What Lurks

Chapter 1
"Hold on, my dear," the ancient woman said to the broken man. "All things come when they are due. So, too, your telling of this story. Why don't you start at the beginning?"

The man looked up, confused. “The beginning?”

"Start where you first felt that the way of things was broken. Then perhaps we can understand them, and, if the spirits will it, mend them."

The man looked around for the first time since he arrived at the encampment. He saw the bricks peering through crumbling plaster, the cracks in the ceiling of one of the few remaining houses that still had a roof. The windows were open, the shutters having been taken when the city was abandoned over a century ago. He looked more closely at the woman sitting cross-legged on the floor across from him, saw the deep lines in her face in the fading light of evening, the fine wrinkles of old age, the sagging skin of hardship. A smoky lamp shed some light over the simple bed of straw and felt, a clay bowl and pewter spoon, and there was a small stack of books with unmarked covers.

He thought back over the past few days, and replied, “I guess, I first felt it on the battlefield. It was... so... I don't know the words. It felt wrong, but I had to do it. I mean, he was right in front of me, and was going to do me if I didn't do him first. My spear was longer, though, so I ran him through. He still slashed at me, but it slid harmlessly over my shield. And then he fell, still looking at me. I'll never forget his eyes, looking at me. He didn't say anything. He didn't have to. He cursed me with those eyes. Looking at me. Is that what you mean?”

"It's in the nature of the soldier to kill and be killed. This is not wrong, nor is it broken. A curse even so; some fight with weapons made with more subtlety than iron and steel."

“I’m not a soldier. I'm a baker. I've never killed a chicken or a goose, let alone a man. I bake bread because my father was a miller and my uncle bought him out, so we moved into the city to bake bread... I just…”

"My dear, I do understand. Killing a man is not part of the cycle of wheat and flour and leavening and bread and sustenance. This was your cycle, and the way of things is now upset. Go on, now, what happened after?"

“A hand grabbed my tunic and pulled me backward. I stumbled and fell, suddenly realizing the battle was lost. The smith, Gemnon, pulled me back to my feet, and we ran back to the city. We left our spears and our shields, and we ran as fast as we could. They were just too many, too strong. Our spears were longer, to be sure, but the Ulari had so many archers and so many horses, we didn't stand a chance. So we ran, back to the city.”

“They got ahead of us, of course,” the man continued. “Their cavalry did, anyway. The city was burning by the time we arrived. It can't have been more than an hour after the battle started, down on the plain, but the city was already burning. Our beautiful city. Our Belarest.

Gemnon, who has always been tireless, continued to run, heading to his house in the western quarter. I had to slow to a walk as we headed uphill, and crossed beneath the aqueduct to the city center. It was difficult to see - the air was still, and the smoke lay heavy in the streets. My heart lay heavier still. Galloping horses passed me by, riderless.

Finally, eyes watering from the smoke and ash, I arrived at my house. It appeared to have been spared from the flames, Shaddai be praised, but both neighbors hadn't fared as well, and the air was a solid, physical thing, silently resisting.

"Koroska!" I called. "Péla!"

Silence.

"KOROSKA! PÉLA!" again.

I pushed through the smoke, hammered my fist against the door. No answer. I pushed, and found it was still barred from the inside. They hadn't run with the neighbors, when the enemy came. Good, they were safe, but why didn't she answer?

"Koroska, it's me, Imre. We must go quickly!"

Silence.

In a frenzy, I pulled loose a cobblestone and battered the bottom hinges of the window shutters, until the wood was splintered enough I could pull them free of the hinges and pry the shutters open a bit. I tried to squeeze through, but it was still too narrow - my leather armor made me bulky. A solid-looking cane lay in the street a few paces away, and I used it to crack open the shutters further and hold them open so I could make my way inside.

The smokefilled house was very dark, but I quickly discovered two bodies on the floor. They were my wife and son, and I collapsed beside them, fearing that which could not be. My heart leapt when I felt them breathe shallowly; they must have passed out from the oppressing smoke, but were warm and alive. As I whispered a quiet prayer of thanks, I started planning our escape through the streets of Belarest. Moments later, my thoughts were interrupted by a commotion outside. Harsh Ulari voices barked orders, and hard boots and hooves marched in all directions. I heard a door splintering, not far away, the sounds of a crying family soon after. With no time to plan, we were forced to take a less desirable route. We were forced to use the catacombs of the old qanat.”

"Ah, the qanats, the underground canal system,” the old woman intoned.

“Yes,” Imre said. “What other choice did I have? Better an uncertain fate than one of certain torturous death.”

