by Aaron Bunce
Thorben staggered against the rocky wall, the simple act of not falling into the void taking seemingly every muscle in his body. He was tired, beat up, and hungry.
“You’re not supposed to give up…you’re not. You have kids who need you,” a distant voice echoed in his mind.
Thorben swallowed hard. Yes, the boys, all strength and youth, and fire. They would likely give him many grandchildren. Dennah – he wanted to see her grow into a woman, but…they were so very far away, beyond the underground city of the dead and the thick, stone walls. Beyond the dark pit and choking water. Beyond it all.
“You have a wife and a home.”
He sucked in a breath and coughed, the drenching spray of water hitting him squarely in the face now. He wouldn’t fall to his death, but drown, sitting there on a slimy, moss-covered walkway, one ass cheek hanging in a moldy breeze.
“But for how long will any of it be ours – the home, the wife, the children? Will Dennica stick by me when things get worse? If it all went away? Men like Lamtrop will see to that,” he lamented.
Thorben shrugged, slipped, and pushed himself up. Do they even need me? The thought of Dennica and the kids threatened to send him pitching right into the darkness. Without him, his wife could remarry, perhaps to an honest man who made a real wage and could provide for her. His boys were almost men. They would make a life for themselves with or without him. He wanted…no, needed to see them, but it was a selfish need. All of it was selfish…his need.
“Dennah has her mother, she doesn’t need me,” Thorben muttered, giving voice to the dark thoughts ringing inside.
Stop sulking, Dennica’s voice suddenly rang out in his thoughts. She’d sent him away while the Council’s tax collectors pillaged their cellar. He’d been sitting in the corner, staring daggers at the men, loathing them, himself, and every bad turn his brand had ever brought him.
“I don’t sulk–” he sputtered, but knew in his heart that he was. And worse, he was trying to give in.
Death and dust, this is all my life has been, backed up against a wall with only horrible options in front of me. There is…can be no better.
“Thorben, is that you?” someone shouted suddenly.
He started at the voice, his hand sliding off the path. His weight shifted, and he slipped forward, right off the narrow ledge.
“No no no!” he cried out, scrabbling against the wet stone. Thorben threw his left arm out and wedged his forearm into place on the ledge, just managing to spin his body towards the wall as his right boot slid free. He slung around, slapping his right elbow onto the ledge before his weight carried him down, his body now dangling into the sprawling darkness.
“Thorben is that you?” Jez called from the darkness on the other side of the ravine.
Thorben hauled his body up and tried to kick his right boot onto the ledge, but the ache in his side flared. He grunted through the pain, his weight swinging back beneath him, but found a small foothold and took the burden off his arms. It wouldn’t help for long.
“Jez!” he yelled, struggling to find the air.
“Oh my gods. I thought you were dead…back there…when you hit your head. You just lay there, so still, and not breathing. I’m so glad you’re…I’m sorry for leaving you. So sorry. Please forgive…”
“No…I’m alive…for the moment,” he grunted, trying to kick his leg up onto the ledge again and failing.
“I made it across all right, just don’t look down. I can’t see you, but follow my voice. It’s a narrow path, but straight.”
“I…slipped and can’t get…back up.”
“Stay right there. I’ll crawl out and help–” Jez said, but Thorben cut her off.
“No! The ledge is too narrow.” He slipped, sagged down the wall, and fumbled, scrabbling against the wet stone for a better footing. “I don’t think I am going to…make it. Just go and find your father. Get him to safety, so you can find your brother.”
“No!” Jez yelled immediately, her voice echoing against the dark chasm behind him. “I’m coming out there. I can’t just leave you here.”
“Jez…I can’t get back onto the ledge, and I don’t know how much longer I can just hang here.” Thorben felt the fear of his death fading away. Hells, this had been his life up to now, barely hanging on, waiting for one more slip to send him plummeting down into the dark nothing. Part of him longed for it.
“Fight. Try again. You can’t just give up.”
