Chapter 3

Return

Ariei

The central lift descends, the rumble of grinding stone and hissing steam encompassing the air, creating a vast vacuum of black isolation around us. Because the lift consists of a circular brass floor and ornate machinery above, the only light available to us is a hanging lantern above, casting us in the blue flame of a single burning esperstone. Rows of spiked arms reach out amongst the square outer frame of the lift, thrusting themselves into divets in the stone walls as they carefully, slowly carry us several miles straight down into Ios.

My father and I remain fully silent as we descend. I can tell he’s nervous to speak. I want to console him, tell him it’s okay, but I can’t get Braham’s letter out of my mind. It fills me with an unspeakable sense of dread, flooding my thoughts in thick waves that threaten to drown me. I want to scream. I want to tell my father. I want answers.

“It’s what he wanted.”

I turn to my father. “What?”

“Braham. He wouldn’t have wanted to die easily.” He chuckles faintly. “Crazy bastard.”

I nod. “Yeah.”

My father raises his eyebrows. “What’s wrong?”

I desperately want to give him the letter. It’s still there in my bag, waiting. I can feel it watching me, waiting to pull me under.

“Nothing. I’m just…sad.” How pathetic.

He slowly walks over, pulling me into a hug. At first I don’t want consolation. There’s not enough time. There are far more important matters at hand.

Braham is dead.

I remain in my father’s embrace. I begin to cry.

When the door of the lift finally slides upwards, we are greeted by a small crowd gathered in the central square. It looks to be roughly fifty of them, but my view is limited by the thick beams that support the central wire energy system. Made of a careful combination of wood and steel, they stretch and curve towards the cavern ceiling like narrow fingers snaking their way from the cold ground. Cables run from each beam, pulling and reversing against each other to generate enough heat transfer in order to consistently ignite esperstones around the community. From my point of view, all that this powers is the blue lights that dot around the landscape in an organized latticework; however, it is also used to power our machines, provide heat for food preparation and comfort, and provide high temperatures for our steam engines, amongst other specialized purposes.

My father takes the first futile steps. The crowd immediately starts to swarm in. The first to speak is an older woman, her long gray hair dotted with small hand-carved ornaments and beads.

“Edom. Edom, what’s happened?! I spoke to Teren. He says there’s been a terribl-”

“Wait until tonight. Marit will announce any information during tonight’s council.”

He begins to walk again, but she continues.

“What happened to Braham?”

He ignores her and keeps moving. I follow after him, the two of us cutting through the crowd. Despite our population totaling just over eight hundred, only thirty-seven emberstrand exist at the moment. When one dies, particularly an elder, word tends to spread.

I see more faces appear as we clear the lift center. The center of our city is a circular collection of buildings, mismatched in height and scale, thick smokestacks rising from their roofs. As the smoke and steam rises,it exits through the naturally crafted splits and tunnels at the roof of the cavern. Each of these central buildings has its purpose, from specialized food halls and taverns, to manufacturing and tailoring centers, to medical wards and storehouses. All of them are crafted from a mixture of rootwood, stone masonry, and copper as a way of designating their purpose and adding artistic flourish.They range in scale, from minute single-purpose stands to the vast four-story medical wing. I’ve always seen its extravagance as laughable, but Braham still had the black vein-like scars from an airborne sickness that claimed many in the settlement years ago.

There are less people than usual in those buildings now. They linger outside, more pouring out to look at as, to gain even the smallest snippet of news. I curse Teren. He’d always been the talkative one, and now his loud mouth damns us as well. We slowly, steadily make our way to the medical ward, cutting past the rows of bioluminescent roots and plants that sit atop stone walkways. The building looms over us, its ornate copper door illustrating the old fable of Meithia, the first healer. She stands solitary at the top, her hands symmetrically open to us over images of her mending the ghastly wounds delivered to the original settlers by the eidelion.

As my father pushes the massive double door open, I take a glance to my left towards the frontmost harvesting stations. Men and women are standing beside hanging roots, running curved blades alongside the spiraled forms above, stripping them of their soft outermost bark. Alongside the roots are more stations gathered near the cavern walls- some of them for harvesting the cotton from the meticulously planted vines that climb the wall, others for mining the large sheets of copper and other metals that naturally grow underneath the thin outer layers of rock. I look back at the root harvesters. One of them- a pale young woman with her long hair tied back in a bun- notices, taking a glance at me. I turn back.

