6.4 - Remara and the Twixt

Getting to Overheader’s Patch requires a lengthy walk. Half an hour takes them to the edge of Underscoop, and Alleyu tells him that another hour past it will take them to the field in question.

It is an uneasy trek for Naeed. The river abandons the chasm shortly before the end of Underscoop, curving off to the right and vanishing through the wall. Not far beyond the last Tiers of housing and shops, the rich network of fauna thins away to barren ground around their feet. Cascades of vines and algae still cloak the uncut chasm walls, but the floor rapidly becomes a powdery, desolate stretch.

Light pulses along the walls, but thick darkness rests at ground level. Naeed stays on Alleyu’s heels, unwilling to leave the protective glow of his host. The further they walk the heavier his steps grow. He hasn’t even seen the field, but the lack of wild growth already gives him plenty of clues as to why it’s failing.

Half an hour out from the edge of the city, the flavor of the soil has seeped through the soles of his bare feet, pulsing through his veins to coat his tongue. His vision blurs and he coughs, then spits to the side. “All… Alleyu. Do your people have any… have they ever grown crops?”

“Eh, not strong on it. Food grows all about us on its own. Was here when we came, it’s always been here for us. Those Overheaders what gave us seeds showed us the planting and care of ‘em. You’ll see. Almost there.”

Naeed grabs Alleyu’s shoulder, pulling him to a stop. “No need. Those plants will never thrive here.”

Alleyu turns round black eyes on him. “But you’ve not seen! They’re right under a crack where the sun comes through and all. We bring water each day.”

Grimacing, Naeed points at the ground. “They need more than sun and water. They pull nourishment from the ground. This earth is bad for them. There are metals underneath us. I taste it just walking here. Look around. There’s no wild plants at all this far out. That should warn you.”

“Metals?” Third Left Tierman Alleyu’s black eyes swell round to take up even more of his face. “What kind?”

Naeed shakes his head, his vision spinning a bit. “Can’t tell. Have to go back. I feel sick. The ground is bad.”

“Hold, hold.” Alleyu claps one hand on Naeed’s shoulder and shifts his weight there as he lifts up one foot and pulls off a simple woven shoe. “Here. And here, the other too.”

Naeed’s stomach roils as he takes the shoes and jams them over his feet, shielding his skin from the toxins leeching through. He clings to Alleyu’s arm, stumbling after him forever and forever and forever until they return to the river, where he drops to his knees and drinks. As he gulps in the river, trickles of water exit pores all over his body, carrying out the soil’s illness.

Eventually he rises from the river, his lips dripping. “I’m sorry I couldn’t tend your plants.” He coughs, wiping his mouth. “But I promise they’ll never grow right. Not where you’ve put them.”

“Ah.” Alleyu’s shoulders slump and his face is downcast. “M’sorry. Never meant ‘em harm. Thought it a simple thing. Haven’t needed to… more call for mining an’ textiles here than growin’ food. We catch it, or it grows itself.”

Naeed looks back up the chasm. Now that his stomach isn’t heaving, he sees a thin beam of light far off, stretching from ceiling to floor. They had nearly made it to the ailing plants.

His stomach cramps with pity for the stricken things. “Save the seeds. Maybe you’ll find another crack overhead someday, one with more plantlife underneath. Try again.”

“Aye. Save the seeds. Some cuttings. Get some burrowers to dig down below ground there, see if there’s some vein we missed. Could be good comes of this if we find more ore.”

Overhead, Na’Stra whistles. “Hey. Weak logchild. No go sun?”

Naeed looks down at his feet. Now he could make it out to the field, but then Alleyu would suffer the walk on bare, fleshy feet. He sighs. “No go sun.”

“I go sun. That way up look easy. Finding you later.”

“Be safe,” he calls after her. Some cackling response trickles back to him, already so distant he can’t make out the words.

Alleyu watches Naeed from a pool of his own light, his head tilted to the side. After a suitable pause, he extends a wrinkled arm back in the direction of the housing Tiers. “Back home, then?”

Naeed nods, then removes the shoes, offering them back to Alleyu. “Thank you. We left the worst ground behind.”

Alleyu takes them and slides them back on. Naeed winces at the torn flesh on Alleyu’s feet.

“How came you by a voidflyer mother?” Alleyu asks as they amble back toward the glow of home. “It’s a rare dragon what leaves its home for anything, yet one has you.”

Naeed snorts. “One has me. A good way to say it. I’d decided to travel, and the first day she jumps out and scares me senseless. Says she heard I grow flowers on my head, and that since I’m off to see all the strange flowers of the world, she’s coming too.”

