THE EPIC GILGAMEK: CHAPTER 9 - DOWN IN DARKNESS
A Brief History of the Trench - A Mineral Miracle - A Very Clamant Moment
9
Down into darkness descends Gilgamek. If the hole was bored straight he would just motor down straight but it ain’t, so he often has to leg it around outcrops. He’s running his lumes over the strata, looking for anything protruding from the seam. Frets the line. Trencher’s cord code: a type of strumming that can communicate enormous amounts of information
Looks like they didn’t do anything but blow the seam. No probe holes.
How far down does it go?
Don’t know. Far.
A pause. It better not go down to Four.
Don’t worry, we don’t have enough line for that.
Lurkers don’t need lines.
Is Gilgamek scared? Of course he is. Level 3 is no joke dangerous. Level 3 kills. But he’s more scared of not finding something good, of coming up empty-handed. Mekton and his goons will be waiting for him topside and if he doesn’t have the coin he hates to think what they’ll break and take.
How has it gotten to this?
Bad luck. A lot of bad luck. Seems that all he’s made for. Isn’t that what flesh is, bad luck made physical?
Gilgamek believes this, but still he ain’t ready to give up. His basic contradiction. The boy believes he’s cursed but he don’t ever quit a fight. No matter what the odds, not ever. He won’t leave this level until he finds something.
And so he scans and lowers and scans and lowers, his ears pricked for lurker signs.
Hurry up!
I’m hurrying.
As Gilgamek seeks his luck — the Change drawing ever nearer — let me pause to tell you about the Trench. The Trench is the remains of the original stellar metropolis atop which the not-nearly-as-advanced New Ark City sprawls. All evidence indicates that the original metropolis was one of the Great Conquering Race’s capital cities, if not, in fact, the capital. Corpsed during the Last Wars by a Dilation Attack, and for a thousand years these cindered remnants lay forgotten under a mountain of melted debris until it was rediscovered by miners a century ago, and has since been bored through by an ever-expanding labyrinth where generations of the poorest meks have risked life and limb in search of ancient scrap and rare relics.
The Trench would be dangerous enough under any circumstances — what with the fragility of the melt and the area’s highly active tectonics — but what was discovered in the initial excavation was that the dead city was not entirely dead. Its deepest darkest caverns infested by a particularly nasty subterranean species: the Lurkers.
State scientists speculate that Lurkers might, in fact, be the mutated survivors from the original city — whether former pets of the Conquerors or the devolved Conquerors themselves is unknown — but what is known: Lurkers love not the light nor those who dwell in it, and the entire species is rated at a Five Star Inimicality — with only the Wizard rated Six. At least once a year the City closes the Trench for a few days and gases the lower level in an attempt to keep the Lurker numbers down to a tolerable level. No one is really convinced that it works, least of all the reclaimers, who stay clear of the Trench’s lower levels if they can help it. And if they can’t help it they keep their expeditions small, as the more bodies the more likely the Lurkers will notice.
Small and brief.
Gilgamek keeps it small, but he does not keep it brief. He stays searching in that pit a long time. Feckles strums the line, he searches. Feckles strums the line, he searches. He can’t help it — his stubbornness shortcircuiting his common sense. Normally doesn’t pay off.
But today is the Change.
Today the beginning is near.
Gilgameks traverses to a new section and his lumes catch something in the wall of the pit and he jerks his motor to a stop. Plays his lumes over the section, but it’s just a misshapen fossil fused into the melt. One of the Ancient’s war forms, long of limb, zero of head. Standard dredge. Looks like the war form was break-dancing when the end came. Gilgamek almost turns away, but then a gleam near the skeleton’s outstretched hand stops him. He spiders up a few feet to the glittering speck.
Holy hot sauce, he thinks, his heart pounding.
Feckles is tapping on the line, but Gilgamek doesn’t hear.
A baker knows bread, a warrior knows slay, a witch knows the skeins of probability. And Trenchers know dredge — all the various species of finds common to the Trench. To anyone else that gleam would have registered as almost anything, but Gilgamek recognizes it the way he would recognize his own face.
The gleam is sithril. The invulnerable and deliriously rare metal of the Ancients. So valuable even that mole-sized speck could easily pay his debt.
