Even darker thoughts worked their way inward; the darkest thoughts for the darkest places. Tired and sore and mentally drained, idle hours slipped by in anguish. I dozed off, and later awoke with some semblance of logic regained. I had given up on the light. With or without it though, the time had come to make a decision: die here or get moving.
I can still make a go of following the stream, I decided. It might yet lead me out.
Out of nowhere, water noises filled my ears. They came from the pool. A creature in the dark, I thought.
My body tensed. I slipped on my pack, stood up, and grabbed for Sliver. I held it defensively towards the pool, and backed away.
Without warning, the bog stone flared up. A blinding flash of light lit up the cavern. But the light was not alone in its coming. As my eyes adjusted, I stared at the water with grim fascination, for it began to move as though I were tracing circles in the pool, but without my hand to guide it. My heartbeat erupted as circles once traced were traced anew, and thrashing waves once made were made again – every motion of mine duplicated like an echo, not of sound but of deeds done. I stumbled back. At once, the animation halted. Within moments, the bog stone resumed its normal pattern of flicker, as though nothing had happened.
“Madness!” I screamed at the dancing pool.
“Are the old gods really down here?” I yelled to the rock ceiling.
I motioned to the pool, still looking up. “Are these the ghosts of a dead city?”
Ghosts!
Wild with fear, I turned and bolted. I ran to the stream and slid into a watery crevice. I hid from the noises in the dark and I hid from the water spirits in the pool. My muscles tensed as I waited, silently… listening… and trying not to breathe too loud.
In time, I gathered enough nerve to come out of hiding and resume my chosen path. Less than an hour into the hike, my ears honed in on the faintest hiss. It grew louder as I approached, spilling over the random gurgles of the stream. I picked up my pace. The roar of rapids intensified. Finally, at long last, I arrived at a sidewall of the great black cavern that had held me captive for so long.
There, a roaring torrent poured down and out of a gaping cave mouth, set between two massive columns built solidly into the rock, and intricately carved. With the frothing water came a steady breeze of salty air.
The columns depicted the forms of dark mermaids with sultry expressions, and with hair that flowed above and around the arched cave opening. The mermaids’ tails curled in and flattened beneath the falls, dolphin-like, to catch the rushing water and flip it on its way.
Something peculiar struck me about the inner depths of that cave. I sheathed the bog stone and peered inside. In the distance, ever so rarely, a misty glint of blue-green light flickered. Literally, at long last, I beheld the light at the end of the tunnel.
The way out.
Chapter III
The Dim Sea
Many Stouts mistook the rare, light-giving cave moss for signs that Gnomes lived in the deep places of the earth, taunting and luring goodly passersby with glittering gems and gold they could never possess. Any beguiled person who reached for the treasures found only dust, and if particularly unlucky or offensive to the Gnomes, a knife in the back. It had been Kabor who told the story of the moss, only observed to grow in the mouths of a precious few caves and the entrances to old mines. He heard more whispers than a rover and seemed to know a great many things about secret places. But even he knew nothing of this secret place.
The grand cavern I had entered possessed its own sources of illumination, shining from above and reflecting off the water’s glassy surface that stretched out before me. I strolled casually along the seashore from the stream head where I had gained entry, to a stretch of land that jutted out into the water. Across the wide expanse, colossal spires rose out of the liquid glass like island pyramids, and natural columns braced the netherworld sky. A greater darkness, high above, was speckled with green patches of light – the hazy stars of a faerie twilight. I covered the SPARX stone.
In the distance, a thin curtain of natural light beamed down through daylight holes, igniting the whitewater of a long line of waterfalls that arced out of sight and into a bay. Bulging cliffs blocked the view in the foreground. Some falls cascaded down steep slopes, while others appeared as gushing columns that followed no course but gravity. Their far off roar melded with the dull rumble of the nearby outflow rapids. Beyond, the channel was shrouded in mist.