He scratches the back of his neck. “Silly reason. Can’t be the real one, she’d never seen me before, couldn’t know these things. Who told her? She won’t say. What’s her real reason? She won’t say. But she’s different now than she was the first day. She swears the reason is the same, but…”

“But now you’re her nestling, eh?”

“Aye.”

“How long, traveling?”

Naeed falls silent, counting backwards. “Twenty… seasons? Maybe? Maybe more. I think… I think it might be five years, but I’m not sure. I don’t always pay attention.”

“Long, then. Long and far. And me, never up above or farther than the mine.” Alleyu shakes his head, wonder smoothing the lines in his face. “Just tending Overheader’s Patch, we wear eyewraps and greatcloaks. The sunlight stabs so hard. Can’t picture stumbling out Overhead. Why go so far from home?”

Yearning fills Naeed’s chest as he thinks of home. He misses the sunlight. The warmth. The multitude of thoughts sluggishly flowing in unison to explore a new sprout, or the unexpected relocation of a pool that was in a different place last season.

Why go so far from home? There are two answers to that. He quickly tucks one answer away and offers the easier one to his host.

“To see new things. To have new experiences. To bring them all back home, someday. The forest is waiting for new stories, new things to consider and discuss. They can’t leave, but I still can.

“Someday I’ll go home when I’m tired of traveling. Then I’ll root and never travel again, but the forest will experience my journey for ten thousand years. And this?” Naeed spreads his arms, as if to encompass the chasm full of lights and voices ahead. “This place, they’ll think over for many hundreds of years.”

Alleyu gives a long, low whistle. “That’s… that’s something,” he murmurs. “And they asked you to do all that?”

“No. They would never ask me to do that. She…” he falters. “It was suggested to me by a friend I made on the way.” He looks at the Third Left Tierman. “Alleyu, have you ever met a woman made of hot glass?”

“A what now?”

“A woman made of hot glass. Full of heat and light. She looks like a human but isn’t—more like a statue that lives. She’s orange and yellow though sometimes she wears specially treated clothes to hide herself. She calls herself Remara.” He smiles fondly at a memory. “You’d know if you met her.”

Alleyu is silent for a long time. Long enough for them to reach the edge of the Tiers and make their way back up the bank. The glow from the plants has lessened to a softer light cast closer to each plant so that the overall twilight in the chasm is rendered darker.

“Can’t say I’ve met such a person,” Alleyu finally answers. “But still… hot glass? Awhile back Seventh Right Tier’s forgemaster was bragging some foolishness about making the forge hotter with less fuel and taking on a talented Overheader assistant. Some chatter on right side shops, too, ‘bout this odd Overheader been staying on the Right Tier long-term, someone what needed special cloth for flameproof clothing. New Overheader never visited Left Tiers and never caused trouble, so didn’t matter to us.”

Naeed whips around, intent on Alleyu, who raises his hands defensively. “Now might not be what you think. Can’t be sure. And I heard it years back, besides!”

“Will you ask?” Naeed pleads, nearly on his toes. It is the first time in many seasons he’s had a hint of her trail. “If it’s her, she’s a friend. A traveler, like me. I promised to try and meet her wherever I heard she might be! Even if she’s gone, she might have told someone where she went. Will you ask?”

“Aye, lad, but not now. Tomorrow I’ll swallow pride and cross over to ask. Now it’s the dimming.”

Naeed’s face twists in confusion.

“The dimming,” Alleyu repeats, gesturing at the plants around him. “Look. Ah… up Overhead, sun’s down.”

“Night?” Naeed asks, turning his eyes back to the muted colors around him. “Your network can tell down here?”

“Aye, all plants know the night. Soon, Moon comes. A beauty, to be sure. I’m poured out for the day, but good coin says you’ve never seen the likes of Moon. You’d do right to stay up and see her before you play dead.”

Naeed chokes, coughing on his laughter. “It’s just resting… and I see the moon every night Overhead. How do you see the moon down here?”

“We have Moon.” Alleyu smiles, nudging Naeed toward the ramp. “You’ll see. Face out to the center after dinner. But first, up get. It’s three tiers up and a five minute side-scrabble back home to hot soup. Maybe Dayenu’s over her shyness. Maybe fish will fly straight into the cookpots tomorrow, too.”

Dayenu is indeed over her shyness and peppers Naeed with questions over another round of hot soup dished out by Orenu, whom Naeed recognizes as the woman who fed him when he could hardly move. The soup is the same, delicious stew and Naeed thanks her many times over for her help. He tries to answer all the questions hurled his way until Alleyu comes to his rescue.

