The Index -|-

Kpleeb woke with a start. Eyes open, he stared up from his bed. There was nothing to see but the deep of night. His ears scanned the darkness for any sign of what might have awakened him. His turned his head and heard only the crinkling of the dry straw under his bedding. Nothing presented itself as the reason. He did not need to urinate. He could feel the warmth from Thoka’s body next to his, her chest rising and falling with the breath of deep sleep.

He reached out with the invisible forces, as Thoka had taught him in the past. To say that he expected no sense at all from the invisible forces was an understatement. He had rarely felt anything, to be more honest, he had only felt the forces once. That occurrence had proven to him that he could detect, but it had never happened again, and Thoka had not been able to explain it. He reached out anyway because Thoka had told him that it might take time to become attuned to the forces.

He almost twitched when he felt it. There was something there. He could not explain it really. It was just a feeling, a sense of the unexplainable hanging in the air. He rolled and gently placed his hand on Thoka’s side, but she did not stir. He pressed slightly and shook her.

“Wha- what do you want, Kpleeb?” Her voice was sleepy.

“Do you feel anything?” Kpleeb felt a little foolish, hoping that she would not slap him and roll over.

Feel? Anything?” Her query sounded confused.

“Yeah, like, the invisible forces. It feels weird to me.” In his mind, Kpleeb shrugged.

There was a pause. Kpleeb thought that maybe she was considering how to ridicule him.

“Hmmm,” said Thoka after a long moment. “Something is different, but I’m not sure what it is, or why. Let’s wake Zara.” Thoka sighed and rolled out and upward from the bed before crossing the room and kneeling next to Zara’s pallet.

Zara woke more slowly as children tend to do. She was normally cheerful in the morning, but this was far too early. When she did finally awake, Thoka pulled Zara to her feet and hugged her and rubbed her back gently.

“Zara, do you see anything different with the invisible forces or Qon?”

Zara yawned deeply into Thoka’s neck and opened her eyes. “It’s strange, Mama.”

“What is, Zara?”

Zara squinted. “All of the colors are mixed and blurry.” She paused. “And distant.”

Thoka looked at Kpleeb. “I think we should go to the cave. You take Zara. I need to get some of my tools from the shop.”

Kpleeb nodded. They had talked about using the cave as the most defensive position, even if they believed their defenses would hold. “Okay, let’s go.” Kpleeb grabbed a woven sack and threw a handful of things into it. A change of clothing for each of them, a few yellow stone cups and combs, and a woven hat. He grabbed his spear from where it leaned against the door frame.

“Come on Zara!”

“I’ll be right behind you, Kpleeb,” said Thoka with a tight smile. “It’s probably nothing, but I’d rather have Zara safe.”

Kpleeb took Zara’s hand, and they walked out of the village in the direction of the cave. The walk was long, at least twenty minutes, more because it was so dark. The concern weighed on the edges of his mind, but did not want to worry Zara, so he turned on his hand-lamp and talked to her in a quiet tone.

“I am proud of your work on the caves, Zara. This is a safe place and has everything we need.”

“Why don’t we live there all the time then, Da?” Zara’s tiny feet jogged along next to him in the bobbing pools of yellow light that were generated by the hand-lamps.

“We live with the Ganix because they follow the Pale One. We need them and they need us.”

“Why is Mama the Pale One? She is just Mama to me.”

Kpleeb ran through his head a few easy answers, but found none to his liking. What struck him most was that he could not explain Thoka’s relationship to the Ganix.

“It’s because of their prophecy, but I don’t know if it’s real,” he said. “The Ganix believe she is the Pale One, so she is the Pale One.” He shrugged in the dark. “We cannot survive and flourish alone.” [And we cannot repay the entities alone either.]

