I must have opened my eyes, though I found myself in a darkness so complete that I could see no difference between my surroundings and the backs of my eyelids. My head throbbed with pain through and through, and when I lifted a hand to touch my scalp I felt a crusty layer of blood; the wounds were already drying out and I had no idea how much time I’d lost. I was extremely hungry and thirsty too. Raising myself unsteadily to my feet I stumbled around in the darkness for a few moments of panic until I struck my shin on a rock and fell once again to the cold stone floor, where I lay silently and tried to accept my fate.

For the most part the dark cavern was silent, but the longer I lay still I began to sense a slight reverberation and a dull, deep sound that seemed to have a source far above me, through many layers of rock. It was a sound that reminded me of that which had overwhelmed me as I stood beside the sea, and I wondered if I was in a tunnel somewhere beneath that immensity of water.

After an unknowable amount of time passed I once again found the strength to move, rolling onto my hands and crawling around the cavern at a more reasonable pace, in search of an exit. I made two or three complete rings around the cave but my hands felt nothing but solid rock all the way around. There must have been an entrance somewhere, for I had been transported inside. But if it was anything like our own dungeons, I knew the opening was likely to be somewhere high above me, unreachable by climbing, and I should despair of ever finding it in the darkness.

Yet somehow I never despaired.

When an eternity had passed and a faint light appeared around some passage far above me, I pulled myself to my feet and stood shaking in the middle of the cavern. If they expected to find me broken and afraid, then they would be surprised.

They came in quickly, emerging with torches from a tunnel entrance just above my reach and jumping to the cavern’s floor. They did not pause when they saw me standing to face them; on the contrary, they moved with determination as if I was precisely where they meant for me to be.

There were four of them here, with the same black tattoos and strange clothing as before. Though I tried to determine whether they were the same people who had attacked me on the beach, my memory was too foggy and my perception too unclear to know for certain.

One of them stayed above in the mouth of the tunnel, holding a torch and watching as the three others closed in around me.

Two grabbed me by the arms and threw me backwards to the floor, while the third, who I now saw to be holding a clay pitcher filled with liquid, stood above me, angrily uttering some garbled words that held no meaning for me. When I remained silent he poured the liquid out of the pitcher and onto my face, which the two others held backwards. The liquid was water, but it was that detestable, briny water of the sea. It filled my nose, then my mouth and finally my eyes. It burned like fire but the more I coughed, the more water poured on in.

Mercifully the man stopped at length, allowing me time to cough up whole lungfuls of poisonous water and blink the burning salt out of my eyes. Once again he barked angry, strange words at me that I didn’t understand, and once again I responded with silence. The pitcher was upturned again and the rest of its contents dumped on my face. When this was done I was so overtaken by convulsions that the two men at my sides were no longer required to hold me down. They released me and I stayed on the floor, curling and rolling as my body tried to clear itself of the awful seawater.

A few more words came from the man, who then reached up to his silent companion in the torchlit passage, who in turn handed him down a small cup. He placed the cup beside me on the ground and then the three torturers grabbed onto a rope and pulled themselves out of the pit. Retracting the rope behind them they paced away down the passage without another word, taking the light with them.

When enough time had passed for me to cough away the last of the burn, I cautiously felt around for the cup I had seen placed on the floor. My fingers touched it and slowly picked it up. As I raised it to my lips, hoping against hope that it would be filled with pure, clean water I could drink, I felt a twinge of revulsion as my instinct reacted to the fear of another dose of saltwater. Yet I forced the cool liquid beyond my lips, and a moment later had chugged the whole cup. It was the first water I had drank in far too long a time, and my body felt immediately strengthened. Despite my recent torture I found myself able to think more clearly, and I began to take stock of my situation.

The shock of finding that not only was the sea real, but there were people of an entirely different culture living far outside the colony, had passed. Nevertheless I had no idea how to interpret the questions of my captors, or even to know what they might want from me. Everything I had seen of them, from the theft of our horses to the thoughtless violence of their attack, led me to the assumption that they were antagonistic by nature. They were more animal than human, and any attempt to communicate rationally would only be a waste of energy. More could be communicated through my steadfastness than might be said in a flurry of confused pleading.

With the strength afforded by that small drink of fresh water, I resolved to stay strong and brave. Ever since I had set out on my journey with Slate I had held myself to a new standard of courage that had only increased with time, and this might prove to be the ultimate test. No matter how much I was tortured I would say nothing, and at the very least perhaps I might gain an idiom of respect from these strangers before I was finally killed.

