Chapter 7
Eventually we reached the bottom of the stairs and I felt Casian reach for me and put me on the ground in front of him. The space was dark but not overly musty like I had imagined. Someone had been keeping the ancient underground city from turning to ruin. Who?
This time I voiced my thoughts. “Who do you think has been using this place? I was told that the catacombs are inaccessible and dangerous to anyone foolish enough to try to maneuver through them. And how is it that Zeke knows this place?”
“Your friend knows more than he is at liberty to tell you. They believe it is for the safety of your people that no one should know or think about the ancient city. It might lead some to use these travel ways to the outside world.” He explained, as he had read not only Zeke’s thoughts but those of the Grande Regent, himself. “Your people are curious, inquisitive and they would wonder what the unknown world outside their city is really like. The catacombs might be a tool for them to find out. Such knowledge is assumed by some to be dangerous.”
I could guess who these ‘some’ might be, people like Mr. Rockthorn and his ilk who professed to always seek out new knowledge, yet frightened of a world they believed abandoned them. The ancient world outside our city had always been an elusive world, one that I had tried to conjure up in my mind through my grandmother’s efforts. But to actually experience this world would eclipse any imaginings I might have thought. I wanted to see this world; Casian’s world.
Casian flipped a switch on the wall, causing the room to flood with soft light. I was quickly learning to think of him by name and not as the man/beast. The floor was a little dusty, but overall the catacombs looked almost new. The ancient structure showed few signs of decay with old equipment and antique furniture lining the corridors.
“What’s this?” I picked something out of a crate of electronic equipment. It was a small device with a little screen on it, extremely barbaric in design, but kind of cute in its antiquity. I accidently pressed the face of the device and a little light shone behind the screen, an image of words I couldn’t read and pictures of people I didn’t recognize. There was a little wire attached to the end that split into two wires, the ends rounded with metal filters on the ends. It was some kind of listening device.
Casian peered over my shoulder, his face drawing in concentration. “I’m not sure. I’m not very familiar with antediluvian technology.” He took the little machine from my hands, running his fingers over it. Then he put one of the wires in his ear and pressed a button. He quickly pulled the wire out of his ear making a grunt like it had hurt him. “It’s loud.”
“I didn’t hear anything.”
He made a motion over the device, carefully putting the wires back to his ears. I watched him as he listened to the machine talk to him. I wondered what it was telling him. Perhaps it was a history recording device. It could likely tell us stories about the outside world. I was impressed that it still worked after all these years.
“What is it telling you?” I asked him, excited to know the words of my ancestors. “Is it describing the history of my people, our advancements in regeneration, or how we have harnessed the energy of cold fusion to construct new life? What is it saying?”
He didn’t answer, his concentration completely focused on listening to the archaic machine. He looked surprised, shocked, and then frowned and tilted his head as if mulling over the words. They must be truly wise individuals to harness the complete attention of this man. He seemed to know everything.
“Casian,” I yelled, trying to get his attention. He pulled the wires out of his ears, pushing the face of the device again to make the light behind the screen grow dark. “Did you understand what it was telling you?”
He cleared his throat. “I’m rather good with languages and differing dialects. This particular language I have heard spoken before, but not exactly in the same cadences; some of the phrases were off.” He put the machine back in the box, seemingly uninterested in it.
Well,” I said. “Can you tell me what it said to you?”
“It was singing at me, at least I think it was singing. I don’t care for classical music.” We labeled music over fifty years or older classical music. This music device was much older than that.
“So it is a music device. I like music.” I reached for the device in the box. Casian pulled my hands back, not letting me touch it.
“NO!,” he shouted. “You wouldn’t like it. It made strange grunting noises and swore at me. I think it hates me because when I first put it on, it shouted at me. I’m not going to let you listen to its foul words.”
“I wouldn’t understand what it was saying anyway. At least let me listen to the musical part of it. It can’t be so terrible.” I reached back into the box, pulling the device out and putting the wires in my ears. “And besides, it can’t hate you, it’s just a machine.” I pressed the button, making the light behind the screen shine up at me.
At first it sounded nice with several instruments weaving over one another, though I didn’t know what sort of instruments they were. Then the words came in. It was nonsense, gibberish talking. Then at a climatic part, the music driving fast, it shouted at me and I understood what it said. I quickly pulled the wires out of my ears and threw the machine back in the box.
“It called me a terrible name,” I told him. He wore that I told you so expression. “I can’t believe anyone would call that music. It is evil.”
“No, it’s just a different culture,” Casian said diplomatically, “One that I for one cannot begin to understand.”
