[Warbinger Returns Arc]

Chapter 07

Mount Flange

Sparlyset was heavy on Richard’s back. She was unconscious and the extra weight made him drag his feet across the iron platform as if they weighed ten extra kilograms. He felt weaker by the minute. Whatever Sparlyset had done to him—a vitality Rite?—it didn’t make him feel any better. He was sick, and this was the fourth platform. Again he was taken by dark thoughts that they might never escape, until he saw the tunnel ahead, just beyond the gentle curve of the wall. It was different this time; the tunnel was well illuminated. Or maybe none of the bulbs had blown out farther down.

Whatever it was, he couldn’t reach it from the tunnel; the platform didn’t go any farther. He stared with tired eyes at the closed iron door. He didn’t know what he would do if that door opened to nothing. Walk the gravel, he supposed. Whatever it took.

He took the door handle with one hand and pulled. It opened into a hall that went on for maybe three metres before turning right. The long lights in the ceiling cast the concrete corridor in a dim light, but all of them worked. A few small pipes ran along the left wall and a door that said “SUPPLY” teased him at the end.

Maybe he was still hallucinating. That would be a joke. He walked to the end of the hall and opened the supply door. It was a room just like the others. He shut it and looked down the next corridor. A long hall that ended with three stairs and a white door. He hurried forward, ignoring the two other doors and took the steps in one leap. The cold, smooth handle and nicely painted door spoke of freedom from the dim tunnels.

The train was passing by every thirty minutes or so by his best estimate. Hope returned that he could make it out without having to see the damn thing again. He pulled down the handle and the door swung outward without a sound.

Pure white light embraced him. White tiled floors, yellow on the right along the edge of the tracks. A row of marble pillars supported an enormous domed ceiling with glittering stained glass windows—where they weren’t shattered. Beyond the windows was stone. Green benches were spaced intermittently. He let go of the door and it clicked shut behind him.

Richard had no way of knowing whether this way would take them to her village, but it filled him with so much hope. He just needed the escalators to actually lead somewhere. He quickly made for the nearest one, not far on the left from where he had exited the tunnel. His eye caught a vending machine and tempted him to stop but he moved on.

The escalator was out. Just a set of black-grooved stairs now. He carried Sparlyset to the top with newfound vigour. Ahead of him, the ticket gates stood guard before a wide wall of glass doors and windows. Sunlight poured through and filled the space with natural light. This might not be the way to Sparlyset’s home, but at least they could rest in the fresh air.

“H-hey!” someone called in a hoarse voice.

Startled, Richard spun around, searching for the voice. He noticed their hand waving for his attention. It was a man—a human man—huddled on the ground next to a vending machine with smashed glass. Food wrappers were scattered around his feet.

“Hey, man!” Richard replied. Calling out hurt his throat. “Are you all right?” His eyes lingered on the way out, but he approached the man slowly.

The man shied away as he saw Sparlyset on Richard’s back. “What… that’s an alien? Why are you with an alien? Oh damn I thought I’d finally found another human. I thought I might be saved.” He coughed into his sleeve.

The man was covered in scrapes and bruises, mostly covering his left arm, but his eye was swollen and forehead bloodied as well. “You’re hurt.” Richard said. He looked over his shoulder at Sparlyset, then back to the man. “Did something happen?”

“I saw some of those aliens, but they ran without coming inside.” the man said, his eyes flicking to Sparlyset and back. “Wait, that’s an HDF uniform. You look like crap though, so I’m guessing you’re not a rescue party.”

“No, but I think I’m as close as you’ll get in this place. My name is Richard, and this is Sparlyset. She’s my friend. I have to get her back to her home, but I can take a look at your scrapes first if you give me a minute.”

“That’s… are they friendly?” the man asked nervously.

