Children of the Wastes (The Aionach Saga Book 2)

by J. C. Staudt

  CHAPTER 27

  Solution

  Lizneth turned the tiny glass bottle over and over in her hands, watching the brown liquid slosh from end to end. This was her way out; her emancipation from the horrible mistake she’d made in Gris-Mirahz. But for some reason, she couldn’t bring herself to go through with it.

  “Feeling better?” Papa asked, startling her as he approached.

  There had been little extra space in Auntie Pomka and Uncle Enzak’s house, so Lizneth’s family had split up between there and the homes of a few of their neighbors. Papa sat on the bench beside her, glancing over the edge of the platform on Molehind’s third level. The walkways were emptying out as ikzhehn retreated to their homes for the night.

  “Yes, I feel fine,” she lied, slipping the bottle into her pocket. Not quickly enough, though.

  “You didn’t need Kolki’s medicine after all.”

  Lizneth shook her head and stared at her feet. When she thought about how disappointed Papa would be if he knew what she’d done, it was hard to look him in the eye. If she didn’t take Kolki’s potion, he would eventually find out, and the realization put knots in her stomach. Then again, she felt just as bad when she considered ending the life inside her.

  “What do you think is happening back home?” she asked, desperate to change the subject.

  “We can’t be sure, cuzhe. Your Uncle Enzak is well-connected to the other border towns, and from what he’s heard, it isn’t good. But I don’t want to believe anything until we’ve seen it for ourselves.”

  “Is it safe to go back yet?”

  “We shouldn’t. These rumors are never the whole truth. Things could be completely different by the time we return.”

  “Let me go, then,” Lizneth said.

  “No, cuzhe. No. You don’t have to do that.”

  “You know there isn’t room for us here,” she said. “We’ve been a burden on Uncle Enzak and the other families. They’re just too polite to say so. Molehind wasn’t built with huge throngs of visitors in mind. We’re imposing on them. We can’t stay; why not let me go back to Tanley and make sure everything is back to normal? Or, as close to normal as it can be after what’s happened. I’ll send for you if it is. If not, I’ll come back and we’ll figure out something else. I doubt the calaihn stayed there very long anyway, once they were done ruining the place.”

  Papa sighed. “You may be right. But I still won’t risk sending you back on your own.”

  “I’ve been through worse, Papa. I think I can handle myself in the tunnels between here and Tanley.”

  “What happens if you cross paths with the calai army? It’s one thing to have been taken slave by nefarious ikzhehn. If the calaihn take you, they’ll drag you into the blind-world and we’ll never hear from you again.”

  “Has Uncle Enzak heard anything about their latest movements? What about Sniverlik and his forces? Are the Marauders regrouping?”

  “The Marauders are gearing up for war,” Papa said. “But it’s not just the Marauders in Sniverlik’s permanent force, who live at the stronghold in the rime caves. Ikzhehn from villages all around are traveling there in force to lend their aid.”

  “Then the calaihn haven’t found it yet… the stronghold.”

  “I don’t believe so, no.”

  “These villagers must really believe in Sniverlik, to rally around him like this.”

  “Or they’ve simply chosen him over the alternative. That’s what I think. Your Uncle is more of an altruist than I am. He believes that in times of hardship, the ikzhehn take on a certain social conscience. A collective effort toward the common good.”

  Lizneth thought for a moment. “I know you still think of me as a cuzhe, Papa. I am half a nestling, it’s true. I’ve seen things, though. I experienced things while I was out there. I’ve told you and Mama a lot of what happened, but I haven’t told you everything.”

  “What haven’t you told us?”

  Lizneth got a sick feeling in her belly. When she looked at him, his eyes were full of concern. But they were also anxious; pleading for truth.

  She couldn’t tell him. Not now. Not ever. Suddenly, she wished she’d taken Kolki’s medicine. The potion that would make it all go away. She wished the cloudy brown liquid was in her stomach instead of her pocket.

  “Whatever it is, Lizneth. You can tell us. You can tell me.” Papa never called her by her name except when she was in trouble, or when he wanted her attention.

  “I’m going back to Tanley,” she said. “I’ll make sure it’s safe for us.”

