CHAPTER
NINE
As the rain slacked off, Marty held a conference with the whole party in the palace, within view of the Well of the Beast. The courtyard was well-lit by many torches in brackets in the courtyard walls, just in case. At Surjan’s instruction, six of the palace spearmen had gone to stand guard at the Sacred Grove, with strict instructions that if any of the Grays were to appear, five were to remain to keep them penned in and one was to run to the palace and inform the king.
Gunther, after the encounter with the Grays, seemed to be confused and a bit on edge. Had he been like this before the encounter as well? Marty wasn’t sure if, like Lowanna, the German had been affected by their transition to this new place and time.
They were old friends, and Marty had to trust that Gunther would tell him if something was truly wrong.
“The Grays have rings in their noses,” Kareem said. “They are not of this world.”
“Are you sure? There’s a lot of history behind piercings across various civilizations around the world,” Lowanna pointed out.
“You didn’t see what we saw, Lowanna. These things melt when slain,” Surjan said. “Also, I completely understand why some of the Neshili call these things the Hungry Dead. Their pallor, large eyes, and spindly, almost spiderlike build makes them look the part of an alien.”
“Concur,” Marty said. “UFO pilots, straight out of central casting.”
“They turned into bubbling, foul-smelling mucous just like the Sethians did,” Gunther said.
Kareem fiddled anxiously with his dagger.
“But they talk about them as if the Hungry Dead appear from time to time to take a chicken or a small child,” Lowanna said. “They feed them animal sacrifices and, until recently, it’s kept things quiet. The Neshili haven’t ever said that the Hungry Dead come in berserker waves.”
“But they do, by God,” Kareem said.
“Maybe they didn’t want to admit how big the problem was,” François said.
“Maybe they’ve never experienced them thus,” Surjan said. “I will demand answers of the council in the morning.”
Marty frowned. “We definitely need some answers.”
“Something is up, and it’s what ultimately ended up causing the old king, Zarum, to be sent off to that Sacred Grove to die,” Lowanna said. “His so-called magic failed. Whatever the status quo used to be, the Hungry Dead’s behavior has changed. We don’t really know what’s initiated any of this and how different things have now become.”
“I will find out,” Surjan said. He sounded tired.
“We’ll find out more from the council in the morning,” Marty said. “The question inevitably is, what, if anything, we can do about this.”
“We save humanity.” Gunther’s voice was void of energy, thin and spent, but it still quivered with determination.
“From these Grays that are suddenly coming up to the surface?” Marty asked.
Gunther nodded, wordless.
“But what’s causing the restless upheaval of the Grays?” Marty asked. “Obviously something has changed, and we need to get to the bottom of this. Cure the disease, not just the symptom.”
“This is an old story,” François said. “It’s the story that humanity all on its own plays out, time and time again. A population exceeds its constraints, either because its environment becomes more constrained, such as by drought, or because its fertility explodes, such as by the introduction of clean water or increased food. The excess population has to go somewhere, so it launches out in a wave of conquest. Hence we get the Huns, the Mongols, the Amalekites, the Arabs, the early industrial British, and every other population that ever set forth to find new land to seize.”
“I think you’re thinking of Battlestar Galactica,” Lowanna said.
“I am, in fact,” François admitted. “Part of the greatness of Battlestar Galactica is the way it captures an archetypal human situation that everywhere fills our epic literature but is ignored in modern art: humanity on the move.”
“We did this one before,” Marty said. “We gathered refugees from the Sethian ravages across North Africa.”
“Not quite the same,” François said. “We gathered an army and fought. Now there is a whole people, and a new threat has appeared in their own home. Maybe there’s nothing we can do about the Grays—what if there are thousands of them down below? We have no idea what we’re dealing with. We might need to consider that the Grays bursting forth from their homeland is like Genghis Khan actually seeking to conquer and we’re just in the way.”
“You said these things were easier to fight than the Sethians were,” Lowana said. “We don’t have a reason to believe there are thousands down there; if there were, they’d probably have overrun the population on this island already. We could go down there and eradicate the Grays . . .” She frowned as the words hung in the air. “I’m okay with animals that occasionally eat a human because it crosses their path on a bad day, but a sentient species that eats humans as its target prey? This feels like something that needs intervention.”
“You’re suggesting a war between the Neshili and the Grays?” François asked.
“War has already been declared,” she countered. “I’m suggesting we defend the humans.”
“Maybe there’s a more basic problem, though,” Marty said.
“You’re thinking of your vision.” Lowanna met Marty’s gaze. “Antarctica, the cliffs of ice. The icebergs that float past this palace, two thirds of the way down to the equator.”
“That’s a good point. Maybe the thing that is changing the equation here is the changing climate,” François said. “I don’t know quite how to read that one but maybe temperatures are rising, which is melting the polar ice—we’re seeing this as calving icebergs, surprisingly far south. It fits with what we believe the year to be—we’re at what is believed to be the end of the last ice age. That’s raising ocean levels and increasing the amount of free water in the system generally—this island may find itself underwater soon enough. Don’t get me wrong, I’m saying this as a layman, not knowing for certain if that’s what’s really going on, but it’s an educated guess.”
