Next to Nora, Zeisha stood. “I’m a vine eater, and—”
From behind them, a shouting voice interrupted her. “Eira!”
That sounded like Krey, Nora thought as she turned. Sure enough, he was flying through the room, his dark, shaggy hair fluttering in the breeze he created. When he reached Eira, he landed.
The elderly woman listened as Krey spoke in her ear. Her white brows lifted. She nodded once, and her voice rang through the open space. “The army is coming to Deroga! Star Clan, we will go underground!”
The Seer: 1
Sarza Phip held her orsa’s reins with one hand and covered her yawning mouth with the other. She’d been traveling for hours, and the beast’s slow pace threatened to put her to sleep.
The previous evening, someone had come to her house and commanded her to go to the training grounds east of the city, along with the other members of the Cellerinian Army.
After she’d thrown on her uniform and tired herself out with a fifteen-clommet ride on a push scooter, she’d waited with her fellow soldiers for hours. Officers who couldn’t tell their asses from their ankles tried to figure out what was going on. Royal messengers came and went. At last, the soldiers learned they were marching to Deroga.
Nobody seemed to know why. Sarza didn’t care. She’d never dreamed she’d visit a preday city. She gazed at the skyline in the distance. How tall were those buildings—forty stories? A hundred?
All at once, her brain felt like someone had inflated it until it was too big for her skull. It wasn’t pain exactly, just pressure. A feeling she knew well.
She swore under her breath. Of course this was happening now. She was sleep deprived, her daily routine thrown out the window. Such circumstances tended to bring on visions. She bent low over her orsa, hugging its wide neck and clasping her hands. Just as she shoved her shoes deeper into her stirrups, images overtook her conscious mind.
Sarza saw a residential street. Based on the much larger buildings looming nearby, she assumed she was in Deroga. The homes appeared occupied, with chairs on porches and small, well-kept yards and gardens.
The only people on the street were soldiers like her, wearing Cellerinian blue and black. Sarza’s vision zoomed to a gray house, then to its front window. Through it, she saw a tidy, furnished living room.
The vision ended. Sarza found herself leaning to one side, about to topple from her orsa. She blurted a curse and pushed herself upright.
The guy next to her chuckled. “Fall asleep?”
Sarza ignored him. Her head ached. Nausea gripped her gut. Visions often affected her in such ways.
Assuming the prophecy would come true today, the army would soon enter trog territory. That was undeniably cool. Why was the street empty though? Where were the backwards, violent people who lived among millions of bones in Deroga?
For half a second, Sarza considered telling an officer what she’d seen. She rejected the idea. Over the years, she’d used her visions to get ahead at jobs, score well on a test, and be the first in the kitchen when her father pulled a pie out of the oven. The one thing she never did was share her prophecies with others. Not anymore.
When she was very young, she’d been open about the things she saw. But nobody cared about a scrawny little girl who was the twelfth of fourteen kids. Her mama brushed off her confused babbling as an overactive imagination. And really, those early visions—an upcoming thunderstorm, a caynin running down the street—weren’t impressive.
A month or so after the visions started, she’d seen something that had sent her to bed afterward, her head feeling like someone had run over it with a cart. “Mama,” she’d moaned, “Ednin will die tonight.” Ednin was her baby brother.
Her mother slapped her. When Ednin died in his sleep that night, Sarza’s mother screamed that it was her daughter’s fault. That was the last time Sarza had shared a vision. With anyone.
Her parents did take note of her occasional “fainting spells” and “fits.” “Lie down if you feel one coming on,” they said. Sarza obeyed, pretending the episodes didn’t embarrass her.
There had been seers in preday times. The first time Sarza heard of the ancient prophets, she’d known that was what she was. What she wouldn’t give to compare notes with one of them. But the seers, it seemed, were long gone. All but her.
