Aquifer (10 page)

W
ren. Wren!” Jasper’s rough voice is unusually tender.

“The lady doesn’t answer me, Luca.”

We quicken our pace for ten steps.

And then we stop.

Three figures approach. Three men. Upright men.

It dawns on me that I can see. That I can see well, and that light is everywhere, though I can’t find its source.

“So we’ll just ask them for directions to the Rats?” I say.

Jasper looks back the way he came. “Well, I’ve seen nastier-looking blokes above.” We begin a slow walk forward.

They are identical in height, though not in age. The man in the center has clearly seen many years, while the other two so resemble him, it would be impossible to think them anything but sons. All three have my fair skin, my gray eyes. Their thick, dark hair, far from my matted dreadlocks, gathers in back and falls long behind them, swishing as they walk.

They’re short, short like me. Short and kind and simple,
dressed in rough-spun buttoned tan shirts and loose-fitting pants. With cords around the waist and gloves on their hands, the men don’t terrify. Yes, their dress is odd, their hair unusual, but they strike me as … normal.

They stop in front of us and say nothing, though their gazes make frequent trips to Wren.

Jasper leans over. “Do ya reckon they speak our speak?”

“We do.” The old one steps forward and lays a hand on Wren’s forehead. His eyes glaze, and he nods to his sons.

“Thank you for carrying Wren. Will you allow us to take her the rest of the way?”

“Listen.” Jasper turns away from him. “You might know her name, but I don’t know yours, and I’ve been carrying this lady too far … I can’t have anything happen to her.”

“You’ll see her again shortly.” He touches the back of her head. “But not unless you allow us to help her.”

I squeeze Jasper’s arm. “We’ve done all we can. You couldn’t have done more.”

Jasper bends over and whispers in Wren’s ear, “You stay with us, lady.” He hands her to the sons, who together grasp her beneath the shoulders and knees. They carry her awkwardly toward a cleft in the rock wall and slip into the shadows.

“Whoa.” Jasper lumbers after them. “Where did you take her?”

“No place that you can follow. Not yet.” The older man gestures to Jasper. “Come back, friend.” He pauses. “And to you, young Luca, welcome to our home. Look at you.” He strokes my cheek, and his eyes roam my face. He steps to the side and faces Jasper. “Jasper, you are also most welcome to call this your dwelling.”

“You know us all,” I say.

He smiles in answer. “You may call me whatever you like, though most say Etria.” He gestures over his shoulder. “Many wait for you. May we proceed?”

I want to. I feel so comfortable with this man, though one look at Jasper and I know he doesn’t share my peace. Besides, Father never told me I should follow a greeter once I arrived.

“I’m sorry,” I say. “I wish I could. I need to find, at least I think I need to find … Oh, Wren told me to reach the Water Rats and the Aquifer. Could you point out where they could be found?”

“Yes. I’ll take you to them.” He spins and walks away.

“Not trusting that man,” Jasper whispers.

“That’s wise,” Etria calls back without breaking stride. “I haven’t yet given you reason to!”

“Well, the directions end here,” I say. “Maybe he’s the … the Rat keeper, or something. Maybe he keeps them all locked up.”

“Locked up?” Etria’s already out of a normal man’s earshot, but he laughs deep and rich.

“It doesn’t seem as though we’ll have any private conversations.” I yank on Jasper’s arm. “Come on. For Wren’s sake, come on.”

A half hour passes, or maybe it’s an hour. Time blurs below. It’s unclear whether danger or safety lies before us, but as Seward said, we’re past the point of trusting. Besides, I have no more directions. Ahead, Etria stops and stretches. “I’d forgotten how refreshing a walk can be.”

Ahead, the stone beneath my feet comes to a sudden end. My eyes sparkle, and Jasper curses.

I couldn’t have said it any better …

We stare out over a shimmering sea. An ocean. A magnificent lake with gentle swells tinged yellow and red, rivaling the most beautiful of sunsets above.

The painting … Wren’s painting. She must’ve been standing right here when she painted it
.

And through the middle, a path of translucent stones pokes above the waterline — flat, smooth, and stretching clear to the far end.

Etria raises his palms to the sea. “Luca, meet the Aquifer.”

“Beautiful.” Jasper bends over and dips in his hand.

“By it, all life on earth is sustained,” Etria says. “Including yours. You two must be very thirsty by now. Drink.”

Jasper and I stare at each other. I’m first to find voice. “Freshwater? This is all drinkable?”

