Amid Wind and Stone Read online

  Why hadn’t the lights come back on? Dorotea couldn’t remember them ever being off for this long before. Biting her lip, she urged Marta forward with a constant stream of praise. “That’s right, you’re doing well. We’ll be out of here soon, and Mom will make us soup.”

  Marta hiccupped. “I h-hate soup.”

  “Sweet tea then,” Dorotea promised, rashly, considering how dear sugar was. They had to move faster. She could swear she felt another earthquake gathering: a vibration in her back teeth. The hairs rose on the back of her neck.

  They were out of time. They’d never make it out of the tunnel.

  And then, like a miracle, her knee came down on metal instead of stone. They’d hit one of the reinforced sections of the tunnel, a hollow metal box there to shore up a previous rockfall. They could shelter inside it.

  She crawled faster, scraping her knee in her haste, dragging Marta forward. “Hurry.” Again, that looming sense of danger, of gathering anger.

  Except the metal tunnel proved too short to shelter them both, only three feet long. Nor was it wide enough for them to lie side by side. Dorotea’s heart kicked in panic as she crawled out the other side, but she kept her voice calm. “Do you feel the metal floor, Marta? Get your whole body onto the metal. Curl up if you have to. Are you inside?”

  “Yes. It’s cold.” Marta wriggled around.

  “Stay still,” Dorotea said sharply. She put her head next to Marta’s—the only part of herself she could protect—and held her sister’s hand.

  The sense of building wrath exploded.

  The whole passageway started to shake. A low rumble like an angry gargoyle traveled through the earth in a wave. The top of her head clonked against the metal ceiling; her teeth bit down on her tongue. Pebbles and dirt cascaded over her back and shoulders as the shaking grew fiercer.

  Marta was screaming, but Dorotea could barely hear her. This was more than the Goddess turning over in her sleep. The hard shaking expressed rage, an anger so vast it battered the world. All Dorotea could do was grit her teeth and hang on as fists of stone pummeled her body.

  When the earthquake finally slowed and stopped, she didn’t trust it for a moment, unmoving.

  The fall of pebbles turned into a fine sifting of dust. Dorotea coughed, eyes stinging. There was nothing to see except darkness, but she couldn’t bear to close them.

  Rubble covered her legs. She shifted them gingerly. Nothing seemed broken or trapped. She started pushing rocks to one side of the tunnel. “Don’t worry, Marta,” she said cheerfully. “I’ll have the way cleared in a jiffy.”

  Ominous silence answered her. She would have expected Marta to be wailing at the top of her lungs.

  Dorotea’s pulsed pounded in her ears. Sudden terror seized her chest, making it hard to breathe. “Marta? Answer me!” Her sister was supposed to be safe in the reinforced tunnel. Somehow she’d lost her sister’s hand. She groped until she found it again. “Marta!”

  Marta’s fingers hung limp in her grasp.

  Still coughing, Dorotea reached out and touched rocks. The tunnel roof had caved in just where the reinforced section met stone again.

  No. Goddess, no. Please—

  Frantically, Dorotea picked up rocks and pushed them behind her. She found the space created by the reinforced tunnel and Marta’s head. Hair, forehead… Her fingertips dabbed wetness. Blood. Either Marta’s head had stuck out just a little too far, or a falling rock had bounced inside and hit her.

  “Marta!” Speaking provoked another coughing fit. Crying, Dorotea patted her hands over her sister’s frail chest, terrified of what she might find. Was she—?

  Marta breathed. And the rest of her body was untouched, just unresponsive.

  Dorotea screamed for help, but she knew in her heart the tunnel had too many twists and turns for anyone to hear her.

  Breathing ragged, Dorotea pressed the hem of her tunic to Marta’s bloody forehead. She applied pressure and made herself count aloud. At five hundred, the bleeding stopped, but Marta didn’t wake.

  She wanted to scream. Why were the lights still off? What if the earthquake had collapsed the entire cavern? What if she were the only person still alive?

  Stop it! She couldn’t think like that or she’d go mad.

  She couldn’t panic—Marta needed her.

  What was the best thing to do? Go for help? It might be the fastest way, but Dorotea couldn’t bear to leave her sister alone in the dark. She couldn’t stand the thought of Marta waking by herself, in pain, in the dark, screaming in fear of gargoyles.