I breathed deep and filled my lungs with sea air. In it, I tasted a hint of freshness that only could have come from the world above. There had to be many openings to the surface – light doesn’t just spark up out of nowhere in caves… not normally, at least. Even glowing moss needs some access to natural light for sustenance, however minimal. There was no question in my mind… I had found the way out. If only Kabor could have seen this.
All at once, my head began to ache in an unfamiliar way. And it throbbed like never before.
What’s happening? I wondered.
Overtiredness?
Hunger?
Dehydration?
As I gazed over the waters, an uncomfortable clicking noise sounded in my head. The disturbance grew in volume and wormed its way through my skull at all angles. It tunneled into the hidden depths of my mind. I shook my head violently, as though it were something that could be flung off, but the pressure mounted. I dropped my spear and covered my ears. The clicking became too loud, piercing. I stumbled backwards and nearly toppled over.
Then, without warning, the noise ceased. Slowly, I let my hands drop. A muffled silence filled the audible void, like being underwater. It only lasted a moment though, but a long moment. Out of the prolonged hush arose a deep and cavernous voice. It called out to me like an old friend. The voice seemed to come from all around, nowhere and everywhere all at once, near and far, here and there, permeating like resonance.
“HUUM haa,” boomed the cavernous voice. It was paced and rhythmic, like waves crashing onto shore. “I have been waiting a long time for one like you to arrive.” And strangely disconnected and hollow. “You are Nud, if I am not mistaken.”
I did not answer.
“Nud, is that you?” said the voice, seeking confirmation. The tone was suddenly different, almost too familiar. Father?… No. I couldn’t quite place it.
“HUUM haa. Tell me, have you come to me for something? What is it you want most?”
What do I want most? I thought. My parents… my friends… out… I’m hungry.
In my most respectful tone, I answered.
“Yes… my name is Nud, Nud Leatherleaf of Webfoot, and I just want out,” I said to the thin air, then looked about. Nothing in plain sight gave away the source of the voice.
“I don’t want any trouble – food if you have any to spare.”
I looked up, behind.
“But mostly I just want out – through the cave roof… Sir.”
“Sir” seemed like an awkward way to address the voice. I normally reserved “Sir” for councillors and diplomats. This voice seemed larger. Pressing on, I pointed to a sizable clump of the glowing moss residing on the roof of the cavern, one that might be accessible from a nearby column, impossible to climb. I knew that the moss only grew near sources of natural light, so that a way out had to be near.
“Out through one of those daylight holes, Your Highness Sir,” I continued. “Do you know the way?… How do you know my name?”
The voice resounded back in reassuring tones. “I know all children of the dark. And I know the Way. I can get you what you Want.”
There was a long pause after that, and when next he spoke, it was in a matter-of-fact manner.
“HUUM haa,” the voice went on. “I know all the ways and all the names of all the ways and all the names of all the things you’re apt to meet along all the ways.”
I stood quietly, waiting for him to continue, to explain further, but nothing more was forthcoming. Nothing more was offered by the holl
ow voice that only seemed to exist inside my own head.
A breeze blew up in the moments that passed, and the lightest of wavelets caressed the twilit shore. I called out.
“Hello?” I said. “Are you still there?”
Were you ever there?
Time passed and normal sounds crept back into my ears, mostly wind sighing in the cavern heights and small waves lapping against the rocks. I turned my attention back to the starry sky and the daylight holes. Then I peered out to the waterscape and noted a subtle blackness where waves were lacking.
It wasn’t a protruding rock, but something was definitely out there. It fluttered… no, not quite… I shook my head, blinked, and peered again into the dimness. The second look told a different story: there were two shapes, long and curved, like a pair of giant bull horns. I unsheathed the bog stone for a better view. The light cooperated and flashed on, a long and steady pulse.
They were horns, two of them, slowly gliding my way and each producing its own thin wake. I sheathed the stone and backed away from the water. The horns were deathly white and as tall as a man. Fleshy and flexible, they swayed this way and that way like trained snakes.
With an abrupt “POP!” the horns fanned out like a lizard’s frills, thin and pale and white.
