Eye of the Oracle (11 page)

Mara shrugged her shoulders. “Naamah says I look about fourteen years old, but I never could figure out what the stories meant when they talked about years.”

“Naamah is right, and it’s no wonder you don’t understand time. A hundred years ago, Morgan planted you in an older-style growth chamber, much like I just did to your spawn, and I uprooted you in your current form almost twenty years ago. But since time passage is skewed here, and you don’t age as the overworlders do, it’s useless to teach you about time, that is, until you visit the land above.”

Mara shivered. Her throat squeezed so tight, she could barely speak. “May . . . may I?”

“If your training goes well, I should be able to arrange it.”

Mara straightened her shoulders. “I’ll train well. Don’t worry about that.”

Mardon stared at her again, this time with narrowed eyes, as if trying to penetrate her mind. “We’ll see, won’t we?”

Mara clutched the edge of her smock. Why was he looking at her with that strange expression? But she had enough to think about just concentrating on what she needed to learn. This was her one chance to see the upper world.

Mardon waved his arm over the worktable. “Here is where it all begins.”

A collection of small glass jars covered the wooden surface, each one filled with clear liquid. She leaned over and peered into one of the jars. Suspended in the midst of the liquid, an eyeball-sized egg stared back at her. The eggshell’s outer membrane was semitransparent, and a tiny creature floated at the center, acting like it was trying to swim. It looked sort of like her spawn, except much smaller and without eyelets or lips.

“This is where we plant the garden, Mara. I experiment with different combinations of eggs and seeds to find which ones make the strongest embryos. I sometimes even combine two seeds into one to make them stronger.”

Mara kept her gaze fixed on the embryo. “Where do you get the seeds and eggs?”

“That lesson can wait until later. For now, I want you to see the beginning and the end.”

She looked up at him. “The end?”

He picked up a jar near the middle of the table and held it close to her eyes. “Do you see anything unusual about this one?”

She squinted at the tiny spawn. “It’s smaller, and it’s not swimming as hard as the others.”

“Exactly.” Mardon walked the jar to a door on his right. When he opened it, flames shot up from within, and a hot blast of air swept into the room. He dumped the embryo into the fire and slammed the door shut.

Mara pressed her hand against her chest and stifled a gasp. Nausea boiled in her stomach again.

“No use wasting time and space with that one,” Mardon said. He pointed at the spawns in the growth chambers she had seen when she came in. “These aren’t thriving, so I transported them in here to extract some genetic material. Maybe I can learn what we did wrong.”

“Then you’ll . . .” She gulped, nodding toward the fiery room.

“Yes. They’ll go into the furnace.” He counted the jars on the table. “I’m not sure yet, but it looks like five out of the twenty are female. When their gender becomes clear, I’ll keep one as a laborer to replace you.”

“Replace me? But . . . but . . .” She couldn’t even breathe.

Mardon laughed. “I didn’t mean you’re going to be eliminated! You’ll become my assistant. Someone has to do your old job.”

Mara exhaled slowly, but her relief quickly vanished. She pinched herself on the arm. How dare she feel relieved? She wasn’t going into the furnace, but what about all these poor spawns? Her lips trembled, yet she managed to talk without squeaking. “Will I have to do both the beginning and the end?”

Mardon tapped one of the jars with his fingertip. “You’re really worried about these spawns, aren’t you?”

“Shouldn’t I be?”

“They’re just embryos, not living, breathing, hard workers like you and your friends. But don’t worry. I’m not going to ask you to dispose of any. I’ll do that.” He picked up a fat scroll from the corner of the table and rolled it open. “I’ll teach you to keep track of the genetic combinations and note the characteristics of the embryos and the growing spawns. You’ll also learn to move the embryos to pots when they’re ready to root in soil.”

Mara tried to read the last line on the scroll, but it appeared to be just a bunch of indecipherable numbers. “Can I take care of the spawn I have now?”

“You may keep that responsibility along with your new duties.” Mardon rolled up the scroll. “He seems to be a good specimen, so you can perform the daily maintenance.”

“I’ve done feedings plenty of times.”

He patted her on the head. “Why don’t you feed him now? After you’re done, you can consider your banishment terminated and go back to your normal labors for the rest of the day. You may tell the other girls about your new position in the control room, if you wish, but they may not join you here. You know the penalty for anyone who enters this room without permission.”