We made our way through the lit corridors of the ancient city. This was part of my people’s history that I never thought to see in person. For some unknown reason it didn’t seem strange that Casian and I had become a team so quickly or that I was willingly going along with him. Though the words hadn’t been spoken, I knew when I had agreed to go with him into the catacombs I had also agreed to follow him into the unknown world outside my city. I was a rebel, an outlaw to my people now, through my own actions and sided against them. Though it hadn’t been my intentions at the time and I was surprisingly unregretful.
“They said you were injured outside our borders. Zeke said they found you along our Northern wall. What happened to you?”
“If I was injured it was because of your people’s actions. I was roaming along your borders, when a group of them found me, assuming I was trying to breach your city. I wasn’t prepared for their assault and they took me down unaware of whom or what I was.”
“Oh,” I said. That was not the impression I had gotten from Zeke. He had been injured by my people because they had interpreted his presence so close to us as a threat, an enemy to be taken down. “Are you all right now? Do you need me to take a look at you? I do have some medical training, I’m not licensed but I have a bit of knowledge.”
He shook his head in the negative. “It wasn’t serious; mostly they just knocked me out.”
“Then why did they bring you inside?” They could have easily left him out there to die. It would have been the cold and callous actions of someone like Mr. Rockthorn who would have left Casian unconscious in the wilds.
“Your friend, Zeke, the only decent person I had met other you of course, insisted that I was not to be left outside, but brought in. He only wanted to see that I lived.” He grumbled something under his breath that I didn’t catch. “Too bad he misjudged his own people so easily. In trying to save me, he nearly got me killed. I would have rather he had left me outside.”
“I’m sorry,” I whispered. “You must think us terrible people. I know if I was in your situation I would hate us. In fact I already hate Mr. Rockthorn and he’s been a family friend for years.” I turned to look at Casian walking next to me. “I guess I misjudged him as well.”
“And then you came, flying through that connecting door like an avenging angel.” He took my hand into his, holding it as we walked. “I don’t think you realize what an amazing person you really are, Lora.??
? I liked it when he said my name, his accent making my name sound different than when other people said it. “You, who have every right to hate me for bringing this down on you, only want to see to my safety. It is humbling to know someone could care so strongly about a stranger like that.”
I didn’t have the words to express what I was thinking right then. But Casian wasn’t a stranger to me. I don’t know why I knew this nor could I explain my reasoning. But I knew I wasn’t going to abandon him. I was also curious to see his world and I liked his company perhaps more than I should. It was a girlish thrill, but I liked having him hold my hand. It made me feel special, important and secure.
We had to stop several times while Casian punched in access codes that led us further away from the Medical Ward and out into the underground city. I wondered what was above us. Were we close to my own home? I didn’t live that far from the Medical Ward. What was my mother thinking right now?
Likely she had already been informed of my doings today. No one could keep a secret from Hanna Forest for long. And right now she must have been terribly disappointed in her only child. I was a grown woman, but even so, I still sought the approval of one of the most influential persons in my life. I don’t think I could have stood the thought of her hating me.
We walked through the corridors for hours, silence our only companion. It was slow going. If we had been above ground, we could have used a vehicle to reach one of the four border gates, but since we were walking through a maze of tunnels, it would take us much longer. I was tired and though I had no knowing if it was bright above ground or not, I felt that it must be nightfall. Casian must have sensed my lethargy, or else he was reading my mind again because he suggested we stop to rest for a few hours.
There was a small room that looked as if it had once been used as sleeping quarters. A low framed bed and boxes of books were the only objects in the room. Casian found and brought an antique table lamp in from the outside hallway and plugged it into an outlet in the wall. This place made me think I was in Renaissance times, when man was just figuring out the secrets of the universe.
“I found you a shirt,” I said as I handed it to him. There had been an entire wardrobe of what I had assumed were costumes in a room I had passed earlier while looking for a restroom facility. But then later realized they must have been fashionable back then. I wondered what my ancestors were thinking when they thought to wear these outfits.
He was looking through his bag when I entered the sleeping quarters with my discovery. I thought he must have been chilled walking around in nothing but slacks. The underground city was several degrees cooler than above ground and there were no temperature regulating devices that I had noticed.
“I’m not cold, but thank you.” He took the offered garment, pulling it over his head and fixing it over his body. He looked silly like he was pretending to be a character in a historical film. “I heard that,” he said, giving me a disapproving stare.
“Again, it’s your own fault for listening,” I said saucily. I sat down next to him on the bed, watching him rummage through his belongings. “Did they take anything?”