“I…can’t…” he mumbled, knowing that she couldn’t hear him.
“Your girl needs you,” Jez yelled, her words stabbing into him.
Thorben slipped again, his elbows and forearms sliding towards the edge, his sides and shoulders threatening to give out. How did she know that he’d just been thinking about Dennah? How did she know that she needed him?
“Come on. Fight! Please! I know your daughter needs you to come home to her. Look at me, my father is the only reason why I’m here. I know he isn’t the most honest of men, but he’s my father, and I also know that he loves me and would do anything for me. My mother is, well, was, a nasty, greedy little woman. She worried more about what our neighbors and their betters were doing…what they wore, ate, where they went than my brother or me. She loved money more than us, too. But he was there when she wasn’t. After she left and took everything, I still had him. He taught me things that I never would have learned from her, and you are no different. You’re just like him, and if I need him, then your daughter needs you! Trust me. They all need you more than you know! Look how far you have gotten us! My father would be dead right now if it weren’t for you. They need you…we need you. Please.”
Thorben stared down the dark wall where he figured Jez stood, her face appearing in his mind. He figured that she had her hands on her hips, and her eyes squinted in that typical half-frown. He wanted to believe her, but…his doubt rose up like a black wave again, filling him bodily. Or, if you’d stayed home, they might have found a way free from Gor. You came of your own selfish need for wealth and security, and likely killed them in the process.
Thorben slumped under the weight, the muscles in his shoulders spasming painfully. His head drooped forward against the stone as he fought to suck in another breath, the strain making his chest and throat impossibly tight. He couldn’t remember ever feeling emptier – not on the wagon, bound and shackled on the way to stand before the magistrate for sentencing, or even in the mines, when his stomach shrunk, his back ached, and his hands and feet bled from the labor. It had all led up to this, for thaws beyond count, the weight bowing his back and slowly smashing him into the ground.
“Hey! Did you hear me? Come on, please answer me,” Jez yelled, her voice biting into him like a lash.
He blinked, let his weight rest on his foot for a moment, and sucked in another breath.
“It’s hard not to…you’re screaming,” he yelled.
“Good…because I’m coming out there.”
“No,” he growled, coughing and sputtering on the water. “You have to go.”
“You can’t tell me no. I’m coming out there. Either I can help, or we’ll fall together. You didn’t give up on my father, and I’m not gonna give up on you. If your daughter was here, and she was in my shoes, would she give up on my father?”
Thorben tried to swallow down the guilt, the girl’s staunch refusal to let him simply give up more than a little sobering. Her mention of Dennah stabbed into him deeper. No, Dennah wouldn’t let anyone slide slowly to their death. Even at seven winter thaws she would try to help…foolishly, and dangerously, but she would help.
Jez refused to give up on him, after her own mother walked away, stealing her little brother and tearing her life, her world, in half. Was that what Dennah would become? Was he doing what her mother did? Did they all need him more than he realized?
“Please no! I don’t want you to get hurt…let me try again,” he yelled, and sucked in a deep breath. He set his jaw, pulled in his gut, and clenched his fist
s.
Thorben had given up, even if he was too cowardly to admit it. He’d given up after being released from the mines, letting men look down on him and talk down to him because of his brand. They spit on him, swindled him, paid him a fraction of what they’d pay less-talented men for inferior work, and he never stuck up for himself. He turned the other cheek, and struggled through it all in silence.
“Can you manage it? I can lean out and help you up if you get close enough,” Jez called.
“I think,” he grunted, pulling his body up with his arms, but his boot slid free of its small perch. Thorben slumped back down, the weight almost pulling his arms off the mossy ledge, but he refused to despair. He was tired of feeling sorry for himself, eating the crap everyone and everything seemed to give him. If he was going to fall to his death, at least he could do it fighting.
“I c-c-can’t get back up on the ledge, b-b-but am going to try to crawl my way towards you.” Before the girl could respond, Thorben lifted his right arm and walked it out to his right and lifted his foot off the small shelf of stone. His entire weight immediately sagged onto his arms, shoulders, and back, his aching side and stomach shaking and quivering with the effort.