Mara firmed her chin. She didn’t want to utter the words. Acacia had haunted her dreams for too many nights, and she didn’t want anyone else to suffer like that.

Mardon nodded toward the door. “After the feeding, go back to the quarry level. I’ll see you here in the morning.”

Mara walked out without a word. With the image of Acacia’s terrified face searing her mind, she knew a round of nightmares would torment her again tonight.

The light from the control room guided her to the lantern shelf. She picked up a lantern and mechanically struck two flint stones together to light it, listening to the sound of the control room door snapping shut and the lock wheel clicking as it spun around. Plodding in a daze toward her growth chamber, she remembered to pick up a jar of plant food from the spawns’ pantry as she passed by.

Her stomach grumbled. “Quiet,” she scolded. “There’s nothing in there for you to eat, unless you’re hungry for ground-up worm guts.” Her stomach churned again. “Yeah, I know. Our dinner won’t be much better.”

When she arrived at the growth chamber, her spawn grinned. Mara jumped up to the hearth. “Are you happy to see me?” She opened the jar and angled it toward the plant. “I have something new for you. I’m going to teach you to eat through your mouth!” She dipped her finger into the wet, loamy goop and smeared a dab across the spawn’s tiny lips. The little plant moved his mouth, allowing a narrow slit to open, and Mara pushed a morsel of food in. The spawn’s thin smile widened as it smacked its lips together.

Mara laughed. “This is going to be easy! You have to be the smartest spawn ever!”

When she finished the feeding, she caressed his green cheek. “Good night,” she whispered. The spawn’s lips stretched into a yawn, his eyelets fluttered, and he seemed to drift into sleep.

Mara kissed the top of his pod, then dashed out of the growth chamber. She bolted through the corridor and into the elevation shaft, grabbing a cudgel from the shaft’s platform floor. After rapping on a metal plate that hung from the wall, she shouted into a tube that ran down the shaft. “Chazaq! It’s Mara. I need to go down three levels.”

The platform eased downward. As the descent paused intermittently, Mara imagined the huge giant at the bottom letting the rope slide through his massive hands, grabbing it every few seconds to keep her from plummeting all the way to the brick-making kilns, a forbidden zone for all the girls.

Sulfur fumes assaulted her nose, intensifying by the second. When she reached the third quarry level, she jumped out and swiveled her head. A glow from the nearby magma river illuminated the enormous cavern, but it flowed behind a granite wall, safely away from her sensitive eyes.

“Paili!” she called. “Are you down here?” Three girls walked by, each carrying a bucket of wet rocks, but only one turned to look at Mara. With her glazed eyes and dirty chin and sweat dripping from her stringy hair, she seemed more dead than alive.

Mara pulled her coif from her pocket and mopped her brow. The heat was more oppressive than usual. “Paili!” she called again, tying her coif and stuffing her hair underneath. “Has anyone seen Paili?”

One girl poked her reddish head out from behind a stone column. “Washing.” She formed her words carefully. “Paili . . . is . . . washing.”

Mara knelt and untied a cloth from the girl’s ankle. “Taalah, hold still while I have a look at that cut.” The girl’s leg trembled, but Mara held it firm as she eyed a finger-length gash. “It’s still oozing blood, but I think it’s healing.” She reconfigured the cloth to place a clean spot on the wound and tied it securely. “Make sure you soak your ankle in the sulfur springs tonight and wash out the bandage.”

Taalah nodded and pointed. “Paili . . . come . . . now.”

Mara rose to her feet. Down in the quarry, a little girl skipped along a stony path that ran between a pair of shallow trenches, clutching the sides of her too-long inner shirt as she bounced toward them.

Mara waved at her. “Paili!”

The little girl glanced up and spread out her arms. “Mara!” She ran across a narrow rock bridge that spanned the closer trench and lunged into Mara’s arms. “You back!” she cried, nuzzling Mara’s waist.

Mara laid a hand on Paili’s dark wet hair. “Were you playing in the water?”

Paili shook her head, but when Mara glared at her, her head’s back and forth motion slowly changed to up and down.

“Where’s your over-tunic?”

Paili pointed at the closer trench.