  Papa shook his head, adamant. “You will not. Find someone to go with you, or you stay. I will not allow you to go alone.”

  “But Papa, I barely know anyone here.”

  “Make a new friend,” he suggested.

  “A friend who wants to travel all the way back to Tanley with me? Who’s probably never been there, and has no interest in going?”

  “You’re coming right back,” he said. “Aren’t you?”

  Lizneth couldn’t help but feel hurt by the question. The way he’d asked it, as if he suspected she might abandon them… again. They knew Curznack had taken her against her will, but that didn’t change the fact that she’d run away from home of her own accord. “I’m coming back,” she said, almost a whisper.

  “Your Uncle has a few cuzhehn your age who work for him at the digging place. Maybe he can spare them for a few days. I’m sure he can find at least one or two who’d enjoy a short travel.”

  “If you think it best, Papa.”

  As it happened, Uncle Enzak had not one or two, but three young workers he could spare. Not spare, though, so much as assign. They were to carry a load of minerals—coal, iron, shale, and slate—to Tanley for trading. He instructed them to give away a small portion to Tanley’s neediest families to help with the rebuilding. They were to charge fair prices for the rest, and focus on getting supplies for the short-year in return.

  Lizneth said goodbye to her family and, after enduring Mama’s relentless barrage of warnings, reminders, and melodramatic breakdowns, met her companions in the deeps below the village. After a brief round of introductions, they set off into the tunnels, each—except Lizneth—pulling a heavy two-wheeled hand cart full of Uncle Enzak’s product.

  And so, since Uncle Enzak’s business pursuits had coincided with Lizneth’s errand, she now had three traveling companions whom she neither knew nor liked. They were all, as Papa had predicted, close to Lizneth’s age. Stevrin was the only buck of the group, a pudgy agouti with a wave of pinpricked fur running down the center of his scalp. It always stayed that way, as if he’d brushed it there on purpose. Lizneth thought it made him look wild and dangerous, but the other two didn’t seem to think so.

  Krinica and Barlyza were agoutis too, a common affliction in Molehind. Plain brown fur and pitch-black eyes—and in Barlyza’s case, a splash of white above the paws. They were older than Lizneth, but she would never have guessed it by their behavior. They made Lizneth walk behind them—in case anything fell out of the carts, they claimed—and proceeded to laugh and joke with one another the whole way there. They could walk down a cotterphage’s throat and never notice until it ate them, Lizneth thought with disdain, and a little hope.

  The two young does spent so much time giggling and flirting with Stevrin they rarely noticed whenever a lump of coal bounced off the back of their carts, or a slab of shale slid off the pile to crack on the ground. Lizneth was left to snatch these up as she went, jog-stepping to catch the carts so she could replace them. At times, it got tough to watch all three carts at once. Sometimes a whole stack would fall, or a pile would give way and start an avalanche. “You’re supposed to keep things from falling, Lizneth,” Krinica or Barlyza would say hotly. “That’s why you’re back there.”

  By the end of the first day, Lizneth’s fur was powdered with dust and soot, her belly smudged from carrying armfuls of fallen mineral. At least they didn’t make me pull one of the carts for them
, she thought as she drifted off to sleep. That all changed on the second day, though.

  “I pinched my hand really bad yesterday,” Barlyza said, pouty-faced. “Would you mind pulling my cart for me this morning, Lizneth? Just for a little while.”

  A little while ended up taking all day. And instead of walking behind the carts, as Lizneth had done, Barlyza walked between Stevrin and Krinica. Wouldn’t want to spoil the fun, Lizneth found herself thinking. She was the only one who ever noticed when something fell. She’d stop her cart and race back to pick it up. The others would sometimes break up their party long enough to call back to her.

  “Hurry up, slowpoke,” they’d say.

  Or, “What’s taking you so long?”

  Or, “Why do you keep stopping? Don’t you know how to steer a stupid cart?”