“You carried logs with father and pa out of the timber for a whole season as a child…chipped bark, sawed beams, and hoisted them into place. If you can do that, then you can do this,” he whispered, sputtering and coughing as more water spattered his head and ran down his face.
A muscle tweaked in his back, but Thorben pushed through it, hugging his chest to the wet stone and walking his weight sideways with his arms. His elbows sunk into the moss, but the spongy cover held.
He moved slowly, painfully, half an arm length at a time, his boots scrabbling, catching, and sliding against the wet stone. His shoulders tired, then his sides and stomach, the muscles in his back burning from the strain, but he refused to stop.
Thorben wheezed, something catching in his side. He fought against it – the pain, the tremors, the fatigue, the water, and the darkness. He hadn’t died in the mines, or any of the arduous days since. He’d been right there at Dennica’s side when she bore seven healthy, screaming babes. None of that killed him, and neither would this. But damn, it hurt. He just wanted to rest for a moment, let the weight off his arms and shoulders, catch his breath, even for just a moment.
“Don’t you quit on them, Thorben. If life isn’t going to give you anything, then take it. You are…going…to…see Paul pass his…trials,” he hissed, clenching his jaw so tight it ached. “Hold…little pebble…again.” He walked his arms forward again, and then again, but his hands had gone numb, and then his forearms.
Thorben forced in a breath and moved his arms but couldn’t feel them anymore, almost every muscle shaking in unison. He moved beyond the ache, the fatigue, and the numbness, every reach feeling like it would be his last. His body begged him to give up the fight and simply relax, to fall into the black and the promise of whatever Mani had planned for him next.
No! I want to see my family again, he thought, lifting his numb right arm and slapping it along the ledge. It was a small thing, but he just wanted to sit at the dining table again, listening to his children, the hectic, chaotic mix of stories and squabbles…the chatter he’d come to secretly love more than anything else.
“Just a few…more…it…has to…be,” he wheezed, but felt his arms sliding, his body giving in.
“Thorben,” Jez gasped, her voice sounding out of the darkness right next to him. “I can see you…I can see you. I can almost reach…”
He felt something brush against his right shoulder.
“Just a little further…you can do it!” she said.
Thorben grunted and fought, but couldn’t feel his arms. He hoped and prayed they were moving, but couldn’t know for sure. Something slapped his shoulder again, and then his back, cold fingers hooking inside his soaked shirt collar.
Jez wrenched and pulled on him, the contact with another person – someone who cared – helping more than anything else. His numb elbow smacked hard into stone.
“You made it. My gods, I didn’t think you were–”
“Help me up first…not out of…woods yet,” Thorben growled, struggling to gain any lift and pull himself free.
Jez leaned over him, her hands crawling under his armpits. She grunted and strained, heaving on him with abandon. Thorben kicked and flailed against the stone, managed to lift himself up a little, and then a little more.
Jez yelled, her mouth right next to his ear. He felt her arms wrap around him in a hug, and then they were sprawling back to the stone. Thorben rolled to the side, his arms shaking at his side, but managed to push away from the edge. He gasped, laughing and crying, his emotions closer to the surface than ever before.
“I’m so sorry. I shouldn’t have left you. I almost killed you! I’m horrible…I’m a horrible person,” Jez said, crouching in the darkness next to him. She tentatively touched his shoulder, but shied away.
Thorben awkwardly pushed himself up to sit, his arms still shaking, but feeling quickly returning. He reached out and caught the girl’s arm before she could walk away and pulled her into a hug.
“Thank you. Thank you,” he muttered over and over, still trying to catch his breath. “Thank you for not giving up on me.”
“I…I…” Jez squeezed him back and sniffled loudly.
“You saved me,” he whispered. She had, and in more ways than she probably realized.