Richard set Sparlyset carefully against the wall and pulled his first-aid pack out of his pouch. There was nothing but disinfectant and bandages in it, but it would help. “This one is.” he replied. “I think they’re just like us, and that means we can expect some of them to be jerks, but mostly I expect to have to get past a distrust of outsiders.” He wasn’t sure he trusted this human either, not when Sparlyset was so vulnerable, but he was a little glad to have someone to speak to that he could understand. He looked the injured man in the eye. “We’re the aliens, here.”

The man introduced himself as Chrisk, and Richard did what he could to clean the worst of his wounds and bandage up the ones that were bleeding. He checked him for broken bones, and then lifted Sparlyset back onto his back.

“I appreciate your help.” he coughed. “I was starting to think I would have to brave the outside where those aliens—I mean, native people are.” Chrisk nodded gratefully.

“How did you get those wounds?” Richard asked. He already had an idea from cleaning them. Gravel from between the tracks, and some might have been caused by the tracks themselves.

“I jumped out of the Leviathan Train.” he admitted, confirming his thoughts.

Richard shook his head. There were a lot of things to ask, but he had to keep moving. “I’m going.” he said bluntly. “I have to find her home. Come with us, I need to ask you what happened.”

The man was anxious and hesitant. Richard told him to keep his hands open and in front of him, so maybe they wouldn’t be perceived as a threat, and he was convinced enough by that to follow.

“My family and I were taking the train to Southeast Hometoll City.” Chrisk began, speaking with difficulty through coughing fits, “then all of a sudden the scenery changed. Blue trees, bluer lakes. Then it changed again and we were back in the city. It kept changing… It was like we were going in circles. We kept going into the tunnel, and then when we came out it wasn’t Hometoll anymore, but then suddenly it was until we were in the tunnel again.

“Some of us decided to form a team and jump out. We thought we could get help. One of us had a radio and everything. We aimed for that huge public pool on Spring street, but I landed in the tunnel somehow. I don’t know where the others went, I looked for them, but the train kept coming so I had to get off the tracks.”

Richard waited for him to finish before hopping the ticket gate. Chrisk climbed over after him. The light coming in from outside was bright. It must be late afternoon. Hope you’re doing better than I am, Geoff.

“There’s no way to know if that was a smart move, but you couldn’t just do nothing.” he told Chrisk. “At the end of the day, I’m glad you’re safe. We’ll get you back to your family.” The Leviathan Train still passed through Hometoll. There was a way home.

“Thanks.” Chrisk said. Then he sighed. “I don’t know how you keep calm at a time like this. The Battle for the Final Cross really hardened you guys up, didn’t it?”

Richard shrugged. He didn’t feel ‘hardened.’ He was one of the cowards who didn’t want to fight. All he could do was back Geoff up, and Geoff just followed orders. “That was a long time ago,” he said dismissively.

They pushed open the glass doors and walked out into the fresh mountain air. The mountains filled the view, crossing the entire horizon like broken teeth. The slope ahead of them looked down over a valley coated with blue-green trees. A river at the bottom was bluer than the sky, and reflected the round Earth overhead.

Smoke rose to his right. The distant mountainside was spotted with round-topped wooden buildings. He could just make out the tiny roads curling along between the roofs and trees. He desperately hoped that it was Sparlyset’s home, and that the obvious path he saw nearby would lead to it. Chrisk shambled up next to him, looking like was ready to collapse any moment.

He gave the man an encouraging nod and they walked the path. Now that he was hopeful rather than worried or scared, he allowed himself to marvel at the plants and animals they encountered along the way. Many of the plants on the ground were sharp, he noticed, just like the bushes in the pit. He saw a few of the same ones here and warned Chrisk to keep his distance on the narrow path.

Birds with scaled tummies occasionally flew by close enough to see, fat and colourful with green and oranges. We’re going for jerk chicken if I make it back, Geoff. His stomach growled. Crackers and that foul bulb wouldn’t satisfy his hunger into lunchtime, but he had more important things to think about.