  By the third or fourth time it happened, Lizneth stopped trying to make excuses for herself. It didn’t matter what she said. They would stare at her like she was some slow-witted cur, laugh to themselves, and keep going. A few times, she thought about quitting altogether; ignoring the fallen goods, setting the cart handles on the ground, and taking off down the tunnel ahead of them. But they were her uncle’s goods, and it wouldn’t be Stevrin or Krinica or Barlyza she hurt by abandoning them.

  By the time they settled into an alcove beside the tunnel for their second night’s rest, Lizneth was sore, tired, heated, and even dirtier than the first day. She collapsed with her back to the tunnel wall and opened the kerchief Mama had packed for her. Stale cracker-bread, a few bits of cheese, and a few strips of dried fish were all that remained.

  “Hey, you gonna keep that all to yourself?” Stevrin asked, brushing the air with curious whiskers.

  Lizneth frowned. “Didn’t you bring any food of your own?”

  “A little,” he said. “Not as much as you got. Pulling carts is hard work.”

  “Not as hard as digging,” said Krinica. “I’m glad we got out of that for a few days.”

  “It’s not like you ever do any work anyway,” Barlyza chided her.

  “Hey.” Krinica dug her fingers into Barlyza’s sides to make her squirm—half poke, half tickle.

  “Check out what I found while I was digging the other day,” said Stevrin, pulling something from his pocket. He opened his palm to show them.

  It was bright, shining yellow, a gold nugget the size of an acorn. Enzak’s mines were a favorite raiding spot for the Marauders, so any precious metals that turned up there most often went directly into their pockets. Lizneth’s uncle did okay for himself despite the Marauders’ tampering, but they treated him no better than anyone else.

  “You are so bad,” said Barlyza, smoothing out the last word as though it meant something entirely different—something that wasn’t really bad at all.

  “Ooh, can I have it?” Krinica asked. “I’ve been dying for a new outfit.”

  “No way,” said Stevrin. He clamped his hand shut and thrust it into his pocket.

  Lizneth sat up. “Did you steal that?”

  Stevrin cast her a lazy glance. “I found it.”

  “In my uncle’s digging place.”

  Stevrin shrugged. “We all dig there.”

  “He owns it. You work for him. You’d better give that back.”

  “Or what? What’s the little scearib gonna do?”

  “I’ll tell him,” she said.

  “Oh really? And what then? You think Enzak’s going to admit he’s been skimming a little off the top for years now too?”

  “It’s his digging place. He can do what he wants with the findings.”

  “Don’t fool yourself. The Marauders are supposed to get the first cut. Everyone knows that. They get the first cut of everything. Enzak takes a little for himself first, though. Always leaves a few nice shiny pieces for them to ogle. You know, to distract ‘em from the real rich stuff.”

  “It doesn’t matter. You still took something that doesn’t belong to you.”

  “Yeah, and it’d be a shame if the Marauders ever found out Enzak’s been taking stuff that belongs to them, wouldn’t it? Why, just a couple weeks ago I heard someone turned up a big chunk of zithstone. You think the Marauders will ever get their hands on that?” He grunted, answering his own question.

  Lizneth huffed, defeated. She felt like a whining cuzhe, making such a fuss over something so small. She’d told Papa she wasn’t a nestling anymore—she was grown up, and she could handle herself in grown-up situations. Maybe she shouldn’t have said anything. If Uncle Enzak got in trouble because of her, she’d feel awful. “Forget it. Forget I brought it up.”

  “Yeah. Okay.” Stevrin turned his back to her and sat between the does.

  Barlyza and Krinica looked at each other and rolled their eyes.

  They made it to Tanley late on the following day. Lizneth scented the village long before they arrived. The tunnel air thickened with death-haick, an odor both smoky and rancid. The closer they came, the more she feared what they might find.

  The river was the first thing she heard above the creaking of the carts. She could tell right away it was running high, overflowing its banks. That could only mean one thing: rain in the blind-world. Rain so heavy it must’ve been part of the yerl-pashk, the world’s anger.

  They emerged from the tunnel to find themselves in a hazy, grimy cavern that Lizneth hardly recognized. It was Tanley, though; the rolling terrain and the sweep of black stone along the familiar contour of the walls was unmistakable. At the top of the hill, beside the footpath which led toward the village proper, lay a smoldering pile of ash, charred ironwood beams sticking out like needles from a pincushion. At the rear, a half-collapsed stack of riverstone marked the location that had once been her family’s hearth.

