel began to curve and twist. The hard lump of the derringer in her pocket dug into TJ’s thigh as she squeezed herself around a sharp corner.
She heard ripping fabric and felt warm rock graze an exposed shoulder. The tunnel was curving back on itself, and she was forced to screw her body around two corners at once. She pushed her arms and neck forwards and bent her knees behind her. Her body was wedged in the shape of the number 5. Aeons of earth and fire kissed the nape of her neck.
“I’m stuck.” TJ’s voice was almost inaudible.
“Better get unstuck.”
“Stop pushing, you’re going to break my knees. Let me think for a minute.”
The minute passed.
“I think I hear water,” TJ said.
“I don’t hear anything. Where?”
“Somewhere ahead.”
“Shit. Have we been going up or down?”
“I can’t tell.”
“If it’s raining out there and the water’s coming in from above us, we’re fucked. Go back! Now!”
Lulu grabbed TJ’s boots and started pulling. TJ squirmed, inched backwards, and then stuck fast again. Lulu held on to TJ’s flailing feet.
The noise got louder and closer. Cold drops ran between TJ’s outstretched fingers.
A cannonball of water smashed into TJ, knocking her back and around. Her heels struck Lulu full in the face. They were swept along, back the way they had come, and then they plunged down, down in a thundering fall that hurled them into a freezing pool, still further down into whirling chaos.
No way was up and nothing touched bottom. Orchids of flame bloomed behind TJ’s eyelids.
She smashed her way up through the surface. Her first breath was a bawl.
The pool was at the base of a cylinder of rock, a tall asymmetrical cave open to the elements. A waterfall thundered down from the lip of the cylinder on one side. The other side climbed steeply away and sloped out of TJ’s eyeline. Torrential rain blurred her vision as she stared at rock faces streaked with brilliant blue, green and violet. Flashes of lightning jolted the sky far above. The thunder was lost in the roar of the water.
She shook water out of her eyes and spotted Lulu crouching on a ledge at one side of the pool. TJ swam to the ledge and clutched onto it with both hands. Her torn coat splayed out behind her. She kicked her legs to keep herself upright.
Another flash. “Well, you did want a light,” said TJ.
Lulu broke into a laugh that sounded like a sob. Her face was bruised, and a jagged gash across the top of her forehead leaked blood.
13.
The rain eased towards dawn. Steadying light revealed an arched opening at water level in the rock face opposite the ledge where the two women perched, arms wrapped around each other for warmth and balance.
TJ gazed into Lulu’s face and inspected the wound in her forehead. It had stopped bleeding but the gash showed out starkly against her bruised and puckered skin.
“We need to get moving again. That was quite a bump on the brain you took. Can you manage?”
“Guess I’ll have to,” said Lulu. “Can’t stay here.”
They jumped back into the water. TJ helped Lulu along as they swam together towards the opening in the rock face. Lulu splashed and floundered when she let her go to investigate. TJ swam into the opening and then returned, grabbing Lulu by the waist.
“It’s the entrance to a tunnel. Seems like plenty of headroom, at this end at least. Let’s try it.”
They swam through into darkness, TJ in front and Lulu behind. The tunnel was straight and narrow. After fifty feet or so TJ’s feet touched the channel bed. She stood and turned back to see Lulu s
ilhouetted against the light.
Single file, they waded chest-deep in the deepening gloom, reaching out from time to time to feel for walls or ceiling and finding neither. The small weights of underwater creatures bumped against their legs and torsos as they went. Things skidded.
Gradually the water level fell, from chest to waist to thigh, until it was just knee-deep. A pale glow showed ahead of them. TJ waited until Lulu was close enough to take her by the hand. Lulu’s eyes glittered and she breathed through gaping lips, but her head was upright and her face was set.
They emerged from the tunnel into a vast dry chamber that was luminous with striations of red, pink and gold. Lulu muttered something.
“Huh?”
“Underworld sunrise.”
They sat down to rest. Ridges whorled and looped around them like the tissues of a brain; the surfaces were soft to the touch. TJ lay back and stretched her muscles, watching Lulu out of the corner of her eye. When she saw Lulu’s own eyes drifting closed she shook her by the elbow.
“No sleeping.”
Lulu snatched her elbow away. “You being funny?”
“Fuck’s sake.” TJ took her elbow again, gently this time. “What I mean is, you’ve got concussion. You need to get that head wound seen to.”
Lulu grunted and squinted up into a shaft of sunlight. The gash in her forehead glittered like a jewel. She reached for an outcrop of rock to prop herself up, and it came away in her fingers. She let TJ pull her to her feet. Their sodden boots left trails of water and broken stone as they picked their way across the floor and out of the golden cavern.
For what might have been hours they threaded through tunnels lit from above by intermittent shafts. From time to time TJ spoke, checking that Lulu was still behind her and on her feet, but Lulu rarely answered. The constant sound of water in the distance increased and receded at odd intervals. Once, as they squeezed through a black crevice, Lulu gripped onto TJ’s hand and held it.
At last the watery sounds stopped, replaced by a lilting five-note birdcall that guided them out of the dark. They came into a wide cave whose lips opened far ahead of them, just above ground level. Large slanted rocks grew out of the cave floor and stretched themselves towards the light.
The two women grinned at each other. Letting go of each other’s hand, they scrambled together over the rocks towards the cavemouth. Bird calls and animal cries sped them along from behind.
