5.
 That suited Kanon fine. If he could hide, he might have an extra day or two. So far, he was sure the eyecubes in the train station had spotted him, but the memory core up at Hammerkill would take a week to crank through the raw raster data and composite his face.
The young woman took him down a long corridor lit by occasional torches. Whenever they passed, conversations in the shadows fell silent. Kanon felt curious, fearful eyes following him, stroking his back, making his spine bristle in tickling rushes.
Rin moved with the utmost caution, waving for him to stay close behind her. "These corridors are not safe," she whispered. "But once we get two more levels up, we will be good. Never have seen unmen that close to tomb's center."
He heard distant sounds that made his hair stand on end: a deep roar, a high shriek, a long drawn-out wail. He looked at Rin questioning and she replied by blinking her eyes, nodding, and whispering: "Unmen."
A minute later as they climbed cold, slimy stairs winding in a stony spiral, she added: "There is unmen near here. Especially a female. She stores meat near here." Rin pointed to his nose. "Smell?"
He peered through drifting ground fog illumined by distant city light reflected on dozens of surfaces on its way down into this cold hell. He inhaled a cold blast of frozen corpse. "Oh God."
Rin laughed silently. "You get used to."
He followed her to a rusty steel door stained with long streaks of white, probably bat droppings. He finally realized where he was. No human came here to these parts of the pyramids. This was where the bishops and magistrates and other important people of Terraform 345 were incrypted after death. Most inhabitants were afraid of the ghosts that inhabited this necropolis. She unlocked the door, let Kanon and herself in, and locked it. They were in a small room like a cell, with a fireplace nook and a chimney; he could feel the slight draft. While she lit a small fire in the sooty niche, he looked around and saw that they were in the tomb of some great abbot of 1,000 years ago. The sarcophagus stood in an opposite niche, the lid carved into his reclining likeness with hands folded in prayer to the Dark God. The custom had been in those days to make for the deceased a room such as he'd enjoy at home, leave a fire burning, and food on the table; then to lock the door for all eternity and walk away chanting prayers of death and resurrection in the echoing corridors.
"You were out on the street for a reason," she said. He started to sit but she whacked him on the side with a ladle. It stung. "Stay where I can watch you. I don't trust. Long time, before I trust."
Her face was bony, her skin soft and shimmering in the fire light. Her neat, square hands were busy about preparing a meal. She diced all manner of fresh vegetables into a metal pan half full of water. She had killed a squirrel before meeting him, which she took from a pouch and cut open. Slicing out the edible organs, she threw the rest into the fire, where it burned with a stink that went up the flue. She set the pan on a grate over the fire to cook to a slow boil, fueled by the animal's body fat. "Why out on the street?" she repeated.
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Copyright © 2018 by Jean-Thomas Cullen, Clocktower Books. All Rights Reserved.
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