  Lizneth stopped breathing. She sank to her haunches, head spinning. A mewling moan escaped her lips without her permission. She couldn’t stop what came next, and before she knew it she was weeping. Some grown-up you turned out to be, she chided herself.

  “What’s her problem?” she heard Krinica ask.

  “Get up, zibzhe,” said Barlyza.

  Stevrin shook his head. “Dugh vilck ru lahmed…”

  The two young does scented the air, then set their cart handles on the ground and came over.

  “This village has nothing left,” Stevrin said. “It’s not even a place where zhehn live anymore.”

  “It has a river,” Krinica said. “Where there’s a river, there will always be river-scum and fisherfolk living nearby.”

  “It’s better this way, if you want my opinion,” said Barlyza. “I’ve been to Tanley a few times. It was a trash heap of a village. The calaihn did them a favor by burning the whole thing to the ground. Now they can start over, and maybe it won’t scent like the haick of poor parikuahn all the time.”

  They laughed, the three of them, together. Even in Stevrin’s solemn mood, he managed to laugh louder than the two females.

  Lizneth felt her jaw tighten. She was too weak to scream, too tired to fight. The sobs wouldn’t stop coming, no matter how hard she tried to stuff them down inside. Otherwise she might’ve leapt on one of them and started a scrap. This was no time for a scrap, though. It was time to get even. Time to show the calaihn what a mistake they’d made in coming here.

  She stood, taking a moment to compose herself. “Let’s go. The village is just ahead.”

  Tanley was a black cloud of flies and stale smoke. Scorch marks climbed the cave walls where homes and businesses used to stand. Bodies, ikzhe and calai alike, lay scattered across the expanse in various states of decomposition. Some were little more than colorless lumps of decay, returning to the earth. Others swayed in the river current, half-buried in mud along the shoreline, or charred beside the blackened remains of the river bridge.

  No one was around. Not a single living zhe. And some of the bodies were much fresher than the others.

  Just outside the village, beside Gazhakk the herbalist’s cave-mouth hovel, stood the Dead-end Door. Th
e giant rusted portal looked different, somehow. There were scratch marks at the base and around the edges of the frame, silvery slivers of metal gleaming beneath the rust, as if someone had tried clawing it open and, when that had failed, digging beneath it. What sort of creature or tool makes marks like that? she wondered. And what were they trying to get to?

  Tanley’s zhehn had always accepted the door as a fixture of the village; a mystery left unexplained. Similarly, visitors often marveled at its construction and theorized about its purpose and origins. It felt heavy, solid, even without knowing how thick it was or who had put it there. They’d long since stopped trying to open it. Older scuffs, nicks, and scratches where tools had tried and failed to penetrate its stubborn exterior had long since gone to rust.

  “What’s that thing?” Stevrin, standing behind her, wanted to know.

  “That’s the Dead-end Door,” said Barlyza. “It leads to the world below.”

  “We’re in the below-world,” said Stevrin.

  “Yeah, I know, dummy,” she said. “The world below is under the below-world.”

  Stevrin scowled. “What? That’s the stupidest thing I’ve ever heard.”

  “Fine. Don’t believe me. It’s true, though.”

  Lizneth sighed. “Let’s keep going.”

  Lizneth’s companions seemed reticent to continue. They stood there, whiskers perked, arms folded, tails stiff with apprehension. The river burbled. The flies buzzed.

  “We’ve got to keep going,” Lizneth repeated. “See what it’s like across the river.”

  “I’m not going any further,” Barlyza said. “This is scary and gross. We came all this way for nothing. I say we go back.”

  “Yeah,” said Krinica, nodding. “I’m with you.”

  Lizneth looked at Stevrin, who licked his paws and scrubbed his longteeth. He’s trying to be brave for the does, but he’s as scared as they are, she realized. “You all go back, if you want. I’m staying.”

  “Come on, Stevrin,” said Barlyza, taking him by the arm. “You heard her. Let’s go.”

  Stevrin didn’t move. “No. We’re going ahead.”