“Enough,” Alleyu says firmly. “Dayenu, it’s long past dimming and you have gathering and book lessons tomorrow. To bed with you. Leave our guest alone to enjoy Moon.”

“He hasn’t seen Moon?” the child squeals, seizing Naeed’s hand, her black eyes shining. “Moon touched me once! I ran out and stood by the river, and she touched me! I was extra bright a whole week!”

Bewildered, Naeed looks up at Alleyu and Orenu. “What is this moon?”

Alleyu puts a finger to his lips, grinning. “Just wait. Best plunges are taken in clear depths no one warned you was cold.”

Orenu elbows him lightly, but wears a wistful smile as she tugs Dayenu away. “Blankets and pillows aplenty on the shelves. Take what you need and sleep on the table when you tire.”

Naeed thanks her again, then steps out through the golden algae curtain that shields the entrance of their home. He crosses the length of the path and sits, dangling his legs over the edge of the walkway.

Leaning back on his hands, he relaxes, staring out at the darkened city. Clusters of colored dots still mark shoals of fish in the waters, but even they are less bright than his earlier glimpses of them. All living things seem to have dimmed themselves. The effect is a homey, welcoming dark, full of the promise of rest and refreshment. Here and there across the water, a few windows still shine with candlelight.

“Different. But also, not so different from Carvenhold,” he murmurs.

There were candles in his father’s workshop, too. Ten or twenty of them, so that he could work in full light during the early hours before the sun rose. His father was filling an important order that last day. A set of shelves? Or chairs. Something important for the thugs, to keep them happy.

Naeed shakes himself free of the thought, unwilling to stain his upcoming rest with those memories. He hasn’t seen a single sun-dot or batch of flameweave in his tour through Underscoop, and he’s more grateful than his hosts can know for that.

A subtle vibration ripples through the ground, skipping up from his fingers to his shoulders. The tingle reach one arm before the other, making it easy to determine which direction to look. He cranes his neck toward the source, out near Overheader’s Patch.

He blinks, then squints. He can’t decide what is traveling toward him. A snake? A school of fish? A single sinuous dragon flying slowly through the still underground air?

Whatever it is, it carries all the brilliance that the rest of the underground has given up for the evening. The ground thrums with its steady vibration, even though it’s at least two hours’ walking distance.

It takes its time approaching, seeming to float and drift rather than fly. Even so, within half an hour it meanders to the edge of Underscoop.

Naeed stands, shielding his eyes with a hand. He begins to pick out the details of this creature. Many long, bone white cords swim through the air together, schooling like fish into a mass the size of a merchant’s ocean vessel that expands and contracts like a single living organism.

They twine and shift and trade places constantly, never still and yet perfectly tranquil in their movements. The great whole of it brushes up against the ceiling, and at this the vibrations increase for a bit until it ducks its great self back down, nosing toward the river. Whenever it approaches a rope bridge, it appears to part—swimming around and through the fibers. The sections of bridge that the creature passes through shine brighter in its wake.

It’s not as bright as the sun—for he can look directly at it—but it is the single greatest source of light he has seen in this underground city. It illuminates all Underscoop, banishing every shadow and revealing every hidden nook in the banks and Tiers. By the time it makes its way level with him, he sees clearly enough to guess that each individual cord is the length of a river barge and a half and runs thick as a lady’s arm.

“I see,” he says softly. “They call you Moon.”

One cord leaves the school, nosing its way toward him. Remembering Dayenu’s delight, he holds still as it nuzzles his cheek. Its touch feels like silk and awakens the faintest echo of a connection, laden with curiosity. It curls around the back of his neck, sliding up and over through the moss on his head, then down his face before swimming its way back to the main body.

He watches Moon make her way down the length of the river, occasionally brushing up against the bank or nosing back up toward the ceiling. He sighs when she slips around a bend, out of sight.

Definitely worth waiting to see. He hopes Na’Stra fills up on sunlight, because he is determined to keep her with him long enough to see this. He can’t wait to bring this little bit of knowledge back to the forest. Back to Yettle.

Someday.

As he slips into Alleyu’s home and arranges blankets and pillows on the dining table, he wonders what Yettle would make of a moon that travels underground.

Likely not much more than what she makes of being a tree one century and then being coaxed to walk by the next, he muses. Still, someday she will think about any differences and similarities between herself and Moon for years and spend many decades replaying the moment he just experienced, seeing and touching it as if she herself had been here. That is reason enough to keep traveling to gather moments like this.

