Tales from Kalgachia - 33
Xantus Yastreb examined the photographs intently. They'd been taken just after the careful removal of the rubble that had blocked the chamber, a half-collapsed underground void located for him by Lord Toastypops, and just prior to its occupant's removal from the premises.
The tatters of that occupant's clothing hung far too loosely over a prominent ribcage; her cheeks were sunken, dark circles around her eyes. There were wrinkles now, too, though not so many as Xantus himself had; the benefits of a fuller Deep Singer heritage, maybe. She was older, and malnourished, but there was no doubt about it, if indeed seven meters of snake-like coils for a lower body were not proof enough - this was Prethil Nal. This was his mother.
And she was alive.
Barely alive, they said, and lucky to have managed even that. However she'd arrived in the chamber, she had been sealed in it by the collapse of the entrance. But there had been water there, and rats and other vermin occasionally made their way in, and evidently she had lived off those meager resources, awakening briefly to sustain herself between long stretches of torpor. It had been enough until, as the porous spaces in the rubble silted up, her oxygen supply had been slowly choked off.
In another year or two, they might have found her dead. She'd only lasted as well as she had due to military-grade biomodification.
As it was, there was danger besides mere malnutrition - hibernation of that kind was not meant to be used for so long. It was possible, even likely, that there had been damage to her brain, and Xantus feared what he would be told when he arrived in Lithead.
Doctor Chrysidina (technically Kalgachi, but her looks were very much Nezeni, with slightly iridescent blue skin) had had Prethil placed in her charge. She seemed, much to Xantus' relief, an extremely competent sort. Her insistence on briefing him on her patient's condition before being willing to her him see her was both an annoyance and, in a way, a relief - while he certainly wanted to see his mother in person, the idea of doing so, after nearly fifty years of thinking her dead, was causing him some difficulty.
"She'll live," Dr. Chrysidina had told him. (She said it as if it would be an insult to suggest otherwise.) "She may very well even thrive - it could have been worse, far worse. Her motor function is slightly impaired on the right side, and she has a certain amount of difficulty remembering words; she still has them, so to speak, she just needs to pause every so often to find them again, especially if she's agitated.
"But she's been using them since she started waking up, mostly to complain. She made a point, even though she's not yet capable of rising from bed unassisted, of saying… let me see…" The doctor leafed through her notes. "Ah, yes. Her exact words to the ward nurse were, 'I've been shut away for quite long enough, and I still have some biomantic ability in me yet. Someone had better let me out soon, or else we'll all find out if I can turn people into newts.'" The doctor paused, giving him a slightly nervous glance.
"Oh, no, I doubt she's serious," said Xantus, the relief causing an unexpected wry smile to crease his face. That level of function alone was better than he had dared to hope. "Newtlike features, possibly, but I don't think she could manage an entire newt. Not in her present condition anyway."
"Um, yes. Good," said the doctor, trying in turn not to look concerned. "She can't be released for some time yet, of course - or at least," she amended, aware that her guest had some amount of status, "would need to be transferred to another facility able to provide her with care before she should be moving around under her own power. She seems amazingly eager to be up and doing things. She says, uh, that she has Yastrebs to look for."
"Yastrebs, you say?" Xantus feigned a disinterested pout. "I'll see if I can do something about that."
The room had had another bed, but it had been removed. While Prethil's torso and head had been successfully maneuvered onto the remaining bed, her remaining length would not fit; the disappearance of the more unusual Deep Singer forms from the Nezeni population had long since made the manufacture of custom bed models uneconomical. The baffled nurses had eventually dealt with what to do by turning the bed ninety degrees and laying the tail straight down the middle of the length of the room, this having been judged the least likely to be in anyone's way.
That had remained the case for exactly as long as it took for Prethil to regain even a bit of energy, and Xantus, opening the door slowly to minimize noise, entered the room to the sight of untidy coils, rubbing against each other with a faint, scaly rustle; the sound narrowly prevented him from tripping over them. He moved to the bedside and looked her over. She looked slightly better than she had in the pictures, but still shockingly thin. Her arms looked like a quartet of sticks with hands on the end, and one of them was hooked up to an intravenous feeding device.
Prethil's ear had pricked as he approached, and although her eyes remained closed, she said, "You… lot are finally… learning… to walk softly." Her voice was faint and dusty, and full of awkward pauses, but it still had the cultured rasp of an educated, Shimmerspring-born Singer, increasingly rare even before Minarboria's end. "Scared… no doubt. I am a… vicious creature."
