They were now in a new cavern of dark, almost black, crinkled rock, the floor a thick, soft dirt. Small, glowing snowflakes of light drifted down around them, illuminating the cavern.<\/p>\n
A series of metallic clanging sounds echoed throughout the walkway like that of hammers hitting anvils. Small drafts of heat passed by her cheek, and she noticed the floor beneath them had a subtle downward slant.<\/p>\n
With each passing minute, new, far off noises could be heard: cracks, thuds, hisses, scrapes, the sound of machinelike activity. The ground was becoming stickier, almost muddy, and down side passages faint red light would flicker on and off.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019s going on?\u201d she asked.<\/p>\n
\u201cDwarves,\u201d Deacon replied.<\/p>\n
Before she could inquire, a flash of yellow brightened the wall beside her, and in the quick light she saw hundreds of cockroaches covering it.<\/p>\n
She screamed.<\/p>\n
\u201cMiss, please!\u201d Deacon whispered fiercely in her ear.<\/p>\n
She put a hand over her mouth.<\/p>\n
She stood still and stared at the wall, waiting for another flash or a wisp of light to float leisurely down. When it did, she saw no movement on the wall.<\/p>\n
She took two steps and could just make out the wall moving with her.<\/p>\n
She stopped abruptly. It stopped.<\/p>\n
As another glowing flake passed by, she took 2 more careful steps. This time she could hear the faint sound of tiny little bug feet moving with her.<\/p>\n
She stopped. They stopped.<\/p>\n
This time, upon halting, there was a faint, high-pitched noise coming from the wall of roaches, almost out of her range of hearing. It sounded like a hundred cockroaches\u2026 whistling.<\/p>\n
She walked, the whistling stopped and they crept silently along with her. Whenever she froze, they would freeze and whistle nonchalantly.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt sounds like they\u2019re whistling,\u201d she whispered quietly to Deacon.<\/p>\n
\u201cThey probably are,\u201d he whispered back.<\/p>\n
\u201cAre they fucking with my head?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cAre they?\u201d<\/p>\n
Now, no longer attempting to hide the fact of their whistling, they began some \u201cdum de dum\u201d humming.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat the hell?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWell miss, they are very musical.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMusical. Cockroaches. What do they want me to do, sing to them?\u201d<\/p>\n
From the walls on both sides of her, suddenly came an outburst of high, thin, reedy little voices shouting \u201cOh yes! Yes!\u201d \u201cOh do!\u201d \u201cPlease, yes, please oh do!\u201d \u201cOh lovely please let\u2019s do!\u201d<\/p>\n
She started to stammer, then collected herself. \u201cStop!\u201d<\/p>\n
Silence.<\/p>\n
\u201cUhm, hello?\u201d<\/p>\n
In a chorus of voices that sounded like a reel-to-reel tape player being forwarded at high speed, they cried out in unison \u201cHello!\u201d<\/p>\n
She stared paranoid around her. \u201cOkay, you guys are freaking me out.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was a banter of apologetic \u201cOh no\u201ds, and other sad and ashamed murmuring. A collective sigh sounded out.<\/p>\n
Deacon nudged her ear. \u201cI think you hurt their feelings.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYou\u2019ve got to be kidding me.\u201d<\/p>\n
There was some light shuffling, a moment\u2019s pause, and then a single tiny voice spoke, although it was too thin and small for her to hear.<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat\u2019d it say?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHe said they\u2019re very sorry, but maybe you could please sing them a song. They\u2019d like it very much.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cI\u2019m in a cave with dwarves and cockroaches and they want me to sing to them?\u201d<\/p>\n
The lone high voice said something.<\/p>\n
\u201cHe says the dwarves only sing fun songs when they\u2019re drunk, and most of the time their songs are about working and drinking and are a little boring.\u201d<\/p>\n
She stood staring dumbly around her, fidgeting and shaking her head. She couldn\u2019t tell whether she was going to giggle or choke.<\/p>\n
\u201cOkay.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYay!\u201d They all cheered in their twisted \u2018Chipmunks on crack\u2019 voices.<\/p>\n
She sang Walking In Memphis.<\/p>\n
The cavern made her voice, shaky at first, sound rather pleasant, and as she made her way through the 1st verse she started to enjoy it.\u00a0When she reached the chorus, the cockroaches all joined in and almost bowled her over.\u00a0At the beginning of the 2nd verse they all lightly chanted the chord changes behind her, singing \u201cooooo,ooooo\u2026..\u201d\u00a0By the last verse they were singing the backup vocals behind her:<\/p>\n
\u201cAnd I was walking in\u2026\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWaaaaaaalking in Memphis\u201d<\/p>\n
It was the single funniest thing she had ever heard in her life, and at the end of the song as they all cheered uproariously, she began to laugh and laugh, and her laughter grew hysterical, and 5 minutes later she couldn\u2019t breath but couldn\u2019t stop, and she was down on her knees, elbows in the mud begging for mercy, but none came and she could feel something deep inside of her head twist and little splinters begin to crack.<\/p>\n
The gusts of heat and noises of activity increased as woman, mouse, and hundreds of cockroaches continued their twisting descent down into the red and yellow lit caverns. Pipes jutted out of cragged stone and wrapped around walls, radiating heat and occasionally hissing and clanging.<\/p>\n
The roaches kept up a merry chorus of whatever song had last been sung, and whenever she would tire of the particular tune, all she had to do was clear her throat and the chorus would hush and wait for her to begin another song.<\/p>\n
Letting them pipe away happily, she eyed the mouse still riding atop her shoulder.<\/p>\n
