CHAPTER FIFTEEN
“I think they’re Ishim,” whispered Amit.
Eron shook his head in gravely in agreement.
It went without saying.
The twelve levitating immortals seated themselves at a wooden semicircular table. It looked as ancient as they did. One of the highway men, tied Eron and Amit to two wooden seats in the middle of the rocky chamber. He reeked of onions, probably owning the six full wheelbarrows brought during the last two weeks. It was what everyone was eating. The ceiling in the chamber was high. Too far to see and too far to see to the top, but endless shelving, around and up, was clearly carved into the walls.
Behind the twelve Ishim, both men and women, all wearing tricorn hats gathered. There may have been twenty in total, but Eron wasn't counting.
“Look at all. The. Books,” he gasped.
Around the circular room, the stone shelves teamed with row after row of modern texts. Each section must have held one hundred or more. Multiply that by twenty, which seemed to be about how many sections there were around the perimeter. Eron couldn't tell completely, because the men and immortals were standing in the way, but there were seven sections vertically reaching the height of the door in the back of the room. The room being at least four doors high itself. Eron could make that judgement, because a ladder was perched against a balcony where another collection of books rose higher toward the ceiling, interrupted by another balcony and another ladder.
“All stand for Grand Marshal,” bellowed a thief standing by the door where they entered.
One of the Ishim, a decidedly bookish looking man thin and pale, unlike Tunkukush, walked in through the back door and took his seat at the middle of the semicircle, “Pardon, Ruth, if I could just get you to shift your chair over a few inches that would be splendid.”
A middle aged looking Ishim scooted her chair so the man could step around. He didn't carried less presence than the thief who announced him.
“So, let’s get started already,” said the Ishim adjusting his glasses and reading from a paper set on the table before him. “Eron of Auck City and guest. What is this boy's name?"
"Amit," said Eron. The question didn't seem directed to anyone in particular. Eron looked around at the faces assembled. No one reacted. No one questioned.
"Good enough," said the Ishim filing it in with a pencil. "Eron and Amit. You are charged with unlicensed theft and novice level evasion. How do you plead?”
“Oh, they’re guilty, Micah,” sounded the familiar voice of Tunkukush.
Eron and Amit looked at each other. The surprise was apparent in both of their eyes. Eron shrugged.
Tunkukush appeared to seep from the bookcase behind them, like a misty fog. He became a man wearing a majestic war bonnet. Layers of bright feathers crowned his head, cascading to the floor. Thick. Intensely beaded band flowing with stiff rods and vibrant feathers.
“Kindly remove your hat,” sighed Micah. “We have a strict policy about hats."
Tunkukush’s bonnet evaporated. Then Micah and the Ishim he called Ruth, casually discussed something called ‘plumbing’ and ‘personal hygiene’ as they waited for one of the highway men to fetch something from the back room.
“Is that really necessary?” groaned Micah.
Tunkukush had replaced his bonnet with a heavy set of metal chains.
“Try me as a man or try me as an Ishim,” he replied coldly. “Could you obey all the laws of both men and Ishim, but enjoy not a single privilege of either?"
"She's not one of us," said Ruth.
"I’ve waited far too long for this opportunity, you punitive old academic,” said Tunkukush. He was looking directly at Micah.
“And you’re going to have to wait a little longer,” the Grand Marshall calmly. “The law is the law.”
“And who interprets it?” he said.
Something about the vibrations of the Ishim’s voice sent chills through Eron.
“Micah, please proceed,” said the thief who had announced him. The absent highwayman set a pencil beside Micah and returned to the lineup where he had been standing before.
“I don't think these are all the papers I need,” said Micah who finished riffling through the pages in front of him. “We’ll have to schedule a short recess later.”
“When was the last time all forty were gathered?" said Tunkukush.
"We do it more often these days," said Micah.
"Don’t you notice anything about the boy?”
Eron looked at Amit. That time, Amit shrugged.
While Tunkukush preoccupied himself with lighting a pipe fashioned from his own smoke, it began to dawn on Eron that the Ishim were not looking at his spotted companion. Each seemed to avert their gaze when their eyes met. And all eyes. All Ishim eyes. Were on him.
“So, he looks like Liam?” said Micah, sounding impatient. He set down his spectacles. "Tell me why?"
“A clone,” said Tunkukush swishing a tiny fire stick in the air until the flame vanished. His mock pipe mockingly lit. “You can tell by his skin.”
