What we see on the surface is but a vague and faulty impression of the universe buried beneath.---Wesley of Dunáya
Kareth woke in darkness, flat on a cold, bumpy surface. Reaching out and up, she touched a sticky stone wall. Her nose ached with an odor; the agony of the smell distracted her from the stiffness all over her body. She rubbed her arm, and then her face; both were smooth, but in the shadow she couldn't tell what color her skin was. She wore an unfamiliar rough cloth. And then her breath caught: There were no life sparks, nothing in the stone or in the rags beneath her, only the cold, slimy and rough texture.
Something rustled and moaned next to her, brushing her shoulder with its closeness. "Where am I?" Kareth's voice sounded and felt scratchy. She lifted her shoulders, but her head felt heavy and pulled her back to the floor. She turned her head to the source of the rustling and saw an outline of a figure rocking.
Muffled words came to her ear. "My faul' she die. She die. My faul'..." It was another human, but without the life sparks or adequate light, she couldn't tell if it was male or female.
She was with a human in a closed space. The last human had burned her alive; Kareth braved speech anyway. "I'm not dead. Actually, I can't die, and what happened wasn't your fault, unless you started my fire. What happened? How did I get here?"
"My faul'!" The human rocked on ankles more vigorously without looking at Kareth.
"What makes you think it was your fault? Who are you?" Kareth sat up dizzily, grasped the person's arm, and looked at her. Or was it him? No, her. The woman's life sparks were faint, but clearly feminine. Kareth saw tears that vaguely reflected light filtering in from a horizontal band at the base of a wall opposite. A door. Kareth saw by the light that the room was perhaps two paces wide, four paces long, and just tall enough for a person to stand near the door. Just enough room for the person to rock without compressing Kareth.
The woman paused and looked at her. "You bun!" said the woman.
"Yes," said Kareth, "I was burned alive by a horrible man."
"You bun! You be'r."
"I can't die," said Kareth. The woman's eyes opened wide in the faint light, twitching. "I'm not completely better, though."
"Mih ih way ie," gurgled the woman. Her speech sounded different from language Kareth had heard, more labored, as though forming words proved an endless and never successful effort. She barely formed the hard sounds, and the soft sounds were jumbled. Kareth understood them as well as she had the different scripts on the journals' spines, as well as any Ancient could understand any language she heard. Mistress waiting is what the woman meant.
Kareth spoke slow and clear, because she knew that's how the woman would understand her. "What is she waiting for?
The woman's body shuddered and she kept rocking.
"It wasn't your fault. I don't know what happened, but I don't see how you could be responsible." Kareth felt in the woman a thoughtless loop with no meaning beyond the words; to her, there was nothing beyond her repetition.
"My faul' she die!"
"You must be talking about someone else because I'm not dead, and you must know that I'm not because I'm here, and I'm not burned anymore because my body regenerated. Did you bring me in here?"
The loop broke. "Mama! My faul' she die."
"Your mother is dead?" She wondered if all humans suffered such pain as Kareth had suffered as they die. A squeak and a rustle, and a small furry creature scurried between her and the woman to a darker corner of the room. "What happened to your mother?" The furry creature was a rat, she realized.
"My faul' she die baby!"
Answering Kareth's question with clarity was beyond her ability. "What's that smell? Where am I?"
She ceased rocking and turned to face Kareth. "Woom."
"You live here? I would think there would be a larger room for you."
"My woom."
"Why don't I know what the smell is? I usually recognize things. It's not a pleasant smell."
"Woom," the woman repeated. It was her room, and it always smelled like that. The meaning was clear to Kareth's language-sense.
"But what is the smell?" The loss of life sparks hit Kareth again and she fell back. "I've lost almost everything. You'll need to help me, because I don't know anything." She concentrated on what was making the smell, and she felt nothing but the smell and the uneven floor at her back.
"Sia," said the woman. I'm Sirah. The smell is me.
"My name is Kareth." The woman stroked Kareth's forehead. It soothed some of Kareth's tension. Sirah's faint life sparks hugged each other. If Kareth had been whole, she would have felt them as brilliant.
"You hung?" said Sirah.
"Not exactly. I think food would make me sick."
Sirah jumped to her feet. "I bing you somefing."
The door opened, and a large figure, a woman, stood over them with light from another room reflecting on her. Red, rough skin covered her face and hands; a brown dress covered the rest of her plumpness. "There you are, Sirah!" She struck Sirah's shoulder with a heavy fist; Sirah shied away from her, difficult because of the closeness of the room, and stumbled onto Kareth. "What do you mean, stealing a body? You can't go hiding when you done wrong, girl." The woman pulled Sirah from Kareth's chest, then hit her again. "Get back to work before I smack you harder. Master Manallister will have a few words for you."
"Don't hurt her!" said Kareth, sitting up. The large woman gasped and let go of Sirah's arm; Sirah squealed, then ran into the other room. "Sirah was trying to help me. She didn't hurt me. I'm not dead."
