The Forgotten City

by Nina D'Aleo

  “My eyesight might be average,” Shawe conceded. “But my hearing is a hundred times better than yours.”

  “Please!” Diega spat.

  “Care to put a wager on it?” Shawe said.

  Diega was sorely tempted – she never said no to a bet – but it wasn’t the time.

  “Just follow me,” he told her. “And if I’m wrong, you get to say I told you so. I know that would give you all kinds of thrills.”

  “You have no idea,” she muttered.

  Shawe turned and headed back in the direction they’d come from. Diega grudgingly followed, on the slight chance that he was right. They couldn’t afford to waste time just because of her ego. At first she thought he was leading them astray, but then she sensed the trickling getting louder and louder, until finally they reached a low row of shrubs that hedged a bank, leading down to a pond.

  They crouched behind the blue-leaf plants and Diega took the telescopic sights off her belt. The advanced functions were all blown, but the basic magnifiers were still intact. She looked through it, scanning over and around the pond until the circle of sight found what looked like a wooden bed, with someone lying beneath a grass blanket. Diega registered movement beside the bed and adjusted the sights. Another person came into focus. From the full ballroom gown it was wearing, Diega judge it to be female, but it didn’t look like any race she’d seen before. It had red skin scattered with large black dots and a very insect-looking face, with external mandibles and oversized, shiny black eyes. The stranger definitely wasn’t an insect blood human-breed, and all the full blood insect-breeds had become extinct eras ago – at least, in Aquais they had. There were hooks growing from both the stranger’s palms, and she was using them to weave some kind of basket, while chattering non-stop – presumably to the sleeping figure. Diega began to refocus the lens, trying to see if there were any weapons around the bed, but Shawe snatched the sights out of her grasp and looked through it.

  “What is that thing?” he muttered. “Butt-ugliest woman I’ve ever seen.”

  Diega’s anger flared. “Really? And what are you? The world’s most beautiful man? Wait, let me grovel at your feet in awe of your radiating beauty.” She snatched back the sights. “Don’t touch my stuff.”

  She checked the stranger’s camp for weapons and didn’t see anything obvious.

  “I’m going to talk to them,” she told Shawe. “You stay here.”

  “Hell no. I’m coming with,” Shawe said.

  Diega refused. “One look at you and they’ll run a mile. You know it. Just stay put.”

  Shawe set his jaw and stared her down, but didn’t rise to follow as she left the shrubs.

  Diega moved down the bank and across a section of spongy moss grass to the edge of the pond, directly opposite the beetle girl. She cleared her throat. The insect-breed looked up sharply, shrieked and darted behind the bedhead.

  “I’m not here to hurt you,” Diega tried to reassure her.

  A few long seconds passed before a very high, proper voice came from behind the bed, speaking Urigin with a heavy clicking insect accent.

  “Go away, please.”

  Diega felt a surge of relief that she actually understood her. Urigin was supposed to be the universal language, but Diega had wondered. “I will, I promise – I just need to ask some directions and then I’ll go.”

  Two huge beetle-black eyes peeked around the bed-leg, followed by a face with red dots on each cheek.

  “I’m a traveler,” Diega said, realizing that to let on she was utterly lost and unarmed could be a very bad idea. “I took a wrong turn and lost track of my companion. Have you seen a tall human-breed man, with purple and blue viper bloodlines? He has scars on his face … Have you seen him?”

  The beetle girl shook her head then nodded straight after.

  “You haven’t?”

  The beetle nodded then shook.

  “You have?”

  The beetle shook then nodded.

  “You haven’t?”

  She nodded then shook again.

  “So have you or haven’t you?” Diega demanded, her frustration rising fast.

  The beetle girl shrugged.

  “For the love of …” Shawe’s voice bellowed from the shrubs.

  “Love?” the beetle squeaked. “Did that tree say love?”

  Diega paused, then tried, “I think so.”

  The insect-breed gave a small smile and lifted a gloved hand to hide it.

