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Part 6 - The Lone and Level Sands
🕑 Added 2020-01-01 17:00:00 +0000 UTC
The desert bears its scars with quiet dignity. They are old wounds, but the land’s long memory is written in unyielding stone. Many seek only to ease their passage while forgetting an essential truth: the old paths tell the story of our battle against the land, and seldom have we lost more decisively.
Tasjadre Ra Novo, Jesa Sagoja: Zhetam Asade
---
“How many?”, Grande asked. The captain’s face was grey and his eyes bloodshot. He drummed his fingers compulsively on the table in front of him.
“Twenty-seven,” Sandy replied solemnly. “Everyone that was sleeping in the easternmost tent.”
Grande shook his head angrily. “Where the hell were the guards?”, he growled.
“They’re included in the twenty-seven,” Sandy said. “It happened in the interval between radio checks, by the time we got a patrol sent over to investigate the missed check-in everyone was gone.”
“Fuck!”, Grande shouted, slamming his hand against the table. “They’re picking us off like fish in a fucking barrel, more every day. We don’t know who they are, we don’t even know what they are.” He looked back at Sandy with a haunted expression. “We have to leave,” he rasped. “We can’t stay here any longer.”
“Where would we go?”, Sandy asked. “The merchants said there were people to the West, but not how far-”
“Doesn’t matter,” Grande said brusquely. “We can’t stay here. Two, three more days of this and they’ll whittle us down to nothing. We need to load what we can into the MRAPs and head away from the mountains before they have a chance to grab more of us. West, for all I care, as long as that takes us away from here.”
Sandy nodded and rose to leave the tent, but stopped at a sudden motion from Grande. “No, no,” he hissed, a thin glint of terror in his eyes. “Slow down, lieutenant. We can’t be too obvious about it. If they see us preparing to leave they might try to stop us.”
“You think they have eyes on us right now, sir?”, Sandy asked, keeping her voice low. She looked around the tent, seeing nothing out of the ordinary.
Grande sighed, looking defeated. “Hell if I know,” he replied. “But as soon as you started prepping the civilians to evacuate yesterday they took our exit. That kind of response requires constant, precise monitoring. They’ve got something on us, I just don’t know what.”
“Right, so… what? Load up casually?”, Sandy whispered. “I’ll get a few teams to shuffle supplies around, have every fourth box end up in one of the MRAPs.”
“Just be sure to move fast enough that we can leave this afternoon,” Grande said. “Early afternoon. I want to put several hours of daylight travel behind us before we stop for the night. If we can’t stop-”
“...then you don’t want to be traveling at night close to here,” Sandy finished, nodding. “I’ll take care of it, sir. We’ll shoot for around-” She checked her watch. “Call it 2100, that should put us a bit after noon local time.”
“Sounds good,” he replied, giving her a thankful pat on the shoulder. “Thanks, Sandy. I don’t know where we’d be without you.”
“If it’s anywhere but here then you probably should have shot me a while ago,” she replied wryly. “Try to catch a little sleep, sir. This is going to take us a while, you have time.”
Grande chuckled grimly. “Oh, I have time,” he said. “That’s never been the problem, lieutenant. It’s the back of my brain telling me that I’m being watched, the eyes in the dark that I can’t quite see.” He shivered. “No, I think I’ll sleep on the road. I’ll sleep like a goddamn baby, trust me, but not here. Not here.”
---
“What? He wants us to what?”, Jackie said incredulously. She darted a look past Mark’s shoulder at Tesvaji, seated at the longhouse’s low table with his family. Strings of glowing coins lit the hall, and the last vestiges of twilight glowed a rich purple-blue outside the window.
Mark gave Jackie a warning look, motioning for her to keep her voice down. “He wants us to drive him out to a location in the deep desert so that he can check on one of those big stone pillars, like the ones scattered around the village. He says they’re important, and that one of them may be damaged.”
“Back the way we came?”, she hissed. “Is he insane? Did you tell him what’s out there?”
