The Nethers

by M. E. Parker

  Their heads shook at the same time as if connected. Two other guards in the wall above them revealed their gun barrels through holes in the rubble.

  “Please. What about the intention ritual?”

  One of the guards pointed down to the level below them.

  Myron made his way back to the main guard shack, and, passing by a stall named Biro Pizza by the Slice, he spotted an old man with a long beard sleeping in an oven. He climbed over a splintered counter for a look at the vagrant. The man’s eyes popped open, and he pointed a slender strip of sharpened metal toward Myron.

  “I’m just…here waiting.” Myron raised his arms to show he held no weapon.

  “Waiting for what?”

  Relieved that he and the old man spoke the same language, Myron stepped back until he lowered his blade. “I need to see Te Yah. It’s an emergency.”

  “Te Yah, no, no.” The man gathered a handful of his beard and twisted it. “He won’t see you.”

  “Why not?”

  “You’re not his folk. Me either. I tried.” The man swung his legs around and squirmed out of the oven. His knotted hair jutted from his head in all directions. “I figure, short of being inside Mesa Gap, right out front is the next safest place in this windswept world to be.”

  “But I have to go inside.”

  “You don’t have to. You want to.” The man rolled the hair on his head with one hand and twirled his beard with the other. “Big difference.” Myron couldn’t see the man’s mouth, only the bristle of his beard when he spoke.

  Myron had spent every waking moment trying to figure a way out of Jonesbridge. Now he was going to have to do the same to devise a way into Mesa Gap. If only he had his airship, he could soar over the walls of Old Age debris and drop right into Mesa Gap. A crowd would gather round to meet the intrepid aeronaut, and Te Yah would come to greet him to hear what he had to say.

  If gaining entrance to Mesa Gap posed such a challenge, Myron faced a discouraging prospect of convincing Te Yah to join forces with Megan or surrender her power source. His grandfather would have called it a “fool’s errand,” but much of what Myron did fit that description.

  “What about the intention ritual?”

  “I heard about that, too. Never got a chance, just nop, nop, always nop.”

  Myron climbed over the counter and returned to the main guard shack where two different men stood guard. Their gun barrels lowered as he approached. “I need to speak with Te Yah. Please. It’s an emergency.” Myron made a cradle with his arms and rocked. “Must save baby. Baby?” he said again. “Please.”

  One of the guards pointed in the direction of the road, while the other waved Myron away.

  “Nop,” Myron used their word. “Nop. I’m standing right here until I see Te Yah.”

  The two guards glared at Myron while he stared into the black holes of the gun barrels pointed at him. They remained that way for an hour, until one of the guards lowered his gun and entered the guard shack. He spoke into the communication device and returned to assume the same posture as his partner.

  After a few minutes, two new guards emerged from the gate, grabbed the shotguns, and took up the same position as the guards they’d relieved, while the other guards went inside, speaking in Gapi and laughing.

  Myron wondered: were they laughing at him, the pathetic Industry slog begging for entrance, standing in the line of fire of two weapons that could shred his flesh at this range? Myron’s knees began to ache from standing, so he sat down, the gun barrels following his change in position. “I need to speak with Te Yah,” he said again, rubbing his face. “Please.”

  Myron rested his head on his hands and imagined Sindra and her baby here with him, negotiating passage on an oceangoing ship bound for Bora Bora instead of trying to gain access to whatever lay beyond the barricade of junk. He drifted to sleep with Sindra’s face in his mind and awoke when he tipped over, hitting his head on the ground. He shuffled to his feet, noticing that both guards had returned to the guard shack.

  When the gate opened again a woman came through with an animal on a leash. She knelt down and spoke in the animal’s ear, scratched its head and untied it from the leash. The animal, resembling a coyote but with short brown hair and a thick neck, raced at Myron.

  “That’s a dog.” Myron turned to run, but remembered all he’d read about dogs in his grandfather’s books, that they were a friend of man, they were companions. The dog barked, gnashing his teeth, making Myron question his decision not to run. He stood his ground. When the dog reached him he sniffed the air and Myron, his feet and hands. He circled around him, and his tail wagged. Myron reached out a reluctant hand to feel its fur.

