Hanhau halted. He gazed around, seeing and hearing things in the backcountry that Dam couldn’t detect. Hanhau made a funny chirping noise, calling over two giant saddled snails the Old Ones used for climbing steep terrain. Dam had dubbed them slug-sledges.
Hanhau helped Dam hoist himself up to the iron saddle soldered to the giant snail’s shell. Dam didn’t have any reins to hold on to, but once Hanhau was saddled, he led the way. By chirping and clicking his tongue, he communicated to his slug-sledge which way to go. Dam’s sledge followed.
It was a smooth and easy ride until they came to a tall slope and had to mind gravity and balance. They were climbing a great height. Dam couldn’t see it too well, but he felt it in his stomach. Falling back meant crushed limbs and a cracked skull. Dam held on tight to his metal saddle with one hand and his torch with the other. The slug-sledges could travel terrain that was nearly vertical.
They crested a broad shelf with little pools of muddy water in the ground. Things smelled earthy and fresh. The sound of rushing water chimed through the air, becoming louder and louder as they went.
The cast of Dam’s torch revealed a towering slag of bedrock ahead. Hanhau led them around that. The sound of rushing water pitched even louder. Hanhau and his sledge disappeared around a bend. When Dam’s sledge lazily cornered that high wall of rock, Dam’s jaw fell open. They had found the Glowing Cataracts. It looked like shafts of light descending from the heavens. It was a staggering palisade of rock streaked by water chutes as bright as moonbeams. Dam could just see the height of the waterfalls when he stretched his neck back and kept a firm hold of his saddle.
Some of the cataracts were thin and misty. Some were robust and rippling like the impossibly long beard of a god. They glowed for sure, though Dam couldn’t guess how that was possible.
Hanhau led onward to the mouth of the falls where the water frothed and eddied and many teeth of jagged rock jutted from the surface. Mist pecked at Dam’s face. He wondered if Hanhau would want to go swimming, and his shyness came back to him. Hanhau dismounted at a ledge of rock that stretched out toward the pool. He came around Dam’s sledge and stood ready to catch Dam when he climbed out of his saddle. Dam handed down his torch. Hanhau held him as he slid down the side of the shell. Dam turned, and they were face-to-face.
“Do you like it?”
Dam grinned, the answer apparent. “I tried to picture it in my head,” Dam said. “But it’s even better than you described.”
“I told you this is one of my favorite places in Agartha. I used to sneak away here all the time.” He pointed to the height of the falls. “When I was little, I thought it was a river from the above-world, bringing light to us below.”
Dam could see why. He’d seen nothing brighter underground, except for the Oomphalos. He looked at it from all directions.
“We have many legends about it. They say a warrior who washes here will be unstoppable in battle. Others say that it’s a trick of the Master of Light.”
Dam’s brow pinched up.
“That must be one of the few folk stories I haven’t told you,” Hanhau said. “Supposedly, in the olden days, a couple had a pair of very unusual twin boys. They were always playing tricks on people and bothering the tribe about learning magic. They wouldn’t let anyone rest for a moment while they went on about it. The tribe fell on hard times, and they decided to send the boys away. Food was scarce. They had too many mouths to feed, and their enemies were tracking them. Besides, the boys were such a nuisance. The tribe sent the boys into the backcountry to fetch salt crystals from a crater lake, and then they moved on before the boys could return. The legend is the boys discovered magic after all while they were out there.
“One learned to command the glow of fire. He became the Master of Light. The other boy learned to command every noise of the underworld. He became the Master of Sound. That’s why we say that when you see or hear something that isn’t there, it must be a trick of one of the twins.” Hanhau roped the slug-sledges together with a heavy chain.
“What happened to them?” Dam said.
“Most people think they were make-believe. If it’s true, it was probably just a story that passed down from generation to generation, and it got exaggerated so that the tribe wouldn’t seem so horrible for abandoning the children. There’s usually an ordinary reason for legends.” Hanhau looked to the waterfalls. “Like this. That cliff behind the falls is a lode for a special sediment. The water passing over it activates it in some way, like scratching at flint. But that much water is like one continuous spark. There’s talk of quarrying the spot. That sediment could be used to light our aqueducts and lifts.”