Jesse nodded. “Yes,” he replied. Jackie gave him a flat look, and he sighed. “I used the same name the merchants gave us,” Jesse explained quietly, his eyes fixed on the floor. “He seemed to know it but wasn’t concerned. He said that ‘the old ways were safe’ and that we would be traveling far from the mountains, in daylight.”
“And did you tell him time of day doesn’t make a difference?”, she scoffed. “Seriously, you two almost sound like you’re considering it.”
“We don’t know for sure, and that’s why we should be considering it!”, Mark said, a touch of irritation in his voice. “Listen, you don’t have to come if you don’t want to, but remember our priority list - arcane fucking mysteries. This definitely applies. From what Tesvaji said, it sounds like a lot of what they know about the land to the east of here is wrapped up in stories, myths. This is a chance to learn the lay of the land and to help him determine if his village is under threat. Even if it amounts to nothing it could earn us more credit for supplies.”
“I wouldn’t mind going,” Arjun said. “The monoliths in the village were fascinating. I would be interested to examine another pillar close-up, especially if it has fragmented. There may be clues in the surrounding rock or the pillar itself that an untrained eye could miss.”
“How about it, Jack?”, Mark wheedled. “We could use an extra rockologist.”
“Fine,” Jackie sulked. “But if I see even one of those god-awful, dried-up-”
“...then we’ll all be right there with you running the fuck away,” Mark soothed her. “We’re not looking to fight.”
Arjun scratched his chin thoughtfully. “Did you ask him what function the pillars serve?”
Jesse nodded. “We did,” he replied. Jackie looked at him expectantly, but he didn’t elaborate.
“He doesn’t know much,” Mark said after a second, rolling his eyes at Jesse. “He said that they’re old and that they protect the land from something, but…”
“But?”, Jackie prompted.
Mark sighed. “...but that’s just because their name for the pillars literally translates to something like ‘rocks that are old and protect stuff.’”
“Ever-protecting stones,” Jesse mumbled.
“Old fuckin’ protecty-rocks, and if you don’t like it then don’t delegate,” Mark retorted crossly. “Anyway, it’s not much we couldn’t guess.”
“Great,” Jackie said. “Sure, fuck it. Life is overrated. Tell him we’re in.”
Mark nodded and turned away from the group to face Tesvaji. “Ademen aeva sas isin,” he said, drawing a happy grin from the Madi.
“Sasimyn taiv asade gasi,” Tesvaji replied, inclining his head to the group. He stood from the table and gestured to the back of the house. “Ademen eivaa-et,” he said. “Co sejhecen cecisa qime ahisiva he u ademen cecisa jhume raujhis’en.” He gestured to the back rooms, then inclined his head once more and walked towards his quarters. His family stood and dispersed as well, although Gusje paused to flash a smile at them before she left.
Mark gestured helplessly to Jesse, who shrugged and scratched his head. “He said thanks,” Jesse explained. “Also that we should get some sleep. I think he wants to leave early so that we’re back before dark.”
“I can get behind that,” Mark agreed. “We’ve been able to top up the truck batteries, so we should have the range to go all-out for a day trip. Out and back, no detours. Anything more than that and we’ll be dipping into our fuel reserve.”
“Better to spend fuel than bullets, if it comes to it,” Arjun said. “It’s less risky, and the guns don’t have a solar option.”
“Logic,” Mark said approvingly. “My personal philosophy is that most problems are easily solved by being elsewhere. Besides, I think we could do something about fuel if we really had to. The truck’s combustion engine is diesel. You guys research oil, right? Do you know how to make biodiesel or something?”
“We’re geologists, wiseass,” Jackie sighed. “You’re thinking of chemists, or possibly hippies.”
“Or chemical engineers,” Arjun said thoughtfully. “It’s been a while, but I read chemical engineering in school. At Delhi, then at Stanford. I’m familiar with the general theory. All we’d really need is a sufficient quantity of alcohol and oil, although those pose their own-”
He paused, looking around. The others were staring at him, and Jackie’s mouth was working soundlessly. “I don’t want to promise anything,” he insisted hurriedly. “It was all the way back in the eighties, after all.”
