by Nathan Sweem

Gnawlings were made for the Sludge Well. This was the Recorder’s repeated lie. Sxoi knew it was a lie. He knew it in his bones, and he was going to prove it.

The gargantuan structure known as the Sludge Well was an ironwork isle that rose out of a great desert canyon, a self-contained colony cohabited by ranarians and gnawlings. The Recorder’s office overlooked clusters of sludge vats, storehouses, water tanks, and crane booms from the zenith of the ranarian apartments, the highest point on the Sludge Well. There Sxoi stood, waiting for the Recorder to pause in his duties.

Amber sunlight sighed through window walls that formed a corner behind the Recorder’s desk. Steam vents along the edge of the floor released vapors into the room from lower-level boilers and kept the workspace balmy, the way ranarians preferred. Sxoi kept his hands folded behind his back where he could dig his claws into his palms without drawing attention. He wasn’t nervous about punishment. He was anxious to leave.

The Recorder leaned over a semi-circular desk overspread with clay tablets, some wetter than others. The red-and-yellow pattern on his vest and trousers clashed with his scaly beige skin. Oily, bulbous eyes darted under a shrewd, spiny brow. He addressed Sxoi without looking up from his work, using a reed stylus to impress his frog-scratch into a muddy tablet face.

“Sxoi the Storyteller,” the Recorder said in a low, croaky grumble. “Sxoi the Loquacious. Sxoi the Glib. Do you know why I asked for you to see me today?”

“Because you don’t like what I have to say,” Sxoi said outright.

The Recorder sighed, and said, “That much may be true. I wouldn’t deny it. That’s my business, isn’t it? To like or dislike what others have to say? That much aside, I asked you here to inform you that your storytelling needs to stop.”

Sxoi kept his mouth shut, pinching his palm with alternating claws behind his back. The worst the ranarian could do was demote him to Lower Level. Even that wouldn’t stop him.

Nothing would.

“The truth is,” the Recorder continued, “Your stories have become a distraction, which is problematic. If you don’t believe me, look at the proof yourself.”

The Recorder lifted up a dried tablet for Sxoi to see. Ranarian script covered its surface in neat rows that meant nothing to the gnawling, who couldn’t read.

“You may not understand it,” the Recorder explained, “But I assure you that it proves my point. Sludge production is in decline. This tells me that the gnawlings are unhappy, since a happy gnawling is a productive one. I searched the records and traced the problem back to its source. It’s quite clear: the unhappiness began at the same time as your storytelling. That’s why I’ve decided to intervene, on behalf of everyone’s happiness. If I don’t speak up for them, who will?”

Sxoi looked away. Point made, the Recorder returned the tablet to the pile.

He continued, “Gnawlings don’t need fanciful tales to be happy. They need their work. They need to keep the sludge flowing. If the sludge stopped flowing, the caravans would stop coming. Could you imagine that, Sxoi? What would we do if the caravans never came? What would we do if we were cut off from all the good that they bring? Think of how much we would suffer. Would it be worth whatever pleasure you glean from spouting your fabrications, your untruths?”

“There’s truth in them,” Sxoi muttered.

The ranarian huffed, and said, “A warped truth isn’t a truth at all, is it? The real truth is that things need to return to the way they were before. You may disagree. I would expect no less. Regardless of your opinion, the stage comes down and the stories end now, or consequences will follow. I figured that you deserved a fair warning. Now that you have it, you may go.”

Sxoi had built that stage with his own hands. No threat from the Recorder could have made him tear it down. Ever.

The Recorder shifted his attention back to his array of tablets without another word, quietly plying his stylus to damp clay. Sxoi felt invisible. It was worse than the discomfort of the spotlight. Anxiety sloughed off and gave way to a sinking feeling, a powerlessness. He slunk out the door.

The metal catwalk warmed the pads of his bare feet. He threw a cowl over his head to shade himself from the white glare of the sun. The ranarian guards at the door paid him no mind.

He felt like a ghost. He wasn’t due back at his place of duty on Mid Level until dusk. He trod down a metal staircase, eager to get below ground. Beads of sweat began to form in his tawny fur. Unlike ranarians, gnawlings weren’t made for the heat.

The staircase descended along the sunny side of the ranarian apartments. Draperies covering the hundreds of windows reflected the ranarians’ love for color and their pride in individual expression. No two dwellings displayed identical style.

He reached the main platform at the bottom of the stairs. Smokestacks of different sizes sprouted from the deck like smooth-faced iron trees. Wisps of steam evaporated into an arid sky as quickly as they emerged. The main platform, the flat iron barrier that separated Upper and Mid Levels, was completely devoid the workers that would crowd its surface once the sun set. Cranes used to load and unload cargo from caravans stood quiet. Warehouses stocked with sludge barrels, wood, scrap metal and other materials were devoid of activity, as were the food storehouses. Gnawlings only braved the daylight of Upper Level on every third day, when the human caravans were scheduled to arrive. Nocturnal in nature, most gnawling laborers, known as wrenches, began their work in the evening or late at night, except for Lower Level wrenches who lived and worked in near perpetual darkness.

A few ranarians in multicolored vests and trousers inventoried supplies with clay tablets. Ranarian patrols meandered between posts along the perimeter decked in colorful armor, hefting tremendous pikes. Those weapons were handy during night watches when the wildlife was most active and would, on occasion, test defenses.

The Sludge Well was an island cut off from the surrounding desert on all sides by a vast chasm several pike-lengths long that worked like a moat to protect its denizens from outsiders.

