HYTHEIRA: THE TUNNELS UNDERNEATH PART 1

HYTHEIRA:



Prologue
The Tunnels Underneath
DRAFT 1.0


I :
Nigredo

Nigredo excelled in situations demanding silence. Talking would only get him so far. Listening, he learned, was far more useful. And now, sitting on the rubble, silence was the only thing that mattered. Any sound made could spell death. The air itself seemed to agree. Never had the air been so threatening. Listening was the only thing the brothers could do now. Just listening and whispering only when needed. When he was smaller, Nigredo watched the crowds, feeling their lips move and melt into a stew of sound. He plucked the words back out and made sentences into stories. Out of the crowds came Sorcerers. Knights. Fairy queens. All walking in front of his eyes, so clear and crisp. But all were in his head, securely stuck there until he spun his yarns to anyone who would listen. The power of creation flowered inside him and came out as a smile. When this happened, he would look over to his brother, so much taller and wiser, expecting to see the same joy. But he saw nothing there. Nrakkon’s eyes would stay in place, his entire body rigid and unmoving. Waiting for something. Unamused. Now, Niregdo thought, he understood. The fairies and whimsy were gone. Because they were never there. For a moment, Nigredo felt angry.
He expected to learn something from all of this when he got older. But even now, at the edge of childhood, he'd learned nothing. His brother's steely gaze still reflected something he didn't understand. The picture too blurry to make out. Every time he tried to colour in lines, Nrakkon would smudge them. Never any clear answers. He tried to find them. Even resorted to following him once. But Nrakkon was older. Faster. A part of him hoped for a beating, or at least a slap. The disappointed frown he got instead hit him much harder. Although good at it, Nigredo was no master of silence. Silence, Nigredo learned, was both Nrakkon's strength and weakness. He would have to find his own strength.

~.~.~

Father once told him he was “good with words”. Said he'd got it from him, who held his belly and laughed.

"Too good. You read too much."
More laughter.
"Best keep those stories in your head where they belong. Real people aren't stories. And people don't like to listen. They like to hear themselves talk."

He paused. Something clicked into place, turned once, then stopped.

"If I've learned anything from this business, you let other people do the talking. The more you hear someone, the better you'll know them."

His eyes wandered up to somewhere Nigredo couldn't make out. He sensed his father was onto something, like some machinery creaking and begging to move, but not quite. He waved his hand, shaking his head.

"But of course, you know I talk entirely too much. It's gotten me into some trouble in the past."

He scratched his head. "I...I can't lie to you, can I?" Laughter. Broken. "Can't break the habit now. I guess stories are better than the blathering I do."


Nigredo waited for the conclusion. The fatherly command. The lesson. But he simply walked off, lightly chuckling. His father's gift of gab was famous. There was no doubt his quick tongue had landed him the job he had. The success and fame. And infamy, he guessed. Over supper he and mother reminisced about conversations long gone. Sly words, quick reactions, quicker bites. All of them in the past, lessons learned.


His brother's refusal to give the same lessons irritated him. Learning from Nrakkon by talking would get him nowhere. Instead, he trained his eyes to watch. To record, to write. The memory he attained pressed against his skull and expanded it; he found himself memorizing names, faces, rooms, entire streets, all in perfect miniature. Like a dollhouse, free to peer into at will. With this, he felt powerful. Tall. Important.

He had found his strength. He knew this now. His memory was all he had, now that the silence was all that mattered. Now that the air hated his very existence.



Nigredo shook off some ash and settled into his memories once again.

~.~.~

Before, the silence was only between them, and even then it could be broken at any moment. He remembered sitting on the outskirts of the square, by the vendors too late to make it into the centre. He would eat a different kind of fruit each day. Pears were his favourite. Often they found themselves at Jordan Machaer's cart. A man who—so he said—purposely set up shop at that particular corner. Said he didn't like crowds, he was too old for all the excitement, too fat to fit in the allotted spaces. And Nigredo would laugh at his jokes, because he gave him fruit for free.

