Strength of Stones Read online

  Jeshua stayed within the lines and walked around the curve. Half of the tunnel ahead was blocked by a hulk. It was thirty feet wide and some fifty long, rusting and frozen in its decay. It had been man-operated, not automatic—a seat bucket still rose above a nest of levers, pedals, and a small arched instrument panel. As a smith and designer of tools and motor-driven vehicles, Jeshua thought there were parts of the rail-rider that didn’t seem integral. He examined them more closely and saw they hadn’t come with the original machine. They were odds and ends of mobile machinery from one of the cities. Part machine, part organism, built with treads and grips, they had joined with the tar-baby mil-rider, trying to find a place on the bigger, more powerful machine. They had found only silence. They were dead now, and what could not rot had long since dusted away. The rest was glazed with rust and decay.

  In the tunnel beyond, stalactites of concrete and rusted steel bristled from the ceiling. Fragments of pipes and wiring hung from them on brackets. At one time the entire tunnel must have been filled with them, with room only for railriders and maintenance crews walking the same path he was taking. Most of the metal and plastic had been stripped away by scavengers.

  Jeshua walked beneath the jagged end of an air duct and heard a susurrus. He cocked his head and listened more closely. Nothing. Then again, almost too faint to make out. The plastic of the air duct was brittle and added a timbre of falling dust to the voices. He found a metal can and stood on it, bringing his ear closer.

  “Moobed…” the duct echoed.

  “… not ’ere dis me was…”

  “Bloody poppy-breast!”

  “Not’ing… do…”

  The voices stopped. The can crumpled and dropped him to the hard floor, making him yelp like a boy. He stood on wobbly legs and walked farther into the tunnel.

  The lighting was dimmer. He walked carefully over the shadow-pocked floor, avoiding bits of tile and concrete, fallen piping, snake wires and loose strapping bands. Fewer people had been this way. Vaguely seen things moved off at his approach: insects, creepers, rodents, some native, some feral. What looked like an overturned drum became, as he bent closer, a snail wide as two handspans, coursing on a shiny foot as long as his calf. The white-tipped eyes glanced up, cat-slits dark with hidden fluids and secret thoughts, and a warm, sickening odor wafted from it. Stuck fast to one side was the rotting body of a large beetle.

  A hundred yards on, the floor buckled again. The rutted underground landscape of pools, concrete, and mud smelled foul and felt more foul to his sandaled feet. He stayed away from the bigger pools, which were surrounded by empty larvae casings and filled with snorkeling insect young.

  He regretted his decision. He wondered how he could return to the village and face his punishment. To live within sight of Kisa and Renold. To repair the water trough and do labor penance for the stall owners.

  He stopped to listen. Water fell in a cascade ahead. The sound drowned out anything more subtle, but sounds of a squabble rose above. Men were arguing and coming closer.

  Jeshua moved back from the middle of the tunnel and hid behind a fallen pipe.

  Someone ran from block to block, dancing agilely in the tunnel, arms held out in balance and hands gesturing like wing tips. Four others followed, knife blades gleaming in the half-light. The fleeing man ran past, saw Jeshua in the shadows, and stumbled off into black mud. Jeshua pushed against the pipe as he stood and turned to run. He felt a tremor through his hand on the wall. A massive presence of falling rock and dirt knocked him over and tossed debris around him. Four shouts were severed. He choked on the dust, waving his arms and crawling.

  The lights were out. Only a putrid blue-green swamp glow remained. A shadow crossed the ghost of a pond. Jeshua stiffened and waited for the attacking blow.

  “Who?” the shadow said. “Go, spek. Shan hurt.”

  The voice sounded like it might come from an older boy, perhaps eighteen or nineteen. He spoke a sort of English. It wasn’t the tongue Jeshua had learned while visiting Expolis Winston, but he could understand some of it. He thought it might be Chaser English, but there weren’t supposed to be chasers in Expolis Ibreem. They must have followed the city…

  “I’m running, like you,” Jeshua said in Winston dialect.

  “Dis me,” said the shadow. “Sabed my ass, you did. Quartie ob toms, lie dey t’ought I spek. Who appel?”

  “What?”

  “Who name? You.”

  “Jeshua,” he said.