"Oh. I see you're not." The woman grunted, smoothing her skirt with both hands. "She can't help no one, and I'm sorry she put you in here. She takes things, whenever she wants. Sick kittens that die on her. Little scraps of trash. You can see how her room is. I only keep her 'cause she don't got nowhere else to go. Well, you gonna stay in this squalor, or you coming out where civ'lized folks is?"
"How did I get here?" Kareth struggled to stand; the woman tweaked her nose, turned briskly, and stepped away from the door. Kareth pressed up from the floor and leaned on the wall for support, then dizzily followed the woman out to a dim room where a low ceiling slanted. Stacked tables, chairs and other items cluttered the area, leaving only a narrow passage in which to walk.
"I'm Elnore Manallister," said the woman without looking back. "Old Gunther found yer body out by the cottage what burned last summer. Brought you here to Dunya fer a proper burial." Elnore led Kareth to stairs descending where light filtered from beneath. Kareth followed slowly. Weakness caused her limbs to tremble, so she grasped a wooden handrail, cautious of her balance on the steep ledges. "He figgerd you deserved it, see'n as how no one knew nothing bad you done. His missus got ya the dress yer wearin'. Gotta respect people o' the forest what try their best to get by, and die alone. Sirah musta seen you wasn't dead in the cart, bless her heart, she's as dumb as a rock, but she sees things sometimes."
They came to a hallway with a dozen doors on either side, then went down another staircase. It led to a large room with five long tables and a score of men and women eating a meal, laughing and chatting. Fireplaces burned bright at either end of the room, and shining lamps hung from wooden beams in the ceiling. The air smelled savory, like the meat Kareth had eaten, and warm with bread. "This is my place," said Elnore. "A clean place to eat and sleep, 'cept where Sirah lives. Yer skin always gray?"
Kareth looked at her arms: They were the color of light slate, similar to the floor. The people at the table had skins ranging from pallid pink to a rich brown similar to the tables. "I don't know," said Kareth. "Gray isn't common around here?"
Elnore laughed. "It ain't common nowhere, girl. Where you from?"
"The forest. I'm an Ancient, and I don't know much of anything yet because I only just emerged."
"Emerged from what?"
"The pool of the Dunáya Forest."
"Ha. Ancient? You couldn't be more than twenty, girl."
"Twenty what? I don't know how long I was, well, laying in the forest before Gunther found me," said Kareth.
"I hear talk of crazy people in Dunya," muttered the innkeeper. Then louder, "I can't believe Sirah pulled you up all that way. I's in the kitchen when one of the folks asked how the sick woman was. 'Sick woman? What you talkin' about?' I said. Sirah had pulled you all the way up. That girl's stronger than she looks. She's got spunk, even if she is stupid. Sit... what's yer name?"
She sat. "Kareth."
The woman glared down at her, fists on hips. "Just 'Kareth'? Don't you got a family, girl?"
"Well, not exactly. I already told you, I'm an Ancient."
"That's supposed to mean somethin' to me? Is it a secret order or somethin'? No good ever came from no secret soci'ty."
"I don't think we're a secret. You must have heard about the Ancients of Dunáya. I think we've always been involved with humans."
"Humans?" Elnore Manallister laughed. "You must be crazy, or sicker than you think." The innkeeper sat across from Kareth, then tapped her fingers on the table. "There is talk of strange goings on in Dunáya. All nonsense. Trees turning into stone. Wild animals talking. Men and women living forever. True love found. Perfectly normal people going in and coming out with horrible disfigurement, or madness."
"It's true we don't die. My house burned down. It was horrible. I guess I was unconscious for a while. I haven't seen any of the other things, except the disfigurement. But I don't know what's happened in the past because I didn't read the Ancients' journals before they burned."
"You can read and write, huh? That's always a useful skill. You a scribe, girl? I never seen a girl your age a scribe."
"All Ancients can read and write, but I don't know if I'm a scribe because I've never seen it. What's a scribe?"
"You can read and write and you don't know what a scribe is? Why did yer Order of the Ancients teach ya to read an' write, if not to write fer folks?"
"Nobody taught me, I emerged with the ability..."
"Humph." Elnore shrugged. "Well, we need a scribe in Dunya."
"...I'm the only Ancient around here, since Mona became complete."
"Mona." Elnore tapped her cheek. "Mona sounds familiar, though."
"She was the Ancient before me. I'm sure she came into the town before."
"She probably did. I see a lot of folks in my work. Why's your skin gray?"
Kareth looked at her hands. "It's because I turned into stone before my house burned, and I guess the color stuck, even after I burned to char."
"What's that supposed to mean? Nothing you've said makes any sense."
"Doesn't it? Shall I try a different language?" Kareth searched her mind for a different way to say things, but nothing came but Sirah's awkward speech; she doubted one such as Elnore would understand it. "I guess I can only speak a language I've heard. How would you like me to say things so that they make sense?"
Elnore Manallister slapped the table and laughed. "Maybe they do make sense, Kareth, in a strange way. Maybe I'm dumber than Sirah, and I can't grasp it."
"I think Sirah understands me."
"I am dumber than her, then." She smiled. "Yer a strange girl, but I could like you."
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Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4