Was it normal, she wondered, that sometimes her gift (or more like her curse) didn’t manifest as a vision? At those times, she got urges to do specific things. She’d learned to heed such sensations. A couple of years earlier, she’d felt like she should learn to ride an orsa. She’d cleaned stalls at a stable in exchange for lessons. When she’d joined the army (the result of another urge), she’d gotten higher pay since she knew how to ride.
Maybe today, she’d have a vision or urge that would allow her to stand out from the other soldiers. What she wouldn’t give to shout orders instead of taking them. Would the leaders give such power to an eighteen-year-old? Maybe, if she orchestrated events just right.
Ahead, an officer interrupted Sarza’s musings. Thrusting his fist into the air, he shouted, “For Cellerin!”
“For Cellerin!” the army repeated.
“For the king!” the officer cried.
“For the king!”
Sarza fixed her gaze on the city ahead. “For me,” she murmured.
2
The Teen Community Center in my neighborhood is being renovated for the second time in three years. Our city’s leaders seem to think one more sports court will draw us to their shiny building. They don’t understand why teens forgo expensive facilities to sneak into the dark, old tunnels under the city.
Adults, allow me to clear things up. We go to the tunnels for one simple reason: you’re not there.
-“Burrowing Teens” by Genta Ril
The Deroga Chronicle, dated Quari 2, 6293
“Underground?” Krey demanded. “What do you mean, underground?”
Eira pivoted away from him to speak to a trog who’d rushed up as soon as he’d heard the announcement. Krey stared at the old woman’s long, white hair. She continued ignoring him, so he grabbed her arm. “We can’t hide!”
With surprising strength, Eira pulled her arm away. She fixed Krey with a heated glare. “Patience!” She returned her attention to the trog. Half a minute later, the man took off at a run.
Still, Eira ignored Krey. She turned to Nora, who’d come to the front of the room. “Do not call the dragons.”
“Why not?” Nora asked.
“Today, we do not fight. The king should not know we still have dragons until we are ready to battle him.” Eira shifted her attention to the entire room and shouted one word: “Silent!”
Every trog in the room repeated her. “Silent!”
“Trogs, go underground now!” Eira called. Trogs streamed toward the exits. “New-city folk, follow Wendyn.” Eira gestured to a woman near her. Wendyn was both short and thin, but Krey had seen her fight fiercely in the militia battle.
Wendyn jogged toward the back entrance. Most of the militia members followed. Krey stayed rooted in his spot. “Do you want me to let the other clans know?”
“The other clans do not know you. They might kill you, and then we would lose our only flyer! I send a trog runner already. Word will spread quickly. Follow Wendyn.”
Zeisha tugged at Krey’s hand. Nora and Ovrun waited behind her, along with Isla, Zeisha’s friend from the militia. Krey returned his attention to Eira, whose gaze, hard as the floor under their feet, was fixed on him. “It’ll be hours before they get here,” he said. “And we can’t just hide. They’ll get stronger and come back again.”
Two steps brought Eira close enough that she had to tilt her head to look in his eyes. “What if they send scouts already, in the middle of the night? What if a flyer, like you, is coming now? We may have hours or only minutes. Everyone must go underground, lest they are seen. Today, we hide. Another day, we will fight. There is no time to discuss this. Go, or you put us all
in danger.”
Krey stared at her for a long moment, then released an angry sigh. Whatever was going on here, he couldn’t change it by arguing with the trog leader.
Nora stepped closer to Eira. “Are you going underground too?”
“No. I will watch from high windows.”
“Let me stay with you. I know the king in a way no one else does. I’ll watch and give you my input. Bring me with you, and Krey and the others will go underground.” With a glance, Nora demanded Krey confirm. Rolling his eyes, he nodded.
Eira hesitated only briefly before saying, “Very well.”
Krey, Zeisha, Ovrun, and Isla took off at a fast run. It didn’t take long to catch up with the militia members.
Wendyn led the group through the streets into an abandoned four-story building. The lobby floor had been recently swept, but Krey’s quick feet had to avoid a pile of fresh animal droppings as he ran through the room. A few hisses told him shimshims lived here.
