Dark Territory

by A. C. Cobble

  He waited patiently until it was almost on him. Then he thrust with his longsword. He caught the creature in the chest and pierced it neat and deep. His blade found the demon’s heart. He twisted and let its momentum carry past him. His sword slid cleanly out of the demon as it crashed into the ground, motionless.

  Jasper nodded appreciatively then knelt to pick up the log of anima-wood. “Well done.”

  Ben cleaned his blade and dropped it back in his sheath.

  Amelie sheathed her weapons as well and gave Ben a slight nod.

  Ben resumed breaking a path for his companions, who followed closely behind.

  ***

  They camped in the forest that night and the next.

  Jasper proved to be even more capable at woodcraft than Ben. He was able to find them relatively comfortable campsites that were sheltered from the wind.

  Ben watched the man closely as they settled in for the first night. The mage bent and searched under a large boulder they would camp next to and under fallen logs near the campsite. He uncovered some reasonably dry fuel which he quickly lit with flint and steel. Next, he unpacked a frying pan, a slab of bacon from Ben’s hog, a handful of potatoes, and a cabbage he’d brought with him.

  Amelie frowned at the mix.

  “A dish from back home,” explained Jasper. “It used to be popular long ago. Bubble and squeak. Trust me. You’ll like it.”

  “Bubble and squeak?” she asked skeptically.

  “Listen while it cooks,” replied Jasper with a grin.

  Amelie didn’t appear convinced, but she didn’t comment. She was huddled close to the growing fire, trying to keep her teeth from chattering.

  Jasper efficiently cooked the simple meal. Ben was impressed. The man exuded a sense of competency in his every movement. Despite his close-cropped white hair and weather-beaten skin, the mage moved with the vitality of a younger man. A woodsman, a mage, and possibly a warrior, given how comfortably he wore his sword.

  “You said on the way to Coalition territory we are stopping by your home?” inquired Ben.

  Jasper nodded in assent, not looking up from the boiled potatoes he was mashing in the pan. He rapidly chopped the head of cabbage and cut off bites of the bacon as well, dropping it all in.

  “What do you do there aside from sleep and hide from the Sanctuary?” pressed Ben.

  Jasper sighed. “You two are certainly persistent.”

  “We are,” agreed Ben.

  “Very well,” replied Jasper with a dramatic sigh. “My line of business, so to speak, is making. I collect materials like the anima-wood and create artifacts that I sell. I do that to keep food on the table. I also run a bit of a hostel for those in the community who need a place to rest out of sight.”

  “The community?” asked Amelie.

  “Mages, both male and female, who don’t march to the Veil’s tune,” explained the man. “There are a number of us residing in Alcott and a number more who pass through from the southern continent from time to time. I say community, but there’s no organization to speak of, just a handful of like-minded individuals who find it is occasionally best to work together. My home is a meeting place for these folks. They pass through, do a little business with myself or the others, and then go off in their own way. If they’re able, they leave me something to pay for their stay.”

  Jasper flipped the bubble and squeak. It popped and whistled as it cooked.

  He continued, “To be honest, I also do it because I’m a nosy bastard. I like to hear what everyone is up to. The community, they’re a strange bunch. Loners and weirdos, but those are the most interesting people, don’t you agree?”

  Ben shrugged.

  “These folk, they keep life interesting,” added Jasper. “Makes the risk worth it.”

  “Risk. You mean the Sanctuary?” asked Amelie.

  Jasper nodded. “Indeed. Providing a safe haven for the continent’s rogue mages is a dangerous enterprise. I’ve had to move several times. It just takes one of the community to be taken alive and the Veil will have my location. Luckily, I have friends in the City who keep abreast of these things. They take care of it for me, or if nothing else, give me warning.”

  Jasper slid some bubble and squeak into bowls which he passed to Ben and Amelie. Ben tried it and raised an eyebrow. Not a combination he was used to, but not bad, either.

  They finished eating and built up the fire to combat the cold night. Outdoors again, and after the demon attack earlier that day, they set at watch. Jasper took the first one and Ben the last. When Amelie placed a hand on his shoulder to wake him, he got up gratefully. His entire body felt frozen. Moving about to get warm was worth the missing sleep.

