Heights of the Depths (33 page)

iii.

“Are you insane? Are you
 insane?”

Those were the words that brought Norda to consciousness. The odd thing was that she hadn’t even realized she had been unconscious. As far as she knew, she had simply fallen asleep because, well, because that’s what one did on a fairly regular basis. It didn’t occur to her that weakness had caused her to lose her hold on wakefulness.

“I think I may be,” she said softly. “I’ve certainly heard it mentioned.”

She had not yet opened her eyes, so whoever was near her was unaware that she was awake. This much quickly became evident to Norda when whoever it was said, “Oh my God, it’s awake. And…it talks!”

“Of course it talks!” came an annoyed response. “What did you think?”

“I don’t know! I figured they just hissed or something!”

“I can if you’d like,” said Norda, and she offered up a half-hearted hiss. It was at that point that, slowly, she opened her eyes and tried to sit up.

Her environment was still steamy and moist, and she heard the steady drip-dripping of water from somewhere in the distance.

Before she could fully sit, a hand gently rested on her right shoulder and said, “Stay still. I’m not done.”

She looked over and saw that a Mort was busy dressing her wound. It was a female Mort, she was reasonably sure of that. She had dark skin similar to the boy that she had encountered earlier, and fur on her head that seemed to go in all directions at once. She was using a damp cloth to clear away the last of the blood that had dried. “You’re lucky. The bullet went clean through. Since the bleeding has stopped, it’s obvious that it didn’t hit anything vital.”

“That’s good,” said Norda dreamily.

The Mort went on about her business with brisk efficiency. As she began to apply bandages, she said, “You sound very young. How old are you?”

“I don’t know.”

“How can you not know? When were you born?”

“You mean hatched?”

“Right. When were you hatched?”

Norda shrugged. “I have no idea. I was very young at the time and so my memories of it aren’t really dependable.”

“This is ridiculous!” It had been the Mort who had spoken moments before. Norda turned and saw him standing nearby, with various other Morts as well. They had varying skin colors and amounts of fur, both on their heads and bodies. She wasn’t able to distinguish much in terms of their facial features since they all looked pretty much alike to her. “You’re his mother! You’re his goddamn mother! How can you be treating the…the thing,” and he gestured toward Norda, “that damn near killed him!”

“From the way Anton tells it,” she said, “the only reason she ‘near’ killed him was because she chose not to totally kill him. She could have, and she didn’t.”

“And that’s where we’re at now? We make nice to them because they did us the favor of not killing us?” He looked challengingly at Norda and said, “Why didn’t you kill Anton?”

“Who is Anton?”

“The kid! The kid you brought down here!”

“Oh.” She paused, considering the question. “I was always of the opinion that you needed a reason to kill someone, not to not kill someone.”

“I agree,” said the woman firmly who was busy bandaging her shoulder. “You risked your life to bring my son down here into enemy territory even though you yourself were already injured.”

“I did?” Norda’s eyes widened in surprise. “Why in the world did I do that? Maybe I am insane.”

The male Mort, who reeked of leadership, looked in astonishment at the woman. “Come on—!”

“Calm down, Darryl. The poor thing’s obviously not right in the head.”

“You’re feeling sorry for it?” There were grumblings from the other Morts behind him. “Look at where we are! Look at what we’ve come to, and you’re actually feeling sorry for that…that thing! Why aren’t you feeling sorry for us, considering what we’ve got!”

“You have your lives,” said Norda. “That’s something, isn’t it? Most Morts don’t have their lives, so that puts you ahead of just about all of them.”

“Stop calling us that,” said the one called Darryl, stabbing a finger at her. “We’re not ‘Morts.’ We’re human beings!”

“Oh, right!” Norda said, her memory suddenly jogged. “Hooman Bean! He said his name was Hooman Bean!” Then she frowned. “You’re all named Hooman Bean? That sounds very confusing. Don’t you get confused from that? I know I would. Then again, I may well be insane, so…”

The male Mort looked as if he had lost all capacity for speech. The female was doing something with her face that looked very much like it could be a smile. “Human beings are what we are. It’s the name of our race, just like you’re a Mandraque. My name is—”

“Don’t tell her your name!”

She snorted. “What, do you think she’ll use it as part of some magic spell to gain control over me?”

