20. The Spire

 
 
From high on the last of the rolling hills, the green valley of the Tilted Spire lay before the caravan of refugees of Cerelon. Regardless of what they had been two week before, they now look upon a rich land dominated by the mysteriously angled Spire as one group. Behind them and to their far left, the last of the Edonval Forest reached out a green finger to stop abruptly at a deep canyon that scarred the land heading northwest. A stretch of green plains lay between it and the shores of a vast lake system to the east. The lakes stretched away east as the canyon did to the west, hinting at more chances for exploration and discovery. South of the lakes and off to their far right, a dry place of tablelands and mesas loomed. But these were only the outer frame of the picture the caravaneers were seeing. A well-watered land, filled with game, free of foreboding forests filled with margr. And at its centre, the Spire, a colossal construction more than a hundred and fifty metres high, angled over it all at an odd thirty degrees. From their position, they could see it was three-sided, with those sides running parallel until twenty metres from the top, where they converged into a sharp point. There were also signs that the Spire extended into the ground, with only a fraction of its actual height showing above. Compared to the naturally carved and sculpted landscapes around it, the Spire was sleek, sharp and thoroughly alien.
 
To everyone, it was an impressive sight. Nothing in their previous lives or since travelling compared to the Spire. Jaden glanced down at the compass. Its needle pointed down and directly at the tower. Regardless of its origins, the compass had unerringly pointed this way, and they had followed. For those who knew about the compass's existence, it was now time for the trust they had put in the robed stranger to be repaid.
 
“How do we know that thing’s pointing at the Spire,” Marius asked as he noticed Jaden put it away, “It could be pointing to something beyond the Spire.”.
“See for yourself,” She said, handing him the glass ball. He moved off a few hundred paces and tried the compass again. When he returned, he handed the ball back to Jaden without a word.
“Pointed directly at the Spire?”
“Directly,” He said, and with a wave and a shout, got the caravan moving once more.
 
That day they travelled the grasslands, the Spire all they could talk about. As they got closer, a large black rectangle was clear on one side, a doorway inviting them in.
“I think it is a great spear, thrown by a mighty warrior,” Said Fureva-Yung to Nox as they walked alongside.
“Oh? Wouldn’t the spearhead be in the ground then, not stuck up in the air?” Asked Nox, gesturing to the Spire needle-like point.
“Ah, not if it has been thrust through from the other side,” Fureva-Yung said, gesturing an upward jab with an imagined spear.
“It’s obviously a spaceship,” Marius interjected.
“You think everything we find is a spaceship,” Nox scoffed.
“Have I been proven wrong yet?” He replied with his usual bravado
“Once or twice,” Nox smiled, “But if anything were from somewhere else, it would be that.”
“Precisely!”
 
 
Mid-morning, the caravan stopped by an outcropping of rock distinctly artificial in construction. Marius started marshalling Fureva-Yung and the Dritmen to begin digging around the structure to find out what it was.
“You want to dig in the dirt for a lump of masonry when we have that in front of us?” Nox pointed to the Spire.
“Don’t you want to see where it goes? It may be the end of that old railway we left the pit on.”
“Sure,” She had to admit the extent of that unique transportation system intrigued her, “But the Spire! We can come back to check this up later. It’s not far away.”
“We have our whole lives to check out the Spire.” Marius countered, “Why not spend half an hour digging this up?”
Nox shook her head in exasperation. She could see that Fureva-Yung was already making a pile of cut turf to one side, and even Jaden looked down into the growing hole with interest.
“You stay here and dig in the mud. I’m going to the Spire.” She said and started walking away.
“Don’t go by yourself,” Marius called, stepping up to intercept her.“It’s too dangerous.”
Nox looked around at the more than thirty individuals that now surrounded her. The Dritmen, the Ghan’s and her friends were staying to dig the hole. The rest, including her father and Risina, looked ready to move off.
I’m not alone, Marius, She said telepathically.
Marius scowled. Over the past few days, he’d become accustomed to the caravan doing as he commanded. He moved them off each morning, and they stopped on his say-so each night. His eyes flicked from Nox to Risina, watching on with interest. He sighed.
"Look, can you just scan the ground and tell us what’s down there at least?" He walked back to the hole, where a set of steps were being exposed.
She nodded and stood in front of where Fureva-Yung and the Dritmen worked. She sent her senses down three metres into the ground in all directions. She sensed a square-sided shaft currently filled with dirt disappeared beyond her sight. The stairs wrapped around the shaft's inside wall and headed down.
Telepathically she shared with the group what she saw and agreed it might well head down to underground works like the railway. Outloud, she said, “It’s stairs going down,” and left to continue to the Spire.
 