\u201cThere\u2019s an awful lot of commotion down here, Deacon.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cYes, miss. The dwarves are always hard at work.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat do they do?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cMine, mostly. They also forage tunnels and expand the pipe network that carries the ore, but mining for the ore is their main task.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cOre? What kind of ore?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cChaos, miss.\u201d<\/p>\n
.<\/p>\n
The singing stopped.<\/p>\n
She turned about to see what potential problem was causing the soundtrack to her mental deterioration to halt. Down a yellow-lit corridor to her right stood a short, stocky figure, dark for being backlit. He was carrying a pick and obviously examining her intently.<\/p>\n
\u201cOh, hello,\u201d she said. \u201cI don\u2019t mean to disturb you.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHmph,\u201d the figure answered. \u201cHaven\u2019t seen one o’ yer kind in a long while.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cUh, are you really a\u2026 a\u2026 what do you do down here?\u201d<\/p>\n
The burly dwarf shuffled towards her. He was insanely hairy, with thick leather skin, much coarser then a human\u2019s, and red eyes with jet-black pupils. He peered at her curiously.<\/p>\n
\u201cJust what yer friend there told ya. We mine the Chaos, refine it into an ore, and feed it to the Engine.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat engine? What do you mean by Chaos? Molten lava?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIf I\u2019da meant melted rock, I\u2019d have said melted rock. Chaos, I said. The primal, potential of essence. Tricky stuff to work with. Real messy. Dangerous, too.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhere do you find it?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe world\u2019s a womb, lassie. Every womb has a portal of Chaos in it. Just like yers.\u201d He pointed at her stomach. \u201c\u2019Course yers is smaller than the head of a pin, and ya probably keep it closed most of the time,\u201d he gestured around him, \u201cbut in a womb this big, there\u2019s several hundred miles of it, and more pouring through all the time.\u201d<\/p>\n
The pipes around them banged and shook. The dwarf carried on, obviously delighted to boast of his work. \u201cWe liquidize it and send it through the pipes, into the great Engine. We mine, we run, and we maintenance of the Great Engine, all big jobs. Beyond the capacity o’ any o’ the other Races, ya can be sure. Only a dwarf could do each and all and still out drink ya at the end o’ the day.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWow,\u201d she said, patting his ego. \u201cWhat kind of engine?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThe Great Three-Wheeled Engine o’ History. Want to see it?\u201d<\/p>\n
After promising her that it wasn\u2019t the least bit out of her way, he led her down the corridor he had come, through the shadows in the walls some of which turned out to be corridors, until they came to the end of a tunnel.<\/p>\n
The tunnel stopped abruptly, high up in a chamber the size of a football field wide, and two legnthwise. In the center were 3 gargantuan wheels, each the size of a 6-story tenement building, intersecting each other at different angles. Beneath them were gears, boilers and pipes, all manner of outlandish, archaic machinery interconnected in an indecipherable jumble.<\/p>\n
She stood transfixed.<\/p>\n
\u201cCount yerself lucky, lass. Yer only the 42nd o’ your race to see it this entire Aeon. I used to deal with yer kind a lot more back in the last Age. Always had a soft spot for ya.\u201d<\/p>\n
He glanced back at the Engine. \u201c\u2019Course with the next wheel in ascendance, I bet yer species is going a bit spastic up there, eh?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat does this thing do?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cIt drives history.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWhat, you mean like the the seasons? That\u2019s caused by the Earth revolving around the Sun.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cNay, that\u2019s not what I meant. Nature takes care o’ herself sure enough. This isn\u2019t about the seasons or the day\u2019s journey into night. This is what drives events, eras, ages, epochs.\u201d<\/p>\n
He pointed down at the Engine.<\/p>\n
\u201cThree wheels, see? The Material, the Transcendent, and the Magical. The wheel of the Material\u2019s just finishing its dominant arch. Treated Man well. Man was well adapted for it.\u201d<\/p>\n
Each wheel was made up of a series of smaller wheels inside of it, much like what she had seen of the Mayan calendar. Straining her eyes, she could actually see some of the circles near the center moving.<\/p>\n
\u201cThis Engine is what powers the rise and fall of Civilizations, what determines them congruency o’ forces there that bring favorable conditions to the evolution of species and the progression of Races. Or unfavorable for that matter.<\/p>\n
\u201cYer seeking the Sidhe, I hear. Now there\u2019s a Race that\u2019s had a tough time of it. Lots of famine, been driven back to wait out this Epoch in the few remaining Lands habitable to them. They\u2019re almost through the worst of it, though. It they can hold out a little longer, they\u2019ll start ascending soon.<\/p>\n
\u2018As for your kind\u2026. well\u2026 things\u2019re gonna get a lot more crazy up ahead.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cThey took my baby,\u201d she told him.<\/p>\n
\u201cHmph. I don\u2019t know nothin\u2019 \u2018bout that. But I do know them crazy little buggers are always fair. They never break the rules. \u2018Course them rules are\u2019t your rules, but still.\u201d<\/p>\n
A loud clamor of falling metal echoed from a corridor behind them.<\/p>\n
\u201cPus and ass hair!\u201d the dwarf swore. \u201cAlright, off I\u2019m goin\u2019. Nice to see your kind again. Good luck.\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cWait. Do people make it through this next wheel or whatever?\u201d<\/p>\n
\u201cHmm. Not sure. It\u2019s possible you don\u2019t. Then again it\u2019s possible you just become unrecognizable.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
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