Twenty-Three

“Now you see,” said the Kallathik.

Long lines of the creatures clustered in the central chamber. Each held two double-headed, sharpened spears in their twin sets of arms. Lanterns had been lit, out of some bizarre concession to his presence that he still did not understand. The yellowish light seemed as if it had sparked a glow in the serried ranks of scaled bodies and in the deep shine of the polished ajura spears.

Tarlain swallowed. “But no, I don’t see,” he said one more time.

The Kallathik went motionless, but it only lasted for a moment. It swiveled its vast head and looked down at him. The scrutiny was expressionless. How could it have an expression? He had thought he was starting to understand these beings, but that was before.

“Is this all?” said Tarlain.

“We gather in all our places,” said the Kallathik finally.

Tarlain had no real idea how many of them there might be, but if all the cave systems around the area bounded by Yarik and Bortruz held gatherings like this, then the Guild hierarchy was in real trouble. The traditions of the First Families dictated harmony and order. There had never been resolution by direct action. Never. Even the way they had left the homeworld. Rather than fight, they had spent years maximizing their resources, and when the time came, the simply packed all they needed and left. They had nothing to combat this, nothing.

“There has to be a better way,” he said. “Can’t you wait?”

“We have waited long enough. These creatures are here to stay. We will change it now.”

Tarlain frowned. His heart was beating rapidly and his mouth was dry. He had no idea how much he dared, here in this, their place.

“But you must wait. We have to work out a way to make this right. Can’t we discuss this?”

The Kallathik face turned away from him, seeming to ponder the ranks of its own kind. There was another long pause. It clacked low in its throat, or where its throat should be, and in a sudden rush that again took Tarlain’s breath away, there was another standing beside them.

“We have discussed,” said the first Kallathik. “Tell this Tarlain Men Darnak, Guild of Welfare.”

Another pause, and then the new Kallathik swiveled its head to face him. More and more, Tarlain was starting to suspect that their communication went well beyond anything he, or any of his kind understood.

“The forests are not for us or of us. Still, they take the wood. They use the wood. They make us do things. More things every season. These animals, these creatures want more than they need. They take the wood.”

Tarlain frowned. “I don’t understand.”

The new Kallathik continued. “There are two new creatures on our world. One wants what it needs, like us. The other wants more. They are one but they are two. The mines. The holes in the earth. The forests. Their cities.” It stopped. Tarlain was about to ask it to explain one more time, but then it started speaking again. “The creatures will not go away, though we have waited. Now the Kallathik must make this change. We will find the ones that cluster in their own hives and drive them out and then we will be rid of them.” As if to emphasize its point, the Kallathik thrust downward with its sharp wooden spear. Tarlain took a step back.

The first Kallathik lifted its head to gaze up at the ceiling. “We watched them come. We watched the tiny caves that flew through the sky. We watched the ones fall and break. We watched the others.”

The other Kallathik continued. “Such tiny animals that emerged.” It gave the amusement sign, and the one standing next to him echoed it. “We thought they would go soon. We would go back to our places. Keep to our mines. Not let them see us. We could watch them. They would go away.”

He wasn’t quite sure, but Tarlain was starting to understand what the creature was saying. Over five centuries. That was a long, long time to wait. How long did these creatures live? Whatever it was had something to do with the ajura forests and their monopolization by the Guilds. He knew the wood was sacred. But the creatures had seemed so compliant, so passive apart from the irregular restive periods that came with the approach of Storm Season.

The first Kallathik made another clacking sound, and just as suddenly, the second creature was gone, rejoining its fellows in the ranked mass filling the chamber’s center. Tarlain shivered.

Humanity could not be so ignorant. Tarlain’s memory was full of motionless statue-like individuals, or a low shuffling gait through corridors and outside the burrows. He chewed at his bottom lip. Or perhaps these creatures were just much, much smarter than they seemed.

There had to be some way to reason with them.

“What do you mean there are two sorts?”

This time the reaction was instantaneous. The vast head swiveled to face him. Two sets of eyes fixed him with a gaze that pinned him to the spot. “You saw the others,” the Kallathik hissed and clacked. “You saw us joined together, here.”

Tarlain frowned. The Atavists. It had to be referring to the Atavists. Whatever they had planned, they had planned together. Sudden intuition dawned. The Atavists had every reason to want to see the structure of the Guilds tumble around them. And now it appeared the Kallathik had reason as well. He wondered how long they had been planning together, how long they had been holding these discussions, and more, he wondered how much the Atavists knew. The Kallathik had been waiting over five centuries, over one-hundred-and-fifty full seasons. He closed his eyes and let out a slow breath. All of this had been happening beneath their very gaze, beneath the gaze of everyone in the Principate and the Guilds, and it had gone unnoticed, or had it? What a fool he’d been. What a fool to think that he, small insignificant Tarlain, could have done anything.

A deep grinding sound came from the Kallathik beside him and one by one, was caught by the others in the chamber. The vast hollow space filled with sound echoing from the walls, issuing from hundreds of Kallathik throats and chests. It bounced from the flat metal surfaces, growing and deepening in intensity. Wincing at this new assault, Tarlain covered his ears with his hands, but the sound poured over him and through him, pulsing in vast waves through his body and being and deep within his mind’s lower reaches. One by one, the files of Kallathik started leaving the chamber, shuffling up the side corridors with an unhurried gait. The low animal rumble was now joined by the sound of hundred of thickly plated hides scraping along metal-clad walls. Tarlain clamped his jaw tight shut, watching as the chamber slowly emptied, the sound pounding at him, till eventually it faded, leaving him standing there alone, unsure of what he was going to do next, the echoes of the cacophony still ringing within him. Slowly, he lowered his hands from his ears, staring at the empty chamber.

There was nothing he could do to halt what the Kallathik planned. He could try and warn the Guilds, but that wouldn’t achieve anything. It was unlikely they’d even listen to him. He’d already seen what happened when he’d tried to discuss the Kallathik. It was, after all, why he had ended up here in the first place.

He closed his eyes. “Prophet guide me,” he said silently. Slowly he opened his eyes and looked around the empty chamber. He turned for the tunnel leading to his own burrow and headed out of the chamber, reaching automatically to find his mark on the tunnel entrance. There were a few things he needed before he left. And he was leaving, he was sure, of that much if nothing else. Perhaps there would still be time.

Chapter Twenty-Four