Chapter 4 Hakara
Hakara
Langzu – the sinkhole mines west of Ruzhi
A sinkhole opened under our house in the middle of the night.
There was little warning except for a brief rumble and a shake.
We were fortunate our daughter was sleeping with us, otherwise I do not think we would have gotten her out in time.
Our home is gone and we are safe. Now, though, our child lives in fear in spite of every reassurance.
She tells me when she wakes up at night, trembling, that one day, everything will collapse.
The world is too thin, she says over and over.
When my wife cracks eggs for breakfast, our daughter weeps.
We moved the Unanointed into the mining camp swiftly. There were other people looking for work heading into camp, so it was easy to filter them in without notice. Thassir lingered in the forest and fretted over the herd of cats he’d left in Bian.
“I opened the window of the safe house when I went to find you at the den,” he’d explained to me. “They have a place to stay.” Yes, and they were likely pissing on the sheets and scratching the chairs. He frowned. “But no one is feeding them. Someone should feed them.”
“You don’t have to help me if you don’t want to,” I’d said to him, as we stood beneath the cover of the trees.
“I’m not a feral cat, you know.” And after that small rejection the last time we’d been alone, there was a part of me that wanted him to go, so we wouldn’t be in this strange, liminal place.
He’d touched the arbor patch on his shirt and kept his gaze on the branches overhead. “The corestone you swallowed. It won’t pass.”
“And I can’t use it.” I’d already figured that part out.
“It’s not like the god gems. You have to be careful.”
I’d waited, because there was more to this.
There had to be more to this. He’d done something to the corestone back in the den.
It wasn’t burning me up anymore, even as it sat in my belly.
But he’d said nothing else, his lips a line, his jaw moving as though he were chewing on words he couldn’t quite spit out.
“When am I not careful?” I’d tossed over my shoulder as I’d left him in the trees. Lithuas might be avoiding us, but Kluehnn would send more godkillers after me. They needed another corestone and I had one resting in my gut.
I had to find Lithuas no matter the risk; that much was clear. It was the only way we could put a dent in Kluehnn’s plans. Which meant I needed to be moving as soon as possible. I’d seen the last of the Unanointed to the camp, and Alifra and Dashu stood with me, awaiting my instruction.
Guarin gathered his crew, along with the Unanointed, at the edge of camp.
He was sticking his neck out for me, I had to admit.
For all those long years I’d spent my hate on him, he’d been there, stubborn and cruel but steadfast. Altani stood next to him, her well-muscled arms crossed, determinedly looking everywhere else but at me.
We’d once been lovers, and then something a little less than friends.
Unlike Guarin, she’d stopped sticking her neck out for me, though maybe she’d had good reason.
“Thassir said he could find Lithuas for us.” Alifra fidgeted next to me like a horse before a race. “We should go, before she gets too far away.”
“We should,” I agreed. But something kept me from giving the order quite yet.
I watched from a distance as Guarin went over the basics, assigning each of the new folk to shadow more experienced crew.
It might be today, it might be three days hence.
Never knew when a sinkhole was going to open up.
And those first moments were crucial, when the god gems were exposed, before the sinkhole collapsed in on itself.
He found his way to us after he’d set everyone to simple exercises to train them up.
Running with the ropes, learning how to ratchet and set.
Breath-holding. “Things are a bit different than when you were here last.” He gestured to the carts.
Each one held a large wooden wheeled contraption.
“Risho clan pays our salaries, and they’ve bought a few new machines.
They act in place of setters.” He frowned at them, as though they were misbehaving children, and wiped the beaded sweat from his brow. “You could stay. Here. With us.”
I opened my mouth, unsure of how to respond.
Mercifully, Dashu and Alifra said nothing.
The words stirred memories, swirling old and settled ones to the surface.
Mimi, lithe as an antelope, the set of her lips always in a half-smile.
Callused fingers brushing tears from my cheeks.
Maman, stern and stout, holding out another serving of goat-stuffed dumplings, the steam obscuring the space between my face and hers.
We’d followed herds of camels, horses, and goats, moving from place to place as the seasons changed, Mimi offering her services as an animal doctor.
Not a rich living, but a comfortable one.