"Terrifying," Xantus agreed. "I'm trembling, in fact." Despite his amusement this was, technically, true. "How are you doing?"
"I… want… to… move… and I… can't," she replied, with as much force as she could muster. "I'm… ready… to claw someone's… face off." Prethil opened her golden eyes. "You sound new… have you been… here…"
She trailed off, staring at him in uncertain recognition. Xantus could only guess how different he looked in her eyes. "It's me, Mama."
Prethil's hands shook gently; she lifted one, with difficulty, to reach for his face, and he held it in place so it wouldn't drop to the bed again under its own weight. "Xantus…" she murmured. "...my little Goldie. Great Garden."
Her eyes were filling up with tears. Though Xantus, his own vision blurring, could hardly blame her, it was nearly an astonishing sight in its own right. While he had spent large stretches of time in his youth separated from her, he had seen her before in emotional moments - but he had never seen her cry, never known her to be moved to tears over anything, whether joyful or sad.
Prethil sniffed. "My boy…" She struggled for a moment, then said hoarsely, "I… would… hug you… so hard… but I think… we would both break some… bones."
Xantus smiled. "Do I look that bad?"
"Like…" She made a noise halfway between a snicker and a sob. "...like a… raisin, dear."
"It's been a long time, Mama. Nearly fifty years."
"Merciful Shrub." She considered this, then gave him an anxious look. "Have you… that is, your father…"
Xantus steeled himself. He'd tried to prepare himself for this. He'd hoped she would wait to ask the question until she was is better health, but a deflection now would be as good as an answer. "I'm sorry, Mama… he's gone. And Grandp'pa and Great-grandm'ma. They were hoping to wait it out. Built themselves a little tomb and everything..." He emitted a faint puff of mirth at the cuteness of the idea. “But the way the necromantic ley lines were breaking down... do you remember...? We couldn't do anything."
Prethil closed her eyes, and released a shuddering sigh that made Xantus fear for her, but was evidently alive enough to shake her head gently. "Oh, Beebee." She opened her eyes again, staring at the ceiling but still breathing - shallowly, a bit raggedly, but breathing - evidently lost in her memories. After a while, she murmured weakly, "I'm not… going to be able to... stay lying here like... this, dear. Too… many things to sit in… my brain and… fester."
"I know, Mama… but it's not safe for you to be moved quite yet," Xantus replied. "I don't want to watch you keel over. I'll have them get you some reading material, if you like - maybe some things to help you catch up with what's been happening - and maybe it'll help you get your mind off things." He smiled. "Minarboria isn't around anymore, but... we built something in its place. Not everything's lost. Not yet."
"But..." she murmured, and squinted owlishly at him. "If all the ...liches are gone… if the Empress is gone… who's in charge?"
Xantus cleared his throat. "Well, there's sort of a group of us."
"'Us'?" She looked at his expression, and laughed quietly. "Oh, my Shrub - you are a Yastreb."
When Prethil was judged able to at least keep herself upright, she was loaded into a train bound for Schlepogora. While she didn't doubt that she would come to long for underground spaces again, the thought of actually convalescing in one, after her long torpor behind the landslide, had put her on the verge of a panic attack, and so Xantus had suggested that, rather than return immediately to Oktavyan, she instead stay at Karymovka Hall - the old family home. He accompanied her on the journey, fascinated and disconcerted by how little she'd ultimately changed. She looked older, but even after everything, she didn't act older.
"Of course not… dear," she had replied, when he'd commented on this. "Time is an… artifact of the old gods. The Garden, the true Garden, is... eternal. So Sakat can pull on my ...body all he wants, but if he thinks I'm going to go… getting old because of it, that's his damn problem." Even the fluency of her speech had improved, though the doctor had warned that it might not completely return.
Still, there were moments where it was possible to see the scars.
"How did you get trapped in that cave?" Xantus asked her, as she sat coiled up next to a window, watching the mountainous scenery rolling by with every sign of enjoyment. "It seemed like it was the middle of nowhere, even in Minarboria."
A shadow of pain passed across her face, and Xantus found himself regretting the question. But, still looking out the window, she replied, "Your father was still in Shrubly Shade, you know, when it all started falling apart. I had gone there to see him, make sure he was still…" She trailed off, then shook her head. "...but when I got there, he was gone. Zemphirius had gathered up his... Cossack friends and broken him out. Came up with some clever way of poisoning the... biomic defenses. So I started following after them, to try to catch up with them... but the guards at the facility evidently decided that as a family member of an... escapee I shouldn't be wandering around loose, so they sent a party after me.
