From the street, the small building, beige and wooden and spackled, seemed out of place. It stood only slightly taller than Zallus himself, and was firmly rooted into the ground, casting a late-afternoon shadow on the dry, unkempt lawn. There was no path to the door but that worn into the ground by the few travelers the structure received. On either side, black, featureless towers loomed, inscrutable neighbors floating silent, but in front, past the thin, foot-tall white wire fencing, up the cracked cement steps and onto the porch bearing its unfinished wooden teeth to any that would dare take off their shoes, Zallus felt at home.
Out the door flowed a thick, warm atmosphere, a reminder of days watching dust-speckled sunbeams alight upon furniture in still rooms. Zackley was the first to go inside, banging his shoes off on the steps and then hollering inward. A single voice responded that Zallus was halfway-certain was male. Tope followed inward, saying something else to the voice, and then turned down the short hallway, disappearing from view and leaving Zallus alone at the threshold.
Zallus slipped off his own shoes, noticing them quite clean—almost polisted, if such a material allowed for it—set them down gently on the stoop, and stepped into the hallway. The floors were barely flat, rough timber, but with a steady trail of thick and dusty carpeting trailing his friends around the bend. Zallus stepped carefully around raised splinters and clods of loosened dirt lodged into the thick matting, stepping past the corner and seeing the hall descend, first at a seeming accidental start, and then becoming numerous thin steps of dirt dug into the wall at an ingreasingly acute angle, almost virtical near the floor below. He turned around and descended feet-first, noticing that the dust-laden walls now bore a number of strange trinkets, with no obvious similarity between any of them.
Voices were growing strongger and the air cooler as Zallus descended. At the bottom the dirt became floor again, this time smooth, black and clean cement. The room was chilly, somewhat like a cellar with roots criscrossing the walls, but it was warmly decorated, and as Zallus turned numerous shelves stuffed with further knick-knacks small and large filled his view. There were two small windows on one wall, near the roof, that let in the bright thread of noonday sun from outside. Burrowed into another wall were two halls, more circular holes than archetected works, that led into the darkness too far to see; presumably there were several more rooms. Finally, in the center of this hollow of dirt and rock, there were two small couches: one, austere and perhaps leather, the other green, fuzzy and stained; surrounding them were five or six empty chairs in disarray, and between them sat a large, square, thatched-wood table, on which lay numerous papers, charts and an interesting map that looked to have been pieced together from a hundred different places. Zackley, sitting on the arm of the mouldier couch, was pointing at the seam where two sections of the map overlapped. Sitting slouched back in the couch beside him was Tope, and across from them sat soemone else, a sunburnt, tall fellow with brown hair and a slight beard. He seemed to be annoyed.
Zallu came up behind the bearded man and listened to him talk for a few moments. He sounded angry, insistent, and even without being able to understand him, he seemed able to be a rather irritating person to talk with. Zackley's face certainly reflected that, and he looked quite relieved to see Zallus standing there staring back at him.
"Zallus, this is Side. Pearl named him that, she said, for a good reason
" Zackley intoned, motioning at the same time to sway Side's focus away from the map.
Side looked up for a moment, then, struggling to move his lips together in the hight way, managed to squeak out a mangy hello,
before diverting his attention back to the map.
Don't worry about him,
Zackley said pensively, that's hall he knows how to say. He doesn't like Pearl a lot, so they just ignore one another. This is Side's house, by the way, and it's also the Adventurer's Guild headquarters. Side's our reluctant leader.
Zackley repeated himself to Side, who nodded and grimaced, then launched back into the argument he and Zackley were having before. Zackley ignored him and invited Zallus to sit down. Then, pointing at the map, he said "This map and this map, Mr. Zallus, have a difference. They are both modern, traced from satellite pictures, but this lake is here on this map—" Zaclkey layed the second map on top of the first, —and over here on this one. This means, likely, that a government on one of Equus' contributer worlds wanted to hide something from its own people.
Like what?
