sighed. “You sound like the worker who suggested it was against the rules.”
“A worker saw you?” said Ry. "A worker talked to you?"
Kaydin enjoyed this. Having power over Ry. Too often it was the other way around. Holding up the turma bulb, Kaydin explained that this bulb was the sixth on the turma plant, something neither of them had seen before. The worker he had encountered had discovered it and stayed late to investigate.
Ry adjusted the amulet on his cloak and sat up a bit straighter. “Let’s have Mav examine the bulb tomorrow.”
“But what does it mean?” said Kaydin.
“You already figured the first implication,” said Ry. “That the new director wants to gain favor with the Rahz through a larger-yield harvest.”
“Yes, and?”
“The Rahz don’t yet know he’s doing it.”
"Strange behavior from a director, don't you think?"
"He's acting out. Maybe he wants to become a Rahz himself. With enough favor..."
Ry liked to discuss the Rahz's hierarchal methods as much as Kaydin liked using his abilities. But Kaydin didn't have the wits to do so now. Kaydin diverted his attention to his hands, where he found himself fingering his stump of a left pinky. Then he felt his entire body losing the ability to hold himself up. “I’ve got to rest before my head hits this stone,” he said, knocking on the table.
“That’s fine,” said Ry, “then I won’t ask you to Inspire me with the memory of what happened—you did Retain it, right?”
“Yes, but Inspiring you now would be too expensive anyway.” His turma allocation was running out.
“True enough,” said Ry, “but if this worker has curiosity like Gara, Mav, or Bel, then…”
Kaydin nodded, understanding the implication, while also noting how Ry left out Maryn, as he always did when discussing curiosity. Kaydin’s head started to droop from fatigue. “You’re right.”
“Get your rest; you’ll need it. Tomorrow night, you will watch that worker.”
Chapter 9
Next shift, the worker found another sixth bulb. When he did, the events of the previous shift slowly returned to him. It was the strangest thing, remembering. Images and emotions seeped into his consciousness. Indistinguishable shapes like the chunks in the soup he'd foregone again when he'd awoken. He couldn't recall remembering, not once, what had happened the previous shift. Of course, he always knew where to go, what to do, and why. Tend the turma. With it the Rahz could protect them from the shadows in the Abyss.
He realized, though, when he really focused on them now, that the details were missing. He shivered at the experience of a past self, another version of this same person, who was there before and here again.
He stayed after the others to investigate the bulb. Director Dimah would want to know about this abnormality. Their training said they were to report things like this. There was another reason he stay: to see if the strange worker would return.
The first toll sounded. The white hill followed by the shadow flashed across the worker’s eyes. His hairs stood on end as he remembered how close he'd come to being taken by a shadow. He needed to get back. The worker he'd met must truly have descended, after all. Only the Rahz stood a chance against the shadows.
The worker ripped the bulb from the vine and powder spilled out of a gash his clumsiness created. But his attention went to the sensations the powder produced in him. He felt it inside him, moving under his skin, in his chest. Then into his head. Was he doing this, or was it? No time. He made for the exit.
I can still make it.
At the top of the stairs, the worker heard the second toll echo from the chasm, its vibrations shaking the stone underfoot. He considered hiding back among the stones in the growing room.
There is nowhere to hide.
Words echoed through his mind from the past. A past beyond the previous shift. From a time when he was...young. Maybe they would still let him in. They had to.
Dim earthlight shards guided him across the bridge. Comforted by the light, the worker afforded himself a moment to look to his right, across the short stretch of the chasm to the Great Spire, which rose from the apex of opposing chasm cliffs. A red glow, not unlike those in the Growing Room, shown from an opening far overhead. Are the Rahz watching over me? With a jolt he recalled the previous shift's gaze up to the crimson balcony, and his similar thoughts.
Behind him then came a sound. Like the noisy sleepers in the alcoves adjacent his. A wheezing snore followed by… a hiss. But there were no workers but him to speak of out here, alone, on the bridge.
Two yellow eyes appeared at the far end. The worker froze. The shadow growled. The sound was like a cruel version of their soup bowls harshly stacked by the cleaning worker. If you were behind me, how did you get over there?
When he made to retreat, though, a second set of yellow eyes waited. Nowhere to hide and nowhere to run.
He backpedaled toward the center of the bridge, away from the nearer set of eyes. Two sets of hisses whispered menacingly.
The nearer pair of eyes entered the first earthlight’s dim aura. Carrying those eyes was a four-legged lizard, black as the Abyss, and half the worker's height. Lengthwise, twice. Its forked tongue sliced through the air. Another hiss. Its hexagonal scales now sketched a pattern of light. The worker stole a glance behind him to the other, and its scales too drew a pattern, then faded again to black. The worker had only one disturbing guess: they were talking. And one premonition.
I am about to descend.
A childhood memory sprung into consciousness: the Selection. On his back in a ring of stones, he was being pummeled in the face by a larger boy. Like a beetle flipped on his back, he’d squirmed out of the ring. Since then he was on track to become a grower.
But that stint would be over soon.
The first giant lizard lunged toward him, springing from its hind legs. A shadow of itself came first and the worker tucked his head under just in time to avoid the beast’s jaws. Its front leg, though, caught him on the side of the head. Pain burned through his face.
He was spinning from the blow, off-balance, to the edge of the bridge. White lights engulfed his vision as he tried to regain his footing and find the yellow eyes. His waist slammed into the stone railing. I’m falling…into the Abyss. He caught the railing with both hands, but one slipped. He couldn’t grip it with just one, and he prepared to relent. The Rahz had protected him once, but twice was too much to ask.
He felt somone else's hands on his own. “No you don’t,” said a voice. He was pulled back and collapsed onto firm stone. There was blood on the stone. He touched his face and gasped at his red palm.
The young man laughed. “I guess you’ve never seen blood before. If I’d gotten here a second later you never would have.”
“Thank you,” said the worker.