“Hey, man, in the land of magical midgets I’ll take what I can get,” Mark said, clapping a hand on Arjun’s shoulder and ignoring Jackie’s disapproving frown. “Worst case scenario we’ve got booze and fryer oil. We can introduce the locals to fried chicken. Well, whatever the fuck kind of bird that was at dinner, anyway.”
“I just want to know how you got the senior consultant spot with a degree in the wrong field,” Jackie groused.
“Ah, well,” Arjun sighed. “There was a period of time where western-educated scientists who spoke Gujarati were relatively hard to come by. I was approached by a very loud Texas oilman looking for a local team coordinator - apparently he was running into issues with his crews and needed someone who spoke ‘Indian’ to liase. There were some miscommunications, perhaps a few assumptions I failed to correct…” He waggled his eyebrows and grinned. “I did get my doctorate in petroleum geosciences eventually, so it all worked out.”
“I was born too late,” she lamented. “It took me five years of internships and temping to find a real job after I got my doctorate. Where were all the oblivious Texans when I graduated?”
Arjun gave her a sympathetic smile. “The eighties were a different time. If it makes you feel any better, I had to do the first draft of my thesis on a typewriter. When I ran out of ribbons or needed a particular journal article, I had a man I could bribe with a jug of whiskey to make a run to Ahmedabad. Normally it took him a week to come back, but sometimes it could take even longer.”
“Christ, I can’t imagine,” Jackie said, wincing. “Bad roads?”
“Strong whiskey,” Arjun said, chuckling. Jackie gave him a scrutinizing look, but found herself unable to tell if he was pulling her leg.
“Well, this should be nostalgic for you,” Mark coughed. “We’ll have to find you a typewriter.”
Arjun laughed, stretching his neck. “Let’s not tempt my carpal tunnel,” he said wryly. “For now, I’m inclined to take Tesvaji’s advice and turn in. It should be an interesting day tomorrow.”
“Interesting in the Chinese sense,” Jackie grumbled. “But you’re right. Time for bed.”
They filed toward the back, but Jesse paused a moment to look around the dimly-lit hall. Strings of glowing coins hung here and there from the rafters, their light noticeably dimmer than when the conversation had started. They swayed gently in a draft, orange and red embers floating around him. He stood quietly for several long minutes, listening for something that seemed to hover just beyond the range of his hearing, then blinked and walked back to join the others.
---
It was still dark when Tesvaji shook Gusje gently awake. His cupped hand shone with dull red light, and she raised a hand to grumpily shield her eyes. “Awake, now,” he said, his smile evident in his voice. “You and your brother are coming with us. Dress for desert travel and meet me outside, quietly.”
She blearily sat up, rubbing the sleep from her eyes. “Why didn’t you tell me earlier?”, she grumbled. “We were all together when you were discussing the trip with the travelers. You didn’t seem like you wanted us to come along.”
“Yes,” Tesvaji said conspiratorially. “All of us were there together - including your mother. By deciding to take you both after the meeting had ended, we’ve never discussed it and she’ll have to content herself with skinning me alive when we’re back.” He flashed her a grin, setting the glowing qi coin in his hand beside her. “Quickly, now. Meet us by the chariot when you’re ready.”
She picked up the coin as he left, shaking her head at the smudge of ash it left on her bedding. Her mother would probably be too angry to care about a little ash, but Tesvaji certainly wasn’t making things easier for himself. Sighing, she used the wan light from the qi to guide herself around the room as she pulled on her desert gear and good running sandals.
Mevi was already at the travelers’ chariot with her father by the time she made her way there. Mark and Jesse were in hushed conversation, while Jackie and Arjun looked like they would very much like to be asleep in the truck.
She was the last to arrive, and as she approached Jesse held the door open wordlessly for the rest to file in. There was space for all of them inside - Gusje couldn’t help but be acutely aware of her small stature in the cavernous interior of the chariot, built as it was to accommodate traveler-sized bodies. Her feet swung high above the floor when she sat and she had to strain to look out of the high windows.
The chariot whirred to life at Mark’s touch and they were off, although she was quickly forced to look away from the blinding glare of the forward lamps. Gusje realized with a start that Jesse was sitting next to her - her father had taken the other front seat. The tall man was looking studiously forward at the narrow slice of light that the lamps revealed. She tapped his shoulder gently.