Chrisk caught him coughing, and asked. “Are you sick too? I’ve been coughing like mad for the last hour. I was fine on the train… Now my body feels like it’s dying. My bones have never ached so much…”

Richard looked at him out of the corner of his eye. He had been trying not to think about it. “Foreign contaminants.” he said plainly. “They probably have bugs here that our bodies don’t know how to fight. Like when you travel overseas.” It worried him, but he suddenly recalled something from his hallucination. The Rite of Vitality guards his body from you now, bugs.

He’d believed the train and the exhaustion were getting to him, and his mind showed him being eaten by trains—or whatever that vision was—to represent that… but when those words filled his head in Sparlyset’s voice they turned into insects.

Maybe he was sick from being in this world, and Sparlyset knew. The Rite of Vitality was meant to protect him from what was really eating away at him. Bacteria. It may explain why Chrisk was in worse shape than him. And they both had open wounds, he realised. He’d scratched up his back in one of those bushes back in the pit. Maybe those wounds let the infection in, or sped it along.

Chrisk looked completely dejected.

“Don’t worry about it.” Richard said. “I think they can cure us.”

He had no way of keeping track of time as they walked, but it felt like quite a while before the path widened into something that resembled a road. There were no walls to the village, and the only sign was a fifty kilometre speed limit sign from Hometoll. The road just led right between a couple of round-topped buildings right in the woods.

Two natives stepped into the road as they approached and held their hands out with their fingers up. They examined them cautiously, tails whipping behind them.

“I found this girl on the other side of the tunnel.” Richard said. “My name is Richard, and this is Chrisk. Does she live here?”

One stepped forward. Her hair was grey and a row of wrinkles beneath her red eyes betrayed her advanced age. Richard stepped back. They spoke a few words in their language.

“How are we supposed to get anywhere with them…” Chrisk coughed, “if we can’t understand each other? At least they aren’t attacking us…”

“They understand us.” Richard said. “And there’s one word I know. I won’t trust them if I don’t hear it.” He said the last to the old woman.

Her words were gentle and pleasant, as their language always seemed to be. Richard listened carefully for his friend’s name. The only thing that would tell him he could trust them with her.

The other native stepped forward. He was equipped in what looked like leather armour, but carried no obvious weapons. His tone was more agitated as he spoke, but Richard heard the word he was looking for as the man pointed to the woman on his back.

“Sparlyset,” he repeated. “So you do know her.”

The old woman made a gesture with her hand, palm upwards, before bringing her hands together in front of her.

Richard was confused; they looked at him expectantly. “I… she was injured, she closed the wound somehow but she can’t move her legs…”

The young man’s green tail flicked impatiently and he pointed at the ground. His words mentioned Sparlyset, so Richard set her down. The woman made the open-palmed hand gesture again as the man lifted Sparlyset in his arms and carried her away. Seeing her carried away by this man made him feel… he shook off the thought, and tried to ignore the twisting in the pit of his stomach.

The woman pointed at Chrisk, and then at the other native who was already on his way with Sparlyset. After a moment of confusion, Chrisk stumbled after him.

The older native’s ruby eyes took on a mischievous look, and she beckoned Richard to follow her. She led him through the town, and though his body ached it was easier to walk without someone on his back. Sparlyset had better be alright.

All the homes were round and squat, and had domed roofs. Little windows in the domes, as well as on the ground at the base, told him they were multi-leveled. Most of the natives they passed kept their distance and looked at him with distrust as he expected. It was a simple town, with people who just wanted to go about their day without an alien from another world stirring up trouble.

He could understand that. It was a beautiful town, full of colourful flowers poking out around every building, little springs of water running down the mountain under wooden bridges and bright trees to shade the yards. The children—before they saw him and hid inside—all looked happy. But he would rather be at home. Geoff and his family were all Richard had, and he missed them.