They walked in silence until they reached the cave. The entrance was an oval shape that was cut into a rock face behind a few trees. The shape was rough and imperfect, but it smoothed out as it gained in depth. Kpleeb had watched, amazed, at Zara’s ability to bend the stone. She had learned quickly, and after a few paces into the stone face, her efforts had begun to produce a perfectly smooth and curved surface. The result was a cave that was elegant compared to the caves he had grown up in. Those had been altered by eons of water flow and the occasional caveman digging crew and were rough and inconsistent.

The lights came on we they entered the larger room. Uuiit’s angle sat against the rearmost wall. There was a triangle hatch opened on the bottom, rear side. The opening was dark. Zara toddled to the red, multi-tiered cabinet that they had brought from Uuiit’s house and touched the side of it. The device began to glow.

“Da, the defenses are resisting something.” Zara squinted imperceptibly.

“What is it? An attack?” Kpleeb pictured a death white mounted on a ferocious, multi-tusked yak, swinging a spiked chain and baring its sharp teeth.

Zara blinked. “Something is coming, Da. It’s big!”

Kpleeb closed his eyes and tried to feel the invisible forces again as he had done earlier. Other than the general sense of weirdness, he couldn’t feel anything. There was no sense of resistance or nearness or size. He sighed.

Zara gasped and lifted her hands.

Kpleeb heard a distant and muted rumble that echoed through the stone that surrounded them. “I want to see,” he said, turning toward the stone hallway that led outside. He left Zara behind and jogged until he could see the darkness outside. Stepping past the trees, he saw lights in the sky that were not normally there. They were reddish and flickering above the tree line toward the Ganix village. There were occasional, quick flashes of a purple light.

After a few moments, Zara padded up to his side and took his hand. “Da, there are many strange things happening there.” Her tiny hand pointed. “I’m scared!”

Just then there was a low rumble, and the reddish glow from the horizon was amplified momentarily before dying down.

Zara gasped.

They waited quietly for a handful of long minutes. Time stretched while the lights played in the sky, but there were no larger explosions. Then Kpleeb saw a form struggle haltingly out from the darkness. It was Thoka.

Zara dropped Kpleeb’s hand and ran toward the form. “Mama!”

Kpleeb moved toward the dark form. Thoka stumbled and fell to the rocky ground. When Kpleeb reached her, Thoka coughed and he felt a splat on his leg. He knelt next to her.

“Kpleeb,” Thoka said. “It’s coming. Have to get Zara inside.” She coughed again, and her head rolled back.

Kpleeb grasped Thoka under the armpits and lifted her torso. She was heavy, but his heart and adrenaline were racing. Zara silently walked beside him as he dragged Thoka toward the cave. Thoka’s feet made small furrows in the dirt until they were hidden in the gravel. Kpleeb proceeded into the larger cavern where he knew it was safe and gently laid Thoka on her back.

In the light he could see that blood trickled from her mouth and down her chin and cheek. She was unconscious and an angry terror rose in Kpleeb’s throat. “Thoka! Thoka,” he said shaking her. “Don’t panic, Kpleeb,” he muttered.

Thoka stirred and coughed again and more bloody spittle leaked from her lips. She moved her arm toward Kpleeb, and he saw a purple rash on the inside of her arm and on her torso near her elbow. Kpleeb gently shifted her gown, and saw that most of her torso was mottled with thumb-sized black and purple sections. There was no pattern, and it did not appear to be the result of bruising.

He gently brushed her skin with his finger tip and Thoka let out a blood-curdling scream. Her back arched and she bared her teeth in a rictus of suffering. The moment passed before Kpleeb could react, and Thoka slumped.

Zara cried out and flung herself to her knees at Thoka’s side. Kpleeb put his arms around them both, but after a moment, Zara clenched her tiny fists and stood with tears streaming down her face. “She’s gone, Da. Arhhhh!” Her voice shrieked in a wail of pain and anger.

Kpleeb put his hand on Thoka’s chest and felt for movement. He could feel no heartbeat. He put his ear to her pale lips and could sense no breath. He felt tears forming and blinked his eyes to shoo them away.