  The woman ambled up, nodding. “This is Pyro. He’s the first test. Since he didn’t take your arm off, you might be okay.” She patted her leg, and Pyro ran to greet her. “Te Yah isn’t doing his intention ritual much anymore. No point, he says, but I’ll take you to the fire and see what comes out.”

  Myron followed her not inside the gate but along the outside of the wall. Pyro snuffled along the edge of the wall with purpose, hiking his leg, sniffing again, his tail wagging. Seeing such a happy creature fritter around with abandon put Myron at ease. “Can I…pet him?”

  “If he’ll let you.”

  “Where’d you get him?”

  “You like dogs?”

  “I don’t know.”

  “Well, there’s a whole pack of dogs that roam the hills north of here.” She nodded to the north.

  Myron held out his hand for Pyro to sniff. He eased his hand down onto his back. The dog’s hair was coarse when rubbed toward his head; rubbing the other way, it was soft.

  “Strange, he does seem to like you. Some folks he wants to tear apart.”

  They continued up a metal staircase across the roof of a crumbling building to a tall ladder. She put up a hand in Pyro’s face, snapping a command in Gapi, compelling the dog to sit.

  Myron followed the woman up the tall ladder to a turret, independent of the main structure. From here, he could see forever to the south and east, but he was still not high enough for a glimpse inside Mesa Gap. She instructed Myron to sit near a circular fire pit, and headed for a door on the other side. She pressed a button beside the door and said something in Gapi into a communication portal.

  The door opened. A hand holding a leather pouch poked out. She took the pouch and shut the door before she gave it to Myron. “Eat that.”

  Myron stuck two fingers into the pouch and pulled it open until it exposed a brown mass. “What is it?”

  “Beast’s breath.” She nudged his arm with her knee. “Eat it.”

  Myron sniffed the bag, noting that it smelled like wet earth. He pinch the mass and shoved it into his mouth. On first chew, the texture reminded him of rubber, until it broke into moist chunks.

  “Now what?”

  “Wait there until the sun sets.” The woman threw several gnarled shin pine logs from a stack into the fire. She adjusted kindling under the logs and lit a fire with a flint striker. “Te Yah was born blind. But he can hear deception. He may not like what you have to say, but do not lie.”

  With his eyes not straying from the infant fire, growing, spreading, discovering the course to take for fuel in the veins of the wood, the passage of time escaped him. Myron noticed that he was now alone. The flames expanded, shrank, and popped, in a yellow-and-orange embrace that reached for a star field above him, dripping with tears of the dead. What he’d eaten from the pouch had stolen his ability to interpret the world around him.

  The door on the other side of the fire pit opened. Myron’s vision blurred at the edges, the light forming long lines like legs of a star. A cane landed, a staff consisting of the skull of a small animal, the perfect size for a human hand to grasp, mounted on a section of quarter-inch rebar. A foot stepped. The cane landed again. Someone sat across the fire from Myron, silent for a period of time Myron could not measure.

  “I am Te Yah,” he finally
said. “I am descended from the Navajo people. As the animals, forests, and fish disappeared, so have the Navajo. As the last of their kind, I have failed my people. I have been separated from their traditions, but their blood still dwells within me.”

  Myron saw a face in the fire, his grandfather’s face, speaking the words of Te Yah before a river where bears clawed fish in a waterfall and the Superintendent of Industry set fire to the water.

  “No matter what the conquerors of the Old Age brought—guns, gifts, religions, treaties, or disease, their intentions remained constant. My ancestors lost access to the land, they lost their way of life, and their language died long before the calamities that brought the world to the brink of destruction. What remains of their blood resides in Mesa Gap, along with the tongue the Gapi speak that carries a few expressions native to the Navajo. Here we welcome all heirs to the blood of great native peoples of the past.”

  Whenever Te Yah said the word tongue Myron stuck out his own tongue as if to lick the fire. His body and mind parted ways, one heading for a place called Navajo, the other digging a hole where the Gapi buried their dead.