“They want to dig into the cliff?”
Hanhau nodded.
“But then the cataracts would be destroyed.”
Hanhau’s face brightened. “I don’t like that idea either. Fortunately, neither does Ysalane.” He looked toward the base of the waterfalls. “Let’s go for a closer view.”
They ventured to the extremity of the ledge where the roar and the crash of the falls surrounded them. Hanhau pointed out a platform of rock that was reasonably dry and flat and made for a good spot for sitting. Dam suddenly felt like they were cocooned together in their remote spot.
Dam picked at one side of his sandal where the leather had frayed. He could feel Hanhau’s warm look upon him. Hanhau’s eyes were always on him when they were alone. Boys had looked at Dam that way, and nothing good had ever come of it. Though Hanhau was a whole lot different than any boy Dam had ever met.
That private moment was hard to reckon because Hanhau wasn’t exactly a boy either. He was a different race who had grown up in a world that Dam had never known existed until very recently. In some respects, Hanhau looked like any person from aboveground. The Old Ones had a darker tone of skin, like a chestnut bronzed from the fire, and their hair was inky black and very fine and silky. In Atlantis, they could have passed for Lemurians, the far western peoples, who were said to be very ancient themselves.
But Hanhau’s chest made scale armor instead of hair all the way down to the metal hoop at his hips from which draped a short, chain mail skirting. He could make light glow from inside him when he was happy or he was mad or he just wanted it that way. Dam supposed Hanhau found him strange in ways too, though he never showed it. He felt like his brains would burst out of his head if he thought too much about the interest they had taken in each other. They were people from entirely different worlds. But was there anything wrong with that?
“Ysalane is holding a feast to celebrate the completion of the city’s last monument, her Great Hall,” Hanhau said. “Everyone will be invited. I wondered if you would come with me.”
“To the feast?”
“Yes.”
No one had ever invited Dam to anything like that. It scared the words right out of him. He wished he could answer Hanhau like a normal person.
“I’m sorry, Dam. Maybe our ways are different,” Hanhau said. “I thought because I like you, and if you like me—”
Dam’s words came back suddenly. “Why?”
Hanhau’s glance danced around. “For my people, when two people like each other…in that manner…they might…do things together.”
“I mean, why do you like me?”
Hanhau grinned, understanding. He scooted up a bit closer. “Because you’re brave. Because you do what you want without caring what other people think. Because you’re very handsome.”
A snort rushed out of Dam’s nose.
“I think you’re even more handsome because you don’t even realize it.”
Dam looked up at Hanhau. He had always been honest and kind. But boys had only been nice to him when they were playing a mean trick or looking for an easy target to romance. When they got what they wanted, they went back to ignoring him, like it had never happened.
Dam had gotten used to that. But he felt like it would bother him if it happened with Hanhau.
Hanhau leaned toward him and press
ed his lips against Dam’s. Dam shut his eyes and pressed back for more of the kiss. Hanhau held Dam’s face with his hand. That was awfully sweet. The echoing, rushing water made him feel like he had plunged into some magical realm where everything was beautiful and right.
They broke their kiss. Dam hung his head and kept his eyes shut. He was breathless and his head was rattled, though not unhappily so.
Hanhau spoke. “Why?”
Dam’s eyes popped open. “Why what?”
“Why do you like me?”
The question was harder for Dam to answer than to ask. He glanced at Hanhau’s face. Every one of his features was a divine wonder—his dark eyebrows, the curve and the broadness of his nose, his full lips, and his eyes that lit up like sapphire gems. The fact that he could make light aroused an even deeper fascination. Dam looked at the teardrop swaths of armor that grew from Hanhau’s chest. Before Dam knew what he was doing, he reached out to touch them. He caught himself, wondering if he was being too bold.
“You can feel them if you want.”