Jordan’s cart never remained full for long. Although out of the way, his sales did well. Shoppers tired and ears ringing from the crowd would slink away in twos and threes, drawn to his cart by the twinkling and tinkling, the colour and sound. Wind chimes, soft bells, and the hum of his voice. He was a foreigner (or seemed to be), and his voice, dress and mannerisms alone were enough to make a daily profit.

Nrakkon asked Father where Jordan was from. Many times. He never got a straight answer.
"Beyond the river or the Dead," he mused, or, "Where the ocean is nothing but a rumour," and "Where the flies drink your sweat!"

Those were the most poetic he could remember. Eventually Nrakkon became annoyed enough to go ask father, who by all accounts should know. Nrakkon confronted him one day, just as he walked through the door.


"Oh, old Jordan? What's he been telling you?"

He looked over his sons, hands on his hips, but only loosely.

"His parents, way back, were from somewhere in the Eastern Deserts, but he's a local through and through. Been a registered citizen all his life. Everyone knows that."

He looked at Nigredo quizzically, waiting for him to respond. He kept his mouth shut. He sat behind his brother, watching intently.

"I do fear his storymaking has rubbed off on you a little. There's no harm in stories, as long as everyone knows they are only stories."

Nigredo nodded.

Nrakkon was not satisfied. Something irked him deeply, though it was clear even Nrakkon didn't know what.

"Everyone?" he spat. "Everyone knows?"

Father laughed.

"Well, I know. I'm in charge, so I guess that's all that really matters. And besides, he never lied to you, did he? Riddles aren't lies. He never said he was from a real place."

Something in his eyes changed. He pat Nrakkon's shoulder. He winced at the touch. Nigredo wondered why.

"Strange old man he is, but he is no trickster."

He vaguely remembered Nrakkon trying to smile. Mother clinking in the kitchen, faint cooing from his sister, too small to really be helping. He tried to remember what Nrakkon said then; he must have said something. But for some reason, the memory stopped, frozen on that smile. He wanted to hear his voice, so loud and firm, end the conversation. But it never came.

He snapped back to the present.

It occurred to him, if they didn’t make it, he may never hear his brother's voice again. He could lose it completely now. Gone with one flash of steel. The chances of seeing his reflection cut down to zero. Panic filled his chest. His throat swelled up. Tears of confusion swelled in his eyes. He tried to dry them, but the wetness stayed, smearing all over his cheeks. The loss of a voice scared him more than anything. Voices were everything. Memories were everything. The emotion finally caught up, smacking upside the head like a mace. Senses returned to him all at once, flowing into his ears and eyes and mouth. Something was actually flowing in his mouth. Taste there, metallic. He looked down at his hands.

The wetness on his face wasn't tears. He looked to Nrakkon for an explanation, but the silence still mattered. He would get no answer. His brother only widened his eyes and wiped at his face with something which may have been cloth.


He didn't remember how the blood got on his hands. It wasn't his, he was sure. Not enough pain for that. Only his ribs hurt. He couldn't tell if the pulsing there was getting stronger or he was just beginning to notice it. Nrakkon wasn't so lucky. His eyes barely peeked out around cuts and bruises and patches Nigredo assumed were burns. His right leg curled beneath him at such an angle Nigredo knew something was broken. Nrakkon refused to look down at it; his gaze exactly the same as it usually was: straight ahead and unamused. He pushed away a rock, peering into the fading light of day. This time he was really looking--not watching--for something, and that something mattered. No more watching for pleasure. No more stories.

They were so close. So close to finding safety. Home. Nigredo thought of making a run for it, to barrel out from behind the rubble into the street. Nrakkon's leg was the end of that plan. He knew he couldn't make it. Even if he did, not the stairs. And certainly not the tunnels.

