Poocher sat up. He'd nudged the visor onto his eyes himself and now sat beside Zeeky, staring at the winged man. Poocher grunted.
"I know," said Zeeky. "But maybe angels are supposed to smell that way. It's like summer rain."
"You're a curiously fearless girl, Zeeky," said Gabriel, kneeling down before her. "Adam said you weren't afraid of Trisky. You aren't afraid of the dark. You obviously aren't afraid of me."
"I get scared sometimes," she said. "I got scared in the Free City, when the dragons started killing everyone. I got scared when I saw Big Lick all burned up. Do you know why it got burned? Do you know what happened to my parents?"
"Yes," said Gabriel. "The goddess decided that few people would notice their disappearance at this particular moment. The other villages they traded with would assume they'd been killed by Albekizan's soldiers in his purge of the human race. She needed people to help her learn things. She designed the people of your village to help her study."
"Study what?"
"Ah," said Gabriel, with a grin. "That is a difficult question to answer. The goddess knows almost everything. The few things she doesn't understand aren't going to be easily explained to mortals, not even to a girl as clever as you."
"Adam said the goddess touched me in my mother's belly and changed me. Did she do this to learn something?"
"Of course," said Gabriel. "Everything the goddess does she does in the name of knowledge. The alterations to your mind help bridge the perceptual gap between humans and animals. You see the world with the same sensory openness of a beast, yet still possess the cognitive gifts of a human. You're the harbinger of what the goddess envisions for all future humans."
"What's a harbinger?"
"A forerunner," said Gabriel. "You're the first of your kind. But, you're displaying such promise, I'm certain you won't be the last. We're happy you came back, Zeeky. The goddess was disappointed you weren't with your family."
"If this goddess has my family, will you take me to her?"
"Of course," said Gabriel, offering his hand.
Zeeky placed her fingers into his outstretched palm. Gabriel helped her rise. She could hear things inside him as he moved, soft clicks and purrs that sounded nothing like a normal human body.
"How far away are they?"
"A long way by foot," said Gabriel. "But I know a short cut."
He reached his arms out in a dramatic gesture; his slender fingers grabbed the air. He began to pull, as if at some unseen rope. A rainbow formed where his fingers moved. Poocher squealed and backed away as the arc of colorful light grew, stretching from floor to ceiling.
Zeeky backed away as well. There were terrible sounds coming from the rainbow, distant sobs and moans, the sound of men and women in horrible torment.
Gabriel looked puzzled by her reaction.
"For one so fearless, I didn't expect you to be bothered by a little light," he said.
"Can't you hear it?" she asked.
"Hear what?"
"Those voices," she said, as she backed up all the way against the wall. The cool wet rock dampened her shirt. "All those people. Listen to them. They're hungry and lost and afraid."
"Interesting," Gabriel said, looking at the rainbow arc. "I don't hear anything. No one ever hears anything. There are no sounds in underspace."
"They're not just in the rainbow," Zeeky said, covering her ears. "They're all around us. They're in the air, and in the rocks. It's like the voices of ghosts!"
Poocher paced back and forth, emitting a series of short, soft, panicky squeaks, as if he wanted to erupt into a full blown squeal but was afraid to make the noise.
"If you can hear them, can they hear you?" asked Gabriel. "Can you talk to them?"
Zeeky felt her rising fear suddenly plateau as the question lodged in her mind. She could talk to animals. Could she talk to ghosts as well? Her curiosity overwhelmed her terror.
"Hello?" she cried out. "Hello? Can you hear me?"
At first, the change in the moaning was very subtle. It was difficult to tell if there had been any reaction at all. Yet, perhaps a few of the voices had fallen silent. Some of the ghosts had stopped to listen to her.
"Hello!" she called out again, aiming her voice toward the rainbow. "Is anyone there?"
Now more of the voices grew quiet. One by one, the sobs fell away. The agonized moaning trailed off, to better pay attention.
"My name is Zeeky," she said. "Who are you?"
At first, she could barely hear anything. Then, the whispers rose, repeating her name: "Zeeky… Zeeky… Ezekia…"
The hairs on the back of her neck rose as she realized the ghosts knew her true name.
"Zeeky?" a woman asked. She knew this voice.
"Mama?"
"It's cold here," the woman answered.
"Where are you?" Zeeky asked.
"Where are you?" the woman answered, her voice fading.
"Mama?" Zeeky repeated. "Mama?"
There was the faintest whisper in response, a word just beneath the edge of comprehension, and then the voices were gone.
"I don't hear them anymore," she said. Poocher seemed calmer as well. Had he heard the voices, or just been responding to her fear?
"Extraordinary," said Gabriel. "Opening the underspace gateway creates millions of fine-scale wormholes. Can it be you heard voices from underspace through these tiny rips? The goddess will definitely want to study this further. We must see her at once."
"You keep saying underspace," Zeeky said, crossing her arms, looking stern. "You know I don't know what it means. Are you trying to make me feel stupid?"
"I'm sorry," said Gabriel, with a sincere tone that convinced Zeeky he meant the words. "Underspace, is, well, it's like a world under the world."
"Like this mine?"
"Not quite," said Gabriel. "Perhaps I should say it's a world beside this world. But really, it's more like… hmm. I don't think I can explain it well without using higher math. I'll let the goddess try. She's very good at making things easy to understand."
"All I want to know about underspace is, is my mother there? Is that why I could hear her?"
"Possibly," said Gabriel. "Let's go to see the goddess. She can explain everything."
Zeeky looked down at Poocher, who looked up at her. He shrugged, as if to say, "Too late to turn back now."
Zeeky nodded, and walked toward the rainbow.
Chapter Fourteen:
Encounters in the Night
Shandrazel had commanded Graxen to leave the palace on the second day of the talks and go someplace where he could simply enjoy his day. Graxen would have preferred to stay near the palace in hopes of seeing Nadala again, but an order was an order. Graxen had no true friends to spend time with, so he flew downriver to the brackish swamplands, mentally replaying every word of his conversation with Nadala as he flew. Near the coast, the river swelled so wide it was nearly a bay. Countless fishing villages stood on stilts. Humans by the thousand plied the waters here. Using wide flat boats they harvested shrimp and crabs, oysters and eels, and fish from inch-long anchovies to sharks that rivaled sun-dragons in size. Graxen had grown up in the eternal poverty of a student, but as Shandrazel's messenger his purse was suddenly full. On his trip to Hampton to summon the mayor, he'd glimpsed an item worn by the mayor's wife that seemed as if it would make an appropriate gift for Nadala. Of course, at the time, he didn't have any clue he would ever see Nadala again. Now, he returned to the fishing town, landing on one of the countless docks that edged the harbor, hoping he could find her a gift.