Light filtered down with an intensity that could not have derived from any glowing roots. This had to be the sun, or at least a sun, beaming down.
Karla pushed through a dusty wall to find herself in a small, dry pit open to the sky. She would need no ladder to climb out of this hole. A loose pile of silt and stone provided a convenient ramp.
She scurried up and out of the pit and gazed across a plain pocked with drought-shrunken ponds, seamed with dry streambeds. Beyond them stretched a range of hills tended by wisps of cloud.
None of it looked familiar. It had been dark when she had last been on the surface. She remembered her friends deciding to walk towards the hills. They certainly looked more inviting than the barren plains behind her.
It was glorious to be free of the Reaper stench and out in the open air. Something acrid and resinous scented the air, not unpleasant at all, like the inside of a cathedral.
She headed for the strips of natural vegetation following the course of an intermittent stream that ran mostly below ground. It was just more pleasant to walk in their shade within earshot of the trickles.
She walked for about an hour and then stopped to splash in a deep spring abutting a ledge of shattered bedrock. The water was tepid from flowing over sun-warmed stone, but it was pure. She raised her dripping face to the gentle breeze to help it dry.
A buzzing object came hurtling in low over the ledge. It was a honeybee the size of a vulture. She looked on in astonishment as it landed on the damp stone and lapped at her footprints. It turned to face her, antennae probing, its throbbing abdomen, revealing a good inch of stinger with each pulse.
She grabbed a stick and backed away, facing the insect. The bee stared back at her and stood its ground. And then it raised its wings, took flight and buzzed past her head, zooming off towards the hills.
She waited for her heart to stop thumping before continuing on. She tried turning the stick into something a little more potent but it insisted on remaining a stick. She should have woven herself a weapon while she had opportunity. Being away from the source of her spell craft made her feel exposed and vulnerable.
She moved more warily when she continued on, watching where she stepped, peering over the side of gullies before she entered them. She had harbored a fear of bees ever she was little and was stung on the lip by a wasp that had gotten caught in her can of aranciata.
She squinted up at the low hanging sun. It seemed too small, perched over those hills, and had a bluish tinge that seemed wrong.
It was time to start looking for a camp site. She wasn’t looking forward to spending the night here. She wished she was back in Brynmawr, tucked into that cozy bed with her sister.
Any excitement she had felt at returning to Root was long gone, having had to fight her way out of the tunnels and now finding herself alone in this buggy wilderness. She didn’t know what to make of not finding James. Maybe it was a good sign. Maybe he was safe and happy. Or maybe he was dead.
She tried not to think bad thoughts. It would only make the long night to come, that much longer. She wished she had the means to make a fire, not so much for the warmth as for the light and protection. She shuddered to think what giant night creatures roamed in a place like this? Scorpions? Tarantulas?
She was almost inclined to make her way back into a pit where she could at least weave herself a sturdy shelter and some illumination. Reapers were a threat that she knew and could handle. But all bets were off when it came to the unknown.
A movement caught her eye on the horizon. There was some things flying low over the base of the foothills and they were too big to be birds. They looked more like … dragons. It was difficult to gauge their size so far away, but they seemed huge.
Dragons? Was that possible?
She kept walking, determined to find the perfect nook to make camp, preferably some cleft in the stone with three solid walls that would only need to be roofed over with some tree branches. She passed plenty of boulders and shallow ledges, but nothing that met her specifications. She would have to make do with something soon. Once it got dark she wouldn’t be able to find her way around.
As the dusk deepened, the dragons retreated across a valley to the flat-topped hills beyond. But one beast veered away from the flock and circled back over the plains. Karla watched, transfixed.
And then she noticed that there was a figure on the creature’s back. The dragon had a rider.
She climbed atop a car-sized boulder and waved, trying to capture the attention of the rider. The dragon veered and dove, homing in on her with the speed of a falcon. She had been spotted.
