“Well?” she asked as she once again raised the tong.
He recoiled. “It’s…that is…yes, there’s another entrance. It’s in the council hall.”
“Where at in the council hall?”
“Ten steps past the second apartment on the left side.”
“Is it hidden?”
Silence. She started to place the poker against his right temple, but he screamed and jerked his whole face towards the instrument as it neared his face, baring his teeth and biting at her hand. It startled her, and she jumped. The handle twitched in her hand just as he leaned forward and the glowing metal touched his eyeball and sank in with nothing more than a short, crisp pop.
His shriek cut through every bone in her body, and she stared in horror as his eye ran down his cheek in thick, white clumps. The tong struck the ground with a hollow thump, and Del fell to her knees and covered it with vomit. The bile poured out of her until there was nothing left in her stomach but blood, and even some of that came up. Del wiped the strings of saliva from her mouth with the back of her hand as she crawled to the wall and curled into a ball. She buried her head between her arms and sobbed into the darkness, but nothing blocked out his voice. She stayed that way, a ghost on the wall, until his screams faded to little more than echoes.
When his harsh panting was the only noise in the room, she stood up and inched around him. Although she could hear him breathing, she wasn’t relieved of her guilt.
The watcher’s amulet felt heavy against her skin, marking her as unworthy as she grabbed Trisinna’s text. When she reached the door, she turned and looked at him, her tears drying against her skin like old riverbeds. Cringing at the thought of what she might have become, Del pulled the hood over her head and stepped into an uncertain future.
207
Twenty-Two
Forgiveness is a trait you learn.
Their footsteps echoed down the unusually silent hall. It was as if Obawok had become a vacant space, its halls no longer roamed by beings but by stale memories and uncertainty.
The door opened as they approached, and the President was standing in front of his desk to greet them, something Firturro had never seen.
“Firturro, I had Tigaffo come to get you because Roger’s made some amazing progress, and I thought you would be excited to hear about it,” the President said as the door shut behind them, his false smile frightening Firturro like nothing else had been able to do so far. The President motioned to an empty chair in the middle of the room, and Firturro looked around before seating himself. The significance of the lone chair did not escape him, and part of him felt the final piece click into place, knowing that this was the beginning of his end even as he returned the President’s smile and sat down.
“So I heard. What has he been doing?” Firturro held his face as straight as he could.
“That’s really the question, isn’t it? What has he been up to?”
“I’m not sure what you’re implying.”
“We caught a servant gnome in the watcher hall heading toward your room.” The President’s smile widened, but this time, it wasn’t a false one. “Tigaffo, could you fetch our little friend? I’ll bet that would clear up a lot of this confusion.”
Firturro’s eyes widened in horror as Tigaffo stepped behind the desk and returned with an unconscious Six. He was bound, his body covered in blood and dark purple splotches.
“This is the gnome. We know he was going to your room. We sent a translator gnome to investigate, and you let him in without question.” As the President moved forward, Firturro noticed the bandage on his hand and smiled.
207
Kristi Brooks
“I still don’t know what you’re talking about. I let a gnome into my room, but it was only because he claimed to be picking up something for you. But I wouldn’t worry, you should be hearing back from him at any time, Itckrelle.”
Tigaffo spun around, his face a network of confusion. The President’s hate-filled eyes glowed brighter.
“So, she told you?”
“Told him what?” Tigaffo asked, the lines in his face deepening.
“This is no concern of yours. This is between Firturro and me, isn’t it, Firturro?” the President commanded Tigaffo even as he continued to stare at Firturro.
“I’m not sure what you mean.” Firturro’s smile slowly spread across his face as he spoke.
“Where is she now?” the President asked, his fists opening and closing into tight balls, imagining how it would feel to have her skin rip open in his hands.
Firturro shrugged. “Not sure. She left my apartment before Tigaffo came.”
“And the translator gnome?”
“He left, too.”
“Liar!” The President’s eyes were so bright they radiated purple light. “Gnomes! Open the door.”
The doors swung open, and on the other side were two of the largest guards Firturro had ever seen. As they stepped into the room, Firturro felt his smile falter.
“It’s time we discussed what you do know.”
“I’m not sure what you want, Itckrelle, but you’re not getting it. Nor are you getting my cooperation and certainly not my respect. I just want to know how you’ve done it, how you’ve been able to live this long without anyone catching on. Are Obawok that stupid, or are we just that susceptible to your lies?”
“You won’t live long enough to find out if you don’t tell me where that stinking whore is.” The President leaned within inches of Firturro’s face, the smell of rot and decay causing his eyes to water, but he refused to flinch. “And more importantly, you’re going to tell me what she’s doing. What has all of you protecting her as if she were something more than a used up service bitch?”
Firturro stared blankly into the face of pure hatred and refused to move. The guards walked up behind him, one on either side, but he still didn’t lower his eyes, and when the blows began, he actually felt relieved.
Del knew she had to get this right. Firturro had gone to the President and given her time. Time she had used to torture information out of the translator gnome. Time she had used to poke his eye out.
