Disclaimer: Not my lovely Atlantis characters, though I do like to take them out to play once in a while.
And you guys are awesome! Thanks so much for the wonderful reviews. I'm especially and particularly thrilled that you're enjoying and are so curious about Tosia – I honestly hadn't planned on her figuring so prominently in this story, but she turned out to be a feisty one. At the same time, don't worry, I won't neglect poor John and the rest of the gang. And if I don't update for a few days, it's not because I'm holding out on you, I'll either be hucking my very cranky, crashing laptop out the nearest window, or (more likely) trying to reformat the hard drive. I hope it will be smooth sailing, but my computer troubleshooting skills are about on par with my science… yah… Cross fingers, and I do promise to update as soon as I can.
And here we go, on with the show:
John stumbled as he paced, his odd, slightly tiptoed gait throwing him off balance on the blasted terrain. He wandered a short distance from Antal's perch on the rocky ground, then stopped. His head tilted as though he were listening to something far off in the distance, his fingers pulling at the hem of his untucked shirt.
It had been over a week since John's arrival, and the villagers had taken turns coming to the hut to greet him, or as Tosia scornfully put it, 'to gawk at the stranger.' Once they were able to see him with their own eyes, the villagers' fear of John transmuted to curiosity then finally uneasy dismissal when it appeared as though his mental capacity was well below that of even Antal's.
While John could be coaxed to eat and drink, and would sometimes respond to simple commands, he didn't appear to follow conversations and had yet to speak a single word since that second night. There were days when he all he would do was sit huddled on the floor of the hut, motionless and staring at nothing. Some days, he would gently rock himself, hands and fingers constantly in motion, twining and plucking at his clothing. Once in a while, he would stagger to his feet only to pace in awkward, relentless circles in the small main room, ignoring, or oblivious to any attempts to distract him.
And sometimes, like this day, John would follow close behind Antal while the younger man performed his chores, giving Lasca and Tosia uninterrupted time for their own tasks. This was the first time Antal had brought John to the ruins though – it was Antal's favorite place of escape when he had some free time all to himself.
Looking up from his whittling of a stick of wood, Antal gazed at the surroundings he had seen countless times. A broad area of flattened ground, blasted into the hilly landscape that was further marred by the scant remains of some metallic structure. The force of the old destruction had all but leveled what was left of the structure, nearly erasing it from history. Once in a while though, even after all these years, if he dug around long enough in the muck, Antal would find brightly colored clear stones, or scraps of small pieces of twisted metal, and what Tosia called plastic, bent and twisted into unusual shapes. The very air was tainted with the aura of desolation, and the scent of ash was still detectable if the wind was blowing in the right direction, but beneath that, there was also a deep sense of mystery to the place. And that mystery was what continually attracted Antal.
"What do you think this all used to be?" he asked John, not expecting an answer, but enjoying the fresh air and the company – usually he had to do his exploring alone. "A long time ago, I asked Tosia what she thought, and Tosia's almost the oldest person in the world, so if anyone would know, she would," Antal continued, "but she says it was like this long before even she was born." He looked at John, who had resumed his pacing, his gaze fixed on the uneven ground. "I do not believe it, but Tosia says it's very dangerous to come here, so this has to be a secret, all right, John?"
Ignoring Antal, John took a few more steps away from him, carefully walking on the toes of his boots. He stopped dead in his tracks and dropped to his knees. Leaning forward, he ducked his head nearly to the muck and debris on the ground, brows knitted in a frown, hands splayed in the dirt. His fingers scrabbled at the soil until he found the object that had caught his eye. Brushing away the dirt, he revealed a small, ragged, metallic shard, its dotted etching so faded and timeworn it was nearly invisible.
Chewing on his upper lip and frowning with confusion, John ran his fingers over the faint succession of dots, which formed a symbol that niggled something at the back of his scrambled mind. His senses alerted, his heart jackhammered, and a part of him knew what the symbol was, what the shard used to be, but he couldn't think past the incessant clamor in his head. Countless voices screamed at him in hateful condemnation, begged in terror for someone to hear their pleas. When he closed his eyes for even a moment, thousands upon thousands of fractured, terrifying faces and images vied for his attention, and it was all too much to take in. He didn't want to see them anymore. Didn't want to listen to their voices anymore.
