Escape from Smort
They were standing together, too close, and my mind was in a race of panic about all that may have just happened in my daughter’s life. That Kali would get pulled into this web was not something I’d imagined. And yet, here we were, standing in a gray corridor of the Library, and she apparently knew Anches even better than I did.
“We’ve just returned from Smort,” she said.
“Escaped from Smort is more like it,” said Anches wearily. He looked pretty roughed up and I thought I saw a cut above his eye.
“What happened?”
“Oh, mom! It was so beautiful there! Crystals grow in the air and winged creatures flit from crystal to crystal. And flying rabbits in the cliffs are as smart as humans, but don’t make sounds. They communicate with their bodies and wings. It’s really something to see! When we first arrived, we were right next to their hive in the caves, so we camped there for the night, but then explored further and found a city with people living in it. Not a city like we know. It’s cavelike, really, and all interconnected. You can’t just arrive unnoticed. The minute you step inside, you are part of it, and everyone is aware of you. It was a little alarming because I was grabbed right away and brought into a room. They spoke at me, but I didn’t understand any of it. They were very upset with me. Meanwhile, Anches was trying to figure out where I was. He doesn’t know how, but he can understand some of the language, so he tried to ask what was going on. After persisting and getting nowhere, he walked around the city to see what he could learn.”
Kali glanced uncomfortably toward Anches and he picked up the story.
“Yes, I hoped to find someone who could help me figure out where you were. There were places to sit down to eat, so I did and was given some food, but I didn’t eat any. Trying to make conversation was difficult. I do understand the language, but in a limited way. The people were wearing loose coverings over their bodies and heads so that you couldn’t even see them very well. You couldn’t look into their eyes. They weren’t very social, even with each other. Maybe we frightened them because we were so uncovered. But why did they grab Kali, yet let me walk around freely?”
“Well, we soon found out why,” said Kali.
“Yes,” said Anches, “eventually, someone sat down and spoke with me to find out where I was from. We could only communicate on very basic terms, but he or she, gender was completely unclear, figured out that I wanted to understand why my friend had been taken away. Telling me about it wasn’t getting through with my limited Verseylesh, and I don’t understand how I know any of the language, so the hooded figure stood up and told me to follow. The figure brought me into the dark cave dwellings where there were people who weren’t covered, making food, cleaning, building, working hard on various things. They’re dark skinned like Kali and you. The being actually said, if I understand the Verseylesh correctly, “night, bad” while pointing at the people working and “day, good” pointing at itself and me. It’s like the opposite of what you experienced, Althea, where you were taught to believe that the Glowing Ones were evil. These hooded beings were taught to believe that the “night” people were bad. The Verseylesh word for “night” is “wookshod,” so the people are called “wookshod.”
The psychology was interesting. Things of the night are hidden, scary, and unexpected. They are things people fear and push away. Things of the day are warm, open, and friendly. They can be seen. These feelings about darkness and light, both on earth and in this world of Anches, what had Kali called it? were applied to the dark and light colors of skin, so that people were treated not based on their character as people, but based on innate human fear of darkness and trust of light. Just that simple. Concepts of bad and good were transferred to qualities of people with dark and light skin.
Except where I grew up, it was the other way around. Why? Where I grew up didn’t make much psychological sense.
“And so, Kali was considered one of the wookshod and couldn’t walk around among the hooded people. The wookshod are the ones who do the work. I wondered, hoped actually, that she had been put to work somewhere. It would be better than her being hurt or worse. My hooded ally couldn’t, or wouldn’t, understand me, so I was unable to gain its help. The whole city sleeps in cave-like bunks, thousands of people all stacked together in one corner of the covered sprawl of pedestrian streets. There is a sound, some kind of metal striking metal, and the people know to go to bed, so I went with them and waited for someone to show me where to lay down.”
“You went to sleep! What about Kali!”
“When everyone was asleep, I was able to get up and go over to the area for the wookshod. It didn’t seem like they slept at all, or maybe they took shifts, because some of them were still making and fixing things. I asked if anyone knew where Kali was.”
I looked at Kali. “So, where were you?”
“I wasn’t with the wookshod. I was in an isolated cell of some kind. They kept asking questions and demanding answers from me and I couldn’t understand a word. I tried to communicate my name and I think they eventually figured it out. When Anches finally got to where they were holding me, they understood what he was asking, but they wouldn’t let me out.”
“So,” said Anches, “I knocked out the guard, got Kali out, and we left the city.”
“You make that sound easy. The way you look makes me think that it wasn’t.”
“Well, they were not used to foreigners or fighting, so that was an advantage. Plus, they completely shutting down when they go to sleep, so no one was trying to stop us. Maybe they have never been attacked. I don’t know. The hardest part was getting through the front door during their sleep time. It wasn’t guarded, but it was not easy to figure out how to get past the lock. I got this cut when one of the bars scraped me.”
“The irony,” said Kali, “was that it was bright daylight outside the city. That’s why it was all covered up. Anches and I figured that the planet had more than one sun and never had darkness.”
They created their own darkness. Another irony.
“And now, we’re back. Safe and sound.”
“So, you didn’t spend a lifetime in Anches’ world?”
“No. Maybe a day. If that.”
“I didn’t get to find out any of those things you wanted to know, Althea, so I’ll go back, but this time, just me,” Anches said, looking tenderly toward Kali. I didn’t like the way he looked at her.
“That’s a good idea,” I said. “And now that you’ve had a little adventure, I’ll take you back, Kali. I hope that will teach you to walk through colored glass portals.”
Kali’s eyes were steadily on Anches. “I’m sorry if I messed up your plans.”
“No, no, we learned some things we wouldn’t have known otherwise. Hey, Althea, do you understand any of this language?”
He spoke some gibberish that he called Verseylesh. It sounded like fish slapping each other.
“Not a word,” I said.
“I wonder why I understand some of it.”
“It’s your world, Anches. It’s the language you’re meant to know, so go learn it. Earth is my world and I was meant to go and learn its most pervasive language, so you will go and learn Verseylesh. Find out if there are any other languages. Find out where your world is in the universe. Try to find Earth or Mars from there, if you can. Look for a map with that weird bird shape. Do you remember it?”
“Yes.”
Anches turned toward Kali and took her hand. I felt a burning sensation spring up from my stomach, race through my chest, and sear my face.
“It was good to meet you, Kali. I hope we will see each other again.”
Kali looked like her heart had stopped beating.
I knew that I would do everything in my power to make sure they never met again.
Next: Lux Earth Wars
This is the sixteenth part in a series of stories. Following are the previous installments starting with the first:
1. The Library
2. Listen, Move, Hide, Repeat
3. A Necessary State of Alarm
4. Anches
5. A Question in Colored Glass
6. How a Lifetime Friendship Began
7. In the World I Created
8. To Make Things Right Again
9. Escape from the Library
10. Pintor’s World
11. Vincente
12. What I Didn’t See Coming
13. First Person Binary
14. Closing the Loop
15. Finding Kali