by D. H. Dunn
“Ah, if only we did!” Upala’s voice became wistful. “I can think of little in life more fascinating to me than a map. A simple paper, yet filled with both history and mystery. Calling me to study every corner, follow every line and route.”
Nima kept her hands moving on the cold, stone rungs of the ladder. Whatever was below them, each step took her closer. She supposed it should make her afraid, but it didn’t
“My grandfather used to say the best part of the map was the other side, the blank part. The one you get to fill in yourself.”
Upala laughed, a sound that echoed into the darkness. It was a nice laugh, and Nima guessed Drew liked to hear it.
“I guess you have the heart of an explorer, Nima!” Nima smiled at the pronouncement. That was something her Pagaga would have been proud of. “I am more of a historian. Journeying down dark holes and climbing mountains? I would much rather be reading.”
They descended in silence for a time, though Nima could hear the sounds of Kater and Drew far above them, clearly making out the irritated tones but not the words.
On her back, Lhamu continued to sleep soundly, even as the white light from her headcrystal illuminated their path.
“Nima, may I ask you a question?”
Nima found Upala’s voice to be the most pleasing thing about her, there was a quality to her speech that reminded her of the wind chimes at the temple.
Yet now those chimes were influenced by darker moods and worries.
“What will happen to Lhamu if she leaves this world? How much do you understand about her, about how Caenolans work?”
“I don’t know what will happen,” Nima said. There was so much Val and his people knew that was lost to her now. The most important fact about Lhamu was the one that drove her forward, with each slap of her hand against the stone, another step on Lhamu’s best chance to be safe. “I was told she will die if she stays here, Val explained that much to me. She is linked to Sessgrenimath, and when the Calm comes again, her connection to him will kill her.”
If she did not starve first, Nima knew, but there was no reason to say that. If they did not find this portal back to this other world, that was what would happen to Nima and Merin as well. Nima did not think she was afraid to die, but the thought of something happening to Lhamu felt like a spike being shoved in her heart. She would do anything to prevent it.
“Where we go, her fate may not be any better,” Upala said with a sigh. “I cannot say what the woman you knew, this Tanira, will unleash. Kater and I know some lore on the Dragons, but there is much we may not know. I know that they are powerful and terrifying, I have seen this first hand.”
Dragons, always Dragons. Each of the others had spoken of nothing but Dragons since Kater had returned. Yet it was Tanira who had killed Sinar, a Manad Vhan who Drew said was more powerful than Upala or Kater. With her strange armor and weapon, Tanira had easily held off Upala and Drew as well.
Tanira would be going back to free the Dragons, but she would be there too. Tanira, who killed Val, stole Lhamu, and left Nima to die on the summit or Varesta. Tanira, the knight whose noble quest was to help kill the woman who now climbed next to Nima.
“Tanira told me about the two of you,” Nima nodded upward to where Kater climbed alone, Drew and Merin higher above. “How you and your brother have been ruling over her people for a long time. Treating them badly. Is that true?”
Upala nodded her head, her shoulders slumping. “I cannot say that is not true. Whatever I might say to explain would only be an excuse. What I do now, I do to save all people in my world, Manad Vhan and Rakhum. After that, my brother and I have much to decide and much to answer for.”
Nima could sense the regret in the woman’s voice, an echo of the tone she often heard from Drew.
“What about these Dragons? Even if we find a way back through this portal, how can you fight them? Even Kater seems afraid of them.”
“It depends on the Dragons, facing the Thread would be very different from having to battle the Weight.”
“I thought all Dragons were the same,” Nima said. “In my grandfather’s stories they were powerful snakes with legs. They have long necks and feet with big claws. They can control the weather, make it rain or snow.”
“That is different than the Dragons I have read of,” Upala said. “Our Dragons were created by Sessgrenimath, so only he would know why he made them all so different. Some, like the Thread or the Voice, are subtle and much more than physical challenges. Others, like the Claw, wield massive additional physical abilities.”
“How can you hope to defeat them? Do you have a plan?”
“Beyond returning to Aroha Darad, no I do not. Perhaps Kater will think of something. My hope is we can stop Tanira before she can release any of the Dragons. That is our first hope, our best--” Upala stopped speaking, staring down past Nima into the darkness. “By the Hero,” she whispered.
Peering into the shadows, Nima could just see what Upala was looking at, though it didn’t seem to be anything amazing to her. Just a faint light coming from below, light emanating from a hole in the stone face they were descending, just to the left of the ladder.
Upala began scrambling down the ladder, her hands barely touching the rungs in her excitement.
“Hey!” Nima said, increasing the pace of her descent. “Upala--slow down!”
She had just gotten even with the woman’s shoulders when Upala’s hands slipped from the stone rung. Nima whipped out her arm just as Upala leaned backward into the abyss, grabbing hold of the shoulder of her cloak.
Upala pulled herself back, her hand quickly returning to the rung. Without a word, she continued descending at a breakneck pace, quickly reaching the lighted landing and disappearing inside the crack in the stone face.
Gritting her teeth and wondering if maybe they just didn’t teach politeness in Upala’s world, Nima forced herself to keep climbing slowly until she reached the opening.