How can this be happening? What has done this to her? The entities?

Zara stood and silently ran toward the entrance of the caves, her bare feet made tiny slapping sounds on the smooth rock. Kpleeb stared after her in an emotional haze of disbelief and suffering.

It has to be the entities. These gods, Uuiit and the others. Who else could bring such destruction against Thoka? Yet how could they not? Hadn’t they changed me and Thoka? Aren’t we their workmanship? He gritted his teeth in response to a fierce anger that flashed through his mind. They made us what we are and discarded us. Now they kill us.

He looked again at her body and the strange rash. It was unlike anything he had ever seen, so foreign and colorful. Thoka’s eyes were now glassy and her face was blank. The realization struck him. She truly is gone.

Just then, a sharp and distant whine echoed from the direction of the cave’s entrance. Kpleeb’s head whipped around, and after a second the high-pitched whine ended and was followed by a rumble. The cave shook slightly with a momentary tremor.

Kpleeb clambered to his feet and ran toward the tunnel. “Zara!” he yelled. Her name echoed through the cave and down the length of the tunnel. “Zara!” he repeated.

There was no reply.

The Index -|-

“You saw another death white?!” Kpleeb slammed his hand on one of the wall posts. “And he saw you!? I can’t believe you did that!”

“Kpleeb, we were trying things out. How were we supposed to know what would happen? Anyway, it wasn’t actually there with us. It was… I don’t know, in a ball of light – sort of.”

“Da, the death white is scary. His name is Iitki. It’s a funny name, I think, but I stopped the red device from working, and he can’t speak to us anymore.”

Kpleeb shook his head. “That was so careless, Thoka. So careless! You saw what Uuiit was able to do to you, and you are the most powerful caveperson I have ever heard of! The death whites must be very, very powerful!”

“Calm down,” said Thoka. “We have to talk through this.

Kpleeb nodded and exhaled audibly. He felt his hands shaking slightly.

“Zara sees the device better than I do for sure, but the device has a lot of power in it. At first, I thought maybe the ball of light was a view of the past, another death white, but when it spoke to me and answered, I knew that it was in the current time. I’m not sure how that can be. It was not inside the red device or anywhere nearby that I could determine from my scouting.”

“The only other answer is that the device somehow allows the death white to speak and see faces over a distance.” Kpleeb paused and considered. “What distance I can’t begin to imagine. What if this Iitki comes over the mountain in the morning?” He sat on the woven, reed mat and leaned against the hut wall. “We could be in immediate danger. How can we protect ourselves?”

“It seems like the same question every time something happens, doesn’t it?” Thoka rubbed her eyes. “We’re always in danger, and there is always an unknown enemy just over the next rise.”

Kpleeb tilted his head. “It is true for every living thing. The difference with us in this moment is that we are aware of it. So we must not act in panic. We must determine how best to strengthen our defenses for now and then build on them if the death white does not come soon.”

“Or at all,” said Thoka. “It is possible that the device only allows me to talk to the death white.” She paused and shook her head. “No, that’s not logical. I have to assume that Iitki has a similar red device and he uses it to communicate with Uuiit. Or used to anyway, before I killed Uuiit.”

Zara looked back and forth at Kpleeb and Thoka. “The big, blue flow at the top. I think that was the communication.”

“Why, Zara?”

Zara paused and closed her eyes as if remembering what she had seen. “When Iitki was in the ball of light, the blue flow turned from a drifting haze to a much thicker flow. The power line went straight up through the roof and it squiggled when the strange voice spoke.”

Kpleeb put his head in his palms and scrunched his messy mop with his hairy fingers. “Wow.” He looked at Thoka. “Could you see this too?”

“No. I have to use the jewelry I made. You know I can’t see the colors.” Thoka looked at Zara. “Our daughter is one of a kind, Kpleeb. We should let her design some of our defenses.”

“Not just defenses,” said Kpleeb. “We seem to always be in danger, and I am tired of it. We must be the strongest ones.”