  “Jeshoo-a Iberhim.”

  “Yes, Expolis Ibreem.”

  “No’ far dis em. Stan’ an’ clean. Takee back.”

  “No, I’m not lost. I’m running.”

  “No’ good t’stay. Bugga bites mucky, bugga bites you more dan dey bites dis me.”

  Jeshua slowly wiped mud from his pants with broad hands. Dirt and pebbles scuttled down the hill where the four lay tombed.

  “Slow,” the boy said. “Slow, no? Brainsick?” The boy advanced. “Dat’s it. Slow you.”

  “No, tired,” Jeshua said. “How do we get out of here?”

  “Dat, dere an’ dere. See?”

  “Can’t see,” Jeshua said. “Not very well.”

  The boy advanced again and laid a cool, damp hand on his forearm. “Big, you. Skeez, maybe tight.” The hand gripped and tested. Then the shadow backed off. Jeshua’s eyes were adjusting, and he could see the boy’s thinness.

  “What’s your name?” he asked.

  “No’ matta. Go ’long wi’ dis me now.”

  The boy led him to the hill of debris and poked around in the pitchy black to see if they could pass. “Allry. Dis way.” Jeshua climbed up the rubble and pushed through the hole at the top with his back scraping the ceramic roof. The other side of the tunnel was dark. The boy cursed under his breath. “Whole tube,” he said. “Ginger walk, now.”

  The pools beyond were luminous with the upright glows of insect larvae. Some were a foot long and solitary; others were smaller and grouped in hazes in meager light. Always there was a soft sucking sound and thrash of feelers, claws, legs. Jeshua’s skin crawled, and he shivered in disgust.

  “Sh,” the boy warned. “Skyling here, sout’ go, tro sound.”

  Jeshua caught none of the explanation but stepped more lightly. Dirt and files dropped in the water, and a chitinous chorus complained.

  “Got dur here,” the boy said, taking Jeshua’s hand and putting it against a metal hatch. “Ope’, den go. Compree?”

  The hatch slid open with a drawn-out squeal, and blinding glare filled the tunnel. Things behind hurried for shadows. Jeshua and the boy stepped from the tunnel into a collapsed anteroom open to the last light of day. Vegetation had swarmed into the wet depression, decorating hulks of pipe valves and electric boxes. As the boy closed the hatch, Jeshua scraped at a metal cube with one hand and drew off a layered clump of moss. Four numbers were engraved beneath: “2278”.

  “Don’ finga,” the boy warned. He had wide grey eyes and a pinched, pale face. A grin spread between narcissus-white cheeks. He was tight-sewn, tense, with wide knees and elbows and little flesh to cover his long limbs. His hair was rusty orange and hung in strips across his forehead and ears. Beneath a ragged vest, his chest bore a tattoo. The boy rubbed his hand across it, seeing Jeshua’s interest, and left a smear of mud behind.

  “My bran’,” the boy said. The “brand” was a radiant circle in orange and black, with a central square divided by diagonals. Triangles diminished to points in each division, creating a vibrant skewedness. “Dat put dere, long ’go, by Mandala.”

  “What’s that?”

  “De gees run me, you drop skyling on, woodna dey lissen wen I say, say dis me, dat de polis, a dur go up inna.” He laughed. “Dey say, ‘Nobod eba go in polis, no mo’ eba.’”

  “Mandala’s a city, a polis?”

  “Ten, fi’teen lees fr’ ’ere.”

  “Lees?”

  “Kileemet’. Lee.”

  “You speak anything el
se?” Jeshua asked, his face screwed up with the strain of turning instant linguist.

  “You, ’Ebra spek, bet. But no good dere. I got better Englise, tone up a bit?”

  “Hm?”

  “I can… try… this, if it betta.” He shook his head. “Blow me ou’ to keep up long, do.”

  “Maybe silence is best,” Jeshua said. “Or you just nod yes or no if you understand. You’ve found a way to get into a polis?”

  Nod.

  “Named Mandala. Can you get back there, take me with you?”

  Shake, no. Smile.

  “Secret?”

  “No secret. Dey big machee… machine dat tell dis me neba retourn. Put dis on my bod.” He touched his chest. “Tro me out.”

  “How did you find your way in?”

