The City of Death
Escape and betrayal
This is a chapter of the novel Earth’s Embrace by Space Cadet Michael. In this novel, the little and the lost becomes the fulfilled and the found - It is a novel of jungle adventure, artificial intelligence, and the answer to what happened to Percy Fawcett. See the full chapter list here.
Previously, Kashiri, Reeto, and Kaw escape the Incan capitol by hiding in a crate on a transport, then journey through the jungle on foot for for four days to reach the City of Death.
The City of Death
-Kaw-
Kaw, Kashiri and Reeto run as fast as they can away from the continued sound of the opening door which will soon open big enough for the lizard to follow. They have to get to the end of the hall before the beast can fit through the widening gap. They run down the central hall of an enormous stable, lined on either side by equally enormous stalls for an animal that must be four or five times taller than a horse. Kaw doesn’t have much time to wonder what kind of beast uses such large stalls because just as he passes the first stall, an almost exact copy of the beast chasing them roars as it crashes through the stall door, narrowly missing stepping on Kaw. Kaw glances back just long enough to see it paying no heed to him or Kashiri and Reeto. Its focus is only on the beast standing in the doorway. It seems to want to meet the beast at the door before it can make it into the stable. Kaw takes this as permission to continue running to the possible safety of a small doorway at the end of the stable.
A loud roar from the main doorway prickles the hairs on the back of Kaw’s neck, giving him an extra boost of speed. It's followed by an equally ferocious, but slightly less loud roar, likely from the lizard that had been in the stable.
Quick glances in the other stalls he passes find beasts who are watching poking their heads out to watch what is soon to become a confrontation at the main doorway. Though Kaw is sure these other beasts could break out of their door just as the first had, they seem content to stay in their stalls. The three travelers reach the small doorway just as the beast from outside roars again, even louder than before. The travelers turn around to watch the events behind them from their newfound safety.
The beast from inside snorts, sounding like it's trying to diffuse the situation, Kaw thinks, but not standing down from confrontation. The outside one seems to have no interest in peace and starts a charge. The inside one holds its ground, at the last moment putting all its weight into meeting it. They crash together and the defender connects its teeth into a grazing wound in the attacker’s neck.
The attacker bleeds profusely from the cut on its neck. It stumbles back, regains its footing, then charges again, this time ducking numbly under the defender’s attack and landing its own bite, much deeper in the neck of the defender. Skin and flesh peel away, though it isn’t flesh because it doesn’t bleed. Flesh doesn’t peel off like that. It hangs limp from the gaping wound; the beast is unperturbed. As its head turns to respond in kind, Kaw sees that underneath, its bones are jet black and not shaped like bones. It's a machine. A machine of the Banetmabo.
Kaw is entranced by this epic battle between artificial and natural. The natural attacker stands no chance. Even if the first artificial defender falls, there are a dozen more in stalls waiting for their turn.
“You coming Kaw?” Kashiri calls after him from inside the door she has somehow already opened.
“Yes, definitely. Don’t you want to see what happens?”
The battle seems to be dying down. Both creatures have had enough and the defender stands in the center of the stable, bowing its head and snorting. The attacker seems mollified. It stands tall, tilts its head, snorts, and turns and leaves. The door closes behind it.
“Looks like we won.” Kaw says as he follows Kashiri and Reeto into the hallway which opens into a small room with a set of steep steps on one side.
On the other side, alongside the steps, sits a strange transport on a forty-five-degree inclined track. The transport is sectioned to match the steps, with a door at each step. Kaw jumps up onto one of the steps and looks in the door. Inside are rows of the kinds of seats he has seen before in Banetmabo transports when they were first found. They are like regular seats, except the base of the backrest and the back of the seat meet at a large hole.
Kashiri walks up alongside Kaw. “You ready to go for a ride?” She says in their native tongue. She is strangely calm after the ordeal of the last few minutes. Kaw wonders if it's because she has seen it before, or seen much worse.
Kaw thinks of pointing out how dead the machine looks, and how old it must be. But he knows better than to doubt Kashiri. “Always,” he says.
“OK, I just need a small favor,” Kashiri says, lowering her pack to the ground and placing her hands on the door in front of her. “I need you to pry open these doors.”
“Hey, uhhhh,” Reeto says, appropriately unsettled. “Were we just chased by a T-Rex with feathers?”
Kaw sets his bag down as well and produces a short knife from his pocket. “What’s a T-Rex?” Kaw says as he jams the blade of the knife between the doors and pries. “Come over here Reeto and help me. Your fingers are smaller.”