With the knowledge it was a shaft full of dirt that would take days to clear, the dig was soon abandoned, and the caravan as a whole arrived at the Spire by midday. In Jaden’s pocket, the faithful compass shuddered. When she checked it, the needle was hanging from the centre of the sphere, lifeless. She shook it, but this only made the arrow wobble back and forth. Even moving away from the Spire did nothing. After having served its purpose, the compass was dead.
 
Up close, the silence of the Spire was foreboding. Its metal surface was smooth, only broken where plates had been connected to a substructure. There was no sign of rust or weathering. Whatever the metal was, nature had not affected it. However, something had. The gaping hole in its side where two sliding doors had been removed spoke of someone having used this space before them. Inside, the dirt floor sloped away from the door, and the centre was filled with collected metal scrap. Jaden scanned through the collection and agreed they would be most suitable for building shelters and workshops. She found the two metal doors that had originally fitted into the eight-metre wide, three-metre tall doorway. There was a ceiling hiding whatever was above, but beyond the collected detritus, smooth metal walls hide possible staircases or other ways of reaching them.
 
“Someone used this space,” Nox commented, leaving unsaid that they may be back soon to reclaim their home.
“Yeah, trolls,” Marius said, looking upon the piles of stuff with little interest.
“Alien trolls,” Fureva-Yung added. It was a spacecraft, after all.
“Like you?”
“Hey!”
 
“It looks like this stuff was collected for a purpose but then abandoned,” Jaden theorised from what she’d seen, “It looks like it's been here a while.”
“Okay, fellas, you heard Jaden. Let's get everyone here and heaving things around,” Marius said loud enough for those inside and outside to hear.
 
The sun had set into the shimmering silver waters of the lake as the members of the caravan finished work for the day. After five hours of moving and sorting metal scrap, they had cleared two-thirds of the Spire’s ground floor. Metal sheeting was laid out and propped up on the low side to make a flat floor. The doors were laid sideways against the gaping doorway to narrow the gap and keep even a little of the draft out. By Jaden’s count, they had sorted three hundred and seventy units of material, more than enough for several small dwellings, eighteen units of parts, four units of io and two units of responsive synth. The parts, synth and two io went into bellyache for safekeeping.
Marius took two io. “You never know when you’re going to need an io or two.”
 
Once the scrap had been removed, two sliding doors were revealed in the internal walls. As tempting as it was to go explore these new rooms, Nox contented herself with a scan through the door and knowing there were spaces beyond to explore in the morning. While the bulk of the community, no longer a wandering caravan, were clearing out the Spire, Ralin and Ekarin Oslo had gone out hunting and came back with a fat deer and a collection of wild vegetables. Though the deer was praised by all, it was the vegetables that drew everyone’s attention. After a week of mainly meat, everyone wanted a piece of ash-cooked roots or blanched greens with their venison.
 
