Reunification (15 page)

Even so, I was starting to lose hope. The
burning desire to escape that had lit me up like an oven was slowly
dying down as it became clearer and clearer that we could not
escape. I did not know whether Resita shared these feelings, but
whether he did or did not, all I knew was that I must continue, for
if I did not, then the filth would claim us forever.

Then, without warning, the hatch began to
rise. My spirits rose with it, even though at first I was not
certain if the hatch was indeed rising.

All of my doubts were swept away down the
drain, however, with the filth, because I heard a sucking sound
underneath the hatch. I felt the filth being sucked past my feet
into the hatch, which Resita and I were still in the process of
lifting.

Then a loud popping noise, like unplugging
a drain, echoed off the concrete walls and the hatch flew open.
Resita and I let go of it at the same time, while even more garbage
and filth flowed past our feet like disgusting water in a river of
sludge. Resita cried out—or perhaps chirped, for that's what it
sounded like—in happiness at our success, while I praised the Old
Gods, who must have granted me and Resita the extra strength we
needed to open the hatch.

Indeed, I likely would have begun to sing
a hymn of the Old Gods right there and then, if I had not noticed
the exact size and width of the hatch. My stomach churned again,
but this time, it was less due to the sludge and filth around us
and more due to the sudden realization that had just dawned on me
like the early morning light.

But I did not dare speak this realization
aloud, at least not until the last of the filth and garbage had
been sucked into the drain, which revealed one problem that neither
of us had anticipated:

The drain was too narrow for either of us
to fit in.

***

Chapter
Seven

T
he beautiful happiness that had
filled my body was almost instantly replaced by sheer rage at our
failure. I looked down at the narrow drain, unable to think
clearly, wondering if this was all some cruel joke that the Old
Gods were playing on us.

The entire waste chamber was empty of the
filth and garbage now, save for a few spare empty food bags and
some puddles here and there. Nonetheless, that stench—that awful,
demonic stench that reminded me of a thousand tons of cow excrement
piled on top of each other—remained, entering my nostrils and
clouding mine thoughts.

I was so angry that I barely even paid
attention to Resita. He had ceased chirping in delight; instead, he
made choking sounds until he threw up onto the floor. Seeing him
throw up—which he had no doubt been holding in—almost made me do
the same, but I did not want to lose even that false South Delanian
tea I had had earlier, so I held it in.

When Resita ceased hurling, he looked up,
breathing hard, and wiped bits of barf off his beak. I saw no
reason for that, as his arms were hardly much cleaner than his
mouth, but I kept mine silence.

“
God …
damn it
,”
Resita hissed, his voice much hoarser now. “I forgot. While the
other drains are big enough for people of our size to slide
through, this drain
isn't
.”

“
How could ye have
forgotten that?” I said, without any sympathy in mine voice. “Doth
seem like a mighty large thing for ye to forget.”

“
Because it's been years
since I last looked at the blueprints for this place,” Resita
snapped. “And the sludge hid it, so obviously I couldn't see it and
figure out its actual size.”

“
I take it ye did not
have a backup plan of any sort?” I asked, putting my hands on mine
hips.

Resita's arms fell to his sides and he sat
down on the slimy concrete floor, apparently not bothered by the
puddle of sludge he sat in or his barf on the floor before him.
“No, I don't.”

Anger coursed through my veins as hotly as
my own blood, but I tried to keep a calm head, for I knew that
anger, when not righteous, could lead to darkness.

“
What about the other
drains?” I said, gesturing at the ones on the walls all around us.
“Could we not climb back up one of them and escape this 'HQ,' as ye
call it, that way?”

“
Nope,” said Resita,
shaking his head, without looking away from the narrow drain that
we had thought would be our smelly savior. “They have no ladders or
footholds of any kind. Their surfaces are too slimy for us to gain
any footing. Those drains were designed to get
rid
of
things, not allow things to crawl
out
of them.”