Home stood in front of them, across the street. Swords, hulking flesh and foreign voices the only thing between them. Ash from an unknowable source fell on the tyrants’ armour and made it instantly dull. Almost like wool. Every once in a while one would stop vandalizing and kick at the piles on the ground. A grunt of satisfaction. Or, sometimes the pile would squeak. Another kick. Silence. The smell of fire, of burning wood everywhere. The sky utterly gone. He couldn't remember if it was night or day. How long had they been sitting there? A day? A week? His stomach hadn't started turning. One day. Maybe two. He wondered when his memory started going. The loss didn't bother him like it should have. He knew Nrakkon remembered everything. He could see it on his face.

"They all burned," he said, before the silence mattered. "They burned."

And that was that.

For the first time, Nigredo didn't envy him.


Nrakkon had the capacity to get out of this situation. He may have been quiet, but he was not a weak man. Though only a head taller, he could pluck Nigredo up like a toy and set him where he pleased. Nigredo always wondered how he looked while fighting. He would be silent, of course. And he would win. Nrakkon was fully into adulthood now; his training complete, his schooling done. Just starting on advanced courses, coming ever closer to matching his father.

And now father was gone. And with that leg, another escape plan gone. It was still possible. There were ways of killing a man without running toward him. Nigredo realized the sword he somehow kept indeed had a sharp point. Not a show sword. A real sword. He hadn’t noticed that before. With the right amount of force, it could kill. But Nigredo wasn't there yet, and the thought of any more death made him sick to his stomach. By the amount of worry in Nrakkon's eyes, Nigredo knew he wasn't thinking of killing either. Their only option was to wait. Wait for them to leave.

At first, Nigredo was sure they would be caught. Although hidden, their structure of stones and crates seemed a little too obvious, their heads a little too high to miss. But not one of them ever did find them. They wandered aimlessly back and forth down the street, only stopping to bash a window or eat stolen food. Or to prod the piles. The piles which now, Nigredo had decided, began to smell. One of them, barely a man, wandered close. Close enough to smell his breath, but his watery eyes only glanced over the rocks. Its nose curled slightly, found nothing amiss, uncurled, and then he walked away. None returned after that. Nigredo decided they were all slightly blind--or at least that one was. The brothers knew they were only men, but ever since it all started "they" became "its". They seemed to lack a mind at all; their only human trait being the form they took, the armour they wore, the unknown, but very human language they spoke. Foreign languages were nothing new to Nigredo. He could pick dozens out of the market, and name them all. Even speak words of some of them. What these men spoke Nigredo had never heard before. Not at the market, not at the shipyard, not in any lesson. Utter foreigners. Unknowns. He cursed his father for not knowing. For not preparing for them. It was his job. He failed. And then he went and died.

He burned.

Nigredo did remember that.


He could still feel the heat on the back of his neck, the edges of his clothes sizzling. Yelping rising and falling; screaming, moaning, crying, grumbling, and finally nothing when he got far enough away. The smell of burning flesh imprinted in his nostrils and flowed into his brain, crawling into a realm of memory he didn't know he had. The smell never truly left. Because of the memory or the burning world around him, he couldn't tell. He didn't know whether he was better off not seeing it. Only hearing and smelling it was somehow worse.

The next time he closed his eyes, he knew there would be something in the memory for him to look at. His mind didn't like gaps, and today had a lot of them. Like how he was even still alive. It was a feat. He never thought himself physically fit until he was running for his life; his legs carried him faster than his mind could travel, still lagging behind at the fiery corpse of his father. He even outran Nrakkon.

He dodged the rock that crushed his brother’s leg. Somehow he managed to stop, turn back, and lift the rock. Nrakkon beside him. Or was he carrying him? Carrying Nrakkon? Finding a hiding spot. Dressing a wound. Moving again. How many times? No time to care. They kept moving. They slid under what used to be a house, wheezing against the sour air.

"Nigredo, your hair's on fire," he'd said.
He swatted the back of his head until Nigredo assumed it was out. Nose too burnt to smell it.

He looked down at his leg and frowned. The blood had already dried, but something stuck the wrong way.. He thought he would comment on it. What Nigredo should do, how to fix it, to go make a splint. Instead he continued to stare at it, like it suddenly detached and grew eyes. Be began to speak, shock finally entering their hiding space.

