Heyna's Tale - Chapter One Revised (cont.)
The Jungle
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 elevated 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, the Plesh family. 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 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.
Heyna took her multi tool and flipped out the stripper. She used it to remove the bark from the tree in front of her. One of the engineer designers had already marked the places on the tree that she needed to work on. She stripped the bark, dropping it into a net for later use. Then she took out a brush and dipped it into the bucket of shaping gel. She was careful to apply it in just the right place so that the tree would grow in the correct direction.
Her job was to treat the tree trunks with shaping gel, so they would grow into graceful living arches, arbors, and every type of building that the Quetzalcoatl Oligarchy required. Quetz would never live in a dead structure as Heyna's ancestors had.
In a couple of years, this tree would be the structural support for a major home or municipal building. They hadn’t told her which. She’d ignored the diagrams that were posted on the crew platform. She wasn’t big on reading. That’s why she’d gotten such lousy grades in school. Maybe this job would make up for that.
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, props, pulleys and pins to coax the trees to grow into fantastical, but useful, shapes. She could hear their mallets rapping and echoing in the steaming dark. Dead branches got cut away, but the Erda sometimes saved 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 can pay 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. It only illuminated a tiny patch of the tree she was shaping. It was so humid that her glasses kept fogging over.
Even though this project was expected to take years, 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 very small towns, but with the Erda came the techniques and methods to make 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, technically River Clan, though rivers had very little to do with Heyna’s daily life. Somehow, Heyna couldn’t remember the history, through a relationship of thousands of years, the two races had formed a complex cultural and symbiotic bond. The Quetz are the employers and pay well, but the Erda are servants and are not seen as equals. This always bugged Heyna. She often wondered why the Erda got the shitty end of the stick in this arrangement.
She waggled her tail, trying fan herself and 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 muttered, 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.
"Ow!" Something bit her. 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! She wanted to be AboveDark where they are not such 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 multi-tool, 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, kit? 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. “I feel like I’m 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 breath came easier.
“This is what it must feel like to fly,” she mumbled. She passed out and the blackness was complete.