I rubbed my forehead, for my head was
starting to hurt as I considered all of the possibilities before
us. Granted, there were very few that came to mind, but I believed
that both of us were overlooking something, an escape route that
was not obvious. I wished only that I could know what it was.

Then Resita looked up at me. His bird-like
eyes were shining with hope, which made little sense to I, because
I saw no hope in this situation whatsoever.

“
Say, you're from Dela,
right?” said Resita.

“
Yes,” I said, nodding.
“Though I thought we had established that by now, my
friend.”

“
I know that,” said
Resita, waving off mine sarcasm. “I just wanted to be sure. So does
that mean you can use magic? I've heard that the Knights of Se-Dela
can channel skyras energy, which is basically the same as magic on
Dela, right?”

I sighed. These Xeeonites had such strange
ideas about our 'magic,' as they called it. Granted, we Delanians
also referred to it as such, but I did not much like the term, for
it made the works of our Sages and wizards and witches sound
trivial and childish, even though they were far from that.

I said none of that, however, as I was in
no mood or condition to argue with this bird. Instead, I said, “No,
I cannot use magic. Not every Delanian is a wizard, witch, or a
wise Sage. Indeed, most Delanians cannot use magic; I mean to say,
everyone could learn how to use it, but most do not.”

“
But that doesn't make
any sense,” Resita said, tilting his head to the side. “I remember
reading an article on the Knights of Se-Dela about a month back. It
said that you guys use skyras to cast magical spells and enhance
your weapons.”

I rubbed my forehead again. 'Twas hard for
me to think clearly down here, for the stink of the filth and
garbage filled mine nostrils deeply, while Resita's silly questions
and assumptions about us Knights of Se-Dela only added to the
headache that was coming on.

Thus, I said, “That article was not
entirely accurate. You see, we Knights of Se-Dela wear metalligick
armor. Skyras energy is contained in and flows through the armor.
Whilst we Knights can use the energy stored inside the armor to
enhance our weapons and do things such as increase the temperature
of our bodies, without our armor, we are utterly powerless.”

“
You mean, since you
don't have your armor on right now, you can't use skyras magic at
all?” said Resita. The hope was draining from his voice as quickly
as the sludge had disappeared down that foul drain in the center of
the chamber. “Not even a little?”

“
I could not even light
a candle with skyras, for I never bothered to learn the ways of
magic,” I admitted. “But even if I had mine armor, I am uncertain
how useful it would be in this situation, as our metalligick armor
was not designed to aid us in these kinds of
situations.”

“
Damn it,” said Resita,
punching the concrete floor upon which he sat. “Here I was hoping
that you would be able to use some of your magic to get us out of
here.”

“
If I could, I would,
without hesitation,” I said. “But I cannot. It thus appears that we
must rely on the grace of the Old Gods to save us.”

With nothing else to do, I sat down on the
floor next to Resita. 'Twas a disgusting thing, for the floor was
covered in the filth and sludge from earlier, but I was getting
tired of standing and wished to rest, at least for a while. There
was little else I could do here besides that.

Resita was no longer looking at me. He was
staring at the drain, as if it had once been his best friend, only
to betray him when he least expected it. At least, I assumed that
that was what he was thinking; 'twas hard to tell, for his
bird-like features were still not very easy for me to read.

“
The grace of the Old
Gods,” Resita suddenly repeated, in a mocking tone. “What the hell
are the Old Gods, anyway? I've never heard of them
before.”

It took all of mine willpower not to grab
Resita by the throat and throttle him like the chicken he was.
Sadly, this was not something I had little practice dealing with,
for the Old Gods were not very well respected even on Dela, when
they were remembered at all, of course.

I rested my hands in my lap. “Not very
surprising. Few people, even on Dela, know of the Old Gods … and of
those few, even fewer of them respect those deities.”

“
Why?” said Resita.
“Were the Old Gods bad?”

