“I don’t think they’re actively trying to raise their Deathless King,” Raithe said. His eyes were shadowed as he gazed at the distant form of Meeka hopping down the passage ahead of us. “Our guide said that these Rememberers keep the memories of their Deathless safe, and they are waiting for him to return. It doesn’t appear that they are taking steps to bring him back.” His expression hardened. “Still, the creature is not the easiest to understand, and words might have different meanings for them. One thingiscertain. The jair’oa appear to revere the creator king, maybe even idolizing him as their god. I would be very careful of what we tell them.”
Meeka had stopped hopping down the tunnel and was now sitting on his haunches in the middle of the passageway. He wasn’t looking at us but gazing at something beyond the circleof lantern light. Walking up behind the jair’oa, I shaded my eyes from the swaying light, peering into the tunnel, and my jaw dropped open.
When Meeka had said “nest,” I’d imagined a humble burrow. Perhaps a small cave or a pocket of air buried in the sand. I was expecting a medium group of jair’oa, perhaps a few dozen, who would stare at us with wide, curious black eyes.
I was not expecting an enormous underground lake in the center of a cavern that stretched so far, I couldn’t see the other side, nor an entire city built along the edges of the lake, with strange buildings that looked thrown together out of random parts. I wasn’t expecting giant glowing mushrooms that towered over the buildings and grew on the walls of the cavern, casting the whole city in eerie luminescence. And lastly, I was not expecting the giant glass dome that covered the whole cavern, a curved ceiling holding back the desert sands. One crack away from disaster.
“Maederyss’s mercy,” Halek breathed beside me. “That is not a nest. That’s an entire city.” He looked up, and his eyes widened. “A city underneath a glass dome. How long have these jair’oa been living here, unseen and unknown by everyone?”
“There are so many.” I looked down at Meeka, who was washing his ears by drawing his paws over them. “Have you all lived here since the age of the Deathless Kings?”
The jair’oa tilted his head at me. “Human creature asks strange questions,” he said. “Reign of creator king was many, many, many cycles ago. Jair’oa not live that long.”
“Your ancestors, then,” Raithe said. “Did your ancestors livedown here during the reign of the Deathless King, or did you live on the surface?”
“Maybe in the city that was here before,” Halek added.
“Meeka is uncertain,” the jair’oa said after a moment of thought. “Meeka not remember that far.” He raised a hind leg and scratched behind one of his ears, the limb moving so fast it was nothing but a blur. The jair’oa shook his head, making his ears flap, then looked at us again. “Human creatures must speak to Rememberers,” he insisted. “Rememberers will answer human creatures’ questions. Come, come. Follow Meeka.”
We trailed the jair’oa down the path into the city, which was indeed crawling with jair’oa. The little creatures scurried along the roads and bounced effortlessly over obstacles and clutter. The patterns and colorations of their fur varied greatly, from desert browns and tans to brighter yellows, reds, even white and black. Some had stripes, spots, or distinctive facial markings. Some wore belts, pouches, and even glass-and-copper goggles atop their heads. All were around the same size as Meeka, with the same enormous ears and long tails. As Meeka had predicted, they stared at us, wide-eyed and noses twitching, talking to each other in rapid, high-pitched voices that sounded like squeaks.
I was so distracted watching the jair’oa that I didn’t notice the city at first. By the time I began to register the buildings around me, we were deep within the cavern and had attracted an entire swarm of jair’oa followers. The buildings, which crowded the edges of the paths and towered over us, did look cobbled together with stone, cloth, metal, and other items that didn’t quite fit. They were surprisingly tall—tall enough for a humanto fit inside. They didn’t look rickety or unstable, like they would fall over at the first strong breeze. They were just... eccentric, with multiple doors and gaps just big enough for a jair’oa to fit through. Several of them didn’t have ceilings, just bolts of cloth draped over the openings for shelter. Which, given that the city lay beneath a giant glass dome with the desert above blocking all sunlight, made sense.
I realized that the jair’oa, with their vast underground lake and shelter from the suns, probably had a pretty good life down here. Of course, that might’ve been an illusion on my part; maybe the jair’oa had to struggle to survive just like everyone else. But with the two biggest worries—water and Demon Hour—taken care of, it seemed like the jair’oa were thriving in their isolated hidden oasis.
I wondered what they thought of us, three large humans and their giant bugs, stomping through their peaceful city. Did they know what was lurking outside on the surface, the horrific abomination we had brought to their doorstep?
The abomination that was Vahn. Who was in terrible pain, because I had failed to return with him to Kovass.
My throat closed. Quickly, I shoved those thoughts away, pushing them down to the deepest part of my soul to deal with later. Though if Vahn did smash through that glass dome and destroy this haven of innocent jair’oa because he was looking for me...