Wendyn ran into a dark hallway. She lit a lantern and led the running group through multiple corridors.
Krey often took long runs, but back home in Tirra, Zeisha had never joined him. He touched her shoulder. “You okay, Zei?”
She laughed softly. “I think the militia must’ve required us to exercise a lot. I feel great.”
“Stop!” Wendyn called. They all obeyed. She carried the lantern through a doorway. As the group followed her into a large room, Wendyn said, “You! Help me move this!”
A low, scraping sound followed. Several people gasped. Krey rose to his tiptoes but couldn’t see past the others.
“I must know,” Wendyn called, “if any militia members eat fuel today.”
“I did,” Zeisha murmured to Krey.
“Why are you asking?” Krey asked loudly.
“If the king comes to the city, he may control them,” Wendyn replied. “This is worse if they have magic.”
Krey cursed. He hadn’t thought of that. The king had controlled Osmius without seeing him—but he’d known exactly where the dragon was. How powerful is his talent? Can he use it to find people he’s controlled in the past? “Zeisha,” he said softly, “do you know if Ulmin touched you and the others when he visited the warehouse?”
“I think he did. One of the ash eaters told me he’s had dreams of the king controlling us all. ”
“Anyone?” Wendyn asked. “We must hurry!”
Zeisha’s voice carried over the small crowd. “I ate fuel this morning.”
“I’ll sit by her and restrain her if she loses control,” Krey said.
“Very well,” Wendyn said. “Now we descend. Wait at the bottom. Careful, the ground is not even.”
The small crowd gradually thinned out. Krey grinned when he at last saw why. One by one, the group members were climbing through a rough-edged hole in the floor and descending a ladder.
Krey urged the others to go before him. Isla and Zeisha climbed down, but when Ovrun approached the hole, Wendyn held up a hand. “You go last. After me.” She pointed at a large desk that still overlapped the hole. “The desk has handles underneath. You will pull it over the hole.”
“Okay,” Ovrun agreed.
Wendyn turned to Krey. “Go!”
Krey climbed down the ladder into a narrow, vertical tunnel. When he’d descended a few mets, he saw Wendyn following him, her lantern hanging from the crook of her elbow. Krey soon heard the scraping sound again as Ovrun pulled the furniture back across the hole.
The enclosed tunnel ended, but the ladder kept going, extending into open space. Krey breathed deeply of air that smelled and tasted stale. At last, he reached the floor. As Wendyn had said, the ground wasn’t even. He nearly tripped over a hard, raised ridge. “Where are we?” he asked Wendyn as she stepped off the ladder.
“Underground.”
“What does that mean?”
“I will tell you more soon.” She lifted her voice so the group could hear her. “Follow! Careful!”
This time, Krey and his friends were at the front of the group. They followed Wendyn, whose light illuminated the way. They were in an odd corridor that was a few mets wide with a short, metal rail running down the center of the floor. That was what had almost tripped Krey. The sides of the corridor only came up to Krey’s waist before leveling off into another flat surface.
“What is this place?” Zeisha murmured.
All at once, it hit Krey. “It’s where the Extrain used to travel.”
“Extrain?” Zeisha asked.
“I think it stood for excavation. It was an underground rail system. People called it the Ex. Skytrains eventually made Extrains obsolete.” He shook his head in wonder. “This place is old.”
He hadn’t realized Wendyn could hear him until she said, “Very old.”
After a few minutes of walking, Krey heard the slight murmur of voices ahead.
“Stop,” Wendyn called. She turned to face them. “Beyond the next bend, we will join all the trogs.”
“All the trogs?” a voice behind Krey asked. “Or just the Star Clan?”
“All of them. There is space down here for everyone. These are tunnels used by trains in ancient days.”
“Extrains,” someone said.
Krey smiled. Apparently he wasn’t the only one who liked to read books about old cities.