“Of course. We release liquid-state water to a depth of a few meters above the Aquifer for beauty sake. Its source, the layer of hardened rock from which it is extracted, lies below. It stretches thousands of feet deep and spreads out hundreds of miles wide. We mine the fresh water and propel it up to your diverters.” He points, and I blink.

Exploding out of the Aquifer on both the right and left, two columns of water rise from the sea. Cylindrical waterspouts hundreds, maybe thousands of feet tall, bend and twist, sucking water toward the rocky ceiling.

“Amazing what can be done, is it not?” He gazes at the top of the columns. “The waterspouts strike rock, where our suction plates draw the water farther on, seeping toward your world through cracks and fissures until it’s ten feet from the surface. Your pumps and diverters take it from there.” His face is proud. “You stand before the highest point of the world’s only attainable aquifer.” Etria bends, scoops up a handful of water,
and drinks. I need no more urging. I scoop up water with both hands. Jasper drops to his knees and laps like a dog. The taste is cool and wet and perfect.

I’ve found the water source. My father descends to this same place …

I slowly rise. “Wait. If you mine the water, you’re a … you’re a Rat.”

“As I said, call me what you will, though I do admit that, though necessary,
Rat
is not my favorite name.”

“I’m sorry, I’m so sorry, we should …” I yank off my pack and fumble for the light rod still trapped inside. I turn my head, extract the contained energy, and hand him the rod. “I know it isn’t as many as my father usually brings, but please, I came down here under different circumstances. Please don’t turn off the water. Nobody knows I’m here.”

“Oh,” Etria says, removing the rod from my hand. “I doubt that.”

I slowly turn to face him. The rod is gone. I glance around our feet. The rock on which we stand shimmers like a rainbow prism.

“What did you do with the light?” I ask, bending down and stroking the warmth of the glow.

“All in time. Now come,” he says. “My people wait.”

I follow him onto the first stone, and then the second. Slowly, we journey across the freshwater sea. So much water. A treasure without cost. What my father once said is true: “Whoever controls the source controls the world.”

Lendi could never contain his wrinkle at the sight
.

C
louds?”

I’m so taken with the sea and the two swirling columns that we’re nearly across before I focus on what drifts above.

“Massa tells me that they are not as beautiful as yours.” Etria witnesses my wonder. “I believe him. We can try, but no copy rivals the original. Yet you can do marvelous things with mist and airflow and light. Yes, we call them clouds.”

“Best fake clouds I ever seen,” Jasper pipes up. He’s been quiet since Wren was taken, and I long to discover the streams of thought that flow through his mind. I wonder a lot of things about Jasper. Of all my companions, I know him the least, yet here I am, seeing the most astounding things with him.

Jasper strains forward. “That noise. Have we arrived on Holiday?”

I jerk out of my thoughts. It’s a playful noise, a rollicking noise, coming from the mass rising before us. Dusk has fallen
over the world of the Rats, and though I can’t see clearly, the sounds hold nothing to fear.

“These are the Dwellings, the Dwellings on the Rock.” Etria points at the mountain of stone. “They’re anticipating. Surely by now many can see us approach.”

“Many what?”

“Many people, Luca.”

The music, for that is what Jasper heard, gets louder and more beautiful. I stare at the mountain, and as I look, it shifts, clarifies. Specks of light dot its slopes like a thousand fireflies in the heat of evening. The mass does not rise gradually, but rather in an intentional symmetry, in plateaus. Both sides of the mountain resemble giant sets of stairs, and the flats are covered with movement. The mountain is alive.

It’s not a mountain at all. It’s a crystal city.

“Most people’s dwellings are toward the base. You, however, are headed to the summit. I think you will find our community quite beautiful,” Etria says. “If you walk the shore where city meets sea, you will eventually reach the artisan market. Perhaps in the morning you will find time to explore, but tonight, Luca, there is a gathering … and you are the guest of honor. No disrespect meant to you, Jasper.”

“None taken.”

We step off the path. Directly ahead, a broad road continues, winding gently up the mountain. Clearly a main thoroughfare like Swan Boulevard, the street weaves through rock-hewn dwellings of all sizes, its edges lit by thousands of dots of light, and randomly placed patch-prisms of glowing stone. There, similar to the spot I encountered earlier, light refracts like a rainbow, bathing all who stand nearby in shifting color. In that
glow, thousands of faces stare down at me. Jasper is here, but I feel naked, a one-person parade.