My stomach threatened to expel its contents out my throat. I swallowed the bile and looked at Raithe. “We shouldn’t be here,” I whispered, and he glanced at me with a puzzled frown. “Vahn isout there, looking for us. For me. If he comes down here, everything will be destroyed. Just like what happened to the Scarab Clan.”
The gnawing guilt within grew stronger, threatening to suffocate me. I knew Kysa didn’t blame me for the death of her people, but itwasmy fault Vahn had been there at all. The jair’oa did not strike me as warriors. If Vahn somehow got inside the dome, an entire species could be wiped out. And it would be on my head once more.
“We should leave,” I whispered to Raithe again. “These jair’oa have no part in this. I can’t bring Vahn to their doorstep.” Glancing up, I saw a tiny jair’oa, a baby, barely larger than my boot, perched on a ledge. Its black eyes watched us with undisguised curiosity, its huge ears twitching back and forth, and my heart lurched. “I can’t be here,” I whispered, looking back the way we came. “I... I have to go—”
Raithe caught my arm before I could whirl and stalk away. “Easy,” he warned, though his voice remained soothing. “Breathe, Sparrow. We’re far below the surface of the sand. If you try to find your way back by yourself, you could get lost in the tunnels.”
I clenched my fists, trying to calm myself. He was right; I hadn’t paid any attention to direction while we were following Meeka through the maze of glass. I didn’t know how many tunnels the jair’oa had, but there could be dozens. Or hundreds. For the moment, it seemed we were trapped down here.
Raithe curled his fingers over mine, squeezing gently as he lowered his head. “Meeka knows that Vahn is looking for you,” he said quietly. “I don’t think he would have brought us here if hethought we would put the nest in danger.” He gave me a rueful smile. “Of course, I can’t claim to have any knowledge of how the jair’oa think or how they act. I can only hope that, for now, we’re safe.”
An indignant bellow sounded behind us. I spun to see Rhyne tossing his head in outrage, a pair of jair’oa perched on his back, long tails waving for balance as the rock beetle bucked. As Kysa stepped forward to calm him, I saw three more of the little creatures on Ratuk, scurrying gleefully over his saddle and chittering to each other excitedly. Ratuk accepted all this with his usual stoicism, even when the smallest jair’oa leaped up to perch on his horn. The creature squeaked, sounding triumphant, and the other jair’oa chittered in reply.
Meeka bounced forward, stood tall on his hind legs and squeaked something up to the passenger jair’oa. They gave disappointed chitters in return, but sprang off the rock beetles and darted away into nooks and crannies faster than thought. Rhyne snorted indignantly and shook his head, looking like he wanted to sweep his horn through the closest building, before Kysa stopped him. Ratuk simply gave me a look of tired resignation.
“Apologies, human creatures.” Meeka shook his head, making his huge ears flop, and twitched his whiskers at us. “Colony is curious. They have never seen human creatures, or grubs so large you cannot eat them.” He twitched his whiskers at Rhyne, who snorted, sounding offended that he had been called a grub. “But we are almost to temple now. Come, come. Rememberers will be waiting.”
We continued to follow Meeka until the road we were onended at the steps of a large, distinctly elegant structure that towered over us. Unlike the rest of the city buildings, this one didn’t look thrown together; it looked built with such care and beauty that my breath caught in my throat. Perhapsbuiltwas the wrong word.Craftedseemed more appropriate. The temple was made almost entirely of colored glass, with crystal spires that curved and twisted and came to wickedly sharp points, glowing in the light of the mushrooms. In fact, the temple pulsed with a holy light that emanated from within the translucent walls. The path to the temple was lined with more towering glowing mushrooms and strung with lines of colored lanterns leading to the temple steps, only adding to the surreal beauty of the surroundings.
Beneath the arched front doorway, a trio of jair’oa waited for us. I hadn’t noticed them at first, being nearly blinded by the crystalline beauty of the temple. But as we reached the bottom of the steps, I glanced up and saw them peering down at us. The jair’oa in front, a shriveled looking creature with thin, pure white fur, held a twisted staff made of colored glass in her paws, a glowing ball at the tip. The white jair’oa also had milky red eyes that seemed to stare blankly through me, though her huge ears twitched and moved with every sound. The other two jair’oa were gray-furred and didn’t seem quite as old, though they were certainly far older than Meeka.
“Meeka.” One of the gray-furred jair’oa spoke. “You have brought the human creatures to the nest as we asked. Well done.”
He didn’t pause to acknowledge Meeka’s reply, but turned to me, dark eyes scanning my face.
“The stranger has appeared before us.” The second grayjair’oa nodded. These jair’oa did not have the same fragmented speech cadence as Meeka. It was easier to understand them; I wondered if it was an age thing or if they had more practice in speaking the human language. “And the undead creature follows in her wake. It is a sign. A sign that the creator kings are returning. Praise to the creator king.”
