The Vapours of Caldera
by David Brookes
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Table of Contents parts 1, 2, 3 The Spirits of Caldera |
part 2
The old woman opened her mouth. Was she about to speak? Her wizened face smoothed over, her hair seemed to grow longer and straighter with each passing second... Then she was gone into the folds of Vapours, only threads of smoke in the thick mist.
Disappointed, Leanna put down her work and peered as deep as she dared into the Vapours. For a long time there was nothing, and darkness had pulled over Caldera, leaving Leanna cold.
And then he came. Her heart skipped in her chest and her throat tightened. All at once the omnipresent fumes stung her eyes more than usual, or was it tears? She leapt to her feet, rushing into the deeper water until it was up to her thighs, then over her hips. She reached up: ‘Duncan...?’
He floated a few feet above her, his face smiling with such warmth that she felt enshrouded by him, drifting with him up through the Vapours into his warm embrace.
‘Duncan!’
He spoke in whispers. This seemed to be a strain. He lost coherence in the fog, melting into it. She begged him to stay.
‘Lea...’
She thought she would die. If she had, she wouldn’t have minded so much. Her slender, long-fingered hands shook when she tried to touch his face. They clenched into tight fists when they found no substance to him.
‘Don’t be upset,’ he said, smiling so beatifically that every muscle from her stomach down ached with longing.
Once they’d worked through the emotion of their reunion, she treaded water beneath his floating form and answered his questions about the years since his accident. When had she decided to become the seamstress? What happened to Suzanna, the last seamstress? Hadn’t they begun training an apprentice yet? How were the hunters faring in the Reach?
She answered all his questions. At dawn she waded back to the village, slept for an hour, and then roused herself for work. She made more mistakes with her head full of Duncan than she did in the dark, but she made herself correct them before sundown. Then, when the Vapours was at its thickest, she returned to Duncan and asked questions of him instead.
Who else is with you? What about the Great Spirits, are they in the same place as you? Mesmerana had not produced any snow this last winter. Would Precipitia provide more rain to replenish the basin? Did he talk to the Great Spirits?
Duncan was patient with her. He seemed to enjoy being in her company again as much as she did his. With great strength of will, he could float down towards her until they were almost sitting side by side in the water, and she could almost see the colour in his eyes.
Exactly how I thought he would look, she thought.
All they had was questions for each other. On the third night, Duncan pestered her with questions about the village.
‘Have the hunters said anything about the cracks in the grey Reach?’
‘I haven’t heard anything said about that.’
‘What about the earthquakes? Is no-one concerned?’
‘Of course we’re concerned! But what can we do? If Strattus in the ground wills—’
‘There is no Strattus. In the ground, beneath the village, is Solus.’
‘Fire beneath the ground? He’s in the Sun, warming the water!’
‘He’s in the ground,’ Duncan insisted, ‘and I can show you.’
‘How?’
‘Your... friend, Paul. Doesn’t he help keep the records?’
* * *
She had not seen Paul for days. He always hid away during the time of the Vapours. And she hadn’t wanted to see him. He knew that she and Duncan had been as close to lovers as children could get. It was something he couldn’t compete with, and although they mostly enjoyed their time together, she had barely thought of Paul for three days.
Aban, the records keeper, tried to prevent her from entering the Hall.
‘It’s been weakened by the quakes,’ he said, holding her at bay with his flaky hands. The keeper had to always keep his hands dry, so as not to ruin the few surviving paper records. It was why the keepers never lived long, and why Paul, with his condition, had been chosen to be Aban’s successor.
‘We have to talk,’ she said.
‘Alright. Then let’s talk.’
‘I have to see the records,’ she snapped. ‘It’s important. Show them to me.’
‘Girl, you know—’
‘My mother is the chief!’ Leanna had never abused the fact before, but she was filled with Solus’ fire now: furious at the secrets that had been kept from her, both distressed and elated at seeing Duncan again, but terribly anxious about the direction of Duncan’s questions and his piercing, focused stare.
Aban relented. He could see how stricken Leanna was and had never known the strong young woman to cry. He said, ‘I’ll show you. But you must give your word that you won’t touch the parchments, or move quickly near them, or get too close to them.’
‘I promise,’ she said, trying to restore a measure of calmness in herself. ‘I promise, Aban.’
* * *
All three of Caldera’s buildings were small due to the scarcity of workable stone. There were no other materials with which to build, but for the rubbery prene made from the gel that gathered at the foot of the Ridge. Because of this, the drystone structure was empty but for a floating lizardskin table, one of the most valuable items in the village. On this were oiled mammalskin pouches like the one Leanna used to collect the chlorinate gel. It was from these that Aban extracted the paper records.
There were six scrolls kept in three bags. Aban rubbed his hands together fiercely before touching the paper, and even then only touched them by the very edges. ‘So. What is it you wish to see?’
‘Duncan asked me to look at the picture.’
‘Duncan? You mean your old friend from before? Merris’ boy?’