Micah grew paler. His skin, hair and clothing lightened in a flush, in a way only an Ishim change. If the other Ishim didn’t float or do other impossible things like lengthening their arms to reach in front of them, Eron might have mistaken them all for humans. Although they did all appear to be in perfect health. To a fault even. Not a single scar or blemish on any of them except Tunkukush whose skin and clothing was flaky and gray.
“We’ll reconvene later,” said Micah closing his eyes. "I must speak with our honored elders and also, Tunkukush." The way he said it betrayed a lot about how the Ishim felt about each other. Respect and extreme distaste.
All twelve immortals lifted their index fingers and connected at the tips. Tunkukush levitated across the room to join them.
Eron put his arm around the spotted boy who pulled away and shot Eron a look heaping with shame. Although Eron had counted their days in the den, he wasn't entirely sure if he'd counted all the sleeps accurately. There was no sun rising. No clocks ticking. No sure way to tell if it had been thirty eight days or forty two. He just didn't know.
After a moment spent in utter silence, the Ishim broke contact and lowered their hands. A few rubbed their temples. Eron couldn’t tell if they were in pain, frustrated or if linking together as they did was just overwhelming.
“Our verdict is rendered,” Micah announced. “Tunkukush will bear responsibility for these two.” He snapped his fingers. A puff of smoke escaped between them.
Micah scribbled on the paper and then instructed the bailiff, the thief that slouched in the doorway, to take the paper. He disappeared through the back door.
“Those in favor,” said Micah.
It was unanimous.
The Ishim turned to the old man,“You are banned for an additional century. In two days, the boys must report back to the Bailey in two days to be entered into the register. Amit will return the hat.”
“Eron took it,” said Amit pointing at Eron.
“Did he?” said Micah, not sounding remotely interested. “Dismissed.”
“One problem,” said Tunkukush. "You still have to deal with the highwaymen. They acknowledged novices just by showing up here."
“Sentenced to death without trial,” yawned the Ishim. The forty men behind them drew their knives. Micah motioned for them to be lowered. Cautiously, the highway men responded.
Micah put his hand across his eyes and tilted his head, “I am being lectured on the code by a man who has received consecutive banishment for the past 300 years. Can somebody stop this ride? I want to get off.”
Tukukush once again stood tall in his war bonnet. He nodded. And then vanished.
Eron and Amit were unceremoniously thrown from the Bailey and untied in the center of the den. In two days, they returned. With the hat. They found the bailiff who led them into a small room on the ground level adjacent to the Bailey. Roots hung from the ceiling. He was a tall man with thin brown braids and narro
w features. Eron had thought he was a thief, but there was something about the way he affected the walk of a man. His stride was too wide for anything, but an Ishim.
“Forty days,” he said rubbing his hands together. It was all so much more bureaucratic than Eron had expected.
The bailiff's eyes were set deeply into his skull. He was surprisingly graceful in manner and had an enchantingly modern accent, which sounded as if it were reading straight from Liam’s Discourses. Not unlike Micah and the others. Tunkukush didn't sound that way. Although older, he was so much more normal.
“Were you one of the originals?” asked Eron.
“I was born one hundred and sixteen years after the ship landed,” the man said. “My parents were from India.”
“You’re an Indian, like Tunkukush?” asked Amit.
“Different India,” he said sharply. “Hold up both your hands and repeat the Code with me.”
Amit and Eron followed the man's lead. The code of the thieves in essence followed the Municipal Code of Auck City, which Eron knew by heart. There were variances. A few exceptions. But, by and large, it was the same.
The Ishim entered their names onto a scroll.
“Jacob of the Roads, Sarah of the Roads, Ben of the Roads, Moen of the Roads, Ezekial of the Roads, Amit of the Roads and now, Eron of Auck City,” the bailiff mused looking over his record. “There is a first time for everything I suppose.”
"Has anyone seen Tunkukush since the, um, trial?" Eron asked.
"You chose poor company, Eron," said the bailiff. "As one of us now, you can change that."
"How many people survive?" Eron asked quickly. There were so many unanswered questions. "As novices. Here."
"Almost everyone," the Ishim said, getting up and leading them to the door. "The challenge isn't being a thief. It's wanting it enough to come here. Will you excuse me?"
"But, the Ishim," said Eron. "Are they the monks?"
