by Bill Albert
She heard a definite shout and knew by the deep tone that Jakobus approaching. Then Marassa pushed her through the hole and released her from the cast. She fell into total blackness.
***
As Gallif fought her way to consciousness she slowly took stock of her own body. She was glad that she felt no pain, but she suspected, by the angle of her foot, that her ankle may have been sprained or even broken when she’d landed. The healing cast on the armor had repaired any damage and she slowly rolled it to a more comfortable position.
She also knew that she had been sick again and was relieved that she was on her side so the bile had dropped out of her mouth, but she could still taste it on her lips. She shifted her weight enough to roll onto her back. She finally took a deep breath and could tell by the stale air she was still underground. She listened intently but picked up no sign of movement around her and she felt comfortable that she could take her time and recover.
She opened her eyes slowly and blinked upwards. She felt lightheaded so she closed them again and took another deep breath trying to bring things in to focus. Despite what her hearing and breathing had told her she was thinking she may be outside. There had definitely been points of light above her that, with her blurred vision, looked like a night sky.
She swallowed carefully and, when she was sure her stomach was steady, opened her eyes again. In the blur she could see white stars, red stars, and even blue stars and when they started to circle above her, she let her eyes close.
How could there be stars? They had been deep inside the mountain when she had been ambushed by Marassa and there was no way she could have slid far enough to be outside. She wondered if Jakobus, Blinks and Luvin had actually rescued her but knew that they would not have then left her outside alone. Was there any other way to find out what was going on?
She braced herself and opened her eyes this time forcing them to stay open until they focused on where she was. As her sight cleared the number of lights dropped and as the images sharpened their blinking stopped. She blinked several times to make sure she was seeing correctly. Embedded in the green rock ceiling above her were a countless number of focus and casting stones. She could see the usual red and orange colors but there were also a large portion of blue stones and a few larger white ones made brighter by the green color of this mountain range.
“White?” she asked and propped herself up on her elbows. No one had ever seen white ones before. She looked around and found there were hundreds more scattered on the floor surrounding her. She lightly swept the floor with her hands and picked up several of the stones at random. She sat up and examined the bounty and found some dull, lightless stones mixed in as well. She was surprised to find that one stone had been shattered in half with the inner part perfectly smooth and the outer the usual jagged edge.
She stood and looked around to see just how big the area was. She caught sight of her flame sword lying at an angle near a dirt pile and the frost sword just beyond it. She quickly retrieved them both and waved the flame sword to cast more light on the area. She estimated the ceiling was about fifteen feet up, but she didn’t have enough light to get a clear view. She looked at the area and tried to estimate where the entrance was. She saw a darker patch with no stones high in the corner and thrust the flame sword up as far as she could reach. She was positive she had entered from that height and realized that if she had not entered feet first, she would most likely have broken her neck when she hit the ground. She could also tell there was no way for her to climb out, so she started looking for another exit.
She took a few steps but felt disoriented and was worried that she would get sick again, so she slowed her walk and moved carefully. After a few minutes she sat down to search for other options.
She looked at all the different green stones around her and smiled at how jealous Marassa would be, but the smile quickly faded when she remembered how much she had trusted the woman. She had been so bright and shiny that Gallif had welcomed her presence. It had been comfortable to have another woman nearby and had helped her focus on going forward while not forgetting Maura.
She picked up one of the white stones and examined it closely. Even though the surface felt no different to her fingers it was warmer. She wondered if the white ones would be considered source or focus stones. She didn’t understand much about casting, had never found a need or desire for it, but tried to remember all of the things she had learned.
She remembered how, in theory, everyone had the ability to cast and it was a matter of concentration to harness those powers. She had not had problems concentrating and had tried to harness the power of casting many times in her youth. Unfortunately, she had never felt desire to or managed to control anything that felt like casting. She had been able to read nature without difficulty so her interests led her in that direction and after some time she had just lost interest in casting.
She considered the belief that some people had talents in certain types of casting. She remembered Kavelle, who she had travelled the northern ice fields with, had been talented at casting using her voice and thoughts. Luvin had been extremely talented at harnessing the mental casting to shadow form but had never been able to project or attract any other casting type. She’d never really tried to expand any casting ability she may have and as she sat in this cavern surrounded by focus, source, and possibly other types of stones she started to regret it.
After considering several options she could remember she finally stood and collected the largest orange source stone she could lift. It was almost a foot long but not very heavy and she was able to easily hold it in front of her. She focused all of her thoughts and senses on the light and color of the stone and let herself be drawn into the swirling orange flowing inside the hard crystal. She closed her eyes and drew a mental picture of the cave she had been in before being thrown down the shaft. She started to get distracted at thoughts of Marassa betraying her but quickly pushed the memory away and concentrated on the sounds and smells of the cave.
She slowly commanded to be taken to that cave but was so deep in thought she wasn’t even sure if she had spoken the order or just thought it.