“The chariot,” she began hesitantly, searching for the proper question. She frowned, then shook her head. “You’re not familiar with saon draim,” she said. “How then does the chariot move?”
Jesse’s eyes flickered to her face before shifting forward again. When he responded his voice was whisper-quiet. “You don’t have the words,” he muttered uncomfortably. She watched him expectantly but he didn’t elaborate further. Eventually he turned towards her and spoke. “What can you tell me about saon draim?”, he asked quietly.
“You don’t have the words,” she retorted crossly, annoyed at his deflection.
His eyes widened briefly before he smiled and shook his head, seeming to lose some of the tension he carried. Several long moments passed where only the crunch of stones beneath the chariot’s wheels interrupted the gloomy silence. “Strength,” he said tentatively, “or… heat?” He gestured helplessly, saying a word she did not know. Ener zhi. “The thing that heat and light both are. We take it from the sun, or from burning certain things. The chariot can use it to turn the wheels or make light.”
Gusje shook her head confusedly. It was more words than she had ever heard the big man say at once, but they only raised more questions. “So you do know saon draim,” she objected. “What you said, it’s the same.” She fished the qi coin from her pocket, holding it up to Jesse. It still glowed dimly in the darkened cabin, and from the side she saw Arjun sit up to watch her closely. “See? Qim take heat and light to give light.”
Jesse held his hand out, and she placed the coin in his giant palm. His hand was warm where her fingers grazed it, and she pulled back to watch him examine the tiny disc. He turned it over a few times in his fingers, running them over the tiny whorls of script around the edge. “How?”, he asked.
She gave him a puzzled look. “What do you mean, how?”, she asked.
He looked past her for a moment, considering, then reached beneath his shirt to withdraw the necklace that he and Mark both wore. He slid it off his head, handing it to her, then pointed a finger at the thin metal plates. They were straight-sided, shiny, with embossed blocky script set into them.
“The qi makes light,” he said, holding up the glowing coin. “Why does the qi make light and those do not? What is the difference?”
She turned the plates over in her hand, then shrugged and handed them back. “The qi is a qi,” she replied. “These are not. What do they do?”
Jesse cracked another slight smile at that. “Nothing special,” he replied unhelpfully. He slid the necklace over his head once more and it disappeared below his collar. “Who makes the qim?”, he asked.
She shot him another look, this time of exasperation. “Who makes the rocks and the sand?”, she retorted. “Who makes the warding stones and the cereimyn? They are.”
She turned to glare at Mevi, who was chuckling amusedly at her frustration while Jesse conversed with Arjun in low tones. Gusje couldn’t understand them, but she got the distinct impression that she had just failed a test. The conversation left her feeling unaccountably frustrated, and she did her best to tune out Arjun and Jesse’s quiet conversation. Jackie had fallen asleep behind her, and Mevi was staring silently out the window as the morning twilight began to reveal the shape of the desert around them. She contemplated both for a moment before joining her brother in watching the land slide silently past.
After a long while the sun made its way above the horizon, coloring the sky with a brief burst of flame before the dull blue of another cloudless day took hold. Gusje had seen clouds before, pale wispy things clustered high over the cerein or hugging the land around the fields before dawn. She had a memory of seeing a particularly large one as a young girl and racing to tell her father. He had laughed and lifted her onto his shoulders before regaling her with stories of Tinem Sjocel and their sky-spanning banks of clouds so thick that they blotted out the sun. She could never disbelieve her father, but try as she might she had never been able to envision the sight in her head.
Up front, Tesvaji raised a fist and Mark slowed the chariot to a crawl. “This is one of the old ways,” her father explained. “It should ease our travel both there and back.” Gusje stood up to look out the window better. The chariot was resting on a flat, smooth stone surface that stretched off towards Sun’s Birth, marred here and there by drifts of sand. Behind them, it extended as far as she could see towards Sun’s Rest. A feeling of awe and reverence grew in her as she looked on it, the same grandeur she felt gazing upon the cerein of her home.