Mara groaned. “Oh, Paili! What am I going to do with you? It’s a good thing Nabal didn’t see you.” She glanced around the cavern. “Where is he, anyway?”

Paili stomped once on the ground. “Brick room. He . . . back soon.”

Mara fished in Paili’s pocket and jerked out her coif. “He’s going to catch you someday, and you’ll be chiseling out growth chambers until you wrinkle up and die!” She tied the coif back on Paili’s head and gestured toward the trench. “Come on. Let’s dig up some magnetite.”

She slid down the short slope and grabbed up the dirty, wrinkled tunic. When Paili joined her, Mara pushed the girl’s outer garment over her head and tried to smooth it out, but her hand touched a sticky spot on Paili’s collar. She drew her fingers close to her eyes. “Blood?” She spun Paili around, pulled her collar away from her neck, and peeked down her back. She gritted her teeth and growled. “Did Nabal do this? Did he whip you?”

Paili nodded, whimpering.

“And he told you to wash the blood to hide it, right?”

Paili nodded again.

Mara released Paili’s collar and kissed her cheek. Tightening both her fists, she hissed, “Someday I’m going to kill that stupid dung-eater.” She snatched up a nearby bucket and glanced at the few small pebbles covering the bottom. “Was he mad because you’re behind on your quota?”

“No . . . find,” Paili said, turning up her palms. “All gone.”

Mara dug through Paili’s pocket. “Where’s your locater?”

Paili tucked her hair under her coif. “It . . . not work.”

“Here it is.” Mara pulled out a glass disk and laid it in her palm, gently swirling the metal filings inside. “It seems all right to me.” She took Paili’s hand. “Come on. Let’s find the biggest strike ever. Maybe Naamah will give us a fig cake with dinner.”

Paili grinned. “Fig cakes!”

Mara eyed the disk while slogging along the trench. As they passed by a trio of laborers digging into the slope, her leg brushed against a kneeling girl and knocked her into a pile of soot. “Oops!” Mara reached down to help the girl up. “I’m sorry!”

The other girl straightened and slapped Mara’s cheek. “You are bad!” she said, pushing her finger into Mara’s chest. “Acacia was good!”

Rage boiled, sending a surge of stinging heat through Mara’s wounded cheek. “Qadar!” she growled, raising a fist, but when Qadar covered her face with trembling hands, Mara let her arm flop to the side. She turned and strode farther down the trench. “Come on, Paili. Let’s go to the new dig area. I doubt anyone’s gone there yet.”

As she marched on, Paili’s gentle hum lilting behind her, the trench sank into a darker region of the cavern. The air grew cold, and the light faded, almost too dim to continue, but as they rounded a curve, new light poured through tiny holes in the floor up ahead. She stooped and signaled for Paili to join her.

The little girl huddled against her side. “Cold!”

“Stay close to me.” Mara hugged Paili and pointed at the holes. “I thought the light meant that the magma river flowed right under us. I guess it doesn’t, or it’d be a lot warmer in here.” She tapped on the rocks and listened. “Sounds solid enough.”

Paili wrapped both arms around Mara’s waist. “Go back. . . . I scared.”

“It’s okay.” Mara pushed on the ground with her free hand. The rocky layer bent downward, and small cracks etched jagged streaks in every direction. “Hmmm . . . Maybe it’s not so solid after all.” Grunting under the Paili-sized load, Mara pivoted on her knees and headed back. “I think we’d better ”

Suddenly the floor crumbled away. “Whoooaaa!” Mara slid into a gaping hole with Paili still latched to her waist. Mara clawed at the sloping sides until her fingers snagged something solid, keeping her from sliding any farther. Pain rifled through her arms as she and Paili dangled over a seemingly bottomless pit.

“Paili!” she screamed. “Hang on!”

Chapter 7

The Abyss

Paili’s arms tightened around Mara’s waist, nearly squeezing her breath away. Grunting and pulling, Mara inched higher. Ignoring her throbbing shoulder, she lunged upward, and her fingers groped for a new handhold until they finally found a sturdy ridge. As she dragged their bodies higher, streams of light flowed past her eyes like windblown fog, filtering into the slope and disappearing. Sounds of snapping arose from below, like hungry crocodiles vaulting to catch hold of her feet. Mara lunged again and caught the upper lip of the pit with one hand, then the other.

