Tides From the New Worlds

by Tobias S. Buckell

  Siana should have made it back to the tall-village already. And because they were on the slope no one from the lookouts could see them to come out and help.

  She tried to hobble faster, but it only hurt more. She tripped and fell, and Miasia couldn’t move quickly enough to catch her. Siana’s chin hit a piece of rock.

  “Oww...” she forced tears back. “Miasia, I’m scared.”

  “It’s okay,” Miasia said. Her feet began squelching in sand that had become slightly wetter. “I’m going to try and carry you.”

  Siana got on Miasia's back and grabbed her thin shoulders. Miasia grunted and began slowly walking.

  “Mum's going to be really mad at me.” Siana said.

  “Maybe not,” Miasia said, out of air and panting out the words. “If we don’t,” she shifted Siana’s weight, “tell her.”

  They walked a little while longer, and then Miasia set Siana down, breathing heavily.

  “I’m sorry,” she said, her voice breaking, “I can’t do it. I’m too spent. I’m too old.”

  Siana, scared, grabbed Miasia's hand.

  “Come on, I can keep walking, we have to make it.”

  She hobbled on faster, leaning on Miasia, but after a minute the ankle began to give out, and Siana was hopping. And in the sand and rock, every hop was almost a disaster. She flopped to the ground twice more, once bringing Miasia down with her.

  Siana tasted salt water. A thin trickle was beginning to flow up the slope with them.

  Miasia sat down and ripped at the hem of her skirt. She took the strip of cloth and bound Siana’s leg to her own.

  “Now try,” Miasia said.

  They began to walk in tandem. It took a few tries, they started slow, splashing through the water, then got into a good peg-legged rhythm. But the water was beginning to trickle louder around them, and Siana heard a familiar distant roar.

  “Faster,” Miasia ordered, an edge in her voice.

  They cleared the rocks and stepped onto wet sand. Siana lost her step and they both tumbled. Siana could see tall-village. The nearest lookout was frighteningly far away. If she’d been able to jog she could have made it in time.

  Siana struggled to get back up, crying out from the stab of pain in her ankle, but she couldn’t. Miasia was still sitting. She had a distant look on her face. She started unwrapping their legs.

  “What are you doing?” Siana asked. The cold water swirled around her lap and tugged the strip of cloth away when Miasia let it go.

  “Pay attention,” Miasia said. “To what I’m going to teach you.”

  Siana’s heart thudded in her chest and her mouth went dry.

  “Now,” Miasia said. “I’m going to create a bubble around that rock, and then teach you how to unlock the bubble on your own.”

  “No, that will take too long.” Siana said. “Teach me how to make a bubble and we can make them on each other.”

  Miasia looked at Siana, the lines in her face crinkling as she smiled.

  “It took me weeks and weeks of training, sister. This isn't just a bead trick you can learn in a day. The unlocking trick is hard enough, but I know you can do it.”

  “No,” Siana said again. “If you put me in a bubble without teaching me how to unlock then you can run back to the lookout tower and come get me after rushtide.”

  “What if I don’t make it? Who will come unlock it? You will run out of air and die as well.”

  “Don’t say that,” Siana begged, starting to cry again. “You will, you have to. You just got here. I'll lose you again.”

  “Stop it,” Miasia said. “Pay attention.” She grabbed Siana’s hands. “Please. Pay attention.”

  And maybe it was just her ability to stay calm that she’d learned abroad, at war, but Siana responded to Miasia's calmness by falling quiet.

  “Okay.”

  Miasia spread her hands and murmured some words. Siana didn’t understand them, but she could feel them coming out of Miasia and caressing the rock. The rock shimmered, half in and half out of the rushing water. Then a clear bubble formed around it, trapping the air and protecting the rock. The water rushed around it.

  The spell was powerfully subtle, and Siana could not grasp what Miasia had done no matter how much she strained to hear and see and understand.

  She had to learn to save Miasia with a bubble. But the understanding never came to Siana. Miasia sighed and relaxed. She looked tired.