He sat silently in thought for a moment, then continued, voice thick with emotion, “although, now, I suppose I'm not really sure…”

He composed himself and continued his story.

“I hoisted my son over my shoulder, then grabbed my wife under her armpits and dragged her down into the cellar, where we hang the meats and cheeses to cure. A thin sheet of water flowed over the back wall, carefully channeled from the canal and allowed to pass through the sandy soil surrounding the foundation, before it entered the room to leave some of its cold dampness and continuing into the tunnels below. A trap door had been paved with the same slate as the rest of the floor, concealing it. I gently lowered my still unconscious wife to the floor, and checked her breathing. Then little Péla. The smoke was different here: thicker, but somehow less oppressive. Lifting the trap door with the tips of my fingers, conscious of the sounds of the soldiers outside, I tried to hurry.

I peered into the square hole in the floor. There was no ladder, the qanat was no longer in use except as a sewage system. The bottom disappeared in the smoky dark. I heard the sound of running water. I pulled out my knife and reached for the thick twine we use to tie the hams and the hard cheese, in order to create a sling to lower my family into the tunnel. Before I had a chance to unwind the twine, I heard the front door crash open in the space above. Heavy boots stepped over creaking floorboards. There was no time, I had no choice. I dropped Koroska down the hole, dropped Péla after her, and then tried to slide the camouflaged trap door into place as I lowered myself into the hole. It fell shut above me, and I fell.

An eternity. Perfect blackness. Weightlessness. A rushing noise.

Then, all of a sudden, I was underwater, and reached blindly in the water for little Péla or Koroska, desperate to find them and make sure they were okay. I came up, gasped for air, and sensed a gentle current. All I saw was blackness. I took two strokes downstream and brushed against fabric. Two more strokes, and I grabbed on to Péla, lifted his head up on my shoulder, and found Koroska with my other arm. I sank, weighed down by them, until my feet struck the bottom and I could push off towards perpendicularly to the current, hopefully to a ledge or someplace shallow. I'd been in a panic since before I entered the house, so my lungs were burning and spasming within seconds, but somehow I managed. I gained a bit more traction in the silty bottom, I pushed forward, and I made it to the side of the channel, where the water was only knee deep.

I managed to prop them up in the cold water, and found them both still breathing, still warm, still alive... but still unconscious. An unwieldy burden, heavy, cumbersome, and more valuable to me than anything.”

"What did you do?" asked the ancient one.

“I held them a while, and considered for a moment what might lay ahead. There was only perfect darkness. The qanats slope gently, so getting lost in the labyrinth would not be a problem if I just followed the current. But the Old city is ten miles from the New. Ten miles of absolute dark, of frigid waters, of the unknown. That's a lot to overcome. I considered trying to climb the shaft, but there was no ladder and I couldn't hope to carry even little Péla, should it prove possible to scale it somehow. Besides, I knew the monsters in my house were real, what they would certainly do if given the chance... the only choice I had was to pray the monsters of the qanat were no more than frightful stories, and that with bravery and determination we could pass unhindered back into the light.”

The broken man sighed.

“I removed the heavy leather armor and clothing so I could move more freely, then carefully pulled Koroskas arm around my shoulder, and nestled Péla into my arm, as we slipped back a little deeper. It was all very difficult when deprived of my sense of sight, but in this way, I managed to keep one arm somewhat free to help maneuver my way as I let myself drift, about chest-deep in the water. The ground beneath the water was uneven; sometimes deep silty muck, sometimes pavement, sometimes high and sometimes low. I kept losing my footing, drifted out into water that was too deep for me, or having to drag us over a shallow spot, getting caught in branches or tangles or hair. Sometimes the water was fresh and sweet, but mostly it was dank, and sometimes it outright stank of sewage. The only reliable fact of the qanat was the darkness. I could count on that. Darkness and the cold.

Sometimes I'd feel currents shifting, and the sound of our progress changed, as well. When the sound changed without any currents shifting, I must have passed beneath the support shafts, similar to that through which we entered, although usually there wasn't any water dripping down. Other times, I passed intersections, where several qanat arteries combined or split. Sometimes it was very difficult to determine the way out of these places, with doldrums and dead ends and blocked passages. But always I remembered my father's advice for if I got lost in the wilderness: the water knows which way to go; follow it and it will take you to the Sea.”

The woman nodded. ”That is very wise advice."