Stop thinking about that…One, two….
Her feet rose and fell in the silent council hall. The gnome had said it was ten steps down and on the left, but she had counted out ten steps and checked the left wall three times without any success. If the hall hadn’t been so empty she would’ve gotten caught for sure, but so far she’d not seen anyone else.
Nine…ten.
And still no door. Even though gnomes weren’t known for being brave creatures, she wondered if this one hadn’t tricked her. Six had told her once that their bodies were frail and sensitive, and while they healed quickly, the intensity of the rebuilding process made it almost unbearable.
Until Six had become her friend, she’d such a limited interaction with other beings that it felt like she was dealing with another universe. She was astonished that such small creatures could have lived so much and accrued so many lifetimes worth of experience and knowledge while she’d barely existed.
Small? Small legs. Ten steps or ten gnome steps?
A genuine smile spread across her lips as she backed up and began again, this time taking smaller steps to emulate a gnome’s stride.
When she reached ten, she tried to breathe, but her stomach was so tight that when she tried to inhale, a sharp pain shot down through her chest.
She turned her head to the left and let the air out of her lungs in a giant whoosh as she was again confronted with a solid wall. Tears welled up and blurred her vision. She thought of everything she had done, and hadn’t done, in her long life, and that only made the desire to cry stronger. She clutched the wall and let the tears slip from her lids like fiery bullets, and as she watched, one fell against the wall, illuminating a hairline crack. Del gulped back her tears and ran her finger along the wall to make sure the crack was really there. The miniscule crack grew and the wall slid inward as if it were on hinges.
Pushing her fingertips into the crack, she put her shoulder against the block and used the solid section of the wall as leverage. When the gap was large enough for her to squeeze through, she slipped inside and pushed the door closed.
She turned around and found herself in a dark hallway where dim, electric lamps were sporadically placed so that large pools of darkness temporarily swallowed her as she stepped in and out of their presence. The rough surface slid past her fingertips as they trailed against the dark wall, and she stumbled as her hand dipped into nothing. Del felt around and discovered that it was a hole in the wall just large enough for an Obawok to squeeze through. When she stepped through the hole, she had to lean back to compensate for as the path’s sharp incline. For a long time she stood in the dark and wondered if this hall was the one that carried his short, fat legs into her room for all those years. The thought of him walking this dark passage on his way to torture her made her chest seize up with anger, the memory of each blow sinking into her flesh.
Turning around, she scrambled back through the entrance and tried to calm herself by concentrating on Trulle. She turned and began walking back down the tunnel, but with each footstep, she found her anger replaced by anxiety. By the time she reached the door, she was covered in beads of sweat and a soft thumping was working its way through her temples.
For a long time she stood in front of the door, imagining what she was going to say to him. The perspiration now coated her body like a second layer of skin. She used the arm of the cloak to wipe her face just as the door swung open and she found herself looking at a young, healthy Obawok male, his hair the untarnished silver of royalty while his eyes still glowed with the sheen of innocence.
He stared at her as he stepped into the hall, a burlap bag clutched in one hand.
“Are you leaving?” she asked without meaning to.
“Why? Were you sent here to find out what I was up to? Well, go ahead, scurry off and tell him.” His face pulled together in anger, and he tried to push past her into the hall. Del stepped back in front of him, and he stopped mid-stride.
“No, I came to see you.” Del reached up and lowered the hood, looking at her son full-faced. “I…I came because…I know what he’s really like, and….”
“How could you know what he’s really like?”
“That doesn’t matter. You know something’s happening, you know how bad he is; otherwise, you wouldn’t be leaving.”
Silence enveloped them as their eyes each searched for the truth in the other’s face. And then, a blanket of darkness came between them.
Roger and Trey found themselves in limbo.
They could hear voices all around them that were periodically driven out by the constant thrumming of equipment and the static buzz of electricity. When they’d been exploring the back of the building, Roger had stumbled and almost fallen down a flight of stairs.
Together they’d wondered down the stairs and into a basement that seemed separate from the building. The stairs floated away as soon as both their feet hit the concrete floor as if they didn’t belong in this world. Various shades of roving light lit the room, so they’d blown out their candles and stood in mutual astonishment.
“You think this is what it looks like through the looking glass?” Trey asked as the flickering shadow form of a human male in a tan uniform and bright yellow hardhat breezed past him, causing him to jump sideways.
Instead of answering, Roger scanned the space. The ghostly figures would appear and disappear as they walked across the room. One even strode through a pole in the center of the room as if it wasn’t even there. Sometimes, the people were so real they actually stirred up air around them, and other times, he could barely hear their voices. The only constant was the electricity. As another one of the human forms passed in front of them, Roger caught a glimpse of the writing on its hardhat.
“Rural Energy Co-op.” Roger read the words out loud as the figure passed.
“They supply electricity for people in the country, right?” Trey asked, leaning forward as he tried to stick his hand outward toward the worker. Without breaking its stride, the figure moved around Trey’s outstretched hand. “Wow!”
“It sure seems like they know we’re here, even if they can’t see us,” Roger said.