She nodded. Her eyes stayed on the rolled-up parchment, indicating her single-mindedness.
Abbas unrolled the first sheet. It was almost as long as his forearm and about half as wide. The faded, moisture-warmed image was a drawing of the Ridge’s inner circle, and Caldera in the centre. Beyond the Ridge were grey lines depicting the stone wasteland of the Reach. The Great Spirit Solus was indicated by the flare of the sun above. Curlicues rushing from east to west denoted the lesser spirits that together were the Ventri.
Leanna frowned.
‘What’s the matter?’ asked Aban. ‘This is our only picture. Isn’t it what you expected?’
She looked up into his eyes. ‘Duncan said that you have another.’
Muttering, Aban unfastened the second pouch. ‘There’s no arguing with lesser spirits, I suppose. They know all.’
The second drawing was much like the first. This one showed Caldera from the side, a cross-section of the Ridge. It rose up on either side of the village. But on the other side of the Ridge, the downward slope kept going, down and down. The wasteland of the Reach plummeted. Rising from its slopes were enormous columns.
‘The Reach just goes down and down,’ Leanna said, shocked.
‘We are atop a mountain,’ Aban confirmed, nodding. ‘And what we call the grey Reach is really—’
‘The sides of the mountain? And these columns are... giant trees, like in the stories?’
‘Enormous trees. The mountain has sucked all the moisture out of the great roots and turned them all to stone. They grew thickly on the slopes of the mountain, so close together that their uppermost canopy was like a carpet. Even the dried leaves remain, the jagged wasteland the hunters walk on. Over the Ridge is the Reach, which is the top of the stone forest. Beneath the feet of the hunters are stone branches and stone trunks, reaching down towards the skirts of the mountain. Leanna, this is not a secret, but you should not—’
‘Aban.’
She looked up sharply. He was a well-built man of forty, his small eyes set deep in his lined face. ‘What is it, child?’ he asked quietly.
She said, ‘Aban, we are all in terrible danger.’
* * *
At the Vapours, Duncan was a twist of grey in a storm of thrashing white. He said, ‘Leanna... Why did you come alone?’
She had no choice but to tell him. The others would be afraid of the Vapours in which the lesser spirits were manifested, and terrified that by interrupting their cycle of rest and visitation they would worsen the earthquakes.
‘But the earthquakes have nothing to do with the lesser spirits.’ Duncan’s revenant could only rotate and distort in the mists, frantically trying to hold himself together in the torrents that tugged at his insubstantial form. ‘It’s the mountain that’s causing the earth to move, and Solus within the mountain... The fire beneath the stone will boil away the water. The quakes will crack the Ridge and the pool will pour down into the petrified forest, and what then? The dry season will never end. Everybody in Caldera will join us in the Vapours forever.’
Leanna couldn’t tell him that part of her hoped it was true. Most of the elders would claim to have been born natural swimmers, but Leanna could remember her lessons with Duncan: two five-year olds working their thin limbs in the murky boundary of the village. It was there that the smooth black bedrock sloped into the deep perimeter, where the salt and chlorine crystals formed in the depths. They splashed maniacally on the surface, one of the elders guiding them in the movement of their shoulders, or the breathing techniques of a proper water-dweller.
She recalled those moments fondly and with a deep, powerful ache. Her lungs seemed to contract as though she’d been under for too long. She tried to explain the stubbornness of her father, the close-mindedness of her mother who was always under his thumb, but only tears came, not words, and she wasn’t strong enough to push past them.
‘I can help, my love,’ said Duncan patiently, his arms outstretched until she thought she could almost touch them. ‘If you tell me what to do, I can help.’
She said, ‘I need them all to understand.’
‘They don’t have to understand, for now. They only have to trust. Listen. Beyond the grey Reach to the south is an ocean. The water is much deeper, much saltier than Caldera’s basin, but it’s rich in all the things that your people need to stay alive.’
‘We need the mists... the water in the air that rises from the water here.’
‘No, any wet air will do. When the air becomes dry, you can dive without fear of sinking; a body is much more buoyant in the water there.’
‘But to sleep...’
‘There are islands with low beaches. You only need to stay there until the mountain sleeps again.’
‘But first to cross the Reach!’ she protested.
Duncan smiled as his form finally lost coherence in the whirling Vapours. ‘It isn’t such a big challenge. You are and forever will be our greatest seamstress.’
* * *
In the end, it was Aban who helped Leanna convince her parents. He was trusted as the records keeper and Annette had a soft spot for him. With his naturally powerful body, Aban could intimidate even Jason, who lay submerged and still healing at the back of the Hall.
Jason had never reacted well to being cornered. Much like the animals he had been trained to hunt in the Reach, he became defensive and fierce, reacting instead of processing.
‘How could you even suggest that we leave Caldera? This is not just our home. Its water is our life. To leave it is to die!’
‘Duncan claims that there is a whole ocean of water just beyond the Reach to the south,’ Leanna pushed.
