Heyna's Tale - Chapter One
The Jungle
As Heyna was hauled AboveDark, her last thought before passing out was, “This is what it must feel like to fly.”
*
In her dream, the dream that she always dreamed, Paititi city sways gently, seeming to float over the canopy of the rain forest. Water droplets refract the two suns of Full Day into a rainbow, dressing the city in a gown of twinkling jewels.
Quetzalcoatl, their plumage and finery shaded by Erda servants holding umbrellas, throng platforms to take in the sight. The feathered serpent birds bathe in the kaleidoscopic rays cast in all directions. They gasp and flutter in pleasure. Heyna hears a Quetz say, “Beauty is what civilization is for,” and all around there are squawks of assent.
Heyna is on one of the platforms near her parents, refusing to hold their hands. Her parents are holding umbrellas which shade their employers. She ducks down between the slats of the protective fence and peers down into the gloom where the light cannot reach, down into the BelowLight. Quetz chicks are all around her. They dance right up to the edge, and giggle and play at falling. On another of the platforms a Quetz snaps, “Hold that umbrella higher, servant! If my ornamentation fades, I’ll have you stripping bark BelowLight.”
Xico, a Quetzalcoatl, and her best friend, is there. Someone steps on her tail and Heyna watches Xico slip and fall, squawking in terror. The huge trees that hold Paititi up to the suns fade into blackness as her best friend falls the hundreds of feet to the forest floor that she never reaches. Out of the blackness she hears Xico scream her name over and over. Heyna! Heyna!
That is when she always wakes up.
*
Heyna’s team of Erdas works with clever claws, salves and ointments to shape the trees into the living structures of this city in the sky. Not for the first time, Heyna marveled at the height of the trees and density of the canopy that keeps light from ever reaching the ground.
Here in the constant darkness BelowLight, it was so hot that Heyna found it hard to breathe. She knew that it was here that the city grows. She knew how important this task is. But her harness chafed her fur, and the jungle seemed to squeeze her.
The rest of her team was somewhere off to her left, stripping bark, applying shaping gel. “It’s made from Quetz spit,” her brother had said trying to gross her out. The engineers swung among the trunks and branches using wedges, pulleys and pins to pressure the trees to grow into fantastical shapes. She could hear their mallets rapping and echoing in the steaming dark. Dead branches got cut away. But the Erda sometimes take the largest ones to create elaborate carvings, an art at which the Erda excel, particularly her brother Jaasi. Art is what the Quetz live for, so a little extra work pays a big bonus.
Hanging hundreds of feet above the forest floor, Heyna struggled to stay focused. It was so dark this far beneath the canopy that the work light strapped to her head seemed squeezed too, only illuminating a tiny patch of the tree she was shaping. It was so humid that her glasses kept fogging over.
She was doing support work for the structures above, some kind of government building, she heard. Her job was to treat the tree trunks with shaping gel, so they would grow into graceful living arches. Quetz would never live in a dead structure as Heyna's ancestors had.
This project was expected to take years, but the Quetz trust the Erda, who are expert builders, craftspeople and managers. They have the skills to track the complex tasks across the weeks and months and years that are required to complete such structures. Long ago the Quetzalcoatl had done this task themselves, forming only small towns, but with the Erda came and the techniques and methods had taken a major leap. It was the Erda, as much as the Quetz that made the empire possible.
Heyna’s people are not native to Tototlan, but through a relationship of thousands of years, the two races had formed a complex cultural bond. The Quetz are the employers and pay well, but the Erda are servants and are not seen as equals. This had always bugged Heyna. “How come we have to be the servants,” she often wondered.
She waggled her tail, trying to cool her body down a bit, but the air was too moist and still. Heyna tried to catch her breath. She was angry with herself. “Why did I take this stupid job? I'm no builder,” she thought, not for the first time. She already missed housework, which was drudgery, but at least there were usually breezes higher up in the canopy. Working for the Plesh family was boring, but she got to see her best friend Xico every day. She got to play after work.
Polishing wood was way easier than shaping it. And the scents AboveLight! So many and so salty and sweet and spicy and like nothing here down below. BelowLight smelled like death and decay and shit, so much shit.
"That's just rebirth," Xico was fond of saying. Right! It still smelled like something to escape.
Heyna’s mind wandered as she brushed the shaping gel with her favorite brush. She remembered her last conversation with Xico. Was that only a month ago?
“You are going to do what?” Xico asked.
“I’m going into construction.”
“But, Heyna!”
“Jaasi says I can make twice as much as I do in domestic service.”
“And ten times as dangerous! You’ve never even been BelowLight! And you’re not even sixteen!” Xico’s eyes were wide and her voice was squawky and tight.
“Sixteen in six days! This job is the best I can do without higher education.”
“And,” Xico went on without a breath, “we wouldn’t see each other nearly as often with you living with the shaping crews.”
“Yes…” Heyna was sad about that. “I will miss you, but I’ll visit whenever I can.” Heyna gently combed Xico’s feathers with her claws. Xico wrapped her long body around Heyna.
“Oh, Heyna.”
