128 - Should I Be Asking?

“Amir... should I be asking where you are getting all of this... very shiny technology?”  Raghnall leaned back against their shelter wall, sand drifting down from the wooden side of the hide.  It found its way down his back, grinding all the way down to his belt, even past the neck wrap.  His arms crossed as he watched the bright green spot of light in the glass in Dukir’s gloved hand as it rove back and forth, jittering to a stop to show location, and pulsing to show depth to the bivouac village underground.

“Na... ser... not atall, atall.  It’d be bett’r ifn yeh didn’t notice this,” Dukir said absently, apparently focussing on the device.

“This is stupid.  You’re not just an Amir,” the Emir-al said somewhat bitterly.  “I’d really appreciate knowing what in the light and dark and vacuum hells is truly going on.”

“Na... na...” Dukir slid the glass away and pulled out one of his emergency programs.  “This’ll cut us a worm-crawl space tah get tah t’e water.  Not fer the birds though.  Hav’ta send a kid back tah water ‘em.”

The boring worms coalesced out of the damp patch of sand where he’d spat, moving his veil aside to do so.

“Amir...”  Raghnall paused as the worms spun through the sand, creating a glass-lined hole that clicked and sang from rapidly dissipating heat.  Dukir pulled off his headband and veil as the temperature rose.  “This is too much like I’ve suddenly been catapulted into a myth.  There just ISN’T that kind of mandery in the world.  This... is ...” he shrugged and pulled his own head-covering off, beads of sweat standing suddenly on his brow.

“’Tis fine, lad.” Dukir deliberately didn’t look over; keep his eyes on the tunnel progress.  “’S dreamlike, hey?”

Raghnall opened his mouth... then closed it.  “If we don’t get the Kraghanz and the Siwion back safely to Lainz it’s going to be an envacuumed nightmare, not dreamlike.”

“’Sa good thought tah keep in mind, hmm?” Dukir kept his mouth from twitching at that.  You have no idea, lad, how disappointed my old friend would be with me, if I lost these miraculous Heirs on the road.  To a mostly natural disaster yet! I’m not afraid of what Diryish would do to me.  I’d be ashamed that I failed him.  He hasn't failed me yet.  Nor my predecessor.  Not since he was forced to take the endarkened office. It grieves me to think that I’m even this close to failing him.

“Teh Kraghanz and teh Siwion ‘r over there, Shaidan, ser.”  Moving.  I can’t tell who, but one of them has dropped almost to the level of the bivouac.  Perhaps Kyrus is as good as people claimed him to be.  “Still fine.  We might get down there teh find ‘em waitin’ askin’ what took us so long.”

“I can hope, Amir, that you are correct.”  Raghnall leaned his head back, eyes closed against the glittering, glass-spinning tunnelling worms.  “My plausible deniability is growing very thin here,” he said drily.

“I’ll keep’it in mind, ser,” Dukir said as he leaned down to test the edge of his tunnel for heat.  “I’ll keep’it firmly in mind.”

**

Diryish fought.  He fought to breathe and to keep breathing.  His heart staggered and then settled back into the steady rhythm it had kept for most of the past two hundred and eight years.  The liquid built up, flooding his lungs.

I am drowning in grit. Glass beads.  Liquid glass in my lungs. Endarken it, grandson, you would have been six by now, why are you playing with Homa... she’s fading from where we are.  Tyri... go away.  I’m not ready.  Statira... go... ah, my sons.  You look so welcome.  I want to go with you.   

You are a temptation, you realize.  Father... oh father.  You are there too?  I hoped you were stashed safe in the vacuum deepest hell, but I still love you, you terrible old man.  Isn’t that funny, you and my brothers, I love you still, even if you did kill each other and tried to kill me.  I love you still and even you cannot steal that feeling from me.  You surround me, my dead. You wish to pull me under the white mountains with you, drag me off to the ice moon.

I’m so tired.  I want to go. It’s so hot under the white mountain.  I thought that after death I’d be cool at last.  I can feel the sweat running down my skin and soaking my... what... my bedclothes.  Am I on fire, not cremated? I burn under this sun and the caustics desiccate my skin, pulling my gums back from my teeth, sink my cheeks in, dry my eyes to pits and rattle my brain inside my dry and powdering skull.   

Help me heal. I need more acid.  I need more water. My ancient natron soaked father laughs, his jaw falling away from his skull, the linen... written tight with the laws he made rotted off his body.  I dry. I dry.  I’m thirsty.  Help me.

The bees come spiralling down from the Hive... where I lay the day I took this hateful office.  They came and I am Queen.  Their wings blow my dusty, desiccated dead away; they seize the shade of my grandson and tuck it away in a hive cell, and the rest of my dead. Thank you little sisters for the acid in your venom. The amino acids.  Human. No longer drying to dust.  Struggling to breathe.  I need water.

Diryish blinked his eyes open, to see Brienz’s worried face over the edge of the water glass.  Shapes behind him.   

“Ho...Homa?”  He managed to croak before he emptied the glass, spilling water, blessed, blessed water onto his face, drops soaking the sheet under his chin.  “M...a...riush?”

 “They’re fine.  They’re well.  Come back to us, Radiance.”

“Oh yes.” He managed to cough and raised a hand to wave... weakly, at his doctor for more water.  “I’m not done yet.”