The bailiff escorted them out. "Yes. Yes," he said, pulling the banner over the opening.
"I thought people their age would be more patient," Eron said to Amit. "Not less." Some of the men were walking toward them. Thieves in den were drab looking people. In the near dark, they looked even worse.
"I don't care," said the spotted boy whose eyes were filled with dreams and far away imaginings.
One of the thieves ventured forward and shook the young boy's spotted hand. They welcomed the young men. Despite having pretended not to see them for a full forty days, every man and woman now exuded a warmth Eron couldn't trust as readily as Amit did.
Amit revealed in it.
And the thieves seemed to regard them as local celebrities. Even the forty highway men. Amit busily chattered with the braided men and women still eyeing their hats. The boy radiated joy as he followed them to the pub where he immediately turned all of his attention to acquiring his own tricorn hat. The pub, packed tightly with foul smelling men who rarely bathed or cleaned their teeth, offered the best education on the island. For anyone who wanted to be a thief.
Amit had found himself. Even though his feet dangled far from touching the rock floor.
At a very young age, the boy had identified his path through life among the ranks and swarms of other human beings. And Eron felt more lost than ever. He wasn't enjoying the medicinal wine or the way their new companions rubbed Amit's hair. It seemed everyone was smiling except him. Amit, surrounded by other people, lifted his mug in Eron's direction. Eron leaned, alone and confused, on the bar. He hated wine. He'd always hated wine.
From the first time he opened a book, Eron had been consumed by the written word. Little scratches that could be translated into sounds. Into ideas. The records of other people’s thoughts. Without words hovering two to three feet in front of his face, he felt useless.
Nothing more than a refugee.
"You don't have to live like that now," said the white haired old lady leaning on the bar beside him.
"At least I'm free," said Eron, stomaching a gulp of his dark herby wine. "Even if I can't go home. At least I'm free." He'd been explaining his life story in way too much detail.
"Everyone has to fight for that," said woman patting his arm with her wrinkled old hand. She was so pale Eron doubted she had left the den in decades. Her skin. Her hair. Even her eyes were too pale.
The many floor to ceiling beams in the pub blocked Eron's view of the musicians playing string instruments. Four in total. The tune they plucked seemed to float through the air. It felt like strings, or something. He was drinking too much. A complicated composition, their music had the quality of having thought too hard, trying too hard to impress and that unmistakable edge of acceptance when the musician gives into his own work. It wasn't the rowdy din Eron expected. It was glorious. Visionary. Something that would be played in the Auckian Archive and maybe was. Like Gil, they could be escaped entertainers. Maybe they brought books with them.
Like a craving, a burning hunger, Eron couldn't stop thinking about books.
The last thing Eron had read from his withering copy of Liam’s Discourse was about the aftermath of a great rocks falling from the sky. Meteorites. Is what the modern's called them. They blasted through the air toward the earth so ferociously that the ground shook and volcanoes erupted. Liam, the great leader, remained safely at sea on a type of vessel called a cruise ship. Many of them became Ishim until the strain of Ishim coffee was lost. That was the story at least. Something awakened in Eron, that moment as he slumped against the bar. As if he realized that his education had effectively blindfolded him from the truth. Distance. He had never believed in the Ishim, because he'd never read about them. He knew the megafauna had been made by a genetic engineer called Uri, but he still doubted the histories. And the lamassu.
Clone.
The word Tunkukush had used at the Bailey. Achazya never mentioned the word during Eron’s tutelage.
“Clone,” Eron mouthed the word as he held his hand to his eye trying to look as though he might be stopping the pressure of a headache rather than repress a renegade tear.
Sitting still amid the commotion and excitement, a woman winked at him. She had long black braids, but was attractive despite her looming stature. She may have been in her late 20s, but the sun had taken its toll on her skin. The woman walked to the door and waited for him, holding the banner open, until Eron followed. The old woman waved as Eron took his fur from the back of the stool. Embarrassed, he nodded.
Outside, the thieves mulled about busily crating plunder from one place to the next in sacks and wheelbarrows. It was hours until the next sleep and something had obviously happened outside. But, the unbearably loud clamor of activity faded as Eron strolled down the covered walkways and across the bridge over the underground river behind the woman. The open river rushed along quietly below their feet. She stopped next to the latrines.
“I want to go home,” said Eron with a quiet, sad laugh.