  Or dying alone.

  No.

  Dorotea cleared away the rubble as best she could and began to back down the tunnel, dragging her sister’s body after her. She paused frequently to reassure herself that Marta was still breathing and to call for help.

  Unable to stand the silence, she began to sing the stupid song again, “Inchworm, inchworm, measuring the passageway…” But Marta never joined in.

  After an endless time, Dorotea’s toes detected a steeper downward slant. Finally. The pitched incline meant they were near the entrance to the Artisan Cavern. She drew in a deep breath and yelled, “Help!”

  She strained her ears and was rewarded with the faint sound of voices. Encouraged, she bellowed again. “Help! I’m in the tunnel, and my sister’s hurt!”

  “Who’s that?” a voice called, and a faint glow appeared.

  It was just barely visible, but any light after so long in darkness was incredibly welcome.

  She answered the voice’s questions and tugged Marta down the incline. At the bottom, hands helped both her and Marta out of the tunnel.

  Dorotea tried to stand, but her legs collapsed under her. Her clothes were caked in cave mud, and her whole body shook with cold. She watched dully as her neighbors carried her sister to a nearby pallet. Under her own layer of mud, Marta was cavefish pale, her light brown hair matted with blood, and so terribly, terribly small.

  “You’re Hilde’s daughters, aren’t you?” someone asked.

  She nodded. She and Marta shared the same pointy chin, inherited from their mother. Otherwise, they didn’t look much alike. Dorotea had her father’s dark eyebrows and dark brown hair as well as his sturdier build.

  And then there were more people, and her mother was there, and Dorotea could finally let go and cry.

  Two hours later, the cavern lights blazed back to life. Two hours after that, a healer and her Unskilled servant finally arrived.

  The tall, bony Elect healer had bags under her eyes. She took one look at the tiny alcove that served as Dorotea and Marta’s bedroom and brusquely started giving orders. “You”—she pointed at Dorotea’s mother—“sit on the bed with your daughter. Everyone else, out.”

  Dorotea and Martin retreated, then took turns watching through the beaded curtain as the Elect’s Unskilled servant carefully unwound Marta’s bandages and cleaned away the dried blood. Despite the black U tattooed on her cheek, the servant seemed quite skilled to Dorotea, her movements deft and gentle.

  When the world Above was evacuated, the population had been separated into Skilled and Unskilled workers. To the Unskilled fell the task of farming and other menial labor. The Skilled further subdivided into Artisan, Stone Heart, and Elect Clans depending on their work, and each group was given their own cavern to live in. The Elect, of course, was the most elevated of the three.

  The Elect healer examined Marta’s head wound briefly, then palpated the rest of her scalp and thumbed open Marta’s blue eyes. She performed a few more tests: clapping her hands loudly near Marta’s ears, burning a feather beneath her nose, and tapping Marta’s knee until it jerked in reflex.

  “Annemarie, re-bandage her head,” the Elect said to her servant, then addressed Dorotea’s mother. “Let’s talk outside.”

  Dorotea’s stomach twisted, not liking the Elect’s grim expression. Dorotea, Martin, and Hilde followed the Elect into the Commons. The Elect faced them. “Has she been unconscious the
entire time since the quake? Has she stirred at all?”

  They all exchanged anxious glances but were forced to admit that Marta hadn’t.

  “I won’t lie,” the Elect said grimly. “That is a bad sign. This is more than a concussion. Your daughter has fallen into a coma.”

  “A coma? What’s that?” her mother asked the question before Dorotea could.

  The healer waved an irritated hand. “A prolonged state of unconsciousness.”

  “What can we do?” her mother asked steadily.

  “Make her comfortable. Talk to her. People who wake from comas sometimes report being able to hear voices while unconscious. Try not to mention dying around her—”

  “Dying?” Dorotea’s voice shrilled. “Marta is dying?”

  The Elect gave her a flat stare. “Keep your voice down. Most coma patients never wake. They waste away and die.”

  Martin made a strangled sound. Abruptly, he strode away, almost knocking down the Unskilled, who’d quietly joined them. Typical Martin, always hanging around when Dorotea didn’t want him there and evaporating when he was actually needed.