Hostile creatures, such as the arachnoid harvesters, which emerged from their burrows after the sun set in search of carrion to scavenge, were an equal threat. Isolation was the Sludge Well’s security.

The Upper Level, decorated with bright colors in the ranarian fashion, was all that was visible from a distance. The network of pipes that ran its breadth were painted according to their function in order to prevent rust, as well as facilitate maintenance and operation: fresh water was blue, waste was green, steam was yellow, sludge was orange, and so on. Sxoi navigated this ironwork maze to a lift that would take him near enough his neighborhood below.

A square iron basket large enough for a handful of people to fit comfortably was suspended by a braid of cables through a system of overhead pulleys. It was painted a gentle walnut brown. Sxoi stepped inside and closed the gate. It swayed slightly without bumping against the platform. A box at eye-level in one of the corners held a row of brass levers with all their handles pointed up. He grabbed the one furthest to the left and threw it down.

A brake released. Steam hissed through an unseen valve. The basket lowered, trailing echoes of metallic clanks overhead. Sxoi removed his cowl as he entered the shade below the main platform. He descended at a comfortable pace, slow enough to appreciate the view.

Iron piping of every size snaked downward. A palette of earth tones replaced the myriad of rainbow colors that abounded on the Upper Level, according to the gnawlings’ liking. Still color-coded according to their various functions, the lengths of pipe took on shades of brown, green, gray, and dark gold on their way to Mid Level. They continued down, breaking off in various directions to join others in a widespread labyrinth.

To his back was an open-air view of the sheer sandstone walls that formed the side of the desert canyon. Natural light spilled into the chasm through the gap between the main platform and the cliff’s edge. Carved into the sandstone were ranarian temples which housed their dead: those who occupied a certain social status in their lifetimes, at least. The temples housed catacombs of hidden burial chambers deep within the rock. Dark shadows veiled their entrances. The special procession crane used to reach them was stowed, barred from access when not in use. Colossal sculptures flanked the entryways, dwarfing them considerably. No one knew their true age.

The carvings depicted feats of prominent ranarians of old. One showed a ranarian in plated mail wielding a pike against a stocky, four-legged creature. The beast reared on its hind legs and batted its claws while the ranarian ran it through. Another depicted a ranarian charioteer driving a florally decorated carriage drawn by a team of serpents. Ivied fruit trees blossomed and waterfalls cascaded in the backgrounds. The names of the people and places shown were undoubtedly noted somewhere in the Recorder’s archive, but were otherwise ill-remembered.

Sxoi admired the sculptures. They inspired many of his stories, including a recurring character, a ranarian named Zebuol. One of his stories told of how Zebuol took an army of gnawlings and ranarians into the Waste to wage war against a swarm of flesh-eating harvesters, rescuing those taken prisoner on previous nights. There was another in which Zebuol befriended the harvesters and met their eight-legged viceroy on his terraced glass throne, hidden in the dunes. Another recounted a time that Zebuol climbed to the top of the Barren Mountains in search of a legendary fruit that granted immortality to whoever ate it, only to be waylaid by giant ravens. He took one captive and flew it back to the Sludge Well empty-handed. More recently, however, he told of Zebuol exploring lands beyond the mountains that were lush with trees like those depicted in the carvings. This is what had attracted the Recorder’s attention.

Some believed that the barren desert around the Sludge Well used to be a vibrant landscape. They believed that the canyon’s subterrene waters once bubbled up to the surface to nourish fantastic gardens of their ancient predecessors. Sxoi disagreed.

He believed that if their ancestors had lived in such groves, the use of wood in construction of the Sludge Well would have been much more prolific. Properly treated and painted to protect from wear and rot, wood construction could last for centuries. On the contrary, the Lower Level, which was the oldest part of the Sludge Well, was made entirely of iron, steel, copper, and brass. Sxoi had spent years working down there, and had never seen a trace of wood. In all of the Sludge Well, wooden parts were mostly found on Upper Level, and rarely on Mid Level. Even the ranarian temples, which were incredibly old, lacked wood furnishings of any kind in all of their well-preserved vastness. He believed that those effigies told of a place far away from the Sludge Well, a place that might still exist.

Sxoi continued to descend, and soon the view of the outer canyon was obscured by a patchwork siding wall. Pieced together from incongruous squares of scrap metal, the barrier was erected primarily for safety purposes. Gnawlings were extremely agile and well-balanced, due to their broad, padded feet and naturally low centers of gravity. However, accidents happened— much less often, thanks to the siding wall. The barrier also appealed to the gnawlings’ preference for enclosed spaces. Whereas the ranarians loved to gaze at the open sky, the gnawlings found comfort in a well-secured burrow. The metal network that snaked around the Mid Level in so many intersecting axes provided a certain warren-like coziness. The sunlight that spilled down the chasm fell behind the siding wall, making room for subtle shade.

Sxoi’s basket clanked to a halt in the drowsy twilight of Mid Level. The cooler, darker air was a relief. This far below the main platform, Sxoi felt a world away from the Recorder and his threats. With some time before his shift began at South Well Four, Sxoi took a circuitous route.

The sludge wells themselves, which pumped the volatile liquid up from below the canyon floor, weren’t exposed to open air. Eight wells in all were arranged in a lop-sided circular pattern within a forest of support beams. Each was encased in a colossal housing tube large enough in diameter that a number of gnawling families could have taken up residence inside. Containing them in this manner helped minimize corrosion from outside elements, as well as prevent severe leaks and ruptures from spilling directly into any given level.

