Nail - A Short Story by Kell Inkston Page B

be kept cooped up until this elder arrives?”
    The woman stretches her wrinkles in the
form of a contemplative frown and gets up. “Let me find out.” The
lady leaves for a half minute, affording Ralic enough time to fire
an obvious glare out the window. Just as the gazes from outside
shift away, Ralic can hear the woman’s slow, light footsteps
returning her to the room. “There should be no problem so long as
you’re escorted. The men said you weren’t troublesome at
all.”
    Ralic smiles, not sure if her words are
meant to be a compliment or an insult. “Yeah, alright. Thank
you!”
    “ Of course, spirit.” She
opens the door wider to allow passage.
    Ralic puts aside his bowl and starts up
with a smile, certain he’ll make the village of people see it his
way. As the very same red-bearded man from before steps up from
outside to follow him, Ralic jolts in awe.
    He, and the village itself, is all
within an underground complex. Wood from the outside is used to
build warm, cozy ramshacklings that stack upon each other and are
connected by various boardwalks and platform lifts. He spots a
thin, metallic aqueduct network that funnels oil into at least a
hundred lanterns overhead drop by drop.
    “ Name’s Zell’Ahn; I’m the
head of the tunnel guard and the fifteenth Zell— the hero of the
village, tasked with ensuring that all production is efficient in
both speed and cost. So don’t cause us any trouble, spirit— we can
kill you any time if you make trouble.”
    Ralic’s gaze is still pointed upwards.
“Wow.”
    Zell draws back in a humored interest.
“What’s the matter, spirit?”
    “ This isn’t like Qetaine at
all. Do you live down here all the time?”
    Zell nods. “We get along well here— we
have all of the spirit lumber that we require for construction
along with any other things we needed from your little world.
Mushrooms and such don’t need much light, so that’s the big part of
our diet along with some bugs and a kind of cave fish. What would
you tell me your home is like, spirit?” He asks, looking over Ralic
carefully and noting his strange clothing and peculiar tied-up
hair.
    “ Well,” Ralic looks down to
marvel at the rest of the town. “It’s above ground, first of all.
We cut down trees to build houses and write often.”
    Zell squints. “Write?”
    Ralic pauses in surprise. “You know,
jotting things down?” Zell’s squinting intensifies as if in a
complete lack of understanding. “Uh…” Ralic makes a handwriting
gesture. “Like, saving knowledge, you know?”
    Zell scowls in disgust.
“ Saving knowledge?”
    Ralic looks about.
“Uh… yeah? ”
    “ How, and for what reason
would you do that, Spirit?” Zell asks, a brow raised as if he’s
spotting a bevy of flaws in Ralic’s reasoning.
    “ To preserve knowledge for
the generations to come. Don’t you think a society would be in
danger if the new comers weren’t taught how to live within
it?”
    Zell draws back with a
hearty laugh. “New generations bring nothing but ignorance, spirit—
that’s something we both know. They’ll just question everything and try to
bring about their precious ‘change’ to delude the values of our
already perfect society. I don’t understand how one would preserve
knowledge, but it sounds like a fantasy. We do have some children, but they
are few— as we only need enough to ensure the next generation.
Every year, we must assure that the foolish young are outnumbered
by their wise elders. They’ll become wise one day, and then they’ll
be the elder ones. Make sense?”
    Ralic hums. “You don’t think that more
people would bring more ways of thinking?”
    Zell scoffs. “It would—
and that is the
danger of it, of course.”
    “ Because new ideas are
dangerous?” Ralic says as a sickly man passes by.
    Zell nods. “Precisely; you learn quick,
spirit.”
    “ Well, I am open to new
ideas.”
    Zell looks to Ralic with a disgusted
grimace across most of his face—