As it neared her, she saw that the creature had two sets of wings: the front set opaque, the hind pair membranous and translucent. It had four legs and two arms, like a centaur.
As it got even closer, she noted the triangular head, the large spines on its arms.
The compound eyes clinched it. It dawned on her that this was no dragon or centaur she was looking at. This was another giant insect—a praying mantis.
As the mantis swooped in, its rider pointed a stick at her. The tip exploded and disgorged looked like a burst of saliva, wheeling towards her head like a pair of liquid bolos. Karla dove behind the boulder, appalled by this rude response to what she had intended as a friendly gesture. Her ire began to rise.
Chapter 17: Mummy
It happened without warning. With a slither and a tumble—a sensation like drifting off to sleep and catching myself falling—I found myself back at the sinkhole, sprawled before Bern’s doorstep.
It was my most seamless transition yet into Root. Maybe it was one of those things, like childbirth, that got easier with each repetition. As the barriers between Earth and Root wore down, the junction between existences came to resemble a revolving door.
I tossed back my head and sighed as the pain drained away like water from a bathtub. Coming to Root was better than morphine. Pain existed here, but what happened on Earth tended to stay on Earth and vice-versa.
Bern stood atop his ladder with his back to me. He leaned back against the uppermost rungs, cane hooked on the crook of his elbow. His head poked just above the rim of the sinkhole as he scanned the horizon with a pair of binoculars.
He wore the outrageously shaggy outfit. It made him look like a moldy Sasquatch, his body festooned with branches and leaves and dangly bits like Spanish moss.
He hadn’t yet noticed that I had returned, so I whistled to get his attention. Startled, he nearly lost his footing and fell off the ladder. He caught his balance and beamed down at me.
“James! Thought I wouldn’t be seeing the likes of you for days, if ever.” His expression sobered predictably. It was becoming something of a ritual. “I take your presence to mean the news is not good?”
“Nah. They still got me locked up,” I said. “And I’m in pretty bad shape. They really knocked the crap out of me.”
I went over to the trickle pouring over the rim of the overhang and let the water wash over me. The water was mild from flowing over sun-warmed bedrock. I scrubbed myself with handfuls of grit, so loosely consolidated under the falls that it was like stepping in quicksand.
“I was just heading out to survey some pits. Would you care to join me?”
“Um … sure. Just let me pull on some clothes.” I almost hadn’t noticed I was naked again. This was getting so annoying.
“Excellent! With you along, we could do the southeastern quadrant. It’s an area I’ve been avoiding.”
I strolled back towards the cottage, shaking the water off my limbs.
“Oh. And your jacket and trousers are inside, folded on your hammock. Though, since we’re going out into the open, I might recommend you weave yourself something more concealing.”
“Oh? You want me to dress up like you?” I smirked up at him. “You want me to look like a bush?”
“Not necessarily. It wouldn’t hurt for you to have a Ghillie suit. But if fashion concerns you, some colors and textures that match
ed the landscape might be advisable, in case those bug riders are out and about.”
There was a bin against the cabin, filled with roots that Bern had harvested and attempted to confine. I gathered some of the escapees and threw together a pair of sand-colored sweat pants and a crude sweatshirt made of a something that came out looking like softened burlap.
I saw my sword propped against the side of the cottage, grabbed it and went up the ladder.
“Sorry, if I made you wait. How long was I gone?”
“Several hours. But no worries. I wasn’t expecting you. I dozed away half the day myself. It was quite refreshing. I haven’t been sleeping well of late. I have these … nightmares. The pits to the southeast are rather sparse, but I have to admit, I haven’t been very thorough. It’s an area I’ve neglected because … well, to be frank, I find it rather spooky. I don’t like going there on my own.”
“Why? What’s there?”
“It’s … nothing to worry about, really. I’m sure there’s no risk involved. It’s just one of my foibles … a phobia. Well, you will see what I mean. Come on.”