Zallus said, sitting on the couch's arm and staring intently at the map.
Like treasure. We do not know truly what is there, Mr. Zallus, but that is what we do, for that is what we are: adventurers. This map, until the U.G. surveys their new world, is the unknown—and we plan to know it.
Side shot a brief glance at Zackley, which caused a drop in his voice and a shift of his hands to a writhing position behind his head. Side thinks,
Zackley muttered, that this particular mystery is better left untouched. This land, on which this lake sits, was part of a relatively modern world who could have defended itself from the U.G., had they not needed its alliances with its more primitive neighbours. Also, given that lakes are a good place to dispose of the friends of modern society—such as nuclear waste—treasure might not be the only thing we will find.
And although I do not wish to,
Zackley said, sighing, I believe I have convinced myself to agree with him.
Zackley acknowledged—and squeaked a copy of his admission to—Side, whose face lit up for only a moment before a look of deep concentration overtook him. Flipping through the papers on the table he alternated opaning and closing his mouth, saying nothing, for an appreciable moment before he looked up, resolved, and replied to Zackley. Zackley's face contorted in frustration.
He always does this. Side will argue, fierce and unending, for what seems at first the most unreasonable and idiotic things, things that it is obvious he does not believe. Once he's got you convinced, though, he will switch completely around and agrue just as fiercely to un-convince you. He says it makes his mind stronger, but I think he takes joy from seeing people unable to argue with stupid ideas. Mr. Zallus, he once had me convinced for a week that this world was round, not flat, and that the view from the underside was a very precise simulation of the stars below, projected within the planet's core! No, Mr. Zallus, I do not think Side is my friend.
Zallus looked over at side to see him listening intently, likely trying to grasp their conversation by emotional and physical cues alone. When he noticed Zallus' curious eyes upon him, he shot his glance back down to the maps and returned to grumbling. Zallus wished he could speak to Side without Zackley's mediation.
So what did Side so deviously say?
Zallus […]
[…]
I hate to interrupt, Zackley, but what,
Zallus asked, does this have to do with me?
Well, you said you wanted to meet Pearl, Mr. Zallus.
Zackley replied.
Okay; what does this have to do with Pearl, then?
She's already convinced that there's something down there, on this missing lake. Whether or not Side thinks it's a good idea, she's already going.
Zallus looked up and smiled. And so we're going to be there.
This is a horrible plan,
Side said, looking straight at Zallus.
Didn't you just tru to say we should?
Zallus said, then snapped his glance up and furrowed his eyebrows. Wait, did you just—speak?
He can; he just doesn't enjoy doing it,
Zackley said, quietly and flatly.
Well.
Zallus stared at Side, who ignored him and went back to reviewing the maps. I can see why you two get along so well. He lets you talk; you let him disagree.
Zackley laughed. I wouldn't say we get along… but anyhow. Side isn't coming with us; he already has his own lead to go on. Mr. Zallus, you and I shall start toward the lake now, if you do not object.
Actually, Zackley,
Zallus smirked sheepishly, can we eat first?
Zallus dropped the five banana peels back into the bag and collapsed it.
Won't they rot?
Zallus asked.
No—think about it, Mr. Zallus,
Zackley replied in a condesending tone, do the bananas?
Why don't the bananas rot, then?
Zallus asked again, now incensed.
It's hard for me to explain it with the words I know; there are many specialized terms involved that I do not know English equivalents for. Can't you be happy knowing it works?
That's a surprising attitude for an inventor to take.
Well, that's the attitude I'm used to dealing with. If you really want me to, I can use placeholder words, and you can give me the right ones once you figure out which ones they are from how I'm using them.
Sure, let's do that. It's going to be quite a long walk to that lake, as far as I could tell from the maps, so it's good to have a backup conversation topic.
You're right that it'll take a while—but we're not walking.
Oh? I haven't seen anything like roads or rails since I-
Zallus remembered the gap of air below all the Euuan buildings.
We're flying there, aren't we?