“None of us is a climate scientist,” Gunther said. “But we all can see the icebergs in the tropics.”
“So maybe, in some way we’re seeing that the changing climate is disrupting the food practices of the Grays.” François shrugged. “If they’re like the Sethians and low in iron, then maybe the shellfish beds are being disturbed and they’re looking for alternatives to iron-rich foods, and they’ve taken to eating humans are a supplement.”
“It’s as good a guess as any,” Marty said. “So . . . what do we do? Do we sail to the South Pole to look for an answer?”
“You mentioned a map down there.” François’s eyes narrowed. “Can you draw it for me?”
“You think it will give us an answer to the question?” Marty asked.
“I collect all the data I can, all the time,” François told him. “I never know when something I learned ten years ago is suddenly going to give me the answer to a question today.”
Marty quickly sketched out the lines on the muddy tile floors.
“And there were straight lines from point to point across the oceans?” François asked.
“Windrose lines.” Marty nodded. “Many of them. Looked like an old-timey sailor’s map, to use technical archaeology language.”
“Are you sure it showed this entire region connecting, almost as if Antarctica and South America are a contiguous landmass?” François asked.
“I have no doubt,” Marty said. “I can still see it perfectly in my mind.”
François pursed his lips and scratched his jawline. “I think I’ve seen a map like this before. Let me chew on it for a bit.”
“And what do we do about the queen?” Surjan asked.
“Do about her?” Marty looked over at him and grinned. “What do you mean?”
“She tried to seduce me.” Surjan grumbled.
Marty couldn’t help but smile at the large man’s plight.
“I imagine you can think of something to do about that,” Lowanna quipped.
Surjan sighed. “In addition to me continuing to resist her blandishments, because I’m not that kind of man . . . what else shall we do about the queen?”
François pointed at the Sikh and chuckled. “My friend, there is no ‘we’ in that problem. As king, this is a ‘you’ type of problem.”
“I’ll watch her.” Kareem smiled, and in the dancing light of the torches, his teeth looked like flames in his mouth.
“They are not your dead,” Surjan said coldly. “They are not human and they never were. They are different creatures from you entirely.”
He stood in the ring of the Neshili council, holding the king’s scepter. This was a tall wooden rod with a serpent carved at its tip. He wore a saffron-colored sash around his waist and a bleached white kilt. Marty and François sat on divans in the ring, along with the queen and the three elders of Nesha. Spearmen stood about the room, along with Lowanna, Gunther, and Kareem. The chamber was on the highest floor of the palace, and windows opened on three sides to cloudy, blustery weather.
The divan was comfortable and Marty was tired, but he had far too much adrenaline coursing through his veins to feel sleepy.
“Demons, then?” Tudhal the priest asked.
“No.” The party had anticipated this question and rehearsed the answer. “They’re beasts. Animals who eat the children of men as do other beasts, such as sharks.”
“They have the forms of men,” Tudhal insisted.
“Do they?” Surjan grinned and laughed. “Have you seen them?”
“Once,” Tudhal admitted.
“Describe them,” Surjan pressed. “What color are they? How are their eyes? What is their manner of speech?”
“They are gray,” Tudhal admitted, “with eyes that lack whites entirely, and also irises. Their speech is a chattering noise with no pattern to it.”
“They are not men,” Surjan said, “nor demons. They are not your dead ancestors who are owed fealty or food. They are dangerous beasts and, unbeknownst to you, they have lived beneath your feet for a very long time. Now their manner of life is disturbed, and they are feeding on you.”
“On us, Your Majesty,” Queen Halpa said. “On our people.”
“On my people,” Surjan said. The vehemence in his voice surprised Marty.
“Are you certain,” the genealogist Ammun said slowly, “that the beings we call the Hungry Dead are not rather a kind of people, from very far away? Maybe as far away as you have come?”
Marty stared, wondering where these people thought they’d come from.
Surjan’s mouth hung open.
François was the first to recover himself. “From where do you think such people might come?”
“From the stars, of course.” Ammun nodded piously.
Sapal snorted.
“As all people do,” Ammun insisted. “We lived among the gods, all of us as stars, and then we came here upon the Earth. If the Hungry Dead aren’t dead at all, but people, they came from the stars. Perhaps they came with us in the fleet from the City of the Gods. Perhaps they came from the City of the Gods at another time.”
“The City of the Gods,” Lowanna said. “A city in the sky? A city of stars?”
Marty noticed one of the spearmen ogling her. Sharrum, he thought the man’s name was. He’d come to Muwat’s hut with the elders the morning after their arrival, hadn’t he?
“No, the City of Gods on Earth,” Tudhal said. “Whence sailed the Fleet of the End of the World.”
“Does this matter?” the queen asked.
“I’m curious,” François said. “Where is the City of Gods on Earth?”
“In the east,” Ammun said. “This is where we come from. We came down from the stars with the gods, to be their servants in their city. It was a mighty city and it prospered for many centuries.”
