“No—we only found signs of battle, and soldiers left to guard Innsmouth’s skeleton. They shot at us, and we killed as many as we could. We tracked them far inland, but lost the trail.”
“They took us a long way away, into the desert, and kept us there for a long time. Most died, of illness or dehydration or not being able to go into the water when they changed.” I told him how Neko’s people had come at last to the camp, when it was only the two of us and one old man in the throes of metamorphosis—how they had kept Caleb and me sane, kept us working to survive. How we had gained our freedom at last, alongside the survivors from our newfound family. Out of the corner of my eye, I saw the other elders passing Caleb among them, taking in his scent and touching him to be sure of his existence.
He pulled one of them over, speaking as he did so. “Look, it’s Acolyte Chulzh’th.” To her: “We found your journals at Miskatonic—we need to get them back.”
At her heels came another: slender for an elder, and midnight blue save for a hint of green around the eyes. The webs between his fingers were pierced with emeralds, and he wore an ornately wrought gold necklet.
I pulled away from my grandfather to go properly to one knee. “Archpriest.”
He put his hand on my forehead, the backs of the piercings tiny droplets of ice against his cool skin. I closed my eyes as he prayed. His hand fell away at last and I looked up.
“Aphra Yukhl,” he said. “Have you truly taken dry men as apprentices to learn our ways? What have they done to earn this thing?”
I tried not to bristle; it was a fair question. “Shared their own knowledge, and in Mr. Day’s case books that allowed me to continue my own studies. And done their part to help me preserve wisdom and stories that would otherwise be lost to the land.”
“They’re afraid.”
“You came rushing up with tridents drawn—you wanted them so.”
“True. We did not know who added your blood to a summoning diagram, but we could only assume that they meant to lure us.” He clicked his tongue. “Bring me your students, and your battle-sister.”
I gathered them and they came, hesitantly.
“This is Archpriest Ngalthr. One kneels.” I demonstrated, then added belatedly, “I apologize. Mr. Day has a bad knee.”
“Fragile creatures,” he said in English. “You may sit more carefully, then; we are all mortal.”
He touched our foreheads one at a time, tracing a sigil on each. Neko had calmed since her initial fright, but I could still smell Charlie’s hidden fear. Audrey, by contrast, looked almost drunk on the sight of the archpriest. She tilted her head to take him in, and the tip of his claw drew a pinprick of blood. He lifted it to his lips and licked it clean.
He spoke to Neko first: “You have seen our children through many trials. You understand their nature, and it does not frighten you.”
“No, Ngalthr-sama.” She stumbled over his water name but otherwise spoke clearly. “She and Caleb helped us in the camp, as we helped them. She’s a good sister and daughter to us, and we knew she had other family. It won’t stop us from taking care of each other.”
“And you,” he said to Charlie. “You fear us still.”
He shrugged—bravado, I thought, not indifference. “You’re frightening. And you were scared too, or you wouldn’t have come charging up full force.”
The archpriest looked at him a long moment, nostrils flared, then gestured to Audrey. “Were you afraid, child?”
“No,” she said. “You’re strange and beautiful, and I’ve never seen anything like you before.”
“Charlie,” he told me, “has sense. Even if he is insolent.”
Chulzh’th, who had been standing quietly to the side, spoke up. “Aphra Yukhl would hardly be the only teacher here to prefer students who speak their minds.”
Ignoring this, he continued. “The other one will become lost in some outer realm, if she does not learn fear.”
Before I could craft a response, he turned to Caleb. “Now you will tell me of your work at Miskatonic. Come,” and he drew him away.
Charlie pulled himself awkwardly to his feet. “Is he always so polite? And long-winded?”
I laughed shakily. “One doesn’t look for either of those things from someone of his age and rank. Wisdom, however abrupt, and judgment, however nerve-wracking, are the realm of an archpriest.”
“He didn’t pass any of his instant judgments on you.”
“I brought him my students,” I pointed out. “Everything he said was aimed at me as well as you.” More at me, in fact. Upton had reminded me, uncomfortably, that the elders thought of outsiders in terms of their value to us. To judge my air-born protégés was to judge how I’d used my freedom. At least the archpriest approved provisionally, even of Audrey—else he would have said more.
Audrey interrupted my rumination. “How old is he?”
“I haven’t asked. But I know that he came to the Massachusetts Bay Colony under the boat, not on it.”
Several of the other elders clustered around Trumbull. From their deference and the expression of annoyance on her face, I suspected a request for oracles. Now, having embraced my grandfather and paid my respects to the archpriest, I could pick out faces and forms dimly recognized: some I knew by name, others I merely recalled from ceremonies and meetings and chance encounters. It eased my heart to see, as Caleb put it, how much we had not lost.
Archpriest Ngalthr and Chulzh’th made their way back to us, along with Caleb and our grandfather. The archpriest spoke for them: “Aphra Yukhl, tell me more of this government man who seeks your aid.”
I could have wished to bring the topic up before Caleb mentioned it—but then, Ngalthr was old enough that he wouldn’t simply accept whatever view of a situation he heard first. “Ron Spector serves the state, but he doesn’t share the ignorance that caused the raid. He’d have us as allies.” I paused, collecting my thoughts. “I wouldn’t argue for anything so close, yet, but what he’s doing now should matter to all of us. War is brewing again, and some of the enemy may have learned the arts of body theft at Miskatonic. And there are new weapons, worse than those from the last war we fought in, weapons that can destroy whole cities. The combination could be catastrophic.”
If Innsmouth still stood, the elders would have seen the newsreels: miles of flattened buildings in Nagasaki, where Mama Rei told stories of visiting her cousins. Operation Crossroads, and the cloud rising like a massive alien fungus above splintered test ships. Self-satisfied announcers describing everything in calm tones. I hoped that my inadequate description gave some idea of the danger so viscerally carried by those images.
“His cause seems worth aiding,” said Ngalthr. “Though I see little we can do here. I know of no likely enemy who could have learned such arts from us—but I’ll spread word and find out if anyone does. This Spector, though. You didn’t bring him to meet us. Does he know of our existence?”