“Paili! Climb out!”

Paili clambered up Mara’s back and jumped from her shoulders to solid ground. Dropping to her knees, she grabbed Mara behind her upper arms and pulled much harder than seemed possible for a little girl. Mara dug her feet into the slope and scrambled to safety, then rolled to the ground, puffing.

Paili laid a hand on Mara’s cheek. “You okay?”

Mara rubbed her aching shoulder. “I think I’m okay.” She sat up and looked her in the eye. “What about you?”

“I . . . bleeding again.”

Mara scanned her body. “Where?”

Paili showed her a cut on her elbow. “Here.”

Mara eyed it closely. “It’s not too bad.” She looked over Paili’s shoulder at the pit a mere two steps away. She pushed Paili gently to the side and crawled slowly to the edge.

The ground near the pit seemed sturdy now, so she inched close and peered into the hole. Streams of light rose and fell as if something down below inhaled and exhaled radiant energy. With each rhythmic pulse, some of the light disappeared into spots on the wall, sucked in by some kind of mysterious force.

Mara slid her fingers down the side and touched one of the spots. It felt smooth and hard, like a polished stone. While probing the surface, she caught the edge, and the stone shifted. Another stream of light flowed up, weaved between her fingers, and disappeared into the stone. She pried it loose and laid it in her palm. Fitting snugly between the heel of her hand and the base of her fingers, a multifaceted jewel glittered at her, a faint beam of light emanating from one side.

Paili touched it with her fingertip. “Pretty!”

Mara closed her fist. “Yes, but what is it?”

Paili shrugged her shoulders. As Mara rose to her feet, a low moan drifted up from the pit. Both girls jumped back, clutching each other. A new chill ran across Mara’s skin, and she inched farther away.

Paili hung on to her elbow, shivering, while Mara stroked her hair. “I think we’ll look for magnetite somewhere else, okay?”

“Far . . . away.”

After several more steps backwards, Mara turned and held Paili’s hand. “If we tell Morgan about the pit and the gem, maybe we won’t have to make quota today.”

“Fig cakes?” Paili asked.

Mara strode forward, peering through the dimness. “Let’s not push it. I’m just hoping we don’t get whipped.”

Mara and Paili slid into the warm spring, each girl finding a place to sit so that the soothing water covered her dirty, scraped shoulders.

With a flickering lantern at her feet, Morgan sat on a rocky ledge next to the pool, holding the gem in her fingers and examining it carefully. “A deep pit, you say? How deep?”

Mara reached for her outer tunic and pulled it into the bath with her. “I couldn’t see the bottom.” She scrubbed her tunic in the bubbling water. “It was strange,” she said, looking up at Morgan. “Light streamed up and down, and some of it got sucked into that gem.”

“Very interesting.” Morgan drew the gem up to her eyes. “Did you notice anything else?”

“I did.” Mara turned to Paili and examined the whip marks on her back. “Oh, Paili! How could Nabal be so cruel to a little girl?” She squeezed water from a sponge, gently sprinkling the wounds as she looked up again at Morgan. “Did you see this?”

Morgan pressed her lips together and nodded. “Nabal will be terminated. We have a new giant ready to replace him actually a third giant we will call Nabal.”

“A third Nabal?”

“I’m afraid so. The first one died the night after he whipped you. But they are identical, so I fear the new one will be just as stupid as the first two. Still, if I show him the remains of his predecessor, perhaps he will not be as cruel.”

“Wow! I didn’t even realize you switched them.” Mara shivered, but it was a comforting shiver. “Anyway, we did notice something else, a horrible moaning sound, like someone down in the pit was terribly sad, like maybe he was lost.”

Morgan clenched the gem so tightly her knuckles turned white, but her voice remained calm. “Did it speak any words you could understand?”

Mara shook her head. “We didn’t stay long. It was pretty scary.”

“I quite understand.” Morgan nodded toward the tunnel that led to their sleeping quarters and held up the corners of two large cloths. “Here’s a sheet for each of you. After you wash out your clothes, hang them in the breezeway and go straight to bed. Naamah will bring dinner to you later.”

Paili clapped her hands. “Fig cakes!”

