In the Land of Giants - Book 2 of the Acropolis series

Chapter 16

  "You think this water is okay to drink?" Ava asked, turning around to face everyone curiously as she leaned over the spring pool.

"You really want to find out?" Maxwell asked, slurring through his bandages as he leaned against the wall. Everett sat beside him, and Jo, who hadn't stopped pacing for several minutes, shook her head at her sister.

"Your canteen is still half-full, Ava." Jo said. "Just wait."

"Everett?" Came a voice, and all heads turned to see Nikki's glowing blue eyes peering out of the small tunnel entrance. As she stepped into the light, Everett came to his feet, eyes going wide at what he saw.

The side of Nikki's head was a bloody mess. She had cut into her skin in several places just above her ear, and in place of the old scorched metal was a new piece, something that looked like a small glass tube colored a murky gray. She had sewn her skin up carefully where she had cut, but there had been a lot of bleeding, and little effort to clean it up had been made. Drying blood covered most of one side of her neck and one shoulder of her jacket. However, she looked completely unconcerned as she stared calmly out at everyone. From behind her came Patches, scuttling around her feet as she stepped toward the group.

"Ready to go?" Everett asked, trying to sound as unconcerned as possible.

Nikki shook her head slowly, stepping past him. "Not yet." She whispered. She kept on, moving to the other pool at the far end of the room, with the black liquid. She paused in front of it, peering down into the oily pool. Reaching back, she removed the tie that was holding her hair together, the long dreadlocks tumbling down to hang below the small of her back. She looked over her shoulder for a moment before she began to gather the hair together.

"When a Chitter reaches its midlife stage, it chooses someone to pass its knowledge onto." She said as she took clusters of the dreadlocks together in her hands. "Once that benefactor is chosen, they begin the ritual."

"Ritual?" Everett asked, glancing down at Patches, who stood some distance away, silently observing.

"It's sort of a starvation ritual." Nikki said. "They don't eat a thing for weeks on end. Then finally, they walk into the forests and gather a plant with four yellow leaves. They gather as much of it as possible, holding it in a kind of...storage sac, beside their throat. Then they ingest a tiny bit of it every few weeks...for years." As she spoke, she took the handful of her hair and then very carefully dipped the locks into the pool of black liquid, slowly moving her head downward as the long hair was consumed by the oily goop. "During the starving, they teach their benefactor. They pass on every single secret they know, and when the benefactor has learned all they can, the ritual is finished. Then they're ready to die." She paused for a moment as the last of her hair was swallowed up by the pool, and she tilted her head, some parts of her forehead and ears getting covered in the thick, dark soup.

Slowly, Nikki lifted herself back out, pulling her hair from the pool, all of it turned into dripping waves of black sludge. "Then the second ritual begins." She continued, waiting until the dripping ceased. Then she calmly strode over to the pool with the spring water and knelt before it. "The ritual in which their benefactor takes their teacher's life. It's a very long and intricate process, when the conditions are favorable. The final exchange of wisdom occurs, when the dying Chitter tells the benefactor..." she paused and her chest swelled with a deep inhale, a smile crossing her face. "...things unknowable. Things that transcend time and space. It's not just knowledge that is passed...it's the soul itself, given to one by another. Finally, then, the benefactor can take their mentor's life." She looked around to face them. "They tear the starved one's head off. No tools – just their bodies."