Sxoi watched a Mid Level wrench hoist himself up one of the well tubes armed with a bucket and brush to patch up faded spots with a fresh coat of paint. Sxoi imagined the iron column was a colossal tree, and that the gnawling used vines to pull himself up, trying to reach the choicest fruit on its tallest branches. No matter what the Recorder did, he couldn’t stop Sxoi from seeing the wildness in every gnawling’s heart.

A twist around the back of North Well One and another past North Well Four brought him to the once abandoned storage shed he’d converted into a place to tell stories. The doors were wide open, showing the makeshift stage that occupied the shed’s front half. He’d built the thing out of scrap drums and copper plates to fit snugly inside. His best friend, Vyera, was rearranging rows of curtains that hid the props and costumes stored in the rear.

Vyera—or Vye, as Sxoi called her—had joined Sxoi in his early days of storytelling. The same age as Sxoi, she was a seamstress turned nurse who could transform meager bits of fabric and into incredible props and costumes. On occasion, she played characters. She also sang like a dream. Both of Sxoi’s parents had passed, and he had no siblings. Vye was his closest thing to family. She saw him coming and shot an expectant look.

She asked, “How much trouble are you in?”

“Not as much as I will be,” he said.

He clambered onto the stage and sat with his bare feet dangling over the edge.

“Did he say we have to take it down?” Vyera asked, referring to the stage.

“He did,” Sxoi said.

She let go of the curtains and huddled beside him. Her delicate features were poised in sorrow.

“When?” she asked.

“It doesn’t matter,” Sxoi said. “I’m not taking anything down.”

Sxoi leaned back, resting his head on folded hands, looking up at the series of drawstrings that held the curtains in place. Those had been Vye’s idea. She’d gathered the materials and put them together herself. The stage on which he lay had been his doing. Their work was the most precious thing he had.

“Then what are you going to do?” Vyera asked, her shoulders tensed.

“I’m going to keep telling stories,” Sxoi said. “As long as people keep coming to watch and listen, why shouldn’t I?”

“Isn’t the Recorder going to stop you?”

“I’m not stopping, Vye, no matter what he does. If he tears this place down, I’ll build another.”

Vyera took a breath. Her back straightened. Her shoulders gently shrugged off the tension that held them moments before. She looked ahead into the dusky forest of support beams and housing tubes that was the Sludge Well, and her mind turned inward.

“Then I’ll keep helping you,” she said.

“No. You shouldn’t, Vye.”

“Why not, Sxoi?” she said, turning to face him.

“Because the Recorder warned me. There’ll be consequences if I don’t stop.”

“And?” she asked.

“And if you keep helping me, you’re likely to get punished too,” he said.

“If I want to risk it, then I’ll risk it.”

“You shouldn’t,” Sxoi sighed. “You have more to risk than I do. The worst he’ll do to me is send me back to Lower Level. I could live with that. But if you lost your nurse’s seal, and got stuck scrubbing drains with me, I’d never forgive myself.”

She replied, “Do you know what one of the wrenches called me on the lift the other day? Zebuol. He called me Zebuol. He recognized me from on stage. He said that I made a fine Zebuol, and that he hoped to see me perform again. What kind of Zebuol would I be if I turned my back on you now?”

The two were silent for a while. Vyera took Sxoi’s lack of response as acceptance of her help. She did make a fine Zebuol.

“It’s not only that, Vye,” Sxoi continued.

He meant to do more than just ignore the Recorder’s warning. His determination to continue his performances was a simple urge to rebel against the ranarian’s heavy-handedness. But his meeting with the Recorder had sparked something deeper. Sxoi yearned to know the truth about the Sludge Well, about the gnawlings, about everything.

Sxoi had never worried much about the truth behind his stories until the Recorder had called it into question. The history of the Sludge Well, his home, while a source of curiosity, had always felt so far out of reach that any serious attempt to find it would have been futile.

Information about the past was as far gone as the people who had lived it. He might as well have asked the dead to speak. Yet, the way in which the Recorder spoke of truth as if it were a furnishing in his office, the way he invoked the truth as if it were on his side, struck Sxoi with a new perspective.

The truth was on no one’s side. The truth wasn’t even on the Sludge Well. It was far away, beyond the Waste, over the mountains. If Sxoi could bear witness to it, he could bring it back, and share it. Then, no matter how much the Recorder tried, the truth would be laid bare for all to see. That would be worth any risk.

“How are you going to convince the humans to let you onto the caravan?” Vyera asked.

“I won’t,” Sxoi said. “They won’t even know I’m there.”

Her eyes widened. “You’re sneaking on?” she asked.

He nodded.

They fell speechless again. No one had ever left the Sludge Well. The human caravans were the only safe mode of travel through the Waste, and they never took on passengers.

“Since we’re not tearing this down today,” Vyera said, and gave the stage a pat, “Walk with me to the lift?”

***

They closed up the stage, and started towards the southern lift, the quickest route to the nurses’ shack on Upper Level. Since it was on the way to Sxoi’s place of duty on South Well Four, the two often made that leg of the trip together before parting ways.

The nurses didn’t technically belong to Upper Level, even though that’s where their shack was located. They weren’t Mid Levelers either. They were somewhere between ranks, often going back and forth between levels in their duties. They weren’t all gnawlings, either. The nurses shack was, in a way, a place where rank didn’t exist. It simply didn’t matter. Sick was sick. Injured was injured. And, gnawling or ranarian, a nurse was a nurse.

The sun was down. The onset of night had an invigorating effect on the gnawlings.

People stirred all around as Sxoi and Vyera walked by. “When will you leave?” Vyera asked.

“In two days, on the next caravan,” Sxoi said.