Food eaten and sleep mats laid out under cover for the first time in days, the community settled down for the night. Nox and Jaden took the first watch perched on boxes near the door. As much as the Spire’s ground floor reminded Nox of the caves they’d travelled to get here, she preferred to sit and watch the stars glide serenely through the night with Jaden companionably by her side. They said nothing, enjoying their time together as they had of old in her shop in Cerelon. It was in that silence they could hear scratching and scuttling from the other side of the two doors. Silently, Nox left her post to listen at one.
“A place like this is bound to have its share of mice, rats and cockroaches,” Jaden commented, watching the ever curious Nox as she tried to make out what the creature was. She scanned the space beyond the door but never caught a sense of the creature.
“Let's not open the door, Nox,” Jaden fingered a random io in her pocket on the odd chance Nox did precisely that.
I’m not opening, Nox waived away Jaden’s concerns and sat as still as she could by the door. As soon as the scrambling and scratching started again, she scanned the area. Nothing. The creatures were just too fast for her to get a sense of them. In the end, she told what she knew to Marius and Temila when they arrived to do their shift at watch.
 
Pulling up the crates that Jaden and Nox had used, Temila and Marius sat silently for a long while, staring out at the starry night beyond the Spires walls.
“So, we’re rebuilding here?” Temila asked.
“I know it's not much now, but-” Marius started with his spiel full of ideas before Temila stopped his mouth with a finger against his lips.
“I know, “ She replied in hushed tones, aware of the others trying to sleep around them, “The land is rich, good for my new apothecary garden. We haven’t seen margr for days and days, and this place seems purpose-built for us to start again.”
She looked out at the empty flat space in front of the Spire and nodded, “It has great potential. Much like certain men,” She looked knowingly at Marius. He was too busy seeing his version of their new township being built before his eyes. When he did turn back to her, she’d gone back to stripping leaves off dried bunches of herbs, a never-ending task for the apothecary. He thought she might be going about it with a little more violence than usual.
 
The night was quiet, and they sat, chatting about inconsequential things. The pile of dried leaves were forgotten for the conversation and the company. A fresh breeze slipped through the open slit into the Spire, and Temila shivered. Silently, Marius edged his crate close and put a warm arm around her shoulders. Temila leaned in, and the rest of their watch melted away between them.
 
When they were relieved by Fureva-Yung and Livaanar, Temila and Marius were loathed to give up their shared comfort.
“We’re just going to take a turn around the site,” Marius said to Fureva-Yung as he and Temila left hand in hand, Livaanar’s eyes watching them go.
“Don’t sit or lie on anything dangerous,” Fureva-Yung offered her sage advice to the couple. She and Livaanar could hear Marius quip, “Are you anything dangerous?”
 
“So,” Livaanar tore his eyes away from where the couple disappeared and to Fureva-Yung sitting cross-legged in front of a waning fire, “What do we do?”
Fureva-Yung thought for a moment, “We watch, and we try not to listen too carefully to those two.”
Livaanar scowled but said nothing in front of the powerfully-built ally of Marius Serik.
“And how long are we on watch?”
Time was a slippery concept to Fureva-Yung. She had so few ways of determining time. She looked out at the stars, “From here,” She pointed to a prominent point of light above their heads, “to there,” and drew a short arc across the sky to where a cloudy cluster of stars lit the night.
“Er…oh,” Livaanar replied, more confused than ever.
 
Fureva-Yung, aware of the tension quietly descending between her and the parent of Nox, looked around for something she could share.
“Would you like a stick?” She offered one of her fresher sticks to Livaanar.
“Th-thank you,” He took the offered stick out of politeness without a clue what to do with it, “What do I…”
Fureva-Yung crunched through her stick like it was dried toast.
Livaanar check his stick in the dying firelight, making sure it was indeed a branch off a tree and then pretended to eat it.
“The others do not like sticks either,” Fureva-Yung commented after he thought he’d masterfully hidden the stick up his sleeve.
“Do we have a kettle?” He suggested looking around and finding a billy left from the evening meal. Livaanar kept himself busy rebuilding the fire and putting water onto boil as Furvea-Yung closed her eyes and listened to the world.
 