###

Iitki did not come the next day or the next week. The family worked each day to imagine how a death white might come and with what weapons it might attack them. They planned for the small things first and the built upward. In the first day, Kpleeb felt fairly certain that they could repel an attack of one death white on a rabid yak. By the end of the week, he was not worried about five death whites on giant fire belching tundra condors. He found that Zara’s imagination was not limited in the way that his was.

He understood caves, sticks, rocks, and animals, but he had to stretch himself to imagine flying death whites or even invisible projectiles. Zara pictured free-wheeling forms of tinted gas in multiple dimensions. Some of what she said, he could not see or really even picture in his head. He did trust her though, and in the hills around their village, the trees, rocks, and debris demonstrated her ability to deflect and destroy.

After a week, they returned to Uuiit’s house another time. This time, a group of Ganix warriors came with sleds to carry away whatever Zara thought might be useful. They returned to the village with the everything inside of Uuiit’s house that used or interacted with the invisible forces.

The next day, Kpleeb watched as Zara coaxed the stone in the nearest cliff to produce a cave.

“It’s to store Uuiit’s things, Da,” she said looking up at him sweetly.

“Why not just keep the things at the village?”

“Maybe Iitki will search for these things and destroy the village and hurt us.”

Kpleeb pondered the problem for a moment. “Won’t he destroy the cave instead?”

I hid the cave, Da. From the outside, the forces inside cannot be seen.”

“That’s great, Zara. Very clever! Maybe we are safe then.”

“Da, I want to bring Uuiit’s angle to the cave. Can we do that?”

Kpleeb nodded without thinking and then paused. “Well, we can try. You and Mama will have to figure out how to get it to move.”

Zara grinned. “Thanks, Da.”

The next day, Kpleeb was working on a new hut with the Ganix warriors when Kpleeb approached with Zara in tow. “We are going to bring the angle back. I’ll be taking a couple of the warriors as support.”

Kpleeb was surprised that it was happening so soon, but he knew that Thoka was very independent. “Great. How long do you think it will take?”

Thoka shrugged and looked at Zara. I think we will be back tomorrow with the angle. Before we leave, I will disable the defenses against flying objects and devices that use the invisible forces.”

“Why?” Kpleeb frowned. “We need those.”

“When we bring the angle back, we don’t want it to be destroyed!”

“Urh, yeah. Good point.” He thought about Thoka’s angle being crushed into the hillside with her inside of it. “Well….don’t be gone too long.” He gave Thoka a quick side hug and patted Zara on the head. He returned to his work and it was not long before he was lost in focus.

The Index -|-

Thoka closed her eyes, and carefully handled the stone that Zara had given her. It was crude in shape. A cavechild’s fist could envelope its rocky roundness, but it was no mere rock. The rough and uneven ridges scraped against her palm.

Just a day ago, when Thoka and Kpleeb had returned from Uuiit’s village, Zara had reached her tiny hand up at Thoka with the stone grasped in her chubby fingers, Thoka had smiled at Zara and taken the stone. Zara was not prone to present giving. Watching the exchange, Kpleeb had then recounted a story from what seemed like ages ago.

“Urh,” Kpleeb had said with a distant look of fondness, “my friend Pfftul gave me a stone like that once. I mean… it wasn’t nearly that round. He was still working on making seven sides. It was a beautiful stone though.” He paused and shuffled his feet. “I wonder where Pfftul is now?”

“Mama, look at Qon,” Zara had interrupted insistently. She had bounced on the balls of her feet and waved her hands at Thoka.

“Okay, Zara. Where is Qon?”

“In the stone, mama!”

Now, a day later, Thoka sat inside Uuiit’s house again holding the stone. She focused and rolled it around in her hand. During the trip back to Uuiit’s village, Zara had told her that she made the stone to help Thoka see Qon, and while Thoka believed that she was a special child, it seemed a bit far-fetched.