Then a single, familiar sounding voice, louder than the rest, screamed at him to remember, to do something, but he couldn't obey it, couldn't think. He pushed the shard deep into the mud with a frustrated shout. Scooping up handfuls of dirt, he piled it over the piece of metal until it was completely covered.
Hiding the shard quieted the insistent voices somewhat but it didn't stop the humming in his ears. The humming that had suddenly started up as soon as Antal brought him to this place. John ducked his head and roughly rubbed his ear on his shoulder. It didn't help, the humming was setting his teeth on edge, and he clamped his hands tight over his ears, trying to shut the offending noise out.
"Stopstopstopstopit…" he whispered under his breath, curling his upper body over his bent legs.
Antal looked up at John's distress. "John? What's the matter? Did you hurt yourself?"
Dropping his hands from his ears when they only began to ring from the pressure on them, John shook his head from side to side in what Antal took to be negation. The younger man shrugged, and redirected his attention to the stick of wood that he'd decided to try carving in the shape of a winged creature Tosia had described to him once.
Something gleaming in the black dirt caught John's attention – something he had unwittingly brought to the surface when reburying the shard. It was thin, square, clear as ice, and smooth against his roughened palm when he picked it up. He rubbed the crystal over his shirt to clean it, then held it up to his eye. Peering through the translucent surface, the tepid sunlight and pale blue sky gleamed against it, bright enough to make him squint.
Again, something flashed in his mind's eye. With his free hand, John tore at his already disheveled hair, as though he could forcibly pry some cognition from his addled senses. The single voice spoke up again, only it was gentler this time, and John tried to understand it, tried to listen to it. The crystal was important, the voice told him. It was something he might need. Someone he knew would want this.
He carefully laid the crystal in his palm, and found that the humming sound didn't bother him so much anymore. If fact, if he concentrated on it, all the other voices faded, and he could finally tune them out.
Antal noticed that John had become completely still, his hand cupped in front of him. He trotted over to the other man to see what he had found. Antal grinned when he saw what John held.
"I found one of those once, too," Antal told him. "You can keep it, but do not show it to Tosia. She will get angry with you." Antal reached for the crystal, but John clenched his hand in a tight fist, tucking it to his chest and curling his body around his new treasure.
Antal shook his head and patted at the pocket on John's pant leg. "Keep it in there," Antal instructed. "We do not want Tosia to see it, all right? It'll be a secret."
John looked up at that, and his clear, hazel eyes fixed on Antal's for a long moment. Antal had overheard his mother telling Tosia that she found it unsettling when John did that, but Antal didn't mind. John was just sorting through the stuff in his head because it was sometimes hard to figure people out. Antal understood that all too well.
"See… cret," John echoed, and slowly, frowning with concentration, he slid his hand into his pocket, tucking the crystal inside. With fumbling, clumsy motions, he refastened the button to keep it secure.
"That's good!" Antal praised, and patted John on the shoulder as though he were a dog that had just performed a particularly difficult trick. "And see! I knew you could talk. You're just quiet, is all. Nothing wrong with being quiet. Tosia says most people talk just to hear the sound of their own voices anyhow."
Then he looked up at the sky. The sun had lowered; it was late afternoon, and growing colder with a fine, icy mist filling the air. "We must get back now, John." With that, he stood and gripped John's arm to pull him upright. John resisted, keeping his legs limp, rendering his body heavy, like a reluctant child.
"John we must go! Mother will have dinner on the table soon," Antal protested, insistently pulling at the other man. John tried to yank his arm free, but Antal held firm. Straining to reach with his free hand, John scrabbled in the dirt until he found the shard again, and shoved it in the front pocket of his pants. Antal, growing impatient, reached around the slimmer man's chest, and hauled him to his feet. "We can come back tomorrow, all right, John? But it is time to go home now."