The interior of the medical ward is immaculately organized, a square bottom floor with identical beds and furnishings for each patient. A massive spiral staircase guides the way to the second and third floors before reaching the specialized rooms on the fourth, a cable-run lift also present for those unable to ascend the staircase. The beds are easily accessible, the mattresses filled with the leftover vine scrap from the cotton harvesters, wrapped in a cloth other layer with thick blankets. There’s only a few patients at the moment; a young man lies in bed near the entrance, a ghastly circular wound leaking blood into a hastily applied bandage. A machining incident, if I had to wager.

A man sits in front of the door, waiting behind an old, lightly damaged desk.. “Ah, if it isn’t the duo I'm most happy to see.”

He stands up. He’s an older fellow, his silver hair mildly lengthy and hanging just above the shoulders. He’s wearing an all-white coat that falls towards the floor, a copper trim lining every edge of the fanciful garment. He puts his hand on my father’s shoulder.

“I’m very happy, Edom. Very happy indeed.”

My father gives him an exhausted, unenthusiastic nod. “Why?”

The man broadly smiles back at him. “Because you two didn’t bang yourselves up as much as you could have.”

For a moment, I want to snap at Cain. How dare he be happy for us after everything we’ve been through? I let it slide, at least for the moment. My father just rolls his eyes, slowly lowers himself into the nearest bedside chair, and leans back, breathing heavily. I take a seat next to him.

Cain shrugs, grabbing a small surgical toolkit from his weathered desk and approaching us. Having been selected by his peers, he’s been in the role for many, many years, an expert. He starts to examine my father, but he refuses.

“She’s the only one hurt.”

Cain nods. I show him the wound on my leg, the blood still running slowly. He shakes his head.

“Eventful first trip?”

I glare at him. It’s been hurting more and more the longer it remains untouched, a dull ache now running up and down the limb. “Please, just fix my fucking leg.”

My father gives me an agitated glare. I look at Cain. “My apologies. Yes, you could say it was very eventful.”

He simply laughs in response. He takes a medical knife and cuts away any remaining material around the wound, before taking a medical injector and filling it with a dark purple chemical. It fizzes in the clear glass. I wince as he stabs it into the center of the wound. With a twist of the dial four smaller needles insert themselves, dispersing the cleansing liquid into my flesh. He smiles.

“It’ll be just a few moments." He starts moving away before turning once again. "Ah, I almost forgot! Somebody would like to see you.”

He walks away, calling around the corner. I already know who it is.

As Sekra makes his way towards us, I instantly begin to feel more at home. Several small stains dot his white healer’s coat, similarly to fashioned to Cain's, although without its copper trimmings. It features a small badge of adequacy pinned by his right chest pocket, earned through performing enough authorized procedures. He flashes his beaming smile, and, although he starts off walking casually, he starts to speed up slightly the closer he gets.

“Ariei!”

I laugh softly at his excitement. “Sekra. Calm down, I’ve only been gone for a few hours.”

Sekra laughs “Just a few hours. Well, the four valleys that have been carved into your leg tell me something incredibly exciting happened in those four hours.”

I wince as the injector sends another wave of fluid into the wound. “Please tell me I don’t need a Closure.”

Sekra mockingly shakes his head. “Poor thing. I thought you knew lying was against the rules imposed on my position.” He looks at Cain. “Can I handle this one?”

Cain looks at him, concerned, before it passes. “Bah. Go ahead, boy. Just make sure to notify your exact process after the operation. The governing body prefers me to detail all that happens here.” Cain decides instead to check on the man with the hand injury, ensuring that it has stopped bleeding enough to heal further. Sekra searches through the bedside cabinet for supplies and, finding a suitable collection, pulls over his own chair and waits for the injector to stop. My father has fallen asleep from sheer exhaustion.

He ties his long black hair back, speaking in a hushed tone. “So, tell me. What happened?”

I pause. I can’t tell him, Braham made absolutely sure I understood that. The only thing I can do for those closest to me is to get them through the escape tunnel- how it was made, I have no idea. At the same time, however, I owe Sekra so much. He’s been there for me for my entire life. In addition, Marit will no doubt omit some information to prevent panic from the populace. We need somebody else in an upper position outside of the emberstrand to know the truth in case it becomes a larger problem. I decide to disobey Braham, at least for the time being. If Marit can bend the truth to serve his goals, I can as well.

I look into his eyes. “I know I can trust you.”

His expression is awkward. “Well, yes, you’ve known that since we were children. Are you doubting that?”

