The Dirt Eaters

by Dennis Foon

  In pain, Roan clutches his sword hand and kneels to the ground. But it’s a ruse. He suddenly bursts up, attacking Brother Wolf full force. Retreating from the flurry of kicks and punches, Wolf backs toward the building, faltering against the wall.

  “Drop your weapon,” Roan orders breathlessly. Wolf nods and drops his sword. Roan catches the flicker in the Brother’s eye too late. A net drops on him. The other two Brothers have been perched on the roof. Roan fights to free himself from the webbing, but they hold the net tight. He’s caught, and struggle is no use.

  “Very, very impressive,” says Brother Wolf. “But you lacked the foresight to anticipate complications.” Wolf stares Roan down, Roan’s betrayal hanging heavy between them. For a moment Roan expects retribution, but Wolf just smiles and turns to the Brothers. “Pack him up.”

  The men start to pull on their quarry, but they freeze at the sound of a shrill, agonized wail. The horses fidget, and the men’s mouths drop open at a horrible sight.

  Lumpy, stark naked, his volcanic skin utterly exposed, runs toward them, waving his arms, howling as if mad with pain.

  “Mor-Ticks, Mor-Ticks!” he screams. “Please! Please help me! Mor-Ticks!”

  The brothers let go of the net, backing away in terror. Roan disentangles himself just in time to see Brother Wolf aiming his spear at Lumpy’s heart.

  “Let me put you out of your misery,” Wolf shouts.

  Roan erupts at the thought of yet another murder, this time of his only living friend. He dives for his hook-sword, then leaps up. With one swing, he slices through Brother Wolf’s spear. He throws his teacher to the ground and presses his blade against Wolf’s throat.

  Wolf stares down at the sharp metal. “So you would cut my throat with a blade my own father fashioned.”

  But Roan only means to use Brother Wolf as a shield. He signals Lumpy to disarm the other Brothers.

  “You were my teacher, and you always treated me with respect. Take the Brothers. Get on your horses and go. Tell Saint to forget I exist.”

  Brother Wolf nods. The Friends climb slowly onto their horses.

  “I’ll tell him, Roan of Longlight, but he will not heed. Wherever you stand he will find you. You are a Brother, and no Brother stands alone.”

  Roan releases Brother Wolf, who signals his men to mount their horses. With one final nod to Roan, he slides his own hook-sword into his saddle, and leads the others away. Roan, battle sore but not wounded, remains vigilant until the riders are out of sight. Then he turns to the naked Lumpy. Bursting with triumph and relief, they laugh.

  Throwing on his clothes, Lumpy snorts. “Well, it worked, didn’t it?” Then he motions for Roan to follow him. “I found something in the clinic.” He charges inside with a curious Roan close behind.

  “What did you find?”

  Lumpy grins slyly. “Look at this!” He runs to a large cabinet at the rear and opens the door. It’s empty.

  “There’s nothing there, Lumpy.”

  “Exactly.” Lumpy lifts a shelf, then places his weight against the back of the cabinet.

  Roan hears a click. He watches with fascination as the cabinet moves, revealing a flight of dilapidated stairs.

  “How did you find that?”

  “When you’ve been scavenging as long as I have, you develop a way with these things. Besides, the storytellers talked about it. I thought it was a legend at the time—you know, like Longlight. Storytellers wouldn’t last very long if they said exactly what they meant, but then I met you, so I decided to look a bit harder here. Come on. At the very least, it will be a good place to hide. And the Friends are bound to be back.”

  Even after they pull the cabinet back into position behind them, enough light stabs through the cracks in the walls to allow them to pick their way down the stairs. At the bottom, there’s nothing but a narrow crevice in the floor. Lumpy starts to squeeze into it.

  Roan grabs his arm, stopping him. “Wait. We don’t know what’s down there.”

  “It’s a tunnel. I was coming to tell you that when I heard the ruckus.”

  “Do you know where it leads?”

  “I bet it’s some kind of escape route the healers set up. Maybe the tunnel leads to them.”

