Dark World by Resha Caner	Table of Contents part 1 part 2, page 1 part 2, page 2 part 3 part 4 part 5 part 6 part 7
part 6 of 7

The tears required to rid the Captain of his guilt were unnumbered. Rather than seeking redemption, he hoped his agonized cries would drain his soul, leaving him a lifeless shell. He did not track his steps, nor did he map out a course in his mind. He simply wandered deeper into the forest, hoping the trees would grow thicker and cover his shame.

How could he? He had given his life to serving the Colony. He was willing to die for the Colony. Only now did he realize how much it meant for him to serve his people.

An incline grew before him, and the trees surrendered to grass, which then gave way to broken rock. He stooped to grab up some of the rubble catching at his feet, and it cut his hands. The hard, polished surfaces were not like the brittle, porous sandstone he knew from the tunnels. Everything was different.

Just when it seemed the slope would become a vertical wall, it flattened out into a ledge, and the Captain detected an end. Had he reached an even darker nothingness?

Below him, a crashing sound reached up to do violence to his ears. He smelled water, yet the strange odor of salt mixed with it.

“Where am I, Varus?” he asked.

“How did you know I was here?”

“You walk as silently as an angry cave bear. Did Penel send you?”

“So many questions,” Varus responded. “First, it is called an ocean. Second, yes, Penel sent me to fetch you back.”

“I’m not going back.”

“No?” Varus drew up beside him, and seated himself on the edge of the cliff, his legs dangling over so that his heels banged against the rock. He pulled one of his devices from a pocket, and flipped it on for the Captain to hear the buzz of static. “Then tell her so yourself.”

The Captain slouched and seated himself next to Varus, but he did not take the radio. Varus flipped the cover closed and placed it back in his pocket. “Did it ever occur to you that Penel is marked as a Queen?”

“She has not the knowledge to lead. It is the same as having no Queen at all.”

“She’s a smart girl... a smart woman. Her fast growth stage will soon be over.”

“You do not understand what it means to lead a Colony, to be the mind for thousands of souls. She cannot possibly be trained in time. The Black will attack soon.”

“Then take her away.”

The Captain blew out through his nose. Varus knew exactly what to say. His statement challenged the Captain, and accused him of cowardice for giving in. He was responsible for the danger the Red Colony now faced, and he must do something to rescue them — to rescue Penel.

“Where would we go?”

“Across the ocean.” Varus swept his arm out into the emptiness. “If you haven’t noticed, I am mechanically gifted. All I need is someone to organize the Reds, and I can give you a ship.”

“Before the attack comes?”

“Hmm. Well, you may need to be both General and Builder.”

“Two jobs?” the Captain scoffed. “You are full of strange ideas. What will people call me if I have two jobs? They will be confused.”

“That is the utility of a name. I am Varus no matter what I do.”

“And yet you are nothing. What purpose do you have if you only feed yourself? Where are your people? Why did you come here?”

“Everyone comes here eventually.” Varus picked up a stone and threw it into the ocean.

The Captain scratched at his cheek and took another deep breath of ocean air. The heaviness of the salt gave him some comfort, even though nothing protected him from above.

Once again Varus pulled the radio from his pocket.

The Captain drew a deep breath, took the radio, and said, “Hello, Penel.”

“Hello, Captain,” Penel’s cheerful voice crackled from the radio, giving the odd impression of a mixture of herself with Varus.

“The Scouts should be able to follow my trail. Bring whatever is left of the Red Colony with you, and instruct everyone to leave as little trace as possible.”

“We shall be there soon, Captain.”

“Very well.”

“Captain?”

“Yes.”

“I shall need a Templar, Captain.”

The statement made him laugh. “You have no idea what you are saying.”

“But I do need a Templar.”

“Penel.” The Captain paused, feeling the hot rush of blood into his face. Only Penel could embarrass him. “Penel, one job of Templar is to mate with the Queen.”

“Oh.”

“When the time comes, I shall help you choose a suitable man, but I am happy to remain Captain.” He handed the radio back to Varus. Turning toward the forest, he waited.

The Captain watched the arrival of the Red Colony with great pride. Penel remained the same little girl he had found in the nursery, yet she strode in front, leading with the true bearing of a Queen. She declared a new era for the Red Colony. Their numbers were few and many skills had been lost. They needed to be versatile, and everyone would have a name rather than a title.

For herself she chose to become Queen Penel rather than the Seventeenth Queen. She insisted on being part of every stage of the ship-building. She wielded a hammer like a Builder, and collected supplies for the journey like a Gatherer.

Yet, when it came time for the Captain to take a name, he repeated his choice. “I am happy to remain a Captain.”

Confident that Penel could handle the organization of the Builders, the Captain turned his attention to their defenses. The attack of the wolves had taught him the difficulties of defense in open areas, and he fretted over plans to hold off the Black army.

The Colony had moved onto the beaches of the ocean to build Varus’ ship. Caves in the cliff face afforded them shelter, but it was difficult to transport material from the forest above to the sand below. The Captain ordered the digging of trenches to run from the beach to the cliff. The trenches connected a series of steam vents, and water from the sea poured in to create an impassable wall of hot vapor. He then dug a tunnel from the back of one cave running out into the forest. The tunnel eased the transport of supplies and provided an obvious approach for the Black army in making their assault against the Captain’s fortress.

