Others

      What is home? A place, where you want to return to after a long journey, or where you just don’t want to leave? Probably, it is, first of all, a place, where you are in complete harmony with yourself. For Kiva, home was a hovel attached to the wall of an old house. Last year she had even covered the bare ground with boards, thus increasing the resemblance of the dwelling to a simple shed. The outhouse wasn’t conspicuous, so the landlady didn’t have to worry about anyone getting in, while she was away. There was almost a whole lot of nothing inside, though. An old mattress, a drawer for clothes and rags, some semblance of a table, and a dusty window above. It was modest, but she couldn’t count on much more than that, and she was glad, she had at least some.        The members of the group didn’t know the exact location of each other’s dwellings, because of a joke Josh had once thrown in, when everyone had gotten together and the three older guys had taken in a dose of alcohol. Kiva didn’t join them in this activity, reasoning that at least someone should keep his sanity. Specifically, he joked that if someone caught him and wanted to beat out information, he would, sooner or later, give away the location of the others.       After that, they all kind of started thinking, they crossed the path of one bandit a couple times, but the bandit didn’t pursue them to eliminate them. But that was just for now. Kiva knew, that Matt and William lived together in the attic of some building, Al lived in a house near the square, maybe that was what allowed him to learn some information faster than most, but where the brothers lived was a mystery to everyone. Kiva walked leisurely to the west of the gathering place. “There’s plenty of time,” She said aloud to herself. “I’ll even have time to go to the market and get something to eat.” She’d seen a tent, where something was cooking and steaming since this morning. Why not treat herself before work? “I’ll go there if I don’t get chased away screaming “thief,” she laughed. They used to steal groceries there a lot, and they’d gotten hit hard a couple times. Lately the stealing there had been somewhat less regular.       She turned into the alley, walked along the fence, found the door, checked the mini-trap. She always put a chip in the gap between the main board and the sliding board, when she left. The purpose of this was to see if anyone had climbed near the house in her absence. “Caution is paramount, I don’t want to see any visitors, especially unexpected ones,” she thought as she caught the wood chip in her hand and slipped through this “door”. She set the trap on the back side, it had become a habit, she didn’t even think about. “Here it is home, sweet home. Perhaps the thing I liked best about this place was the quietness. I remember coming across this place when I was running from those bullies, they were chasing me because I stole food or some thing, I can’t remember exactly now. I managed to hide behind a fence, and they thought I’d run on,” the girl thought, looking at the squalid building for a while. The discovery was indeed a good one.       Once inside, she opened the small window, letting in a breath of fresh, albeit musty, dungeon air, and stretched blissfully on the mattress. “Maybe a lot of people don’t even want to even see this old, tattered mattress, but for me, this is the coziest place to sleep,” Kiva then sat up, reached into the drawer of her belongings, and found a satchel. Mentally listing the items, she began to pack them, “A couple of more or less clean rags for bandages, a vial of alcohol, yeah-a good enough for injuries and wounds, a spare shirt, a cloth to wrap around her legs, a couple of knives, and when are they ever scarce? An empty water bale, I snatched it right out from under the tanner’s nose, it’s a good thing,” she found a faded black cloak, but put it aside to put on later.       In the drawer, Kiva suddenly found a shabby book. She wondered for a moment, how she could have such a thing. “Oh yes, one of the bar patrons had gotten drunk and forgotten it. I begged the tavernkeeper to teach me how to read for a while.” And he did teach her the basics, letters, syllables, probably everything he himself knew. The Underground City is full of filth and ignorance, but even in it some people could read, though most considered it a very useless skill. No, she had never gotten around to reading this book, there was always so much to do, but now seeing it again made her want to read it sometime, but still. “When I get back from Orvud, maybe I’ll start,” the girl promised herself, placing the precious object on the table. She looked in the drawer again, “I think I’ve got everything I need, except a little more money. I’ll bet anyone can tell you, that the stuff at the Orvud market is a lot different from the stuff in our slums”.       The girl stood up, threw on her cloak, checked the knife strapped to her hip, the spare knife in the shin of her boot, the slingshot, which she rarely had to use, and picked up her hiking torc, which still had a little space in it. Kiva walked over to the table, which was really just a couple of planks tied together with old ropes and standing on the rubble of crates, tapped the book with her index finger, mentally telling herself: “Don’t forget you wanted to read it,” and left her house. At the market, the tent, selling something smoky and hot, did not disappoint. This toasted bread, dipped in whatever it was, was tastier, than the cooking at Zela’s tavern. “It’s expensive,” Kiva thought as she put the money in the merchant’s hand — “but after all, I don’t often indulge myself like this, so why not make this day even better.” Her mood was indeed high, she was eating delicious and hot food, that she could buy rather than steal, and that made her happy in a special way.       It was like becoming something more than a slum rat. “Getting out of the ground, even if only for seven days, is wonderful, it will be possible to see the sunrise,” she pondered as she made her way to the meeting place by the climb to the surface. In these moments she had even forgotten, that the too bright and direct sunlight of the first few days would dazzle her eyes, that the high sky would make her feel strangely uneasy and dizzy. But if it was possible to get used to living in a dark dungeon and filthy streets, constantly fleeing from people of the law and from more dangerous people, who broke the law, then it was possible to get used to the world above the earth. And by the gods, it was a world they wanted to get used to. Every one of them wanted to get out of the slums, up to the light and wind, to stop being the rats raised by the street.       