It felt like a thousand lifetimes ago, that sense of safety, of being tucked beneath blankets, away from a desolate world.
Guarin wasn’t offering the same – he wasn’t that type of person and neither was I, not anymore.
But he was offering some semblance of it, and for the barest moment, I could taste the edges of it.
A place to be still. And maybe not cared for, but loved, in Guarin’s own strange way. Like sinking into a field of flowers.
Without Rasha.
All the warm edges of my memories turned cold. “I—”
The ground trembled beneath our feet. “Guarin!” Altani called out. Everyone was scattering, running, panicked. A hole opened up, as though some infernal beast had risen and was sucking in the earth. It grew larger faster than thought, dusty clouds rising into the air.
It was quickly overtaking Guarin’s crew and my Unanointed. They darted for safety as the clouds engulfed them. I couldn’t see them, but Dashu seized my arm at the very moment I realized I’d lifted a foot to move toward the hole.
He leaned in, and I felt his breath near my ear, the vibration of his speech, but I could hear nothing over the roar of tumbling dirt and rocks.
Always a risk with sinkholes. You never knew exactly how far the field would stretch, what it might swallow.
Dashu’s hand stayed firm on my arm as the roar dimmed, as the dust began to settle.
I counted miners as they ran past me – one, two, three – a pointless exercise as I wasn’t sure how many had been there to begin with.
The world stilled.
Altani marched out of the cloud, coughing into her fist, her face and clothes streaked with brown. The air smelled of scorched earth and hot stones. She turned about as though lost. “There was someone behind me. He was right there.”
I could see the edge of the maw now, a shrouded darkness. A shout rose, echoing, from within, mingling with the last cracks of a few falling rocks.
I’d lingered only to say my goodbyes. We needed to find Lithuas. We needed to go, now, before she moved too far away.
Yet I found myself twisting my arm free of Dashu’s grasp and running toward the hole.
I spotted a harness on the ground where one of the divers had dropped it while fleeing.
I scooped it up without slowing down. I’d been down there before, in the depths.
Alone, certain I would die, all the loose threads of my life left unraveled.
I couldn’t care whether it was one of Guarin’s miners or one of my Unanointed down there. Whoever it was deserved to live.
I stopped well short of the edge, testing the earth with my feet. Another shout from the hole. What was I thinking? I had nothing – no rope, no setter.
Altani materialized next to me. She met my gaze for only a fraction of a moment, and I could see in her expression all the ways I’d hurt her.
And in that flash, I could feel it. I’d thought what we’d had wasn’t serious, was only passing for us both.
But it had meant something to her and I’d never tried to make things easier for her.
I’d heard the words she’d said to me without ever really listening.
I swallowed my regrets as she uncoiled the rope from her shoulder and seized one of the spikes from her belt. I stepped into the harness, pulling the straps tight. With three strokes, Altani had set the spike into the ground and had the rope secured.
Not the time. Never the time.
She took the rope to the edge and peered over. A quick intake of breath. “Can’t see him from this angle. Shit.” I’m not sure if she proffered the rope to me first or if I grabbed it, but then I was hooking it onto my harness without a second thought.
Altani knelt by the stake, her hands on the rope. “I won’t be able to pull you both up at the same time with any speed. Not by myself.”
“I know.” I lowered myself over the edge. I was thrown back to those mornings with Rasha, the sky a piss-yellow, the scent of smoke in the air, as I drew in breath after breath and then slid into the salty sea.
I descended, my feet against the sinkhole wall. The world dimmed, the noise from above a low clatter.
I moved with years of long practice, finding handholds on the wall. “I’m coming down.” I received a faint reply, right below me. The aether might already be addling his wits. “Keep your mouth shut! You’re past the first aerocline. Breathe as little as possible!”
He was on a time clock – you always were once you passed the aeroclines.
The shimmer of the first one lay just below my feet.
I lowered myself into it, feeling the warmth of the air creep into my pant legs, the hairs on my shins tickled by the flow of it.
It ringed my waist, soft as a lover’s touch, and I shivered involuntarily.
A moment of calm. A long breath as I filled my lungs from bottom to top, as I opened my mouth wide and raised my head. I closed my mouth and ducked beneath.