“Only two days to prepare,” Vyera reflected. “What are you taking?”

“I’m not taking anything.”

“It’s a long trip, Sxoi. You’re going to need water, something to eat.”

“Okay, I’ll bring a canteen and a food pack.”

“Canteen, food pack,” Vyera repeated, “And?”

“And that’s it.”

Vyera laughed, and questioned, “What would Zebuol bring with him on one of his excursions?”

“Weapons, a small army, neither of which would be of any use to me.”

“First aid kit?”

“I’ll take a first aid kit, if you have a spare.”

“I’ll rustle one up, since I won’t be there to stitch you back together if you run into trouble,” Vyera promised.

“Hopefully, I won’t need stitching.”

“Better to be prepared, just in case.”

Night on Mid Level was enchanting. The candles, torches, and lanterns used by the ranarians on Upper Level were too harsh for gnawlings and their more sensitive night vision. Stairwells and lifts were furnished with sludge-powered lamps that brushed iron walkways with soft, red glows. Against the gripping darkness below, lighted staircases seemed to float in midair. Lifts bobbed up and down like warm, red clouds. Gnawling apartments fitted with similar lights were crimson bubbles suspended in shadows, blinking on and off. Sxoi and Vyera reached the lift where a small crowd was already gathered.

A handful of Upper Level wrenches waited with their thumbs tucked into their tool belts.

They tipped leather caps at the pair’s arrival. A barreler, with his signature hook-billed mallet dangling from a belt loop, watched the basket descend. Vyera joined them and bid Sxoi farewell.

“Meet at the stage after our shifts?” she asked.

At the stage.

“Only two days to prepare,” she reminded.

Only two days.

Gears clanked, steam hissed, and the lift took Vyera upwards with the others to the main platform.

Sxoi continued to South Well Four where a stout iron hatch led inside the colossal housing tube. He closed the hatch behind him, shutting out the quiet night, and delved into the noisy inner workings of the sludge well.

Catwalks lined the inside of the housing tube. Ladders allowed vertical movement between sections. A crimson glow coated the well’s busy insides thanks to bright sludge-powered lights. The actual wells, four cylindrical tubes that pumped sludge from below, occupied the center.

A shift scheduler met Sxoi near the entrance and tasked him with calibrating pressure gauges in the bottom sections. Each gauge had to be removed, checked, and calibrated manually using a hand-cranked pump in order to help prevent bursts and other mishaps from sneaking up on maintenance crews unnoticed. It was tedious work. Thankfully, he had a lot on his mind to distract him.

He loaded his tool belt and descended the nearest ladder. He worked through his sections, all the time thinking about how he’d be out of the Sludge Well in two days, riding a caravan deep into the Waste. Two days was too long.

***

Vyera leaned on a row of barrels in the shade of a warehouse on the main platform. The barrels were full of sludge, ready to be loaded onto the next caravan, except for one.

“Getting warm in there?” she asked one of the barrels.

Sxoi’s voice sounded small, muffled, and echoey from inside, saying, “It’s fine.”

He had enough room inside the barrel to stand, but he sat while he waited for the caravan to arrive. Canteen and other supplies included, he still weighed considerably less than a barrel’s worth of sludge. He hoped that in the rush of loading and unloading cargo, no one would notice.

Vyera chewed on a hard piece of millet cake, keeping an eye on passersby. When no one was looking, she broke off a piece and passed it through a slit Sxoi had cut into the side of the barrel.

“Thank you. Still no caravan?” Sxoi asked.

“You’ll hear it when it gets here,” Vyera reassured.

The caravan appeared out of a rolling cloud of dust. The driver blared his ram’s horn. The caravan, a long train of flatbed wagon cars pulled by a front engine car, stopped directly across from the Sludge Well at the edge of the canyon. A final horn blast from the driver spurred everyone to action.

Cranes stretched and swiveled as the gnawlings at the controls maneuvered them across the canyon divide. One equipped with a hose attachment swung its boom towards the engine car with a gnawling straddling the end of it. Once in position, the gnawling hopped off, inserting the hose into an opening at the top of the engine. The hose ran the length of the boom, down the body of the crane, and into a sludge vat. Operators loosened valves, and sludge flowed out of the hose into the engine’s holding tank. The gnawling held the hose in place, watching the tank level rise. The caravan driver, a lean man with darkly tanned skin, his face and head covered with linen scarves, stood by the controls and stretched his legs under the shade of a canopy.

Men on board the flatbed wagon cars transferred loads of empty barrels to ranarian laborers suspended over the chasm on other cranes. Once full, the cranes swung back over to the main platform where teams of ranarians and gnawlings unloaded them and took them to various warehouses to be refilled in the coming days. Filled barrels took their place on the cranes, over the chasm, and onto the caravan.

Streams of barrels flowed off and on the caravan in this manner. When one wagon car was done, men signaled the driver to pull up to reach cars further back. After the barrels came crates of food and other supplies, the lifeblood of the Sludge Well. An army of the Recorder’s assistants inventoried everything. As the men finished their tasks on the caravan, they rode the cranes across the divide to visit the main platform where gnawling and ranarian vendors displayed hand-crafted goods in vibrantly colored booths. Men bartered tools and private collections of raw materials for ranarian fabrics, pottery, and clay figurines, or gnawling jewelry. Butchered forms of human and ranarian speech buzzed in the air. Vyera observed while Sxoi waited patiently in his barrel.

“Vye, you’re going along with this plan with surprisingly little objection,” Sxoi noted.

“What did you expect?” she said, covering her mouth with the millet cake to conceal their conversation from onlookers

“I expected some shock, and a tad more trying to talk me out of it.”