Zara sat in the corner on a small, bulbous trough that had been turned upside down. She had been there, silent, for an hour now staring around the room. At the door, one of the Ganix warriors rested on his haunches and carefully sharpened the tip of his spear with a river stone.

Shhhhhhhhhnk, shhhhhnk, shnnnk. Over and over, incessantly. Unerringly consistent.

Thoka sighed and opened her eyes. “Can you wait outside?”

The warrior nodded and stood in a single, smooth motion. “Pale One.”

Thoka closed her eyes again. She was not one to meditate. Her focus was absolutely singular at times, but it was when all of her senses were attuned to the movement of her hands. She longed for the days when she had been able to stand in the cave and feel the invisible forces swirl around her, but… she suspected that the experience had occurred only because she had been pregnant with Zara. The sense of closeness to the invisible forces had waned after Zara’s birth. To be sure, she used the forces, the yellow stone obeyed, and her devices functioned as designed. But the amazing sense of bathing in a varicolored whirlwind of tingling power was entirely gone.

Focus, Thoka.

The Qon stone was cool to the touch, and it resembled nothing she had ever designed. There were no rods or tips or tiny protrusions. It was not complex. She tried looking through it with her mind’s eye. She moved it around, held it against her head, her ear, her knee. Nothing changed. The flows that she could feel in her own designs simply skittered around the edges of the stone.

Maybe too much focus…?

She looked past the stone and then set it on the floor in front of her. It remained, unspeaking, untwitching. She ignored it.

The room was still flooded with invisible forces. Thoka looked around at the blank stone walls, and then repeated her scan using her bracelet in combination with her second ring. There was a green tinge to the air in the room. On the edges, lines of power wavered at the ceiling and floor level and sharper lines surrounded the door posts. All of the lines fed into the tiered structure in the corner. The bright red structure was some type of important interconnector for the invisible forces, but Thoka could not guess how it worked or what it might do. Before she was willing to touch the structure, she intended to let Zara analyze and produce her opinion about what it might be.

She sighed. “Zara, this Qon does nothing except prevent the forces from traveling through it.”

“Mama, watch.” Zara approached and took the stone. She held it and looked at it with her head slightly tilted. “See?”

Thoka saw nothing.

Zara placed both of her hands and the stone into Thoka’s hands and tilted her head again. This time, Thoka felt a powerful thread in each of her hands. It was stronger than she had ever felt, and it felt as if she had a tenuous grip on a thick, wriggling snake. Her eyes grew wide.

It’s Qon, mama.” Zara beamed at her. “Now you try to put the forces here and here.” She gestured at two sides of the stone that appeared to be just like any other sides.

Thoka grasped the stone alone and stared at it. She tilted her head and carefully fed thin streams of the invisible forces into the spots that Zara had pointed at.

“No Mama, here.” Zara pointed again, but this time at other spots.

“Why, Zara? That was where you pointed, right?”

“Yes, but it moved with the red lines.”

Thoka’s tried to keep her face from betraying her frustration as she carefully moved her fingers again. She looked at Zara for confirmation of placement.

Zara nodded.

The force in her palms thrust her hands away from each other and the stone with such force that Thoka’s wrists hurt. The stone thumped onto the floor.

Zara bent and picked up the stone. “That was great, Mama! You felt Qon!”

“It’s so powerful. How can you hold it, Zara?”

Zara’s face was puzzled and then turned proud. “It is strong, but not too much for me.”

Patting Zara’s curly head, Thoka smiled and stood. “You are an amazing girl, Zara. Can you tell me what this is?” She pointed at the red structure in the corner.

Zara turned and shrugged. “All of the flows enter this box. Some of them mix, the red and yellow, and they become very wide here.” She pointed at one of the larger protrusions on the top. It was a rectangle, more or less. Its top surface had a grid of many identical, rounded indentations on it that were as deep as the tip of Zara’s smallest finger. “It radiates,” she said simply.