And tortured further I was. At intervals of unknown time I would see a light appear in the passageway, and the same four tattooed figures would take their respective places. Salty water was poured on my face while my head was held back, as the lead torturer assaulted me with a string of incomprehensible demands. I never said a word, though sometimes the only thing that kept me from screaming in pain was the unceasing stream of water that blocked my windpipe. Each time I was left with a small cup of life-giving water, and each time I could not resist the urge to gulp it down.

Five times they came, in total. The fourth time, in spite of my best efforts to stay brave, I could not stop myself from squirming away to the back of the cave in primal terror when I first glanced their light from the passageway. The fifth time, I screamed. When they came to grab me I fought, I kicked, I scratched. But I was weak and even if I hadn’t been, I was a much smaller person than even the shortest of them. Without effort they threw me back onto the ground and the pitcher of seawater was dangled above my head.

“Please!” A desperate part of my mind over which I had no direct control screamed out the words. “Stop, stop it! I don’t understand what you want. Just stop.” I blabbered and sobbed and wept ad screamed. The only thing more extreme than my terror was my shame that I’d broken so quickly, and I shut my eyes in preparation for the stream of water that was sure to come.

But the water didn’t come. I heard the voices of my captors now speaking quickly and softly amongst themselves. When I opened my eyes again I saw that the figure who had until now kept watch in the passage above had now jumped into the pit and stood over me. The figure, who I now saw was a woman about my own age (for they all dressed in similar clothing and wore their hair long), spoke to me.

“You talk the desert speech?” The words were halting and uncertain, but spoken with authority. Exhausted as I was, I responded as best I could with a nodding of my head.

I heard more garbled speech between my captors, speech that was hurried but no longer soft. It sounded as if they were arguing amongst themselves. Finally the woman climbed back up to the passageway and turned around to face the others, speaking a series of short, sharp words that echoed through the tunnels behind her. Then she pivoted and strode away, leaving the torch behind her.

Whatever it was she had said, it had an immediate effect on the other three. They pushed me to my feet, not gently but also not with the same brutality as before. One of them bounded up to the entrance of the pit, then the other two roughly pushed me up towards him. I was too weak to help in pulling myself upward, but even had I been strong I would have lacked the will to do so, since I had no way of knowing if I was headed to freedom or to more and greater horrors.

As I was pushed through the passageways I could not help but think of the tunnels here at home. Whereas ours are mostly crude and hurriedly dug, theirs were clean and smoothly polished. They reminded me somewhat of the very oldest of our tunnels, the first excavations of the colony carved out by the Great Fathers during Noontime, as they say. Even though these tunnels appear to have initially been smooth and ornately carved with symbols and decorations, they have long since begun to crack and crumble as our generations failed to take care of them. But these passages beneath the sea (for the roar above and around me reinforced my supposition that I was in such a place) still glistened in the glow of the torch. There was not a speck of dust on the floor or a corner that showed any signs of crumbling.

My observations passed much of the time, so that I barely noticed the discomfort of my bare feet being dragged along the stone or the continued throbbing of my injured head. The passage took several turns before climbing upwards. Again I was surprised at the level of care put into the excavations, for the upward climb made use of hundreds of shallow, perfectly level steps, whereas we long ago abandoned stairs in favor of the more efficient simple slope. Because the design was so similar to that of the Great Fathers here yet was so cleanly maintained, I felt in my weary stupor that I’d been transported back to an ancient time when such proud construction was still new.

Gradually the darkness of the tunnels dissipated and I saw ahead of me the glow of daylight. More and more passages began to open on either side of us, but we kept straight ahead, going upward toward the light.

The stairs became steeper and narrower, turning round and round in sharp corners and curves though never losing their elegance as they did so. At last the source of the daylight become plain; a tall rectangular slit in the rock to my right opened on a mesmerizing view of the sea, with the sunlight dancing across its surface. I was only able to see it for a brief moment, after my eyes had adjusted to the light and before the guards rushed me on up the stairs, but the glance was enough to tell me that we had climbed far up into the cliffs overlooking the water. We must have been somewhere in or above those carven towers and cliff-dwellings I had seen from the shore.

The window was not the only one of its kind. More and more gaps appeared in the walls the higher we climbed, until at last the torches were unnecessary in the passages awash with daylight. Mixed with the distant roar of the sea and the whistling of the wind through the windows, I began to hear many voices coming up and down through the passageways. As we passed openings to other tunnels I caught glimpses of chambers and halls, many of them populated with tattooed, close-shaved people in all manners of daily life. Some were sleeping, some eating, some studying stone tablets, and some were even making love. None of the chambers seemed to have doors and those few people who took notice of me at all as I was ushered past only watched me with a keen and curious interest before turning back to their respective activities.