I make sure Cain isn’t paying attention. I need as much privacy as I can get right now. “Wait until the injector is finished. When you perform the Closure, I’ll tell you.”

He nods, his expression growing more serious. He watches intently as the last fluid drains and the needles remove themselves from my flesh. He picks it up and sets it aside. He picks up several small metal cubes before sitting back down.

“I’ve got something special for the occasion.” He roots around inside of the cabinet, grabbing a tiny bottle of slag. The black alcoholic beverage swirls inside of the glass. He sits back down to start the procedure.

“You can’t give me slag. We hardly have enough for the worst processes. It’s only for emergencies.”

He shrugs. “I’m not sure if you’ve forgotten, but I believe my closest friend being injured is an emergency. Or maybe I'm just used to breaking a few rules.”

He pours some of the foul-smelling liquid into a tiny cup, passing it over to me. I drink it in one go, gasping after. It tastes terrible. Sekra laughs as I shiver unintentionally.

“All right. Ready?”

The effects are already starting to take effect, my body beginning to grow numb on a small level. “Ready as ever.”

He starts to place the cubes around the wound. He presses the top of each cube as it’s settled. As soon as he does so, two sets of miniscule hooks jut out of each cube to ensure it remains in my skin. Despite the numbing effect of the slag, I still wince from the sharp pain. He nods.

“All right, talk fast.”

I begin. “First of all, we saw something we’ve never seen before. New eidelion.”

He raises an eyebrow. “We haven’t had reports of new breeds since I was a small child.”

I nod. “Exactly. They’re smart, Sekra. They strategize. They made their own armor. They set a trap; we got caught in it. They prepared a corpse, nailed it to a tree behind some bushes. That’s what caused this.”

I motion to my wound. As the cubes are placed, their magnetized material pulls them towards each other, pulling the flesh together and starting to close the wound. Sekra loses focus for a moment. It takes him a few seconds to start placing the cubes again.

“What? How…”

I sigh. “I know. I know. I haven’t even started to think about the implications. How many are there? Where did they come from?”

He interjects. “How did they know exactly where you were going to see the trap?”

I think for a moment. “Well, it was on the way to a waypoint further out.”

He shakes his head. “No, that’s not what I mean. They obviously knew somebody would travel that path. I just don’t know why they would hide it so well. It wasn’t set up as an obvious distraction, or something you would just wander into. It was hidden in the treeline, behind some bushes. Who saw it first?”

Braham. I want to blurt it out. He was the first one to identify it, to tell us about it. My mind races. What did he know? Did he communicate with them? Is he a traitor?

Sekra continues. “And where did the corpse come from? You didn’t say yet, but if it was an emberstrand we would have known they were missing beforehand.”

Two theories rush through my head. The first- and I dread even considering it- is that Braham either murdered somebody and brought them to the surface, or kidnapped them and gave them to the intelligent eidelion. If that were the case, he would’ve had to go across the bridge, which means a collaboration with the guards there. This would also require him to access the lift without anybody noticing. The other theory is that there are other humans much, much closer than previously thought. Both ideas are terrifying to me.

“Ariei? Why aren’t you talking?”

I realize that he’s almost done with the procedure at this point. “Look, Sekra, I can’t tell you everything.”

“What do you mean?”

“There’s more.” I decide not to dive further into his previous questions. I don’t want to implicate Braham just yet. “Something terrible is going to happen in five days.”

He sets the last cube. My wound is mostly closed at this point, and, with the disinfecting chemical injected, my wound will start to slowly heal over the next few weeks. “Why are you acting like this? Dancing around the details only serves to make me more worried.”

I sigh. “I’m sorry, Sekra. I can’t tell you everything just yet. I barely know anything myself. Just know that in five days, something- I have no idea what- will happen. And- and we need to get as many people as we possibly can to the sewage processing system.”

“Why there?”

“Because somebody told me there’s a secret escape tunnel built there.”

He pauses, remaining deep in thought for a moment. “This is a lot to take in, Ariei.”

“I know.”

“You know you can trust me. And I'm going to reciprocate that trust.”

I nod. “Thank you.”

“The council is tonight. We’re going to sneak out just before it ends. Of course, it’ll be a struggle to do so, but you’re resourceful. It’ll work. That way we won't have to sneak past an entire city of people walking around. We’ll go see if this tunnel of yours is really there, and we’ll figure out where exactly it’s hidden.”

I nod. “All right, then. Let's break a few more rules.”