  “Dur? Dis big polis, it creep afta exhaus’—sorry, moob afta run outta soil das good to lib on, many lee fro’ ’ere, an’ squat on top ob place where tube ope’ ri’ middle ob undaside. I know dar way, so dis me go in, an’ out soon afta… after. On my—” He slapped his butt. “Coupla bounce, too.”

  The collapsed ceiling—or styling, as the boy called it—of the anteroom formed a convenient staircase from the far wall to the surface. They climbed and stood on the edge, looking each other over uncertainly. Jeshua was covered with dark green mud. He picked at the caked rings with his hands, but the mud clung to his skin fiercely.

  “Maybe, come fine a bod ob wet to slosh in.”

  A branch of the Hebron River, flowing out of the Arat range, showed itself by a clump of green reeds a half mile from the tunnel exit. Jeshua drew its muddy water up in handfuls and poured it over his head. The boy dipped and wallowed and spumed it from puffed cheeks, then grinned like a terrier at the Ibreemite, mud streaming down his face.

  “Comes off slow,” Jeshua said, scraping at his skin with clumped silkreeds.

  “Why you interest’ in place no man come?”

  Jeshua shook his head and didn’t answer. He finished with his torso and kneeled to let his legs soak. The bottom of the stream was rocky and sandy and cool. He looked up and let his eyes follow the spine of a peak in Arat, outlined in sunset glow. “Where is Mandala?”

  “No,” the boy said. “My polis.”

  “It kicked you out,” Jeshua said. “Why not let somebody else try?”

  “Somebod alread’ tried,” the boy informed him with a narrowed glance. “Dat dey tried, and got in, but dey didna t’rough my dur go. Dey—shee—one gol, dat’s all—got in widout de troub’ we aw ekspek. Mandala didna sto’ ’er.”

  “I’d like to try that.”

  “Dat gol, she special, she up an’ down legen’ now. Was a year ago she went and permissed to pass was. You t’ink special you might be?”

  “No,” Jeshua admitted. “Mesa Canaan’s city wouldn’t let me in.”

  “One it wander has, just early yes’day?”

  “Hm?”

  “Wander, moob. Dis Mase Cain’ you mumbur ’bout.”

  “I know.”

  “So’t don’ let dis you in, why Mandala an’ differs?”

  Jeshua climbed from the river, frowning. “Appel?” he asked.

  “Me, m’appel, not true appel or you got like hair by demon grab, m’appel for you is Thinner.”

  “Thinner, where do you come from?”

  “Same as de gol, we follow de polis.”

  “City chasers?” By Ibreem’s estimation, that made Thinner a ruthless savage. “Thinner, you don’t want to go back to Mandala, do you? You’re afraid.”

  “Cumsay, afraid? Like terrafy?”

  “Like tremble in your bare feet in the dirtafy.”

  “No’ possible for Thinner. Lead’er like, snake-skin, poke an’ I bounce, no’ go t’rough.”

  “Thinner, you’re a faker.” Jeshua reached out and lifted him from the water. “Now stop with the nonsense and give me straight English. You speak it—out!”

  “No!” the boy protested.

  “Then why do you drop all ‘thu’s’ but in your name and change the word order every other sentence? I’m no fool. You’re a fake.”

  “If Thinner lie, feet may curl up an’ blow! Born to spek dis odd inflek, an’ I spek differs by your ask! Dis me, no fake! Drop!” Thinner kicked Jeshua on the shin but only bent his toe. He squalled, and Jeshua threw him back like a fingerling. Then he mined to pick up his clothes and lumbered up the bank to leave.

  “Nobod dey neba treat Thinner dis way!” the boy howled.

  “You’re lying to me,” Jeshua said.

  “No! Stop.” Thinner stood in the river and held up his hands. “You’re right.”

  “I know I am.”

  “But not completely. I’m from Winston, and I’m speaking like a city chaser for a reason. And speaking accurately, mind you.”

  Jeshua frowned. The boy no longer seemed a boy. “Why fool me, or try to?” he asked.

  “I’m a free-lance tracker. I’m trying to keep tabs on the chasers. They’ve been making raids on the farmlands outside of Winston. I was almost caught by a few of them, and I was trying to convince them I was part of a clan. When they were buffed, I thought you might have been another, and after speaking to you like that—well, I have an instinct to keep a cover in a tight spot.”