The others had gone very quiet, she noticed, and both Jesse and Arjun were staring wide-eyed at the view. “Jesse?”, she asked softly. “Is something wrong?”
---
“Motherfucker,” Mark whispered. “Someone tell me I’m not the only one seeing this.”
“Wuzzat?”, Jackie said sleepily, jarred from her nap by the tone of his voice. “We there?” She looked around with bleary eyes before their situation registered, comprehension dawning on her face.
Arjun leaned forward, practically vibrating with excitement. “It’s a highway,” he breathed. “This can’t be natural. Look how flat it is, how straight.”
Jesse nodded. “They’ve cut through a ridge up ahead, look,” he said, pointing at a low rise that was neatly bisected by the path of the roadway.
“Well,” Mark said, slumping back in his seat. “This raises all sorts of fun questions.”
“Vaeta ra evi vaa?”, Tesvaji asked warily, noting their reactions. His children tensed up, and Mark quickly shook his head.
“Vaa, vaa,” he said reassuringly. “No problem, just… tsa ra gorid sve?”
Tesvaji gave him a quizzical look and shrugged. “Tsad evit,” he replied.
Jesse chuckled, and Mark looked back at him questioningly. “Gusje said the same thing when I asked about their coins,” he explained. “Nobody made it. It just is.”
“Super helpful,” Mark drawled. “Still, he was right - this is going to make our trip a lot easier.” He put the truck into gear and shot a mischievous look back at Jesse. “Secure the sword, and maybe explain to our friends about seatbelts.”
The three locals quickly settled into surprised silence as Mark urged the truck faster, then faster still. Jackie smirked to see Mevi’s hands tightly gripping his seat while his father and sister stared wide-eyed. The ground began to blur past, the low whine of the tires against the ancient roadway interrupted only by the bump of an occasional drift of sand snaking over the pavement.
“Now this is more like it,” Mark sighed contentedly, slouching with one hand draped over the top of the wheel. “Shit, this is smoother than driving down I-25. Whoever made this road, they knew what they were doing.”
“I wonder how old it is,” Arjun mused. “In a desert environment with little water, its condition doesn’t tell us much about its age.”
Jesse slumped forward tiredly. “Old,” he muttered.
“I agree,” Jackie replied. “How long does it take for a civilization that builds something like this to forget what a highway is?”
Arjun beetled his brows and leaned back in his chair, considering. “I think they’re aware of roadways,” he muttered, “since they seemed to know what the truck was right away. This, though, this is infrastructure. It was built for volume and scale that goes beyond anything that we’ve observed.” He shook his head. “I’m starting to form a rather dire picture of this world’s history. Poor Dr. Yin may have been on to something.”
There was an unsettled silence in the truck, underscored by the insistent noise of their passage down the ancient road. Tesvaji once again seemed to note their unease, but said nothing. He and his children were engrossed in their rapid pace, staring fixedly at the near-distance blur of rocks and sand whipping past.
Mark drove for some time, pausing only occasionally to negotiate a particularly large drift of sand that had subsumed the roadway or a rock that had tumbled onto the path. Never did they see a crack or discontinuity in the monolithic road surface itself, nor did the highway deviate even slightly from its course. The effect was oddly hypnotic, lulling the truck’s occupants into a contemplative silence. Tesvaji would occasionally point out one of the warding stones as they passed, standing grey and unworn in the blistering heat.
Suddenly, Tesvaji sat up and frowned. They were approaching another pillar by the roadside but this one’s surface was dark, its profile uneven. Mark slowed with a high whine from the brakes as they rocked to a stop beside the weathered stone. It was tall, perhaps ten feet from the desert surface, and like the stones from the village it was covered completely with flowing, circular script. Opening the door to the furnace breath of the desert outside, Tesvaji stumped up to the stone grimly and reached a hand out to trace his fingers over its surface. Flakes of stone skittered down at his touch. He jerked his hand back quickly, his fingers coated with dust.
“Asaa-et, draad ta ven’a,” he muttered, showing his hand to the others.
“Yeah,” Mark muttered. “Shit. I guess Mosidhu was telling the truth.”