  “Okay. Now feel with me as I unlock it.”

  Miasia took Siana’s hands in her own and Siana followed as they both reached out and felt the bubble around the rock. There was a spot Siana could feel, a spot where she could put in her finger and twist. Miasia twisted the bubble and it collapsed. Water rushed around to fill the empty space. It burbled over Siana’s belly now, threatening to sweep her away.

  “Now I’m going to put one around you,” Miasia said. “And make it large enough to last through the tide.”

  “No,” Siana begged. “Please...” she trailed off and began to cry. Miasia hugged her.

  “I love you, little sister,” she said. She stood up and stepped back, and Siana closed her eyes and cried some more.

  The water around her quit rushing.

  She looked back up from inside the now massive bubble surrounding her and saw Miasia moving through the water back towards the tall-village. Through the ground she could feel the vibration of rushtide, and the wall of rapidly rising water took Miasia's shrunken figure.

  Siana ran over and slapped the wall of the bubble with her small fists and cried until it hurt, then cried some more, and still the pain didn’t go away.

  Eventually she slipped into the now tepid water floating around in the bottom of the bubble. The water level all around her rose until she was totally underwater. The surface lay many feet overhead, and torpedo shaped scudderfish began to nose around the edge of the bubble. Every breath sounded loud inside the bubble, and the light that filtered down to her danced and rippled around her.

  The tall-village now stood alone in the center of the Roranraka Sea, alone for hundreds of miles.

  • • •

  At times the tide threatened to wash the bubble away, but Miasia had grounded it well, including a great amount of sand and water in the bottom. She had put it near a large rock, so it moved a little, but stayed still.

  After the many hours of rushtide , the people for the tall-village emerge from the houses and came to look for Siana. When the found the bubble they gathered around and began hammering away at it with whatever they could find. Hammers, chisels, axes.

  Mum and dad pressed up against the side with frantic faces, but Siana ignored them. She pressed her cheek against the bubble, trying to touch that last piece of her sister that lay deep in the filmy nothingness between Siana and the outside.

  No one outside understood what Siana could feel and understand; that when she unlocked the bubble Miasia's presence, contained in the bubble which she had given a piece of her life to create, would dissolve. Siana’s tears ran freely and she pressed her fingers against the bubble.

  “I’m so sorry,” she sobbed as she found the lock with her mind. When she put her finger in and turned, the bubble fell apart. The water in it burst out and soaked everyone around it, and the pieces of bubble whisped out at them in little filmy fragments that passed harmlessly right through them and evaporated in a flash of rainbow colors.

  And inside Siana, something else broke, and her tears stopped cold.

  Siana flinched when mum and dad hugged her. She was looking far, far off into the unseen distance, to where there was real land, land that didn’t have the tides. She felt hard inside, and friends, fun, and shells fell from her mind.

  After she had been carefully tucked her into the new bed in Miasia's room, Siana looked at the broken conch shell on the floor. It would be a long time before the next airship touched at her tall-village, but Siana knew she would leave with it. Out there, she could learn the magic that would have let her save he
r Miasia. She would practice what little she knew, and try to learn what she couldn’t. She would erase anything of herself to lose the pain of Miasia's memory.

  And all the village who saw her in the days, and months after, whispered to each other. Though they didn’t think she could hear them, Siana could. They whispered that she seemed different from the village folk. They said that she was no longer a wild, young child, favored by her parents. They thought she had a far off look in her eyes, and that she seemed… older.

  Something In The Rock

  Here’s a piece just for this collection. While the previous story was sparked by a painting, this story can find its inspiration in music. I’d been jamming out to, of all things, heavy metal. Usually I listen to rap, or reggae, or techno, which all share a common ancestor and which I’m most comfortable with. However a few heavy metal mix discs from some friends, and a couple metal radio stations, all contributed to a general mood that seemed fitting for dwarves. And a first line that set the stage for a fun story about those who dig just a little too deep.