  “Wait, please,” she said, then seized the lump in the bed and shook it violently, saying, “Wake up, Tickleback. Let Hypnos dance alone,” then in a much less dignified voice, “Wake up, Fool!”

  The grass cover on the bed rolled back and a sleep-dazed creature emerged. He sat up and fixed Diega with emerald eyes, even larger than his companion’s. In a sudden flurry of fine, intricately veined wings and long gangly limbs, he sprang up, giving Diega a clear view of heavily muscled shoulders sloping down to a very thin waist and legs. The creature – the dragonfly – made a nervous gulping sound, hurriedly straightening his bow tie with one set of arms while trying to brush the grass off his suit with another. He tried to talk but coughed instead, sending a spray of sparks bursting into the air. He covered his mouth with all four of his hands and the beetle cast him a prudish look of disapproval.

  She cleared her throat and introduced them, “I am Trilly Byrd of the cluster Nolly-Nolly and this —”

  The dragonfly cut in, speaking in a deep, slow voice, “I am Tickleback Ickabod, Pond Odious, clan of the Devil’s Darning Needles.”

  “Great – and I’m Diega Bluejay,” Diega rushed the introduction then said, “I need to know – have either of you seen a human-breed man? Viper marks, scarred-up skin, dark eyes.”

  “Please wait,” Trilly said again, then spoke to her companion in wing buzzes. He responded and they seemed to start arguing in clicks and taps that went on for a long time. Diega squeezed her eyelids shut, willing them to hurry up, trying to stay calm while time ticked loud in her mind. She expected Shawe to come bursting out of the bushes and crack their skulls together at any moment.

  Finally Tickleback spoke, his small antennae swiveling. “We were told two stranger men like this had passed through Dallybrush some sets ago.”

  Diega’s skin prickled. He was here – still alive. “What’s a set?” she asked. “And where’s Dallybrush?”

  Trilly spoke fast. “Sun set to moon set – one set, don’t you know?”

  “Days?” Diega guessed. It wasn’t possible that days had passed since Copernicus was seen here – they’d only just arrived.

  She spoke her thoughts to the insect-breeds and Tickleback said, “Maybe you came through at separate time spaces?”

  “Came through?” Diega said. “How do you mean?”

  “The portal,” he said. “You are not from here.” His eyes moved over her.

  “Where is here?” she asked, most of her not wanting to hear the answer.

  “Rambeldon Forest,” he said.

  “On Aquais?” she ventured.

  The insects looked at each other, then shook their heads in unison.

  “Praterius,” Tickleback said.

  Diega knew it was coming, but still felt a dizzying jolt of shock. We’re on another planet.

  “Do you know which way this man was headed?” she managed to ask.

  Tickleback nodded, but Trilly shook her head and said to the dragonfly between gritted teeth, “Don’t say anything!”

  Tickleback ignored her and said, “We were told he were taken by …” he lowered his voice to the quietest whisper possible, “… the Neridori.”

  “The Neridori?” Diega repeated aloud.

  “Oh my!” Trilly squealed and both creatures buzzed their wings in a nervous whir. Their agitation passed quickly to the trees that swayed and rustled without any breeze.

  “Please don’t say that too loud,” Tickleback whispered.

  “I’m sorry,” Diega said. “Just tell me
how to get to these —” she lowered her voice “— Neridori, and I’ll leave you alone.”

  “They live in the Blackwater Forest past Wishing-Well Woods. It are very hard to find – a very long way if you don’t know shortcuts,” the dragonfly said.

  “Is there anyone around here who could show me the way?” Diega asked them.

  Tickleback took her in with deep, solemn eyes. “I know a way through the forest. I —”

  Trilly interrupted with an impatient clap of her wings. “But we can’t take you. It’s far too dangerous – far, far too dangerous. We cannot go to Blackwater – no, no, no, no, no!” She stamped one petite foot. “We are not going anywhere.”

  Tickleback continued where he’d left off. “— I can take you there.”

  Trilly clapped her wings again and the dragonfly turned to her, saying in his slow, calm voice, “This friend needs our help and I will help her. We will do what is right.” He turned back to Diega. “We will take you as far as we can.”