  ***

  Two days later, they arrived at a frozen waterfall. Rising ten man-heights above them, the ice commanded their attention. Late afternoon sun sparkled like a rainbow as it reflected through the frozen tower.

  “Beautiful,” breathed Amelie.

  “Wait until we get inside,” responded Jasper with a grin. “There’s a real light show below. The world is a wonderful place, both above and below the surface.”

  “Inside where?” wondered Ben, glancing around the area.

  The waterfall cascaded down the side of a steep cliff and crashed into the forest floor. At its base, a pool of ice spread forty paces across. Ben frowned. The water was frozen so it didn’t need anywhere to go, but in the spring, when it thawed, there was no gully, ravine, or dry creek bed for it to run off in. Water had to go somewhere. Ben circled around the pool of ice, peering behind the waterfall.

  “Good man,” called Jasper.

  Behind the waterfall, Ben found a dark cave with a stream of ice leading into its mouth.

  “An underground river,” muttered Ben, staring into the darkness.

  “Exactly,” replied Jasper. “This waterfall, when it isn’t frozen, follows a tunnel deep into the ground. There, it empties into an underground lake. Across the lake is an ancient tunnel left by miners of a more industrious age. They found the lake but couldn’t take what they were looking for. That tunnel leads toward my home.”

  “And you say we’ll be down there for a week?” asked Amelie with a raised eyebrow.

  Jasper nodded.

  “Tonight, we’ll camp at the mouth of the tunnel,” he declared. “Tomorrow, we go in.”

  Ben slept restlessly. Beside the cliff, the wind was tame compared to the rest of the forest. They were able to find enough dry wood to build a substantial fire. The flickering of the flames reflected in the soaring ice was gorgeous and unworldly, but the yawning mouth of the tunnel haunted Ben. He didn’t enjoy heights. It was perfectly rational, he told himself. Any reasonable person should be aware of the danger a fall presented. Unfortunately, he also didn’t enjoy dark, cramped spaces.

  Ben didn’t have some despicable older brother who’d locked him in a cupboard as a child or even a previous career in mining where he saw the dangers of the depths of the world. What he did have though, was a profound dislike of entering a space he couldn’t easily leave. In recent memory, the cell the Fabrizo thieves’ guild locked him in and the tiny confines of the ship crossing the Blood Bay were his only experiences with such spaces. He thought that was enough.

  The next morning, he stalked impatiently back and forth in front of the yawning entry to the mountain. Jasper and Amelie sat, eating breakfast.

  “You should enjoy the last few moments of sunlight,” suggested Amelie. “It will be a week before we see it again.”

  Ben grumbled to himself.

  “Afraid of the dark?” asked Jasper.

  Ben snorted then finally walked over to eat. “The sooner we go in, the sooner we’ll get out. Not wanting to be confined underground is a rational thing to feel.”

  Jasper smiled, “I agree. Listening to your body’s natural reactions is almost always wise for someone training to be a blademaster, but in this case, it’s safer underground than above.”

  “Training to be a bladem
aster, what do you mean?” questioned Ben. “I’m no blademaster.”

  “Are you not trying to become one?” replied Jasper.

  Ben scratched his ear.

  “He’s not wrong, Ben,” said Amelie. “You’re getting quite good with that sword. Even Rh… even our friend from the City said you were getting there.”

  “Come on,” said Jasper, after finishing his breakfast and standing from his position near the fire. “You were right. The sooner we get started, the sooner we finish.”

  The mage produced a palm-sized rock and handed it to Amelie. He then hefted his log of anima-wood and gestured to the cave.

  “Since I’m carrying the wood, you can do the honors with the light.”

  Amelie turned the rock over in her hands. It was smooth, Ben saw, like it had been at the bottom of a creek for the last decade.

  Amelie’s brows knit and she looked to Jasper. “How do I activate it?”

  Jasper, standing tall with the log resting comfortably on his shoulder, smiled. “I thought you’d be familiar with these devices. In years past, they were common in the Sanctuary. Let me explain. Light is simply a form of visible energy called a photon. This energy is released by the movement of tiny particles we can’t see with our naked eye. As the particles move, they emit…” Jasper trailed off when he saw Ben and Amelie’s blank expressions. “Run your fingers on the small runes carved along the edge. When you do, exert your will. You have to want it to produce light.”

