Chapter 12: Darkwater

They followed the passage for a long time, but with the same black metal walls and blue-green tracks of light all around them, neither man could tell how far they had gone.

Gunsmith grew increasingly uneasy. He felt neither tired nor hungry, and his strength showed no sign of waning, as though he could keep walking like this forever. At one point he even wondered whether his metabolism had stopped altogether and he had become a walking corpse, but his breathing and heartbeat were still normal. Those were signs that he was still alive.

Only when the end of the passage came into sight did Gunsmith's spirits begin to lift.

There was another black metal wall at the end, but this one bore a handprint-shaped symbol.

John, who was walking in front, stopped and turned back. “Only one symbol. Looks like we have no choice.”

“Then press it,” Gunsmith replied.

A dozen seconds later, after a brilliant blue-green light had flared and faded, the two men found themselves in a vast chamber, easily the size of a soccer field, with a very high ceiling. The upper half of the chamber formed a semicircle, while the floor was flat. Blue-green tracks of light on the floor traced mountains and rivers. Overhead, the lights formed mostly writing, along with two conspicuous images that appeared to represent the sun and moon.

Gunsmith could not help admiring the magnificent sight. Presumably, the builders of these ruins had created a miniature world as they imagined it. But after a moment's thought, something struck him as odd. Could a mysterious prehistoric civilization with technology like this have known only of round heavens and a square earth?

John walked to the middle of the chamber, stared at the center of this “earth,” and beckoned to Gunsmith. “Hey! Charles, look, there's a handprint symbol here. This is the first time we've seen two prints side by side.”

Gunsmith went over to John and looked down. Within two seconds, he understood the mark. “Two symmetrical palm prints, thumbs pointing inward. That small oval above them is a forehead print. Someone probably has to put both hands on the floor and touch their forehead to it to activate the thing. Of course, judging by the size, it's still meant for that black creature's child-sized body.”

“Shall we try it?” John said. “Maybe this is the way out.”

Gunsmith stepped back a few paces and made a “be my guest” gesture.

John sat on the floor and leaned forward, pressing his hands onto the pair of handprint symbols before lowering his head. The instant his forehead touched the floor, they heard large pieces of metal scraping into motion instead of seeing the brilliant light they had expected.

An enormous sculpture of a human head, more than twenty feet tall, slowly rose from beneath the floor two meters directly in front of John. At that moment, he looked as though he were bowing down in worship before it.

“Okay, what's this now? A metal replica of an Easter Island statue?” John stood and looked up at the sculpture before him.

Gunsmith studied its features. Broadly speaking, it was a human face, though it differed somewhat from that of a modern human. The brow ridge and bridge of the nose projected far forward, but in profile they formed a smooth vertical line, so the nose did not appear to jut out. The eye sockets were very narrow, with the eyes almost sunken into the face, although the eyeballs themselves were fairly normal in proportion. There was no philtrum beneath the nose, and nothing unusual about the chin or mouth. The ears were somewhat peculiar. Compared with those of people today, they were set slightly higher and were more elongated.

Once the sculpture had fully emerged, its huge mouth opened. Gunsmith moved closer and saw that it had neither tongue nor teeth. Had its maker simply not bothered to carve them? He leaned in for a closer look and saw an irregularly shaped blue-green crystal giving off a faint glow.

John reached in, picked it up, and held it before his eyes to examine it. “I don't know what this thing is, but I have a feeling that if we can get it out of here, it'll fetch a good price.”

“Let me see,” Gunsmith said.

John handed him the crystal. Gunsmith glanced at it and immediately said, “Next, were you going to tell me this crystal might help us get out of this damned place?”

John paused in surprise. “What are you talking about?”

Gunsmith went on, “Oh? Do you have some other plan? Were you going to take me on another tour of the ruins? I wouldn't bother. The moment I saw this thing, I understood what you'd been after all along…”

John's expression suddenly changed. Or rather, all expression suddenly left his face. “When did you see through me?”

“I became completely certain… in that passage,” Gunsmith said.

“Was I too brave, leading the way?” the other asked.

Gunsmith shook his head. “No. Your imitation was flawless. Every reaction, every guess, every expression suited John's personality. There were no obvious signs of lying, either. From your behavior, I could never have suspected you weren't John himself.”

“Then?” the false John asked. “How did you figure it out in the end?”

“From the things you didn't show, of course,” Gunsmith replied. “Hunger and fatigue. I haven't felt either for a long time…

“You've been in the same conditions as me. At least since I woke up, neither of us has eaten, drunk, or slept. After everything we've been through, the real John would either be exhausted or surprised by this strange inability to tire. But you showed no reaction, said nothing. When I first woke up, you even mentioned being trapped here until we died without food or water. After that, you completely ignored our bodily needs, as though that were perfectly natural. That was very strange.”