After a pause she opened one eyes and was disappointed, but not necessarily surprised, to find she had not moved. She started over and soon her thoughts were engulfed by the stone. She imagined Luvin standing before her. She thought about his sandy brown hair that was tussled as always and a face full of freckles. She lost the image briefly as she asked herself just how many of the freckles he still had. She had not looked at him closely for some time and he had grown towards manhood. She realized she was drifting and rebuilt the image in her mind as best she knew him.
“Take me to him,” she whispered. She opened one eye again and her shoulders dropped in disappointment that she had failed. “Where’s Marassa when you need her, damn?”
Suddenly anger swept over her at the thought of her gullibility with the woman and she threw the crystal to the hard ground and drew both her swords.
“Damn you straight to hell, Marassa!” she screamed as loud as she could. “Straight to the bottom layer of hell!”
All the anger and frustration of what had happened suddenly came erupting out of her. Obsessed with uncontrollable anger a small white stone laying loosely on a rock became her first target. She struck it repeatedly with both her swords several times. The first strikes were against Marassa. Then she struck at Zaslow who had been trying to use Starpoint Mountain to overthrow the Giant Lords. Next were the skeletons she’d fought on that dark road. Then the golems and aquilus she had been afraid of. Then more for all the things she had lost.
She quickly lost count of the number of hits as she felt as if all the fury of the gods was passing through her. She gasped for breath as sweat poured down her body as she continued. Finally, her senses registered that she was just hitting bare rock now and dizziness swept over her as she fell panting to the ground. She dropped her weapons and continued pounding on the floor with her fists
until the anger subsided. Breathing heavy, unsure of how long she had been lost, she rolled onto her side. Once calm she became aware of the churning in her stomach and she fought hard to keep her insides steady.
She heard a brief flutter of something go past her ear, but her thoughts and emotions were in too much turmoil and failed to register it the first few times. She heard it again and felt something pass her ear and absent mindedly brushed it away. As her concentration steadied it occurred to her what kind of rodents and winged creatures would be living in the dark and damp caves.
“BATS!” she cried and sat up quickly. Her eyes focused on the tiny winged creature in the air before her.
“Nope,” it giggled in a light sweet voice. “My name’s Lincilara. What’s yours?”
Gallif stared at the little creature as her mind tried to process what it was. She had never actually seen one before, no one alive today had, but it was an exact image of what she had seen in drawings. It had dark, frizzy hair, large eyes and a round face. It had a six-inch-long, slender body with a four-inch wingspan. The wings were almost completely transparent and were flapping so fast they could barely be seen. Even more striking was the glow that surrounded her almost as if she had a light source inside her. It looked at her confused and then frowned.
“Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t know you were deaf.”
“I’m Gallif,” she finally answered flatly.
“That’s a sweet name. I like it. I’m Lincilara, but I’ve already told you that haven’t I?” she laughed and flew in a complete circle as she laughed and stopped right where she had left. She waved a hand at her and said, “Don’t go anywhere.”
Faster than lightening, Lincilara zoomed from one end of the cave to the other. She shot up, down, sideways and looped so fast Gallif could see her in an entire circle from the glow that surrounded her. Within a blink she returned to where she started before Gallif could take a breath. “Woohoo! Mighty! That was fun. It felt good to stretch my wings again.”
“You’re a fairy,” was the best Gallif could say. After the shock of meeting a dragon in Starpoint Mountain she felt guilty that she couldn’t come up with a better greeting.
“Yeah,” Lincilara giggled. “You act like you’ve never seen us before.”
“Well, no offense,” Gallif said guiltily. “We thought you were all dead.”
Lincilara’s face fell and a tear formed in her deep eyes. “You mean, we were forgotten?”
“No, no, no, not at all. We just thought the Goblin Blood Lords killed all the fairies when they invaded.”
Lincilara shook her head and crossed her arms defiantly. “No! They sent goblin casters in secretly before hand to capture us and take us hostage before they showed up. Not really sure what happened after that. I know it was a long time ago, but I was hoping you could tell me.”
Gallif knew what had happened. That part of the Land of Starpoint history was taught to everyone in the first grade. The Goblin Blood Lords had tried to take over the country after the druids had mysteriously vanished. They had expected it to be an easy conquest, but the giants were faster and stronger. They had used their might to defeat the invaders and, at the end, had taken their rightful place as rulers.
“I’m afraid they were beaten before they could say anything about hostages,” Gallif said sadly. “No one knew.”
“That’s so sad,” she said softly. “How long has it been?” Lincilara was close enough and bright enough Gallif was touched by her sadness.
Gallif swallowed hard before answering. “Nearly two hundred years.”
Lincilara floated for a few moments and the wiped the tears from her face. “I suppose I have a lot of catching up to do,” she said with a feeble smile.
“You’ve been alive, inside the stones, all this time?”
“Yes, imprisoned for that long. I could feel things,” she said looking at the surrounding stones. “Feel things when there were others near me.”
“We thought these stones had natural casting powers in them. Sometimes they were the source of casting and sometimes a focus to enhance it.”