Morgan knelt by the pool and laid her palm on Mara’s head, her voice so soft it was almost drowned by the bubbling spring. “Take care not to tell Mardon about the pit. I know how important Paili is to you” her eyes turned fiery red “and how important Acacia was to you.”

Raising a lantern to light the way, Mara led Paili back to their hovel, a chest-high dugout in the stone wall. With her free hand clinging to her wrapped sheet, she ducked low and climbed down into their sanctum. Although their little sand-stuffed mats were no thicker than a finger, when Mara tucked herself into her individual cleft in the rock, she always felt cozy, far removed from stupid giants and their stinging whips, glad to forget about mining magnetite in stifling heat, at least for the night.

She lay on her mat and tucked her sheet around her body. “Are you warm, Paili?”

“No,” came the voice from the other cleft. “Hungry.”

“It shouldn’t be long. Morgan promised ”

“Time to eat,” a sweet voice called from the corridor. “I hear someone wanted fig cakes.” Naamah squeezed into the hovel and handed each girl a bread bowl filled with orange mash. A brown fig cake floated on top like a hunk of granite bobbing in a magma river.

“Enjoy the treat,” Naamah sang as she left the hovel.

Mara picked up her cake and let the mash drip from its edge. Naamah had never prepared appetizing meals, but this was better than nothing and more appetizing than a lot of the gunk they had eaten lately.

After several minutes of quiet chewing, Mara pinched the last bite of her bread bowl and threw it toward a fist-sized hole in the wall at the back side of their dugout. “Don’t forget to save a piece for Qatan!” she called.

Paili mumbled through her mouthful of food. “He not hungry.”

“Come on, Paili. Even a mouse needs to eat.”

Paili swallowed and sang out, “Story now!”

Mara drooped her shoulders. “Oh, Paili, I’m so tired tonight, I don’t think I can ” Mara suddenly lifted her head. “Do you hear that humming?”

“Naamah,” Paili said.

“Whew! Her timing is perfect again.”

Their petite mistress crawled down into the dugout with layers of clothes draped over her arm. “They’re dry,” she said, handing each of them their inner and outer garments.

Mara slipped on her inner tunic and folded her outer dress into a pillow.

“Would you girls like a song tonight?” Naamah asked.

“Song!” Paili chirped.

Mara searched Naamah’s eyes. What could be the reason for such a rare treat? “Sure. Why not?”

Naamah patted Mara’s folded dress. “Lie down, and I will sing you to sleep.”

Mara laid her head on her dress and closed her eyes, letting her mind relax. She might as well enjoy the song instead of questioning Naamah’s sincerity. With all the new happenings of the day, she needed something to help her unwind, and she wanted to be well rested for her new job in the morning.

Naamah’s smooth contralto crooned in Mara’s ears.

Alone in caves through darkest nights,

A bitter girl is mining ore,

With pick and bucket gathering rocks,

Confined to chains forevermore.

No life, no love, no mother’s arms,

Forever empty you will yearn.

The friends you love will fade to ash,

And you will see them fall and burn.

These caverns held the judging flow

Where floods awaited God’s command

To spring into the worlds above

And drown the souls who dared to stand.

So now these caves are empty tombs

For hopeless slaves who chisel stones;

Far worse than death as on their knees

These ghosts unearth their sisters’ bones.

Relinquish now all hope for grace,

For grace and mercy spew their scorn

At girls who live and die in caves

And those who dwell as underborns.

Naamah repeated the verses, each one filling Mara with sorrow. She couldn’t protest. Every word was true. There really was no hope, and her only real friend was gone forever. Grace didn’t exist. Mercy and hope were merely words in Mardon’s dictionary, flat and lifeless.

As the lyrics passed through Mara’s mind a third time, the song faded into oblivion, replaced by a fuzzy, dream-like voice. She knew she had begun dreaming, but as the dream progressed, it grew so real, she lost all consciousness of anything but the image before her.

“We’d better go,” Acacia said. “If Morgan finds us, we’re goners.”

Mara stuffed a small loaf of bread into her pocket and handed one to Acacia. “I’m not leaving without enough food. Paili won’t get her rations if she doesn’t come to the dining chamber.”

Acacia held out the loaf. “She can’t eat this much.”

“Who knows how long she’ll be sick?” Mara pushed the loaf into Acacia’s pocket. “I can’t risk coming back to get more.”