Pulling John along by the elbow, Antal was oblivious to the other man continually turning his head back in the direction of the ruins. John stumbled a few steps behind, unwilling to follow, but had no choice other than to keep putting one foot in front of the other or get dragged along by the strong, enthusiastic younger man who had only his waiting dinner on his mind.
Once home, Lasca fussed over the state of John's muddy clothing and his dirt-encrusted hands. Antal told his mother than John had fallen, which she didn't question. Tosia said nothing but she knew the young man well enough to recognize when he was withholding something.
Late that night, the hut silent and still around her, Tosia sat alone in front of the glowing embers in the hearth, studying the bulky communication device she had found in John's vest. She had turned it on earlier that day when Lasca had gone to do the washing by the lake, only to be rewarded with a loud burst of static. Over the last few days, Tosia had turned the device on countless times, always with the same result. The first time she'd heard the hiss of dead air, it had startled her so badly she'd nearly dropped the thing on her foot. She didn't know what she was hoping to gain by continually checking the device, but that didn't stop her from listening attentively each and every time she allowed herself to activate it.
Again, she wondered why John would possess such an archaic tool, and why the others had allowed it to come through. He would have no use for such things here.
She turned to look at John as he turned over in his bed, muttering in his sleep. He kicked at his blanket, uncovering his twitching legs. It had been a difficult night for him. He'd refused to eat or drink anything and had tucked himself in the corner by the hearth once more, rocking, holding his hands over his ears, staring at the floor in front of him – effectively shutting them out.
Like he had done the first night, he'd resisted sleep until he could no longer keep his eyes open, and Tosia began to wonder what had truly happened that afternoon. She knew Antal hadn't been forthcoming about their whereabouts – Antal had never been able to lie very well –but she'd decided to hold off questioning him until the morning, and had kept a close eye on John instead. His setback was disconcerting.
Pulling herself stiffly from her chair, Tosia limped over to John's bed. She crouched down to pull the blanket back over him – the nights were growing colder, and the last thing he needed was a chill. But before she could cover him, John moaned and sucked in a sharp breath, his eyes rolling under their lids. When she noticed that his dark lashes were spiked with unshed tears, a mingled wave of sympathy and uncharacteristic regret swept over her. Regret that she had found him, and that his presence had rekindled such a deep sense of unrest within her.
"Stop being an old fool," she chastised herself, muttering under her breath. "You cannot change what has already been done." She swiftly tucked the blanket back over John's restless form, then smoothed his dark hair from his forehead until he quieted.
When she stood to go to her own bedroom and finally retire for the night, she noticed that his dirt covered green pants were balled up on the floor beside the pallet. Without thinking, she picked them up and began to loosely fold and set them aside for washing. When she felt something hard in one of the pockets, she opened the button and pulled out a crystal. Then something metallic fell onto the floor with a small clink.
Carefully bending to retrieve the shard, Tosia frowned when she realized what it was. She slowly ran her thumb over the familiar glyph, and anger began to course through her veins. She knew where John had found it, knew for certain now where he and Antal had been that afternoon, though she had forbidden Antal from that place. The ruins could still be dangerous, she herself had been the cause of that. They had also taken from her the one thing she had left to hold onto, the one thing she had treasured. Tosia hated the very sight of the place.
The sight of the objects John had taken from there, she hated even more. They seemed to taunt her with their very presence, the sheer fact of their uselessness.
The pants dropped from her fingers and onto to the floor. Tosia strode to the door, and pulled her robe from the hook. Yanking the garment on with quick, jerking motions, she stepped out into the night. Though there was no moon to illuminate her path, she knew the way to the lake by heart.
When she reached the shore's edge, the cold water lapping at her feet, Tosia drew her arm back, and as hard as she could, hurled first the crystal and then the glyph into its black depths.
By the time the ripples dissipated and the water returned to its formerly smooth, placid surface, Tosia's incandescent fury had faded as well.
--- tbc ---