As the Captain reviewed the work, Varus passed by atop a new load of wood. He jumped from the wagon, landing next to the Captain.

“How goes it?” he asked.

“All we can do is delay them when they come,” the Captain explained. “The sooner you are done the better. When will that be?”

“I would say a week.”

The Captain shook his head. “Too long. I am surprised they have not attacked already.”

“What do the Scouts say? Why do they not come?”

“We have no news. We are deaf to their intent.”

Varus scuffed the toe of his boot against the floor of the tunnel as if hoping to dig comforting words from the rock, but none came. Instead, he changed the subject.

“Have you tried the audioscope?” he asked.

“Your new device? The machine that would allow me to see?”

“Yes.”

“I have been busy.”

“You’re scared.”

“I am not scared.”

“The sky is clear and beautiful.”

The Captain sighed. “It may be worth the wasted moment just to be rid of you.”

Varus clapped and shouted for joy. “Come!” His footsteps rattled away down the tunnel, and the Captain followed him onto the beach. There he handed him a heavy box, explaining how it rested on the top of his head with flaps that folded down over his ears.

The Captain disliked how the flaps muffled the sounds of activity on the beach, depriving him of his keenest sense. Then he heard Varus’ dampened, mechanical voice warn him to prepare.

The device began to hum, further confusing the Captain’s sense of balance. A wave of nausea spread through his stomach, and he raised his hand to tear the device off when strange forms began to take shape in his mind. They moved about, and he could sense the movement, yet he did not hear it.

He could stand the odd sensation no longer, and ripped the machine off. He put out a hand against the rock of the cliff to steady himself, and as his stomach settled down, the sounds of Gatherers moving out of the tunnel with a loaded wagon of wood met his ears.

“I....” the Captain stuttered.

“Are you all right?” Varus asked.

“I detected them.” He pointed toward the Gatherers. “Yet I did not hear them.”

“Yes!” Varus did a little dance on the sand.

The Captain pushed away from the cliff, and felt the device he still held in one hand. “I will try it again.”

Like a child with a new toy, he explored the sights of the beach and the ocean, and then upward into the sky.

“I am disappointed with your ‘sky’,” the Captain said.

“Why?”

“Everything I hear is different, not only in shape but in a way I cannot explain.”

“Things have different colors,” Varus said.

“Yes,” the Captain agreed, “like the difference between the voice of a child and an adult, or a man and a woman. But your sky is just an empty place filled with dots.”

“Those are planets and stars. Most worlds have a sun to heat the day. I wonder if you occupy a cooling star, for here your heat comes from the depths, and what little light is given on the surface comes from clusters of nearby stars. When I first arrived, I was amazed at the ability of your plants to photosynthesize...”

The words buzzed in the Captain’s ears without meaning, and Varus’ voice hesitated and caught. Varus chuckled at his own rambling.

“They are just dots.” The Captain waved toward the sky.

“No.” Varus stooped and lifted a round stone from a pile of ballast being collected for the ship. “They are great orbs of earth and rock, or of gas and fire. They are as large as your world here, but their distance makes them seem small.”

“How do you know?”

“I came from the sky,” Varus said.

The Captain laughed.

“It’s true.”

“Really. What brought you from such an amazing place to our simple world?”

Varus’s mechanical voice squeaked, and he tossed the rock back into the ballast pile. “When people first suspect their world is a great sphere, they want to prove it. The simple solution is to travel in an unbroken straight line. If the idea is true, one will eventually return to the start. There is a theory that the whole universe is much the same, that space folds back upon itself, and if one travels long enough, he will return to where he started. Instead, the search always brings explorers here.”

“You said this before. Why here?”

“Because the Convergence is here, the place where all the paths of space meet.”

“I don’t believe in the Convergence.”

“Whether you do or not has no effect on its existence. It is here. As you approach this planet, you can see beyond to the other side. But you never get there. You fly your ship until fuel is gone, and you never pass the planet. You crash here. You find the colonies, and the Queens who think they can pass beyond the Convergence, not by going around, but by digging right through the middle.”

“Is that what happened to you?”

Varus did not answer, but stood in silence. The Captain waited. In a breathless whisper, Varus said, “Maybe no other side exists. Maybe what we see is a reflection, like looking into a still pool of water on a dark night.”

“Then why do you continue to search?”

A Scout clicked at them from behind, and the Captain barked disapproval at the interruption. Then the full nature of the Scout’s agitation swept over him.

The Captain shot out a quick staccato of clicks to discern if the Scout’s anxiety foreshadowed the arrival of the Black army. The Scout indicated something much worse. The horror of the report made the Captain’s mind go blank.

“What is it?” Penel appeared behind the Scout.

Her voice broke the Captain from his frozen stupor. “We now know why their attack was delayed. They have been searching deep into the old Red tunnels, and they have found something.”

“What is it?”

“They have released the Seytan.”

“The terror of the deep places,” Varus said. “Made of earth itself, feeding on it, consuming the very roots of the mountains until they crumble to nothing. A thing that cannot be killed because it is not alive.”

“You speak as if you know it well.”

“I built it.”

* * *

Proceed to part 7...

Copyright © 2010 by Resha Caner