"I've never slithered so fast or so far in my life, and I was within a few verst of your father and grandfather when the guards caught me. By that point... I wasn't feeling exactly reasonable, I tried to fight them off, sprayed acid in a few faces; but they subdued me. And then… then…"
She trailed off. She shook her head again, not in regret but in uncertainty. "I've… never felt anything like it, you know. Not before or since. It was like a… call, inside my head, inside my bones. Something far below, luring me down. It said to dig, it said to join it. And I wasn't the only one - all the other guards who were Singers felt it too, completely… lost interest in chasing anyone. We started... excavating into that hillside, because the rock was… fractured and loose, easy to deal with, but when we encountered that hollow… the rock fell in. Everyone else who was inside got crushed, I don't know if anyone was outside by that point. It was just me. I wanted to keep digging, but by myself… I couldn't get anywhere. So I went into torpor. Water trickled through and a few small animals wandered in every… so often, so I kept alive, and the... compulsion to dig left me after a time, but there was nothing to do. Nowhere to go. Trapped."
Prethil stopped speaking. Her pupils had dilated, as if straining to take in more light in the midst of a dark place.
At last, she said, "And it kept me from joining your father."
Xantus shook his head, trying to push aside thoughts of his own wife. "What happened to him would've happened regardless, Mama."
"I would have been there for him, dear," she replied morosely. "Said goodbye… to his face. Sometimes, that makes... all the difference in the world."
There was a long silence. Xantus took his mother's hand and held it; after a while, she sighed and gripped it tightly. "Life goes on," she said.
Prethil was installed at Karymovka Hall, which, she'd been told, was now a DHPW sanatorium. Some might have found that to be a significant step downward for what had been such a palatial home, but she approved - it was a fitting purpose for the house of someone who had, after all, been a doctor. It was enclosed without being too confining, ultimately above ground, and it was still familiar, despite the things that had been done to it (-Cossack thieves-, she thought irritably).
Xantus had had some affairs to take care of in Oktavyan, but had promised to visit her again shortly, and to tell her grandchildren of her location. Grandchildren! She'd somehow never imagined being a grandmother. She wondered if it would be anything like her own experience of motherhood which after all had involved experiencing her son's life at a remove, surrendering his custody to a penal colony of the Minarborian state church.
Prethil wondered if, someday, she could bring herself to tell Xantus how fiercely she hated herself for having agreed to that.
While Karymovka remained a popular place of recuperation, its resources were no longer quite as strained as they had been in Kalgachia's earlier days, when there had been so many infectious diseases still coming under control, so many minds broken by the chaos of Minarboria's fall. The nurses were omnipresent and attentive - sometimes overly so, but Prethil learned to start negotiating with them (-Merciful Shrub-, she thought. -It's embarrassing that I have to learn this, I used to be good at it when I was on the other side-) and began receiving gradually increased independence in exchange for promises over how far she would attempt to exert herself.
The doctor in Lithead had warned her about the effects on her motor function. Her right arms and hands still worked - the tiny tremors running through them meant she wouldn't want to try being a surgeon again right away, but she could usually hold things without dropping them. Their function might be improved, they said, with time and therapy - or possibly even a bit of careful neurosurgery. When it came to her lower half, however, they found themselves unable to make many promises. Any specialization in non-humanoid body plans had been lost, and so, when she started slithering around again under her own power, it was with not with the smooth sine wave of her old gait, but one with the amplitude on her left side much larger than that on her right. She was liable to drift to the right and hit a wall if she didn't concentrate.
Once she had gained some weight back, she was allowed to meander the grounds. The supply of clothing that would actually fit her was not extensive, but she chose a simple, loose gown of a dark, sober blue (and an unflattering cut, but she didn't fill it out properly at the moment anyway). Fifty years might technically have passed, but in her personal timeframe, her husband Albede had gone only a short time ago. Mourning colors seemed appropriate, and she spent one afternoon in the Cadavery, staring at the portraits there for hours before the staff gently shepherded her away. (It was for her own good, she admitted, but also for everyone else who wanted to see the portraits - one of them had been of Prethil herself, and this realization had caused a number of wild-eyed looks, on top of those her appearance had already gotten her.)