“It’s possible,” he said, but sounded a little less certain.

“My name,” she said, “is Caralee. That,” and she pointed to the scowling male, “is my husband, Darryl.”

“Husband? Oh. Your mate.”

“Yes. And Anton’s father. Anton is the boy you brought down here.”

“And his name is not Hooman Bean?”

“No,” and Caralee laughed gently. “It’s really not. I’ve never met anyone named that. Now…who are you?”

“I am Norda Kinklash,” she said. “My brother is Arren Kinklash, leader of the Five Clans. I dropped a bell on someone else who wanted to be leader,” she added proudly, “and that’s why Arren is leader.”

“Okay,” said Caralee, clearly not understanding but trying to look as if she did. “And where is this brother of yours?”

“He is going to come and take me away from here.”

“Oh my God,” said Darryl, and now there were concerned mutterings from the other human beings. “They’re going to be mounting a rescue mission. They’re going to come flooding in here. An entire swarm of Mandraques. You heard her, Cara. Her brother is a goddamn leader!”

“We hold her hostage,” said another of the humans. “We have her prisoner, after all. Shouldn’t be hard.”

“I’m a prisoner?” This was news to Norda. “When did that happen?”

“I’m sorry, I couldn’t stop them. They were afraid,” said Caralee, and she nodded toward Norda’s foot.

Norda looked to see where she was indicating and was surprised to discover that there was a manacle attached to her right foot. A length of chain ran from the manacle to a metal loop that was bolted into the floor. Norda pulled on the chain experimentally. It made an interesting sound. She liked it.

“Where is this brother of yours?” said Darryl. He had drawn closer to Norda, and was glaring at her in what he no doubt thought was an intimidating manner.

“I don’t know.”

“Is he in the city?”

“Which one?”

“This one! This city!”

She looked around, surprised. “This is a city? It’s very odd for a city.”

“Not this! This isn’t a city! Not down here. I know he’s not down here.”

“Okay,” said Norda cheerfully. “So that’s one less place Arren is. That narrows it down a little, doesn’t it?”

Darryl stood there for a moment, looking overwhelmed by the haphazard direction of the conversation. Finally he turned to Caralee and said, “You talk to her.”

“Norda,” said Caralee patiently, as if addressing a child, “when you are not down here with us…where do you and Arren live?”

“Together?”

“Yes. Where do you live together?”

Norda thought about it. “Perriz. We both live in Perriz.”

“Perez?” She looked to Darryl, who shrugged. “Where is Perez?”

“It’s very far away, I think.”

“What else is there?” said Caralee, fishing for something to help her get a handle on Norda. “In Perez, I mean.”

“Well, there’s Firedraque Hall. It’s very beautiful. It’s where the bells are. Were. And there’s the Eyeful Tower…”

“Paris!” Caralee clapped her hands and started to laugh. “Paris! She’s from Paris! Eiffel Tower. She’s from Paris.”

“Yeah, we get it, she’s from Paris,” said Darryl sourly. It seemed to Norda that he said everything sourly. She wondered if he ever smiled. Caralee did it nicely. “Except how the hell did she get from Paris to here?”

Norda tried to remember. As always, the past was ever fluid to her. She tried to recall the specifics, and could only recollect that the ground had been very far below her and she had drifted like a cloud, in and out of clouds, faster than clouds, then slower, and then she was in the Spires, and now she was here.

“I flew,” she said.

“She flew.” He shook her head. “We’re not going to get any straight answers out of her.”

“My answer was crooked?” It was strange to Norda; they seemed to feel that she was insane, and yet much of the time she had no idea what they were talking about. “You say such strange things.”

“Anton said that she was the only one he saw up there,” said Caralee. “That she was in St. Patricks and there wasn’t another Mandraque around anywhere.”

“They could have been hiding.”

“Hiding? They were hiding while the sister of one of their leaders got shot? What were they hiding for?”

“Maybe they were afraid of getting shot as well.”

Caralee looked skeptical. “One scared boy with a gun against a bunch of Mandraques? They breathe fire, Darryl. If they wanted to take Anton down, I have to think that the odds favored them. Instead of thinking that she’s hiding something from us, maybe we should be thanking God that she really is out here on her own, no matter how she wound up getting here.”