He set off, flinging his gimpy leg with each stride, leaning heavily on his cane with each stride.
“What happened? Did you hurt your leg again?”
“Oh, I just knocked it up a little when they tossed me in the pit. It’s a minor annoyance, really. I’m plenty mobile.”
“Is that a problem for you on the other side?”
“My leg? Heavens no. Over there, I’m as fit as a butcher’s dog. Last I checked, anyhow. It’s been a while since I faded. Well, as fit as any man could be being cooped up in solitary confinement. That is, not very. But there’s no problem with the leg. That’s only a problem here. It’s a curse really, that it’s always the left one I injure.”
Bern angled towards the hills away from the canyon where the mantis riders had accosted me. The pits were drier here and not quite as deep. We bypassed several that were already marked with small cairns, stopping only when we found a narrow pit that bore no such marking.
“How about I let you do the climbing?” said Bern. He pulled a haversack off h is shoulder and pulled out what looked like a rope ladder, but only had four rungs.
I looked over the edge of the pit. The floor was a good thirty feet down.
“Isn’t that ladder a bit short?”
“It’s extensible,” said Bern.
He slipped a pair of metal hooks into the looped ends and jammed their points into a crack in the bedrock. When he let the ladder dangle over the rim, the bottommost rung and risers replicated themselves until they touched bottom.
“Pretty nifty, Bern,” I said. “You’ll have to teach me how to do that.”
“Teach you? Please.”
I climbed down, although I felt a little foolish at the bottom. There was nothing down here but slabs of rock covered with dust. There were no tunnels visible, no exposed roots.
“What am I looking for down here?”
“Any signs of activity. Articles of clothing. Heaven forbid, bones.”
I did my due diligence, checking out every nook and corner before heading back up the ladder. Thankfully, there were no bones.
“Nothing,” I said. “No sign that any human’s ever set foot in this one.”
“I figured as much,” said Bern. “But it was worth a look. It’s good to be thorough.” He propped his cane over his shoulder and sniffed the wind.
“My, but the breeze is lively today. There’s a scent on the wind, I don’t know where it’s coming from, but it’s like lavender.”
Bern had already a small cairn and had made a notation on an oblong object that looked like a cross between a notepad and a slate. He wrote with a sharpened twig and swiped his finger to erase.
I hauled up his ladder and slung it over my shoulder. It refused to retract until Bern came over and gave it a tap.
***
We did three more pits along a transect that took us to a gully that drained the foothills. None bore any signs of human activity, never mind Lille. And only one seemed connected to the tunnel systems below.
The relief of the foothills here was less dramatic here than at the canyon I had attempted to follow. The slope eased gently up to a terrace and then steepened, swooping up and over a rounded peak.
Everything was dry now, but there was evidence of some massive flooding in the past: piles of driftwood, flats of cracked mud, ripples in the packed sand.
We must have gone a half mile without seeing a pit, yet Bern kept walking. He kept staring at the hillside, nervous. He took my arm.
“Come. I want to show you something.”
He pulled me over to a bank of debris that had collected against the wall of the gully.
His hand shaking, he pointed at something withered and dusty protruding from the sediments. It was a human foot, its skin tanned like leather, like a mummy.
“A body?”
“Not just a body,” said Bern, creeping forward. Beads of sweat studded his brow.
As we got closer I could see the outline of a human form—a woman—partially embedded in the silt.
“The eyes! Look at the eyes.”
A flap of mud encrusted hair covered half the mummy’s face, but one eye stared outward, unblinking. There was life in there. As still as that face remained, so absent of awareness, I could tell there was a consciousness buried deep inside there somewhere.
I wondered if that was how my body looked on Earth, when my soul was roaming around Root. This person was in another place, and it looked like she had been there a long time.
It bothered me the way a flap of muddy hair hung in front of her face bothered me. It was undignified and pathetic. I went over and reached down, clearing away some of the silt encasing her head.
“Don’t get too close! It’s alive.”