  Sometimes crusty, dusty old grandmothers would tell little groundlings tales of things deep in the ground, far beneath dwarven mines, lurking in the dark, just waiting to eat you if you misbehaved. Grigor never put much faith in such tales, even as a half-pint sized groundling.

  Where other diggers feared the dark, Grigor forced through with lantern. Shaky ground: he braced it. Dark, deep pits: he roped down them.

  There were many other things to worry about in the earthdark: like soft ground, or gas, than tales of Something In The Rock perpetuated by groundling diggers.

  He was an old dwarf. So old his muscles were tough like iron, and his skin a smooth shale. He’d seen many rotations go by.

  Grigor adhered to the digger’s code: dig hard, dig deep, dig careful, and never leave a comrade unrescued.

  No rubble there: just the simple rules that let you survive long in the dark under the earth, far below the other races teeming under the disgusting infinite openness of the sharply-light, blue skies of the world.

  • • •

  Today Grigor sat in the dim recesses of the Tin Cup, sipping slowly at a bitter pint after a long day of pushing rock. Several men sat in the corner beating out a rhythm on wooden drums. In the center of the room a pair of tall, blonde women in leather skirts shoved and pulled at each other. Lame excuse for wrestling, but entertaining nonetheless.

  The tavern door creaked open, thick, scarred wood swinging inwards. A stabbing beam of sunlight pierced the gloom. Grigor blinked and shifted his body to ignore the glaring light of the outside.

  It shut with a thud.

  The Tin Cup was a heavily built tavern: its roof held up by foot-thick oaken beams, the walls mortared and broken by the occasional small storm window. It was mostly lit inside by torches. Even by day. Everyone relaxed in the dank, comforting atmosphere. The walls seemed close together, the roof never far away, and the whole establishment sat on top of a series of tunnels.

  It was popular with the dwarves.

  A series of appreciative shouts accompanied the women as they finally fell to the ground, each struggling for a grip on the other.

  “Come on and hit her!” Kokran stood up and bellowed. Grigor winced and grabbed Kokran’s belt, pulling his friend back into the booth. Several men turned and looked at them, annoyed. “Come on, Grigor,” Kokran complained.

  Kokran sat down with a thump. The bench creaked. Shoddy construction, Grigor thought. No bracing, hardly able to hold a good dwarf’s weight.

  Grigor stared into Kokran’s bloodshot eyes.

  “You’re over the barrel,” Grigor said.

  Kokran’s beard was moist with the foam of far too many cups. The smell of it hung over the stained table.

  After a second Kokran blinked. He wasn’t looking at Grigor anymore.

  “Look at them two,” he gestured his wooden mug. A pair of townies had walked in. The two dwarves had smooth shaven faces, short hair, and wore cloaks. One had a small braid hanging off the front of his forehead. “Call themselves ‘The New Dwarves’ eh,” Kokran muttered. “Little groundlings is what they look like.”

  The two townies conferred with the barkeep, a tall man, even for a man. He had scars enough. Grigor wondered how many years and wild nights the barkeep had watched languorously over the planking of his tavern at his customers.

  The barkeep nodded at Grigor, and the two townies turned. One of them smiled.

  Grigor did not return it.

  They approached him, blocking Kokran’s view of the wrestling women.

  “Gerrout-the-way,” Kokran hissed.

  “Grigor?” The nearest townie asked. Grigor looked at the fine red embroidery on the dwarf’s cloak’s edges. “Grigor ap Danfisk?”

  “Yeah?” The two townies had an air of official business about them. Even Kokran had figured this out, he was quiet, and looking at the two townies with an odd sort of intensity that made them fidget.

  The townie in the green cloak looked around, then lowered his voice. This was something he did not want men to hear.

  “There’s been a problem in shaft forty-five. They need your help. Now.”

  • • •

  The Tin Cup was accustomed to Dwarven activity. In the windowless backroom a trap-door led a woozy Kokran, Grigor, and the two townies down into a network of tunnels running underneath Farrington.