“I think we should try the crystal with this device,” said Thoka.

Zara nodded. “Do it, Mama.”

Thoka held the crystal in her palm and waved it in front of the machine. Nothing happened, so she moved her hand closer and began to move the crystal around the front side, pausing at each of the smallish protrusions. When she reached the right side, a gap opened up and beneath it was a mold that was identical to the crystal. Thoka placed the crystal on the indention, and several points on the device brightened.

Zara gasped. “Mama, be careful.”

A bulbous protrusion near the top of the device, began to glow, and within a few seconds, a beam of light shot upward. The light stopped an arm’s length above the emitter and coalesced into the form of two almost perfectly round rocks moving around a larger sphere. The rocks orbited the sphere on different planes, and they were also different sizes and colors. One was a ruddy, brown color, and the other was a light grey mottled with golden swirls. The sphere they orbited was grey and white and covered with ridges and blocky shapes. Tall green rectangles were evenly spaced in a band around the center.

“What is that, Mama?”

Thoka blinked and reached out to touch the larger sphere. It was about the size of her fist, but her hand passed through it without any resistance. She wiggled her fingers and frowned. Well, that’s interesting.

All over the device, small bumps were lit up, and some were blinking. “What now, Mama?”

“I’m not sure, Zara. What do you see?”

Zara squinted and lifted her finger to point. “There are so many forces and colors. It’s everywhere… but I think I understand some of it.”

“That’s good. You’re a smart girl. What should I do?” Thoka’s eyes scanned the variety of options before she began to use her bracelet and ring combinations. The flows were truly everywhere and seemed to connect every single bump or protrusion. There were several larger flows of the invisible power that pulsed in a cadence. Every few seconds a tiny bit of power flowed straight up and out of the grid of indentations on the top.

“Mama, just try some of these things,” Zara said pointing at the device.

Thoka started pressing protrusions randomly. Usually, with each press several of the bumps would light up momentarily. After a moment, she pressed one on the far left, and the sphere of light started to fade.

“Mama, the top is emitting a big, blue flow with a bit of Qon in it.”

Abruptly. the sphere was replaced with the stern face of a death white.

Thoka raised her eyebrows.

The death white spoke in a garbled voice. “Binti o heno.” There was a pause. “Binti o heno.” The repeat was equally calm.

Thoka spoke. “Who are you?”

The head turned slightly to the right. “Heragut tuwilk.” After a moment, another voice spoke, though Thoka could not see another death white. This voice spoke in a very expressive and emotional series of tones that Thoka found to be odd. “I am Iitki. Who are you?” Thoka noticed that the death white’s mouth did not move.

“Ma-“

“I am Thoka.” She held her finger up to her mouth and waved her other hand gently in a shushing motion toward Zara who stood to her right.

“Where is Uuiit?”

It was then that Thoka realized she was not prepared to speak to what could be a series of serious questions about Uuiit, the village, herself, and everything else that she knew. Instead, she lied.

“Uuiit is on a journey and has left me in charge while… uh, Uuiit is gone.” She managed to keep a straight face, but not in the same absolute manner as the death white before her.

The death white head turned again and though the mouth moved, she heard nothing.

“Uuiit has assured me that he will return soon,” said Thoka with a nod. She then reached out her hand and pressed the same protrusion she had pressed when the sphere had changed. The floating death white head disappeared, and the sphere faded back into view. Thoka looked at the squarish protrusion and made a mental note to never accidentally touch it again.

“Who was that, Mama?” Zara then pointed at the top of the red device. “The big, blue flow is back!”

The floating sphere faded again and again it was replaced by the face of a death white. Whether it was the same one or different, Thoka could not say.

“Heno ji gutralit verralti ai, Thoka” a raspy voice barked. It was followed by the singsong voice. “You cannot evade my questions, Thoka.”

Thoka kept her calm and doubled down on the lie. “I will let Uuiit speak when he returns. Her hand twitched.

