We’ve been climbing for the past two hours or thereabouts, judging how many hands high the sun now is in the sky. We are at least twenty miles from Haven.
I’ve heard it said that humans are the only creatures aware of their own bodily mortality. Knowing that you would die to protect and preserve all that you love—including Earth—makes you more than just bones and flesh and blood. It makes you stronger of spirit. It makes you better. Better for others and better for yourself. Better for the Earth.
And that is why I have to fight the Ones. For if they have their way, they and others like them will claw their way back to control the whole world. I can’t let them do that again.
“I can’t let them.” Whoa, Lozen. You’re beginning to sound like one of those overly noble characters in the old viddies who fight against all odds.
Enough grandiosity.
Forget about saving the world.
Just take it all one step at a time. That’s the only way to get to the top of a mountain unless you have wings.
I look back down the slope. The dark rocks of every shape and size, some of them sparkling with mica, piled and stacked into all sorts of formations, have been making this climb like working our way through a maze. There, thirty feet below me, is Ana. She stops, waves up at me, and then turns to motion down to Victor, who must be just below her. I can’t see him or Hussein or Mom. They are hidden by the twists of this trail, a path long followed by my ancestors. It is a path that can only be followed single file in many places. And for every choke point in this trail, there is a spot hidden above it and hard to see from below where a man or a woman with a bow could pick off any enemy foolish enough to follow.
The top is just ahead. That is where we’ll stop and decide. We’ve already visited the place where I cached food, filled up our canteens, and added the two additional canteens I stored there three months ago. There are two ways we can go from here, both places where there is water. Here, in the ancient Rincon Range, there are many places that offered my ancestors refuge or places to stand off enemies. So my escape route is not just one place after another, but includes crossroads where I can choose which alternative to take.
As Ana comes into sight below, I scan the wide vista ahead. I don’t see the pursuers that I know must be following. I hold up my hands and turn slowly. There, a light tingling in my palms. Back to the southwest, but still far away. That is where our enemies are.
Victor has now joined us with Hussein, who has become his special buddy. Victor smiles up at him and takes his hand as he stands here.
Mom’s not joining us yet. As agreed, she stationed herself just above the next to last narrow spot in the trail. If anyone was very close to us, she’d see them. And if it was just one person, she’ll use the crossbow she’s holding.
But I trust my Power to have spoken truth. I gesture to Ana, who’s still a hundred feet away.
Go back. Bring Mom up, I sign. Then I sit down on a large flat stone that is covered with petroglyphs. A sun, a coiled shape, a series of handprints, a man holding what looks like two tiny mountain goats in each of his hands.
Hussein walks across the top of this little mesa and sits on another rock to look out toward the east. Giving me space. Why is everyone always giving me space? And why do I feel irked about that right now? It’s not like I’d want him to come sit close to me and put his arm around me and lean his head next to mine. Would I?
I shake my head, trying to untangle my thoughts.
Little Food, how are you?
I should have known it.
I am NOT Little Food.
Oh, Hally thinks back at me in a way that is like the sound of someone chuckling because they are vastly amused with themselves. Sorry. I try again.
Don’t bother!
No, no, is no problem. Here I go. Not Little Food, how are you?
Why do I even try? And why is my Power not working for me right now, warning me that an eight-foot-tall man-ape has somehow crept up on me? I slap my hands on the flat stone so hard that it makes a hollow sound like a drum. I look around in every direction.
Is he there? No tingle from my palms.
Is he over there? Still no warning warmth in my hands. I am getting super pissed!
Mom has now come up to the mesa top and is standing by Victor and Ana. They are looking at me, concerned. So is Hussein.
Crap!
I stand up and spread out my hands.
“Where are you?” I yell out loud.
Here.
The large flat rock on which I was sitting lifts like the lid of a chest, pressed up by two huge hairy hands—in whose grasp your average mountain goat would look tiny. Just like in the petroglyph I’d been sitting on.
I hear a sharp intake of breath from behind me, recognize it as coming from Mom.
I hold my hands out to my side. It’s all right. I think.
One of the two large hands, connected to a long, long arm that disappears out of sight into the tunnel below that flat rock, lifts up a little higher, does a little wave at us, then gestures for us to follow as it slowly descends and disappears.
“Lozen,” my mother’s hand is on my right shoulder, “Who is that?”
Who, indeed? Are you coming?
I take a deep, deep breath and slowly let it out. The gang’s all here.
“Lozen!” Mom says again. Her voice is getting impatient. “Who?”
“A friend,” I say.
I hope, I think.
I take two steps forward to look down into the tunnel under the stone. It’s a big tunnel. Carved into the living stone is a set of rough-hewn steps leading down and down into the dark.
Gesturing for everyone to follow me, I start down the stairs.
I hear the soft footsteps of Ana, then Victor, then Hussein, and finally Mom as they begin to descend behind me. Ten steps, twenty, thirty steps down into the dark.
Then, the small amount of light from above suddenly disappears. Somehow, that flat stone has closed down above us. Is it our weight on the stairs that did it? A hidden lever down below where Hally is somewhere ahead of us?
Waiting perhaps with a cooking pot?
Perhaps I am a vegetarian?
I doubt that.
Soft mental chuckling answers me.
Ana grasps the back of my vest. I reach back and take hold of her small hand, which is trembling a little. I squeeze it reassuringly. It’s going to be all righ, sweetie. Victor, Hussein, and Mom are close behind. I can feel each of their presences.
And then, as my eyes grow accustomed to the dark, I see that it is not completely black down here. The walls are glowing, a faint luminescence that seems to grow brighter as I become aware of it.
“I can see,” Victor says.
I give Ana’s hand a little tug. Let’s keep going.
The glow is brighter ahead of us. We round a corner and what I see there, waiting for us, shocks me as much as it does Mom and Ana and Victor.
This, I think, is insane.