Roger moved forward, his feet followed the constant humming of the machinery. The floors and the walls remained constant, but they didn’t seem any more real than the shadow workers.
Trey followed him as they walked along a path that felt as if it might stretch into infinity. Their footsteps didn’t make a sound, and the further inward they moved, the louder the noise grew. It stretched out like a lion’s roar and echoed through his head until it vibrated in his bones and became solid enough that it filled every inch of space around them.
They had progressed far enough in that even the workmen seemed to have disappeared altogether. Roger thought they might be traveling through this middle plane forever when they spotted an object that glowed and moved in the darkness, keeping rhythm with the rise and fall of the noise.
Just as he thought he might have walked to the edge of the universe, Roger saw that the beautiful arc was comprised of blue and yellow jolts. He paused, enchanted by the arcing beauty. Before he realized what he was doing, he began running toward the object. He could barely make out Trey’s voice as he yelled for him to stop. Roger didn’t know how long he had been in this black hole of a cellar and he no longer cared, he just wanted to bathe in the beautiful light at the end of the tunnel.
He forced himself to stop a few feet in front of the spot where the electric currents leapt out of a rubber-coated tube that faded in and out, but the blue and yellow lightening bolts were a constant. They fed into a larger cylindrical tube that ran into the cement. The realization of what the Obawok were doing struck Roger like a full blow, and he had the urge to throw himself into the currents to stop the flow of electricity that was feeding Obawok.
“Hey, is that what I think it is?” Trey had to shout over the buzz.
“I think it’s their personal electricity pipeline,” Roger said, leaning down to study the pipe. It was approximately two feet in diameter, and chunks of concrete and pipe had fallen to the ground, leaving behind a gaping wound. Roger pushed his hand up toward the hole and could feel the immense warmth spread over his flesh before Trey grabbed his wrist and yanked it back.
“You wouldn’t wanna do that,” Trey said, dropping Roger’s hand. Roger’s eyebrows drew down in anger and the worry lines on his forehead deepened in the jittery blue light that covered his flesh and shimmered in his eyes.
“I know, I just wanted to….” Roger paused, and he felt the anger that had swelled up in him only moments before ebb away. “Actually, I’m not sure what I wanted to do, but shuttin’ down those green fuckers’ electricity sounds good enough to me.” They looked back at the pulsing light.
Trey leaned down as Roger spoke, grabbing one of the smaller chunks of pipe. He flexed his fist around its rough surface before flicking it into the opening with one quick movement. The electric currents brightened to intense levels before they began to stream around it, enveloping it and suspending it within their flow.
Roger had stepped back and shielded his eyes during this, but had stumbled when a large chunk of rock blocked his foot. As he watched the smaller piece hang in the pipe Roger realized that a larger rock might be exactly what they needed, and he immediately began to try to lift it, his flesh on his fingertips scraping off between the concrete layers as he struggled to move it. He braced his feet on either side of the rock and lifted with his whole body, and although his muscles stood out against his skin in thick cords from the strain, he was unable to do anything but drag it across the floor a couple of inches.
Trey turned around, his eyes widening, looking back and forth from the rock to the hole in the pipe. He hurried to the opposite end of the rock and hooked his hands underneath it. Roger nodded and together they were able to lift the rock a few inches from
the ground. In the glowing light, Roger had the image of space cavemen trying to build a shelter. When they got to the pipe, they stopped, both of the taking large gulping breaths.
“Lift on three,” Roger instructed as he tightened his grip on the bottom of the rock and slid his hands more to its center. Trey followed, and when they were both position Roger continued. “One. Two. Three.”
They heaved it up and into the hole in one fluid movement, but their momentum was suddenly halted as the rock quickly became wedged in the pipe. Trey immediately leaned forward, his palms flat against the rock. Roger copied Trey’s action, and was about to push with him when he had a sudden flash of the rock tumbling into the pipe and both of them getting caught in the arc’s crossfire.
“Don’t push!” Roger yelled, pulling his hands back and motioning for Trey to stop. “Just hold it in place for a second.”
Roger stepped back and surveyed the room. Leaning against a section of wall were a bundle of two by fours approximately four foot long. Roger grabbed two of the boards and handed one to Trey.
“We’ll push with these so that we don’t get too close to the current.”
“I was just wondering what we were going to do about that.”
“Yeah, funny how that works here.” Roger put his board against the rock and waited while Trey did the same. “Okay. One, two, three.”
They each leaned across the boards, their faces contorted with strain, their harsh breathing echoing through their heads. Another section of the pipe gave way and the rock tumbled into the current. All was still for a few seconds, but then the pipe began to bulge out on both sides. As the pipe stretched, neon blue fissures spread across its surface in an intricate web.
They both watched for a second before Roger grabbed Trey’s arm and pulled him into a run, their feet slapping against the concrete and their backpacks thumping against their backs with each step. The buzzing filled the air around them, and when it reached a crescendo, they simultaneously fell to the ground and covered their faces in a way that very much reminded Roger of the tornado drills they used to have in school.
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