From his belt he removes an extraction tool and a catch-fan — which he expands with a too-loud click — wincing as the sound echoes in the silent pit — the line trembling from Feckles’ furious tapping — and begins to chip at the fused materials around the speck. You have to be strong and patient to pry anything from Trench melt because if you ain't strong that Trench melt ain’t cracking, and if you ain’t patient you start making noise, and noise brings all the lurkers to the yard. Gilgamek carries a machete, ostensibly for the lurkers, but also to cut his own throat if they come in numbers.
He’s all the way focused — his life might depend on what happens next— doesn’t notice the sweat or the darkness or the heavy musty air or Feckles tapping — only hears his astounded heart.
Slowly he reveals not just a speck but a scrapping ingot as big as his fist!
And with one last twist the ingot pops out of the wall and drops onto his fan with a loud clatter. For a stomach-churning moment the ingot threatens to roll off the fan and into the dark below and his heart nearly dies but Gilgamek snaps the fan shut and the ingot lies safe and heavy within.
The display on his fan whirs to life.
Specs: Sithr4. Weight: .93 kilograms. Purity: 99.99 percent.
He runs the analysis again. Same result.
No scrapping way.
For any other mek this would be the Change. For this is wealth beyond dreams, wealth enough to found a dynasty. All his bad luck, all the flesh redeemed.
For a moment Gilgamek dizzies like a mek plunged in cold water and then after some indeterminate time he surfaces, regaining his breath and his mind. Clutching the fan greedily to his chest he thumbs the motor up.
He can already hear Lonqo: What I did tell you? You have to look on the bright side.
He also half-expects the Lurkers to come boiling up the pit by the thousands or for the Trench to quake and swallow him whole or his line to snap but none of these calamities happen.
What happens is he clambers over the last outcrop and spots the pit entrance above and Feckles’ lumes peeking over the edge.
“Feckles,” Gilgamek whispers hotly, too excited to contain himself.
But then he kills the motor.
Feckles is not alone.
Because of scrapping course.
“Hello, Gilgamek,” Mekton whispers, and then the collector and his goons snap on on their lumes, their faces ghastly and dramatic. “Find anything interesting?”
Gilgamek peers up at a terrified Feckles who twists her lips: I tried to warn you. Why didn’t you listen?
“Hello, Mekton, what brings you down to these parts?” Gilgamek asks lightly.
The massive mek grins viciously, one armored hand at Feckle’s back. “Bas Black told me to bring you in to-day. The Bas was very insistent. What was the word she used, Weazus?”
“Clamant,” his right hand Weazus says loudly.
“That was it. Clamant. The Bas wants you in front of her clamant by which she means to-day. You know what would happen to me if I don’t bring you in to-day?”
“Nothing good,” Weazus says sadly.
“Let me finish working this seam and I promise I’ll be in a few hours.”
“Yes,” Feckles says, “we’ll be up clamantly.”
Gilgamek starts to motor down but stops when Mekton picks Feckles up by her left arm and dangles her over the pit. Feckles’s eyes go huge with terror, holds onto Mekton’s hand for dear life.
“Mekton is so strong,” Weazus coos.
“Please don’t let her go,” Gilgamek says.
“Yes, please don’t,” Feckles says. She plants a foot on Mekton’s belt but he shakes her off, gets her back into dangling mode.
“My father used to work the Trench,” Mekton says cheerily. “Died in the Trench too. Fortunately for me as he was one of those people who liked to beat his children extra-hard. Anyway what his death taught me is that the Trench is a dangerous place, Gilgamek. Why make it more dangerous?”
“I’m not the one dangling an Imperial scholar over a pit.”
“Future Imperial scholar,” Feckles corrects, unable to help herself.
“You’re the one dangling her, Gilgamek, not me, but it wouldn’t take much to get everyone topside safe and sound. Just tell me — what’s in the fan?”
.
.
Next: Honor Among Thieves - A Mineral Dilemma - The Problem With Gilgamek
SAVE FECKLES!
This is moving along nicely for me. Lots of action and character-based elements. I just finished reading a highly touted, newly published novel and I wanted to rip it up and set fire to it, only it was ebook.