That was one of the disadvantages of staying in the place, of course. The mixture of familiar and unfamiliar made it a good place to transition to her new life, whatever that was going to be like, but it surrounded her with memories, with ghosts. She began taking to wandering the gardens instead, which had been restored to something like their old state; the presence of current life proved a good antidote for the yearning for what was gone.
When she was informed that her grandchildren, Rubina and Falcifer Yastreb, were on their way to see her, it was therefore in the gardens that she elected to meet them.
She awaited them with a gentle trembling that had nothing to do with nerve damage. She wished she knew how they would react to her. She thought she could probably rule out flying into one another's arms and tearful embraces - one was an adult and the other nearly so, and neither would have heard of her except in stories, if at all. A tentative warmth was probably the most she could expect. But when she saw the pair being led across the grounds toward her, even those hopes started to sink; they appeared to be trying to project a respectful air, but eyed her with the uncertain look of a monster stepped freshly out of a fairy tale.
Sartorial habits had moved on from those familiar to Prethil. Rubina was attired in a close-fitting skirt and business dress whose long collar was affixed with a peculiar golden badge, with her red hair tied into an immaculate bun - a sort of Alexandrian chic, as it would have been called in Prethil's day. Falcifer wore a plain dark grey tunic with a standing collar - both his clothing and face bore a strong resemblance to Prethil's late husband Albede, to a degree which momentarily startled her.
She greeted them with a warmth that she hoped was neither too restrained nor too forward; they greeted her politely. There was no hugging. She invited them to take a walk with her, which they did.
"Your father tells me," she said to Rubina, "that aside from your... state duties, you're also a pilot?" (He had, indeed, recommended this very topic as an icebreaker.)
Rubina nodded soberly. "Still qualified."
Prethil smiled sadly. "It must be a fine thing," she said. "I never did get to fly for flying's sake, you know, even as a passenger."
"No?"
"Well, there weren't many aircraft that were built to hold me. I was only ever in the air at all three times, and it was on... medevac each time. Twice as a doctor, once as a patient." She considered this, then amended, "Excuse me, four times. Twice as a patient." She'd been airlifted to Lithead after being found. Not quite sure where to proceed from this - Rubina was not exactly devouring her conversational crumbs - she addressed Falcifer. "And you, I understand, have been faced with that great edifice known as Education?" He nodded cautiously. She'd gotten the impression that he'd done quite well academically, but suspected the poor boy was going to be exposed to a more political education as well, if he wasn't already.
There was an awkward silence, which Prethil eventually felt moved to break. She motioned them to a halt, and turned to face them. "My dears," she said heavily, "I know you didn't ask to suddenly have an extra family member around - to suddenly be... grandchildren. Expecting things to be all... warm and fuzzy between us would be moronic of me. Your father is required to put up with me, poor soul, but from each of you… I will ask for an occasional visit, perhaps, to see how you're doing, but any further... involvement from me in your lives will be your own choice…" She found herself looking down at her upper hands, which were nervously rubbing together. She forced them to clasp instead. "...I suppose I just wanted you to understand that."
Falcifer and Rubina glanced at each other, unsure how to react to Prethil's outburst of awkward sentiment. She had clearly been ruminating on the matter for some time. Rubina drew herself up to speak:
"I'm sure we can accomodate you," she said in her customary near-whisper. "It's not like you have anyone else. That is..." she inwardly cursed her own tendency to forget social cushioning in her statements, struggling to revise her words. This snake-tailed creature showed every indication of being less despicable than Beatrice Formicida, the other great presence in her father's life, and required a gentler tone. "...I mean, much of our world must be quite alien to you by now. We'd be glad to help you adjust."
Rubina hadn't been, and still wasn't, very enthusiastic about the prospect of this piece of the past suddenly being inserted into her life or her father's; but at least Prethil seemed a bit more considerate about it than that painted whore Beatrice. An occasional visit might be tolerable.
"If I may," added Falcifer, well-conditioned to addressing his elders, "I don't think it'd be healthy for you to trawl over the past with Papa all day long. We live in different times, and the future..." his chest swelled with pride, "... will differ even more. We can't leave you by the wayside. If possible, I'd like you to come with us on the journey." He looked Prethil up and down, his eyes taking in every bio-modified detail. Except for the cocksure idealism, his entire tone and bearing was more mature than his youth suggested.
"...you could even teach us a few things along the way."