  Dorotea stepped closer to her mother so that their shoulders pressed together in mutual support.

  “Is there nothing else that can be done?” her mother asked huskily.

  The Elect shook her head. “She’ll either wake up, or she won’t. Now, please excuse me, but I have other patients to attend.”

  Dorotea stared, aghast. “That’s it? My sister is dying, and all you can do is tell us to make her comfortable and wait?”

  “Dorotea.” Her mother laid a restraining hand on her shoulder.

  “She’s one of the Elect! The keepers of knowledge. She’s supposed to know everything.”

  Another squeeze from her mother. “Thank you for your assistance, Elect. Will you come again tomorrow?”

  The Elect shook her head. “I have too many patients, ones that need me. Her, I can do nothing for.”

  “Please, Elect.” Tears stood in Hilde’s eyes. “Is there nothing more that can be done?”

  The Elect sighed. “If she doesn’t wake by tomorrow afternoon, send me a message. I’ll try to spare Annemarie to assist you in getting some broth down her throat, but by that point, it will probably just be prolonging the inevitable. I’m sorry.” And she left, the Unskilled trailing in her wake.

  Dorotea shook with fury, hands balled into fists. “What’s the point in tithing the Elect if they can’t help when we need it?”

  “Enough, Dorotea,” her mother said sharply. “You’re not helping.”

  More words trembled on Dorotea’s lips, but the strained look on her mother’s face hushed them.

  The Elect had always seemed wise and omnipotent before. Their healers and engineers possessed wonderful Tech that could solve any problem. Now they couldn’t help Marta, and their excuses for the blackout sounded weak. “A sandstorm Above disrupted power.” As if there weren’t sandstorms every day.

  Dorotea’s chest felt tight with betrayal. The Elect’s powerlessness frightened her. Were there other things she believed to be as solid as rock that were actually as shaky as sand?

  “Now listen to me,” her mother said, gazing directly into her eyes. “The healer is very tired, and she doesn’t know everything. Marta will wake. Believe it.”

  Dorotea took a deep breath and nodded. “Marta will wake up,” she repeated. Because the other possibility was unthinkable.

  They went back inside their quarters and sat with Marta. They talked in gentle voices and washed the blood from her face and hair.

  After about half an hour, Martin returned, clomping around in his usual heavy-handed fashion. For a man who seldom spoke, he made a lot of noise.

  Dorotea’s temper flared. But before she could make a pointed remark about his absence, Martin dropped to his knees by the pallet. His Artisan hands, callused from drawing gold wire, stroked his daughter’s fine, light brown hair, and his pudgy face worked with emotion. Dorotea closed her mouth, her anger doused. The one thing she and her stepfather agreed on was Marta. They both loved her.

  The silent truce lasted until the evening meal of the very same soup Marta had said she hated. Dorotea blinked back tears.

  Martin dropped his spoon with a heavy plop and stared accusingly at Dorotea. “What were you doing in the tunnel anyway?”

  He’d already asked her the same question three times. “I told you, taking a shortcut.”

  He scowled at her. “You shouldn’t have been playing around in there. If you hadn’t been in the bloody tunnel, the rock wouldn’t have fallen on her head.”

  Dorotea inhaled, feeling like she’d been kicked in the stomach.

  “Martin!” her mother said sharply. “That’s not true! Plenty of people in the regular passageways were also hurt. The earthquake wasn’t Dorotea’s fault.”

  “No, but if they hadn’t been in the tunnel, she wouldn’t have had to drag her sister. You can’t tell me that was good for her.”

  “We all have things we wish we’d done differently,” her mother said wearily. “I wish I’d gone weeding with them this morning.”

  Dorotea ignored her, her gaze locked on Martin’s close-set brown eyes. “So I should have left Marta alone in the dark?”

  “Any true Artisan Clan girl wouldn’t have taken the shortcut in the first place!” Martin burst out. “Stone Heart Clan is in disfavor. You should be hiding your Stone Heart tendencies, not sneaking off to play in tunnels like a child.”