“The water always knew, somehow. When I listened, it would guide me out of the mazes and back to the path to the sea. But, in the dark, I heard something else, too. I thought I heard singing. At first I thought it was just my imagination, or strange echoes from the water sloshing around us and deeper into the tunnels. But eventually, I grew convinced that there was someone out there, in the deepest darkness, far far away in the tunnels.

In the meantime, though, the cold was getting to me. My fingers and toes were long since numb, and I was shivering. I clutched my wife and son closer to me; still breathing, still limp, still heavy, still my whole heart and my whole soul.

I began to hear splashing noises that didn't seem to be mine. But in the cold and dark, I thought my mind was playing tricks on me. It had been hours... of course I would go slightly mad. Who would not?

But then I heard a voice, the faintest whisper. I don't know what it said at first, but then I heard it again. "Let them go," said the wind. "Come with me," it beckoned. I was so tired. So cold. I was losing my mind. But I held on! I held on!

I held on.”

The man cried in silence.

“My arms were leaden. My hands, just useless flippers. I'd tied Koroskas arm to my shoulder with my sleeve, which I tore open with my teeth. That broke a tooth, too, but I was too tired to care. I could not lift her any longer, and my hands could not grasp her arms. I dropped Péla in the process but managed to pin him against a drifting crate with my knee until I could get him back in position. But the singing just got louder, and somehow, I could see! It was just the faintest thing, but somehow I could see that crate, and knew that Pélas head was above the water while I worked. I completely lost faith in my senses, but what else could I do but go on?

We continued, half floating and half wading, as we had since the dawn of time. I had no way of knowing how long we had been there, how far we had come, or how far we still had to go. The light was real, though. It grew in intensity, until I saw that it was the qanat walls and arched ceilings themselves that glowed a faint green. If I had had any reserve energy left, we might have sped up with the advantage of sight, but I had none. If I had any sanity left I might have lost it at the knowledge that the light came not from the sun or moon or stars, but from the deep earth, but I had none.

A splashing noise nearby, I turned to look but it was gone. I might have seen a fish tail. Or maybe not?

That singing, again. Wordless, sweet, sad. Closer, now.

Those whispers... but now they were voiced. A child, a girl? "Let them go," she said. "Come with me."

I found a shallow ledge where I could release my charge and get out of the water to rest and warm up. I had to check that they were okay. I had to make sure I could bring them to safety.

A woman spoke, "Leave them, Imre."

"Leave us alone!" I cried.

With a splash, she was gone.

I couldn't give up now. I had to get them someplace warm and dry. I slid back into the water, returned my family to my arms, and carried on with renewed resolve.

The woman or fish or whatever she was swam circles around us now, taunting me. "You'll never make it." "It's still so far!" "You'll be happier with me, Imre." "Aren't you cold?"

I ignored her as best as I could, choosing instead to focus my energy on moving forward, still trying to sense which way the current was flowing. Her splashes and taunts didn't make it easy, and we went the wrong way several times. I was so cold, my legs were weak and my chest didn't feel right. I was so tired I was dizzy. Everything hurt. The creature kept just out of reach, promising me warmth and rest, if only I would leave them. But I couldn't leave them. I didn't leave them. They were cold. They breathed, slowly, shallowly. Everything hurt.

And then, there was a door. I saw a door in the wall. The walls were brick in that section, and there was a wooden door, and I saw faint light through the cracks. There was a small landing, and some steps that led into the water, and that door, that magnificent door that lead out of these endless qanats, to somewhere else. Anywhere else. The door lead to the not-darkness, to the warmth and safety and sun and wind and dust and people and wheat and flour and life.

A woman stood in front of the door. The splashing had stopped. I tried lifting Koroska up on the steps. My arms were too tired. I tried lifting Péla, and just about managed by propping him up with my leg, and he unceremoniously flopped onto the floor. I shifted Koroska up on my shoulders, tried walking up the steps to get her out, but collapsed forward, which smashed my face into the stone steps and dumped her onto Péla. I felt the blood seep out from cheek and forehead as I lay there on the steps, but it didn't matter. They were on land. We were going to make it.”

"But something happened,” the old woman crooned.

“Oh yes... something happened.

When I felt I could get up, I got to my knees, then stood, shivering. I took a step towards the door, but the woman moved in the way, and my eyes met her yellow gaze. Before I could react, she took my hands in hers, brought them to her face. Her cheeks were warm, my fingers ached and my palms were burning. I noticed she was naked, and she slid my hands to her breasts. Her skin was slippery, like a fish. I felt her nipples harden under my touch as she reached around my waist and pressed her belly to mine. She leaned in, brushed her lips against mine. The trance broke, and I wrenched away from her and spat. I would never betray Koroska. I would sooner die than abandon Péla. She tried pulling me close again, so I threw her to the floor and slammed my shoulder into the door to open it. It appeared to be barred or latched from the outside, so I slammed again and again until the wood finally gave and I broke through and tumbled to the ground in the blinding morning light. I picked myself up, turned around, pulled open the door that had swung shut, and... and…”

The man fell silent, hiccuping, tears streaming.