Kiva often thought about it, but she didn’t even know, how they, who couldn’t live except by stealing and occasional killing, could start living differently. Akin to learning to walk again. She had managed not to fall to the bottom of this life, of course; she had an income quite natural for the streets and slums. She didn’t have to trade her body, and even many illnesses had passed her by, she didn’t have to obey anyone, and her beatings ended at the age of eight, when she learned not only to run fast, but also to dodge blows. She didn’t need to remember her parents, because her mother died or something, when the girl was four, and her drunken father put her on the street at five, probably the best thing he did for her. Kiva learned to survive and accept reality as it was. Without illusions and empty hopes.       She knew, she would have to change to fit the world, if she wanted to not only survive, but live. It was with these thoughts in mind that the girl reached the spiral staircase leading upwards, about four hours after sending the small ones to pack. “The habit of talking to myself may be harmful, but it allows me to reflect and not despair, which is probably the most important thing for misfits like us. Hmm, and apparently I still have plenty of time for such conversations, since I was the first to arrive”. The passage upstairs was guarded, as it always was. Al preferred not to use the main ascent, where the police were too often seen, but the other one, a little farther away from the busy places. The local gang, which had more influence, charged a fee to go above ground. There were several ways to get through them: one was to slip in, two was to get through, three was to pay, and the fourth was to bribe the guard himself. It was the fourth, that her group preferred most often.       Although at first they had to slip in unnoticed, risking a beating. Al made a deal with the guards, that if they would let them pass without charging money, he would bring them good booze from the upper towns. It was a good deal, for the thugs couldn’t go up there themselves, and the local liquor was no match for the whiskey they could get in Mitra. So most of the time the six teenagers made it upstairs without too much trouble. Kiva sat down not far from, where the guards were, took off torch, put her foot on her leg, waiting for the others to arrive. “Do you want to go upstairs again, girl?” one of the men asked without looking at her. “Yeah, that’s about right,” Kiva replied in a bored tone, pulling her hood up. “Then get us some good wine, rumor says it’s as good as the whiskey you brought last time.” Shrugging, Kiva closed her eyes and began to doze off. “Plenty more time before everyone gathers.” But that turned out not to be the extent of it. Within the hour, everyone was in place.       Cloaks, sacks, clothes chosen so that their color would not betray their owner in the dark. There was a good-natured expression on the faces of Al and his brothers, and a joyful gleam in the eyes of the younger ones, for whom this was the first time they had ever been to the surface. The commander nodded her greeting and headed toward the guards. “You’re taking these brats with you? Strange, I think it’s a bad idea,” the chatty guard said again. “We’re staying longer, than usual this time, I’d like to walk them. Have you heard anything interesting?” Al said with a chuckle. “Hell knows, there’s been a lot of cops down lately, probably looking for the Ripper again, and they’re reluctant to do it. Don’t forget the booze, the fresh air makes the thoughts go away.” And all six of us went up the stone stairs. Up.       Since the meaning of twenty-four hours was completely lost in the Underground City, no one could accurately predict, whether it was day or night on the ground. In a way, they were lucky, they reached the surface just before sunset. The sun was already hiding behind the horizon and painting the sky in colors, that were unbelievable to the dungeon dwellers. It was pink and scarlet, and the edges of the clouds were still tinged with light. Mette and Willie froze in awe, unable to take their eyes off the impossibly high and enormous height. The older ones stood still, breathing in the really fresh, cool air, the wind blowing lightly as if it were stroking their faces. The smell of grass, of pure coolness, of space, was inebriating.       Al let them stand like that for about five minutes and savor the moment, before he led them eastward, where they would pass the wall of Sina and enter Orvud. They walked through the forest for a while, and though Mett and William were new and excited, the rest of them enjoyed every step, soaking up all the emotions this walk brought. The sun had set and the stars appeared in the sky. The dusk was more familiar to them, than the light. “But in a week we’ll all get used to the bright sun, and the feeling of wrongness will go away,” Keeve thought as she looked up at the blackening vault. They walked for two hours before they came to a road, along which they headed onward. “Every minute here is paradise, someday we will live above ground, above the Underground City, above the way we live now”, thought the girl.       They walked in silence, no one wanted to interrupt this magic, probably everyone was thinking about something else. After a while they made a break near the river. “Not because we’re tired, but to enjoy the clear water and this place,” Kiva hummed to herself. They did get some water, drank from the river, washed themselves and sat down on its bank. Josh pulled out a few slices of bread and handed it out to everyone. They weren’t talking at all, but they didn’t need to, they were enjoying themselves. Everything around them seemed beautiful and even incredible. An hour later they continued walking, and the road stretched on for a long time. By dawn they were already outside the wall of Sina, having successfully passed the gate, and were approaching Orvud, where they thought they would spend seven days.