Vye chuckled softly into her food. “How many pretend adventures have I seen you go on? A hundred? The idea of you going on a real one is barrel-y a surprise.”

“Funny.”

“You know, this reminds me of when Zebuol snuck into the Underworld,” Vye recollected.

The Underworld had been an underground city in one of Sxoi’s stories, built below Lower Level by a group of renegade wrenches who plotted to overthrow the Recorder and hijack the Sludge Well. Sxoi had played Zebuol that time. Vyera had lowered him onto the stage in a modified barrel. He’d exited the same way.

“I trust you’ll be as safe as you can,” Vye said.

That was the last thing she said to Sxoi before a team of gnawlings hauled him away and loaded him onto the caravan with the rest of the batch. He kept the slit on the side of the barrel shut. Outside noise came through with a twangy quality.

The deep grumbles of the ranarians and the higher pitched tones of the gnawlings faded. Gruff, barked notes of humans came into the foreground. Machinery cranked and steam hissed. The growl of the caravan engine reverberated through the wagon car beneath him.

The caravan rolled forward and stopped throughout the lengthy unloading-reloading process. Sxoi learned to brace himself against the lurches after being knocked into the side of the barrel the first few times.

The caravan lurched forward one last time, and kept going. The engine’s growl grew into a steady roar that overpowered all other sounds. Sxoi settled into a sensation of rapid movement over the sandy Waste on rattly caravan wheels.

***

Travel by sludge barrel was far from ideal. No matter how small a gnawling was, the inside of a barrel was cramped. It was too narrow for Sxoi to stretch out horizontally. He stood a few times to give his backside a rest. But having his head so close to the top of the barrel had a claustrophobic effect. Boredom, along with confidence that he wouldn’t be seen, persuaded him to look outside.

The Waste rushed past at a terrific speed. Caravan wheels clunked incessantly in a persistent cloud of dust as they bounced along the sandy ground at a merciless pace. The sky opened in a field of clear blue unobstructed by towers, lifts, or cranes. He saw the horizon unobscured. They were so far from the Sludge Well that not a needle’s worth of its iron pinnacles was within sight. The Barren Mountains soared over a parched landscape ahead. Its desolate cliffs conjured a lonesomeness that almost made him forget that he wasn’t alone. Far from it. He closed up the barrel softly so as not to further risk being seen by wandering humans.

The cramped darkness couldn’t shut out the image of the open sky, the endless rolling Waste. Sxoi closed his eyes and imagined exploring every crag, charting every hidden valley.

***

The caravan’s speed through the inhospitable terrain did nothing to outrun the heat of the sun. The rising temperature on the wagon car’s surface turned Sxoi’s barrel into a steamy nest. He napped awkwardly against the barrel’s heated iron skin, his fur sweat-soaked. His instincts woke him after dusk, and he ventured another look outside.

The night was black and moonless. He opened the slit as wide as it would go, and watched the stars shift above a muddled horizon until the Barren Mountains blocked them out, and the sandy Waste shifted into rocky mountainside. The air cooled as they traversed the pass. Sxoi finished off his food and water, thinking of Vye and his Mid Level friends, wondering what they were doing in that moment.

They cleared the pass, and their path cut through hillsides dotted with trees. Real, lush, thriving trees. Their beauty put the desert brush Sxoi was accustomed to to shame. Everywhere, grass blanketed the ground. A breeze swept through the blades in graceful waves. He wished he could reach out and feel them against his hand. The path leveled off as they approached their destination, the river town of Habesh. The ram’s horn sounded, and Sxoi withdrew into the barrel.

Men stomped along the wagon cars. The barrel shifted and jostled as the driver slowed and steered the caravan to its predetermined spot alongside a massive warehouse. Gruff human shouts, guffaws, and boisterous chatter were thrown from one end of the caravan to the other, rattling his ears. The caravan halted.

The engine’s roar became a low growl, then silenced completely. Men disembarked and left the cars unattended. They headed home, or to various taverns, saving the unloading and reloading work for daylight. Sxoi emerged from the barrel after the place went quiet.

The warehouse was a tall, square building with open bay doors. An unfamiliar mist chilled the air. Behind the caravan, trees climbed through open meadows up rolling hills to the Barren Mountains. The path the caravan had taken was a mere suggestion of a road, an imprint along the grassy surface that disappeared over the pass. Sxoi jumped down and scurried through the nearest bay door.

Aged boards creaked as a breeze flowed over the walls. Man-made light played through cracks in the roof from outside, cutting through the shadows of the otherwise cavernous building. Dirt floors were bare in preparation for the incoming cargo. A few crates stacked against the walls provided Sxoi with pockets of cover. He crept around these, searching for an exit.

“Where’d you come from, rat?” a voice said behind him.

Sxoi spun around and saw a man in the doorway, his broad shoulders taking up much of the space. He spoke a human tongue that Sxoi didn’t understand.

“How d’you get in here?” the man questioned.

Paralyzed with fear, Sxoi remained motionless and said nothing. He shrunk into the dirt floor, unsure of how to react.

The man reached for a long, straight-bladed work knife that hung on the wall. Sxoi darted in the opposite direction. The gnawling’s excellent night vision picked out the outline of an exit. It was unlocked. He squeezed through and slammed it shut.

The sight of the human town jarred him, as did the dark swath of the river in the background. But he couldn’t afford to pause. He sprinted towards the nearest building.

The door crashed open behind him as the man emerged, knife glinting in his hand. He spotted Sxoi before the gnawling could make it to the other side. He pursued with heavy footsteps.