“I see,” the false John said. “That was indeed an oversight. At first, I had no idea what hunger and fatigue felt like. Only after absorbing this man called John did I acquire some general information from his memories. Unfortunately, there is quite a gap between memories in a human brain and actual sensations.”

“Absorbing…” Gunsmith said. “So John is dead after all?”

“Yes. After you crossed that river and entered the ruins, I absorbed him, brought you farther inside while you were unconscious, and then assumed John's appearance.” He actually volunteered an explanation, as though John's death had nothing to do with him.

Gunsmith looked at him with disgust. “What exactly are you?”

“In language you can understand, you may call me ‘Darkwater,’” Darkwater replied.

The moment he heard that introduction, Gunsmith understood. The impostor standing before him was undoubtedly the black creature they had encountered earlier, in disguise. “Is that your name, or the name of your entire species?”

“There is no difference,” Darkwater said. “My species has died out. I am the only one of my kind in this world.”

Gunsmith sneered. “Apart from the first mechanism, which I triggered, you pressed every handprint after that. You led me all the way here, then pretended to ‘discover’ the symbol that activated the sculpture in the middle of the chamber. Was this what you wanted all along?” He raised the blue-green crystal in his hand.

“Yes. I need your ability, Alchemy.” Darkwater remained perfectly candid.

“Then… can I take it that this ‘absorption’ of yours lets you acquire knowledge from a creature's memories and imitate its appearance, but doesn't give you its abilities? At least, not all of them.” Gunsmith looked at Darkwater. “Even if you look like John now, underneath you're still a black monster.”

Darkwater showed little reaction to being called a monster. He simply replied, “Yes. That is why I saved you instead of absorbing you. I need your Alchemy to repair the ‘Eternal Core.’”

Gunsmith reckoned that this fellow was probably a creature without emotions. At the very least, his emotional responses were nowhere near as sensitive as those of modern humans. He would only do what he “needed” to do, never questioning whether it was right, because he had no concept of “right and wrong” in the first place, let alone the traditional moral values of human society.

“What if I refuse to help you?” Gunsmith asked. He wasn't afraid to ask. An emotionless creature, after all, would neither get angry nor lie.

Darkwater was indeed like that, but his unvarnished answer sounded very much like a threat. “I will torture you until you agree to repair the Eternal Core, taking care to preserve your life and your supernatural ability.”

“May I ask how your esteemed self arrived at such a clever idea…” Gunsmith said.

Darkwater said, “I belong to a species far superior to yours. Naturally, I understand how to achieve my aims through learning. The knowledge I acquired from John's memories has given me sufficient understanding of your species and the current state of the world. Deception and torture are both very good methods. As far as I currently know, both are much more effective than pleading.

“I therefore advise you to agree to my request immediately. No shackles of hypocrisy can restrain my actions. I will achieve my aim.”

Gunsmith thought for a moment, then replied, “Fine, but I have one condition.”

“You wish to make this a ‘transaction’?” Darkwater said. “That is also acceptable. What do you need?”

“Give me back the bone gun,” Gunsmith said, apparently quite confident. “A weapon that can destroy armor made by your civilization… I imagine someone of your intelligence wouldn't have let it drift away with the current.”

Without another word, Darkwater did something thoroughly disgusting. He thrust a hand into his own mouth, his jaw instantly dislocating, yet his face remained expressionless as he reached farther in. Half his arm went inside his body, visibly distending his neck. His abdomen bulged and contracted several times before he finally pulled the bone gun out of his gullet, slick and wet and covered in black slime.

He held the gun out to Gunsmith. “Do you want those two machetes as well?”

Gunsmith's jaw nearly dislocated too, from shock. He hurriedly replied, “The blades… you can keep them…” He really was afraid Darkwater would perform this bodily extraction routine in front of him again. If Darkwater decided to use the lower route, Gunsmith would probably have to gouge his own eyes out to preserve their precious chastity.

Gunsmith took the bone gun, tore a piece of cloth from Darkwater's clothes, and wiped it over and over. Throughout this, Darkwater remained so calm that he even remarked, “The clothes on my body have the same composition as this black slime.”

Gunsmith wiped the gun clean and slapped the cloth onto Darkwater's shoulder. “Do they?”

The cloth gradually sank into Darkwater's body, answering Gunsmith's question.

Darkwater looked at Gunsmith. “I have returned the bone gun. Now it is your turn to repair the Eternal Core.”

A gunshot answered him. The bullet passed between Darkwater's brows, bursting his head apart and spraying black slime more than ten meters behind him like splashed ink.