  Diega nodded with gratitude, but had no intention of letting her guard down. No one helped anyone without reason.

  The dragonfly took a battered top hat from under the grass cover and perched it on his head.

  “Follow Tickleback.” He beckoned with all four hands.

  Diega said, “Wait. There’s someone else with me.”

  She heard Shawe standing up in the shrubs behind her.

  Trilly gasped and scuttled backward, but Tickleback just nodded to Shawe and said in his gentle way, “Morning greetings, friend.”

  Shawe, ever the skillful diplomat, grunted a surly reply that sounded like “Trutt off”.

  “Follow Tickleback,” the insect-breed repeated.

  He gestured for Trilly to go first. She clacked angrily, then turned with a rustle of her billowing gown and set off. Tickleback whirred his wings and lifted off the ground, his long, thick tail balancing him like a rudder. He beckoned again and flew after his companion. Diega and Shawe exchanged a look and trudged after them.

  Chapter 13

  Eli

  Aquais

  Matadori Desert (Golmaria)

  Eli had taken the data recorded on the day he and Silho found Golmaria and created a prototype desert-navigation program. This holographic mapping system now rotated above the control board of the Gypsy Rose. Eli had linked up the autopilot to the mapping system and felt the transflyer auto-correcting their flight path every few moments, following the lines of the map. He wasn’t sure if it would actually work, but if it did, it would be the first programmable navigation map of the Matadori in history. If it didn’t, they would become inextricably lost, then run out of fuel and end up as fodder for the desert hordes, if they didn’t die from exposure first.

  High in the sky the suns were moving in toward their merging at the burning hour of the day. Even now, in winter, the ferocity of the heat was beyond belief.

  Though he wasn’t steering the craft, Eli still kept a stranglehold on the wheel, if only to stop himself from replaying the fight-in attack footage for what would most likely be the billionth time. He’d already gone over it again and again, trying to bring into focus the blurs of flame he knew had been people, but nothing had worked. There was something about their attackers that the technology couldn’t capture. Everyone else was clear enough, though. And maybe that was why he’d kept re-watching it, even when he knew he couldn’t fix it – some irrational part of him hoped that if he watched it enough times maybe something would change – maybe Silho’s eyes wouldn’t blank out the way they had, maybe that bone-knife wouldn’t stab through the commander’s shoulder. But no matter how many times he replayed it, the footage remained the same.

  He glanced at Ev’r’s backpack sitting on the passenger seat beside him. It felt like a good sign – soon she would be wearing it again. The Gypsy Rose tilted and corrected and Flintlock shifted her weight in the back. It was Eli’s experience that giants – all gargantuan-breeds, actually – fell asleep as soon as they stopped moving. It was the only way they could generate enough energy to shift around their mountainous bulk. But Flintlock had remained awake and alert the entire trip so far. Clearly she’d been trained against her nature – rarely a good thing. He shot a glance in the rear vision at the Corámorán and glimpsed something he’d missed before – the crest of the Menor crime family tattooed into her bruised wrists.

  The Menors were part of what was known in alerion-breed tongue as Yuna Kazo, which translated in Urigin as “the Talented Families”. Focusing mainly on upper-class criminal activity like gem and gold heists, art forgery and political blackmail, they considered themselves to be the gentlemen of the criminal world, superior to the gangsters – but blood was blood and murder, murder as far as Eli was concerned.

  “You worked for the Menors?” Eli asked Flintlock.

  She looked up, uneasiness shadowing her eyes.

  “It’s alright,” he told her. “You don’t have to talk about it if you don’t want to. My kind – we always ask too many questions.”

  Flintlock processed his words. Giants were often thought of as slow-minded, but the Corámorán were, in general, intelligent. They had large bodies, but also large brains, compared to other gargantuan-breeds who combined a much bigger size with even smaller brain mass.

  “Your questions. I like them,” she eventually said. “Nobody else asks anything. Nobody else cares to ask.”