Surely it’s a mistake. Nobody knows why I came, why I came so soon on the heels of Father. I only need a place to hide. For me, for Father Massa, until I can figure out what to do; how to keep us both alive. I bury my face in my hands.

So much for hiding. Wren, I need to talk to you about this
.

An ovation begins.

“Well.” Etria turns to me and bows. “This welcome is not for me, so I will take my leave of you. Follow the lights. I’ll see you shortly.”

I gaze around. “I never wanted to be the center of this attention.” I turn back to Etria.

Gone.

“Sure,” I mutter. “I mean, go ahead and fade into the backdrop. Leave me surrounded by ten thousand extremely excitable Rats, with no clue where I’m going. Might as well.”

I wind through the dwellings to the cadence of my name. “Luca! Luca!” I smile and wave and wonder. Do they do this for Father when he comes?

Jasper swaggers, pausing every so often to offer an awkward bow. I’m glad he’s here, but he’s not my uncle. Seward should be walking in Jasper’s place. My face feels hot, and I turn from my posing companion. Little girls run out and throw flowers over my neck. It doesn’t help. Seward is the reason I live. His dreadful choice is the reason he does not.

I close my eyes. I don’t understand any of this. I just want him back.

“Oh!”

I collide and my eyes pop open.

Beautiful
.

I’m off the road. It veered sharply; I didn’t, and standing before me is a Her.

I’ve seen plenty of Hers before. I’ve gone to school with them. Purchased from them at the wharf. Noticed them and stared at them. More than once, I’ve gazed and pondered, Is that Her my match? Will we someday be together? But that’s as far as I let my mind travel.

Because I’m short and agemate Hers are always tall, and I’m not like Lendi, big and strong with Hers fighting back wrinkling smiles as he struts.

Maybe I’ll be the first New Pertian in centuries not to be matched.

I once told Father my concern and he said nothing, but later that night he laughed. A big laugh, clear and free.

“What, Father Massa? What brings you such joy?”

“Your words,” he had said. “You would not be the first. Now, perhaps you will be the second New Pertian not to be matched. That is a distinct possibility.”

His statement was not comforting.

But now I stand in front of a Her and I can’t move … Can’t because my eyes won’t stop roaming, pausing in places they should not pause. Inside, I warm, tingling in places I should not tingle.

Help
.

No, I take that back. Please, don’t help
.

“Luca.”

She speaks, and I flatten down my shirt, clear my throat. How do I return the greeting? My lips refuse to move and I stare at her skin, light and perfect, and her hair, raven black, cascading down in waves to her shoulders.

“My name is Luca.”

“Yeah,” she answers with laughter in her voice. “I know.”

“I walked off the road.”

She glances behind me. “I noticed that too.”

Around us, a new sound. A giggling. A laughing. Her mates all look and smile and laugh.

“Do you plan on staying here? Off the road?” she asks, and her voice is music. “With your hand on my hip? Generally, that spot is reserved for my own hand.”

I look down. It is there! My fingers, on her. I gently move my pointer and jerk my hand back to my side.

Hah! There! I officially caressed her right there! Oh, Luca, you should be undone!

“I’m so sorry. I’m going to start walking. Because that’s what I do. I walk. I mean, right now, I walk … I don’t always walk.”

She nods big and slow, and I back onto the road.

“Do you walk? I mean, of course you can walk. You know what? That sounded dumb. Forget that. I’m going to vanish, gone. I mean, walk gone … er, walk.”

I turn and stumble away to a chorus of laughter. My name echoes from all around me, but I tune it out and replay my words to this Her in my mind.

Stupid. Perhaps the most stupid words I’ve ever spoken. And to her! That Her
.

Jasper waits, and I catch up.

He seems confused. “How do you know someone from here?”

“I don’t,” I say. “Do me a favor. Look over my shoulder. What is she doing now?”

“The one you bowled into? Let’s see. She’s watching us, like everyone is watching us.”

“Watching, or
watching watching
?”

“Wait!” His eyes grow big. “She’s left her friends and burst onto the road. Well now, she’s racing toward you.”

“She is?” I grab his arm.

“No.” Jasper pries loose my fingers. “Luca, you need some rest. You’ve been through a day. Let’s get to the end of this parade and find sleep.”

Sleep and a pleasant dream
.

Father. Seward. Wren. I’m trapped in a nightmare where everyone leaves.

Well
,
except that Her
;
and she can stay as long as she wants
.