“The bell for roll call already rang.” Acacia pulled Mara’s arm. “Let’s go!”

Mara pulled back. “I have to get the bread to Paili!”

“Roll call first, then we’ll sneak out and feed her.”

The two girls ran through the tunnel, the lantern in Acacia’s hand guiding the way. After riding the platform down to the labor level, they hustled to their places in line, side by side.

Nabal glared at them and raised his whip. “Where were you?”

“Tending to Paili,” Mara said. “She’s sick.”

Nabal, towering at least four feet taller than any of the girls, glanced over at Paili’s empty place in line. He cracked the whip across Mara’s shoulder, tearing her skin.

“Owwww!” Mara dropped to her knees. As she fell, her loaf tumbled out of her pocket.

Nabal’s eyes widened. Acacia snatched up the loaf and took a bite from the end. “I was hungry,” she said, mumbling through her mouthful.

“That was your loaf?” Nabal asked. “Where did you get it?”

“The pantry,” Acacia said casually. She pulled out a loaf from her own pocket. “Want one?”

“You’re not allowed in the pantry!” Nabal roared, raising his whip again. “I will ”

“Stop!” a new voice interrupted. “What’s the problem here?”

Everyone turned. Morgan, her brow bent low, strode toward the line. Mara rose to her feet, trying to hide her pain.

Nabal lowered his whip and pointed at Acacia. “A food thief, Mistress.”

Morgan held out her hands, and Acacia dropped the loaves into them. “You stole the bread?” Morgan asked.

Acacia nodded. Morgan walked slowly past her and touched the wound on Mara’s shoulder as it bled through her outer tunic.

“Alone?” Morgan rubbed Mara’s blood between her finger and thumb.

Acacia’s eyes grew wide. She spoke quickly. “Nabal is a fool. He hit Mara when he should have hit me.” She pressed her thumb against her chest. “I stole the bread. I should be punished.”

Morgan brushed breadcrumbs from the material around Mara’s pocket. “I see.” Taking Nabal’s whip, she wound it up around her hand, her gaze locked on Mara. “Nabal, dismiss the laborers to the trenches and come with me. Bring these two girls with you.”

“Get to work!” Nabal bellowed. He then grabbed Mara and Acacia by their wrists and followed Morgan as she headed down a sloping tunnel. Nabal’s powerful grip seemed to squeeze the blood from Mara’s arm and shoot it up to her head until her brain pounded against her skull.

Morgan finally exited the tunnel through a tall, wide door. Nabal half dragged the girls through it and stood them on a spacious ledge that overlooked a deep, fiery chasm. As Mara blinked at the bright magma river below, she swallowed, hoping she didn’t look too scared.

Morgan eyed them both. She tore off Acacia’s coif and ran her fingers through the long tresses that fell to her waist. “If it wasn’t for the length of your hair” she yanked Mara’s coif away, letting her hair fall to her shoulders “and for Mara’s wound, I wouldn’t be able to tell you two apart.”

Morgan hooked her arm around Mara’s elbow and pulled her to the edge of the cliff. “Stand here,” she ordered.

Mara bent her knees, wobbling in place and hugging herself as she kept her eyes on Acacia.

In the same way, Morgan walked Acacia to the edge, then, keeping hold of her arm, she glared at Mara. “Your friend was ready to take whatever punishment you deserved. Do you think that’s a noble gesture?”

Mara couldn’t answer. She trembled harder and began crying.

“I’ll show you how noble it is. Watch and learn.” Morgan released her grip on Acacia and shoved her with both hands, sending her over the ledge.

Acacia plummeted toward the river of fire, her arms flailing and her cries piercing Mara’s ears. “Maraaaaa!”

Her body splashed in the magma, silencing her forever. Mara fell to her knees and sobbed, coughing, heaving, until she collapsed and fainted.

“Acacia!” Mara yelled, sitting up in bed. She bumped her head on the stone that covered her dugout.

“Mara?” Paili called out. “You okay?”

Mara rubbed her scalp. “I’m all right. Go back to sleep.” She slid out of bed, but as she tiptoed for the dugout opening, a scratching noise arose from the wall somewhere behind her. Spinning on the balls of her feet, she faced the direction of the sound and stared into the darkness, listening intently.