Sxoi didn’t look back. He winced at the combined light of lanterns that hung along the eaves of every building in the settlement. The dark, distant hills were appealing. He considered running to them. But even in the dark, the sparse cover would have made him an easy target.

The river. Sxoi eyed that murk beyond the settlement’s edge, hoping that it might provide an escape. He scampered in its general direction, dodging between buildings. Heavy footfalls remained close around every turn.

He rounded a corner, followed closely by the knife-wielding man, and a loud bang tore through the air. A musket ball whizzed past his ears and sparked against the man’s blade, knocking the knife to the ground. At the end of the alley, a ranarian in a leather overcoat and a wide-brimmed fisherman’s hat aimed a flintlock pistol at the man. One of its two barrels smoked. The other glared ominously, ready for the second hammer to fall.

Sxoi and the man both stopped in their tracks. Rage boiled up in the man’s face, directed squarely at the stranger with the pistol. He uttered a sloppy form of ranarian through gritted teeth.

“This don’t concern you, ‘izard,” the man said. “Hop back in your tub and leave us.”

In the lamplight, Sxoi saw what a behemoth the man was, arms thick from work on the caravan yard. Scarcely less threatening without his knife, he would have been more than capable of pounding Sxoi into mush, given the chance.

“I caught this rat pokin his nose round the yard,” the man claimed.

“Save it, Harrish. He’s with me,” the stranger said.

The ranarian posed there like Zebuol in the flesh. His scaly ranarian skin was sleek and green. His other hand held a whip, which he uncurled and cracked once in the air. The sound made the man bare his teeth. But he took no further step.

“Everyone in the yard will hear bout this, ‘izard,” Harrish said. He stormed off.

Sxoi faced the stranger, stunned. He wondered if the barrel ride had left him delirious. Watching real trees sprout from the ground was one thing. Seeing his fictitious hero incarnate caused him to doubt his own sanity.

“Swogginsly,” the ranarian said. “And you are?”

“Sxoi.”

Swogginsly holstered his pistol and coiled his whip, which he secured to a wide leather belt. “Come, Sxoi,” he invited. “Let’s make ourselves unseen in case that barrelhead returns with friends.”

Swogginsly stretched his sinewy legs towards the river. Sxoi followed. They spoke while they walked.

“You know him?” Sxoi asked Swogginsly, referring to the knife-wielding man, Harrish.

“It’s a small town. Everybody knows everybody.”

“Do you think he’ll come looking for me?” Sxoi asked.

The ranarian looked at Sxoi sideways under the brim of his hat, and chuckled, shaking his head.

“Come to think of it, he’ll have a difficult time convincing anyone that he spotted a gnawling this far from the Waste. Most people here have never even seen your kind before, except those who work the caravans. When we get to my boat, I’m going to need you to explain.”

“What is this place?” Sxoi asked.

“Mohbelyl,” the ranarian said. “The one human town on the Pearl River.”

***

Swogginsly’s barge, the Emperor, was moored on a shoddy wharf. He and Sxoi sought refuge aboard.

The boat’s hull was plated with cream-colored shells of the Emperor Scallop, one of the river’s largest creatures, and fragments thereof. Smoothed, polished plates overlapped in an impervious layer, leaving no spot unshielded. The thickest covered amidships, tapering thinner and thinner as they edged towards the bow and stern. Even the smallest of them, Sxoi could have curled up inside and used for a bed. How the ship stayed afloat under their combined weight was beyond his comprehension.

Port and starboard paddle wheels lay still. The river lapped against their wooden slats. Vertical exhaust cylinders stood between. Their rounded copper surfaces reflected clouds adrift. Sxoi was observing the river from the main deck when he heard Swogginsly’s muffled cry from the engine compartment.

“Sxoi! Get down here!”

Sxoi climbed through the hatch and down a rope ladder. Swogginsly hunched over with one arm wrapped around the engine block, holding down a release. With his free hand, he pointed to a chest just out of reach.

“Hand me one of those canisters, Sxoi,” Swogginsly said.

The chest was laden with glass canisters packed in straw. Each one glowed a deep crimson that reminded Sxoi of home. Sludge. The glass wasn’t thin, brittle stuff. It was thick enough not to crack even if he’d dropped one on the deck. Valved copper lids kept their contents air tight until loaded into the engine. He carefully handed one over.

Swogginsly slid it into the engine, closed the release, and slammed down a lever to lock it in place. He dusted his webbed hands, and motioned to two hammocks strung in the forecastle behind them. Swogginsly sat on one, Sxoi in the other. A steady rhythm filled the silence from the river slapping the hull.

Swogginsly said, “I doubt we’ll see more of the barrelheads tonight. In case we do, the Emperor is ready. Now tell me, how did you get to Mohbelyl?”

Sxoi told him about sneaking aboard the caravan in an empty barrel, the ride through the Waste and over the mountains, and how the trip took so long that he slept through most of it. And that it was the first time he’d ever left the Sludge Well.

“As far as I know, Sxoi, this is the first time any gnawling has ever come here from the Sludge Well,” Swogginsly said.

“I’m the first gnawling here?” Sxoi asked.

Swogginsly shook a webbed finger, and corrected, “You’re the first to travel here from the Sludge Well. Plenty of others have made the trip the other way.”

Sxoi swelled at the ranarian’s words. Every inkling he ever had glowed inside him: about the origins of his people, about the carvings on the ranarian tombs, and how the caravans ever knew where to find the Sludge Well in the first place. He wanted to know more. He asked his new friend to share everything he knew about the gnawlings. Swogginsly obliged.