The old woman brought him to a building that must have been the centre of town. It was in a cobblestone plaza, alone except for six marble sculptures. They each had cylindrical holes in their centre that held a bell. The red-eyed woman walked up to one that looked like six serpentine things coiled around the cylindrical gap as though it was there only by coincidence of the way they moved—if they had been moving. If they were meant to be creatures of some sort, he couldn’t tell by looking at them. They might as well have been pool noodles.

She pulled the bell’s clapper and it rang with a clear, high-pitched sound. She motioned again for him to follow, and led him into the building. It was dim inside. The round floor was made of colourful tiles placed seemingly without pattern. A shallow basin in the middle had eight smaller basins around its rim.

She urged him towards the basin and sat down by the rim, in front of one of the round indents. Richard examined the room as he lowered himself into the basin. It was nearly completely empty. A few openings in the domed roof let in a trickle of light, but otherwise the structure was featureless.

After a few minutes, five more people meandered in and sat around him at each small indent. They spoke to each other in annoyed tones and Richard supposed the bell had called them here unexpectedly. They were all well aged, and eyed him less with suspicion than with general irritation.

They conversed as if he wasn’t there for the most part, except when one would gesture at him and say something that sounded like a complaint. The red-eyed woman who led him there slapped the ground with her tail and they quieted down. There were two empty spots, so he eyed the door expecting more to arrive, but soon they withdrew pouches from their clothes and placed little plant balls into the basins around him.

Now Richard looked at the entrance as more of an exit. Would he even survive six of those balls? A silhouette appeared in the brightness of the doorway and suddenly all the old natives were speaking over each other. He couldn’t tell what it was; it looked like the upper body of a woman, but the bottom was a platform that curved gently upwards about a metre across. It floated above the ground. As they entered the dim light away from the brightness of the entrance, Richard recognized Sparlyset. She was sitting cross-legged on a floating disc, and looked as tired as when he’d last seen her.

The disc carried her halfway to the middle of the room and then vanished. She tumbled to the ground and the red-eyed elder made a matter-of-fact-sounding comment. No one moved to help her, but it was just as well. Richard hopped out of the basin as soon as she fell and carried her to a spot in the circle next to the old woman. The old natives glared at him and spoke words that sounded harsh even in their delicate tongue.

Sparlyset smiled gratefully at him, and that was what he focused on. Now the old red elder motioned impatiently and withdrew a thin white-hilted knife from her robe. She cut her hand with it, and silver blood sprinkled over the plant. Richard felt his face contort. He turned to Sparlyset for help and she pointed to his hand, nodding with a pretty smile across her face.

He knew what they wanted him to do, but his stomach churned. Seven this time? He held his hand out where she had bit him earlier. Dried blood remained on his palm and a small scab had formed. The elder lady made a small cut in the same spot, and his blood woke the plant as it mixed with hers. It wiggled its roots and supped the blood.

She grabbed his hand and held it over the bowl. A familiar glow appeared as the elder began to sing, but hers was red. When she released his hand the next elder in the circle took the dagger and repeated the process. Sparlyset nodded encouragingly as he reached for the plant and swallowed it.

It didn’t taste any better, but he managed not to vomit in his mouth. The second one was somehow worse. By the third, the elders who had prepared the things with him were glowing beings of light the colour of their eyes and hair. Their words as they sang were foreign, but somehow familiar. As though he was beginning to derive meaning from them.

Soon, six of the figures were glowing lightforms that cast their brilliance across the curved walls of the ritual chamber in an extravagant rainbow. The words they spoke were alien to his ears but what little meaning his mind gleamed appeared in writing behind them in the shining fountains of colour they extruded.

As he took the final plant from Sparlyset he understood the meaning of the ritual. It was the Rite of Tongues. Their words and magic inscribed a natural understanding of language in his mind. He swallowed the last plant.

Sparlyset overflowed with beautiful pink light. He yearned for it to engulf him. For the others to go away and let them be alone together. They could finally converse for real.

Instead, the colours bled together. Everything turned black.