  “Hear me. There are two ways to fail this test.” Te Yah drew a line with his cane. “Tell a lie.” He drew another line. “Or, tell the truth and reveal your intentions to be unacceptable. Do you understand?”

  “Yes.”

  “See the colors within the flames. Among the yellow and orange. Find the red. The blood of the animals. Wolf, bear, eagle, snake, owl, all lost forever. Which animal do you carry?”

  Myron hoped to carry them all. Each bore importance and curiosity. After finding his inner coyote in Jonesbridge, he was certain he would have chosen coyote, but Coyote Man’s betrayal clouded the coyote’s image for Myron, sending him back to his childhood. “Elephant.”

  “Elephant?” They both remained silent as the fire crackled, until Te Yah spoke again. “Why elephant?”

  Myron found it difficult to speak the words his mind produced, so his responses popped out in short bursts. “Strong. Gentle. Intelligent. Memory.”

  Te Yah threw a handful of red dust into the fire. Myron sat up when he heard the sizzle of rising flames and saw the twinkle of tiny lights. “Why do you want to enter Mesa Gap?”

  Myron realized that the only reason he wanted to enter Mesa Gap was to speak to Te Yah, and there he was. “I need your help.”

  “My help?”

  “Sindra’s baby. Megan will help if you join—against Orkin.”

  “Join with Megan?”

  “Need help in fight against Orkin.”

  Te Yah anchored his cane and labored to his feet. “We have constructed this fortress city so that we no longer have to fight. The earth is ill, but it will one day heal. What remains of the Navajo in the Gapi will inherit the lands taken from my people and once again thrive—in concert with the earth. Not in opposition to it. Mesa Gap will be our last reservation.” Te Yah limped toward the door. “Is this the only reason you have come?”

  Myron longed to speak at length about the need for new life in the world and to say that Sindra’s baby could help usher in a new world. He wanted to speak with Te Yah about his salvage skills and to tell him that he would be a valuable member of their community, but the words, if they left his mouth, got singed by the fire.

  “Sindra’s a slave. I can buy her freedom with energy source—that you stole from Megan.” Myron ran his hand through the top of the flames, his pain manifesting into enthusiasm. “Energy source that will light the night sky.”

  “I did not steal it—but it is true. I took the energy source from her as a responsible steward of my people. It belongs to the Old Age, not to Megan. A person like her with such power would certainly destroy what’s left of the world.”

  “Orkin’s Landing stole Sindra’s baby. I don’t know how to get her back. Megan said you are the only one who can challenge Orkin.”

  “We have never been aggressors. We will not start a war that will endanger what we have built.”

  Myron reclined, lying on his back to stare at the sky. Light from the stars formed streaks as he rocked his head back and forth. The beast’s breath began to draw the words from deep within. “I too am a dying breed. An experiment. A mistake. A slog. My life is only worth what I am able to share.”

  “The twins you brought here. Where did you find them?”

  “Rounder found them. With their mother. A dead man. Locomotive.”

  Te Yah stoked the fire with his cane. Sparks joined the stars in the sky where Myron searched for Sindra’s star. Did she still have it? The cries of babies echoed through his ears as though a hundred infants floated on the edge of the turret.

  “The twins tell me that you were chained to a dead man when they found you. Is this true?”

  “Dead.”

  “I’m sorry, Myron. Your intentions do not meet with the good of Mesa Gap.”

  “Wait. Please.” Myron rubbed his eyes, trying to focus on the ancient man standing by the door. “I know how to read books. I have knowledge that others don’t. I can salvage, too.”

  “I did not say your intentions weren’t honorable. I said they did not meet with the good of Mesa Gap. You were found chained to a dead man. Misfortune and death will follow in your wake. Our struggle is difficult. The weights of one man’s misfortune must not be heavier than that of the village. Such an imbalance leads to destruction.” Te Yah reached for the handle of the door and opened it. “The twins must also return to you. Although they share the blood of noble ancestors, they were separated when they should have remained joined. One person cut in two. The boy is ill. He may stay.”

  “Please, Te Yah. Help me get the baby.”

  “We have babies in Mesa Gap. We can’t risk our future for a baby in Orkin’s Landing. That would make me a bad leader. Unlike the settlements of my ancestors, Mesa Gap will not be taken.”

