Ykka absorbs this in silence for a few moments. Obviously whatever Tonkee’s done isn’t so urgent or terrible. Then she turns and begins climbing again, apparently deciding that the rest break is over. You and Hjarka sigh and follow.
“I think the people who originally built this place didn’t think it through,” Ykka says as the climb resumes. “Too inefficient. Too dependent on machinery that can break down or rust out. And orogeny as a power source, which is basically the least-reliable thing ever. But then sometimes I wonder if maybe they didn’t intend to build it this way. Maybe something drove them underground fast, and they found a giant geode and just made the best of what they had.” She runs a hand along a railing as you walk. This is one of the original metal structures that have been built throughout the geode. Above the inhabited levels, it’s all old metalwork. “Always makes me think they really must have been the ancestors of Castrima. They respected hard work and adapting under pressure, like us.”
“Doesn’t everyone?” Except Tonkee.
“Some.” She doesn’t take the obvious bait. “I outed myself to everyone when I was fifteen. There was a forest fire somewhere to the south; drought season. The smoke alone was killing the older people and babies in the comm. We thought we’d have to leave. Finally I went to the edge of the fire, where a bunch of the other townsfolk were trying to create a firebreak. Six of them died doing that.” She shakes her head. “Wouldn’t have worked. The fire was too big. But that’s my people, for you.”
You nod. It does sound like the Castrimans you’ve gotten to know. It also sounds like the Tirimo-folk you’ve gotten to know, and the Meovites, and the Allians, and the Yumenescenes. No people in the Stillness would have survived to this point if they weren’t fearsomely tenacious. But Ykka needs to think of Castrima as special—and it is special, in its own strange ways. So you wisely keep your mouth shut.
She says, “I stopped the fire. Iced the burning part of the forest and used that to make a ridge farther south as a windbreak in case anything set off a new blaze. Everyone saw me do it. They knew exactly what I was then.”
You stop walking and stare at her. She turns back, half smiling. “I told them I’d go, if they wanted to call the Guardians and have me shipped off to the Fulcrum. Or if they wanted to just string me up, I promised not to ice anyone. Instead, they argued about the whole mess for three days. I thought they were trying to decide how to kill me.” She shrugs. “So I went home, had dinner with my parents—they both knew, and they were terrified for me, but I talked them down from smuggling me out of town in a horse cart. Went to creche the next day, same as always. At the end of it, I found out the townsfolk had been arguing about how to get me trained. Without letting the Fulcrum on, see.”
Your mouth falls open. You’ve seen Ykka’s parents, who are still hale and strong and with an air of Sanzed stubbornness about them. You can believe it of them. But everyone else, too? All right. Maybe Castrima is special.
Hjarka says, “Huh. How did you get trained, then?”
“Eh, you know what these little Midlatter comms are like. They were still arguing about it when the Rifting happened. I trained my damn self.” She laughs, and Hjarka sighs. “That’s my people, too. Complete rust-heads, but good people.”
You think, against your will, If only I had brought Uche and Nassun here as soon as they were born.
“Not all of your people like having us here,” you blurt, almost as a rebuttal to your own thought.
“Yeah, I’ve heard the chatter. Which is why I’m glad you’re training the kids, and that everyone saw you get the boilbugs off Terteis.” She sobers. “Poor Terteis. But you proved again that it’s better to have people like us around than to kill us or drive us out. Castrimans are practical people, Essie.” You hate this nickname immediately. “Too practical to just do something because everybody else says do it.”
With that, she resumes the climb. After a moment, you and Hjarka do, too.
You’ve gotten used to the unrelenting whiteness of Castrima; only a few of the building-crystals have touches of amethyst or smoky quartz about them. Here, though, the ceiling of the geode has been sealed off with a smooth, glasslike substance that is deep emeraldine green in color. The color is a bit of a shock. The final stairway that leads up into this is wide enough for five people to climb abreast, so you’re unsurprised to find two of Castrima’s Strongbacks flanking what looks like a sliding attic door made of the same green substance. One of the Strongbacks has a small wireglass utility knife in her hand; the other just has his big folded arms.
“Still nothing,” says the male Strongback as the three of you arrive. “We keep hearing sounds from inside—clicking, buzzing, and sometimes she yells things. But the door’s still jammed.”
“Yells things?” asks Hjarka.
He shrugs. “Like, ‘I knew it’ and ‘that’s why.’”
Sounds like Tonkee. “How does she have the door rigged?” you ask. The female Strongback shrugs. It’s a stereotype that Strongbacks are all muscle and no brain, but a few of them fit that description more than they should.
Ykka gives you another This is your fault look. You shake your head, then climb up to the top step and bang on the door. “Tonkee, rust it, open up.”
There’s a moment of silence, and then you hear a faint clatter. “Fuck, it’s you,” Tonkee mutters, from somewhere farther away than the door. “Hang on and don’t ice anything.”
A moment later there’s the sound of something rattling against the door material. Then the door slides open. You, Ykka, Hjarka, and the Strongbacks climb up—though all of you except Ykka stop and stare, so it’s left to her to fold her arms and give Tonkee the exasperated glare she’s earned.
The ceiling is hollow above the door. The green substance forms a floor, and the resulting chamber is molded around the usual white crystals that jut down from the geode’s rocky, grayish-green true ceiling, perhaps fifteen feet overhead. What makes you stop, your mouth falling open and your mind stuttering from annoyance into silence, is that the crystals on this side of the green barrier flicker and blink, transitioning at random from shimmering images of crystals into solidity, and back again. The shafts and tips of these crystals, which poke through the floor, weren’t doing this outside. None of the other crystals in Castrima do this. Aside from glowing—which, granted, is a warning that they aren’t just rocks—the crystals of Castrima are no different from any other quartz. Here, though… you suddenly understand what Alabaster meant about what Castrima is capable of. The truth of Castrima is suddenly, terrifyingly clear: The geode is filled with not crystals, but potential obelisks.
“Flaking rust,” one of the Strongbacks breathes. This speaks for you as well.
Tonkee’s junk is everywhere in the room: weird tools and slates and scraps of leather covered in diagrams, and a pallet in the corner that explains why she hasn’t been sleeping in the apartment much lately. (It’s been lonely without her and Hoa, but you don’t like admitting this to yourself.) She’s walking away from you now, glaring over her shoulder and looking distinctly irritated that you’ve arrived. “Don’t rusting touch anything,” she says. “No telling what an orogene of your caliber will do to this stuff.”
Ykka rolls her eyes. “You’re the one who shouldn’t be touching anything. You’re not allowed in here and you know it. Come on.”