At some point my legs ceased their passive rebellion and I subconsciously began to walk by myself, though the guards made sure to pull me along with just as much force as before. I began to wonder how much higher we could possibly go, when the narrow stairway opened into a large chamber, gloriously lit by dozens of narrow windows all around. We must be inside some narrow promontory of rock, I realized, that jutted high above the level of the shore. The chamber itself was not much larger than our worship hall, but the presence of the daylight and the smooth quality of the rock surfaces made it feel infinitely more expansive. My guards put out their torches as we entered the chamber, and I looked around and saw there were no torches lit here at all. Strategically placed bright stones sat opposite each window, reflecting the sunlight and filling every corner of the room with a soft white light.

In the center stood a high stone chair that appeared continuous from the floor and carved from the same rock. It rose seven or eight feet above, with a brief flight of stairs leading to it. The seat was empty. Many lower seats stood beneath it, however, forming two straight lines out in front of the raised throne. Several of these were empty but many were filled, and the occupants of these seats wore the same dense tattoos but their hair was long and mostly white. Some were earnestly talking to one another, some where sitting pensively and others were sleeping in their seats. They made me think of our own council of Elders, made up of the old people who seem to think of themselves as wise, forming the governing body and answering only to the governor.

Towards these chairs the guards pushed me, still led by the young woman. The particular chair to which I was roughly ushered was occupied by an ancient woman with glazed eyes and white hair that draped down around her knees. Her face, like the others, displayed many elaborate layers of geometric tattoos, innumerable lines forming polygons and patterns, the sharp black lines overlaying traces of older ink long since faded. But in some ways the old woman was decidedly different than everyone else I saw around her. Her face was longer than those of the others, for these cliff-dwellers were squat with round faces despite their significant height. Her skin too, when I glanced at the other old folks for comparison, seemed darker and more leathery than theirs. Dark and leathery, like the skin of our people.

I was pushed to my knees before her chair. The younger woman said a few words and the old one lifted up her head and centered her glazed eyes on my face, squinting as she did so. Her eyes grew wide for a moment, then she reached forward and began to touch my face. When I instinctively shrank from her touch, the guards held me tightly in place.

When she had run her soft, wrinkled palms over my cheeks, ears and forehead, she sat back again, her eyes still focused on me despite the white film that covered them.

“I don’t see as well as I used to, but yours is the face of a colony boy, or I’m a fish.”

The words, spoken in my own tongue in the recognizable accent of Rockhome, caught me off guard. I’m sure I gawked at her in disbelief for some moments longer than I should have, because at some point the young female guard grabbed me by the hair and gave my head a shake.

“Gentle, Low-Mist. Gentle. The boy is frightened, and he’s so very far from home.”

To my surprise the female guard, whose name I now gathered was Low-Mist, seemed to understand the order despite its utterance in my language. She took a step back and motioned for the other guards to do the same.

“What in the name of Old Stone are you doing here anyway, colony boy?” Her expression was rigid and emotionless but her voice was tinged with anger.

I looked at her face, then at the ground, then at the faces of all the other old ones who had stopped talking and turned to stare at me.

“Why don’t you tell me what your name is?” the old woman asked, but still I said nothing. My head was full of words but none came readily to my lips. I knew I must respond but I didn’t know how.

One of the old people seated a little to my right mumbled something to Low-Mist, who shrugged and shouted an order to one of her guards. Within a moment a cup of water was produced and handed to me.

I had forgotten how parched I was, for the last time I drank water was after the last time they had tortured me. With that cup of cool water, life flowed through me again, my mind was unlocked and the walls between my thoughts and my speech were broken at last.

“They took our horse! They took old River! And we were just trying to follow the sun. We were just trying to go west until we found a place where it would be day for a thousand summers, just like in old times during Noon. Nobody at home would listen to me. Nobody at home even cared, and that’s why I left. But they took our horse and we had to walk. Then Slate got himself bit by a snake and now he’s probably dead or dying…” Then I choked on my own tears and collapsed into a sputtering pile on the floor.

“Slate, you said?” I heard the old woman’s voice above me. “Slate, Gravel’s boy?”

I had no idea who Slate’s father had been, but the recognition and emotion in the woman’s voice surprised me. I pulled myself up, wiping away the tears and the mucus from my face.

“Slate was one of the scouts. He was very kind to me. I don’t think he ever believed me about the earth or the sun, but he thought it was better to do something than nothing.”

“You said he was bitten by a snake. Where is Slate now?”

“Maybe ten miles back. Maybe a hundred miles. I lost track. I don’t know.”

For a few moments there was complete silence, and I became intensely aware that the eyes of all the other elders were focused not on me, but on her. Whatever excitement she had expressed at my mentioning the name of Slate now vanished and she slouched back in her chair, staring at me or through me.