  Te Yah opened the door. Mah-ré and Gah-té came out, and the door closed behind them.

  Chapter Fifteen

  Sindra had lost her family at such a young age that she relied on her imagination to fill in the features of their faces. She’d never met her father, one of any number of Alliance soldiers awaiting passage on the river, but she knew him—not a ghost of Civility like those who ravaged her in Jonesbridge, but a conscripted kid, torn from his home, searching for affection in the arms of Sindra’s mother, a carpie. Both her grandparents suffered from toxicity and chronic wet lung, mind-addled wanderers who squandered everything her mother earned servicing soldiers’ desires. Before she meandered away from home for the last time, her grandmother told Sindra that her mother’s beauty drew people to her, but her eyes kept them there. Sindra couldn’t remember her mother’s eyes, and she often questioned what about them captured those who looked into them. Clear, wet, colorful, bloody, teared from sand and smoke—these characteristics came first to mind when she looked into the eyes of most people she encountered. But a certain life behind them, a dream that passed from one person to another in the form of a gaze—Myron’s eyes held that description. When Myron held her in his eyes, Sindra’s mind cleared. She worked with purpose and planned, believing in herself. His eyes gave Sindra a place to dream.

  “So, what’s the plan?” The only plan Sindra could devise—go to Mesa Gap and find Myron, but, seeing the force the Alliance was sending that way, she knew it wouldn’t be easy.

  “No one out here can stop them.” Rounder nodded. “Not with that firepower. The only way we can defeat Jonesbridge is to do it while they are mobilized.” Rounder headed down the hill toward the end of the caravan.

  “What are you doing?” Ren asked, not following.

  “I have a plan. We’ll go to the League.”

  “Who is the League?” Sindra asked.

  “A group of settlements banded together under one flag for protection,” Ren said.

  “Their leader is a slippery lud. Always tries to cheat me when I bring things around to trade.” Rounder motioned for everyone to get l
ower as they descended the hill, growing closer to the Alliance convoy. “So we can’t trust them to help us fight.”

  “Why go the—” Sindra slid on a loose rock. Her voice cracked.

  “We tell the League that Jonesbridge is unguarded. That their forces are out here. That’s all. They’re sneaky, so they’ll send their fighters to loot Jonesbridge while it is vulnerable.” He snapped his fingers. “And that weakens Jonesbridge. A weak Jonesbridge helps us.”

  “We can’t make the League on foot, Rounder.” Ren crawled down to a rock to stay out of sight.

  “Look there.” Rounder pointed to a wagon full of coal lagging behind the faster vehicles in front of it. “That mule train is as least a mule short for the load.” Rounder held up two fingers. “One driver. One guard.” He put up three fingers. “Three of us. We’ll dump the coal and make a run for it.”

  “Sounds like suicide.”

  Rounder glared at Sindra. “Got a better idea?”

  “You were wrong about where they were going the first time. Maybe we follow them in the wings. See exactly what they’re up to.” Sindra had learned on the rails how to trail someone, staying within earshot, hearing conversations and plans, sabotaging, tricking and frightening those they followed. If they stayed at a safe distance, they could devise a trap, but if they went anywhere with a wagon, it should be to Mesa Gap, both to find Myron and to warn the Gapi.

  “I want Jonesbridge to go down, Sindra. I thought you did, too.”

  “I do. But the best way to do that is to warn Mesa Gap.”

  “Mesa Gap won’t talk to us. So we won’t to talk to them.”

  “Ren? What do you think?” Sindra nudged her shoulder.

  “Rounder’s right. You may as well warn that rock over there. It’ll listen to you more than Mesa Gap will.”

  Outnumbered two to one, Sindra recalled the game of chance that slogs played in the Swill Pen in Fourteen C. If she couldn’t convince them, she could make a wager. “Let’s play a game of nub. I win, we follow, unseen, to Mesa Gap. Ren, you win, we go to hijack an Alliance coal wagon, and if we are still alive, we go to the League.” She held up her hand at Rounder. “It’s a two-man game. You’re out.”