“Many thousands of years,” Tudhal asserted.
“Its sorcerers were mighty, its scholars were wise, its rulers were noble,” Sapal said. “And the gods lived among us there, and our lifespans were ten times the length of a man’s life today.”
“Until someone went and ate that apple.” Lowanna put her fists on her hips. “Let me guess, was it a woman?”
The three elders furrowed their brows and stared at her.
“What apple?” Sapal asked.
Sharrum smiled lasciviously at Lowanna. Marty stood, deliberately putting himself in the way so the guard couldn’t look at her anymore. “Lowanna only means that we have heard similar stories before. Similar, but not necessarily the same. Go on.”
“The city learned that its time was going to come to an end,” Ammun said. “We have heard different explanations for this. Maybe the gods withdrew. Maybe we failed them. Maybe the city was built with a fatal flaw, that was inevitably going to break it apart.”
“It isn’t Eden after all,” Lowanna said. “It’s Krypton.”
Sharrum smiled at what she’d said, though the spearman couldn’t possibly understand the reference.
Marty turned to the anthropologist. “Maybe a little less snark. Also, we don’t need anyone naming their kid Eden Kryptonite because we accidentally drop too many cultural references.”
Lowanna’s face went stony. She was in a mood.
Tudhal took up the story. “So, the City of the Gods sent out fleets of ships in all directions. We don’t know the names of all the fleets, but we know that one fleet was called the Fleet of the End of the World. We know that because our ancestors were on that fleet, and the fleet had the quest of establishing two of the Daughters of God.”
“Daughter cities, you mean,” François said.
Marty turned his attention back to the elders. “How many fleets went out?”
Tudhal shrugged and Ammun shook his head.
“Do you know which direction they went?” he pressed.
“All directions,” Ammun said.
“From the City of the Gods,” François said, “which is in the east. To be fair, like Eden.”
Marty sighed. “Fine. So, the Fleet of the End of the World set one group of people here and at least one group somewhere else.”
“You are going to ask us where,” Sapal said, “and we don’t know.”
Marty shook his head. “I was going to say, Ammun asked François if we were from the other half of the fleet, or the City of the Gods. Now I understand.”
“You might also have been from one of the other eight Daughters of God,” Tudhal said. “But if you are from any of those places, you either don’t know enough to say so, or wish to conceal your origin from us.” The priest gazed at Marty through lidded eyes.
Marty ignored the pointed rebuke. “You’re saying maybe the Hungry Dead came with you on the Fleet of the End of the World, and . . . what? You forgot about them?”
“Exactly,” Ammun said.
“If they are not the Hungry Dead, we should stop calling them that,” Tudhal suggested. “Also, we should not call them demons, apparently.”
“They are Grays,” Surjan said.
“Grays.” Tudhal rolled the word around in his mouth and then nodded.
“How long have you been here?” François asked.
“Eighty-six generations,” Ammun said. “Would you like to hear them?”
Surjan raised a hand to stop him. “Later.”
“And the Grays?” François asked. “How long have you suffered their depredations?”
“Always,” Sharrum said.
To Marty’s annoyance, the spearman had shifted his position a pace to one side and was making eyes at Lowanna again.
“Always,” Tudhal and Sharrum agreed.
“Who built this palace?” François asked. “And what other entrances are there that descend into the heart of the world below?”
“We built it,” Queen Halpa said. “Our ancestors. Using the sorceries of the City of the Gods. And we can show you all the entrances.”
“All the entrances you know of,” Kareem muttered. Marty wasn’t sure anyone other than himself heard it.
“You seek to fight the Guardian?” Ammun asked.
“I don’t seek to fight anyone.” François smiled. “I like teaching.”
“Good,” Ammun said. “It is not your place to fight the Guardian of the . . . the Guardian of the Grays.”
“Fine.” François smiled again. “What is the Guardian?”
“The poems say that it is the great leader of the . . . Grays,” Ammun said. “Their war leader, their shaman, their king. It sits in darkness, and its children bring it flesh to eat and blood to drink.”
“Does it hold a pitchfork and sit in a pit of burning tar?” Lowanna asked.
Sharrum chuckled out loud, the annoying twit.
“No,” Tudhal said, “but it is keeper of sorceries from the City of the Gods on Earth.”
Gunther gasped loudly. His face drained of color.
“Are you okay?” Marty asked him.
“I need air.” Gunther stood and stumbled to a window.
“What kinds of sorceries?” François stood. “Sorceries such as those that built this palace?”
Tudhal nodded. “In a day.”
Marty shook his head. “Lowanna will remind us that this is a cliché, and she’ll be right.”
“About time you admitted it,” she shot back.
Marty sighed.
“The poems say that the Guardian has access to mighty weapons,” Ammun said, “and healing arts, and an open gate connecting it to the gods.”
Gunther made retching sounds.
“Well, pitchfork and tar, or mighty weapons of the gods,” François said. “Either way, I’m glad not to be fighting the beast.”
Ammun nodded. “That is for King Surjan to do.”