  “Or maybe the tunnel leads nowhere.”

  “It’s our only chance. The surface isn’t safe anymore.”

  Lumpy pushes through the opening in the floor and Roan follows, grimacing as he presses behind. Every muscle in his body aches from the battle, and his ear is throbbing. But as Lumpy promised, the crevice leads to an underground passage that opens into a tunnel. The walls of the tunnel glow; the stone seems to be naturally luminescent. It’s not bright, but they can easily find their way.

  “I say we stay down here, wander around a bit, hope like hell your friends get bored, and pop back up when our water runs out,” Lumpy proposes.

  “You really think we might find the healers?”

  “Yes. But even if we don’t, we’re still better off.”

  “We could get lost down here.”

  “We’ll mark our way.”

  The tunnel twists and turns. It is sometimes so narrow they can barely make it through, sometimes so high they can’t touch the ceiling. From time to time, Roan scrapes a large X in the glowing stone with his hook-sword, a mark that can be clearly seen from a few feet away. After what seems an hour or two, they reach a point where the tunnel branches off in three directions.

  “Crossroads,” announces Lumpy.

  They take a few steps in each direction. The first branch is very dark and seems to go straight down. The other two curve away but don’t look any more inviting. Lumpy sniffs the air in each. “This one seems the freshest. What do you think?”

  Roan takes a whiff. They all smell exactly the same to him. “I’ll trust your scavenger’s nose.”

  As they walk, Roan’s senses quiver. He says nothing to Lumpy, but he has the unsettling feeling that they are being observed, as impossible as it seems in this narrow tunnel where the slightest sound reverberates. Roan keeps his sword close at hand.

  Before long, they encounter another fork. Lumpy sniffs the air, picking the path, and Roan makes his mark. They press on until they find a spot with a smooth floor that seems a reasonable place to rest.

  Roan sits stiffly, his sore spots starting to flare into bruises. Lumpy opens his goatskin bag and has a swallow, then offers it to Roan, who also drinks sparingly. The snow cricket emerges from his pocket. It sips from a few spilled drops of water, then begins to sing. The song has a beautiful resonance as it echoes through the tunnels. Within moments, Lumpy nods off. Roan, exhausted, allows his own eyes to close.

  A voice, seeming to emanate from the air, mutters irritably. “There was to be only one.”

  “Well, now there are two.”

  “One was all that was spoken of.”

  “Two are what we have.”

  “Perhaps he is not the one.”

  “He is the one. He carries a white cricket.”

  Roan snaps awake. Did he dream the words? No, he’s certain he heard voices. But now there is nothing but a weighty silence. He wakes Lumpy and, after chewing a little bug stick, they move on. Roan is paying the price for his exertions fighting the Brothers and every one of his muscles burns in protest. Although he has to steel himself to continue, he walks without complaint.

  The narrowness of the passageway discourages conversation. Lulled into a trance-like state by the rhythm of their footfalls, they’re both startled when Roan stumbles over something that rattles, then scatters in front of him. Fearing it’s some kind of trap, Roan pulls his sword. Lumpy reaches down and picks up one of the objects. A human skull.

  “At least we’re not alone down here,” says Lumpy, doing his best to make light of it. But his smile fades as the
y discover more human bones and scraps of clothing scattered around them.

  “They look old. Maybe from when the hospital was bombed,” Lumpy says.

  “They’re not that old.” Roan is filled with unease, certain something terrible awaits them in these bleak channels. “I say we go one more long stretch. If we haven’t seen daylight by then, we head back to the hospital.”

  “Under the circumstances,” replies Lumpy, eyeing the skull, “I have to agree.”

  Within moments, they come to another fork in the tunnel, where a narrow passageway juts off.

  “Feel the air?”

  “Dry. Cold.”

  “Very cold.”

  “What do you think?”

  “Why not?”