“What’s she gonna do? Bite me?”
“One never knows.”
I smoothed her hair back from her brow, revealing eyes that were sunken into deep pits, but somehow remained clear and moist, focused softly on the middle distance.
Her hair was bleached pale brown from the sun, like coffee with milk. Beneath the soil it had remained jet black. The grey skin on her cheekbones stretched tight, revealing the bony structure beneath. They bore faded markings—pigmented striations. She was a Duster. I wondered what had happened that had put her in such a state.
“Gah!” said Bern, hopping back, his face contorted in a panic.
“What’s wrong?” I said.
“Sh-sh-she blinked.”
I hadn’t even noticed, but I wasn’t too concerned. “Well, how else is she going to keep the dust out of her eyes?”
“Such nastiness! Now you know why I have nightmares?”
“But she’s just a person, Bern. She’s human. Just look at her.”
Bern sighed. “Whatever you say. There are more of the bloody things strewn about further up this wash. I dream of them rising and coming after me in the night like bloody zombies. I thought it might be helpful to come back and face my fears. I was wrong.”
“Bern, it’s okay. Nothing’s coming after you. Look at her face, how peaceful she looks. She’s in a better place. And it looks like she’s been there a long, long time.”
I brushed her hair back out of her eyes, but it kept flopping back. I peeled it back and weighed down her locks it down with a rock.
“I’m not the best hairdresser. But now, if she wants, she can have a better view.”
“Let’s get out of here,” said Bern. “The sun’s getting low. The Dusters will be out soon. We can hit a few more pits on the way back.”
We turned back along a route that swung a little wider and followed a parallel transect back towards the sinkhole.
The first pit was little more than a dimple in the sand that didn’t even require a ladder to survey. The next one was humongous, nearly as large as the one the Dusters had deposited me, but it was bone dry apart from a little dampness in one corner. Severa
l tunnels converged here. A steady breeze flooded into them. At their threshold, I found some markings in the dust.
“Footprints!” I called up to Bern. “Bunches of them.”
“Are they fresh?”
They seemed a little weathered by wind and time. “Not very,” I said. “But they all seem to lead out of the tunnels. Only out. Looks like this place gets a lot of traffic.”
But apart from the prints, there were no other signs of human activity, no weavings or detritus of any sort. I went back up the ladder to find Bern feverishly annotating his pad. He had already constructed an impressive cairn topped with a knob of rose-tinged quartz.
“We should come back to this one. If I was in Lille’s situation, I could see myself being tempted to travel beneath.”
“You think she might have gone back to Luthersburg?”
“No bloody way. She’d sooner lie down with those mummies than go back to Luther. But she’s comfortable in the tunnels, so who knows? A man can only hope.”
A movement caught my eye across the plains, a tiny figure in the distance, walking along the strip of greenery flanking a stream bed.
“There’s someone out there!”
He looked up from his pad. “Human?”
“Looks that way. I think it’s a girl! Looks like she’s wearing a skirt.”
I waved my arms over my head, but it was a futile gesture. She had her back turned, as she strolled off towards the hills.
“Is it … Victoria?” said Bern.
“If we angle in, we can catch up to her, come on!” I started trotting. Bern followed as best he could, struggling with his gimpy leg.
“Eyes to the sky, son. I think I just saw something swoop low over the hills, and it wasn’t a bird.”
We gained ground steadily. When we got a little closer, I tried shouting, but the wind was in my face, and she was still too far off to hear.
“Bugs! Over the foothills! Drop to the ground!”
I dove behind a bush and peered through its branches. Four mantids traversed the hills in short hopping flights from butte to butte, crossing canyons. And then, a single mantid spun away from the group and made a bee line for the plains, heading directly for the walker.
“Oh crap. It’s going after her!”
“Stay down,” said Bern. “They won’t harm her. They’ll probably just take her and stuff her back into one of these pits. We need only watch where they go.”