“This was long before my time, Sxoi, before my father’s time, before my grandfather’s time, and before his father’s time.”

This meant all the more, since ranarians lived much longer than gnawlings.

Swogginsly began, “Gnawlings lived on the banks of the Pearl River for as long as any ranarian could remember until they were driven out by a group of humans called the Okuneni. They arrived in fleets of canoe, and settled Mohbelyl. Back then, however, it was a much smaller village, and known by a different name.

“The Okuneni dealt peacefully with us and with the gnawlings, at first. They brought fish, mollusks, and crab from the coast, as well as quality ocean salt. We traded pearls and silver. The gnawlings bartered roots, herbs, and vegetables which they cultivated. Conflict broke out after the Okuneni built an outpost beside a gnawling grove.

“The gnawlings lived in a great spire known as R’cheyk-M’chaynkgo. It was a single colony that housed every gnawling on the river, larger than those of the humans and ranarians combined. No one could build like them. They farmed trees of every kind in ornate plantations deep in the forest, and used wood for everything. They knew which types best used for structures, which for tools, which made the most beautiful decorations, and which were most pliable for sculptures. Their knowledge of the forest and every plant in it was unrivaled.

“From a distance, their tower resembled a grandfather tree towering over the multitude of his offspring. In fact, it was a conglomeration of buildings interwoven into a magnificent spiraling structure. And their handiwork continued underground in an elaborate network of tunnels. That is what led to the humans’ first misstep.

“At a glance, the Okuneni outpost appeared to be far enough away from the gnawling tower not to cause trouble. But it was, unwittingly, situated above a gnawling tunnel network. The gnawlings tried to abandon the area and relocate to parts undisturbed. However, this didn’t prevent the conflict that followed.

“Without the gnawlings to maintain those sections of tunnel, one of them collapsed and brought down a human palisade wall with it. People were injured. Their outpost was left exposed. The Okuneni pointed fingers at the gnawlings, accusing them of sabotage. The gnawlings denied the charges, of course. Trust was broken.

“The Okuneni lashed out. Isolated skirmishes escalated into all-out war. The gnawlings were not prepared.

“The humans attacked in droves. The gnawlings’ familiarity with the terrain wasn’t enough of an advantage to withstand their numbers. R’cheyk-M’chaynkgo was overrun.

“Some gnawlings fled into the forest, never to been seen again. A number of others were cut off from retreat, and tried escape on the river. This was where the ranarians stepped in.

“My people stayed out of the conflict. They weren’t prepared to face the humans any more than the gnawlings were. But they helped many escape, scores, hundreds, even. Ranarian vessels became safe havens for gnawlings, many of them children, orphaned, while the Okuneni scoured the river and its banks for survivors.

“My people couldn’t take the gnawlings to any of our settlements upstream without the Okuneni finding them, so the decision was made to try our cousins in the Waste. Messengers returned with news that the Sludge Well would take you.

“They took the lot of you—the gnawlings, I mean—in one expedition. The Sludge Well was no lush forest. But it was far enough away that the Okuneni couldn’t find you. A handful of us chose to stay there, fearful that what happened to the gnawlings might one day happen to them if they remained on the river.”

Sxoi absorbed Swogginsly’s every word, his mind tuned from years of storytelling to commit every detail to memory. He felt invigorated with renewed purpose to bring the story back to the Sludge Well. But first, he wanted to see it for himself. Swogginsly had no objection.

***

They set sail at first light. The Emperor was a one-man operation. Swogginsly navigated with deft movements of levers and dials. Sxoi was free to wander the deck. Twin paddle wheels churned the turquoise water. The town fell away behind them, slumbering in a matutinal fog. The forest fully emerged in the dawn. Its life spilled over the bank in more abundance than Sxoi ever imagined possible. So did the river itself.

Fish bigger than Sxoi broke the water’s surface in hungry leaps. Waterfowl soared overhead and gathered in the shallows. The most impressive spectacle, however, was the Emperor Scallop, the Emperor‘s namesake. A swarm of the giant bivalves propelled themselves through the water alongside, clapping their shells. A fish came too near, and one of the Emperors flicked out its prehensile tongue and grabbed it, swallowing it whole.

“A dangerous predator, the Emperor,” Swogginsly explained over the roar of the ship. “This bunch is on their way to spawn upstream. Near the end of their lives, they return to the pools where they were born, leaving their pearls behind, not to mention their valuable shells, which we don’t let go to waste.”

***

Swogginsly dropped anchor under the boughs of a giant meranti. He cut the engine. “This is the place,” he told Sxoi. “This is R’cheyk-M’chaynkgo.”

Sxoi gaped at the woods that went on, and on. His eyes found the base of the most prominent meranti, and followed its trunk up to where the remnants of a gnarled wooden structure clung to its highest point. It resembled a bird house at that distance.

Swogginsly said, “That’s all that’s left. Above ground, that is.”

Sxoi’s imagination filled in the rest. He envisioned structures extending downwards and leaping between treetops in an assemblage of homes and gathering places connected by ornate bridges and corridors, all molded by gnawling hands.

He jumped overboard, landing softly on the riverbank. He tiptoed through the brush to the ancient meranti that held the ruins of R’cheyk-M’chaynkgo. The dense vegetation had a dampening effect on outside noise that left Sxoi feeling wrapped in a blanket of leaf and vine.

Swogginsly cautioned from the boat, “Best not venture too deep! The place was abandoned ages ago! New denizens may have moved in!”

“You’re not coming with me?!” Sxoi shouted back.