“It’s just that I don’t want to end up like my parents, serving one family all my life. Or worse, hopping from one to another.” Heyna wiped her glasses. “I mean… Not that I haven’t enjoyed being with your family. I just mean…”
“I understand.” Xico looked out at the jungle just beyond the window trellis. The blooming corla flowers with their crimson petals trembled in the breeze.
“Look. We grew up together, you, me, and Jaz. I’m not leaving you, I’m just taking another job. I want something more than scrubbing out poop arbors. I want to travel beyond the jungle someday. I want to sail on a ship, maybe see Beoford.”
“The Erda city? That’s on another continent. No! I’ll get my parents to pay you more. You won’t have to work down there. You’ll be able to stay.” Xico gabbled very quickly.
“That wouldn’t be fair. I don’t want to put you in that position with your parents. And… I don’t want to be a servant my whole life.”
“You’re not my servant! You’re my best friend! I don’t care how other people see you. You are my equal.” Heyna looked down. Dappled sunlight spilled through the branches of the arbor and flashed on Xico’s claws.
“Other people…” said Heyna.
“Oh, you! You know what I mean! We’re equals.”
“It’s not only that. As beautiful as Paititi is, I want to see more of the world.”
“We’ll all go together.” Heyna’s brother Jaasi was there at the door, butting in. “Your mom won’t say no.” Jaz was smirking. “Sure. She’ll let her little princess sail the seas with Erda, Dragons and Gryphons, and the occasional Quetz.”
“If it isn’t the construction worker,” Xico said. “It’s your fault that Heyna is going down there! Tell her how dangerous it is.” Xico squinted in anger.
“It’s time. Heyna’s almost of age. If she ever wants to do anything other than clean bird shite off the floor…”
“Jaasi!” Heyna shouted.
“What? That’s what mom and dad have done their whole life, isn’t it? That’s not what you aspire to, eh?” Jaz chuckled. “Look, baby sister, if you ever want to see the world, the con crew is your only shot.”
“You know what, Jaz? Take your advice and tell it walking away,” Xico said. “I’m talking to my friend.”
“As you wish, your majesty,” said Jaz kowtowing out of the room.
“Your brother is a thorny nut bush.”
“No argument here.”
“Please, let me talk to my parents.”
“No.” Heyna said firmly. “It wouldn’t be right. I’ve got to do this on my own.”
“Well, in that case, no more work today! Let’s go for swim.”
“Let’s do.”
Claws scrabbling and wings flapping, they headed for the bathing arbor.
"Ow!" Something bit her and snapped her back to the present. By the acuteness of the pain, she knew it was a large-eyed greenbody fly.
"Cursed insects!" She was covered in bug repellent, but they still managed to bite her. By the Trees! She hated bugs. The Quetz ate the insects, but the bugs ate her and her fellow Erda. “Spent my whole life here, she thought, and if I live to be a toothless ancient, I will never get used to these filthy bugs, ugh! They are not a problem up in the high canopy, but down here they are a menace. “Ouch!” She was bitten again and slapped her side hard, smearing guts across her fur.
Why had she let her brother talk her into this filthy job? It's a massive project, he said. It's a great opportunity, he said. Job security, he said. More money for the family, he said.
All the money in the world wasn't worth… this. She reached for the trunk of the mammoth tree, and almost dropped her trowel, but as she bobbled it, her favorite brush flew out of her mouth and disappeared into the blackness below.
"Damn!"
A light swung out of the dark towards her, and Shooka, the crew Foreman, came to a stop beside her. Shooka hung by a harness that could traverse the work area from side to side.
"How are you doing, youngster? Smooth that trunk down yet?" The older Erda lifted her glasses and shined her light on the massive tree trunk, nose almost touching it. "Coming along. Just make sure you don't get any leaves mixed in the shaper gel before you apply it." Shooka pointed. "See there?"
"I..." Heyna felt faint, and thought she was going to pass out.
"You okay?" Shooka looked her in the face and gasped. "You ain't been drinking your water!” Shooka’s nose wrinkled. “And, ugh… When was the last time you groomed?”
"I..." Heyna could barely speak. "The jungle..."
"Whoa!” Shooka peered into Heyna’s eyes. Her hackles went up. She grabbed Heyna below her jaw and felt her pulse. She stuck a thermometer into her mouth and after a minute gasped. She grabbed the water bottle at her side and poured it over Heyna. It was ice water, and Heyna squeaked and shook. “We have to get you out of here, now!” Shooka grabbed a phone handset from her belt and yelled into the line. “Shooka here. Shooka here! Need immediate evacuation. Number twenty-two. Yes, Heyna! Right!” She hung the handset back on her belt and looked up into the darkness. She snapped another line onto Heyna’s harness and bellowed, “On belay! Haul away!”
Heyna slumped in her harness and felt herself being hoisted. She looked up into the blackness as she gently swayed back and forth. Pinpricks of light gradually appeared and grew and grew into daylight. In the cooler air, her breaths came easier.
“This is what it must feel like to fly,” she thought. She passed out. Then the blackness was complete.