Reeto wiggles his fingers in the small gap that Kaw has made between the doors and pulls them apart wider. Once Kaw can get his fingers in too, he puts the knife in his mouth and heaves the doors open with Reeto’s help. The doors want to close back up so they both wedge themselves in the door, Kaw above, his shoulder against one door and his arm outstretched against the other. Reeto below in the same position but with his shoulder on the opposite door.
Kashiri jumps between them and lands in an elegant roll on the other side. “Will you show me how to do that?!” Reeto says to Kashiri. Kashiri laughs.
“Can we let go now? This is heavy,” Kaw says.
“Oh, is it difficult?” Kashiri retorts.
“No, I could do this all day,” Kaw says.
“OK, just a little longer then. You don’t need Reeto’s help then, do you?” Kashiri says as she pulls out a small power pack from her pocket and makes her way to the lower part of the transport.
Kaw chooses not to answer. He doesn’t really want to have to hold the door open by himself.
“Why would the doors open for that big beast and not us?” Reeto says, squirming slightly under the strain of holding open the door.
“I don’t know. Kashiri, do you know?” Kaw defers to the expert, his arm shaking under the strain of the door.
“No,” she says as she maintains her focus on the series of buttons she is activating on a screen that has appeared in front of her. “It just does.”
“There you go,” Kaw says to Reeto. “It just does.”
The lights turn on in the transport and the door stops pushing against Kaw and Reeto.
“Did we really need to hold that door open?” Kaw asks as Kashiri walks back over to them.
“I thought you wanted to show you could?” She says innocently.
Kaw lunges at her but she nimbly dodges around him and out the door towards her pack.
“Too slow old man,” she says.
“I was tight from the exertion.” Kaw tries to save face, jokingly.
“If you say so.” Kashiri teases.
They grab their packs and board the transport. Kashiri returns to the control panel at the bottom, actuates the doors, and sets them moving up into the steep dark tunnel ahead. The tunnel is lit only by a pair of dim headlights from the transport.
Kaw stares, mesmerized by the regular pattern of the walls coming into view as they make their way into the darkness. His mind wanders and he finds himself hiding a pang of anticipated regret as to what he will have to do here. Kashiri has become one of Kaw’s dearest friends. Is there no other way? If there is, Kaw can’t think of it.
“So,” Reeto says. “I really hope that the shuttle works. I don’t want to go out the way we came in. Big beast looked hungry.”
“Me too,” Kaw says. “Me too.”
“I’m hungry too,” Reeto says with his wide grin. “But the big beast’s hunger is the dangerous one.” Reeto looks Kaw up and down. “Hmm, maybe you are dangerous too?”
Kaw does not know how to respond. He immediately assumes Reeto has read Kaw’s mind, which is unlikely, then starts replaying each muscle twitch he may have had that could have given Reeto some sort of tell.
Kaw sees out of the corner of his eyes that Kashiri is intently monitoring the vehicle’s controls. The silence has gone on too long so Kaw decides to try to let it keep going. If he doesn’t draw any attention to the vague remark, maybe Kashiri won’t pay it any heed either.
---
The track ends at a station just like the one they had entered, except reversed. Lights from the front of the transport illuminate the station, reflecting off its jet black walls.
Kashiri actuates the doors again. “Alright, hold those doors again. I know you want to.”
Kaw pretends to be upset and braces himself against the door. Kashiri removes the power pack and jumps up, and slides through the door. Kaw lets it go and it closes, sealing up the transport for whoever might next show up, though they would have to walk up the tunnel. That would not be fun.
Kashiri leads the way out of the room and into the hallway. It leads to a larger hall with windows down the side that overlook the City. They are on the tallest part. Below them, spreading around the circular top of the butte they now stand on top of, is a series of buildings and roofs. A large flat area in the distance with a shuttle beckons them from the far side.
“That’s our ride home,” Reeto says. “Are those flying beasties all around it?”
Kaw takes a closer look. There are indeed a series of Pterodactyl nests all around the shuttle. At the moment, they are all full of very dangerous looking Pterodactyls preening and resting.
The group of explorers make their way through the various buildings of the complex. The halls and rooms they walk through are littered with treasures Kaw has only read about. He has visited many Banetmabo cities, but always after many of his brethren had been there first. This is the first he has ever seen totally untouched. All other Banetmabo cities are hollowed out shells of their former selves, mostly destroyed by ancient explosions and fire, the remains stripped bare long ago. There are usually only ruined stark walls of black left, twisted like melted glass, open to the elements, torn apart, empty, cold, dead.