Dam felt one of the scales with his finger. It was tough but supple, like the petals of an artichoke, though Dam had seen that they were much stronger than that. The New Ones’ fangs couldn’t penetrate those scales, and the scales could withstand a battery of rocks. Each one was about the size of Dam’s palm. Close up, in the ethereal glow from Hanhau’s face, Dam could see that each one could open and spread a bit to air his body or close up tight to shutter it from attack. Beneath, the skin was nutty and smooth like Hanhau’s arms.
“Do you think it’s ugly?”
“I think it’s nice.”
Dam ran his hand down to Hanhau’s lap. The metal hoop around his waist was held together with a double pin that could be opened to free him of his chain mail skirting. Before Dam could do that, Hanhau stopped him.
“Dam, I can’t do that with you.”
Dam’s face burned. But then what had the kiss and all the buttery words been about?
Hanhau brushed a stiff lock of hair away from Dam’s temple. “It’s not that I wouldn’t like to do that with you. But for me, for us—my people—that’s something you can only do when you’ve twined your heart in iron to another person, as the saying goes.” He shifted a bit and looked away from Dam. “It’s a delicate thing. We leave ourselves very vulnerable when we’re with another person in that way. You’ll see once the courtship season starts.”
Dam had next to no idea what he was talking about, though he supposed that “the courtship season” signified the underground men and women getting together to make the babies of their next generation. But what did that have to do with anything?
Hanhau muttered, “How to explain?” He twisted up his face and went through a series of glows and dims. Despite the awkwardness from before, Dam grinned. Whatever Hanhau was trying to say, it was cute and funny seeing him so bothered. He spoke the aboveground language perfectly. Many of the Old Ones did. They had been taught it by Calaeno when she had ventured below many centuries before, and they had passed down the knowledge through generations.
“If I…when we…” Hanhau started. His mouth opened and closed. Then he breathed out a sigh. “When we give our bodies to someone, there’s a change that happens.” He looked down at the scales on his stomach. “We lose our armor.”
Dam’s mouth fell open.
“It’s like a shedding. The scales grow back, but for a while, we’re defenseless. You can understand now why mating is very sacred for my people.”
Dam didn’t know what to say. Then a question popped into his head. “Does it hurt when they fall off?”
“What? No.” Hanhau added quickly, “So I’ve been told.”
Dam’s eyes widened. “You’ve never?”
Hanhau shook his head.
“But you would, with me?”
Hanhau’s complexion darkened. He grinned and nodded.
That boggled Dam’s mind. Out of all the boys who had come underground, he never would have guessed that he would be the one who interested Hanhau in that way. Hanhau was a celebrated warrior. From a foreign race. Dam’s worries snuck up on him again.
“I’m sorry if I gave you the wrong impression bringing you here and giving you that kiss,” Hanhau said. “For my people, showing someone a place that’s special to them and sharing stories is a way to get to know them better. That’s all I wanted. For now. Do they have such traditions in Atlantis?”
They did, for other people. Like Aerander, who had been romanced by Calyiches and then Lys. All his life, boys had invited Dam’s cousin to sit at their side at feasts. They didn’t only ask him to meet up after dark. Dam just nodded. “What about the courtship season, and raising children? Don’t your countrymen expect you to take part in that?”
“I suppose some of them do. But not all men are made for courtship with women. When the children come, we all take care of them. It doesn’t matter who the father or the mother is as it does with your people. We’re all parents to them. That helps in case someone gets sick or injured in battle.”
The thought of parents being interchangeable was strange to Dam. In Tamana, where Hephad was from, the desert tribes had a tradition of men taking several wives, but what Hanhau was describing sounded even more complicated. “Did you ever want to know who gave birth to you and who your father was?”
Hanhau’s brow narrowed. “Not really. I had many fathers and mothers looking after me. I’m grateful for every one of them. Just around the time I came of age, our tribe fought through one of the worst raids in our history. Most of the older generation was killed protecting the young ones. I wouldn’t be able to find who fathered me if I wanted to.”