"They thought father was you," he said. "You're..." he turned his attention to the bandages, tying and untying. "You were supposed to burn. Not him."

His fault. Escaped by an arm’s length. Bad aim. Or chance. Or a lack of information. The fact didn't phase him as much as how he said it.
Supposed to burn. Unwanted. A bad stalk to be plucked out. Dull throbbing in his side reminded him he still had his sword. He suddenly had an urge to use it. Just one blow would do it. Surely this wasn’t his brother speaking like that to him. Suddenly, his brother seemed something else entirely. The comment didn't suit him at all. Nigredo narrowed his eyes.

"How would you know that, then?” he spat. “What do you recommend? I run out into the arrows and do them a favour?"

The amount of malice in his voice surprised him. It surprised Nrakkon too; for a long time he remained speechless, opening and closing his mouth like a fish, squinting up his face in pain and confusion. Suddenly he looked small, like a broken plaything tossed into the street.

"You're right. I'm sorry," he mouthed. "That's not what I meant. But it was your coronation. It was all for you. Someone knew about it. Someone who shouldn't have."

He pursed his lips. The line between concentration and pain was imperceptible now.

"Father said..." he dared to look at him, then changed his mind, staring out the hole in the rock.

"Father said to make sure you stay alive. And that's what I'm doing."

Something was missing there; too many pauses in his speech to be just pain. Too vague. An idea came to mind, one Nigredo had been toying with ever since it all started, unavoidable. Why didn’t he realize it sooner?

"Father knew this was going to happen. And you. You too."

And he'd said nothing. The only time saying nothing to him really mattered. And he failed. Nrakkon saw the suspicion in his face, and jumped back, surprised.

"What? No!" He tried to get up, then sat back down, rubbing his leg. "Gah. I mean yes. Not this, though. Not this."

He looked up at the sky, surprised it was still there, looking in awe at the ashes falling from it.

"Everything is gone. Everything."

Sympathy lurched back into Nigredo, the feeling of isolation returning. He waited for an explanation.

Watching his brother cope with whatever dark secret he held agonized him more than his silence ever did; he started a sentence, stopped, cursed, and started over, or didn't make words at all, only squeaks and jolts of pain from what Nigredo assumed was not just a broken leg and some cuts.

"Waldeck," he finally said. "Waldeck told us. We all knew. As much as Waldeck knew, anyway."

He stared blankly at Nigredo, waiting for the indication that his words had stuck. When he seemed satisfied, he continued.

"I know he spoke to you too. Don't lie to me."

Nigredo nodded. He answered.

"Yes. Yesterday... Morning."

"Well, I thought he told you the same thing. I swear. I didn't know. I..." he cursed. "Well, I guess it's all his fault, isn't it? Bastard."

He tried to rub his eyes, but jumped his hand back, forgetting the burns on his face.

"So, what did he tell you then? You know he...he sees things, right? With that hellish eye of his. Said he saw a 'large and violent event' happening on your coronation day. Didn't give us much time to respond. 'No way of avoiding it,' he said. 'It will happen because the Fates have decided it shall be.' Ha!"

He made an attempt to laugh, but stopped, because that hurt too.

"The Fates! All that big talk. A few months notice would have evened the odds a bit, I'll bet." He fell into a fit of laughter and tears, pain and pleasure. The sound made the hair on his neck stand on end.

"And you know what? I don't even think he's dead. I really don't. I think he made it out somehow. Slithered out like a mongoose. I didn't see him at the ceremony."

That memory had stayed, cemented like the center of a sliding puzzle. That of Waldeck. A man with death sitting on his face. A conversation which hazed his memory and made his stomach lurch.

He remembered what he'd said. He remembered not believing it.

An explanation. Then being forced to believe it. Harshly. Waldeck pinned him down on the table, mumbling words he didn't understand. A hot pain in his chest. Something squirming there.

After that, he never felt quite right. He felt heavier. He quickly learned what the heaviness meant. When he rushed to tell someone about all he'd been told, the heaviness fermented and fell like a brick. Pain erupted in his chest—so extreme he couldn't tell where it came from. His upper half tensed and sizzled like coal, the core of heat moving to his left side.