“
Nay,” I said, shaking
my head. “They were good, better than King Waran-Una at any rate.
They once ruled all of Dela eons ago, having laid the foundations
for that world at the beginning of time. Peace was associated with
their reign, until Waran-Una came and ended all of
that.”

“
But I thought Waran-Una
always ruled Dela,” said Resita. “That's what I was always told and
what I've always believed.”

“
That does not make it
any truer than it is,” I replied. “For you see, King Waran-Una came
from somewhere else. I do not know where, exactly, but I do know
that he did not always live on Dela. And when he did come to Dela,
he clashed with the Old Gods over its leadership.”

“
Let me guess,” said
Resita, “he won, right?”

“
Yes,” said I with a
sigh. “He defeated the Old Gods in combat and then banished them to
the moon, where all of them sleep to this day.”

Resita scratched the back of his head in
puzzlement. “I don't understand. It sounds to me like you don't
really like Waran-Una. If so, why do you work for him as a Knight
of Se-Dela?”

“
Because not all of us
Delanians have rejected worship of the Old Gods,” I said.
“Waran-Una has banned worship of them in Se-Dela, as have the
leaders of other Delanian countries, but that has not stopped a
minority of us Delanians from continuing the worship practices of
our ancestors in secret.”

“
You still didn't
explain why you work for Waran-Una,” Resita pointed out.

I put a hand over mine heart. “I work for
him because I was offered knowledge of mine sister's whereabouts if
I would become a Knight. And whilst I have never had much respect
for the Knights of Se-Dela, I did not want to lose the best
opportunity I had to find and reunite with my sister.”

“
So you did it for your
sister, basically,” said Resita. “You mean you aren't afraid that
your Old Gods are angry at you for serving the being who defeated
them?”

My hands balled into fists, but I kept
mine anger from bubbling up. “Nay. My father told me stories about
how understanding the Old Gods are of our particular circumstances;
besides, my true allegiance is not with Waran-Una anyway. Should it
ever become necessary, I will break away from the Knights and never
look back.”

“
Pragmatism, then,”
Resita said. “You do what you need to do in order to
survive.”

“
I loathe that term, for
it makes me sound like an unprincipled thief who would do anything
to ensure his own survival,” I said, “whereas that is not me at
all. While I am no fan of the Knights of Se-Dela, I do recognize
the good they do in the world, which appeals to my innate sense of
justice.”

“
Yeah, yeah, whatever,”
said Resita. His head sank lower onto his chest. “I don't even know
why we're talking about this. It's not like any of this stuff will
help us get out of here.”

“
Perhaps not,” I said.
“But what else shall we do? For there is clearly no other way for
us to escape this place. Talking takes the mind off our unpleasant
situation.”

“
True, but sometimes
it's necessary to focus on our 'unpleasant' situation, as you call
it, if we're going to survive,” said Resita. He gulped and gagged.
“And the smell … it's the worst smell I've ever had the displeasure
of smelling.”

“
Agreed,” I said. I
looked around the chamber again. “But there must be
some
way
we can escape. After all, don't ye Foundation people have to come
down here occasionally to ensure that nothing needs to be repaired
or replaced?”

“
We have robots for
that,” said Resita. “Very small ones, too, with cameras so they can
take pictures and video. Then we send other robots down to fix any
problems, such as cracks in the chutes or any chunks of crap
clogging up the drain or whatever.”

“
Of course,” I said, not
hiding the disgust in mine voice. “Ye Xeeonites never do anything
yourselves. All ye ever do is rely upon your automatons and your
machines. Your hands are as soft as pudding.”

“
Is that supposed to be
an insult?” said Resita with a snort. “And here I thought you
Delanians were the people that the great poet Granga came from.
Guess not all of you Delanians can be as creative with your words
as he was, now can you?”

I sighed. “Let us not argue. I tire of it.
It does nothing except make us more frustrated and angry.”