  They sidestep along the corridor, the walls so close they can see their breath condensing on the glowing stone. Granite tears at their skin as they struggle for each claustrophobic step. Finally they emerge into a large cave, sighing with relief. Their respite is short-lived. They stand rigid at a terrible sight. All around them lie mummified human bodies. The rock’s luminescence casts an eerie glow on the hollow eyes and gaping mouths strung with skin like weathered paper. Some of the bodies are sitting like grotesque, wrinkled dolls.

  “There are dozens of them,” whispers Roan.

  “How’d they get like that?” Lumpy wonders.

  “The cave’s really dry. No water to rot them.”

  “They could have been here for centuries,” says Lumpy.

  “Maybe they’re recent.”

  “From the Abominations?”

  Roan grimly shakes his head. “Some of the bodies don’t look nearly as dried out as the others. Look at the clothing. They may only be a few years old.”

  “Maybe they were sick, or couldn’t leave because of the bombs, and then ran out of food and water...” Lumpy thinks for a second, then blurts, “Let’s get out of here.”

  “Good idea.”

  At first it seems their route back will be simply a matter of following the scratches Roan made. The initial few forks are well marked with his Xs, but when they come to the third forked passage, there’s no mark at all.

  “It doesn’t make sense. I marked each one,” Roan says, mystified. Finally he spots a chip in the rock, so they hesitantly pick that path and carry on. But soon Roan stops.

  “This is the wrong way. We’re doubling back. We were curving a little to the east, then we turned south.”

  “How could you know that?”

  “I don’t know it, I just feel it,” is all Roan says. But he’s aware that the deeper they’ve penetrated this labyrinth, the more acute his senses have become.

  They reverse direction. Their pace is rapid, triggered by mounting anxiety. But they arrive at a dead end. The passage is blocked. Lumpy stares, disbelieving.

  “This is the way we came. It wasn’t blocked before!” Roan says.

  Lumpy gives Roan a worried look. “You’re sure?”

  Roan drinks his last few drops of water. Then he breathes slowly, settling himself, and gazes at the wall. After a moment, he hears the faint murmuring of voices.

  “He knows how to use his eyes.”

  “He is formidable.”

  “The enemy taught him. He may be tainted.”

  “Not possible.”

  “I’ve seen it before.”

  “This one is different.”

  Roan scans the rock, detecting small holes. He puts his eye up to one and looks in, trying to see who’s talking. He whispers to Lumpy. “Did you hear that?”

  “Hear what?”

  “The voices.”

  Lumpy looks at Roan like he’s lost his mind. “It’s dead quiet in here. There hasn’t been a sound.”

  “There were two people. Talking. A man and woman.”

  Lumpy shudders. “We need to get out of here. Now.”

  They turn around again, and after a brief time they arrive at another fork.

  “This wasn’t here before,” moans Lumpy. Then his eyes light up at the sight of one of Roan’s marks. He eagerly sets out down the passage with Roan behind, moving more quickly than ever.

  As they pass through more sets of branches, Roan grows increasingly certain the path is wrong, that they’re circling back. Whoever or whatever has captured them is forcing them to go this way. He debates telling Lumpy, but his companion is already so nervous, Roan worries the information would send him into full panic. Suffering from thirst and fatigue, they push on through the serpentine tunnels until they find the narrow passage in front of them again.

  “We’re going to die down here, aren’t we?”

  “The voices I heard. I know it seems impossible, but somehow they’ve been moving the walls,” Roan whispers. “Some­body’s playing with us.”

  “That doesn’t make any sense.”

  “I’m not saying it does. But there’s no other explanation.”

  A look of terror crosses Lumpy’s face. “What do you think they want?”

  “I wish I knew.”

  Lumpy kicks a wall and yells at the unseen captors. “Let us go! LET US GO!” His voice echoing through the caves, he sets off running. Roan follows, but it doesn’t take Lumpy long to slow down. Their feet have become leaden, fear dragging on them like a sinkhole. Lumpy groggily bumps into the sides of the passage, trying to chatter his fear away.

  “Maybe we’re close to something. Maybe they heard my voice. Maybe they’ll take pity on us. Soon maybe the tunnel will take us out, and then it’s just a matter of finding some water and a little food, whatever we can get, it doesn’t matter, because at least we’ll be outside.”