“Miult!”

Just then, Zara reached out her hand and pressed it against the side of the large, red device. There was a crackle of power as all signs of activity dissipated in an instant. Smoke wisped upward from the grid of indentations.

Thoka raised her voice without thinking. “Zara, what did you do?”

“I made him stop speaking Mama,” Zara said with tears in her eyes. “He was scary!”

“I’m sorry, Zara. I didn’t mean to scare you. I will always protect you, okay?” Thoka looked at the rising smoke and grimaced. “Do you think you can fix it?”

Zara shrugged. “Maybe, in time.” She paused and put her hand into Thoka’s. “I’m sorry, Mama.”

“It’s okay, Zara. We need to understand what this is and why there was the face of a death white inside of it.”

It could speak my language. It saw both of us. Thoka shuddered at the thought that the… it was able to see. She looked at the red device and realized that it was only able to see until Zara touched it.

“What did you do to this?” she asked gently.

“I… I just gave it more Qon,” sniffled Zara quietly.

“Hmmm… the death white could no longer see or talk to us without this device. I must think about what this means… and discuss with Kpleeb.” Thoka took the blue crystal out of its indentation and noticed that the gap did not change to hide itself again.

“Let’s go see Da.”

The Index -|-

Kpleeb limped out of the trees when everything went quiet in the street. There was an odd haze at ankle level that was slowly sinking into the ground. Several white-faced warriors lay in haphazard pools and splatters of blood, bones clearly shattered. Ahead lay Thoka on her back.

The bile rose in Kpleeb’s throat. She has to be alive. He began to run as best he could, but with his wounds, his ankle gave way, and he fell on his face with a muffled ooomph. He choked on the poof of dust and clambered to his knees and feet again to walk (hobble) slower this time.

When he arrived, he looked down and Thoka looked up at him. Her eyes opened and the corners crinkled. It was followed by a slight smile.

“Make sure he’s dead, Kpleeb.” Her head turned toward Uuiit.

Kpleeb turned and saw the trail of gray blood coming from beneath the body of Uuiit. The corpse was motionless. No breathing visible. No odd twitching or suspect movements. He nudged the body with his foot. It was solid at least. He bent and rolled it over. Uuiit’s face stared up at him with bright blue, open eyes. The mouth was slightly smaller than normal and open.

The teeth were sharp. On each side of Uuiit’s neck there were three parallel lines near the collar bones that were angled toward the rear shoulder. Kpleeb bent and looked closer. The lines were more than just markings, they were openings.

“Mmm,” grunted Kpleeb. Encircling the thin neck was a shiny cord that was very thin and almost dainty. Kpleeb wrapped his fingers around it and tugged, but it would not break. However, the remainder of the cord did pull itself out of Uuiit’s cloak. Attached to the end was an oddly shaped amulet. Kpleeb turned the shape over and looked at it from all angles. It was in fact, just like the angle that they had found resting in the nearby forest, but smaller. On one of the less angular sides, there was a blue crystal that was as perfect as anything that Kpleeb had ever seen. The deep blue was mesmerizing, and he blinked slowly once, twice… Kpleeb shook his head gently. Wha?

“Kpleeb?”

He felt a hand on his shoulder and twitched with surprise. Thoka stood next to him. She was a bit disheveled, but appeared to be otherwise okay. “You have to see this angle,” he said moving his head so she could see the amulet on the cord.

“We need to search Uuiit’s home as soon as we can,” said Thoka with a grimace. “If we have killed a death white, or whatever they call themselves, I am sure the Xinti will be unhappy.”

Kpleeb stood. “The center of the village is nearby. Are there any Ganix warriors left to help us? I will try to carry Uuiit’s body.” He reached down and grasped the arms. Uuiit’s body was surprisingly thin and light under the cloak, so Kpleeb grunted and heaved it over his shoulder and carefully tested his weak-legged balance. “You walk ahead and find his house.”