"And?" the ancient woman prompted, sympathetically.

The broken man's voice was inhuman, the sound of a cut throat, the silence of a stillborn babe, a purring lion.

“They were gone... no woman... no Koroska... no Péla... looked for hours, went back miles into those tunnels. Not a sign of them. Not a song or a whisper or a splash of water. Gave up at dusk. Saw a light in the distance, out here. Walked over. Found the camp. Gave me food, bread. They gave me bread. Then must have fallen asleep or passed out, or something, because then was mid-day and I was on a bed of straw under some blankets.”

He looked up and met her eyes, for the first time since they started talking.

“They said to come to you, that you'd know what to do. I don't know anymore, what did I do wrong? Where did it go wrong? What do I do now?”

The poor man's voice was once again ordinary, plaintive, powerless.

“What do I do?”

Chapter 2
"What you do now is for you to decide," the old woman said. Her croaking voice echoed between the crumbling walls of the empty house.

“But why did she take them?” the man demanded

"Perhaps they had something she wanted. Perhaps she took them to hurt you. Perhaps they were hers to take after your failure."

“Failure? Failure?”

"Yes, failure. You should never have touched her, nor let her kiss you. That is your failure, which you must accept."

“I’ll accept nothing of the sort! I resisted her. I threw her to the ground. She caught me in a trance. It wasn't fair!”

"Fair?" the ancient one laughed. "Fair and unfair are an illusion, an invention, a weakness unique to humans. Nothing in the heavens accounts for fairness. Sooner the opposite! Or do you think it was fair that your spear was longer than that of your enemy? What were his thoughts on fairness, as you looked into his dying eyes?"

“Curse you, hag. That's different, that's war and he could have run, and I hadn't any choice.”

"None of us do, my dear. None of us do."

The broken man and the ancient woman sat together for a while. It was evening. A younger woman, still old by ordinary measures, came in through the doorway and brought a kettle of strong coffee and two cups. Imre noticed tired faces outside, perhaps people waiting for their turn with the crone.

“Thank you for hearing my story, mother,” Imre said finally.

"Thank you for sharing it, my dear,” the woman replied.

“Why are you come here, to Old Belarest, to live among the lepers and the outcasts?” he asked.

"I never left," she said with a smile.

“I don't understand.”

"Tell me what you know about Old Belarest."

Imre acquiesced, and said, “Generations ago, the place we now call Belarest was just empty pasture. Back then, Belarest was the place which is now... these crumbling ruins surrounding us. But at the time, the city was vibrant and rather wealthy; the trading hub and place of commerce where the Ulari highland people met the people of Quri. Since there's no lake or river nearby that could support the population, the Belaresti dug extensive qanats, transporting ground water from the highlands right into the city. The qanat reaches the surface just a hundred paces from the door I discovered, and water flows out into an open canal for use by the city before being diverted to irrigate the fields below the city. Over time, though, the qanats became fouled and had to be abandoned, and they built a new city uphill, fed by a more modern type of qanat, using the old system as a drain. The old city was abandoned in favor of the new, and the only people living here now are outcasts who are not wanted anywhere else; beggars, lepers, and criminals.”

The ancient woman nodded, "Not wholly wrong, but you are missing the important lesson. You have already learned this lesson, but don't want to accept it."

“How do you mean?”

"Qanats are constructed as they are, with wide tunnels, shallow inclination, and periodic vertical shafts, because this makes them easy to maintain. Consider rebuilding an entire city, moving an entire population of neighbors, businesses, temples, gardens, farms, mills, and all the rest. How would that compare to cleaning up an old qanat?"

He mulled it over for a moment. “Maybe it couldn't be cleaned?”

"If they could not clean the old qanat, why didn't they build a new qanat, as they had to regardless of the city's location, but transport the water to the city using canals or new tunnels, rather than moving all of Belarest ten miles uphill?"

“I’ve heard that in the capital city of Der Totem in Exympor moves every 40 years, from volcano to volcano. They have to, so the volcano doesn’t erupt under their feet.”

“Also this city had to be moved because of a danger underfoot. The threat was existential and there were no alternatives."