  His words stop, interrupted by the sight before them. Roan would cry if there were enough liquid in him to generate tears. They’re back with the mummies.

  “How did we get back in here?”

  Roan starts to tremble. “I have no idea.”

  A low rumbling sound makes them jump. Behind them, the entryway is closing. Lumpy rushes to it, tripping over one of the desiccated corpses. Roan charges the wall just as it closes in seamlessly, stone against stone.

  Lumpy presses on the walls, frantically searching for some secret button or switch that will release them. Roan puts his hand on his companion’s shoulder.

  “Come on, let’s sit down. We’re prisoners. Either they’ll let us go, or they won’t.”

  Lumpy stares at the withered bodies. “I wonder what I’ll look like. Not like them. Different.”

  Fighting his own panic, Roan takes Lumpy firmly by the shoulders. “Sit.”

  Lumpy slides down the wall, moaning. In the silence, Roan can feel him growing calmer. Roan’s pocket shakes, and the white cricket crawls out. As Lumpy holds out his finger, the cricket leaps onto it. It sings, soothing both of them.

  “It likes you,” Roan says.

  “A cricket like this gave me my life, or whatever’s left of it,” says Lumpy. “It’s probably wondering if there’s anything to eat on me.”

  “Snow crickets eat ticks?”

  “After we were kicked out of our village, my family headed to your side of the mountain. They died one by one, and I started wandering in the foothills. I was sure death was just a step behind. When I saw a white cricket, I thought I’d had it. Instead, the cricket sang. The Mor-Ticks that were buried came out. Their eggs hatched and the larvae crawled to the surface of my skin. It ate them all.”

  Roan is beginning to understand. On his side of the mountain, people weren’t bothered by the malady because of the snow crickets. That was the reason Lumpy had told him he needn’t fear the deadly ticks.

  “Where is your cricket now?”

  Lumpy’s voice is weak. “A few weeks after it saved me, I went to the first village I could find to beg for food. They
beat me with sticks and threw me back out the gate. I survived, but not the cricket.”

  “You were afraid I’d lose my cricket...at that village. Lumpy?” But Lumpy is crumpling onto his side.

  “Lumpy, wake up!” Roan yells. He tries to lift his companion, but he has no strength left. “Please, Lumpy, c’mon!” It’s no use. Lumpy is in a deep stupor. Gravity pulls on Roan’s hurt, spent frame, and he sinks to the rock floor, weariness washing over him. He sits beside Lumpy and puts his arm around the person he realizes is the best friend he’s ever had.

  Through bleary eyes, Roan sees what must be angels. There are four of them, all with white translucent skin and long gray or white hair, wearing snow-white robes. Roan supposes he must be dead, but curiously, he can feel the warmth of their hands as they touch his forehead.

  “Do we take them both?”

  “Of course.”

  Roan tries to speak, but his mouth can’t form words. A female angel leans over him and takes his hand.

  “Welcome, Roan of Longlight. We’ve been expecting you.”

  Darkness descends on Roan, a blissful escape.

  THE FORGOTTEN

  IMAGINE THE UNTHINKABLE, SAID ROAN OF THE PARTING, BUT NO ONE COULD. THE DEVASTATION WILL COME, HE WARNED. BUT NO ONE LISTENED. NO ONE BELIEVED. NO ONE BUT FOR A VERY FEW, WHO BECAME THE KEEPERS OF THE LIGHT.

  —THE BOOK OF LONGLIGHT

  ROAN AWAKES, bathed in a dazzlingly bright light. An angel holds his head, putting a glass of water to his lips.

  “Sip,” she says. “A little at a time.”

  Roan sips. The water tastes sweet, ambrosia to his parched mouth.

  “Why is it so bright?”

  “Amplified sunlight.”

  “What’s—where’s my friend?”

  “You’ll see him soon.”

  “What is this place?”

  “Oasis.”

  “A refuge in the desert.”

  She nods.