Now that she knew she could, Fureva-Yung appreciated looking at the world through sound. Through the sounds that the world made, she could see the visible, like the crackle of the fire, and the invisible, the lovers only a few hundred metres away in the night. Closer by, she could hear the scrambling of small creatures behind the two doors but also in the walls of the Spire. Echolocation told her they were rat-sized and ranged in number between ten and twenty.
A burning smell caught Fureva-Yung’s attention, and she was drawn back as Livaanar’s cloak caught alight in the fire. Fureva-Yung deftly whipped the woollen cloak out of the flames and stamped out the singed edge with her foot.
 
“There are better ways to keep warm,” She said to the surprised tinker, “I see your water is boiling.”
“Oh, good,” Livaanar looked around for something to put the water in, found a cup left from dinner and then looked around expecting a container of tea to appear. It didn’t.
“Do you drink tea?” He meekly asked Fureva-Yung, who was carefully watching this man stumble around the campfire.
“I do,” She agreed. The few times it had been offered to her, she had enjoyed the hot water with leaves, “I like mine with rust.”
“Rust? You mean…rust?” Livaanar pointed to a patch of rust on the bent and broken metal sheeting beside them. Fureva-Yung brushed the rusted surface with her hand, letting the flakes of oxidised metal fall into an open palm.
Livaanar looked from the palm sprinkled with rust to the cup of hot water he held.
“We’re going to need a second cup.”
 
Scrounging through the caravan, he found a second cup but no tea. He poured two cups of hot water, into which Fureva-Yung sprinkled her rust. Lacking anything else to flavour his water, Livaanar pulled out the stick and plopped it in.
 
“So, you are the little one's mother?” Fureva-Yung asked conversationally of Livaanar, who spat out his first sip of branch tea in surprise.
“I’m the little one's father,” He corrected, looking doubtfully at his branch tea, and finally pulled out the stick.
“You’re male?” Fureva-Yung replied, surprised, “Oh, I am sorry.”
“That’s quite all- what?”
Fureva-Yung sipped her hot iron tea in silence.
“I haven’t seen Nox’s mother in…in a long time…”
“I see. She has gone to the other place.”
“She’s gone to a place. She travels. She came, stayed a while and left. I don’t know where she is now.” Livaanar sipped his hot stick water, and silence fell finally between them.
 
In the high grass, Marius and Temila lay still wrapped in each other’s arms, dozing. Their resting place was comfortable, and the night was mild. Neither felt the need to return to the confined of the Spire. Marius smiled as he felt gentle nuzzling against his neck. Gentle kisses and...licks running up to his right ear. Stirred to full wakefulness, he realised that Temila was gently snoring, her head pillowed on his left arm. His eyes popped open and, in the dim moonlight, made out a dog-sized creature with a long rubbery snout the colour of the night. He brushed the creature’s snout away with a hand and sat up, waking Temila.
“We’re not alone,” He said quietly as the creature stepped up, its quivering proboscis seeking his face. Temila gave a start and peered around Marius at the creature.
“Do you know if it's toxic?” He asked her.
She shrugged, “No idea.”
 
The three of them sat a moment, the creature searching for and finding something on Marius it liked before a long sticky tongue licked out. Marius watched and deduced what he could of the creature’s nature. It seemed to be attracted to the sweat on his skin. He reached out a hand to touch the creature’s skin and found it was the same rubbery texture all over. It shied away at the unexpected touch before stepping back in and allowing the scratches to continue. Temila scratched the creature behind its ears, and it seemed to like it.
“Can we keep it?” She said as the creature sidled up beside Marius as sat down.
“This guy is really cute,” Marius agreed before realising the creature was now eating something. He checked and saw one of the two io pieces from his pocket disappear down its proboscis, “But maybe not a good thing to bring back to camp.”
The long nose sought out the second io. Marius fished out the last pieces with a shrug. It disappeared as quickly as the first.
 
“We should probably head back,” Marius voiced, Temila agreed with a nod. Returning to the Spire, Livaanar gave Marius a nasty scowl.
“We met one of the locals,” Marius said, confused but unconcerned,” They eat io.”
When his expression wasn’t making an impact, Livaanar turned to Temila with his most simpering expression, “Temila, could I trouble you for some tea?”
 