  “No Winstoner has a tattoo like yours.”

  “That part’s the truth, too. I did find a way into the city, and it did kick me out.”

  “Do you still object to taking me there?”

  Thinner sighed and crawled out of the stream. “It’s not part of my trip. I’m heading back for Winston.”

  Jeshua watched him cautiously as he dried himself. “You don’t think it’s odd that you even got into a city at all?”

  “No. I did it by trick.”

  “Men smarter than you or I tried for centuries before they all gave up. Now you’ve succeeded, and you don’t even feel special?”

  Thinner put on his scrappy clothes. “Why do you want to go?”

  “I’ve got reasons.”

  “Are you a criminal in Ibreem?”

  Jeshua shook his head. “I’m sick,” he said. “Nothing contagious. But I was told a city might cure me, if I could find a way in.”

  “I’ve met your kind before,” Thinner said. “But they’ve never made it. A few years ago Winston sent a whole pilgrimage of sick and wounded to a city. Bristled its barbs like a fighting cat. No mercy there, you can believe.”

  “But you have a way, now.”

  “Okay,” Thinner said. “We can go back. It’s on the other side of Arat. You’ve got me a little curious now. And besides, I think I might like you. You look like you should be dumb as a creeper, but you’re smart. Sharp. And besides, you’ve still got that club. Are you desperate enough to kill?”

  Jeshua thought about that for a moment, then shook his head.

  “It’s almost dark,” Thinner said. “Let’s camp and start in the morning.”

  In the far valley at the middle of Arat, the Mesa Canaan city—now probably to be called the Arat city—was warm and sunset-pretty, like a diadem. Jeshua made a bed from the reeds and watched Thinner as he hollowed out the ground and made his own nest. Jeshua slept lightly that evening and came awake with dawn. He opened his eyes to a small insect on his chest, inquiring its way with finger-long antennae. He flicked it off and cleared his throat.

  Thinner jack-in-the-boxed from his nest, rubbed his eyes and stood.

  “I’m amazed,” he said. “You didn’t cut my throat.”

  “Wouldn’t do me any good.”

  “Work like this rubs down a man’s trust.”

  Jeshua returned to the river and soaked himself again, pouring the chill water on his face and back in double hand-loads. The pressure in his groin was lighter this morning than most, but it still made him grit his teeth. He wanted to roll in the reeds and groan, rut the earth, but it would do him no good. Only the impulse existed.

  They agreed on which pass to take through the Arat peaks and set out.
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  Jeshua had spent most of his life within sight of the villages of the Expolis Ibreem and found himself increasingly nervous the farther he hiked. They crawled up the slope, and Thinner’s statement about having tough soles proved itself. He walked barefoot over all manner of jagged rocks without complaining.

  At the crest of a ridge, Jeshua looked back and saw the plain of reeds and the jungle beyond. With some squinting and hand-shading, he could make out the major clusters of huts in two villages and the Temple Josiah on Mount Miriam. All else was hidden.

  In two days they crossed Arat and a tilled terrain of foothills beyond. They walked through fields of wild oats. “This used to be called Agripolis,” Thinner said. “If you dig deep enough here, you’ll come across irrigation systems, automatic fertilizing machines, harvesters, storage bins—the whole works. It’s all useless now. For nine hundred years it wouldn’t let any human cross these fields. It finally broke down, and those parts that could move, did. Most died.”

  Jeshua knew a little concerning the history of the cities around Arat and told Thinner about the complex known as Tripolis. Three cities had been grouped on one side of Arat, about twenty miles north of where they were standing. After the Exiling, one had fragmented and died. Another had moved successfully and had left the area. The third had tried to cross the Arat range and failed. The major bulk of its wreckage lay in a disorganized mute clump not far from them.

  They found scattered pieces of it on the plain of Agripolis. As they walked, they saw bulkheads and buttresses, most hardy of a city’s large members, still supported by desiccated legs. Some were fifty to sixty yards long and twenty feet across, mounted on organic wheel movements. Their metal parts had corroded badly. The organic parts had disappeared, except for an occasional span of silicate wall or internal skeleton of colloid.