‘There is no ocean to the south!’ barked Jason. ‘Those are just stories. We’ve travelled over the crags of the Reach in all directions, and there was never any indication of an end to the wastes.’
‘Because of the limitations of the wetsuits! You can only go so far and then have to come back. But if we kept going—’
‘Then we would die trying to find something that doesn’t exist!’
‘May not exist.’
It was Annette, speaking for the first time. Here was the true leader, if ever there was one, of the Calderan people. She was respected and too intelligent for her decisions to often be questioned. When she voiced her opinion, others listened.
She stepped closer to where her husband floated. ‘Nothing we know of beyond the Ridge is fact, except for what we’ve seen for our own eyes. How do you know what else is out there?’
Jason’s face reddened in his frustration. ‘You can’t seriously be—’
‘Didn’t she learn this from a lesser spirit?’
‘Do the spirits not know all?’ Aban’s voice boomed from the doorway.
‘Well—’
‘We must remember that the images in the records do not indicate a great body of water beyond the Reach,’ said Annette, her cool voice always working to soothe any volatile situation. She was even and she was objective; it was why Jason always submitted to her, and why Leanna loved her.
‘Why would the lesser spirits lie?’ Leanna said. ‘Why would they want to kill us all?’
‘They wouldn’t,’ said Aban.
‘He is the records keeper,’ Annette reminded Jason. ‘If anyone knows what is and isn’t possible, it’s him.’
‘I still don’t believe it,’ Jason said.
‘You don’t need to,’ replied Annette. ‘And neither do I.’
‘Mother!’ Leanna cried. ‘If we don’t go—’
‘I can’t risk everything for a ghost story. Not even one told by a spirit.’
* * *
Duncan didn’t appear in the Vapours that evening. There were many bodies in the incoherent maelstrom, but none of them Duncan’s. All of them were torn faces and wordless whispers.
‘Please!’ Leanna begged of the Vapours. ‘Show him to me!’
But the mists didn’t part to reveal his gentle features, nor did any of the whispers form his name.
She sank to her knees and the water rose up to her chest. Her clothes floated about her shoulders, the tips of her hair drifting on the surface.
The Vapours had drenched her in moisture and her skin opened up to it, healthy in the moist air. Her body sang, but her eyes were shut against the balls of her palms, hot tears of frustration and loneliness pouring down her wrists.
When the evening deepened into night, the Vapours above Leanna stirred and finally a voice spoke out: ‘Lea...’
She brought up her face, and there was Duncan. She cried out his name, but he stopped her: ‘They couldn’t bring themselves to believe you.’
‘My stupid, stubborn father!’ she said huskily, wiping away more tears.
‘Leanna, the Great Spirits... There is talk of them—’
The water began to jump around Leanna’s kneeling form. Huge droplets drummed up into the air and pattered back into the pool.
Duncan’s form elongated, drew apart. ‘Another quake! Lea, you must—’
She cried out. Duncan was gone.
The northern side of the Ridge emitted a terrible roar and began to crumble.
* * *
The earthquake shook everything vertically, so that Leanna ran through upward-falling rain. The Ridge collapsed from below, as though an immense swathe of stone had given out somewhere beneath the stone canopy of the Reach. That supporting rock had slipped away and the Ridge tipped outwards after it.
Trembling boulders scraped down the rockface in a rising cloud of dust. They plunged into the deep perimeter, throwing up great walls of grey water that rolled towards the village. In the tumult the waves crashed against the flimsy buildings, pulling apart the unglued stone and filling the hollow interiors. The structures fell, small and pathetic against the tide, crowded with bodies.
As the white crest rushed inwards, the lower depths of Caldera’s pool washed out. It poured through the vast rent in the Ridge wall and down the gradient of the Reach, water tumbling over itself in crashing arcs. The carefully wrought bricks of the Hall and Shelter were dragged along the shallow floor of the village, then sucked into the deep perimeter where, as the crater drained, the jagged crystals of salt and chlorine were exposed to the open air for the first time in known history.
The Vapours vanished behind Leanna. With the basin’s floor now naked to the sun, the Vapours’ anchor was gone and the tendrils of mist curled high into the cold night air, then disappeared.
Shivering violently, Leanna found herself halfway to the village only ankle-deep in water. It pulled around her feet, dragging ancient silt across the floor of the crater’s central mound.
She was staring into the greenish spume when her name was called and clammy hands grabbed her arms. ‘Leanna! Where’s your suit? Get dressed!’
She peered up into the eyes of her father. His wetsuit, repaired with her own expert stitching, surrounded his face in a cowl of black prene. Eyes like flints of jade flashed within the dark circle, his mouth a grim red line.
‘An earthquake,’ Leanna muttered. ‘The Ridge—’
‘Where’s your mother?’ Jason shouted.
‘Not with me.’
The hunter whirled around and began to yell, tiny beads of water flying from the tufts of matted hair that stuck out of his cowl. He searched madly for Annette, moving more quickly than ever before over the exposed village floor.
Copyright © 2019 by David Brookes