  Amelie followed his instructions and a warm, yellow glow emitted from the rock.

  “Very good,” complemented the mage. “The more will you exert into it, the brighter the light. Now, I believe it will work best if you bring up the rear and shine the light where Ben and I are walking. I’ll go first since I’m familiar with the tunnel.”

  Jasper entered the cave, and Ben, swallowing a lump in his throat, followed close behind. The steady yellow glow from the rock Amelie was holding lit the way. Ten paces in front of them though, the world faded to darkness.

  The descent into the ground was both terrifying and boring. The tunnel had been cut over the centuries by rushing water from the waterfall. This time of year, it lay frozen in a narrow channel in the center of the floor and they were able to walk along the rock beside it.

  “Don’t get overconfident,” warned Jasper from the front. “For the first day, you may find ice on the rock. It’s misty in here during the summer and that mist freezes when it gets cold. The deeper we go, the warmer the air. It shouldn’t be a problem for most of our journey.”

  “Great,” responded Ben. “It’s not just dark and creepy. It’s also icy and dangerous.”

  “It’s not that bad,” called Amelie from behind. “It could be worse. We haven’t seen a single bat, for example.”

  Ben groaned. The sound echoed ahead of them, bouncing off the rock walls of the tunnel. Just seven days, thought Ben, just seven days.

  At some point, they stopped for lunch. They didn’t know the time, but everyone was hungry so it seemed appropriate.

  “With no sun, how will we know when it’s time for dinner or time to stop for the night?” Ben asked around a mouthful of cheese and ham.

  Jasper responded, “When we get hungry, we stop to eat. When we’re tired, we stop to rest. Listen to your body. It will tell you what time it is. Think about a clock. How does the clock know when to strike a bell?”

  Ben frowned. “A clock is mechanical. It knows when to strike because it has ticked through its gears.”

  “In some ways, people are mechanical too,” replied Jasper. “Some folks only know what to do when the ticking of their gears tells them to do it, or worse, when someone else winds them up. I am glad you don’t want to be like that, mechanical and pre-determined, but it is okay to know when to stop to eat or sleep. Listen to your body.”

  Ben looked at the man. It felt like they were being probed, tested.

  “I wish we had some bread with this,” complained Amelie, staring down at the slices of ham and cheese in her hands. The yellow light from the rock lit her face from below, giving her a ghostly aspect.

  After eating, they got up and kept hiking. As Jasper said, when they got tired, they stopped to sleep. The mage assured them there was nothing to fear in the tunnel, but Ben and Amelie had seen enough demons over the proceedings months to insist on setting a watch. A long, lonely watch.

  The light-emitting stone of Jasper’s kept the area around them lit, but they had no wood so no fire. The only thing that broke the silence of the tunnel was their breathing. During his watch, Ben tried to ignore the pressing darkness around him. In the morning, or at least when everyone woke, they ate quickly and started hiking again. As long as they were rested and fed, there was no reason to pause longer than necessary.

  Ben took a drink from his water skin and grimaced. It was already half empty. “Jasper, should we have gotten more water?”

  The mage turned, the log of anima-wood bobbing ahead of Ben as the man progressed down the tunnel. “We can refill at the lake. It’s clean water.”

  Ben nodded but didn’t comment. Jasper clearly knew what he was doing, but Ben didn’t understand how water underground could be considered clean.

  That evening when they stopped again, Amelie remarked, “My shoulder is feeling a lot better. Thank you, Jasper.”

  The man smiled at her. “Glad I could help. When you feel able, you should begin exercising it. The inactivity of the sling will have led to atrophy of the muscles. If you feel up to it after expending your will on the stone all day, you should move around some.”

  “I feel fine,” mumbled Amelie. “There’s hardly anything to using the stone.”

  Jasper nodded in the dim light. “You’re a natural, and strong.”

  She blushed and didn’t respond.

  “Sword practice?” suggested Ben.

  “No,” replied Amelie. “It’s too dark for one, and I think I had better to work up to that level of activity.”

  “The Ohms then?”