Peering inside, she saw Upala silhouetted against an astonishing backdrop, gasping much as Upala had done on the ladder at the sight.
Oh Chomolungma, what have you led me to now?
Drew descended the stone ladder, Kater slightly below him. The old man kept one hand on the ladder, the other producing just enough flame for the two of them to see.
Far down in the shadows Nima and Upala were leading the way, Upala guiding them to the portal. Drew had tried to sense the portal as well, but had come up empty. He noticed Kater hadn’t mentioned anything about portal sensing either, so perhaps this was something Upala had become attuned to over time.
He felt proud of her. Even if the rasi sakta no longer seemed to be beating passionate thoughts for her into his every moment, seeing her change had given her a new beauty to him, a loveliness of character that no magic could force into his heart.
Yet, where was this going? Whatever these new abilities of his meant, whether they were connected to the Manad Vhan or not, they certainly suggested he might have a lot of future to fill.
Would Upala really want to spend that with him?
He couldn’t deny the excitement he felt at the prospect, but what would that truly mean?
Am I really prepared to spend the rest of my life away from … everything? The whole world?
The prospect seemed too incredible to consider, yet Drew had to admit he was hard pressed to come up with something waiting for him back on Earth.
If Nima was here, or Merin even, he could ask them what they thought.
But Merin had taken a middle position between the two pairs, speaking little since Nima and Drew had returned. He was relieved to see her at all, and glad to see that she seemed to have found some level of support in Upala. Whatever Merin’s reasons for bringing Kater back, Drew saw no need to make her go through explaining them. He was there if she needed him.
As always, Kater was talking. Musing out loud really, the old man had been discussing the possibilities of Orami and Feram being separate people all the way
down the ladder. He was a slow climber, and the gap between Merin and Kater was growing, leaving Drew with Kater and his endless words.
“You’d think dying would have quieted you down a bit more, Kater.”
I am poking him again, why am I doing that? They needed Kater. He really was essential, and not just here, but back in Aroha Darad as well. No one knew more about the Dragons than he did. Yet, Drew found he just couldn’t help himself.
“I am attempting to riddle out the problems that are in front of me, yet you are content to make jokes and insults.”
“I think you are just mad that I figured out in moments what you missed for centuries.” He could feel the adrenaline begin to pump inside him, that same feeling that often led to bar fights where he ended up on the wrong side of men twice his size.
Or his father.
“Do not think I missed your pronouncement earlier, Adley, though I suspect you yourself did not perceive it. ‘Our portal home’ you said. Down in these depths may indeed lay a path back to Aroha Darad, but that world will never be your home. My sister’s foolish preoccupation with you aside.”
Drew recognized the comment for what it was, a misdirect. Still, perhaps there was value in poking this particular bear after all. Kater was a wild card, and Drew didn’t trust him to do anything predictable. If Kater decided to turn on those who walked alongside him, it was better he turned on Drew.
“I don’t think this has anything to do with Upala. I think you don’t like that I’m like you now, except younger of course. Your sister is a good, decent woman and-”
“On this we agree,” Kater interrupted.
Really? Drew’s words died on his tongue. Could Kater’s feelings about his sister, about anyone, be more complicated than they seemed?
“You are nothing like me,” Kater continued, “Whatever perversion of Manad Vhan you might become. My respect for my sister shocks you? Do not think to know me, to understand me. Abilities or no, you are still a quicklife with the experience and perspective of a blade of grass. You might as well attempt to understand the sun. Like the sun, you require my presence, but the reverse is not true. I am a necessary element to everyone’s survival. You are not.”
Drew could feel his temperature rising with his temper, yet the mind that normally always gave him the cutting remark, the quick takedown failed him.
He sounds so much like Dad. Yet Dad hadn’t been all wrong about me, had he?
More than a hundred sailors would agree with his father, and with Kater. Drew stayed locked in his place as Kater continued to descend, still talking. Each word from the old man brought him farther back in time, placing him first in a cemetery, facing two graves and his father’s anger. Then back in the Indian Ocean, blood and oil rolling in the waves.
“And for accuracy’s sake, you did not kill me. You merely placed me in a situation where I could not affect my own recovery. Regrettable, even humbling for a moment, but that moment is over. Now, if you’ll grant me the silence you were previously gifting, I may be able to plan our strategy once we return to Aroha Darad, assuming that is possible.”
Kater continued descending, Drew’s hands staying locked on the ladder rungs. Drew knew the look his face wore, a look that had ended every argument he ever had with his father in a loss. Artie might as well have been right on the ladder there with him.
Kater’s voice echoed up from the depths.
“Once I have eliminated the Dragons as a threat, perhaps you and I can explore those new abilities of yours Adley. I would much like to see the extent of your healing, how much punishment can you really take?”
Prying his fingers from the stone rungs one at a time, his breath coming out in ragged spurts, Drew slowly started moving again.
6
Upala gaped as she ran across the stone-tiled floor. The scene in front of her was too incredible, too amazing. In all her years, millennia of research and speculation, she never imagined anything like this.
