Reunification (17 page)

But the longer we walked, the less likely
it seemed to me that anything but rodents did make their home down
here. No enemies or monsters came out of the dark; nothing to
indicate that anyone besides ourselves had ever been down here.
Indeed, I began to believe that this place perhaps had been
designed by the Old Gods as a way to let us escape, so maybe I had
not angered them after all.

Though I kept that particular opinion to
mine self; Resita would likely ridicule me if I shared it aloud.
After all, he clearly did not believe that the Old Gods existed,
which was a shame, but not unexpected, considering how skeptical
the Xeeonites were of religion and spirituality in general.

We kept walking until we reached what
appeared to be a dead end. There was no way to keep walking here;
nothing but a solid concrete wall in our way, like a mountain range
separating two countries. Resita and I searched its surface, hoping
to find another panel that would open to a secret passageway, but
alas, we found no panels for us to push, nor any clues that might
have hinted towards this wall being anything other than a simple
wall.

“
Great,” said Resita,
throwing his arms up. “Stuck again. Looks like I got my hopes up
for nothing.”

I said nothing, because I was busy feeling
along the other walls for anything that might help us to escape. I
doubted severely that this was a true dead end, because it made no
sense for someone to go to the trouble of creating this tunnel only
to make it impossible to leave. Therefore, there had to be another
way out, even if it was not immediately obvious.

Then mine fingers wrapped around what felt
like the bottoms rungs of a ladder. 'Twas too dark to tell for
certain, of course, but that was what it felt like, so I grabbed
the ladder as tightly as I could and pulled.

The ladder came down with a
clang
that echoed in the tunnel. The clanging made Resita cover his ears
with his hands, though it was not very loud to me. Perhaps Resita's
ears were simply more sensitive than mine.

“
How did you find that?”
Resita asked, lowering his hands now that the sound was no more
loud.

“
I felt for it, of
course,” I said. “Now, let us climb this ladder and see where it
goes. It will probably take us to freedom; but if not, then at
least to some place better than where we already are.”

“
You go first,” said
Resita, gesturing at the ladder. “If there's some kind of threat or
enemy up there, you will be able to fight it better than
me.”

“
Indeed I will,” I said.
“Once I scout what's ahead and confirm that it is safe to proceed,
I shall call ye up after me.”

“
All right,” said
Resita. “Hope you catch a good updraft.”

I stared at him in puzzlement. “What?”

“
Oh,” said Resita. “I
forgot. You're not a Checrom, so obviously you wouldn't know. Well,
that phrase is basically like saying 'good luck.'”

“
Ah,” I said, turning
off my energy knife and putting it in the pocket of my pants.
“Well, thank ye for the luck. I hope that I do indeed catch a good
updraft, then, as well as continue to have the luck of Walnak upon
me.”

Thus, I began climbing the old ladder,
which did feel strong enough to hold my weight. It creaked slightly
under my weight, but it did not feel like it would break or drop;
hence, I climbed upwards without fear.

It did not take me long to reach the top,
where I discovered some kind of hatch—much bigger than the drain in
the waste chamber—closed above mine head. I at first feared that
the hatch might be locked, but when I pressed one hand against it,
it lifted slightly, which renewed my courage once more.

But I did not push it up completely. I
lifted the hatch carefully, for I did not know what lay on the
other side. There might have been an enemy, perhaps one of
Xacron-Ah's minions, watching this hatch, waiting to attack anyone
or anything that came out of it. Perhaps even more of those lizard
creatures, a thought which made me shudder.

Hence, I pushed it gradually, inch by
inch. As I did so, tiny rays of light sneaked through the gap, an
encouraging sight, for it meant that this hatch did indeed lead us
outside. Praise be to the Old Gods!

'Twas not the light that most excited me,
however, but the air. A clean air, better than the stink that had
clung to mine skin like a parasite, entered my lungs. It was not as
pure as Delanian air—the Xeeonites were polluters of the highest
order, after all—but it was superior in every way to the air of the
tunnel below, and then some.