  “Yes,” Eli said. “I used to have another gargantuan-breed friend, his name was Tiny. He said once that it was hard to be so big and yet feel so completely invisible.”

  Flintlock’s eyes welled up with tears, “You understand,” she said softly. “I had no choice. No say.”

  Eli lowered his stare so he didn’t see her tears and start crying again himself. During the early year-cycles of his military training, he’d conducted a minor study into the gargantuan-breed practice of selling their children to pay debts, as well as in general barter and trade. When done in their own communities it resulted in the majority of children still having a happy family life, but when the Corámorán Islands and the gargantuan cities of Gont and Klimt had been destroyed by tidal floods some twenty year-cycles earlier, they had all headed into Scorpia. And here they were selling their children to non-gargantuans, who used them for slave labor and other more horrible things.

  Flintlock spoke again. “I belonged to Troya Menor. Guard to his lady wife. I started off nobody and worked hard. Worked up.”

  Eli nodded. It was common for the giantesses to be put in charge of guarding the harems of the Talented Families. They were big enough to overcome most men, but were not usually tempted in the male way.

  “His wife was Tracy Menor,” Eli said and Flintlock grimaced at the name.

  Eli knew the story from there. It was a classic case of the bigger they are the harder they fall. Menor was the biggest Talented Family Ky-puten, or Captain, in the city until everything fell apart and their closest competition slaughtered the entire family.

  Eli decided to fast-forward the conversation over that bit, since remembering was clearly painful for her.

  “Afterward you went back to your own family?” he asked.

  “There was nowhere else to go. No one else would hire me. I’m too small,” Flintlock said.

  That made Eli laugh. “If you’re too small, I must be microscopic,” he replied. “I think you’re absolutely enormous.”

  Eli had learned the hard way that most women didn’t appreciate that compliment, but it made Flintlock smile for the first time. It was a radiant smile that erased all the hard lines of her face, but after a moment the expression faltered and she said, “Please don’t send me back to them.”

  Eli felt a strong sense of sadness for her. He complained a lot about his own childhood, but it was really nothing in comparison to what others went through.

  “I won’t send you back. I promise,” he said.

  The transflyer seized up suddenly and savagely, pinning Flintlock against the seat and sma
shing Eli into the steering wheel. He pushed away and stared through the windscreen. Golmaria stretched out before them, just as creepy the second time around. Eli’s wings twitched at the sight. He felt Nelly gnawing at his leg from inside the pocket. That was her way of saying just leave it and go home. But home, without the people he loved, was only a place with a roof and bed.

  “Infrared,” he told his on-board system and a heat grid flashed up across the windscreen. They flew over the city, scanning for Ravien, but there was no sign of body-heat anywhere – not even in the cathedral. It wasn’t until they reached the outskirts of the city that the system registered something. There were huge pits all around the perimeter of Golmaria that had been dug down into underground tunnels during a time of atmospheric threat, and they’d never been filled back in. It looked from the body-heat scan as though the Ravien were now down in these holes. He slowed the craft to hover over the largest well.

  “So I’m going to dump the antidote on them now,” he said to Flintlock. His voice sounded almost cheerful, but inside he was one big knot. “They might attack us …”

  Flintlock straightened, readying herself.

  Eli pressed the release button on the cargo hold and the new dart-vials dropped, crashing down into one of the bore-holes. At first nothing happened, and then a group of Ravien clamored out of the tunnel and writhed on the ground. They started convulsing, then shifted back to their human forms. They held the change for several moments, enough time even for one of them to stand up and look around, but then they changed back to Ravien.

  It was another failure.

  Extreme disappointment pressed Eli down in his seat. The confines of the transflyer suddenly felt too tight. He couldn’t breathe. He had to get out. He rapidly glided the craft away from the city and down into the desert, landing with a bump and a skid. He threw open the door and jumped down. The heat took his breath away and he staggered only a few steps from the craft before dropping to his knees. He stared out into the distant waves of heat, not seeing anything ahead of him. There was nothing to hope for. Nelly ran up to his shoulder and snuffled at his face.