“Mandraques don’t breathe fire,” said Norda. “Firedraques do. Now Mandraques, we—”

“Whatever,” said Darryl. “The point is—”

“The point is that they’re going to come for you.”

“See? She’s threatening us with her Mandraque pals!”

“No,” said Norda, and she sounded distant. “No. They won’t. They don’t know you. They don’t know about you. If they did know about you, they would not care enough to come all the way over here to try and get to you. The others are going to come for you.”

“Others? What others?”

“I don’t know. But they’re going to come. They’re going to come for you.” Images, recollections of things that had not happened, began to bang around in her head. “They’re going to come for you, and it’s going to be terrible, because the metal man said to do it. You should not be here. You should be far from here.”

“No one’s ever come down here. We’ve always been safe here. It’s just about the only city we know of that’s mostly in one piece. They stay up there, and we stay down here, except when we’re on foraging runs. Or,” Darryl said with annoyance clearly directed at Caralee, “when someone fills their son’s head with nice fairy tales about a caring God and he winds up going to God’s house to address Him personally. During daytime, no less. What the hell was he thinking?”

“He was thinking that God would watch out for him,” said Caralee drily.

“Right, right, because He’s been done such a bang-up job on behalf of humanity so far.”

“Maybe He’s trying to help us now.”

“How?”

“By sending her,” she said, pointing at Norda.

“Her?”

“Didn’t you hear what she said, Darryl? She was trying to warn us of something. Perhaps the reason she’s so…odd…is because she’s seeing the world in a way that the rest of us don’t, and it’s affected her. Maybe she’s seeing the world, you know…backwards. The past is a blur to her but the future is clearer. Couldn’t that be?”

“That is absolutely ridiculous.”

“More ridiculous than ignoring warnings?”

“The rantings of a brain-scrambled Mandraque!” said Darryl in frustration. “I’m supposed to take that seriously?”

“Excuse me,” Norda said. She was busy playing with the chain, banging the links on the floor. “I like the shiny thing on my ankle, and the little metal loopy things make a delightful noise. But I can’t move from where I am, which is no fun.”

“Yeah?” said Darryl. “Well you’re going to stay right there, because there is no way that we’re going to—”

Norda wasn’t listening. Instead she was gripping the chain with both hands, and even though one of her shoulders was sore, it diminished her strength only slightly. She drew the chain taut and then wadded up her spit and let fly. It landed midway down the chain, and one of the links immediately began to sizzle. There were gasps from the human beings. She ignored them. Instead she pulled hard on the chain and the damaged link yielded immediately, snapping clean. As if it was the most natural thing in the world—which, to her, it was—Norda stood and shook out her leg, which had been getting stiff.

Then she turned to the still gaping humans.

“Do you have more of the invisible bows and arrows?”

“The—what?” said Darryl.

“The thing that did this,” and she pointed at her bandaged shoulder.

“The gun. She means the gun,” said Caralee.

The humans glanced at each other and then all looked to Darryl, apparently uncertain as to how forthcoming they should be with her. Darryl hesitated, and then shrugged, apparently resigning himself. “Yeah. Yeah, we have some others. A lot others that we collected over the years. But…we didn’t think they worked. They didn’t when you lot first overran us. Soldiers tried to shoot and nothing happened. Scientists tried to come up with all kinds of reasons why, but what it came down to was magic. One of you creatures used some kind of hoodoo and made it so that none of our weaponry was of any use. Otherwise we could have slaughtered the lot of you. As it was…”

“Then why did Hooman Bean have one, if he thought it wouldn’t work?”

“He wasn’t supposed to have it,” said Caralee. “He just took it. He said he wanted it ‘just in case.’ He was surprised as anyone that it worked.”

“Well then,” and Norda’s tongue flicked out, “imagine how surprised other people would be?”

There was an acknowledging chuckle from one of the human beings, and murmurs of agreement. Caralee looked with smug satisfaction at Norda and then to Darryl.

“I hate to admit it…but I like the way she thinks,” said Darryl.

“I think?” said Norda. “Truly? That’s amazing. I didn’t know I was able to think. Thinking is good…I think.”

Norda was now in a crouch, and she was fiddling absently with the end of her tail. Caralee kneeled near her. “Norda…is there anything else? Anything else bopping around in that head of yours?”