“Well, yes,” Imre said. “A city needs water. One can't make a dough from dry flour.”

"One doesn't burn the house down for lacking a cup of water. One goes to the well and fetches it."

“Granted, so was the actual cause?”

The ancient woman looked the broken man in the eyes, and said, "You have already met her."

“What, you?” he exclaimed, incredulously.

She shook her head and whispered, "in the tunnels."

Imre sat thinking silently for a while, then seemed to make up his mind.

“You are here, inhabiting these ruins, because you have lost your mind in disease or old age. I've been wasting my time, and yours. I apologize.”

He got up to leave.

"You can get them back, you know."

Imre stopped, bent his head, sighed. “You're delusional.”

"My father", continued the old woman, "he was a qanat worker. He spent his life clearing cave-ins, building supports, paving areas to improve the flow, carrying built-up silt and sand, and digging new shafts, drifts, and levels. He told me stories about his work, and I'd sit in rapt attention, fascinated by the invisible world below the surface. Then, one day, he didn't come back. There wasn't an accident, no disaster or collapse or any reason for it that anybody could tell. He just went in and failed to return.”

Imre turned around, looked at her with curious eyes.

"My mother started working as a weaver, so we could eat. Long hours, that. I lost both my parents to the qanats, I like to think. A while later, another qanat worker went missing. And then another, and another. Soon other men disappeared, ones who had no reason to enter the qanats. They'd last be seen near the canal, or talked about taking a stroll by the water, and they'd disappear without a trace. Always at night. Search parties were organized, which would either find nothing, or disappear altogether. Armed bands, a small militia, entered the qanats, with burning torches and sharpened swords, but even they disappeared. Most of them disappeared, but there were survivors, and the survivors gave us stories: glimpses of a large fish, or a woman in the water."

“What happened then?”

"They tried to open up the qanats, to reduce her dominion, or diminish her power in some way, but it was dangerous work, so close to the monster, and as often as not, a newly dug shaft or well would close overnight. A lot of good men were taken during this time."

The ancient woman poured the last of the coffee from the kettle into Imres cup. "When the first women and children disappeared, it was decided the city should move. New qanats were built, far uphill, and in such a way that she could never establish a presence there. Old Belarest was abandoned within the year."

She sipped from her own cup, the man glaring furiously.

"Only I remained."

“You horrible wretch! You are either a fool or playing me for one, starting your story with a promise to tell me about the qanats, but then telling me you grew up in Old Belarest, which would make you well over one hundred years old.”

"One hundred and forty-four, this year."

The significance of the holy number gave him pause.

“Impossible,” he spat.

"On the contrary, it is a necessity, although I forgive your skepticism."

“Then explain to me why nobody knows about this monster now. Why is this story never told?”

"It was a long, long time ago. I was only twelve when father left. The problem... it's too difficult for most to bear thinking about. Who can understand its nature? Nobody knows who or what she is, and we will most likely never know. It's enough to know the old qanats are dark and evil. People stay away. It's better that way. If people knew more, they might become curious, they might start looking. And it would mean their end."

She looked concerned. "I know you'll go back, sooner or later. You can't leave a mixed dough unkneaded and unbaked. It didn't matter what I told you, today, this evening, so I thought it best you knew the truth. So you know what you're up against."

“If what you tell me is true, you have done me a kindness, and for that, I would thank you, but alas, I cannot tell the truth from the lies.”

The man sat back down, defeated.

"It was no kindness. I will not live much longer. Before you go back, you must tell my story to others, so this knowledge does not die with me or with you."

Imre reflected, “When I go back into the qanat to face this monster, I will make sure nobody will have need of this knowledge ever again.”

The ancient woman smiled and said, "My name is Anya, I have a few more stories to tell." Then she called for more coffee.

The two sat together for many more hours. Anya told Imre of the search party of women, in the time only men were taken, who met and fought the monster and returned decimated, each woman bearing deep gouges in the face and other hideous wounds. She told him of the two Wizards who entered, prideful and aloof, never to be seen again. Anya told of the boy who managed to escape, and the stories he told of his capture, his waking dreams deep underground, and of his escape. She told him of the qanats before the monster, their grand design, the architecture, the hydrology and structure of the earth, and of the increasingly frantic efforts that were made to quarantine the monster. As Anya spoke, Imre became more and more convinced that she was telling the truth. Somewhere in these stories, he was sure, were the clues he would need to save his family. As the evening turned into night, and the night deepened towards morning, Imre began to acquire what he needed most of all: hope.