Rolling himself up in the blanket, he lays his head on a pillow of silvery light and closes his eyes. Stops his lungs. Rests.

The skinless flesh of his chest and the bits of his arm that had been touched by the tiny flame creature thickened into flexible bark in less than a season. The boy touched it often, watching it overtake his vulnerable skin and join up with other patches of bark on his body as time passed. He stayed close to Yettle, stopping when she stopped and moving when she did.

He learned to connect to the network with brief touches, skimming the surface of the forest’s existence with every step he took. It was perfect. He could shelter in Yettle’s protection and still flee danger if needed, but best of all he could dive into the network anytime. Perhaps, if he practiced enough, he could master losing himself in it without rooting.

“Sapling?”

The question came to him from outside of the network. When he returned to himself, snow lay in little piles on his shoulders and drifts of it swallowed up his ankles. He lifted his eyes to Yettle, who had stopped to examine a new-laid nest only a moment ago, when all the leaves were a fresh, bright green. Now she bent down to eye-level with him, her chin brushing the snowy ground.

“Are we moving again?” he asked, shaking the snow from his shoulders. For now, the cold remained at a great distance from him. He was eager to return to the network to keep it that way.

"Soon. I have had a thought. It is now becoming a question. Perhaps many questions.”

The boy inclined his head and waited, staring back into her green-lit hollows. That he once found her looming over him to be terrifying was strange to remember. Even as she raised a finger and gently tapped it against his chest, he didn’t flinch.

“Your kind is made as an ‘I’ that thinks of itself as alone inside itself.”

He turned her words over in his mind. It had never been described to him like that, but the thought made sense. “There’s no ‘us’ like the forest with people,” he answered, “so that’s right.”

“Yes. And the ‘I’ that is alone in itself. It is so with the skytes, and they have names for each.”

At this, his fingers curled up and his teeth ground together. He said nothing as her thought meandered its way to a question. “It is so with your kind also, so they tell me. The network knows the feeling of your name, but I would hear you speak aloud. What is your name?”

He hadn’t expected this, and blurted, “Nobody. I’m nobody. I have no name.”

She watched him throughout the night and into the next morning before responding, “The network knows. Sapling, speak your name to me, as I have spoken mine to you.”

“I don’t want it anymore,” he insisted. “I want to be part of the forest, not one alone.”

“But you walk with me,” she countered. “And I have become separate from the forest, an ‘I’.”

“But not an ‘I’ alone! You’re always in the network.”

“Separate enough for a name of my own.” Yettle considered him until sunset, then said, “Give me your name, strange sapling, and we can make something new of it.”

Relieved and curious, the boy gave in. “Nail Carvenhold was my name.”

“Nail. Carven. Hold.” She mulled the words over once or twice, then turned on her knuckles and feet, picking her way through the foliage so carefully she neither snapped fallen sticks nor stepped on a mouse.

Immediately the boy fell into a rhythm behind her, brushing every trunk and branch and stray vine as he followed her trail. He sank into the network in no time, keeping only a small part of his mind on the task of staying near Yettle. The rest of him joined the forest in pondering the change in the rate of snowmelt at the very top of the pines.

“You are Nail.”

The words jerked him from his walking dream like he’d fallen into an icy stream. He glared at Yettle, but she wasn’t looking at him. She paused with her back to him, her head stooped in thought. The first green buds—the promise of leaves—swelled all along the barren branches of her head. “Nail. But not Nail. A sapling. A first seed sent to us.”

He stopped glaring. Guilt for his hasty anger overtook him in a flash. All this time and he still couldn’t hold onto how long it took her to work through a single thought all the way.

“Nail is a seed. A Nail seed. Perhaps… you are Naeed.” Finally, she turned her head to peer at him over her shoulder. “Is that an acceptable name?”

It came to him in a sudden weakness of the knees that the last time he sat was, perhaps, several seasons ago. He crouched, considering the name.

He thought that it still held onto part of who he was, and he didn’t like that. He also thought that Yettle had been so very careful and thought about it for so long that he didn’t want to hurt her feelings. He also thought that, since she had taken such a long time to think about it, maybe he should take a long time to answer. Just to show he was serious.

It was hard. When he waited on an answer from her, he could slip into the network for as long as it took her to finish, but it didn’t work in reverse. He was embarrassed by how quickly every answer came to him and by how different he was. How could he ever hope to be part of the forest if he couldn’t take days to answer a question on his own?

He struggled with it for just long enough that a nearby colony of ants began investigating his leg before he gave up. “It’s good enough. Naeed is good.”