Page 65 of Ashes of Gold
CHAPTER EIGHTEEN
THE FOOD THEY GIVEme is a pureed mash of something and a few pieces of lettuce. There’s a hard bit of meat on my tray too, but I’m not touching it. The only reason I’m eating at all is because I’m starting to see double. The table I was given is in the corner of their version of a kostarum. Barbed wire lines thin, ground-level windows along the cavernous ceiling. You’d never know all this was underground without being down here.
Willa sits at one end of the table from me. I told her she could leave, that I remembered the way back to my room, but she just smiled.
I scoop another bite of the mush and swallow it in one lump, trying to avoid really tasting it. The room is packed with people snaking in line to get their food from a buffet-style setup where a lady with pink coiled hair scoops one lump after the other.
The way the line works around the room means every person has to pass by my corner and linger a second before stepping forward to get their tray. Was that intentional? Am I on display? I shove a few leaves in my mouth, and eyes stick to me like sweat. The cafeteria is so silent, I can hear ole dude a few tables away chewing. I don’t know if it’s my presence making it this quiet or this is just how they normally eat.
Everyone has the same scar over where their onyx should have gone. Several older ones look forlorn.
“Children… you need to… agh… get over here,” a man with high-waters and full cheeks shouts. He skirts around my table, chasing kids, and cuts the corner a little too close, bumping into it. My watery mash spills onto my lap.
“Oh, sorry! I didn’t see you there,” he says to me, but his gaze is glued to my arms. “M-my apologies.” He breaks his hypnotic stare in time to grab the collar of a kid darting by. “I should be going, then. Willa, good to see you and, erhm, you too, Maim.”
I shove the tray aside. My stomach isn’t churning anymore so that’s good enough. Willa tosses me a towel and there’s a basin of used trays across the room. I clean myself off and head over. Willa rises from the table too, like my shadow.
“I really can walk over there by myself.”
She nods but doesn’t sit. Something tells me she’ll be following me regardless of what I say. Across the room there are whispers as I pass. So maybe it is me causing so much silence. I hop in line and someone taps my shoulder.
“Hi, there,” he says. “You must not be from around here.” He smiles like his teeth are too big for his mouth. His bushy eyebrows, brown unlike his turquoise hair, slant upward, and his expression is kind. “Joshi.” He sticks out a hand and I eye it.
“Rue.”
“You here to see the witch or something? We don’t really get many magic types here.”
“I’m sorry, what?”Witch?Taavi said they didn’t have—how did she word it?—traditionalmagic here…. I shuffle on my feet. I tookthis lady at her word. She’s hiding shit? I catch Willa eyeing me from afar. I wonder if I can squeeze some truth out of her.
“You said a witch?”
Joshi chuckles nervously, sensing my apparent confusion, wiping his brow. “I mean, er-uhm… uh… the uhm…” He reaches for words in the air, talking with his hands. “Th-the cleanup, yes, the clean station is here, and then if you want to wash your hands, there’s a station over there. Let the spigot run a minute if you can. Gets the nasty gunk out of the water. It’ll come out orange, brown, sometimes green.” He titters. “But a minute will do it good, and it should run nice and clear. Just a little trick I picked up.”
“Uhm. Okay, thanks.” I have half a mind to ask him again about the witch comment, but he’s sweating bullets like he shouldn’t have said anything, so I let it go.
“No problem.” He plants his hands on his hips. His fidgeting settles and his smile grows. “Anything you need, you just let me know, or Stain….” He points to a dude with wide ears and sprigs for hair. This dude is friendly as hell. Talking to me all normal, like I’m not the weird oddball with gold arms, or worse, an enemy with magic.
“We’re the Orientators around here,” he says, his eyes glinting with pride.
Okay, so he’s always friendly like this. It’s odd to be actually welcomed so warmly. I gaze around, and now that I’m really looking, the stares are more curious than judgy. Behind the whispers even are mostly smiles.
“Stain,” he shouts. “New girl,” Joshi shouts, pointing at me as if it’s not obvious. Stain waves, as bubbly as Joshi, and I toss him a chin up.
“Well, thanks for the help,” I say, stepping up to the basin. I set my tray and utensil inside, then turn and come face-to-face with Willa.
“Back to the room, then?” she asks. But I don’t think it’s an actual question. Over my shoulder, Joshi’s waving, and I chuck him deuces. Behind him is a familiar face with a beanie on his head. Grag. His collar is pulled up and his hands are shoved in his pockets. We lock eyes and he waves. He jostles around with a few folks but keeps to himself mainly. He eats alone, then slinks back out the door he came through.
I still don’t know what to make of him. Whether he’s infiltrating the enemy and reporting back here or the other way around. I want to believe him. But is that because his story was actually believable or because I let him go? Lying to myself serves no one. Keeping my eyes on him.
The rest of the Macazi buzz around, tidying and organizing. A whole world in motion. With the food line so long, Willa leads me around the perimeter to depart. Some of those we pass sharpen blades, fashioning metal to sticks, forging armor out of dried hide and thin sheets of lead. We pass an assembly line of people working on a giant boulder, hollowing it out with sharp tools. A man with sun-scorched Gray skin sets a stack of first-aid supplies inside the rock’s hollowed center before handing it to a crew on his right. The crew bolts the bottom with planks of wood and they set it beside a stack of twenty or more others before grabbing another. The rocks would blend right in with landscaping. No one would know there’s first-aid supplies inside. Smart.
I guess that’s how they help whoever they’re sending out thereto fight against the Chancellor, people like Grag. Their operation is well organized. The toppled statues, burned buildings, the evidence that someone is giving the Chancellor a run for his money, is all here. I’d suspected it was them, but to see how intricately organized and prepared they are up close is something else.
Taavi’s got a job on her hands down here. They’re an entire world living under the Chancellor’s nose. He killed Totsi. If he knew the Macazi were down here, even minding their own business, no doubt he’d kill them, too.
Willa moves faster down the dank corridor than I’d think even possible on her frail legs, and I hustle to catch up. The walk is short from my room to the kostarum. I crane for some semblance of how to get out of here, but the pathway just curves up ahead with no sign or indication where it leads. I wonder if Bri and Zora are down that way.
“Excuse me, can you tell me where my friends are?” I ask.
