by Matthew Iden
I felt a breeze as Filki's attack missed by a blade’s width. I ducked low and brought both daggers up and under his guard. It was a guess, but my time in the Bleak had made my sight less useful than my instinct. My knives buried themselves in his gut. The little elf gasped and shook as they took his life. His eyes lost the stone-black blindness and became violet once more. I lowered him to the ground gently.
"I'm dreaming, Tamik," he whispered, and was gone. His feylight faded to the brightness of an ember and then went out altogether.
I crouched in the darkness, cradling his body, and wept.
. . .
I crawled away from that last scene of horrors, carrying only my knives and some food in a rotting sack. My eyes had been nearly burnt out of my head by Filki's magic and I knew, were I to find the light of day, I would never see right again. But perhaps it was a blessing, for in the days that followed, my other sense became even more acute. Once the pain subsided, I forgot I'd even been born with the ability to see.
Still, I forged ahead. To where, I didn't know. I had been moving forward and onward for so long that it seemed my only purpose in life. My year--or years?--in the Bleak had hardened me, though. Alone, I now hunted creatures that had terrified me when I'd been one of seven. I stalked the caves and underground rivers like one born to them. Fiends and demons now listened in dread for my approach and scuttled into the cracks and creases of rock whenever I came near.
One endless night, out of boredom or curiosity I chose a narrow path that wound back upon itself instead of the larger, more obvious corridors. It curled and turned for what seemed like days. I followed it with no emotion, no expectation; hope had been killed in me.
But on the fourth day, or so I reckoned, I smelled something so utterly different that it made my stomach churn and my head swim with its perfume. I followed the scent carefully, fearful of getting sick. The smell grew in magnitude and I had to breath in shallow breaths. For hours I followed the smell, only realizing after some time that I was following a slight rise.
My heart began to pound as I felt something on my skin that I hadn't know for a year or more: a breeze. Pus and water spilled out of my eyes and I croaked a laugh as I raced along, looking for the source of the smell, which I recognized now as the faintest whiff of grass.
Upwards and onwards I wound, shedding the Bleak, feeling my soul expand. I kept my knives ready; I refused to come this far only to have my freedom ripped away from me. But as I sensed I was near the surface, I broke into a lurching run, looking for the exit from my hell.
Finally, I found myself in a narrow, crooked gash in the rock. A spring spilled water down into the cave and I splashed through it, trying to get to the entrance. The air was heady with the smell of growing things and I could tell the different scents of trees and dung and dogs and cattle and smoke in one breath.
I slowed halfway through the cave. My damaged eyes wept and stung at the brilliant glow of daylight pushing into the darkness. I slowed, then stopped, my caution overtaking my glee. Crawling on my belly, I moved to the entrance like a worm. I peered out, blinking like a bat.
The lip of the cavern was on a high scarp overlooking a green valley. Trees and hedges marked the flow of streams and creeks. In the distance, I could make out the movement of tiny creatures; cows or sheep, perhaps, grazing in the fields. A thread of smoke told of a home fire burning in a cottage tucked away in the fold of a hillock. The sky was bright blue and expanded endlessly above me. Small clouds dotted the sky like tufts of lamb's wool.
A great sickness, like a heavy winter cloak, came down across my shoulders. The sky spun in place above me and I grabbed onto the ground, trying to hold myself down. The emerald green valley seemed diseased and unnatural to my sight. Smoke meant other men and the idea of encountering a thinking, talking being caused a fear in me so acute that I whimpered and mewled like a kitten.
I backed slowly away from the edge of cliff using only the palms of hands and my toes. I allowed myself to rise to a crouch only when I was safely in the mid-gloom of the center of the cave. As the darkness reclaimed me, the fear began to lift but the misery was only beginning. Sobbing and groaning, I hugged my arms around my middle as I lurched back into the embrace of the Mother of Caverns and descended back into the depths where I belonged.
Into the Bleak.
My home.
Author’s Notes
Expeditions to the deep underground in search of wealth, power, or knowledge are pretty standard fare in the fantasy adventure genre. Challenges and threats to the heroes come in the form of dark races, pitfalls, and mythic creatures.
But rarely is the idea of life underground tackled, the beginnings and endings that bookend that heroic middle. It’s not surprising, really; an adventurer’s daily routine isn’t something to scream and shout about. But it’s a reality within the fantasy that’s always fascinated me. What does it mean to fight for your life in the deepest darkness, constantly damp and miserable and cold, no matter what the promised rewards? What happens when you’ve got your gold, but you can’t find the way out? And what occurs inside your own spirit as you watch your friends die and fail around you? These are the questions I wanted answers to when I started writing the story.