But this place feels almost lived in. The first thing Kaw notices is a lack of dust or dirt. Abandoned places tend to get covered in a film of dirt or leaves or whatever, but every surface looks as if it has been cleaned and polished this morning. Things are arranged in the smaller rooms like whoever lived here has been living in it one moment and vanished the next. There are wooden chairs and tables, finely carved and inlaid, with colorful plates and cups set out on many large round tables as though they are expecting a meal in one of the larger rooms. Moss grows on the trunks of small trees that sit, happily alive, in pots near open windows. Faded textiles hang on the walls and spread across the floor. Some of the smaller rooms have large plush round nests, a large donut-shaped pillow on a soft mattress. It looks very comfortable for an enormous dog to curl up in.
Oddly shaped black pebbles of all sizes are strewn about the place here and there on tables, on the floor, anywhere and everywhere. The ‘favors’, as Brian would call them. Kaw has seen thousands of favors in his life, but today was the first time that he had seen one do something. There is no way that they are all small lasers like Kashiri had used on their way in. Favors must be capable of any number of amazing things. How did she activate it?
Kaw picks up the nearest favor. It is sitting on a small table by one of the doors and is about the size of a small bird egg, jet black. He rolls it in his palm looking for any kind of markings or discontinuities on its surface. But he can see none. He places it on a table and takes off his shoe. He makes sure the pointy ends don’t face him.
Reeto is watching. “Has it offended you?” Reeto says.
Kaw lifts his shoe up above and brings it down hard on the egg. A loud thwap of the shoe hitting the rock-hard egg happens, but there is also another sound. A higher pitched, jarring sound. Something else happens. Kaw lifts his shoe and the egg comes with it. A ring of spikes has shot out from the egg turning it into a little ball of spikes, half of which are deeply lodged in his shoe.
“Looks like you made it angry,” Reeto says.
Kaw ignores him. “What could that be for?” He wonders aloud as he watches the spikes slowly retract out of his shoe and back into the little egg.
What untold uses do these thousands of other ones have? Kaw wants to bring a whole transport full home. Why do these do something, but not any of the thousand of other ones he has seen? Kaw tosses the little egg in his pack and starts towards a table full of more of different shapes and sizes. He will have to try them all! He is going to need a bigger bag!
Kaw catches himself halfway to the table. He has forgotten himself. Only one prize matters here, the big power pack. Everything else is a distraction. Kashiri has already moved on to the next room in search of it. Kaw leaves hurriedly to catch up to her. Reeto follows.
They come across Kashiri in a long room with one wall missing. They stand on an upper platform above a lower platform that extends outdoors from where the wall should be, like a wide patio ending in a small wall. From their location they can look out over the jungle off into the horizon. Off to their right, Kaw can see the end of the jungle where they have crossed the chasm, and the arid land extending to the horizon beyond. But to the left, he can see greenery extending off into the horizon. Large meadows filled with herds of long-necked, massive dinosaurs pocket the jungle. Larger herds of smaller dinosaurs roam in between. And the sky is speckled with large winged dinosaurs here and there.
He watches, incredulous. He knows large beasts live in these jungles. There are many stories. And sometimes one makes it across the chasm. Flying ones especially, every so often make it to his cities and are dealt with. But there are so many. And so many enormous ones. An entirely separate ecosystem here that his people cannot access. Well they can, once they learn how to synthesize their visitor’s pills to protect them from the illness of this place.
A small whirring noise behind him makes Kaw turn around quickly. A little machine has rolled into the room and is slowly making its way across the floor, a slight slick of wetness behind everywhere it goes. Reeto sees it too and walks over to it.
“Hello! I am your friend,” Reeto says, bowing low to the machine.
The machine completely ignores him and keeps on its busy way. Reeto straightens up and turns to Kashiri and Kaw who are both watching him from across the room. “Well that was rude. He’s less friendly than Tolek’s friends. My feelings are hurt. I call dibs on the first bottle of alcohol we find.”
Kashiri shakes her head. “Come on,” she says, and leads them to the end of the large hall and into a room she has clearly been to before. Inside is a workbench. Along one wall is a rack full of large, oval-shaped holes. Two of the holes’ contents are missing. One is not. The third hole holds a perfect specimen of the power pack they seek.
Kashiri carefully removes the power pack and places it in her pack. “Now we just need to fill our packs and we can leave,” she says as she makes her way out of the room. Reeto follows. Kaw is close behind.
They follow Kashiri, she seems to know where she is going, and as they pass through room after room, they each grab any favors that look interesting, tossing out things from their packs to make room. Clothes, extra food, tents. None of this is needed for the return journey. Kaw keeps a close eye on Kashiri and her pack, looking out for any opportunity to sneak the power pack from her without her knowing. Worst case he could fight them for it on the shuttle, but he prefers to avoid that.
Soon their packs are uncomfortably heavy, but Kaw has made sure to leave just enough space in his pack for the power pack to fit.