The small hole next to the ladder had opened up into a massive chamber, the dimensions of the room so great every wall and the ceiling itself was lost to the darkness, details fading into shadows. It looked large enough to contain all of Rogek Shad and Nalam Wast inside it, buildings and all.
Or it could contain them, if it were empty. Instead the room was filled with machinery, gears and axles, poles and platforms suspended on chains. Most of it was stone, but she could see the glint of gold and silver here and there, all of it tinted green by the unseen light sources farther ahead.
After about twenty paces of bare stone, the room became a chaos of right angles and toothed gears. There were complex systems of pulleys that stretched from the floor to the ceiling, mazes of pipes of numerous sizes. Machinery seemed built into every wall, every surface. Even the stone floor contained ridges, paths for some unseen wheels to follow.
Yet none of it moved or gave any indication to Upala that it was even operable.
All of it suggested to her that the entire room, and the thousands of elements inside it, were part of one massive machine, a device whose purpose Upala could not even begin to guess.
“What is this?” Nima came up beside her, the child Lhamu’s bright-lighted crystal casting new and complex shadows everywhere as it bounced off the equipment. “Is this the portal? Is it here?”
It was here, somewhere. She could sense it, could feel the tans and browns of Aroha Darad as clearly as if they were outside a window.
Yet there was a second portal here as well. She could detect it more strongly over the now-faint sense of the one they had been descending toward.
Somewhere in front of her, through the jungle of carved stone and formed metal, was the path home. Back to a world filled with people she had wronged who were under threat, and was, only moments before, her heart’s only desire to return to.
Now, all she wanted to do was stay. The sight of this machine, clearly a creation of the Hero and his mysterious companion, rekindled a flame she had tried to keep cold, the ashes of her intellect roaring back to life at the sight of this new, fascinating puzzle.
“I asked you a question,” Nima said, staring up at her. The woman’s hands were on her hips as she looked back and forth between Upala and the machine around them.
Upala turned, having to pull her vision away from the gears and pulleys. The small woman looked back up at her, arms folded.
“Yes. Yes,” Upala said, the vision of the machine’s complexities teasing her mind like a rasi sakta. “The portal is in here. This room. Somewhere.”
“By the Hero!” Kater’s voice, bouncing off the ins and outs of the machine, seemed to come from everywhere as he strode into the room. Drew and Merin followed closely, both of their heads twisting and turning to try and take in the sight.
Upala ran to Kater, her hands clamping to his forearm as she peered into his eyes. Seeing past the beard and the lines of age the Under had added, looking for the brother she once knew underneath.
“Is it not amazing, Kater?” she exclaimed. “Do you know of it? Have any of your digs or studies found record of this?”
“No,” Kater said. His voice carried a tone of wonder as he craned his neck above them, where metal and stone interlocked constructs seemed to stretch into the darkness.
When had he last sounded like that, like there was still something in the world to humble him?
“No, nothing like this, Upala. I can see Manad Vhan designs and patterns in this, but there is more here. Hints of other inspirations.”
There was a tug on her arm, Upala only barely resisting the urge to pull her hand away. The touch of Drew’s skin on hers was reassuring, bringing a feeling of warmth and safety. Despite the worry in his tone, everything seemed a little less urgent.
She needed to see this, to study this.
“Upala, the portal,” Drew said, giving her arm a slight tug. “We have to get to the portal.”
He was pulling her toward the path into the depths of the machine, where she had indicated
to Nima the portal was located. Even now the Sherpa picked her way into the dense construct, Merin attempting to follow.
“Yes. Yes, of course.” Her feet moved along with Drew, but her eyes looked everywhere but forward, fascinated with each strange element of the vast machine.
Nima had picked an opening between two massive stone gears, both standing parallel just a hair’s breadth off the ground. Upala had to duck under the axle joining the two, and placed one hand on the stone shaft. She thought she could feel the coolness of metal blended with the rock.
Bringing her head up, she was inside the interior of the machine itself. There was more open space here, even though the margins of her vision were cluttered with the same valves and arms, all right angles and sharp edges.
The open space was huge in its own right and generally spherical in shape. At floor level in the sphere were more than a dozen huge, stone platforms. Upala guessed twenty men could be placed on each. Long tubes of a yellowish metal ran from each of the platforms to a sort of stone bowl in the center of the room, apparently designed to catch their contents. The bowl itself was enormous, the sides of it taller than Nima as she worked her way around it.
“Upala, are you counting?” It had been centuries since she had heard Kater’s voice so excited. “Count them!”
“Fourteen platforms!” she cried. “One for each of the Fourteen Fears!” Somehow this machine was connected to the Dragons, there was enough room on each platform that orbited the bowl for one of the massive beasts. The long copper tubes to collect blood? Tears? Essence? She had no idea.
She ran to the edge of the massive object, standing on the tips of her toes and peering over the edge.
Though there was no trace of what it might have collected, it was not empty. What did lay in the depths of the bowl’s interior shocked her sufficiently that she grasped Kater’s shoulder, gasping. Next to her he chuckled, she knew he was as amazed as she was by the sight.