As morning dawned, the community of the Spire awoke to a day of driving winds and rain. As soon as he was relieved, Livaanar sought out his daughter, breakfasting alone.
“Er…good morning, Nox,”
“Morning…Father.” Nox replied cautiously. Polite greetings were not the norm. In their old lives, early morning greetings usually consisted of drills on the liturgy of the Devotees or being dragged away to his workshop to help on a project. She countered with a polite affirmation.
“I saw you did a watch. Thank you. Knowing someone is watching out for us makes me feel safe.”
 
For a moment, the compliment derailed Livaanar’s train of thought, and he mentally stumbled, “Er…thanks..um. That Fureva-Yung is an…interesting character.”
Nox smiled. Nox liked Fureva-Yung’s quiet directness. She was sure it had come as a culture shock to her socially conscious Father.
“Um…Nox, I wanted to talk to you about that Marius Serik fellow,” Livaanar looked genuinely uncomfortable. This was more like the interactions she was used to, making Nox nervous. Telepathically, Nox reached out to Jaden, Marius and Fureva-Yung, gaining comfort from their presence in her mind.
“I don’t think he can be faithful to you.” Livaanar continued, unaware he now had an audience. Across the camp, Marius laughed out loud, gaining a bemused expression from Temila. Jaden spat out her tea in surprise, and Furva-Yung sat watching in still silence.
“Oh, what makes you say that?” Nox asked guilelessly.
“He…was with another woman last night,” He said, breaking the hard news.
Nox frowned, “Odd,” She said after a while, “He usually goes off by himself.” Across the camp, Marius’ laughter stopped abruptly.
“Do you think I should bring this up with him?”
“Yes, I think you should.”
“Okay,” And though the situation was fictitious, Nox was surprised to receive good Fatherly advice, “Thank you.”
 
She finished her breakfast and headed straight to Marius, speaking earnestly to Temila.
“No, we made him think we were together as a joke,”
“But you’re not together. Not much of a joke,” Temila rebuked.
“No, I guess not,” Marius had to agree.
“Good morning, Temila,” Nox greeted her apothecary instructor and friend before turning to Marius, “Doors today?”
“Yes!” Marius agreed, grateful for the change in subject, “In fact…” He rummaged through his tool bag and pulled out a small oil bottle. Moving to the nearest door, he carefully oiled the door's tracks top and bottom. With a little effort from Fureva-Yung, the door slid open.
 
By the way, Marius, Nox sent silently through the link, Temila is my friend. Look after her. Remember, I can hurt your brain.
“What?” Though the kids, cognitive powers were impressive, he’d seen no sign of violence so far.
I can hurt your brain, She replied simply and slipped through the doorway to find the scratching, crawling things she’d heard the night before.
“What about me? I don’t want to be hurt.”
 
 
 
Beyond the small door was an odd-shaped triangular room. The room was lit by blue light emanating from a cylinder in a corner nook. Beside it, two small pyramids stood point to point, one suspended above the other. At the top angle of the triangle, a door blocked access to another space. Nox scanned the cylinder and discovered the improbable answer of solid energy.
 
Fureva-Yung stood before the pyramids. The whole structure stood a little taller than her, at three metres tall. The pyramids were a metre tall, each with a gap of the same distance between them. Slowly her hand reached out to touch the upper pyramid.
Zap! A small electrical charge ground through her, making her start. She frowned, looking disappointed, before reaching the other hand for the lower pyramid.
“NO!” All three of her companions cried in unison. Marius even got a hand to her shoulder just as she closed the circuit, and both were hit by a jolt of electricity. There was a flash of bright light, and when their eyes adjusted again, a purple ball of energy crackled and spat furiously in the gap.
 
“Valma?” Jaden said, surprised at the turn of events.
Valma? Nox echoed and tried picking up the ball of energy with her telekinetics, but there wasn’t enough substance to the ball for her to grasp. As an experiment, Marius threw a scrap of cloth into the ball. It was instantly consumed.
 