Kpleeb painstakingly followed Thoka through the grid of buildings, forward two and then right three, before he saw the stone porch that he had remembered seeing from the ridge. He paused occasionally to shrug the lightweight body inan attempt to achieve a more comfortable position and carried on. They arrived at the house in another few moments, and Thoka pushed on the door.

“It won’t open,” she said holding up one of her rings. “The door is entirely surrounded by the invisible forces.” She turned. “Let me see that blue crystal.” When she fished it out of Uuiit’s cloak, the crystal itself was slowly pulsating with an inner light.

Kpleeb set the body down and noticed that it weighed even less than it had before. “Something is going on, Thoka. Uuiit has become very light.”

Thoka ignored him and murmured something under her breath as she palmed the blue crystal. After a moment, she held it against the door, and then nodded as it swung open.

The space inside was musty, and Kpleeb saw the air swirl away from the door as it opened. The air was pale, but had a brownish tinge to it. There was a thin odor, sharp and nostril tickling. Kpleeb coughed slightly, and in response, Thoka waved her palm downward as if to shush him. The room ahead of them began to glow. Everything was oddly angular and light colored. There were shelves on the wall at a height that would prevent any cavechildren from accessing items stored on them. In the corner was a strangely tiered structure. It was the only part of the room that was not some shade of white, off-white, or yellow-white. It was a deep and brilliant red and covered with small protrusions.

“I think the light is triggered by movement,” said Thoka adjusting her bracelet. She had the faraway look in her eye, and Kpleeb knew she was using the invisible forces in some way.

He shrugged and pushed past her pulling Uuiit’s corpse. “We need to defend ourselves.” He closed the door behind them and dropped Uuiit’s ankle. “Are you okay?”

Thoka blinked and nodded. “This room is full of invisible forces. Absolutely full, Kpleeb. I have to study all of this, and Zara too. She will understand more of this than I will.”

“Do you think we’re safe here?” Kpleeb grabbed a piece of lak from the top shelf. It was hard and the edges were very sharp.

Just then, there was a loud banging on the door. Kpleeb placed his hands on the door panel and hissed at Thoka. “What do we do now?” The banging continued for a long moment and then stopped.

“Pale One? Pale One?” The voice was that of Xer, the Ganix warrior in charge of the larger company of attackers.

“Xer?” Kpleeb tapped on the door with his fingertips.

“Kpleeb. It safe. Many Ganix alive. Xinti dead.”

Kpleeb eyed Thoka and when she nodded at him, he opened the door slowly. Xer was there facing the door, and behind him stood a handful of Ganix warriors with faces stern and eyes darting toward in all directions.

“I’m glad you are here, Xer. We have Uuiit.” Kpleeb gestured behind him. He turned and approached the corpse on the floor.

Xer bowed slightly to Thoka and knelt next to Uuiit’s body. When he lifted the cloak, a fine, pale dust trickled out from the seams.

Kpleeb hissed, “Thoka, Uuiit’s body is gone.:”

Thoka quickly examined the cloak, the dust, and the whole surrounding area while Xer held the cloak up. “Hmm. There is nothing significantly different about this dust compared to the dirt outside. It has more silica in it, but… It is just dust. Xer, please bring the cloak, and some of this lak.”

“Pale One,” Xer said nodding.

Kpleeb noticed that the dust was not enough to account for Uuiit’s original size or weight.

“We need to get back to the village,” Thoka said to Kpleeb. “There is much to do, and this place is dangerous until I can understand it. I must return with Zara.”

Xer and a few Ganix warriors collected each item that Thoka pointed out, and they exited Uuiit’s house. The door latched behind them with a muted click.

Kpleeb and Xer walked together and talked about Kpleeb’s capture, the battle, and what might be the aftermath of killing Uuiit. Trailing them, Thoka walked in silence for many hours. Kpleeb could see that she was deep in thought, so he left her in peace to analyze the day’s many discoveries.