His heart. Racing. Much too fast to be just excitement. He tried to cry out, but no sound came. He was having a heart attack. He remembered coughing, and changing the subject, excusing himself for a glass of water. The pain immediately subsided. He passed it off as a fit of excitement, and finished the glass. And then the strange man left.

It was that morning when he tried to tell his father again, after a solid night's sleep, when he realized the dilemma he was in. The same result. Dread filled him for the first time in his short life.

He could not talk about it. Not only did it cause immense pain, but he was physically unable to do it. Words forgot how to form on his lips. A cloud passed over his eyes, bringing his memory with it. He could still hear Waldeck's words loud and clear in his mind, even now, but his voice could not echo them. Writing them down had the same results; foggy and painful. He could only reach one conclusion, final and exact.

Sorcery.

Curt. Accurate. Nothing fancy about it, but it got the job done. What Waldeck did best A real sorcerer. Not a mirage of story.

Looking around at the rocks and rubble and blood, Nigredo realized he was a cursed man. He did his best to convey this to Nrakkon. Waldeck may have been good with sorcery, but Nigredo was sure Nrakkon was better. He tried to think of something—anything—short of screaming to get the words out.

There must have been a code word for such a thing. For a curse. Had to. Nrakkon knew it, but Nigredo's memory, so perfect up to this day, failed him again. Nrakkon had finished laughing. He waited now. For him to return the favour of explanation. To answer his question.

Nigredo made a show of making words, opening his mouth far wider than it needed to, pointing a finger at himself for emphasis. The words came.

"What the Fates have told me
Are for my ears only."

In his mind it sounded like a sentence, but when he spoke it the syllables lined up like a poem; his voice became lyrical, soft, and deliberate. A riddle of sorts.

It seemed to work. Nrakkon's confusion melted into a deep sigh, his limbs relaxing into the ground.

"So he did talk to you. I'm so sorry Nigredo. Really. All this..." he looked to the sky again, surprised it hadn't changed. "This changes everything. Everything is gone. I thought we could wait it out here. But we have to go. We need to get out of here before they find you."

Nigredo was sure Nrakkon knew. The sigh he gave was too deep to be of frustration, too deep to be tossed aside. This was not a change in subject; it was a reaction. A command. They had to get back to the house. Time had finally turned against them. He felt the adrenaline pump back in, preparing himself to run again. He was about to cut off the world completely when another idea stopped him. Had Waldeck done the same to Nrakkon? Those moments of tightness, of pain and cursing...he looked up at him, searching.

"Don't worry about me, Nigredo. Don't worry. He spoke to me. He didn't..." he leaned closer, "speak to me. Others have heard what he said. Every last word. I promise you."

The understanding was perfectly clear.

"If I ever see him again, I'll kill him. But we can't worry about him anymore. We don't have time. We need to get out of the city before they realize they killed the wrong man."


And they moved again, this time to their final resting place, so close to home.


And that was the last thing he remembered his brother saying, before the two of them got so close, sitting across the street from their home. It was strangely still mostly intact. The foundation only tilted slightly. Some of the windows were even still there. The front door swung loose on its hinges, but even the lock was still there.

Getting there was a feat in itself. Nigredo's luck had finally run out; he really did catch fire once, his face coming quickly to match Nrakkon's. Something slammed into his side and he heard something crack. Tiny trickles of hot blood down his legs. Falling on something mushy and warm and slightly squirming. Something all over his hands. A voice somewhere beneath it. He shuddered.

It was about then when his memory skirted away. An explosion knocked it clear out of him, along with most of his senses. More singed clothing. Silence beneath his hands. Nrakkon somewhere screaming. Carrying him again. Ending up here. Silence. Waiting.

The time for remembering was over. They had to cross. They knew to where. It was only a matter of finding a when.

~.~END OF PREVIEW. STAY TUNED FOR PART II: NRAKKON~.~