Suddenly, a bolt of energy zapped out of the creature at Nox. Feeling the static buildup before the strike, Nox dodged out of the way. Marius studied the creature for a moment, determining it didn’t seem in control of itself. A rage-filled ball of animated energy.
“Ok, let's short circuit this thing!” He said as another bolt of energy zapped his direction. As with Nox, he felt the static energy first and moved before it could hit him. Now Fureva-Yung stepped up.
“Show me!” She said in frustration and punched the ball of lightning. Energy scintillated all over Fureva-Yung. Her muscled strained as the energy sent random signals throughout her body. Eventually, the energy let her go, and Fureva-Yung was thrown back against the wall as the ball of energy reorganised itself. Instead of an almost unstable ball of lightning, the energy became a smooth-sided pyramid and seemed to turn to face the group.
Hello! It said in all their minds simultaneously.
“Show me!” Fureva-Yung, smoking for electrical burns and unsteady on her feet, roared at the energy being.
What would you like me to show you? The being said, in all innocence, Here is the wall.
Reaching out a burnt hand, Fureva-Yung tried brushing the energy creature aside, only to have it spin madly on its axis.
Whee! That was fun! Do it again!
“Valma?” Jaden asked again, and this time the creature stopped spinning and turned its sloping surface towards her.
Yes, hi, I’m Valma.
“Do you remember me? We met a long time ago, very far away from here,”
No, I don’t know you. But you know me?
“You always make an impression, “ Jaden smiled, “What are you doing here?”
It seemed interesting, so I came.
 
As Jaden and Valma continued to chat, Nox tried reading Valma’s surface thoughts. The chaos of ideas and concepts was dizzying. She could make nothing of them and eventually had to pull out for fear of being sick.
 
“I’m pretty sure we met before. I was very young and living in a caravan. That is unless there are other Valmas. Do you know of others?”
Never met another Valma, Said the cheery voice in their heads, Are there other yous?
“No,” Jaden had to admit before thinking, “Did you see the crystal mountains three days' walk from here?” As she spoke, she reached her hand into Bellyache and pulled out one piece of crystal.
The pyramid seemed to focus on the crystal. With a bright flash of light, Valma disappeared, only a moment later to reappear between the pyramids.
 
Fascinating! Inside the crystal are many places, not just one place, Valma said, now transfixed by the piece of crystal.
You saw the other places? Nox thought in awe of this new being, Amazing!
“Pretty clever,” Marius confessed.
A thoughtful look came over Jaden’s face, “Do you think you could get out to one of those other places from inside the crystal?”
Don’t know, Valma said, and once more disappeared. They waited, but she didn’t return.
“And that’s how you deal with a Valma,” Jaden replied with a self-satisfied look on her face.
Did she really have to go, Jaden? Nox asked, disappointed not to be able to talk to Valma longer.
“You never know. She may make it back to us. Trust me when I say this. It’s for the best.” Jaden returned, the crystal back the Bellyache, and Marius turned to the next door.
 
It was locked.
“Does anyone have lockpicks?”Marius asked, looking at Jaden, who turned once more to Bellyache, hunting for wire.
The skittering things get through somehow, Nox thought and searched around the walls. She found what she was looking for in the corner beside the door. A small mousehole chewed through solid metal.
“They eat metal?” Marius said, and Nox stood, rummaged around in Bellyache for a few scraps of metal she’d picked up after the worm attack.
Let's see what they think of these, She thought and placed one in front of the hole with telekinesis.
 
Silently, the group waited and watched the piece of broken metal. Just as they thought nothing would happen, the scratching, scrambling sound echoes through the walls. No one saw the creature with a metallic claw the size of a medium crab reach out and snatched away the scrap, but it was enough time for Nox to scan the area and finally discover its nature. It looked a little like a lobster, long with six legs and two large claws in the front. No one was keen to mess with the little critters if its claws could break through metal. Even Marius' attempt to grab one was only half-hearted.
 