Aggression? I wondered, and shifted to a low stance, ready to spring back if I had to. The sounds of the world grew muted again. Every muscle tensed.
Yet, when things started to happen, I stayed put. Lulled by its slow and steady rise, I gazed in wonder as a massive, writhing form broke the water’s surface. It was the size of a whale. The fans appeared little more than fixtures on the colossal forehead of the great beast, dwarfed by the creature’s sheer bulk and ample length. The beast was a true leviathan out of stories of old. It rose and rose until it towered high above the water’s surface, glistening white. A torrent of water drained down its imposing frame and crashed alongside it.
The body of it was long and thick, and I glimpsed a whale’s flat tail. Spiny ridges covered the head and back. The forebody propped up in an odd manner – too high, it seemed.
A sudden movement – the leviathan twitched and curled. I hopped back and nearly bolted. But there wasn’t much to run to other than loneliness, starvation and the prospect of being suffocated in my sleep, so I stayed put.
The thing may have laughed at that point, or scoffed, or maybe it just blew something out of its blowhole that needed blowing out. After the spray was lost to the breeze, the leviathan raised its bulk even higher out of the water and shuffled landward. I thought the beast might crawl up onto shore. Three great, red eyes faced me, the eyes of an albino, fixed to one side of its huge whale-head. Three more were on the other side as well.
What I did next was out of character, and stupid: compelled, I made my approach, in sure knowledge that I would be safe. I stepped forward to meet the abomination and find out what he would have of me. I stopped at the water’s edge and looked into that triplet of eyes of his, searching for something friendly, familiar; searching for something I had heard in that voice. I saw only my smaller self, set against the deepest red and encircled by tiny specs of light that shone like knowledge; nothing more. Slowly, persistently, my senses recovered from a certain numbness and complacency that is difficult to describe. A cautious step back seemed in order.
The leviathan spoke at last, with a low and devouring growl in his voice. Yet his jaw did not move.
“HUUM haa… daylight holes… not the way ‘Little Newt’… this side a fall, the other side savage creatures will tear you to shreds.”
The fanned out horns rippled in slow vibrations; the words echoed in my head. “Little Newt” – my father used to call me that.
“HUUM,” he bellowed, “HAA… there is another way. I know the Way; I can get you what you Want. First, tell me ‘everything.’ What brings you here?”
“Where am I?” I said.
The leviathan’s voice rolled in response. The rumbling sound that rolled along with it was not quite a laugh, per se, but the embedded inflection could have passed for amusement.
“HUUM haa,” he boomed, “You have come to my shores, Outlander. Leggy beasts call this place the ‘Dim Sea.’”
“A Dim Sea indeed,” I said, looking about. Obviously, this thing, whatever it was, did not know a lot about surface people. I looked nothing like an Outlander. I mulled over what to say next. I couldn’t get it out straight.
“I would like to find my friend Kabor, if he is alive, and I want for us – me and him – to return to the surface… the bog, that is. The bog is where I live. I’m from Webfoot, you see.”
There was a long, awkward silence, during which, the eyes of the leviathan seemed to stare through me. At one point, I thought to speak, but the moment I opened my mouth a low and subdued thrumming noise began to build in my head, cutting-off at just the right level to scramble my thoughts. It was a warning – a precursor to a loud blast. The words froze to my tongue.
The voice returned, at normal volume.
“HUUM haa,” it said, “I can help you. Let us talk first though… It is lonely down here. Let us roll along the shore as we become… better acquainted, HUUM? I dislike sitting still. I must say that I feel I know you quite well already. HUUM haa… Walk alongside as I sail the shores of this great and cavernous sea.”
I felt pity for the beast, for I had never been so utterly alone as during my time underground. Perhaps he’d spent his entire life that way. And this magnificent creature was not only sentient, he seemed inviting enough, in his own way. My single, greatest fear evaporated, only to condense as a triad of hope, admiration, and awe.