While Dam digested that, Hanhau posed his own question. “You never told me about your parents. They must have been very important to you.”
Dam looked down at his feet hanging off the edge of their rock. “I never knew them, really. They died before I can remember. Not in a war or anything like that. There was a fire. I was outside in a crib under a shade tree while my father was bringing his horses out of the stable to exercise in the yard.” Dam’s voice went flat. “Lucky for me, I guess. My father rushed inside to save my mother when he saw smoke coming from the house. One of the bricks had burst in the hearth, and the fire spread. The roof fell in. They didn’t make it out.” He brought up his foot to pick at his sandal again. “That’s what I was told.”
Hanhau slid closer. “I’m sorry. It must be nice that you have friends and family who made it to safety before the flood.”
“I have Aerander.”
The pounding of the waterfalls ate up the silence for a moment. Dam had told the story many times before, but telling it always seemed to peel back an achy layer of his heart.
Hanhau clasped his shoulder and brushed the hairs at the side of Dam’s head. “You also have me. And you never gave me an answer to my invitation to the feast.”
Dam curled his neck into Hanhau’s shoulder. “What will your countrymen think?”
“Some will probably be unhappy. Others won’t care much. None of that matters to me.”
A smile overcame Dam. Very handsome, Hanhau had said. He felt handsome when he was with Hanhau.
“What will your countrymen think?” Hanhau asked.
“What do I care?”
“Then—?”
“I’ll go with you to the feast.”
They held hands and talked and gazed out at the waterfall for a timeless spell that went too quickly all the same. It was, Dam realized, his first real courtship with a boy, not just sneaking off to fool around and never speaking of it again. This was something anyone would call honorable.
Chapter Four
Back at his home, Dam buried himself beneath the mossy blanket on his pallet. A swarm of things buzzed inside his head. His life had been a foul heap of horseshit before the flood had wiped out everything aboveground. While everyone else was homesick and hated the underworld, coming below had brought the possibility of a new begi
nning for Dam. Could the Fates have planned all along that happiness was waiting for him in a world buried beneath his feet?
Dam almost chortled. He sealed his mouth and tucked his head into his neck. Dam didn’t want to wake up Hephad, who was asleep across the room. Dam turned over on his side, trying very hard to keep still while his face bloomed with an enormous smile.
Hanhau was handsome and kind and smart. He was honorable, and he made Dam feel honorable too. Their differences had worried Dam at first, but he was certain now he didn’t need to worry about that. He liked Hanhau. What did it matter what other people thought? Most everyone had long ago made up their mind about Dam anyway.
If Calyiches and his friends decided to make fun of his relationship with Hanhau, Dam vowed he would set them right, and not just with words but with his fists. Aerander would no doubt have an opinion about it. Hephad would as well. He held on to the teachings of the priesthood like an anchor amid the chaos of the evacuation. Hephad thought Dam had displeased the gods already by giving up his vocation. Giving his heart to a foreigner who disavowed the gods completely was a further desecration. But Aerander and Hephad could be reasoned with, or at least persuaded into resignation. The advantage of being an outcast was it didn’t leave you with many people to argue over how you led your life.
One thing bit at Dam, however. What if Hanhau found out what had happened with Leo and Koz? From the years when Dam had been a novice priest, that topped a list of things he wasn’t proud of.
Dam could chalk it up to survival and spite. He had discovered early into his apprenticeship that no one left the priesthood with his earnings. The novices were broken down like lowly dogs with beatings, lockups in a cellar pen, and lectures about how derelict they were. By the time they reached five years of service, any thought of bettering themselves had been crushed out of them. All that was left was the desperate hope that they could be vessels of the gods who wielded a brutal authority over men and granted occasional kindness to the most devout. Dam doubted that the priests ever paid out their charges’ rightful wages anyway. Everything they had was stripped away, including their bodies. At full dark, they were sent out to the city’s quarter-temples, where grizzled old men dropped a few tin coins at the fetish altars for a grasp of pleasure with one of the boys in a shadowy back-room recess.
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