“That’s it, I’m full,” Reeto says. “This pack isn’t going to hold any more.”
“We’re almost there,” Kashiri has led them through many twists and turns and now they find themselves in front of a door. Kashiri turns to her companions. You men ready for this?
“Let me see,” Kaw says. He cracks the door open. He can see many nests of very large flying lizards, Aerotitans. Each nest contains one or two of the beasts. Judging by the one closest to them, their shoulders come up to Kaw’s waist and their heads stand just taller than Kaw’s. Their long pointy beaks have no teeth, but still look very dangerous. The shuttle sits on the far end of the perfectly flat platform that seems to end in a sheer drop to the clouds.
“Alright, either of you two have any ideas?” Kaw moves aside so Reeto can see.
“It’s just a flock of birds. A flock of really big, really ugly birds, but just a bunch of birds. Anyone have a boomstick?” Reeto asks. “Anything loud will do.” He snaps his fingers at Kashiri. “Your horn!”
Kashiri pulls out her horn and gives it to Reeto. “We open the door,” Reeto says. “And then I blow the horn and they fly off. And we run to the shuttle before they come back.”
It seems reasonable enough. Kaw doesn’t have a better idea.
“Can you open the shuttle door quick?” Kaw asks Kashiri.
“Yes,” Kashiri produces another small stone.
“Perfect. Any objections?”
No one says anything. “After you,” Kaw steps to the side to let the other two lead the way.
Kashiri looks at Reeto. He nods and places his hand on her shoulder from behind at arm's reach. Kaw does the same on Reeto’s shoulder. “Together,” he says.
Kashiri pulls the door open. The closest bird cocks its head at them. They walk out slowly. Then Reeto holds the horn aloft and blows it loud. The closest birds jump out of their nests and waddle away. As the little party runs forward, the flock parts around them, making for the edge. Each plants their sturdy elbows at the edge and lifts their back legs up, jerks down, and throws themselves into the air over the edge. As they move forward, Reeto keeps hitting the horn. But one large one stays put, plants its elbows, and lowers its beak, pointing right at them. It sits right at the edge of the shuttle, blocking the door.
“Laser!” Kaw yells.
Kashiri brings out the laser she is using earlier and fires at the beast. It rears up and falls backwards out of its nest. They run to the door, but before they reach it, Kaw feels a sharp force in his side and then realizes he is off balance and then hitting the floor. He tries to roll on his back but his pack is in the way. He tries to push himself up but his heavy pack throws him off and it takes a moment to recover. In that moment he feels a looming presence over him. The beast is standing tall above him, ready to strike.
Then it is shaking its head violently left and right. As Kaw shuffles back he sees Kashiri has jumped on the beast from behind and has wrapped her legs and arms around its long neck just below the head. The massive bird stumbles left, then right, then catches itself and flicks its neck while extending it off to the side. Kashiri flies off and slides across the glossy floor straight towards the edge of the platform. The bird stumbles back, off to the other side of the platform, the handle of a blade sticking out of its neck. Reeto has already dropped his pack and is halfway to the edge when Kashiri slides over. There is no scream, but Kaw has stopped watching, whatever has happened to Kashiri has happened. He hopes she is OK and he seizes his moment. Kaw lunges past the beast to Kashiri’s pack which sits by the door.
He quickly grabs the power pack, stuffs it in his pack, and pulls a few smaller items that add up to a similar weight from his pack and places them in Kashiri’s pack. Then he runs to where Reeto is dangling over the edge. Kaw arrives to find Kashiri hanging by her fingers from the edge and Reeto with one hand around her belt, struggling to get good leverage against the flat edge to pull her up.
“Give me a hand!” Reeto says.
Kaw grabs Reeto’s shoulder and pulls the pair of them up and back onto firm ground.
They all collapse in a heap just as the first beast returns on a dive bombing run, piercing the air where Kaw has just been standing with its long, sharp beak.
“Run!” They all yell in unison as they scramble towards the shuttle, crawling quickly into a standing run.
Kashiri opens the door and jumps inside, pointing her laser out at the flying beasts. She fires a couple of shots as Kaw and Reeto follow in with the bags. Kashiri closes the door behind them. “I’ll be in the cockpit,” she says. “You two strap in.”
Kaw watches Kashiri walk through the wide open space, what seems to be a cargo hold, and through a narrow aisle between rows of seats. She grabs a ladder at the end of the aisle and disappears into the ceiling.
Kaw looks at Reeto. “OK then.” Kaw grabs his bag, the one with the power pack safely inside, and Reeto grabs the other two. They make their way to the front of the rows of seats, strap in each bag into its own seat and then strap themselves in.
“Ready to go!” Kaw shouts up.
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