Chapter Nineteen
Crawling Forth
Thorben and Jez walked together down the dark passage, the noise from the waterfall receding behind them. They followed a gentle curve in the passage, a light ahead casting the stone in a warm glow.
The passage turned to the right, leading off into the darkness, another leg running straight ahead and through another stalactite-covered opening, and a well-lit space beyond. Thorben allowed Jez to go first, carefully picking his way through the low-hanging rock formations. He kept a hand on the closest stalactite, and once on the other side, reached up and rubbed the goose egg on his forehead.
Thorben pulled up his right sleeve. Chunks of moss and dirt covered the pale skin of his forearm, barely concealing dark bruises and several cuts and scrapes. He rolled up the other sleeve and found the same.
“Does it hurt?” Jez asked.
“If not for you, these would be the least of my concerns,” Thorben said, his voice low and scratchy.
They turned together and looked out over a wide, circular chamber. A familiar ring-shaped formation of trees stood straight ahead, a dense layer of fog drifting aimlessly around a stone sarcophagus in the very center.
“I don’t understand. Did we just go in a big circle…” he said, struggling for a moment, but then spotted the distant archway. The statue was different – a man with spiky hair and a multitude of strong-looking arms – he could see that much from where he was standing, and more importantly, the doorway was open.
“This chamber is different. We can get out!” Jez said, and immediately started forward.
Thorben followed, his gaze sweeping back down and catching on a solitary, glowing figure standing a stone’s throw from the sarcophagus. Myrddin didn’t look up when he approached, the dweorg’s attention remaining locked on the burial.
“You just left me back there. I almost died,” Thorben said.
Wha…?” Jez asked. She’d taken a wider path across the chamber, willfully putting as much distance between herself and the stone box as possible.
“Yer still here, ain’t ya?” Myrddin asked, not looking away from the sarcophagus. He mumbled more, but he couldn’t hear what he said.
Thorben shivered, the cold mist making his wet clothes and damp skin feel even heavier. He braved the trees and approached the dweorg.
“What did you say? I didn’t hear,” Jez said, approaching from behind.
“Is this why ye are here? You and this girl,” Myrddin asked, pointing back over his shoulder to Je
z, without looking.
“Is what…?” Thorben’s question died in his throat as he followed the dweorg’s gaze to the stone burial. The stringy roots were torn away from the sides, the sticky red sap spattered all across the carved stone. The heavy lid was turned off at an angle, allowing someone just enough room to reach inside.
“Is this why you are here? To desecrate the remains me and mine laid to rest, to interrupt their sacred slumber and steal from the dead?” Myrddin growled, spinning on him.
Thorben staggered back, but the dwarf turned to Jez, his dark eyes lidded, his teeth showing in an angry snarl. Iona’s daughter looked from Thorben, to the crypt, and back, her gaze cutting right through the dweorg.
“How about you, girl? Are you here to claim the dead’s wealth as your own? There isn’t a fouler kind of thief in all the world…isn’t a less honorable coward.”
“So, Gor and the others were more successful than we were,” Jez said, “do you think he got what he wanted? Will let us go now…let us all go home?”
“Girl…did you hear me? I’m speaking to you…directly, to yer face. Tis disrespectful…shameful…spiteful,” Myrddin sputtered, his anger growing. Thorben could see it, and feel it. His figure glowed more brightly, matching the grimace on his face. The ring pulsed in time with his voice, the metal growing warm once again.
“You should never ignore a dwarf. Once our temper is up, it will stay up for a good long while…ages, like the stone itself! I was to walk you out of this place, but now…now I’m thinking about locking ye up in chains in the darkest space I can find and throwing away the key,” Myrddin stomped right up to Jez, the green glow from his body lowlighting the dark circles around her eyes.
“She’s not ignoring you, good dweorg,” Thorben said, as calmly as possible.
Myrddin turned on him in a heartbeat and pounded his fists against his thighs, the mass of bauble-laden necklaces jingling loudly. Jez turned his way, too, her mouth opening in a silent, confused, and unanswered question.