The old man seated to her left leaned over and whispered something in their language, at which the old woman turned her head and spat out a few angry words. Then she lifted her hand and waved two fingers dismissively in my direction. Low-Mist gave a command and the three guards lifted me up and dragged me back towards the chamber entrance.

I screamed. I shouted at the old woman but I can’t remember just what it is I said. If I spoke articulate words at all, I probably demanded to know how she knew Slate, why she had spoken to me in my language, and why I’d been tortured. I probably begged them not to torture me again. But mostly I just remember the panic, the screaming, and the long, terrible descent back down the stairs and into darkness.

They consigned me once again to the pit. No longer did they come at intervals to torture me but I began to wish they would because the timeless, solitary darkness drove me near to madness. Never a sound did I hear except that distant and relentless sound of the sea beating far above my head. No food or water was brought to me and soon I had begun to shout and scream for sustenance, for light, for human company. My voice echoed through the passages and disappeared, and nobody came. Lights started to dance in my eyes, the sea began to sound like thousands of murmuring voices, and soon I imagined that hundreds of small, starving creatures, half-snake and half-man, were leaping and swarming around me in the dark pit. In vain I hit and swatted at them, and even tried to grasp at them so I could eat them. But even my madness was unmerciful and it passed on, leaving me awake and starved in the pit. I lay on my side like a dying thing, licking the stones for moisture and silently cursing the spark of hope that had so briefly appeared only to cruelly flicker away.

* * * * * *

Coal looked around the small cavern as if distracted by a new thought. “Down here you can’t hear anything either. If something were to happen on the surface or in the other tunnels, how would we know about it?”

There was a brief pause before Bright responded: “Is that part of the story, or are you asking me a question?”

“A question.” Despite the paleness his face had taken on during the retelling of his story, a smile appeared at his lips.

“Then to answer your question” she said with no smile, “we wouldn’t know. The colony could be under attack right now, all the tunnels collapsed and all my friends’ bodies on fire, but we’d still be here talking, talking away. Only, one of us knew about the attack beforehand and didn’t do a damn thing about it because he wanted to tell a long, sad story about himself.”

Coal shook his head in disbelief. “I’m telling you my story, because it’s the story you wanted me to tell.”

“It’s all horseshit. I only asked you for one thing, and that for you to tell me how you knew the outliers were about to attack. Why can’t you just give me that and get it done with?”

“Because if I told you that right away you’d think I was the enemy!” The echoes of Coal’s shouted words rattled away in the darkness. He was standing up now, two steps closer to Bright whose hand had instinctively reached for the knife hidden in her boot.

She breathed slowly when she saw that Coal’s angry advance had stopped, but her hand still crept toward the knife and held the handle without drawing it out. “And if you are just honest with me, will I have a good reason to think you’re the enemy. Are you?”

Coal didn’t move. He spoke slowly, but anger still shook in his voice. “I’m trying to tell you how much I’ve sacrificed, how much I suffered, how far I went all for the colony. Does it matter what stories I tell? Will you listen? I’ve done everything in my power, such as it is, to save our people. What have you done?” He stopped himself abruptly, knowing that he had gone too far.

Bright’s response was not immediate. She clenched her teeth for a long moment and didn’t even appear to breathe. Then she stood up slowly, took two paces towards Coal, and raised her hand. She swung it hard, connecting her palm across Coal’s cheek with a loud smacking sound.

His head was thrown to the side but he only lowered his eyes, thinking better of any further reaction.

“This is my home, not yours,” she snarled at him, her face inches from his. “You don’t get to decide how you explain yourself. If I tell you to crawl on your knees up to the council of elders and beg their mercy for betraying the colony to the outliers, you’ll do exactly that.”

A doubt shot through Coal’s mind as to whether, even without his broken arm, he would be able to overpower Bright if he needed to. She stood as tall as he did, her frame seemed as strong as any digger’s, and the force behind her anger was like the west wind itself. Coal hoped it wouldn’t come to that.

“And if you want to go on thinking I’ve done nothing here for all the summers you’ve been gone, I have no obligation to change your mind about that. But I do want you to feel a little bit bad, so I’ll show you something I’ve done.”

She turned quickly and led the way down the further entrance to the cavern. Bewildered, Coal stood in place. “I thought you weren’t going to take me down there.”

“You better hurry or you’ll be left in the dark,” came Bright’s reply as she quickly vanished down the ancient tunnel, the light vanishing with her.

Coal sighed quietly. Things were not going as he had planned them. First the fall and the broken arm, then the outlier’s delayed attack, and now he was going deeper into the earth, with no quick way of knowing when the attack might occur and no means of quickly reaching the surface. “They’re going to have to keep trusting me,” he half-muttered to himself in a voice he knew Bright wouldn’t hear. “They’ll have to stay patient. I know they will. I know they won’t do anything foolish.”