Arjun bent down to examine the base of the pillar, brushing handfuls of sand aside. “Some of the writing is worn almost entirely away,” he said. “The other pillars showed no signs of wear at all, it’s like they were carved yesterday. This one looks properly ancient.”
“I wish we knew what it meant,” Jackie said. “I mean, this seems important, right? Ancient stones all over the place suddenly falling apart? They wouldn’t have put them up for no reason.”
“Oh, it’s possible,” Arjun grunted, his focus still on the pillar. “If this is a religious shrine they could have raised thousands of them for no real secular purpose.” He paused, blinking. “Then again, who’s to say that religious artifacts aren’t more functional here?”
Jackie shot him an incredulous look. “Are you serious?”, she snorted. “That’s one hell of a leap to make given what little we know.”
“Probably,” Arjun shrugged. “But it seems prudent to keep an open mind. We can’t - oh, hm.” He frowned as a large flake of stone came off under his thumb, crumbling into splinters atop the sand. A low hum grew around them.
“Anyone else hear that?”, Mark said nervously, shifting his rifle on its sling.
Jesse walked over to stand closer to the pillar, resting his hand lightly on its surface. “It’s the pillar,” he said wonderingly. “It’s vibrating just a little.”
Arjun stood up and looked askance at the stone, taking a step back. “Perhaps we should-”
A sharp crack sounded and Jesse lurched backwards as though shocked. Fractures spidered up the length of the pillar like vines, pieces dropping to the sand below until the main column itself slumped sideways and fell to the ground in a splash of dust. Low rumbles issued from below the sand, and dust gouted from the base of the pillar as a rush of hot gas hissed upward.
Then, silence. The dust settled downward slowly before being tugged sideways by a sudden gust of wind. Mevi and Gusje stood together by the truck, gazes darting around the landscape nervously.
Mark walked over to clap a hand on Jesse’s shoulder. “Hey, you good?”, he asked, peering at Jesse’s face. “What happened?”
“Dunno,” Jesse mumbled, shaking his head dazedly. “Felt like I touched a live wire. Hand’s asleep.”
“Vijhad jala evi,” Tesvaji said, sounding uneasy. The desert suddenly seemed to be holding its breath around them, lingering particles of dust hanging in the preternaturally still air.
Jesse’s head came up to look at the Madi. “The wind? Vid ra?”, he asked confusedly, looking around. He paused, staring past Mark’s head. “Time to go,” he said grimly.
Mark whirled around. Standing a few dozen feet from the road was a still figure. Its hair hung in ragged clumps over its face, its clothing a patchwork of desert-drab tatters. With quick, spasmodic jerks its head wrenched upright to stare at the group, eyes glittering darkly in its withered face.
“Oh God, they found us,” Jackie moaned, staggering back towards the truck. “Oh no, no-”
“In the truck!”, Mark yelled, unlimbering his rifle. Jesse did the same, walking backwards to the vehicle. “Is-et uda! Get in and close the doors!” Jackie and the others needed no urging. They piled inside and flung themselves back towards the cargo area with panicked vigor.
Sprays of sand erupted from the roadside as more of the ragged bodies burst upward onto the pavement. Arjun was the last inside, half-leaping through the open door of the truck to land across Jesse’s lap. He yelled and grabbed at the seat as one of the dark figures snagged his pant leg with its dessicated fingers. Jesse tossed his rifle behind him and hauled Arjun inward, struggling against their attacker’s dusty grasp.
The wheels spun against the sandy pavement as Mark slammed on the accelerator, his sudden turn flinging Arjun’s attacker into the doorframe and breaking its grip. Gusje leaned in to pull hard on Arjun’s shoulders while Jesse slammed the door closed, returning the interior of the truck to silence but for the low hum of the truck’s engine and the winded panting of its occupants.
Behind them a silent crowd watched as they sped off, their slight bodies dark against the weathered roadway until a cloud of dust obscured them from view. When it cleared, only the road remained.
Arjun looked up at the ceiling of the truck, still sprawled across Jesse with his head in Gusje’s lap. She looked down at him with wide eyes, and the old man flashed her a sheepishly exhilarated smile.
“So,” he said, “I believe I’ve just figured out what the stones are for.”