“Who’s here?” TJ stopped at the centre of a circle of tall stones. At the foot of each stone were little heaps of bones, hooves and horns. Empty beakers amid the heaps were stained inside with dark sediment.
Lulu looked where TJ pointed. “Soldier Boys,” she said, glancing around. “Guess they come in here to do their business. Leave it alone,” she added sharply as TJ picked up one of the beakers. TJ dropped it and it broke with a crack. “Let’s get out of here.”
As they neared the cavemouth their surroundings became easier to discern. Some of the rocks had been deeply scored by tools or scrawling claws. Stalagmites lumbered in their peripheral vision. A stream of water emerged from one side of the cave and gushed towards the cavemouth. Creatures moved and shrieked in the shadows.
The exit from the cave was fringed with spiny creepers. New smells came prickling through freshening air. Lulu paused and examined geometric markings on the rock face, resting her bruised forehead against the rock while her hands moved along the grooves. Finally she said, “I can’t see your horse, but I’ve found a route that gets us within sight of the smoking-leaved tree. Will you be able to take us to the horse from there?”
“Sure. Lead the way.”
***
They were moving along the bottom of a gorge. The going was easy, and the path was wide enough for them to walk abreast.
“You want to tell me what’s actually going on now?” TJ asked Lulu.
“That Cantos, is he a buddy of yours?”
“Yes and no.”
Lulu breathed out and moved her shoulders. “How much do you know about the Eleven Twenty-Threes?”
“Not much. I know enough not to break certain rules while I’m in the Slits with Mei-Lin, like not talking inside the brothel. Your secrets mean more to her than – than anything. Is that what this is all about? Eleven Twenty-Three secrets?”
“Your friend Cantos knows our secrets, and he doesn’t keep them to himself. That’s why he’s dead. To us.”
TJ’s walk slowed. “You telling me he’s an Eleven Twenty-Three?”
“No, I’m telling you he’s a traitor. He ran away from the Slits, years ago. We don’t know why he’s come back, and we sure as hell want to find out.”
“He served in the brothel?”
“Yeah.”
“Wow.” TJ stopped walking. “Wow. Ok. I didn’t know that. That’s why you took him prisoner.”
“That and other things. But now the Star gang have him. He’s a liar and a grifter and a thief, and he’ll be more than ready to spill our secrets to them to save his own skin. I hope you didn’t tell him any secrets of your own, because if he sees a way to profit from it he’ll sell you out too. In a heartbeat.”
“What were you planning do to him?”
“He’s dead. We were going bury him.”
TJ was silent for a few minutes. Then: “Suppose I help you take him down. What would be in it for me?”
Lulu snorted. “I can see what you and him have in common. What do you want?”
TJ took Lulu by the shoulder. She swallowed hard. “A sense of direction, somewhere to belong. To feel close to Mei-Lin again, even if she’s gone. Give me initiation. I want to join the Eleven Twenty-Threes.”
Lulu gaped and then laughed. “Well, well, well. That’s quite something you’re asking. You realise it would mean atoning for – Shit! Get down!”
Lulu dropped flat to the ground, pulling TJ down with her.
A whirlwind of red-gold sand spun in the air like an inverted pyramid a couple of hundred yards ahead. Its four triangular faces met in a point that shimmered fifty feet above them.
Lulu pressed her face into the dirt. TJ lay on her back and stared.
The sides of the pyramid opened out like gates and folded back together. The pyramid became a hexagonal prism. Sunlight poured through it and refracted into colours that turned the dry canyon into a jungle of fire. Then the prism resolved itself back into a pyramid that shrank to a point and melted away.
“What the hell?”
“Invisibles.” Lulu scrambled to her feet.
“Invisibles? Are you kidding me? Fuck.”
“Fuck is right. It means the petroglyphs are realigning, and my mind-map back to the smoking tree might just have turned to ash.”
***
They were surrounded by stone on three sides. The way back was clear, but ahead of them the path narrowed to a crevice that ended in a rockfall.
They exchanged glances without a word. TJ ran to the rockfall and clambered into it. When she came back she said: “No point. It’s a dead end of sheer rock behind it.”
“Climbable?”
“Won’t know unless we try, I guess. But if we get to the top and there’s no way out on the other side, we’ll need a plan B. We’re both pretty played out, and I’m getting more and more worried about that head injury of yours.”
“I’m ok,” Lulu said. She rose awkwardly and the two of them walked over to the rockfall.
Lulu burrowed into the boulders at ground level while TJ began to climb. The rocks were loose and treacherous, but it was possible to ascend by bracing her arms and legs against the cleft. Every move sent up a bitter haze of dust that stung her eyes and caught the back of her throat.
The higher TJ climbed, the more she was in the light. She scanned the surfaces as she went, peering at the boulders beneath her and at the walls on either side. There were holes and whorls, bumps and ridges, but nothing that looked like a glyph.
She got high enough to cross the shadow line, and the sun warmed the top
of her head. Her legs were trembling, sweat ran into her eyes; she paused to wipe the back of her gloved right hand over her face. She looked down and saw Lulu far below. She looked up and saw rock, sky, a distant bird in flight. The bird was small and black against the blue.
There was a shelf big enough for sitting, and TJ pulled herself onto it, panting hard. Her legs swung free into space beneath her. She pushed her back and head into the rock behind and looked at her own arms and legs. They were tinged with a sky blue that grew stronger and more distinct as she watched. The blue quivered and pulsed in time with her heartbeat.