A new source of energy overtook me. I spritely hopped from stone to stone as I kept pace with the leviathan. We exchanged news and facts about a great many things. Ecstatic to have someone to talk to, I opened up completely to him. I told him everything: my life from early on, all about Paplov – whom he seemed already to know a great deal about and wanted to meet, my parents, the bog, and Webfoot. I went into detail about the Flipside, the menu at the Flipside (indeed, I was incredibly hungry), Proudfoot, the Bearded Hills, the Akedan ruins, and Deepweald. He seemed to be quite familiar with those topics. But then I told him of things he knew little or nothing about: the Hurlorns, the giant black spider I discovered in a box, deepwood (at which time I promptly showed him my club), my friends, the bog queens (which caused a grumble), and even the discovery of the bog stone. These last few, above all else, clearly sparked his interest, and he prodded me to tell all and leave out nothing. For the most part, I obliged the beast, but I avoided talk of Fyorn. The woodsman, as a Kith ranger, prefers to keep to himself.
Without warning, the White Whale – my name for the beast – furled his two fans into horns and made a shallow dive. I watched and waited as he swam out to open water, and then slowly looped back in a wide circuit. He surfaced not far from where he had started, but oriented the other way – back the way we came.
“HUUM haa,” he started. “You must be starving.”
I had gone on and on about the Flipside menu.
The leviathan unfurled his horns. Moments later, a scattering of small white fish began to appear, dead ones, drifting sideways. They were blind cavefish, of the catfish variety, longer and more slender than their darker cousins in the upper world. A minute later, there were more than a dozen.
“Please, help yourself,” offered the beast. “They are perfectly edible to leggy ones like you.”
And so I did. In the star-shadow of the beast, I scooped up a handful of the small morsels. The leviathan’s casual thoughtfulness had put him into my good books. It had been so long since I had eaten much of anything. The raw fish felt soft and slimy in my mouth, but the flesh strangely sweet. My stomach couldn’t take so much at once though. I stashed some away in my backpack, wrapped in a strip of cloth torn from my cloak.
Once finished, the White Whale addressed me. “HUUM haa,” he said, “may I see this sparkling stone of yours
?” he said.
Something in my gut did not feel quite right just then. I thought it might be the small white fish, but it could have been the bigger one. Reluctantly, I brought the stone out and held it for him to see, in all its glory around my neck. At first, he just stared at it with those red eyes of his. He did not flinch – no motion, no words, nothing. All the while, his eyes sparkled in the flicker of the bog stone. I grew to anticipate such long pauses, having come to the conclusion that the leviathan liked to take his time at examining things, or thinking them through first before speaking on them. Or maybe he just had slow ways.
“Do you know what it is?” I said, breaking the silence between him and the stone.
He did not answer. Much time went by and he became… fidgety, if ever a whale could be fidgety – rolling and displaying subtle shivers. Something was wrong. I sheathed the stone. Soon, he was back to normal.
“Huum. Huum. Where did you find such a wonder?”
I told him straight out. I certainly did not want to raise the ire of this one. There was a long pause after I finished.
“Exotic,” was all he said. All three eyes on one side fixated on the stone dangling in its sheath around my neck. After a good long look, the leviathan began to speak once again. He seemed to believe that his turn at telling had come. He recited many old stories and some recent ones about the lightless caves, which he called Everdark, and the Dim Sea caverns, which he called Everdim. Most of what he told me I understood plainly, but some of the events he spoke of were beyond my comprehension at the time, for I did not recognize all of the terms he referred to just then, and explaining them to me all at once would have proved far too laborious. His bass voice was calm, slow between words, and most steady. There was power in it. In true Pip form, I committed all he told to memory, if not understanding, for later pondering.
I looked to the fans and then to the eyes for some inkling of emotion or bodily response, but nothing of the sort was forthcoming. His body was a cold shell. All of the White Whale’s life was in his voice. Conversing with him differed greatly from conversations with people – the looks, the body language, the intonations – all different or absent. I just got used to not seeing any lips move, or smiles, or frowns, or eyebrows rising, or any intense wrinkling of the brow or shrugging of shoulders.
SPARX Incarnation: Order of the Undying (SPARX Series I Book 2) Page 3