Instead, they turned their attention back to the locked door. Taking the two pieces of bent wire from Jaden, Nox tried her hand at the lock. With a little luck and careful hands, the lock clicked open. With a self-satisfied smile, she stepped back and allowed the others to open the door.
 
The next room was more of a corridor that followed the wall to another identical door on the other side. In the centre, a small circular room with a closed sliding door dominated. From its position. Nox scanned the space beyond the door and found a cavity that went up past the ceiling and dropped away below the floor. It looked like they’d found the way through the Spire, if they could open the door. Beside the door, a control panel was dark and lifeless. Nox turned to Jaden to see if power could be restored.
“This looks like a job for more than one day,” Jaden had to admit.
 
Fureva-Yung tried physical force to open the door, but though it wasn’t locked, her hands just slid off the smooth surface. For the moment, the rest of the Spire would have to wait. Around the corner, the second door opened onto a seemingly empty room except for two doors and metal lobster holes. On the left wall was a sliding door that, by the sound of voices and the ongoing storm, led back to the open space in the centre of the Spire. Straight ahead, one last door.
 
They opened the door to the centre and then turned their attention to the last door. Fureva-Yung grabbed the handle and yanked. Either by faulty design or age, the metal handle gave way, sending Fureva-Yung’s hand back, smacking her in the face.
“Stupid door will learn not to fight me,” She said, grabbing for any exposed edge and yanking it sideways. With a groan and scream of distressed metal, the door collapsed, sending a cloud of metal dust into the air. The room was nine metres tall, much taller than the open space where the community sheltered from the rain. Around the walls, a one-metre free space was left encircling a bubble of suspended liquid in the room's shape. Above, metal pipes entered the fluid and disappeared through vents in the roof in the same form as the bubble. Nox scanned the fluid and found it to be explosive and highly acidic. Drawing out a piece of diamond glass from the margr pyramid, Fureva-Yung poked the bubble. The glass slipped in and out of the fluid without resistance, a thin bead of liquid gathering on the exposed surface. She wiped off the glass against the ground to clean it and gouged a grove into the metal flooring. Suddenly, above the groove, the bubble bulged out violently. Nox, Marius and Jaden jumped back as Fureva-Yung pulled all three of them out of the room, turning her back to face the bubble. The acid splashed out before resettling into a new lumpier shape. Fureva-Yung back sizzled.
“Fureva! Fureva is injured!” She screamed, panic-stricken, twisting to see the damage.
Nox ran straight back into the communal space and looked for Temila.
“Ashes from the fire, they’re alkaline, “ Temila gestured to the fireplace as Jaden brought Fureva-Yung through. Grabbing handfuls of cold ash from old fires, Nox, Jaden and Temila counteracted the acid, but the damage had been done.
 
From shoulder to shoulder down the middle of her back Fureva-Yung had been covered in a thick pattern of black hairs in the shape of a bat. A previous injury made a white scar through the bat shape that was only now healing. Rarely she referred to it at all, but when she did, she called the pattern Fureva. Nox looked at the red and bubbling skin. There was a large patch through the middle of the pattern where the black hair had been burned away. She remembered the being she’d spoken to only briefly two weeks previously in a clearing of the Endoval Forest. It had been an intelligent being, completely separate from the physical Yung.
“Fureva! How is Fureva?” Fureva-Yung asked repeatedly.
Looking at the damage, Nox wondered if she’d ever speak to that being again.
 
Once he was sure Fureva-Yung was taken care of, Marius ducked back into the room with the acid bubble. Using his scrap of diamond glass, he dipped it into the bubble and drew out a shallow pool of acid. Carefully and slowly, he walked the acid back to the closed door onto the tube-like cavity. He poured the acid down a join between two panels beside the door. The acid ate away, expanding the gap and weakening the metal so Marius could pry it aside and expose the inner workings. In a moment, he’d unlatched the lock, and the lift door slid open.