As a friend pointed out, Tamik Two-Knives comes to resemble J.R.R. Tolkien’s character Sméagol-turned-Gollum. The similarity is unintentional, but maybe unavoidable; we are both trying to describe the effect that the external world has on our characters. In Gollum’s case, however, Tolkien uses Gollum’s physical dissolution as a metaphor for the spiritual decay the corrupting influence of the One Ring has on a weak spirit. Tamik’s situation is much simpler and less poetic: given enough time, the Bleak will devour even a man of nearly indomitable inner strength. Weaker spirits collapse sooner in various ways, but even a hero of Tamik’s spirit is worn down nearly to the vanishing point, until he is simply swallowed by the whole.
Perhaps one day Tamik will crawl from the Bleak under his own power; he knows the way out. But, as he hints at various times, the man that once entered the Bleak is nothing like the creature that would come out of it. Once you pass beyond the Pale, there may be no coming back.
But that’s another story for another time.
Thank you!
Thank you for reading Seven Into the Bleak.
I hope you've enjoyed what you've read. Please let me know what you think at [email protected], my FaceBook profile, my Amazon Author page, my Goodreads Author page, or Tweet me @CrimeRighter.
Also, if you enjoyed this story, please consider reviewing Seven Into the Bleak at one of these fine websites:
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Looking for more? Check out my other fantasy shorts Assassin and Sword of Kings (an excerpt follows).
I also write crime fiction, mystery, and horror: an anthology of short crime stories, one bad twelve, is available in all digital formats and print. My literary horror novella, Finding Emma, is available in most digital formats. And keep an eye out for my medium-boiled detective series featuring retired DC Homicide detective Marty Singer, available now in the novel A Reason to Live.
Links for all are listed below.
By the Author
Crime Fiction
{short story collections}
Three Shorts | Three the Hard Way | Three on a Match | Three of a Kind
one bad twelve
{novels}
A Reason to Live
Blueblood
Signs (Autumn 2012)
Fantasy
{short stories}
Sword of Kings | Assassin | Seven Into the Bleak
Horror
{novella}
Finding Emma
HAD YOU BEEN a courtier or a guard or a supplicant that day at the first court of the Harvest in the Kingdom of Mercia, with a sharp eye and a clear view, and had you been watching the young King Andreas Thad as he moved to end the assembly by lift
ing the sword of his ancestors from its black iron rack and placing it across his knees to signal that the justice dealt that day had the strength and power of the throne behind it...
You would've been witness to history.
. . .
The burnt gold of autumn was rolling across the land and plaintiffs filled the King's Hall, eager to make good on claims before the snows of a harsh winter buried villages and crimes alike. King Andreas, in the second year of his reign, dispensed justice from his throne while his sword, the symbol of his right to rule, lay in its rack within arm's reach. His brother Jon--named to the office of King's Sword, his most trusted advisor for life--stood to his left. Three steps lower on the dais stooped the aged Chancellor Tallus, councilor to Andreas's father and grandfather before him. A crowd filled the hall with a steady buzz which had, in turns, swelled and faded as the audience dragged on.
When the God's Bell finally tolled three times to signal the end of court, Andreas gratefully stood to draw his blade and lay it across his knees. The court had lasted for hours and the entire hall was drowsy and bored, as was its young and impatient monarch. Andreas was a man of action, not thought, and he'd already been through more courts, audiences, and balls in his young reign than he could stand. Each interminable function seemed to require the ceremonial flourishing of the king's sword, so it was with near boredom that he reached over, put his hand on the hilt of the weapon, and pulled.
He gasped as he nearly dropped it.
"Andreas?" Jon asked, taking a half-step towards his brother.
"Don't," Andreas said, gritting his teeth as he tried to lift the sword. A King of Mercia could not be seen receiving aid in his own court, but the surprise had made him clumsy. The sword clashed against the iron rack like a scullery's pots being dropped. The buzz of the hall took on an edge as the crowd watched the King's discomfort; heads turned to watch what was normally an unremarkable part of the court ritual turn into a struggle. Tallus turned to look over his shoulder at his liege, his sleepy eyes widening.
The blade was a deadweight. It took both hands and all of Andreas's strength to lift it, stagger to his throne, and place the bared blade on his thighs. It required the rest of his composure to dismiss the assembly calmly. Tallus, sensing a crisis to be avoided, herded the crowd along, waving impatiently at the guards to chase the stragglers craning their heads to see what had left their liege shaking with effort. The court melted away, glancing back at the King's pale face and sweat-slicked brow as they left.
"Andreas," Jon said once they were alone. "What's wrong?"
Andreas said nothing, instead running his hands over the sword that was his birthright. The blade, wider than a big man's palm, was corroded and pitted; the day before it had been as brilliant and sharp as a barber's razor. Andreas had been able to see his reflection in it--a young king in his prime looking back from the mirror-like steel. Now he saw nothing but a pocked and frowning monarch late in years and he was frightened. He tried lifting the sword again, swinging it as he had a thousand times, but even with his veins standing out in his neck and his arms straining with the effort, the blade rose no more than a foot off the floor. He let the point sink to the ground, panting and staring at it as a sick realization washed over him.