“No,” he answered. “I’m actually surprised they didn’t. I guess they didn’t see these things as of any use to them.”
There were some strange objects, boxes of herbs and minerals I had never seen before. They were personal treasures that meant nothing to my people, but likely meant everything to him. I noticed a bound book made from the same leather as his bag. The same lightning tattoo imprinted on the cover that I had seen earlier on his forehead. I looked at his face, yet I saw no tattoo. How strange, because I was most sure that I had seen it there earlier.
“It’s the recorded history of my people,” he explained, running his fingers over the cover. “For three hundred and fifty years my family has kept an account. This is my installment into the archives.”
No wonder he was so adamant about getting his belongings back. He was his people’s historian. Through his words, future generations could profit from his experiences. “May I see it? I promise to be careful.”
He nodded, handing me his book. I ran my fingers along the spine. “Can I open it?” He nodded again. As I flipped open the pages, I could see his perfectly formed handwriting, drawings of things he had seen on his adventures through a world I could only dream about. It was stunningly detailed. I was only disappointed that I couldn’t understand his people’s language. I turned a page, finding a flower pressed into the folds of the book. It had recently been put there. The petals were the exact same shade as his eyes.
I paused, my mind unable to register what I was looking at. It was so small, so delicate, and so unbelievably real that I could only stare at it with wonder. A flower, its petals flattened and pressed, the leaves slightly shrunken and beginning to dry out, tiny little brown spots forming along the stem.
“I forgot I put that there. I think I was using it as a book marker, but it was too lovely so I kept it.” He picked up the tiny flower. Holding it out to me, he smiled and I noticed he had a smile crease. It was charming, making him even more appealing, if that were possible. “For you,” he said gently, “I know it’s a little bruised, but I think I was saving this for you.”
I touched the flower cautiously, afraid to break it. Then I was holding its beauty in my hands and I was humbled. It was just a flower and at the same time it was so much more. Nani was right, it was so much better. I couldn’t understand how we could give this up or why we thought our creations were better. Maybe they were better than this sad smooched flower, but I wanted real over any perfection inspired hybrid.
“Lora,” he wiped my face with his warm fingers. I think I get a day once in a while to pull the water works, and today was that day. Casian must have thought I cried like this all the time, and over silly things like half dead flowers. “I’m trying not to read your thoughts, but if you don’t tell me what you’re thinking right now I might have to.”
“It’s a real flower,” I said, my voice a little shaky with the emotions I was feeling. “You found this out there in the unknown.” I brushed a single petal, felt its softness against my skin. “It’s beautiful.”
“I knew women liked flowers, but I’ve never seen one cry over them.” He took the flower from me. I think I was crushing it. Putting it back inside the book, he closed it. “There was an entire meadow of them, in a valley between three mountain peaks. I’ll take you there if you want.”
“An entire valley full of these flowers,” I rambled to myself. “I didn’t think such things existed out there. The outside is dark and dangerous, evil creatures and ugliness exist outside our borders, not beautiful flowers.”
“Sometimes, we lock ourselves away because we think it makes us safe.” I looked up at him as he spoke. “Your people believe that outside their city walls is a world that is dangerous and uncontrollable. They’re right. But that is the nature of this world; it is both dangerous and beautiful. Your people are missing out on so much because of fear.”
“It wasn’t always supposed to be like this, you know?” I told him what I had believed all along, what my grandmother and father had believed. “This was supposed to be a temporary solution to our problems. At first it was so, because we needed a way to survive and then everything changed. We thought we were better, that we could make a world meant for us and we could control it. Your world can’t be contained, the other doesn’t listen to our requests; it just is without us. That’s a scary concept to my people.”
“But even inside your city, your people are subject to the rules of the outside world. This domed city of security is a very extensively planed illusion. Your people can’t live here forever. Eventually they will be forced to come out to seek new resources.”
“It seems they already have,” I uttered quietly, a startling realization falling on me. “You said my people attacked you outside our borders. Why were they even outside to begin with?” There were so many secrets kept from my people that it made me an
gry. “No one is ever supposed to leave our borders. No one has in over fifty years. They told us it was for the best, but they lied. They just didn’t want us to know that it was safe to leave, as safe as it could ever be on the outside.”
“Yes,” A simple statement, confirming the truth. He had read their thoughts; he knew the truth as much as anyone could. “You know your people better than I. Though your knowledge is vast, you cannot survive without replenishment from the outside. Though they would deny it, the makings of man must come from the makings of the natural world. It is the way it has been since the beginning, and we cannot deny its influence on us.”