  Amelie shrugged. “Let’s give it a try.”

  The floor of the tunnel wasn’t flat, but the rushing water had worn it smooth. A small adjustment to compensate for the slope, and they were able to begin the motions of the Ohms. Jasper prepared dinner then sat back and watched. Dinner preparation didn’t take long since they had no fuel for a fire. Cold meat, hard cheese, and biscuits would have to do until they resurfaced.

  Ben stretched and balanced fluidly, working through each series with confidence. Amelie followed his motions, shadowing a half a breath behind. The only source of light was Jasper’s stone. Their movements created wild shadow monsters on the side of the nearby tunnel.

  When they got to the end of Amelie’s knowledge, Ben stopped and began teaching her the next series. She was naturally graceful, but in the dim light, it was difficult because she couldn’t see the intricacies of where he placed his hands or how he twisted his body. After half a bell, they paused to catch their breath.

  “Work up an appetite yet?” asked Jasper.

  Amelie nodded and plopped down next to where he’d laid out the food.

  The mage continued, “Did Rhys teach you how to do that?”

  Ben paused on the way to sit with the others. He was within a short leap to his longsword.

  “How do you know Rhys?” asked Ben. They’d left the rogue’s name out of their story.

  “Surely by now you know I mean you no harm,” complained the mage. “Come and sit.”

  Cautiously, Ben shuffled over to crouch by Amelie.

  “I spent some time in Qooten,” continued Jasper.

  Ben frowned. That sounded familiar, but he had no idea where Qooten was.

  “Qooten is a country in the southern continent, a bit further south than Ooswam. It’s where the Ohms originated,” explained Jasper, noting Ben’s expression. “I don’t know them myself, but I spent enough time in Qooten to recognize the sequences. Rhys is the only man I can think of who would have co
nvinced the Dirhadji to teach him. They’re a difficult bunch. Also, I recall you spoke about a rogue assisting you in your flight from the Sanctuary and adventures in the Wilds. Who else could it be?”

  “That doesn’t answer how you know him,” pressed Ben.

  Jasper sighed. “You run around with that scoundrel and you’re suspicious of me? My feelings are hurt. I know Rhys from long ago, from before he went to work for the Sanctuary. You know what he is, right?”

  Ben hesitated then responded, “We have an idea, but why don’t you tell us.”

  “Rhys would tell you that he solves problems,” replied Jasper sourly. “Usually, those problems are people. If you have a person you need to remove, you contact him, and your problem is gone. Of course, a large sack of your gold is also gone, but that’s the price for political expediency, isn’t it?”

  Ben frowned. Amelie gripped his hand. Ben had told the truth. They had an inkling of what Rhys did, but it was disturbing to hear it said so plainly by someone who was still a relative stranger.

  “In polite society, amongst the flowered gardens and perfumed banquet halls of the lords and ladies,” continued Jasper, “people with these skills are referred to as hunters. A more accurate term, in my view, is assassin.”

  “Rhys is a good man,” complained Amelie.

  “If you say so,” allowed Jasper. “That is your experience with him. My experience tells me differently.”

  “Rhys has been very honest with us,” challenged Ben. “He told us there are a lot of things in his past that he regrets. He’s changed now.”

  “Maybe he has,” replied Jasper. “It’s been decades since I’ve seen him. Men like he and I, the world moves slowly for us. We forget that things can change quickly. Even people can change quickly. Maybe what you say is true. Maybe he is a good man now.”

  “He’s not helping us because we’re paying him or anything like that,” argued Ben. “He helped us because he thought it was the right thing to do.”

  Jasper drank from his water skin then responded, “Whether you call them hunters or assassins, that profession has existed for a long time. Some of its practitioners are desperate and are just trying to put food on the table through any means necessary. Others are merely unscrupulous people who have lost their moral compass. They’ll bash your neighbor’s head for you if you give them a fistful of silver. Another sort have more complicated motivations. A man like Rhys, with his skills, has no problem earning a decent wage. He could hire himself to any lord and get paid a fortune. If the wanderlust is too strong, there are plenty of places like the Wilds where a fighting man can collect an honest bounty. Rhys doesn’t do what he does because he wants to earn gold. No, I think he does it because of the challenge.”