“Well, that was part of the prison. Unable to use our wings most of us, like me, can’t cast anything. Some of the older fairies can do it just using thought, but not very many. Sometimes you can sense that cast is there and do what you want with it, nudge it along if you wanted to. Despite taking us captive we still had something they didn’t count on.”
“What was that?”
“Free will.”
Gallif looked around at the countless stones, countless prison cells, inside the cavern. “The stones that are dark; what happened to them?”
“Even we don’t live forever,” Lincilara said.
Gallif swallowed slowly to try and calm her stomach then steadily got to her feet. She picked up the flame and frost swords and quickly sheathed them away. “Can you free others?”
Lincilara made several excited loops and hovered just a few feet from Gallif. “No, it was a cast that created them but, I imagine, the caster is long since gone. Unless someone can figure the cast they’ll have to be split open like mine was.”
“Can I free others like I did you?” Gallif asked with her hands on her swords.
“Sure!” she smiled and did a few loops to celebrate. “You must know how to break them open, the right combination of heat, cold, and pressure. Just do it in the same exact way each time and they are freeeeee!” she cheered.
Gallif’s heart froze as she realized the truth. She had been so angry when she was striking the stone she had no idea exactly how it had been done. She frowned and looked at the little fairy.
Lincalara’s face fell and Gallif could feel the sadness in her again. “You’ve forgotten?”
“No,” Gallif admitted and shook her head. Despite her embarrassment she could not lie. “I was just hitting the stone, not really paying attention, and just managed to use the right combination.”
Lincilara looked away and hovered for a few moments. Her own brightness dimmed considerably. The sadness was so overwhelming Gallif’s eyes watered as well and a single tear dripped down one of her cheeks. Lincilara stopped and took a deep breath before turning to face Gallif. Without warning she fluttered forward and wiped away Gallif’s tear with her small hand. She looked at the water, smelled it again, then drank the drop.
They sat and looked at each other in silence. Children’s poems told about a bond that was created when a fairy drank your tears. The belief was they could then understand what was in your heart and soul. That they knew more truth about you than even you could imagine. Gallif knew the myth was true.
“I’m here with others,” Gallif said. “Can you help me find them?”
Lincilara asked Gallif to follow her and flew to a pile of stones. She waved her hands in circles and there was a shimmer like a heat wave and the pile, and part of the wall behind it, faded away to create an entry to another tunnel.
Gallif looked in amazement at the fairy, then the exit, then back again.
“What are you waiting for, Gallif?” Lincilara asked with a giggle.
“I think we should keep you a secret for a while. So much has been happening in the Land of Starpoint I think news about you should be handled carefully.”
“I understand,” Lincilara smiled, waved a hand, snapped her fingers and disappeared.
“No, dammit,” Gallif said rolling her eyes and quickly looking around the area. “I didn’t mean to go away!”
“I’m right here,” Lincilara giggled and reappeared exactly where she had been. “You knew we could make ourselves invisible, didn’t you?”
“No,” Gallif said in great relief. “I’m afraid that’s something that’s been forgotten,” she added as Lincilara went through the motions again and disappeared. There was a brief silence and then she could hear the barest fluttering just off to her right side.
“I’ll watch your back,” Lincilara whispered to her.
Without another word Gallif left the cavern and t
ook a left turn in the tunnel outside. She heard a distinct cough on the right and turned around to head in that direction.
She had lots of questions to ask her new companion but knew this was not the time or the place to do it. She would wait until the Third Minister of the Giant Lords was involved.
EIGHTEEN: THE DARKEST STREAM
The caves this far down were cramped and rough but Gallif made good time. She could hear the constant fluttering of Lincilara’s wings near her but only when she stopped did she speak.
“I can’t wait to see the mountain again,” Lincilara said as she became visible, but Gallif looked back and forth at the intersection they had found. “We tried to fly to the top once,” Lincilara continued. “My younger brother and I, one day, started up and just kept flying and flying.”
“How far did you get?” Gallif asked as she recalled when her and her own brother had talked about going up the mountain together.
“Waaaaaaaaaaay high,” Lincilara said and zoomed in a figure eight in excitement. “Maybe even higher,” she giggled.
“What happened?” Gallif asked finally looking back at her.
“It got to the point where we were having so much trouble flying we couldn’t go anymore and started back down. We weren’t even tired,” she said bouncing in air. “It was just like trying to fly in water.”
“Were you under some kind of casting?”
“I’m not sure. Did you know that we can see casts?”
“No, I’d never heard that.”
“It’s true, the way the cast on your armor gives a red tint to it. We can see it on everything.”
“That’s good to know,” Gallif admitted. “But, for the time being, I think it be best if no one saw you.”
“Oops,” Lincilara laughed. “I forgot,” she said and twirled in circles like a dancer before she disappeared again.”
Walking on carefully Gallif was relieved that the rumbling in her stomach had settled down. She didn’t feel like she was going to be sick anymore and could travel faster. She was still concerned that it meant the tarna eggs would hatch in a few days. She occasionally looked at her pale skinned arm and was reminded of just how bad she really was.