“Wait a minute,” a male militia member said. “If someone in our group knows about the Extrains, I’m sure the king does too. He probably knows how to get down here. You’re telling me we’re gonna all hang out down here, waiting for soldiers to come find us? Because I’m not letting someone take my mind again! I’d rather die! I—”
“Silence!” Wendyn commanded. When the young man complied, she said, “New-city folk may have old maps showing old Extrain entrances. Trogs destroy those entrances many years ago. We make new, secret entrances inside buildings. We are safe.” She turned again. “Follow me!”
As they walked, the murmuring they’d heard swelled until it became clear a large crowd was ahead. The tracks made a gradual turn. Golden lantern light bled into their path, and for the first time, Krey noticed that a parallel track ran to their right. When Wendyn’s group rounded the bend, Krey’s mouth dropped open.
The space they’d entered was massive. This must be where passengers had boarded the Ex. Countless trogs of all ages were streaming onto large platforms on both sides of the tracks. Other trogs waited on the tracks. “How many?” Krey asked, but all the voices swallowed his words. He tapped Wendyn’s shoulder and shouted, “How many trogs? Total?”
“Nearly two thousand!” she yelled back.
The number shouldn’t have been a surprise. There were a few hundred people in the Star Clan, and it was one of six such clans. Still, when Krey had read about trogs in the past, he’d pictured a couple hundred people broken up into small gangs. He shook his head, thinking about two thousand people living in this place, separate from the rest of the world.
In the Star Clan, he’d only seen a couple of children. Now he realized their parents simply hadn’t brought them out to meet the scary newcomers. Here, there were kids everywhere, including multiple wailing babies.
Krey heard footsteps and voices behind them. He turned and saw more trogs traveling down the track. When several voices rose in anger, Wendyn wove her way through the group.
“What happened?” Krey asked when she returned.
“They are from the Hill Clan,” Wendyn said. “They do not wish to be near new-city folk.”
“What did you tell them?”
“I tell them they may return to the surface and fight the army alone.” Lantern light reflected off her teeth when she grinned. “They say they will stay.”
Trogs were still arriving when Krey heard the same call-and-response Eira had used. “Silent!” a few people called. “Silent!” voices of all ages repeated. After two more repetitions, the group was as quiet as a large crowd could be. A loud, male voice instructed everyone to sit and wait. He directed them
to water and indoor outhouses.
Krey remained standing. Zeisha did too, slipping her hand into his.
“Wendyn,” Krey said.
“Yes?”
“What’s going on?”
Wendyn spoke loud enough for the whole militia to hear. “We wait. Trogs are watching from windows in all the clan territories. They will bring us reports. When the soldiers leave, we will go home.” She gestured to the floor at their feet. “Sit.”
Krey sat and leaned against the hard wall. Zeisha cuddled up next to him. He pulled her close, his arm around her shoulder, then turned to murmur in her ear, “You’re beautiful.”
She brought her lips to his ear and whispered, “We’re sitting in shadows. You can barely see me.”
He ran his fingers along her arm. “Yeah, but when it comes to discerning beauty, my hands are just as reliable as my eyes.”
Laughing, she tucked herself closer to Krey’s side. He closed his eyes, allowing the voices of thousands to flow over him, and tried to imagine what was happening in the streets above.
3
My school is eight stories tall. Between classes, chaos reigns. Today, administrators announced they’re upgrading our lifts. The new models will move twice as fast.
They expected us to be happy about this, but none of us are. They’re taking away our best excuse for being late to class.
-“Lift Me Up” by Genta Ril
The Deroga Chronicle, dated Quari 3, 6293
When Eira said they’d be watching from “up high,” she wasn’t exaggerating. After hurrying to a nearby building, she and Nora ascended flight after flight of stairs. The elderly trog had unbelievable endurance. Hand on ancient, metal handrails, she took one step after another. She stopped at every third landing to rest for about fifteen seconds, then resumed her steady pace.
The Vine Eater (The Magic Eaters Trilogy Book 2) Page 2