He leaned over the railing and buried his head in his arms.
The woman patted his back. Eron didn't move. She stroked the back of Eron’s head maternally as he starred at the water. It wasn't what he expected, but he was a bit drunk.
“We are not whole enough to mourn the sadness sometimes. It remains trapped inside until we have put the pieces back together." Her voice was gentle.
"Sorry,” said Eron. “I’m Auckian. I don't know what you're saying. But, I-I feel fine. Do you live around here? I do. I think. Yeah, I do."
"I’m from Waimate,” she said.
“I was there when it-” Eron couldn't say it. Burned.
“I’m Ester.”
“Eron,” said Eron.
“Watch this,” she said.
The dark haired woman brushed a bit of dust into her palm and tiptoed over the far side of the bridge and let the green particles funnel through it onto the surface of the water. Eron leaned over to see the dark waters illuminated, sparkling, rippling and passing underneath them. There were pebbles resting
on the riverbed. He could see coins. Weapons. Broken crates.
“It’s like an underwater archive of criminal history,” Eron laughed.
“Micah says you’re a wordsmith,” she said.
“He told you that?" Eron asked.
"He said you were just like Liam," she said.
Eron was dizzy enough that the intensity of her stare didn't make him uncomfortable.
“Liam was his father,” she said. “He told one of the highway men that you're a clone. Of him."
"I don't know what a clone is," said Eron.
The lights in the water were swimming. Spinning. So was his head.
"It's just an impressive way of making a twin."
"Gil's twin?" shouted Eron.
Ester shushed him. "I don't know Gil," she said.
"I don't want to know," said Eron, belching over the river. "Him."
He was so sick.
Once he recovered, enough to see his hands clearly, Eron looked pensively about the interior of the den. There were food service workers, tailors, small merchants and even people who did laundry for other thieves. As they did every night since Eron arrived, the thieves in the pub drank until the majority collapsed sleeping in piles with mugs half-drained in their hands. But, that night the pub owner closed the shop around until the first sleep ended. The Red Guards often keeled over onto the similarly limp piles of human wreckage when new recruiters graduated from their training. The Green Guards never did. There wasn't enough alcohol in the island to bring them down. That night, Amit was among the fallen. Eron left him at the pub as he and Ester talked about their families.
“I’ve never actually had a conversation with a thief before,” Eron admitted. "Why were there forty highway men at my trial? And why do the Ishim hide down here? What do they do all day? How many people live here anyway?"
"There are plenty of thieves," she said brushing his black hairs away from his mouth. They had grown over his face since he last cut them in Dunedin. "But, there are only ever forty highway men. Micah prefers it that way, I guess. Something out of one of his books."
He reached over to touch her braid, but she pulled back.
He flushed.
"I'm not as drunk as you," she tried to explain.
Ester insisted on walking him home. Eron and Amit had been given their own residence on the fifth level of the third building in the center of the den. Eron forgot and started to lead her down to the aquifer. Ester skillfully redirected him and took him to his door. Though happy to have his own space and shelving, Eron had no food to offer the woman since all their stolen property had been confiscated. There had only been onions anyway.
The room was dusty. Amit would have been satisfied to sleep in the near blinding light rather than brush it away and put the luminescent material in a pot. Not Eron. He made a mental note to clean before anyone else saw it. Ester declined his offer to visit his chamber. So, they sat outside on the balcony where she told him all about her trade as a potter. They talked through the quiet hours of the night while others snored away their intoxication. Ester was particularly fond of making pots with holes in them that formed patterns on the wall. Eron loved the sound of her voice.
“Or, you could make little loops on the pot and hang them from the ceiling,” came the tiny voice of a spider.
“What is with you and ropes?” groaned Eron. Although, actually, he was relieved the spider was back.
Tunkukush climbed swiftly up his thread toward the ceiling.
“It was just an idea,” said the creature crawling away indigently.
“I need to sleep so I can make more plunder tomorrow," she said, getting up and offering Eron her hand.
“When you gain something honestly, it’s called a product, not plunder,” corrected Eron.
"Good night, Eron," said Ester.
Although he could no longer imagine that gawds watched over them through the many layers of rock that formed the mountain, he thought maybe there were other ones that protected the underground city. It was so old. And it was safe. And something about being off the road and away from all the dangers of nature was blissful, even if he didn't have access to the Ishim's library. Yet.