  Near the end of a sewer, light pouring in from the bright day outside, a horse and covered carriage waited.

  Grigor nervously shuffled towards the light, and hopped into the carriage after everyone. He shut the flap behind him and fastened it.

  The carriage jerked forward.

  “Well?” Grigor asked.

  The townie in the green cloak peeked out from under the flap, prompting Grigor to cover his eyes. He could hear the horses loud footsteps, the clip-clopping echoing off the walls around the carriage.

  “A moment, if you would.”

  The echoing abruptly faded. The horse snuffled loudly and sped up. They were out in the open street. Grigor didn’t need to look out the flap, he could feel it in the light streaming through every small seam into the carriage, the sounds of men around them, shouting, begging, chatting. And above them all would be the infinite, blue sky.

  Grigor shivered.

  “Would you shut the flap,” Kokran growled, much to Grigor’s relief. “Ain’t none to dark here. It stinks of men on the street.”

  “I’m sorry.” The townie pulled the flap back. “I forget how sensitive diggers are.” He said it matter of factly, as if there was something wrong with hating the light and open spaces. It looked like Kokran was going to belt him one.

  Grigor leaned forward.

  “What’s going on?”

  “We were waiting to clear the town. We can’t afford men hearing this, but forty-five collapsed. Neither of us needs to explain to you how drilled this is for us.”

  Grigor and Kokran sat in silence. There was a weariness on the townies’ faces that made Grigor reconsider his opinion of them.

  After thousands of years of mining under mountains, the ancient shafts of dwarves had run dry of precious metals. Prospectors on walkabouts had found new lands to dig, but these lands had occupants: human men, and all manners of other creatures not-so-Dwarvish.

  A slow migration out of the great underground halls was in process. Front-running dwarfs negotiated with towns to allow diggers into human provinces, in exchange for taxes, or percentages of yield. Then came the digging operations. Steam machines, gunpowder engine carts, and dwarfs in toughened leather and steel skull-caps.

  It was a delicate business. Human miners, displaced by the superior skills and organization of the dwarfs, did their best to stop the flow of dwarf labor down from the mountains. A setback, or slow year, would mean the loss of a contract. Human miners would make sure of that, with campaigns, picketing, and speakers on the corner of every street attacking dwarfs as foreigners, immigrants, non-human, and
slow. That could bankrupt an entire mining company, leading to the dissolution of whole families, broken friendships, and to dwarfs living on open streets, begging for food.

  If they lost an entire shaft, Farrington’s dwarven company could fall far behind. The human miners, toiling on farms or mortaring buildings, were just waiting for such an opportunity.

  “What are your names?” Grigor asked the townies.

  The townie in the green cloak leaned over.

  “I’m Pickit,” he waved a hand at his partner. “This is Toop.” Very topside names. They had to be uppper-level negotiators with the humans. No doubt these two dwarves were responsible for their very livelihood, Grigor thought.

  “You already seem to know who I am, but this is a close friend of mine, Kokran.”

  The two cloaked dwarves looked at Kokran.

  “That’s a super-deep name,” Toop observed. “How long you dug?”

  “Six thousand rotations,” Kokran mumbled, but enjoying a chance to preen a bit. “Thereabouts.”

  Pickit leaned back. “Thirty years, incredible. And you, Grigor?”

  Grigor smiled. If they knew his name, and came to pick him up, they already knew.

  “As long as anyone can remember,” Kokran supplied. “He don’t take no alter-rotations, works right through the off days.”

  Grigor liked the comfort of the deep ground, the dim, flickering lights, and the feel of rock under his hands. He was an old dwarf, from old dwarf family, and some jokingly said more dirt than blood ran in his veins.

  For this reason he felt a sudden irritation at the sidetrack the conversation had taken. A shaft had been broken. This was a serious matter.

  “It doesn’t matter how dirty my beard is,” Grigor said. “What do you need from us?”

  Pickit rubbed his hands together, gathering thoughts.