Indeed, for a moment I almost allowed
myself to be swept away by the air's cleanness, for it felt like it
had been eons since I had last tasted pure air. But then I
remembered mine mission and put aside my feelings of joy in order
to focus on my current objective.

By now, I had lifted the hatch enough for
me to see the outside environment. I peered through the crack,
eager to see where this hatch led. I hoped it would be somewhere
near Xeeon, because then I would be close enough not only to
contact my fellow Knights, but also possibly run into Kiriah again.
Maybe I would even see Xacron-Ah and teach him a lesson for
attempting to murder a proud Knight of Se-Dela.

Sadly, however, what I saw was not the
concrete pavements and massive skyscrapers of that city, but
barren, rocky desert. I lifted the hatch a little higher in order
to see my surroundings better.

Yes, I had indeed emerged in some kind of
desert. I saw reddish sand, like it had been painted thus by an
artist, and boulders of a similar hue wherever I looked. In the
early morning sky above—for that was what the time seemed to be,
based on the position of the sun, though I was no expert on
Xeeonite time, so I did not know for certain—a dozen bat-like
creatures soared in a circle, perhaps honing in on some poor
creature that had been unlucky enough to end up out here.

With a grunt, I pushed the hatch all the
way open. It fell backwards onto the sand with a
clang
, but
I did not pay much attention to that, for I was now looking at mine
environment even more closely than before.

What I discovered was that I had not ended
up in a desert, not exactly. It appeared I had emerged onto what
appeared to be a canyon of some sort, though knowing nothing about
Xeeonite geography, I could not tell exactly where we were. Harsh,
jagged scars ran along the reddish rock walls of the canyon, while
some kind of whitish snake slithered only feet from the hatch
(though thankfully it did not notice me; it was about six feet
long, from what I could tell, and its fangs must have been three
inches long).

No matter what direction I looked in, I
did not see any sign of civilization. No skyscrapers, no loud,
noisy hover vehicles, no roads, no law enforcement robots, no big
telescreens of any sort, and most certainly no businesses or
restaurants for me to patronize. Did appear that we were in the
very middle of nowhere, a thought which hardly comforted me.

“
Hey, Apakerec!”
Resita's voice called from below. “What do you see? Where are
we?”

I looked down into the dark hatch and
yelled, “I know not where we have emerged, my friend! Does look
like some kind of canyon, but which canyon, I do not—”

“
Canyon?” repeated
Resita's voice, rudely interrupting me before I could finish mine
sentence. “What do the canyon walls look like?”

“
They appear as if a
giant knife had been run through them by a god,” I reported, though
not kindly, as I was still bothered by his rude tone. “Why? Do ye
know this place?”

“
Apakerec, get back down
here
now
,” Resita's voice boomed from below, so loud that I
almost lost mine footing. “Quickly, before he gets you.”

“
He?” I repeated in
annoyance. “Just who is this 'he' ye speak of? I see no 'he' around
here, nor even a 'her' for that matter.”

“
I'll explain when you
get back down,” said Resita, whose voice now sounded as concerned
as a mother hen's cluck for her chicks. “I know it probably doesn't
look like he's there right now, but I promise you that if you stick
around long enough, he'll—”

“
Stop speaking in
riddles, you cur,” I shouted back, not bothering to be polite about
it. “Until ye explain to me exactly what ye are so concerned about
getting me, I will not go back down into that infernal,
hateful—”

I ceased speaking when I heard something
large crunching across the sand nearby. I nearly turned mine head
to look, but then two thick metal fingers clamped around my head
and lifted me out of the open hatch before I could so much as
scream.

I kicked and punched, but my hands and
feet only flailed about uselessly in the air. I heard Resita crying
out my name in the hatch, but then a metallic tentacle slammed the
hatch shut, immediately cutting off Resita's cries.

“
There, there,” said a
deep, mechanical voice behind me, a voice so cold that it made me
freeze in terror. “You don't need your little friend, not when you
have me.”