“Not this time! Although, if you happen upon a root cellar still intact and fully stocked, give me a shout! I might want to have a look!”

Sxoi ran his claws over the grooves of the meranti’s rock hard skin. Every wrinkle hinted at its untold age. Fingers curled as claws dug into mahogany bark. The urge to climb filled the gnawling like breath in his lungs.

He pulled himself up before giving it much thought. He looked neither up nor down, at first. He simply climbed. The next moment, he was close enough to the remains of R’cheyk- M’chaynkgo to see it in detail.

The construction barely held itself together. It was a brittle, hollow shell of the life it once held. Broken edges hinted at what used to be. One careless nudge, and it might have fallen to pieces. Sxoi kept his distance.

Looking down, Swogginsly’s barge looked like a smoking lump of jetsam snagged on a sunken log. The river crawled in glistening ripples towards an ocean that might as well have been a myth. The town of Mohbelyl, a smudge. The mountains formed an imposing wall of sheer blue cliffs. His mind went to the Waste, to the Sludge Well. He climbed down.

There were tunnels still intact, as Swogginsly said. Sxoi found an entrance, and crawled down a broken set of stairs. His eyes quickly adjusted.

The roots of the meranti trees had been guided to form natural underground support structures. The tunnels weaved paths through them. Many passages ran into dead ends, having collapsed long ago. Sxoi wandered aimlessly, drinking in the underground aromas, basking in the feel of cool dirt on the pads of his feet.

He found a spot to nestle into the earthen wall. A peace came over him. The loam’s rich scent was a sweet perfume to his long-deprived olfaction. He was lost in reverie about building a home there with Vye when Swogginsly’s grumble of a voice scattered the vision.

“Best be leaving soon! We need to make the wharf while there’s still light to sail by!” the ranarian urged.

Sxoi inhaled a final draw of sweet-smelling subterranean air, and scampered to the surface.

***

Swogginsly weighed anchor in little time, eager to reach Mohbelyl before nightfall. The ranarian quietly piloted the vessel, allowing Sxoi to digest his experience.

Sxoi asked, “Where are the Okuneni now? What happened to them?”

Swogginsly kept his eyes on the river while he explained, “They were driven out by the Luwarineen, the group of humans you know, Harrish’s people, who occupy Mohbelyl now. They arrived in warships like none of us had ever seen, chasing stories of wealth and a steady source of sludge, your Sludge Well. They aimed to establish a base for their caravans. The Okuneni took offense to the encroachment, and the two groups went to war. The Luwarineen emerged as the victors. They built Mohbelyl into what it is today, thanks to the caravans. Thanks to the Sludge Well.”

***

Back at the wharf, after securing the ship, Swogginsly suggested to Sxoi, “Perhaps there’s hope for peace between your people and the humans.”

Sxoi recalled Harrish, enraged, menacing him with a knife. He recalled the ruins of R’cheyk-M’chaynkgo. He replied, “From what I’ve seen, I’m not convinced.”

***

It was time for the sludge caravan to depart. Sxoi heard Vye’s voice in his head telling him to pack enough food and water for the return trip. Swogginsly generously refilled the gnawling’s rations. The ranarian offered to petition the humans on Sxoi’s behalf for a proper ride, rather than stow away. Sxoi declined. The two said their goodbyes.

***

Sxoi snuck into the same warehouse from before, this time evading detection. He was loaded onto the caravan in an empty barrel without trouble. He cut a slit in the barrel’s skin for an air hole with a pocket knife gifted by Swogginsly. The caravan departed. Sxoi retold the story of the gnawlings in his head, picturing how he would perform each scene on stage once he was back home. He dozed as they crossed over the Barren Mountains and rolled into the scorching Waste.

***

The ram’s horn sounded three long bellows. This signaled the men to brace for a sudden stop. The driver shut off the engine, applied the brakes. A flock of bighorn sheep had obstructed the path ahead.

The caravan halted too quickly. Stacks of cargo fell over, knocked into each other. Sxoi’s barrel tumbled over the side along with a few others.

His barrel landed somewhere. He kept still and listened. The engine idled. Men shouted.

After a time, the engine roared to life again. The last sound he heard was the rattle of caravan wheels fading into the distance. An uneasy silence followed. He peeled back the barrel’s metal skin.

Empty blue sky.

He peeled it back further and saw mounds of sand. The barrel lay on its side on the ground. All signs of the caravan were gone. He cracked open the lid and saw that he was alone in a small pile of empty barrels, somewhere in the Waste.

Not a cloud of dust hinted at the caravan’s whereabouts. Deep grooves in the sand were the only sign that it had ever been there.

The Barren Mountains stood to the west. That meant the Sludge Well was in the opposite direction. Sxoi left a modest set of footprints alongside the caravan tracks as he followed them east.

The Waste lived up to its name. No animal graced the sky or landscape. A rare scrub sprouted up from the sandy ground looking dried and dead. Growing up on the Sludge Well, Sxoi had always feared the Waste for its predators. The utter lack of the smallest comfort instilled fear in him now. His food and water didn’t last.

He fell beside the caravan tracks, unable to go on. Gnawlings weren’t made for the heat.

Nathan Sweem served five years as an Army linguist specializing in Arabic. He studied math at CSU Sacramento and Data Analytics at WGU. He taught math for three years at a high school in Southern Oregon before leaving for a job in corporate. He currently writes fiction, poetry, and creative nonfiction, and encourages his former students to pursue their passions. His writing has been published in The Antihumanist, Active Muse, Ink Pantry, and many others.

Guest Author Fantasy, Short Story