The sword was dying.
. . .
For seven centuries, the rightful kings of Mercia had wielded the Sword of Kings--a bright, clean blade as tall as a man--as though it were no heavier than a broom handle. None knew why this was so; it simply was. A king could pick up the sword and balance it on a finger; a pretender would find it difficult to lift even the rose-carved pommel from the ground. It was well known that the princes that were in line to inherit the throne, the kingdom, and the sword practiced all manner of martial skills as was required of any warrior, but when it came to swordplay, they alone trained to fight with wands of elm wood. To exercise in any other way would be a foolish disadvantage when the day came to pick up the King's sword.
In the age when the Mercian kings first came into their power and were called upon to take the field to defend their claim, the sword gave them the might to rule, for when the warrior kings of old captained their armies wielding six feet of steel as though it were a shepherd's staff, few could withstand them. It had never had a name, for any fool knew that to name a thing was to limit it, and the kings of Mercia suffered no bounds to their power. It was simply the King's sword.
Half a millennia had passed since a Mercian king had led the charge and the sword was the King's weapon still, but it had become more powerful as a symbol, the evidence of the Mercian kings' divine right to sit upon the throne. With that change came danger, for a broken weapon could be replaced, but a broken symbol meant the end of a kingdom.
. . .
Sword of Kings is available on Amazon and will soon be available through all major ereaders via Smashwords.
Assassin
For almost twenty years, war has raged between the mountain kingdom of Thrace and the sea-faring land of Andal, exhausting both nations. Prince Lowan, the educated and debonair second son of the King of Thrace, has arrived to make peace with his father's enemies. But the price Andal requires for peace is high--too high--and Lowan knows there are many ways to influence a nation at war.
Assassin is an original fantasy short story of 4,200 word, or about 17 paperback pages. It includes a Story Notes section, outlining the background and thought process behind the writing as well as an excerpt from Matthew Iden's fantasy short story Sword of Kings.
Assassin is available on Amazon and will soon be available through all major ereaders via Smashwords.
Finding Emma
No one likes Jack. His wife is gone and his neighbors avoid him. He's a recluse and a creep and that's just the way he wants it.
But when ten-year old Emma goes missing in the nearby woods, the eyes of his neighbors turn on him in fear and accusation, escalating as the days pass. The answers they--and the reader--get, however, are the last that anyone would suspect...
Finding Emma is a novella of literary horror totalling 17,500 words or about 70 paperback pages.
Available on Amazon and Kobo; coming to all digital ereaders soon.
one bad twelve
A group of Mafia wiseguys sweat it out as they wait to hear who's snitched on them in "Up a Rung"; a disturbed woman loses more than her mind in "Possession"; and a postman's larcenous streak gets him in a terrible mess just a few days before Christmas in "Special Delivery."
There are just a few of the thirteen tales that had to be bribed, shoved, and bullied into one bad twelve. Read them, buy them, or ignore them...just don't turn your back on them.
one bad twelve is available on Amazon, Barnes & Noble, Kobo, and Smashwords as well as other fine online retailers. The stories are also available in four micro-anthologies: Three Shorts, Three the Hard Way, Three on a Match, and Three of a Kind, available on all ereaders. Please check matthew-iden.com for links and excerpts.
A Reason to Live
In the late nineties, a bad cop killed a good woman and DC Homicide detective Marty Singer got to watch as the murderer walked out of the courtroom a free man.
Twelve years later, the victim's daughter comes to Marty begging for help: the killer is stalking her now.
There's just one problem: Marty's retired...and he's retired because he's battling cancer. But with a second shot at the killer--and a first chance at redemption--Marty's just found A Reason to Live.
A Reason to Live is available on Amazon and will soon be available through all major ereaders via Smashwords.
About the Author
Matthew Iden writes fantasy, science fiction, horror, thrillers, crime fiction, and contemporary literary fiction with a psychological twist.
An eclectic resume--he's held jobs with the US Postal Service, international non-profit groups, a short stint with the Forest Service in Sitka, Alaska and time with the globe-spanning Semester at Sea program--has given him inspiration for short stories
and novel ideas, while trips to Iceland, Patagonia, and Antarctica haven't hurt in the creative juices department, either. A post-graduate education in English Literature wasn't necessary, but it helped define what he didn't want to do with his life and let him read a great deal of good books.
Please visit him on the web at matthew-iden.com, Tweet @CrimeRighter, or find him on Facebook, www.facebook.com/matthew.iden.
Matthew lives in Alexandria, Virginia.