  He was right. Dorotea guiltily dropped her gaze. Her stomach clenched into a hard knot, making the soup she’d swallowed want to come back up. With a Stone Heart Clan father and an Artisan Clan mother, Dorotea fit in nowhere.

  Martin scraped his chair back from the table.

  “Where are you going now?” her mother asked. She didn’t rise.

  “To pray for our daughter.”

  Her mother nodded.

  Martin was more devout than either Dorotea or her mother. He’d dragged Hilde and Marta along with him on regular visits to the Cathedral but seldom insisted Dorotea come. The last time Dorotea had gone had been to hear Marta sing in the children’s choir at Thanksgiving.

  “Do you believe the Goddess will save Marta?” Dorotea asked, troubled.

  Her mother sighed. “I don’t know. The truth is, I lost faith after your father left us.”

  Her mother always said it that way, “left us,” as if it had been a voluntary act, when in fact, her father had been brutally murdered.

  “Why did you marry him?” Dorotea burst out. “Martin?” It was a question she’d never dared ask before. Her mother was pretty, with shiny brown hair and a trim figure, and she knew how to dress well; Martin was…lumpy.

  Her mother sighed. “Because it’s hard to be alone, and he’s a good man in his way. Dependable. And then we had Marta, and we both love her.”

  Dorotea risked another question. “Did you love my father?”

  “In the beginning, very much. Towards the end…” She shook her head. “Your father could make me angrier than any other person alive. Martin is calmer.” Her hands clenched into fists. “He will never betray me.” She got up before Dorotea could ask any more questions. “Sit with your sister while I clean up.”

  Dorotea obeyed, but inside she was reeling. Had her father betrayed her mother? The idea upset her, but she only had a handful of memories of her father. She belatedly realized she didn’t know a thing about her parents’ marriage.

  An hour later, Martin returned with a wizened priest in tow. The elderly man was two feet shorter than Martin, and the darker cast to his skin and his epicanthic eye folds gave him a wise look.

  Despite her own lack of faith, Dorotea couldn’t help hoping he would be able to wake her sister. But all he did was pray. And pray. And pray some more. Her teeth soon gritted together in resentment at being evicted from her sister’s side by this stranger.

  “Goddess of Mercy, shine your compassion on this poor child,” the el
derly man intoned, holding one hand over Marta’s chest.

  Dorotea couldn’t stand it any longer. “If the Goddess is so merciful, why did She send the earthquake in the first place? It’s Her fault Marta is hurt.” Dying.

  The priest directed a sorrowful look at Martin. “As head of the family, it’s your job to keep the faith strong during these trying times.”

  “My faith is strong,” Martin said quickly. “Dorotea isn’t my blood. Her father was Stone Heart Clan.”

  “Ah, that explains it.”

  He might as well have said she had tainted blood. Dorotea’s face tingled with shame—and that made her angry. The gargoyles were the traitors and murderers, not Stone Heart Clan. But since the Stone Hearts had been tasked with controlling the gargoyles, somehow they got tarred with the same brush. It wasn’t fair! Her father had died fighting the gargoyle rebellion!

  She struck back. “So if my faith was stronger, the earthquakes would stop?” she demanded. “If I say ten prayers, Marta will wake up? Twenty prayers? Just tell me how many I have to say, and I’ll do it.” An edge of desperation crept into her voice. She’d stay on her knees for a week if it saved Marta.

  “I can’t give you a number,” the priest protested. “That’s not how faith works.”

  Her fists clenched, and she bared her teeth. “Fine then, I’ll give you some numbers. Five earthquakes already this year, four last year. Why are there more every year? There were only two or three during the first ten years of my life. Why don’t you ask your precious Goddess what She wants from us, because it isn’t prayers!”

  Martin growled. “You go too far. Apologize.”

  Her mother’s hands settled on her shoulders, as always, playing the peacemaker. “Please excuse my daughter,” she said to the priest. “She’s had a very trying day. She was caught in the tunnel when the blackout occurred and had to pull Marta’s unconscious body out after the earthquake.”

  The priest sniffed. “These are trying times for all of us, but to blame me for her own lack of faith is inexcusable.”

  Her mother’s voice turned ice-cold. “Yet she raises a valid point. Why are there more earthquakes? Is the Goddess angry?”