The fingers rotated, turning me around
until I was facing the speaker of the voice. I knew not what to
expect, but whatever expectations I may have had in my mind, they
were utterly shattered by what I saw in front of me.

'Twas a robot; that much was certain, for
its entire form was covered in unnatural metal skin. But it was not
a clean, well-kept robot, like the kind I had seen back in Xeeon.
Sand crusted its metal plating, and where sand did not reign, there
was instead rust. The machine appeared to have been out in the
wilderness for its whole life, as if no one had taken care of
it.

Yet that was the least disturbing thing
about its appearance. It had twin green eyes—optics, I believe the
term was, though I knew little about proper robot
terminology—perched atop a head that was almost entirely sharp,
jagged teeth that looked like actual teeth. Its arms were thick and
long, though instead of having a left hand, it had a tentacle, that
same tentacle that I had seen close the hatch.

This thing was far taller than any robot I
had seen. Whereas most Xeeonite robots were roughly as tall as a
full-grown human, this thing had to be at least twice as tall as I,
if not taller. 'Twas so tall that I feared that I would suffer
great pain if it decided to drop me onto the sand below.

Perhaps most disturbing and disquieting of
all was the intelligence in its eyes, intelligence I had never
witnessed in the eyes of any machine before. 'Twas not the cold
artificiality of a robot, but the thinking natural warmth of a
living being. How that made any sense, I knew not, but I was too
terrified to even think about it.

“
What's this, what's
this, what's this,” said the machine, grinding, mechanical noises
punctuating its words. “A human, I see, but not a mere human, oh
no. A Delanian human. Hmm, I have not seen many of your kind around
here before, but it doesn't matter. I wonder how close you Delanian
humans are, biologically-speaking, to Xeeonite humans? It would be
interesting to find out.”

Its question did seem nonsensical to I,
but I did not answer it. Instead, I drew mine energy knife from my
hilt, activated the blade, which roared to life, and slashed at the
machine's hand.

The energy knife slashed through the
machine's metal wrist like a knife through butter. More mechanical
noises followed, and then its grip on my head loosened and I fell
to the sand below.

I landed on my feet and rolled forward
betwixt and underneath the mechanical monstrosity's legs. Jumping
to mine feet, I turned around just as the machine whirled around to
face me, its tentacle whirling through the air like the sling of a
child. Its arm, the one I had injured, sparked where mine knife had
cut into it, but that did not seem to slow it down at all.

“
That hurt,” said the
machine, though its voice hardly sounded bothered by that. “Why did
you hurt me? What did I do to you?”

“
Threaten to dissect me
like a frog,” I replied, walking backwards out of its reach, “which
I am clearly not.”

“
Why should I not
dissect you?” asked the machine, this time sounding quite genuine
in its question. “How else am I supposed to learn if you are
similar to the Xeeonite humans that hate me so?”

“
I know not the answer
to that question, clicker,” I said, “except perhaps that ye would
do better to find a book on the subject, with pictures, than to do
it yourself.”

The machine's eyes started blinking
rapidly, a sign I did not understand, and then it growled. “Then I
will rip you apart piece by piece, you stupid organic!”

Its tentacle launched toward me with the
speed of a rattlesnake. In alarm, I dodged the attack, jumping to
the side out of its path, but then the tentacle twisted in midair
and slapped me across the face.

Whilst the tentacle did not appear very
strong or heavy, when it slammed into me, it was like being hit by
a bag of bricks. The blow sent me staggering across the sand and I
tripped over mine own bare feet, landing on my side onto the sand.
Pain exploded in my side, which I realized was due to the hard rock
I had fallen on, which explained the pain.

My head spun like the sun around Dela, but
I had little time to focus on that, because I heard the machine
coming at me. Shaking mine head, I looked up in time to see the
machine almost upon me, swinging its tentacle over its head while
growling terrible mechanical grunts that reminded me of a
malfunctioning Diamusk vehicle engine.